It did not take a day to find out that Knowes was not interesting, except when one saw it from the park, a red brick bulk hidden among trees, suggesting solidity and repose, and leading one to think of all sorts of national virtues that would suitably go with it. Nevertheless it yielded, under Lady Lippington’s practised hand, a great deal of instruction. I am sure I missed nothing, no ancestor and no episode; the day, as I look back upon it, seems full of the history of very worthy people in archaic clothes. I don’t think Lady Lippington had much imagination, and all this moral possession in the past seemed to stand her in stead of it; she drew real happiness and virtue from it. She was most considerate, too, dear Lady Lippington—insisted on one’s lying down at intervals, and not beginning again immediately after lunch. Graham had gone off with our host to inspect a newly-opened mound or barrow in the neighbourhood—we found that Lord Lippington in his mild way was an enthusiastic archæologist—the Pedlingtons had driven to a meet a dozen miles away, and Billy had departed early to look for rabbits, so there was nobody to come between me and the full value of the experience.
Our hostess and Billy Milliken and Graham and I were the party next day for Pavis Court.
“We mustn’t come down upon the poor things in a cloud, like locusts or trippers,” Mrs. Jarvis said, in announcing her intention to stay where she was. Lord Lippington found an excuse, and so did the Pedlingtons. There seemed to be a general desire to spare Pavis Court, as far as possible, the embarrassment of guests, and Lady Lippington wished openly that she could bring the whole party there back with her.
Billy drove Graham in the dog-cart, leaving the landau luxuriously for Lady Lippington and me. I wanted to arrive with Graham. I simply didn’t want him out of my sight at such a crucial moment as I had the presentiment that this would be. But I had to let him go, speeding along ahead, with Billy, to his fate. When they disappeared in a curve of the road I resigned him, and gave all my attention to Pavis Court in the dead old past, with special reference to the date at which the Lippingtons had become connected with the family. Lady Lippington produced fact after fact, tradition after tradition, some splendid, some tarnished, all wearing the dignity of long perspective. They were heavy with significance, with indestructible importance, but they somehow would not weigh enough for me—no, they would not—when I put them, foolishly and secretly, behind all my exclamations of admiration and assent, into the balance against Graham’s heart.
A grey tower came between some trees. I grasped Lady Lippington’s hand. I had to grasp something. “There!” I cried.
“Yes,” said Lady Lippington, “that’s the Archbishop’s tower—built by one of the Archbishops of York in the reign of Henry the Eighth. You see, it is machicolated. The other—you can see it now—and the connecting portal, was added by the first Earl of Doleford, about fifty years later. But the house itself dates from Edward the Fourth.”
I think that is what she said; but I was wildly looking, trying, as we say, to take it in. The two grey towers looked lonely and withdrawn and forgotten, as if nobody had time now to listen to what they had to say. They seemed so long shorn of circumstance as no longer even to expect it; they retired before one’s eyes into the past. We could see them all the way from the park gates, and if I am not able to relate any more of Lady Lippington’s conversation, it is because they made it impossible to hear anything she said. I did not in the least know what to think about them—Graham would have to tell me—but I wanted to get out and walk.
CHAPTER XVIII
WE alighted before the portal, and Lady Lippington looked about her. “He’s gone, too!” she said, and sighed.
“Who is gone?” I asked.
“Oh, only an old man who used to be in attendance here. When there was a visitors’ book he had charge of it—and he always opened the gates.”
“But the gates are open,” I said.
“Yes, they are open,” Lady Lippington replied, and sighed again. “Poor old Andrew. It would break his heart to go.”
“But then—this isn’t it!” I exclaimed, as we went through into a grassy quadrangle.
“Isn’t what—the house? Oh, no! child. We shall come to the house presently. People had to defend themselves in those days,” said Lady Lippington, and led the way across a paved walk that took us under another portal, into a stone court, and then indeed I saw the house, but no trace of Graham. I felt as if the house had swallowed him up, as indeed it had. What lives and hearts and fortunes had it not already devoured, that old exquisite stone house! And all with what an air of detachment, almost of irony, before such sacrifices to its uplifted ideal, an air that said: “What are your foolish human complications to me? I have to do with beauty, not at all with you.”
