Mrs. Spruce raised her fat hands with a gesture of dismay.
“Lor’ bless the man!” she exclaimed; “D’ye think we’re goin’ to worrit Miss Vancourt with the likes o’ that the very first evenin’ she’s set foot in ‘er own ‘ouse? Why, we dussn’t! An’ that there great dog Plato lyin’ on guard outside ‘er door! I’ve ‘ad enough to- day with peacocks’ feathers, let alone the Five Sisters! Besides, Oliver Leach is agent ’ere, and what he says is sure to be done. She won’t worry ‘erself about it, — and you may be pretty certain he won’t be interfered with. You tell Passon Walden I’m real sorry, but it can’t be ‘elped.”
Reluctantly, Bainton turned away. He was never much disposed for a discussion with Mrs. Spruce, — her mind was too illogical, and her tongue too persistent. Her allusion to peacocks’ feathers was unintelligible to him, and he wondered whether ‘anythink she’s been an’ took’ had gone to her head. Anyway, his errand was foiled for the moment. But he was not altogether disheartened. He determined not to go back to Walden with his message quite undelivered.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way!” he said to himself. “I’ll go and do a bit of shoutin’ to Spruce, — deaf as he is, he’s more reasonable-like than his old ‘ooman!”
With this resolve, he went his way by a short-cut through Abbot’s Manor gardens to a small thatched shelter in the woods, known as ‘the foresters’ hut,’ where Spruce was generally to be found at about sunset, smoking a peaceful pipe, alone and well out of his wife’s way.
Meanwhile, Maryllia Vancourt, lying wide awake on her bed in the long unused room that was to have been her mother’s, experienced various chaotic sensations of mingled pleasure and pain. For the first time in her life of full womanhood she was alone, — independent, — free to come or go as she listed, with no one to gainsay her wishes, or place a check on her caprices. She had deliberately thrown off her aunt’s protection; and with that action, had given up the wealth and luxury with which she had been lavishly surrounded ever since her father’s death. For reasons of her own, which she considered sufficiently cogent, she had also resigned all expectations of being her aunt’s heiress. She had taken her liberty, and was prepared to enjoy it. She had professed herself perfectly contented to live on the comparatively small patrimony secured to her by her father’s will. It was quite enough, she said, for a single woman, — at any rate, she would make it enough.
And here she was, in her own old home, — the home of her childhood, which she was ashamed to think she had well-nigh forgotten. Since her fifteenth year she had travelled nearly all over the world; London, Paris, Vienna, New York, had each in turn been her ‘home’ under the guidance of her wealthy perambulating American relative; and in the brilliant vortex of an over-moneyed society, she had been caught and whirled like a helpless floating straw. Mrs. ‘Fred’ Vancourt, as her aunt was familiarly known to the press paragraphist, had spared no pains to secure for her a grand marriage, — and every possible advantage that could lead to that one culminating point, had been offered to her. She had been taught everything; that could possibly add to her natural gifts of intelligence; she had been dressed exquisitely, taken about everywhere, and ‘shown off’ to all the impecunious noblemen of Europe; — she had been flattered, praised, admired, petted and generally spoilt, and had been proposed to by ‘eligible’ gentlemen with every recurring season, — but all in vain. She had taken a singular notion into her head — an idea which her matter-of-fact aunt told her was supremely ridiculous. She wanted to be loved.
“Any man can ask a girl to marry him, if he has pluck and impudence!” she said; “Especially if the girl has money, or expectations of money, and is not downright deformed, repulsive and ill-bred. But proposals of marriage don’t always mean love. I don’t care a bit about being married, — but I do want to be loved — really loved! — I want to be ‘dear to someone else’ as Tennyson sings it, — not for what I HAVE, but for what I AM.”
