The blood sprang to her brows, — and for a moment she was so startled and angry that she could scarcely breathe. A swift glance from under her long lashes showed her the situation — how Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay was watching her with ill-concealed amusement, and how all the rest of the party were expectant of a ‘sensation.’ She saw it all in a moment, — she recognised that a trap had been laid for her to fall into unwarily, and realising the position she rose to it at once.
“How do you do!” she said carelessly, nodding ner head without giving her hand— “I thought I should meet you this afternoon!”
“Did you really!” murmured Roxmouth— “Some magnetic current of thought—”
“Yes,— ‘by the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes!’ — THAT sort of sensation, you know!” and she laughed; then perceiving a man standing in the background whose sleek form and lineaments she instantly recognised, she added— “And how are you, Mr. Longford? Did you bring Lord Roxmouth here, or did he bring you?”
Marius Longford, ‘of the Savage and Savile,’ was taken by surprise, and looked a little uncomfortable. He stroked one pussy whisker.
“We came together,” he explained in his affected falsetto voice— “Sir Morton Pippitt was good enough to invite me to bring any friend, — and so—”
“I see!” and Maryllia lifted her little head with an unconscious gesture, implying pride, or disdain, or both, as she passed with the other guests into the Badsworth Hall drawing-room; “The country is so delightful at this time of year!”
She moved on. Lord Roxmouth stroked down his fair moustache to hide a smile, and quietly followed her. He was a good-looking man, tall and well-built, with a rather pale, clean-cut face, and sandy hair brushed very smooth; form and respectability were expressed in the very outline of his figure and the fastidious neatness and nicety of his clothes. Entering the room where Miss Tabitha Pippitt was solemnly presiding over the tea-tray with a touch-me-not air of inflexible propriety, he soon made himself the useful and agreeable centre of a group of ladies, to whom he carried cake, bread-and- butter and other light refreshments, with punctilious care, looking as though his life depended upon the exact performance of these duties. Once or twice he glanced at Maryllia, and decided that she appeared younger and prettier than when he had seen her in town. She was chatting with some of the country people, and Lord Roxmouth waited for several moments in vain for an opportunity to intervene. Finally, securing a cup of iced coffee, he carried it to her.
“No, thanks!” she said, as he approached.
“Strawberries?” he suggested, appealingly.
“Nothing, thank you!”
Smiling a little, he looked at her.
“I wish you would give me a word, Miss Vancourt! Won’t you?”
“A dozen, if you like!” — she replied, indifferently— “How is Aunt Emily?”
“I am glad you ask after her!” — he said, impressively— “She is well, — but she misses you very much.” He paused, and added in a lower tone— “So do I!”
She was silent.
“I know you are angry!” he went on softly— “You went away from London to avoid me, and you are vexed to see me down here. But I couldn’t resist the temptation of coming. Marius Longford told me he had called upon you with Sir Morton Pippitt at Abbot’s Manor, — and I got him to bring me down on a visit to Badsworth Hall, — only to be near you! You are looking quite lovely, Maryllia!”
She raised her eyes and fixed them full on him. His own fell.
“I said you were angry, and you are!” he murmured— “But you have the law in your own hands, — you need not ask me to your house unless you like!”
The buzz of conversation in the room was now loud and incessant. Sir Morton Pippitt’s ‘afternoon teas’ were always more or less bewildering and brain-jarring entertainments, where a great many people of various ‘sets,’ in the town of Riversford and the county generally, came together, without knowing each other, or wishing to know each other, — where the wife of the leading doctor in Riversford, for example, glowered scorn and contempt on Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, the wife of the brewer in the same town, and where those of high and unimpeachable ‘family,’ like Mrs. Mandeville Poreham, whose mother was a Beedle, stared frigidly and unseeingly at every one hailing from the same place as creatures beneath her notice.
