God's Good Man Part 16

"Tu m'aimes, cherie?

Dites-moi!

Seulement un pet.i.t '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 gra.s.s, 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 pa.s.sed 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 Vand.y.k.es 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.bler 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 all 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 un.o.bserved 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!"

The moon, rose higher and shed a shower of silver over the gra.s.s, lighting up in strong relief the fair face upturned to it.

"Now the 'Souls' pretend to have ideas," continued Maryllia, still apostrophising the bland stillness; "But their ideas are low,-- decidedly low,--and decidedly queer. And that Cabinet Ministers are in their set doesn't make them any the better. I could have been a 'Soul' if I had liked. I could have learnt a lot of wicked secrets from the married peer who wanted to be my 'affinity,'--only I wouldn't. I could have got all the Government 'tips,' gambled with them on the Stock Exchange, and made quite a fortune as a 'Soul.'

Yet here I am,--no 'Soul,'--but only a poor little body, with something in me that asks for a higher flight than mere social intrigue. Just a bit of a higher flight, eh, Plato? What do you think about it?"

Plato the leonine, waved his plumy tail responsively and gently rubbed his great head against her arm. Resting one hand lightly on his neck, she moved towards the house and slowly ascended the graduating slopes of the gra.s.s terrace. Here she was suddenly met by Primmins.

"Beg your pardon, Miss," he said, with an apologetic air, "but there's an old man from the village come up to see you--a very old man,--he's had to be carried in a chair, and it's took a couple of men nigh an hour and a half to bring him along. He says he knew you years ago--I hardly like to send him away--"

"Certainly not!--of course you mustn't send him away," said Maryllia, quickening her steps; "Poor old dear! Where is he?"

"In the great, hall, Miss. They brought him through the courtyard and got him in there, before I had time to send them round to the back entrance."

Maryllia entered the house. There she was met by Mrs. Spruce, with uplifted hands.

"Well, it do beat me altogether, Miss," she exclaimed, "as to how these silly men, my 'usband, too, one of the silliest, beggin' your parding, could bring that poor old Josey Letherbarrow up here all this way! And he not toddled beyond the church this seven or eight years! And it's all about those blessed Five Sisters they've come, though I told 'em you can't nohow be worrited and can't see no one-- "

"But I can!" said Maryllia decisively; "I can see anyone who wishes to see me, and I will. Let me pa.s.s, Mrs. Spruce, please!"

Mrs. Spruce, thus abruptly checked, stood meekly aside, controlling her desire to pour forth fresh remonstrances at the unseemliness of any person or persons intruding upon the lady of the Manor at so late an hour in the evening as half-past nine o'clock. Maryllia hastened into the hall and there found an odd group awaiting her, composed of three very odd-looking personages,--much more novel and striking in their oddity than anything that could have been presented to her view in the social whirl of Paris and London. Josey Letherbarrow was the central figure, seated bolt upright in a cane arm-chair, through the lower part of which a strong pole had been thrust, securely nailed and clamped, as well as tied in a somewhat impromptu fashion with clothes-line. This pole projected about two feet on either side of the chair to accommodate the bearers, namely Spruce and Bainton, who, having set their burden down, were now wiping their hot faces and perspiring brows with flagrantly coloured handkerchiefs of an extra large size. As Maryllia appeared, they abruptly desisted from this occupation and remained motionless, stricken with sudden confusion and embarra.s.sment. Not so old Josey, for with unexpected alacrity he got out of his chair and stood upright, supporting himself on his stick, and doffing his old straw hat to the light girlish figure that approached him with the grace of kindliness and sympathy expressed in its every movement.

"There she be!" he exclaimed; "There be the little gel wot I used to know when she was a babby, G.o.d bless 'er! Jes' the same eyes and 'air and purty face of 'er! Welcome 'ome to th' owld Squire's daughter, mates! D'ye 'ear me!" And he turned a dim rolling eye of command on Spruce and Bainton--"I sez welcome 'ome! And when I sez it I'spect it to be said arter me by the both of ye,--welcome 'ome!"