It was this curious, old-fashioned notion of wanting to be loved, that had estranged Maryllia from her wealthy American protectress. It had developed from mere fireside argument and occasional dissension, into downright feud, and its present result was self- evident. Maryllia had broken her social fetters, and had returned to her own rightful home in a state which, for her, considered by her past experience, was one of genteel poverty, but which was also one of glorious independence. And as she restfully reclined under the old rose silk hangings which were to have encanopied that perished beauty from which she derived her own fairness, she was conscious of a novel and soothing sense of calm. The rush and hurry and frivolity of society seemed put away and done with; through her open window she could hear the rustling of leaves and the singing of birds; — the room in which she found herself pleased her taste as well as her sentiment, — and though the faintest shadow of vague wonder crossed her mind as to what she would do with her time, now that she had gained her own way and was actually all alone in the heart of the country, she did not permit such a thought to trouble her peace. The grave tranquillity of the old house was already beginning to exert its influence on her always quick and perceptive mind, — the dear remembrance of her father whom she had idolised, and whose sudden death had been the one awful shock of her life, came back to her now with a fresh and tender pathos. Little incidents of her childhood and of its affection, such as she thought she had forgotten, presented themselves one by one in the faithful recording cells of her brain, — and the more or less feverish and hurried life she had been compelled to lead under her aunt’s command and chaperonage, began to efface itself slowly, like a receding coast-line from a departing vessel.
“It is home!” she said; “And I have not been in a home for years! Aunt Emily’s houses were never ‘home.’ And this is MY home — my very own; the home of our family for generations. I ought to be proud of it, and I WILL be proud of it! Even Aunt Emily used to say that Abbot’s Manor was a standing proof of the stuck-up pride of the Vancourts! I’m sure I shall find plenty to do here. I can farm my own lands and live on the profits — if there are any!”
She laughed a little, and rising from the bed went to the window and leaned out. A large white clematis pushed its moonlike blossom up to her face, as though asking to be kissed, and a bright red butterfly danced dreamily up and down in the late sunbeams, now poising on the ivy and anon darting off again into the mild still air.
“It’s perfectly lovely!” said Maryllia, with a little sigh of content; “And it is all my own!”
She drew her head in from the window and turned to her mirror.
“I’m getting old,” she said, surveying herself critically, and with considerable disfavour;— “It’s all the result of society ‘pressure,’ as they call it. There’s a line here — and another there” — indicating the imaginary facial defects with a small tapering forefinger— “And I daresay I have some grey hairs, if I could only find them.” Here she untwisted the coil at the back of her head and let it fall in a soft curling shower round her shoulders— “Oh, yes! — I daresay!” she went on, addressing her image in the glass; “You think it looks very pretty — but that is only an ‘effect,’ you know! It’s like the advertisements the photographers do for the hairdressers; ‘Hair- positively-forced-to-grow-in-six-weeks’ sort of thing. Oh, what a dear old chime!” This, as she heard the ancient clock in the square turret which overlooked the Tudor courtyard give forth a mellow tintinnabulation. “What time is it, I wonder?” She glanced at the tiny trifle of a watch she had taken off and placed on her dressing- table. “Quarter past seven! I must have had a doze, after all. I think I will ring for Nancy Pyrle” — and she suited the action to the word; “I have not the least idea where my clothes are.”
Nancy obeyed the summons with alacrity. She could not help a slight start as she saw her mistress, looking like ‘the picture of an angel’ as she afterwards described it, in her loose white dressing- gown, with all her hair untwisted and floating over her shoulders. She had never
seen any human creature quite so lovely.
“Do you know where my dresses are, Nancy?” enquired Maryllia.
“Yes, Miss. Mrs. Spruce unpacked everything herself, and the dresses are all hanging in this wardrobe.” Here Nancy went to the piece of furniture in question. “Which one shall I give you, Miss?”
Maryllia came to her side, and looked scrutinisingly at all the graceful Parisian and Viennese flimsies that hung in an. orderly row within the wardrobe, uncertain which to take. At last she settled on an exceedingly simple white tea-gown, shaped after a Greek model, and wholly untrimmed, save for a small square gold band at the throat.
“This will do!” she decided; “Nobody’s coming to dine; I shall be all alone—”
The thought struck her as quaint and strange. Nobody coming to dinner! How very odd! At Aunt Emily’s there was always someone, or several someones, to dinner. To-night she would dine all alone. Well! It would be a novel experience!
“Are there any nice people living about here?” she asked Nancy, as that anxious young woman carefully divested her of her elegant dressing-gown; “People I should like to know?”
“Oh, I don’t think so, Miss,” replied Nancy, quite frankly, watching in wonder the dexterity and grace with which her mistress swept up all her hair into one rich twist and knotted it with two big tortoiseshell hairpins at the back of her head. “There’s Sir Morton Pippitt at Badsworth Hall, three miles from here—”
Maryllia laughed gaily.
