But there was no way out of it. Good manners constrained them to walk together until they were out of the wood. But when they reached the Lingshot garden Pronto thought that he might escape. He invented a sudden errand to the stables, explained it, and took his leave with becoming grace:
‘Such a delicious walk as we have had! I shall never forget it!’
The hazel eyes rested upon his for a moment. She half smiled and said:
‘Oh, Mr. Lufton! How hard you work! Are you really obliged to say such things before breakfast?’
In any other woman this might have been flirtatious, but it was impossible to imagine Miss Audley as a flirt. Raillery, in a friend of eleven years’ standing, is permissible. Yet Pronto felt a little foolish.
‘You are very severe!’ he complained. ‘I fear you don’t approve of compliments?’
‘Oh, yes, I like them after ten o’clock in the morning. Before that, I think we should all say and do exactly as we please.’
‘I am very sorry,’ said Miles. ‘I knew that you would rather have been alone in the wood. But I did not know how to dispose of myself. I ought to have climbed the nearest tree. I am afraid that I spoiled your ramble.’
‘Not more than I spoiled yours. We both, I fancy, had gone out alone to gaze at the bluebells, without all those Ohs! and Ahs! and endeavours to ascertain how blue they are. And now we have prevented one another, because we are altogether too polite.’
‘Exactly. But I am the worse sinner, because I told you that they were like the sea, and you did not irritate me by likening them to anything.’
‘Oh! I don’t mind the sea very much. They may be as blue as the sea for all I care, since I never saw it.’
‘What? You have never seen the sea?’
‘Never!’
‘Ah! you have missed something.’
‘I believe so. Everybody tells me that I should admire it extremely but nobody offers to take me there, and I have so little spirit that I have not yet set off in search of it myself. Is it really the colour of bluebells?’
‘Not at all. But I cannot believe that you never saw it!’
‘Can you not? I have never been away from Lingshot for a single night, you know, since I was two years old.’
‘Good God!’
My horror amused her. She does not laugh when she is amused, but her eyes become lighter in colour. They have a kind of golden glow. I had not noticed it before. I wondered that I had not. And, while I was still pondering over this, she nodded to me and walked off.
I felt that the conversation was by no means finished, but had no chance to resume it during the day. I went into the drawing-room at least half an hour before dinner, however, in the hope that she might be early too. She generally was down and dressed before the others, in case there should be some last-minute duty or emergency, – the fish not come or the dessert to be arranged.
I was rewarded. She was there, reading by the window. I took the book from her, ascertained that it was Crabbe, and was making some remark about his work when she objected, with a trace of impatience, that we had been discussing Crabbe for eleven years. I suppose that we had, and it was ridiculous to begin upon the subject as though we had just met. But I could not explain that Pronto’s discussions did not count.
‘I will tell you something about him,’ said I, ‘which you never heard before, from me at least, because I only learnt it lately myself. I hope you don’t know it.’
I told her how Crabbe had taken the manuscript of his poems to Edmund Burke and was then unable to leave the spot where his fate might be decided. All night he paced up and down in the vicinity, watching a light in a window of Burke’s house, and playing with the fancy that the great man might be sitting up, reading his poems.
‘And so it was,’ I concluded. ‘The light was in Burke’s room. He did sit up all night. He was reading the poems.’
I got another golden look.
‘I wonder if we should like it,’ she said, ‘if the world were always as well managed as that! I believe we might think it dull. Such a story is pleasing because it is rare. Tell me another.’
‘’Tis your turn to tell me one.’
Footsteps were heard crossing the ante-room.
‘Some other time I will.’
‘Before breakfast?’
She smiled and shook her head as Mrs. Baddely, young Mrs. Morrill’s mother, came in. But after dinner, when she was to play for me and we were looking over some songs, I contrived to whisper that I should walk early in the wood and that, in honesty, she owed me a story.
‘And to which of you am I to tell it?’ she asked, selecting a song.
‘To which? Ah – you don’t know me – you must not judge me by—’
‘Nonsense! I have known you both for eleven years.’
She walked across the room and sat down at the pianoforte. Pronto sang less like an angel than usual.
Miss Audley
IT WAS WITH some trepidation that I set forth upon my early ramble next day. She had not exactly forbidden me to join her, but she had given me to understand that she liked to be alone at that hour. I was determined, however, to find out what she had meant, and I knew of no other time in the day when I might be certain of a private interview.
I did not above half like it. Miles and Pronto were not near so distinct in my mind then as they are now, but I was keenly aware of some inner conflict and had thought that nobody suspected it save Ludovic. It was most disagreeable to suppose it common knowledge, – to imagine that jokes could be made as to ‘which’ of us might be expected to dinner. Such a fancy kept me awake for half the night.
I went towards the beech wood and found her waiting for me by the gate out of the garden. She came forward at once, more agitated than I had ever seen her, and burst into a frank apology:
‘Oh! I was hoping that you would come! I must ask your pardon for my intolerable impertinence last night. I cannot imagine what prompted me to speak so. If you have ever, yourself, talked nonsense, and regretted it, then you must forgive me!’
