"You are in deep trouble," he said, "and I am a stranger. But I might be able to help."
"You're so kind," she said again. "I knew that as soon as you stopped." Her awe of him was obvious, her recognition of his status flattering.
"The first thing is to have something to eat and drink," he said. "I believe that is what you need more than anything."
She rose obediently.
In the eating-house with its evergreen plants in ornamental pots, and its music, he took her to a secluded table, and there, with his back to the crowd, he gave her his full attention. He watched her devour a leg of roast chicken and sip the burned champagne, which put some colour in her cheeks and made her eyes look like translucent jade. Watching her, he felt benign. He thought of Cophetua and the beggar maid or a small boy dipping his toes into a deliciously cool stream. He was savouring a pleasure knowing that he could withdraw whenever he wished to. Though why he should find pleasure in the society of an uneducated girl he was not sure.
It was after she had eaten and when they sat back listening to the music that she told him her sad story. He could hear her voice now— a little hoarse and tremulous with that queer sibilance which he would have thought ill-bred a short while before.
"It fell out like this, sir," she said. "I came up to London from the country—Hertfordshire, that's where my home was. There was a lot of us, you see, sir, and they was glad to get rid of us elder ones, Mother and Father was. ... I had a chance to work in the mantua maker's and learn a trade. A girl from our village had gone to her, and when she come home for a little stay, she said she'd take me back with her because there was a vacancy where she was, you see. So I left home "
She made him see it—the woman with her young girls working in the great room, rising early in the morning, stitching through the long hours, living simply, having no pleasures but each other's company. Mistress Rickards, the mantua maker, was strict. She would never allow the girls to go out alone. They were never allowed
to go to any entertainments—not even a hanging outside Newgate Jail. Mistress Rickards was stern; she beat her girls with a stick when she thought they needed it; and she fed them on skimmed milk and texts from the Bible. They were with her to work, she told them continually; not to frivol away their time. If they worked hard they would one day be good at their trade, at which they could earn a living; then they would not starve in the gutter as some did. On the rare occasions when she took them out she would point at the beggars sitting on the street corners with their hired children, exposing their afflictions, their blindness, their ragged state, their sores. "Pity the beggars, ,, the poor things would chant miserably; and Mistress Rickards would threaten: "You'll come to that, Agnes, you lazy slut. You too, Rosie, you sluggard. Don't think you'll escape, Millie, you awkward girl. That's what you'll come to unless you learn your trade."
They had worked hard and they had been happy within their narrow lives. They used to sit at a bench by the window and the apprentices who passed by would look in and wave; each girl had had her apprentice to be teased about as she stitched and stitched to avoid the harsh prophecies of Mistress Rickards, the mantua maker.
"And one day," said Millie, in her hoarse yet childish voice, "I had to go to Mr. Latter, the mercer, for a piece of silk a lady wanted making into a mantle. Mistress Rickards went as a rule, but she'd eaten oysters the night before and they hadn't agreed with her. She sent me, and Jim was in the shop."
She softened when she talked of Jim. He was no longer an apprentice, she proudly explained, but the mercer found him too useful to let him go. So he paid him a wage to stay on, and Jim used to .say that he was the one who really managed the shop.
Their courtship had lasted ten months. Jim was a man with money. He wasn't afraid of Mistress Rickards. He said he was going to look after her and she needn't bother any more about learning a trade. He was going to see that she made mantles and pelisses for herself, not for others. She was going to be Mrs. Sand, she was.
She almost sparkled as she told him of the night they went to Vauxhall.
"There was fireworks, and we danced. I kept thinking of what Mistress Rickards would say when I got back. And when we did get back, there she was waiting, her hair in curlpapers and her cane propped up by the door. But Jim didn't care. He came in with me. He said: Tm going to marry Millie and don't you dare lay a finger on her.' "
And so they had married, and she had left Mistress Rickards' and they lived in the room which Jim had found for them in
St. Martin's Lane. There they were happy for the whole of one year.
Her face darkened. "We'd been married a year . . . exact to the day. Jim said: 'Let's go to Vauxhall.' So we did. We danced and watched the fireworks. Jim said let's have a drink. That was when we was just going to cross the river. So we went into one of the taverns and we hadn't been in that tavern before. If only we'd have known we'd never have gone inside the place. I didn't want the drink. Nor did Jim . . . much. It was just to round off the day like. That makes it all the worse." She was silent for a moment before she went on: "We sat there laughing ... as happy as you like. It had been a lovely day. Then these men came in. I didn't know who they were. We didn't know what sort of a tavern it was. But they were bad . . . them men. First they started to drink; then they put jewels and things on the table. Jim looked at me: 'Gome on,' he said, 'we'll get out of here.' But as we went to the door one of them ... a big man in a red coat... got up. He was swaying with the drink. He caught me.... It was dreadful. I can't bear to think of it."
He filled her glass and told her to drink. She obeyed. He knew that she had been obeying someone all her life—her parents, Mistress Rickards, Jim.
"Tell me the rest quickly," he said. "Don't dwell on it, because it makes you unhappy."