“Sir Morton Pippitt! What a funny name! Who is he?”
“Well, Miss, they do say he makes his money at bone-melting; but he’s awful proud for all that — awful proud he is—”
“Well, I should think so!” said Maryllia, with much solemnity; “Bone-melting is a great business! Does he melt human bones, Nancy?”
“Oh, lor’, Miss, no!” And Nancy laughed, despite herself; “Not that I’ve ever heard on — it’s bones of animals he melts and turns into buttons and such-like.”
“Man is an animal, Nancy,” said Maryllia, sententiously, giving one or two little artistic touches to the loose waves of hair on her forehead; “Why should not HIS bones be turned into buttons? Why should HE not be made useful? You may depend upon it, Nancy, human bones go into Sir Morton What’s-his-name’s stock-pot. I shouldn’t wonder if he had left his own bones to his business in his will!
“‘Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay, May stop a hole to keep the wind away!’
That’s so, Nancy! And is the gentleman who boils bones the only man about here one could ask to dinner?”
Nancy reflected.
“There’s the Passon—” she began.
“Oh, dear me!” exclaimed Maryllia, with a little shrug of impatience; “Worse than the bone-boiler! — a thousand times worse! There! That will do, Nancy! I’ll stroll about till dinner’s ready.”
She left the room and descended the stairs, followed by the faithful Plato, and was soon to be seen by various retainers of the curious and excited household, walking slowly up and down on the grass terrace in her flowing white draperies, the afterglow of the sinking sun shining on her gold-brown hair, and touching up little reddish ripples in it, — such ripples as were painted by the artist of Charles the Second’s day when he brushed into colour and canvas the portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa de Vaignecourt. Primmins, late butler to the irascible Sir Morton Pippitt, was so taken with the sight of her that he then and there resolved his ‘temp’ry service’ should be life-long, if he could manage to please her; and little Kitty Spruce being permitted by her mother to peep at the ‘new lady’ through the staircase window, could only draw a long breath and ejaculate: “Oh! Ain’t she lovely!” while she followed with eagerly admiring eyes the gossamer trail of Maryllia’s white gown on the soft turf, and strained her ears to catch the sound of the sweet voice which suddenly broke out in a careless chansonette:
“Tu m’aimes, cherie? Dites-moi! Seulement un petit ‘oui,’ Je demande a toi! Le bonheur supreme Vient quand on aime, N’est-ce-pas cherie? ‘Oui’!”
“She’s singin’ to herself!” said the breathless Kitty, whispering to her mother; “Ain’t she jest smilin’ and beautiful?”
“Well, I will own,” replied Mrs. Spruce, “she’s as different to the lady I expected as cheese from chalk, which they generally says chalk from cheese, howsomever, that don’t matter. But if I don’t mistake, she’s got a will of ‘er own, for all that she’s so smilin’ and beautiful as you says, Kitty; and now don’t YOU go runnin’ away with notions that you can dress like ‘er or look like ‘er, — for when once a gel of YOUR make thinks she can imitate the fashions and the ways of a great lady, she’s done for, body and soul! YOU ain’t goin’ to wear white gowns and trail ’em up an’ down on the grass, nor ‘ave big dogs a-follerin’ up an’ down while you sings in a furrin langwidge to yerself; no, not if you was to read all the trashy story-books in the world — so you needn’t think it. For there ain’t no millionaires comin’ arter you, as they doos in penny novels, — nor nothink else what’s dished up in newspapers; so jes’ wear your cotton frocks in peace, an’ don’t worry me with wantin’ to look like Miss Maryllia, for you never won’t look like ‘er if ye tried till ye was dead! Remember that, now! The Lord makes a many women, — but now and again He turns out a few chice samples which won’t bear copyin.’. Miss Maryllia’s one of them samples, and we must take ‘er with prayer and thanksgivin’ as sich!”
IX
Maryllia’s first solitary dinner in the home of her ancestors passed off with tolerable success. She found something not altogether unpleasant in being alone after all. Plato was always an intelligent, well-behaved and dignified companion in his canine way, and the meal was elegantly served by Primmins, who waited on his new mistress with as much respect and zeal as if she had been a queen. A sense of authority and importance began to impress itself upon her as she sat at the head of her own table in her own dining-hall, with all the Vandykes and Holbeins and Gainsboroughs gazing placidly down upon her from their gilded frames, and the flicker of many wax candles in old silver sconces glancing upon the shields, helmets, rusty pikes and crossed swords that decorated the panelling of the walls between and above the pictures.
