“Dear Mrs. Spruce! I am so glad to see you! You knew me when I was quite a little thing, didn’t you? And you knew my father, too! You were very fond of my father, weren’t you? I am sure you were! You must try to be fond of me now!”
Never, as Mrs. Spruce was afterwards wont to declare, had she been so ‘took back,’ as by the unaffected spontaneity and sweetness of this greeting on the part of the new mistress, whose advent she had so greatly feared. She went, to quote her own words, ‘all of a fluster like, and near busted out cryin’. It was like a dear lovin’ little child comin’ ‘ome, and made me feel that queer you might have knocked me down with a soap-bubble!’
Whatever the worthy woman’s feelings were, and however much the respectable butler, whose name was Primmins, might have been astonished in his own stately mind at Miss Vancourt’s greeting of her father’s old servant, Miss Vancourt herself was quite unconscious of any loss of dignity on her own part.
“I am so glad!” she repeated; “It’s like finding a friend at home to find you, Spruce! I had quite forgotten what you looked like, but I begin to remember now — you were always nice and kind, and you always managed so well, didn’t you? Yes, I’m sure you did! The man said tea was in the morning-room. You come and pour it out for me, like a dear old thing! I’m going to live alone in my own home now for always, — for always!” she repeated, emphatically; “Nobody shall ever take me away from it again!”
She linked her arm confidingly in that of Mrs. Spruce, who for once was too much astonished to speak, — Miss Vancourt was so entirely different to the chill and reserved personage her imagination had depicted, that she was quite at a loss how to look or what to say.
“Is this the way?” asked Maryllia, stepping lightly past the stuffed knight in armour; “Yes? I thought it was! I begin to remember everything now! Oh, how I wish I had never gone away from this dear old home!”
She entered the morning-room, guiding Mrs. Spruce, rather than being guided by her, — for as that worthy woman averred to Primmins at supper that self-same night: “I was so all in a tremble and puspration with ‘er ‘oldin’ on to my arm and takin’ me round, that I was like the man in the Testymen what had dumb devils, — and scarcely knew what ground my feet was a-fallin’ on!” The cheerful air of welcome which pervaded this charming, sunny apartment, with its lattice windows fronting the wide stretch of velvety lawn, terrace and park-land, delighted Maryllia, and she loosened her hold on Mrs. Spruce’s arm with a little cry of pleasure, as a huge magnificently coated Newfoundland dog rose from his recumbent position near the window, and came to greet her with slow and expansive waggings of his great plumy tail.
“Plato, my beauty!” she exclaimed; “How do you like Abbot’s Manor, boy? Eh? Quite at home, aren’t you! Good dog! Isn’t he a king of dogs?” And she turned her smiling face on Mrs. Spruce. “A real king! I bought him because he was so big! Weren’t you frightened when you saw such a monster? — and didn’t you think he would bite everybody on the least provocation? But he wouldn’t, you know! He’s a perfect darling — as gentle as a lamb! He would kill anyone that wanted to hurt me — oh, yes of course! — that’s why I love him!”
And she patted the enormous creature’s broad head tenderly.
“He’s my only true friend!” she continued; “Money wouldn’t buy HIS fidelity!” Here, glancing at Mrs. Spruce, she laughed merrily. “Dear Mrs. Spruce! You DO look so uncomfortable! — so — so warm! It IS warm, isn’t it? Make me some tea! — tea cools one, they say, though it’s hot to drink at first. We’ll talk afterwards!”
Mrs. Spruce, with inaudible murmurings, hastened to the tea-tray, and tried to compose her agitated nerves by bringing her attention to bear on the silver tea-kettle which Primmins had just brought in, and in which the water was beginning to bubble, in obedience to the newly-kindled flame of the spirit-lamp beneath.
Maryllia, meanwhile, stepped out on the grass terrace in front of the window, with the dog Plato at her side, and looked long and earnestly at the fair stretch of woodland scenery before her. While she thus stood absorbed, Mrs. Spruce stole covert glances at her with increased wonder and bewilderment. She looked much younger than her twenty-seven years, — her childlike figure and face portrayed her as about eighteen, not more. She stood rather under than over the medium height of woman, — yet she gave the impression of being taller than she actually was, owing to the graceful curve of her arched neck, which rose from her shoulders with a daintily-proud poise, marking her demeanour as exceptional and altogether different to that of ordinary women. Her back being turned to Mrs. Spruce for the moment, that sagacious dame decided that she was ‘real stately, for all that she was small,’ and also noted that her hair, coiled loosely in a thick knot, which pushed itself with rebellious fulness beyond the close-fitting edge of the dark straw hat she wore, was of a warm auburn gold, rippling here and there into shades of darker brown. Suddenly, with a decided movement, she turned from the terrace and re-entered the morning-room.
