CHAPTER XIII
"A continual dripping in a very rainy day and a contentious woman are alike."--_The Bible_.
In the late spring Leonie stood at a cottage window watching the rushof the incoming water as she listened to her aunt's ceaseless lament,idly wondering if both would reach high tide together, and if therewould be any chance of slipping out for a swim before bedtime.
She loved her aunt with the protective love of the very strong for thevery weak, and smilingly found excuses for the daily tirade againstfate, or ill-luck, or whatever it is weak people blame for the hopelessknots they tie in their own particular bit of string by their haphazardbursts of energy, or apathetic resignation to every littlestumbling-block they find in their path.
Daily, almost hourly, through the splendid North Devon winter the aunthad wailed, and bemoaned, and fretted, driving the girl out on thetramp for hours in the wind, and the wet, and the sun, only to returnhurriedly at the thought of the weak, hapless, helpless woman in thecottage at Lee.
Susan Hetth complained about everything, from the lack of society tothe smallness of her income, plus a few scathing comments upon herniece's weather-browned face and the hopeless outlook for hermatrimonial future.
Her own bid in the matrimonial market _en secondes noces_ had failed,and though Hope had not taken it lying down, the passage of the yearshad not been lightened by what seemed to be a daily addition of silverthreads to the jaded ash gold of her hair, and the necessity of a stillmore flagrant distribution upon her face of the substances she employedto camouflage the passage of old Time.
Ah, me! that moment before the stimulating advent of the early cup oftea, when divested of our motley we see ourselves in the mirror as,thanks be, others do not, and laying eager hands upon that offspring ofcharity, the boudoir cap, wonder if it has been in hobnailed boots thatthe old Father has tramped across our face during the night hours,dragging his scythe behind him.
Leonie's school-days had ended abruptly.
Nothing definite had or could have been said, but it was not likelythat the parents would see exactly eye to eye with their daughters, whowrote reams and whispered volumes of the delightful mystery whichsurrounded the girl who next term would be head of the school.
Long and excited had been the conclaves with the Principal, persuasiveor threatening the arguments used, according to the parentaltemperament, and the upshot of it all was that Leonie had been asked togo; and proud, hurt Leonie had left, with a valiant smile on her lovelymouth, and a strange little questioning look that had only quite latelycrept into the beautiful eyes, and which neither the outpourings ofJessica's love, a demonstration of affection from the entire school inthe shape of numerous and weird presents, or the broken-hearted kiss ofboth the Principal and Cookie had been able to eradicate.
The girl felt that she had left under a cloud, which a slight attack ofwhat the doctor had diagnosed as brain fever had not served to linewith silver.
He had insisted upon complete change and rest, and had called twice aday when Leonie was really ill, and four times when she wasconvalescent; so upon fair Devon had they decided, Leonie cajoling andsmiling until she had obtained a year's lease, at an absurdly low rent,of the little cottage on the left of Lee harbour as you face the sea.
It is a place of charm if you are willing to do most of the workyourself with the aid of a daily help.
It is certainly rather like a band-box with the lid on, and the oceanat high tide is only prevented by the harbour wall from invading yourfront garden, which is the size of a handkerchief.
But if you sit at the window you can feel the spray on your face, andif you lie a-bed the tang of the air sweeping across the Atlantic willget you out at the double; and the smell of the pines, and the hum ofthe bees in summer, and the rush of the storm, and the crash of thewaves in winter, are of God's own fashioning.
What with shopping expeditions to that crime in brick and mortar calledIlfracombe, visits here and visits there, croquet, bridge, and picnics,the summer and early autumn months had not dragged unduly for SusanHetth.
But when the last visitor had gone, and the first real storm had brokena window, then she had sunk like a lump of lead in a bucket of coldwater out of which she refused to be lifted.
Leonie was youth incarnate, causing even the courteous folk of Devon toturn and stare as she swung past with a cheery greeting in a skirt andhob-nailed boots ending at her knees.
For the first month, as one always does in Devon, she had walkedherself to the verge of scragginess, then had gradually put on weight,as is the correct method. Her whistle could be heard in the woods andfields, and on the beach from Lee to Hartland way; all the country folkloved her, and scolded her for the risks she took in swimming, and sheseemingly had no care in the world.