For— “Thank God!” — said Mrs. Poreham, with feeling,— “I do not live in Riversford. I would not live in Riversford if I were paid a fortune to do so! My poor mother never permitted me to associate with tradespeople. There are no ladies or gentlemen in Riversford, — I should be expected to shake hands with my butcher if I resided there, — but I am proud and glad to say that at present I know nobody in the place. I never intend to know anybody there!”
Several curious glances were turned upon Miss Vancourt as she stood near an open window looking out on the Badsworth Hall ‘Italian Garden,’ — a relic of Badsworth times, — her fair head turned away from the titled aristocrat who bent towards her, as it seemed, in an attitude of humble appeal, — and one or two would-be wise persons nodded their heads and whispered— “That’s the man she’s engaged to.” “Oh, really! — and his name — ?” “Lord Roxmouth; — will be Duke of Ormistoune—” “Good gracious! THAT woman a Duchess!” snorted Mrs. Mordaunt Appleby, as she heard— “The men must be going mad!” Which latter remark implied that had she not unfortunately married a brewer, she might easily have secured the Ormistoune ducal coronet herself.
Unaware of the gossip going on around her, Maryllia stayed where she was at the window, coldly silent, her eyes fixed on the glowing flower-beds patterned in front of her, — the gorgeous mass of petunias, and flame-colored geraniums, — the rich saffron and brown tints of thick clustered calceolarias, — the purple and crimson of pendulous fuchsias, whose blossoms tumbled one upon the other in a riot of splendid colour, — and all at once her thoughts strayed capriciously to the cool green seclusion of John Walden’s garden. She remembered the spray of white lilac he had given her, and fancied she could almost inhale again its delicious perfume. But the lilac flowering-time was over now — and the roses had it all their own way, — she had given a rose in exchange for the lilac, and — Here she started almost nervously as Lord Roxmouth’s voice again fell on her ears.
“You are not sparing me any of your attention,” he said— “Your mind is engrossed with something — or somebody — else! Possibly I have a rival?”
He smiled, but there was a quick hard gleam of suspicion in his cold grey eyes. Maryllia gave him a look of supreme disdain.
“You are insolent,” she said, speaking in very low but emphatic tones— “You always were! You presume too much on Aunt Emily’s encouragement of your attentions to me, which you know are unwelcome. You are perfectly aware that I left London to escape a scheme concocted by you and her to so compromise me in the view of society, that no choice should be left to me save marriage with you. Now you have followed me here, and I know why! You have come to try and find out what I do with myself — to spy upon my actions and occupations, and take back your report to Aunt Emily. You are perfectly welcome to enter upon this congenial task! You can visit me at my own house, — you can play detective all over the place, if you are happy in that particular role. Every opportunity shall be given you!”
He bowed. “Thank you!” And stroking his moustache, as was his constant habit, he smiled again. “You are really very cruel to me, Maryllia! Why can I never win your confidence — I will not say your affection? May I not know?”
“You may!” — she answered coldly— “It is because there is nothing in you to trust and nothing to value. I have told you this so often that I wonder you want to be told it again! And though I give you permission to call on me at my own home, — just to save you the trouble of telling Aunt Emily that her ‘eccentric’ niece was too ‘peculiar’ to admit you there, — I reserve to myself the right at any moment to shut the door against you.”
She moved from him then, and seeing the Ittlethwaites of Ittlethwaite Park, went to speak to them. He stood where she had left him, surveying the garden in front of him with absolute complacency. Mr. Marius Longford joined him.
“Well?” said the light of the Savage and Savile tentatively.
“Well! She is the same ungovernable termagant as ever — conceited little puss! But she always amuses me — that’s one consolation!” He laughed, and taking out his cigar-case, opened it. “Will you have one?” Longford accepted the favour. “Who is this old fellow, Pippitt?” he asked— “Any relation of the dead and gone Badsworth? How does he get Badsworth Hall? Doesn’t he grind bones to make his bread, or something of that kind?”
Longford explained with civil obsequiousness that Sir Morton Pippitt had certainly once ‘ground bones,’ but that he had ‘retired’ from such active service, while still retaining the largest share in the bone business. That he had bought Badsworth Hall as it stood, — pictures, books, furniture and all, for what was to him a mere trifle; and that he was now assuming to himself by lawful purchase, the glory of the whole deceased Badsworth family.