“Tea ready?” she asked.
“Yes, ma’am! — yes, miss — my lady — it’s just made — perhaps it’s best to let it draw a bit—”
“I don’t like it strong!” said Maryllia, sitting down, and leisurely taking off her hat; “And you mustn’t call me ‘my lady.’ I’m not the daughter of an earl, or the wife of a knight. If I were Scotch, I might say ‘I’m Mclntosh of Mclntosh’; or some other Mac of Mac, — but being English, I’m Vancourt of Vancourt! And you must call me ‘Miss,’ till I become ‘Ma’am.’ I don’t want to bear any unnecessary dignities before my time! In fact, I think you’d better call me Miss Maryllia, as you used to do when my father was alive.”
“Very well, ma’am — miss — Miss Maryllia,” faltered Mrs. Spruce, fumbling distractedly with the tea-things, and putting cream and sugar recklessly into three or four cups without thinking; “There! Really, I don’t know what I am a-doin’ of — do you like cream and sugar, my dear? — beggin’ your parding — Miss Maryllia?”
“Yes, I like cream and sugar both,” replied the young lady with a mirthful gleam in her eyes, as she noted the old housekeeper’s confusion; “But don’t spoil the tea with either! If you put too much cream, you will make the tea cold, — if you put too much sugar, you will make it syrupy, — you must arrive at the juste milieu in a cup of tea! I am VERY particular!”
Poor Mrs. Spruce grew warmer and redder in the face than ever. What was the ‘juste milieu’? Often and often afterwards did she puzzle over that remarkable phrase.
“I think,” continued Maryllia, with a dimpling smile, “if you put one lump of sugar in the cup and two brimming tea-spoonfuls of cream, it will be exactly right!”
Gladly, and with relief, Mrs. Spruce obeyed these explicit instructions, and handed her new mistress the desired refreshment with assiduous and respectful care.
“You are a dear!” said Maryllia, lazily taking the cup from her hand; “Just the kindest and nicest of persons! And good-tempered? I am sure you are good-tempered, aren’t you?”
“Pretty well so, Miss,” responded Mrs. Spruce, now gaining courage to look at the fair smiling face opposite her own, more squarely and openly; “Leastways, I’ve been told I keeps my ‘ead under any amount of kitchen jawin’. For, as you may believe me, in a kitchen where there’s men as well as women, an’ a servants’ ‘All leadin’ straight through from the kitchen, jawin’ there is and jawin’ there must be, and such bein’ the Lord’s will, we must put up with it. But it wants a ‘ead to keep things straight, and I generally arranges pretty well, though I’ll not deny but I’m a bit flustered to-day, — howsomever, it will soon be all right, and any think that’s wrong, Miss, if you will be so good as to tell me—”
“I will!” said Maryllia, sweetly; and she leaned back in her chair, whimsically surveying the garrulous old dame with eyes which Mrs. Spruce then and there discovered to be ‘the most beautiful blue eyes ever seen,’— “I will tell you all I do like, and all I don’t like. I’m
sure we shall get on well together. The tea is perfect, — and this room is exquisite. In fact, everything is delightful, and I’m so happy to be in my own home once more! I wish I had never left it!”