But the great heat of summer, the shriek of the wind, and the scream ofthe birds in autumn would bring a little pucker between her brows; thestorm would drive her spirits up to breaking point, the calm wouldleave her eyes full of trouble; in the woods she would stop and turn tolisten, then frown and trudge along between the trees.
She was not at rest, for an unconfessed fear, a spook without name orshape, was plucking at her will-power and her heart, a phantom of whichshe would rather have died than have said one word.
So she stood twisting the blind cord and watching the rocks as theygradually disappeared under the swirling waters.
Susan Hetth sat near the fire, which is oft-times necessary in thespring at Lee, and tapped in irritation, and most irritatingly, withher foot against the low fender.
She was worried.
She was not by birth or heredity a bad-tempered woman, merely one ofstraw, who after the first two months of every quarter invariably foundherself in a corner which one injudicious move might renderuncomfortably tight.
Her financial situation, in fact, had become so critical, and the bankmanager's demeanour so unpropitious, that in the previous year morethan once the dawn had found her trying to decide between the Scylla ofthe thankless post of lady companion to some wealthy parvenu on theRiviera, and the Charybdis of raising money enough to allow her toharbour paying guests in the no-man's-land of Earls Court.
Then Fate crossed her knees, and out of her lap had tumbled a widowerpossessed of a substantial banking account and four children.
A few more days, a little more encouragement, and he would mostcertainly have offered her his name and the half of his worldly goodsin return for her help in quelling the riotous behaviour of hismotherless brood.
But there had supervened the crisis at school.
And grasping for once in her life the necessity of immediate action ifshe wished to prevent an embellished account of her niece's untowardbehaviour from reaching the man's ears, she had fled to Devon, leavingbehind a trail of dainty scented notes explaining that it was all onaccount of a slight nervous breakdown from overstudy on the part of herniece "who," she added casually, "as I think I told you, is the onlydaughter of my dear brother, Colonel Hetth, V.C."
Snobbish, but quite effective as bait for a person who has not completecontrol over the eighth letter of the alphabet.
That very morning, quite unheedful of the beauties of the little witchvillage, she had gone to collect her mail lying at the post office,which in summer is almost hidden in its garden of flowers; and amongstan assortment of spring sale catalogues from emporiums, mostly situatedin South Kensington, had found a letter from the widower, begging to beallowed to come down for a change of air, and an opportunity of layinga proposition before her.
She had wandered up the side of the hill, unmindful of the birds andbuds almost bursting with the intoxication of spring; had pitched thecatalogues anywhere on the grass, as is the wont of the untidy who haveno bond with nature, and had tried to solve the problem as she scrapedthe mud, with the aid of a twig, from her Louis-Quinze heels.
But she was harassed, poor, hapless creature, for more than one reason.
The words of alarm from the nurse, the
innuendoes from departingmaid-servants, and the direct warning from the old specialist which hadlong since faded from her mind, had been forcibly revived by thehappenings at the school; and being one of those who invariably plumpfor the worst, and without giving the slightest thought to thecriminality of the proceeding, she had definitely decided, if she couldcoerce the girl into falling in with her plans, to marry her to thehighest bidder before worse could happen.
But she was downright afraid of her niece. Afraid of her moralstrength which dominated everything and everybody; ill at ease with thestraightforward way she had of speaking her mind on occasions, andfollowing up her speech with action. Never an untruth had she known topass the girl's lips, not once had she heard her say one belittlingthing about a living soul, and only twice had she seen the sweetnessand gentleness swept with anger.
Cruelty to anything small or weak could transform the girl into a flameof wrath, and her weakest spot was her overpowering sympathy withanyone in distress, without any inquiries into the direct cause of theadversity, which spot caused her to be considerably taken in by many ofthose who had discerned it.
An almost abnormal moral strength, allied to great gentleness and pity,combined to make a character extraordinary in one so young, and whichher aunt summed up and summarily dismissed from her mind in the tritesentence that "she certainly did not take after her parents."
She was considered slow by the youths, and perplexing and therefore tobe avoided by the girls of her own age, and dull or frightfullyconceited by the men who had fluttered round her almost exotic beautyuntil they had come up against the icy barrier of her supremeindifference.
To those who knew her intimately, such as the fisherfolk and thefarmers, and the tramps with whom she would sit and converse by thewayside and share her lunch, she was the most lovable, cheery soul inthe world, which, of course, meant the county of Devon.