She nodded. "There was a fight. I remember the glass breaking .. . and the screams.. . . One of them had a gun. They was highwaymen and they'd killed men before. One more didn't make no difference to them . . . and that one was my Jim."
A deep silence had settled on them both. He knew that she was going over it all again, and he was angry with himself for being the means of reviving her melancholy memories. But silence would not help her now.
"Surely the law . . ." he began.
"The law?" she said sadly. "That's for you and your sort. They couldn't find those men, and it wasn't worth much trouble . . . not for a poor man."
He felt humiliated; eagerly he sought for some means of comforting her. He could think of nothing he could do; he found himself ineffectually patting the hand which lay on the table.
The rest of her story was pitiably inevitable. What could she do ? The rent had been paid in advance and there was still a little money left. But that had not lasted long. She had spent her last pennies on a trip to Vauxhall. After that? She did not know. She simply did not know. She thought she would go back to the tavern where he had died. Perhaps those men would be there. Perhaps they would kill her as she wished they had on that night.
"I don't know why I came here to-night," she said. "I truly don't know."
He said, to her surprise: "I don't know why I came."
After that he took her to her room and gave her money for food and rent. Perhaps, he told himself again and again, she is a clever beggar. There were many such in London. Some hired babies—the more deformed the better; some even mutilated the children and themselves to make them more almsworthy. Why should not a girl with appealing green eyes concoct a tragic story for a simple man from the country? Who knew—the lout in the gardens might have been an accomplice.
It would have been better to have believed this, to have paid the money that would appease his conscience, and then forget the incident. It could so easily have ended there. The money he had given her would take care of her needs for some weeks. What more could anyone expect of a chance encounter?
But she had continued to haunt his thoughts; there had been many meetings and much heart-searching before the inevitable had happened.<
br />
Soon after that first meeting he had been called back to Cornwall where his daughter Caroline was prematurely born. He found Wenna distracted, the household already almost in mourning. Wenna's dark eyes had seemed to flash threats of vengeance on him. But both the child and Maud had lived.
Before very long he returned to London. He could not forget the girl whom he had met in Vauxhall. He told himself that he would try to find some work for her, but in the meantime he would induce her to accept a little money from him.
She was reluctant at first. "How can I take it?" she asked.
His answer was: "Because life is unfair to some and gracious to others. Think of me as an uncle who has come into your life at an important moment."
"You are too young for an uncle!" was her reply. She could be merry and sad, changing quickly from mood to mood. He had glimpsed her capacity for happiness.
In his shrewd and businesslike way he had quickly made arrangements. Millie's landlady was a motherly woman with a fondness for lovers, which she had decided Millie and her benefactor were. She prided herself on her knowledge of the gentry and she recognized in Charles a true gentleman who could be trusted to pay his way. For such she was prepared to make concessions. So concessions were made; and one evening, after a visit to Vauxhall, he stayed with her, for she was as lonely as he was.
How long had it lasted? Was it only three years? Sometimes it seemed longer, sometimes far less. During that time he had
found new feelings, new emotions within himself. How many times had they revisited Roubillac's statues of Handel and Orpheus with his lyre? He found enjoyment in the gardens; happiness was contagious. They took the short stage out to the pretty village of Hampstead and wandered over the heath; she picked heather which she said, as a memory of happy days, she would press in the Bible she had brought with her from Hertfordshire. The pleasure gardens were a source of great delight to them both; there they could spend long days away from the streets. They went to Marylebone, Bagnigge Wells; they walked gaily through the Florida Gardens.
It was a new life for him; during his visits to her he tried to look like a successful tradesman as he enjoyed the tradesman's pleasures. It astonished him that there was so much to enjoy in the humble life; it astonished her that there could be happiness in a life from which Jim was absent. He was happy in what seemed to him a gaudy squalor; she was enchanted by what seemed to her luxury. It was the never-ending surprise of the other which delighted them both.
But it had to end. There was to be a child.
She trusted him completely, for she had laid bare the softness in his nature. To her he was not the same man whom Maud had known. He lived two lives; never before had he understood the true meaning of the double life. The gay young man, the reveller at the pleasure gardens, the tender lover of Millie Sand, Charles Adam— he seemed to have little connection with Sir Charles Trevenning.
Once at Hampstead during the first months of pregnancy she had talked of the child. A little girl, she wanted, a dear little girl. "I'd like her to be a lady," she said.
Then she began to enumerate the things which she would like for the child. "Fd like her to have a gown made ofgros de Naples, and a pelisse of the same stuff and a large pelerine all of silk and a big Leghorn hat trimmed with ribbons and flowers. We had to make a dress of gros de Naples when I was at Mistress Rickards'. It took us the whole of the week with the six of us working. We had to get it done so fast that we hardly had any sleep at all."
"You are thinking of the child grown up," he told her.
"Yes. That's how I think of her ... as a lady."
"Are you afraid?" he asked.
"Afraid?"
"So many girls would be."
"Oh, that's when they're alone. I've got you."
She was so trusting, so sure of him. Had he wanted to he could easily have deserted her. But he did not want to. Did one desert pleasure ? Did one desert happiness and all the real joys of life ?