“I needn’t say,” said Lady Lippington, as we walked across the sunken flags to the door, “that this wasn’t built by an amateur.”
“No,” I said, staring; “you needn’t say it.”
It just caught and seized and possessed one; there was nothing for anybody to say. It put out a wonderful old claim which one answered instantly with love. It was as indifferent as you like, the austere curved gables hardly lifted an eyelid, the single stone rose-wreath that festooned the arms over the door hardly smiled, the narrow paved windows looked dimly into the past alone; but tenderness and worship it would have, the old grey thing, while one stone stood upon another.
“How simple it is!” I said, and Lady Lippington replied:
“Yes, Tudor is simple. All this part is Henry the Eighth.”
My heart sang for a moment, in the joy of it, and then went mute with the thought of Graham, giving him up for lost, and we went in.
“Tea is in the banquetin’-’all, my lady,” said the servant who admitted us.
“Is it, William?” said Lady Lippington, with surprise.
“Yes, m’lady. There’s a good fire, m’lady,” the man replied, and opened a door close to us. There it was, the banqueting-hall of the early reigns of English history; one would have recognised it in the planet of heaven. There they were, its inheritors, Lady Doleford, Captain Lord Doleford, Lady Barbara; there were Graham and Billy; there was Lord Scansby; and there, seated in the midst of them all and plainly a little disconcerting, was the Duchess of Dulwich.
There was a fire—a big one—in the wide mouth of the chimney, and rugs on the stone floor, and Barbara was administering some lovely tea-things, yet the occasion did not seem quite normal, or altogether comfortable. The wicker chairs looked as if they had been brought in out of the garden; the Jacobean chest Billy was sitting on had not the air of being put to that purpose every day; the footman came in with a fire-screen, as if it had been forgotten. Lady Doleford, too, had a funny little unusual air of enterprise, which was dashed whenever she met the Duchess’s eye. Then she would smile brightly, poor Lady Doleford, and at once relapse into the anxious, slightly furtive, and conscience-stricken expression, with which as a rule she considered life.
“I can’t help thinking, Cecilia,” the Duchess was telling her, “that we should all have been more comfortable in the drawing-room, as usual. Fortunately I myself am not subject to colds; but with your bronchitic tendency ”
“We thought,” faltered Lady Doleford,” it would be more amusing, perhaps, for our young Canadian friends.”
“Oh, and for us all, please!” Lady Lippington supported her. “I call it a delightful idea. I shall have two cups and a large piece of plum-cake to celebrate the occasion. Is that Mrs. Webb’s noble effort?”
“It’s from Bunn’s in the village, Margot darling,” said our truth-telling hostess. “Webb, you know, is ”
“To be sure she is; I remember!” said Lady Lippington hastily. “Well, I wish we had a Bunn for emergencies. But, Agnes”—she turned to the Duchess—“were we expecting this pleasure? I thought you were at Coldcoombe.”
“You were quite right; I was, until this morning. I am now on my way to town and from there to Brighton, for Broad’s sake. Broad, you know,
has been having influenza—his second attack in eighteen months, but very patient, poor fellow—and the doctor advises Brighton to put him quite on his legs again. So he is taking the motor down to-day. He’s quite up to his work, you know, and such a devoted, faithful soul, so I said to him: ‘Broad, I think a little sun and sea air would do us all good.’ He was so grateful, poor Broad.”
“I should think he might be. You spoil your servants, Agnes,” said Lady Lippington.
“So people tell me. But they seem none the worse for it,” said the Duchess cheerfully. “Then the bright idea struck me—why not pop in upon Cecilia for a day or two on the way? Sol telegraphed asking for a night’s lodging or so—she has thirteen more bedrooms than I have, so I made pretty sure—and here I am!”