"Damn standoffish, what!"
Such had been the verdict passed by someone married who hailed fromLondon town, when Leonie had refused to sit out a dance in a secludedshady nook.
"Just a bit of heaven!" had said the tramp as he turned the corner inthe lane, leaving Leonie sitting on the milestone pondering upon theman whose ragged clothes were out of keeping with the shape of hisnails, and the timbre of his voice with his unkempt hair.
But leaving all that aside, and in all conscience it was bad enough,the biggest worry hung as heavy and as threatening upon the horizon asdoes at times the monsoon over the Indian Ocean.
Once upon a time Susan Hetth had committed an indiscretion, nothing_really_ wrong--she hadn't the nerve. But the nuisance of it was,that, in addition to the indiscretion, she had broken the eleventhcommandment and had very nearly got hanged for her lamb.
In the second year of her widowhood in the month of November, whilsther hair was still golden and her colouring unpurchased, she had dined_a deux_ in one of those delectable, ghost-ridden, low-ceilinged setsof chambers which are tucked away in a certain Inn within the FleetStreet boundary.
Which is a silly thing to do if you do not own a car and along-suffering discreet chauffeur.
The _diner a deux_ and a bit of a play had been the honest programme;but the inevitable had happened in an all-enveloping blanket of a fog,on account of which everything in the shape of a hackney carriage hadgone home, and an excursion on foot to the nearest tube renderedhopeless by the simple fact that you could not see your hand beforeyour face.
Which would not have mattered a bit if only, as the fog lifted and theclock of St Dunstan's chimed the hour of three a.m., she had emergedfrom the narrow opening into Fleet Street with the aplomb or_savoir-faire_, which are almost twins, necessary to the occasion.
She would then have beckoned to and smiled sweetly upon the youngruffian into whom she bumped as he lounged on his way to Covent GardenMarket, and promised him just enough to bring her a taxi or somethingon wheels, into which she would have got if it had materialised, andbeen whirled away to safety and bed after adieux to her host utteredwith the nonchalance necessary to allay the young ruffian's suspicions.
Instead of this she had slunk from the opening with her host closebehind, had bumped into the young ruffian and with an exclamation ofdismay had shrunk back into the shadows and her host's arms.
In consequence of which action the bare-footed ruffian had shadowedthem until they had met a four-wheeler, had held the lady's dress fromthe wheel and overheard the address given to the driver for which hehad received tuppence, and had disappeared into a doorway where he hadspat on his unearned increment and made his plans.
The upshot of it all being the admittance a fortnight later of youngWal. Hickle, attired in his best and primed with her family history,into the presence of the terrified woman.
He had simply asked for twenty pounds on the nail in return for hissilence.
And she, scared out of her wits, instead of threatening him with thelaw, had given him a cheque--yes! a cheque--and he, with a flash ofthat cunning which was to lead him eventually to a seat amongst theplutocrats, had pocketed it and grinned.
"I doan' wan' mor' 'en twenty uv the best, lidy, jus' to mike astart--an' I doan' wanter part wiv yer 'and-writin' niver. So jes' yersend two rustlers, wot means notes, of ten pun each, rigistered, to W.'ickle spelt wiv a haitch, 2 H'apple Blossom Row, Coving Gardin, aforethis toime ter-morrer. An' jes yer remember that h'as long as yerlives I've got yer bit of 'andwritin.' I ain't goin' ter use it, butsome dye it might come in 'andy. 'Ardly loikly as 'ow yer'd buy twentypun wurf of veg from Wal 'ickle eh, lidy?--it 'ud want _some_h'explanation."
Then this soul made in the image and likeness of his God and foundgood, but hidden under the civilising process of the twentieth centurywhich had given him the morals of a jackal and the status of a pariahdog, sighed as he looked round the dainty room.
"S'welp me," he said, as he touched a satin cushion with his coarse,broken-nailed finger-tips, "h'if oi h'understand wye a woman the loikesuv _you_, wiv h'everyfink she wants, cawn't run _strite_!"
"Oh! but," whimpered the woman, "it was all the fault of the fog,_really_ it was!"
"Garn!" replied the young ruffian as he opened the door and slammed itbehind him.
Leonie of the Jungle Page 13
