CHAPTER THREE.
_June 20th_.I've been home a month. I've got tails to my dresses and silk linings,and my hair done up like the people in advertisements, and parasols withfrills, and a pearl necklace to wear at nights with real eveningdresses. I wear white veils, too, and such sweet hats--I don't mindsaying it here where no one will see, but I really do look most awfullynice. I should just simply love to be lolling back in the victoria, allfrills and feathers, and the crocodiles to march by. Wouldn't theystare! It was always so interesting to see how the girls looked grownup.
The weather has been lovely, and I do think ours is the very dearest oldhouse in the world. It is described in the guide-books as "a fine oldJacobean mansion," and all sorts of foreign royal creatures have stayedhere as a place of refuge in olden days before father's people boughtit. It is red brick covered with ivy, and at the right side the wallsgo out in a great semicircle, with windows all round giving the mostlovely view. Opposite the door is a beautiful old cedar, which I usedto love to climb as a child, and should now if I had my own way. Itslower branches dip down to the grass and make the most lovely bridge tothe old trunk. On the opposite side of the lawn there's another hugetree; hardly anyone knows what it is, but it's a Spanish maple really--such a lovely thing, all shining silver leaves on dark stems. I used tolook from one to the other and think that they looked like youth andage, and summer and winter, and all sorts of poetical things like that.
On the south side there is another entrance leading down to the terraceby a long flight of stone stairs, the balustrades of which are coveredby a tangle of clematis and roses. When I come walking down those stepsand see the peacock strutting about in the park, and the old sundial,and the row of beeches in the distance, I feel a thrill of somethingthat makes me hot and cold and proud and weepy all at the same time.Father says he feels just the same, in a man-ey way, of course, and thatit is much the same thing as patriotism--love of the soil that has comedown to you from generations of ancestors, and that it's a right andnatural feeling and ought to be encouraged. I know it is in him, for hewill deny himself anything and everything to keep the place in order andgive his tenants a good time, but--Resolution number two--I, UnaSackville, solemnly vow to speak the plain truth about my own feelingsin this book, and not cover them up with a cloak of fine words--I thinkthere's a big sprinkling of conceit in my feelings. I _do_ like beingthe Squire's daughter, and having people stare at me as I go through thetown, and rush about to attend to me when I enter a shop. Ours is onlya little bit of a town, and there is so little going on that people takean extra special interest in us and our doings. I know some of thegirls quite well--the vicar's daughter and the doctor's, and the Heywoodgirls at the Grange, and I am always very nice to them, but I feel allthe time that I am being nice, and they feel it too, so we never seem tobe real friends. Is that being a snob, I wonder? If it is, it's asmuch their fault as mine, because they are quite different to me fromwhat they are to each other--so much more polite and well-behaved.
I spend the mornings with father, and the afternoons with mother. Atfirst she had mapped out my whole day for me--practising, reading,driving, etcetera, but I just said straight out that I'd promised to gothe rounds with father, and I think she was glad, though very muchsurprised.
"He will be so pleased to have you! It's nice of you, dear, to think ofit, and after all it will be exercise, and there's not much going on inthe morning."
She never seemed to think I should enjoy it, and I suppose it would boreher as much to walk round to the stables and kennels, and talk to thekeepers about game, and the steward about new roofs to cottages, andcutting timber, as it does him to go to garden-parties and pay formalcalls. It seems strange to live together so long and to be sodifferent.