“Fancy! No gas and no electric light! It is simply charming!” she thought, “And so becoming to one’s dress and complexion! Only there’s nobody to see the becomingness. But I can soon remedy that. Lots of people will come down and stay here if I only ask them. There’s one thing quite certain about society folk — they will always come where they can be lodged and boarded free! They call it country visiting, but it really means shutting up their houses, dismissing their servants, and generally economising on their housekeeping bills. I’ve seen SUCH a lot of it!”
She heaved a little sigh over these social reminiscences, and finished her repast in meditative silence. She had not been accustomed to much thinking, and to indulge in it at all for any length of time was actually a novelty. Her aunt had told her never to think, as it made the face serious, and developed lines on the forehead. And she had, under this kind of tutelage, became one of a brilliant, fashionable, dress-loving crowd of women, who spend most of their lives in caring for their complexions and counting their lovers. Yet every now and again, a wave of repugnance to such a useless sort of existence arose in her and made a stormy rebellion. Surely there was something nobler in life — something higher — something more useful and intelligent than the ways and manners of a physically and morally degenerate society?
It was a still, calm evening, and the warmth of the sun all day had drawn such odours from the hearts of the flowers that the air was weighted with perfume when she wandered out again into her garden after dinner, and looked up wistfully at the gables of the Manor set clear against a background of dark blue sky patterned with stars. A certain gravity oppressed her. There was, after all, something just a little eerie in the on-coming of night in this secluded woodland place where she had voluntarily chosen to dwell a
ll alone and unprotected, rather than lend herself to her aunt’s match-making schemes.
“Of course,” she argued with herself, “I need not stay here if I don’t like it. I can get a paid companion and go travelling, — but, oh dear, I’ve had so much travelling! — or I can own myself in the wrong to Aunt Emily, and marry that wretch Roxmouth, — Oh, no! I COULD not! I WILL not!”
She gave an impatient little stamp with her foot, and anon surveyed the old house with affectionate eyes.
“You shall be my rescue!” she said, kissing her hand playfully to the latticed windows,— “You shall turn me into an old-fashioned lady, fond of making jams and pickles, and preserves and herbal waters! I’ll put away all the idiotic intrigues and silly fooling of modern society in one of your quaint oaken cupboards, and lock them all up with little bags of lavender to disinfect them! And I will wait for someone to come and find me out and love me; and if no one ever comes—” Here she paused, then went on,— “If no one ever comes, why then—” and she laughed— “some man will have lost a good chance of marrying as true a girl as ever lived! — a girl who could love — ah!” And she stretched out her pretty rounded arms to the scented air. “HOW she could love if she were loved!”
The young moon here put in a shy appearance by showing a fleck of silver above the highest gable of the Manor.
“A little diamond peak, No bigger than an unobserved star, Or tiny point of fairy scimitar; Bright signal that she only stooped to tie Her silver sandals ere deliciously She bowed unto the heavens her timid head, Slowly she rose as though she would have fled.”
“There’s no doubt,” said Maryllia, “that this place is romantic! And romance is what I’ve been searching for all my life, and have never found except in books. Not so much in modern books as in the books that were written by really poetical and imaginative people sixty or seventy years ago. Nowadays, the authors that are most praised go in for what they call ‘realism’ — and their realism is very UNreal, and very nasty. For instance, this garden, — these lovely trees, — this dear old house — all these are real — but much too romantic for a modern writer. He would rather describe a dusthole and enumerate every potato paring in it! And here am I — I’m real enough — but I’m not a bad woman — I haven’t got what is euphoniously called ‘a past,’ and I don’t belong to the right-down vicious company of ‘Souls.’ So I should never do for a heroine of latter-day fiction. I’m afraid I’m abnormal. It’s dreadful to be abnormal! One becomes a ‘neurotic,’ like Lombroso, and all the geniuses. But suppose the world were full of merely normal people, — people who did nothing but eat and sleep in the most perfectly healthy and regular manner, — oh, what a bore it would be! There would be no pictures, no sculpture, no poetry, no music, no anything worth living for. One MUST have a few ideas beyond food and clothing!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 599