And there she was, unmistakably in command. They are great usurpers of authority in a family, Duchesses. Evelyn was more than usually quiescent in her neighbourhood; Barbara was positively plaintive. Only Peter seemed in his usual spirits. Peter held his own upon his ancestral hearthstone as if he had received reinforcements. I would not imply that he needed them, but I suppose such things are never unwelcome, especially in dealing with disturbances of morals. He was particularly polite to Evelyn, who chaffed him, when the Duchess was not listening, unmercifully; it was her way, I suppose, of asserting sentimental independence. I thought, as I observed, that she needn’t have done it; nobody would have supposed her involved in any way that mattered. I could have told her fifty things that she ought to feel before she need give herself a moment’s apprehension about her situation, but there was, of course, the look of it; and Evelyn was always a good deal concerned with that. So she fenced with Lord Doleford as if it were all an excellent joke, quite worth going through with on its comic merits; and he was as gallant, on his part, as anybody could possibly desire who was not in love with him. Lady Doleford now and then gave them a glance full of hope and patience and misunderstanding, like a hen who knew how much allowance must be made for ducklings, and was prepared, for an American duckling, to make even more.
I quite started when Lord Doleford suddenly addressed me from behind my chair. He had come round there apparently to sit down on the edge of the daϊs which used to raise his forefathers about eight inches above their retainers at meal times. He got up in a moment, to bring me some more tea, and when he had brought it, sat down again in exactly the same place.
“I hope you are coming out with us to-morrow,” he said.
“Yes,” I said, “I am to. Lord Lippington doesn’t know about my following—it will be my very first meet, you know; but he has promised to mount us both. I am to have Cerberus. I’ve been making friends with him already this morning.”
“Oh, but you must follow! Rather,” said Lord Doleford. “Look here—I’ll take the responsibility! Your first meet, and not follow! That’s a rotten idea. And old Cerberus is as steady as a rock—just put him in charge, you know, don’t fiddle about with his mouth too much; and he’ll never bring you to grief. There isn’t horse in the county I’d sooner trust you to.”
“He was very nice to me this morning,” I said. “I told him I was a stranger, and didn’t know a foot of the country; and he intimated that it would be all right.”
“Good horse! And where, may I ask, have you been all this long time? We haven’t met since—since ”
“Since the Gayworthys’ concert,” I reminded him.
“Yes we did—once. You didn’t meet, but I did. In the Park, about a quarter-past six one afternoon just before Christmas. You were walking west with your brother, and he was laying down the law about something, at a fearful rate.”
“He does sometimes. I wonder what it was,” I said.
“Where did you spend Christmas?”
“Nowhere. In the flat. By ourselves,” I said. “And Evelyn came to dinner.”
“I call that luck for Evelyn.”
“I don’t think she did!” I laughed.
This little talk looks almost too simple to put down. I hesitate for another reason as well; it seems too intimate. If I withstand these scruples it is for the pleasure of remembering and describing, at the risk of being foolish or being bold, the first conversation I ever had with Peter which was quite comfortable on my part, and flowed happily to the end.
“Do you know,” he said—I mention this just to show his dear friendliness—“I think England is doing you good. I think, if you don’t mind my saying so, you have much more colour than you had.”
“Well, when one enjoys every single minute,” I said, “it ought to improve one’s complexion.”
“I didn’t mean ”
“I know you didn’t, but I do. I never had any; but in England one would be ashamed not to. It would be unpatriotic,” I said.
“You like the old place, too, then,” said Peter, as if I were to be admired for liking it. “I know Trent does.”
“What old place? Oh—England! I think it’s nearer heaven than any other country. And I think if it weren’t for the fogs you would all see that it was.”
“Perhaps it is—to look at,” he said, and sighed. “I sometimes envy people who are free to come and look at it.”
“No—to feel—with the kind of feeling one has for what is one’s own. Who could feel more about anything, for instance, than this?” and I glanced around me.
“I could,” he said, as if he were at that moment convinced of it. “Not about many things, but certainly one or two. Am I a monster?”