I have not met many strangers as yet, because Vere is bringing down aparty of visitors for August, and mother is not in a hurry to take meabout until I have got all my things; but one morning, when I was outwith father, I met such a big, handsome man, quite young, with a brownface and laughing eyes, dressed in the nice country fashion which Ilove--Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and leggings. Father hailed him atonce, and they talked together for a moment without taking any notice ofme, and then father remembered me suddenly, and said--
"This is my youngest daughter. Come home from school to play with me,haven't you, Babs?" and the strange man smiled and nodded, and said,"How do, Babs?" just as calmly and patronisingly as if I had been two.For a moment I was furious, until I remembered my hockey skirt and clothcap, and hair done in a door-knocker, with no doubt ends flying aboutall round my face. I daresay I looked fourteen at the most, and hethought I was home for the holidays. I decided that it would be ratherfun to foster the delusion, and behave just as I liked without thinkingof what was proper all the time, and then some day he would find out hismistake, and feel properly abashed. His name is Will Dudley, and he isstaying with Mr Lloyd, the agent for the property which adjoinsfather's, learning how to look after land, for some day he will inherita big estate from an uncle, so he likes to get all the experience hecan, and to talk to father, and go about with him whenever he has thechance, and father likes to have him--I could tell it by the way helooks and talks. We walked miles that morning, over gates and stiles,and across brooks without dreaming of waiting for the bridges, and Iclimbed and splashed with the best, and Mr Dudley twinkled his eyes atme, and said, "Well jumped, Babs!" and lifted me down from the stiles asif I had been a doll. He must be terrifically strong, for I am no lightweight, and he didn't seem to feel me at all.
After that morning we were constantly meeting, and we grew to be quitefriends. He has thick, crinkly eyebrows, and is clean-shaven, which Ilike in his case, as his mouth has such a nice expression. He went ontreating me as a child, and father seemed to think it was quite natural.He likes to pretend I am young, poor dear, so that I may be hisplaymate as long as possible.
Yesterday father went in to see some cottagers, and Mr Dudley and I satoutside on a log of wood, and talked while we waited for him like this.He--patronisingly--
"I suppose it's a great treat for you to getaway from school for a time.Where is your school? Town or country? Brighton--ugh!" and he made agrimace of disgust. "Shops--piers--hotels--an awful place! Not a bitof Nature left unspoiled; the very sea looks artificial and unlikeitself in such unnatural surroundings!"
"Plenty of crocodiles on the bank, however--that's natural enough!" Isaid pertly. I thought it was rather smart, too, but he smiled in asuperior "I-will-because-I-must," sort of way, and said--
"How thankful you must be to get away from it all to this exquisitecalm!"
I don't know much about young men, except what I've seen of Spencer andhis friends, but they would call exquisite calm by a very differentname, so I decided at once that Mr Will Dudley must have had a secrettrouble which had made him hate the world and long for solitude.Perhaps it was a love affair! It would be interesting if he couldconfide in me, and I could comfort him, so I looked pensive, and said--
"You do get very tired of the glare and the dust! Some of the girlswear smoked glasses in summer, and you get so sick of marching up anddown the front. Do you hate Brighton only, or every towny place?"
"I hate all towns, and can't understand how anyone can live in them whois not obliged. I have tried it for the last five years, but neveragain!" He stretched his big shoulders, and drew a long breath ofdetermination. "I've said `Good-bye' for ever to a life of trammelledcivilisation, with its so-called amusements and artificial manners, andhollow friendships, and"--he put his hand to his flannel collar, andpatted it with an air of blissful satisfaction--"and stiff,uncomfortable clothing! It's all over and done with now, thankgoodness--a dream of the past!"
"And I am just beginning it! And I expect to like it very much," Ithought to myself, but I didn't say so to him; and he went on mutteringand grumbling all the time he was rolling his cigarette and prepari
ng tosmoke.
"You don't understand--a child like you. It's a pity you ever should,but in a few years' time you will be so bound round with conventionsthat you will not dare to follow your own wishes, unless you make a boldstroke for liberty, as I have done, and free yourself once for all; butnot many people have the courage to do that--"
"I don't think it takes much courage to give up what one dislikes, andto do what one likes best," I said calmly; and he gave a little jump ofsurprise, and stared at me over the smoke of the match with amused eyes,just as you look at a child who has said a funny thing--ratherprecocious for its age.
"Pray, does that wise remark apply to me or to you?" he asked; and I putmy chin in the air and said--
"It was a general statement. Of course, I can't judge of your actions,and, for myself, I can't tell as yet what I _do_ like. I must try bothlives before I can decide."
