The Mating of Lydia Part 52

In Melrose's inhuman will there was something demonic, which appalled.

The impotence of justice, of compa.s.sion, in the presence of certain shameless and insolent forces of the human spirit--the lesson goes deep!

Victoria quivered under it.

But there were other elements besides in her tumult of feeling. The tone, the taunting look, with which Melrose had spoken of Faversham's possible marriage--did he, did all the world know, that Harry had been played with and jilted? For that, in plain English, was what it came to. Her heart burnt with anger--with a desire to punish.

The car pa.s.sed out of the lodge gates. Its brilliant lamps under the trees seemed to strike into the very heart of night. And suddenly, in the midst of the light they made, two figures emerged, an old man carrying a sack, a youth beside him, with a gun over his shoulder.

They were the Brands--father, and younger son. Victoria bent forward with a hasty gesture of greeting. But they never turned to look at the motor.

They pa.s.sed out of the darkness, and into the darkness again, their frowning, unlovely faces, their ragged clothes and stooping gait, illuminated for an instant.

Victoria had tried that very week, at her son's instance, to try and persuade the father to take a small farm on the Duddon estate, Tatham offering to lend him capital. And Brand had refused. Independence, responsibility, could no longer be faced by a spirit so crushed. "I darena' my lady," he had said to her. "I'm worth n.o.bbut my weekly wage. I canna' tak' risks--no more. Thank yo' kindly; but yo' mun let us be!"

XVII

On the morning following her vain interview with Melrose, Victoria, sorely conscious of defeat, conveyed the news of it to the depressed and disprited Netta.

They were in Victoria's sitting-room. Netta sat, a lamentable figure, on the edge of the sofa, twisting her disfigured hands, her black eyes glancing restlessly about her. Ever since she had read Faversham's letter to Tatham she had been an altered being. The threats as to her father, which it contained, seemed to have withered her afresh. All that small and desperate flicker of hope in which she had arrived had died away, and her determination with it. Her consent to Victoria's interview with Melrose had been only obtained from her with difficulty. And now she was all for retreat--precipitate retreat.

"It's no use. I was a fool to come. We must go back. I always told Felicia it would be no use. We'd better not have come. I'll not have papa tormented!"

While she was speaking a footman entered, bringing a telegram for Victoria. It was from Tatham in London.

"Have just seen lawyers. They are of opinion we could not fail in application for proper allowance and provision for both mother and daughter. Hope you will persuade Mrs. Melrose to let us begin proceedings at once. Very sorry for your telegram this morning, but only what I expected."

Victoria read the message to her guest, and then did her best to urge boldness--an immediate stroke. But Netta shook her head despairingly. She could not and would not have her father hara.s.sed. Mr. Melrose would do anything--bribe anybody--to get his way. They would have the police coming, and dragging her father to prison. It was not to be thought of.

Victoria tried gently to investigate what skeleton might be lying in the Smeath closet, whereof Mr. Melrose possessed such very useful information. But Netta held her tongue. "Papa had been very unfortunate, and the Government would like to put him in prison if they could. Edmund had been always so cruel to him." Beyond this Victoria could not get.

But the determination of the frail, faded woman was unshakable, although she glanced nervously at her daughter from time to time, as if much more in dread of her opinion than of Victoria's.

Felicia, who had listened in silence to the conversation between her mother and Victoria, turned round from the window in which she was staring, as soon as Lady Tatham seemed to be finally worsted.

"Mother, you promised to stay here till Christmas!"

The voice was imperious. Felicia's manner to her mother indeed was often of an unfilial sharpness, and Victoria was already meditating some gentle discipline on the point.

"Oh, no, Felicia!" said Netta, helplessly, "not till Christmas." Then, remembering herself, she turned toward her hostess: "It's so kind of you, I'm sure."

"Yes, till Christmas!" repeated Felicia. "You know grandpapa's no worse.

You know," the girl flushed suddenly a bright crimson, "Lord Tatham sent him money--and he's quite comfortable. _I_ am not going home just yet! I am not going back to Italy--till--I have seen my father!"

She faced round upon Victoria and her mother, her hands on her hips, her breath fluttering.

"Felicia!" cried her mother, "you can't. I tell you--you can't! I should never allow it!"

"Yes, you would, mother! What are you afraid of? He can't kill me. It's ridiculous. I must see my father. I will! He is getting old--he may die.

I will see him before I leave England. I don't care whether he gives us the money or not!"

Victoria's bright eyes showed her sympathy; though she did not interfere.

But Netta shrank into herself.

"You are always such a wilful child, Felicia! You mustn't do anything without my leave. You'll kill me if you do."

And ashen-pale, she got up and left the room. Victoria glanced at Felicia.

"Don't do anything against your mother's will," she said gently. "You are too young to decide these things for yourself. But, if you can, persuade her to follow Lord Tatham's advice. He is most anxious to help you in the best way. And he does not believe that Mr. Melrose could hurt your grandfather."