Her eyes darkened suddenly, and she sighed. Mrs. Spruce watched her in submissive silence, realising as she gazed that Miss Maryllia was ‘a real beauty and no mistake.’ Why and how she came to that conclusion, she could not very well have explained. Her ideas of feminine loveliness were somewhat hazy and restricted. She privately considered her own girl, Kitty, ‘the handsomest lass in all the country-side’ and she had been known to bitterly depreciate what she called ‘the pink and white dolly-face’ of Susie Prescott, the acknowledged young belle of the village. But there was an indefinable air of charm about her new lady which was quite foreign to all her experience, — a bewildering grace and ease of manner arising from high education and social cultivation, that confused her and robbed her of all her usual self-sufficiency; and for once in her life she checked her customary volubility and decided that it was perhaps best to say as little as possible till she saw exactly how things were going to turn out. Miss Maryllia was very kind, — but who could tell whether she was not also capricious? There was something slightly quizzical as well as sweet in her smile, — something subtle — something almost mysterious. She had greeted her father’s old servant as affectionately as a child, — but her enthusiasm might be only temporary. So Mrs. Spruce vaguely reflected as she stood with her hands folded on her apron, waiting for the next word. That next word came with a startling suddenness.
“Oh, you wicked Spruce! How could you!”
And Maryllia, springing up from her chair, made a bound to the opposite corner of the room, where there was a tall vase filled with peacocks’ feathers. Gathering all these in her hand, she flourished them dramatically in the old housekeeper’s face.
“The most unlucky things in the world!” she exclaimed; “Peacocks’ feathers! How could you allow them to be in this room on the very day of my return! It’s dreadful! — quite dreadful! — you know it is! Nothing is quite so awful as a peacock’s feather!”
Mrs. Spruce stared, gasped and blinked, — her hand involuntarily wandered to her side in search for convenient ‘spasms.’
“They’ve always been ’ere, Miss,” she stammered; “I ‘adn’t no idee as ‘ow you wouldn’t like them, though to tell the truth, I ‘ave ‘eard somethin’ about their bein’ onlucky—”
“Unlucky! I should think so!” replied Maryllia, holding the objectionable plumes as far away from herself as possible,— “No wonder we’ve been unfortunate, if these feathers were always in the old house! No wonder everything went wrong! I must break the spell at once and for ever. Are there more of these horrible ‘witch-eyes’ in any of the rooms?”
Poor Mrs. Spruce made a great effort to cudgel her memory. She was affected by ‘a palpitation,’ as she expressed it. There was her newly-arrived mistress confronting her with the authoritative air of a young empress, holding the bunch of glittering peacocks’ plumes aloft, like a rod uplifted for summary chastisement, and asking her to instantly remember whether there were any more ‘horrible witch- eyes’ about. Mrs. Spruce had never before heard such a term applied to the tail-sheddings of the imperial fowl, — but she never forgot it, and never afterwards saw a peacock’s feather without a qualm.
“I couldn’t say, Miss; I’m not sure—” she answered flutteringly; “But I’ll have every ‘ole and corner searched to-morrow—”
“No, to-night!” said Maryllia, with determination; “I will not sleep in the house if ONE peacock’s feather remains in it! There!” Her brows were bent tragically; — in another moment she laughed; “Take them away!” she continued, picking up Mrs. Spruce’s apron at the corners and huddling all the glittering plumage into its capacious folds; “Take them all away! And go right through the house, and collect every remaining feather you can find — and then — and then—”
Here she paused dubiously. “You mustn’t burn them, you know! That would be unluckier still!”
“Lor! Would it now, Miss? I never should ‘ave thought it!” murmured Mrs. Spruce plaintively, grasping her apronful of ‘horrible witch- eyes’; “What on earth shall I do with them?”
Maryllia considered. Very pretty she looked at that moment, with one small finger placed meditatively on her lips, which were curved close like a folded rosebud. “You must either bury them, or drown them!” she said at last, with the gravest decision; “If you drown them, you must tie them to a stone, so that they will not float. If you bury them, you must dig ten feet deep! You must really! If you don’t, they will all come up again, and the eyes will be all over the place, haunting you!” Here she broke into the merriest little laugh possible. “Poor Spruce! You do look so miserable! See here — I’ll tell you what to do! Pack them ail in a box, and I will send them to my aunt Emily! She loves them! She likes to see them stuck all over the drawing-room. They’re never unlucky to her. She has a fellow-feeling for peacocks; there is a sort of affinity between herself and them! Pack up every feather you can find, Spruce! The box must go to-night by parcel’s post Address to Mrs. Fred Vancourt, at the Langham Hotel. She’s staying there just now. Will you be sure to send them off to-night?”
She held up her little white hand entreatingly, and her blue eyes wonderfully sweet and childlike, yet grave and passionate, looked straight into the elder woman’s wrinkled apple face.