"Yes, yes. You must run the gauntlet. Poor little Babs!" he sighed;and after that we sat for quite an age without speaking a word. He wasremembering his secret, no doubt, and I was thinking of myself andwondering if it was really true that I was going to have such a badtime. That reminded me of Miss Martin and her advice, and it came to mewith a shock that I'd been home a whole month, and had been so taken upwith my own affairs that I had had no time to think of my "sister." Iwas in a desperate hurry to find her at once. I always am in a hurrywhen I remember things, and the sight of the cottages put an idea intomy head.
"Do you know the people who live in these cottages, Mr Dudley? I knewthe old tenants, of course, but these are new people, and I have notseen them. Are they old or young, and have they any children?"
He puffed out words and smoke in turns.
"John Williams--_puff_--wife--_puff_--one baby, guaranteed to make asmuch noise as five--it's a marvel it's quiet now--_puff_. You cangenerally hear it a mile off--"
"Is it ill, then, the poor little thing?"
"Healthiest child in the world to judge from its appearance and thestrength of its lungs! Natural depravity, nothing else"--_puff_!
"And in the next house?"
"Thompson--oldish man--widower. Maiden sister to keep the house inorder--Thompson, too, I suspect by the look of him. Looks very sorryfor himself, poor soul!"
"What's the matter with him--rheumatism? Is he quite crippled or ableto get about?"
"Thompson? Splendid workman--agile as a boy. It was his mentalcondition to which I referred!"
"And in the end house of all?"
"Don't know the name. Middle-aged couple, singularly uninteresting, andtwo big hulking sons--"
Big--hulking! It was most disappointing! _No one_ was delicate! Itwisted about on my seat, and cried irritably--
"Are they _all_ well, every one of them? Are you quite sure? Are thereno invalid daughters, or crippled children, nor people like that?"
"Not that I know of, thank goodness! You don't mean to say you _want_them to be ill?" He stared at me as if I were mad, and then suddenlyhis face changed, and he said softly, "Oh, I see! You want to lookafter them! That's nice of you, and it would have been uncommonly nicefor them, too; but, never fear, you will find plenty of people to help,if that's what you want. Their troubles may not take quite such anobvious form as crutches, but they are in just as much need of sympathy,nevertheless. In this immediate neighbourhood, for instance--" Hepaused for a moment, and I knew he was going to make fun by the twinklein his eye and the solemn way he puffed out the smoke. "There's--myself!" So I just paid him back for his patronage, and led up to themystery by saying straight out--
"Yes, I know! I guessed by what you said about town that you had hadsome disappointment. I'm dreadfully sorry, and if there's anything atall that I can do--"
He simply jumped with surprise and stared at me in dead silence for amoment, and then--horrid creature!--he began to laugh and chuckle as ifit was the most amusing thing in the world.
"So you have been making up stories about me, eh? Am I a blightedcreature? Am I hiding a broken heart beneath my Norfolk jacket? Has alovely lady scorned me and left me in grief to pine--eh, Babs? I didnot know you were harbouring such unkind thoughts of me. You can'taccuse me of showing signs of melancholy this last week, I'm sure, andas to my remarks about town, they were founded on nothing more romanticthan my rooted objection to smoke and dust, and bachelor diggings withcareless landladies. I assure you I have no tragic secrets to disclose!I'm sorry, as I'm sure you would find me infinitely more interestingwith a broken heart."
"Oh, I'm exceedingly glad, of course; but if you are so happy andcontented I don't see how you need my help," I said disagreeably; andjust then father came out of the cottage, and we started for home.
Mr Dudley talked to him about business in the most proper fashion, butif he caught my eye, even in the middle of a sentence, he would drop hishead on his chest and put on the most absurd expression of misery, andthen I would toss my head and smile a scornful smile. Some day, when hefinds out how old I am, he will be ashamed of treating me like a child.
William Dudley is the first stranger mentioned in these pages. For thatreason I shall always feel a kind of interest in him, but I amdisappointed in his character.
The Heart of Una Sackville Page 3