Felicia shook her curly head, frowning.

"One cannot persuade mother--one cannot. She is obstinate--oh, so obstinate! If it were me, I would do anything Lord Tatham asked me!--anything in the world."

She stood with her hands behind her back, her slight figure drawn up, her look glowing.

Victoria bent over her embroidery, smiling a little, unseen, and, in truth, not ill pleased. Yet there was something disturbing in these occasional outbursts. For the little Southerner's own sake, one must take care they led to nothing serious. For really--quite apart from any other consideration--Harry never took the smallest notice of her. And who could know better than his mother that his thoughts were still held, still tormented by the vision of Lydia?

Felicia slipped out of a gla.s.s door that led to the columned veranda outside. Victoria, mindful of the girl's delicate look, hurried after her with a fur wrap. Felicia gratefully but absently kissed her hand, and Victoria left her to her own thoughts.

It was a sunny day, and although November was well in, there was almost an Italian warmth in this southern loggia where roses were still blooming. Felicia walked up and down, her gaze wandering over the mountain landscape to the south--the spreading flanks and slopes of the high fells, scarlet with withered fern, and capped with new-fallen snow. Through the distant landscape she perceived the line of the stream which ran under Flitterdale Common with its high cliff-banks, and hanging woods, now dressed in the last richness of autumn. That distant wall of trees--behind it, she knew, was Threlfall Tower. Her father--her unkind, miserly father, who hated both her and her mother--lived there.

How far was it? A long way! But she would get there somehow.

"It is my right to see my father!" she said to herself pa.s.sionately; adding with a laugh which swept away heroics, "After all, he might take a fancy to me in these clothes!"

And she looked down complacently on the pretty tailor-made skirt and the new shoes that showed beneath Victoria's fur cloak. In less than a fortnight her own ambition and the devotion of Victoria's maid, Hesketh, only too delighted to dress somebody so eager to be dressed, for whom the mere operations of the toilette possessed a kind of religious joy, on whom, moreover, "clothes" in the proper and civilized sense of the word, sat so amazingly well--had turned the forlorn little drudge into a figure more than creditable to the pains lavished upon her.

Felicia aimed high. The thought and trouble which the young lady had spent, since her arrival, on her hair, her hands, and the minor points of English manners, not to mention the padding and plumping of her small person--which in spite of all her efforts, however, remained of a most sylphlike slimness--by a generous diet of cream and b.u.t.ter, only she and Hesketh knew. Victoria guessed, and felt a new and most womanish pleasure in the details of her transformation. She realized, poignantly, how pleasant it would have been to dress and spoil a daughter.

All the more, as Felicia, after a first eager grasping at pretty things, as a child holds out covetous hands for toys and sweets, had shown sudden scruples, an unexpected and pretty recoil.

"Don't give me so many things!" she had said, almost with a stamp, the sudden, astonishing tears in her great eyes; when, after the first week, the new clothes began to shower upon her. "I can't help wanting them! I adore them! But I won't be a beggar--no! You will think we only came here for this--to get things out of you. We didn't--we _didn't_.'"

"My dear, won't you give me the pleasure?" Victoria had said, shamefacedly, putting out a hand to stroke the girl's hair. Whereupon Felicia had thrown herself impulsively on her knees, with her arms round the speaker, and there had been a mingled moment of laughter and emotion which had left Victoria very much astonished at herself, and given Hesketh a free hand. Victoria's solitary pursuits, the awkward or stately reserve of her ordinary manner, were deplorably interfered with, indeed, by the advent of this lovely, neglected child, who on her side had fallen pa.s.sionately in love with Victoria at first sight and seemed to be now rarely happy out of her company.

After which digression we may return for a moment to Felicia on the loggia, admiring her new shoes.

From that pa.s.sing ecstasy, she emerged resolved.

"We will stay here till Christmas--and--"

But on the rest of her purpose she shut her small lips firmly. Before she turned indoors, however, she gave some attention to the course of a white road in the middle distance, on which she had travelled with Lord Tatham the day he had taken her to Green Cottage. The cottage where the yellow-haired girl lived lay beyond that nearer hill. Ah! but n.o.body spoke of that yellow-haired girl now. n.o.body sent flowers or books.

n.o.body so much as mentioned her name. It was strange--but singularly pleasing. Felicia raised herself triumphantly on tiptoe, as though she would peer over the hill into the cottage; and so see for herself how the Signorina Penfold took this sudden and complete neglect.

Tatham returned from London the following day, bringing Cyril Boden--who was again on the sick list--with him.

He arrived full of plans for the discomfiture of Melrose, only to be brought up irrevocably against the stubborn resolve which Netta, wrapped in an irritable and tearful melancholy, opposed to them all. She would not hear of the legal proceedings he urged upon her; and it was only on an a.s.surance that nothing could or would be done without her consent, coupled with a good report of her father, that she at last consented to stay at Duddon till the New Year, so that further ways of helping her might be discussed.