Lord Roxmouth shrugged his shoulders in contempt.
“Such will be the fate of Roxmouth Castle!” he said— “Some grinder of bones or maker of beer will purchase it, and perhaps point out the picture of the founder of the house as being that of a former pot-boy!”
“The old order changeth,” — said Longford, with a chill smile— “And I suppose we should learn to accustom ourselves to it. But you, with your position and good looks, should be able to prevent any such possibility as you suggest. Miss Vancourt is not the only woman in the world.”
“By no means,” — and Roxmouth strolled into the garden, Longford walking beside him— “But she is the only woman I at present know, who, if she obeys her aunt’s wishes, will have a fortune of several millions. And just because such a little devil SHOULD be mastered and MUST be mastered, I have resolved to master her. That’s all!”
“And, to your mind, sufficient,” — said Longford— “But if it is a question of the millions chiefly, there is always the aunt herself.”
Roxmouth stared — then laughed.
“The aunt!” he ejaculated— “The aunt?”
“Why not?” And Longford stole a furtive look round at the man who was his chief literary patron— “The aunt is handsome, well- preserved, not more than forty-five at most — and I should say she is a woman who could be easily led — through vanity.”
“The aunt!” again murmured Roxmouth— “My dear Longford! What an appalling suggestion! Mrs. Fred as the Duchess of Ormistoune! Forbid it, Heaven!”
Then suddenly he laughed aloud.
“By Jove! It would be too utterly ridiculous! Whatever made you think of such a thing?”
“Only the prospect you yourself suggested,” — replied Longford— “That of seeing a brewer or a bone-melter in possession of Roxmouth Castle. Surely even Mrs. Fred would be preferable to that!”
With an impatient exclamation Roxmouth suddenly changed the subject; but Longford was satisfied that he had sown a seed, which might, — time and circumstances permitting, — sprout and grow into a tangible weed or flower.
Maryllia meantime had made good her escape from the scene of Sir Morton Pippitt’s ‘afternoon-tea’ festivity. Gently moving through the throng with that consummate grace which was her natural heritage, she consented to be introduced to the ‘county’ generally, smiling sweetly upon all, and talking so kindly to the Mandeville Poreham girls, that she threw them into fluttering ecstasies of delight, and caused them to declare afterwards to their mother that Miss Vancourt was the sweetest, dearest, darlingest creature they had ever met! She stood with patience while Sir Morton Pippitt, over-excited by the presence of the various ‘titled’ personages in his house, guffawed and blustered in her face over the ‘little surprise’ he had prepared for her in the unexpected appearance of Lord Roxmouth; she listened to his “Ha!-ha!-ha! My dear lady! We know a thing or two! Handsome fellow, — handsome fellow! Think of a poor old plain Knight when you are a Duchess! Ha! ha! ha! God bless my soul!” — and without a word in confirmation or denial of his blatant observations, she managed to slip gradually out of the drawing-room to the hall and from thence to the carriage drive, where she found, as she thought she would, Lord Charlemont looking tenderly into the mechanism of his motor-car, unscrewing this, peering into that, and generally hanging round the vehicle with a fatuous lover’s enthusiasm.
“Would you mind taking me back to St. Rest now?” she enquired— “I have an appointment in the village — you can do the journey in no time.”
“Delighted!” And Charlemont got his machine into the proper state of spluttering, gasping eagerness to depart. “Anyone coming with you?”
“No — nobody knows I am leaving.” And Maryllia mounted lightly into the car. “You can return and fetch the others afterwards. Put me down at the church, please!”