‘My dear Miss Audley!’ said I, drawing her arm through mine and leading her into the wood, ‘you can never in your life have talked nonsense. I can only accuse you of obscurity. Pray explain! Who are these two gentlemen whom you have known for eleven years?’
‘Oh, it is nothing – a ridiculous fancy of mine. I meant the private Mr. Lufton and the political Mr. Lufton. There is some such distinction, I imagine, in anyone who must sustain a public character.’
‘And are they really so distinct? Can you always tell them apart?’
‘I think so. The private Mr. Lufton likes solitude and hates the world. The political Mr. Lufton never forgets his duty, and will pay compliments before breakfast.’
‘I see. I was aware of the distinction myself, but I had not thought it so obvious to my friends.’
‘Oh but it is not!’ she exclaimed quickly. ‘I assure you that nobody save myself, so far as I know, ever thought of anything so foolish.’
At this I grew easier, for it was impossible to doubt her word. I asked if she had any particular names for these two creatures, for I still feared that the hateful name of Pronto might be used at Lingshot, behind my back. She parried the question, but at last, perceiving that it had some real importance for me, confessed that she called them Lufton and The M.P.
‘But I was not an M.P. eleven years ago!’
‘No. But I was sure that you would soon become one.’
I blushed a little, remembering how determined I had been to secure one of Morrill’s seats, and realising that she must have seen through my manœuvres. I felt that we were in an awkward situation, as though we had been dancing in a masquerade which had lasted for eleven years. Now that the masks were down, I was a little out of countenance. She was not quite what I had always supposed. I could have wished that her surprise should be equal, – that she should make some discovery concerning me. I decided that she had better learn to know Miles better; she had g
uessed at his existence but she could know little of his more amiable qualities.
As we sauntered through the wood I made several observations which were quite worthy of Miles but which sounded as though they came from Pronto. At every step I expected her to ask how the M.P. came to be out so early. But she listened and assented very demurely. At last, in despair, I asked for the story that she owed me, reminding her that she had promised one.
‘But I don’t know what kind of story you prefer.’
‘Something, if you please, in the style of my Crabbe story. Something with an unexpectedly happy ending.’
She reflected for a while and then she said that she would tell me the story of Billy Thatcher, a foundling, brought up by the Parish at Lingshot.
I prepared myself for a pathetic tale, for her manner was grave. It remained so throughout the whole history of Billy Thatcher, which was as unedifying a fable as ever I heard. Billy, it appeared, was a rustic rogue, drunkard, poacher and thief, who possessed a miraculous faculty for disconcerting his betters. The final episode ran something like this:
‘We therefore decided to put Billy in the stocks, as an example. But he did not remain there for above half an hour, because the London coach came in, garlanded with laurel, and drew up at the inn. It does not do so generally, you know. Everyone knew that there must have been a great victory and ran out to hear the news. Whereat Billy set up a bellow that he was a Briton too, and had as good a right as anybody to hear about his victory. It was universally allowed that he had, so the beadle was fetched, and Billy let out and brought to the coach, where he might hear the guard read the newspaper. This was a great blow to our morals at Lingshot, for nobody had ever got out of the stocks so quickly before, and all the little children were more struck by this circumstance than by any other, upon that historic day. Indeed, I am certain that when Dr. Dowling referred in his sermon, upon the following Sunday, to “the hero of Waterloo” every child in the church believed him to be talking of Billy Thatcher.’
I was lost in amazement, for I had always thought her to have little sense of the ridiculous. I remembered that I had, but two days earlier, beheld her reading Law’s Serious Call to Mrs. Baddely, who slept profoundly during the exercise but was liable to rouse if the reader desisted. The contrast between her great snores, and the austere exhortations read out to her, was one which nearly capsized my solemnity. What a good thing, I thought, that Miss Audley is not easily struck by the ludicrous! For I had not then learnt to recognise that golden glow which signified secret amusement. I am now sure that she was enjoying herself very much.
After that I met her and walked with her every morning. I have said that the Morrills, though pleasant, were a trifle dull. One could always be certain of what they would do in any circumstances, – of what they would say upon any subject. I sometimes found myself quite suffocated by this, although I liked them. I wondered why they ever troubled themselves to talk, since it was but to repeat what they had said a thousand times already. Miss Audley was never dull, one could never be quite certain of what she would say, and conversation with her was a most refreshing kind of entertainment.
These early rambles were no secret from the rest of the family, but nobody, I think, thought them surprising. We were old friends, we both liked to walk before breakfast; it was but natural that we should walk together. To suppose me her admirer would not have occurred to them. She was an established old maid in their eyes, and I an eligible bachelor with a very good opinion of his own deserts in the way of a wife. I myself was so much aware of this that I sought her company without fear of raising expectations or provoking comment. I knew her to be far too sensible to suppose that I had fallen in love with her, and I had no fear that she might fall in love with me. She said things occasionally which no woman would say to a man in whom she hoped to inspire tender feelings. She was too calm, too candid. There were none of the little pauses, the evasions, the altered tones, which betray hidden feelings of that sort.