“When she looked at me like that, I’d a gone barefoot to kingdom- come for her!” Mrs. Spruce afterwards declared to some of her village intimates— “And as for the peacocks’ feathers, I’d a scrubbed though the ‘ole ‘ouse from top to bottom afore I’d a let one be in it!”
To Maryllia she said:
“You may take my word for it, Miss! They’ll all go out of the ‘ouse ‘fore seven o’clock. I’ll send them myself to the post.”
“Thank you, so much!” said Maryllia, with a comical little sigh of relief. “And now, Spruce, I will go to my bedroom and lie down for an hour. I’m just a little tired. Have you managed to get a maid for me?”
“Well, Miss, there’s jest a gel-she don’t know anythink much, but she’s ‘andy and willin’ and ‘umble, and quick with her needle, and tidy at foldin’, and got a good character. She’s the best I could do, Miss. Her name is Nancy Pyrle — I’ll send her to you directly.”
“Yes, do!” answered Miss Vancourt, with a little yawn; “And show me to my rooms; — you prepared the ones I told you — my mother’s rooms?”
“Yes, Miss,” answered Mrs. Spruce in subdued accents; “I’ve made them all fresh and sweet and clean; but of course the furniture is left jest as it was when the Squire locked ’em all up after he lost his lady—”
Maryllia said nothing, but followed the housekeeper upstairs, the great dog Plato in attendance on her steps. On reaching the bedroom, hung with faded rose silk hangings, and furnished with sixteenth century oak, she looked at everything: with a curious wistfulness and reverence. Approaching the dressing-table, she glanced at her own reflection in the mirror; but fair as the reflection was that glanced back at her, she gave it no smile. She was serious and absorbed, and her eyes were clouded with a sudden mist of tears. Mrs. Spruce took the opportunity to slip away with her collection of peacocks’ feathers, and descended in haste to the kitchen, where for some time the various orders she issued caused much domestic perturbation, and fully expressed the chaotic condition of her own mind. The maid, Nancy Pyrle, was hustled off to ‘wait on Miss Vancourt upstairs, and don’t be clumsy with your ‘ands, whatever you do!’ — Primmins, the butler, was sent to remove the tea-things from the morning-room, — at which command he turned round somewhat indignantly, asking ‘who are you a-orderin’ of; don’t you think I know my business?’ — Spruce himself, unhappily coming by chance to the kitchen door to ask if it was really true that Miss Vancourt had arrived, was shrilly told to ‘go along and mind his own business,’ — and so it happened that when Bainton app
eared, charged with the Reverend John Walden’s message concerning the Five Sisters, he might as well have tried to obtain an unprepared audience with the King, as to see or speak with the lady of the Manor. Miss Vancourt had arrived — oh yes, she had certainly arrived, Mrs. Spruce told him, with much heat and energy; but she was tired and was lying down, and certainly could not be asked to see anyone, no matter what the business was. And to make things more emphatic, at the very time that Bainton was urging his cause, and Mrs. Spruce was firmly rejecting it, Nancy Pyrle came down from attendance on her mistress and said that Miss Vancourt was going to sleep a little, and she did not wish to be disturbed till she rang her bell.
“Oh, and she’s beautiful!” said Nancy, drawing a long breath,— “and so very kind! She showed me how to do all she wanted — and was that patient and gentle! She says I’ll make quite a good maid after a bit!”
“Well, I hope to the Lord you will!” said Mrs. Spruce with a sniffy “For it’s a chance in a ‘undred, comin’ straight out of the village to a first situation with, a lady like Miss Vancourt. And I ‘ope you’ll profit by it! And if you ‘adn’t taken the prize for needlework in the school, you wouldn’t ‘ave ‘ad it, so now you sees what good it does to serve your elders when you’re young.” Here she turned to Bainton, who was standing disconsolately half in and half out of the kitchen doorway. “I’m real sorry, Mr. Bainton, that you can’t see our lady, more ‘specially as you wishes to give a message from Passon Walden himself — but you jest go back and tell ’im ‘ow it is; — Miss Vancourt is restin’ and can’t be disturbed nohow.”
Bainton twirled his cap nervously in his hand.
“I s’pose no one couldn’t say to her quiet-like as ‘ow the Five Sisters be chalked?—”
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.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 598