He had changed a good deal since he had known her. It was ironical that the change should be for the better. He was gentler
with Maud; he no longer allowed her to irritate him. He was thoughtful, wanting to make up for his previous indifference. How strange that contentment should come through sin; and stranger still that a word like sin could be attached to his love for Millie Sand.
She had died, little Millie Sand, two days after the child was born. How desolate he had been! How sad and lonely! He could not imagine now what he would have done without Fenella, for it was to her he had gone with his tragic tale.
Fenella had taken charge. The landlady was a motherly woman. Let her look after the child until she was two years old; then she could be sent to a convent of which Fenella knew.
It was Fenella who had named the child.
"When Millie talked of her," he said, "she called her Millie. She called her little Millie Sand. . . . That was Millie's own name."
Fenella grimaced. "Millie Sand. It sounds exactly like a mantua-maker's apprentice. Don't forget this child is your daughter, Charles. Millicent. We might call her Millicent. I never greatly cared for Millicent. It sounds a little prim to me and I cannot endure primness. Millicent. Melisande. Why, that's charming. We must call her Melisande. And we'll call her after the street in which she was born. Melisande St. Martin. That's beautiful. That will fit her. She must be Melisande St. Martin."
And that was all, for Melisande eventually crossed the Channel and went to live with the nuns of Notre Dame Marie. There sl?e would be well educated and he need not think of her for years; and it might well be that she—like so many in such circumstances— would never wish to leave the convent. Then his responsibilities to Millie Sand would cease.
But he had not been able to resist the impulse. He had to see his daughter; he had to find out what sort of child he and Millie had created.
So he saw her, the enchanting Melisande; and again and again he had gone back to see her.
Of one thing he was certain. She would not stay in the Convent.
So as the coach carried him to Paris, once more he wondered what the future had in store for him and for Melisande.
THREE
JCxcitement filled the house, and the servants were hard at work polishing and cleaning; everything that could go into the wash-tubs went. The gardeners were keeping the hothouse flowers in perfect condition that they might be brought into the ballroom for the great night. The villagers were full of the pending event; on the night of the ball they would wander up the long drive, part of which was a right of way from the road to Trevenning woods, and get as near the house as they could in the hope of catching a glimpse of the fine ladies and gentlemen who would dance in the ballroom to celebrate the birthday and betrothal of Miss Caroline.
Miss Pennifield, who did all the dressmaking, had gossiped about the beautiful materials of which she was making a ball dress for Lady Trevenning and another for Miss Caroline. Lavender silk for my lady and white satin for Miss Caroline—the white satin to be embroidered with pink roses. "Oh, my eyes!" cried Miss Pennifield when she talked of those roses—and she did this twenty times a day. "I never saw such dresses in all my natural."
In Lady Trevenning's sitting-room Miss Pennifield was busily fitting Miss Caroline's dress. Her fingers were trembling a little because this very day the guests from London would arrive, and the dress should be finished by now. Lady Trevenning had declared herself delighted with the lavender silk; but Miss Caroline was always a problem, and she would keep changing her mind about the fullness of the skirt or the set of the sleeves.
Caroline was like her father in appearance, but in place of his aloofness she had an uncertain temper. She seemed to be continually brooding and she was never satisfied. That came of having so many of the good things of life, thought Miss Pennifield, who herself had very little.
"The set on the shoulders is not right," cried Caroline, shaking back the ringlets which she wore in the fashion set by the young Queen. "It makes the sleeves t
oo short."
"But it seems right to me, dear," said Lady Trevenning. "Do you not think so, Pennifield?"
"Yes, I do, my lady." Miss Pennifield, in the presence of her employer, was a different person from the perky little woman the village knew.
"But it does not!" snapped Caroline. "It is too bunchy here, I tell you. That is not according to the London fashion."
Miss Pennifield, with the tears smarting behind her eyes and the pins pricking through her bodice into which in her agitation she had carelessly stuck them, changed the set of the sleeves.
Wenna, who was hovering about Lady Trevenning to make sure she had her wrap about her shoulders, looked at Caroline and understood all the fears and apprehensions which beset the girl.
Caroline was extra touchy this morning. No amount of resetting the sleeve would satisfy her. Wenna knew it. Her dissatisfaction with the dress was the outward sign of her fear that she would not please Mr. Fermor when he came. My poor little queen! thought Wenna. You be all right. You'm pretty enough. You'm the prettiest creature in the world ... in Wenna's world leastways; and if you're not like the smart ladies to London, well, that be no loss, and I've heard young men be very partial to a change.
Wenna went over to Miss Pennifield,
"Here," she said in her authoritative way, "let me see it, do. Well, what's wrong with that, my precious ? It do look beautiful to me. Why, you won't want the sleeves so long they hide your pretty hands."
Wenna remembered. She remembered everything about her Miss Caroline as she did about her Miss Maud. They were her life; they were her passion. Caroline had come back excited from the trip to London. She was fourteen then and had gone to see the wedding celebrations of the Queen. She had come back full of excitement— not because she had seen the Queen and her Consort but because she had seen Fermor; and she had known then that one day she was to marry Fermor.
It began in Vauxhall Gardens Page 4