Spruce, unable to hear a word of this exordium, smiled sheepishly,-- and twirling the cap he held, put his coloured handkerchief into it and squeezed it tightly within the lining. Bainton, with the impending fate of the Five Sisters in view, judged it advisable not to irritate or disobey the old gentleman whom he had brought forward as special pleader in the case, and gathering his wits together he spoke out bravely.

"Welcome 'ome, it is, Josey!" he said; "We both sez it, and we both means it! And we 'opes the young lady will not take it amiss as 'ow we've come to see 'er on the first night of 'er return, and wish 'er 'appy in the old 'ouse and long may she remain in it!"

Here he broke off, his eloquence being greatly disturbed by the gracious smile Maryllia gave him.

"Thank you so much!" she murmured sweetly; and then going up to Josey Letherbarrow, she patted the brown wrinkled hand that grasped the stick. "How kind and good of you to come and see me! And so you knew me when I was a little girl? I hope I was nice to you! Was I?"

Josey waved his straw hat speechlessly. His first burst of enthusiasm over, he was somewhat dazed, and a little uncertain as to how he should next proceed with his mission,

"Tell 'er as 'ow the Five Sisters be chalked;" growled Bainton in an undertone.

But Josey's mind had gone wandering far afield, groping amid memories of the past, and his aged eyes were fixed on Maryllia with a strange look of wonder and remembrance commingled.

"Th' owld Squire! Th' owld Squire!" he muttered; "I see 'im now--as broad an' tall and well-set up a gentleman as ever lived--and sez he: 'Josey, that little white thing is all I've got left of the wife I was bringin' 'ome to be the sunshine of the old Manor.' Ay, he said that! 'Its eyes are like those of my Dearest!' Ay, he said that, too! The little white thing! She's 'ere,--and th' owld Squire's gone!"

The pathos of his voice struck Maryllia to the heart,--and for the moment she could not keep back a few tears that gathered, despite herself, and glistened on her long lashes. Furtively she dashed them away, but not before Bainton had seen them.

"Well, arter all, Josey's nothin' but a meanderin' old idgit!" he thought angrily: "'Ere 'ave I been an' took 'im for a wise man wot would know exackly 'ow to begin and ask for the sparin' of the old trees, and if he ain't gone on the wrong tack altogether and made the poor little lady cry! I think I'll do a bit of this business myself while I've got the chance--for if I don't, ten to one he'll be tellin' the story of the wopses' nest next, and a fine oncommon show we'll make of ourselves 'ere with our manners." And he coughed loudly--"Ahem! Josey, will you tell Miss Vancourt about the Five Sisters, or shall I?"

Maryllia glanced from one to the other in bewilderment.

"The Five Sisters!" she echoed; "Who are they?"

Here Spruce imagined, as he often did, that he had been asked a question.

"Such were our orders from Mr. Leach," he said, in his quiet equable voice; "We's to be there to-morrow marnin' quarter afore six with ropes and axes."

"Ropes and axes shall not avail against the finger of the Lord, or the wrath of the Almighty!" said Josey Letherbarrow, suddenly coming out of his abstraction; "And if th' owld Squire were alive he wouldn't have had 'em touched--no, not he! He'd ha' starved sooner!

And if the Five Sisters are laid low, the luck of the Manor will lay low with 'em! But it's not too late--not too late!"--and he turned his face, now alive in its every feature with strong emotion, to Maryllia--"Not too late if the Squire's little gel is still her father's pride and glory! And that's what I've come for to the Manor this night,--I ain't been inside the old 'ouse for this ten 'ear or more, but they's brought me,--me--old Josey,--stiff as I am, and failin' as I am, to see ye, my dear little gel, and ask ye for G.o.d's love to save the old trees wot 'as waved in the woodland free and wild for 'undreds o' years, and wot deserves more grat.i.tude from Abbot's Manor than killin' for long service!"

He began to tremble with nervous excitement, and Maryllia put her hand soothingly on his arm.