“It depends, I think, upon what the one or two things are,” I said; and after I said it both Lord Doleford’s eyes and mine at once turned, as if for illustration, upon Evelyn Dicey. It seemed a coincidence, when our glances again met, that left no need for further explanation; and we had an instant of very good understanding in silence. There was no time for more, even if more had been possible. Lady Doleford was leading the way to the State apartments, and the Duchess, whose interested eyes I had already felt upon me several times, was saying: “Come, Miss Canada, and see Anne Boleyn’s sitting-room. Go on, Cecilia. Peter shall take care of me.”
So we began a walk back into English history, through the old brown oak-panelled corridors and galleries of the Earls of Doleford. They were all there, the stout earls, each in his humour as he was painted, and many of the kings their masters. More than one of these had been painted in the house during a royal visit, and under the portrait of the first King Charles stood the rusty velvet-covered chair he sat in to the artist. There was his bed, too, with the royal arms, all canopied in tarnished tissue of gold and silver, of which Lady Doleford told us sadly that it was said to have cost five thousand pounds. There were royal gifts, too, for household purposes—silver door-handles and sconces, cabinets and ivories. Lady Doleford had an unending fund of information about it all; and where she hesitated she turned to Evelyn, who was always prompt, and once or twice put her right, for which Lady Doleford gratefully thanked her. The first time this happened the Duchess looked apoplectic; the second time she contradicted Evelyn flat.
“It was Maurice, the third Earl, not Robert, that ran away with Elizabeth’s French lady-in-waiting,” she said, with authority. “It is very wonderful of you, Miss Dicey, and most clever, to know so much about it; but you are wrong there. Elizabeth was very fond of Maurice and thought the Beaufoy not a proper match for him. It’s a good thing those old-fashioned friends of the family are dead, I sometimes think.”
“Sorry, Aunt Agnes,” said Peter, “but I am afraid Miss Dicey is right—it was Robert. I was showing her Queen Elizabeth’s letter to him only this morning—scolding old cat!”
Peter was the only member of the family who did not invariably defer to the Duchess, and on this occasion he took the liberty of being distinctly angry with her. A line came in the middle of his forehead that made him look amusingly like Robert, on the wall, who seemed to have been painted in the act of defying his Sovereign. His aunt, Duchess and all as she was, saw that he took his male privilege of putting her in her plac
e, and permitted herself to be put there.
“Really?” she said. “Well, well! I apologise, Miss Dicey. I apologise.” But Evelyn made no more general contributions to the family history of the Pavisays. She did not shut herself into the oratory, however, and pray for help to bear it, as I think I would have done. She showed, instead, a high magnanimity.
“The poor dear Duchess,” she said to me, as we drifted along, “suffers terribly from arthritis. I’m afraid it’s pretty bad to-day;” and I found nothing wherewith to reply. There are some kinds of misfortune which words would only seem to aggravate. But Peter the present Earl continued to behave as if Evelyn were by far the most distinguished and interesting authority upon English history in the party; and his aunt the Duchess had to put up with it.
“Isn’t it magnificent?” said Evelyn to me as we lingered for an instant in the fragrance of the big Chinese bowls of pot-pourri in the china closet, “the way they have kept it all together! Of course, everything has been mortgaged for years, but in the time before that it must have been a fearful temptation to let things go piecemeal once the entail was broken. They tell weird tales of the bluffs Lady Doleford put up to get rid of the picture-dealers the Earl used to send here. It’s too tragic, simply, that they should have to give it all up. I think it will kill Lady Doleford. I don’t think she’ll survive it, really. A horrible person came from town yesterday to arrange to verify the inventory of the furniture, and this morning at breakfast she looked like a spectre.”
“It seems extraordinary,” I said, “that with so many relations—— Couldn’t Lord Scansby do anything?”
“They have all of them their own complications,” said Evelyn darkly, “and his have been the worst of all. He is just out of them, at fifty-two, with seven hundred a year. When he’s Duke of Dulwich he’ll have a little over three thousand less the death-duties, and Coldcoombe, which costs at least that. It’s too stupid!” Evelyn reflected aloud.
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