Her solitude was the circumstance which, at first, struck me most forcibly, as I came to understand her character. She had spent the whole of her life at Lingshot, had met no company, read no books, heard no conversation, save what that house afforded, yet she was completely unlike all the rest of them. She had never known a parent’s indulgent tenderness. She had been of first consequence with nobody, save for those few weeks when she had been courted by her sailor. She was then but seventeen and he one and twenty, – the nephew of a neighbouring squire. They danced together a good deal, but had, I imagine, few conversations alone. ‘A pitiful little engagement’ was her mother’s description of it. I think that he was dear to her chiefly because she was dear to him. He departed, never to return, and she, for twenty years, had been learning how to make the best of solitude. I remarked to her once that Lingshot was not, surely, the place which she would have chosen for life, had she been free to choose. She owned that it was not and that she had, at one time, suffered pangs of rebellion.
‘But then, you know, it would have made a whole family miserable, and me no happier, had I allowed myself to become a tiresome creature. It is one’s duty to be happy, I think, – as happy as one can.’
She had been equal to this duty because her principles were firm and because she had worked out for herself a strange kind of philosophy which enabled her to extract a good deal of entertainment from a life which most would have thought intolerable. She took great pleasure in observing everything minutely and in musing over what she saw. She had deliberately fostered her own solitude, – her independence from her surroundings. She once said that nothing can be truly appreciated ‘unless one withdraws oneself from it. Our preferences must always blind us.’ It was clear to me that great suffering had gone to 10rm this philosophy, but I did not wonder, when I thought of what her life had been.
Her greatest pleasure was in the strange, the unexpected and the paradoxical, – all those elements which were least in favour at Lingshot. She had also a taste for irony; in the ‘stories’ which I told her, it was always the ironic which most struck her fancy. I quarrelled with her a little for that. Irony makes me uneasy. But she liked it. She thought that it modified the sadness of the human lot; ‘since so many stories seem to be but part of some other story which we do not quite understand.’
I was sorry to have so little to tell her, for Pronto’s adventures supplied very few anecdotes of the kind that she liked. She was eager to hear of my visit to Paris, two years before, for she would have liked to travel and read all the travelling books that came her way. But I had nothing to tell her of Paris that would do, save my meeting with Princess Czerny, and those old stories of Rome and my Aunt Gussie. Of Peel, Wellington, Castlereagh and Fitzgerald, whom I had constantly met while there, I had only the most commonplace Morrill-ish tales to tell. She preferred to hear about Ullacombe and Bramfield and Ludovic reciting Wordsworth to the cows.
She, in turn, told me the history of every person in Lingshot village. Her stories were full of spirit and character. Not all of them were as cheerful as that of Billy Thatcher. She told me once that the trouble and sorrow she had witnessed among the poor had struck her so forcibly as to make her ashamed of rebellion against her own lot. One incident in particular brought tears to her eyes when she spoke of it, – a natural child sold to a man who was taking a party of children northward, to set them to work at cotton spinning.
‘I saw the little boy’s face as he was led away,’ she said. ‘I shall never forget it. So helpless! So helpless!’
Those words reminded me of Ludovic and his helpless! For a moment a great pang went through me, a kind of despair, as though some giant wave were breaking over the world, and in my ears were millions upon millions of voices sighing: Helpless! Helpless!
‘I went to my brother,’ she continued, ‘and told him that I thought we had abolished slavery upon British soil. He explained to me that it is not slavery; he said the lad would be paid for his work and could leave it if he chooses, and that
I might be sure these children would be well cared for. He said it was for the boy’s own good to be taken where he could get employment. But how can we be sure? The man that took them had a dreadful face. And how could a child of seven leave his work, if he was ill treated? He looked at me, as he was led away – like a dying person – and I could do nothing. But after that I thought: What is my lot? What are my wrongs? And I think it changed me very much.’
She asked me earnestly if I thought that these children are well treated. I would not distress her by telling her that I am far from certain that they are. I tried to reassure her. I know very little about it, nor am I anxious to know more, for there is nothing to be done.
Over books we constantly fell out. She liked history, biography and travel, but she did not care much for recent poetry, although I think I might have converted her a little about that. She had never before met with anyone who understood it. But over novels she was obstinate; she could not like them. Edgeworth’s Castle Rackrent pleased her and she admired Defoe, but she objected strongly to anything sentimental, nor would she listen to my pleas for my favourites: Emma and Mansfield Park, of which she complained that they kept her continually in the parlour, where she was obliged, in any case, to spend her life. A most entertaining parlour, she allowed, but:
‘That lady’s greatest admirers will always be men, I believe. For, when they have had enough of the parlour, they may walk out, you know, and we cannot.’
In her judgments of people she was very mild. I seldom heard her censure anybody. I was soon quite easy upon the score of Pronto. So acute an observer must have discerned his insincerities, but so merciful a judge would pardon them. And then, she had never seen what he could be; in that house he was a very respectable fellow.
I was the more astonished, therefore, at her displeasure one morning when I spoke slightingly of ‘The M.P.’ and of the political world in general. She appeared to be genuinely shocked, and took me up at once, exclaiming that the political career is the finest open to any man. I laughed at her, and asked if she would have liked to be in the Cabinet, and quoted the lines:
Troy Chimneys Page 18