In a moment more the car flashed down the drive and out of Badsworth Hall precincts, and was soon panting and pounding along the country road at most unlawful speed. As a rule Maryllia hated being in a motor-car, but on this occasion she was glad of the swift rush through the air; had the vehicle torn madly down a precipice she would scarcely have cared, so eager was she to get away from the hateful vicinity of Lord Roxmouth. She was angry too — angry with Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, whose hand she recognised in the matter as having so earnestly begged her to go to Badsworth Hall that afternoon, — she despised Sir Morton Pippitt for lending himself to the scheme, — and with all her heart she loathed Mr. Marius Longford whom she at once saw was Roxmouth’s paid tool. The furious rate at which Lord Charlemont drove his car was a positive joy to her — and as he was much too busy with his steering gear to speak, she gave herself up to the smouldering indignation that burned in her soul while she was, so to speak, carried through space as on a panting whirlwind.
“Why can they not leave me alone!” she thought passionately— “How dare they follow me to my own home! — my own lands! — and spy upon me in everything I do! It is a positive persecution and more than that, — it is a wicked design on Aunt Emily’s part to compromise me with Roxmouth. She wants to set people talking down here in the country just as she set them talking in town, and to make everyone think I am engaged to him, or OUGHT to be engaged to him. It is cruel! — I suppose I shall be driven away from here just as I have been driven from London, — is there NO way in which I can escape from this man whom I hate! — NO place in the world where he cannot find me and follow me!”
The brown hue of thatched roofs through the trees here caused Lord Charlemont to turn round and address her.
“Just there!” he said, briefly— “Six minutes exactly!”
“Good!” said Maryllia, nodding approvingly— “But go slowly through the village, won’t you? There are so many dear little children always playing about.”
He slackened speed at once, and with a weird toot-tootling of his horn guided the car on at quite a respectable ambling-donkey pace.
“You said the church?”
“Yes, please!”
Another minute, and she had alighted.
“Thanks so much!” she said, smiling up into his goggle-guarded eyes. “Will you rush back for the others, please? And — and — may I ask you a favour?”
“A thousand!” he answered, thinking what a pretty little woman she was, as he spoke.
“Well — don’t — even if they want you to do so, — don’t bring Lord Roxmouth or Mr. Marius Longford back to the Manor. They are Sir Morton Pippitt’s friends and guests — they are not mine!”
A faint flicker of surprise passed over the aristocratic motor- driver’s features, but he made no observation. He merely said:
“All right! I’m game!”
Which brief sentence meant, for Lord Charlemont, that he was loyal to the death. He was not romantic in the style of expressing himself, — he would not have
understood how to swear fealty on a drawn sword — but when he said— ‘I’m game,’-it came to the same thing. Reversing his car, he sped away, whizzing up the road like a boomerang, back to Badsworth Hall. Maryllia watched him till he was out of sight, — then with a sigh of relief, she turned and look wistfully at the church. Its beautiful architecture had the appearance of worn ivory in the mellow radiance of the late afternoon, and the sculptured figures of the Twelve Apostles in their delicately carved niches, six on either side of the portal, seemed almost life-like, as the rays of the warm and brilliant sunshine, tempered by a touch of approaching evening, struck them aslant as with a luminance from heaven. She lifted the latch of the churchyard gate, — and walking slowly with bent head between the rows of little hillocks where, under every soft green quilt of grass lay someone sleeping, she entered the sacred building. It was quite empty. There was a scent of myrtle and lilies in the air, — it came from two clusters of blossoms which were set at either side of the gold cross on the altar. Stepping softly, and with reverence, Maryllia went up to the Communion rails, and looked long and earnestly at the white alabaster sarcophagus which, in its unknown origin and antiquity, was the one unsolved mystery of St. Rest. A vague sensation of awe stole upon her, — and she sank involuntarily on her knees.
“If I could pray now,” — she thought— “What should I pray for?”
And then it seemed that something wild and appealing rose in her heart and clamoured for an utterance which her tongue refused to give, — her bosom heaved, — her lips trembled, — and suddenly a rush of tears blinded her eyes.
“Oh, if I were only LOVED!” she murmured under her breath— “If only someone could find me worth caring for! I would endure any suffering, any loss, to win this one priceless gift, — love!”
A little smothered sob broke from her lips.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 624
