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diff --git a/75506-0.txt b/75506-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..4424dc0 --- /dev/null +++ b/75506-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,20018 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75506 *** + + + + + + Transcriber’s Note + Italic text displayed as: _italic_ + + + + + ASPHODEL + + A Novel + + BY THE AUTHOR OF + + “LADY AUDLEY’S SECRET,” “ISHMAEL,” + + ETC. ETC. + + Stereotyped Edition + + LONDON: + + SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT & CO., LIMITED, + + STATIONERS’ HALL COURT + + 1890. + + [_All rights reserved_] + + + + +MISS BRADDON’S NOVELS. + +NOW READY AT ALL BOOKSELLERS’ AND BOOKSTALLS, PRICE 2_s._ 6_d._ EACH, +CLOTH GILT. + +THE AUTHOR’S AUTOGRAPH EDITION OF MISS BRADDON’S NOVELS. + + +“No one can be dull who has a novel by Miss Braddon in hand. The +most tiresome journey is beguiled, and the most wearisome illness is +brightened, by any one of her books.” + +“Miss Braddon is the Queen of the circulating libraries.” + + _The World._ + + + LONDON: + SIMPKIN & CO., LIMITED, + STATIONERS’ HALL COURT. + _And at all Railway Bookstalls, Booksellers’, and Libraries._ + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAP. PAGE + + I. ‘AND SHE WAS FAIR AS IS THE ROSE IN MAY’ 5 + + II. ‘AND THIS WAS GLADLY IN THE EVENTIDE’ 15 + + III. ‘AND VOLATILE, AS AY WAS HIS USAGE’ 25 + + IV. ‘CURTEIS SHE WAS, DISCRETE, AND DEBONAIRE’ 41 + + V. ‘THOU LOVEST ME, THAT WOT I WEL CERTAIN’ 52 + + VI. ‘LOVE MAKETH ALL TO GONE MISWAY’ 64 + + VII. ‘HIS HERTE BATHED IN A BATH OF BLISSE’ 78 + + VIII. ‘GOD WOTE THAT WORLDLY JOY IS SONE AGO’ 89 + + IX. ‘OF COLOUR PALE AND DEAD WAS SHE’ 101 + + X. ‘AND SPENDING SILVER HAD HE RIGHT YNOW’ 111 + + XI. ‘YEVE ME MY DETH, OR THAT I HAVE A SHAME’ 123 + + XII. ‘AND TO THE DINNER FASTE THEY HEM SPEDDE’ 133 + + XIII. ‘AFTER MY MIGHT FUL FAYNE WOLD I YOU PLESE’ 144 + + XIV. ‘LOVE IS A THING, AS ANY SPIRIT, FREE’ 154 + + XV. ‘NOT FOR YOUR LINAGE, NE FOR YOUR RICHESSE’ 165 + + XVI. ‘NO MAN MAY ALWAY HAVE PROSPERITEE’ 174 + + XVII. ‘AND IN MY HERTE WONDREN I BEGAN’ 184 + + XVIII. ‘LOVE WOL NOT BE CONSTREINED BY MAISTRIE’ 194 + + XIX. ‘I DEME THAT HIRE HERTE WAS FUL OF WO’ 205 + + XX. ‘AL SODENLY SHE SWAPT ADOWN TO GROUND’ 216 + + XXI. ‘FOR WELE OR WO, FOR CAROLE, OR FOR DAUNCE’ 227 + + XXII. ‘FOR I WOL GLADLY YELDEN HIRE MY PLACE’ 239 + + XXIII. ‘AND COME AGEN, BE IT BY DAY OR NIGHT’ 250 + + XXIV. ‘AY FLETH THE TIME, IT WOL NO MAN ABIDE’ 260 + + XXV. ‘BUT I WOT BEST WHER WRINGETH ME MY SHO’ 271 + + XXVI. ‘FORBID A LOVE AND IT IS TEN TIMES SO WODE’ 285 + + XXVII. ‘I MAY NOT DON AS EVERY PLOUGHMAN MAY’ 295 + + XXVIII. ‘LOVE IS NOT OLD, AS WHAN THAT IT IS NEW’ 305 + + XXIX. ‘I MEANE WELL, BY GOD THAT SIT ABOVE’ 319 + + XXX. ‘THER WAS NO WIGHT, TO WHOM SHE DURSTE PLAIN’ 330 + + XXXI. ‘I WOLDE LIVE IN PEES, IF THAT I MIGHT’ 342 + + XXXII. ‘FOR LOVE AND NOT FOR HATE THOU MUST BE DED’ 349 + + XXXIII. ‘IS THERE NO GRACE? IS THERE NO REMEDIE?’ 358 + + XXXIV. ‘SENS LOVE HATH BROUGHT US TO THIS PITEOUS END’ 373 + + + + +ASPHODEL + + + + +CHAPTER I. + +‘AND SHE WAS FAIR AS IS THE ROSE IN MAY.’ + + +‘Oh, you glorious old Sol, how I love you!’ cried Daphne. + +It was a day on which common mortals were almost fainting with the +heat, puffing and blowing and complaining—a blazing midsummer-day; +and even here, in the forest of Fontainebleau, where the mere idea +of innumerable trees was suggestive of shadow and coolness, the heat +was barely supportable—a heavy slumberous heat, loud with the hum of +millions of insects, perfumed with the breath of a thousand pines. + +Daphne revelled in the fierce sunshine—she threw back her crest of +waving hair, bright as yellow gold, she smiled up at the cloudless +blue, she looked unwinkingly even at Sol himself, the mighty +unquenchable king of the sky, glorious yonder in his highest heaven. + +She was lying at full length on a moss-grown block of stone at the +top of a hill, which was one of the highest points in the forest, a +hill-top overlooking on one side a fair sweep of champagne country, +fertile valleys, church steeples, village roofs, vineyards and rose +gardens, and winding streams; and on the other side, woodlands +stretching away into infinite distance, darkly purple. + +It was the choicest spot in a forest which, at its best, is a poor +thing compared with the immemorial growth of an old English wood. Here +there are no such oaks and beeches as our Hampshire forest can show—no +such lovely mystical glades—no such richness of undergrowth. Everything +seems of yesterday, save here and there a tree that looks as if he had +seen something of bygone generations, and here and there a wreck of an +ancient oak, proudly labelled ‘The Great Pharamond,’ or ‘_Le Chêne de +Henri IV._,’ with a placard hung round his poor old neck to say that +he is not to be damaged ‘on pain of amend.’ Such Pharamonds and Henris +abound in the forest where Rufus was killed, and nobody heeds them. The +owls build in them, the field-mice find shelter in them, the woodpecker +taps at them, unscared by placards or the threat of an amend. + +But in the Fontainebleau woods there are rocky glades which English +forests cannot boast—wild walks between walls of gigantic granite +boulders—queer shapes of monsters and animals in gray stone, which +seem to leap out at one from the shadows as one passes; innumerable +pine-trees; hills and hollows; pathways carpeted with red fir-needles, +mosses, ferns, and wild-flowers; and a bluer brighter sky than the +heaven which roofs an English landscape. + +‘Isn’t this worlds better than Asnières?’ asked Daphne of her +companion; ‘and aren’t you ever so grateful to those poor girls for +catching scarlet-fever?’ + +Asnières was school and constraint, Fontainebleau was liberty; so if +the forest had been a poorer place, Daphne, who hated all restraints, +would have loved it. + +‘Poor girls!’ sighed Martha Dibb, a stupid, honest-minded young person, +whose father kept an Italian warehouse in New Oxford street, and whose +mother had been seized with the aspiration to have her daughters +finished at Continental schools; whereby one Miss Dibb was being +half-starved upon sausage and cabbage at Hanover, while the other grew +fat upon _croûte au pot_ and _bouilli_ in the neighbourhood of Paris, +and was supposed to be acquiring the true Parisian accent. ‘Poor girls; +it was very bad for them,’ sighed Martha. + +‘Yes; but it was very good for us,’ answered Daphne lightly; ‘and if +it was a part of their destiny to have scarlet-fever, how very nice +of them to have it in the term instead of in the holidays, when we +shouldn’t have profited by it.’ + +‘And how lucky that we had that good-natured Miss Toby sent with us +instead of one of the French governesses.’ + +‘Lucky, indeed!’ cried Daphne, with her bright laugh. ‘That good simple +Toby, with whom we can do exactly what we like, and who is the image of +quiet contentment, so long as she has even the stupidest novel to read, +and some acid-drops to suck. I tremble when I think of the amount of +acid-drops she must consume in the course of a year.’ + +‘Why do you give her so many?’ asked the practical Martha. + +‘They are my peace-offerings when I have been especially troublesome,’ +said Daphne, with the air of a sinner who glories in her +troublesomeness. ‘Poor dear old Toby! if I were to give her a block of +sweetstuff as tall as King Cheops’s pyramid, it wouldn’t atone for the +life I lead her.’ + +‘I hope she won’t get into trouble with Madame for letting us run wild +like this,’ suggested Miss Dibb doubtfully. + +‘How should Madame know anything about it? And do you think she +would care a straw if she did?’ retorted Daphne. ‘She will get paid +exactly the same for us whether we are roaming at large in this lovely +old forest, or grinding at grammar, and analysis, and Racine, and +Lafontaine in the stuffy school-room at Asnières, where the train +goes shrieking over the bridge every half-hour carrying happy people +to Paris and gaiety, and theatres and operas, and all the good things +of this life. What does Madame Tolmache care, so long as we are out of +mischief? And I don’t see how we can get into any mischief here, unless +that lovely green lizard we saw darting up the gray rock just now +should turn into an adder and sting us to death.’ + +‘If Miss Toby hadn’t a headache we couldn’t have come out without her,’ +said Martha musingly. + +‘May Toby and her headache flourish! If she had been well enough to +come with us we should have been crawling along the dusty white road at +the edge of the forest, and should never have got here. Toby has corns. +And now I am going to sketch,’ said Daphne in an authoritative tone. +‘You can do your crochet: for I really suppose now that to you and a +certain class of intellects there is a kind of pleasure to be derived +from poking an ivory hook into a loop of berlin wool and pulling it out +again. But please sit so that I can’t see your work, Dibb dear. The +very look of that fluffy wool on this hot day almost suffocates me.’ + +Daphne produced her drawing-block and opened her colour-box, and +settled herself in a half-recumbent position on the great granite +slab, and surveyed the wide landscape below her with that gaze of calm +patronage which the amateur artist bestows on grand, illimitable, +untranslatable Nature. She looked across the vast valley, with its +silver streak of river and its distant spires, its ever varying lights +and shadows—a scene which Turner would have contemplated with awe and a +sense of comparative impotence; but which ignorance, as personified by +Daphne, surveyed complacently, wondering where she should begin. + +‘I think it will make a pretty picture,’ she said, ‘if I can succeed +with it.’ + +‘Why don’t you do a tree, or a cottage, or something, as the +drawing-master said we ought to do—just one simple little thing that +one could draw correctly?’ asked Martha, who was provokingly well +furnished with the aggravating quality of commonsense. + +‘Drawing-masters are such grovellers,’ said Daphne, dashing in a faint +outline with her facile pencil. ‘I would rather go on making splendid +failures all my life than creep along the dull path of mediocre merit +by the lines and rules of a drawing-master. I have no doubt this is +going to be a splendid failure, and I shall do a devil’s dance upon it +presently, as Müller used in the woods near Bristol, when he couldn’t +please himself. But it amuses one for the moment,’ concluded Daphne, +with whom life was all in the present, and self the centre of the +universe. + +She splashed away at her sky with her biggest brush, sweeping across +from left to right with a wash of cobalt, and then began to edge off +the colour into ragged little clouds as the despised drawing-master had +taught her. There was not a cloud in the hot blue sky this midsummer +afternoon, and Daphne’s treatment was purely conventional. + +And now she began her landscape, and tried with multitudinous dabs of +gray, and green, and blue, Indian red, and Italian pink, ochre, and +umber, and lake, and sienna, to imitate the glory of a fertile valley +basking in the sun. + +The colours were beginning to get into confusion. The foreground and +the distance were all on one plane, and Daphne was on the point of +flinging her block on the red sandy ground, and indulging in the luxury +of a demon-dance upon her unsuccessful effort, when a voice behind her +murmured quietly: ‘Give your background a wash of light gray, and fetch +up your middle-distance with a little body colour.’ + +‘Thanks awfully,’ replied Daphne without looking round, and without the +faintest indication of surprise. Painters in the forest were almost as +common as gadflies. They seemed indigenous to the soil. ‘Shall I make +my pine-trunks umber or Venetian red?’ + +‘Neither,’ answered the unseen adviser. ‘Those tall pine-stems are +madder-brown, except where the shadows tint them with purple.’ + +‘You are exceedingly kind,’ said Daphne, stifling a yawn, ‘but I don’t +think I’ll go on with it. I am so obviously in a mess; I suppose nobody +but a Turner ought to attempt such a valley as that.’ + +‘Perhaps not. Linnell or Vicat Cole might be able to give a faint idea +of it.’ + +‘Linnell!’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘I thought he painted nothing but +wheat-fields, and that his only idea of Nature was a blaze of yellow.’ + +‘Have you seen many of his pictures?’ + +‘One. I was taken to the Academy last year.’ + +‘Were you very pleased with what you saw?’ + +‘Delighted—with the gowns and bonnets. It was a Saturday afternoon in +the height of the season, and I plead guilty to seeing very little of +the pictures. There were always people in the way, and the people were +ever so much more interesting than the paintings.’ + +‘What picture can compare with a well-made gown or the latest invention +in bonnets?’ exclaimed the unknown with good-humoured irony. + +Daphne hacked the spoiled sheet off her block with a dainty little +penknife, and looked at the daub longingly, wishing that the stranger +would depart and leave her free to execute a _pas seul_ upon her +abortive effort. But the stranger seemed to have no idea of departure. +He had evidently settled himself behind her, on a camp-stool, or a +rock, or some kind of seat; and he meant to stay. + +She had not yet seen his face. She liked his voice, which was of the +baritone order, full, and round, and grave, and his intonation was that +of a man who had lived in what the world calls Society. It might not +be the best possible intonation—since orators and great preachers and +successful actors have another style—but it was the tone approved by +the best people, and the only tone that Daphne liked. + +‘A drawing-master, no doubt,’ she thought, ‘whose manners have been +formed in decent society.’ + +She wiped her brushes and shut her colour-box, with languid +deliberation, not yet feeling curious enough to turn and inspect +the stranger, although Martha Dibb was staring at him open-mouthed, +as still as a stone, and the image of astonishment. Daphne augured +from that gaping mouth of Martha’s that the unknown must be somewhat +eccentric in appearance or attire, and began to feel faintly +inquisitive. + +She rose from her recumbent attitude on the rock, drew herself as +straight as an arrow, shook out her indigo-coloured serge petticoat, +from beneath whose hem flashed a pair of scarlet stockings and neat +buckled shoes, shook loose her mane of golden-bright hair, and looked +deliberately round at Nature generally—the woods, the rocks, the +brigand’s cave yonder, and the stalls where toys and trifles in carved +wood were set out to tempt the tourist—and finally at the stranger. He +lounged at his ease on a neighbouring rock, looking up at her with a +provokingly self-assured expression. Her supposition had been correct, +she told herself. He evidently belonged to the artistic classes—a +drawing-master, or a third-rate water-colour painter—a man whose little +bits of landscape or foreign architecture would be hung near the floor, +and priced at a few guineas in the official list. He was a Bohemian +to the tips of his nails. He wore an old velveteen coat—Daphne was +not experienced enough to know that it had been cut by a genius among +tailors—a shabby felt hat lay on the grass beside him; every one of his +garments had seen good service, even to the boots, whose neat shape +indicated a refinement that struggled against adverse circumstances. He +was young, tall, and slim, with long slender fingers, and hands that +looked artistic without looking effeminate. He had dark brown hair cut +close to a well-shaped head, a dark brown moustache shading a sensitive +and somewhat melancholy mouth. His complexion was pale, inclining to +sallowness, his nose well formed, his forehead broad and low. His eyes +were of so peculiar a colour that Daphne was at first sorely perplexed +as to whether they were brown or blue, and finally came to the +conclusion that they were neither colour, but a variable greenish-gray. +But whatever their hue she was fain to admit to herself that the eyes +were handsome eyes—far too good for the man’s position. Something of +their beauty was doubtless owing to the thick dark lashes, the strongly +marked brows. Just now the eyes, after a brief upward glance at Daphne, +who fairly merited a longer regard, were fixed dreamily on the soft +dreamlike landscape—the sun-steeped valley, the purple distance. It was +a day for languorous dreaming; a day in which the world-worn soul might +slip off the fetters of reality and roam at large in shadowland. + +‘Dibb,’ said Daphne, ever so slightly piqued at the unknown’s absent +air, ‘don’t you think we ought to be going home? Poor dear Miss Toby +will be anxious.’ + +‘Not before six o’clock,’ replied the matter-of-fact Martha. ‘You told +her with your own lips that she wasn’t to expect us before six. And +what was the good of our carrying that heavy basket if we are not to +eat our dinner here?’ + +‘You have brought your dinner!’ exclaimed the stranger, suddenly waking +from his dream. ‘How very delightful! Let us improvise a picnic.’ + +‘The poor thing is hungry,’ thought Daphne, rather disappointed at what +she considered a low trait in his character. + +Martha, with her face addressed to Daphne, began to distort her +countenance in the most frightful manner, mutely protesting against the +impropriety of sharing their meal with an unknown wanderer. Daphne, who +was as mischievous as Robin Goodfellow, and doated on everything that +was wrong, laughed these dumb appeals to scorn. + +‘The poor thing shall be fed,’ she said to herself. ‘Perhaps he has +hardly a penny in his pockets. It will be a pleasure to give him a good +meal and send him on his way rejoicing. I shall feel as meritorious as +the Good Samaritan.’ + +‘Is this the basket?’ asked the painter, pouncing upon the beehive +receptacle which Martha had been hugging for the last five minutes. ‘Do +let me be useful. I have a genius for picnics.’ + +‘I never heard of such impertinence!’ ejaculated Miss Dibb inwardly; +and then she began to wonder whether the valuable watch and chain +which her father had given her on her last birthday were safe in such +company, or whether her earrings might not be suddenly wrenched out of +her ears. + +And there was that reckless Daphne, who had not the faintest notion +of propriety, entering into the thing eagerly as a capital joke, and +making herself as much at home with the nameless intruder as if she had +known him all her life. + +Miss Dibb had been Daphne’s devoted slave for the last two years, had +admired her and believed in her, and fetched and carried for her, +and had been landed in all manner of scrapes and difficulties by her +without a murmur; but she had never been so near revolt as at this +moment, when her deep-rooted, thoroughly British sense of propriety +was outraged as it had never in all Daphne’s escapades been outraged +before. A strange man, fairly well-mannered it is true, but shabbily +clad, was to be allowed to hob and nob in a place of public resort with +two of Madame Tolmache’s young ladies. + +Martha looked despairingly round, as if to see that help was nigh. They +were not alone in the forest. This hill side at the top of the rocky +walk was a favourite resort. There were stalls for toys and stalls for +refreshments close at hand. There were half-a-dozen groups of idle +people enjoying themselves under the tall pines and in the shadow of +the big blue-gray rocks. The mother of one estimable family had taken +off her boots, and was lying at full length, with her stockings exposed +to the libertine gaze of passers-by. Some were eating, some were +sleeping. Children with cropped heads, short petticoats, and a great +deal of stocking, were flying gaudy-coloured air-balls, and screaming +at each other as only French children can scream. There was not the +stillness of a dense primeval wood, the awful solitude of the Great +Dismal Swamp. The place was rather like a bit of Greenwich Park or +Hampstead Heath on a comparatively quiet afternoon in the middle of the +week. + +Miss Dibb took heart of grace, and decided that her watch and earrings +were safe. It was only her character that was likely to suffer. Daphne +was dancing about among the rocks all this time, spreading a damask +napkin on a smooth slab of granite, and making the most of the dinner. +Her red stockings flashed to and fro like fireflies. She had a scarlet +ribbon round her neck, and the dark serge gown was laced up the back +with a scarlet cord, and, with her feathery hair flying loose and +glittering in the sun, she was as bright a figure as ever lit up the +foreground of a forest scene. + +The unknown forgot to be useful, and sat on his granite bench lazily +contemplating her as she completed her preparations. + +‘What an idle person you are!’ she exclaimed, looking up from her task. +‘Tumbler!’ + +He explored the basket and produced the required article. + +‘Thanks. Corkscrew! Don’t run away with the idea that you are going to +have wine. The corkscrew is for our lemonade.’ + +‘You needn’t put such a selfish emphasis on the possessive pronoun,’ +said the stranger. ‘I mean to have some of that lemonade.’ + +Daphne surveyed the banquet critically, with her head on one side. It +was not a stupendous meal for two hungry school-girls and an unknown +pedestrian, whom Daphne supposed to have been on short commons for +the last week or two. There was half a roasted fowl—a fowl who in his +zenith had no claim to be considered a fine specimen, and who seemed +to have fallen upon evil days before he was sacrificed, so gaunt was +his leg, so shrunken his wing, so withered his breast; there were some +thin slices of carmine ham, with a bread-crumby edge instead of fat. +Of one thing there was abundance, and that was the staff of life. Two +long brown loaves—the genuine _pain de ménage_—suggested a homely kind +of plenty. For dessert there was a basket of wood-strawberries, a thin +slab of Gruyère, and some small specimens of high-art confectionery, +more attractive to the eye than the palate. + +‘Now, Dibb dear, grace, if you please,’ commanded Daphne, with a +mischievous side-glance at the unknown. + +That French grace of poor Martha’s was a performance which always +delighted Daphne, and she wanted the wayfarer to enjoy himself. The +‘ongs’ and ‘dongs’ were worth hearing. Gravely the submissive Martha +complied, and with solemn countenance asked a blessing on the meal. + +‘You can have all the fowl,’ said Daphne to her guest; ‘Martha and I +like bread and cheese ever so much better.’ + +She tore one of the big brown loaves in two, tossed one half to Martha, +and broke a great knob off the other for her own eating, attacking it +ravenously with her strong white teeth. + +‘You are more than good,’ replied the stranger with his pleasantly +listless air, as if there were nothing in life worth being energetic +about; ‘you are actually self-sacrificing. But, to tell you the honest +truth, I have not the slightest appetite. I had my second breakfast at +one o’clock, and I had much rather carve that elderly member of the +feathered tribe for you than eat him. I wish he were better worthy of +your consideration.’ + +Daphne looked at him doubtfully, unconvinced. + +‘I know you’re disparaging the bird out of kindness to us,’ she said; +‘you might just as well eat a good luncheon. Martha and I adore bread +and cheese.’ + +She emphasised this assertion with a stealthy frown at poor Miss +Dibb, who saw her dinner thus coolly confiscated for the good of a +suspicious-looking interloper. + +‘You doat upon Gruyère, don’t you, Martha?’ she demanded. + +‘I like it pretty well,’ answered Miss Dibb sulkily; ‘but I think the +holes are the nicest part.’ + +The stranger was cutting up the meagre fowl, giving the wing and +breast to Daphne, the sinewy leg to Martha, who was the kind of girl +to go through life getting the legs of fowls and the back seat in +opera-boxes, and the worst partners at afternoon dances. + +Finding the unknown inflexible, and being herself desperately hungry, +Daphne ended by taking her share of the poultry, while her guest ate a +few strawberries and munched a crust of bread, lying along the grass +all the while, almost at her feet. It was a new experience, and the +more horrified Martha looked the more Daphne enjoyed it. + +What was life to her but the present hour, with its radiant sun and +glad earth flushed with colour, the scent of the pines, the hum of the +bees, the delight of the butterflies flashing across the blue? Utterly +innocent in her utter ignorance of evil, she saw no snare in such +simple joys, she had no premonition of danger. Her worst suspicion of +the stranger was that he might be poor. That was the only social crime +whereof she knew. And the more convinced she felt of his poverty, the +more determined she was to be civil to him. + +He lay at her feet, on a carpet of fir-needles, looking up at her with +an admiration almost as purely artistic as that which he had felt an +hour ago for a green and purple lizard which he had caught asleep on +one of the rocks, and which had darted up a sheer wall of granite, +swift as a sun-ray, at the light touch of his finger-tip. With a love +of the beautiful almost as abstract as that which he had felt for the +graceful curves and rainbow tints of the lizard, he lay and basked in +the light of this school-girl’s violet eyes, and watched the play of +sunbeam and shadow on her golden hair. To him, too, the present hour +was all in all—an hour of sunlight and perfume and balmiest atmosphere, +an hour’s sweet idleness, empty of thought and care. + +The face he looked at was not one of those perfect faces which +would bear to be transfixed in marble. It was a countenance whose +chief beauty lay in colour and expression—a face full of variety; +now whimsically gay, now pouting, now pert; anon suddenly pensive. +Infinitely bewitching in some phases, it was infinitely provoking in +others; but, under all conditions, it was a face full of interest. + +The complexion was brilliant, the true English red and white; no +ivory-pale beauty this, with the sickly tints of Gibson’s painted +Venus, but the creamy fairness and the vivid rose of health, and youth, +and happiness. The eyes were of darkest gray, that deep violet which, +under thick dark lashes, looks black as night. The nose was short and +_retroussé_, nothing to boast of in noses; the mouth was a trifle wide, +but the lips were of loveliest form and richest carmine, the teeth +flashing beneath them absolutely perfect. Above those violet eyes +arched strongly-marked brows of darkest brown, contrasting curiously +with the thick fringe of golden hair. Altogether the face was more +original in its beauty than any which the stronger had looked upon for +a long time. + +‘Have you any sketches to show us?’ asked Daphne when she had finished +her dinner. + +‘No; I have not been sketching this morning; and if I had done anything +I doubt if it would have been worth looking at. You must not suppose +that I am a grand artist. But if you don’t mind lending me your block +and your colour-box for half an hour I should like to make a little +sketch now.’ + +‘Cool,’ thought Daphne. ‘But calm impudence is this gentleman’s leading +characteristic.’ + +She handed him block and box with an amused smile. + +‘Are you going to paint the valley?’ she asked. + +‘No; I leave that for a new Turner. I am only going to try my hand at a +rock with a young lady sitting on it.’ + +‘I’m sure Martha won’t mind being painted,’ replied Daphne, with a +mischievous glance at Miss Dibb, who was sitting bolt upright on +her particular block of granite, the image of stiffness and dumb +disapproval. She was a thick-set girl with sandy hair and freckles, not +bad-looking after her homely fashion, but utterly wanting in grace. + +‘I couldn’t think of taking such a liberty with Miss Martha,’ +returned the stranger; ‘the freemasonry of art puts me at my ease +with you. Would you mind sitting quiet for half an hour or so? That +semi-recumbent position will do beautifully.’ + +He sketched in rock and figure as he spoke, with a free facile touch +that showed a practised hand. + +‘I’m sure you can paint beautifully,’ said Daphne, watching his pencil +as he sat a little way off, glancing up at her every now and then. + +‘Wait till you see how I shall interpret your lilies and roses. I ought +to be as good a colourist as Rubens or John Phillip to do you justice.’ + +She had fallen into a reposeful attitude after finishing her meal, her +arms folded on the rock, her head resting on the folded arms, her eyes +gazing sleepily at the sunlit valley in front of her, one little foot +pendent from the edge of the greenish gray stone, the other tucked +under her dark blue skirt, a mass of yellow tresses falling over one +dark blue shoulder, and a scarlet ribbon fluttering on the other. + +Martha Dibb looked more and more horrified. Could there be a lower deep +than this? To sit for one’s portrait to an unknown artist in a shabby +coat. The man was unquestionably a vagabond, although he did not make +havoc of his aspirates like poor dear papa; and Daphne was bringing +disgrace on Madame Tolmache’s whole establishment. + +‘Suppose I should meet him in Regent Street one day after I leave +school, and he were to speak to me, what would mamma and Jane say?’ +thought Miss Dibb. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +‘AND THIS WAS GLADLY IN THE EVENTIDE.’ + + +Daphne was as still as a statue, her vanity gratified by this homage +to her charms. There had been nobody to admire her at Asnières but the +old music-master, into whose hat she had sometimes put a little bouquet +from the trim suburban garden, or a spray of acacia from the grove that +screened the maiden meditations of Madame Tolmache’s pupils from the +vulgar gaze of the outside world. She retained her recumbent attitude +patiently for nearly an hour, half asleep in the balmy afternoon +atmosphere, while the outraged Martha sat on her rock apart, digging +her everlasting crochet-hook into the fluffy mass of wool, and saying +never a word. + +The stranger was nearly as silent as Martha. He was working +industriously at his sketch, and smoking his cigar as he worked, having +first ascertained that the ladies were tolerant of the weed. He painted +in a large dashing style that got over the ground very quickly, and +made a good effect. He had nearly finished his sketch of the figure +on the rock—the indigo gown, scarlet ribbon, bright hair, and dark +luminous eyes, when Daphne jumped up suddenly, and vowed that her every +limb was an agony to her. + +‘I couldn’t endure it an instant longer!’ she exclaimed. ‘I hope you’ve +finished.’ + +‘Not quite; but you may change your attitude as much as you like if +you’ll only keep your head the same way. I am working at the face now.’ + +‘What are you going to do with the picture when it’s finished?’ + +‘Keep it till my dying day.’ + +‘I thought you would perhaps give it—I mean sell it—to me. I could not +afford a large price, for my people are very poor, but——’ + +‘Your looking-glass will show you a better portrait than this poor +sketch of mine. And, in after years, even this libellous daub will +serve to remind me of a happy hour in my life.’ + +‘I am glad you have enjoyed yourself,’ said Daphne; ‘but I really wish +you had eaten that fowl. Have you far to go home to dinner?’ + +‘Only to Fontainebleau.’ + +‘You are living there?’ + +‘I am staying there. I may strike my tent and be across the Jura +to-morrow night. I never live anywhere.’ + +‘But haven’t you a home and people?’ + +‘I have a kind of home, but no people.’ + +‘Poor fellow!’ murmured Daphne, with exquisite compassion. ‘Are you an +orphan?’ + +‘Yes; my father died nine years ago, my mother last year.’ + +‘How awfully sad! No brothers or sisters?’ + +‘None. I am a crystallisation, the last of a vanishing race. And now +I have done as much as I dare to your portrait. Any attempt at finish +would result in failure. I am writing the place and the date in the +corner of my sketch. May I write your name?’ + +‘My name!’ exclaimed Daphne, her eyes sparkling with mischief, her +cheeks curving into dimples. + +‘Yes; your name. You have a name, I suppose: unless you are the +nameless spirit of sunlit woodlands, masquerading in a blue gown?’ + +‘My name—is—Poppæa,’ faltered Daphne, whose latest chapter of Roman +history had been the story of Nero and his various crimes, toned down +and expurgated to suit young ladies’ schools. + +Poppæa Sabina, thus chastely handled, had appeared nothing worse than +a dressy lady of extravagant tastes, who took elaborate care of her +complexion, and had a fancy for shoeing her mules with gold. + +‘Did you say Poppet?’ inquired the stranger. + +‘No; Poppæa. You must have heard the name before, I should think. It is +a Roman name. My father is a great classical scholar, and he chose it +for me. And pray what is your name?’ + +‘Nero.’ + +The stranger pronounced the word without moving a muscle of his face, +still intent upon his sketch; for it is vain for a man to say he has +finished a thing of that kind; so long as his brushes are within reach, +he will be putting in new touches. There was not a twinkle in those +dubious eyes of his—not an upward move of those mobile lips. He was as +grave as a judge. + +‘I don’t believe it!’ cried Daphne, bouncing up from her rock. + +‘Don’t believe what?’ + +‘That your name is Nero.’ + +‘Why not? Have I not as good a right to bear a Roman name as you have? +Suppose I had a classical father as well as you. Why not?’ + +‘It is too absurd.’ + +‘Many things are absurd which yet are absolutely true.’ + +‘And you are really called Nero?’ + +‘As really as you are called Poppæa.’ + +‘It is so dreadfully like a dog’s name.’ + +‘It is a dog’s name. But you may call your dog Bill, or Joe, or Paul, +or Peter. I don’t think that makes any difference. I would sooner have +some dogs for my namesakes than some men.’ + +‘Dibb, dear,’ said Daphne, turning sharply upon the victim of her +folly, the long-suffering, patient Martha. ‘What’s the time?’ + +She had a watch of her own, a neat little gold hunter; but it was +rarely in going order for two consecutive days, and she was generally +dependent on the methodical Dibb for all information as to the flight +of time. + +‘A quarter to five.’ + +‘Then we must be going home instantly. How could you let me stay so +long, you foolish girl? I am sure it must be more than an hour’s walk +to the town, and we promised poor dear Toby to be home by six.’ + +‘It isn’t my fault,’ remarked Miss Dibb; ‘I should have been glad to go +ever so long ago, if you had thought fit.’ + +‘Hurry up, then, Dibb dear. Put away your crochet. Have you quite done +with my block?’ to the unknown. ‘Thank you muchly. And now my box? +Those go into the basket. Thanks, awfully,’ as he helped her to pack +the tumblers, corkscrew, plates, and knives, which had served for their +primitive repast. ‘And now we will wish you good-day—Mr.—Nero.’ + +‘On no account. I am going to carry that basket back to Fontainebleau +for you.’ + +‘All along that dusty high road. We couldn’t think of such a thing; +could we, Martha?’ + +‘I don’t know that my opinion is of much account,’ said Martha stiffly. + +‘Don’t, you dear creature!’ cried Daphne, darting at her, and hugging +her affectionately. ‘Don’t try to be ill-tempered, for you can’t +do it. The thing is an ignominious failure. You were created to be +good-natured, and nice, and devoted—especially to me.’ + +‘You know how fond I am of you,’ murmured Martha reproachfully; ‘and +you take a mean advantage of me when you go on so.’ + +‘How am I going on? Is it very dreadful to let a gentleman carry a +heavy basket for me?’ + +‘A gentleman!’ muttered Martha, with a supercilious glance at the +stranger’s well-worn velveteen. + +He was standing a little way off, out of hearing, taking a last long +look at the valley. + +‘Yes; and every inch a gentleman, though his coat is shabby, and though +he may be as poor as Job, and though he makes game of me!’ protested +Daphne with conviction. + +‘Have your own way,’ replied Martha. + +‘I generally do,’ answered Daphne. + +And so they went slowly winding downhill in the westering sunshine, all +among the gray rocks on which the purple shadows were deepening, the +warm umber lights glowing, while the rosy evening light came creeping +up in the distant west, and the voice of an occasional bird, so rare in +this Gallic wood, took a vesper sound in the summer stillness. + +The holiday makers had all gone home. The French matron who had taken +her rest so luxuriously, surrounded by her olivebranches, had put on +her boots and departed. The women who sold cakes and fruit, and wooden +paper-knives, had packed up their wares and gone away. All was silence +and loneliness; and for a little while Daphne and her companions +wandered on in quiet enjoyment of the scene and the atmosphere, +treading the mossy, sandy path that wound in and out among the big +rocks, sometimes nearly losing themselves, and anon following the blue +arrow points which a careful hand had painted on the rocks to show them +which way they should go. + +But Daphne was not given to silence. She found something to talk about +before they had gone very far. + +‘You have travelled immensely, I suppose?’ she said to the stranger. + +‘I don’t know exactly what significance you attach to the word. Young +ladies use such large words nowadays for such very small things. From +a scientific explorer’s point of view, my wanderings have been very +limited, but I daresay one of Cook’s tourists would consider me a +respectable traveller. I have never seen the buried cities of Central +America, nor surveyed the world from the top of Mount Everest, nor +even climbed the Caucasus, nor wandered by stormy Hydaspes: but I have +done Egypt, and Algeria, and Greece, and all that is tolerably worth +seeing in Southern Europe, and have tried my hand, or rather my legs, +at Alpine climbing, and have come to the conclusion that, although +Nature is mountainous, life is everywhere more or less flat, stale, and +unprofitable.’ + +‘I’m sure I shouldn’t feel that if I were free to roam the world, and +could paint as sweetly as you do.’ + +‘I had a sweet subject, remember.’ + +‘Please don’t,’ cried Daphne; ‘I rather like you when you are rude, but +if you flatter I shall hate you.’ + +‘Then I’ll be rude. To win your liking I would be more uncivil than +Petruchio.’ + +‘Katharine was a fool!’ exclaimed Daphne, skipping up the craggy side +of one of the biggest rocks. ‘I have always despised her. To begin so +well, and end so tamely.’ + +‘If you don’t take care you’ll end by slipping off that rock, and +spraining an ankle or two,’ said Nero warningly. + +‘Not I,’ answered Daphne confidently; ‘you don’t know how used I am to +climbing. Oh, look at that too delicious lizard!’ + +She was on her knees admiring the emerald-hued changeful creature. +She touched it only with her breath, and it flashed away from her and +vanished in some crevice of the rock. + +‘Silly thing, did it think I wanted to hurt it, when I was only +worshipping its beauty?’ she cried. + +Then she rose suddenly, and stood on the rock, a slim girlish figure, +with flattering drapery, poised as lightly as Mercury, gazing round +her, admiring the tall slim stems of the beeches growing in groups +like clustered columns, the long vista of rocks, the dark wall of +fir-trees, mounting up and up to the edge of a saffron-tinted sky—for +these loiterers had lost count of time since steady-going Martha looked +at her reliable watch, and the last of the finches had sung his lullaby +to his wife and family, and the golden ship called Sol had gone down to +Night’s dark sea. + +‘Come down, you absurd creature!’ exclaimed Nero, with a peremptory +voice, winding one arm about the light figure, and lifting the girl off +the rock as easily as if she had been a feather-weight. + +‘You are very horrid!’ protested Daphne indignantly. ‘You are ever so +much ruder than Petruchio. Why shouldn’t I stand on that rock? I was +only admiring the landscape!’ + +‘No doubt, and two minutes hence you would be calling upon us to admire +a fine example of a sprained ankle.’ + +‘I’m sure if your namesake was ever as unkind to my namesake, it’s no +wonder she died young,’ said Daphne, pouting. + +‘I believe he was occasionally a little rough upon her,’ answered +the artist with his imperturbable air. ‘But of course you have read +your Tacitus and your Suetonius in the original. Young ladies know +everything nowadays.’ + +‘The Roman history we read is by a clergyman, written expressly for +ladies’ schools,’ said Miss Dibb demurely. + +‘How intensely graphic and interesting that chronicle must be!’ +retorted the stranger. + +They had come to the end of the winding path among the rocks by this +time, and were in a long, straight road, cut through the heart of +the forest, between tall trees that seemed to have outgrown their +strength—weedy-looking trees, planted too thickly, and only able to +push their feeble growth up towards the sun, with no room for spreading +boughs or interlacing roots. The evening light was growing grave and +gray. Bats were skimming across the path, uncomfortably near Daphne’s +flowing hair. Miss Dibb began to grumble. + +‘How dreadfully we have loitered!’ she cried, looking at her watch. ‘It +is nearly eight, and we have so far to go. What will Miss Toby say?’ + +‘Well, she will moan a little, no doubt,’ answered Daphne lightly, +‘and will tell us that her heart has been in her mouth for the +last hour, which need not distress us much, as we know it’s a +physical impossibility; and that anyone might knock her down with a +feather—another obvious impossibility, seeing that poor Toby weighs +eleven stone—and then I shall kiss her and make much of her, and give +her the packet of nougat I mean to buy on the way home, and all will be +sunshine. She takes a sticky delight in nougat And now please talk and +amuse us,’ said Daphne, turning to the artist with an authoritative +air. ‘Tell us about some of your travels, or tell us where you live +when you’re at home.’ + +‘I think I’d rather talk of my travels. I’ve just come from Italy.’ + +‘Where you have been painting prodigiously, of course. It is a land of +pictures, is it not?’ + +‘Yes; but Nature’s pictures are even better than the treasures of art.’ + +‘If ever I should marry,’ said Daphne with a dreamy look, as if she +were contemplating an event far off in the dimness of twenty years +hence, ‘I should insist upon my husband taking me to Italy.’ + +‘Perhaps he wouldn’t be able to afford the expense,’ suggested the +practical Martha. + +‘Then I wouldn’t marry him,’ Daphne retorted decisively. + +‘Isn’t that rather a mercenary notion?’ asked the gentleman with the +basket. + +‘Not at all. Do you suppose I should marry just for the sake of having +a husband? If ever I do marry—which I think is more than doubtful—it +will be, first and foremost, in order that I may do everything I wish +to do, and have everything I want to have. Is there anything singular +in that?’ + +‘No; I suppose it is a young beauty’s innate idea of marriage. She sees +herself in a glass, and recognises perfection, and knows her own value.’ + +‘Are you married?’ asked Daphne abruptly, eager to change the +conversation when the stranger became complimentary. + +‘No.’ + +‘Engaged?’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘What is she like?’ inquired Daphne eagerly. ‘Please tell us about her. +It will be ever so much more interesting than Italy; for, after all, +when one hasn’t seen a country description goes for so little. What is +she like?’ + +‘I could best answer that question in one word if I were to say she is +perfection.’ + +‘You called me perfection just now,’said Daphne pettishly. + +‘I was talking of your face. She is perfection in all things. +Perfectly pure, and true, and good, and noble. She is handsome, highly +accomplished, rich.’ + +‘And yet you go wandering about the world in that coat,’ exclaimed +Daphne, too impulsive to be polite. + +‘It is shabby, is it not? But if you knew how comfortable it is you +wouldn’t wonder that I have an affection for it.’ + +‘Go on about the young lady, please. Have you been long engaged to her?’ + +‘Ever since I can remember, in my heart of hearts: she was my bright +particular star when I was a boy at school: she was my sole incentive +to work, or decent behaviour, when I was at the University. And now I +am not going to say any more about her. I think I have told you enough +to gratify any reasonable curiosity. Ask me conundrums, young ladies, +if you please, or do something to amuse me. Remember, I am carrying the +basket, and a man is something more than a beast of burden. My mind +requires relaxation.’ + +Martha Dibb grinned all over broad frank face. Riddles were her +delight. She had little manuscript books filled with them in her +scrawly, pointed writing. She began at once, like a musical-box that +has been wound up, and did not leave off asking conundrums till they +were half-way down the long street leading to the palace, near which +Miss Toby and her pupils had their lodging. + +But Daphne had no intention that the stranger should learn exactly +where she lived. Reckless as she was, mirthful and mischievous as Puck +or Robin Goodfellow, she had still a dim idea that her conduct was not +exactly correct, or would not be correct in England. On the Continent, +of course, there must be a certain license. English travellers dined at +public tables, and gamed in public rooms—were altogether more sociable +and open to approach than on their native soil. It was only a chosen +few—the peculiarly gifted in stiffness—who retained their glacial +crust through every change of scene and climate, and who would perish +rather than cross the street ungloved, or discourse familiarly with an +unaccredited stranger. But, even with due allowance for Continental +laxity, Daphne felt that she had gone a little too far. So she pulled +up suddenly at the corner of a side street, and demanded her basket. + +‘What does that mean?’ asked the painter, with a look of lazy surprise. + +‘Only that this is our way home, and that we won’t trouble you to carry +the basket any further, thanks intensely.’ + +‘But I am going to carry it to your door.’ + +‘It’s awfully good of you to propose it, but our governess would be +angry with us for imposing on the kindness of a stranger, and I am +afraid we should get into trouble.’ + +‘Then I haven’t a word to say,’ answered the painter, smiling at her +blushing eloquent face. Verily a speaking face—beautiful just as a +sunlit meadow is beautiful, because of the lights and shadows that flit +and play perpetually across it. + +‘Do you live in this street?’ he asked. + +‘No; our house is in the second turning to the right, seven doors from +the corner,’ said Daphne, who had obtained possession of the basket. +‘Good-bye.’ + +She ran off with light swift foot, followed lumpishly and breathlessly +by the scandalised Martha. + +‘Daphne, how could you tell him such an outrageous story?’ she +exclaimed. + +‘Do you think I was going to tell him the truth?’ asked Daphne, still +fluttering on, light as a lapwing. ‘We should have had him calling on +Miss Toby to-morrow morning to ask if we were fatigued by our walk, +or perhaps singing the serenade from Don Giovanni under our windows +to-night. Now, Martha dearest, don’t say one word; I know I have +behaved shamefully, but it has been awful fun, hasn’t it?’ + +‘I’m sure I felt ready to sink through the ground all the time,’ panted +Martha. + +‘Darling, the ground and you are both too solid for there to be any +fear of that.’ + +They had turned a corner by this time, and doubling and winding, always +at a run, they came very speedily to the quiet spot near the palace, +where their governess had lodged them in a low blind-looking white +house, with only one window that commanded a view of the street. + +They had been so fleet of foot, and had so doubled on the unknown, +that, from this upper window, they had presently the satisfaction +of seeing him come sauntering along the empty street, careless, +indifferent, with dreamy eyes looking forward into vacancy, a man +without a care. + +‘He doesn’t look as if he minded our having given him the slip one +little bit,’ said Daphne. + +‘Why should he?’ asked the matter-of-fact Martha. ‘I daresay he was +tired of carrying the basket.’ + +‘Go your ways,’ said Daphne with a faint sigh, waving her hand at the +vanishing figure. ‘Go your ways over mountain and sea, through wood +and valley. This world is a big place, and it isn’t likely you and I +will ever meet again.’ Then, turning to her companion with a sudden +change of manner, she exclaimed: ‘Martha, I believe we have both made a +monstrous mistake.’ + +‘As how?’ asked Miss Dibb stupidly. + +‘In taking him for a poor artist.’ + +‘He looks like one.’ + +‘Not he. There is nothing about him but his coat that looks poor, and +he wears that as if it were purple and ermine. Did you notice his eye +when he ordered us to change the conversation, an eye accustomed to +look at inferiors? And there is a careless pride in his manner, like +a man who believes that the world was made on purpose for him, yet +doesn’t want to make any fuss about it. Then he is engaged to a rich +lady, and he has been at a university. No, Martha, I am sure he is no +wandering artist living on his pencil.’ + +‘Then he must think all the worse of us,’ said Martha, solemnly. + +‘What does it matter?’ asked Daphne, with a careless shrug. ‘We have +seen the last of each other.’ + +‘We can never be sure of that. One might meet him at a party.’ + +‘I don’t think you will,’ said Daphne, faintly supercilious, ‘and the +chances are ever so many to one against even my meeting him anywhere.’ + +Here Miss Toby burst into the room. She had been lying down in an +adjacent chamber, resting her poor bilious head, when the girls came +softly in, and had only just heard their voices. + +‘Oh, you dreadful girls, what hours of torture you have caused me!’ she +exclaimed. ‘I thought something must have happened.’ + +‘Something did happen,’ said Daphne; whereupon Martha thought she was +going to confess everything. + +‘What?’ + +‘A lizard.’ + +‘Did it sting you?’ + +‘No; it darted away when I looked at it. A lovely glittering green +thing. I wish I could tame one and wear it for a necklace. And I nearly +fell off a rock; and I tried hard to paint the valley, and made a most +dismal failure. But the view from the hill is positively delicious, +Toby dear, and the rocks are wonderful; huge masses of granite tumbled +about among the trees anyhow, as if Titans had been pelting one +another. It’s altogether lovely. You must go with us to-morrow, Toby +love.’ + +Miss Toby, diverted from her intention to scold, shook her head +despondingly. + +‘I should like it of all things,’ she sighed. ‘But I am such a bad +walker, and the heat always affects my head. Besides, I think we ought +to go over the palace to-morrow. There is so much instruction to be +derived from a place so full of historical associations.’ + +‘No doubt,’ answered the flippant Daphne, ‘though if you were to tell +me that it had been built by Julius Cæsar or Alfred the Great, I should +hardly be wise enough to contradict you.’ + +‘My dear Daphne, after you have been so carefully grounded in history,’ +remonstrated Miss Toby. + +‘I know, dear; but then you see I have never built anything on the +ground. It’s all very well to dig out foundations, but if one never +gets any further than that! But we’ll see the palace to-morrow, and you +shall teach me no end of history while we are looking at pictures and +things.’ + +‘If my poor head be well enough,’ sighed Miss Toby, and then she began +to move languidly to and fro, arranging for the refreshment of her +pupils, who wanted their supper. + +When the supper was ready, Daphne could eat nothing although five +minutes before she had declared herself ravenous. She was too excited +to eat. She talked of the forest, the view, the heat, the sky, +everything except the stranger, and his name was trembling on her lips +perpetually. Every now and then she pulled herself up abruptly in the +middle of a sentence, and flashed a vivid glance at stolid Martha, +her dark gray eyes shining like stars, full of mischievous light. She +would have liked to tell Miss Toby everything, but to do so might be +to surrender all future liberty. Headache or no headache, the honest +little governess would never have allowed her pupils to wander about +alone again, could she have beheld them, in her mind’s eye, picnicking +with a nameless stranger. + +There was a little bit of garden at the back of the low, white house, +hardly more than a green courtyard, with a square grass plot and a +few shrubs, into which enclosure the windows all looked, save that +one peep-hole towards the street. Above the white wall that shut in +the bit of green rose the foliage of a much larger garden—acacias +shedding their delicate perfume on the cool night, limes just breaking +into flower, dark-leaved magnolias, tulip-trees, birch and aspen—a +lovely variety of verdure. And over all this shone the broad disk of a +ripening moon, flooding the world with light. + +When supper was over, Daphne bounded out into the moonlit garden, and +began to play at battledore and shuttlecock. She was all life and fire +and movement, and could not have sat still for the world. + +‘Come,’ she cried to Martha; ‘bring your battledore. A match for a +franc’s worth of nougat.’ + +Miss Dibb had settled herself to her everlasting crochet by the light +of two tall candles. Miss Toby was reading a Tauchnitz novel. + +‘I’m tired to death,’ grumbled Martha. ‘I’m sure we must have walked +miles upon miles. How can you be so restless?’ + +‘How can you mope indoors on such an exquisite night?’ exclaimed +Daphne. ‘I feel as if I could send my shuttlecock up to the moon. Come +out and be beaten! No; you are too wise. You know that I should win +to-night.’ + +The little toy of cork and feathers quivered high up in the bright air; +the slender, swaying figure bent back like a reed as the girl looked +upward; the fair golden head moved with every motion of the battledore +as the player bent or rose to anticipate the flying cork. + +She was glad to be out there alone. She was thinking of the unknown +all the time. She could not get him out of her mind. She had a vague +unreasonable idea that he must be near her; that he saw her as she +played; that he was hiding somewhere in the shadow yonder, peeping +over the wall; that he was in the moon—in the night—everywhere; that +it was his breath which flattered those leaves trembling above the +wall; that it was his footfall which she heard rustling among the +shrubs—a stealthy, mysterious sound mingling with the plish-plash of +the fountain in the next garden. She had talked lightly enough a little +while ago of having seen the last of him: yet now, alone with her +thoughts in the moonlit garden, it seemed as if this nameless stranger +were interwoven with the fabric of her life, a part of her destiny for +evermore. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +‘AND VOLATILE, AS AY WAS HIS USAGE.’ + + +Another brilliant summer day, a cloudless blue sky, a world steeped in +sunshine. On the broad gravelled space in front of the palace-railings +the heat and glare would have been too much for a salamander, and even +Daphne, who belonged to the salamander species in so much as she had +an infinite capacity for enjoying sunshine, blinked a little as she +crossed the shelterless promenade, under her big tussore parasol, a +delightfully cool-looking figure, in a plain white muslin gown, and a +muslin shepherdess hat. + +Poor Miss Toby’s chronic headache had been a little worse this +morning. Heroically had she striven to fulfil her duty, albeit to lift +her leaden head from the pillow was absolute agony. She sat at the +breakfast-table, white, ghastly, uncomplaining, pouring out coffee, at +the very odour of which her bilious soul sickened. Vainly did Daphne +entreat her to go back to bed, and to leave her charges to take care of +themselves, as they had done yesterday. + +‘We won’t go to the forest any more till you are able to go with us,’ +said Daphne, dimly conscious that her behaviour in that woodland region +had been open to blame. ‘We can just go quietly to the palace, and +stroll through the rooms with the few tourists who are likely to be +there to-day. The Fontainebleau season has hardly begun, don’t you +know, and we may have nobody but the guide, and of course he must be a +respectable person.’ + +‘My dear, I was sent here to take care of you both, and I must do my +duty,’ answered Miss Toby with a sickly smile. ‘Yesterday my temples +throbbed so that I could hardly move, but I am a little better to-day, +and I shall put on my bonnet and come with you.’ + +She rose, staggered a few paces towards the adjacent chamber, and +reeled like a landsman at sea. Then she sank into the nearest chair, +and breathed a weary sigh. + +‘It’s no use, Toby darling,’ cried Daphne, bending over her with +tenderest sympathy. To be tender, sweet, and sympathetic in little +outward ways, tones of voice, smiles, and looks, was one of Daphne’s +dangerous gifts. ‘My dearest Toby, why struggle against the +inevitable?’ she urged. ‘It is simply one of your regular bilious +attacks. All you have to do is to lie quietly in a dark room and sleep +it off, just as you have so often done before. To-morrow you will be as +well as I am.’ + +‘Then why not wait till to-morrow for seeing the palace,’ said Miss +Toby faintly, ‘and amuse yourselves at home, for once in a way? You +really ought to study a little, Daphne. Madame will be horrified if she +finds you have done no work all this time.’ + +‘But I do work of an evening—sometimes, dearest,’ expostulated Daphne; +‘and I’m sure you would not like us to be half suffocated all day in +this stifling little salon, poring over horrid books. We should be +having the fever next, and then how would you account to Madame for +your stewardship?’ + +‘Don’t be irreverent, Daphne,’ said Miss Toby, who thought that any use +of scriptural phrases out of church was a kind of blasphemy. ‘I think +you would really be better indoors upon such a day as this; but I feel +too languid to argue the point. What would you like best, Martha?’ + +Miss Dibb, who employed every odd scrap of spare time in the +development of her _magnum opus_ in crochet-work, looked up with a +glance of indifference, and was about to declare her willingness to +stay indoors for ever, so that the crochet counterpane might flourish +and wax wide, when a stealthy frown from Daphne checked her. + +‘Daphne would rather see the palace to-day, I know,’ she replied +meekly, ‘and I think,’ with a nervous glance at her schoolfellow, who +was scowling savagely, ‘I think I would rather go too.’ + +‘Well,’ sighed Miss Toby, ‘I have made an effort, but I feel that I +could not endure the glare out of doors. You must go alone. Be sure you +are both very quiet, if there are tourists about. Don’t giggle, or look +round at people, or make fun of their gowns and bonnets, as you are too +fond of doing. It is horribly unladylike. And if any stranger should +try to get into conversation with you—of course only a low-bred person +would do such a thing—pray remember that your own self-respect would +counsel you to be dumb.’ + +‘Can you suppose we would speak to anyone?’ exclaimed Daphne, as she +tripped away to her little bedroom, next door to Miss Toby’s. It was +the queerest little room, with a narrow, white-muslin-curtained bed +in a recess, and a marvellous piece of furniture which was washstand, +chest of drawers, and dressing-table all in one. A fly-spotted glass, +inclining from the wall above this _multum in parvo_, was Daphne’s only +mirror. + +Here she put on her muslin hat, with a bouquet of blue cornflowers +perched coquettishly on the brim, making a patch of bright cool colour +that refreshed the eye. Never had she looked prettier than this +midsummer morning. Even the fly-spotted clouded old glass told her as +much as that. + +‘If—if he were to be doing the _château_ to-day,’ she thought, +tremulous with excitement, ‘how strange it would be. But that’s not +likely. He is not of the common class of tourists, who all follow the +same beaten track. I daresay he will idle away the afternoon in the +woods, just as he did yesterday.’ + +‘Martha, shall we go to the forest to-day, and leave the _château_ to +be done to-morrow with Toby?’ Daphne asked, when she and her companion +were crossing the wide parade-ground, where the soldiers trotted by +with a great noise and clatter early in the morning, with a fanfare of +trumpets and an occasional roll of a drum. ‘It might seem kinder to +poor dear Toby, don’t you know.’ + +‘I think it would be very wrong, Daphne,’ answered the serious Martha. +‘We told Miss Toby we were going to the palace, and we are bound to go +straight there and nowhere else. Besides, I want to see the pictures +and statues and things, and I am sick to death of that forest.’ + +‘After one day! Oh, Martha, what an unromantic soul you must have. I +could live and die there, if I had pleasant company. I have always +envied Rosalind and Celia.’ + +‘They must have been very glad when they got home,’ said Martha. + +Out of the blinding whiteness of the open street they went in at a gate +to a gravelled quadrangle, where the sun seemed to burn with yet more +fiery heat. Even Daphne felt breathless, but it was a pleasant feeling, +the delight of absolute summer, which comes so seldom in the changeful +year. Then they went under an archway, and into the inner quadrangle, +with the white palace on all sides of them. It wanted some minutes of +eleven, and they were shown into a cool official-looking room, where +they were to wait till the striking of the hour. The room was panelled, +painted white, a room of Louis the Fourteenth’s time most likely; what +little furniture there was being quaint and rococo, but not old. The +blinds were down, the shutters half-closed, and the room was in deep +shadow. + +‘How nice!’ gasped Martha, who had been panting like a fish out of +water all the way. + +‘It is like coming into a grotto,’ said Daphne, sinking into a chair. + +‘It is not half so nice as the forest,’ said a voice in the +semi-darkness. + +Daphne gave a visible start. She had mused upon the possibility of +meeting her acquaintance of yesterday, and had decided that the thing +was unlikely. Yet her spirits had been buoyed by a lurking idea that he +might crop up somehow before the day was done. But to find him here at +the very beginning of things was startling. + +‘Did you know that we were coming here to-day?’ she faltered. + +‘Hadn’t the slightest idea; but I wanted to see the place myself,’ he +answered coolly. + +Daphne blushed rosy-red, deeply ashamed of her foolish, impulsive +speech. The stranger had been sitting in that cool shade for the last +ten minutes, and his eyes had grown accustomed to the obscurity. He saw +the blush, he saw the bright expressive face under the muslin hat, the +slim figure in the white frock, every line sharply accentuated against +a gray background, the slender hand in a long Swedish glove. She looked +more womanly in her white gown and hat—and yet more childlike—than she +had looked yesterday in blue and scarlet. + +They sat for about five minutes in profound silence. Daphne, usually +loquacious, felt as if she could not have spoken for the world. Martha +was by nature stolid and inclined to dumbness. The stranger was +watching Daphne’s face in a lazy reverie, thinking that his hurried +sketch of yesterday was not half so lovely as the original, and yet it +had seemed to him almost the prettiest head he had ever painted. + +‘The provoking minx has hardly one good feature,’ he thought. ‘It is +an utterly unpaintable beauty—a beauty of colour, life, and movement. +Photograph her asleep, and she would be as plain as a pike-staff. How +different from——’ + +He gave a faint sigh, and was startled from his musing by the door +opening with a bang and an official calling out, ‘This way, ladies and +gentlemen.’ + +They crossed the blazing courtyard in the wake of a brisk little +gentleman in uniform, who led them up a flight of stone steps, and +into a stony hall. Thence to the chapel, and then to an upper story, +and over polished floors through long suites of rooms, everyone made +more or less sacred by historical memories. Here was the table on which +Napoleon the Great signed his abdication, while his Old Guard waited +in the quadrangle below. Daphne looked first at the table and then out +of the window, almost as if she expected to see that faithful soldiery +drawn up in the stony courtyard—grim bearded men who had fought and +conquered on so many a field, victors of Lodi and Arcola, Austerlitz +and Jena, Friedland and Wagram, and who knew now that all was over and +their leader’s star had gone down. + +Then to rooms hallowed by noble Marie Antoinette, lovely alike in +felicity and in ruin. Smaller, prettier, more home-like rooms came +next, where the Citizen King and his gentle wife tasted the sweetness +of calm domestic joys; a tranquil gracious family circle; to be +transferred, with but a brief interval of stormy weather, to the +quiet reaches of the Thames, in Horace Walpole’s beloved ‘County of +Twits.’ Then back to the age of tournaments and tented fields; and, lo! +they were in the rooms which courtly Francis built and adorned, and +glorified by his august presence. Here, amidst glitter of gold and glow +of colour, the great King—Charles the Fifth’s rival and victor—lived +and loved, and shed sunshine upon an adoring court. Here from many a +canvas, fresh as if painted yesterday, looked the faces of the past. +Names fraught with romantic memories sanctify every nook and corner +of the palace. Everywhere appears the cypher of Diana of Poitiers +linked with that of her royal lover, Henry the Second. Catherine de +Médicis must have looked upon those interlaced initials many a time in +the period of her probation, looked, and held her peace, and schooled +herself to patience, waiting till Fortune’s wheel should turn and bring +her day of power. Here in this long, lofty chamber, sunlit, beautiful, +the fated Monaldeschi’s life-blood stained the polished floor. + +‘To say the least of it, the act was an impertinence on Queen +Christina’s part, seeing that she was only a visitor at Fontainebleau,’ +said the stranger languidly. ‘Don’t you think so, Poppæa?’ + +Daphne required to have the whole story told her; that particular event +not having impressed itself on her mind. + +‘I have read all through Bonnechose’s history of France, and half way +from the beginning again,’ she explained. ‘But when one sits droning +history in a row of droning girls, even a murder doesn’t make much +impression upon one. It’s all put in the same dull, dry way. This year +there was a great scarcity of corn. The poor in the provinces suffered +extreme privations. Queen Christina, of Sweden, while on a visit at +Fontainebleau, ordered the execution of her counsellor Monaldeschi. +There was also a plague at Marseilles. The Dauphin died suddenly in the +fifteenth year of his age. The king held a Bed of Justice for the first +time since he ascended the throne. That is the kind of thing, you know.’ + +‘I can conceive that so bald a calendar would scarcely take a firm grip +upon one’s memory,’ assented the stranger. ‘Details are apt to impress +the mind more than events.’ + +After this came the rooms which the Pope occupied during his +captivity—rooms that had double and treble memories; here a +nuptial-chamber, there a room all a-glitter with gilding—a room +that had sheltered Charles the Fifth, and afterwards fair, and not +altogether fortunate, Anne of Austria. Daphne felt as if her brain +would hardly hold so much history. She felt a kind of relief when they +came to a theatre, where plays had been acted before Napoleon the Third +and his lovely empress in days that seemed to belong to her own life. + +‘I think I was born then,’ she said naïvely. + +There had been no other visitors—no tourists of high or low degree. The +two girls and the unknown had had the palace to themselves, and the +guide, mollified by a five-franc piece slipped into his hand by the +gentleman, had allowed them to make their circuit at a somewhat more +leisurely pace than that brisk trot on which he usually insisted. + +Yet for all this it was still early when they came down the double +flight of steps and found themselves once again in the quadrangle, the +Court of Farewells, so called from the day when the great emperor bade +adieu to pomp and power, and passed like a splendid apparition from the +scene he had glorified. The sun had lost none of his fervour—nay, had +ascended to his topmost heaven, and was pouring down his rays upon the +baking earth. + +‘Let us go to the gardens and feed the carp,’ said Nero, and it was +an infinite relief, were it only for the refreshment of the eye, to +find themselves under green leaves and by the margin of a lovely lake, +statues of white marble gleaming yonder at the end of verdant arcades, +fountains plashing. Here under the trees a delicious coolness and +stillness contrasted with the glare of light on the open space yonder, +where an old woman sat at a stall, set out with cakes and sweetmeats, +ready to supply food for the carp-feeders. + +‘Yes: let us feed the carp,’ cried Daphne, running out into this +sunlit space, her white gown looking like some saintly raiment in the +supernatural light of a transfiguration. ‘That will be lovely! I have +heard of them. They are intensely old, are they not—older than the +palace itself?’ + +‘They are said to have been here when Henry and Diana walked in yonder +alleys,’ replied Nero. ‘I believe they were here when the Roman legions +conquered Gaul. One thing seems as likely as the other, doesn’t it, +Poppæa?’ + +‘I don’t know about that: but I like to think they are intensely old,’ +answered Daphne, leaning on the iron railing, and looking down at the +fish, which were already competing for her favours, feeling assured she +meant to feed them. + +The old woman got up from her stool, and came over to ask if the young +lady would like some bread for the carp. + +‘Yes, please—a lot,’ cried Daphne, and she began to fumble in her +pocket for the little purse with its three or four francs and +half-francs. + +The stranger tossed a franc to the woman before Daphne’s hand could +get to the bottom of her pocket, and the bread was forthcoming—a +large hunch off a long loaf. Daphne began eagerly to feed the fish. +They were capital fun, disputing vehemently for her bounty, huge +gray creatures which looked centuries old—savage, artful, vicious +exceedingly. She gave them each a name. One she called Francis, another +Henry, another Diana, another Catherine. She was as pleased and amused +as a child, now throwing her bit of bread as far as her arm could fling +it, and laughing merrily at the eager rush of competitors, now luring +them close to the rails, and smiling down at the gray snouts yawning +for their prey. + +‘Do you think they would eat me if I were to tumble in among them?’ +asked Daphne. ‘Greedy creatures! They seem ravenous enough for +anything. There! they have devoured all my bread.’ + +‘Shall I buy you some more?’ + +‘Please, no. This kind of thing might go on for ever. They are +insatiable. You would be ruined.’ + +‘Shall we go under the trees?’ + +‘If you like. But don’t you think this sunshine delicious? It is so +nice to bask. I think I am rather like a cat in my enjoyment of the +sun.’ + +‘Your friend seems to have had enough of it,’ said Nero, glancing +towards a sheltered bench to which Miss Dibb had discreetly withdrawn +herself. + +‘Martha! I had almost forgotten her existence. The carp are so +absorbing.’ + +‘Let us stay in the sunshine. We can rejoin your friend presently. She +has taken out her needlework, and seems to be enjoying herself.’ + +‘Another strip of her everlasting counterpane,’ said Daphne. ‘That +girl’s persevering industry is maddening. It makes one feel so +abominably idle. Would you be very shocked to know that I detest +needlework?’ + +‘I should as soon expect a butterfly to be fond of needlework as you,’ +answered Nero. ‘Let me see your hand.’ + +She had taken off her glove to feed the carp, and her hand lay upon +the iron rail, dazzlingly white in the sunshine; Nero took it up in +his, so gently, so reverently, that she could not resent the action. He +took it as a priest or physician might have taken it: altogether with a +professional or scientific air. + +‘Do you know that I am a student of chiromancy?’ he asked. + +‘How should I, when I don’t know anything about you? And I don’t even +know what chiromancy is.’ + +‘The science of reading fate and character from the configuration of +the hand.’ + +‘Why, that is what gipsies pretend to do,’ cried Daphne. ‘You surely +cannot believe in such nonsense.’ + +‘I don’t know that my belief goes very far; but I have found the study +full of interest, and more than once I have stumbled upon curious +truths.’ + +‘So do the most ignorant gipsy fortune-tellers,’ retorted Daphne. +‘People who are always guessing must sometimes guess right. But you may +tell my fortune all the same, please; it will be more amusing than the +carp.’ + +‘If you approach the subject in such an irreverent spirit, I don’t +think I will have anything to say to you. Remember, I have gone into +this question thoroughly, from a scientific point of view.’ + +‘I am sure you are wonderfully clever,’ said Daphne; and then, in a +coaxing voice, with a lovely look from the sparkling gray eyes, she +pleaded: ‘Pray tell my fortune. I shall be wretched if you refuse.’ + +‘And I should be wretched if I were to disoblige you. Your left hand, +please, and be serious, for it is a very solemn ordeal.’ + +She gave him her left hand. He turned the soft rosy childish palm to +the sunlight, and pored over it as intently as if it had been some +manuscript treatise of Albertus Magnus, written in cypher, to be +understood only by the hierophant in science. + +‘You are of a fitful temper,’ he said, ‘and do not make many friends. +Yet you are capable of loving intensely—one or two persons perhaps, +not more; indeed, I think only one at a time, for your nature is +concentrative rather than diffuse.’ + +He spoke slowly and deliberately—coldly indifferent as an antique +oracle—with his eyes upon her hand all the time. He took no note of the +changes in her expressive face, which would have told him that he had +hit the truth. + +‘You are apt to be dissatisfied with life.’ + +‘Oh, indeed I am,’ she cried, with a weary sigh; ‘there are times when +I do so hate my life and all things belonging to me—except just one +person—that I would change places with any peasant-girl trudging home +from market.’ + +‘You are romantic, variable. You do not care for beaten paths, and have +a hankering for the wild and strange. You love the sea better than the +land, the night better than the day.’ + +‘You are a wizard,’ cried Daphne, remembering her wild delight in the +dancing waves as she stood on the deck of the Channel steamer, her +intense love of the winding river at home—the deep, rapid stream—and of +fresh salt breezes, and a free ocean life; remembering, too, how her +soul had thrilled with rapture in the shadowy courtyard last night, +when her shuttlecock flew up towards the moon. ‘You have a wonderful +knack of finding out things,’ she said. ‘Go on, please.’ + +He had dropped her hand suddenly, and was looking up at her with +intense earnestness. + +‘Please go on,’ she repeated impatiently. + +‘I have done. There is no more to be told.’ + +‘Nonsense. I know you are keeping back something; I can see it in your +face. There is something unpleasant—or something strange—I could see it +in the way you looked at me just now. I insist upon knowing everything.’ + +‘Insist! I am only a fortune-teller so far as it pleases me. Do you +think if a man’s hand told me that he was destined to be hanged, I +should make him uneasy by saying so?’ + +‘But my case is not so bad as that?’ + +‘No; not quite so bad as that,’ he answered lightly, trying to smile. + +The whole thing seemed more or less a joke; but there are some natures +so sensitive that they tremble at the lightest touch; and Daphne felt +uncomfortable. + +‘Do tell me what it was,’ she urged earnestly. + +‘My dear child, I have no more to tell you. The hand shows character +rather than fate. Your character is as yet but half developed. If you +want a warning, I would say to you: Beware of the strength of your own +nature. In that lies your greatest danger. Life is easiest to those +who can take it lightly—who can bend their backs to any burden, and be +grateful for every ray of sunshine.’ + +‘Yes,’ she answered contemptuously; ‘for the drudges. But please tell +me the rest. I know you read something in these queer little lines and +wrinkles,’ scrutinising her pink palm as she spoke, ‘something strange +and startling—for you were startled. You can’t deny that.’ + +‘I am not going to admit or deny anything,’ said Nero, with a quiet +firmness that conquered her, resolute as she was when her own pleasure +or inclination was in question. ‘The oracle has spoken. Make the most +you can of his wisdom.’ + +‘You have told me nothing,’ she said, pouting, but submissive. + +‘And now let us go out of this bakery, under the trees yonder, where +your friend looks so happy with her crochet-work.’ + +‘I think we ought to go home,’ hesitated Daphne, not in the least as if +she meant it. + +‘Home! nonsense. It isn’t one o’clock yet; and you don’t dine at one, +do you?’ + +‘We dine at six,’ replied Daphne with dignity, ‘but we sometimes lunch +at half-past one.’ + +‘Your luncheon isn’t a very formidable affair, is it—hardly worth going +home for?’ + +‘It will keep,’ said Daphne. ‘If there is anything more to be seen, +Martha and I may as well stop and see it.’ + +‘There are the gardens, beyond measure lovely on such a day as this; +and there is the famous vinery; and, I think, if we could find a very +retired spot out of the ken of yonder beardless patrol, I might smuggle +in the materials for another picnic.’ + +‘That would be too delightful,’ cried Daphne, clapping her hands in +childish glee, forgetful of fate and clairvoyance. + +They strolled slowly through the blinding heat towards that cool grove +where patient Martha sat weaving her web, as inflexible in her stolid +industry as if she had been one of the fatal sisters. + +‘What have you been doing all this time, Daphne?’ she asked, lifting up +her eyes as they approached. + +‘Feeding the carp. You have no idea what fun they are.’ + +‘I wonder you are not afraid of a sunstroke.’ + +‘I am never afraid of anything, and I love the sun. Come, Martha, roll +up that everlasting crochet, and come for a ramble. We are going to +explore the gardens, and by-and-by Mr. Nero is going to get us some +lunch.’ + +Martha looked at the unknown doubtfully, yet not without favour. She +was a good, conscientious girl: but she was fond of her meals, and +a luncheon in the cool shade of these lovely groves would be very +agreeable. She fancied, too, that the stranger would be a good caterer. +He was much more carefully dressed to-day, in a gray travelling suit. +Everything about him looked fresh and bright, and suggestive of easy +circumstances. She began to think that Daphne was right, and that he +was no Bohemian artist, living from hand to mouth, but a gentleman +of position, and that it would not be so very awkward to meet him in +Regent street, when she should be shopping with mamma and Jane. + +They strolled along the leafy aisle on the margin of the blue bright +lake, faintly stirred by lightest zephyrs. They admired the marble +figures of nymph and dryad, which Martha thought would have looked +better if they had been more elaborately clad. They wasted half an +hour in happy idleness, enjoying the air, the cool umbrage of lime +and chestnut, the glory of the distant light yonder on green sward or +blue placid lake, enjoying Nature as she should be enjoyed, in perfect +carelessness of mind and heart—as Horace enjoyed his Sabine wood, +singing his idle praise of Lalage as he wandered, empty of care. + +They found at last an utterly secluded spot, where no eye of military +or civil authority could reach them. + +‘Now, if you two young ladies will only be patient, and amuse +yourselves here for a quarter of an hour or so, I will see what can be +done in the smuggling line,’ said the unknown. + +‘I could stay here for a week,’ said Daphne, establishing herself +comfortably on the velvet turf, while Martha pulled out her work-bag +and resumed her crochet-hook. ‘Take your time, Mr. Nero. I am going to +sleep.’ + +She threw off her muslin hat, and laid her cheek upon the soft mossy +bank, letting her pale golden hair fall like a veil over her neck and +shoulders. They were in the heart of a green _bosquet_, far from the +palace, far from the beaten track of tourists. Nero stopped at a curve +in the path to look back at the recumbent figure, the sunny falling +hair, the exquisite tint of cheek and chin and lips, just touched by +the sun-ray glinting through a break in the foliage. He stood for a few +momenta admiring this living picture, and then walked slowly down the +avenue. + +‘A curious idle way of wasting a day,’ he mused; ‘but when a man has +nothing particular to do with his days he may as well waste them +one way as another. How lovely the child is in her imperfection! a +faulty beauty—a faulty nature—but full of fascination. I must write a +description of her in my next letter to my dear one. How interested she +would feel in this childish, undisciplined character.’ + +But somehow when his next letter to the lady of his love came to be +written he was in a lazy mood, and did not mention Daphne. The subject, +to be interesting, required to be treated in detail, and he did not +feel himself equal to the task. + +‘Isn’t he nice?’ asked Daphne, when the unknown had departed. + +‘He is very gentlemanlike,’ assented Martha, ‘but still I feel we are +doing wrong in encouraging him.’ + +‘Encouraging him!’ echoed her schoolfellow. ‘You talk as if he were a +stray cur that had followed us.’ + +‘You perfectly well know what I mean, Daphne. It cannot be right to get +acquainted with a strange gentleman as we have done. I wouldn’t have +mamma or Jane know of it for the world.’ + +‘Then don’t tell them,’ said Daphne, yawning listlessly, and opening +her rosy palm for a nondescript green insect to crawl over it. + +‘But it seems such a want of candour,’ objected Martha. + +‘Then tell them, and defy them. But whatever you do, don’t be fussy, +you dear good-natured old Martha; for of all things fussiness is the +most detestable in hot weather. As for Mr. Nero, he will be off and +away across the Jura before to-morrow night, I daresay, and he will +forget us, and we shall forget him, and the thing will be all over and +done with. I wish he would bring us our luncheon. I’m hungry.’ + +‘I feel rather faint,’ admitted Martha, who thought it ungenteel to +confess absolute hunger. ‘That bread we get for breakfast is all +sponginess. Shall you tell your sister about Mr. Nero?’ + +‘That depends. I may, perhaps, if I should be hard up for something to +say to her.’ + +‘Don’t you think she would be angry?’ + +‘She never is angry. She is all sweetness and goodness, and belief +in other people. I have spent very little of my life with her, or I +should be ever so much better than I am. I should have grown up like +her perhaps—or just a little like her, for I’m afraid the clay is +different—if my father would have let me be brought up at home.’ + +‘And he wouldn’t?’ asked Martha. + +She had heard her friend’s history very often, or as much of it as +Daphne cared to tell, but she was always interested in the subject, +and encouraged her schoolfellow’s egotism. Daphne’s people belonged +to a world which Miss Dibb could never hope to enter; though perhaps +Daphne’s father, Sir Vernon Lawford, had no larger income than Mr. +Dibb, whose furniture and general surroundings were the best and most +gorgeous that money could buy. + +‘No. When I was a little thing I was sent to a lady at Brighton, +who kept a select school for little things; because my father could +not bear a small child about the house. When I grew too tall for my +frocks, and was all stocking and long hair, I was transferred to a +very superior establishment at Cheltenham, because my father could not +be worried by the spectacle of an awkward growing girl. When I grew +still taller, and was almost a young woman, I was packed off to Madame +Tolmache to be finished; and I am to be finished early next year, I +believe, and then I am to go home, and my father will have to endure +me.’ + +‘How nice for you to go home for good! And your home is very beautiful, +is it not?’ asked Martha, who had heard it described a hundred times. + +‘It is a lovely house in Warwickshire, all amongst meadows and winding +streams—a long, low, white house, don’t you know, with no end of +verandahs and balconies. I have been there very little, as you may +imagine, but I love the dear old place all the same.’ + +‘I don’t think I should like to live so far in the country,’ said +Martha: ‘Clapham is so much nicer.’ + +‘_Connais pas_,’ said Daphne indifferently. + +The unknown came sauntering back along the leafy arcade, but not +alone; an individual quite as fashionably clad, and of appearance as +gentlemanlike, walked a pace or two behind him. + +‘Well, young ladies, I have succeeded splendidly as a smuggler; but +I thought two could bring more than one, so I engaged an ally. Now, +Dickson, produce the Cliquot.’ + +The individual addressed as Dickson took a gold-topped pint bottle out +of each side-pocket. He then, from some crafty lurking-place, drew +forth a crockery encased pie, some knives and forks, and a couple +of napkins, while Nero emptied his own pockets, and spread their +contents on the turf. He had brought some wonderful cherries—riper and +sweeter-looking than French fruit usually is—several small white paper +packages which suggested confectionery, a tumbler, and half-a-dozen +rolls, which he had artfully disposed in his various pockets. + +‘We must have looked rather bulky,’ he said; ‘but I suppose the +custodians of the place were too sleepy to take any notice of us. The +nippers, Dickson? Yes! Thoughtful man! You can come back in an hour for +the bottles and the pie-dish.’ + +Dickson bowed respectfully and retired. + +‘Is that your valet?’ asked Daphne. + +‘He has the misfortune to fill that thankless office.’ + +Daphne burst out laughing. + +‘And you travel with your own servant?’ she exclaimed. ‘It is too +absurd! Do you know that yesterday I took you for a poor strolling +artist, and I felt that it would be an act of charity to give you +half-a-guinea for that sketch?’ + +‘You would not have obtained it from me for a thousand half-guineas. +No; I do not belong to the hard-up section of humanity. Perhaps many +a penniless scamp is a better and happier man than I; but, although +poverty is the school for heroes, I have never regretted that it was +not my lot to be a pupil in that particular academy. And now, young +ladies, fall to, if you please. Here is a Perigord pie, which I am +assured is the best that Strasbourg can produce, and here are a few +pretty tiny kickshaws in the way of pastry; and here, to wash these +trifles down, is a bottle of the Widow Cliquot’s champagne.’ + +‘I don’t know that I ever tasted champagne in my life.’ + +‘How odd!’ cried Martha. ‘What, not at juvenile parties?’ + +‘I have never been at any juvenile parties.’ + +‘We have it often at home,’ said Martha, with a swelling consciousness +of belonging to wealthy people. ‘At picnics, and whenever there is +company to luncheon. The grown-ups have it every evening at dinner, if +they like. Papa takes a particular pride in his champagne.’ + +They grouped themselves upon the grass, hidden from all the outside +world by rich summer foliage, much more alone than they had been +yesterday in the heart of the forest. Honest Martha Dibb, who had +been sorely affronted at the free-and-easiness of yesterday’s simple +meal, offered no objection to the luxurious feast of to-day. A man +who travelled with his valet could not be altogether an objectionable +person. The whole thing was unconventional—slightly incorrect, even—but +there was no longer any fear that they were making friends with a +vagabond, who might turn up in after life and ask for small loans. + +‘He is evidently a gentleman,’ thought Martha, quite overcome by the +gentility of the valet. ‘I daresay papa and mamma would be glad to know +him.’ + +Her spirits enlivened by the champagne, Miss Dibb became talkative. + +‘Do you know Clapham Common?’ she asked the stranger. + +‘I have heard of such a place. I believe I have driven past it +occasionally on my way to Epsom,’ he answered listlessly, with his +eyes on Daphne, who was seated in a lazy attitude, her back supported +by the trunk of a lime-tree, her head resting against the brown bark, +which made a sombre background for her yellow hair, her arms hanging +loose at her sides in perfect restfulness, her face and attitude alike +expressing a dreamy softness, as of one for whom the present hour is +enough, and all time and life beyond it no more than a vague dream. She +had just touched the brim of the champagne glass with her lips and that +was all. She had pronounced the Perigord pie the nastiest thing that +she had ever tasted; and she had lunched luxuriously upon pastry and +cherries. + +‘I live on Clapham Common, when I am at home,’ said Martha. ‘Papa has +bought a large house, with a Corinthian portico, and we have ever so +many hot-houses. Papa takes particular pride in his grapes and pines. +Are you fond of pines?’ + +‘Not particularly,’ answered Nero, stifling a yawn. ‘And where do you +live when you are at home, my pretty Poppæa?’ he asked, smiling at +Daphne, who had lifted one languid arm to convey a ripe red cherry to +lips that were as fresh and rosy as the fruit. + +‘In Oxford Street,’ answered Daphne coolly. + +Miss Dibb’s eyebrows went up in horrified wonder; she gave a little +gasp, as who should say, ‘This is too much!’ but did not venture a +contradiction. + +‘In Oxford Street? Why, that is quite a business thoroughfare. Is your +father in trade?’ + +‘Yes. He keeps an Italian warehouse.’ + +Martha became red as a turkey-cock. This was a liberty which she felt +she ought to resent at once; but, sooth to say, the matter-of-fact +Martha had a wholesome awe of her friend. Daphne was very sweet; Daphne +and she were sworn allies: but Daphne had a sharp tongue, and could let +fly little shafts of speech, half playful, half satiric, that pierced +her friend to the quick. + +‘I hope there is nothing that I need be ashamed of in my father’s +trade,’ she said gravely. + +‘Of course not,’ faltered the stranger. ‘Trade is a most honourable +employment of capital and intelligence. I have the greatest respect for +the trading classes—but——’ + +‘But you seemed surprised when I told you my father’s position.’ + +‘Yes; I confess that I was surprised. You don’t look like a tradesman’s +daughter, somehow. If you had told me that your father was a painter, +or a poet, or an actor even, I should have thought it the most natural +thing in the world. You look as if you were allied to the arts.’ + +‘Is that a polite way of saying that I don’t look quite respectable?’ + +‘I am not going to tell you what I mean. You would say I was paying you +compliments, and I believe you have tabooed all compliments. I may be +ruder than Petruchio—didn’t you tell me so in the forest yesterday?—but +any attempt at playing Sir Charles Grandison will be resented.’ + +‘I certainly like you best when you are rude,’ answered Daphne. + +She was not as animated as she had been yesterday during their homeward +walk. The heat and the supreme stillness of the spot invited silence +and repose. She was, perhaps, a little tired by the exploration of +the _château_. She sat under the drooping branches of the lime, whose +blossoms sweetened all the air, half in light, half in shadow: while +Martha, who had eaten a hearty luncheon, and consumed nearly a pint +of Cliquot, plodded on with her crochet-work, and tried to keep the +unknown in conversation. + +She asked him if he had seen this, and that, and the other—operas, +theatres, horticultural fêtes—labouring hard to make him understand +that her people were in the very best society—as if opera-boxes and +horticultural fêtes meant society! and succeeded only in boring him +outrageously. + +He would have been content to sit in dreamy silence watching Daphne +eat her cherries. Such an occupation seemed best suited to the sultry +summer silence, the perfumed atmosphere. + +But Martha thought silence must mean dulness. + +‘We are dreadfully quiet to-day,’ she said. ‘We must do something to +get the steam up. Shall we have some riddles? I know lots of good ones +that I didn’t ask you yesterday.’ + +‘Please don’t,’ cried Nero; ‘I am not equal to it. I think a single +conundrum would crush me. Let us sit and dream. + + “How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream, + With half-shut eyes ever to seem + Falling asleep in a half-dream! + To dream and dream, like yonder amber light, + Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height.”’ + +Martha looked round inquiringly. She did not see either myrrh-bush or +height in the landscape. They were in a level bit of the park, shut in +by trees. + +‘Is that poetry?’ she asked. + +‘Well, it’s the nearest approach to it that the last half-century has +produced,’ replied the unknown, and then he went on quoting: + + ‘“But propt on beds of amaranth and moly, + How sweet (while warm airs lull us blowing lowly), + With half-dropt eyelids still, + Beneath a heaven dark and holy, + To watch the long bright river drawing slowly + His waters from the purple hill.” + +Poppæa, I wish you and I were queen and king of a Lotos Island, and +could idle away our lives in perpetual summer.’ + +‘We should soon grow tired of it,’ answered Daphne. ‘I am like the +little boy in the French story-book. I delight in all the seasons. And +I daresay you skate, hunt, and do all manner of things that couldn’t be +done in summer.’ + +‘True, my astute empress. But when one is setting under lime-boughs on +such a day as this, eternal summer seems your only idea of happiness.’ + +He gave himself up to idle musing. Yes; he was surprised, disappointed +even, at the notion of this bright-haired nymph’s parentage. There was +no discredit in being a tradesman’s daughter. He was very far from +feeling a contempt for commerce. There were reasons in his own history +why he should have considerable respect for successful trade. But for +this girl he had imagined a different pedigree. She had a high-bred +air—even in her reckless unconventionally—which accorded ill with +his idea of a prosperous tradesman’s daughter. There was a poetry in +her every look and movement, a wild untutored grace, which was the +strangest of all flowers to have blossomed in a parlour behind a London +shop. Reared in the smoke and grime of Oxford Street! Brought up amidst +ever present considerations of pounds, shillings, and pence! The girl +and her surroundings were so incongruous that the mere idea of them +worried him. + +‘And by-and-by she will marry some bloated butcher or pompous +coach-builder, and spend all her days among the newly rich,’ he +thought. ‘She will grow into the fat wife of a fat alderman, and +overdress and overeat herself, and live a life of prosperous vulgarity.’ + +The notion was painful to him, and he was obliged to remind himself +that there was very little likelihood of his ever seeing this girl +again, so that the natural commonplaceness of her fate could make very +little difference to him. + +‘Better to be vulgarly prosperous and live to be a great-grandmother +than to fulfil the prophecy written on her hand,’ he said to himself. +‘What does it matter? Let us enjoy to-day, and let the long line of +to-morrows rest in the shadow that wraps the unknown future. To-morrow +I shall be on my way to Geneva, panting and stifling in a padded +railway-carriage, with oily Frenchmen, who will insist upon having the +windows up through the heat and dust of the long summer day, and I +shall look back with envy to this delicious afternoon.’ + +They sat under the limes for a couple of hours, talking a little now +and then in a desultory way; Martha trying her hardest to impress the +unknown with the grandeurs and splendours of Lebanon Lodge, Clapham +Common; Daphne saying very little, content to sit in the shade and +dream. Then having taken their fill of rest and shadow, they ventured +out into the sun, and went to see the famous grapery, and then Martha +looked at her watch and protested that they must go home to tea. Miss +Toby would be expecting them. + +Nero went with them to the gates of the palace, and would fain have +gone further, but Daphne begged him to leave them there. + +‘You would only frighten our poor governess,’ she said. ‘She would +think it quite a terrible thing for us to have made your acquaintance. +Please go back to your hotel at once.’ + +‘If you command me to do so, I must obey,’ said Nero politely. + +He shook hands with them for the first time, gravely lifted his hat, +and walked across to his hotel. It was on the opposite side of the +way, a big white house, with a garden in front of it, and a fountain +playing. The two girls stood in the shadow watching him. + +‘He is really very nice,’ said Martha. ‘I think mamma would like to +have him at one of her dinner-parties. But he did not tell us anything +about himself, did he?’ + +Daphne did not hear her. There was hardly room in that girlish brain +for all the thoughts that were crowding into it. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +‘CURTEIS SHE WAS, DISCRETE, AND DEBONAIRE.’ + + +The world was nine months older since Daphne picnicked in the park +at Fontainebleau, and the scenery of her life was changed to a +fair English landscape in one of the fairest of English shires. +Here, in fertile Warwickshire, within three miles of Shakespeare’s +birthplace, within a drive of Warwick and Leamington, and Kenilworth, +and Stoneleigh Park, to say nothing of ribbon-weaving, watch-making +Coventry, Daphne wandered in happy idleness through the low-lying +water-meadows, which bounded the sloping lawns and shady gardens of +South Hill. + +South Hill was a gentle elevation in the midst of a pastoral valley. +A long, low, white house, which had been added to from time to time, +crowned the grassy slope, and from its balconied windows commanded +one of the prettiest views in England—a landscape purely pastoral +and rustic; low meadows through which the Avon wound his silvery way +between sedgy banks, with here a willowy islet, and there a flowery +creek. On one side the distant roofs and gables and tall spire of +Stratford, seen above intervening wood and water; on the other a gentle +undulating landscape, bounded by a range of hills purple with distance. + +It was not an old house. There was nothing historical about it; though +South Hill, with between three and four hundred acres, had belonged to +Sir Vernon Lawford’s family since the reign of Elizabeth. There had +been an ancient mansion; but the ancient mansion, being an unhealthy +barrack of small low rooms, and requiring the expenditure of five +thousand pounds to make it healthy and habitable, Sir Vernon’s father +had conceived the idea that he could make a better use of his money if +he pulled down the old house and built himself a new one: whereupon the +venerable pile was demolished, much to the disgust of archæologists, +and an Italian villa rose from its ashes: a house with wide French +windows opening into broad verandahs, delicious places in which to +waste a summer morning, or the idle after-dinner hour watching the +sunset. All the best rooms at South Hill faced the south-west, and the +sunsets there seemed to Madoline Lawford more beautiful than anywhere +else in the world. It was a house of the simplest form, built for ease +and comfort rather than for architectural display. There were long cool +corridors, lofty rooms below and above stairs, a roomy hall, a broad +shallow staircase, and at one end of the house a spacious conservatory +which had been added by Sir Vernon soon after his marriage. This +conservatory was the great feature of South Hill. It was a lofty +stone building, with a double flight of marble steps descending from +the drawing-room to the billiard-room below. Thus drawing-room and +billiard-room both commanded a full view of the conservatory through +wide glass doors. + +There were melancholy associations for Sir Vernon Lawford in this wing +which he had added to South Hill. He had built it to give pleasure to +his first wife, an heiress, and the most amiable of women: but before +the building was finished the first Lady Lawford was in her grave, +leaving a baby girl of two months old behind her. The widower grieved +intensely; but he proved no exception to the general rule that the more +intense the sorrow of the bereaved the more speedily does he or she +seek consolation in new ties. Sir Vernon married again within two years +of his wife’s death; and, this time, instead of giving satisfaction +to the county by choosing one of the best born and wealthiest ladies +within its length and breadth, he picked up his wife somewhere on +the Continent—a fact which in the opinion of the county was much in +her disfavour—and when he brought her home and introduced her to his +friends, he was singularly reticent as to her previous history. + +The county people shrugged their shoulders, and doubted if this +marriage would end well. They had some years later the morbid +satisfaction of being able to say that they had prophesied aright. The +second Lady Lawford bore her husband two children, a boy and a girl, +and within a year of her daughter’s birth mysteriously disappeared. +She went to the South of France, it was said, for her lungs; though +everybody’s latest recollection of her was of a young woman in the +heyday of health, strength, and beauty; somewhat self-willed, very +extravagant, inordinately fond of pleasure, and governing her husband +with the insolence of conscious beauty. + +From that southern journey she never came back. Nobody ever heard +any explicit account of her death; yet after two or three years it +became an accepted fact that she was dead. Sir Vernon travelled a +good deal, while his maiden sister kept house for him at South Hill, +and superintended the rearing of his children. Madoline, daughter and +heiress of the first Lady Lawford, was brought up and educated at home. +Loftus, the boy, went to a private tutor at Stratford, and thence +to Rugby, where he fell ill and died. Daphne’s childhood and early +girlhood were spent almost entirely at school. Only a week ago she was +still at Asnières, grinding away at the everlasting prosy old books, +reciting Lafontaine’s fables, droning out long singsong speeches from +Athalie or Iphigénie, teasing poor patient Miss Toby, domineering over +Martha Dibb. And now her education was supposed to be finished, and +she was free—free to roam like a wild thing about the lovely grounds +at South Hill, in the water-meadows where the daffodils grew in such +rank luxuriance; and where, years ago, when she was a little child, and +had crowned herself with a chaplet of those yellow flowers, scarcely +brighter than her hair, a painter-friend of her father’s had called her +Asphodel. + +How well she remembered that sunny morning in early April—ages ago! +Childhood seems so far off at seventeen. How distinctly she remembered +the artist whose refined and gentle manners had won her childish heart! +She had been so little praised at South Hill that her pulses thrilled +with pleasure when her father’s friend smiled at her flower-crowned +head and cried: ‘What a lovely picture! Look, Lawford, would not you +like me to paint her just as she is at this moment, with her hair +flying in the wind, and that background of rushes and blue water?’ But +Sir Vernon turned on his heel with a curt half-muttered answer, and the +two men walked on and left her, smoking their cigarettes as they went. +She remembered how, in a blind childish fury, scarce knowing why she +was angry, she tore the daffodil crown from her hair and trampled it +under foot. + +To the end of his visit the painter called her Asphodel, and one +morning finding her alone in the garden, he carried her off to the +billiard-room and made a sketch of her head with its loose tangled +hair: a head which appeared next year on the line at the Royal Academy +and was raved about by all artistic London. + +And now it was early April again, and she was a girl in the fair dawn +of womanhood, free to do what she liked with her life, and there were +many things that she was beginning to understand, things not altogether +pleasant to her womanly pride. She was beginning to perceive very +clearly that her father did not love her, and was never likely to love +her, that her presence in his home gave him no pleasure, that he simply +endured her as part of the burden of life, while to her sister he gave +love without stint or measure. True that he was by nature and habit +selfish and self-indulgent, and that the love of such a man is at best +hardly worth having. But Daphne would have been glad of her father’s +love, were the affection of ever so poor a quality. His indifference +chilled her soul. She had been accustomed to command affection; to be +petted and praised and bowed down to for her pretty looks and pretty +ways; to take a leading position with her schoolfellows, partly because +she was Sir Vernon Lawford’s daughter, and partly for those subtle +charms and graces which made her superior to the rank and file of +school-girls. + +Yet, though Sir Vernon was wanting in affection for his younger +daughter, Daphne was not unloved at South Hill. Her sister Madoline +loved her dearly, had so loved her ever since those unforgotten summer +days when the grave girl of nine and the toddling two-year-old baby +wandered hand-in-hand in shrubberies and gardens, and seemed to have +the whole domain of South Hill to themselves, Sir Vernon and Lady +Lawford being somewhere on the Continent, and the maiden aunt being a +lady very much in request in the best society in the neighbourhood, and +very willing to take the utmost enjoyment out of life, and to delegate +her duties to nurses and maids. The love that had grown up in those +days between the sisters had been in no wise lessened by severance. +They were as devoted to each other now as they had been in the dawn +of life: Madoline loving Daphne with a proud protecting love; Daphne +looking up to Madoline with intense respect, and believing in her as +the most perfect of women. + +‘I’m afraid I shall never be able to leave off talking,’ said Daphne +upon this particular April morning, when she had come in from a long +ramble by the Avon, with her apron full of daffodils; ‘I seem to have +such a world of things to tell you.’ + +‘Don’t put any check upon your eloquence, darling. You won’t tire me,’ +said Madoline in her low gentle voice. + +She had a very soft voice, and a slow calm way of speaking, which +seemed to most people to be the true patrician tone. She spoke like a +person who had never been in a hurry, and had never been in a passion. + +The sisters were in Madoline’s morning-room, sometimes called the +old drawing-room, as it had been the chief reception-room at South +Hill before Sir Vernon built the west wing. It was a large airy room, +painted white, with chintz draperies of the lightest and most delicate +tints—apple-blossoms on a creamy ground; the furniture all of light +woods; the china celadon or turquoise; but the chief beauty of the +room, its hot-house flowers—tulips, gardenias, arums, hyacinths, +pansies, grouped with exquisite taste on tables and in jardinières, on +brackets and mantelpiece. The love of flowers was almost a passion with +Madoline Lawford, and she was rich enough to indulge this inclination +to her heart’s content. She had built a long line of hot-houses in one +of the lower gardens, and kept a small regiment of gardeners and boys. +She could afford to do this, and yet to be Lady Bountiful in all the +district round about South Hill; so nobody ventured to blame her for +the money she spent upon horticulture. + +She was a very handsome woman—handsome in that perfectly regular +style about which there can be no difference of opinion. Some might +call her beauty cold, but all must own she was beautiful. Her profile +was strongly marked, the forehead high and broad, the nose somewhat +aquiline; the mouth proud, calm, resolute, yet infinitely sweet when +she smiled; the eyes almost black, with long dark lashes, sculptured +eyelids, and delicately-pencilled brows. She wore her hair as she might +have worn it had she lived in the days of Pericles and Aspasia—simply +drawn back from her forehead, and twisted in a heavy Greek knot at the +back of her head; no fringed locks or fluffiness gave their factitious +charm to her face. Her beauty was of that calm statuesque type which +has nothing to do with chic, piquancy, dash, audacity, or any of +those qualities which go such a long way in the composition of modern +loveliness. + +All her tastes were artistic; but her love of art showed itself +rather in the details of daily life than in any actual achievement +with brush or pencil. She worked exquisitely in crewels and silks, +drew her own designs from natural flowers, and produced embroideries +on linen or satin which were worthy to be hung in a picture-gallery. +She had a truly feminine love of needlework, and was never idle—in +this the very reverse of Daphne, who loved to loll at ease, looking +lazily at the sky or the landscape, and making up her mind to be +tremendously busy by-and-by Daphne was always beginning work, and +never finishing anything; while every task undertaken by Madoline was +carried on to completion. The very essence of her own character was +completeness—fulfilling every duty to the uttermost, satisfying in +fullest measure every demand which home or society could make upon her. + +‘I’m sure you’ll be tired of me, Lina,’ protested Daphne, kneeling on +the fender-stool, while Madoline sat at work in her accustomed place, +with a Japanese bamboo table at her side for the accommodation of her +crewels. ‘You can’t imagine what a capacity I have for talking.’ + +‘Then I must be very dull,’ murmured Madoline, smiling at her. ‘You +have been home a week.’ + +‘Well, certainly, you have had some experience of me; but you might +think my loquacity a temporary affliction, and that when I had said my +say after nearly two years of separation—oh, Lina, how horrid it was +spending all my holidays at Asnières!—I should subside into comparative +silence. But I shall always have worlds to tell you. It is my nature +to say everything that comes into my mind. That’s why I got on so well +with Dibb.’ + +‘Was Dibb a dog, dear?’ + +‘A dog!’ cried Daphne, with a sparkling smile. ‘No, Dibb was my +schoolfellow—a dear good thing—stupid, clumsy, innately vulgar, but +devoted to me. “A poor thing, but mine own,” as Touchstone says. We +were tremendous chums.’ + +‘I am sorry you should make a friend of any innately vulgar girl, +Daphne dear,’ said Madoline gravely; ‘and don’t you think it rather +vulgar to talk of your friend as Dibb?’ + +‘We all did it,’ answered Daphne with a shrug; ‘I was always called +Lawford. It saves trouble, and sounds friendly. You talk about Disraeli +and Gladstone; why not Dibb and Lawford?’ + +‘I think there’s a difference, Daphne. If you were very friendly with +this Miss Dibb, why not speak of her by her Christian name?’ + +‘So be it, my dearest. In future she shall be Martha, to please you. +She really is a good inoffensive soul. Her father keeps a big shop in +Oxford Street; but the family live in a palace on Clapham Common, with +gardens, and vineries, and pineries, and goodness knows what. When I +call her vulgar it is because she and all her people are so proud of +their money, and measure everything by the standard of money. Martha +was very inquisitive about my means. She wanted to know whether I was +rich or poor, and I really couldn’t inform her. Which am I, Lina?’ + +Daphne looked up at her sister as if it were a question about which +she was slightly curious, but not a matter of supreme moment. A faint +flush mounted to Madoline’s calm brow. The soft dark eyes looked +tenderly at Daphne’s eager face. + +‘Dearest, why trouble yourself about the money question? Have you ever +felt the inconvenience of poverty?’ + +‘Never. You sent me everything I could possibly wish for; and I always +had more pocket-money than any girl in the school, not excepting +Martha; though she took care to inform me that her father could have +allowed her ten times as much if he had chosen. No, dear; I don’t know +what poverty means; but I should like to understand my own position +very precisely, now that I am a woman, don’t you know? I am quite aware +that you are an heiress; everybody at South Hill has taken pains to +impress that fact upon my mind. Please, dear, what am I?’ + +‘Darling, papa is not a rich man, but he——’ Madoline paled a little +as she spoke, knowing that South Hill had been settled on her mother, +and her mother’s children after her, and that, in all probability, Sir +Vernon had hardly any other property in the world. ‘He will provide for +you, no doubt. And if he were unable to leave you much by-and-by, I +have plenty for both.’ + +‘I understand,’ said Daphne, growing pale in her turn; ‘I am a pauper.’ + +‘Daphne!’ + +‘My mother had not a sixpence, I suppose; and that is why nobody ever +speaks of her; and that is why there is not a portrait of her in this +house, where she lived, and was admired, and loved. I was wrong to call +Dibb vulgar for measuring all things by a money standard. It is other +people’s measure, as well as hers.’ + +‘Daphne, how can you say such things?’ + +‘Didn’t I tell you that I say everything that comes into my head? Oh, +Madoline, don’t for pity’s sake think that I envy you your wealth—you +who have been so good to me, you who are all I have to love in this +world! It is not the money I care for. I think I would just as soon be +poor as rich, if I could be free to roam the world, like a man. But to +live in a great house, waited on by an army of servants, and to know +that I am nobody, of no account, a mere waif, the penniless daughter of +a penniless mother—that wounds me to the quick.’ + +‘My dearest, my pet, what a false, foolish notion! Do you think anybody +in this house values you less because I have a fortune tied to me by +all manner of parchment deeds, and you have no particular settlement, +and have only expectations from a not over-rich father? Do you think +you are not admired for your grace and pretty looks, and that by-and-by +there will not come the best substitute which modern life can give for +the prince of our dear old fairy tales—a good husband, who will be +wealthy enough to give my darling all she can desire in this world?’ + +‘I’m sure I shall hate him, whoever he may be,’ said Daphne, with a +short, impatient sigh. + +Madoline looked at her earnestly, with the tender motherly look which +came naturally to the beautiful face when the elder sister looked at +the younger. She had put aside her crewel-work at the beginning of this +conversation, and had given all her attention to Daphne. + +‘Why do you say that, dearest?’ she asked gravely. + +‘Oh, I don’t know, really. But I’m sure I shall never marry.’ + +‘Isn’t it rather early to make up your mind on that point?’ + +‘Why should it be? Hasn’t one a mind and a heart at seventeen as well +as at seven-and-twenty? I should like well enough to have a very rich +husband by-and-by, so that, instead of being Daphne, the pauper, I +might be Mrs. Somebody, with ever so much a year settled upon me for +ever and ever. But I don’t believe I shall ever see anybody I shall be +able to care for.’ + +‘I hope, darling, you haven’t taken it into your foolish head that you +care for some one already. School-girls are so silly.’ + +‘And generally fall in love with the dancing-master,’ said Daphne, +with a laugh. ‘I think I tried rather hard to do that, but I couldn’t +succeed. The poor man wore a wig; a dreadfully natural, dreadfully +curly wig; like the pictures of Lord Byron. No, Lina; I pledge you my +word that no dancing-master’s image occupies my breast.’ + +‘I am glad to hear it,’ answered Madoline. ‘I hope there is no one +else.’ + +Daphne blushed rosy red. She took a gardenia from the low glass vase on +her sister’s work-table, where the white waxen flowers were clustered +in the centre of a circle of purple pansies, and began to pick the +petals off slowly, one by one. + +‘He loves me—loves me not,’ she whispered softly, smiling all the while +at her own foolishness, till the smile faded slowly at sight of the +barren stem. + +‘Loves me not,’ she sighed. ‘You see, Fate is against me, Lina. I am +doomed to die unmarried.’ + +‘Daphne, do you mean that there is someone?’ faltered Madoline, more +in earnest than it might seem needful to be with a creature so utterly +childlike. + +‘There was a man once in a wood,’ said Daphne, with crimson cheeks +and downcast eyelids, yet with an arch smile curling her lips all the +while. ‘There was a man whom Dibb—I beg your pardon, Martha—and I once +met in a wood in our holidays—papa would have me spend my holidays at +school, you see—and I have thought since, sometimes—mere idle fancy, no +doubt—that he is the only man I should ever care to marry; and that is +impossible, for he is engaged to someone else. So you see I am fated to +die a spinster.’ + +‘Daphne, what do you mean? A man whom you met in a wood, and he was +engaged—and——! You don’t mean that you and your friend Miss Dibb made +the acquaintance of a strange man whom you met when you were out +walking,’ exclaimed Madoline, aghast at the idea. ‘Surely you were too +well looked after for that! You never went out walking alone, did you? +I thought Frenchwomen were so extremely particular.’ + +‘Of course they are,’ replied Daphne, laughing. ‘I was only drawing +on my imagination, dearest, just to see that solemn face of yours. It +was worth the trouble. No, Lina dear, there is no one. My heart is as +free as my shuttlecock, when I send it flying over the roof scaring the +swallows. And now, let us talk about your dear self. I want you to tell +me all about Mr. Goring; about Gerald. I suppose I may call him by his +christian name, as he is to be my brother-in-law by-and-by.’ + +‘Your brother, dear.’ + +‘Thank you, Lina. That sounds ever so much nicer. I am so short of +relations. Then I shall always call him Gerald. What a pretty name!’ + +‘He was called after his mother, Lady Geraldine.’ + +‘I see. She represented the patrician half of his family, and his +father the plebeian half, I believe? The father was a Dibb, was he +not—a money-grubber?’ + +‘His father was a very worthy man, who rose from the ranks, and made +his fortune as a contractor.’ + +‘And Lady Geraldine married him for the sake of his worthiness; and you +and Gerald are going to spend his money.’ + +‘Mr. Goring and his wife were a very united couple, I believe, Daphne. +There is no reason why you should laugh at them.’ + +‘Except my natural malice, which makes me inclined to ridicule good +people. You should have said that, Madoline; for you look as if you +meant it. Was the contractor’s name always Goring?’ + +‘No; he was originally a Mr. Giles, but he changed his name soon after +his marriage, and took the name of his wife’s maternal grandfather, a +Warwickshire squire.’ + +‘What a clever way of hooking himself on to the landed gentry!’ said +Daphne. ‘And now, please tell me all about Gerald. Is he very nice?’ + +‘You may suppose that I think him so,’ answered Madoline, going on with +the fashioning of a water-lily on a ground of soft gray cloth. ‘I can +hardly trust myself to praise him, for fear I should say too much.’ + +‘How is it that I have seen no photograph of him? I expected to see +half-a-dozen portraits of him in this room alone; but I suppose you +have an album crammed with his photos somewhere under lock and key.’ + +‘He has not been photographed since he was a school-boy. He detests +photography; and though he has often promised me that he would +sacrifice his own feelings so far as to be photographed, he has never +kept his word.’ + +‘That is very bad of him,’ said Daphne. ‘I am bursting with curiosity +about his looks. But—perhaps,’ she faltered, with a deprecating air, +‘the poor thing is rather plain, and that is why he does not care to be +photographed.’ + +‘No,’ replied Madoline, with her gentle smile; ‘I do not think his +worst enemy could call him plain—not that I should love him less if he +were the plainest of mankind.’ + +‘Yes, you would,’ exclaimed Daphne, with conviction. ‘It is all very +well to talk about loving a man for his mind, or his heart, and all +that kind of thing. You wouldn’t love a man with a potato-nose or a +pimply complexion, if he were morally the most perfect creature in the +universe. I am very glad my future brother is handsome.’ + +‘That is a matter of opinion—I don’t know your idea of a handsome man.’ + +‘Let me see,’ paid Daphne, clasping her bands above her head, in a +charmingly listless attitude, and giving herself up to thought. ‘My +idea of good looks in a man? The subject requires deliberation. What +do you say to a pale complexion, inclining to sallowness; dreamy eyes, +under dark straight brows; forehead low, yet broad enough to give room +for plenty of brains; mouth grave, and even mournful in expression, +except when he smiles—the whole face must light up like a god’s when he +smiles; hair darkest brown, short, straight, silky?’ + +‘One would think you had seen Mr. Goring, and were describing him,’ +said Madoline. + +‘What, Lina, is he like that?’ + +‘It is so difficult to realise a description, but really yours might do +for Gerald. Yet, I daresay, the image in your mind is totally different +from that in mine.’ + +‘No doubt,’ answered Daphne, and then, with a half-breathed sigh, she +quoted her favourite Tennyson. ‘No two dreams are alike.’ + +‘You will be able to judge for yourself before long,’ said Madoline; +‘Gerald is coming home in the autumn.’ + +‘The autumn!’ cried Daphne. ‘That is an age to wait. And then, I +suppose, you are to be married immediately?’ + +‘Not till next spring, That is my father’s wish. You see, I don’t come +of age till I’m twenty-five, and there are settlements and technical +difficulties. Papa thought it best for us to wait, and I did not wish +to oppose him.’ + +‘I believe it is all my father’s selfishness. He can’t bear to lose +you.’ + +‘Can I be angry with him for that?’ asked Madoline, smiling tenderly +at the thought of her father’s love. ‘I am proud to think that I am +necessary to his happiness.’ + +‘But there is your happiness—and Mr. Goring’s—to be considered. It has +been such a long engagement, and you have been kept so much apart. It +must have been a dreary time for you. If ever I am engaged I hope my +young man will always be dancing attendance upon me.’ + +‘My father thought it best that we should not be too much together, +for fear we should get tired of each other,’ said Madoline, with an +incredulous smile; ‘and as Gerald is very fond of travelling, and +wanted change after the shock of his mother’s death, papa proposed +that he should spend the greater part of his life abroad until my +twenty-fifth birthday. The separation would be a test for us both, my +father thought.’ + +‘A most cruel, unjustifiable test,’ cried Daphne indignantly. ‘Your +twenty-fifth birthday, forsooth! Why, you will be an old woman before +you are married. In all the novels I ever read, the heroine married +before she was twenty, and even then she seemed sometimes quite an old +thing. Eighteen is the proper age for orange-blossoms and a Brussels +veil.’ + +‘That is all a matter of opinion, pet. I don’t think young lady +novelists of seventeen and eighteen have always the wisest views of +life. You must not say a word against your father, Daphne. He always +acts for the best.’ + +‘I never heard of a domestic tyrant yet of whom that could not be +said,’ retorted Daphne. ‘However, darling, if you are satisfied, I am +content; and I shall look forward impatiently to the autumn, and to the +pleasure of making my new brother’s acquaintance. I hope he will like +me.’ + +‘No fear of that, Daphne.’ + +‘I am not at all sure of winning his regard. Look at my father! I would +give a great deal to be loved by him, yet he detests me.’ + +‘Daphne! How can you say such a thing?’ + +‘It is the truth. Why should I not say it? Do you suppose I don’t +know the signs or aversion as well as the signs of love? I know that +you love me. You have no need to tell me so. I do not even want the +evidence of your kind acts. I am assured of your love. I can see it in +your face; I can hear it in every tone of your voice. And I know just +as well that my father dislikes me. He kept me at a distance as long +as ever he could, and now that duty—or his regard for other people’s +opinion—obliges him to have me at home, he avoids me as if I were a +roaring lion, or something equally unpleasant.’ + +‘Only be patient, dear. You will win his heart in time,’ said +Madoline soothingly. She had put aside the water-lily, and had drawn +her sister’s fair head upon her shoulder with caressing fondness. ‘He +cannot fail to love my sweet Daphne when he knows her better,’ she said. + +‘I don’t know that. I fancy he was prejudiced against me when I was a +little thing and could scarcely have offended him; unless it were by +cutting my teeth disgustingly, or having nettlerash, or something of +that kind. Lina, do you think he hated my mother?’ + +Madoline started, and flushed crimson. + +‘Daphne! what a question! Why, my father’s second marriage was a +love-match, like his first.’ + +‘Yes, I suppose he was in love with her, or he would hardly have +married a nobody,’ said Daphne, in a musing tone; ‘but he might have +got to hate her afterwards.’ + +At this moment the door was opened, and a voice, full, round, manly in +tone, said: ‘Madoline, I want you.’ + +Lina rose hastily, letting her work fall out of her lap, kissed Daphne, +and hurried from the room at her father’s summons. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +‘THOU LOVEST ME, THAT WOT I WEL CERTAIN.’ + + +Many a time since her home-coming had Daphne been on the point of +telling her sister all about that more or less anonymous traveller, +whom she called the man in the wood; but her picnicking adventures, +looked at retrospectively from the strictly-correct atmosphere of home, +seemed much more terrible than they had appeared to her at Asnières; +where a vague hankering after forbidden pleasures was an element in +the girlish mind, and where there was a current idea that the most +appalling impropriety was allowable, provided the whole business were +meant as a joke. But Daphne, seated at Madoline’s feet, began to feel +doubtful if there were any excuse for such joking; and, after that +one skirmishing approach to the subject, she said no more about the +gentleman who had called himself Nero. It was hateful to her to have a +secret, were it the veriest trifle, from her sister; but the idea of +Madoline’s disapproval was still more repugnant to her; and she was +very certain that Madoline would disapprove of the whole transaction in +which Mr. Nero had been concerned. + +‘I could never tell her how thoroughly at home I felt with him,’ mused +Daphne; ‘how easy and natural our acquaintance seemed—just as if we +had been destined from the very beginning of time to meet at that hour +and at that spot. And to part so soon!’ added Daphne with a sigh. ‘It +seemed hardly worth while to meet.’ + +Yes; it was a mystery upon which Daphne brooded very often in the fair +spring weather, as she wandered by her beloved river. Strange that two +lives should meet and touch for a moment, like circles on yonder placid +water—meet, and touch, and part, and never meet again! + +‘The rings on the river break when they touch,’ thought Daphne. ‘They +are fatal to each other. Our meeting had no significance: two summer +days and it was all over and ended. I wonder whether Nero ever thought +of Poppæa after he left Fontainebleau? Poppæa! What a silly name; and +what a simpleton he must have thought me for assuming it.’ + +Of all things at South Hill, where there was so much that was +beautiful, Daphne loved the river. It had been her delight when she +was a tiny child, hardly able to syllable the words that were meant to +express admiration. She had wanted to walk into the water—had struggled +in her nurse’s arms to get at it, and make herself a part of the thing +that seemed so beautiful. Then when she was just a little older and +a little wiser, it had been her delight to sit on the very edge of +the stream, to sit hidden in the rushes, spelling out a fairy tale. +In those early days she would have been happy if the world had begun +and ended in those low-lying meadows where daffodils, and orchises, +and blue-bells grew in such rich abundance that she could gather and +waste them all day long, yet make no perceptible difference in their +number; where the lazy cattle stood half the day breast-high in the +weedy water, dreaming with wide open eyes; where the shadow of a bird +flitting across the stream was the only thing that gave token of +life’s restlessness. Later there came a happy midsummer holiday when +her father was away at Ems, nursing his last fancied disorder, and she +and Madoline were alone together at South Hill under the protection of +the maiden aunt, who never interfered with anybody’s pleasure so long +as she could enjoy her own way of life; and in a willow-shaded creek +Daphne found a disused forgotten punt which had lain stagnant in the +mud for the last seven years, and with the aid of a youth who worked in +the gardens she had so patched and caulked and painted this derelict +as to make it tolerably water-tight, and in this frail and clumsy +craft she had punted herself up and down a shallow tributary of the +deep swift Avon, as far afield as she could go without making Madoline +absolutely miserable. + +And now being ‘finished,’ and a young woman, Daphne asked herself where +she was to get a boat. She had plenty of pocket-money. There was an old +boat-house under one of the willows where she could keep her skiff. She +had learnt to swim at Asnières, so there could be no danger. So she +took counsel with the garden youth, who had grown into a man by this +time, and asked him whether he could buy her a boat, and where. + +‘That’s accordin’ to the kind o’ boat as you might fancy, miss,’ +answered her friend. ‘There’s a many kind o’ boats, you see.’ + +‘Oh, I hardly know; but I should like something light and pretty, a +long, narrow boat, don’t you know?’ and Daphne went on to describe an +outrigger. + +‘Lord, miss, it would be fearful dangerous. You’d be getting he among +the weeds, and upsettin’ un. You’d better have a dingey. That’s safe +and comfortable like.’ + +‘A dingey’s a thing like a washing-tub, isn’t it?’ + +‘Rayther that shape, miss.’ + +‘I wouldn’t sit in such a thing for the world. No, Bink, if I can’t +have a long, narrow boat with a sharp nose, I’ll have a punt. I think +I should really like a punt. I was so fond of that one. I feel quite +sorry that the rats ate it. Yes; you must buy me a punt. There’ll +be plenty of room in it for my drawing-board, and my books, and my +crewel-work; for I mean to live on the river when the summer comes. How +soon can you buy me my punt?’ + +‘I think as how you’d better have a dingey, miss,’ said Bink. ‘It was +all very well pushing about a punt in the creeks when you was a child, +but a punt don’t do in deep water. You can have a nice-shaped dingey, +not too much of a tub, you know, and a pair o’ sculls, and I’ll teach +you to row. I can order it any arternoon that I can get an ’oliday, +miss. There’s a good boat-builder at Stratford. I’ll order he to build +it.’ + +‘How lovely,’ cried Daphne, clapping her hands. ‘A boat built on +purpose for me! It must have no end of cushions, for my sister will +come with me very often, of course. And it must be painted in the early +English style. I’ll have a dark red dado.’ + +‘A what, miss?’ + +‘A dado, Bink. The lower half of the inside must be painted dark red, +and the upper half a lovely cream colour; and the outside must be a +dark greenish-brown. You understand, don’t you?’ + +‘Not over well, miss. You’d better write it down for the boat-builder.’ + +‘I’ll do better than that, Bink—I’ll make a sketch of the boat, and +paint it the colours I want. And it—she—must have a name, I suppose.’ + +‘Boats has names mostly, miss.’ + +‘My boat shall not be nameless. I’ll call her——’ A pause, then a sudden +dimpling smile and a bright blush, loveliness thrown away on Bink, who +stood at ease leaning on his hoe and staring at the river. ‘I’ll call +her—Nero.’ + +‘An ’ero, miss. What ’ero? The old Dook o’ Wellington? He were an +’ero, warn’t he? Or Nelson? That’s more of a name for a boat.’ + +‘Nero, Bink, Nero. I’ll write it down for the boat-builder.’ + +‘You’d better, please, miss. I never was good at remembering names.’ + +When Daphne had given Bink the sketch, with full authority to +commission her boat, she had an after-thought about her father. The +boat-house was his property; even the river in some measure belonged +to him; he had at least riparian rights. So after dinner that evening, +when Madoline and she were sitting opposite each other in silence +at the pretty table, bright with velvety gloxinias and maidenhair +ferns, while Sir Vernon leant back in his chair, sipping his claret, +and grumbling vaguely about things in general, the indolence of his +servants, the unfitness of his horses, the impending ruin of the land +in which he lived, and the crass ignorance of the pig-headed body +of men who were pretending to govern it, Daphne, in a pause of the +paternal monologue, lifted up her voice. + +‘Papa, may I have a dingey, please? I can buy it with my own money.’ + +‘A dingey!’ exclaimed Sir Vernon. ‘What in Heaven’s name is a dingey?’ + +He had an idea that it must be some article of female attire or of +fancy-work, since his frivolous young daughter desired to possess it. + +‘A dingey—is—a kind of boat, papa.’ + +‘On, a dingey!’ exclaimed Sir Vernon, as if she had said something else +in the first instance. ‘What can you want with a dingey?’ + +‘I am so dearly fond of the river, papa; and a dingey is such a safe +boat, Bink says.’ + +‘Who is Bink?’ + +‘One of the under gardeners.’ + +‘A curious authority to quote. So you want a dingey, and to row +yourself about the river like a boy.’ + +‘There is no one to notice me, papa.’ + +‘The place is secluded enough, so long as you don’t go beyond our own +meadows. I desired Madame Tolmache to have you taught swimming. Can you +swim?’ + +‘Yes, papa. I believe I am a rather good swimmer.’ + +‘Well, you can have your boat—it is a horribly masculine taste—always +provided you do not go beyond our own fields. I cannot have you boating +over half the county.’ + +‘I shall be quite happy to keep to our own fields, papa,’ Daphne +answered meekly. + +She enlisted the devoted Bink in her service next morning; he patched +up the old boat-house, and whitewashed the inside walls; much to +the displeasure of Mr. MacCloskie, the head gardener, a gentleman +in broadcloth and a top-hat, who seemed to do little more than walk +about the grounds, smoke his pipe in the hot-houses, plan expensive +improvements, and order costly novelties from the most famous nurseries +at home and abroad. Bink ought to have been wheeling manure from the +stable during that very afternoon which he had devoted to the repair of +the boat-house; and Mr. MacCloskie declared that the future well-being +of his melon-bed was imperilled by the young man’s misconduct. + +‘I shall complain to Sir Vernon,’ said MacCloskie. + +‘I beg your pardon, Mr. MacCloskie, but Miss Daphne told me to do it.’ + +‘Miss Daphne, indeed! I can’t have my gardeners interfered with by Miss +Daphne,’ exclaimed MacCloskie; as much as to say that his master’s +second daughter was a person of very small account. + +He gave Daphne a lecture that evening, in very broad Scotch, when he +met her in the rose-garden. + +‘You’ll be meddling with my roses next, miss, I suppose,’ he said +severely. ‘You young ladies from boarding-school have no respect for +anything.’ + +‘Your roses!’ cried Daphne, with a contemptuous glance at the +closely-pruned twigs of the standards, which at this early period +looked as if they would never flower again. ‘When I see any I shall +know how to appreciate them. Roses, indeed! I wonder you like to +mention them. Everything flowers a month earlier in France than you +can make it do here. I had a finer Gloire de Dijon nodding in at my +window at Asnières this time last year than you ever saw in your life’; +and she marched off, leaving MacCloskie with a dim idea that in any +skirmish with this young lady he was likely to be worsted. + +How ardently she had longed for home a few weeks ago, when she was +counting the days that must pass before the appointed date of her +return, under the wing of Madame Tolmache, who crossed the Channel +reluctantly once or twice a year to escort pupils, and was prostrate in +the cabin throughout the brief sea-passage, leaving the pupils to take +care of themselves, and so horribly ill on landing that the pupils had +to take care of her. So long as South Hill was in the future Daphne +had believed that perfect happiness awaited her there—gladness without +a flaw—but now that she was at home, established, a recognised member +of the family for all her life to come, she began to discover that +even at South Hill life was not perfect happiness. She was devotedly +fond of Madoline, and Madoline was full of affection—careful, anxious, +almost maternal love—for her. There was no flaw in her gladness here. +But every hour she spent in her father’s company made her more certain +of the one painful fact that he did not care for her. There was even +in her mind the terrible suspicion that he actually disliked her; that +he would have been glad to have her out of his way—married, dead and +buried—anything so that she might be removed from his path. + +She was very young, and her spirits had all the buoyancy of youth that +has never been acquainted with sordid cares. So there was plenty of +gladness in her life. It was only now and then that the thought of her +father’s indifference, or possible dislike, drifted like a passing +cloud across her mind, and took the charm out of everything. + +‘What a lovely place it is!’ she said to Madoline, one evening after +dinner, when they were strolling about the lawn, where three of the +finest deodaras in the county rose like green towers against the warm +western sky; ‘I am fonder of it every day, yet I can’t help feeling +that I’m an interloper.’ + +‘Daphne! You—the daughter of the house!’ + +‘A daughter; not the daughter,’ answered Daphne. ‘Sometimes I fancy +that I am a daughter too many. You should have heard how MacCloskie +talked to me yesterday because I had taken Bink from his work for an +hour or two. If I had been a poor little underpaid nursery governess +he couldn’t have scolded me more severely. And I think servants have a +knack of finding out their master’s feelings. If I had been a favourite +with my father, MacCloskie would never have talked like that. A +favourite! What nonsense! It is so obvious that I bore him awfully.’ + +‘Daphne, if you are going to nurse this kind of fancy you will never +be happy,’ Madoline said earnestly, winding her arm round her sister, +as they sauntered slowly down the sloping lawn, side by side. ‘You +must make every allowance for papa; he is not a demonstrative man. His +manner may seem cold, perhaps—’ + +‘Cold!’ cried Daphne; ‘it is ice. I feel I have entered the frigid zone +directly I go into his presence. But he is not cold to you; he has love +enough, and to spare, for you.’ + +‘We have been so much together. I have learned to be useful to him.’ + +‘Yes; you have spent your life with him, while I have been an outcast +and an alien.’ + +‘Daphne, you have no right to speak like that. My father is a man of +peculiar temper. It pleased him to have only one daughter at home +till both were grown up. You were more lively than I—younger by seven +years—and he fancied you would be noisy. He is a nervous man, wanting +an atmosphere of complete repose. And now you are grown up, and have +come home for good; and I really cannot see any reason why you should +complain.’ + +‘No; there is nothing to complain about,’ cried Daphne bitterly, ‘only +that I have been cheated out of a father’s love. Not by you, Lina +dearest; no, not by you,’ she exclaimed, when her sister would have +spoken. ‘I am not base enough to be jealous of you; you who have been +my good angel always. No, dear; but he has cheated me. My father has +cheated me in not giving me a chance of getting at his heart when I was +a child. What is the good of my trying now? I come home to him as a +stranger. How can he be expected to care for me?’ + +‘If he does not love you now, my pet—and mind, I don’t admit that it +is so—he will soon learn to be fond of you. He can’t help admiring my +sweet young sister,’ said Madoline, with tearful eyes. + +‘I will never plague you about him any more, dear,’ protested Daphne, +with a penitent air. ‘I will try to be satisfied with your affection. +You do love me, don’t you?’ + +‘With all my strength.’ + +‘And to do my duty in that state of life, etc., etc., etc.’ + +‘Talking of duty, Daphne, I have been wanting to make a suggestion for +the last week or two,’ said Madoline gently. ‘Don’t you think it would +be better for you if you were to employ yourself a little more?’ + +‘Employ myself!’ cried Daphne. ‘Why, I have been tremendously busy for +the last three days—about the dingey.’ + +‘Dearest, you are laughing at me. I mean that at seventeen—’ + +‘And a half,’ interjected Daphne, with dignity. + +‘At seventeen your education can hardly be completed.’ + +‘I know ridiculously little, though I have been outrageously crammed. +I’m afraid all the sciences and languages and literature have got +mixed up in my brain, somehow,’ said Daphne; ‘but I am awfully fond of +poetry. I know a good deal of Tennyson by heart. I could repeat every +line of “The Lotos Eaters,” if you asked me,’ said Daphne, blushing +unaccountably. + +‘I think you ought to read, dear,’ pursued Madoline gravely. + +‘Why, so I do. Didn’t I read three volumes of “Sair for Somebody,” in a +single day, in order that the book might go back to Mudie’s?’ + +‘That rubbishing story! Daphne dear, you know I am talking of serious +reading.’ + +‘Then you had better find somebody else to talk to,’ said Daphne. +‘I never could pin my mind to a dull book; my thoughts go dancing +off like butterflies, skimming away like swallows. I could no more +plod through a history, or a volume of “Voyages in Timbuctoo,” or +“Sir Somebody’s Memoirs at the Court of Queen Joan of Naples,” or “A +Waiting-woman’s Recollections of Peter the Great,” than I could fly. +There are a few characters in history I like to read about—in short +instalments. Napoleon the Great, for instance. There is a hero for +you—bloodthirsty, but nice. Mary Stuart, Julius Cæsar, Sir Walter +Raleigh, Columbus, Shakespeare. These shine out like stars. But the +dull dead level of history—the going out of the Whigs and the coming +in of the Tories, the everlasting battles in the Netherlands or the +Punjaub! I envy you your faculty of taking interest in such dry-as-dust +stuff, but I cannot imitate you.’ + +‘I like to be able to talk to papa—and to Gerald, by-and-by,’ said +Madoline shyly. + +‘Does papa talk of the Punjaub?’ + +‘Not often, dear; but in order to understand the events of one’s own +day, it is necessary to know the history of the past. Papa likes to +discuss public affairs, and I generally read the _Times_ to him every +morning, as you know.’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Daphne; ‘I know you are his slave.’ + +‘Daphne, it is my delight to be useful to him.’ + +‘Yes; that is the sort of woman you are, always sacrificing your own +happiness for other people. But I love you for it, dearest,’ exclaimed +Daphne, with one of her sudden gushes of affection. ‘Only don’t ask me +to improve myself, darling, now that I am tasting perfect liberty for +the first time in my life. Think how I have been ground and polished +and governessed and preached at, and back-boarded,’ drawing up her slim +figure straight as an arrow, ‘and dumb-belled, and fifth-positioned, +for so many weary years of my life, and let me have my fling of +idleness at home. I began to wonder if I really had a home, my father +kept me away from it so long. Let me be idle and happy, Lina, for a +little while; I shall mend by-and-by.’ + +‘My pet, do you suppose I don’t wish you to be happy? But I don’t want +your education to come to a full stop, because you have left school.’ + +‘Let me learn to be like you, if I can. There could be no higher +education than that.’ + +‘Flatterer!’ + +‘No, Lina, no one can flatter perfection.’ + +Madoline stopped her with a kiss, blushing at her praise. And then they +turned and walked slowly back to the house, across the dewy lawn, where +the shadows of the deodaras had deepened and lengthened with the rising +of the moon. Daphne paused on the terrace to look back at the low-lying +river gleaming between its willowy banks—so beautiful and ghostly a +thing in the moonlight that it almost seemed as if it belonged to +another world. + +‘How lovely it is out of doors!’ sighed Daphne. ‘Doesn’t it seem +foolishness to shut oneself up in a house? Stay a little longer, Lina.’ + +‘Papa would not like to be deserted, dear. And Aunt Rhoda talked about +coming in this evening.’ + +‘Then I am in for a lecture,’ said Daphne. ‘Aunt Rhoda told me to go +and see her, and I haven’t been.’ + +There was a brilliant light in the billiard-room, and the two girls +went in through the conservatory and down the marble steps to the room +where they were most likely to find their father at this time of the +evening. Sir Vernon Lawford was not an enthusiastic billiard-player; +indeed, he was not enthusiastic about anything, except his own merits, +of which he had a very exalted opinion. He played a game of billiards +every evening, because it kept him awake and kept him in gentle +movement, which state of being he considered good for his health. He +played gravely, as if he were doing his duty to society, and played +well; and though he liked to have his elder daughter in the room while +he played, and could bring himself to tolerate the presence of other +people, he resented anything distracting in the way of conversation. + +Seen in the bright white light of the carcel lamps, Sir Vernon Lawford, +at fifty-three years of age, was still a handsome man—a tall, well +set up man, with a hard, clearly chiselled face, eyes of lightish +gray, cold and severe in expression, gray hair and whiskers, hands +of feminine delicacy in shape and colour, and something rigid and +soldierlike in his bearing, as of a man who had been severely drilled +himself, and would be a martinet in his rule over others. + +He was bending over the table with frowning brow, meditating a +difficult stroke, as the two girls came softly in through the wide +doorway—two tall slim figures in white gowns, with a background of +flowers and palms showing dimly behind them, and beyond the foliage and +flowers, the glimmer of a marble balustrade. + +A fashionably-dressed lady of uncertain age, the solitary spectator of +the game, sat fanning herself in silence by the wide marble fire-place. + +Sir Vernon’s antagonist came quietly forward to greet Madoline and her +sister. + +‘I am so glad you have come in,’ he said confidentially. ‘I am getting +ignominiously licked. I had a good mind to throw up the sponge and bolt +out into the garden after you just now; only I thought if I didn’t take +my licking decently, Sir Vernon would never play with me again. Isn’t +it too delicious out there among the deodaras?’ + +‘Heavenly,’ exclaimed Daphne; ‘and the river looks like the _chemin du +Paradis_. I wonder you can stay in this glaring room.’ + +Sir Vernon had made up his mind by this time, and with a slow and +gentle stroke, made a cannon and sent his adversary’s ball into a +pocket. + +‘Just like my luck,’ said the adversary, while Sir Vernon again +deliberated. + +He was a man of about seven-and-twenty, tall, broad-shouldered, +good-looking, with something of a gladiatorial air in his billiard-room +undress. He was fair, with a healthy Saxon colour, and Saxon blue +eyes; features not chiselled, but somewhat heavily moulded, yet +straight and regular withal; hair, a lightish brown, cropped closely +to a well-shaped head; forehead, fairly furnished with intellectual +organs, but not the brow of poet or philosopher, wit or savant: a good +average English forehead, a good average English face, beaming with +good-nature, as he stands by Madoline’s side, chalking his cue as +industriously as if chalk could win the game. + +This was Edgar Turchill, of Hawksyard Grange, Sir Vernon Lawford’s +most influential and pleasantest neighbour, a country squire of old +family and fair fortune, owner of one of the most interesting places in +the county, a real Warwickshire manor-house, and the only son of his +widowed mother. + +The lady by the fire-place now began to think she had been neglected +long enough, and beckoned Daphne with her fan. She beckoned the girl +with an authoritative air which distinctly indicated relationship. + +‘Come here and sit by me, child,’ she whispered, tapping the +fender-stool with the point of her embroidered shoe, whereupon Daphne +meekly crouched at the lady’s feet, prepared for the worst. ‘Why have +you never been to the Rectory?’ + +Daphne twisted her fingers in and out of her slender watch-chain with +an embarrassed air. + +‘Indeed, I hardly know why, Aunt Rhoda,’ she faltered; ‘perhaps it was +because I was enjoying myself so much. Everything at home was so new to +me, you see—the gardens, the river, the meadows.’ + +‘You were enjoying yourself so much that you had no inclination to see +your aunt and uncle?’ + +‘Uncle?’ echoed Daphne. ‘Oh, you mean the Rector?’ + +‘Of course. Is he not your uncle?’ + +‘Is he, aunt? I know he’s your husband; but as you only married him a +year ago, and he hadn’t begun to be my uncle when I was last at home, +it never occurred to me——’ + +‘That by my marriage with him he had become your uncle. That looks like +ignorance, Daphne, or want of proper feeling,’ said the Rector’s wife +with an offended air. + +‘It was ignorance, Aunt Rhoda. At Madame Tolmache’s they taught us so +much geography and geology and astronomy, don’t you know, that they +were obliged to keep us in the dark about uncles and aunts. And am I +really to call the Rector, uncle? It seems quite awful.’ + +‘Why awful?’ + +‘Because I have looked up to him all my life as a being in a black silk +gown who preached long sermons and would do something awful to me if +I laughed in church. I looked upon him as the very embodiment of the +Church, don’t you know, and should hardly have believed that he wanted +breakfast and dinner, and wore out his clothes and boots like other +men. When he came to call I used to run away and hide myself. I had an +idea that he would scold me if I came in his way—take me to task for +not being a christian, or ask me to repeat last Sunday’s Gospel. And to +think that he should be my uncle. How curiously things come round in +this life!’ + +‘I hope you will not cease to respect him, and that you will learn to +love him,’ said Aunt Rhoda severely. + +‘Learn to love him! Do you think he would like it?’ asked Daphne +doubtfully. + +‘He would like you to behave to him as a niece ought, Daphne. Marmaduke +considers my relations his own.’ + +‘I’m sure it is very good of him,’ said Daphne, ‘but I should think it +must come a little difficult after having known us so long in quite +another capacity.’ + +The Rector’s wife gave her niece a look of half interrogation, half +disapproval. She did not know how much malice might lurk under the +girl’s seeming innocence. She and Daphne had never got on very well +together in the old days, when Miss Lawford was the mistress of South +Hill, and the arbiter of her nieces’ lives. + +A year ago, and Rhoda Lawford, at three-and-forty, was still Rhoda +Lawford; and any idea of matrimonial promotion which she had once +cherished might fairly be supposed to have expired in the cold shade +of a neighbourhood where there were very few marriageable men. But +Rhoda had begun life as a girl with considerable pretensions. She had +never asserted herself or been put forward by her friends as a beauty. +The material for that kind of reputation was wanting. But she had been +admired and praised for her style, her manner, her complexion, her +hair, her hands, her feet, her waist, her shoulders. She was a young +lady with good points, and had been admired for her points. People had +talked of her as the elegant Miss Lawford: and as, happily, elegance +is a quality which time need not impair, Rhoda had gone on being +elegant for five-and-twenty years. The waist and shoulders, the hands +and feet, had never been out of training for a quarter of a century. +More ephemeral charms had bloomed and faded; and many a fair friend +of Rhoda’s who had triumphed in the insolence of conscious beauty was +now a _passée_ matron, of whom her acquaintance said pityingly, ‘You +have no idea how pretty that woman was fifteen years ago;’ but the +elegant Miss Lawford’s attractions were unimpaired, and the elegant +Miss Lawford had not yet surrendered the hope of winning a prize in the +matrimonial lottery. + +The living of Baddesley-with-Arden was one of those fat sinecures +which are usually given to men of good family and considerable private +means. The Reverend Marmaduke Ferrers was the descendant of a race +well rooted in the soil, and had, by the demise of two bachelor uncles +and three maiden aunts, accumulated to himself a handsome property, +in land, and houses, and the safer kind of public securities. These +legacies had fallen in at longish intervals, some of the aunts being +slow in relaxing their grip upon this world’s gear; but had all the +wealth of a Westminster or a Rothschild been poured into the Reverend +Marmaduke’s lap, he would not have renounced the great tithes of +Baddesley-with-Arden, or the important, and, in a manner, judicial +and dictatorial position which he held as Rector of those two small +parishes. Mr. Ferrers loved the exercise of authority on a small +scale. He had an autocratic mind, but it was a very small mind, and it +suited him to be the autocrat of two insignificant pastoral villages, +rather than to measure his power against the men of cities. To hector +Giles for getting drunk on a Saturday night, to lecture Joan for her +absence from church on Sunday, afforded the Rector as much delight as +a bigger man might have felt in towering over the riot of a Republican +chamber or proroguing a Rump parliament. Mr. Ferrers had been Rector +of Baddesley thirty years, and in all that time he had never once +thought of taking to himself a wife. He had a lovely old Rectory and a +lovelier garden; he had the best servants in the neighbourhood—partly +because he was a most exacting master, and partly because he paid his +housekeeper largely, and made her responsible for everybody else. The +whole machinery of his life worked with a delightful smoothness. He +had nothing to gain from matrimony in the way of domestic comfort; and +there is always the possibility of loss. Thus it happened that although +he had gone on admiring Miss Lawford for a round dozen years, talking +of her as a most ladylike and remarkably well-informed person, pouring +all his small grievances into her ear, confiding to her the most +recondite details of any little complaint from which he happened to +suffer, consulting her about his garden, his stable, his parish, it had +never occurred to him that he should improve his condition or increase +his happiness by making the lady his wife. + +Yet, throughout this time, Rhoda Lawford had always had it in her +mind that if all other views failed, she could wind up fairly well +by marrying the Rector. It was not at all the kind of fate she had +imagined for herself years ago in the freshness of her charms; but it +would be a respectable match. Nobody could presume to pity her, or say +that she had done badly. The Rector was ten years her senior, so nobody +could laugh at her for marrying a youth. Altogether there would be a +fitness and a propriety about the alliance, which would be in perfect +harmony with the elegance of her person and the spotlessness of her +character. On her fortieth birthday, Miss Lawford told herself that +the time had now come when the Rector must be taken seriously in hand, +and taught to see what was good for himself. A friendship which had +been meandering on for the last twelve years must be brought to a head; +dangling attention and old-fashioned compliments must be reduced into +something more tangible. In a word, the Rector must be converted from a +friend into a suitor. + +It had taken Miss Lawford two years to open the Reverend Marmaduke’s +eyes; but at the end of those two years the thing was done, and the +Rector was sighing, somewhat apoplectically, for the approach of his +wedding-day, and the privilege of claiming Rhoda for his own. The whole +process had been carried out with such consummate tact that Marmaduke +Ferrers had not the faintest suspicion that the matrimonial card which +he had drawn had been forced upon him. He believed in his engagement +as the spontaneous growth of his own mind. ‘Strange that I should have +known you so long, my Rhoda, and only discovered lately that you were +so dear to me,’ he murmured in his fat voice, as he dawdled with his +betrothed in one of those shadowy Warwickshire lanes which seem made +for the meandering of lovers. His Rhoda smiled tenderly; and then they +began to talk about the new carpet for the Rectory drawing-room, the +_Sèvres garniture de cheminée_ which Sir Vernon had given his sister +for a wedding present, dwelling rather upon the objective than the +subjective side of their position, as middle-aged lovers are apt to do. + +‘I hope you will not mind my keeping Todd,’ said the Rector presently, +pausing to recover his breath, and plucking a dog-rose in absence of +mind. + +‘Dearest, have I any wish in opposition to yours?’ murmured Rhoda, but +not without a shadow of sourness in the droop of her lips, for she had +a shrewd idea that so long as the Rector’s housekeeper, Mrs. Todd, +remained at the Rectory, nobody else could be mistress there. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +‘LOVE MAKETH ALL TO GONE MISWAY.’ + + +Aunt Rhoda was not a person to be set at defiance, even by Daphne, +who was by no means a tractable spirit. She had said, ‘Come to the +Rectory,’ and had said it with such an air of offended dignity that +Daphne felt she must obey, and promptly, lest a worse lecture should +befall her. So directly after luncheon on the following day she changed +her gown, and prepared herself for the distasteful visit. Madoline was +going to drive to Warwick with her father, so Daphne would have to +perform her penance alone. + +It was a lovely afternoon in the first week of May, the air balmy and +summer-like, the meadows looking their greenest before the golden glory +of buttercup time. Yonder in the reedy hollows the first of the marsh +marigolds were opening their yellow cups, and smiling up at the yellow +sun. The walk to Arden Rectory was something over a mile, and it was +as lovely a walk as any one need care to take; through meadows, beside +flowery hedgerows, with the river flowing near, but almost hidden by a +thick screen of willows; and then by one of the most delightful lanes +in the county, a green arcade of old elms, with here a spreading oak, +and there a mountain ash, to give variety to the foliage. + +Daphne set out alone, as soon as she had seen the carriage drive away +from the door; but she was not destined to go her way unaccompanied. +Half way down the avenue she met Mr. Turchill, strolling at a lazy +pace, a cigar in his mouth, and a red setter of Irish pedigree at his +heels. + +At sight of Daphne he threw away his cigar, and took his hands out of +his pockets. + +‘I was coming up to the Hill to ask somebody to play a game of +billiards, and everybody seems going out,’ he said. + +They had known him so long in an easy-going neighbourly way that he +almost took rank as a relation. Daphne, who had spent so much of her +life away from home, had naturally seen less of him than anybody +else; but as she had been a child during the greater part of their +acquaintance, he had fallen into the way of treating her as an elder +brother might have done; and he had not yet become impressed with the +dignity of her advancing years. For him she was still the Daphne he had +romped with in the Christmas holidays, and whose very small pony it had +been his particular care to get broken. + +‘I met Madoline and Sir Vernon going to Warwick. Why go to Warwick? +What is there for anyone but a Cook’s tourist to do in Warwick? But I +thought you would be at home. You haven’t a bad notion of billiards, +and you might have helped a fellow to while away an afternoon.’ + +‘You are like the idle boy in the spelling-book story, wanting someone +to play with you,’ said Daphne, laughing at him. He had turned, and was +walking beside her, the docile setter following meekly, like a dog who +felt that he was of no consequence in the world now that the days of +sport were done. + +‘Well, the hunting’s all over, don’t you know, and there’s no more +shooting, and I never cared much for fishing, and I’ve got such a +confoundedly clever bailiff that he won’t let me open my mouth on the +farm. So the days do hang rather heavy on a fellow’s hands.’ + +‘Why don’t you take to Alpine climbing?’ suggested Daphne. ‘I don’t +mean Mont Blanc—everybody does that—but the Matterhorn, or Monte Rosa, +or something. If I were a young man I should amuse myself in that way.’ + +‘I don’t set an exaggerated value on my life, but when I do make up my +mind to throw it away, I think I’ll do the thing more comfortably,’ +replied Edgar Turchill. ‘Don’t trouble yourself to suggest employment +for me. I’m not complaining of my life. There’s a good deal of loafing +in it, but I rather like loafing, especially when I can loaf in +pleasant company. Where are you going, and may I go with you?’ + +‘I am going on a duty visit to Aunt Rhoda and my new uncle. Isn’t it +rather dreadful to have an uncle thrust upon one in that way?’ + +‘Well,’ returned Edgar deliberately, ‘I must say if I had the choosing +of my relations I should leave out the Rector. But you needn’t mind +him. Practically he’s no more to you than he was before he married your +aunt.’ + +‘I don’t know,’ said Daphne doubtfully. ‘He may take liberties. He was +always a lecturing old thing, and he’ll lecture ever so much more now +that he’s a relation.’ + +‘But you needn’t stand his lecturing. Just tell him quietly that you +don’t hold with clerical interference in the affairs of the laity.’ + +‘He got me ready for my confirmation, and that gave him a kind of +hold over me,’ said Daphne. ‘You see, he found out the depth of my +ignorance.’ + +‘I’ll wager he’d be ploughed in a divinity exam, to-morrow,’ said +Edgar. ‘These old heathens of village parsons got their degrees in +a day when the dons were a set of sleepy-headed old duffers like +themselves. But don’t let’s talk about him. What is Madoline going to +do in Warwick?’ + +‘She and my father are going to make some calls in the neighbourhood, +and I believe she has a little shopping to do.’ + +‘Why didn’t you go with them?’ + +‘Papa does not like to have three people in the barouche. Besides, I +had promised to call on my aunt. She talked to me quite awfully last +night about my want of proper feeling in never having visited her in +her new house.’ + +‘Why didn’t you wait till she asked you to dinner? They give capital +dinners at the Rectory, but their feeds are few and far between. I +don’t want to say anything rude about your aunt, but she strikes me +as a lady who has too keen an appreciation of the value of money to +fritter it away upon other people.’ + +‘Why don’t you say at once that she’s horribly stingy?’ said the +outspoken Daphne. ‘I don’t think she ever spent sixpence, except upon +her own clothes, all the time she lived in my father’s house, and I +know she was always getting gowns and bonnets out of Madoline. I’ve +seen her do it. But please don’t let’s talk of her any more. It’s +rather worse than talking of him. I shall have to kiss her, and call +her dear aunt presently, and I shall detest myself for being such a +hypocrite.’ + +They had gone out by the lodge-gate by this time, the lodge with its +thatched roof and dormer window, like a big eye looking out under a +shaggy pent-house eyebrow; the lodge by which there grew one of those +tall deodaras which were the chief glory of the grounds at South +Hill. They crossed the high road, and entered the meadow-path which +led towards Arden Rectory; and the setter finding himself at large +in a field, frisked about a little as if with a faint suspicion of +partridges. + +‘Oh, by-the-by,’ began Daphne, in quite a new tone, ‘now that we are +alone, I want you to tell me all about Lina’s engagement. Is he nice?’ + +Edgar Turchill’s face clouded over so darkly that the look seemed a +sufficient answer to her question. + +‘Oh, I see,’ she said. ‘You don’t like him.’ + +‘I can’t say that. He’s an old acquaintance—a friend—a kind of family +connection even, for his mother’s grandmother was a Turchill. But to be +candid, I don’t like the engagement.’ + +‘Why not, unless you know something against him?’ + +‘I know nothing against him. He is a gentleman. He is ten times +cleverer than I, ten times richer, a great deal handsomer—my superior +in every way. I should be a mean cad if I couldn’t acknowledge as much +as that. But——’ + +‘You think Lina ought to have accepted him.’ + +‘I think the match in every way suitable, natural, inevitable. How +could he help falling in love with her? Why should she refuse him?’ + +‘You are talking in riddles,’ said Daphne. ‘You say it is a suitable +match, and a minute ago you said you did not like the engagement.’ + +‘I say so still. Can’t you imagine a reason for my feelings?’ + +Daphne contemplated him thoughtfully for a few moments as they walked +on. His frank English face looked graver than she ever remembered to +have seen it—grave to mournfulness. + +‘I am very sorry,’ she faltered. ‘I see. You are fond of her yourself. +I am desperately sorry. I should have liked you ever so much better for +a brother.’ + +‘Don’t say that till you have seen Gerald. He has wonderful powers of +fascination. He paints and poetises, and all that kind of thing, don’t +you know; the sort of thing that pleases women. He can’t ride a little +bit—no seat—no hands.’ + +‘How dreadful!’ cried Daphne, aghast. ‘Does he tumble off?’ + +‘I don’t mean that. He can stick in his saddle somehow; and he hunts +when he’s at home in the season; but he can’t ride.’ + +‘Oh,’ said Daphne, as if she were trying to understand this distinction. + +‘Yes, Daphne. I don’t mind your knowing it—now it’s all over and done +with,’ pursued Edgar, glad to pour his griefs into a friendly ear. +‘You’re my old playfellow—almost like a little sister—and I don’t think +you’ll laugh at me, will you, dear?’ + +‘Laugh at you!’ cried Daphne. ‘If I do may I never be able to smile +again.’ + +‘I asked your sister to marry me. I had gone on loving her for I don’t +know how long, before I could pluck up courage to ask the question, I +was so afraid of being refused. And I knew if she would only say “Yes,” +that my mother would be the proudest woman in the county, for she +positively adores Madoline. And I knew Lina liked Hawksyard; and that +was encouraging. So one day, about four years ago, I got desperate, +and asked the plain question in a plain way. Heaven knows how much +of my happiness hung on the answer; but I couldn’t have screwed any +poetry out of myself to save my life. I could only tell her the honest +truth—that I loved her as well as man ever loved woman.’ + +‘Well?’ asked Daphne. + +‘It was no use. She said “No,” so kindly, so sweetly, so +affectionately—for she really likes me, you know, in a sisterly +way—that she made me cry like a child. Yes, Daphne, I made a miserable +ass of myself. She must have despised such unmanly weakness. And then +in a few minutes it was all over. All my hopes were extinguished like +a candle blown out by the wind, and all my future life was dark. And I +had to go back and tell the poor mother that the daughter she wanted +was never to come to Hawksyard.’ + +‘I am so sorry for you,’ faltered Daphne. + +‘Thank you, dear. I knew you would be sympathetic. The blow was a +crusher, I assure you. I went away for a few months deer-stalking +in the Highlands; but lying on a mountain side in a gray mist for +hours on end, not daring to move an eyelash, gives a fellow too much +time for thought. I was always thinking of Madoline, and my thoughts +were just two hundred and fifty miles due south of the stag when he +came across, so I generally shot wild, and felt myself altogether a +failure. Then I tried a month in Normandy and Brittany with a knapsack, +thinking I might walk down my trouble. But I found that tramping from +one badly-drained town to another badly-drained town—all infected with +garlic—and looking at churches I didn’t particularly want to see, was a +sham kind of consolation for a very real disappointment; so I made up +my mind to come back to Hawksyard and live it down. And I have lived it +down,’ concluded Edgar exultantly. + +‘You don’t care for Madoline any longer?’ + +‘Not care for her! I shall worship her as long as I have breath in +my body. But I have resigned myself to the idea that somebody else +is going to marry her—that the most I can ever be to her is a good, +useful, humdrum kind of friend, who will be godfather to one of her +boys by-and-by; ready to ride helter-skelter for the doctor if any of +her children show symptoms of measles or whooping-cough; glad to take +dummy of an evening when she and her husband want to play whist; or to +entertain the boys at Hawksyard for their summer holidays while she and +he are enjoying a _tête-à-tête_ ramble in the Engadine. That is the +sort of man I shall be.’ + +‘How good you are!’ said Daphne, slipping her hand through his arm with +an affectionate impulse. + +‘Ah, my little Daphne, it will be your turn to full in love some of +these days; put it off as long as you can, dear, for there’s more pain +than pleasure in it at best.’ Daphne gave an involuntary sigh. ‘And +then I hope you’ll confide in me just as freely as I have confided +in you. I may be useful as an adviser, you know, having had my own +troubles.’ + +‘You could only advise me to be patient, and give up all hope,’ said +Daphne, drawing her hand from his arm. ‘What would be the good of +such advice? But I shall never trouble you. I am not going to fall in +love—ever.’ + +She gave the last word an almost angry emphasis. + +‘Poor little Daphne! as if you could know anything about it,’ exclaimed +Edgar, smiling incredulously at her. ‘That kind of thing comes upon one +unawares. You talk as if you could choose whether you would fall in +love or not—like Hercules between his two roads, deliberating whether +he should go to the right or the left. Ah, my dear, when we come to +that stage of our journey there is but one road for us: and whether it +lead to the Garden of Eden or the Slough of Despond, we must travel +over it.’ + +‘You are getting poetical,’ exclaimed Daphne scornfully; ‘I didn’t know +that was in your line. But please tell me about Gerald. I have never +seen him, you know. He was always at Oxford, or roaming about the world +somewhere, when I was at home for the holidays. I have been at home +so little, you see,’ she interjected with a piteous air. ‘I used to +hear a great deal about a very wonderful personage, enormously rich, +fabulously clever, and accomplished, and handsome; and I grew rather to +hate him, as one is apt to hate such perfection; and then one day I got +a letter from Lina—a letter brimming over with happiness—to say that +she and this demigod were engaged to be married, but it was to be a +long engagement, because the other demigod—my father—wished for delay. +So you see I know very little about my future brother.’ + +‘You are sure to like him,’ said Edgar with a somewhat regretful air. +‘He has all the qualities which please women. Another man might be as +handsome, or even handsomer, yet not half so sure of winning a woman’s +love. There is something languid, lackadaisical—poetical, I suppose +Madoline would call it—in his appearance and manner which women admire.’ + +‘I hope he is not effeminate,’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘I hate a womanish +man.’ + +‘No; I don’t think anyone could call him effeminate; but he is dreamy, +bookish, fond of lolling about under trees, smoking cigarettes and +reading verses.’ + +‘I’m certain I shall detest him,’ said Daphne with conviction, ‘and +it will be very dreadful, since I must pretend to like him for Lina’s +sake. You must stand by me, Edgar, when he is at the Hill. You and +I can chum together, and leave the lovers to spoon by themselves. +Oh, by-the-by, of course you haven’t lived on the Avon all your life +without being able to row a boat?’ + +‘No; I can row pretty well.’ + +‘Then you must teach me, please. I am going to have a boat, my very +own. It is being built for me. You’ll teach me to row, won’t you, +Edgar?’ she asked with a pleading smile. + +‘I shall be delighted.’ + +‘Thanks tremendously. That will be ever so much better than learning of +Bink.’ + +‘Indeed! And who is Bink?’ asked Edgar, somewhat dashed. + +‘One of the under gardeners. Such an honest creature, and devoted to +me.’ + +‘I see: and your first idea was to have been taught by Bink?’ + +‘If there had been no one else,’ she admitted apologetically. ‘You see, +having ordered a boat, it is essential that I should learn to row.’ + +‘Naturally.’ + +They had arrived at the last field by this time. The village lay before +them in the sunlight: an old gray church in an old churchyard on the +edge of the river, a cluster of half-timbered cottages, with walls +of wattle and dab, a homestead dwarfed by rick-yard and barns, and +finally the Rectory, a low, many-gabled house, half-timbered, like the +cottages, a regular sixteenth-century house, with clustered chimneys of +massive ruddy-brown brickwork, finished by a stone coping, in which the +martens had built from time immemorial. + +‘I can’t tell you how glad I am to have you with me,’ said Daphne as +they came near the stile. ‘It will take the edge off my visit.’ + +‘Oh, but I did not mean to go in with you. I only walked with you for +the pleasure of being your escort.’ + +‘Nonsense; you are going in, and you are going to stay till I go home, +and you are going back with me to dinner. I’m sure you must owe Aunt +Rhoda a call. Just consider now if you don’t.’ + +Edgar, who had a guilty memory of being a guest at one of the Rector’s +rare but admirable dinners, just five weeks ago, blushed as he admitted +his indebtedness. + +‘I certainly haven’t called since I dined there,’ he said; ‘but the +fact is, I don’t get on very fast with your aunt, although I’ve known +her so long.’ + +‘Of course not. I never knew any one who could get on with her, except +Lina, and she’s an angel.’ + +They came to the stile, which was what the country people call a +tumble-down stile, all the timbers of the gate sliding down with a +clatter when a handle is moved, and leaving space for the pedestrian +to step over. The Rectory gate stood before them, a low wide gate, +standing open to admit the entrance of a carriage. The garden was +lovely, even before the season of bedding-out plants and carpet +horticulture. For the last twenty years the Rector had annually +imported a choice selection of Dutch bulbs, whereby his flower-beds and +borders on this May afternoon were a blaze of colour—tulip, hyacinth, +ranunculus, polyanthus—each and every flower that blooms in the sweet +youth of the year; and as a background for the level lawn with its +many flower-beds, there was a belt of such timber and an inner circle +of such shrubs as are only to be found in a garden that has been +cultivated and improved for a century or so. Copper beeches, Spanish +chestnuts, curious specimens of the oak tribe, the feathery foliage +of acacia and mountain ash, the pink bloom of the wild plum, and the +snowy clusters of the American crab, deodara, cypress, yew, and in the +foreground arbutus and seringa, lilac, laburnum, guelder rose, with all +the family of laurel, laurustinus, and bay; a shrubbery so exquisitely +kept, that not a blighted branch or withered leaf was to be seen in the +spacious circle which fenced and protected that smiling lawn from all +the outer world. + +The house was, in its way, as perfect as the garden. There were many +rooms, but none large or lofty. The Rectory had all the shortcomings +and all the fascinations of an old house: wide hearths and dog-stoves, +high mantelpieces, deep-recessed casements, diamond panes, leaden +lattices, massive roughly-hewn beams supporting the ceilings, a wide +shallow staircase, rooms opening one out of another, irregular levels, +dark oak floors, a little stained glass here and there—real old glass, +of rich dark red, or sombre green, or deep dull topaz. + +The house was delightfully furnished, though Mr. Ferrers had never +taken any trouble about it. Many a collector, worn out before his time +by the fever and anxiety of long summer afternoons at Christie’s, would +have envied Marmaduke Ferrers the treasures which had fallen to him +without the trouble of collecting. Residuary legatee to all his aunts +and uncles, he had taken to himself the things that were worth having +among their goods and chattels, and had sold all the rubbish. + +The aunts and uncles had been old-fashioned non-locomotive people, +hoarding up and garnering the furniture of past generations. Thus had +the Rector acquired Chippendale chairs and tables, old Dutch tulip-wood +cabinets and bureaus, Louis Quinze commodes, Elizabethan clocks, Derby +and Worcester, Bow, Bristol, Leeds, and Swansea crockery, with a +sprinkling of those dubious jugs and bowls that are generally fathered +on Lowestoft. Past generations had amassed and hoarded in order that +the Rector might be rich in art treasures without ever putting his hand +in his pocket. Furniture that had cost a few pounds when it was bought +was now worth hundreds, and the Rector had it all for nothing, just +because he came of a selfish celibate race. The Chippendale furniture, +the Dutch marqueterie work, old china, and old plate had all been in +Miss Lawford’s mind when she took the Rector in hand and brought him to +see her fitness for his wife. + +True that her home at South Hill was as elegant, and in all things as +desirable; but there was a wide difference between living under the +roof of her brother, more or less on sufferance, and being mistress +of her own house. Thus the humbler charms of the Rectory impressed +her more than the dignity of the Hill. Sir Vernon Lawford was not a +pleasant man to whom to be beholden. His daughters were now grown up. +Madoline was sovereign mistress of the house which must one day be her +own; and Rhoda Lawford felt that to stay at the Hill would be to sink +to the humdrum position of a maiden aunt, for whom nobody cared very +much. + +Mrs. Ferrers was sitting in a Japanese chair on the lawn, in front of +the drawing-room windows, nursing a black and white Japanese pug, and +rather yearning for someone from the outer world, even in that earthy +paradise where the guelder roses were all in bloom and the air was +heavy with the odour of hawthorn-blossom. + +‘At last!’ she exclaimed, as Daphne and her companion made their +timorous advance across the velvet turf, mown twice a week in the +growing season. ‘You too, Mr. Turchill; I thought you were never coming +to see me.’ + +‘After that delightful evening with the Mowbrays and the people from +Liddington! It was too ungrateful of me,’ said Edgar. ‘If you call me +Mr. Turchill I shall think I am never to be forgiven.’ + +‘Well, then, it shall be Edgar, as it was in the old days,’ said Mrs. +Ferrers, with a faint suspicion of sentiment. + +There had been a time when it had seemed to her not altogether +impossible that she should become Mrs. Turchill. Hawksyard Grange was +such a delicious old place; and Edgar was her junior by only fourteen +years. + +‘I don’t want you to make ceremonious calls just because you happen +to have dined here; but I want you to drop in often because you like +us. I want you to bring me breathings of the outside world. The life +of a clergyman’s wife in a country parish is so narrow. I feel hourly +becoming a vegetable.’ + +Mrs. Ferrers looked complacently down at her tea-gown of soft creamy +Indian silk, copiously trimmed with softer Breton lace, and felt that +at least she was a very well-dressed vegetable. Knots of palest blue +satin nestled here and there among the lace; a cluster of hot-house +roses—large velvety yellow roses—reposed on Mrs. Ferrers’s shoulder, +and agreeably contrasted with her dark, smoothly-banded hair. She +prided herself on the classic form of her small head, and the classic +simplicity of her coiffure. + +‘I think we all belong, more or less, to the vegetable tribe about +here,’ said Mr. Turchill. ‘There is something sleepy in the very air of +our pastoral valleys. I sometimes long to get away to the stone-wall +country yonder, on the Cotswolds, to breathe a freer, more wakeful air.’ + +‘I can’t say that I languish for the Cotswolds,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers, +‘but I should very much like a fortnight in Mayfair. Do you know if +your father and Madoline are going to London this season, Daphne?’ + +‘I think not. Papa fancies himself not quite well enough for the +fatigue of London, and Lina does not care about going.’ + +It had been Sir Vernon’s habit to take a furnished house at +the West End for part of May and June, in order to see all the +picture-galleries, and hear all the operas that were worth being +heard, and to do a little visiting among his very select circle of +acquaintance. He was not a man who made new acquaintances if he could +help it, or who went to people because they lived in big houses and +gave big dinners. He was exclusive to a fault, detested crowds, and had +a rooted conviction that every new man was a swindler, who was destined +to end his career in ignominious bankruptcy. It had gone hard with him +to consent to his daughter’s engagement with a man who on the father’s +side was a parvenu; but he had consoled himself as best he might +with the idea of Lady Geraldine’s blue blood, and Mr. Goring’s very +substantial fortune. + +‘And so you are no longer a school-girl, Daphne, and have come home +for good,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, dropping her elegant society manner and +putting on a sententious air, which Daphne knew too well. ‘I hope you +are going to try to improve yourself—for what girls learn at school is +a mere smattering—and that you are aware how much room there is for +improvement—in your carriage, for instance.’ + +‘I haven’t any carriage, aunt, but papa is going to let me keep a +boat,’ said Daphne, who had been absently watching the little yellow +butterflies skimming above the flame-coloured tulips. + +‘My dear, I am talking of your deportment. You are sitting most +awkwardly at this moment, one shoulder at least three inches higher +than the other.’ + +‘Don’t worry about it, aunt,’ said Daphne indifferently; ‘perhaps it’s +a natural deformity.’ + +‘I hope not. I think it rests with yourself to become a very decent +figure,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers, straightening her own slim waist. ‘Here +comes your uncle, returning from his round of duty in time to enjoy his +afternoon tea.’ + +The Rector drove up to the gate in a low park-phaeton, drawn by a sleek +bay cob; a cob too well fed and lazy to think of running away, but a +little apt to become what the groom called ‘a bit above himself,’ and +to prance and toss his head in an arrogant manner, or even to shy at +a stray rabbit, as if he had never seen such a creature before, and +hadn’t the least idea what the apparition meant. The Rector’s round +of duty had been a quiet drive through elm-shadowed lanes, and rustic +occupation roads, with an occasional pull-up before the door of a +cottage, or a farm-house, where, without alighting, he would inquire in +a fat pompous voice after the welfare, spiritual and temporal, of his +parishioners, and then shedding on them the light of a benignant smile, +or a few solemn words of clerical patronage, he would give the reins a +gentle shake and drive off again. This kind of parochial visitation, +lasting for about two hours, the Rector performed twice or three times +a week, always selecting a fine afternoon. It kept him in the fresh +air, gave him an appetite for his dinner, and maintained pleasant +relations between the pastor and his flock. + +Mr. Ferrers flung the reins to his groom, a man of middle age, in sober +dark livery, and got himself ponderously out of his carriage on to the +gravel drive. He was a large man, tall and broad, with a high bald +head, red-brown eyes of the protuberant order, a florid complexion, +pendulous cheeks and chin, and mutton-chop whiskers of a warm chestnut. +He was a man whose appearance, even to the stranger, suggested a life +devoted to dining; a man to whom dinner was the one abiding reality of +life, the same yesterday, to-day, and to-morrow—a memory, an actuality, +a hope. He was the man for whom asparagus and peas are forced into +untimely perfection—the man who eats poached salmon in January, and +gives a fabulous price for the first of the grouse—the man for whom +green geese are roasted in June, and who requires immature turkeys to +be fatted for him in October; who can enjoy oysters at fourpence a +piece; who thinks ninety shillings a dozen a reasonable price for dry +champagne, and would drive thirty miles to secure a few dozen of the +late Colonel Somebody’s famous East India sherry. + +Rhoda had married the Reverend Marmaduke with her eyes fully opened to +the materialistic side of his character. She knew that if she wanted +to live happily with him and to exercise that gentle and imperceptible +sway, which vulgar people call hen-pecking, she must make dinner the +chief study of her life. So long as she gave full satisfaction upon +this point; so long as she could maintain a table, in which the homely +English virtue of substantial abundance was combined with the artistic +variety of French cooking; so long as she anticipated the Rector’s +fancies, and forestalled the seasons, she would be sure to please. But +an hour’s forgetfulness of his tastes or prejudices, a single failure, +an experimental dish, would shatter for the time being the whole fabric +of domestic bliss, and weaken her hold of the matrimonial sceptre. The +Rector’s wife had considered all this before she took upon herself the +responsibilities of married life. Supremely indifferent herself to the +pleasures of the table, she had to devote one thoughtful hour of every +day to the consideration of what her husband would like to eat, drink, +and avoid. She had to project her mind into the future to secure for +him novelty of diet. Todd, the housekeeper, had ministered to him for +many years, and knew all his tastes: but Mrs. Ferrers wanted to do +better than Todd had done, and to prove to the Rector that he had acted +wisely in committing himself to the dulcet bondage of matrimony. She +was a clever woman—not bookish or highly cultured—but skilled in all +the small arts and devices of daily life; and so far she had succeeded +admirably. The Rector, granted the supreme indulgence of all his +desires, was his wife’s admiring slave. He flattered her, he deferred +to her, he praised her, he boasted of her to all his acquaintance as +the most perfect thing in wives, just as he boasted of the sleek bay as +the paragon of cobs, and his garden as the archetype of gardens. + +And now for the first time Daphne had to salute this great man in his +new character of an uncle. She went up to him timidly; a graceful, +gracious figure in a pale yellow batiste gown, a knot of straw-coloured +Marguerites shining on her breast, her lovely liquid eyes darkened by +the shadow of her Tuscan hat. + +‘How do you do, uncle?’ she said, holding out a slender hand, in a long +loose Swedish glove. + +The Rector started, and stared at her dumbly, whether bewildered +by so fair a vision, or taken aback by the unexpected assertion of +kinsmanship, only he himself knew. + +‘Bless my soul!’ he cried. ‘Is this Daphne? Why the child has grown out +of all knowledge. How d’ye do, my dear? Very glad to see you. You’ll +stop to dinner, of course. You and Turchill. How d’ye do, Turchill?’ + +The Rector had a troublesome trick of asking everybody who crossed his +threshold in the afternoon to dinner. He had an abiding idea that his +friends wanted to be fed; that they would rather dine with him than +go home; and that if they refused, their refusal was mere modesty and +self-denial, and ought not to be accepted. Vainly had Rhoda lectured +her spouse upon this evil habit, vainly had she tried to demonstrate +to him that an afternoon visit should be received as such, and need +not degenerate into a dinner-party. The Rector was incorrigible. +Hospitality was his redeeming virtue. + +‘Thanks awfully,’ replied Daphne; ‘but I must go home to dinner. Papa +and Lina expect me. Of course Mr. Turchill can do as he likes.’ + +‘Then Turchill will stay,’ said the Rector. + +‘My dear Rector, you are very kind, but I must go home with Daphne. I +brought her, don’t you see, and I’m bound to take her back. There might +be a bull, or something.’ + +‘Do you think I am afraid of bulls?’ cried Daphne; ‘why I love the +whole cow tribe. If I saw a bull in one of our meadows, I should walk +up to him and make friends.’ + +The Rector surveyed the yellow damsel with an unctuous smile. + +‘It would be dangerous,’ he said in his fat voice, ‘if I were the bull.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘I should be tempted to imitate an animal famous in classic story, and +swim the Avon with you on my back,’ replied the Rector. + +‘Duke,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, with her blandest smile, ‘don’t you think +you had better rest yourself in your cool study while we take our tea? +I’m sure you must be tired after your long drive. These first warm days +are so exhausting. I’ll bring you your cup of tea.’ + +‘Don’t trouble yourself, my love,’ replied the Rector; ‘Daphne can wait +upon me. Her legs are younger than yours.’ + +This unflattering comparison, to say nothing of the vulgar allusion to +‘legs,’ was too much for Rhoda’s carefully educated temper. She gave +her Marmaduke a glance of undisguised displeasure. + +‘I am not so ancient or infirm as to find my duties irksome,’ she said +severely; ‘I shall certainly bring you your tea.’ + +The Rector had a weakness about pretty girls. There was no harm in it. +He had lived all his life in an atmosphere of beauty, and no scandal +had ever arisen about peeress or peasant. He happened to possess an +artistic appreciation of female loveliness, and he took no trouble to +disguise the fact. Youth and beauty and freshness were to him as the +very wine of life—second only to actual Cliquot, or Roederer, Clos +Vougeot, or Marcobrünner. His wife was too well acquainted with this +weakness. She had known it years before she had secured Marmaduke for +her own; and she had flattered herself that she could cure him of this +inclination to philander; but so far the curative process had been a +failure. + +But Marmaduke, though inclined to folly, was not rebellious. He +loved a gentle doze in the cool shade of his study, where there were +old-fashioned easy-chairs of a shape more comfortable than has ever +revealed itself to the mind of modern upholsterer. The brief slumber +gave him strength to support the fatigue of dressing for dinner, for +the Reverend Marmaduke was as careful of the outward man as of the +inner, and had never been seen in slovenly attire, or with unshaven +visage. + +Mrs. Ferrers sank into her chair with a sigh of relief as the Rector +disappeared through the deep rustic porch. The irreproachable butler, +who had grown gray in Mr. Ferrers’s service, brought the tea-tray, +with its Japanese cups and saucers. Edgar Turchill subsided upon a +low rustic stool at Daphne’s feet, just where his length of arm would +enable him to wait upon the two ladies. They made a pretty domestic +group: the westering sun shining upon them, the Japanese pug fawning at +their feet, flowers and foliage surrounding them, birds singing, bees +humming, cattle lowing in the neighbouring fields. + +Edgar looked up admiringly at the bright young face above him: eyes +so darkly luminous, a complexion of lilies and roses, that exquisite +creamy whiteness which goes with pale auburn hair, that lovely varying +bloom which seems a beauty of the mind rather than of the person, so +subtly does it indicate every emotion and follow the phases of thought. +Yes; the face was full of charm, though it was not the face of his +dreams—not the face he had worshipped for years before he presumed to +reveal his love for the owner. If a man cannot win the woman he loves +it were better surely that he should teach himself to love one who +seems more easily attainable. The bright particular star shines afar +off in an inaccessible heaven; but lovely humanity is here at his side, +smiling on him, ready to be wooed and won. + +Edgar’s reflections did not go quite so far as this, but he felt that +he was spending his afternoon pleasantly, and he looked forward with +complacency to the homeward walk through the meadows. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +‘HIS HERTE BATHED IN A BATH OF BLISSE.’ + + +Daphne’s boat came home from the builder’s at the end of three weeks of +longing and expectation, a light wherry-shaped boat, not the tub-like +sea-going dingey, but a neat little craft which would have done no +discredit to a Thames waterman. Daphne was in raptures; Mr. Turchill +was impressed into her service, in nowise reluctant; and all the +mornings of that happy June were devoted to the art of rowing a pair of +sculls on the rapid Avon. Never had the river been in better condition; +there was plenty of water, but there had been no heavy rains since +April, and the river had not overflowed its natural limits; the stream +ran smoothly between its green and willowy banks, just such a lenient +tide as Horace loved to sing. + +When Daphne took up a new thing it was a passion with her. She was +at the exuberant age when all fresh fancies are fevers. She had had +her fever for water-colours, for battledore and shuttlecock, for +crewel-work. She had risen at daybreak to pursue each new delight: +but this fancy for the boat was the most intense of all her fevers, +for the love of the river was a love dating from infancy, and she had +never been able to gratify it thoroughly until now. Every evening in +the billiard-room she addressed the same prayer to Edgar Turchill, +when she bade him good-night: ‘Come as early as you can to-morrow +morning, please.’ And to do her pleasure the Squire of Hawksyard rose +at cockcrow and rode six miles in the dewy morning, so as to be at the +boat-house in Sir Vernon’s meadow before Arden church clock struck +seven. + +Let him be there as early as he might Daphne was always waiting for +him, fresh as the morning, in her dark blue linen gown and sailor hat, +the sleeves tucked up to the elbow to give free play to her supple +wrists, her arms lily-white in spite of wind and weather. + +‘It’s much too good of you,’ said she, in her careless way, not +ungrateful, but with the air of a girl who thinks men were created to +wait upon her. ‘How very early you must have been up!’ + +‘Not so much earlier than you. It is only an hour’s ride from +Hawksyard, even when I take it gently.’ + +‘And you have had no breakfast, I daresay.’ + +‘I have had nothing since the tumbler of St. Galmier you poured out for +me in the billiard-room last night.’ + +‘Poor—dear—soul!’ sighed Daphne, with a pause after each word. ‘How +quite too shocking! We most institute a gipsy tea-kettle. This kind of +thing shall not occur again.’ + +She looked at him with her loveliest smile, as much as to say: ‘I have +made you my slave, but I mean your bondage to be pleasant.’ + +When he came to the boat-house next morning he found a kettle singing +gaily on a rakish-looking gipsy-stove, a table laid for breakfast +inside the boat-house, a smoking dish of eggs and bacon, and the +faithful Bink doing butler, rough and rustic, but devoted. + +‘I wonder whether she has read Don Juan?’ thought Edgar. The water, +the gipsy breakfast, the sweet face smiling at him, reminded him of an +episode in that poem. ‘Were I shipwrecked to-morrow I would not wish to +awaken in a fairer paradise,’ he said to himself, while Bink adjusted +a camp-stool for him, breathing his hardest all the time. ‘This is a +delicious surprise,’ he exclaimed. + +‘The eggs and bacon?’ + +‘No; the privilege of a _tête-à-tête_ breakfast with you.’ + +‘Tête-à-fiddlestick; Bink is my chaperon. If you are impertinent I +will ask Mr. MacCloskie to join us to-morrow morning. Sugar? Yes, of +course, sugar and cream. Aren’t the eggs and bacon nice? I cooked them. +It was Bink’s suggestion. I was going to confine myself to rolls and +strawberry jam; but the eggs and bacon are more fun, aren’t they? You +should have heard how they frizzled and sputtered in the frying-pan. I +had no idea bacon was so noisy.’ + +‘Your first lesson in cookery,’ said Edgar. ‘We shall hear of you +graduating at South Kensington.’ + +‘My first lesson, indeed! Why, I fried pancakes over a spirit-lamp ever +so many times at Asnières; and I don’t know which smelt nastiest, the +pancakes or the lamp. Our dormitory got into awful disgrace about it.’ + +She had seated herself on her camp-stool and was drinking tea, while +she watched Edgar eat the eggs and bacon with an artistic interest in +the process. + +‘Is the bacon done?’ she asked. ‘Did I frizzle it long enough?’ + +‘It’s simply delicious; I never ate such a breakfast.’ + +It was indeed a meal in fairyland. The soft clear morning light, the +fresh yet balmy atmosphere, the sunlit river and shadowy boat-house, +all things about and around lent their enchantment to the scene. Edgar +forgot that he had ever cared for anyone in the world except this girl, +with the soft gray eyes and sunny hair, and all too captivating smile. +To be with her, to watch her, to enjoy her girlishness and bright +vivacity, to minister to her amusement and wait upon her fancies—what +better use could a young man, free to take his pleasure where he liked, +find for his life? And far away in the future, in the remoteness of +years to come, Edgar Turchill saw this lovely being, tamed and sobered +and subdued into the pattern of his ideal wife, losing no charm that +made her girlhood lovely, but gaining the holier graces of womanhood +and wifehood. To-day she was little more than a child, seeking her +pleasure as a child does, draining the cup of each new joy like a +child; and he knew that he was no more to her than the agreeable +companion of her pleasures. But such an association, such girlish +friendship so freely given, must surely ripen into a warmer feeling. +His pulses could not be so deeply stirred and hers give no responsive +throb. There must be some sympathy, some answering emotion in a nature +so intensely sensitive. + +Cheered by such hopeful reflections, Mr. Turchill ate an excellent +breakfast, while Daphne somewhat timorously tried an egg, and was +agreeably surprised to find it tasted pretty much the same as if the +cook had fried it; a little leathery, perhaps, but that was a detail. + +‘I feel so relieved,’ she said. ‘I shouldn’t have been surprised if +I had turned them into chickens. And now, if you have quite finished +we’ll begin our rowing. I have a conviction that if I don’t learn to +feather properly to-day I shall never accomplish it while I live.’ + +The boat was ready for them, moored to a steep flight of steps which +Bink had hewn out of the bank after his working hours. He had found +odd planks in the wood-house, and had contrived to face the steps with +timber in a most respectable manner, rewarded by Daphne by sweet words +and sweeter looks, and by such a shower of shillings that he had opened +a post-office savings-bank book on the strength of her bounty, and felt +himself on the road to fortune. + +There was the boat in all the smartness of new varnished wood. +Daphne had given up her idea of a Pompeian red dado to oblige the +boat-builder. There were the oars and sculls, with Daphne’s monogram in +dark blue and gold; and there, glittering in the sunlight, was the name +she had chosen for her craft, in bright golden letters—Nero. + +‘What a queer name to choose!’ said Edgar. ‘He was such an out-and-out +beast, you know.’ + +‘Not a bit of it,’ retorted Daphne. ‘I read an article yesterday in +an old volume of Cornhill, in which the writer demonstrates that he +was rather a nice man. He didn’t poison Britannicus; he didn’t make +away with his mamma; he didn’t set fire to Rome, though he did play +the violin beautifully. He was a very accomplished young man, and the +historians of his time were silly _gobe-mouches_, who jotted down +every ridiculous scandal that was floating in society. I think that +Taci——what’s his name ought to be ashamed of himself.’ + +‘Oh, Nero has been set on his legs, has he?’ said Edgar carelessly, +as he took the rudder lines, while Daphne bent over her sculls, and +began—rather too vehemently—to feather. ‘And I suppose Tiberius was a +very meritorious monarch, and all those scandals about Capri were so +many airy fictions? Well, it doesn’t make much difference to us, does +it?—except that it will go hard with me by-and-by, when my boys come to +learn the history of the future, to have the young scamps tell me that +all I learnt at Rugby was bosh.’ + +‘At Rugby!’ cried Daphne, suddenly earnest. ‘You were at Rugby with my +brother, weren’t you? Were you great friends?’ + +Edgar leant over the boat, concerned about some weeds that were +possibly interfering with the rudder. + +‘We didn’t see much of each other. He was ever so much younger than I, +you know.’ + +‘Was he nice? Were people fond of him?’ + +‘Everybody was dreadfully sorry when he died of scarlet-fever, poor +fellow!’ answered Edgar, without looking at her. + +‘Yes, it was terrible, was it not? I can just remember him. Such a +bright, handsome boy; full of life and spirits. He used to tease me +a good deal, but that is the nature of boys. And then, when I was at +Brighton, there came a letter to say that he was dead, and I had to +wear black frocks for ever so long. Poor Loftus! How dearly I should +have loved him if he had lived!’ + +‘Yes; it would have been nice for you to have a brother, would it not?’ +said Edgar, still with a shade of embarrassment. + +‘Nice! It would have been my salvation, to have someone of my own +kindred, quite my brother. I love Madoline, with all my heart and +soul; but she is only my half-sister. I always feel that there is a +difference between us. She is my superior; she comes of a better stock. +Nobody ever talks of my mother, or my mother’s family; but Lina’s +parentage is in everybody’s mouth; she seems to be related—at least in +heraldry—to everybody worth knowing in the county. But Loftus would +have been the same clay that I am made of, don’t you know, neither +better nor worse. Blood is thicker than water.’ + +‘That’s a morbid feeling of yours, Daphne.’ + +‘Is it? I’m afraid I have a few morbid feelings.’ + +‘Get rid of them. There never was a better sister than Madoline is to +you.’ + +‘I know it. She is perfection; but that only makes her further away +from me. I reverence her, I look up to her and admire her; but I can +never feel on an equality with her.’ + +‘That shows your good sense. It is an advantage for you to have someone +to look up to.’ + +‘Yes; but I should like someone on my own level as well.’ + +‘You’ve got me,’ said Edgar bluntly. ‘Can’t you make a brother of me +for the nonce?’ + +‘For ever and always, if you like,’ replied Daphne. ‘I’m sure I’ve got +the best of the bargain. I don’t believe any brother would get up at +five o’clock to teach me to row.’ + +Edgar felt very sure that Loftus would not have done it; that +short-lived youth having been the very essence of selfishness, and +debased by a marked inclination towards juvenile profligacy. + +‘Brothers are not the most self-sacrificing of human beings,’ he said. +‘I think you’ll find finer instances of devotion in an Irish or a +Scottish foster-brother than in the Saxon blood-relation. But Madoline +is a sister in a thousand. Take care of that willow,’ as the boat shot +under the drooping foliage of an ancient pollard. ‘How bright and happy +she looked last night!’ + +‘Yes; she had just received a long letter from Gerald, and he talks +of coming home sooner than she expected him. He will give up his +fishing in Norway, though I believe he had engaged an inland sea all to +himself, and he will be home before the end of July. Isn’t it nice? I +am dying with curiosity to see what he is like.’ + +‘Didn’t I describe him to you?’ + +‘In the vaguest way. You said I was sure to like him. Now I have an +invincible conviction that I shall detest him; just because it is my +duty to feel a sisterly affection for him.’ + +‘Take care that you keep within the line of duty, and that your +affection doesn’t go beyond the sisterly limit,’ said Edgar, with a +grim smile. ‘There is no fear of the other thing.’ + +‘What a savage look!’ cried Daphne laughingly. ‘How horridly jealous +you must be of him!’ + +‘Hasn’t he robbed me of my first love?’ demanded Edgar; ‘and now——’ + +‘Don’t be so gloomy. Didn’t you tell me you had got over your +disappointment, and that you meant to be a dear useful bachelor-uncle +to Madoline’s children by-and-by?’ + +‘I don’t know about being always a bachelor,’ said Edgar doubtfully. +‘That would imply that I hadn’t got over my disappointment.’ + +‘That is what you said the other day. I am only quoting yourself +against yourself. I like to think of you as a perpetual bachelor +for Lina’s sake. It is a more poetical idea than the notion of your +consoling yourself with somebody else.’ + +‘Yet a man does generally console himself. It is in human nature.’ + +‘Don’t say another word,’ cried Daphne. ‘You are positively hateful +this morning—so low and material. I’m afraid it must be the consequence +of eggs and bacon, such a vulgar unæsthetic breakfast—Bink’s idea. +I shall give you bread and butter and strawberries to-morrow, if +MacCloskie will let me have any strawberries.’ + +‘If you were to talk a little less and row a little more, I think we +should get on faster,’ suggested Edgar, smiling at her. + +They had got into a spot where a little green peninsula jutted out into +the stream, and where the current was almost a whirlpool. The boat had +been travelling in a circle for the last five minutes, while Daphne +plied her sculls, unconscious of the fact. They were nearing Stratford; +the low level meadows lay round them, the tall spire rose yonder, above +the many-arched Gothic bridge built by good Sir Hugh Clopton before +Shakespeare was born. William Shakespeare must have crossed it many and +many a time, with the light foot of boyhood; a joyous spirit, finding +ineffable delight in simplest things. And, again, after he had lived +his life and had measured himself amidst the greatest minds of his +age, in the greatest city of the world, and had toiled, and conquered +independence and fame, and came back rich enough to buy the great house +hard by the grammar-school, how often must he have lounged against the +gray stone parapet, in the calm eventide, watching the light linger and +fade upon the reedy river, bats and swallows skimming across the water, +the grand old Gothic church embowered in trees, and the level meadows +beyond! + +They were in the very heart of Shakespeare’s country. Yonder, far away +to their right, lay the meadow-path by which he walked to Shottery. +Memories of him were interwoven with every feature in the landscape. + +‘My father told me I was not to go beyond our own meadows,’ said +Daphne, ‘but of course he meant when I was alone. It is quite different +when you are with me.’ + +‘Naturally. I think I am capable of taking care of you.’ + +This kind of thing went on for another week of weather which at worst +was showery. They breakfasted in the boat-house every morning, Daphne +exercising all her ingenuity in the arrangement of the meal, and making +rapid strides in the art of cookery. + +It must be confessed that Mr. Turchill seemed to enjoy the breakfasts +suggested by the vulgar-minded Bink, rather more than those which were +direct emanations of Daphne’s delicate fancy. He liked broiled mackerel +better than cream and raspberry jam. He preferred devilled kidneys to +honeycomb and milk-rolls. But whatever Daphne set before him he ate +with thankfulness. It was so sweet to spend his mornings in this bright +joyous company. It was a grand thing to have so intelligent a pupil, +for Daphne was becoming very skilful in the management of her boat. She +was able to navigate her bark safely through the most difficult bits of +the deep swift river. She could shoot the narrow arches of Stratford +bridge in as good style as a professional waterman. + +But when two young pure-minded people are enjoying themselves in this +frank, easy-going fashion, there is generally some one of mature age +near at hand to suggest evil, and to put a stop to their enjoyment. +So it was in this case. The Rector’s wife heard of her niece’s watery +meanderings and gipsy breakfasts, and took upon herself to interfere. +Mr. MacCloskie, who had reluctantly furnished a dish of forced +strawberries for the boat-house breakfast, happened to stroll over to +Arden Rectory in the afternoon with a basket of the same fruit, as an +offering from himself to Mrs. Ferrers—an inevitable half-crown tip +to the head gardener, and dear at the price in the lady’s opinion. +Naturally a man of MacCloskie’s consequence required refreshment after +his walk; so Mrs. Todd entertained him in her snug little sanctum next +the pantry, with a dish of strong tea and a crusty knob of home-baked +bread, lavishly buttered. Whereupon, in the course of conversation, Mr. +MacCloskie let fall that Miss Daphne was carrying on finely with Mr. +Turchill, of Hawksyard, and that he supposed that would be a match some +of these days. Pressed for details, he described the early breakfasts +at the boat-house, the long mornings spent on the river, the afternoons +at billiards, the tea-drinkings in the conservatory. All this Todd, who +was an irrepressible gossip, retailed to her mistress next morning, +when the bill of fare had been written, and the campaign of gluttony +for the next twenty-four hours had been carefully mapped out. + +Mrs. Ferrers heard with the air of profound indifference which she +always assumed on such occasions. + +‘MacCloskie is an incorrigible gossip,’ she said, ‘and you are almost +as bad.’ + +But, directly she had dismissed Todd, the fair Rhoda went up to +her dressing-room and arrayed herself for a rural walk. Life in +a pastoral district, with a husband of few ideas, will now and +then wax monotonous, and Rhoda was glad to have some little mental +excitement—something which made it necessary for her to bestir herself, +and which enabled her to be useful, after her manner, to her kith and +kin. + +‘I shall not speak to her father, yet,’ she said to herself. ‘He has +strict ideas of propriety, and might be too severe. Madoline must +remonstrate with her.’ + +She walked across the smiling fields, light of foot, buoyed up by the +pleasing idea that she was performing a Christian duty, that her errand +was in all things befitting her double position as near relation and +pastor’s wife. She felt that if Fate had made her a man she would +have been an excellent bishop. All the sterner duties of that high +calling—visitations, remonstrances, suspensions—would have come easy to +her. + +She found Madoline in the morning-room, the French windows wide open, +the balcony full of flowers, the tables and mantelpiece and cabinets +all abloom with roses. + +‘Sorry to interrupt your morning practice, dearest,’ said Mrs. Ferrers +as Madoline rose from the piano. ‘You play those sweet classic bits so +deliciously. Mendelssohn, is it not?’ + +‘No; Raff. How early you are, Aunt Rhoda!’ + +‘I have something very particular to say to you, Lina, so I came +directly I had done with Todd.’ + +This kind of address from a woman of Rhoda’s type generally forbodes +unpleasantness. Madoline looked alarmed. + +‘There’s nothing wrong, I hope,’ she faltered. + +‘Not absolutely—not intentionally wrong, I trust,’ said Mrs. Ferrers. +‘But it must be put a stop to immediately.’ + +Madoline turned pale. In the days that were gone Aunt Rhoda had +always been a dreadful nuisance to the servants. She had been +perpetually making unpleasant discoveries—peculations, dissipations, +and carryings-on of divers kinds. Not unfrequently she had stumbled +upon mares’-nests, and after making everybody uncomfortable for a +week or two, had been constrained to confess herself mistaken. Her +rule at South Hill had not been peace. And now Lina feared that, even +outside the house, Aunt Rhoda had contrived to make one of her terrible +discoveries. Someone had been giving away the milk or selling the corn, +or stealing garden-stuff. + +‘What is it, Aunt Rhoda?’ + +Mrs. Ferrers did not give a direct answer. Her cold gray eyes made the +circuit of the room, and then she asked: + +‘Where is Daphne?’ + +‘In her own room—lying down, I think, tired out with rowing.’ + +‘And where is Mr. Turchill?’ + +‘Gone home. He had some important business, I believe—a horse to look +at.’ + +‘Oh, he does go home sometimes?’ + +‘How curiously you talk, Aunt Rhoda. Is there any harm in his coming +here as often as he likes? He is our oldest friend. Papa treats him +like a son.’ + +‘Oh, no harm, of course, if Vernon is satisfied. But I don’t wonder +Daphne is tired, and is lying down at mid-day—a horribly lazy, +unladylike habit, by the way. Are you aware that she is down at the +boat-house before seven every morning?’ + +‘Certainly, aunt. It is much nicer for her to row at that early hour +than later in the day. Edgar is teaching her; she is quite safe in his +care.’ + +‘And do you know that there is a gipsy breakfast every morning in the +boat-house?’ + +‘I have heard something about a tea-kettle, and ham and eggs. Daphne +has an idea that she is learning to cook.’ + +‘And do you approve of all this?’ + +Madoline smiled at the question. ‘I like her to be happy. I think she +wastes a good deal of time; that she is doing nothing to carry on her +education; but idleness is only natural in a girl of her age, and she +has been at home such a short time, and she is so fond of the river.’ + +‘Has it never occurred to you, Madoline, that there is some impropriety +in these _tête-à-tête_ mornings with Edgar Turchill?’ + +‘Impropriety! Impropriety in Daphne being on friendly terms with +Edgar—Edgar, who has been brought up with us almost as a brother!’ + +‘With you, perhaps; not with Daphne. She has spent most of her life +away from South Hill. She is little more than a stranger to Mr. +Turchill.’ + +‘She would be very much surprised if you were to tell her so, and so +would Edgar. Why, he used always to make himself her playfellow in her +holidays, before she went to Madame Tolmache.’ + +‘That was all very well while she was in short frocks. But she is now a +woman, and people will talk about her.’ + +‘About Daphne, my innocent childlike sister, little more than a child +in years, quite a child in gaiety and light-heartedness! How can +such an idea enter your head, Aunt Rhoda? Surely the most hardened +scandalmonger could not find anything to say against Daphne.’ + +‘My dear Madoline,’ began Mrs. Ferrers severely, ‘you are usually so +sensible in all you do and say that I really wonder at the way you are +talking this morning. There are certain rules of conduct, established +time out of mind, for well-bred young women; and Daphne can no more +violate those rules with impunity than anybody else can. It is not +because she wears her hair down her back and her petticoats immodestly +scanty that she is to go scot-free,’ added Aunt Rhoda in a little +involuntary burst of malevolence. + +She had not been fond of Daphne as a child; she liked her much less as +a young woman. To a well-preserved woman of forty, who still affects +to be young, there is apt to be something aggravating in the wild +freshness and unconscious insolence of lovely seventeen. + +‘Aunt Rhoda, I think you forget that Daphne is my sister—my very dear +sister.’ + +‘Your half-sister, Madoline. I forget nothing. It is you who forget +that there are reasons in Daphne’s antecedents why we should be most +especially careful about her.’ + +‘It is unkind of you to speak of that, aunt,’ protested Madoline, +blushing. ‘As to Edgar Turchill, he is my father’s favourite companion; +he is devoted to all of us. There can be no possible harm in his being +a kind of adopted brother to Daphne.’ + +‘He was an adopted brother to you three years ago, and we all know what +came of it.’ + +‘Pshaw! That was a foolish fancy, and is all over and done with.’ + +‘The same thing may happen in Daphne’s case.’ + +‘If it should, would you be sorry? I am sure I should not. I know my +father would approve.’ + +‘Oh, if Vernon is satisfied with the state of affairs, I can have +nothing further to say,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers with dignity; ‘but if +Daphne were my daughter—and Heaven forbid I should ever have such a +responsibility as an overgrown girl of that temperament!—I would allow +no boat-house breakfastings, no meanderings on the Avon. However, it +is no business of mine,’ concluded Mrs. Ferrers with an injured air, +having said all she had to say. ‘How is your water-lily counterpane +getting on?’ + +‘Nearly finished,’ answered Madoline, delighted to change the +conversation. ‘It will be ready for papa’s birthday.’ + +‘How is my brother, by-the-by?’ + +‘He has been complaining of rheumatic pains. I’m afraid we shall have +to spend next winter abroad.’ + +‘What nonsense, Lina! It is mere hypochondria on Vernon’s part. He was +always full of fancies. He is as well as I am.’ + +‘He does not think so himself, aunt; and he ought to know best.’ + +‘I am not sure of that. A hypochondriac may fancy he has hydrophobia, +but he is not obliged to be right. You foster Vernon’s imaginary +complaints by pretending to believe in them.’ + +Lina did not argue the point, perceiving very plainly that her aunt +was out of temper. Nor did she press that lady to stay to luncheon, +nor offer any polite impediment to her departure. But the interference +of starched propriety had the usual effect. Lightly as Madoline had +seemed to hold her aunt’s advice, she was too thorough a woman not +to act upon it. She went up to Daphne’s room directly Mrs. Ferrers +left the house. She stole softly in, so as not to disturb the girl’s +slumber, and seated herself by the open window calmly to await her +waking. Daphne’s room was one of the prettiest in the house. It had a +wide window, overlooking the pastoral valley and winding Avon. It was +neatly furnished with birchwood, and turquoise cretonne, and white +and gold crockery, but it was sorely out of order. Daphne’s gowns of +yesterday and the day before were flung on the sofa. Daphne’s hats of +all the week round were strewed on tables and chairs. Her sunshade +lay across the dressing-table among the brushes, and scent bottles, +and flower-glasses, and pincushions, and trumpery. She had no maid of +her own, and her sister’s maid, in whose articles of service it was +to attend upon her, had renounced that duty as a task impossible of +performance. No well-drilled maid could have anything to do—except +when positively obliged—with such an untidy and unpunctual young +lady. A young lady who would appoint to have her hair dressed and +her gown laced at seven, and come running into the house breathless +and panting at twenty minutes to eight; a young lady who made hay of +her cuffs and collars whenever she was in a hurry, and whose drawer +of ribbons was always being upheaved as if by an earthquake. Daphne, +being remonstrated with and complained of, protested that she would +infinitely rather wait upon herself than be worried. + +‘You are all goodness, Lina dear, but half a maid is no maid. I would +rather do without one altogether,’ she said. + +The room was not absolutely ugly, even in its disorder. All the things +that were scattered about were pretty things. There were a good +many ornaments, such as are apt to be accumulated by young ladies +with plenty of pocket-money, and very little common sense. Mock +Venetian-glass flower-vases of every shape and colour; Japanese cups +and saucers, and fans and screens; Swiss brackets; willow-pattern +plates; a jumble of everything trumpery and fashionable; flowers +everywhere, and the atmosphere sickly sweet with the odour of tuberose. + +Daphne stirred in her sleep, faintly conscious of a new presence in the +room, sighed, turned on her pillow, and presently sat up, flushed and +towzled, in her indigo gown, just as she had come in from her boating +excursion. + +‘Have you had a nice nap, dear?’ + +‘Lovely. I was awfully tired. We rowed to Stratford Weir.’ + +‘And you are quite able to row now?’ + +‘Edgar says I scull as well as he does.’ + +‘Then, dearest, I think you ought to dispense with Edgar in future and +keep to our own meadows, as papa said he wished you to do.’ + +‘Oh!’ said Daphne. ‘Is that a message from my father?’ + +‘No, dear. But I am sure it will be better for you to consider his +wishes upon this point. He is very particular about being obeyed.’ + +‘Oh! very well, Lina. Of course if you wish it I will tell Edgar the +course of lessons is concluded. He has been awfully good. It will be +rather slow without him. But I was beginning to find the breakfasts +a weight on my mind. It was so difficult to maintain variety—and +Bink has such low ideas. Do you know that he actually suggested +sausages—pork-sausages in June! And I could not make him comprehend the +nauseousness of the notion.’ + +‘Then it is understood, darling, that you row by yourself in future. I +know my father would prefer it.’ + +‘You prefer it, Lina; that is enough for me,’ answered Daphne in her +coaxing way. ‘But I think I ought to give Edgar some little present +for all his goodness to me. A smoking-cap, or a cigar-case, or an +antimacassar for his mother. I could work it in crewels, don’t you +know.’ + +‘You never finish anything, Daphne.’ + +‘Because the beginning is always so much nicer. But if I should break +down in this, you would finish it, wouldn’t you, Lina?’ + +‘With pleasure, my pet.’ + +Edgar was told that evening that his services as a teacher of rowing +would no longer be required. And though the fact was imparted to him +with infinite sweetness, he felt as if half the sunshine was taken out +of his life. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +‘GOD WOTE THAT WORLDLY JOY IS SONE AGO.’ + + +Perfect mistress of her boat, Daphne revelled in the lonely delight of +the river. She felt no grief at the loss of Mr. Turchill’s company. +He had been very kind to her, he had been altogether devoted and +unselfish, and the gipsy breakfasts in the old boat-house had been +capital fun. But these delights would have palled in time; while the +languid pleasure of drifting quietly down the stream, thinking her +own thoughts, dreaming her own dreams, could never know satiety. She +was so full of thoughts, sweet thoughts, vague fancies, visions of an +impossible future, dreams which made up half her life. What did it +matter that this airy fantastic castle she had built for herself was +no earthly edifice, that she could never live in it, or be any nearer +it than she was to-day? To her the thing existed, were it only in +dreamland; it was a part of herself and of her life, it was of more +consequence to her than the commonplace routine of daily existence—the +dressing, and dining, and driving, and visiting. + +Had her life been more varied, full of duty, or even diversified by the +frivolous activity of pleasure, she could not have thus given herself +up to dreaming. But she had few pleasures and no duties. Madoline held +her absolved from every care and every trouble on the ground of her +youth. She did not like parish work of any kind; she hated the idea of +visiting the poor; so Madoline held her excused from that duty, as from +all others. Her mind would awaken to the serious side of life when she +was older, her sister thought. She seemed now to belong to the flowers +and butterflies, and the fair ephemeral things of the garden. + +Thus Daphne, ignored by her father, indulged by her sister, enjoyed +a freedom which is rarely accorded to a girl of seventeen. Her Aunt +Rhoda looked on and disapproved, and hoped piously that she would come +to no harm, and was surprised at Lina’s weakness, and thought Daphne’s +bright little boat a blot upon the landscape when it came gliding +down the river below the Rectory windows. The parson’s rich glebe was +conterminous with Sir Vernon Lawford’s property, and Daphne hardly knew +where her father’s fields ended or where the church fields began. + +Edgar Turchill, degraded from his post of instructor, still contrived +to spend a considerable portion of his life at South Hill. If he was +not there for lawn-tennis in the afternoon, with the Rector’s wife for +a fourth, he was there in the evening for billiards. He fetched and +carried for Madoline, rode over to Warwick to get her a new book, or +to Leamington to match a skein of crewel. There was no commission too +petty for him, no office too trivial or lowly, so that he might be +permitted to spend his time with the sisters. + +Daphne thought this devotedness a bad sign, and began to fear that the +canker was at his heart, and that he would die for love of Madoline +when the fortunate Gerald came home to claim her. + +‘You poor creature,’ she said to him one day, ‘you foolish moth, why +flutter round the flame that must destroy you? I declare you are +getting worse every day.’ + +‘You are wrong,’ said Edgar; ‘I believe I am getting cured.’ + +What did Daphne dream about in those languid summer mornings, as her +boat moved slowly down the stream in the cool shadow of the willows, +with only a gentle dip of the sculls now and then to keep her straight? +Her thoughts were all of the past, her fancies were all of the future. +Her thoughts were of the nameless stranger who went across the Jura +last year—one little year ago—almost at this season. Her dreams were of +meeting him again. Yet the chances against such a meeting reduced it +almost to an impossibility. + +‘The world is so horribly large,’ she reflected sadly, ‘and I told him +such atrocious stories. It will be a just punishment if I never see him +any more. Yet how am I to live through my life without ever looking on +his face again!’ + +It had gone so far as this: it seemed to her almost an absolute need of +her soul that they two should meet, and know more of each other. + +The ardent sensive nature had been thus deeply impressed by the first +bright and picturesque image presented to the girlish fancy. It was +something more than love at first sight. It was the awakening of a +fresh young mind to the passion of love. She had changed from a child +to a woman, in the hour when she met the unknown in the forest. + +‘Who is he, what is he? where shall I find him?’ she asked herself. ‘He +is the only man I can ever love. He is the only man I will ever marry. +All other men are low and commonplace beside him.’ + +The river was the confidant and companion of all her dreams—the sweet +lonely river, flowing serenely between green pastures, where the cattle +stood in tranquil idleness, pastern deep in purple clover. She had no +other ear into which to whisper her secret. She had tried, ever so many +times, to tell Madoline, and had failed. Lina was so sensible, and +would be deeply shocked at such folly. How could she tell Lina—whose +wooing had been conducted in the most conventionally correct manner, +with everybody’s consent and approval—that she had flung her heart +under the feet of a nameless stranger, of whom the only one fact she +knew was that he was engaged to be married? + +So she kept this one foolish secret locked in her own breast. The +passion was not deep enough to make her miserable, or to spoil the +unsophisticated joys of her life. Perhaps it was rather fancy than +passion. It was fed and fostered by all her dreams. But her life was +in no wise unhappy because this love lacked more substantial food +than dreaming. God had given her that intense delight in Nature, that +love of His beautiful earth, for which Faustus thanked his creator. +Field, streamlet, wood, and garden, were sources of inexhaustible +pleasure. She loved animals of all kinds. The gray Jersey cows in +the marshy water-meadows; the house dogs, and yard dogs, and stable +terriers—supposed to be tremendous at rats, yet never causing any +perceptible diminution of that prolific race; the big white horses at +the farm, with their coarse plebeian tails tied up into tight knots, +their manes elaborately plaited, and their harness bedizened with much +brazen ornamentation; Madoline’s exquisite pair of dark chestnuts, +thoroughbred to the tips of their delicate ears; Sir Vernon’s massive +roadster; Boiler and Crock, the old carriage-horses—Daphne had an +affection for them all. They were living things, with soft friendly +eyes, more unvaryingly kind than human eyes, and they all seemed to +love her. She was more at her ease with them than in the dimly-lighted, +flower-scented drawing-room, where Sir Vernon always seemed to look at +her as if he wished her away, and where her aunt worried her about her +want of deportment. + +With Lina she was always happy. Lina’s love and gentleness never varied. + +Daphne came home after a morning wasted on the river, to sit at her +sister’s feet while she worked, or to lie on the sofa while Lina read +to her, glad to get in the thin edge of the educational wedge in the +form of an interesting article from one of the Quarterlies, or a few +pages of good poetry. Daphne was a fervent lover of verse, so that it +came within the limits of her comprehension. Her tastes were catholic; +she worshipped Shakespeare; she adored Byron and Shelley and Tennyson, +Mrs. Browning, and the simpler poems of Robert Browning; and she had +heard vaguely of verses written by a poet called Swinburne; but this +was all she had been permitted to learn of the latest development of +the lyric muse. Byron and Tennyson, it is needless to say, were her +especial favourites. + +‘One makes me feel wicked, and the other makes me feel good; but I +adore them both,’ she said. + +‘I don’t see what you can find in Childe Harold to make you wicked,’ +argued Madoline, who had the old-fashioned idea, hereditary of course, +that Byron was the poet of the century. + +‘Oh, I can hardly tell you; but there is a something, a sense of +shortcoming in the world generally, an idea that life is not worth +living, that amidst all that is most beautiful and sacred and solemn +and interesting upon earth, one might just as well be dead; one would +be better off than walking about a world in which virtue was never +rightly rewarded, truth and honour and courage or lofty thoughts never +fairly understood—where everything is at sixes and sevens, in short. +I know I express myself horribly, but the feeling is difficult to +explain.’ + +‘I think what you mean is that Byron, even at his loftiest and best, +wrote like a misanthrope.’ + +‘I suppose that’s it. Now, Tennyson, though his poetry never lifts +me to the skies, makes me feel that earth is a good place and heaven +better; that high thoughts and noble deeds bear their fruit somehow, +and somewhere; that it is better to suffer a good deal, and sacrifice +one’s dearest desires in the cause of duty and right, than to snatch +some brief joys out of life, and perish like the insects that are born +and die in a day.’ + +‘I am so glad you can enjoy good poetry, dear,’ said Madoline, +delighted at any surcease of frivolity in her young sister. + +‘Enjoy it! I revel in it; it is my delight. Pray don’t suppose that I +dislike books, Lina. Only keep away from me grammars, and geographies, +and biographies of learned men, and voyages to the North Pole—there is +a South Pole, too, isn’t there, dear? though nobody even seems to worry +about it—and you may read me as many books as you like.’ + +‘How condescending of you, little one!’ said Madoline, smiling at the +bright young face looking up from the sofa-pillow, on which Daphne’s +golden head reclined in luxurious restfulness. ‘Well, I will read to +you with pleasure. It will be my delight to help to carry on your +education; for though girls learn an immense number of things at +school they don’t seem to know much when they come away. We will read +together for a couple of hours a day if you like, dear.’ + +‘Till Gerald comes home,’ retorted Daphne; ‘he will not let you give me +two hours of your life every day. He will want you all to himself.’ + +‘He can join our studies; he is a great reader.’ + +‘Expose my ignorance to a future brother-in-law? Not for worlds!’ cried +Daphne. ‘Let us talk about him, Lina. Aren’t you delighted to think he +is coming home?’ + +‘Yes; I am very glad.’ + +‘How do my father and Gerald get on together?’ + +‘Not too well, I am sorry to say. Papa is fonder of Edgar than of +Gerald, you know how prejudiced he is about race and high birth. I +don’t think he has ever quite forgiven Gerald his father’s trade.’ + +‘But there is Lady Geraldine to fall back upon. Surely she makes +amends.’ + +‘Hardly, according to papa’s ideas. You see the Earldom of Heronville +is only a creation of Charles the Second’s reign, and his peerages +are not always respectable. I believe there were scandals about the +first countess. Her portrait by Sir Peter Lely hangs in the refectory +at Goring Abbey. She was a very lovely woman, and Lady Geraldine was +rather proud of being thought like her.’ + +‘Although she was not respectable,’ said Daphne. ‘And was there really +a likeness?’ + +‘Yes; and a marked one. I can see it even in Gerald, who is the image +of his mother—the same dreamy eyes, the same thoughtful mouth. But you +will be able to judge for yourself when Gerald comes home, for I have +no doubt we shall be going over to the Abbey.’ + +‘The Abbey! It is a very old place, I suppose?’ + +‘No; it was built by Mr. Goring.’ + +‘Why Abbey? Surely that means an old place that was once inhabited by +monks.’ + +‘It was Mr. Goring’s fancy. He insisted upon calling his house an +abbey. It was foolish, of course; but, though he was a very good man, +I believe he had a slight leaven of obstinacy in his disposition, and +when once he had made up his mind about anything he was not to be +turned from his purpose.’ + +‘Perverse old creature! And is the Abbey nice?’ + +‘It is as grand and as beautiful a place as money could make it. There +are cloisters copied from those at Muckross, and the dining-room has +a Gothic roof, and is called a refectory. The situation is positively +lovely: a richly timbered valley, sheltered by green hills.’ + +‘And you are to be mistress of this magnificent place. Oh, Lina, +what shall I do when you are married, and I am left alone here +_tête-à-tête_ with papa? How shall I support my life?’ + +‘Dearest, by that time you will have learned to understand your father, +and you will be quite at your ease with him.’ + +‘I think not. I am afraid he is one of those mysteries which I shall +never fathom.’ + +‘My love, that is such a foolish notion. Besides, in a year or +two my Daphne may have a husband and a house of her own—perhaps a +more interesting place then Goring Abbey,’ added Lina, thinking of +Hawksyard, which seemed to her Daphne’s natural destination. + + * * * * * + +June ripened, and bloomed, and grew daily more beautiful. It was +peerless weather, with just such blue skies and sunny noontides as +there had been at Fontainebleau last year, but without the baking heat +and the breathless atmosphere. Here there were cool winds to lift the +rippling hair from Daphne’s brow, and cool grass under her feet. She +revelled in the summer beauty of the earth; she spent almost all her +life out of doors, on the river, in the woods, in the garden. If she +studied, it was under the spreading boughs of the low Spanish chestnut +which made a tent of greenery on the lawn. Sometimes she carried her +drawing-book to some point of vantage on a neighbouring hill, and +sketched the outline of a wide range of landscape, and washed in a +sky, and began a tree in the foreground, and left off in disgust. She +never finished anything. Her portfolio was full of beginnings, not +altogether devoid of talent: mouse-coloured cows, deep-red oxen, every +kind of tree and rock and old English cottage, or rick-yard, or gray +stone village church; but nothing finished—the stamp of an impetuous, +impatient temper upon all. + +There had been no definite announcement as to Gerald’s return. He was +in Sweden, seeing wonderful falls and grottoes, which he described +in his letters to Madoline, and he was coming back soon, perhaps +before the end of July. He had told the Abbey servants to be prepared +for him at any time. This indefiniteness kept Madoline’s mind in a +somewhat perturbed state; yet she had to be outwardly calm, and full +of thoughtfulness for her father, who required constant attention. His +love for his elder daughter was the one redeeming grace of a selfish +nature. It was a selfish love, for he would have willingly let her +waste her life in maiden solitude for the sake of keeping her by his +side; but it was love, and this was something in a man of so stern and +unyielding a temper. + +He liked her to be always near him, always within call, his companion +abroad, his counsellor at home. He consulted her about all the details +of his estate and her own, rarely wrote a business letter without +reading it to her. She was wanted in his study continually. When he +was tired after a morning’s business, she read the newspapers to him, +or a heavy political article in Blackwood or one of the Quarterlies, +were he inclined to hear it. She never shirked a duty, or considered +her own pleasure. She had educated herself to be her father’s +companion, and counted it a privilege to minister to him. + +‘Faultless daughter, perfect wife,’ said Sir Vernon, clasping her hand +as she sat beside his sofa; ‘Goring is a lucky fellow to get such a +prize.’ + +‘Why should he not have a good wife, dear father? He is good himself. +Remember what a good son he was.’ + +‘To his mother, admirable. I doubt if he and old Goring hit it quite so +well. I wish he came of a better stock.’ + +‘That is a prejudice of yours, father.’ + +‘It is a prejudice that I have rarely seen belied by experience. I +wish you had chosen Edgar. There is a fine fellow for you, a lineal +descendant of that Turchill who was sheriff of Warwickshire in the +reign of the Confessor. Shakespeare’s mother could trace her descent +from the same stock. So you see that Edgar can claim alliance with the +greatest poet of all time.’ + +‘I should never have thought it,’ said Madoline laughingly; ‘his +lineage doesn’t show itself in his conversation. I like him very much, +you know, papa; indeed, I may say I love him, but it is in a thoroughly +sisterly fashion. By-the-by, papa, don’t you think he might make an +excellent husband for Daphne?’ she faltered, with downcast eyes, as she +went on with her crewel-work. + +‘She would be an uncommonly fortunate girl if she got him,’ retorted +Sir Vernon, with a clouding countenance; ‘he is too good for her.’ + +‘Oh, father! can you speak like that of your own daughter?’ +remonstrated Lina. + +‘Is a man to shut his eyes to a girl’s character because she happens +to bear his name?’ asked Sir Vernon impatiently. ‘Daphne is a lump of +self-indulgent frivolity.’ + +‘Indeed you are mistaken,’ cried Lina; ‘she is very sweet-tempered and +loving.’ + +‘Sweet-tempered! Yes; I know the kind of thing. Winning words, +pretty looks, trivial fascinations; a creature whose movements you +watch—fascinated by her variety—as you watch a bird in a cage. +Graceful, beautiful, false, worthless! I have some experience of the +type.’ + +‘Father, this is the most cruel prejudice. What can Daphne have ever +done to offend you?’ + +‘Done! Is she not her mother’s daughter? Don’t argue with me about her, +Lina. She is here beside my hearth, and I must make the best of her. +God grant she may come to no harm; but I am full of fear when I think +of her future.’ + +‘Then you would be glad if Edgar were to propose for her, and she were +to accept him?’ + +‘Certainly. It would be the very best thing that could happen to her. I +should only feel sorry for him. But I don’t think a man who once loved +you would ever content himself with Daphne.’ + +‘He is very attentive to her.’ + +‘_Che sara, sara!_’ murmured Sir Vernon languidly. + + * * * * * + +It was Midsummer-day—the hottest, brightest day there had been yet, +and Daphne had given herself up to unmixed enjoyment of the warmth and +light and cloudless blue sky. Sir Vernon and Madoline had a luncheon +engagement at a house beyond Stoneleigh, a drive of eleven miles each +way, so dinner had been postponed from eight to half-past, and Daphne +had the livelong day to herself; free to follow her own devices, free +even from the company of her devoted slave Edgar, who would have hung +upon her like a burr had he been at home, but who was spending a few +days in London with his mother, escorting that somewhat homely matron +to picture-galleries, garden-parties, and theatres, and trying to rub +off a year’s rural rust by a week’s metropolitan friction. + +Edgar was away; the light park-phaeton with the chestnuts had driven +off at half-past eleven, Madoline looking lovely in a Madras muslin +gown and a bonnet made of roses, her father content to loll in the low +seat by her side while she managed the somewhat vivacious cobs. Daphne +watched the carriage till it vanished at a curve of the narrow wooded +drive, and then ran back to the house to plan her own campaign. + +‘I will have a picnic,’ she said to herself, ‘a solitary, selfish, +Robinson Crusoe-like picnic. I will have nobody but Tennyson and Lina’s +collie to keep me company. Goldie and I will go trespassing, and find a +sly secret corner in Charlecote Park where we can eat our luncheon. I +believe it is against the law to stray from the miserable footpath; but +who cares for law on Midsummer-day? I shall feel myself almost as brave +as Shakespeare when he went poaching; and thank goodness there is no +Justice Shallow to call me to order.’ + +She ran to her own room for a basket, a picturesque beehive basket, the +very one she had carried—and he had carried—at Fontainebleau. What a +foolish impulse it must have been which made her touch the senseless +straw with her lips, remembering whose hand had held it! Then to the +housekeeper’s room to forage for provisions. The wing of a chicken: +a thick wedge of pound-cake; a punnet of strawberries; a bottle of +lemonade; a couple of milk-rolls. Mrs. Spicer would have packed these +things neatly in white paper, but Daphne bundled them into the basket +anyhow. + +‘Don’t trouble, you dear good soul; they are only for Goldie and me,’ +she said. + +‘You may just as well have things nice, miss. There, you’d have forgot +the salt if I wasn’t here. And if you’re going to take that there +obstreperous collie you’ll want something more substantial.’ + +‘Give me a slice of beef for him then, and a couple more of your +delicious rolls,’ asked Daphne coaxingly. ‘My Goldie mustn’t be +starved. And be quick, like a love, for I’m in an awful hurry.’ + +‘Lor, miss, when you’ve got all the day before you! You’ll be fearful +lonesome.’ + +‘What, with Goldie and the “Idylls of the King!”’ exclaimed Daphne, +glancing downwards at her little green cloth volume. + +‘Ah, well; I know when young ladies have got a nice novel to read they +never feel lonesome,’ said Mrs. Spicer, filling every available corner +of the basket, with which Daphne stepped off gaily to summon Goldie. + +Goldie was a bright yellow collie, intensely vivacious, sharp-nosed, +brown-eyed; a dog that knew not what it was to be quiet; a dog you +might lose at the other end of the county, confident that he would +scamper home across wood and hill and valley as straight as the crow’s +flight. He spent half his life tied up in the stable-yard, and the +other half rushing about the country with Daphne. He travelled an +incalculable number of miles in the course of an ordinary walk, and was +given to racing cattle. He worshipped Daphne, and held her in some awe +on this cattle question; would leap into the air with mad delight when +she was kind to him, or grovel at her feet when she was angry. + +‘Now, Goldie dear, if you and I are to lunch in Charlecote Park, I +must take a strap for you,’ said Daphne, as they started from the +stable-yard, Goldie proclaiming his rapture by clamorous barking. +‘It will never do for you to go racing the Lucy deer, or even the +Lucy oxen. We should get into worse trouble than Shakespeare did, for +Shakespeare had not such a frigid father as mine. I daresay old John, +the glover, was an easy-going indulgent soul whom his son could treat +anyhow.’ + +It was only a walk of two miles across the fields to Charlecote; two +miles by meadows that are as lovely and as richly timbered as they +could have been in Shakespeare’s time. High farming is not yet the rule +in Warwickshire. Hedges grow high and wild; broad oaks spread their +kingly branches above the rich rank grass; dock and mallow, foxglove, +fern, and dog-rose thrive and bloom beside every ditch; and many a +fair stretch of grass by the roadside—a no man’s land of pleasant +pasture—offers space for the hawker’s van, or the children’s noonday +sports, or the repose of the tired tramp, lying face downwards in a +rapture of rest, while the skylark trills in the distant blue above +him, and the rustle of summer leaves soothes his slumber. + +It is a lovely country, lovely in its simple, pastoral, English beauty, +calm and fitting cradle for a great mind. + +After the fields came a lane, a green arcade with a leafy roof, through +which the sun-rays crept in quivering lines of light, and then the gate +that opened on the footpath across Charlecote Park. Yonder showed the +gray walls of the house, venerable on one side, modern on the other, +and the stone single-arched bridge, and the lake, narrowing to a dull +sluggish-looking stream that seemed to flow nowhere in particular. The +tallest and stoutest of the elms looked too young for Shakespeare’s +time. But here and there appeared the ruin of a tree, hollow of trunk, +gaunt of limb, whose green branches may once have sheltered the deer he +stole. + +The place was very lonely. There was nobody to interfere with Daphne’s +pleasure, or even to object to the collie, who crept meekly to her +side, held by a strap, and casting longing looks at the distant oxen. +She wandered about in the loneliest bits of the park, supremely +indifferent to rules and regulations as to where she might go and where +she might not; till she finally deposited her basket and sunshade under +a stalwart oak, and sat down at the foot thereof, with Goldie still +strapped, and constrained to virtue. She fastened one end of the strap +to the lowest branch of the tree, Goldie standing on end licking her +hands all the time. + +‘Now, dear, you are as comfortable as in your own stable-yard. You can +admire the cows and sheep in the distance, standing about so peacefully +in the sunshine, as if they had never heard of sunstroke, but you can’t +hunt them. And now you shall have your dinner.’ + +It was a very quiet picnic, perhaps even a trifle dull; though, at +the worst, it might be better to picnic alone among the four-footed +beasts in Charlecote Park, than to assume a forced gaiety in a party +of stupid people, at the conventional banquet of doubtful lobster and +tepid champagne, in one of the time-honoured haunts of the cockney +picknicker. Daphne thought of Midsummer-day in the year that was gone, +as she sat eating her chicken and sipping her lemonade, half of which +had been lost in the process of uncorking. How gay she had been, how +foolishly, unreasonably glad! And now a great deal of the flavour had +gone out of life since her seventeenth birthday. + +‘How happy Lina looks, now that the time for her lover’s return draws +near!’ she thought. ‘She has something to look forward to, some reason +for counting the days; while to me time is all alike, one week just the +same as another. I am a horribly selfish creature. I ought to feel glad +of her gladness I ought to rejoice in her joy. But Nature made me out +of poor stuff, didn’t she, Goldie dear?’ + +She laid her bright head on the collie’s tawny coat. The pale gold of +her soft flowing hair contrasted and yet harmonised with the ruddy +hue of the dog, and made a picture fair to look upon. But there was +no one wandering in Charlecote Park to paint Daphne’s portrait. She +was very lucky in not being discovered by a party of eager Americans, +spectacled, waterproofed, hyper-intelligent, and knowing a great deal +more about Shakespeare’s biography than is known to the duller remnant +of the Anglo-Saxon race still extant on this side the Atlantic. + +She ate her strawberries in dreamy thoughtfulness, and fed Goldie to +repletion, till he stretched himself luxuriously upon her gown, and +dreamed of a chase he was too lazy to follow, had he been ever so free. +Then she shut the empty basket, propped herself up against the rugged +old trunk, and opened the ‘Idylls.’ It is a book to be read over and +over again, for ever and ever, just one of those rare books of which +the soul knows no weariness—like Shakespeare, or Goethe’s Faust, or +Childe Harold—a book to be opened, haphazard, anywhere. + +But Daphne did not so open the volume. Elaine was her poem of poems, +and it was Elaine she read to-day in that placid shade amidst green +pastures and venerable trees, under a cloudless sky. Launcelot was her +ideal man—faulty, but more lovable in his faultiness than even the +perfect Arthur. Yet what woman would not wish—ay, even the guilty one +grovelling at his feet—to be Arthur’s wife? + +She read slowly, pondering every word, for that fair young Saxon was +to her a very real personage—a being whose sorrows gave her absolute +pain as she read. Time had been when she could not read Elaine’s story +without tears, but to-day her eyes were dry, even to the last, when her +fancy saw the barge gliding silently down the stream, with the fair +dead face looking up to the sky, and the waxen hands meekly folded +above the heart that had broken for love of Launcelot. + +‘I wonder how long his sorrow lasted,’ she thought, as she closed +the book; and then she clasped her hands above the fair head resting +against the rugged bark of the oak, and gave herself up to day-dreams, +and let the afternoon wear on as it might, in placid enjoyment of the +atmosphere and the landscape. + +Charlecote church clock had struck five when she plucked herself out of +dreamland with an effort, unstrapped her dog from the tree, took up her +empty basket, and started on the journey home. She had ample leisure +for her walk. Dinner was not to be until half-past eight, and Sir +Vernon and his daughter were hardly likely to be back till dinner-time. + +It was a stately feast to which they had been bidden—a feast in honour +of somebody’s coming of age: a champagne breakfast for the quality, +roasted oxen and strong ale for the commonalty, speechifying, military +bands—an altogether ponderous entertainment. Sir Vernon had groaned +over the inevitable weariness of the affair in advance, and had talked +of himself as a martyr to neighbourly feeling. + +The homeward walk in the quiet afternoon light was delicious. Goldie, +released from his strap directly they left Charlecote, ran and leapt +like a creature possessed. Oh, how he enjoyed himself with the +first herd they came to, scampering after innocent milch-cows, and +endangering his life by flying at the foreheads of horned oxen! Daphne +let him do as he liked. She wandered out of her way a little to follow +the windings of her beloved river. It was between seven and eight when +she despatched Goldie to his stable-yard, and went into the cool shady +hall, where two old orange-trees in great green crockery tubs scented +the air. + +The butler met her on her way to the morning-room. + +‘Oh, if you please, Miss Daphne, Mr. Goring has arrived, and would +like to see you before you dress for dinner. He was so disappointed at +finding Miss Lawford away from home, and he would like to have a talk +with you.’ + +Daphne looked at the tumbled white gown—it was the same she had worn +last year at Fontainebleau—and thought of her towzled hair. ‘I am +so shamefully untidy,’ she said; ‘I think I had better dress first, +Brooks.’ + +‘Oh, don’t, Miss Daphne. You look nice enough, I’m sure. And I daresay +Mr. Goring is impatient to hear all about Miss Lawford, or he wouldn’t +have asked so particular to see you.’ + +‘Of course not. No; perhaps he won’t notice my untidiness. I’ll risk +it. Yet first impressions——I don’t want him to think me an underbred +school-girl,’ muttered Daphne as she opened the drawing-room door. + +The room was large, and full of flowers and objects that broke the +view; and all the glow and glory of a summer sunset was shining in at +the wide west window. + +For a moment or so Daphne could see no one; the room seemed empty of +humanity. There was the American squirrel revolving in his big airy +cage; there lay Fluff, the Maltese terrier, curled into a silky ball in +a corner of the sofa; and that seemed all. But as Daphne went timidly +towards the window, a figure rose from a low chair, a face turned to +meet her. + +She lifted her clasped hands to her breast with a startled cry. + +‘Nero!’ + +‘Poppæa!’ + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +‘OF COLOUR PALE AND DEAD WAS SHE.’ + + +‘And so you are Daphne?’ said Mr. Goring, taking both her hands, and +looking at her with an amused smile, not without tender admiration of +the fair pale face and widely-opened blue eyes. Months afterwards he +remembered the scared look in those lovely eyes, the death-like pallor +of the complexion; but just now he ascribed Daphne’s evident agitation +to a school-girl’s natural discomfiture at being found out in a risky +escapade. + +‘And so you are Daphne?’ he repeated. ‘Why, you told me your father +was a grocer in Oxford Street. Was not that what school-boys call a +crumper?’ + +‘No,’ said Daphne, recovering herself, and a sparkle of mischief +lighting up her eyes; ‘it was strictly true—of Martha Dibb’s father.’ + +‘And you adopted your friend’s parent for the nonce; a thoroughly Roman +custom that of adoption, and in harmony with your Roman name. By the +way, were you christened Poppæa Daphne, or Daphne Poppæa?’ + +He had been amusing himself with the squirrel for the last half-hour; +but he found Daphne’s embarrassment ever so much more amusing than the +squirrel. He felt no more seriously about the one than about the other. + +‘Don’t,’ exclaimed Daphne; ‘you must have known quite well from the +first moment that my name wasn’t Poppæa, just as well as I knew that +yours wasn’t Nero.’ + +‘Well, I had a shrewd suspicion that you were romancing about the name; +but I swallowed the grocer. That was too bad of you. Do you know that +you made me quite unhappy? I was miserable at the idea that such a girl +as you could be allied with grocery. A ridiculous prejudice, was it +not, in a man whose father began life as a day-labourer?’ + +Daphne had sunk into a low chair by the squirrel’s cage, and was +feeding that pampered favourite with the green points of some choice +conifer. She seemed more taken up by his movements than by her future +brother-in-law. Her agitation had passed, yet she was pale still, only +the faintest bloom in her fair cheek, the pink of a wild rose. + +‘Please don’t tell Lina,’ she pleaded, with her eyes on the squirrel. + +‘Oh, she doesn’t know anything about it then?’ + +‘Not a word. I dared not tell her. When I tried to do so, I became +suddenly aware how horridly I had behaved. Martha Dibb and I were +silly, thoughtless creatures, acting on the impulse of the moment.’ + +‘I don’t think there was much impulse about Miss Dibb,’ said Mr. +Goring. ‘It seemed to me that she only looked on.’ + +‘It is disgustingly mean of you to say that!’ exclaimed Daphne, +recurring to her school-girl phraseology, which she had somewhat +modified at South Hill. + +‘Forgive me. And I must really hold my tongue about our delicious +picnics? Of course I shall obey you, little one. But I hate secrets, +and am a bad hand at keeping them. I shall never forget those two happy +days at Fontainebleau. How strange that you and I, who were destined +to become brother and sister, should make each other’s acquaintance in +that haphazard, informal fashion! It seemed almost as if we were fated +to meet, didn’t it?’ + +‘Was that the fate you read in my hand?’ + +‘No,’ he answered, suddenly grave; ‘that was not what I read. Pshaw,’ +he added in a lighter tone, ‘chiromancy is all nonsense. Why should a +man, not too much given to belief in the things that are good for him +to believe, pin his faith on a fanciful science of that kind? I have +left off looking at palms ever since that day at Fontainebleau. And now +tell me about your sister. I am longing to see her. To think that I +should have stumbled on just the one particular afternoon on which she +was to be so long away! I pictured her sitting by yonder bamboo table, +like Penelope waiting for her Odysseus. Do you know that I have come +straight through from Bergen without stopping?’ + +‘And you have not been home to your Abbey?’ + +‘My Abbey will keep. By-the-by, how is the place looking—the gardens +all in their beauty, I suppose?’ + +‘I have never seen it.’ + +‘Never! Why, I thought Lina would be driving over once or twice a week +to survey her future domain. I take it positively unkind that you +have never seen my Abbey: my cloisters where never monk walked; my +refectory, where never monk ate; my chapel, where no priest ever said +mass. I should have thought curiosity would have impelled you to go and +look at Goring Abbey. It is such a charming anomaly. But it pleased my +poor father to build it, so I must not complain.’ + +‘I think you ought to be very proud of it when you consider how hard +your father must have worked for the money it cost,’ said Daphne +bluntly. + +‘Yes, John Giles had to put a long career of honest labour behind him, +before he became Giles-Goring and owner of Goring Abbey. He was a good +old man. I feel sorry sometimes that I am not more like him. + +‘Lina says you are like your mother.’ + +‘Yes, I believe I resemble her side of the house. It was by no means +the more meritorious side, for the Heronvilles were always loose fish, +while my father was one of the best men who ever wore shoe-leather. Do +you think Lina will be pleasantly surprised by my return?’ + +‘Do I think it?’ echoed Daphne. ‘Why, she has been longing for your +coming—counting every hour. I know that, though she has not said as +much. I can read her thoughts.’ + +‘Clever little puss. Daphne, do you know I am quite delighted to find +that my grocer’s daughter of Fontainebleau Forest is to be my new +sister.’ + +‘You are very good,’ returned Daphne rather stiffly. ‘It is eight +o’clock, so I think, if you’ll excuse me, I had better go and dress for +dinner.’ + +‘Wait till your people come home. I’ve ever so many questions to ask.’ + +‘There is the carriage! You can ask them of Lina herself.’ + +She ran out of the room by the glass door leading into the +conservatory, leaving Mr. Goring to meet his betrothed at the opposite +door. She ran through the conservatory to the garden. The sun was +sinking in a sea of many-coloured clouds, yonder on the edge of the +hills, and the river at the bottom of the valley ran between the rushes +like liquid gold. Daphne stood on the sloping lawn staring at the light +like a bewildered creature. + +She stood thus for some minutes motionless, with clasped hands, gazing +at the sunset. Then she turned and walked slowly back to the house. +There was no one to watch her, no one to think of her at this moment. +Gerald and Lina were together in the drawing-room, steeped in the +rapture of reunion. + +‘Let me be rational, let me be reasonable, if I can,’ Daphne said to +herself. She re-entered the house by an obscure door at the east end, +and went up to her own room. There, in the soft evening light, she +cast herself upon her knees by the bed, and prayed: prayed with all +the fervour of her untried soul, prayed that she might be kept from +temptation and led to do the thing that was right. Prayer so earnest in +a nature so light and reckless was a new experience. She rose from her +knees like a new creature, and fancied she had plucked the evil weed +of a fatal fancy out of her heart. She moved about her room calmly and +quietly, dressed herself carefully, and went back to the drawing-room, +two minutes before the half-hour, radiant and smiling. + +Madoline was still in the gown she had worn at the _déjeuner_. She had +taken off her hat, and that was all, too happy in her lover’s company +to spare five minutes for the revision of her toilet. Gerald had done +nothing to improve his travelling attire. Even the dust of the long +railroad journey from Hull was still upon his clothes. + +‘Gerald tells me that you and he have made friends already, Daphne,’ +said Lina in a happy voice. + +She was standing by her lover’s side in front of the open window, while +Sir Vernon sat in an easy-chair devouring his _Times_, and trying to +make up for the lost hours since the post came in. + +‘Yes; Daphne and I have sworn eternal friendship,’ exclaimed Gerald +gaily. ‘We mean to be a most devoted brother and sister. It was quite +wonderful how quickly we broke the ice, and how thoroughly at home we +became in a quarter of an hour.’ + +‘Daphne is not a very terrible personage,’ said Madoline, smiling at +her sister’s bright young face. ‘Well, darling, had you a happy day all +by yourself? I was almost glad you were not with us. The coming of age +was a very tiresome business. I had ten times rather have been in our +own gardens with you.’ + +‘The whole entertainment was ineffably dull,’ said Sir Vernon, without +looking from his paper. + +And now the well-bred butler glided across the threshold, and gently +insinuated that dinner was served, if it might be the pleasure of +his people to come and eat it: whereupon Mr. Goring gave his arm +to Madoline, and Sir Vernon for the first time since his younger +daughter’s return felt himself constrained to escort her to the +dining-room, or leave her to follow in his wake like a lap-dog. + +He deliberated for a moment or two as to which he should do, then made +a hook of his elbow, and looked down at her dubiously, as much as to +say that she might take it or leave it. + +Daphne would have much liked to refuse the proffered boon, but she +was in a dutiful mood to-night, so she meekly slipped her little +gloved hand under her parent’s sleeve, and walked by his side to the +dining-room, where he let her hand drop directly they were inside the +door. + +Everyone at South Hill hated a glare, so the dining-room, like the +drawing-room, was lighted by moderator lamps under velvet shades. Two +large brazen lamps with deep-fringed purple shades hung a little way +above the table; two more lighted the sideboard. The French windows +stood wide open, and across a balcony full of flowers appeared the +shadowy landscape and the cool evening sky. + +Sir Vernon was tired and out of spirits. He had very little to say +about anything except the proceedings of the afternoon, and all his +remarks upon the hospitalities at which he had assisted were of an +abusive character. He could eat no dinner, his internal economy having +been thrown altogether out of gear by the barbarity of a solid meal at +three o’clock. His discontent would have effectually damped the spirits +of any human beings except lovers. Those privileged beings inhabit a +world of their own; so Madoline and Gerald smiled at each other, and +talked to each other across the roses and lilies that beautified the +dinner-table, and seemed unconscious that anything unpleasant was going +on. + +Daphne watched them thoughtfully. How lovely her sister looked in the +new light of this perfect happiness—how unaffectedly she revealed her +delight at her lover’s return! + +‘How good it was of you to come back a month sooner than you had +promised, Gerald!’ she said. + +‘My dear girl, I have been pining to come home for the last six months, +but, as you and your father and I had chalked out a certain portion +of Europe which I was to travel over, I thought I ought to go through +with it; but if you knew how heartily sick I am of going from pillar to +post, of craning my neck to look at the roofs of churches, and dancing +attendance upon grubby old sacristans, and riding up narrow pathways +on mules, and having myself and my luggage registered through from the +bustling commercial city I am sick of to loathing after twenty-four +hours’ experience, to the sleepy mediæval town which I inevitably tire +of in ten, you would be able to understand my delight in coming back to +you and placid Warwickshire. By-the-by, why didn’t you take Daphne to +see the Abbey? She tells me she has never been over to Goring.’ + +‘I should have had no pleasure in showing her your house’—‘Our house,’ +interjected Gerald—‘while you were away.’ + +‘Well, dearest, it was a loving fancy, so I won’t scold you for it. +We’ll have a——’ He paused for an instant, looking at Daphne with a +mischievous smile. ‘We’ll have a picnic there to-morrow.’ + +‘Why a picnic?’ grumbled Sir Vernon. ‘I can understand people eating +out of doors when they have no house to shelter them, but nobody but +an idiot would squat on the grass to dine if he could get at chairs +and tables. Look at your gipsies and hawkers now—you seldom catch them +picnicking. If their tent or their caravan is ever so small and stuffy +they generally feed inside it.’ + +‘Never mind the hawkers,’ exclaimed Gerald contemptuously. ‘A fig for +commonsense. Of course, everybody in his senses knows that such a +dinner as this is much more comfortable than the most perfect picnic +that ever was organised. But, for all that, I adore picnics; and we’ll +have one to-morrow, won’t we, Daphne?’ + +He looked across the table at her in the subdued lamplight, smiling, +and expecting to see a responsive smile in her eyes; but she was +preternaturally grave. + +‘Just as you like,’ she said. + +‘Just as I like! What a chilling repulse! Why, unless Madoline and you +approve of the idea, I don’t care a straw for it. I’ll punish you for +your indifference, Miss Daphne. You shall have a formal luncheon in +the refectory, at a table large enough for thirty, and groaning under +my father’s family plate—Garrard’s, of the reign of Victoria, strictly +ponderous and utilitarian. What a lovely light there is in the western +sky!’ said Gerald, as Madoline and her sister rose from the table. +‘Shall we all walk down to the river, before we join Sir Vernon in the +billiard-room? You’d like to try your hand against me, sir, I suppose, +now that I come fresh from benighted lands where the tables have no +pockets.’ + +‘Yes; I’ll play a game with you presently.’ + +Gerald and the two girls went into the verandah, and thence by a +flight of shallow steps to the lawn. It was a peerless night after a +peerless day. A young moon was shining above the topmost branches of +the deodaras, and touching the Avon with patches of silvery light. The +scene was lovely, the atmosphere delicious, but Daphne felt that she +was one too many, though Madoline had linked an arm through hers. Those +two had so much to talk about, so many questions to ask each other. + +‘And you have really come home for good,’ said Madoline. + +‘For good, dearest; for the brightest fate that can befall a man, to +marry the woman he loves and settle down to a peaceful placid life in +the home of his—ancestor. I have been a rover quite long enough, and I +shall rove no more, except at your command.’ + +‘There are places I should love to visit with you, Gerald—Switzerland, +Italy, the Tyrol.’ + +‘We will go wherever you please, dearest. It will be delightful to me +to show you all that is fairest on this earth, and to hear you say, +when we are hunting vainly for some undiscovered nook, where we may +escape from the tourist herd—“After all, there is no place like home.”’ + +‘I shall only be too much inclined to say that. I love our own country, +and the scenery I have known all my life.’ + +‘We must start early to-morrow, Lina. We have a great deal of business +to get through at the Abbey.’ + +‘Business!’ + +‘Yes, dear; I want you to give me your ideas about the building of new +hot-houses. With your passion for flowers the present amount of glass +will never be enough. What do you say to sending MacCloskie over to +meet us there? His opinion as a practical man might be of use.’ + +‘If Mr. MacCloskie is going to picnic with you I’ll stay at home,’ said +Daphne.’ I admire the gentleman as a gardener, but I detest him as a +human being.’ + +‘Don’t be frightened, Daphne,’ said Gerald, laughing. ‘It is a +levelling age, but we have not yet come to picnicking with our +gardeners.’ + +‘Mr. MacCloskie is such a very superior person,’ retorted Daphne, ‘I +don’t know what he might expect.’ + +They had strolled down to the meadow by the river, a long stretch of +level pasture, richly timbered, divided from the gardens by a ha-ha, +over which there was a light iron bridge. They lingered for a little +while by this bridge, looking across at the river. + +‘Do you know that Daphne has started a boat,’ said Madoline, ‘and +has become very expert with a pair of sculls? She rowed me down to +Stratford the day before yesterday, and back against the stream.’ + +‘Indeed! I congratulate you on a delightful accomplishment, Daphne. I +don’t see why girls should not have their pleasure out of the river as +well as boys. I’ve a brilliant idea. The Abbey is only five miles up +the stream. Suppose we charter Daphne’s boat for to-morrow. I can pull +a pretty good stroke, and the distance will be easy between us two. +Will your boat hold three of us comfortably, do you think, Daphne?’ + +‘It would hold six.’ + +‘Then consider your services retained for to-morrow. I shall enjoy the +miniature prettiness of the Avon, after the mightier streams I have +been upon lately.’ + +‘I don’t suppose Lina would like it,’ faltered Daphne, not appearing +elated at the idea. + +‘Lina would like it immensely,’ said her sister. ‘I shall feel so safe +if you are with us, Gerald. What a strange girl you are, Daphne! A week +ago you were eager to carry me to the end of the world in your boat.’ + +‘You can have the boat, of course, if you like, and I’ll pull if you +want me,’ returned Daphne, somewhat ungraciously; ‘but I think you’ll +find five miles of the Avon rather a monotonous business. It is a very +lovely river if you take it in sections, but as both banks present a +succession of green fields and pollard willows, it is just possible for +the human mind to tire of it.’ + +‘Daphne, you are an absolute cynic—and at seventeen!’ exclaimed Gerald, +with pretended horror. ‘What will you be by the time you are forty?’ + +‘If I am alive I daresay I shall be a very horrid old woman,’ said +Daphne. ‘Perhaps something after the pattern of Aunt Rhoda. I can’t +conceive anything much worse than that.’ + +‘Papa will be waiting for his game of billiards,’ said Lina. ‘We had +better hurry back to the house.’ + +They were met on the threshold of the conservatory by Mrs. Ferrers. +That lady had a wonderful knack of getting acquainted with everything +that happened at South Hill. If there had been a semaphore on the roof +she could hardly have known things sooner. + +‘My dear Gerald, what a delightful surprise you have given us!’ she +exclaimed. ‘I put on my hat the instant the Rector had said grace. I +left him to drink his claret alone—a thing that has not happened since +we were married—and walked over to bid you welcome. How well you are +looking! How very brown you have grown: I am so glad to see you.’ + +‘It was very good of you to come over on purpose, Mrs. Ferrers.’ + +‘May I not be Aunt Rhoda instead of Mrs. Ferrers? I should like it ever +so much better. Next year I shall be really your aunt, you know.’ + +‘And the Rector will be your uncle,’ said Daphne pertly. ‘He is mine +already, and he is ever so much kinder than when I was only his +parishioner.’ + +Mrs. Ferrers shot a piercing look, half-angry, half-interrogative, at +her younger niece. The Rector had shown a reprehensible tendency to +praise the girl’s beauty, had on one occasion gone so far as to offer +her a patriarchal kiss, from which Daphne had recoiled involuntarily, +saying afterwards to her sister that ‘one must draw the line somewhere.’ + +‘Vernon has gone to bed,’ said Aunt Rhoda; ‘he felt thoroughly wearied +out after the gathering at Holmsley, which seems from his account to +have been a very dull business. I am glad the Rector and I declined. A +cold luncheon is positive death to him.’ + +‘Then we needn’t go indoors yet awhile,’ said Gerald. ‘It is lovely out +here. Shall I fetch a wrap for you, Lina?’ + +Mrs. Ferrers was carefully draped in her China-crape shawl, one of +Madoline’s wedding gifts to her aunt, and costly enough for a royal +present. + +‘Thanks. There is a shawl on a sofa in the drawing-room.’ + +‘Let Daphne fetch it,’ interjected Mrs. Ferrers; and her niece flew to +obey, while the other three sauntered slowly along the broad terrace in +front of the windows. + +There were some light iron chairs and a table at one end of the walk, +and here they seated themselves to enjoy the summer night. + +‘As our English summer is a matter of about five weeks, broken by a +good deal of storm and rain, we ought to make the most of it,’ remarked +Gerald. ‘I hope we shall have a fine day for the Abbey to-morrow.’ + +‘You are going to take Lina to the Abbey?’ + +‘Yes, for a regular businesslike inspection; that we may see what will +have to be improved or altered, or added or done away with before next +year.’ + +‘How interesting! I should like so much to drive over with you. My +experience in housekeeping matters might possibly be of use.’ + +‘Invaluable, no doubt,’ answered Gerald, with his easy-going, +half-listless air; ‘but we must postpone that advantage until the +next time. We are going in Daphne’s boat, which will only comfortably +hold three,’ said Gerald, with a calm contempt for actual truth which +horrified Madoline, who was rigidly truthful even in the most trivial +things. + +‘Going in Daphne’s boat! What an absurd idea!’ + +‘Don’t say that, Aunt Rhoda, for it’s my idea,’ remonstrated Gerald. + +‘But I can’t help saying it. When you have half-a-dozen carriages at +your disposal, and when the drive to Goring is absolutely lovely, to go +in a horrid little boat.’ + +‘It is a very nice boat, Aunt Rhoda, and Daphne manages it capitally,’ +said Lina. + +‘I think it will be a delightfully dreamy way of going,’ said Gerald. +‘We shall take our time about it. There is no reason we should hurry. I +shall order a carriage to meet us at the bottom of Goring Lane, where +we shall land. If we prefer to drive home we can do so.’ + +‘My dear Gerald, you and Madoline are the best judges of what is +agreeable to yourselves; but I cannot help thinking that you are +encouraging Daphne in a most unbecoming pursuit.’ + +The appearance of Daphne herself with the shawl put a stop to the +argument. She folded the soft woollen wrap round her sister, and then +stopped to kiss her. + +‘Good-night, Lina,’ she said. + +‘Going to bed so early, Daphne? I hope you are not ill.’ + +‘Only a little tired after my rambles. Good-night, Aunt Rhoda; +good-night, Mr. Goring,’ and Daphne ran away. + +‘Aunt Rhoda might drive over and meet us at Goring, Gerald,’ suggested +Madoline, who was always thoughtful of other people’s pleasure and did +not wish her aunt to fancy herself ignored. + +‘Certainly. I shall be charmed, if you think it worth your while,’ said +Gerald. + +‘Then I shall certainly come. My ponies want exercise, and to-morrow is +one of the Rector’s parochial days, so he won’t miss me for an hour or +two. What time do you contemplate arriving at the Abbey?’ + +‘Oh, I suppose between one and two, the orthodox luncheon-hour,’ +answered Gerald. + +Daphne was up and dressed before five o’clock next morning. She had set +her little American alarum-clock for five; but that had been a needless +precaution, since she had not slept above a quarter of an hour at a +time all through the short summer night. She had seen the last glimmer +of the fading moon, the first faint glow of sunlight flickering on her +wall. She stole softly downstairs, unlocked doors and drew bolts with +the silent dexterity of a professional housebreaker, feeling almost as +guilty as if she had been one; and in the cool quiet morning, while all +the world beside herself seemed asleep, she ran lightly across the dewy +lawn, down to the iron bridge by which she had stood with Madoline and +Gerald last night. Then she crossed the meadow, wading ankle-deep in +wet grass, and scaring the placid kine, and thus to the boat-house. + +She went in and got into her boat, which was drawn up under cover, and +carefully protected by linen clothing. She whisked the covering off, +and seated herself on the floor of the boat in front of the place of +honour, above which appeared the name of the craft, in gilded letters +on the polished pine—‘Nero.’ + +She took out her penknife and began carefully, laboriously, to scrape +away the gilt lettering. The thing had been so conscientiously done, +the letters were so sunk and branded into the wood, that the task +seemed endless; she was still digging and scraping at the first letter +when Arden church clock struck six, every stroke floating clear and +sweet across the river. + +‘What—an—utter—idiot I was!’ she said to herself, in an exasperated +tone, emphasising each word with a savage dig of her knife into the +gilded wood. ‘And how shall I ever get all these letters out before +breakfast time?’ + +‘Why attempt it?’ asked a low pleasant voice close at hand, and Daphne, +becoming suddenly aware of the odour of tobacco mixed with the perfumes +of a summer meadow, looked up and saw Gerald Goring lounging against +the door-post, smoking a cigarette. + +‘Why erase the name?’ he asked. ‘It is a very good name—classical, +historical, and not altogether inappropriate. Nero was a boat-builder +himself, you know.’ + +‘Was he?’ said Daphne, sitting limply in the bottom of her boat, +completely unnerved. + +‘Yes; the vessel he built was a failure, or at any rate the result of +his experiment was unsatisfactory, but the intention was original, and +deserves praise. I am sorry you have spoilt the first letter of his +name.’ + +‘Don’t distress yourself,’ exclaimed Daphne, jumping up and stepping +briskly out of her boat. ‘I am going to change the name of my boat, and +I thought I could do it this morning as a surprise for Lina; but it +was a more difficult business than I supposed. And now I must run home +as fast as I can, and make myself tidy for breakfast. My father is the +essence of punctuality.’ + +‘But as half-past eight is his breakfast hour you need not be in a +desperate hurry. It has only just struck six. Will you come for a +stroll?’ + +‘No, thank you. I have ever so much to do before breakfast.’ + +‘Czerny’s “Studies of Velocity”?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘French grammar?’ + +‘No.’ + +‘Be sure you are ready to start directly after breakfast.’ + +Daphne scampered off through the wet grass, leaving Mr. Goring standing +by the boat-house door, looking down with an amused smile at the +mutilated name. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + +‘AND SPENDING SILVER HAD HE RIGHT YNOW.’ + + +At ten o’clock Daphne was down at the boat-house again, ready for +the aquatic excursion, looking as fresh and bright as if nothing had +ever occurred to vex her. She wore a workmanlike attire of indigo +serge—no gay fluttering scarlet ribbons this time. Her whole costume +was studiously plain, from the sailor hat to the stout Cromwell shoe +and dark blue stocking, the wash-leather glove and leathern belt with +a broad steel buckle. Madoline’s flowing muslin skirts and flowery hat +contrasted charmingly with her sister’s more masculine attire. + +‘This looks like business,’ said Gerald, as Bink ran the boat into the +water, and held her while the ladies stepped on board. ‘Now, Daphne, +whichever of us gets tired first must forfeit a dozen pairs of gloves.’ + +‘I think it will be you, from the look of you,’ returned Daphne, as +she rolled up her sleeves and took hold of an oar in an off-hand +waterman-like manner. ‘When you are tired I’ll take the sculls.’ + +‘Well, you see I am likely to be in very bad form. It is four years +since I rowed in the ‘Varsity race.’ + +‘What, you rowed in the great race? What affectation to talk about +being in bad form. I should think a man could never forget training of +that kind.’ + +‘He can never forget the theory, but he may feel the want of practice. +However, I fancy I shall survive till we get to Goring Lane, and that +you’ll win no gloves to-day. I suppose you never wear anything less +than twelve buttons?’ + +‘Madoline gives me plenty of gloves, thank you,’ replied Daphne with +dignity. ‘My glove-box is not supported by voluntary contributions.’ + +‘Daphne, do you know that for a young woman who is speedily to become +my sister you are barely civil?’ said Gerald. + +‘I beg your pardon, I am practising a sisterly manner. I never met with +a brother and sister yet who were particularly civil to each other.’ + +They were rowing quietly up the stream, lowering their heads now and +then to clear the drooping tresses of a willow. The verdant banks, +the perpetual willows, were beautiful, but with a monotonous beauty. +It was the ripe middle of the year, when all things are of one rich +green—meadows and woods and hills—and in a country chiefly pastoral +there must needs be a touch of sameness in the landscape. Here and +there a spire showed above the trees, or a gray stone mansion stood +boldly out upon the green hillside. + +Daphne had so arranged cushions and wraps upon the principal seat as to +conceal the mutilated name. Gerald rowed stroke, she sat in the bows, +and Madoline reclined luxuriously in the stern with the Maltese terrier +Fluff in her lap. + +‘If we are lucky we shall be at the Abbey an hour and a half before +your aunt and her ponies,’ said Gerald. ‘It was extremely obliging of +her to volunteer the inestimable boon of her advice, but I fancy we +should get on quite as well without her.’ + +‘It would have been unkind to let her think we didn’t want her,’ said +Madoline deprecatingly. + +‘That is so like you, Lina; you will go through life putting up with +people you don’t care about, rather than wound their feelings,’ said +Gerald carelessly. + +‘Aunt Rhoda is my father’s only sister. I am bound to respect her.’ + +‘I’ve no doubt the Old Man of the Sea was a very estimable person in +the abstract,’ said Gerald, ‘but Sindbad shunted him at the first +opportunity. Don’t look so distressed, dearest. Aunt Rhoda shall +patronise us, and dictate to us all our lives, if it please you. +By-the-by, what has become of your devoted slave and ally, Turchill? I +expected to find him on the premises when I arrived at South Hill.’ + +‘He went up to London last week with his mother, to make a round of +the theatres and picture-galleries. They will be home in a few days, I +daresay.’ + +‘I wonder he can exist out of Warwickshire. He is so thoroughly +bucolic, so permeated by the flavour of his native soil.’ + +‘He is very kind and good and true-hearted,’ protested Daphne, flushing +indignantly; ‘and he is your old friend and kinsman. I wonder you can +speak so contemptuously of him, Mr. Goring.’ + +‘What, my vixenish little Pop—Daphne,’ cried Gerald, colouring at +this slip of the tongue, ‘is it thus the cat jumps? I would not +underrate Edgar for worlds. He is out and away the best fellow I know; +but, however much you may admire him, little one, that his mind is +essentially bucolic is a fact—and facts are stubborn things.’ + +‘You have no right to say that I admire him. I respect and esteem him, +and I am not ashamed to own as much, though you may think it a reason +for laughing at me,’ retorted Daphne, still angry. ‘He taught me to row +this very boat. He used to get up every morning at a ridiculously early +hour, in order to be at South Hill in time to give me a lesson before +breakfast.’ + +‘A man might do twice as much for your _beaux yeux_, and yet deem it no +self-sacrifice.’ + +‘Don’t,’ cried Daphne. ‘Didn’t I tell you ages ago that I detest you +when you flatter me?’ + +Madoline looked up with momentary wonder at that expression ‘ages +ago;’ but Daphne was so given to wild exaggerations and a school-girl +latitude of phrase, that ‘ages ago’ might naturally mean yesterday. + +‘Daphne dearest, what has put you out of temper?’ she asked gently. +‘I’m afraid you’re getting tired.’ + +‘If she give in before we get to Goring Lane I shall claim a dozen +pairs of gloves.’ + +‘I am not the least little bit tired; I could row you to Naseby, if you +liked,’ replied Daphne haughtily; whereupon the lovers began to talk +of their own affairs, somewhat lazily, as suited the summer morning +and the quiet landscape, where a light haze that yet lingered over the +fields seemed the cool and misty forecast of a blazing afternoon. + +Goring Lane was an accommodation road, leading down from the home farm +to the meadows on the river bank, and here they found a light open +carriage and a pair of strong country-made gray horses waiting for them. + +Gerald had sent his valet over before breakfast to make all +arrangements for their reception. The man was waiting beside the +carriage, and to Daphne’s horror she beheld in him the grave gentleman +in gray who had helped to convey provisions for the Fontainebleau +picnic: but not a muscle of the valet’s face betrayed the fact that he +had ever seen this young lady before. + +At the end of the lane they came into a shady park-like avenue, and +then to a gray stone gateway, pillared, mediæval, grandiose; on the +summit of each granite pillar a griffin of the most correct heraldic +make grasped a shield, and on the shield were quarterings that hinted +at a palmer’s pilgrimage in the Holy Land, and a ragged staff that +suggested kindred with the historic race of Dudley. + +The lodge-keeper’s wife and her three children were standing by the +open gate, ready to duck profusely in significance of delight in their +lord’s return. The male bird as usual was absent from the nest. Nobody +ever saw a man at an entrance lodge. + +The avenue of limes was of but thirty years’ growth, but there was +plenty of good old timber on the broad expanse of meadow-land which +Mr. Goring had converted into a park. There was a broad blue lake in +the distance, created by the late Mr. Goring, an island in the middle +of it, also of his creation; while a fleet of rare and costly foreign +aquatic birds of Mr. Goring’s importation were sailing calmly on the +calm water. And yonder, in the green valley, with a wooded amphitheatre +behind it, stood the Abbey, built strictly after the fashion of the +fifteenth century, but every block of stone and every lattice obviously +of yesterday. + +‘It wouldn’t be half a bad place if it would only mellow down to a +sober grayness, instead of being so uncomfortably white and dazzling,’ +said Gerald as they drew near the house. + +‘It is positively lovely,’ answered Madoline. + +She was looking at the gardens, which thirty years of care and outlay +had made about as perfect as gardens of the Italian style can be. They +were not such old English gardens as Lord Bacon wrote about. There was +nothing wild, no intricate shrubberies, no scope for the imagination, +as there was at South Hill. All was planned and filled in with a Dutch +neatness. The parterres were laid out in blocks, and in the centre +of each rose a fountain from a polished marble basin. Statues by +sculptors of note were placed here and there against a background of +tall orange-trees, arbutus, or yew. Everything was on a large scale, +which suited this palatial Italian manner. Such a garden might have +fitly framed the palace of a Medici or a Borgia; nay, in such a garden +might Horace have walked by the side of Mæcenas, or Virgil recited a +portion of his Æneid to Augustus and Octavia. There was a dignity, a +splendour, in these parterres which Daphne thought finer than anything +she had seen even at Versailles, whither Madame Tolmache had escorted +her English pupils on a certain summer holiday. + +‘The rose-garden will please you better than this formal pleasaunce, +I daresay,’ said Gerald. ‘It is on the other side of the house, and +consists wholly of grass walks and rose-trees. My dear mother gave her +whole mind to the cultivation and improvement of her gardens. I believe +she was rather extravagant in this one matter—at least, I have heard my +father say so. But I think the result justified her outlay.’ + +‘And yet you want to build more hot-houses on my account, Gerald. +Surely arrangements that satisfied Lady Geraldine will be good enough +for me,’ said Madoline. + +‘Oh, one ought to go on improving. Besides, you are fonder of exotics +than my mother was. And the rage for church decoration is getting +stronger every day. You will have plenty of use for your hot-houses. +And now we will go and take a sketchy survey of the house, before we +interview the worthy MacCloskie. Has Miss Lawford’s gardener arrived?’ +Gerald asked of the gentleman in gray, who had occupied the box-seat, +and was again in attendance at the carriage-door, while a portly butler +and a powdered footman, both of the true English pattern, waited in the +Gothic porch. + +‘Yes, sir; Mr. MacCloskie is in the housekeeper’s room.’ + +‘I hope they have given him luncheon.’ + +‘No, sir, thank you, sir. He would take nothing but a glass of claret +and a cigar. He has taken a stroll round the gardens, sir, so as to be +prepared to give an opinion.’ + +The house was deliciously cool, almost as if ice had been laid on in +the pipes which were used in winter for hot water. The hall was as +profoundly Gothic as that at Penshurst—it was difficult to believe +that the reek of a log fire piled in the middle of the stone floor had +never gone up through yonder rafters, that the rude vassals of a feudal +lord had never squatted by the blaze, or slept on yonder ponderous +oaken settles. Nothing was wanting that should have been there to tell +of an ancient ancestry. Armour that had been battered and dented at +Cressy or Bannockburn, or at any rate most skilfully manipulated at +Birmingham, adorned the walls. Banners drooped from the rafters; heads +of noble stags that had been shot in Arden’s primeval wood, spears +and battle-axes that had been used in the Crusades, and collected in +Wardour Street, gave variety to the artistic decoration of the walls, +while tapestry of undoubted antiquity hung before the doorways. + +These things had given pleasure to Mr. Giles-Goring, but to his son +they were absolutely obnoxious. Yet the father had been so good a +father, and had done such honest and useful work in the world before +he began to amass this trumpery, that the son had not the heart to +dislodge anything. + +They went through room after room—all richly furnished, all strictly +mediæval: old oak carving collected in the Low Countries; cabinets that +reached from floor to ceiling; sideboards large enough to barricade a +Parisian boulevard; all the legends of Holy Writ exemplified by the +patient Fleming’s chisel; polished oaken floors; panelled walls. The +only modern rooms were those at one end of the Abbey, which had been +refurnished by Lady Geraldine during her widowhood, and here there was +all the lightness and grace of modern upholstery of the highest order. +Satinwood furniture and pale-tinted draperies; choice water-colours +and choicer porcelain on the walls; books in every available nook. + +‘How lovely!’ cried Daphne, who had not been impressed by the modern +mediævalism of the other rooms. ‘This is where I should like to live.’ + +Lady Geraldine’s morning-room looked into the rose-garden. She had not +been able to do away with the mullioned windows, but a little glass +door—an anachronism, but vastly convenient—had been squeezed into a +corner to give her easy access to her favourite garden. + +Madoline looked at everything with tender regard. Lady Geraldine had +been fond of her and kind to her, and had most heartily approved her +son’s choice. Tears dimmed Lina’s sight as she looked at the familiar +room, which seemed so empty without the gracious figure of its mistress. + +‘I fancied you would like to occupy these rooms by-and-by, Lina,’ said +Gerald. + +‘I should like it of all things.’ + +‘And can you suggest any alterations—any improvements?’ + +‘Gerald, do you think that I would change a thing that your mother +cared for? The rooms are lovely in themselves; but were they ever so +old-fashioned or shabby, I should like them best as your mother left +them.’ + +‘Lina, you are simply perfect!’ exclaimed Gerald tenderly. ‘You are +just the one faultless woman I have ever met. Chaucer’s Grisel was not +a diviner creature.’ + +‘I hope you are not going to try my sister as that horrid man in the +story tried Grisel,’ cried Daphne, bristling with indignation. ‘I only +wish I had lived in those days, and had the reversion of Count Walter, +as a widower. I’d have made him repent his brutality.’ + +‘I have no doubt you would have proved skilful in the art of +husband-government,’ said Gerald. ‘But you needn’t be alarmed. Much +as I admire Grisel I shan’t try to emulate her husband. I could not +leave my wife in agony, and walk away smiling at the cleverness of my +practical joke. Well, Lina, then it is settled that in these rooms +there is to be no alteration,’ he added, turning to Madoline, who had +been taking up the volumes on a little ebony bookstand and looking at +their titles. + +‘Please make no alteration anywhere. Let the house be as your father +and mother arranged it.’ + +‘My sweet conservative! And we are to keep all the old servants, I +conclude. They are all of my father’s and mother’s choosing.’ + +‘Pray keep them all. If you could any way find room for MacCloskie, +without offending your head gardener——’ + +‘MacCloskie shall be superintendent of your own special hot-houses, my +darling. It will be an easy, remunerative place—good wages and plenty +of perquisites.’ + +A grinding of wheels on the gravel, and a tremendous peal of the bell +at the principal entrance proclaimed the advent of a visitor. + +‘Aunt Rhoda, no doubt,’ said Gerald. ‘Let us be sober.’ + +They went back to the hall to greet the new arrival. It was Mrs. +Ferrers’s youthful groom, a smart young gentleman of the tiger species, +who had made that tremendous peal. Mrs. Ferrers’s roan ponies were +scratching up the gravel; but Mrs. Ferrers was not alone; a gentleman +had just dismounted from a fine upstanding bay, and that gentleman was +Edgar Turchill. + +‘So glad to see you here, Aunt Rhoda,’ cried Gerald. ‘Why, Turchill, +they told me you were in London!’ + +‘Came home last night, rode over to South Hill this morning, overtook +Mrs. Ferrers on the way, and——’ + +‘I asked him to come on with me and to join in our round of +inspection,’ said Aunt Rhoda. ‘I hope I did not do very wrong.’ + +‘You did very right. I don’t think Turchill feels himself much of a +stranger at the Abbey, even though it has been a very inhospitable +place for the last year or so. And now before we go in for any +more business let’s proceed to luncheon. Your boat has had a most +invigorating effect on my appetite, Daphne. I’m simply famished.’ + +‘So you came in Daphne’s boat. She rows pretty well, doesn’t she?’ +asked Edgar, with a glance of mingled pride and tenderness at his pupil. + +‘She might win a cup to-morrow. You have reason to be proud of her.’ + +They all went into the refectory, where, under the lofty open timber +roof, a small oval table looked like an island in a sea of Turkey +carpet and polished oak flooring. + +‘It would have served you right if we had had the long dinner-table,’ +Gerald said to Daphne, as he passed her with Mrs. Ferrers on his arm. + +‘I thought we were going to picnic in the park,’ said Madoline. + +‘Daphne——Neither you nor Daphne seemed to care about it,’ replied +Gerald. + +‘This is a great deal more sensible,’ remarked Mrs. Ferrers. + +‘Oh, I don’t know; it’s awfully jolly to eat one’s luncheon under the +trees in such weather as this,’ said Edgar. + +‘For Mr. Turchill’s particular gratification, we will have afternoon +tea in the cloisters,’ said Gerald. ‘Blake,’ to the butler, ‘let there +be tea at half-past four on the grass in the cloisters.’ + +Daphne could eat or drink very little, though Edgar, who sat next +to her, was pressing in his offers of lobster mayonnaise, and cold +chicken, cutlets, sole à la maître d’hôtel, Perigord pie. She was +looking about her at the portraits on the walls. + +Facing her hung Prescott Knight’s picture of the man who began his +career by wheeling barrows, and who ended it by building mighty +viaducts, levelling hills, filling valleys, making the crooked paths +straight. It was a brave honest English face, plain, rugged even, the +painter having in no wise flattered his sitter; but a countenance that +was pleasanter to the eye than many a handsome face. A countenance that +promised truth and honour, manliness and warm feelings in its possessor. + +Daphne looked from the portrait on the wall to the present master of +the Abbey. No; there was not one point of resemblance between Gerald +Goring and his father. + +Then she looked at another portrait hanging in the place of honour +above the wide Gothic mantelpiece. Lady Geraldine, by Buckner: the +picture of an elegant high-bred woman of between thirty and forty, +dressed in amber satin and black lace, one bare arm lifted to pluck a +rose from a lattice, the other hand resting on a marble balustrade, +across which an Indian shawl had been flung carelessly. Face and figure +were both perfect after their kind—figure tall and willowy, a swan’s +neck, a proud and pensive countenance, with eyes of the same doubtful +colour as Gerald’s, the same dreamy look in them. Then Daphne turned +her gaze to the other end of the room, where hung the famous Sir Peter +Lely, a replica of the well-known picture in Hampton Court, for which +replica Mr. Giles-Goring had paid a preposterous price to a poor and +proud member of his wife’s family, who was lucky enough to possess it. +Strange that a singleminded, honest-hearted man like John Giles-Goring +should have been proud of his son’s descent from a king’s mistress, and +should have hung the portrait of Felicia, Countess of Heronville, above +the desk at which he read family prayers to his assembled household. +Yes; Lady Heronville’s eyes were like Gerald’s, dreamily beautiful. + +Everybody at the table had plenty to say, except Daphne. She was +absorbed by her contemplation of the pictures. Edgar was concerned at +her want of appetite. He tried to entertain her by telling her of the +plays and pictures he had seen. + +‘Your father ought to take you to town before the season is over. +There is so much to see,’ he said; ‘and though I am told that all the +West End tradespeople are complaining, it seems to me that London was +never so full as this year. Hyde Park in the morning and afternoon is +something wonderful.’ + +‘I should like to go to the opera,’ said Daphne rather listlessly. +‘Madame Tolmache took us to hear “Faust” one evening. She said that +an occasional visit to the opera was the highest form of cultivation +for the youthful mind. I believe she had a box given her by the +music-master, and that she turned it to her own advantage that +way—charging it in her bills, don’t you know. I shall never forget +that evening. It was at the end of August, and Paris was wrapped in a +white mist, and the air had a breathless, suffocating feeling, and the +streets smelt of over-ripe peaches. But when we got out of the jolting +fly that took us from the station to the theatre, and went to a box +that seemed in the clouds, we had to go up so many stairs to reach it, +and the music began, and the curtain went up, it was like being in a +new world. I felt as if I were holding my breath all the time. Even +Martha Dibb—that stupid, good-natured girl I told you about—seemed +spell-bound, and sat with her mouth open, gasping like a fish. Nilsson +was Marguerite, and Faure was Mephistopheles. I shall remember them to +the end of my life.’ + +‘You’ll hear them again often, I hope. Nilsson was singing the other +night, when I took my mother to hear Wagner’s great opera. The music +is quite the rage, I believe; but I don’t like it as well as “Don +Giovanni.”’ + +Luncheon was over by this time—a formal ceremonious luncheon, such as +Daphne detested. It was her punishment for having been uncivil last +night when the picnic idea was mooted. And now they all repaired to the +gardens, and perambulated the parterre, and criticised the statues: +Leda with her swan, Venus with an infant Cupid, Hebe offering her cup, +Ganymede on his eagle—all the most familiar personages in Lemprière. +The fountains were sending up their rainbow spray in the blazing +afternoon sun. The geraniums, and calceolarias, and pansies, and +petunias, and all the tribe of begonias, and house-leeks, newly bedded +out, seemed to quiver in the fierce bright light. + +‘For pity’s sake let us get out of this burning flowery furnace,’ cried +Gerald. ‘Let’s go to the rose-garden; it’s on the shady side of the +house, and within reach of my mother’s favourite tulip-trees.’ + +The rose-garden was a blessed refuge after that exposed parterre facing +due south. Here there was velvet turf on which to walk, and here were +trellised screens and arches wreathed with the yellow clusters of +the Celine Forestier, and the Devoniensis. Mrs. Ferrers was a person +who always discoursed of flowers by their botanical or fashionable +names. She did not call a rose a rose, but went into raptures over a +Marguerite de St. Armand, a Garnet Wolseley, a Gloire de Vitry, or an +Etienne Levet, as the case might be. + +Here, smoking his cigar, which he politely suppressed at their +approach, they discovered Mr. MacCloskie, the hard-faced, sandy-haired +Scottish gardener. + +‘You have been taking a look at my grounds, I hear, MacCloskie,’ Mr. +Goring said pleasantly. + +‘Yes, sir; I’ve looked about me a bit. I think I’ve seen pretty well +everything.’ + +‘And the hot-houses leave room for improvement, I suppose?’ + +‘Well, sir, I’m not wishing to say anything disrespectful to your +architect,’ began MacCloskie, with that deliberation which gave all +his speeches an air of superior wisdom, ‘but if he had tried his +hardest to spend the maximum of money in attaining the minimum of space +and accommodation—to say nothing of his ventilation and his heating +apparatus, which are just abominable—he couldn’t have succeeded better +than he has—unconsciously.’ + +‘Dear me, Mr. MacCloskie, that’s a bad account. And yet the gardeners +here have managed to rub on very decently for a quarter of a century, +with no better accommodation than you have seen to-day.’ + +‘Ay, sir, that’s where it is. They just roobed on, poor fellows. And I +can only say that it’s very creditable to them to do as well as they +have done, and if they’re about a quarter of a century behind the times +nobody can blame them.’ + +‘Then we must build new houses—that’s inevitable, I conclude.’ + +‘Yes, sir, if you want to grow exotics.’ + +‘Yet I used to see a good deal of stephanotis about the rooms in my +father’s time.’ + +‘Ay, there’s a fine plant growing in a bit of a glass—shed,’ said +Mr. MacCloskie with ineffable contempt. ‘Necessity’s the mother of +invention, Mr. Goring. Your gardeners have done just wonders. But with +all deference to you, sir, that kind of thing wouldn’t suit me. And +if Miss Lawford has any idea of my coming here by-and-by——’ with a +respectful glance at his mistress, as he stood at ease, contemplating +the spotless lining of his top-hat. + +‘Miss Lawford would like you to continue in her service when she is +Mrs. Goring. Perhaps you will be good enough to give me an exact +specification of the space you would require, and the form of house you +would suggest. I wish Miss Lawford to be in no way a loser when she +exchanges South Hill for Goring Abbey.’ + +‘Thank you, sir, you are very good, sir,’ murmured the Scotchman, as +if it were for his gratification the houses were to be built. ‘This is +a very fine place, sir; it would be a pity if it were to be behind the +times in any particular.’ + +The head gardener bowed and withdrew, everyone—even Aunt +Rhoda—breathing more freely when he had vanished. + +‘Isn’t he too utterly horrid?’ asked Daphne. ‘If there is a being I +detest in this world it is he. Were I in Lina’s place I should take +advantage of my marriage to get rid of him; but she will just go down +to her grave domineered over by that man,’ concluded Daphne, mimicking +MacCloskie’s northern tongue. + +‘He is not the most agreeable person in the world,’ said Lina; ‘but he +is thoroughly conscientious.’ + +‘Did you ever know a disagreeable person who did not set up for being a +paragon of honesty?’ exclaimed Daphne contemptuously. + +They roamed about the rose-garden, which was a lovely place to loiter +in upon a summer day, and lingered under the tulip-trees, where there +were rustic chairs and a rustic table, and every incentive to idleness. +Beyond the tulip-trees there was a shrubbery on the slope of the hill, +a shrubbery which sheltered the rose-garden from bleak winds, and +made it a thoroughly secluded spot. While the rest of the party sat +talking under the big broad-leaved trees, Daphne shot off to explore +the shrubbery. The first thing that attracted her attention was a large +wire cage among the laurels. + +‘Is that an aviary?’ she asked. + +‘No,’ answered Gerald, rising and going over to her. ‘These are my +father’s antecedents.’ + +He pulled away the laurel branches which had spread themselves in front +of the cage, and Daphne saw that it contained only a shabby old barrow, +a pickaxe, and shovel. + +‘Those were the stock-in-trade with which my father began his career,’ +he said. ‘I don’t believe he had even the traditional half-crown. I’ve +no doubt if he had possessed such a coin his mates would have made him +spend it on beer. He began life, a barefooted, ignorant lad, upon a +railroad in the north of England; and before his fortieth birthday he +was one of the greatest contractors and one of the best-informed men +of his time; but he never mastered the right use of the aspirate, and +he never could bring himself to wear gloves. It was his fancy to keep +those old tools of his, and to take his visitors to look at them, after +they had gone the round of house and gardens.’ + +‘I hope you are proud of him,’ said Daphne, with a bright penetrating +glance which seemed to pierce Mr. Goring’s soul. ‘I should hate you +if I thought that, even for one moment in your life, you could feel +ashamed of such a father.’ + +‘Then I’m afraid I must endure your hate,’ said Gerald. ‘No; I have +never felt ashamed of my father: he was the dearest, kindest, most +unselfish, most indulgent father that ever spoiled an unworthy son. +But I have occasionally felt ashamed of that barrow, when it has been +exhibited and explained to a new acquaintance, and I have seen that the +now acquaintance thought the whole thing—the mock mediæval abbey, and +the barrow, and my dear simple-hearted dad—one stupendous joke.’ + +‘I should be more ashamed of Felicia, Countess of Heronville, than of +that barrow, if I were you,’ exclaimed Daphne, flushed and indignant. + +‘You little radical! Mistress Felicia was by no means an exemplary +person, but she was one of the loveliest women at Charles’s court, +where lovely women congregated by common consent, while all the ugly +ones buried themselves at their husbands’ country seats, and thought +that some fiery comet must be swooping down upon the world because of +wickedness in high places. Don’t be too hard upon poor Lady Heronville. +She died in the zenith of her charms, while quite a young woman.’ + +‘Do you think she ought to be pitied for that?’ demanded Daphne. ‘Why, +it was the brightest fate Heaven could give her. The just punishment +for her evil ways would have been a long loveless old age, and to +see her beauty fade day by day, and to know that the world she loved +despised and forgot her. + + “Whom the gods love die young, was said of old; + And many deaths do they escape by this.”’ + +‘Where did you find those lines, little one?’ + +‘In a book we used to read aloud at Madame Tolmache’s, “Gems from +Byron.”’ + +‘Oh, I see! Mere chippings, diamond dust. I was afraid you’d been at +the Koh-i-noor itself.’ + +‘Are we to have some tea, Gerald?’ asked Madoline, crossing to them and +looking at her watch as she came. ‘It is half-past four, and we must be +going home soon.’ + +‘To the cloisters, ladies and gentlemen, to all that there is of the +most mediæval in the Abbey.’ + +They passed under a Gothic archway and found themselves on a square +green lawn, in the midst of which was another fountain in a genuine old +marble basin, a Roman relic dug up thirty years ago in the peninsula +of Portland. A cloistered walk surrounded this grass-plot. A striped +awning had been put up beside the fountain, and under this the +tea-table was spread. + +‘Now, Lina, let us see if you can manage that ponderous tea-kettle,’ +said Gerald. + +‘It is the handsomest I ever saw,’ sleepily remarked Mrs. Ferrers, who +had found the afternoon somewhat dreary, since nobody had seemed to +want her advice about anything. ‘But I must confess that I prefer the +Rector’s George the Second silver, and old Swansea cups and saucers, to +the highest exemplars of modern art.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + +‘YEVE ME MY DETH, OR THAT I HAVE A SHAME.’ + + +Sir Vernon Lawford was sitting alone in his study on the morning after +the visit to Goring Abbey, when the door opened suddenly with a sharp +jerk, and his younger daughter stood before him. The very manner in +which the door opened told him, before he looked up from his desk, that +the intruder was Daphne, and not the always welcome Madoline. + +He looked at his daughter with cold severe eyes, as at a person who +had no right to be there. Ever since she could remember, Daphne had +feared her father much more than she loved him; but never had he +seemed to her so awful a being as he appeared this morning in his +own room, surrounded by all the symbols of power—the bronze bust of +Cicero looking down at him from the bookcase; his despatch-box open +at his side, bristling with pen-knives and paper-knives, and stern +official stationery; his ponderous silver inkstand, presented by the +Warwickshire yeomanry in acknowledgment of his merits as colonel; +his russia-leather bound dictionaries and directories, and brazen +letter-weighing machine—and all the pomp and circumstance of his +business life about him. + +‘Well, Daphne, what do you want?’ he asked, looking at her without a +ray of sympathetic feeling in his handsome gray eyes. + +‘If you please, papa,’ she faltered, blushing deeply under that severe +gaze, and pleating up the edge of her lawn-tennis pinafore in supreme +nervousness, ‘I don’t think I’m really finished.’ + +‘Finished!’ he exclaimed, looking at her as if he thought she was an +idiot. ‘Finished what? You never finish anything, or begin anything +either, so far as I can hear, that is worth doing.’ + +‘My education, I mean, papa,’ she said, looking at him with eyes so +lovely in hue and expression, so piteous in their timid pleading, that +they ought to have touched him. ‘I know you sent me to Madame Tolmache +to be finished, and that she was very expensive; but I’m afraid I came +away horribly ignorant; and I begin to feel that a year or two more of +schooling would be of very great value to me. I am older now, don’t +you know, papa; and I should try more earnestly to improve myself. +Indeed, indeed, papa, I would work very hard this time,’ urged Daphne, +remorsefully remembering how little she had worked in the past. ‘I +don’t care where you send me: to Asnières, or to Germany, or anywhere: +so that I could only go on with my education.’ + +‘Go on with it at home,’ answered Sir Vernon contemptuously. ‘You can +read, and write, and spell, I suppose. Yes; I have some of your letters +asking me for different things in those pigeon-holes. Any woman who can +do as much as that can improve herself. There are books enough on those +shelves’—with a glance at his classical and correct collection—‘to make +you wiser than any woman need be. But as for this freak of wanting to +go back to school——’ + +‘It is no freak, papa. It is my most earnest desire. I feel it would be +better—for all of us.’ + +She had changed from red to white by this time, and stood before her +father like a culprit, downcast and deadly pale. + +‘It would not be better for me who would have to pay the bills. I have +paid a pretty penny already for your education; and you may suppose +how vastly agreeable it is to me to hear your frank confession of +ignorance.’ + +‘It is best for me to tell the truth, papa. Do not deny me this favour. +It is the first great thing I have ever asked of you.’ + +‘It is a very foolish thing, and I should be a fool if I humoured your +caprice.’ + +She gave a little cry of mental pain. + +‘How can I convince you that it is no caprice?’ she asked despairingly. +‘I was lying awake all last night thinking about it. I am most +thoroughly in earnest, papa.’ + +‘You were thoroughly in earnest about your boat; and now you are tired +of it. You were intensely anxious to come home; and now you are tired +of home. You are a creature of whims and fancies.’ + +‘No, I am not tired of my boat,’ she cried passionately. ‘I love it +with all my heart, and the dear river, and this place, and Madoline—and +you—if you would only let me love you. Father,’ she said in a low +tremulous voice, coming hurriedly to her father and kneeling at his +feet, with clasped hands uplifted beseechingly, ‘there are times in a +woman’s life when a light shines suddenly upon her, showing her where +her duty lies. I believe that it is my duty to go back to school, +somewhere in France, or Germany, where I can get on with my education +and grow serious and useful, as a woman ought to be. It will be very +hard, it will be parting from all I love best in the world, but I feel +and know that it is my duty. Let me go, dear father. The outlay of a +few pounds cannot affect you.’ + +‘Can it not? That shows how little you know of the world. When a man is +overweighted as I am in this place, living up to every sixpence of his +income, and so fettered that he cannot realise an acre of his estate, +every hundred he has to spend is of moment. Your education has been +a costly business already; and I distinctly refuse to spend another +sixpence on it. If you have not profited by my outlay, so much the +worse for you. Get up, child.’ She was still on her knees, looking +at him in blank despair. ‘This melo-dramatic fooling is the very last +thing to succeed with a man of my stamp. I detest heroics.’ + +‘Very well, father,’ she answered in a subdued tone, strangling her +sobs and standing straight and tall before him. ‘I hope if you should +ever have cause to blame me for anything in the future you will +remember this refusal to-day.’ + +‘I shall blame you if you deserve blame, you may be sure of that,’ he +answered harshly. + +‘And never praise me when I deserve praise, and never love me, or +sympathise with me, or be a father to me—except in name.’ + +‘Precisely,’ he said, looking downward with a gloomy brow. ‘Except in +name. And now be kind enough to leave me. I have a good many letters to +write.’ + +Daphne obeyed without a word. When she was in the corridor outside, and +had shut the door behind her, she stopped for a few moments leaning +against the wall, looking straight before her with a countenance of +inexpressible sadness. + +‘It was the only thing I could do,’ she murmured with a heavy sigh. + +Sir Vernon told his elder daughter that afternoon of Daphne’s absurd +fancy about going back to school. + +‘Did you ever hear of such a mass of inconsistency?’ he exclaimed +angrily. ‘After worrying you continually with appealing letters to be +brought home, she is tired of us all and wants to be off again in less +than six months.’ + +‘It is strange, papa, especially in one who is so thoroughly sweet and +loving,’ said Madoline thoughtfully. ‘Do you know I’m afraid it must be +my fault.’ + +‘In what way?’ + +‘I have been urging her to continue her education; and perhaps I may +have inadvertently given her the idea that she ought to go back to +school.’ + +‘That is simply to suppose her an idiot, and unable to comprehend plain +English,’ retorted Sir Vernon testily. ‘You are always making excuses +for her. Hark!’ he cried, as a bright girlish laugh came ringing across +the summer air. ‘There she is, playing tennis with Turchill. Would you +suppose that two hours ago she was kneeling to me like a tragedy queen, +her eyes streaming with tears, entreating to be sent back to school?’ + +‘I’ll reason her out of her fancy, dear father. She always gives way to +me when I wish it.’ + +‘I am glad she has just sense enough to understand your superiority.’ + +‘Dearest father, if you would be a little more affectionate to her—in +your manner, I mean—I believe she would be a great deal happier.’ + +Another ringing laugh from Daphne. + +‘She is monstrously unhappy, is she not?’ exclaimed Sir Vernon. ‘My +dear Lina, that girl is a born _comédienne_. She will always be acting +tragedy or comedy all her life through. This morning it was tragedy; +this afternoon it is comedy. Do not let yourself be duped by her.’ + +‘Believe me, papa, you misjudge her.’ + +‘I hope it may be so.’ + + * * * * * + +‘Daphne, what is this fancy of yours about going back to school?’ asked +Madoline, when she and her sister were sitting in the conservatory that +evening in the sultry summer dusk, while Sir Vernon and the two young +men were talking politics over their claret. ‘I was quite grieved to +hear of it, believing, as I did, that you were very happy at home.’ + +‘Why, so I am—intensely happy—with you, darling,’ answered Daphne, +taking her sister’s hand, and twisting the old-fashioned brilliant +hoops, which Lina had inherited from her grandmother, round and round +upon the slender finger. ‘So I am, dear, utterly happy. But happiness +is not the be-all and end-all of this life, is it, Lina? The Rector is +continually telling us that it isn’t, in those prosy port-winey old +sermons of his; but if he were only candid about his feelings he would +say that the end and aim of this life was dinner. I don’t suppose I was +born only to be happy, was I, Lina? We unfortunate mortals are supposed +to belong to the silkworm rather than to the butterfly species, and to +work out a career of usefulness in the grub and worm stages, before +we earn the right to flutter feebly for a little while as elderly +moths. Youth, from a Christian point of view, is meant for work and +self-abnegation, and duty, and all that kind of thing; isn’t it, Lina?’ + +‘Every stage of life has its obligations, dearest; but your duties +are very easy ones,’ answered Madoline gently. ‘You have only to be +respectful and obedient to your father, and to do as much good as you +can to those who need your kindness, and to be grateful to God for the +many good gifts He has lavished upon you.’ + +‘Yes; I suppose that upon the whole I am a very fortunate young person, +although I am a pauper,’ said Daphne sententiously. ‘I have youth, and +the use of all my faculties, and a ridiculously good constitution. I +know I can walk knee-deep in wet grass and never catch cold, and drink +quarts of iced water when I am in a fever of heat, and do all manner +of things that people consider tantamount to suicide, and be none the +worse for my folly. And then I have a fine house to live in; though I +have the sense that I am nobody in it; and I have a very aristocratic +father—to look at. Yes, Madoline, I have all these things, and they are +of no account to me; but I have your love, and that is worth them all +a hundred times over.’ + +The sisters sat with clasped hands, Madoline touched by the wayward +girl’s affection. The moon was shining above the deodaras; the last of +the nightingales was singing amidst the darkness of the shrubbery. + +‘Why do you want to go back to school, Daphne?’ asked Lina again, +coaxingly. + +‘I don’t want to go.’ + +‘But this morning you were begging papa to send you back.’ + +‘Yes; I had an idea that I ought to improve myself—this morning. But +as papa refused to grant my request in a very decisive manner, I have +put the notion out of my head. I thought that another year with Madame +Tolmache might have improved my French, and reconciled me to the +necessity for a subjunctive mood, which I never could see while I was +at Asnières; or that a twelvemonth in Germany might have enabled me to +distinguish the verbs that require the dative case after them, from the +verbs that are satisfied with the accusative, which at present is a +thing utterly beyond me. But papa says no, and, as I am much fonder of +boating and tennis and billiards than of study, I am not going to find +fault with papa’s decision.’ + +This was all said so lightly, with so much of the natural recklessness +of a high-spirited girl who has never had a secret in her life, that +Madoline had not a moment’s doubt of her sister’s candour. Yet there +was a hardness in Daphne’s tone to-night that grieved her. + +‘Who is fond of billiards?’ asked Gerald’s lazy tones, a little way +above them, and, looking up, they saw him leaning with folded arms upon +the broad marble balustrade. ‘Are you coming up to the drawing-room to +give us some music, or are we coming down to the billiard-room to play +a match with you?’ he inquired. + +‘Whichever my father likes,’ answered Madoline. + +‘Sir Vernon will not play this evening. He has gone to his room to read +the evening papers. I think he has not forgiven Turchill for the series +of flukes by which he won that game last night. Edgar and I will have +a clear stage and no favour this evening, and we mean to give you two +young ladies a tremendous licking.’ + +‘You will have an easy victim in me,’ said Madoline. ‘I have not played +half-a-dozen times since you left home.’ + +‘Devotion surpassing Penelope’s. And Daphne, I suppose, is still a tyro +at the game. We must give you seventy-five out of a hundred.’ + +‘You are vastly condescending,’ exclaimed Daphne, drawing herself up. +‘You will give me nothing! I don’t care how ignominiously I am beaten; +but I will not be treated like a baby.’ + +‘_Und etwas schnïppish doch zugleich_,’ quoted Mr. Goring, smiling to +himself in the darkness. + +And now Edgar Turchill came out of the drawing-room, and the two young +men went down the shallow flight of steps to the conservatory, where +Madoline and her sister were still seated in their wicker-work chairs +in front of the open door, through which the moonlit garden looked so +fair a scene of silent peace. + +‘Daphne is quite right to reject your humiliating concessions,’ said +Edgar. ‘She and I will play against you and Madoline, and beat you.’ + +‘Easily done, my worthy Saxon,’ answered Gerald, who was apt to make +light of his friend’s ancient lineage, in a good-natured easy-going +way. ‘I have never given more than a fraction of my mind to billiards.’ + +‘Then you must be a deuced bad player,’ said Edgar bluntly. They all +went down into the billiard-room, where Daphne’s eyes sparkled with +unaccustomed fire in the lamplight, as if the mere notion of the coming +contest had fevered her excitable brain. Turchill, who was thoroughly +earnest in his amusements, took off his coat with the air of a man who +meant business. Gerald Goring slipped out of his as if he were going to +lie down for an after-dinner nap on one of the broad morocco-covered +divans. + +And now began the fight. Gerald and Madoline were obviously nowhere, +from the very beginning. Daphne had a firmness of wrist, a hawklike +keenness of eye, an audacity of purpose that accomplished miracles. +The more difficult the position the better her stroke. Her boldness +conquered where a more cautious player must have failed. She sent her +adversaries’ ball rattling into the pockets with a dash that even +stimulated Gerald Goring to applaud his antagonist. And while she +swelled the score by the most startling strokes, Edgar crept quietly +after her with his judicious and careful play—doing wonderful things +with his arms behind his back, in the easiest manner. + +‘I throw up the sponge,’ cried Gerald, after struggling feebly against +his fate. ‘Lina, dearest, forgive me for my candour, but you are +playing almost as wretchedly as I. We are both out of it. You two young +gladiators had better finish the game by playing against each other up +to a hundred, while Lina and I look on and applaud you. I like to see +youth energetic, even if its energies are misdirected.’ + +He seated himself languidly on the divan which commanded the best view +of the table. Lina sat by his side, her white hands moving with an +almost rhythmical regularity as she knitted a soft woollen comforter +for one of her numerous pensioners. + +‘My busy Penelope, don’t you think you night rest from your labours now +that Ulysses is safe at home, and the suitors are all put to flight?’ +asked Gerald, looking admiringly at the industrious hands. ‘You have no +idea how horribly idle you make me feel.’ + +‘I think idleness is the privilege of your sex, Gerald; but it would be +the penalty of ours. I am wretched without some kind of work.’ + +‘Another case of misdirected energy,’ sighed Gerald, throwing himself +lazily back against the India-matting dado, and clasping his hands +above his head, as he watched the antagonists. + +Daphne was playing as if her life depended on her victory. Her slim +figure was braced like a young athlete’s, every muscle of the round +white arm defined under her muslin sleeve—the bare supple wrist and +delicate hand looking as strong as steel. She moved round the table +with the swift lightness of some wild thing of the woods—graceful, shy, +untamable, half savage, yet wholly beautiful. + +Edgar Turchill went on all the while in his businesslike way, playing +with either hand, and behaving just as coolly as if he had been playing +against Sir Vernon. Yet every now and then, when it was Daphne’s turn +to play, he fell into a dreamy contemplative mood, and stood on one +side watching her as if she were something too wonderful to be quite +human. + +‘There’s a stroke!’ he cried, as she left him tight under the cushion, +with nothing to play for. ‘I taught her. Oughtn’t I to be proud of such +a pupil?’ + +‘You taught me sculling, and lawn-tennis, and billiards,’ said Daphne, +considering what she should do next. ‘All I have ever learnt worth +knowing.’ + +‘Daphne!’ murmured Madoline, looking up reproachfully from her ivory +needles. + +‘I say it advisedly,’ argued Daphne, making another score. ‘Edgar, I am +not at all sure you are marking honestly. Mr. Goring would mark for us +if he were not too lazy.’ + +‘Not too lazy,’ murmured Gerald languidly, ‘but too delightfully +occupied in watching you. I would not spoil my pleasure by mixing it +with business for the world.’ + +‘What is the use of book-learning?’ continued Daphne, going on with +her argument. ‘I maintain that Edgar has taught me all I know worth +knowing, for he has taught me how to be happy. I adore the river; I +doat upon billiards; and next best after billiards I like lawn-tennis. +Do you suppose I shall ever be happier for having learnt French +grammar, or the Rule of Three!’ + +‘Daphne, you are the most inconsistent person I ever met with,’ said +Madoline, almost angry. ‘Only this morning you wanted to go back to +school to finish your education.’ + +‘Did she?’ asked Gerald, suddenly attentive. + +‘That was all nonsense,’ exclaimed Daphne, colouring violently. + +Mr. Turchill laughed heartily at the idea. + +‘Go back to school!’ he exclaimed. ‘What, after having tasted liberty, +and learnt to shoot Stratford bridge, and to beat her master at +billiards—for that last cannon makes the hundred, Daphne! Back to +school, indeed! What a little humbug you must be to talk of such a +thing!’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Daphne coolly, as she put away her cue, and came +quietly round to her sister’s side; ‘I am a little bit of a humbug. I +think I try to humbug myself sometimes. I persuaded myself this morning +that I really thirsted for knowledge; but my father contrived to quench +that righteous thirst with a very big dose of cold water—so henceforth +I renounce all attempts to improve myself.’ + +The clock on the chimney-piece struck the half-hour after ten. + +‘I ordered my dog-cart for ten,’ said Gerald; ‘I hope we have not +transgressed, Lina, by staying so late?’ + +‘I am not going till eleven, unless Miss Lawford sends me away,’ said +Turchill. ‘Eleven is the mystic hour at which Sir Vernon usually tells +me to go about my business. I know the ways and manners of the house +better than a wretched wanderer like you, whose last idea of time is +derived from some wretched old Dalecarlian town-clock.’ + +‘We had better go back to the drawing-room,’ suggested Madoline. ‘My +father has finished his letters by this time, I daresay.’ + +‘Then good-night everybody,’ said Daphne. ‘I’m going into the garden to +cool myself after that fearful struggle, and then to bed.’ + +She ran off through the conservatory while Gerald was opening the +opposite door for Madoline to go up to the drawing-room by the indoor +staircase. + +Daphne stopped to draw breath on the moonlit terrace. + +‘How ridiculously I have been gabbling!’ she said to herself, with her +hands clasping her burning forehead. ‘Why can’t I hold my tongue? I am +detestable to myself and everybody.’ + +‘Daphne,’ said someone close at her side, in a tone of friendliest +concern, ‘I’m afraid you’re really tired.’ + +It was Edgar Turchill, who had followed her through the conservatory. + +‘Tired! Not at all. I would play against you again to-night—and beat +you—if it were not too late.’ + +‘But I am sure you are tired; there is a something in your +voice—strained, unnatural. Have you been vexed to-day? My poor little +Daphne,’ he went on tenderly, taking her hand, ‘something has gone +wrong with you, I am sure. Has your aunt been lecturing?’ + +‘No. My father was unkind to me this morning; and I was weak enough to +take his unkindness to heart; which I ought not to have done, being so +well broken in to it.’ + +‘And did you really and truly wish to go back to school?’ + +‘I really and truly felt that I was an ignoramus, and that I had better +go on with my education while I was young enough to learn.’ + +‘Daphne, if you had all the knowledge of all the girls in Girton +screwed into that little golden head of yours, you wouldn’t be one whit +more charming than you are now.’ + +‘I daresay the effect would be the other way; but I might be a great +deal more useful. I might teach in a poor school, or nurse the sick, or +do something in some way to help my fellow-creatures. But sculling, and +billiard-playing, and lawn-tennis—isn’t it a horridly empty life?’ + +‘If there were not birds and butterflies, and many bright useless +things, this world wouldn’t be half so beautiful as it is, Daphne.’ + +‘Oh, now you are dropping into poetry, like Mr. Wegg, and I must go +to bed,’ she retorted, with good-humoured petulance, cheered by his +kindness. ‘Good-night, Edgar. You are always good to me. I shall always +like you,’ she said gently. + +‘Always like me. Yes, I hope so, Daphne. And do you still think that +you would rather have had me than Gerald Goring for your brother?’ + +‘Ten thousand times.’ + +‘Yet he is a thoroughly amiable fellow, kind to everyone, generous to a +fault.’ + +‘A man with a million of money can’t be generous,’ answered Daphne; ‘he +can never give anything that he wants for himself. Generosity means +self-sacrifice, doesn’t it? It was generous of you to leave Hawksyard +at six in the morning in order to teach me to scull.’ + +‘I would do a great deal more than that to please you, and count it no +sacrifice,’ said Edgar gravely. + +‘I am sure you would,’ answered Daphne, with easy frankness. + +She was so thoroughly convinced that he would never leave off caring +for Madoline, and would go down to his grave fondly faithful to his +first misplaced affection, that no word or tone or look of his, however +significant, suggested to her any other feeling on his part than an +honest brotherly regard for herself. + +‘Tell me what you think of Goring, now that you have had time to form +an opinion about him.’ + +‘I think that he is devoted to Lina, and that is all I want to know +about him,’ answered Daphne decisively. + +‘And do you think him worthy of her?’ + +‘Oh, that is a wide question. There was never a man living except King +Arthur that I should think absolutely worthy of my sister Madoline; but +as he is lying in Glastonbury Abbey, I think Mr. Goring will do as well +as anyone else. I hope Lina will govern him, for his own sake as well +as hers.’ + +‘You think him weak, then?’ + +‘I think him self-indulgent; and a self-indulgent man is always a weak +man, isn’t he? Look at Gladstone now, a man of surpassing energy, of +illimitable industry, a man who will eat a snack of cold beef and drink +a glass of cold water for his luncheon, at his desk, in the midst of +his work, anyhow. Mr. Lampton, the new member who went up to see him, +gave us a sketch of him in his study, living so simply and working so +hard, so thoroughly homely and unaffected.’ + +‘Daphne, I thought you were a hardened little Tory!’ + +‘So I am; but I can admire the individual though I may detest his +politics. That is the kind of man I should like Lina to marry: a man +without a selfish thought, a man made of iron.’ + +‘Don’t you think a wife might hurt herself now and then against the +rough edges of the iron? Those unselfish men are apt to demand a good +deal of self-sacrifice from others.’ + +‘And you think Lina was made to sit in a drawing-room all her life, +among hot-house flowers. Well, I believe she will be very happy at +Goring Abbey. She likes a quiet domestic life, and to live among the +people she loves. And Mr. Goring’s selfishness will hardly trouble her. +She has had such splendid training with papa.’ + +‘Daphne, do you think it is quite right to speak of your father in that +way?’ asked Edgar reproachfully. + +He was wounded by her flippant tone, hurt by every evidence of +faultiness in one whom he hoped the future would develop into perfect +woman and perfect wife. + +‘Would you like me to be a hypocrite?’ + +‘No, Daphne. But if you can’t speak of Sir Vernon as he ought to be +spoken of, don’t you think it would be better to say nothing at all?’ + +‘For the future I shall be dumb, in deference to Mr. Turchill—and the +proprieties. But it was nice to have one friend in the world with whom +I could be thoroughly confidential,’ she added coaxingly. + +‘Pray be confidential with me.’ + +‘I can’t, if you once begin to lecture. I have a horror of people who +talk to me for my own good. That is Aunt Rhoda’s line. She is never +tired of preaching to me for my good, and I never feel so utterly +bad as I do after one of her preachments. And now I really must say +good-night. Don’t forget that you are engaged to dine at the Rectory +to-morrow.’ + +‘Are not you and Lina going?’ + +‘Yes, and Mr. Goring. It is to be a regular family gathering. Papa +is asked, but I cherish a faint hope that he may not feel in the +humour for going. I beg your pardon,’ exclaimed Daphne, making him a +ceremonious curtsy. ‘My honoured parent has been invited, and wherever +he is his children must be happy. Is that the kind of thing you like?’ +she asked tripping away to the little half-glass door at the other end +of the terrace. + +Edgar ran after her to open the door for her; but she was fleet as +Atalanta, and there was nobody to distract her with golden apples. She +shut the door and drew the bolt, just as Edgar reached it, and nodded +a smiling good-night to him through the glass. He stopped to see the +white frock vanish from the lamp-lit lobby, and then turned away to +light a cigarette and take a solitary turn on the terrace before going +back to the drawing-room to make his adieux. + +It was a spot where a man might love to linger on such a night as this. +The winding river, showing in fitful glimpses between its shadowy +willows; the distant woods; the dim lights of the little quiet town; +the tall spire rising above the trees; made up a landscape dearer to +Edgar Turchill’s honest English heart than all the blue mountains and +vine-clad valleys of the Sunny South. He was a son of the soil, with +all his desires and prejudices and affections rooted in the land on +which he had been born. ‘How sweet—how completely lovable she is,’ +he said to himself, meditating over that final cigarette, ‘and how +thoroughly she trusts me! Her mind is as clear as a rivulet, through +which one can count every pebble and every grain of golden sand.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + +‘AND TO THE DINNER FASTE THEY HEM SPEDDE.’ + + +Mr. MacCloskie’s suggestions for new hot-houses at Goring Abbey were +on so large a scale as to necessitate a good deal of consultation with +architect and builder before the new constructions and alterations of +existing structures were put in hand. The head gardener at South Hill +had tried his hardest to secure the whole organisation and direction of +the work for himself, and to have large powers in the choice of the men +who were to carry it out. + +‘Ye’ll not need any architect, Mr. Goring, if ye’ll joost let me +explain my mind to the builder,’ said this modest Caledonian. +‘Architects know a deal about the Parthenon and the Temple of the +Winds, and that kind of old-fashioned classical stuff, but there’s not +one of ’em knows how to plan a good workable hot-house, or to build a +flue that won’t smoke when the wind’s contrary. Architects are very +good for the fronts of clubhouses and ceevil-service stores, and that +like; but if you trust your new houses to an architect, I’ll give odds +when they’re done there’ll be no place for me to put my coals. If +you’ll just give me free scope——’ + +‘You are very good, Mr. MacCloskie,’ answered Gerald with velvety +softness, ‘but my father was a thoroughly practical man, and I believe +he knew as much of the science of construction as any man living; yet +he always employed an architect when he wanted anything built for +himself, were it only a dustbin. I’ll stick to his lines.’ + +‘Very well, sir, you must please yourself. But an orchid-house is a +creetical thing to build. The outside of it may be as handsome as St. +Peter’s at Rome; but your orchids won’t thrive unless they like the +inside arrangements, and for them ye’ll want a practical man.’ + +‘I’ll get a practical man, Mr. MacCloskie; you may be sure of that,’ +answered Gerald, ineffably calm, though the Scot was looking daggers. + +The morning before Mrs. Ferrers’s family dinner was devoted to the +architect, who came down from London to Goring Abbey, expressly to +advise and be instructed. He was entertained at luncheon at the Abbey; +and Lina drove over under her aunt’s wing to meet him, while Gerald’s +thoroughbred hack—a horse of such perfect manners that it mattered very +little whether his rider had hands or no hands—ambled along the turfy +borders of the pleasant country road beside the phaeton. + +Daphne had her day all to herself, since, knowing her to be alone at +South Hill, Edgar had no excuse for going there; and, as Mr. Turchill +argued with himself, a man must give some portion of his life to the +dearest old mother and the most picturesque old house in the county. +So, Edgar, with his fancies flying off and circling about South Hill, +contrived to spend a moony day at home, mending his fishing-rods, +reviewing his guns, writing a few letters, and going in and out of +his mother’s homely old-fashioned morning-room twenty times between +breakfast and luncheon. + +Mrs. Turchill had been invited to the family dinner at Arden Rectory, +and had accepted the invitation, though she was not given to +dissipation of any kind, and she and her son found a good deal to say +about the coming feast during Edgar’s desultory droppings-in. + +‘I hope you’ll like her, mother,’ said Edgar, stopping, with a gun in +one hand and an oily rag in the other, to look dreamily across the moat +to the quiet meadows beyond, where the dark red Devon cows contrasted +deliciously with the fresh green turf sprinkled with golden buttercups +and silvery marguerites. + +‘Like her!’ echoed Mrs. Turchill, lifting her soft blue eyes in mild +astonishment from her matronly task of darning one of the best damask +table-cloths. ‘Why she is the sweetest girl I know. I would have given +ten years of my life for you to have married her.’ + +This was awkward for Edgar, who had spoken of Daphne, while Mrs. +Turchill thought of Madoline. + +‘Not with my consent, mother,’ he said, laughing, and reddening as he +laughed. ‘I couldn’t have spared a single year. But I wasn’t speaking +of Madoline just then. I know of old how fond you are of her. I was +talking of poor little Daphne, whom you haven’t seen since she came +from her French school.’ + +‘French school!’ exclaimed Mrs. Turchill contemptuously. ‘I hate the +idea of those foreign schools, regular Jesuitical places, where they +take girls to operas and theatres and give them fine notions,’ pursued +the Saxon matron, whose ideas on the subject were slightly mixed. ‘Why +couldn’t Sir Vernon send her to the Misses Tompion, at Leamington? +That’s a respectable school if you like. Good evangelical principles, +separate bedrooms, and plain English diet. I hope the French school +hasn’t spoilt Daphne. She was a pretty little girl with bright hair, I +remember, but she had rather wild ways. Something too much of a tomboy +for my taste.’ + +‘She was so young, mother, when you saw her last, not fifteen.’ + +‘Well, I suppose French governesses have tamed her down, and that she’s +pretty stiff and prim by this time,’ said Mrs. Turchill with chilling +indifference. + +‘No, mother, she is a kind of girl whom no training would ever make +conventional. She is thoroughly natural, original even, and doesn’t +mind what she says.’ + +‘That sounds as if she talked slang,’ said Mrs. Turchill, who, although +the kindest of women in her conduct, could be severe of speech on +occasion, ‘and of all things I detest slang in a woman. I hope she is +industrious. The idleness of the young women of the present day is a +crying sin.’ + +Edgar Turchill seemed hardly to be aware of this last remark. He was +polishing the gun-metal industriously with that horrible oily rag which +accompanied him everywhere on his muddling mornings at home. + +‘She’s accomplished, I suppose,’ speculated Mrs. Turchill—‘plays, and +sings, and paints on velvet.’ + +‘Ye—es; that’s to say I’m not sure about the velvet,’ answered Edgar +faintly, not remembering any special artistic performances of Daphne’s +except certain attempts on a drawing-block, which had seemed to him too +green and too cloudy to lead to much, and which he had never beheld in +an advanced stage. ‘She is awfully fond of reading,’ he added in rather +a spasmodic manner, after an interval of silent thought. ‘The poetry +she knows would astonish you.’ + +‘That would be easy,’ retorted Mrs. Turchill. ‘My father and mother +didn’t approve of poetry, and Cowper, Thomson, and Kirke White were the +only poets allowed to be read by us girls at old Miss Tompion’s—these +ladies are nieces of my Miss Tompion, you know, Edgar.’ + +‘How can I help knowing it, mother, when you’ve told me a hundred and +fifty times?’ exclaimed her son, more impatiently than his wont. + +‘Well, Edgar, my dear, if you’re tired of my conversation—’ + +‘No, you dear peppery old party, not a bit. Go on like an old dear as +you are. Only I thought you were rather hard upon poor little Daphne +just now.’ + +‘How can I be hard upon her, when I haven’t seen her for the last three +years! Dear, dear, what a small place Leamington was in my time,’ +pursued Mrs. Turchill, musing blandly upon the days of her youth; ‘but +it was much more select. None of these rich people from Birmingham; +none of these Londoners coming down to hunt; but a very superior +class—invalids, elderly people who came to drink the waters, and to +consult Doctor Jephson.’ + +‘It must have been lively,’ murmured Edgar, not deeply interested. + +‘It was not lively, Edgar, but it was select,’ corrected Mrs. Turchill +with dignity, as she paused with her head on one side to admire the +neatness of her own work. + +She was the kindest and best of mothers, but Edgar felt on this +particular occasion that she was rather stupid, and a trifle narrow in +her ideas. A purely rustic life has its disadvantages, and a life which +is one long procession of placid prosperous days, knowing little more +variety than the change of the seasons, is apt to blunt the edge of the +keenest intellect. Mrs. Turchill ought to have been more interested in +Daphne, Edgar thought. + +‘She will be delighted with her when she sees her,’ he reasoned, +comforting himself. ‘Who can help being charmed with a girl who is so +thoroughly charming?’ + +And then he took up his gun and his rag, and strolled away to another +part of the roomy old house, so soberly and thoroughly old-fashioned, +not with the gimcrack spurious old fashion of to-day, but with the +grave ponderous realities of centuries ago—walls four feet thick, +deeply-recessed windows, massive untrimmed joists, low ceilings, +narrow passages, oak wainscoting, inconveniences and shortcomings +of all kinds, but the subtle charm of the remote past, the romantic +feeling of a house that has many histories, pervading everything. +Edgar would not have changed Hawksyard and his three thousand a-year +for Goring Abbey and a million. The house and the land around it—or at +any rate the land—had belonged to his race from time immemorial, far +back in the dim days of the Heptarchy. Tradition held that the first +of the Turchills had been a sokeman who possessed a yard of land on +the old feudal tenure, one of his obligations being that he should +breed hawks for the king’s falconers, and thus the place had come +in time to be called Hawksyard, long after the last hawk bred there +had flown away to join some wild branch of the honey-buzzard family +in the tree-tops of primeval Arden, and the yard of land had swelled +into a very respectable manor. Edgar rather liked to believe that the +founder of his race had been a sokeman, who had held thirty acres of +land from the king at a penny an acre, and had furnished labourers for +the royal harvest, and had ridden up and down the field with a wand in +his hand to see that his men worked properly. This curious young man +was as proud of Turchill the sokeman as of Turchill the high sheriff. +If it was a humble origin its humility was of such ancient date that +it became distinction. Turchill of the thirty acres was like Adam, +or Paris, or David. In the long line of the Turchills whose bones +were lying in the vaults below Hawksyard Church there had been men +distinguished in the field, the Church, and the law; men who had fought +on sea and land; men who had won power in the State, and used it well, +true alike to king and commons. But the ruck of the Turchills had been +country squires like Edgar, and Edgar’s father; men who farmed their +own land and lived upon it, and who had no ambitions and few interests +or desires beyond their native soil. + +Hawksyard was a real moated grange. The house formed three sides of a +quadrangle, with a heavily buttressed garden wall for the fourth side. +The water flowed all round the solid base of the building, a wide deep +moat, well stocked with pike and eels, carp and roach. The square inner +garden was a prim parterre of the seventeenth century, and there was +not a flower grew there more modern than Lord Bacon’s day. This was a +Turchill fancy. All the novelties of nineteenth-century horticulture +might flourish in the spacious garden on the other side of the moat; +but this little bit of ground within the gray old walls was a sacred +enclosure, dedicated to the spirit of the past. Here the old yew-trees +were clipped into peacocks. Here grew rosemary; lavender; periwinkle, +white, purple, and blue; germander; flags; sweet marjoram; primroses; +anemones; hyacinths; and the rare fritillaria; double white violets, +which bloom in April, and again at Bartholomew-tide; gilliflowers; +sweetbrier; and the musk-rose. Here the brazen sun-dial, on its +crumbling stone pedestal, reminded the passer-by that no man is always +wise. Here soft mosses, like tawny velvet, crept over the gray relics +of an abbey that had been destroyed soon after the grange was built—the +stone coffin of a mitred abbot; the crossed legs of a knightly +crusader, with a headless heraldic dog at his feet. Here was the small +circular fish-pond into which the last of the abbots was supposed to +have pitched headforemost, and incontinently drowned himself, walking +alone at midnight in a holy trance. + +Mrs. Turchill was almost as fond as Edgar was of Hawksyard; but her +affection took a commonplace turn. She was not to the manner born. + +She had come to the grange from a smart nineteenth-century villa, and +though she was very proud of the grave old house of which her husband +had made her the mistress, her pride was mingled with an idea that +Hawksyard was inconvenient, and that its old fashion was a thing to be +apologised for and deprecated at every turn. Her chief delight was in +keeping her house in order; and her servants were drilled to an almost +impossible perfection in every duty appertaining to house-cleaning. +Nobody’s brasses, or oak floors, or furniture, or family plate, or +pewter dinner-service, ever looked so bright as Mrs. Turchill’s. +Nowhere were windows so spotless; nowhere was linen so exquisitely +white, or of such satin-like smoothness. Mrs. Turchill lived for these +things. When she was in London, or at the sea-side, she would be +miserable on rainy days at the idea that Jane or Mary would leave the +windows open, and that the brass fenders and fire-irons were all going +to ruin. + +Edgar spent a moony purposeless day, dawdling a good deal in the garden +on the other side of the moat, where the long old-fashioned borders +were full of tall white lilies and red moss-roses, vivid scarlet +geranium, heliotrope and calceolaria, a feast of sweet scents and +bright colours. There was a long and wide lawn without a flower bed on +it—a level expanse of grass; and on the side opposite the flower border +there was a row of good old mulberry and walnut trees; then came a +light iron fence, and a stretch of meadow land beyond it. The grounds +at Hawksyard made no pretence of being a park. There was not even a +shrubbery, only that straight row of old trees, standing up out of the +grass, with a gravel walk between them and the fence, across which +Edgar used to feed and fondle his cows, or coax the shy brood mares and +their foals to social intercourse. + +He looked round his domain doubtfully to-day, wondering if it were +good enough for Daphne, this poor table-land of a garden, a flat lawn, +a long old-fashioned border crammed with homely flowers, the yew-tree +arbour at the end of yonder walk. How poor a thing it seemed after +South Hill, with its picturesque timber and extensive view, its broad +terrace and sloping lawn, its rich variety of shrubs and conifers! + +‘It isn’t because I am fond of the place that she would care for it,’ +he told himself despondently. ‘I’m afraid there’s nothing romantic or +striking about it—except the moat. I’m glad she’s so fond of water.’ + +Edgar smoked a cigarette or two under the mulberry-trees, looked at his +cows, talked to some of his men, and thus contrived to wear away the +afternoon till the clock over the gateway struck five. + +‘Mother’s tea-time. I’ll go and have a cup with her,’ he said to +himself. + +Going out to dinner was a tremendous piece of business with Mrs. +Turchill. She was more serious and solemn about it than a strictly +modern lady would feel about going to be married. Even in an +instance of this kind, where the dinner was supposed to be entirely +unceremonious, a friendly little gathering arranged on the spur of the +moment, she was still full of fuss and preparation. She had spent an +hour in her bed-chamber before luncheon, arranging and discussing with +her maid Deborah what gown she would or would not wear on the occasion; +and this discussion involved a taking out and unfolding of all her +dinner-gowns, and an offering of divers laces upon divers bodices, to +see which went best with which. A review of this kind generally ended +by a decision in favour of black velvet, or satin, or silk, or brocade, +as the case might be; Mrs. Turchill being much richer in gowns than in +opportunities for wearing them. + +‘I always like myself best in black,’ she would say, with a glance at +the reflection of her somewhat florid complexion in the Chippendale +glass. + +‘You always look the lady in your velvet, mum,’ Deborah would answer +sententiously. + +Then after a day of quiet usefulness about her house the worthy matron +would collect her energies over a leisurely cup of tea, and perhaps +allow herself the refreshment of a nap after her tea, before she began +the solemn business of the toilet. + +The carriage had been ordered for a quarter past seven, though it was +but half an hour’s drive to Arden Rectory, and at seven o’clock Mrs. +Turchill was seated in the white parlour, in all the dignity of her +velvet gown and point-lace cap, her hereditary amethysts, supposed to +be second only to those once possessed by George the Third’s virtuous +consort, and her scarlet and gold Indian shawl. She was a comely +matron, with a complexion that had never been damaged by cark or +care, gas or late hours: a rosy-faced country-bred dame, with bright +blue eyes, white teeth, and plentiful brown hair, in which the silver +threads were hardly visible. + +Edgar was standing by the open window, just where he had stood in the +morning with his gun, sorely perplexed as to the disposal of those +fifteen minutes which had to be got through before the most punctual of +coachmen would bring the carriage to the door. The London papers were +lying unheeded on the table; but Edgar had felt very little interest of +late in the welfare of nations, or even in the last dreadful murder in +Whitechapel. + +‘I hope my cap is right,’ said Mrs. Turchill anxiously. + +‘How could it be wrong, mother, when you’ve Deborah and your +looking-glass, and have never been known to dress yourself in a hurry?’ + +‘I dislike doing anything in a hurry, Edgar. It is against my +principles. But I never feel sure about the set of my cap. I am +afraid Deborah’s eye is not quite correct, and a glass is dreadfully +deceiving. I wish you’d look, Edgar, if it isn’t too much trouble.’ + +This was said reproachfully, as her son was kneeling on the window-seat +staring idly down into the moat, as if he wanted to discover the +whereabouts of an ancient pike that had evaded him last year. + +‘My dear mother,’ he exclaimed, turning himself about to survey her, +‘to my eye—which may be no better than Deborah’s—that lace arrangement +which you call a cap appears mathematically exact, as precise as your +own straight, honest mind. There’s Dobson with the carriage. Come +along, mother.’ + +He led her out, established her comfortably in her own particular seat +in the large landau, and seated himself opposite to her with a beaming +countenance. + +‘How happy you look, Edgar!’ said Mrs. Turchill, wondering at this +unusual radiance. ‘One would think it were a novelty for you to dine +out. Yet I am sure,’ somewhat plaintively, ‘you don’t very often dine +at home.’ + +‘The Rectory dinners are not to be despised, mother.’ + +‘Mrs. Ferrers is an excellent manager, and does everything very nicely; +but as you don’t much care what you eat that would hardly make you so +elated. I am rather surprised that you care about meeting Madoline and +Mr. Goring so often,’ added Mrs. Turchill, who had not quite forgiven +Lina for having refused to marry her son. + +That is the worst of making a confidante of a mother. She has an +inconveniently long memory. + +‘I have nothing but kindly feelings for either of them,’ answered +Edgar. ‘Don’t you know the old song, mother—“Shall I, wasting in +despair, die because a woman’s fair?” I don’t look much like wasting in +despair, do I, old lady?’ + +‘I should be very sorry to see you unhappy, Edgar; but I shall never +love any wife of yours as well as I could have loved Madoline.’ + +‘Don’t say that, mother. That’s too hard on the future Mrs. Turchill.’ + +This was a curious speech from a youth who six months ago had protested +that he should never marry. But perhaps this was only Edgar’s fun. Mrs. +Turchill shared the common delusion of mothers, and thought her son a +particularly humorous young man. + +What a sweetly Arcadian retreat Arden Rectory looked on this fair +summer evening, and how savoury was the odour of a _sole au gratin_ +which blended with the flowery perfumes of the low-panelled hall! The +guests had wandered out through the window of the small drawing-room +to the verandah and lawn in front of it. That long French window was a +blot upon the architectural beauty of the half-timbered Tudor cottage, +but it was very useful for circulation between drawing-room and garden. + +Mrs. Ferrers and Madoline were sitting under the verandah; Daphne was +standing a little way off on the lawn talking to the Rector and Gerald +Goring. She was speaking with intense animation, her face full of +brightness. Edgar darted off to join the group, directly he had shaken +hands with the two ladies, leaving his mother to subside into one of +those new-fangled bamboo chairs which she felt assured would leave its +basket-work impression on her velvet gown. + +‘Edgar,’ cried Daphne as he came towards her, ‘did you ever hear of +such a heathen—a man born on the soil—a very pagan?’ + +‘Who is the culprit?’ asked Edgar; ‘and what has he done?’ + +‘Mr. Goring has never seen Ann Hathaway’s cottage.’ + +‘I don’t believe he knew who Ann Hathaway was till we told him,’ said +the Rector, with his fat laugh. + +‘And he has ridden and driven through Shottery hundreds of times, and +he never stopped to look at the cottage where Shakespeare—the most +wonderful man in the whole world—wooed and won his wife.’ + +‘I have heard it dimly suggested that she wooed and won him,’ remarked +Gerald placidly; ‘she was old enough.’ + +‘You are too horrid,’ cried Daphne. ‘Would you be surprised to hear +that Americans cross the Atlantic—three thousand miles of winds and +waves and sea-sickness—on purpose to see Stratford-on-Avon, and +Shottery, and Wilmcote, and Snitterfield?’ + +‘I could believe anything of a Yankee,’ answered Gerald, unmoved by +these reproaches. ‘But why Wilmcote? why Snitterfield? They are as poky +little settlements as you could find in any agricultural district.’ + +‘Did you ever hear of such hideous ignorance?’ cried Daphne, ‘and in +a son of the soil. You are most unworthy of the honour of having been +raised in Shakespeare’s country. Why John Shakespeare was born at +Snitterfield, and Mary Arden lived with her father at Wilmcote; and it +was there he courted her.’ + +‘John—Mary—oh, distant relations of the poet’s, I suppose?’ inquired +Gerald easily. + +‘This is revolting,’ exclaimed Daphne; ‘but he is shamming—he must be +shamming.’ + +‘Punish him for his ignorance, whether it is real or pretended,’ cried +Edgar. ‘Make him row us all down to Stratford to-morrow morning; and +then we’ll walk him over to Shottery, and make him give a new gown to +the nice old woman who keeps the cottage.’ + +‘A new gown,’ echoed Daphne contemptuously; ‘he ought to be made to +give her a cow—a beautiful mouse-coloured Channel Island cow.’ + +‘I’ll give her anything you like, as long as you don’t bore me to death +about Shakespeare. I hate sights and lions of all kinds. I went through +Frankfort without looking at the house where Goethe was born.’ + +‘A depraved desire to be singular,’ said the Rector. ‘I think he ought +to forfeit a cow to Mrs. Baker. Rhoda, my love,’ glancing furtively at +his watch, ‘our friends are all here. Todd is usually more punctual.’ + +Mrs. Ferrers, Lina, and Mrs. Turchill had strolled out to join the +others. The prim rustic matron was looking at Daphne with astonishment +rather than admiration. She was pretty, no doubt. Mrs. Turchill had +never seen a more transparent complexion, or lovelier eyes; but there +was a reckless vivacity about the girl’s manner which horrified the +thoroughly British matron. + +‘Daphne,’ said Edgar, ‘I hope you haven’t forgotten my mother. Mother, +this is Daphne.’ + +Mrs. Turchill drew back a pace or two with extreme deliberation, +and sank gracefully in the curtsy which she had been taught by the +Leamington dancing-master—an undoubted Parisian—five-and-thirty years +ago. After the curtsy she extended her hand and allowed Daphne to shake +it. + +‘Come, Mrs. Turchill,’ said the Rector, offering his arm. ‘Goring, +bring Miss Lawford; Turchill will take care of my wife; and Daphne’—he +paused, smiling at the fair young face and slender girlish figure in +soft white muslin—‘Daphne shall have my other arm, and sit on my left +hand. I feel there is a bond of friendship between us now that I find +she is so fond of Shakespeare.’ + +‘I’m afraid I know Hamlet’s soliloquies better than I do my duty to my +neighbour,’ said Daphne, on the way to the dining-room, remembering how +the Rector used to glower at her under his heavy brows when she broke +down in that portion of the Church Catechism. + +Mrs. Ferrers, from her opposite seat at the oval table, had a full view +of her husband’s demeanour, across the roses and maidenhair ferns and +old Derby crimson and purple dessert dishes. It was rather trying to +her to see that he devoted himself entirely to Daphne during the pauses +of the meal; and that, while he as in duty bound provided for all Mrs. +Turchill’s corporeal needs, and was solicitous that she should do ample +justice to his wines and his dishes, he allowed her mind to starve upon +the merest scraps of speech dropped into her ear at long intervals. + +Nor was Edgar much better behaved to Mrs. Ferrers, for he sank into +such a slough of despond at finding himself separated from Daphne, +that his conversational sources ran suddenly dry, and Rhoda’s lively +inquiries about the plays and pictures he had just been seeing elicited +only the humiliating fact that she, who had not seen them, knew a great +deal more about them than he who had. + +‘What did you think of the Millais landscape?’ she asked. + +‘Was there a landscape by Millais? I thought he was a portrait painter.’ + +This looked hopeless, but she tried again. + +‘And Frith’s picture; you saw that of course.’ + +‘No, I didn’t,’ he replied, brightening; ‘but I saw the people looking +at it. It was immensely good, I believe. There was a railing, and a +policeman to make the people move on. My mother was delighted. She and +another lady trod on each other’s gowns in their eagerness to get at +the picture. I believe they would have come to blows, if it hadn’t been +for the policeman.’ + +‘And there was Miss Thompson’s picture.’ + +‘Yes; and another crowd. That is the sort of picture mother enjoys. I +think the harder the struggle is the better she likes the picture.’ + +Gerald and Madoline were sitting side by side, talking as happily +as if they had been in Eden. All the world might have heard their +conversation—there were no secrets, there was no exchange of +confidences—and yet they were as far away from the world about them, +and as completely out of it, as if they had been in the planet Venus, +rising so calmly yonder above the willows, and sending one tremulous +arrow of light deep down into the dark brown river. For these two +Mrs. Todd’s most careful achievements were as nothing. Her _sole +au gratin_ might have been served with horse-radish sauce—or fried +onions; her _vol-au-vent_ might have been as heavy as suet-pudding; her +_blanquette_ might have been bill-sticker’s paste; her _soufflé_ might +have been flavoured with peppermint instead of _vanille_; and they +would hardly have discovered that anything was wrong. + +And what delight it was by-and-by to wander out into the cool garden, +leaving the Rector to prose to poor Edgar over his Chambertin, and to +lose themselves in the shadowy shrubbery, where the perfume of golden +broom and mock orange seemed intensified by the darkness. Daphne sat +in the quaint old candle-lit drawing-room conversing with the two +matrons—Aunt Rhoda inclined to lecture; Mrs. Turchill inclined to +sleepiness, having eaten a more elaborate dinner than she was used to, +and feeling an uncomfortable tightness in the region of her velvet +waistband. + +Edgar got away from the Rector as soon as he decently could, and came +to the relief of the damsel. + +‘Well, mother, how are you and Daphne getting on?’ he asked cheerily. +‘I hope you have made her promise to come to see you at Hawksyard.’ + +Mrs. Turchill started from semi-somnolence, and her waistband gave a +little creak. + +‘I shall be delighted if Madoline will bring her sister to call on +me some day,’ she replied stiffly, addressing herself to nobody in +particular. + +‘Call on you—some day! What an invitation!’ cried Edgar. ‘Why, mother, +what has become of your old-fashioned hospitality? I want Daphne to +come and stay with you, and to run about the house with you, and help +you in your dairy and poultry-yard—and—get used to the place.’ + +Get used to the place! Why should Daphne get used to the place? For +what reason was a fair-haired chit in a white frock suddenly projected +upon Mrs. Turchill’s cows and poultry—cows as sacred in her mind as +if she had been a Hindoo; poultry which she only allowed the most +trusted of her dependents to attend upon? She felt a sudden sinking of +the heart, which was much worse than after-dinner tightness. Could it +be that Edgar, her cherished Edgar, was going to throw himself away +upon such a frivolous chit as this; a mere school-girl, without the +slightest pretension to deportment? + +Daphne all this time sat in a low basket-chair by the open window, and +looked up at Edgar with calm friendly eyes—eyes which were at least +without guile when they looked at him. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + +‘AFTER MY MIGHT FUL FAYNE WOLD I YOU PLESE.’ + + +The day after the family dinner was hopelessly wet; so the expedition +to Shottery, proposed by Edgar Turchill and seconded by Daphne, was +indefinitely postponed. The summer fleeted by, the beautiful bounteous +summer, with her lap full of sweet-scented flowers; the corn grew tall, +the hay was being carted in many a meadow within sound of Stratford +bells; and the woods began to put on that look of dull uniform green +which indicates the beginning of the end. For the sisters at South +Hill, for Gerald Goring and Edgar Turchill, July and August had been +one long holiday. There was so little in life for these young people +to do except take their pleasure. Theirs was an existence of perpetual +rose-gathering; and the roses of life budded and bloomed for them with +an inexhaustible fertility. Perhaps Madoline was the only one among +them who had any idea of duty. Edgar was an affectionate son, a good +master, and a liberal landlord, but he had never been called upon +to sacrifice his own inclinations for the welfare of others, and he +had never given his mind to any of the graver questions of the day. +To him it mattered very little how the labouring classes as a body +were taught and housed, so long as the peasants on his own land had +decent cottages, and were strangers to want. It irked him not whether +the mass of mankind were Jews or Gentiles, Ritualists, Dissenters, +or rank unbelievers, so long as he sat in the old cloth-lined family +pew on Sunday morning assisting at the same service which had been +all-sufficient for his father, and seeing his dependents deporting +themselves discreetly in their places in the gallery. His life was a +narrow life, travelling in a narrow path that had been worn for him by +the footsteps of his ancestors. He was a good man in a limited way. +But he had never read the modern gospel, according to Thomas Carlyle, +which after all is but an expansion of the Parable of the Talents: +and he knew not that every man must work after some fashion or other, +and do something for the time in which he lives. He was so thoroughly +honest and true-hearted, that if the narrowness and uselessness of his +life had been revealed to him, he would assuredly have girded his loins +and taken up the pilgrim’s staff. Never having had any such revelation +he took his pleasure as innocently as a school-boy at home for the +holidays, and had no idea that he was open to the same reproach which +that man received who had buried the wealth entrusted to him. + +He was as near happiness in this bright summer-tide as a mortal can +hope to be. The greater part of his days were spent with Daphne, and +Daphne was always delighted. True that she was changeable as the light +July winds, and that there were times when she most unmercifully +snubbed him. But to be snubbed by her was better than the smiles +and blandishments of other women. She was given to that coyness and +skittishness, the _grata protervitas_, which seems to have been the +chief fascination of the professional beauty of the Augustan era. +She was as coy as Chloe; coquettish as Glycera; fickle as Lydia, +who, supposing there was only one lady of that name, and she a real +personage, was rather too bad. Daphne was half-a-dozen girls is one; +sometimes welcoming her swain so sweetly that he felt sure she loved +him, and the next day turning from him with scornful impatience, as if +his very presence were weariness to her. + +He bore it all. ‘Being her slave what could he do,’ etc. He had +Shakespeare’s sonnets by heart, and was somewhat of the slavish lover +therein depictured. His Lydia might flout him to-day, and he was just +as ready to fetch and carry for her on the morrow. She had changed, +and for the worse, since the sweet fresh early summer-tide when they +two had breakfasted _tête-à-tête_ in the boat-house. She was not so +even-tempered. She was ever so much more capricious and exacting; and +she was prone to gloomy intervals which anyone other than a lover +might have ascribed to sulks. Edgar wondered, not without sorrow, at +the change; but it was not in him to blame her. He made all manner +of excuses. Bad health was, perhaps, at the root of these discords. +She might be a victim to obscure neuralgic pains and aches, which +she heroically concealed from her friends—albeit her fair and fresh +appearance belied the supposition. Perhaps it was the weather which +made her occasionally cross. Who could go on in simpering placidity +with the thermometer at ninety in the shade? + +‘And then we spoil her,’ argued Edgar, urging his final plea. ‘She is +so bewitching that one can’t help spoiling her. Madoline spoils her. I +am an idiot about her; and even Goring, for all his contemptuous airs +and graces, is almost as easily fooled by her as the rest of us. If we +were more rational in our treatment of her, she would be less faulty. +But then her very faults are charming.’ + +It had been, or had seemed to be, an utterly happy summer for everybody +at South Hill. Two months of splendid weather; two months wasted +in picnicking, and excursionising, driving, boating, lawn-tennis, +tea-drinking, journeying to and fro between South Hill and Goring Abbey +to watch the progress of the hot-houses, which, despite the unlimited +means of their proprietor, progressed with a provoking slowness. + +For some little time after Gerald’s arrival Daphne had held herself as +much as possible in the background. She had tried to keep aloof from +the life of the two lovers; but this Madoline would not suffer. + +‘You are to be in all our amusements, and to hear all our plans, dear,’ +she told her sister one day. ‘I never meant that you and I should be +less together, or less dear to each other, because of Gerald’s return. +Do you think my heart is not big enough to hold you both?’ + +‘I know it is, Lina. But I fancy Mr. Goring would like to have it all +to himself, and would soon get to look upon me as an intruder, if I +were too much with you. You had better leave me at home to amuse myself +on the river, or to play ball with Goldie, who is more than a person +as to sense and sensibility.’ + +To this Madoline would not consent. Her love of her sister was so +tempered with pity, so chastened and softened by her knowledge of the +shadow that darkened the beginning of Daphne’s life, that it was much +deeper and stronger than the affection common among sisters. She wanted +to make up to Daphne for all she had lost; for the cruel mother who had +deserted her in her cradle; for the father’s unjust resentment. And +then there was the delightful idea that Edgar Turchill, that second +best of men, whom she had rejected as a husband, would by-and-by be +her brother; and that Daphne’s future, sheltered and cherished by a +good man’s devoted love, would be as complete and perfect a life as +the fairest and sweetest of women need desire to live. Madoline had +quite made up her mind that Edgar was to marry Daphne. That he was +passionately in love with her was obvious to the meanest capacity. +Everybody at South Hill knew it except perhaps Daphne herself. That +she liked him with placid sisterly regard was equally clear. And who +could doubt that time would ripen this sisterly regard into that warmer +feeling which could alone recompense him for his devotion? Thus, +against the girl’s own better sense, it became an understood fact that +Daphne was to be a third in all the lovers’ amusements and occupations, +and that Mr. Turchill was very frequently to make a fourth in the same. +To Gerald Goring the presence of these two seemed in no wise obnoxious. +Daphne’s vivacity amused him, and he looked upon his old friend +Turchill as a considerably inferior order of being, not altogether +unamusing after his kind. He was not an exacting lover. He accepted his +bliss as a settled thing; he knew that no rock on Cornwall’s rugged +coast was more securely based than his hold on Madoline’s affection. He +was troubled by no jealous doubts; his love knew no hot fits or cold +fits, no quarrelling for the after bliss of reconciliation. There was +nothing of the _grata protervitas_ in Madoline’s gentle nature. Her +well-balanced mind could not have stooped to coquetry. + +August was drawing to its close. It had been a month of glorious +weather, such halcyon days as made the farmer’s occupation seem just +the most delightful calling possible for man. There was not much arable +land within ken of South Hill, but what cornfields there were promised +abundant crops; and one of the magnates of the land—who, in his dudgeon +against a revolutionary re-adjustment of the game-laws at that time +looming in the dim future, had rough-ploughed a thousand acres or so of +his best land rather than let it under obnoxious conditions—may have +thought regretfully of the corn that might have been reaped off those +breezy uplands and in those fertile valleys, where at his bidding +sprang cockle instead of barley. It was a month of holiday-making +for everybody—for even the labour of the fields, looked at from the +outside, seemed like holiday-making. Quiet little Stratford, flushed +with spasmodic life by the arrival of a corps of artillery, tootled on +trumpets, and daddy-mammyed on drums; while the horn of the Leamington +coach blew lustily every morning and afternoon, and the foxhound puppy +at nurse at The Red Horse found the middle of the highway no longer +a comfortable place for his after-dinner nap. It was the season of +American tourists, doing Stratford and its environs, guide-book in +hand, and crowding in to The Red Horse parlour, after luncheon, to see +the veritable chair in which Washington Irving used to sit. + +There came a drowsy sunny noontide when the lovers had no particular +employment for their day. They had been reduced to playing billiards +directly after breakfast, until Gerald discovered that it was too warm +for billiards, whereupon the four players—Lina, Daphne, Gerald, and +Turchill—repaired to the garden in search of shade. + +‘Shade!’ cried Daphne indignantly. ‘Who wants shade? Who could ever +have too much of Phœbus Apollo? Not I. We see too little of his godlike +countenance, and I will never turn my back upon him.’ + +She seated herself on the burnt grass in the full blaze of the sun, +while the other three sat in the shadow of an immense Spanish chestnut, +which grew wide and low, making a leafy tent. + +‘This is a horrid idle way of spending one’s day,’ said Daphne, jumping +up with sudden impatience, after they had all sat for half an hour +talking lazily of the weather and their neighbours. ‘Is there nothing +for us to do?’ + +‘Yes, you excitable young person,’ answered Gerald; ‘since your +restless temper won’t let us be comfortable here, we’ll make you exert +yourself elsewhere. The river is the only place where life can be +tolerable upon such a day as this. The nicest thing would be to be in +it: the next best thing perhaps is to be on it. You shall row us to +Stratford Weir, Miss Daphne.’ + +‘I should like it of all things. I am dying for something to do,’ +responded Daphne, brightening. ‘You’ll take an oar, won’t you, Edgar?’ + +‘Of course, if you’d really like to go. By-the-by, suppose we improve +the occasion by landing at Stratford, and walking Gerald over to +Shottery to see Ann Hathaway’s cottage.’ + +‘Delicious,’ cried Daphne. ‘It shall be a regular Shakespearian +pilgrimage. We’ll take tea and things, and have kettledrum in Mrs. +Baker’s house-place. She’ll let me do what I like, I know. And Mr. +Goring shall carry the basket, as a punishment for his hideous apathy. +And we’ll talk to him about Shakespeare’s early life all the way.’ + +‘Shakespeare’s life, forsooth!’ cried Gerald scornfully. ‘Who is +there that knows anything about it? Half-a-dozen entries in a parish +register; a few traditional sayings of Ben Jonson’s; and a pack +of sentimentalists—English and German—evolve out of their inner +consciousness a sentimental biography. “We may picture him as a youth +going across the fields to Shottery: because it is the shortest way, +and a man of his Titanic mind would naturally have taken it: yes, over +the same meadows we tread this day: on the same ground, if not actually +on the same grass.” Or again: “Seeing that Apostle-spoons were still +in common use in the reign of Elizabeth, it may be fairly concluded +that the immortal poet used one for his bread and treacle: for who +shall affirm that he did not eat bread and treacle, that the inspired +lad of the Stratford grammar-school had not the same weaknesses and +boyish affections as his schoolmates? Who would not love to possess +Shakespeare’s spoon, or to eat out of Shakespeare’s porringer?” That is +the kind of rot which clever men write about Shakespeare: and I think +it is because I have been overdosed with such stuff that I have learned +to detest the bard in his private character.’ + +‘You are a hardened infidel, and you shall certainly carry the basket.’ + +‘What, madam, would you degrade me to a hireling’s office? “Gregory, o’ +my word, we’ll not carry coals.”’ + +‘There, you see,’ cried Daphne triumphantly, ‘you can’t live without +quoting him. He has interwoven himself with our daily speech.’ + +‘Because we are parrots, without ideas of our own,’ answered Gerald. + +‘Oh, I am proud of belonging to the soil on which he was reared. I +wish there was one drop of his blood in my veins. I envy Edgar because +his remote ancestry claim kin with the Ardens. I almost wish I were a +Turchill.’ + +‘That would be so easy to accomplish,’ said Edgar softly, blushing at +his own audacity. + +Daphne noticed neither his speech nor his confusion. She was all +excitement at the idea of an adventurous afternoon, were it only a +visit to the familiar cottage. + +‘Madoline, dearest, may I order them to pack us a really nice tea?’ she +asked. + +‘Yes, dear, if we are all decided upon going.’ + +‘It seems to me that the whole thing has been decided for us,’ said +Gerald, smiling indulgently at the vivacious face, radiant in the broad +noonday light, the willowy figure in a white gown flecked and chequered +with sunshine. + +‘You order me to row you down the Avon,’ said Daphne, ‘and I condemn +you to a penitential walk to Shottery. You ought by rights to go +barefoot, dressed in a white sheet; only I don’t think it would become +you.’ + +‘It might be too suggestive of the Turkish bath,’ said Gerald. ‘Well, +I submit, and if needs be I’ll carry the basket, provided you don’t +plague me too much about your poet.’ + +‘I move an amendment,’ interposed Edgar. ‘Sir Vernon is to take the +chair at Warwick at the Yeomanry dinner, so Miss Lawford is off +duty. Let us all go on to Hawksyard and dine with the old mother. +It’ll delight her, and it won’t be half bad fun for us. There’ll be +the harvest moon to light you home, Madoline, and the drive will be +delicious in the cool of the——’ + +‘Cockchafers,’ cried Gerald. ‘They are particularly cool at that +hour—come banging against one’s nose with ineffable assurance.’ + +‘Say you’ll come, Lina,’ pleaded Edgar, ‘and I’ll send one of Sir +Vernon’s stable-boys to Hawksyard on my horse with a line to the mater, +if I may.’ + +‘I should enjoy it immensely—if Gerald likes, and if you are sure Mrs. +Turchill would like to have us.’ + +‘I think I’d better be out of it. I’m not a favourite with Mrs. +Turchill,’ said Daphne bluntly. + +‘Oh, Daphne!’ cried Turchill ruefully. + +‘Oh, Edgar!’ cried Daphne, mocking him. ‘Can you lay your hand upon +your heart, and declare, as an honest man, that your mother likes me?’ + +‘Perhaps not quite so much as she will when she knows more of you,’ +answers the Squire of Hawksyard, as red as a turkey-cock. ‘The fact is, +she so worships Madoline that you are a little thrown into the shade.’ + +‘Of course. How could anyone who likes Madoline care about me? It isn’t +possible,’ retorted Daphne, with a somewhat bitter laugh. ‘If I were +one of a boisterous brood of underbred girls I might have a chance +of being considered just endurable; but as Lina’s sister I am as the +shadow to the sunlight; I am like the back of a beautiful picture—a +square of dirty canvas.’ + +‘If you are fishing for compliments, you are wasting trouble,’ said +Gerald. ‘It is not a day on which any man will rack his brains in the +composition of pretty speeches.’ + +‘May I write the note? May I send the boy?’ asked Edgar. + +Lina looked at her lover, and finding him consentient, consented; +whereupon Edgar hurried off, intensely pleased, to make his +arrangements. + +So far, he had been disappointed in the hope of seeing Daphne a +frequent guest at Hawksyard, the petted companion and plaything of his +mother. He had made for himself an almost Arcadian picture: Daphne +basking on the stone bench in the Baconian garden; amusing herself with +the poultry; even milking a cow on occasion; and making junkets in the +picturesque old dairy. He had fancied her upstairs and downstairs, +in my lady’s chamber; unearthing all Mrs. Turchill’s long-hoarded +treasures of laces and ribbons, kept to be looked at rather than to be +worn; sorting the house-linen, which would have stocked a Swiss hotel, +and which ran the risk of perishing by slow decay upon its shelves or +ever it was worn by usage. He had pictured her accepted as the daughter +of the house; waking the solemn old echoes with her glad young voice; +fondling his dogs; riding his hunters in the green lanes, and across +the level fields. She was pining to ride; but of the six horses at +South Hill there was not one which Sir Vernon would allow her to mount. + +The pleasant picture was as yet only a phantasm of the mind. Mrs. +Turchill had not yet taken to Daphne. She was a good woman—truthful, +honest, kindhearted—but she had her prejudices, and was passing +obstinate. + +‘I don’t deny her prettiness,’ she said, when Edgar tried to convince +her that not to admire Daphne was a fault in herself, ‘but she is not a +girl that I could ever make a friend of.’ + +‘That’s because you don’t take the trouble to know her, mother. If you +would ask her here oftener——’ + +‘I hope I know my place, Edgar,’ said the mistress of the Grange +stiffly. ‘If Miss Daphne Lawford wishes to improve my acquaintance she +knows where to find me.’ + +But Daphne had taken no pains to secure to herself the advantages +of Mrs. Turchill’s friendship. There was no particular reason why +she should go to Hawksyard: so, after one solemn afternoon call with +Madoline—on which occasion they were received with chilling formality +in the best drawing-room: an apartment with an eight-foot oak dado, +deeply-recessed mullioned windows, and a state bedroom adjoining—Daphne +went there no more. And now here was a splendid opportunity of +making her at home in the dear old house, and of showing her all the +surroundings which its master loved and cherished. + + ‘BEST OF MOTHERS,’ wrote Edgar, ‘I am going to take you by storm this + afternoon. We—Lina, Daphne, Mr. Goring, and I—are going to Shottery, + and propose driving on to Hawksyard afterwards. Get up the best dinner + you can at so short a notice, and give us your warmest welcome. You + had better put out some of Hirsch’s Liebfraumilch and a little dry + cham. for Goring. The girls drink only water. Let there be syllabubs + and junkets and everything pastoral. Don’t ask anyone to meet them,’ + added Edgar, with a dread of having the local parson projected on + his love-feast; ‘we want a jolly, free-and-easy evening. Dinner at + eight.—Your loving + + TED.’ + +This brief epistle was handed to Mrs. Turchill just as she was sitting +down to luncheon. Her first idea was to strike. Her son might have +brought home half-a-dozen of his bachelor friends, and it would have +been a pleasure to her to kill fatted calves and put out expensive +wines. She would have racked her brain to produce an attractive _menu_, +and taxed the resources of poultry-yard and dairy to the uttermost. +But to be bidden to prepare a feast for Madoline, who had rejected her +paragon son, for the rival who had supplanted him, and for Daphne, +whom she most cordially disliked, was something too much. She sat at +her simple meal bridling and murmuring to herself in subdued revolt. +She was tempted to ring for Deborah and confide her wrongs to that +sympathetic ear; but discretion and her very genuine love for her son +prevailed; and instead of summoning Deborah, she sent for the cook, and +announced the dinner party as cheerfully as if it were the fulfilment +of a long-cherished desire. + +Daphne ran down to the boat-house before the others had finished +luncheon, and with Bink’s assistance made her boat a picture of +comfort. Gerald was excused from the burden of the basket, as that +could be conveyed in the carriage which was to pick up the party at +Shottery and take them on to Hawksyard. The old name of the boat had +been erased for ever by workmanlike hands the day after Daphne’s futile +attempt to obliterate it. ‘Nora Creina’ now appeared in fresh gilding +above the deposed emperor. + +‘You ought not to have altered it,’ said Gerald. ‘There was something +original in calling your boat after a bloodthirsty lunatic. “Nora +Creina” is the essence of Cockneyism.’ + +‘It was the boat-builder’s suggestion,’ Daphne answered indifferently. +‘What’s in a name?’ + +‘True! Your boat by any other name would go as fast.’ + +Daphne had to wait some time by the water’s edge before the other three +came quietly strolling across the meadow. She had been sculling gently +up and down under the willows while she waited. + +‘Now then, Empress,’ said Gerald, when he had arranged Lina’s shawls, +and settled her comfortably in her place, ‘you are to sit beside your +sister. Edgar and I will take an oar apiece, while you and Lina amuse +ur conversation.’ + +This nickname of Empress was a reminiscence of Daphne’s adventure +in Fontainebleau Forest. It matched very well with her occasional +imperiousness, and the association was known only to Gerald Goring and +herself. It amused him when he was in a mischievous humour to call her +by a name which she never heard without a blush. + +‘I thought I was to row you,’ said Daphne. + +‘No, Empress; as it’s all down stream we of the sterner sex will +relieve you of the duty. Besides, you could never row comfortably +in that go-to-meeting get-up,’ said Gerald, looking critically at +Daphne’s straw-coloured Indian silk, embroidered with scarlet poppies +and amber wheat-ears, and fluffy with soft lace about the neck and +arms, and the Swiss milkmaid’s hat with its wreath of cornflowers. + +‘I could not wear a boating-dress, as we are to dine with Mrs. +Turchill,’ said Daphne. + +‘You might have worn what you liked,’ protested Edgar eagerly, ‘but +you look so lovely in that yellow gown that I shall be pleased for my +mother to see you in it. She is weak about gowns. I believe she has a +wardrobe full of gorgeous attire, which she and Deborah review once a +week, but which nobody ever wears.’ + +‘The gowns will do for the chair-covers of a future generation,’ said +Gerald; ‘all the chair-covers in my mother’s morning-room are made out +of the Court trains of her grandmothers and great-aunts. I believe a +Court mantle in those days consumed two yards and a half of stuff.’ + +He had taken off his coat, and bared his arms to above the elbow. + +‘What a splendid stroke you pull still, Goring!’ said Edgar admiringly, +‘and you have the wrist of a navvy.’ + +‘One of my paternal inheritances,’ answered Gerald coolly; ‘you know my +father was a navvy.’ + +At which frank speech everybody in the boat blushed except the speaker. + +‘He must have been a glorious fellow,’ faltered Edgar, after an awkward +pause. + +‘Any man who can make a million of money, and keep it without leaving +speck or flaw upon his good name, must be a glorious fellow,’ answered +Gerald, with more heartiness than was usual to him. ‘My father lived +to do good to others as well as to himself, and went down to his grave +honoured and beloved. I wish I were more like him.’ + +‘That’s the nicest thing I ever heard you say,’ exclaimed Daphne. + +‘Approbation from Sir Hubert Stanley——,’ murmured Gerald; ‘I am +beginning to feel proud of myself.’ + +They landed at the boat-builder’s below the bridge, hard by that +decayed old inn which must have seen courtlier company than the +waggoners and wayfarers who drink there now. Then they crossed Sir Hugh +Clopton’s granite bridge, and walked through the quiet town to the +meadows that lead to Shottery. It is but a mile from the town to the +village, a mile of meadow pathway, every step of which is haunted by +ghostly footsteps—the Sacred Way of English literature. + +‘It’s no use telling me not to talk about him,’ cried Daphne, as she +jumped lightly from the top of a stile, the ascent whereof tested the +capacity of a fashionable frock; ‘I cannot tread this ground without +thinking of him. I am positively bursting with the idea of him.’ + +‘Which is the fortunate he whose image haunts you?’ asked Gerald, with +that languid upward twitch of his dark brows which gracefully expressed +a mild drawing-room cynicism. ‘Do these fields suggest grave thoughts +about tenant-right or game-laws, or the land question generally? Is it +Beaconsfield or Gladstone whose _eidolon_ pursues you?’ + +‘Please don’t be disgusting,’ cried Daphne. ‘_Can_ one think of anybody +in these meadows except——’ + +‘The inevitable William. A man does not live near Stratford with +impunity. He must be dosed. Well, child, what are you bursting to say?’ + +‘I have been thinking what a happiness it is to know that the dear +creature travelled so little,’ responded Daphne; ‘and that whether he +talks of Bohemia, or France, or Germany, Rome, Verona, Elsinore, or +Inverness——’ + +‘Somebody wrote a treatise an inch thick to show that Shakespeare may +have gone to Scotland with the king’s players, but I fancy he left his +case as hypothetical as he found it,’ interjected Gerald. + +‘Whether he talks of Athens—or Africa—he really means Warwickshire,’ +pursued Daphne. ‘It is his own native county that is always present to +his mind. Florizel and Perdita make love in our meadows. There is the +catalogue of flowers just as they bloom to-day. And Rosalind’s cottage +was in a lane near the few old oaks which still remain to show where +Arden Forest once stood. And poor Ophelia drowned herself in one of the +backwaters of our Avon. I can show you the very willow growing aslant +the brook.’ + +‘A backwater isn’t a brook,’ murmured Edgar mildly. + +‘I allow that local colour is not our William’s strong point,’ answered +Gerald. ‘Not being a traveller, he would have done better had he never +ventured beyond the limits of his Warwickshire experience; for in that +case he would not have imagined lions in the streets of Rome, or a +sea-coast in Bohemia.’ + +‘Wait till you write a play or a novel,’ retorted Daphne, ‘and you’ll +find you’ll have to adapt yourself to circumstances.’ + +‘That’s exactly what your divine bard did not do. He adapted +circumstances to suit his plays.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + +‘LOVE IS A THING, AS ANY SPIRIT, FREE.’ + + +Past a garden or two and a few cottages; a long garden wail with heavy +coping, shutting in treasures of fruit and vegetables; an old inn; a +new school-house, built at the corner of a lane shaded by as stately +an avenue of elms as any nobleman need desire for the approach to his +mansion. And yet mansion there is none at the end of this verdant +aisle. The lane is only an accommodation road leading to somebody’s +farm. A youthful monitor is trying to drill some small boys in front +of the school-porch, and the small boys are defying him; whereat a +shrill-voiced woman, unseen in the interior of the school, calls out an +occasional word of reproof. All the houses in the little village belong +to the past—they have the grace of a day that is dead. In a farm garden +a buxom servant in a kilted petticoat is feeding a family of gigantic +hens and chickens with something thick and slab out of an iron pot. + +Daphne and her companions felt that there could have been little change +since the old romantic Elizabethan time. The village lay off the beaten +tracks. Three or four modern houses, scattered about here and there in +spacious gardens, were the only addition time had made to Shottery. + +They walked briskly along the narrow road, across the bridge where +the shallow streamlet came tumbling picturesquely over gray stones. +Then a few paces, and before them stood the little block of cottages +which genius has transformed into a temple. Whether the building was +originally one house, it were difficult to decide. The levels are +different; but a variety in levels was the order of that day. The whole +block is a timber-framed structure—a panelled house, the panels filled +with dab and wattle. Jutting casements, diamond-paned, look out upon an +ancient garden, and an ancient well. Beside the house and garden there +is an old orchard, where on this day a couple of sheep are placidly +nibbling the sweet grass. The cottage is almost smothered in greenery. +Honeysuckle, jasmine, roses, hang about the walls as if they loved +them. The old timber porch is curtained with flowers. + +The South Hill carriage was waiting in the lane when Daphne and her +companions arrived. The basket had been duly delivered over to Mrs. +Baker. She was standing at the door awaiting them with a smiling +welcome. + +‘So glad to see you, ladies. The kettle’s on the boil, and you can have +your tea as soon as you please.’ + +‘Thanks, you dear thing,’ cried Daphne; ‘but isn’t it almost sacrilege +to drink tea in his room?’ + +‘It isn’t everybody I’d let do it, miss; not any of those Americans; +though I must say they’re uncommonly civil, and know more about +Shakespeare than the common run of English do, and are more liberal +in their ways too,’ added Mrs. Baker, with a lively remembrance of +half-crowns from Transatlantic visitors. + +‘Mrs. Baker,’ began Daphne in a solemn tone, laying a little +tawny-gloved hand lightly on the collar of Gerald’s coat, ‘you see this +man?’ + +‘Yes, miss, and a very nice-looking gentleman he is for anybody to look +at,’ answered Mrs. Baker smirkingly, making up her mind that the tall +dark-eyed gentleman must belong to one or other of the two young ladies. + +‘He may be nice to the outward eye,’ said Daphne gravely, ‘but he is +dust and ashes inside. He is anathema maranatha, or he ought to be, if +there were anybody in Warwickshire who knew how to anathematise him +properly. He lives in this county—within twelve miles of this house—and +he has never been to see the ingle-nook where Shakespeare courted his +wife. I’m afraid it won’t make the faintest impression upon his callous +mind when I tell him that you are a lineal descendant of the Hathaways, +and that this house has never been out of a Hathaway’s possession since +Shakespeare’s time.’ + +‘I appreciate the lady for her own sake, and don’t care a jot for her +ancestry,’ answered Gerald, with a friendly air. + +They followed Mrs. Baker into the house-place, where all was cool +and shadowy after the glare of sunshine outside. It was a low but +somewhat spacious room, with casements looking back and front; recessed +casements, furnished with oaken seats, one of which was known as +the lovers’ seat; for here, the lovers of the present day argued by +analogy, William and Ann must have sat to watch many a sunset, and many +a moonlit sky. Here they must have whispered their foolish lovers’ talk +in the twilight, and shyly kissed at parting. The fire-place was in a +deep recess, a roomy ingle-nook where half-a-dozen people could have +gathered comfortably round the broad open hearth. On one side of the +ingle-nook was a cupboard in the wall, known as the bacon-cupboard; on +the other the high-backed settle. Opposite the fire-place there was +a noble old dresser—polished oak or mahogany—with turned legs and a +good deal of elaborate carpentry: a dresser which was supposed to be +Elizabethan, but which was suggestive rather of the Carolian period. +The dark brown panels made an effective background for an old willow +dinner-service. + +Daphne made Mr. Goring explore every inch of the house which Mrs. +Baker was able conveniently to show. She led him up a breakneck little +staircase, showed him lintels and doorposts, and locks and bolts, +which had been extant in Shakespeare’s time; made him admire the queer +little carved four-poster which was even older than the poet’s epoch; +and the old fine linen sheet, richly worked by patient fingers, which +had been in the family for centuries, only used at a birth or a death. +She excused him from nothing; and he bore the infliction with calm +resignation, and allowed her to lead him back to the house-place in +triumph. + +Madoline and Edgar Turchill were sitting in the lovers’ seat, talking, +after having unpacked the basket, and made all preparation for tea, +assisted by Mrs. Baker’s modest handmaiden. + +‘Now, Mr. Goring,’ said Daphne, when she and Gerald and the old lady +had rejoined the others, ‘how do you feel about that Channel Island +cow?’ + +‘Oh, I am content,’ answered Gerald, laughing at her. ‘I submit to the +extortion; you carry matters with such a high hand that if you were to +demand all my flocks and herds I should hardly feel surprised.’ + +‘Mrs. Baker,’ said Daphne, with a businesslike air, ‘this gentleman is +going to give you a cow.’ + +‘Oh, miss, you don’t mean it, surely!’ murmured Mrs. Baker, overcome +with confusion. + +‘Yes; a lovely fawn-coloured, hazel-eyed Alderney. Don’t refuse +her. He can as well afford to give you a cow as I can to give you +a neck-ribbon. When would you like the animal sent home? To-morrow +morning? Yes, of course; to-morrow morning. You hear, Mr. Goring? +And now you may consider yourself forgiven, and I’ll show you the +visitors’-book and all the interesting autographs.’ + +They went over to the table near the window, and turned the leaves of +that volume! Alas! how many a hand that had written in it was now dust. +Here was the signature of Charles Dickens, nearly thirty years old, and +pale with age. But the descendant of the Hathaways remembered the day +when it was written, and recalled the visit with pride. + +‘He took the book out into the garden, and sat on the stone slab over +the well to write his name,’ she said. ‘I remember how full of life and +fun he and Mr. Mark Lemon were; he was laughing as he wrote, and he +looked at everything, and was so pleased and so pleasant.’ + +Sir Walter Scott’s name was in an older book. Both of these were +as dead—and as undying—as Shakespeare. And compared with these two +immortal names all the rest of the signatures in the big book were zero. + +It was the merriest tea-party imaginable. Mrs. Baker’s best Pembroke +table had been brought into the middle of the room; her best teapot +and cups and saucers were set out upon it. Cakes and hot-house +fruit had been liberally supplied by Mrs. Spicer. Daphne whispered +in her sister’s ear a request that Mrs. Baker might be invited to +join them, to which Madoline nodded a smiling assent. Was not the +descendant of the Hathaways a lady by right of her gentle manners and +ancient descent? She belonged to a class that is an honour to the +land—the honest independent yeoman who tills the soil his forefathers +cultivated before him. The birth and death sheet in the oak chest +upstairs was like a patent of nobility. And yet perhaps not one of +these agricultural Hathaways had ever enjoyed as large an income as a +first-class mechanic in a manufacturing town—a man who dies and leaves +not a rap behind him to show that he was once respectable. They had +been upheld in their places by the pride of race, which the mechanic +knows not. + +Mrs. Baker was installed in the place of honour in front of the +tea-tray, and asked everyone in her nice old-fashioned way whether +their tea was to their liking. Upon being coaxed to talk she told +stories about the defunct Hathaways, and explained how the house that +had once been all one dwelling-place had come to be divided. + +It was Daphne and she who supplied the conversation. The two young men +looked on amused; Edgar openly admiring the bright changeful face under +the little Swiss hat. Lina was pleased that her sister should be so +innocently glad. + +‘O, how happy I am,’ cried Daphne suddenly, in a pause of the talk, +clasping her hands above her head in a kind of ecstasy. ‘If it could +only last!’ + +‘Why should it not last?’ asked Edgar, in his matter-of-fact way. + +Gerald looked at her gravely, with a puzzled look. Yes; this was +the girl who had stood in the dazzling sunshine beside the lake at +Fontainebleau, in whose hand he had read the forecast of an evil fate. + +‘God help her!’ he thought, ‘she is so impulsive—such a creature of the +moment. How is such an one to travel safely through the thorny ways of +life? Happily there seems little fear of thorniness for her footsteps. +Here is my honest Turchill dying for her—and just the kind of man to +make her an excellent husband, and give the lie to palmistry. Yet it +seems a common place fate; almost as vulgar as the Italian warehouse in +Oxford Street.’ + +He sat musing thus in the lazy afternoon atmosphere, and watching +Daphne with something of an artistic rather than an actually friendly +interest. It seemed a shallow nature that must be always expressing +itself in speech or movement. There could be no depth of thought allied +with such vivacity—keenness of feeling, perhaps, but for the moment +only. + +Nobody was in a hurry to leave the cottage. Tea-drinking is of all +sensualities the most intellectual. The mind is refreshed rather than +the body. There was nothing coarse in the meal. The golden tinge of the +almond pound-cake—a master work of Mrs. Spicer’s—contrasted with the +purple bloom of grapes and blue-gages, the olive tint of ripe figs. + +‘We are making such a tremendous meal that I’m afraid we shall none of +us do justice to my mother’s dinner,’ remonstrated Edgar at last, ‘and +that will make her miserable.’ + +‘A quarter to seven,’ said Gerald, stealing a glance at a little +effeminate watch. ‘Don’t you think it is time we should descend from +this Shakespearian empyrean to common earth?’ + +This was the signal for a general move. The heavy, comfortable-looking +old carriage-horses had been walked up and down in shady places, while +the portly coachman dozed on his box, and the more vivacious footman +execrated the flies. And now the landau bowled briskly along the smooth +high road to Hawksyard, containing as cheerful a quartette as ever went +out to dinner. + +Madoline was delighted to see her sister so happy, delighted at Edgar’s +obvious devotion. She had no doubt that his love would be rewarded in +due course. It is in a woman’s nature to be grateful for such honest +affection, to be won by such disinterested fidelity. + +The brazen hands of the old clock at Hawksyard indicated a quarter to +eight, as the carriage drove across the bridge, and under the arched +gateway into the quadrangular garden, with its sunk pathways, and +shallow steps, and border-lines of crumbling old stone. Mrs. Turchill +was standing on the threshold—a dignified figure in a gray poplin gown +and old thread-lace cap and ruffles—ready to receive them. She gave +Madoline her blandest smile, and was tolerably gracious to the rival +who had spoiled her son’s chances; but she could not bring herself to +be cordial to Daphne. Her silk bodice became as rigid as an Elizabethan +corset when she greeted that obnoxious damsel. She had a shrewd +suspicion that it was for her sake the fatted calf had been killed, and +all the available cream in the dairy squandered upon sweets and made +dishes, with a reckless disregard of next Saturday’s butter-making. +Yet as Daphne shyly put out her hand to accept that cold greeting, +too sensitive not to perceive the matron’s unfriendliness, Mrs. +Turchill could but own to herself that the minx was passing lovely. +The brilliant gray eyes, shadowed with dark lashes; the dark brows +and golden hair; the complexion of lilies and roses; the sensitive +mouth; the play of life and colour in a face that varied with every +thought—yes; this made beauty which even Mrs. Turchill could not deny. + +‘Handsome is that handsome does,’ thought the dowager. ‘God forbid that +my boy should trust the happiness of his life to such a butterfly.’ + +Inwardly rebellious, she had nevertheless done her duty as a good +housekeeper. The old oak-dadoed drawing-room was looking its prettiest, +brightened by oriental jars and bowls of scarlet geraniums and creamy +roses, lavender and honeysuckle. The silver chandelier and fire-irons +were resplendent with recent polishing. The diamond-paned lattices +were opened to admit the scent of heliotrope and mignonette from the +garden on the other side of the moat; while one deeply-recessed window +looking into the quadrangle let in the perfume of the old-world +flowers Francis Bacon loved. + +Edgar insisted upon showing Daphne the house during the ten minutes +before dinner. + +‘You have only been here once,’ he said, ‘and my mother did not show +you anything.’ + +After the two girls had taken off their hats in the state bed-chamber +next the drawing-room—a room whose walls were panelled with needlework +executed by an ancestress of Edgar’s in the reign of Charles the +First—they all went off to explore the house; ascending a steep +secret stair which they entered from a door in the panelling of the +dining-room; exploring long slippery corridors and queer little +rooms that opened mysteriously out of other rooms; and triangular +dressing-closets squeezed into a corner between a chimney and an +outer-wall; laughing at the old furniture: the tall toppling four-post +bed-steads; the sage-green tapestry; the capacious old grates, or still +older brazen dogs; the inimitable Dutch tiles. + +‘It must be heavenly to live in such a funny old house,’ cried Daphne, +as they came cautiously down the black oak staircase, slippery as +glass, pausing to admire a ramshackle collection of Indian curios and +Japanese pottery on the broad window-ledge half-way down. + +‘If you would only try it,’ murmured Edgar close in her ear, and +looking ineffably sheepish as he spoke. + +Again the all-significant words fell unheeded. She skipped lightly down +the remaining stairs, protesting she could get accustomed to them in no +time. + +‘“So light a foot will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint,”’ said +Gerald. + +‘Didn’t I tell you so? You can’t live without quoting him,’ cried +Daphne triumphantly. + +The dinner went off merrily. It was a capital dinner in a good old +English style, ponderous but excellent. There were none of those +refinements which distinguished the board over which Mrs. Ferrers +presided. The attempts at elegance smacked of a banished era. A +turbot decorated with sliced lemon and barberries; a befrilled +haunch, exhibiting its noble proportions in a heavy silver dish; a +superabundance of creams and jellies and trifles and syllabubs; an +elaborate dessert lying in state on the sideboard, to be slowly and +laboriously transferred to the polished oak after the cloth was drawn; +and the coachman to help wait at table. The whole thing was rustic and +old-fashioned, and Edgar was afraid Daphne was secretly turning it all +into ridicule. Yet she seemed happy, and she said so much in praise of +Hawksyard and of the perfect order in which the house was kept, that +Mrs. Turchill’s heart began to soften towards her. + +‘You seem fond of the country, and of countrified ways, Miss Daphne,’ +said the matron relentingly. ‘Yet I should have thought a young lady +like you would have been pining for London, and balls and theatres.’ + +‘I never was at a dance in my life,’ answered Daphne, ‘and only once at +a theatre, and that was the great opera-house in Paris. I don’t think I +should ever care to go to a meaner theatre. My thoughts went up so high +that night, I shouldn’t like to let them down again by seeing trumpery.’ + +‘The London theatres are very nice,’ said Mrs. Turchill, not quite +following Daphne’s idea. ‘But they are rather warm in summer. Yet one +likes to go up to town in the height of the season. There is so much to +see.’ + +‘Mother’s constitution is cast-iron when she gets to London,’ +said Edgar. ‘She is up at six every morning, and goes to the +picture-galleries as soon as the doors are opened; and does her morning +in Hyde Park, and her afternoon in Regent Street, shopping, or staring +in at the shop-windows; and eats her dinner at the most crowded +restaurant I can take her to; and winds up at the theatre. I believe +she’d accept a lobster-supper in the Haymarket if I were to offer one.’ + +‘Has Miss Daphne Lawford never been in London?’ asked Mrs. Turchill. + +‘Oh, please don’t call me miss. I am never anything but Daphne to my +friends.’ + +‘You are very kind,’ answered Mrs. Turchill, stiffening; ‘but I +don’t think I could take so great a liberty with you on such a short +acquaintance.’ + +‘Short acquaintance!’ echoed Daphne, laughing. ‘Why, you must have +known me when I was in my cradle.’ + +Mrs. Turchill grew suddenly red, as if the idea were embarrassing. + +‘I was invited to your christening,’ she said; ‘but—afterwards—there +were circumstances—Sir Vernon was so often abroad. We did not see much +of you.’ + +‘If you wish me to feel at home at Hawksyard you must call me Daphne, +please,’ said the girl gently. + +Mrs. Turchill did not wish her to feel at home at Hawksyard; yet she +could not refuse compliance with so gracious a request. + +The ladies rose to retire, Edgar opening the door for them. + +‘Do you want any more wine, Turchill?’ asked Gerald. + +‘No, not particularly; but you’ll try that other claret, won’t you?’ + +‘Not a drop of it. I vote we all adjourn to the garden.’ + +So they all went out together into the twilit quadrangle, where the +old-fashioned flowers were folding their petals for night and slumber, +while the moon was rising above a cluster of stone chimneys. Mrs. +Turchill walked once round the little enclosure, discoursing graciously +with Madoline, and then confessed to feeling chilly, and being afraid +of the night air; although a very clever doctor, with somewhat +new-fangled ideas, had told her that the air was as good by night as by +day, provided the weather were dry. + +‘I think I’ll go indoors and sit in the drawing-room till you come in +to tea,’ she said. ‘I hope you won’t think me rude.’ + +Madoline offered to go with her, but this Mrs. Turchill would not allow. + +‘Young people enjoy a moonlight stroll,’ she said; ‘I liked it myself +when I was your age. There’s no occasion for any of you to hurry. I +shall amuse myself with _The Times_. I haven’t looked at it yet.’ + +The four being left together naturally divided themselves into two +couples. Gerald and Lina seemed fascinated by the flowery quadrangle, +with its narrow walks, and ancient dial, on which the moon was now +shining. They strolled slowly up and down the paths; or lingered beside +the dial; or stood looking down at the fish-pond. Daphne’s restless +spirit soon tired of these narrow bounds. + +‘Is there nothing else to look at?’ she asked. + +‘There are the stables, and the dairy, and the farm-yard. But you must +see those by daylight; you must come here for a long day,’ said Edgar +eagerly. ‘Would you like to see the garden on the other side of the +moat?’ + +‘Above all things.’ + +‘It is very flat,’ said Edgar apologetically. + +‘All the better for tennis.’ + +‘Yes, the lawn would make a magnificent tennis-ground. We might have +eight courts if we liked. But it is a very commonplace garden after +South Hill.’ + +‘Don’t apologise. I am sure it is nice; a dear old-fashioned sort of +garden—hollyhocks, and sunflowers, and things.’ + +‘My old gardener is rather proud of his hollyhocks.’ + +‘Precisely; I knew he would be. And that horrid MacCloskie will hear +of nothing but the newest inventions in flowers. He gives us floral +figures in Euclid; floral hearthrugs sprawling over the lawn, as if +one of the housemaids had taken out a Persian rug to dust it, and had +forgotten to take it in again. He takes tremendous pains to build up +beds like supper-dishes—ornamental salads, don’t you know—and calls +that high-art gardening. I would rather have your hollyhocks and +sunflowers, and the old-fashioned scented clematis climbing about +everywhere in a tangled mass of sweetness.’ + +‘I’m glad you like antiquated gardens,’ said Edgar. + +They went under the archway, which echoed the sound of their footsteps, +and round by a gravel walk to the spacious lawn, and the long border +which was the despair of the gardeners when they tried to fill it, and +which yet provided flowers enough to keep all the sitting-rooms bright +and sweet with summer bloom. The moon was high above Hawksyard by this +time: a glorious harvest moon, pouring down her golden light upon tree +and flower, and giving intensity to the shadows under the wall. The +waters of the moat looked black, save where the moonbeams touched them; +and yonder under the tall spreading walnut boughs the gravel walk was +all in shadow. + +Daphne paced the lawn, disputing as to how many tennis-courts one might +have on such on extensive parallelogram. She admired the height of the +hollyhocks, and regretted that their colour did not show by moonlight. +The sunflowers appeared to better advantage. + +‘What awful stories poets tell about them!’ said Daphne. ‘Just look at +that brazen-faced creature, smirking at the moon; just as if she had +never turned her head sunwards in her life.’ + +Edgar was in a sentimental mood, and inclined to see things from a +sentimental point of view + +‘It mayn’t be botanically true,’ he said, ‘but it’s a pretty idea all +the same;’ and then he trolled out in a fine baritone: + + ‘No, the heart that has truly loved never forgets, + But as truly loves on to the close; + As the sunflower turns on her god, when he sets, + The same look which she turned when he rose.’ + +‘What’s the use of singing that when you know it isn’t true?’ cried +Daphne contemptuously. ‘Do you suppose a stiff-necked thing like that, +with a stalk a quarter of an inch in diameter, could turn and twist +from east to west every day, without wringing its head off? The idea is +obviously absurd. What lovely old walnut-trees!’ she exclaimed, looking +across the lawn. ‘Centuries upon centuries old, are they not?’ + +‘I believe they were planted soon after George the Third came to the +throne.’ + +‘Is that all? They look as old as the Wrekin.’ + +They strolled across the wide lawn, and in among the shadows of the old +trees. The cows were moving stealthily about in the meadow on the other +side of the fence, as if sleep were the last thing they ever thought of. + +‘And you really like Hawksyard?’ demanded Edgar earnestly. + +‘Like it! I think it is quite the most delicious place I ever saw. +Those high dadoes; these deep-set stone-mullioned windows; those +eccentric little bedrooms; that secret staircase, so sweetly suggestive +of murder and treason. The whole place is so thoroughly original.’ + +‘It is one of the few moated granges left in England,’ said Edgar with +an air of conscious merit. + +‘It is quite too lovely.’ + +‘Daphne, do you really mean what you say?’ he asked with sudden +intensity. ‘Are you only talking like this to please me—out of +kindness?’ + +‘If I have a fault it is a habit of blurting out what I think, without +reference to other people’s feelings. I am thoroughly in earnest about +Hawksyard.’ + +‘Then be its mistress,’ exclaimed Edgar, taking her hand, and trying to +draw her towards him; ‘be queen of my house, darling, as you have long +been sovereign of my heart. Make me the happiest man that ever yonder +old roof sheltered—the proudest, the most entirely blest. Daphne, I am +not poetical, or clever. I can’t find many words, but—I love you—I love +you.’ + +She laughed in his face, a clear and silvery peal—laughed him to +absolute scorn; yet without a touch of ill-nature. + +‘My dear Edgar, this is too much,’ she cried. ‘A few months ago you +were fondly, devotedly, irrevocably in love with Lina. Don’t you +remember how we sympathised that afternoon in the meadows? This is the +sunflower over again: first to the sun and then to the moon. No, dear +Edgar, never talk to me of love. I have a real honest regard for you. I +respect you. I trust you as my very brother. It would spoil all if you +were to persist in talking nonsense of this kind.’ + +She left him, planted there—mute as a statue—frozen with mortification, +humiliation, despair. + + ‘He either fears his fate too much, + Or his deserts are small, + Who dares not put it to the touch, + To win or lose it all.’ + +He had tried his fate—hopefully, confidently even—lured on by her +deceptive sweetness; and all was lost. + +She had run lightly off. She was on the other side of the lawn before +he stirred from the attitude in which she left him; his hands clenched, +his head bent, his eyes staring stupidly at the gravel walk. + +‘She does not care a straw for me,’ he said to himself, ‘not a straw. +And I thought she had grown fond of me. I thought I had but to speak.’ + +A friendly hand touched him lightly on the shoulder. It was Gerald, +the man for whom Fate had reserved all good things—unbounded talents, +unbounded wealth, the love of a perfect woman. + +‘Cheer up, old fellow,’ said Gerald heartily. ‘Forgive me if I heard +more than you intended me to hear. Mrs. Turchill sent me in quest of +you and Daphne, and I came up—just as you—’ + +‘Just as I made an ass of myself,’ interrupted Edgar. ‘It doesn’t +matter. I don’t a bit mind your knowing. I have no pride of that kind. +I am proud of loving her, even in vain.’ + +‘Don’t be down-hearted, man. A girl of that kind must be played as +an expert angler plays a frisky young salmon. She has refused you +to-night; she may accept you three months hence.’ + +‘She laughed at me,’ said Edgar, with deepest despondency. + +‘It is her disposition to laugh at all things. You must have patience, +man; patience and persistence. “My love is but a lassie yet.” Thy +beloved one still delights in the green fields; her tender neck cannot +bear the yoke. Wait, and she will turn to thee—as—as the sunflower +turns to the sun,’ concluded Gerald, having vainly sought a better +comparison. + +‘It doesn’t,’ cried Edgar dejectedly. ‘That is what we have just been +talking about. The sunflower is a stiff-necked impostor.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XV. + +‘NOT FOR YOUR LINAGE, NE FOR YOUR RICHESSE.’ + + +The two young men walked up and down under the walnut-trees for nearly +an hour, Gerald Goring playing the unaccustomed part of consoler. +He liked Edgar Turchill with an honest liking. There was a shade of +condescension, of unconscious patronage, in the feeling; but it was +thoroughly sincere. The Saxon squire was of course distinctly on a +lower intellectual level than the man of mixed race—the man whose +father had thrust himself into the front ranks of life by the sheer +force of will and brains, unaided by conventional training of any kind; +whose mother had been the last development of a family reared in courts +and palaces. Compared with the quicksilver that flowed in his own +veins, Edgar Turchill’s blood was a fluid that smacked of the vegetable +kingdom—watery stuff such as oozes out of a turnip or a cabbage when +the cook-maid cuts it. Yet the man could feel, and so keenly, that +Gerald was touched with tender pity. + +‘Don’t be down-hearted, old fellow,’ he said, walking slowly under the +spreading boughs, with his hand resting affectionately upon Turchill’s +shoulder. ‘Be sure things will work round in time. She is a pert +capricious minx; but she cannot help being fond of you, if you are only +patient.’ + +‘I would wait for her as Jacob waited for Rachel, if I were as sure +of winning her,’ answered Edgar; ‘but I am afraid there’s no chance. +If she detested me; if the very sight of me were odious to her; there +might be some hope. But she likes me—she is even fond of me; in a calm +sisterly way. If you knew how sweet she was to me in the spring before +you came—she had no fits of temper then—when I taught her sculling; how +she used to boil a kettle down in the boat-house and——’ + +‘Yes; it was awfully nice of her,’ interjected Gerald somewhat +impatiently, having heard the story of these boat-house breakfasts +several times before. + +‘If she were less kind I should have more hope,’ pursued Edgar. ‘I +think I shall go away—out of the country—where I shall never see her +lovely face. I have a great mind to go to India and shoot big game.’ + +‘And stick pigs?—a curious cure for the heart-ache. No, old fellow; +stay at home and bide your time. That’s your game.’ + +‘I could never look her in the face after to-night,’ said Edgar. + +‘Nonsense, man! Treat this capricious minx as coolly as if nothing +had ever been said about love and despair. Let her think to-night’s +avowal the consequence of too much wine—a mere after-dinner outburst +of sentiment. Look her in the face, forsooth! If you are a wise man, +you may make her ashamed to look you in the face before she is six +months older. You have spoilt her by your flatteries and footings +and compliances. Give her a little of the rough side of your bark. +She professes to care for you as a brother, quotha! Treat her with +brotherly discourtesy—brotherly indifference. Be as candid about her +faults and follies as if you were her very brother. When she finds you +can live without her she will begin to languish for the old adulation.’ + +‘I love her too well to be such a Jesuit,’ said Edgar. + +‘Pshaw! do you suppose Petruchio did not love Kate? He knew there was +but one way of taming his fair shrew, and he used the wisdom Heaven had +given him.’ + +‘I couldn’t act a part where she is concerned,’ argued Edgar. ‘She +would find me out in a moment.’ + +They talked for a long time upon the same subject, wearing the theme +threadbare; travelling backwards and forwards over the same line of +argument, while the moon climbed higher and higher in the cloudless +blue; and in the end Edgar acknowledged that it would be a foolish +thing to leave his farm before the harvest was all in; or his mother, +before she had enjoyed her annual fortnight at the sea-side; or to +uproot himself violently from his native soil in the vain hope of +curing his heart-wound. He had tried foreign air for his malady before, +and foreign air had done nothing for him; and this time he believed the +wound to be ever so much deeper. A lifetime in a strange country would +hardly heal it. + +At last Edgar consented to be led despondently back to the house, which +he had left a little while ago with his heart beating high, full of +hope and delight. They found the three ladies seated in the quaint old +drawing-room, dimly lighted by a dozen or so of candles in the silver +sconces against the wall. There was nothing so distinctly modern as a +moderator-lamp at Hawksyard. + +Mrs. Turchill was enlarging mildly in a lowered voice upon the various +shortcomings of her servants, who, although old servants and infinitely +better than other people’s, were yet so far human in their faultiness +as to afford food for conversation. Madoline was listening with polite +interest, throwing in an encouraging word now and then, which was +hardly needed, for Mrs. Turchill’s monologue would have gone on just +the same without it. Daphne, exhausted by a long day’s vivacity, had +fallen asleep, bolt erect in a straight-backed cherry-wood chair. + +Gerald Goring remembered that day at Fontainebleau when he had told +himself that Daphne asleep would be a very commonplace young person; +yet, as he looked at her to-night, he was fain to own that even in +slumber she was lovely. Was it some trick of candle-light and shadow +which gave such piquancy to the delicate features, which gave such +expression to the dark-pencilled brows and drooping eyelids? The bright +hair, the pale yellow gown, the exquisite fairness of the complexion, +gave a lily-like loveliness to the whole figure. So pale; so pure; so +little earthly. + +‘Poor Edgar!’ sighed Mr. Goring. ‘He is very much to be pitied. How +desperately I could have loved such a girl, if I had not already +adored her opposite. And how I would have made her love me,’ he added, +remembering all their foolish talk, and how easy it had seemed to him +to play upon that sensitive nature. + +‘I am afraid the tea is cold,’ said Mrs. Turchill. ‘You gentlemen have +been enjoying your cigars in the walnut walk, I suppose.’ + +The clatter of cups and saucers startled Daphne. She opened her eyes, +and saw Edgar looking at her with piteous reproachfulness. She could +calmly sleep just after giving him his death-wound. There was a +refinement of cruelty in such indifference. Then he suddenly remembered +Gerald’s advice, and tried to seem equally at his ease. + +‘I’ll wager mother has been bemoaning the vices of the new dairymaid, +and the ingratitude of the old one in going away to be married,’ said +he. ‘That’s what sent you to sleep, wasn’t it, Daphne?’ + +‘I was tired. We had such a long afternoon,’ she answered wearily. + +‘The carriage has been waiting half an hour,’ said Madoline. ‘I think +we had better put on our hats, and then say good-night.’ + +‘Mr. Goring will drive home with you, of course,’ said Mrs. Turchill. + +‘Yes; I am going to see them safe home, Mrs. Turchill,’ answered +Gerald. ‘I am to stay at South Hill to-night, and hear Sir Vernon’s +account of the Yeomanry dinner.’ + +Edgar, who had just been talking of eternal banishment, was longing to +ask for the fourth seat in the landau. The walk home between midnight +and morning would be delightful. + +‘I should have liked to hear about the dinner,’ he began dubiously; and +then meeting Gerald’s eye, quailed beneath its friendly ridicule, and +said no more. + +He escorted Daphne to the carriage, helped to arrange her wraps with a +steady hand, though his heart beat passionately all the time; and bade +her good-night in so thoroughly cheery a voice, that she wondered a +little to find how easily he had taken her rejection of him. + +‘Poor dear Edgar!’ she said to herself as they drove along the shadowy +Warwickshire lane, through the calm beauty of the summer night, ‘I +daresay it was only an impulse of the moment—or perhaps it was the +moon—that made him propose to me. Yet he seemed awfully in earnest, and +I was afraid I might have offended him by laughing. But, after being +devoted to Lina, and making me the confidante of his grief, it was +certainly rather impertinent to offer himself to me. But he is a dear +good-natured creature all the same, and I should be sorry to offend +him.’ + +She was silent all the way home; sitting in her comfortable corner +of the carriage, wrapped to her chin in her soft white shawl, to all +appearance asleep. Yet not once did her senses lose themselves in +slumber. She was listening to the happy lovers, as they talked of the +past—that part of the past which they had spent asunder. Gerald had +been talking of a long mule-ride in Switzerland under just such a +moonlit sky. It was no tremendous mountain ascent, only a ride from +Evian up to a village at the foot of the Dent d’Oche, to look down upon +Lake Leman and its lovely shores bathed in moonlight; the long dark +range of the Jura rising like a wall on the western side; picturesque +villages on the banks gleaming in the silver light, with their old +church towers half hidden by masses of dark foliage; one lonely boat +with its twin sails skimming like a swallow across the moonlit water. + +‘It must have been delicious,’ said Lina. + +‘It was very nice—except that you were not there. “But one thing want +these banks of Rhine.”’ + +‘And did you really miss me at such moments, Gerald? When you were +looking at some especially lovely scene, had you really and truly a +feeling that I ought to have been by your side?’ + +‘Really and truly; the better half of myself was missing. Pleasure +was only a one-sided affair, as that moon will appear next week—an +uncomfortable-looking fragmentary kind of planet.’ + +‘I love to hear of your travels, Gerald,’ said Lina softly. ‘Have you +told me all about them, do you think?’ + +‘All that’s worth telling, I fancy,’ he answered lightly, with an +involuntary glance at Daphne to see if she were really asleep. + +There was no quiver of the dark lashes, no movement in the restful +figure. Her face had that pale unearthly look which all faces have in +the moonlight. A pain shot through his heart as he thought that it was +thus she would look in death. It was one of those involuntary flashes +of thought which sometimes flit across a mind unacquainted with actual +sorrow—the phantom of a grief that might be. + +When they arrived at South Hill Daphne wished her sister and Mr. +Goring a brief good-night, and went straight to her room. She had no +motive for awaiting her father’s home-coming. He would have nothing +to say to her. His only greeting would be a look which seemed to ask +what business she had there. It was on the stroke of eleven. Madoline +and Gerald walked up and down the gravel drive in front of the house, +waiting for the carriage from Warwick; and during this interval Mr. +Goring told his sweetheart how Edgar Turchill had been rejected by +Daphne. Madoline was deeply distressed by this news. She had made up +her mind that her sister’s life was to be made happy in this particular +way. She had imagined a fair and peaceful future in which she would be +living at the Abbey, and Daphne at Hawksyard—not a dozen miles apart. +And now this wilful Daphne had rejected the moated grange and its +owner, and that fair picture of the future had no more reality in it +than a mirage city seen from the dreary sands of a desert. + +‘I thought she was attached to him,’ said Madoline, when she had been +told the whole story. ‘She has encouraged him to come here; she has +always seemed happy in his company. Half her life, since she came from +school, has been spent with him.’ + +‘In sober earnest, darling, I’m afraid this fascinating little sister +of yours is an arrant coquette. She has flirted with Edgar because +there was no one else to flirt with.’ + +‘Please don’t say that, Gerald, for I know you are mistaken,’ answered +Madoline eagerly. ‘Daphne is no flirt. She looks upon Edgar as a kind +of adopted brother. I have always known that, but I fancied that this +friendly trustful feeling of hers would lead in time to a warmer +attachment. As to coquetry, she does not know what it means. She is +thoroughly childlike and innocent.’ + +‘Possibly, dearest. Yet in her childishness she knows how to fool a +man as thoroughly as Ninon de l’Enclos could have done after half a +century’s practice. However, I hope Edgar will stand his ground and +bring this wayward puss to her senses.’ + +‘I cannot understand how she can help liking him,’ mused Madoline. ‘He +is so good, so frank, and brave, and true.’ + +‘All noble qualities, and deserving a woman’s affection. Yet the +sentimental history of the human race tends to show that a man endowed +with all those virtues is not the most dangerous to the fair sex.’ + +‘Gerald,’ said Lina, ‘I have an idea that pride is at the bottom of +Daphne’s refusal.’ + +‘Why pride? What kind of pride?’ + +‘She has harped a good deal, at different times, upon her penniless +position; has called herself a pauper, half in joke, half in earnest, +but with a bitterness of tone that wounded me. She may think that as +Edgar is well off, and she has no fortune, she ought not to accept him.’ + +‘My dearest love, what an utterly quixotic idea. The only thought a +pretty young woman ever has about a man’s wealth is that when she shall +be his wife she can have more frocks than the common run of women. +There is no sense of obligation. She is so conscious of the boon she +bestows that she accepts his filthy lucre as a matter of course.’ + +‘I don’t think that would be Daphne’s way of thinking.’ + +‘Dearest, if she were wholly your sister I should say not. But as she +is only your half-sister, I can suppose her only about half as good +again as the ruck of womankind.’ + +‘You are very rich, are you not, Gerald?’ + +‘Well, yes; it would take a large amount of idiocy on my part to spoil +the income my father left me. It might be done, no doubt, if I went +into the right circles. My ruin would be only a question of so many +years and so many racehorses. But while I live as I am living now, +there is very little chance of my becoming acquainted with want.’ + +‘I know, dear; and I don’t think it was for the sake of my fortune you +chose me, was it, Gerald?’ + +‘My dearest love, I only wish some old nurse would turn up on your +wedding morning and tell you that you are not the Lady Clare, so that I +might prove to you how little wealth or position influenced my choice. +I think I know what you are going to say, Lina. As I have more money +than you and I together—indulge our caprices as we may—are ever likely +to spend, why not give your fortune to Daphne?’ + +‘Dear Gerald, how good of you to guess my wish! I should like to divide +my fortune with my sister when I come of age. I don’t want to give her +all, for half would be ample. And I am so accustomed to the idea of +independence, that I should hardly like to be a pensioner even upon +you. Will you speak to the lawyers, Gerald, and find out how the gift +had better be made?’ + +‘Yes, dear; I’ll settle everything with the men of law. It seems to me +that you can do just what you like, as soon as you come of age. But +you’ll have to wait till then.’ + +‘Only ascertain that it can be done, Gerald, and then I can tell +Daphne, and she will no longer fancy herself a pauper. It may influence +her in her conduct to Edgar.’ + +‘It may,’ answered Gerald dubiously; ‘but somehow I don’t think it +will. Edgar must win the game off his own bat.’ + + * * * * * + +The sisters were alone together in Madoline’s morning-room after +breakfast next day. Gerald had gone to the Abbey to look after the +builders, and settle various matters with his steward. Daphne was +sitting half in and half out of the balcony, idle as was natural to +her, but listless and discontented-looking, which was a state of mind +she did not often exhibit. + +There was no Edgar this morning, and she missed her faithful slave. + +Perhaps he meant never to come to South Hill any more; in which case it +would be difficult for her to get rid of her life. + +‘Daphne,’ began Madoline gravely, ‘I have heard something which has +made me very unhappy; which has altogether surprised and disappointed +me. I am told that Edgar proposed to you last night, and that you +refused him.’ + +‘Did he send you the news in a telegram?’ asked Daphne, flaming red. ‘I +don’t see how else you could have heard it.’ + +‘No matter how I heard it, dear. It is the truth, I suppose.’ + +‘Yes; it is the truth. But I despise him for telling you,’ answered +Daphne angrily. + +‘It was not he who told me. It was Gerald, who by accident overheard +the end of your conversation with Edgar, and who——’ + +‘What! he has been interfering, has he?’ cried Daphne, looking still +more angry. ‘It is supremely impertinent of him to busy himself about +my affairs.’ + +‘Daphne! Is that the way you speak of my future husband—your future +brother?’ + +‘He has no right to dictate whom I am to accept or reject. What can it +matter to him?’ + +‘He does not presume to dictate: but it does matter a great deal to him +that my sister should choose the path in life which is most likely to +lead to happiness.’ + +‘How can he tell which path will lead me to happiness? Does he suppose +that I am going to have a husband chosen for me—as if I were a wretched +French girl educated in a convent?’ + +‘He thought—just as I thought—that you could hardly help liking such a +thoroughly good fellow as Edgar; a man so devoted to you; so unselfish; +such a good son.’ + +‘What have I to do with his virtues? I don’t care a straw for him, +except as a friendly sort of creature who will do anything I ask him, +and who is very nice to play tennis or billiards with. He ought not to +be offended at my refusing him. It would have been all the same had he +been anyone else. I shall never marry.’ + +‘But why not, Daphne?’ + +‘Oh, for no particular reason: except perhaps that I am too fond of my +own way, and shouldn’t like a master.’ + +‘Daphne, there is something in your tone that alarms me. It is so +unnatural in a girl of your age. While you were at Asnières, did you +ever see anyone—you were such a child, that it seems foolish to ask +such a question—but was there anyone at Asnières whom——’ + +‘Whom I fell in love with? No, dearest, there was no one at Asnières. +Madame Tolmache was most judicious in her selection of masters. I don’t +think the most romantic school-girl, fed upon three-volume novels, +could have fancied herself in love even with the best-looking of them.’ + +‘I can’t make you out, Daphne. Yet I think you might be very happy as +Edgar Turchill’s wife. It would be so nice for us to be living in the +same county, within a few miles of each other.’ + +‘Yes, that would be nice; and it would be nicer to be at Hawksyard than +to stay at South Hill when you are gone. Yet you see I have too much +self-respect to perjure myself, and pretend to return poor Edgar’s +affection.’ + +‘I have been thinking, Daphne, that perhaps some sense of mistaken +pride may stand between you and Edgar.’ + +And then, falteringly, ashamed of her own generosity, Madoline told her +sister how she meant to divide her fortune. + +‘What!’ cried Daphne, turning pale; ‘take his money? Not a sixpence. +Never speak of it—never think of such a thing again.’ + +‘Whose money, dear? It is mine, and mine alone. I have the right to do +what I like with it.’ + +‘Would you dispose of it without asking Mr. Goring’s leave—without +consulting him?’ + +‘Hardly, because I love him too well to take any step in life without +asking his advice—without confiding fully in him. But he goes with me +in this heart and soul, Daphne; he most thoroughly approves my plan.’ + +‘You are very good—he is very generous—but I will never consent to +accept sixpence out of your fortune. You may be as generous to me as +you like—as you have always been, darling. You may give me gloves and +frocks and pocket-money, while you are Miss Lawford: but to rob you of +your rights; to lessen your importance as Mrs. Goring; to feel myself +under an obligation to your husband—not for all this wide world. Not if +money could make me happy—which it could not,’ she added with a stifled +sob. + +‘Daphne, are you not happy?’ questioned Lina, looking at her with +sudden distress. ‘My bright one, I thought your life here was all +gladness and pleasure. You have seemed so happy with Edgar, so +thoroughly at your ease with him, that I fancied you must be fond of +him.’ + +‘Should I be thoroughly at my ease with a man I loved, unless—unless +our attachment were an old story—a settled business—like yours and Mr. +Goring’s?’ + +‘Why will you persist in calling him Mr. Goring?’ + +‘Oh, he is such a grand personage—the owner of an abbey, with +cloisters, and half a mile of hot-houses—I could not bring myself to +call him by his christian-name.’ + +‘As if the abbey and the hot-houses made any difference! Well, darling, +I am not going to worry you about poor Edgar. You must choose your own +way of being happy. I would not for all the world that you should marry +a man you did not love; but I should have been so glad if you could +have loved Edgar. And I think, dear, that unintentionally—unconsciously +even—you have done him a wrong. You have led him to believe you like +him.’ + +‘And so I do like him, better than anyone in the world—after my own +flesh and blood.’ + +‘Yes, dear. But he has been led to hope something more than that. I +fear he will feel his disappointment keenly.’ + +‘Nonsense, Lina. Don’t you know that six months ago he was still +suffering from his disappointment about you? and now you imagine he is +going to break his heart for me. A heart so easily transferred cannot +be easily broken. It is a portable article. No doubt he will carry it +somewhere else.’ + +She kissed her sister and ran out of the room, leaving Madoline anxious +and perplexed, yet not the less resolved to endow Daphne with half her +wealth as soon as she came of age. + +‘Providence never intended that two sisters should be so unequally +circumstanced,’ she said to herself. ‘Willy-nilly, Daphne must accept +what I am determined to give her. The lawyers will find out a way.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XVI. + +‘NO MAN MAY ALWAY HAVE PROSPERITEE.’ + + +Edgar Turchill did not go to the other end of the world to hide his +grief and mortification at this second overthrow of his fondest +hopes. He absented himself from South Hill for nearly a month, yet +so contrived as that his absence should not appear the result of +pride or anger. Mrs. Turchill’s annual sea-side holiday was as much +an institution as the opening of Parliament, or the Derby: and she +expected on all such occasions to be escorted and accompanied by +her only son. She liked a fashionable watering-place, where there +was a well-dressed crowd to be seen on parade or pier; she required +to have her leisure enlivened by a good brass band; and she would +accept nothing less in the way of lodgings than an airy bay-windowed +drawing-room in the very best part of the sea front. + +‘If I am not to come to the sea-side comfortably I would rather stay +at home,’ she said to her confidante Deborah; an axiom which Deborah +received as respectfully as if it had been Holy Writ. + +‘Of course, mum. Why should you come away from Hawksyard to be cramped +or moped?’ said Deborah. ‘You’ve all you can wish for there.’ + +Such murmurings as these had arisen when Edgar, sick to death of +Brighton and Eastbourne, Scarborough and Torquay, had tempted his +mother to visit some more romantic and less civilised shore; where +the accommodation was of the rough-and-ready order, and where there +was neither parade nor pier for the exhibition of fine clothes to the +music of brazen bands. For picturesque scenery Mrs. Turchill cared +not a jot. All wild and rugged coasts she denounced sweepingly, as +dangerous to life and limb, and therefore to be avoided. The wildest +bit of scenery she could tolerate was Beachy Head; and even that +grassy height she deemed objectionable. Nor did she appreciate any +watering-place which could not boast a smart array of shop-windows. She +liked to be tempted by trumpery modern Dresden; or to have her love of +colour gratified by the latest invention in bonnets and parasols. She +liked a circulating library of the old-fashioned, Miss Burney type; +where she could dawdle away an hour looking at new books and papers, +soothed by the sympathetic strains of a musical-box. She liked to have +her son well-dressed and in a top-hat, in attendance upon her during +her afternoon drive in the local fly, along a smooth chalky high-road +leading to nowhere in particular. She liked to attend local concerts, +or to hear Miss Snevillici, the renowned Shakespearian elocutionist, +read the Trial Scene in the ‘Merchant of Venice,’ followed by +Tennyson’s ‘Queen of the May.’ + +To poor Edgar this sea-side holiday seemed always a foretaste of +purgatory. It was ever so much worse than the fortnight’s hard labour +in London, for in the big city there were sights worth seeing; while +here, at the stereotyped watering-place, life was one dismal round of +genteel inactivity. + +But this year Edgar was seized with a sudden desire to hasten the +annual expedition. + +‘Mother, I think this lovely weather must break up before long,’ he +said briskly, with a laborious affectation of cheerfulness, as he sat +at dinner with his parent on the day after Daphne’s cruelty. ‘What +should you say to our starting for the sea-side to-morrow?’ + +‘To-morrow! My dear Edgar, that would be quite impossible. I shall want +a week for packing.’ + +‘A week! Surely Deborah could put your things into a portmanteau in six +hours as easily as in six days.’ + +‘You don’t know what you are talking about, my dear. A lady’s wardrobe +is so different from a man’s. All my gowns will want looking over +carefully before they are packed. And I must have Miss Piper over from +Warwick to do some alterations for me. The fashions change so quickly +nowadays. And some of my laces will have to be washed. And I am not +sure that I shall not have to drive over to Leamington and order a +bonnet. I should not like to disgrace you by appearing on the parade +with a dowdy bonnet.’ + +Edgar sighed. He would have liked to go to some wild Welsh or Scottish +coast, far from beaten tracks. He would have liked some sea-side +village in the south of Ireland—Dunmore, or Tramore, or Kilkee; some +quiet retreat nestled in a hollow of the cliffs, where as yet never +brass band nor fashionable gowns had come; a place to which people came +for pure love of fine air and grand scenery, and not to show off their +clothes or advertise their easy circumstances. But he knew that if he +took his mother to such a place she would be miserable; so he held his +peace. + +‘Where would you like to go this year?’ he said presently. + +‘Well, I have been considering that point, Edgar. Let me see now. We +went to Brighton last year——’ + +‘Yes,’ sighed Edgar, remembering what a tread-mill business the lawn +had seemed to him; how ineffably tiresome the Aquarium; how monotonous +the shops in the King’s Road, and the entertainments at the Pavilion. + +‘And to Scarborough the year before.’ + +‘Yes,’ with a still wearier sigh. + +‘And the year before that to Eastbourne; and the year before that to +Torquay. Don’t you think we might go to Torquay again this year? I hear +it is very much improved.’ + +‘Very much built upon, I suppose you mean, mother. More smoky +chimneys, more hotels, more churches, longer streets. I should think, +judging by what it had come to when we saw it, that by this time +Torquay must be a very good imitation of Bayswater. However, if you +like Torquay——’ + +‘It is one of the few places I do like.’ + +‘Then let it be Torquay, by all means. I’ll tell you what I’ll do, +mother. I’ll run down to Torquay to-morrow, find some nice lodgings for +you—I think by this time I know exactly what you want in that way—and +engage them for any day you like to name.’ + +‘That’s very kind of you, Edgar. But be sure you get some reference as +to the landlady’s character, so that you may be certain there has been +no fever case in the house during the last twelvemonth. And it would be +as well to get a local architect to look at the drains. It would be a +guinea well spent.’ + +‘All right, mother; I’ll do anything you like. I am longing for a blow +of sea-air.’ + +‘But it will be at least a week before I can come. What will you do +with yourself in the meantime?’ + +‘Oh, I shall contrive to amuse myself somehow. I might go on to +Dartmouth, and charter a boat, and go up the Dart. I want very much to +see the Dart. Only say on what day I may expect you at Torquay.’ + +‘Am I to travel alone, Edgar?’ + +‘You’ll have Deborah. And the journey won’t be difficult. You’ll join +the express at Swindon, don’t you know——’ + +‘If you think I can trust to Deborah’s care of the luggage,’ said Mrs. +Turchill dubiously. ‘She’s very steady.’ + +‘Steady! Well she ought to be at her age. You’ve only to get the +luggage labelled, you see, mother——’ + +‘I never trust to that,’ answered the matron solemnly. ‘I like Deborah +to get out at every station where the train stops, and see with her own +eyes that my luggage is in the van. Railway people are so stupid.’ + +Edgar did not envy Deborah. Having thus adroitly planned an immediate +departure he was off soon after daybreak next morning, and arrived +at Torquay in time for dinner. He perambulated the loneliest places +he could find all the evening, brooding over his disappointment, and +wondering if there were any foundation for Gerald Goring’s idea that +Daphne was to be won by him even yet. He slept at The Imperial, and +devoted the next morning to lodging hunting; till his soul sickened at +the very sight of the inevitable housemaid, who can’t answer the most +general inquiry—not so far as to say how many bedrooms there are in +the house, without reference to the higher powers—and the inevitable +landlady, who cannot make up her mind about the rent till she has +asked how many there are in family, and whether late dinners will be +required. Before sundown, however, after ascending innumerable flights +of stairs, and looking into a dismal series of newly-furnished rooms, +he found a suite of apartments which he believed would satisfy his +mother and Deborah; and having engaged the same for a period of three +weeks, he went down to the water’s edge, to a spot where boating men +most did congregate, and there negotiated the hire of a rakish little +yawl, just big enough to be safe in a summer sea. In this light craft +he was to sail at six o’clock next morning with a man and a boy. + +‘How Daphne would enjoy knocking about this lovely coast in just such +a boat!’ he thought. ‘If she were my wife, I would buy her as pretty a +yacht as any lady could desire, and she and I would sail half round the +world together. She must be tired of the Avon, poor child.’ + +Daphne was very tired of the Avon. Never had the days of her life +seemed longer or drearier than they seemed to her just now, when +her faithful slave Edgar was no longer at hand to minister to her +caprices. A strange stillness seemed to have fallen upon South Hill. +Sir Vernon was laid up with that suppressed gout which Daphne fancied +was only another name for unsuppressed ill-temper, so closely did the +two complaints seem allied. At such times Madoline was more than ever +necessary to his well-being. She sat with him in the library; she read +to him; she wrote his letters; and was in all things verily his right +hand. The most pure and perfect filial love sweetened an office which +would have seemed hard to an ungrateful or cold-hearted daughter. Yet +in the close retirement of the stern-looking businesslike chamber, with +its prim bookshelves and standard literature—not a book which every +decently-read student does not know from cover to cover—she could but +remember the bright summer days that were done; the aimless wanderings +in meadow and wood; the drives to Goring Abbey; the tea-drinkings in +the cloisters or in the gardens; the happy season which was gone. The +knowledge that this one happy summer, the first she and Gerald had +ever spent together as engaged lovers, was ended and over, made her +feel as if some part of her own youth had gone with it—something which +could never come again. It had been such an utterly happy period; +such peerless weather; such a fair gladsome earth, teeming with all +good things—even the farmers ceasing to grumble, and owning that, for +once in a way, there was hope of a prosperous harvest. And now it +was over; the corn was reaped, and sportsmen were tramping over the +stubble; the plough-horses were creeping slowly across the hill; the +sun was beginning to decline soon after five-o’clock tea; breathings of +approaching winter sharpened the sweet morning breezes; autumnal mists +veiled the meadows at eventide. + +Gerald Goring had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse. It seemed to +Daphne, prowling about gardens and meadows with Goldie in a purposeless +manner that was the essence of idleness, as if the summer had gone in +a breath. Yesterday she was here, that glorious, radiant, disembodied +goddess we call Summer—yesterday she was here, and all the lanes were +sweetened with lime-blossoms, and the roses were being wasted with +prodigal profusion, and the river ran liquid gold; and to sit on a +sunny bank was to be steeped in warm delight. To-day there were only +stiff-looking dahlias, and variegated foliage, and mouse-coloured +plants, and house-leek borders, in the gardens where the roses had +been; and to sit on a grassy bank was to shiver or to sneeze. The river +had a dismal look. There had been heavy rains within the last few days, +and the willowy banks were hidden under dull mud-coloured water. There +was no more pleasure in boating. + +‘You may oil her, or varnish her, or do anything that is proper to be +done with her before you put her away for the winter, Bink,’ Daphne +said to her faithful attendant; ‘I shan’t row any more this year.’ + +‘Lor, miss, we may have plenty more fine days yet.’ + +‘I don’t care for that. I am tired of rowing. Perhaps I may never row +again.’ + +She went into luncheon yawning, and looking much more tired than +Madoline, who had been writing letters for her father all the morning. + +‘I wish I were a hunting young woman, Lina,’ she said. + +‘Why, dear?’ + +‘Because I should have something to look forward to in the winter.’ + +‘If you could only employ yourself more indoors, Daphne.’ + +‘Do I not employ myself indoors? Why, I play billiards for hours at a +stretch when I have anyone to play with. I practised out-of-the-way +strokes for an hour and a half this morning.’ + +‘I am sure, dear, you would be happier if you had some more feminine +amusements; if you were to go on with your water-colour painting, for +instance. Gerald could give you a little instruction when he is here. +He paints beautifully. I’m sure he would be pleased to help you.’ + +‘No, dear; I have no talent. I like beginning a sketch; but directly +it begins to look horrid I lose patience; and then I begin to lay on +colour in a desperate way, till the whole thing is the most execrable +daub imaginable; and then I get into a rage and tear it into a thousand +bits. It’s just the same with my needlework; there always comes a time +when I get my thread entangled, and begin to pucker, and the whole +business goes wrong. I have no patience. I shall never finish anything. +I shall never achieve anything. I am an absolute failure.’ + +‘Daphne, if you only knew how it pains me to hear you talk of yourself +like that——’ + +‘Then I won’t do it again. I would not pain you for the wealth of this +world—not even to have it always summer, instead of a dull, abominable, +shivery season like this.’ + +‘Gerald says it is lovely in Argyleshire; balmy and warm; almost too +hot for walking over the hills.’ + +‘He is enjoying himself, I suppose,’ said Daphne coldly. + +‘Yes; he is having capital sport.’ + +‘Shooting those birds that make our dining-room smell so nasty every +evening, and helping to stock Aunt Rhoda’s larder.’ + +‘He does not intend to stay after the end of this month. He will be +home early in October.’ + +Daphne did not even affect to be interested. She was feeding Goldie, +who was allowed to come in to luncheon when Sir Vernon was not in the +way. + +‘I had a letter from Mrs. Turchill this morning,’ said Lina; ‘she is +enjoying herself immensely at Torquay. Edgar is very attentive and +devoted to her, going everywhere with her. He is a most affectionate +son.’ + +‘And a good son makes a good husband, doesn’t he, Lina? Is that idea +at the bottom of your mind when you talk of his goodness to his very +commonplace mother?’ + +‘I don’t want to talk of him, Daphne, to any one who values him so +little as you do.’ + +‘But I value him very much—almost as much as I do Goldie—but not quite, +not quite, my pet,’ she added reassuringly to the dog, lest he should +be jealous. ‘I have missed him horribly; no one to tease; no one to +talk nonsense with. You are so sensible that I could not afford to +shock you by my absurdities; and Mr. Goring is so cynical that I fancy +he is always laughing. I miss Edgar every hour of the day.’ + +‘And yet——’ + +‘And yet I don’t care one little straw for him—in the kind of way you +care for Mr. Goring,’ said Daphne, with a sudden blush. + +Lina sighed and was silent. She had not abandoned all hope that Daphne +would in time grow more warmly attached to the faithful swain, whose +society she evidently missed sorely in these dull autumnal days, during +which the only possible excitement was a box of new books from Mudie’s. + +‘More “Voyages to the North Pole”; more “Three Weeks on the Top +of the Biggest Pyramid”; more “Memoirs of Philip of Macedon’s +Private Secretary,”’ cried Daphne, sitting on the ground beside the +newly-arrived box, and tossing all the instructive books on the carpet, +after a contemptuous glance at their titles. ‘Here is Browning’s new +poem, thank goodness! and a novel, “My Only Jo.” Told in the first +person and present tense, no doubt; nice and light and lively. I think +I’ll take that and Browning, if you don’t mind, Lina; and you shall +have all the Travels and Memoirs.’ + +With the help of novels and poetry, and long rambles even in the wild +showery weather, waterproofed and booted against the storm, and wearing +a neat little felt wide-awake which weather could not spoil, Daphne +contrived to get through her life somehow while her faithful slave was +away. Was it indeed he whom she missed so sorely? Was it his footfall +which her ear knew so well; his step which quickened the beating of her +heart, and brought the warm blood to her cheek? Was it his coming and +going which so deeply stirred the current of her life? Life had been +empty of delight for the last three weeks; but was it Edgar’s absence +made the little world of South Hill so blank and dreary? In her heart +of hearts Daphne knew too well that it was not. Yet Edgar had made an +important element in her life. He had helped her, if not to forget, +at least to banish thought. He had sympathised with all her frivolous +pleasures, and made it easier for her to take life lightly. + +‘If I were once to be serious I should break my heart,’ she said to +herself, as she sat curled up on the fluffy white rug by one of the +morning-room windows, her thoughts straying off from ‘My Only Jo,’ +which was the most frothy of fashionable novels. + +Mrs. Turchill was so delighted with Torquay, in its increased towniness +and shoppiness, its interesting Ritualistic services, at which it was +agreeable to assist once in a way, however a well-regulated mind might +disapprove all such Papistical innovations, that October had begun +before she and her son returned to Hawksyard. Edgar had been glad to +stay away. He shrank with a strange shyness from meeting Daphne; albeit +he was always longing for her as the hart for water-brooks. He amused +himself knocking about in his little yawl-rigged yacht, thinking of the +girl he loved. Mrs. Turchill complained that he had grown selfish and +inattentive. He rarely walked with her on the parade; he refused to +listen to the town band; he went reluctantly to hear Miss Snevillici: +and slumbered in his too-conspicuous front seat while that lady +declaimed the Balcony Scene from ‘Romeo and Juliet.’ + +‘If it were not for Deborah I should feel horribly lonely,’ complained +Mrs. Turchill. ‘And it is not right that I should be dependent upon a +servant for society.’ + +Gerald had not yet returned. He had gone on a yachting expedition +with an old college chum. He was enjoying the wild free life, and his +letters to Madoline were full of fun and high spirits. + +‘Next year we shall be here together, perhaps,’ he wrote. ‘I think +you would like the fun. It would be so new to you after the placid +pleasures of South Hill. And what a yacht we would have! This I am now +upon is a mere cockleshell to the ship I would build for my dear love. +There should be room enough for you and all your pets—Fluff and the +squirrel, your books, your piano, and for Daphne, too, if she would +like to come; only she is such a wild young person that I should live +in constant fear of her falling overboard.’ + +Madoline read this passage to Daphne laughingly. ‘You see that he +remembers you, dear. The thought of you enters into his plans for the +future.’ + +‘He is very kind: I am much obliged to him,’ Daphne answered icily. + +It was not the first time she had responded coldly to Madoline’s +mention of her lover. Her sister felt the slight against her idol, and +was deeply wounded. + +‘Daphne,’ she said in a voice that was faintly tremulous in spite of +her effort to be calm, ‘you have said many little things lately—or +perhaps it is hardly what you have said, but only your looks and +tones—which make me think that you dislike Gerald.’ + +‘Dislike him! No, that is impossible. He has all the attributes which +make people admired and liked.’ + +‘Yet I don’t think you like him.’ + +‘It is not in my nature to like many people. I like Edgar. I love +you, with all my heart and soul. Be content with that, darling,’ said +Daphne, kneeling by Madoline’s side, resting the bright head, with its +soft silken hair, on her shoulder—the face looking downward and half +hidden. + +‘No; I cannot be content. I made up my mind that Gerald was to be as +dear to you as a brother—as dear as the brother you lost might have +been, had God spared him and made him all we could wish. And now you +set up some barrier of false pride against him.’ + +‘I don’t know about false pride. I can hardly be very fond of a man who +ridicules me, and treats me like a child, or a plaything. Affection +will scarcely thrive in an atmosphere of contempt.’ + +‘Contempt! Why, Daphne, what can have put such an idea into your head? +Gerald likes and admires you. If you knew how he praises your beauty, +your fascinating ways! You would not have him praise you to your face, +would you? My pet, I should be sorry to see you spoiled by adulation.’ + +‘Do you suppose I want praise or flattery?’ cried Daphne angrily. +‘I want to be respected. I want to be treated like a woman, not a +child. I——Forgive me, Lina dearest. I daresay I am disagreeable and +ill-tempered.’ + +‘Only believe the truth, dear. Gerald has no thought of you that is +not tender and flattering. If he teases you a little now and then it +is only as a brother might tease you. He wishes you to think of him +in every way as a brother. It always wounds me when you call him Mr. +Goring.’ + +‘I shall never call him anything else,’ said Daphne sullenly. + +‘And if you do not marry as soon as I do——’ + +‘I shall never marry——’ + +‘Dearest, forgive me for not believing that. If you are not married +next year you will have a second home at the Abbey. Gerald and I have +chosen the rooms we intend for you; the dearest little boudoir over the +porch, with an oriel window, just such a room as will delight you.’ + +‘You are all that is good: but I don’t suppose I shall be able often +to take advantage of your kindness. When you are married it will be my +duty to dance attendance upon papa, and to try and make him like me. +I don’t suppose I shall ever succeed but I mean to make the effort, +however unpleasant it may be to both of us.’ + +‘My sweet one, you are sure to win his love. Who could help loving you?’ + +‘My father has helped it all this time,’ answered Daphne, still moody +and with downcast eyes. + + * * * * * + +Edgar and his mother stayed away till the third week in September. +When they came back to Hawksyard cub-hunting was in full swing, and +Mr. Turchill rose at five o’clock three mornings a week to ride to the +kennels. He rode with two sets of hounds, making nothing of distance. +He bought himself a fifth hunter—having four good ones already—which +was naturally supposed to overtop all the rest in strength, pace, and +beauty. His mother began to fear that the stables would be her son’s +ruin. + +‘Three thousand a-year was considered a large income when your father +and I were married,’ she said; ‘but it is a mere pittance now for a +country gentleman in your position. We ought to be careful, Edgar.’ + +‘Who said we were going to be careless, mother mine? I am sure you are +a model among housewives,’ said Edgar lightly. + +‘You’ve taken on a new man in the stable, I hear, Edgar—to attend to +your new horse, I suppose.’ + +‘Only a new boy at fourteen bob a week, mother. We were rather +short-handed.’ + +‘Short-handed! With four men!’ + +Edgar could not stop to debate the matter. It was nine o’clock, and he +was eating a hurried breakfast before starting on his useful covert +hack for Snitterfield, where the hounds were to meet. It was to be the +first meet of the season, an occasion for some excitement. Pleasant to +see all the old company, with a new face or two perhaps among them, and +a sprinkling of new horses—young ones whose education had only just +begun. Edgar was going to exhibit his new mare, an almost thoroughbred +black, and was all aglow with pride at the thought of the admiration +she would receive. He looked his best in his well-worn red coat, new +buckskins, and mahogany tops. + +‘I hope you’ll be careful, Edgar,’ said his mother, hanging about him +in the hall, ‘and that you won’t go taking desperate jumps with that +new mare. She has a nasty vicious look in her hind legs; and yesterday, +when I opened the stable-door to speak to Baker, she put back her ears.’ + +‘A horse may do that without being an absolute fiend, mother. Black +Pearl is the kindest creature in Christendom. Good-bye.’ + +‘Dinner at eight, I suppose,’ sighed Mrs. Turchill, who preferred an +earlier hour. + +‘Yes, if you don’t mind. It gives me plenty of time for a bath. Ta, ta.’ + +He had swung himself on to the thick-set chestnut roadster, and was +trotting merrily away on the other side of the drawbridge, before his +mother had finished her regretful sigh. The groom had gone on before +with Black Pearl. These hunting mornings were the only occasions on +which Mr. Turchill forgot his disappointment. The keen delight of fresh +air, a fast run, pleasant company, familiar voices, brushed away all +dark thoughts. For the moment he lived only to fly across the level +fields, in a country which seemed altogether changed from the scene of +his daily walks and rides; all familiar things—hedges, bills, commons, +brooks—taking a look of newness, as if he were galloping through a +newly-invented world. For the moment he lived as the bird lives—a thing +of life and motion, a creature too swift for thought or pain or care. +Then, after the day’s hard riding, came the lazy homeward walk side +by side with a friend, and friendly talk about horses and dogs and +neighbours. Then a dinner for which even a lover’s appetite showed no +sign of decay. Then pleasant exhaustion; a cigar; a nap; and a long +night of dreamless rest. + +No doubt it was this relief afforded by the hunting season which saved +Mr. Turchill from exhibiting himself in the dejected condition which +Rosalind declared to be an essential mark of a lover. No lean cheek or +sunken eye, neglected beard or sullen spirit, marked Edgar when he came +to South Hill. He seemed so much at his ease, and had so much to tell +about that first meet at Snitterfield, and the delightful run which +followed it, that Daphne was confirmed in her idea that in affairs of +the heart Mr. Turchill belonged to the weathercock species. + +‘If he could get over your rejection of him, you may suppose how easily +he would get over mine,’ she said to her sister. + +Yet she was very glad to have Edgar back again: to be able to order +him about, to beat him at billiards, or waltz with him in the dusky +hall between five-o’clock tea and the dressing-bell, while Lina played +for them in the morning-room. In this one accomplishment Daphne was +teacher, and a most imperious mistress. + +‘If you expect me to be seen dancing with you at the Hunt Ball, you +must improve vastly between this and January,’ she said. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII. + +‘AND IN MY HERTE WONDREN I BEGAN.’ + + +For a man to waltz in the gloaming with a girl whom he passionately +loves, and who has contemptuously rejected him, is a kind of pleasure +too near the edge of pain to be altogether blissful. Yet Edgar came +every non-hunting day to South Hill, and was always ready to dance to +Daphne’s piping. He was her first partner since the little crabbed old +French master at Asnières, who had taken a few turns with her now and +then, fiddling all the time, in order to show his other pupils what +dancing meant. He declared that Daphne was the only one of them all who +had the soul of a dancer. + +‘_Elle est née sylphide._ She moves in harmony with the music; she is a +part of the melody,’ he said, as he scraped away at the languishing Duc +de Reichstadt valse, the tune to which our grandmothers used to revolve +in the days when the newly imported waltz was denounced as an iniquity. + +The grand Hunt Ball, which took place only once in two years at +Stratford Town Hall, was to be held in the coming January, and Sir +Vernon had consented that Daphne should appear at this festivity, +chaperoned by her aunt and accompanied by her elder sister. It was an +assembly so thoroughly local that Mrs. Ferrers felt it a solemn duty to +be present: even her parochial character, which to the narrow-minded +might seem incongruous, made it, she asserted, all the more incumbent +upon her to be there. + +‘A clergyman’s wife ought to show her interest in all innocent +amusements,’ she said. ‘If there were any fear of doubtful people +getting admitted, of course I would sooner cut off my feet than cross +the threshold; but where the voucher system is so thoroughly carried +out——’ + +‘There are sure to be plenty of pretty girls,’ said the Rector, ‘and I +believe there’s a capital card-room. I’ve a good mind to go with you.’ + +‘If it were in summer, Duke, I should urge it on you as a duty; but in +this severe weather the change from a hot room——’ + +‘Might bring on my bronchitis. I think you’re right, Rhoda. And the +champagne at these places is generally a doubtful brand, while of all +earthly delusions and snares a ball-supper is the most hollow. But I +should like to have seen Daphne at her first ball. I am very fond of +little Daphne.’ + +‘I am always pleased for you to be interested in my relations,’ +replied Mrs. Ferrers, with a sour look; ‘but I must say, of all the +young people I ever had anything to do with, Daphne is the most +unsatisfactory.’ + +‘In what way?’ asked Mr. Ferrers, looking lazily up from his tea-cup. + +It was afternoon tea-time, and the husband and wife were sitting +_tête-à-tête_ before the fire in the Rector’s snug study, where the old +black oak shelves were full of the most delightful books, which he was +proud to possess but rarely looked at—inside. The outsides, beautiful +in tawny and crimson leather, tooled and gilded and labelled and +lettered, regaled his eye in many a lazy reverie, when he reposed in +his armchair, and watched the firelight winking and blinking at those +treasuries of wit and wisdom. + +‘In what way is Daphne troublesome, my dear?’ repeated the Rector. ‘I +am interested in the puss. I taught her her Catechism.’ + +‘I wish you had taught her the spirit as well as the letter,’ retorted +Mrs. Ferrers tartly. ‘The girl is an absolute pagan. After flirting +with Edgar Turchill in a manner that would have endangered her +reputation had she belonged to people of inferior position, she has the +supreme folly to refuse him.’ + +‘What you call folly may be her idea of wisdom,’ answered the Rector. +‘She may do better than Turchill—a young man of excellent family, but +with very humdrum surroundings, and a frightful dead-weight in that +mother, who I believe has a life-interest in the estate which would +prevent his striking out in any way till she is under the turf. Such +a girl as Daphne should do better than Edgar Turchill. She is wise to +wait for her chances.’ + +‘How worldly you are, Marmaduke! It shocks me to hear such sentiments +from a minister of the gospel.’ + +‘My dear, he who was in every attribute a model for ministers of the +gospel boasted that he was all things to all men. When I discuss +worldly matters I talk as a man of the world. I think Daphne ought to +make a brilliant marriage. She has the finest eyes I have seen for a +long time—always excepting those which illuminate my own fireside,’ he +added, smiling benignly on his wife. + +‘Oh, pray make no exception,’ she answered snappishly. ‘I never +pretended to be a beauty; though my features are certainly more regular +than Daphne’s. I am a genuine Lawford, and the Lawfords have had +straight noses from time immemorial. Daphne takes after her unhappy +mother.’ + +‘Ah, poor thing!’ sighed the Rector. ‘She was a lovely young creature +when Lawford brought her home.’ + +‘Daphne resembles her to a most unfortunate degree,’ said Aunt Rhoda. + +‘A sad story,’ sighed the Rector; ‘a sad story.’ + +‘I think it would better become us to forget it,’ said his wife. + +‘My love it was you who spoke of poor Lady Lawford.’ + +‘Marmaduke, I am disgusted at the tone you take about her. Poor Lady +Lawford indeed! I consider her quite the most execrable woman I ever +heard of.’ + +‘She was beautiful; men told her so, and she believed them. She was +tempted; and she was weak. Execrable is a hard word, Rhoda. She never +injured you.’ + +‘She blighted my brother’s life. Do you suppose I can easily forgive +that? You men are always ready to make excuses for a pretty woman. I +heard of Colonel Kirkbank, the other day. Lady Hetheridge met him at +Baden—a wreck. They say he is immensely rich. He has never married, it +seems.’ + +‘That at least is a grace in him. “His honour rooted in dishonour +stood; and faith unfaithful kept him falsely true.”’ + +‘You are in a sentimental mood this evening, Marmaduke,’ sneered Rhoda. +‘One would suppose that you had been in love with my brother’s second +wife.’ + +‘She has been so long in her grave that I don’t think you and I need +quarrel if I confess that I admired her. There is a look in Daphne’s +face now she has grown up that recalls her mother almost painfully. I +hope Todd won’t burn that pheasant, Rhoda. I’m afraid she is getting a +little careless. The last was as dry as a stick.’ + + * * * * * + +Scotland made up for a chilly and inferior summer by an altogether +superior autumn. The days were ever so much fairer and longer on that +wild north coast than they were in Warwickshire; and tempted by the +beauty of sky and sea, backed by the urgent desire of his bachelor +friend, the skipper of the smart schooner-rigged yacht _Kelpie_, Gerald +Goring stayed much longer than he had intended to stay; atoning, so far +as he could atone, for his prolonged absence, by writing his betrothed +the most delightful letters, and sending a weekly packet of sepia +sketches, which reflected every phase of sea and sky, rock and hill. To +describe these things with his brush was as easy to Gerald as it is to +other men to describe with their pens. + +‘It is an idle dreamy life,’ he wrote. ‘When I am not shooting +land-fowl on the hills, or water-fowl from my dingey, I sit on the +deck and sketch, till I grow almost into a seavegetable—a zoophyte +which contracts and expands with a faintly pleasurable sensation—and +calls that life. I read no end of poetry—Byron, Shelley, Keats—and +that book whose wisdom and whose beauty no amount of reading can +ever dry up—Goethe’s “Faust.” I want no new books—the old ones are +inexhaustible. Curiosity may tempt me to look at a new writer; but in +an age of literary mediocrity I go back for choice to the Titans of +the past. Do you think I am scornful of your favourites, Tennyson and +Browning? No, love. They, too, are Titans; but we shall value them more +when they have received the divine honours that can only come after +death. + +‘I am longing to be with you, and yet I feel that I am doing myself +a world of good in this rough open-air life. I was getting a little +moped at the Abbey. The place is so big, and so dreary, like the palace +of the Sleeping Beauty—waiting to wake into life and brightness at +the coming of love and you. The lonely rooms are haunted by my dear +mother’s image, and by the sense of my loss. When you come I shall be +so happy in the present that the pain of past sorrow will be softened. + +‘I sit sketching these romantic caves—where we earn our dinner by +shooting the innocent rock-pigeons—and thinking of you, and of my +delight in showing you this coast next autumn. + +‘Yes, love, we will have a yacht. I know you are fond of the sea. Your +sister is a fanatic in her love of the water. How she will delight in +these islands!’ + +He thought of Daphne sometimes, as he sat in the bow of the boat, +lulled almost to slumber by the rise and fall of the waves gently +lapping the hull. His brush fell idle across the little tin colour-box, +and he gave himself up to listless reverie. How Daphne would love this +free unfettered life: a life in which there were no formalities; no +sitting prim and straight at an orderly dinner-table; no conventional +sequence of everyday ceremonies in a hideous monotony. It was a roving +gipsy life which must needs please that erratic soul. + +‘Poor little Daphne! It is strange that she and I don’t get on better,’ +he said to himself. ‘We were such capital friends at Fontainebleau. +Perhaps the recollection of that day is in some way disagreeable to +her. She has been very stand-offish to me ever since—except by fits and +starts. There are times when she forgets to be formal; and then she is +charming.’ + +Yes; there had been times—times when all that was picturesque +and poetical in her nature asserted itself, and when her future +brother-in-law succumbed to the spell, and admired her just a little +more warmly than he felt to be altogether well for his peace, or +perchance for hers. + +Perhaps he, too, had been somewhat formal—had fenced himself round with +forms and ceremonies—lest some lurking sentiment which he had never +dared to analyse, or even to think about, should grow stronger. He +wanted to be honest; he wanted to be true and loyal. But the lovely +young face, so piquant, so entrancing in its exquisite girlishness, +came across his fancies too often for perfect repose of conscience. +The memory of those two summer days at Fontainebleau—idle, foolish, +unconsidered hours—was an ever-present part of his mind. It was so +small a thing; yet it haunted him. How much better it would have been, +he thought, if Daphne had been more candid, had allowed him to speak +freely of that innocent adventure! Concealment gave it a flavour of +guilt. A hundred times he had been on the point of letting out the +secret by this or that allusion, when Daphne’s blush and the quiver +of Daphne’s lip had startled him into caution. This made a secret +understanding between them in spite of his own desire to be honest; and +it worried him to think that there should be any such hidden bond. + +Madoline was the love of his life, the hope and glory of his days. He +had no doubt as to his feelings about her. From his boyhood he had +admired, revered, and loved her. He was only three years her senior, +and in their early youth the delicately-nurtured, carefully-educated +girl, reared among grown-up people, and far in advance of her years, +had seemed in all intellectual things the boy’s superior. Lady +Geraldine was idle and self-indulgent; she petted and spoiled her +son, but she taught him nothing. Had he not a private tutor—a young +clergyman who preferred the luxurious leisure of the Abbey to the +hard work of a curacy—and was not his education sufficiently provided +for when this well-recommended young Oxonian had been engaged at +a munificent salary? The young Oxonian was as fond of shooting, +billiards, cricket, and boating as his pupil; so the greater part of +Gerald’s early youth was devoted to these accomplishments; and it was +only the boy’s natural aptitude for learning whatever he wished to +learn which saved him from being a dunce. At fifteen he was transferred +to Eton, where he found better cricketing and a better river than in +Warwickshire. + +From Lady Geraldine the boy had received no bent towards high thoughts +or a noble ambition. She loved him passionately, but with a love +that was both weak and selfish. She would have had him educated at +home, a boudoir sybarite, to lie on the Persian rug at her feet and +read frivolous books in fine bindings; to sit by her side when she +drove; to be pampered and idolised and ruined in body and soul. The +father’s strong sense interfered to prevent this. Mr. Giles-Goring +was no classic, and he was a self-taught mathematician, while the +boy’s tutor had taken honours in both branches of learning; but he was +clever enough to see that this luxurious home-education was a mockery, +that the lad was being flattered by an obsequious tutor, and spoiled +by a foolish mother. He sent the Oxonian about his business, and +took the boy to Eton, not before Lady Geraldine had done him as much +harm as a doting mother can do to a beloved son. She had taught him, +unintentionally and unconsciously, perhaps, to despise his father. She +had taught him to consider himself, by right of his likeness to her and +his keen sympathy with all her thoughts and fancies and prejudices—a +sympathy to which she had, as unconsciously, trained and schooled +him—belonging to her class and not to his father’s. The low-born father +was an accident in his life—a good endurable man, and to be respected +(after a fashion) for his lowly worth, but spiritually, eclectically, +æsthetically, of no kin with the son who bore his name, and who was to +inherit, and perhaps waste, his hard-won wealth. + +The mother and son had a code of signals, little looks and subtle +smiles, with which they communicated their ideas before the blunt +plain-spoken father. Lady Geraldine never spoke against her husband: +nor did she descend even in moments of confidence to vulgar ridicule. +‘So like your father,’ she would say, with her languid smile, of any +honest unconventional act or speech of Mr. Giles-Goring’s; and it must +be confessed that Mr. Giles-Goring was one of those impulsive outspoken +men who do somewhat exercise a wife’s patience. Lady Geraldine never +lost her temper with him; she was never rude; she never overtly +thwarted his wishes, or opposed his plans; but she shrugged her +graceful shoulders, and lifted her delicately-pencilled eyebrows, and +allowed her son to understand what an impassable gulf yawned between +her, the daughter of a hundred earls—or at least half-a-dozen—and the +self-made millionaire. + +Escaping from the stifling moral atmosphere of his mother’s boudoir, +Gerald found his first ideas of a higher and a nobler life at South +Hill. At the Abbey he had been taught to believe that there were two +good things in the world, rank and money; but that even rank, the very +flower of life, must droop and fade if not manured with gold. At South +Hill he learned to think lightly of both, and to aspire to something +better than either. For the sake of being praised and admired by +Madoline he worked, almost honestly, at Eton and Oxford. She kindled +his ambition, and, inspired by her, his youth and talent blossomed into +poetry. He sat up late at nights writing impassioned verse. He dashed +off wild stanzas in the ‘To Thyrza’ style, when his brain was fired by +the mild orgies of a modern wine, and the fiercer rapture of a modern +bear-fight. And Madoline was his only Thyrza. He was not a man who can +find his Egeria in every street. For a little while he fancied that it +was in him to be a second Byron; that the divine breath inflated his +lungs; that he had but to strike on the cithara for the divine accords +to come. He strummed cleverly enough upon the sacred strings, spoiled +a good deal of clean paper, and amused himself considerably. Then, +failing—in consequence of an utter absence of the critical faculty—to +win the prize for English verse, he turned his back upon the Muses, and +henceforward spoke with ridicule of his poetic adolescence. Still the +Muse had exercised her elevating influence; and, inspired by her and by +Madoline, Gerald Goring had learned to despise those lesser aims which +his mother had held before him as the sublimities of life. + +He was fond of art, and had a marked talent for painting; but as he +never extended his labours or his studies beyond the amateur’s easy +course, he was not likely to rise above the amateur’s level. Why should +a man who is sure to inherit a million submit to the drudgery of severe +technical training in order to take the bread out of the mouths of +painters who must needs live by their art? Gerald painted a little, now +landscape, now figure, as the spirit moved him; sculptured a little; +poetised a little; set a little song of his own to music now and then +to please Lina; and was altogether accomplished and interesting. But he +would have liked to be great, to have had his name bandied about for +praise or blame upon the lips of men; and it irked him somewhat to know +and feel that he was not of the stuff which makes great men; or, in +other words, that he entirely lacked that power of sustained industry +which can alone achieve greatness. For his own inward satisfaction, +and for Lina’s sake, he would have liked to distinguish himself. But +the pathway of life had been made fatally smooth for him; it lay +through a land of flowery pastures and running brooks, a happy valley +of all earthly delights; and how could any man be resolute enough to +turn aside from all sensuous pleasures to climb rugged rocky hills in +pursuit of some perchance unattainable spiritual delight? There was +so much that wealth could give him, that it would have been hardly +natural for Gerald Goring to live laborious days for the sake of the +one thing which wealth could not give. He had just that dreamy poetic +temperament which can clothe sensual joys with the glory and radiance +of the intellectual. Politics, statecraft, he frankly detested; science +he considered an insult to poetry. He would have liked the stir and +excitement, the fever and glory of war; but not the daily dry-as-dust +work of a soldier’s life, or the hardships of campaigning. He was not +an unbeliever, but his religious belief was too vague for a Churchman. +Having failed to distinguish himself as a poet, and being too idle to +succeed as a painter, he saw no royal road to fame open to him; and so +was content to fall back from the race, and enjoy the delicious repose +of an utterly aimless life. He pictured to himself a future in which +there should be no crumpled rose-leaf; a wife in all things perfect, +fondly loved, admired, respected; children as lovely as a poet’s dream +of childhood; an existence passed amidst the fairest scenes of earth, +with such endless variety of background as unlimited wealth can give. +He would not, like Tiberius, build himself a dozen villas upon one +rock-bound island; but he would make his temporary nest in every valley +and by every lake, striking his tents before ever satiety could dull +the keen edge of enjoyment. + +Nor should this ideal life, though aimless, be empty of good works. +Madoline should have _carte blanche_ for the gratification of her +benevolent schemes, great or small, and he would be ready to help +her with counsel and sympathy; provided always that he were not +called upon to work, or to put himself _en rapport_ with professional +philanthropists—a most useful class, no doubt, but obnoxious to him as +a lover of ease and pleasure. + +He had looked forward with placid self-satisfaction to this life ever +since his engagement—and indeed for some time before that solemn +betrothal. From his boyhood he had loved Madoline, and had believed +himself beloved by her. Betrothal followed almost as a matter of +course. Lady Geraldine had spoken of the engagement as a settled thing, +ever so long before the lovers had bound themselves each to each. She +had told Lina that she was to be her daughter, the only girl she could +love as her son’s wife; and when Gerald was away at Oxford, Lina had +spent half her life at Goring with his mother, talking about him, +worshipping him, as men are worshipped sometimes by women infinitely +above them. + +From the time of his engagement—nay, from the time when first his +boyish heart recognised a mistress—Gerald’s affection for Madoline had +known no change or diminution. Never had his soul wavered. Nor did it +waver in his regard and reverence for her now, as he sat on the sunlit +deck of the _Kelpie_ in this fair autumn weather, his brush lying idle +by his side, his thoughts perplexed and wandering. Yet there was a +jar in the harmony of his life; a dissonant interval somewhere in the +music. The thought of Daphne troubled him. He had a suspicion that she +was not happy. Gay and sparkling as she was at times, she was prone to +fits of silence and sullenness unaccountable in so young a creature: +unless it were that she cherished some secret grief, and that the +hidden fox so many of us carry had his tooth in her young breast. + +He was no coxcomb, not in the least degree inclined to suppose that +women had a natural bent towards falling in love with him: yet in this +case he was troubled by the suspicion that Daphne’s stand-offishness +was not so much a token of indifference or dislike, as the sign of a +deeper feeling. She had been so variable in her manner to him. Now all +sweet, and anon all sour; now avoiding him, now showing but too plainly +her intense delight in his presence—by subtlest signs; by sudden +blushes; by loveliest looks; by faintly quivering lip of trembling +hand; by the swift lighting up of her whole face at his coming; by the +low veiled tones of her soft sweet voice. Yes; by too many a sign and +token—fighting her hardest to hide her secret all the time—she had +given him ground for suspecting that she loved him. + +He recalled, with unspeakable pain, her pale distressed face that +day of their first meeting at South Hill; the absolute horror in her +widely-opened eyes; the deadly coldness of her trembling hand. Why had +she called her boat by that ridiculous name: and why had she been so +anxious to cancel it? The thought of those things disturbed his peace. +She was so lovely, so innocent, so wild, so wilful. + +‘My bright spirit of the woods,’ he said to himself, ‘I should like +your fate to be happy. And yet—and yet—’ + +He dared not shape his thought further, but the question was in his +mind: ‘Would I like her fate to be far apart from mine?’ + +Why had she rejected Edgar Turchill, a man so honestly, so obviously +devoted to her?—able, one might suppose, to sympathise with all her +girlish fancies, to gratify every whim. + +‘She ought to like him; she must be made to like him,’ he said to +himself, his heart suddenly aglow with virtuous, almost heroical +resolve. + +His heart had thrilled that night in the shadow of the walnut boughs +when he heard Daphne’s contemptuous rejection of her lover. He had +been guiltily glad. And yet he was ready to do his duty: he was eager +to play the mediator, and win the girl for that true-hearted lover. He +meant to be loyal. + +‘Poor Daphne!’ he sighed. ‘Her cradle was shadowed by a guilty mother’s +folly. She had been cheated out of her father’s love. She need have +something good in this life to make amends for all she has lost. Edgar +would make an admirable husband.’ + +The _Kelpie_ turned her nose towards home next day; and soon Gerald was +dreamily watching the play of sunbeam and shadow on the heathery slopes +above the Kyles of Bute, very near Greenock, and the station and the +express train that was to carry him home. He turned his back almost +reluctantly on the sea life, the unfettered bachelor habits. Though he +longed to see Madoline again, almost as fondly as he had longed for her +four months ago when he was leaving Bergen, yet there was a curious +indefinable pain mingled with the lover’s yearning. An image thrust +itself between him and his own true love; a haunting shape was mingled +with all his dreams of the future. + +‘Pray God she may marry soon, and have children, and get matronly and +dull and stupid!’ he said to himself savagely; ‘and then I shall forget +the dryad of Fontainebleau.’ + +He travelled all night and got to Stratford early in the afternoon. +He had given no notice of his coming, either at the Abbey or South +Hill, and his first visit was naturally to the house that held his +betrothed. His limbs were cramped and stiffened by the long journey, +and he despatched his valet and his portmanteau to Goring in a fly, and +walked across the fields to South Hill. It was a long walk and he took +his time about it, stopping now and then to look somewhat wistfully at +the brown river, on whose breast the scattered leaves were drifting. +The sky was dull and gray, with only faint patches of wintry sunlight +in the west; the atmosphere was heavy; and the year seemed ever so much +older here than in Scotland. + +He passed Baddesley and Arden, with only a glance across the smooth +lawn at the Rectory, where the china-asters were in their glory, and +the majolica vases under the rustic verandah made bright spots of +colour in the autumn gloom. Then, instead of taking the meadow-path +to South Hill, he chose the longer way, and followed the windings of +the Avon, intending to let himself into the South Hill grounds by the +little gate near Daphne’s boat-house. + +He was within about a quarter of a mile of the boat-house when he saw +a spot of scarlet gleaming amidst the shadows of the rustic roof. The +boat-house was a thatched erection of the Noah’s Ark pattern, and the +front was open to the water. Below this thatched gable-end, and on a +level with the river, showed the vivid spot of red. Gerald quickened +his pace unconsciously, with a curious eagerness to solve the mystery +of that bit of colour. + +Yes; it was as he had fancied. It was Daphne, seated alone and dejected +on the keel of her upturned boat. The yellow collie darted out and +leapt up at him, growling and snapping, as he drew near her. Daphne +looked at him—or he so fancied—with a piteous half-beseeching gaze. She +was very pale, and he thought she looked wretchedly ill. + +‘Have you been ill?’ he asked eagerly, as they shook hands. ‘Quiet, you +mongrel!’ to the suspicious Goldie. + +‘Never was better in my life,’ she answered briskly. + +‘Then your looks belie you. I was afraid you had been seriously ill.’ + +‘Don’t you think if I had Lina would have mentioned it to you in a +postscript, or a _nota bene_, or something?’ + +‘Of course.’ + +‘I detest cold weather, and I am chilled to the bone, in spite of this +thick shawl,’ she answered lightly, glancing at the scarlet wrap which +had caught Gerald’s eye from afar. + +‘I wonder you choose such a spot as this for your afternoon +meditations. It is certainly about the dampest and chilliest place you +could find.’ + +‘I did not come here to meditate, but to read,’ answered Daphne. ‘I +have got Browning’s new poem, and it requires a great deal of hard +thinking before one can quite appreciate it; and if I tell you that +Aunt Rhoda is in the drawing-room, and means to stick there till +dinner-time, you will not require any further reason for my being here.’ + +‘That’s dreadful. Yet I must face the gorgon. I am dying to see Lina.’ + +‘Naturally; and she will be enraptured at your return,’ answered Daphne +in her most natural manner. ‘She has been expecting you every day i’ +the hour.’ + +‘“For in a minute there are many days”—Shakespeare.’ + +‘Thank God! I don’t object to the bard of Avon half so strongly now. +I have been in a country where everybody quotes an uncouth rhymester +whom they call Bobbie Bairrns. Shakespeare seems almost civilised in +comparison. Will you walk up to the house with me?’ + +She looked down at her open book. She had not been reading when he came +unawares upon her solitude. He had seen that; just as surely as he had +seen the faint convulsive movement of her throat, the start, the pallor +that marked her surprise at his approach. He had acquired a fatal habit +of watching and analysing her emotions; and it seemed to him that she +had brightened since his coming, that new light and colour had returned +to her face; almost as you may see the revival of a flower that has +drooped in the drought, and which revivifies under the gentle summer +rain. + +She looked at her book doubtfully, as if she would like to say no. + +‘You had better come with me. It is nearly tea-time, and I know you are +dying for a cup of tea. I never knew a woman that wasn’t.’ + +‘Exhausted nature tells me that it is tea-time. Yes; I suppose I had +better come.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII. + +‘LOVE WOL NOT BE CONSTREINED BY MAISTRIE.’ + + +A man who lives within easy reach of two good packs of fox-hounds, and +in a fair hunting country on the very edge of the shires, can hardly +mope, albeit he may feel that, in a general way, his heart is broken. +Thus it was with Edgar Turchill, who hunted four days a week, and came +to South Hill on the off-days to suffer and enjoy all those hot fits +and cold fits, those desperate delights plucked from the jaws of pain, +which a man feels when he adores a girl who does not care a straw +for him. He had been rejected, even with contumely, as it seemed to +him: yet so dearly did he delight in Daphne’s society that if he were +destined never to win her for his own, the next best blessing he asked +from Fate was to be allowed to dangle about her for ever—to fetch and +carry, to be snubbed, and laughed at, and patronised, as it pleased her +wilful humour. + +The autumn and early winter were mild—a capital season for hunting. + +‘What selfish creatures you sporting men are!’ cried Daphne one +morning, looking gloomily out at the gloomy November day; ‘so long as +you can go galloping over the muggy fields after innocent foxes you +don’t care how dreary the world is for other people. We want a hard +frost, for then we might have some skating on the pond. I wish the Avon +would freeze, so that we could skate to Tewkesbury.’ + +‘I daresay we shall have plenty of hard weather in January,’ said Edgar +apologetically. It was one of his off-days, and he had ridden over to +South Hill directly after luncheon. ‘You ought to hunt, Daphne.’ + +‘Of course I ought; but Sir Vernon does not see it in the same light. +When I mildly suggested that I thought you wouldn’t mind lending me a +horse—’ + +‘Mind!’ cried Edgar. ‘That little mare of mine would carry you to +perfection; and she’s so clever you’d have nothing to do but to sit +upon her.’ + +‘Exactly. It would be a foretaste of paradise. But at my hinting such a +possibility my father gave me a look that almost annihilated me.’ + +‘You may be more independently situated next season,’ suggested Mr. +Goring, looking up from the billiard-table, where he was amusing +himself with a few random strokes while Madoline was putting on her hat +and jacket for a rustic ramble. ‘You may have your own stable, perhaps, +and a nice sporting husband to look after it for you.’ + +Daphne reddened angrily at the suggestion; while poor Edgar put on his +sheepish look, and took refuge at the billiard-table. + +‘Are you coming out for a walk, Empress?’ asked Gerald carelessly. + +‘I don’t know. It’s such dreary work prowling about a wintry landscape. +I think I shall stay at home and read.’ + +‘You’d better come,’ pleaded Edgar, feeling that he would not be +allowed the perilous bliss of a _tête-à-tête_ afternoon with her, and +that, if such bliss were permissible, the pleasure would be mixed with +too deep a pain. Out in the fields and lanes, with Goring and Madoline, +he might enjoy her society. + +She half consented to go, and then, discovering that Madoline was going +to make some calls, changed her mind. + +‘I’ll go to my room and finish my third volume,’ she said. + +‘What a misanthrope you are, Daphne—a female Timon! I think I shall +call you Timonia henceforward,’ retorted Gerald. + +‘When it is a question of making ceremonious afternoon visits, I rather +hate my fellow-creatures,’ replied Daphne, with charming frankness. +‘The nicest people one knows are not half so nice as the figments of +fancy one meets in a book; and if the book-person waxes stupid, we can +shut him up—which one can’t do to a living friend.’ + +So Daphne wished Mr. Turchill good-day, and went off to her own +den—the pretty chintz-draperied bedroom, with its frivolities and +individualities in the way of furniture and ornament, and its +privileged solitude. + +Edgar, feeling that he might be a nuisance to the other two if he +offered to accompany them, prepared to take his leave, yet with a +lingering hope that Madoline would ask him to remain. + +Her kindness divined his wish, and she asked him to stay to dinner. + +‘You’re very kind,’ he faltered, having dined at South Hill once in +the current week, and sorely afraid that he was degenerating into a +sponge, ‘but I’ve got a fellow to see at Warwick; I shall have to dine +with him. But if you’ll let me come back in the evening for a game at +billiards?’ + +‘Let you? Why, Edgar, you know my father is always glad to see you.’ + +‘He is very good—only—I’m afraid of becoming a nuisance. I can’t help +hanging about the place.’ + +‘We are always pleased to have you here—all of us.’ + +Edgar thanked her warmly. He had fallen into a dejected condition; +fancying himself of less account than the rest of men since Daphne had +spurned him; a creature to be scorned and trampled under foot. Nor did +Daphne’s easy kindness give him any comfort. She had resumed her tone +of sisterly friendship. She seemed to forget that he had ever proposed +to her. She was serenely unconscious that he was breaking his heart for +her. Why could he not get himself killed, or desperately hurt in the +hunting-field, so that she might be sorry for him? He was almost angry +with his horses for being such clever jumpers, and never putting his +neck in peril. A purl across a bullfinch, a broken collar-bone, might +melt that obdurate heart. And a man may get through life very well with +a damaged collar-bone. + +‘I’m afraid the collar-bone wouldn’t be enough,’ mused Edgar. ‘It +doesn’t sound romantic. A broken arm, worn in a sling, might be of some +use.’ + +He would have suffered anything, hazarded anything, to improve his +chances. He tried to lure Daphne to Hawksyard again; tempting her with +the stables, the dogs, the poultry-yard; but it was no use. She had +always some excuse for declining his or his mother’s invitations. She +would not even accompany Lina when she went to call upon Mrs. Turchill. +She had an idea that Edgar was in the habit of offering his hand and +heart to every young lady visitor. + +‘He made such an utter idiot of himself the night we dined there,’ she +said to Lina. ‘I shall never again trust myself upon his patrimonial +estate. On neutral ground I haven’t the least objection to him.’ + +‘Daphne, is it kind to speak of him like that, when you know that he +was thoroughly in earnest?’ + +‘He was thoroughly in earnest about you before. True love cannot change +like that.’ + +‘Yet I am convinced that he is true, Daphne,’ Lina answered seriously. + +Autumn slipped into winter. There was a light frost every night, and +in the misty mornings the low meadows glittered whitely with a thin +coating of rime, which vanished with those early mists. There was no +weather cold enough to curdle the water in the shallow pond yonder by +the plantation, or to stop Lord Willoughby’s hounds. Daphne sighed in +vain for the delight of skating. + +Christmas at South Hill was not a period of exuberant mirth. Ever +since his second wife’s death Sir Vernon Lawford had held himself as +much aloof from county society as he conveniently could, without being +considered either inhospitable or eccentric. There was a good deal +done for the poor, in a very quiet way, by Madoline, and the servants +were allowed to enjoy themselves; but of old-fashioned festivity +there was none. Mr. and Mrs. Ferrers were asked to dine on Christmas +Day. Aunt Rhoda suggested that they should be asked, and accepted the +invitation in advance; in order, as she observed, that the bond of +family union might be strengthened by genial intercourse upon that +sacred anniversary. Gerald was of course to be at South Hill, where at +all times he spent more of his waking hours than at Goring Abbey. Edgar +had spoken so dolefully of the dulness of a Christmas Day at Hawksyard +that Madoline had been moved by pity to suggest that Mrs. Turchill and +her son might be invited to the family feast. + +‘That will make it a party,’ said Sir Vernon, when his daughter pleaded +for this grace, ‘and I am not well enough to stand a party.’ + +He was not well. Of that fact there could be no doubt. He had been +given to hypochondriacal fancies for the last five years, but there was +a certain amount of fact underlying these fancies. The effeminately +white hand was growing more transparent; the capricious appetite was +more difficult to tempt; the slow promenade on the garden terrace was +growing slower; the thin face was more drawn; the aquiline nose was +sharper in outline. There was a chronic complaint of some obscure kind, +vaguely described by a London specialist, and dimly understood by the +family doctor, which must eventually shorten the baronet’s life; but +his mind was so vigorous and unbending, his countenance so stern, his +manner so uncompromising, that it was difficult to believe that Death +had set his mark upon him. To his elder daughter alone he revealed the +one tender feeling left in him—and that was his very real affection for +herself; a love that was chastened and poetised by his reverent and +regretful memory of her mother. + +‘Dear father, it need not be a party because of the Turchills. Edgar is +like one of ourselves, and Mrs. Turchill is so very quiet.’ + +‘Ask them, Lina, ask them, if it will be any pleasure to you.’ + +‘I think it will please Edgar. He says Hawksyard is so dreary at +Christmas.’ + +‘If people had not set up a fictitious idea of Christmas gaiety, they +would not complain of the season being dull,’ said Sir Vernon somewhat +impatiently. ‘That notion of unlimited junketing doesn’t come from any +real religious feeling. Peace on earth and goodwill towards men doesn’t +mean snapdragon and childish foolery. It is a silly myth of the Middle +Ages, which sticks like a burr to the modern mind.’ + +‘It is a pleasant idea that kindred and old friends should meet at that +sacred time,’ argued Lina gently. + +‘Yes, if kindred in a general way could meet without quarrelling. +That there should be a good deal done for the poor at Christmas I can +understand and approve. It is the central point of winter; and then +there is the Divine association which beautifies every gift. And that +children should look forward to Christmas as an extra birthday in every +nursery is a pretty fancy enough. But that men and women of the world +should foregather and pretend to be fonder of one another on that day +than at any other season is too hollow a sham for my patience.’ + +Madoline wrote a friendly invitation to Mrs. Turchill, and gave her +note to Edgar to carry home that evening. + +‘It’s awfully good of you,’ he said ruefully, when she told him the +purport of her letter, ‘but I’m afraid it won’t answer. Mother stands +on her dignity about Christmas Day; and I don’t think wild horses +would drag her away from her own dining-room. I shall have to dine +_tête-à-tête_ with her, poor old dear; and we shall sit staring at the +oak panelling, and pretending to enjoy the plum-pudding made according +to the old lady’s own particular recipe handed down by her grandmother. +There has been an agreeable sameness about our Christmas dinner for +the last ten years. It is as solemn as a Druidical sacrifice. I could +almost fancy that mother had been out in the woods at daybreak cutting +mistletoe with a golden sickle.’ + +Edgar was correct in his idea of his mother’s reply. Mrs. Turchill +wrote with much ceremony and politeness that, delighted as she and her +son would have been to accept so gratifying an invitation, she must on +principle reluctantly decline it. She never had dined away from her +own house on Christmas Day, and she never would. She considered it a +day upon which families should gather round their own firesides, etc., +etc., etc., and remained, with affectionate regards, etc. + +‘How can a family of two gather round the fireside?’ asked Edgar +dolefully. ‘The dear old mother writes rank nonsense.’ + +‘Don’t be down-hearted, Turchill,’ said Gerald. ‘Perhaps by Christmas +twelvemonth you may be a family of three; and the year after that a +family of four; and the year after that, five. Who knows? Time brings +all good things.’ + +‘I am just as grateful to you, Madoline, as if mother had accepted,’ +said Edgar, ignoring his friend’s speech, though he blushed at its +meaning. ‘It will be ineffably dreary. If the old lady should go to +bed extra early—she sometimes does on Christmas Day—I might ride over, +just—just——’ + +‘In time for a rattling good game of billiards,’ interjected Gerald. +‘Lina and I are improving. You and Daphne needn’t give us more than +twenty-five in fifty.’ + +‘I’ll have a horse ready saddled. Mother likes me to read some of the +verses in the “Christian Year” to her after tea. I’m afraid I’m not a +good reader, for Keble and I always send her to sleep.’ + +‘Be particularly monotonous on this occasion,’ said Daphne, ‘and come +over in time for a match.’ + +‘You wouldn’t be shocked if I came in as late as ten o’clock?’ + +‘I mean to sit up till two,’ protested Daphne. ‘It is my first +Christmas at home, since I was in the nursery. It must be a +Shakespearian Christmas. We’ll have a wassail bowl: roasted apples +bobbing about in warm negus, or something of that kind. I shall copy +out some mediæval recipes for Spicer. Come as late as you like, Edgar. +Papa is sure to go to bed early. Christmas will have a soporific effect +upon him, as well as upon Mrs. Turchill, no doubt; and the Ferrers +people will go when he retires; and we can have no end of fun in the +billiard-room, where not a mortal can hear us.’ + +‘You seem to be providing for a night of riot—a regular orgy—something +almost as dissipated as Nero’s banquet on the lake of Agrippa,’ said +Gerald, laughing at her earnestness. + +‘Why should not one be merry for once in one’s life?’ + +‘Why indeed?’ cried Gerald, ‘_Vogue la galère_. + + “Forget me not, en _vogant la galère_.” + +There’s a line from an early English poet for you, my Shakespearian +student.’ + +Christmas Day was not joyless. Daphne, so fitful in her mirth, so +sudden in her intervals of gloom—periods of depression which Sir +Vernon, Aunt Rhoda, and Madoline’s confidential maid and umquhile nurse +Mowser, stigmatised as sulks—was on this occasion all sunshine. + +‘I have made up my mind to be happy,’ she said at breakfast; which +meal she and Madoline were enjoying alone in the bright cheery room, +the table gay with winter flowers and old silver, a wood fire burning +merrily in the bright brass grate. ‘Even my father’s coldness shall +not freeze me. Last Christmas Day I was eating my heart at Asnières, +and envying that vulgar Dibb, whose people had had her sent home, and +hoping savagely that she would be ever so sick in crossing the Channel. +There I was in that dreary tawdry school-room, with half-a-dozen +mahogany-coloured girls from Toulon, and Toulouse, and Carcassonne; and +now I am at home and with you, and I mean to be happy. Discontent shall +not come near me to-day. And you will taste my wassail bowl, won’t you, +Lina?’ + +‘Yes, dear, if it isn’t quite too nasty.’ + +Lina had given her younger sister license for any kind of mediæval +experiments, in conjunction with Mrs. Spicer; and there had been +much consultation of authorities—Knight, and Timbs, and Washington +Irving—and a good deal of messing in the spacious still-room, with a +profligate consumption of lemons and sherry, and spices and russet +apples. With the dinner at which her father and the Rectory people +were to assist, Daphne ventured no interference; but she had planned a +Shakespearian refection in the billiard-room at midnight—if they could +only get rid of Aunt Rhoda, whose sense of propriety was so strong that +she might perhaps insist upon staying till the two young men had taken +their departure. + +‘I wish we could have old Spicer in to matronise the party,’ said +Daphne. ‘She looks lovely in her Sunday evening gown. She would +sit smiling benevolently at us till she dropped asleep; instead of +contemplating us as if she thought the next stage of our existence +would be a lunatic asylum, as Aunt Rhoda generally does when we are +cheerful.’ + +‘I’m afraid you must put up with Aunt Rhoda to-night, Daphne,’ answered +Madoline. ‘She has suggested that she and the Rector should have the +Blue Room, as the drive home might bring on his bronchitis.’ + +‘His bronchitis, indeed!’ cried Daphne. ‘He appropriates the complaint +as if nobody else had ever had it. So they are going to stay the night! +Of all the cool proceedings I ever heard of that is about the coolest. +And Aunt Rhoda is one of those people who are never sleepy. She will +sit us out, however late we are. Never mind. The banquet will be all +the more classical and complete. Aunt Rhoda will be the skeleton.’ + +Daphne contrived to be happy all day, in spite of Mrs. Ferrers, who +was particularly ungracious to her younger niece, while she was lavish +of compliments and pretty speeches to the elder. The faithful slave +Edgar was absent on duty—going to church twice with his mother; dining +with her; devoted to her altogether, or as much as he could be with +a heart that longed to be elsewhere. But Daphne hardly missed him. +Gerald Goring was in high spirits, full of life and talk and fun, as +if he too had made up his mind that this great day in the Christian +calendar should be a day of rejoicing for him. They all went to church +together in the morning, and admired the decorations, which owed all +their artistic beauty to Madoline’s taste, and were in a large measure +the work of her own industrious fingers. They joined reverently in the +Liturgy, and listened patiently to the Rector’s sermon, in which he +aired a few of those good old orthodox truisms which have been repeated +time out of mind by rural incumbents upon Christmas mornings. + +After luncheon they all three went on a round of visits to Madoline’s +cottagers—those special, old-established families to whose various +needs, intellectual and corporeal, she had ministered from her early +girlhood, and who esteemed a Christmas visit from Miss Lawford as the +highest honour and privilege of the year. It was pleasant to look in at +the tidy little keeping-rooms, where the dressers shone with a bright +array of crockery, and the hearths were so neatly swept, and the pots +and pans and brass candlesticks on the chimney-piece, and the little +black-framed scriptural pictures, were all decorated with sprigs of ivy +and holly. Pleasant the air of dinner and dessert which pervaded every +house. Daphne had a basket of toys for the children; a basket which +Gerald insisted upon carrying, looking into it every now and then, and +affecting an intense curiosity as to the contents. The sky was dark, +save for one low red streak above the ragged edge of the wooded lane, +when they went back to afternoon tea: and what a comfortable change it +was from the wintry world outside to Madoline’s flowery morning-room, +heavy with the scent of hyacinths and Parma violets, and bright with +blazing logs! The low Japanese tea-table was drawn in front of the +fire, and the basket-chairs stood ready for the tea-drinkers. + +‘I was afraid Aunt Rhoda would be here to tea,’ said Daphne, sinking +into her favourite seat on the fender-stool, in the shadow of the +draped mantelpiece. ‘Is it not delicious to have this firelight hour +all to ourselves? I always feel that just this time—this changeful +light—stands apart from the rest of our lives. Our thoughts and fancies +are all different somehow. They seem to take the rosy colour out of the +fire; they are dim and dreamy and full of change, like the shadows on +the wall. _We_ are different. Just now I feel as if I had not a care.’ + +‘And have you many cares at other times?’ asked Gerald scoffingly. + +‘A few.’ + +‘The fear that your ball-dress may not fit; or that some clumsy +fox-hunting partner may smash the ivory fan which Lina gave you +yesterday.’ + +‘Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward,’ answered Daphne +sententiously. ‘Do you think, because I live in a fine house, and have +food and raiment found for me, that I do not know the meaning of care?’ + +‘Well, I should fancy there is a long way between your comprehension of +the word and that of a Whitechapel seamstress: a widow, with five small +children to keep, and a lodging to pay, upon the produce of her needle, +with famine or the workhouse staring her in the face.’ + +‘It is the hour for telling ghost-stories,’ exclaimed Daphne, kneeling +at her sister’s side to receive her cup and saucer, and trifling +daintily with the miniature Queen Anne tongs as she helped herself to +sugar. ‘Lina, tell us the story of this house. It ought to be haunted.’ + +‘I am thankful to say I have never heard of any ghosts,’ answered +Madoline. ‘Every house that has been lived in fifty years must have +some sad memories; but our dead do not come back to us, except in our +dreams.’ + +‘Mr. Goring, I insist upon a ghost-story,’ said Daphne. ‘On this +particular day—at this particular hour—in this delicious half-light, a +story of some kind must be told.’ + +‘I delight in ghost-stories—good grim old German legends,’ answered +Gerald languidly, looking deliciously comfortable in the depths of an +immense armchair, so low that it needed the dexterity of a gymnast to +enable man or woman to get in or out of it gracefully—a downy-cushioned +nest when one was there. ‘I adore phantoms, and fiends, and the whole +shopful; but I never could remember a story in my life.’ + +‘You must tell one to-night,’ cried Daphne eagerly. ‘It need not be +ghostly. A nice murder would do—a grisly murder. My blood begins to +turn cold in advance.’ + +‘I am sorry to disappoint you,’ said Gerald; ‘but although I have made +a careful study of all the interesting murders of my age I could never +distinctly remember details. I should get hideously mixed if I tried +to relate the circumstances of a famous crime. I should confound Rush +with Palmer, the Mannings with the Greenacres; put the pistol into the +hand that used the knife; give the dagger to the man who pinned his +faith on the bowl. Not to be done, Daphne. I am no _raconteur_. You +or Lina had better amuse me. One of you can tell me a story—something +classical—John Gilpin, or the Old Woman with her Pig.’ + +‘John Gilpin! a horridly cheerful singsong ballad—and in such a +fantastic dreamy light as this! I wonder you have not more sense of the +fitness of things. Besides, it is your duty to amuse us. A story of +some kind we must have, mustn’t we, Lina dearest?’ + +‘It would be very pleasant in this half-light,’ answered Lina softly, +quite happy, sitting silently between those two whom she loved so +dearly, pleased especially at Daphne’s brightness and good-humour, and +apparently friendly feeling for Gerald. + +‘You hear,’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘Your liege lady commands you.’ + +‘A story,’ mused Gerald in his laziest tone, with his head lying back +on the cushions, and his eyes looking dreamily up at the ceiling, +where the lights and shadows came and went so fantastically. ‘A story, +ghostly or murderous, tragical, comical, amorous, sentimental—well, +suppose now I were to tell you a classical story, as old as the hills, +or as the laurel-bushes in your garden, the story of your namesake +Daphne.’ + +‘Namesake!’ echoed the girl, with her golden head resting against the +arm of her sister’s chair, her eyes gravely contemplative of the fire. +‘Had I ever a namesake? Could there be another set of godfathers and +godmothers in the world stupid enough, or hard-hearted enough, to give +an unconscious innocent such a name as mine?’ + +‘The namesake I am thinking of lived before the days of godfathers and +godmothers,’ answered Gerald, still looking up at the ceiling, with a +dreamy smile on his face; ‘she was the daughter of a river-god and a +naiad, a wild, free-born, untamable creature, beautiful as a dream, +variable as the winds that rippled the stream from which her father +took his name. Wooers had sought her, but in vain. She loved the wood +and the chase, all free and sylvan delights—the unfettered life of a +virgin. She emulated the fame of Diana. She desired to live and die +apart from the rude race of men—a woodland goddess among her maidens. +Often her father said: “Daughter, thou owest me a son.” Often her +father said: “Child, thou owest me grandchildren.” She, with blushing +cheeks, hung on her father’s neck, and repulsed the torch of Hymen, as +if it were a crime to love. “Let me, like Diana, live unwedded,” she +pleaded. “Grant me the same boon Jove gave his daughter.” “Sweet one,” +said the father, “thy duty forbids the destiny thy soul desires. Love +will find thee out.” The river-god spoke words of fatal truth. Love +sought Daphne, and he came in a godlike form. Phœbus Apollo was the +lover. Phœbus, the spirit of light, and music, and beauty. He saw her, +and all his soul was on fire with love. The dupe of his own oracles, +he hoped for victory. He saw Daphne’s hair floating carelessly upon +the wind; the eyes, like shining stars; the sweet lips, which it was +pain to see and not to kiss. But lighter than the wind the cruel nymph +fled from him. In vain he called her, in vain he tried to stop her. +“Stay, sweet one,” he cried, “it is no enemy who pursues thee. So +flies the lamb the wolf, the hind the lion, the trembling dove from +the strong-winged eagle. But ’tis love bids me follow. Stay thy steps, +suspend thy flight, and I will slacken my pursuit. Foolish one, thou +knowest not whom thou fliest. No rude mountaineer, or ungainly shepherd +pursues thee, but a god before whose law Delphos, Claros, and Tenedos +obey; the son of high Jove himself; the deity who reveals the past, the +present, and the future; who first wedded song to the stringed lyre. My +arrows are deadly, but a deadlier shaft has pierced my heart.” Thus and +much more he pleaded, yet Daphne still fled from him, heedless of the +briers that wounded her naked feet, the winds that lifted her flowing +hair. The breathless god could no longer find words of entreaty. +Maddened by love he followed in feverish haste; he gained on her; his +breath touched her floating tresses. The inexorable nymph felt her +strength failing; with outstretched arms, with beseeching eyes, she +appealed to the river: “Oh, father, if thy waves have power to save me, +come to my aid! Oh, mother earth, open and fold me in thine arms, or +by some sudden change destroy the beauty that subjects me to outrage.” +Scarcely was the prayer spoken when a heavy torpor crept over her +limbs; the nymph’s lovely shoulders covered themselves with a smooth +bark; her hair changed to leaves; her arms to branches; her feet, a +moment before so agile, became rooted to the ground. Yet Phœbus still +loved. He felt beneath the bark of the tree the heart beat of the nymph +he adored; he covered the senseless tree with his despairing kisses; +and then, when he knew that the nymph was lost to him for ever, he +cried: “If thou canst not be my wife, thou shalt be at least Apollo’s +sacred tree. Laurel, thou shalt for ever wreathe my hair, my lyre, +my quiver. Thou shalt crown Rome’s heroes; thy sacred branches shall +shelter and guard the palace of her Cæsars; and as the god, thy lover, +shines with the lustre of eternal youth, so, too, shalt thou preserve +thy beauty and freshness to the end of time.”’ + +‘Poor Daphne,’ sighed Lina. + +‘Poor Apollo, I think,’ said Gerald; ‘he was the loser. What do you +think of my story, Mistress Daphne?’ + +‘I rather like my namesake,’ answered Daphne deliberately. ‘She was +thorough. When she pretended to mean a thing she really did mean it. +There is a virtue in sincerity.’ + +‘And obstinacy is a vice,’ said Gerald. ‘I consider the river-god’s +daughter a pig-headed young person, whose natural coldness of heart +predisposed her to transformation into a vegetable. Apollo made too +much of her.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XIX. + +‘I DEME THAT HIRE HERTE WAS FUL OF WO.’ + + +All the servants at South Hill were old servants. Sir Vernon was a +stern and an exacting master, but he only asked fair change for his +shilling. He did not expect to reap where he had not sown, nor to +gather where he had not strewed. His household was carried on upon a +large and liberal scale, and the servants had privileges which they +would hardly have enjoyed elsewhere. Therefore, with the disinterested +fidelity of their profession, and of the human race generally, they +stayed with him, growing old and gray in his service. + +Among these faithful followers was one who made a stronger point of her +fidelity than any of the others, and affected a certain superiority to +all the rest. This was Mowser, Madoline’s own maid, who had been maid +to Lady Lawford until her death, and who, on that melancholy event, had +taken upon herself the office of nurse to the orphan girl. That she was +faithful to Madoline, and strongly attached to Madoline, there could +be no doubt; but it was rather hard upon the outstanding balance of +humanity that she could consider herself privileged by reason of this +attachment to be as disagreeable as she pleased to everyone else. + +In those early days of Madoline’s infancy Mowser had taken possession +of the nurseries as her own domain—belonging to her by some sovereign +right of custodianship, as entirely hers as if they had been her +freehold. Strong in her convictions on this point, she had resented +all intrusion from the outer world; she had looked daggers at innocent +visitors who were brought to see the baby; she had carried on war to +the knife—a war of impertinences and uncivil looks—with Aunt Rhoda, +firmly possessed by the idea that an aunt was an outsider as compared +with a nurse. + +‘Didn’t I sit up night after night with her when she had the +scarlet-fever, and go without my sleep and rest for a fortnight?’ said +the faithful one, expatiating vindictively upon her wrongs, in the +conversational freedom of the servants’-hall. ‘Will any of your fine +ladies of fashion do that?’ + +Mrs. Spicer was of opinion that some might, but not Miss Rhoda Lawford. +She was a great deal too fond of her own comfort. + +Mowser was not a woman of high culture. She had begun the battle of +life early, and was too old to have been subject to the exactions +of the School Board. She had been born and bred in a Warwickshire +village, and educated five-and-thirty years ago at a Warwickshire dame +school. Gerald told Daphne that he had no doubt Mowser had every whit +as much book-learning as Shakespeare’s mother, Mary Arden. She was +not averse from the use of fine words, but pronounced them after her +own fancy. All unauthorised visitors to the nursery she denounced as +antelopes, meaning, it was supposed, not the graceful animal of the +stag species usually known by that name, but the more obnoxious human +individual commonly called an interloper. Even Daphne, when she took +the liberty to be born, and was brought by her own particular nurse +to Mowser’s nursery, was looked upon as belonging in some wise to the +antelope family; while the strange nurse was, of course, a thoroughbred +specimen of that race. While Daphne was an infant, and the second nurse +remained, there were fearful wars and rumours of wars in Mowser’s +apartments, and exultantly did that injured female lift up her voice +when Daphne went to her first school—at an age when few children of the +landed gentry are sent to school—and the unsanctified nurse departed. +She came a Pariah, and she went a Pariah—a creature under a ban. + +‘Now I can breathe free,’ exclaimed Mowser, after she had +ostentatiously opened the windows and aired the nurseries, as in a +Jewish household windows and doors are flung wide when the spirit has +departed. ‘I felt almost stuffocated while she was here.’ + +Sir Vernon, seeing very little of Mowser, and knowing that she was a +devoted nurse to his beloved elder daughter, had troubled himself very +little about such complaints of her ‘tempers’ as from time to time +reached his ears. He discouraged all fault-finding in his sister upon +principle. So long as everything in the house, which concerned himself +and his own comfort, went on velvet, he was unaffected by the fact that +the servants made themselves disagreeable to other people. It was no +matter to him that Spicer had been abominably impertinent to Aunt Rhoda +in the morning, provided his dinner were well cooked in the evening. +Nor did Rhoda’s raven croakings about the profligate wastefulness of +his household distress him. He knew what he was spending, and that +his expenses were so nearly on a level with his income that he always +seemed poor: but though he liked to growl and grumble after every +inspection of his banker’s book, he hated to be worried about pounds of +butter, and quarts of milk, and dozens of eggs, by his sister. + +‘If you pretend to keep my house, Rhoda, you must keep it quietly, +and not plague me about these disgusting details,’ he said savagely; +whereat Rhoda shrugged her elegant shoulders, and protested that if +her brother liked to be cheated it was of course no business of hers to +step in between him and the depredators. + +‘I don’t like to be cheated, but I like still less to be worried,’ +said Sir Vernon decisively; and Rhoda was wise enough to carry on the +struggle no longer. + +She had her own comfort and her own advantage to consider, and she +troubled her brother no further about domestic difficulties: but she +carried on her war with the enemy vigorously notwithstanding—fiercest +of all with Mowser, who looked upon Miss Lawford as the very head and +front of the antelope tribe. + +Mowser was a servant of the old school. She prided herself upon the +manners and habits of a past generation. She wore corkscrew ringlets, +and a cap trimmed with real Buckinghamshire lace—none of your +Nottingham machine-made stuff for Mowser. Her petticoats were short and +scanty, and her side-laced cashmere boots were a relic of the past. She +wore an ostentatious gold chain round her neck, and a portly silver +watch at her side. She was rarely seen without a black-silk apron, +which rustled exceedingly. She was of a bony figure, her face sharp and +angular, her eyes a cold hard-looking gray. + +When Madoline left the nursery Mowser resumed her original function +of lady’s-maid. She had no particular gifts for the office. She had +no taste for millinery; she had no skill in hair-dressing. She had +been chosen by Madoline’s mother—a young lady of very simple habits—on +account of her respectability and local status. She was the daughter +of Old Mrs. Somebody, who had been thirty years a servant in the first +Lady Lawford’s family. The houses of the menial and the mistress had +been allied for a century or so; and for this reason, rather than for +any other, Jane Mowser had been considered eligible for the office of +maid. + +She was active and industrious, kept her mistress’s wardrobe and +her mistress’s dressing-room in exquisite order. She could wash and +mend laces to perfection. She could pack, and unpack, and was a +devoted attendant in illness. But here her powers found their limit. +The milliner and the dressmaker had to do all the rest. Mowser had +no more taste than any villager in her native hamlet; no capacity +for advising or assisting her mistress in any of the details of the +toilet. She looked upon all modern fashions as iniquities which were +perpetually inviting from heaven a re-issue of that fiery rain which +buried Sodom and Gomorrah. To Mowser’s mind, jersey jackets and +eel-skin dresses, idiot fringes and Toby frills, were the fulfilment +of the prophet Isaiah’s prophecy. These were the ‘changeable suits +of apparel, the mantles, and the tires, and the crisping pins, the +mufflers, and round-tires like the moon;’ and all these things were +the forecast of some awful doom. It might be earthquakes, or floods, +or a hideous concatenation of railway accidents, or the exhaustion of +our coal mines, or the total failure of butcher’s meat by reason of the +foot-and-mouth disease. Mowser did not know what form the scourge would +take; but she felt that retribution, prompt and dire, must follow the +reign of painted faces, jersey bodies, and tight-fitting skirts. Young +women could not be allowed so to display their figures with impunity. +Providence had an eye on their sham complexions and borrowed locks. + +All picturesqueness of attire Mowser resented as a play-actress style +of dress, altogether degrading to a respectable mind. She objected to +Daphne’s neatly-fitting, tailor-made gowns, her soft creamy muslins, +relieved by dashes of vivid colour, and thought they would end badly. +Not so did young ladies dress in Mowser’s youth. Small-patterned +striped or checked silks, with neat laced berthas fitting close to +modestly-covered shoulders, were then the mode. There was none of that +artistic coquetry which gives to every woman’s dress a distinctive +character, marking her out from the throng. + +Vainly did Mowser sigh for those vanished days, the simplicity, the +high thinking and plain living, of her girlhood. Here was Mrs. Ferrers +wasting the Rector’s substance upon gowns which five-and-twenty years +ago would have been considered extravagant for a duchess; here was +Daphne dressing herself up—with Madoline’s approval—to look as much as +possible like a play-actress or an old picture. + +Mowser was no fonder of Daphne now than she had been in the days when +the unwelcome addition to the nursery was stigmatised as an ‘antelope.’ +There was still a good deal of the antelope about Daphne, in Mowser’s +opinion. ‘It would have been better for all parties if Miss Daphne had +stayed a year or two longer at her finishing school,’ Mowser remarked +sententiously in the housekeeper’s room, where she was regarded, or +at any rate was known to regard herself, as an oracle. ‘First and +foremost, she hasn’t half finished her education.’ + +‘Haven’t she, Mowser?’ asked Jinman, Sir Vernon’s own man, with a +malicious twinkle in his eye. ‘How did you find out that? Have you been +putting her through her paces?’ + +‘No, Mr. Jinman; but I hope I know whether a young lady’s education is +finished, without the help of book-learning. My mother was left a lone +widow before I was three years old, and I hadn’t the opportunities some +people have had, and might have made better use of. But I know what a +young lady ought to be, and what she oughtn’t to be; and I say Miss +Daphne leans most to the last. Why, her manners are not half formed. +She goes rushing about the house like a whirlwind; always in high +spirits, or in the dumps—no mejum.’ + +‘She’s dev’lish pretty,’ said Jinman, who, on the strength of having +spent a good deal of time with his master at Limmer’s Hotel, put on a +metropolitan and somewhat rakish air. + +‘She’s not fit to hold a candle to my mistress,’ retorted Mowser. + +‘Not such a reg’lar style of beauty, perhaps, but more taking, more +“chick,”’ said the valet. + +‘I don’t know what you mean by “chick.” She’s a born flirt. Perhaps +that’s what you mean. She’s her mother all over, worse luck for her! +the same ways, the same looks, the same tones of voice. I wish she was +out of the house. I never feel safe or comfortable about her. She’s +like a dagger hanging over my head; and I don’t know when she may drop.’ + +‘It’s a pity she refused young Turchill,’ said Jinman. ‘He’s the right +sort. But as he still hangs on, I suppose she means to have him sooner +or later.’ + +‘No, she don’t. _That’s_ not her meaning,’ answered Mowser with +significance. + +‘What does she mean, then?’ + +‘I know what she means. I know her; much better than her poor innocent +sister does. Masks and artifexes ain’t no use with me. I can read her. +Mr. Turchill ain’t good enough for her. She wants someone better than +him. But she won’t succeed in her mackinventions, while Mowser is by to +file her—double-faced as she is.’ + +There was a subtlety about Mowser this evening which her +fellow-servants were hardly able to follow. They all liked Daphne, +for her pretty looks and bright girlish ways, yet, with that love of +slander and mystery which is common to humanity in all circles, they +rather inclined to hear Mowser hint darkly at the girl’s unworthiness. +They all preferred the slandered to the slanderer; but they listened +all the same. + + * * * * * + +And now Christmas was over, and the night of the Hunt Ball at Stratford +was approaching. It was to be Daphne’s first public appearance; first +dance; first grown-up party of any kind. She was to see the county +people assembled in a multitude for the first time in her life. A few +of them she had seen by instalments at South Hill—callers and diners. +She had been invited by these to various lawn parties: but her sister +had refused all invitations of this kind, wishing that the occasion of +Daphne’s _début_ should be something more brilliant than a mere garden +party, a fool’s paradise of curates and young ladies. + +Daphne looked forward to the night with excitement, but excitement +of that fitful kind which was common to her—now on the tiptoe of +expectation, anon not caring a straw for the entertainment. There had +been the usual talk about gowns; and Aunt Rhoda had insisted upon +coming over to South Hill to give her opinion. + +‘White, of course, for the _débutante_,’ said Madoline. ‘There can be +no question about that.’ + +Mrs. Ferrers screwed up her lips in a severe manner, and looked at +Daphne with a coldly critical stare. + +‘White is so very trying,’ she said, as if Daphne’s were not a beauty +that could afford to be tried; ‘and then it has such a bridal air. +I daresay there will be half-a-dozen brides at the ball. I know of +two—Mrs. Toddlington, and Mrs. Frank Lothrop.’ + +‘I don’t think Daphne need fear comparison with either of those,’ +answered Madoline, looking fondly at her sister, who was sitting on +a cushion at her feet, turning over a book of fashion plates. ‘Well, +darling, do you see anything there you would like?’ + +‘Nothing. Every one of the dresses is utterly hideous; stiff, +elaborate; fantastical, without being artistic; gaged and puffed and +pleated, and festooned and fringed and gimped. Please dress me for the +ball as you have always dressed me, out of your own head, Lina, without +any help from Miss Piper’s fashion plates.’ + +‘Shall I, dear? Would you really prefer that to choosing something in +the very last fashion?’ + +‘Infinitely.’ + +‘Then I’ll tell you what it shall be. I will dress you like a portrait +by Sir Joshua. The richest white satin that money can buy, made as +simply as Miss Piper can possibly be persuaded to make it. A little +thin lace, cloudlike, about your neck and arms, and my small pearl +necklace for your only ornament.’ + +‘Madoline, do you think it is wise of you to let Daphne appear in +borrowed plumes?’ asked Mrs. Ferrers severely. ‘It may be giving her +wrong ideas.’ + +‘They shall not be borrowed plumes. The necklace shall be my New Year’s +gift to you, Daphne, darling.’ + +‘No, no, Lina. I am not going to despoil you of your jewels. I have +always thought it was dreadfully bad of the Jewesses to swindle the +Egyptians before they crossed the Red Sea, even though they were told +to do it.’ + +‘Daphne!’ screamed Aunt Rhoda; ‘your profanity is something too +shocking.’ + +‘My pet, I am not going to be contradicted,’ said Lina, not remarking +upon this reproof. ‘The little necklace is yours henceforward. I have +more jewellery than I can ever wear.’ + +‘It was your mother’s, Madoline, and you ought to respect it.’ + +‘It was my mother’s nature to give, and not to hoard, Aunt Rhoda. She +would have been ashamed of a selfish daughter. Will that do, Daphne? +The white satin and old Mechlin lace, and just one spray of stephanotis +in your hair?’ + +‘Nothing could be prettier, Lina.’ + +‘What are you going to wear yourself, Madoline?’ asked Mrs. Ferrers +with a dissatisfied air. ‘I suppose you are going to indulge in a new +gown.’ + +‘I have hardly made up my mind to be so extravagant. There is the +gold-coloured satin I had for the dinner at Warwick Castle.’ + +‘Much too heavy for a ball. No, you must have something new, Lina, if +it be only to keep me in countenance. I had quite made up my mind to +wear that pearl-gray sicilienne which you all so much admired; but the +Rector insisted upon my getting a new gown from Paris.’ + +‘From Worth?’ + +‘Can you suppose I could be so extravagant? No, Lina; when I venture +upon a French gown I get it from a little woman on a third floor in the +Rue Vivienne. She was Worth’s right hand some years ago, and she has +quite his style. I tell her what colours I should like, and how much +money I am prepared to spend, and she does all the rest without giving +me any trouble.’ + +It was decided that Madoline should have a new gown of the palest +salmon, or blush-rose colour; something which would look well with +a profusion of those exquisite tea-roses which MacCloskie produced +grudgingly in the winter-tide, burning as much coal in the process +as if he were steaming home from China with the first of the +tea-gatherings, and wanted to be beforehand with the rest of the +trade. Mrs. Ferrers made a good many objections to Daphne’s white +satin, and was convinced it would be unbecoming to her; also that +it would be wanting in style; yet it would be conspicuous, if not +positively _outré_. But Lina had made up her mind, and was a person of +considerable decision on occasions. Whatever the colour or material +chosen, Aunt Rhoda would have objected to it, as she had not been +called upon to advise in the matter. + +‘Well, Lina, my dear, I must go home and give the Rector his afternoon +tea,’ she said, rising and putting on her fur-lined mantle. ‘I might +have spared myself the trouble of walking over to discuss the ball +dresses. You haven’t wanted my advice.’ + +‘It was very sweet of you to come all the same, auntie,’ said Lina, +kissing her, ‘and we might have wanted you badly. Besides, your advice +is going to be taken. It is to please you that I am going to have a new +gown—which I really don’t want.’ + +‘Be sure Miss Piper makes your waist longer. The last was too short. +She is not a patch upon my little Frenchwoman. But you are so bent upon +employing the people about you.’ + +‘I like to spend my money near home, auntie.’ + +‘Even if you are rewarded by being made a guy. Well, at your age, and +with your advantages, you can afford to be careless. I can’t.’ + +New Year’s Day passed very quietly. There was much less fuss about +the new year at South Hill than there had been at Madame Tolmache’s +twelve months ago; where the young ladies had prepared a stupendous +surprise—of which she was perfectly aware a month beforehand—for that +lady, in the shape of an embroidered sofa-cushion; and where the pupils +presented each other with boxes of sweetmeats, and gushed exceedingly, +in sentiments appropriate to the occasion. + +Except that Daphne found the pearl necklace in a little old-fashioned +red morocco case under her pillow when she awoke on that first dawn of +the year, the day might have been the same as other days. She sat up +in her little curtainless bed, with the necklace in her hand, looking +straight before her, into the wintry landscape, into the new year. + +‘What is it going to be like for me? What is it going to bring me?’ +she asked herself, her eyes slowly filling with tears, her face and +attitude, even to the listless hand which loosely held the string of +pearls, expressive of a dejection that was akin to despair. ‘What will +this new-born year bring me? Not happiness. No, that could not be—that +can never be. I lost the hope of that a year and a half ago—on one +foolish, never-to-be-forgotten summer day. If I had died before that +day—if I had taken the fever like those other girls, and had it badly, +and died of it, would it not have been a better fate than to be always +fluttering on the edge of happiness; wickedly, wildly happy sometimes +when I am with him—wretched when he is away; guilty always—guilty +to her, my best and my dearest; shameful to myself; lost to honour; +conscience-stricken, miserable?’ + +Her tears fell thick and fast now, and for some moments she wept +passionately, greeting the new year with tears. Then, growing calmer, +she lifted the pearls to her lips, and kissed them tenderly. + +‘It shall be a talisman,’ she said to herself. ‘White gift from a white +soul, pure and perfect as the giver. Yes, it shall be a charm. I will +sin no more. I will think of him no more of whom to think is sin. I +will shut him out of my heart. My love, I will forget you! My love, who +held my hand that summer day, and read my fate there—an evil fate—yes, +for is it not evil to love you? my love, who stole my heart with sweet +low words and magical looks—looks and words that meant nothing to you, +but all the world—more than the world—to me. Oh, I must find some way +of forgetting you. I must teach myself to be proud. It is so mean, so +degrading, to go on loving where I have never been loved. If he knew +it, how he would despise me! I would die rather than he should know!’ + +Hard to face a new-born year in such a temper as this, with a heart +heavily burdened by a fatal secret; all the world, to outward seeming, +smiles and sunshine. For what care could such a girl as Daphne have, a +girl who had no more need for the serious consideration of life than +the lilies have? All without sunshine and turtle-doves; all within, +darkness and scorpions. + +When she was dressed, save for the putting on of her warm winter gown, +Daphne clasped the necklace round her throat. The pearls were not +whiter or more perfectly shaped than the neck they clasped. + +‘I must wear my talisman always,’ she thought, as she fastened the +snap. ‘Let me be like the prince in the fairy tale, whose ring used to +remind him by a sharp little stab when he was drifting into sin.’ + +She went downstairs in a somewhat more cheerful mood than that of her +first awaking. There was comfort in the pearls. She kissed her sister +lovingly, kneeling by her side as she thanked her for the New Year’s +gift. There was an open jewel-case on the breakfast-table, and beside +it a basket of summer flowers—a basket that had come straight from the +sunny south, from the winterless flower-gardens on the shores of the +Mediterranean. + +Daphne looked at the jewels first—a low thing in human nature, but +inevitable. The case contained a sapphire cross, the stones large and +lustrous, perfect in their deep azure, and set in the lightest, most +delicate mounting—a cross which a princess might hold choicest amongst +all her jewels. The flowers were roses, camellias, violets, and a +curious thorny-stemmed orange-blossom. + +‘Oh, Lina,’ cried Daphne; ‘orange-blossom with thorns! Isn’t that an +evil omen?’ + +‘I hope not, dear, but I like the other kind best. This is almost too +spiky to put in a flower-glass. But wasn’t it good of Gerald to get +these flowers sent over from Nice for a New Year’s greeting?’ + +‘Oh, it was he who sent them?’ + +‘Who else? There was a little note at the bottom of the basket; and +see, this lovely camellia bud is labelled “For Daphne.”’ + +‘“There’s rue for you,”’ quoted Daphne, with her half bitter smile. +‘Yes, it was very polite of him to remember my existence.’ + +‘There is something else for you, darling—a locket, which Gerald asks +me to give you from him. He hopes you will wear it at your first ball.’ + +She opened a small blue velvet case, and Daphne beheld an oval locket +of dead dull gold with a diagonal band of sapphires. It had a kind of +moonlight effect which was very fascinating. + +‘No,’ said Daphne gently, but with unmistakable resolve; ‘I will accept +jewels from no one but you. You can afford to give me all I shall ever +want, and it is a pleasure to you to give—I know that, dearest—and to +me to receive. I cannot accept Mr. Goring’s gift, although I appreciate +his kindness in offering it.’ + +‘Daphne! He will be dreadfully wounded.’ + +‘No, he won’t. He will understand that I have a touch of pride. From my +sister all the benefits in the world; but from him nothing—except this +cold white bud!’ + +She put it to her lips involuntarily, unconsciously; but the contact of +the flower he had touched thrilled her with mysterious passion—as if it +were his very soul that touched her soul. She shivered and turned pale. + +‘My pet, you are looking so ill this morning, so cold and wretched,’ +said Madoline, looking up from fond contemplation of her lover’s gifts +just in time to see that white wan look of Daphne’s. + +‘I am well enough, but it is a cold wretched morning,’ answered +Daphne, as she bent over the fire, spreading out her dimpled +hands before the blaze. ‘Don’t you think New Year’s Day is a +horrid anniversary?—beginning everything over again from a fresh +starting-point; tempting one to think about the future; obliging one +to look back at the past and be sorry for having wasted another year. +You will go to church, I suppose, and take your dose of remorse in an +orthodox form!’ + +‘Won’t you come with me, Daphne? Everyone ought to go to church on New +Year’s Day, even if it were not a sacred anniversary.’ + +‘Yes, I’ll come, if you like. I may as well be there as anywhere else.’ + +‘My darling, is that the way to speak or to think about it?’ + +‘I don’t know. I’m afraid I am desperately irreligious. If I had +ever found religion do me any good I might be more seriously-minded, +perhaps. But when I pray, my prayers seem to come back to me unheard. I +am always asking for bread, and getting a stone.’ + +‘Dearest, there can be but one reason for that. You do not pray +rightly. Constant, fervent prayer never failed yet to bring a blessing: +perhaps not the very blessing we have asked for, but something purer, +higher—the peace of God which passeth all understanding. That for the +most part is God’s answer to faithful prayer.’ + +‘Perhaps that is it. I pray in a half-hearted way. “My words fly up, +my thoughts remain below.” I am anchored too heavily to this wicked +world. I stretch out my hands to heaven, but not my heart: that is of +the earth earthy.’ + +‘Come to church, dear, and this solemn day will bring serious thoughts.’ + +‘I would go if it were only for the sake of going a little way towards +heaven with you. Yes, Lina dearest, I will go and kneel by your side, +and pray to become more like you.’ + +‘A poor example,’ answered Madoline, smiling. + +And now Sir Vernon entered, pale and drawn after his late illness, but +erect and dignified. There were no family prayers at South Hill, and +there never had been since the first Lady Lawford’s death. Sir Vernon +went to church on Sunday morning, when he considered himself well +enough, but all other religious offices he performed in the seclusion +of his own rooms. There was therefore no morning muster for prayers, +and the servants at South Hill were free to choose their own road to +heaven. + +Madoline rose to greet her father with loving New Year wishes. Daphne +kept her kneeling attitude by the fire, with her face turned towards +the blaze, feeling that good wishes from her would be a superfluity. + +‘My years must always be happy while I have you, dearest,’ said Sir +Vernon, kissing his elder daughter; and then, with some touch of +gentlemanly feeling, bethinking himself of the child he did not love, +he laid his hand lightly on Daphne’s golden head. + +‘Good morning, Daphne. A happy New Year to you!’ he said gently. + +She silently turned from the fire, took her father’s hand, and raised +it to her lips. It was the first time she had ever done such a thing: +a little gush of spontaneous feeling, and the father’s heart was +touched—touched, albeit, like all Daphne’s graces, this little bit of +girlish graciousness recalled her mother’s fatal charms. + +‘“Bless me, even me also, O my father!”’ she exclaimed, recalling one +of the most pathetic passages of Holy Writ. + +‘God bless and prosper you, my dear.’ + +‘Thank you, papa. That is a good beginning for the year,’ said Daphne, +stifling a sob. ‘I don’t think I shall feel like Esau any more.’ + +‘My dearest, what comparisons you make,’ cried Madoline. ‘In what have +you ever been like Esau? Have I ever cheated you?’ + +‘Not willingly, darling,’ answered Daphne, nestling close beside +Madoline as she began to pour out Sir Vernon’s tea. ‘You are my +benefactress, my guardian angel. Is it your fault if I belong by nature +and pedigree to the tribe of Ishmael?’ + + + + +CHAPTER XX. + +‘AL SODENLY SHE SWAPT ADOWN TO GROUND.’ + + +The second week of January was half over, and it was the night of the +Hunt Ball. What girl of eighteen, were her breast ever so gnawed by +secret cark and care, could refrain from giving way to some excitement +upon the occasion of her first dance, and that a dance which was +to be danced by all Warwickshire’s beauty and chivalry—a dance as +distinguished, from a local standpoint, as that famous assembly in +Belgium’s capital, which was scared by the thunder of distant guns, the +prelude of instant war? + +Daphne gave herself up wholly to the delight of the hour. She had been +unusually cheerful and equable in her temper since New Year’s Day. +That parental blessing, freely and ungrudgingly given, seemed to have +sweetened her whole nature. She went to church with Madoline, and +prayed with all her heart and soul, and listened without impatience to +a string of seasonable platitudes, culled from the elder divines, and +pronounced in a humdrum style of elocution by the Reverend Marmaduke +Ferrers. She had been altogether blameless in her bearing and her +conduct in this new-fledged year: so much so that Mrs. Ferrers had +deigned to concede, with chilly patronage, that Daphne was beginning to +become a reasonable being. + +She had been fighting her inward battle honestly and bravely. She had +avoided as much as possible that society which was so poisonously sweet +to her. She had been less exacting to her devoted slave, Edgar. She had +given more time to improving studies. She had taken up Mendelssohn’s +Lieder, and practised them industriously, breathing, ah! too much +soul into the pathetic passages, dwelling too fondly on the deep +ground-swell of melody, which carries a passionate heart along on its +fierce tide, and, in its fervid feeling and exaltation of spirit, is +akin to the actual triumph of a happy love. + +Unconscious of the danger, and resolutely bent on curing herself of a +futile foolish attachment, she yet fed her passion with the fatal food +of poetry and music, finding in every heroine she most admired, from +Juliet to Enid, a love as inevitably doomed to misery as her own. But +all the while she was earnest in her desire to forget. + +‘If my namesake, in the pride of her purity, could fly from a god who +adored her, surely it cannot be hard for me to harden my heart against +a man who does not care a straw for me,’ she told herself scornfully. + +The day of the Hunt Ball brought pleasure enough to thrust aside every +other thought. Miss Piper had done as well as if she had been born and +bred in Paris. Daphne’s white satin gown fitted the slim and supple +figure to perfection. It was not the ivory tint of late years, but that +exquisite pearly white, with a blackish tint in the shadows, which one +sees in old pictures. Daphne, with her wavy hair coiled at the back of +her beautifully-shaped head, and with just one spray of stephanotis +nestling in the coils, looked like a Juliet painted by Sir Joshua. It +was Juliet’s dress, as Juliet used to be dressed by actresses of an age +less given to the research of correctness and elaboration in costume. +The single string of pearls on the pearly neck, the bodice modestly +draping the lovely shoulders, the round white arms peeping from +elbow-sleeves of satin and lace, the long loose gloves, the slender +feet in white satin sandalled shoes, meant for dancing—not in those +impossible high-heeled instruments of torture which Parisian bootmakers +have inflicted on weak woman—all had something of an old-fashioned air; +but it was a very lovely old fashion, and Madoline was delighted with +the result. + +‘Rather _outré_, don’t you think?’ said Mrs. Ferrers, sourly +contemplative of Daphne’s fresh young beauty, which made her own +complexion look so much yellower than usual, when she happened to +glance across the girl’s shoulder at her own face in the big cheval +glass. ‘A little too suggestive of Kate Greenaway’s Baby Books.’ + +She was trying to settle herself in her panoply of state, a gorgeous +arrangement in ruby velvet and cream-coloured satin, which the little +Frenchwoman in the Rue Vivienne had only sent off in time to reach Mrs. +Ferrers two hours ago, after keeping her in an agony of mind for the +last three days. It was a very splendid gown, so slashed, and draped, +and festooned, that it was a mystery how it could ever be put together. +The velvet cuirass was laced up the back with thick gold cord, and +fitted like a strait-waistcoat; and the ruby scarf was fringed with +heavy bullion, which drooped above a stormy sea of cream-coloured +satin, that went billowing and surging round the lady’s legs till +it met a long narrow streak of ruby velvet lined with satin, which +meandered for about twelve feet along the floor. That Mrs. Ferrers must +be a nuisance to herself and everybody else in such a dress no one +in their senses could doubt; but then on the other hand the gown was +undoubtedly in the latest fashion, and was one which must evoke a pang +of envy in every female breast. + +‘I don’t wonder you look disdainfully at my short petticoats, Aunt +Rhoda,’ said Daphne, smiling at the effect of her sandalled ankles as +she pirouetted before the looking-glass; ‘but I think, when it comes to +dancing, I shall be better off than you with your velvet train.’ + +‘I am not likely to dance much,’ answered Mrs. Ferrers, with dignity. +‘Indeed, as a clergyman’s wife, I don’t know that I shall dance at +all.’ + +‘Then you will have to sit with your train coiled round your feet to +prevent people walking on it, and that will be worse,’ retorted Daphne. + +It was a clear cold night, with a brilliant moon—a glorious night for a +country drive—frosty, but not severe enough to make the roads slippery; +besides, Boiler and Crock were the kind of horses that nobody hesitates +to have roughed on occasion. + +Sir Vernon had decided on escorting his daughters to the ball. It was +a sacrifice of his own ease and comfort, but he felt that the occasion +required it. + +‘I shall stay an hour,’ he said, ‘and then Rodgers can drive me home, +and go back to fetch you later. It won’t hurt the horses going over the +ground a second time.’ + +‘Dear father,’ said Madoline, ‘it is so good of you to go with us.’ + +And now, after a reviving cup of tea, and careful wrapping in fur-lined +cloaks and Shetland shawls, the three ladies and Sir Vernon conveyed +themselves into the roomy landau, and were soon bowling along the +smooth high-road towards Stratford. What a transformed and glorified +place the little town seemed to-night—all lights, and people, and loud +and authoritative constabulary! such an array of fiery-eyed carriages, +three abreast in the wide street in front of The Red Horse! such a +block in the narrower regions about the Town Hall! so much confusion, +despite of such loud endeavours to maintain order! + +It seemed to Daphne as if they were going to sit in the carriage all +night, with the humbler townsfolk peering in at them from the pavement, +and making critical remarks to each other in painfully distinct voices. + +‘Ain’t the fair one pretty?’ ‘The dark one’s the handsomest.’ ‘My eye! +look at the old lady’s diamonds.’ ‘That’s Lord Willerby.’ ‘No, it +ain’t, stoopid.’ ‘I see the coronet on the kerridge.’ ‘My, what lovely +hair she’s got!’ ‘White satin, ain’t it?’ and so on, while cornets and +violins sounded in the distance with distracting melody. + +‘It’ll be dreadful if we have to sit in the street quite all the +evening,’ said Daphne, listening hopelessly to the voice of authority, +with its perpetual ‘Move on, coachman.’ + +They waited about twenty minutes, and then slowly drove up to the +doorway, where the eager faces of the crowd made a hedge on each +side. Difficult to believe that this entrance hall, luminous with +lamps and bright flowers, was the same which gave admittance to such +prosaic beings as town-clerks and vestrymen, justices of the peace +and policemen. Edgar and Gerald were both hovering near the doorway, +waiting for the South Hill party: Edgar, at the risk of being accused +of deserting his mother, whom he had established in a comfortable +corner of the ball-room, and then incontinently left to her own +reflections, or to such conversation as she might be able to find +among sundry other dowagers arrived at the same wall-flower stage of +existence. + +‘I thought you were never coming,’ said Edgar, offering Daphne his arm, +and in a manner appropriating her. + +‘I thought we were going to spend the evening in the street,’ answered +Daphne. + +Gerald gave his arm to Madoline; Sir Vernon followed with his sister, +whose high-heeled Louis Quinze shoes matched her gown to perfection, +but were not adapted for locomotion. Happily she was a light and +active figure, and managed to trip up the broad oak stairs somehow; +though she felt as if her feet had been replaced by the primitive +style of wooden leg, the mere dot-and-go-one drumstick, with which the +Chelsea pensioner used to be accommodated before the days of elaborate +mechanical arrangements in cork and metal. + +The ball-room was already crowded, the South Hill party having arrived +late, by special desire of Aunt Rhoda, who strongly objected to be +among those early comers who roam about empty halls dejectedly, taking +the chill off the atmosphere for the late arrivals. Dancing was in full +swing, and the assembly in the big ball-room made a blaze of colour +against the delicate French-gray walls; the pink of the fox-hunters, +and the uniforms of the officers from Warwick and Coventry, showing +vividly amongst the pale and airy drapery of their partners. There were +more than two hundred in the room already, Edgar told Daphne, as he +pointed out the more striking features of the scene. + +‘I daresay there’ll be nearer three hundred before midnight,’ he said. +‘It’s going to be a grand affair. Only once in two years, you see: +people save themselves up for it. A lot of fellows in pink, aren’t +they?’ + +‘Yes. Why didn’t you wear a scarlet coat? It’s much prettier than +black.’ + +‘Do you really think so? If I’d known—’ faltered Edgar. ‘But I felt +sure you would have laughed at me if I’d sported the swallow-tail I +wear at hunt dinners sometimes.’ + +‘I daresay I should,’ Daphne answered coolly; ‘but you’d have looked +ever so much nicer all the same.’ + +Edgar felt regretful. He had debated with himself that question of pink +or no pink; and the thought of Daphne’s possible ridicule had turned +the scale in favour of sober black; and now she told him he would have +looked better in the more distinctive garb. And there were fellows who +could hardly jump a drain-pipe showing off in their Poole or Smallpage +coats, and giving themselves Nimrod airs which imposed upon the sweet +simplicity of their partners. + +The room was a noble room, long and lofty, divided from a spacious +antechamber by a wide square doorway, supported by classic pillars. +Over this doorway was the open gallery for the band. The ball-room +was lighted by a large central chandelier, and two sun-burners in the +ceiling; while from lyre-shaped medallions on the walls projected +modern gas brackets in imitation of old-fashioned girandoles of the +wax-candle period. + +There were four full length portraits on the walls: the Duke of Dorset, +by Romney; a portrait of Queen Anne, as uninteresting as that harmless +lady was in the flesh. The remaining two pictures had to do with the +local divinity. One was Gainsborough’s portrait of Garrick, leaning +against the bust of Shakespeare; the other was the poet seated, in his +habit as he lived, by Wilson. + +‘You see,’ said Gerald, close behind Daphne, ‘there is the Warwickshire +idol. One can’t get away from him. Why can these bucolics worship +nothing but the intellectual emanation of their soil? Why not a little +homage to muscular Christianity, in the person of Guy, Earl of Warwick, +a paladin of the first water, a man who rescued damsels, and fought +with giants and dun cows, and was strong and brave, and faithful, +pious, self-sacrificing, devoted in every act of his life? There is a +hero worthy of worship. Yet you all ignore him, and bow down before +this golden calf of a dramatist, who sued his friend for a twopenny +loan, and left the wife of his bosom a second-best bedstead—a paltry +fellow beside Guy, the hero-hermit, living on bread and water, and only +revealing himself at his death to the wife he adored.’ + +‘Guy was a very nice person, if one could quite believe in the giant +and the dun cow,’ said Daphne. + +‘I believe implicitly in Colbrand the giant,’ answered Gerald, ‘but I +own I have never been able to swallow the monster cow; and I am all +the more inclined to repudiate her because her bones were on view at +Warwick in Shakespeare’s time.’ + +‘And it was very sweet of him to end his days so quietly in the +hermit’s cave at Guy’s Cliff,’ pursued Daphne, who was well versed in +all Warwickshire lore, chiefly by oral instruction from Edgar, ‘and +to take alms from his own wife every morning, as one of the thirteen +beggars she was in the habit of relieving; though I have never quite +understood why he did it. But in spite of all these grand acts of Guy’s +we know nothing of the man himself, while Shakespeare is like one’s +brother. He has sounded the deep of every mind, and has given us the +treasures of his own.’ + +‘I suspect he would rather have given anything than his money,’ +retorted Gerald. + +They had penetrated to Mrs. Turchill’s corner by this time. That matron +was looking the picture of disconsolate solitude—the dowager with whom +she had been talking about her servants and her tradespeople having +left her to look after a brace of somewhat go-ahead daughters, who +in pale blue silk jerseys, and tight cream-coloured cashmere skirts, +looked very much as if they were attired for some acrobatic performance. + +‘I am so glad you have come,’ exclaimed poor Mrs. Turchill, brightening +at the sight of Madoline. ‘The room is dreadfully crowded, and there +are so many strangers.’ This was said resentfully, no stranger having +any more right to be present, from Mrs. Turchill’s point of view, than +Pentheus at his mother’s party. ‘I feel as if I hardly knew a creature +here.’ + +‘Oh, mother, when there are the Hilldrops, and the Westerns, and the +Hilliers, and the Perkinses,’ remonstrated Edgar, running over a string +of names. + +‘All I can say is that if there are any of my friends in the room no +one has taken the trouble to bring them to me,’ retorted Mrs. Turchill. +‘And for any enjoyment I have had from the society of my friends I +might as well be at that horrid Academy conversazione for which you +took so much trouble to get tickets the year before last, and where I +was jammed into a corner of the sculpture room half the evening, with +rude young women sitting upon me.’ + +Here Sir Vernon and Mrs. Ferrers approached, and Mrs. Turchill resumed +her company smile in honour of people of such importance. Aunt Rhoda +had been exchanging greetings with the cream of the county people +during her leisurely progress through the rooms, and felt that her gown +was a success, and that the little woman in the Rue Vivienne was worthy +of her hire. Everybody was looking at Daphne. Her youth and freshness, +her vivid smiles and natural girlish animation, as she conversed +now with Edgar, and anon with Gerald, fascinated everyone; it was a +manner entirely without reserve, yet with no taint of forwardness or +coquetry—the manner of a happy child, whose sum of life was bounded +by the delight of the moment, rather than of a woman conscious of her +loveliness, and knowing herself admired. + +‘Who is that pretty girl in the white satin frock—the girl like an +old picture?’ people were asking, somewhat to the annoyance of older +stagers in the beauty-trade, who felt that here was a new business +opened, which threatened competition, stock-in-trade of the best +quality, and perfectly fresh. + +One young lady, whose charms had suffered the wear and tear of seven +seasons, contemplated Daphne languidly through her eye-glass, and +summed her up with scornful brevity as ‘the little Gainsborough girl!’ + +‘Quite too lovely, for the next six months,’ said another, ‘but her +beauty depends entirely on her complexion. A year hence she will have +lost all that brightness, and will be a very wishy-washy little person.’ + +‘And then I suppose she’ll paint, as the others do, don’t you know,’ +drawled her partner; ‘carmine her lips, and all that sort of thing.’ + +The lady looked at him suspiciously out of the corner of a carefully +darkened eyelid. + +‘Let us hope she won’t sink quite so low as that,’ she said with +dignity. + +There was no doubt as to Daphne’s triumph. Before she had been an hour +in the room, she was the acknowledged belle of the ball. People went +out of their way to look at her. She walked once round the rooms on +her father’s arm, and in that slow and languid progress held, as it +were, her first court. It was her first public appearance; her father’s +friends clustered round him, eager to be presented to the _débutante_. +Stately dowagers begged that she might be made known to them. All the +best people in the room knew Sir Vernon, and all professed a friendly +desire to know his younger daughter. Her card was full before she knew +what she was doing. + +‘Our little Daphne is a success!’ said Gerald to his betrothed, as they +glided round the room in a languorous troistemps. ‘All the Apollos are +running after her.’ + +‘I am so glad. Dear child! It is such a pleasure to see her happy,’ +answered Madoline softly. + +‘I hope her head won’t be turned by all this adulation. It is such a +poor little puff-ball of a head. I sometimes fancy she has thistledown +inside it instead of brains.’ + +‘Indeed, dear, she has plenty of sense and serious feeling,’ +remonstrated Madoline, wounded by this allegation. ‘But she is +painfully sensitive. She needs very tender treatment.’ + +‘Poor butterfly!’ + +‘Do you like her dress?’ + +‘It is simply perfect. Your taste, of course.’ + +‘Yes; she let me have my own way in the matter.’ + +‘And as a reward she is looking her loveliest. It is not the calm +beauty of a princess, like my Lina’s; but for a spoiled-child kind of +prettiness, capricious, mutinous, variable, there could be nothing +better.’ + +Later he was at Daphne’s side, as she sat in a corner by her aunt, with +half-a-dozen young men hovering near, Edgar nearest of all, holding her +fan. + +‘I suppose you have saved at least one dance for me, Empress,’ he said, +taking her programme from her hand. + +‘I don’t know. All sorts of people have been writing down their names.’ + +‘All sorts of people,’ echoed Gerald, examining the card. ‘You will be +a little more respectful about your partners in your seventh or eighth +season. Why, here, under various hieroglyphics, are the very topmost +strawberries in the social basket—masters of fox-hounds, eldest sons of +every degree, majors and colonels—and not one little waltz left for +me! I claim you for the first extra.’ + +‘I—I’m rather afraid I’m engaged for the extras.’ + +‘No matter. You were solemnly engaged to me for one particular waltz +when first this ball was spoken of at South Hill. You don’t remember, +perhaps; but I do. I claim my bond. I will be a very Shylock in the +exaction of my due.’ + +‘If you were a better Shakespearian it would occur to you that Shylock +got nothing,’ retorted Daphne, smiling up at him. + +‘He was an old idiot. Remember, the first extra valse. We shall meet at +Philippi.’ + +He was off to claim Lina for the Lancers. It was the last dance before +supper. Sir Vernon had disappeared ever so long ago. Mrs. Ferrers was +standing up with a major of dragoons, in all the splendour of his +uniform, and felt that she and her partner made an imposing picture. +Edgar and Daphne were sitting out this square dance on the stairs, +the girl somewhat exhausted by much waltzing, the man exalted to the +seventh heaven of bliss at being permitted to bear her company. + +‘May I take you down to supper?’ he asked. + +‘Thanks; no. My last partner—the man in the red coat——’ + +‘Clinton Chetwynd, master of the Harrowby Harriers?’ interjected Edgar. + +‘Told me that the best dancing will be when two-thirds of the people +are gormandising downstairs. You can get me an ice, if you like.’ + +Edgar obeyed; but when he came back with the ice Daphne had vanished +from the landing, and he got himself entangled in a block of people +struggling down to supper. + +The rooms below—those solemn halls in which on ordinary occasions +the local offender stood at the bar of justice to answer for his +misdeeds—were now a scene of glitter and gaiety; flower-wreathed +épergnes, barley-sugar pagodas, and all the tinselly splendour of a +ball-supper. Bar, and bench, and magisterial chairs had vanished as +if by magic. The magistrate’s private apartment and the justice hall +had been thrown into one spacious banqueting-chamber, where even the +proverbial greediness of the best society—the people who tread upon +each other’s toes and rush for the grapes and peaches at Buckingham +Palace—might be satisfied without undue scrambling. But though there +would have been room for him at the banquet, and although there were +any number of eligible young ladies waiting to be taken down, Edgar +scorned the idea of a supper which Daphne did not care for. To have +sat by her, squeezed into some impossible corner of a rout-seat, to +have fought for lobster-salad for her, and guarded her frock from the +ravages of awkward people, and pulled cracker bon-bons with her, would +have been bliss; but the festal board without her would be every whit +as funereal a banquet as the famous sable feast at which that cheerful +practical joker Domitian entertained his courtiers. + +Mr. Turchill found a good-natured fox-hunter to take his mother down, +and having seen that lady’s silver-gray satin—newly done up with violet +velvet by Miss Piper for the occasion—making its deliberate way down +the broad staircase, on the sportsman’s sturdy scarlet arm, Edgar went +back to the almost empty ball-room, where about fifteen or twenty +couples were revolving to the last sugary-sweet German waltz, ‘_Glaubst +du nicht_?’ + +Daphne and Gerald were amongst these; Madoline was sitting with some +girl-friends in the entrance of one of the windows, and to this point +Edgar made his way. + +‘You’ve not been down to supper,’ he remarked, by way of saying +something original. + +‘Do you know, I don’t much care about going down. If Gerald +particularly wishes it I shall go after this dance; but I think I +should enjoy a sandwich and a cup of tea when I get home better than +the scramble downstairs.’ + +The waltzers were dropping off by degrees; but Gerald and Daphne still +went on revolving with gliding languid steps to the dreamy melody. They +moved in exquisite harmony, although this was the first time they had +ever waltzed together. Never in the twilight dances at South Hill had +Mr. Goring asked Daphne to be his partner. He had been content to stand +outside in the porch, smoking his cigarette, and looking on, while she +and Edgar waltzed, or to take a few lazy turns afterwards with Madoline +to Daphne’s music. To-night for the first time his arm encircled her; +her sunlit head rested against his shoulder. It seemed to him that his +hand had never clasped hers since that summer day at Fontainebleau, +just a year and a half ago; when they had stood by the golden water, +with the hungry-eyed carp watching them, and a sky of molten gold above +their heads. They had been far apart since that day; dissevered by +an impalpable abyss; and now for the moment they were one, united by +that love-sick melody, their pulses stirred by the same current. Was +it strange that in such a moment Gerald Goring forgot all the world +except this perfect flower of youth and girlhood which he held in his +arms—forgot his betrothed wife, and all her grace and beauty; lived +for the moment, and in the moment only, as butterflies live—with a +past not worth remembering, and annihilation for their only future? As +the dancers dropped off the band played slower and slower, meaning to +expire in a _rallentando_, and those two waltzers gliding round drifted +unawares into the outer and smaller room, where there was no one. + +‘_Glaubst du nicht_?’ sighed the band, ‘_Glaubst du nicht_? _Ach +Liebchen, glaubst du nicht_?’ and with the last sigh of the melody, +Gerald bent his lips over Daphne’s golden hair and breathed a word into +her ear—only one word, wrung from him in despite of himself. But that +one word so breathed from such lips was all the history of a passionate +love which had been fought against in vain. The last sigh of the music +faded as the word was spoken, and Daphne was standing by her partner’s +side white as ashes. + +‘Take me back to my sister, please.’ + +He gave her his arm without a word, and they walked slowly across to +the group by the window; but before Madoline could make room for Daphne +to sit by her side the girl tottered, and would have fallen, if Edgar +had not caught her in his arms. + +‘She is fainting!’ he cried, alarmed. ‘Some water—brandy—something!’ +He wrenched open the window, still holding Daphne on his left arm. +The frosty night-air blew in upon them, keen and cold. Daphne’s white +lips trembled, and the dark gray eyes opened and looked round with +a bewildered expression, as she sank slowly into the seat beside +Madoline, whose arms were supporting and embracing her. + +‘My darling, you have danced too much. You have overexcited yourself,’ +said Lina tenderly; while three or four smelling-bottles came to the +rescue. + +‘Yes; that last dance was too much,’ faltered Daphne, cold and +trembling in her sister’s arms. ‘But I’m quite well now, Lina. It was +nothing. The heat of the room.’ + +‘And you are tired. We’ll go home directly we can find Aunt Rhoda.’ + +‘I’ll go and hunt for her,’ said Gerald, who had been standing vacantly +looking on, his brain on fire, his heart beating tumultuously, the +vulture conscience gnawing his vitals already. + +He had been thinking of Rousseau’s Julie, and that first kiss given in +the bosquet—the fatal first kiss—the beginning of all evil. + +‘My sweeter Julie—so much more lovely—so much more innocent,’ he +thought, as he went slowly downstairs in quest of the ruby velvet +arrangement which contained Mrs. Ferrers. ‘God give me grace to respect +your purity!’ + +The winter wind rushed into the heated ball-room with a sharp chill +breath that was suggestive of another and a colder world, like the +deadly air from a vault, and soon steadied Daphne’s reeling brain. + +‘You see I am not such a good waltzer as I thought I was,’ she said, +looking up at Edgar with a sickly smile. ‘I did not think anything +could make me giddy.’ + +‘You would rather go home now, would you not, dear?’ asked Madoline. +‘You have had enough of the ball.’ + +‘More than enough.’ + +‘Let me fetch your wraps from the cloak-room,’ said Edgar. ‘It will +save you a good deal of trouble.’ + +‘If you would be so very kind.’ + +‘Delighted. Give me your ticket. Seventy-nine. All under one number, I +suppose.’ + +He ran off, and this time had to stem the tide setting in towards the +ball-room; the young men and maidens who had eaten their supper and +were eager for more dancing. Coming back with a pile of cloaks and +shawls on his arm, he joined Gerald and Mrs. Ferrers, her red-coated +major still in attendance. + +‘What can Daphne mean by making a spectacle of herself at her first +ball?’ asked Aunt Rhoda, not a little aggrieved at being ruthlessly +dragged away from a knot of the very best people, a little group of +privileged ones, which included a countess and two baronets’ wives. +‘But it is just like her.’ + +‘There was no affectation in the matter, I can assure you,’ said Edgar +indignantly; ‘she looked as white as death.’ + +‘Then she should have danced less. I detest any exhibition of that +kind. I am very glad my brother was not here to see it.’ + +‘I think Sir Vernon has had so much reason to be proud of his daughter +this evening that he would readily have forgiven her iniquity in +fainting,’ retorted Edgar, his blood at boiling-point from honest +indignation. + +Daphne, wrapped in a long white cashmere cloak lined with white fur, +looked very pale and ghostlike as she went slowly through the rooms on +Edgar’s arm, attacked on her way by the reproaches of the partners with +whom she was breaking faith by this untimely departure. + +‘I’m awfully sorry,’ she said, with a faint touch of her natural +gaiety, ‘but I’ll pay my debts this time two years. The engagements can +stand over.’ + +When the bi-annual Hunt Ball comes round at Stratford-on-Avon there are +some, perhaps, who will remember her promise, and the pale, pathetic +face, and white-robed figure. + +Five minutes later the three ladies were seated in their carriage, Mrs. +Ferrers still grumbling, while Edgar lingered at the door adjusting +Daphne’s wraps. + +Just as he was going to shut the door, having no excuse for further +delay, Daphne took his hand and clasped it with friendly warmth. + +‘How good you are!’ she said softly, looking up at him with eyes that +to his mind seemed lovelier than all the lights of the firmament, +infinitely glorious on this frosty night in the steel-blue sky. ‘How +good you are! how staunch and true!’ + +It was only well-merited praise, but it moved him so deeply that +he had no power to answer, even by the smallest word. He could only +grasp the slender little hand fervently in his own, and then shut the +carriage-door with a bang, as if to drown the tumult of his own heart. + +‘Home, coachman,’ he called, in a choking voice; an entirely +superfluous mandate, neither coachman, nor footman, nor horses, having +the least idea of going anywhere else. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI. + +‘FOR WELE OR WO, FOR CAROLE, OR FOR DAUNCE.’ + + +Edgar went back to the ball-room with his heart so penetrated with +bliss, that the whole scene had an unreal look to him in its brightness +and gaiety, as if in the next instant dancers, and lights, and music, +and familiar faces might vanish altogether, and leave him suspended in +empty space, alone with his own deep delight. He was as near Berkeley’s +idea of the universe as a man so solid and substantial in his habits +could be. Thought and feeling to-night made up his world; all the +rest might be nothing but a spectral emanation from his own brain. He +lived, he thought, he felt; and his heart and brain were filled with +one idea, and that was Daphne. The ball-room without Daphne, albeit +the Caledonians were just being danced with considerable spirit, was +all falsehood and hollowness. He saw the spurious complexions, the +scanty draperies, all the artificial graces and meretricious charms, +as he had not seen them while she was there. That little leaven had +leavened the whole lump. His eye, gladdened by her presence, had seen +all things fair. But although he was inclined to look contemptuously +upon the crowd in which she was not, the gladness of his heart made him +good-naturedly disposed to all creation. He would have liked to leave +that gay and festive scene immediately; but finding his mother enjoying +herself very much in a snug corner with three other matrons, all in +after-supper spirits, he consented to wait till Mrs. Turchill had seen +one or two more dances. + +‘I like to watch them, Edgar,’ she said, ‘though I feel very thankful +to Providence that we didn’t dance in the same style, or wear such +tight dresses, in my time. I remember reading that they wore scanty +skirts and hardly any bodices in the period of the French Revolution, +and that some of their fashionable women even went so far as to appear +with bare feet, which is almost too revolting to mention. All I can +say is, that I hope the dresses I see to-night are not the signs of an +approaching revolution in England; but I should hardly be surprised +if they were. Do go and get a nice partner and let me see you waltz, +Edgar. You’ve improved wonderfully since the Infirmary Ball last year.’ + +‘I’m glad you think so, mother, but I shan’t dance any more to-night. I +made no engagements for after supper, except with Daphne, and she has +gone home.’ + +‘Oh, the South Hill people have gone, have they? Well, if you’re not +going to dance any more perhaps we may as well be going too,’ said +Mrs. Turchill, perceiving that a good many of the county people were +slipping quietly away, and not wishing to be left with the masses. + +So Edgar, very glad to escape, gave his mother his arm and assisted +her to the cloak-room, where she completely extinguished herself in a +valuable though somewhat old-fashioned set of sables, which covered her +from head to foot, and made her look like a walking haystack. + +How full of happy fancies the young man’s mind was as they drove +through the lanes and cross-country roads to Hawksyard under that +brilliant sky, so peopled with worlds of light—‘gods, or the abodes of +gods;’ he cared to-night no more than Sardanapalus what those stars +might be—with now a view of distant hills, far away towards the famous +Wrekin, a cloudlike spot in the extreme distance, and now vivid gleams +of the nearer river, glittering under those glittering stars. + +‘Isn’t it a delicious night, mother?’ he cried, and only a gentle +snore—a snore expressive of the blissfulness of repose after +exertion—breathed from the matronly mass of furred cloak and hood. + +He was quite alone—glad to be alone—alone with his new sense of +happiness, and the starry night, and the image of his dear love. + +She had spoken him fair; she meant to make him happier than man ever +was upon earth, since the earth could have produced but one Daphne. +She must have meant something by those delicious words, that sweet +spontaneous praise. Unsolicited she had taken his hand and pressed +it with affectionate warmth—she who had been so cold to him—she who +had never evinced one touch of tender feeling before; only a frank, +sisterly kindness, which was more galling than cruelty. And to-night +she had lifted up her eyes and looked at him—eyes so mournfully sweet, +so exquisitely beautiful. + +‘My angel, that marble heart is melted at last,’ he said to himself. +‘Who would not be constant, for such a reward?’ + +He had only been in love with Daphne a little over six months, yet it +seemed to him now that in that half year lay the drama of his life. +All that went before had been only prologue. True that he had fancied +himself in love with Madoline—the lovely and gracious lady of his +youthful dreams—but this was but the false light that comes before +the dawn. He felt some touch of shame at having been so deceived +as to his own feelings. He remembered that afternoon in the meadows +between South Hill and Arden Rectory, when he had poured his woes +into Daphne’s sympathising ears; when she, his idol of to-night, his +idol for evermore, had seemed to him only a pretty school-girl in a +muslin frock. Was she the same Daphne? Was he the same Edgar? She who +now was a goddess in his sight. He who wondered that he could ever +have cared for any other woman. The disciple of Condillac, when he +sits himself down seriously to think out the question whether the +rose which he touches and smells is really an independent existence, +or only exists in relation to his own senses, was never in a more +bewildered condition than honest Edgar Turchill when he remembered how +devotedly, despairingly, undyingly, he had once loved—or fancied that +he loved—Madoline. + +‘Romeo was the same,’ he told himself sheepishly, having taken to +reading Shakespeare of late, to curry favour with that fervid little +Shakespearian, Daphne; ‘madly in love with Rosaline at noon—over head +and ears in love with Juliet before midnight. And critics say that +Shakespeare knew the human heart.’ + +Sleep that night was impossible for the master of Hawksyard. Happily +there was but a brief remnant of the night left in which he need lie +tossing on his sleepless couch, staring at the brown oak panels, where +the reflection of the night-lamp glimmered like a dim starbeam in a +turbid pool. Cold wintry dawn came creeping over the hills, and at the +first streak of daylight he was up and in his icy bath, and then on +with his riding-clothes and away to the stable, where only one sleepy +underling was moving slowly about with a lantern, calling drowsily to +the horses to stand up and come out of a warm stable, in order to be +tied to a wall and have pails of water thrown at them in a cold yard. + +To saddle Black Pearl with his own hands was but five minutes’ work, +and in less than five more he was clattering under the archway and off +to the nearest bit of open country, to take it out of the mare, who had +not done any work for a week, and was in a humour to take a good deal +out of her rider. Edgar this morning felt as if he could conquer the +wildest horse that ever was foaled—nay, the Prince of Darkness himself, +had he been called upon to wrestle with him under an equine guise. + +A hard gallop over a broad expanse of flat common, where the winter +rime lay silver-white above the russet sward, quieted horse and rider; +and, after a long round by lane and wood, Edgar rode quietly back to +Hawksyard between ten and eleven, just in time to find his mother +seated at breakfast, and wondering at her own dissipation. + +After this unusually late breakfast Mr. Turchill went to look at his +horses—a regular thing on a non-hunting morning. ‘I took it out of the +mare,’ he said, as Black Pearl stood reeking in her box, waiting to +cool down before she was groomed. + +‘Indeed you have, sir,’ answered his head man—a faithful creature, but +not ceremonious with a master he adored. ‘You don’t mean hunting her +to-morrow, I suppose?’ + +‘Well, yes, I did, if the weather allows. Don’t you think she’ll be +fit?’ + +‘I think you’ve pretty well whacked her out for the next week to come. +She won’t touch her corn.’ + +‘Poor old woman!’ said Edgar, going into the box and fondling the +beautiful black head. ‘Did we go too fast, my girl? It was as much your +fault as mine, my beauty. I think we were both bewitched; but I must +take the nonsense out of you somehow, before you carry a lady.’ + +‘You didn’t think of putting a lady on that mare, did you, sir?’ asked +the groom. + +‘Yes, I do. I think she’d carry a lady beautifully.’ + +‘So she would, sir; but she wouldn’t carry the same lady twice. There’d +be very little left of the lady when she’d done.’ + +‘Think so, Jarvey? Then we must find something better for the +lady—something as safe as a house, and as handsome as—as paint,’ +concluded Edgar, whose mind was not richly stocked with poetical +similes. ‘If you hear of anything very perfect in the market you can +let me know.’ + +‘Yes, sir.’ + +It seemed early in the day to think of buying a horse for a wife who +was yet to be won; but, encouraged by those few words of Daphne’s, +Edgar saw all the future in so rosy a light that, this morning, +freshened and exhilarated by his long ride, he felt as secure of +happiness as if the wedding-bells were ringing their gay joy-peal over +the flat green fields and winding waters. He was longing to see Daphne +again, to win from her some confirmation of his hope; and now as he +moved about the poultry-yard and gardens he was counting the minutes +which must pass before he could with decency present himself at South +Hill. + +It would not do for him to go there before luncheon. Everybody would +be tired. Afternoon tea-time would perhaps be the more agreeable hour. +It was a period of the day in which women always seemed to him more +friendly and amiable than at any other time—content to lay aside the +most enthralling book, or the newest passion in fancy-work, and to +abandon themselves graciously to the milder pleasures of society. + +The afternoon was so fine that he went on foot to pay his visit, glad +to get rid of the time between luncheon and five o’clock in a leisurely +six-mile walk. It was a delicious walk by meadow, and copse, and +river-side, and although Edgar knew every inch of the way, he loved +nature in all her moods so well that the varying beauties of a frosty +winter afternoon were as welcome to his eye and spirit as the lush +loveliness of midsummer; and he was thinking of Daphne all the way, +picturing her smile of greeting, feeling the thrilling touch of her +hand, warm in his own. + +Madoline, or Sir Vernon, would ask him to dinner, no doubt; and then, +some time during the evening, he would be able to get Daphne all to +himself in the conservatory, on the stairs, in the corridor. His heart +and mind were so full of purpose that he felt what he had to say could +be said briefly. He would ask her if she had not repented her cruelty +that night in the walnut walk; if she had not found out that true love, +even from a somewhat inferior kind of person, was worth having—a jewel +not to be flung under the feet of swine. And then, and then, she would +lift up those sweet eyes to his face—as she had done last night—and +he would clasp her unreproved in his arms, and know himself supremely +blest. Life could hold no more delight. Death might come that moment +and find him content to die. + +It was dusk when he came to South Hill, a frosty twilight, with a +crimson glow of sunset low down in the gray sky, and happy robins +chirruping in the plantations, where the purple rhododendrons flowered +so luxuriantly in spring-time, and where scarlet berries of holly and +mountain ash enlivened the dull dark greenery of winter. The house +on the hill, with its many windows, some shining with firelight from +within, others reflecting the ruddier light in the sky, made a pleasant +picture after a six-mile tramp through a somewhat lonely landscape. It +looked a hospitable house, a house full of happy people, a house where +a man might find a temporary haven from the cares of life. To Edgar’s +eyes the firelight shining from within was like a welcome. + +‘Miss Lawford at home?’ he inquired. + +‘Not at home,’ answered the footman with a decisive air. + +Now there is something much more crushing in the manner of a footman +when he tells you that his people are out than in that of the +homelier parlour-maid who gives the same information. The girl would +fain reconcile you to the blow; she sympathises with you in your +disappointment. Perhaps she offers you the somewhat futile consolation +implied in the fact that her mistress has only just stepped out, or +comforts you with the distant hope that your friend will be home to +dinner. She would be glad if she could to lessen your regret. But the +well-trained man-servant looks at you with the blank and stony gaze of +a blind destiny. His voice is doom. ‘Not at home,’ he says curtly; and +if, perchance, there be any expression in his face, it will be a veiled +scorn, as who should say, ‘Not at home—to you.’ + +But Edgar was in a mood not to be daunted by the most icy of menials—a +Warwickshire bumpkin two years ago, but steeped to the lips in the +languid insolence of May Fair to-day. + +‘Is Miss Daphne Lawford at home?’ he asked. + +The footman believed, with supreme indifference, as if the presence or +absence of a younger daughter who was not an heiress were a question +he could hardly stoop to contemplate, that Miss Daphne Lawford might +possibly be found upon the premises; and he further condescended to +impart the information that Miss Lawford had driven to the Abbey with +Mrs. Ferrers and Mr. Goring to see the improvements. + +‘I’ll go and find her for myself,’ said Edgar, too eager to wait for +forms and ceremonies; ‘I daresay she is in the morning-room.’ + +He passed the servant, and went straight to the pretty room where he +had been so much at home for the last ten years. There were no lamps or +candles; Daphne was sitting alone in the firelight, in one of those low +roomy chairs which modern upholsterers delight in—sitting alone, with +neither book nor work, and Fluff, the Maltese terrier, curled up in her +lap. + +Her eyelids were lowered, and Edgar approached her softly, thinking she +was asleep; but at the sound of his footfall she looked up, gently, +gravely, without any surprise at his coming. + +‘I hope that you are better—quite well, in fact; that you have entirely +recovered from your fatigue last night,’ he began tenderly. + +‘I am quite well,’ she answered almost angrily, and blushing crimson +with vexation. ‘Pray don’t make a fuss about it. Waltzing so long made +me giddy. That was all.’ + +Her snappish tone was a cruel change after her sweetness last night. +Edgar’s heart sank very low at this unexpected rebuff. + +‘You are all alone,’ he said feebly. + +‘Unless you count Fluff and the squirrel, yes. But they are very good +company,’ answered Daphne, brightening a little, and smiling at him +with that provoking kindness, that easy friendliness, which always +chilled his soul. + +It was so hopelessly unlike the feeling he wished to awaken. + +‘Madoline drove to the Abbey with Aunt Rhoda and Mr. Goring directly +after luncheon. The new hot-houses are finished, I believe, at last. I +have been horribly lazy. I only came down an hour ago.’ + +‘I am glad you were able to sleep,’ said Edgar. ‘It was more than I +could do.’ + +‘I suppose nobody ever does sleep much after a ball,’ answered Daphne. +‘The music goes on repeating itself over and over again in one’s brain, +and one goes spinning round in a perpetual imaginary waltz. I was +thinking all last night of Don Ramiro and Donna Clara.’ + +‘Friends of yours?’ inquired Edgar. + +Daphne’s eyes sparkled at the question, but she did not laugh. She only +looked at him with a compassionate smile. + +‘You have never read Heine?’ + +‘Never. Is it interesting?’ + +‘Heinrich Heine? He was a German poet, don’t you know. As great a poet, +almost, as Byron.’ + +‘Unhappily I don’t read German.’ + +‘Oh, but some of his poetry has been translated. The translations are +not much like the original, but still they are something.’ + +‘And who is Don— Ra——what’s-his-name?’ inquired Edgar, still very much +in the dark. + +‘The hero of a ballad—an awful, ghastly, ghostly ballad, ever so much +ghastlier than Alonzo the Brave and the Fair Imogene, and the worms +they crept in, and the worms they crept out, don’t you know. He is +dead, and she has jilted him, and married somebody else; and he has +promised her on the eve of her wedding that he will come to the wedding +feast: and he comes and waltzes with her, and she doesn’t know that +he is dead, and she reproaches him for wearing a black cloak at her +bridal, and she asks him why his cheeks are snow-white and his hands +ice-cold, and they go on whirling round all the time, the trumpets +blowing and the drums beating, and to all she says he gives the same +answer: + + “Said I not that I would come?” + +That awful ballad was in my mind all night, and when I did at last fall +asleep, I dreamt I was at the ball again, and instead of Stratford Town +Hall we were in an old Gothic palace at Toledo and—and—the person I was +dancing with was Don Ramiro. His white dead face looked down at me, and +all the people vanished, and we were dancing alone in the dark cold +hall.’ + +She shuddered at the recollection of her dream, clasping her hands +before her face, as if to shut out some hideous sight. + +‘You ought not to read such poetry,’ said Edgar, deeply concerned. ‘How +can people let you have such books?’ + +‘Oh, there is no harm in the book. You know I adore poetry. Directly +I was able to write a German exercise, I got hold of Heine, and began +to spell out his verses. They are so sweet, so mournful, so full of a +patient despair.’ + +‘You have too much imagination,’ said Edgar. ‘You ought to read sober +solid prose.’ + +‘“Blair’s Lectures,” “Sturm’s Reflections,” “Locke on the +Understanding,”’ retorted Daphne, laughing. ‘No; I like books that take +me out of myself and into another world.’ + +‘But if they only take you into charnel-houses, among ghosts and dead +people, I don’t see the advantage of that.’ + +‘Don’t you? There are times when anything is better than one’s own +thoughts.’ + +‘Why should you shrink from thought?’ asked Edgar tenderly. ‘You can +have nothing painful to remember or think about; unless,’ he added, +seeing an opening, ‘you feel remorseful for having been so cruel to me.’ + +He had drawn his chair close to hers in the firelight—the ruddy, +comfortable light which folded them round like a rosy cloud. She sat +far back in her downy nest, almost buried in its soft depths, her eyes +gazing dreamily at the fire, her sunny hair glittering in the fitful +light. If she had been looking him full in the face, in broad day, +Edgar Turchill could hardly have been so bold. + +‘I did feel very sorry, last night, when you were so good to me,’ she +said slowly. + +‘Good to you! Why, I did nothing!’ + +‘You are so loyal and good. I saw it all last night, as if your heart +had suddenly been spread open before me like a book. I think I read you +plainly last night for the first time. You are faithful and true; a +gentleman to the core of your heart. All men ought to be like that: but +they are not.’ + +‘You can have had very little experience of their shortcomings,’ said +Edgar, his heart glowing at her praise. And then, emboldened, and yet +full of fear, he hastened to take advantage of her humour. ‘If you can +trust me; if you think me in the slightest measure worthy of these +sweet words, which might be a much better man’s crown of bliss, why +will you not make me completely happy? I love you so truly, so dearly, +that, if to have an honest man for your slave can help to make your +life pleasant, you had better take me. I know that I am not worthy of +you, that you are as high above me in intellect, and grace, and beauty, +as the stars are in their mystery and splendour; but a more brilliant +man might not be quite so ready to mould himself according to your +will, to sink his own identity in yours, to be your very slave, in +fact; to have no purpose except to obey you.’ + +‘Don’t!’ cried Daphne. ‘If you were my husband, I should like you to +make me obey. I am not such a fool as to want a slave.’ + +‘Let me be your husband; we can settle afterwards who shall obey,’ +pleaded Edgar, leaning with folded arms upon the broad elbow of her +chair, trying to get as near her as her entrenched position would allow. + +‘I like you very much. After Madoline there is no one I like better,’ +faltered Daphne; ‘but I am not the least little bit in love with you. I +suppose it is wrong to be so candid; but I want you to know the truth.’ + +‘If you like me well enough to marry me, I am content.’ + +‘Really and truly? Content to accept liking instead of love; confidence +and frank straightforward friendship instead of sentiment or romance?’ + +‘I do not care a straw for romance. And to be liked and trusted——well, +that is something. So long as there is no one else you have ever liked +better——’ + +The face turned towards the fire quivered with the passing of a strong +emotion, but Edgar could only see the thick ripple a of golden hair +making a wavy line above the delicate ear, and the perfect outline of +the throat, rising out of its soft lace ruffle like the stem of a lily +from among its leaves. + +‘Who else is there for me to like?’ she asked with a faint laugh. + +‘Then, dearest, I would rather have your liking than any other woman’s +love: and it shall go hard with me if liking do not grow to love before +our lives are ended,’ said Edgar, clasping the hand that lay inert upon +Fluff’s silky back. + +The Maltese resented the liberty by an ineffectual snap. + +‘Please, don’t—don’t think it quite settled yet,’ cried Daphne, scared +by this hand-clasp, which seemed like taking possession of her. ‘You +must give me time to breathe—time to think. I want to be worthy of +you, if I can—if—if—I am ever to be your wife. I want to be loyal—and +honest—as you are.’ + +‘Only say that you will be my wife. I can trust you with the rest of my +fate.’ + +‘Give me a few days—a few hours, at least—to consider.’ + +‘But why not to-day? Let it be to-day,’ he pleaded passionately. + +‘You must give me a little while,’ answered Daphne, smiling faintly at +his impatience, which seemed to her something childish, she not being +touched by the same passion, or inspired by the same hope, being, as it +were, outside the circle of his thoughts. ‘If—if—you are very anxious +to be answered—let it be to-day.’ + +‘Bless you, darling!’ + +‘But don’t be grateful in advance. The answer may be No.’ + +‘It must not. You would not break my heart a second time.’ + +‘Ah, then you contrived to mend it after the first breakage,’ retorted +Daphne, laughing with something of her old mirth. ‘Madoline broke it +first, and you patched it together and made quite a good job of it, and +then offered it to me. Well, if you really wish it, you shall have your +answer to-night. I must speak to Lina first.’ + +‘I know she will be on my side.’ + +‘Tremendously. You will dine here, of course. And I suppose you will go +away at about eleven o’clock. You know the window of my room?’ + +‘Know it!’ cried Edgar, who had lingered to gaze at that particular +casement under every condition of sky and temperature. ‘Know it? Did +Romeo know Juliet’s balcony?’ + +‘Well, then, at ten minutes past eleven look up at my window. If the +answer be No, the shutters will be shut, and all dark; if the answer be +Yes, the lamp shall be in the window.’ + +‘Oh, blessed light. I know the lamp will be there.’ + +‘And now no more of this nonsense,’ said Daphne imperatively. ‘I am +going to give you some tea.’ + +‘Put a dose of poison in it, and finish me off straight, if the lamp is +not going to shine in your window.’ + +‘Absurd man! Do you suppose I know any more than you what the answer is +to be? We are the sport of Fate.’ + +The door was opened gently, as if it had been the entrance to a sick +man’s chamber, and the well-drilled footman brought in a little folding +table, and then a tea-tray, an intensely new-fashioned old-fashioned +oval oaken tray, with a silver railing, and oriental cups and saucers +_à la Belinda_—everything strictly of the hoop-and-patch period. These +frivolities of tray and tea-things were one of Mr. Goring’s latest +gifts to his mistress. + +Not another tender word would Daphne allow from her lover. She talked +of the people at the ball, asked for details about everybody—the girl +in the pink frock; the matron with hardly any frock at all; the hunting +men and squires of high degree. She kept Edgar so fully employed +answering her questions that he had no time to edge in an amorous +speech, though his whole being was breathing love. + +Madoline and Gerald Goring came in and found them _tête-à-tête_ by the +fire. They had made a _détour_ on their way home, and had deposited +Mrs. Ferrers at the Rectory. It was the first time Gerald had seen +Daphne since the ball. + +‘Better?’ he inquired, with a friendly nod. + +‘Quite well, thanks. I have not been ill,’ she answered curtly. + +Mr. Goring seated himself in a shadowy corner, remote from the little +group by the tea-table. + +‘Shall I ring for more tea, or have you had some at the Abbey?’ asked +Daphne, with a businesslike air. + +‘We had tea in Lady Geraldine’s room,’ answered Madoline. ‘I wish you +had been with us, Daphne. It is such a lovely room in the firelight. +The houses are all finished, and Cormack has filled three of them +already. Such lovely flowers! I can’t imagine where he has found them.’ + +‘Easy to do that kind of thing when one has a floating balance of +fifty thousand or so at one’s bankers,’ answered Edgar cheerily. ‘My +wife will have to put up with a few old orange-trees that have been at +Hawksyard for a century.’ + +The tone in which he uttered those two words ‘my wife,’ startled +Gerald out of his reverie. There was a world of suppressed delight and +triumph in the utterance. + +‘He has been asking her to marry him, and she has relented, and +accepted him,’ he thought, hardly knowing whether to be glad or angry. + +Was it not ever so much better that she should reward this faithful +fellow’s devotion, and marry, and be happy in the beaten track of +life? He had told himself once that she was a creature just a little +too bright and lovely for treading beaten tracks, a girl who ought to +be the heroine of some romantic history. Yet, are these heroines of +romance the happiest among women? Was the young woman who was sewn up +in a sack and drowned in the Bosphorus happy, though her fate inspired +one of the finest poems that ever was written? Was Sappho particularly +blest, or Hero, Heloise, or Juliet? Their fame was the fruit of +exceptional disaster, and not of exceptional joy. The Greek was wise +who said that the happiest she is the woman who has no history. + +Sir Vernon Lawford came in while they were all talking of hot-houses, +and asked for a cup of tea, an unusual condescension on his part, and +which fluttered Daphne a little as she rang the bell for a fresh teapot. + +‘Don’t trouble yourself, my dear. Give me anything you have there,’ he +said, more kindly than he was wont to speak. ‘So you were too tired to +show at luncheon. Your aunt says you danced too much.’ + +‘It was her first ball,’ pleaded Madoline. + +‘Yes; the first, but not likely to be the last. She is launched now, +and will have plenty of invitations. A foolish friend of mine told me +that Daphne was the belle of the ball.’ + +‘She was,’ said Edgar sturdily. ‘I saw two old women standing on a +rout-seat to look at her.’ + +‘Is that conclusive?’ asked Sir Vernon good-humouredly, and with a +shrewd glance from Edgar to his fair-haired daughter. + +‘I think people must have been demented if they wasted a look upon me +while Lina was in the room,’ said Daphne. + +‘Oh, but every one knows Lina,’ answered her father, pleased at this +homage to his beloved elder daughter. ‘You are a novelty.’ + +He was proud of her success, in spite of himself; proud that she should +have burst upon his Warwickshire friends like a revelation of hitherto +unknown beauty—unknown, at least, since his second wife, in all the +witchery of her charms, had turned the heads of the county twenty years +ago. That beauty had been a fatal dower—fatal to her, fatal to him—and +he had often told himself that Daphne’s prettiness was a perilous +thing; to be looked at with the eye of fear and suspicion rather than +that of love. And yet he was pleased at her triumph, and inclined to be +kinder to her on account thereof. + +They seemed a happy family-party at dinner that day. Madoline was full +of delight in the improvement of her future home—full of gratitude +to her betrothed for the largeness with which he had anticipated her +wishes. Edgar was in high spirits; Daphne all gaiety; Sir Vernon +unusually open in speech and manner. If Gerald was more silent than the +others, nobody noticed his reserve. He had been quiet all day, and when +Madoline had questioned him as to the cause, had owned to not being +particularly well. + +Later in the evening they all adjourned to the billiard-room, with +the exception of Daphne, who pleaded a headache, and bade every one +good-night; but about an hour afterwards, upon the stroke of eleven, +Madoline, who had just gone up to her room, was startled by a knock +at her door, and then by the apparition of Daphne in her long white +dressing-gown. + +‘My pet, I thought you went to bed an hour ago.’ + +‘No, dear. I had a headache, but I was not sleepy.’ + +‘My poor darling; you are so pale and heavy-eyed. Come to the fire.’ + +Madoline wanted to instal her in one of the cosy armchairs by the +hearth, but Daphne slipped to her favourite seat on the fleecy white +rug at her sister’s feet. + +‘No, dear; like this,’ she said, looking up at Madoline with tearful +eyes; ‘at your feet—always at your feet; so much lower than you in all +things—so little worthy of your love.’ + +‘Daphne, it offends me to hear you talk like that. You are all that is +sweet and dear. You and I are equal in all things, except fortune: and +it shall not be my fault if we are not made equal in that.’ + +‘Fortune!’ echoed Daphne drearily. ‘Oh, if you but knew how little I +value that. It is your goodness I revere—your purity, your—’ + +She burst into tears, and sobbed passionately, with her face hidden on +her sister’s knee. + +‘Daphne, what has happened—what has grieved you so? Tell me, darling; +trust me.’ + +‘It is nothing; mere foolishness of mine.’ + +‘You have something to tell me, I know.’ + +‘Yes,’ answered Daphne, drying her tears hastily and looking up with +a grave set face. ‘I have come to ask your advice. I mean to abide by +your decision, whichever way it may fall. Edgar wants me to marry him, +and I have promised him an answer to-night. Shall it be “Yes” or “No?”’ + +‘Yes, of course, my pet, if you love him.’ + +‘But I don’t; not the least atom. I have told him so in the very +plainest straightest words I could find. But he still wishes me to be +Mrs. Turchill; and he seems to think that when I have been married to +him twenty years or so I shall get really attached to him—as Mrs. John +Anderson, my Jo, did, don’t you know? She may have cared very little +for Mr. Anderson at the outset.’ + +‘Oh, Daphne,’ sighed Madoline, with a distressed look, ‘this is very +puzzling. I don’t know what to say. I like Edgar so much—I value him so +highly—and I should dearly like you to marry him.’ + +‘You would!’ cried Daphne decisively. ‘Then that settles it. I shall +marry him.’ + +‘But you don’t care for him.’ + +‘I care for you. I would do anything in this world—yes,’ with sudden +energy, ‘the most difficult thing, were it at the cost of my life—to +make you happy. Would it make you happy for me to marry Edgar?’ + +‘I believe it would.’ + +‘Then I’ll do it. Hark! there’s the outer door shutting,’ cried Daphne, +as the hall-door closed with a hollow reverberation. ‘Edgar will be +under my window in a minute or two. I’ll run and give him my answer.’ + +‘What do you mean?’ + +‘A lamp in my window is to signify Yes.’ + +‘Go and put the lamp there, darling. May it be a star for you both, +shining upon the beginning of a bright happy life!’ + +A few minutes later Edgar, standing in the shrubbery walk, with +his eyes fixed on Daphne’s casement, the owner of them unconscious +of winter’s cold, saw the bright spot of light stream out upon the +darkness, and knew that he was to be blest. He went home like a man in +a happy dream, scarce knowing by what paths he went; and it is a mercy +he did not walk into the Avon and incontinently drown himself. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII. + +‘FOR I WOL GLADLY YELDEN HIRE MY PLACE.’ + + +Edgar Turchill rode over to South Hill directly after breakfast next +morning. It was a hunting-day, and the meet was at a favourite spot; +but he had business to do which could brook no delay, and even the +delight of skimming across the Vale of the Red Horse, on a hunter well +able to carry him, must give way to the more vital matter which called +him to the house on the hill. So soon as Sir Vernon Lawford might be +fairly supposed to be accessible to a visitor, Mr. Turchill presented +himself, and asked for an interview. + +He was ushered straight to Sir Vernon’s study, that sacred, and in a +manner official chamber, which he had ever held in awe; a room in +which the driest possible books, in the richest possible bindings, +repelled the inquiring mind of an ordinary student, who, looking for +Waverley, found himself confronted with Blackstone, or exploring for +Byron, found himself face to face with Coke or Chitty. + +Here, Sir Vernon, seated reposefully in his great red morocco armchair, +listened courteously to Edgar’s relation of his love, and his hope +that, subject to parental approval, his constancy might speedily be +rewarded. ‘I have heard something of this before,’ said Sir Vernon. +‘My sister told me you had proposed to Daphne, and had been rejected. +I was sorry the child had not better taste; for I like you very much, +Turchill, as I believe you know.’ + +‘You have been very good to me,’ answered Edgar, reddening with the +honest warmth of his feelings. ‘South Hill has been my second home. The +happiest hours of my life have been spent here. Yes, Sir Vernon, Daphne +certainly did refuse me in the summer; but I felt that it was my own +fault. I spoke too soon. I ought to have bided my time. And last night, +after the ball, I spoke again, and—’ + +‘With a happier result,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘But Daphne is little +more than a child—no wiser than a child in her whims and fancies. I +should not like a straightforward fellow like you to suffer from a +school-girl’s frivolity. Do you think she knows her own mind now any +better than she did in the summer, when she gave you quite a different +answer? Are you sure that she is in earnest—that she is as fond of you +as you are of her?’ + +‘I have no hope of that,’ answered Edgar, a little despondently. ‘I +have been loving her ever since she came home, and my love has grown +stronger with every day of my life. If she likes me well enough to +marry me, I am content.’ + +Sir Vernon remained silent for some moments, gravely contemplating the +fire, as if he were reading somebody’s history in it, and that a gloomy +one. + +‘I am fond enough of you to be sorry you should marry on such +conditions,’ he answered, after a longish pause. ‘My younger daughter +is a very pretty girl—people persecuted me with compliments about her +the other night—and, I suppose, a very fascinating girl; but if she +does not honestly and sincerely return your love, I say, Do not marry +her. Pluck her out of your heart, Edgar, as you would a poisonous weed. +Be sure, if you don’t, the poison will rankle there by-and-by, and +develop its venom at the time you are least prepared for it.’ + +Edgar, secure in his assurance of future happiness—for what man, having +won Daphne, could fail to be happy?—smiled at the unwonted energy of +Sir Vernon’s address. + +‘My dear sir, you take this matter too seriously,’ he replied. ‘I have +no fear of the issue. Daphne’s heart is free, and it will be very hard +if I cannot make myself owner of it, loving her as I do, and having her +promise to marry me. I only want to be assured of your approval.’ + +‘That you have with all heartiness, my dear boy. But I should like to +be sure that Daphne is worthy of you.’ + +‘Worthy of me!’ echoed Edgar, with a tender smile; ‘I wish to Heaven I +were worthy of her.’ + +‘She is very young,’ said Sir Vernon thoughtfully. + +‘Nineteen on her next birthday.’ + +‘But that birthday is nearly a year off. I hope you will not be in a +hurry to be married.’ + +‘I shall defer that to your judgment; though I think, as I can never +feel warmly interested in Hawksyard till I have a wife there, the +sooner we are married, so far as my happiness is concerned, the better.’ + +‘Of course. You young men have always some all-sufficient reason for +being over the border with the lady. How will your mother relish the +change?’ + +Poor Edgar winced at the question, feeling very sure that Mrs. Turchill +would take the event as her death-blow. + +‘My mother is perfectly independent,’ he faltered. ‘She has her +jointure.’ + +‘Has she not Hawksyard for her life?’ + +‘No; the estate was strictly entailed. I am sole master there.’ + +‘I am glad of that,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘It is an interesting old place.’ + +‘Daphne likes it,’ murmured Edgar fatuously. + +‘I suppose you know that I can give my younger daughter no fortune?’ + +‘If you could give her a million, it would not make me one whit better +pleased at winning her.’ + +‘I believe you, Edgar,’ answered Sir Vernon. ‘When a man of your mould +is in love, filthy lucre has very little weight with him. There will +be a residue, I have no doubt, when I am gone—a few thousands; but the +bulk of my property was settled when I married Lina’s mother. I suppose +you know that Lina is very pleased at the idea of having you for a +brother-in-law?’ + +‘I know nothing, except that Daphne has consented to be my wife.’ + +‘Lina announced the fact to me this morning at breakfast. Daphne was +not down—a headache—a little natural shyness, I daresay. Lina is very +glad—very much your friend.’ + +‘She has always been that,’ faltered Edgar, looking back with +half-incredulous wonder to the time when a word from Lina had been +enough to stir the pulses of his heart, when the mention of her name +was music. + +‘I think I cannot do better for you than leave your happiness in Lina’s +care,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘Daphne will not be married first, of course.’ + +‘Might they not be married on the same day?’ suggested Edgar. ‘Lina is +to be married directly she comes of age, is she not?’ + +‘That has been proposed,’ said Sir Vernon reluctantly, ‘but I am in no +hurry to lose my daughter, and I don’t think Lina is eager to leave me. +In my precarious state of health it will be hard for me to bear the +pain of parting.’ + +‘But, my dear Sir Vernon, she will be so near you—quite close at hand,’ +remonstrated Edgar, inwardly revolting against this selfishness, which +would delay his own happiness as well as Goring’s. + +‘Don’t talk about it, Turchill,’ exclaimed Sir Vernon testily. ‘You +don’t understand—you can’t enter into my feelings. My daughter is all +the world to me now. What will she be when she is a wife, a mother, +with a hundred different interests and anxieties plucking at her +heart-strings? Why, I daresay a teething-baby would be more to her than +her father, if I were on my death-bed.’ + +‘Indeed, Sir Vernon, you wrong her.’ + +‘I daresay I do. But I am devoured with jealousy when I think of her +belonging to anyone else. It is the penalty she pays for having been +perfect as a daughter. Our virtues, as well as our vices, are often +scourges for our own backs. However, when the time comes I must bear +the blow with a smiling countenance, that she may never know how hard I +am hit. Only you can imagine I don’t want to hasten the evil hour. And +now, as I think we understand each other, you may be off to pleasanter +society than mine.’ + +Edgar instantly availed himself of this permission, and hastened to the +morning-room, where Madoline was seated at her work-table, while Daphne +twisted herself round and round on the music-stool, now talking to her +sister, now playing a few bars of one of Schumann’s ‘_Kinderstücken_,’ +anon picking out a popular melody she had heard the faithful Bink +whistle as he weeded his flower-beds. + +She started a little at Edgar’s entrance, and ‘blushed celestial red, +love’s proper hue,’ much to the delight of her lover, who hung out a +rosy flag on his own side, and looked as shy as any school-girl. + +He shook hands with Madoline, and then went straight to the piano, and +tried by a tender pressure of Daphne’s hand to express something of the +rapture that was flooding his soul. + +‘I have seen your father, dearest,’ he said in her ear, as she went on +lightly playing little bits of Schumann. ‘He thoroughly approves—he is +glad.’ + +‘Then I am glad if he is glad, and you are glad, and Madoline is glad,’ +answered Daphne, with a smile in which there was a subtle mockery +that escaped Edgar’s perception. ‘What can I do better than please +everybody?’ + +‘You have made me the happiest man in creation.’ + +‘Does not every young man say that when he is engaged?’ asked Daphne +laughingly. ‘I believe it is a formula. And when he has been married a +year the happiest man in creation takes to quarrelling with his wife. +However, I hope we may not quarrel. I will try to be as good to you as +you have been to me; and that is saying a good deal.’ + +They lingered by the piano, Edgar pouring forth vague expressions of +his delight, his gratitude, his intoxication of bliss. Daphne playing +a little, and listening a little, with her eyes always on the keys, +offering her lover only the lashes, dark brown with sparks of gold upon +their tips, for his contemplation. But such lashes, and such eyelids, +and such a lovely droop of the small classic head, were enough to +satisfy a lover’s eye for longer than Edgar was required to look at +them. + +By-and-by, when he had exhausted a lover’s capacity for talking +nonsense, he made a sudden dash at the practical. + +‘I want you to come and see my mother, Daphne.’ + +‘Have you told her?’ + +‘No, not yet. There has been no opportunity, you know.’ + +This was hardly true, since, seated opposite Mrs. Turchill at the +breakfast-table that morning, Edgar had vainly endeavoured to frame the +sentence which should announce his bliss, and had found an awkwardness +in the revelation which required to be surmounted at more leisure. + +‘I am going to tell her directly I go home. It was better to see Sir +Vernon first, don’t you know. And I want you and Madoline to come over +to tea this afternoon. You could drive over to Hawksyard with Daphne +after luncheon, couldn’t you, Madoline?’ he asked, going over to the +work-table. ‘It would be so good of you, and would please my mother so +very much.’ + +‘Would it?’ asked Lina, smiling up at him. ‘Then it shall be done.’ + +The young man lingered as long as he could, consistently with his +performance of that duty which he felt must not be deferred beyond +luncheon time. It was hardly a good time to choose for the revelation, +for Mrs. Turchill was apt to be somewhat disturbed in her temper at the +mid-day meal; her patience having been exercised by sundry defalcations +discovered in her morning round of the house. It might be that new +milk had been given away to unauthorised recipients, or to pensioners +who were only entitled to receive skimmed milk; it might be an +unexplainable evanishment of home-brewed beer: or that the principal +oak staircase was not so slippery as it ought to be; or that the famous +pewter dinner-service was tarnished; or a favourite fender displayed +spots of rust; but there was generally something, some feather-weight +of domestic care which disturbed the even balance of Mrs. Turchill’s +mind at this hour. Like those modern scales which can be turned by an +infinitesimal portion of a human hair, so the fine balance of Mrs. +Turchill’s temper required but very little to alter it. + +Edgar rode home to Hawksyard in the clear bright winter noontide, +feeling as much like a convicted criminal as a young man of pure +mind and clear conscience well could feel. He went bustling into +the dining-room, rubbing his hands, and making a great pretence of +cheeriness. His mother was standing on the hearth-rug knitting a useful +brown winter sock—for him, he knew. Those active knitting-needles of +hers were always at work for him. He felt himself an ingrate, as he +thought of her labour. + +‘Well, mother; lovely weather, isn’t it, so wintry and seasonable? I +hope you have had a pleasant morning.’ + +‘About as pleasant as I can have in a nest of vipers,’ answered Mrs. +Turchill, frowning at her work, and intent upon turning a heel. + +‘What’s up now?’ asked Edgar, nothing startled by the vigour of her +speech. + +‘The beer consumed at Christmas—I won’t say drunk, for gallons of it +must have been given away—is something too dreadful to contemplate,’ +replied Mrs. Turchill. + +‘Never mind the beer, mother,’ answered Edgar, still rubbing his hands +before the fire, and shifting from one foot to another in a manner that +indicated a certain perturbation of spirit; ‘Christmas comes only once +a year, you know, and the servants ought to enjoy themselves.’ + +‘That’s all very well, Edgar, within proper limits; but when I see them +stepping over the boundary line——’ + +‘You feel that it’s time to put on the drag,’ interjected Edgar. ‘Of +course; very right and proper. Whatever should I do without such a dear +prudent mother to look after things?’ + +And then, suddenly remembering that the most eager desire of his heart +at this very moment was to substitute a foolish young wife for this +wise and experienced housekeeper, Edgar Turchill became suddenly as +vermilion as the most vivid cock’s-comb in his mother’s poultry-yard. +He felt that the revelation he had to make must be blurted out somehow. +There was no use in prancing before the fire, making such a serious +business of warming his hands. + +‘I’ve been over to South Hill this morning, mother,’ he said at last, +rather jerkily. + +‘Have you?’ said Mrs. Turchill curtly. ‘It seems to me you never go +anywhere else.’ + +‘Well, I’m afraid that’s a true bill,’ he answered, laughing with +affected heartiness, very much as the timorous traveller whistles in a +lonely wood. ‘I love the place, and the people who live in it. South +Hill has been my second home ever since I was a little bit of a chap at +Rugby. But this morning I have been there on very particular business. +I have been having a serious talk with Sir Vernon. I wonder if you +could guess the subject of our conversation, mother, and spare my +blushes in telling it?’ + +It was Mrs. Turchill’s turn to assume the cock’s-comb’s flaming hue. + +‘If you have done anything to blush for, Edgar, I am sorry for you,’ +she observed sternly. ‘Your father was one of the most respectable men +in Warwickshire, and the most looked up to, or my father would not have +allowed me to marry him.’ + +‘You are taking me a trifle too literally, mother,’ answered Edgar, +laughing uneasily. ‘I hope there is nothing disreputable in a man of my +age falling in love and wanting to be married. That’s the only crime I +have to confess this morning. Yesterday afternoon I asked Daphne to be +my wife, and she consented; and this morning I settled it all with Sir +Vernon. We are to be married on the same day as Goring and Madoline—at +least, Sir Vernon said something to that effect.’ + +‘Indeed!’ exclaimed Mrs. Turchill freezingly. ‘Indeed! And now Miss +Daphne has consented and Sir Vernon has consented, and the very +wedding-day is fixed, you do me the honour to inform me. I thank you +from my heart, Edgar, for the respect and affection, the consideration +and regard, you have shown for me in this matter. I am not likely to +forget your conduct.’ + +‘Dearest mother,’ gasped Edgar affrightedly, for the icy indignation +of his parent’s speech and manner went beyond the worst he had feared, +‘surely you are not offended—surely——’ + +‘But it is only what I might reasonably have expected,’ pursued Mrs. +Turchill, ignoring the interruption. ‘It is only what I ought to +have looked for. When a mother devotes herself day and night to her +son; when she studies his welfare and his comfort in everything; +when she sits up with him night after night with the measles—quite +unnecessarily, as the doctor said at the time—and reduces herself to +a shadow when he has the scarlatina; when she worries herself about +him every time he gets damp feet, and endures agony every hour of the +day while he is out shooting; this is pretty sore to be the result. He +is caught by the first pretty face he sees, and his mother becomes a +cipher in his estimation.’ + +‘Believe me that is not my case, dear mother,’ protested Edgar, +putting his arm round the matron’s waist, which she made as inflexible +as she possibly could for the occasion, and trying to kiss her, which +she would not allow. ‘You will never cease to be valued and dear. Do +you suppose there is no room in my heart for you and Daphne? I know she +is a mere child, a positive baby, to place at the head of a house which +you have managed so cleverly all these years; but everything in this +life must have a beginning, don’t you know, and I rely upon you for +teaching Daphne how to manage her house.’ + +‘That kind of thing cannot be taught, Edgar,’ answered his mother +severely. ‘It must be the gradual growth of years in an adaptable mind. +I don’t believe Daphne Lawford will ever be a housekeeper. It is not in +her. You might as well expect a butterfly to sit upon its eggs with the +patience of a farm-yard hen. However,’ sighed Mrs. Turchill, ‘you have +chosen for yourself.’ + +‘Did you suppose I should let anyone else choose for me in such a +matter, mother?’ + +‘I am sorry for my lovely stock of house-linen. The tea-cloths will get +used in the stable; and the kitchen-cloths will be made away with by +wholesale.’ + +‘Never mind a few tea-cloths, mother.’ + +‘But it is not a few, it is a great many. I daresay that out of the +twelve dozen that are now in the linen-closet you won’t have two dozen +sound ones a twelvemonth after your marriage.’ + +‘I think I should survive even that loss, mother, if you were happy,’ +answered Edgar lightly. + +‘How could I possibly be happy knowing the waste and destruction of +things that I have taken so much trouble to get together? I’m sure I +feel positively ill at the idea of the best glass and china under the +authority of a girl of eighteen; your great grandmother’s Crown Derby +dessert-set, which I have often been told is priceless.’ + +‘Yes, mother, by people who don’t want to buy it. If you wanted to +sell it, you would hear a very different story. However, I don’t +see any reason why Daphne should not be able to take care of the +dessert-plates——’ + +‘I have always kept chamois-leather over each plate,’ interrupted Mrs. +Turchill, with a pensive shake of her head. ‘Will she take as much +trouble?’ + +‘Or why there should be waste and destruction anywhere. Daphne will not +be the first young wife who ever had to take care of a house, and I +know by the way she learnt to row how easy it is to teach her anything.’ + +‘Easy to teach her to row, or to ride, or to play lawn-tennis, or to +do anything frivolous and useless, I have no doubt,’ retorted his +mother; ‘but I don’t believe it is in her to learn careful ways, and +the management of servants. I only hope the waste and destruction will +stop at the house-linen. I only hope she won’t bring ruin upon you; but +when I think how many a young man of good means has been utterly ruined +by an extravagant wife——’ + +‘Upon my word, mother,’ protested Edgar, with a dash of resentment, +feeling that this was too much, ‘you are making a perfect raven of +yourself, instead of being cheery and pleasant, as I expected you to +be. I’m sorry I have not been able to choose a wife more to your liking +as a daughter-in-law; but marriage is one of the few circumstances of +life in which selfishness is a duty, and a man must please himself at +any hazard of displeasing other people. I don’t believe there’s a man +who was at the Hunt Ball the other night who won’t envy me my good +luck.’ + +‘Very likely; since men are influenced by mere outside prettiness,’ +said Mrs. Turchill. ‘Though even there Daphne is by no means faultless. +Her nose is too short.’ + +‘Now, mother, you have been so good to me all my life that it would be +a very unnatural thing if you were to begin to be unkind all at once, +and in a crisis of my life in which I most need your love,’ pleaded +Edgar with genuine feeling. + +He put his arm round his mother’s waist, which, this time, was less +inflexible than before. He turned the matron’s face towards his, and, +lo! her eyes were full of tears. + +‘It would be very strange, indeed, if I could deny you anything,’ she +said, strangling a sob. ‘There never was a child so much indulged as +you were. If you had cried for the moon, it would have quite worried me +that I wasn’t able to get it for you.’ + +‘And you would have given me a stable-lantern instead,’ answered Edgar, +smiling. ‘Yes, best of mothers, you have always been indulgent, and you +are going to be indulgent now, and you will take Daphne to your heart +of hearts, and be as fond of her as if she were that baby-girl you +lost, grown up to womanhood.’ + +‘Don’t, Edgar, don’t!’ cried Mrs. Turchill, fairly overcome. ‘Her +bassinet is in the little oak room. I was looking at it yesterday. I +have never got over that loss.’ + +‘You will think she has come back to you some day, when you have a +little granddaughter,’ said Edgar tenderly. + +His mother, once reduced to the pathetic mood, was perfectly tractable. +Edgar petted and soothed her; protested somewhat recklessly that the +chief desire of Daphne’s life was to gain her affection; announced +the intended afternoon visit; and obtained his mother’s promise of a +gracious reception. + +When Miss Lawford and her sister arrived at about half-past four the +drawing-room wore a hospitable aspect; a huge log burning in the +Elizabethan fire-place; flowers of a homely kind—chrysanthemums and +Christmas roses, crocuses and snow-drops—about the rooms; and an +old-fashioned silver tea-tray on an old-fashioned sofa-table, nothing +of Adam or Chippendale or Queen Anne about it, but a good old ponderous +piece of rosewood furniture, almost as heavy as a house. + +Mrs. Turchill received her guests with gracious smiles and with a +heartiness that took Daphne by surprise. She had made up her mind that +she was going to be snubbed, and a dash of timidity gave a new grace +to her beauty. She was very grave, and seemed, to Mrs. Turchill’s +scrutinising eye, to be fully awakened to the responsibilities of her +position. Could she but remain in this better frame of mind she might +fairly be trusted with the Derby dessert-service and the piled-up +treasures of the linen-closet. + +Mrs. Turchill made Daphne sit on the sofa by her side while she poured +out the tea, and was positively affectionate in her manner. + +‘You will be making tea in this pot before long,’ she said, with a +loving glance at the fluted teapot. ‘It is not a good pourer. You’ll +have to learn the knack of holding it exactly in the right position.’ + +‘I hope you are not sorry,’ faltered Daphne in a very low voice, +meaning about the event generally, not with any special reference to +the teapot. + +‘Well, my dear, I am too truthful a woman to deny that it was a blow,’ +returned Mrs. Turchill candidly. Edgar had kept out of the way when the +sisters arrived, wishing his mother to have Daphne all to herself for a +little while. ‘I suppose that kind of thing must always be a blow to a +mother. “My son’s my son till he gets him a wife,” you know.’ + +‘I hope Edgar will never be any less your son than he is at this +moment,’ said Daphne. ‘I should not like him so well as I do if thought +his regard for me could make him one shade less devoted to you.’ + +‘Well, my dear, time will show,’ replied Mrs. Turchill doubtfully. ‘As +a rule young wives are very selfish; they expect to monopolise their +husbands’ affection. All I hope is that you love Edgar as he deserves +to be loved. There never was a worthier young man, and no girl could +hope for a better husband than he will make.’ + +To this exhortation Daphne replied nothing. She sat with downcast eyes, +stirring her tea; and Mrs. Turchill, taking this silence for maidenly +reserve, transferred her attentions to Madoline. + +‘I am so sorry Mr. Goring did not drive over with you,’ she said. ‘I +quite expected him.’ + +‘You are very kind,’ answered Lina. ‘He has gone to London. I had a +telegram from Euston Station an hour ago. Gerald has some business to +settle with his London lawyers, and is likely to be away for some days.’ + +‘I’m afraid you must find South Hill very dull in his absence,’ +suggested Mrs. Turchill politely. + +‘I miss him very much; but I don’t think I am very dull. My father +occupies a good deal of my time; and then there is Daphne, who has +generally plenty to say for herself.’ + +‘Meaning that I am an insatiable chatterer,’ said Daphne, laughing. +‘I’m afraid it was Dibb—I mean Martha, an old schoolfellow of mine—who +got me into the habit of talking so much.’ + +‘Was she a great talker?’ + +‘Quite the contrary. She rarely opened her mouth except to put +something into it, so I acquired the pernicious habit of talking for +two.’ + +Edgar now came in, and seeing Daphne and his mother seated side by side +upon the sofa, felt himself exalted to the seventh heaven of tranquil +joy. This and this only was needed to fill his cup of bliss: that his +mother should be content, that life should flow on smoothly in the old +grooves. + +‘Well, Daphne, how do you like the look of Hawksyard in the winter?’ + +‘I think it is quite the nicest old place in the world. I haven’t seen +much of the world; but I can’t imagine a more interesting old house.’ + +‘You will like it better and better as you become acquainted with +it,’ said Mrs. Turchill. ‘It is one of the most convenient houses I +ever saw, and I have seen a good many in my time. My husband’s mother +was a capital housekeeper, and she did not rest till she had made the +domestic arrangements as near perfection as was possible in her time. I +have tried to follow in her footsteps.’ + +‘And to make perfection still more perfect,’ said Edgar. + +‘There are modern inventions and improvements, Edgar, which your +grandmother knew nothing about. Not that I hold with them all. If you +are not tied for time,’ added Mrs. Turchill, addressing herself to the +two young ladies, ‘I should very much like to show Daphne the domestic +offices. It would give her an idea of what she will have to deal with +by-and-by.’ + +Daphne, who knew about as much as a butterfly knows of the management +of a house, smiled faintly but said nothing. She had come to Hawksyard +determined to make herself pleasing to Mrs. Turchill, if it were +possible, for Edgar’s sake. + +‘I ventured to tell them to take out the horses,’ said Edgar, ‘knowing +that you don’t dine till eight.’ + +‘I shall be pleased to stay as long as Mrs. Turchill likes,’ answered +Madoline; whereupon the matron, acknowledging this speech with a +gracious bend, rose from her sofa, took her key-basket from the table, +and led the way to the corridor in which opened those china and linen +stores which were the supreme delight of her soul. + +Swelling with pride and the consciousness of duty done, she displayed +and descanted on her treasures and the convenient arrangement thereof; +the old diamond-cut glass; the Bow, the Staffordshire, the Swansea, the +Derby cups and saucers, and plates and dishes—crockery bought in the +common way of life, and now of inestimable value. She showed her goodly +piles of linen and damask, which a Flemish housewife might have envied. +She led her guests to the dairy, which in its smaller and humbler +way was as neat and dainty and ornamental as Her Majesty’s dairy at +Frogmore. She talked learnedly of butter-making, cream-cheeses, and the +disposal of skim milk. Daphne wondered to find how large a science was +this domestic management of which she knew absolutely nothing. + +‘A house of this kind requires a great deal of care and a great deal +of thought,’ said Mrs. Turchill with a solemn air. ‘Old servants are a +great comfort, but they have their drawbacks, and require to be kept +in check. With a young, inexperienced mistress I’m afraid they will be +tempted to take many liberties.’ + +Mrs. Turchill concluded her speech with a gentle sigh, and a regretful +glance at Daphne—not an unfriendly look, by any means; but it expressed +her foreboding of future ruin for the house of Hawksyard. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII. + +‘AND COME AGEN, BE IT BY DAY OR NIGHT.’ + + +The next three days passed somewhat slowly at South Hill. Unselfish +as Madoline was, even her delight in Daphne’s engagement could not +altogether compensate for Gerald’s absence. Life without him hung +heavily. She missed him at all those accustomed hours which they had +spent together. In the bright noontide, when he rode over fresh and +full of vivacity after a late breakfast; in the afternoon dusk, when +they had been wont to waste time so pleasantly beside the low wood +fire; in the evening; always. He had been away for three days, and she +had received only one shabby little letter—just a few feeble sentences +explaining that he had been obliged to run up to London at an hour’s +notice to see his lawyers upon some dry-as-dust business relating to +his Stock Exchange investments. He hoped to settle it all speedily, and +come back to Warwickshire. The letter gave her very little comfort. + +‘I am afraid he is being worried,’ she said to Daphne, after she had +read this brief communication two or three times over. ‘It is not like +one of his letters.’ + +The week after the ball began with one of those dull Sundays which come +down upon country life like an atmosphere of gloom, and seem to blot +out all the pleasantness of creation. A drizzling Scotch-misty Sabbath, +painfully suggestive of Glasgow and the Free Kirk. Madoline and Daphne +walked to church, waterproofed to the eyes, and assisted sadly at a +damp service; the whole congregation smelling of macintoshes; the drip +drip from umbrellas on the encaustic pavement audible in the pauses +of the Liturgy. It was a rule at South Hill that horses and coachmen +should rest on the seventh day, save under direst pressure. Neither of +the sisters objected to a wet walk. Edgar met them at church, having +tramped over through mud and rain, much to the disgust of his mother, +who deemed that to be absent from one’s parish church on a Sunday +morning was a social misdemeanour not to be atoned for by the most +fervent worship in a strange tabernacle. He joined Lina and her sister +in the porch, and walked home with them by moist fields and a swollen +Avon, whose fringe of willows never looked more funereal than on this +dull wintry noontide, when the scant bare shoots stood straight up +against a sky of level gray. + +‘Any news from Goring?’ asked Edgar, by way of making himself agreeable. + +‘Not since I saw you last. I fancy he must be very busy. He is usually +such a good correspondent.’ + +‘Busy!’ cried Edgar, laughing heartily at the idea. ‘What can he have +to be busy about?—unless it’s the fit of a new suit of clothes, or +some original idea in shooting-boots which he wants carried out, or +the choice of a new horse; but, for that matter, I believe he doesn’t +seriously care what he rides. Busy, indeed! He can’t know what work +means. His bread was buttered for him on both sides, before he was +born.’ + +‘Isn’t that rather a juvenile notion of yours, Edgar?’ asked Madoline. +‘I believe the richest people are often the busiest. Property has its +duties as well as its rights.’ + +‘No doubt. But a rich man can always take the rights for his own share, +and pay somebody else to perform the duties,’ answered Edgar shrewdly. +‘And I should think Goring was about the last man to let his property +be a source of care to him.’ + +‘In this instance I am afraid he is being worried about it,’ said Lina +decisively; and with a look which seemed to say, ‘nobody has any right +to have an opinion about my lover.’ + +The day was a long one, even with the assistance of Edgar in the task +of getting through it. Daphne, considerably sobered by her engagement, +behaved irreproachably all the afternoon and evening; but she stifled a +good many yawns, until the effort made her eyes water. + +Her father had been unusually kind to her since the announcement of +her betrothal. All his anxieties about her—and it had been the habit +of his mind to regard her as a source of trouble and difficulty, or +even of future woe—were now set at rest. Married in the early bloom +of her girlhood to such a man as Edgar, all her life to come would be +so fenced round and protected, so sheltered and guarded by love and +honour, that perversity itself could scarce go astray. + +‘Daphne’s mother was spoiled before I married her,’ he told himself, +remembering the misery of his second marriage. ‘If I had won her before +her heart was corrupted our lives might have been different.’ + +It seemed to him, looking at the matter soberly, that there could be no +better alliance for his younger daughter than this with Edgar Turchill. +He had seen them together continually, in a companionship which seemed +full of pleasure for both: boating together, at lawn-tennis, at +billiards, sympathising, as it appeared to him from his superficial +point of view, in every thought and feeling. It never occurred to him +that this was a mere surface sympathy, and that the hidden deeps of +Daphne’s mind and soul were far beyond the plummet-line of Edgar’s +sympathy or comprehension. Sir Vernon had made up his mind that his +younger daughter was a frivolous butterfly-being, who needed only +frivolous pleasures and girlish amusements to make her happy. + +Everybody, or almost everybody, approved of Daphne’s engagement. It was +pleasant to the girl to live for a little while in an atmosphere of +praise. Even Aunt Rhoda, upon whose being Daphne had exercised the kind +of influence which some people feel when there is a cat in the room, +even Aunt Rhoda professed herself delighted. She came over between the +showers and the church services upon this particular Sunday, on purpose +to tell Daphne how very heartily she approved of her conduct. + +‘You have acted wisely for once in your life,’ she said sententiously; +‘I hope it is the beginning of many wise acts. I suppose you will be +married at the same time as Lina. The double wedding will have a very +brilliant effect, and will save your father ever so much trouble and +expense.’ + +‘Oh no; I should not like that,’ cried Daphne hurriedly. + +‘You wouldn’t like a double wedding!’ ejaculated Mrs. Ferrers +indignantly. ‘Why, what a vain, arrogant little person you must be. I +suppose you fancy your own importance would be lessened if you were +married at the same time as your elder sister?’ + +‘No, no, Aunt; indeed, it is not that. I am quite content to seem of no +account beside Lina. I love her far too dearly to envy her superiority. +But—if—when—I am married I should like it to be very quietly—no people +looking on—no fuss—no fine gowns. When my father and Edgar have made +up their minds that the proper time has come, I should like just to +walk into my uncle’s church early some morning, with papa and Lina, and +for Edgar to meet us there, just as quietly as if we were poor people, +and for no one to be told anything about it.’ + +‘What a romantic schoolgirlish notion!’ said Mrs. Ferrers +contemptuously. ‘Such a marriage would be a discredit to your family; +and I should think it most unlikely my brother would ever give his +consent to such a hole-and-corner way of doing things.’ + +The one person at South Hill who absolutely refused to smile upon +Daphne’s engagement was Madoline’s faithful Mowser. That devoted female +received the announcement with shrugs and ominous shakings of a head +which carried itself as if it were the living temple of wisdom, and in +a manner incomplete without that helmet of Minerva which obviously of +right belonged to it. + +‘You don’t seem as pleased as the rest of us at the notion of this +second marriage,’ said good-tempered Mrs. Spicer, housekeeper and cook, +to whom ‘the family’ was the central point of the universe; sun, moon, +and stars, earth and ocean, and the residue of mankind, being merely so +much furniture created to make ‘the family’ comfortable. + +‘I hear and see and say nothing,’ answered Mowser, as oracular in most +of her utterances as Friar Bacon’s brazen head. ‘Time will show.’ + +‘Well, all I can say is,’ said Jinman, ‘that our Miss Daphne is an +uncommon pretty girl, and deserves a good husband. She has just that +spice of devilry in her which I like in a woman. Your even-tempered +girls are too insipid for my taste.’ + +‘I suppose you would have admired the spice of devilry in Miss Daphne’s +mar,’ retorted Mowser venomously, ‘which made her run away from her +husband.’ + +‘No, Mrs. Mowser; I draw the line at that. A man may want to get rid +of his wife, but he don’t like her to take the initial’—Mr. Jinman +meant initiative—‘and bolt. A spice of devilry is all very well, but +one doesn’t want the entire animal. I like a shake of the grater in my +negus, but I don’t desire the whole nutmeg. But I do think that it’s a +low-minded thing to cast up Miss Daphne’s mar whenever the young lady’s +talked about. Every tub must stand on its own bottom.’ + +‘Well, Mr. Jinman,’ said Mowser, ‘all I hope is, that Miss Daphne will +carry through her engagement now she’s made it. She’s welcome to her +own sweetheart, as far as I am concerned, so long as she doesn’t hanker +after other people’s.’ + +The phrase sounded vague, and neither Mr. Jinman, nor Mrs. Spicer, nor +the coachman (who had dropped in to tea and toast and a poached egg +or two in the housekeeper’s room) had any clear idea of what Mowser +meant, except that it was something ill-natured. On that point there +was no room to doubt. + +Another week wore on, the second after the ball, and Gerald Goring +had not yet returned. He wrote every other day, telling Madoline all +he had been doing; the picture-galleries and theatres he had visited, +the clubs at which he had dined; yet in all these letters of his, +affectionate as they were, there was a tone which sustained in Lina’s +mind the idea that her lover was in some way troubled or worried. The +few words which gave rise to this impression were slight enough; she +hardly knew how or why the notion had entered her mind, but it was +there, and remained there, and it increased her anxiety for his return +to an almost painful degree. While she was expecting him daily and +hourly, a much longer letter arrived, which on the first reading almost +broke her heart: + + ‘MY DEAR ONE,—I write in tremendous excitement and flurry of mind to + tell you something which I fear may displease you; yet at the very + beginning I will disarm your wrath by saying that if you put a veto + upon this intention of mine it shall be instantly abandoned. Subject + to this, dear love, I am going, in hot haste, to Canada. Don’t be + startled, Lina. It is no more nowadays than going to Scotland. Men I + know go across for the salmon-fishing every autumn, and are absent + so short a time that their friends hardly miss them from the beaten + tracks at home. + + ‘And now I will tell you what has put this Canadian idea into my + head. I have for some time been feeling a little below par—mopish, + lymphatic, disinclined for exertion of any kind. My holiday in the + Orkneys was a _dolce far niente_ business, which did me no real good. + I went the other day to a famous doctor in Cavendish Square, a man + who puts our prime ministers on their legs when they are inclined to + drop, like tired cab horses, under the burden of the public weal. He + ausculted me carefully, found me sound in wind and limb, but nerves + and muscles alike in need of bracing. “You want change of scene + and occupation,” he said, “and a climate that will make you exert + yourself. Go to Vienna and skate.” I daresay this would have been + good advice for a man who had never seen Vienna; but as I know that + brilliant capital by heart, with all its virtues, and a few of its + vices, I rejected it. “Please yourself,” said my physician, pocketing + his fee; “but I recommend complete change, and the hardest climate + you can bear.” I do not feel sure that I intended to take his advice, + or should have thought any more about it; but I happened to meet Lord + Loftus Berwick, the Duke of Bamborough’s youngest son, and an old Eton + chum of mine, in the smoking-room at the Reform that very evening, + and he told me he was just off to Canada, dilated enthusiastically + upon the delights of that wintry region, and the various sports + congenial to the month of February. He goes _viâ_ New York, Delaware + and Hudson Railway to Montreal, thence to Quebec, and from Quebec by + the Intercolonial Railway to Rimouski, where he is to charter a small + schooner and cross the St. Lawrence to the mouth of the Natashquan + River, which river belongs to two particular friends of his, both + distinguished comedians, and men of unbounded popularity on each side + of the Atlantic. Here Loftus proposes to hunt cariboo, moose, elk, and + I don’t know what else. But before he puts on his snow-shoes, loads + his sledges, and harnesses his dogs for those happy hunting-grounds, + he is going to revel in the more civilised and sophisticated pleasures + of a Canadian winter, curling-clubs, sleigh-rides around the mountain + at Montreal, tobogganing at the Falls of Montmorenci, near Quebec, and + so on. Just the thing for me, thought I—a hard climate, only about + eight days’ voyage—if my dearest did not object to my being away from + my natural place at her feet for five or six weeks. At my hinting a + wish to accompany him Loftus became still more enthusiastic, and was + eager to have the whole thing settled that moment. And now, love, it + is for you to decide. I think the run would do me good; but perish the + thought of benefit to me if it must be bought at the price of pain to + you. Loftus is going in the Cunard, which leaves Liverpool the day + after to-morrow. Telegraph your wishes, and be assured beforehand of + obedience from your devoted slave, + + ‘GERALD GORING.’ + +Madoline’s first thoughts were of the pain of being parted from her +lover, whose presence had for so long been the sunshine of her days, +and so much a part of her life, that she seemed scarcely to live while +he was away from her. Existence was reduced to a mere mechanical moving +about, and doing duties which had lost all their savour. But these +first thoughts, being selfish, were swiftly succeeded in a mind so +entirely unselfish by other considerations. If it were for Gerald’s +good that he should go to the other end of the world, that they should +be parted for much longer than the five or six weeks of which he spoke +so lightly, it would not have been in Madoline’s nature to desire him +to forego even a possible advantage. She had fancied sometimes of late +that he was occasionally dull and low-spirited; and now this letter +explained all. He was out of health. He had been leading too quiet +and womanish a life, no doubt, in his willingness to spend his days +in her society. He had foregone all those hardy exercises and field +sports which are so necessary to a man who has no serious work in life. +Madoline’s telegram ran thus: + +‘Go by all means, if you think the change will do you good. I tremble +at the idea of your crossing the sea at this time of the year. Let me +see you before you go. If you cannot come here, I will ask my aunt to +go to London with me that I may at least bid you good-bye.’ + +The answer came as quickly as electricity could bring it, and although +laconic, was satisfactory: ‘I will be with you about five o’clock this +afternoon.’ + +‘Dear fellow, how little he thinks of the trouble of travelling so many +miles to please me,’ thought Madoline; and the idea of her lover’s +affection sustained her against the pain of parting. + +‘Next year I shall have the right to go wherever he goes,’ she told +herself. + +Daphne heard of the Canadian expedition, but said so little about it +that Lina wondered at her coolness. + +‘I thought you would have been more surprised,’ she said. + +‘Did you? Why, there is really nothing startling or uncommon in the +idea,’ answered Daphne smilingly. ‘This rushing about the world for +sport seems the most fashionable thing among young men with plenty of +money. The Society Journals are always telling us how Lord This or Sir +John That has gone to the Rockies to shoot wild sheep, or to the North +Pole for bears, or to Hungary or Wallachia, or the Balkan range. The +beaten tracks count for nothing nowadays.’ + +When the afternoon came, Lina was alone to receive her lover. Daphne +had been seized with a dutiful impulse towards her aunt, and had gone +to drink tea at the Rectory, with Edgar in attendance upon her. + +‘Won’t you defer your duty-visit till to-morrow, and wish Gerald +good-bye?’ asked Lina, when Daphne proposed the expedition. + +‘No, dear; you can do that for me. This is an occasion on which you +ought to have him all to yourself. You will have so much to say to each +other.’ + +‘If it were mother, she would occupy all the time in begging him to +wear flannels, put cork soles in all his boots, and avoid damp beds,’ +said Edgar laughing. ‘Now, Daphne, put on your hat as quick as you can. +It’s a lovely afternoon for a walk across the fields. If this frost +continues we shall have skating presently.’ + +The daylight faded slowly; a bright frosty day, a clear and rosy +sunset. Lina sat by the pretty hearth in her morning-room, and exactly +as the clock struck five the footman brought in her dainty little +tea-tray, set out the table before the fire, and lighted three or four +wax-candles in the old Sèvres candelabra on the mantelpiece. Here she +and her lover would be secure from the interruption of callers, which +they could not be if in the drawing-room. + +Five minutes after the hour there came the sound of wheels upon the +gravel drive, a loud ring at the bell, and in the next instant the door +of the morning-room was opened, and Gerald came in, looking bulkier +than usual in his furred travelling coat. + +‘Dear Gerald, this is so good of you!’ said Madoline, rising to welcome +him. + +‘Dearest!’ he took both her hands, and stood looking at her in +the firelight, with a countenance full of tenderness—a mournful +tenderness—as if he were saddened by the thought of parting. ‘You are +not angry with me for leaving you for a few weeks?’ + +‘Angry, when you are told the change is necessary for your health! How +could you think me so selfish? Let me look at you. Yes; you are looking +ill—pale and wan. Gerald, you have been ill, seriously ill, perhaps, +since you left here, and you would not tell me for fear of alarming me. +I am sure that it is so. Your letters were so hurried, so different +from——’ + +‘My dear girl, you are mistaken. I told you the exact truth about +myself when I owned to feeling mopish and depressed. I have had no +actual illness; but I feel that a run across the Atlantic will revive +and invigorate me.’ + +‘And it is quite right of you to go, if the voyage is not dangerous in +this weather.’ + +‘Dear love, it is no more dangerous than calling a hansom to take one +down Regent Street. The hansom may come to grief somehow, or there may +be a gale between Liverpool and New York; but there is hardly any safer +way a man can dispose of his life than to trust himself to a Cunard +steamer.’ + +‘And do you think you will enjoy yourself in Canada?’ + +‘As much as I can enjoy myself anywhere, away from you. According to +my friend Loftus, a Canadian winter is the acme of bliss; and if the +winter should break up early, we may contrive to get a little run into +the Hudson’s Bay country, and a glimpse of the Rockies before we come +home.’ + +‘That sounds as if you meant to stay rather a long time,’ said Lina, +with a touch of anxiety. + +‘Indeed, no, dear. At latest I shall be with you before April is half +over. Think what is to happen early in May.’ + +‘My coming of age. It seems so absurd to come of age at twenty-five, +when one is almost an old woman.’ + +‘An old woman verily. A girl as fresh in youthful purity as if her +cheek still wore the baby-bloom of seventeen summers! But have you +forgotten something else that is to happen next May, Lina—our wedding?’ + +‘There has been nothing fixed about that,’ faltered Madoline ‘except, +perhaps, that it is to be this year. My father has not said a word as +to the actual time, and I know that he wants to keep me as long as he +can.’ + +‘And I think you know that I want to have you at the Abbey as soon as I +can. I am getting to loathe that big house, for lack of your presence +to transform it into a home. We must be married in May, dearest. +Remember we have only been waiting for you to come of age, and for all +dry-as-dust questions of property to be settled. If we had been Darby +the gardener and Joan the dairymaid, we should have been married four +years ago, shouldn’t we, Lina?’ + +‘I suppose so,’ she answered, blushing, and taking refuge in the +occupation of pouring out the tea, adjusting the egg-shell cups +and saucers, the slender little rat-tailed spoons, all the dainty +affectations and quaintnesses of high-art tea-drinking, ‘Darby and Joan +are always so imprudent.’ + +‘Yes, but they are often happy. They marry foolishly, and perhaps +starve a little after marriage; but they wed while the first bloom is +on their love. Come, Lina, say that we shall be married early in May.’ + +‘I can promise nothing without my father’s consent. My aunt was +suggesting that Daphne and I should be married on the same day.’ + +‘Did she?’ asked Gerald, his head bent, his hands engaged with his cup +and saucer. ‘Two victims led to the altar: Iphigenia and Polyxena, and +no likelihood of a hind being substituted for either young lady. Don’t +you think there is a dash of vulgarity in a double wedding: a desire +to make the very most of the event, to intensify the parade: two sets +of bridesmaids, two displays of presents, two honeymoon departures: +all the tawdriness and show and artificiality of a modern wedding +exaggerated by duplication?’ + +‘I think that is rather Daphne’s idea. She begs that she and Edgar may +be married very quietly, without fuss of any kind.’ + +‘I had no idea that Daphne was capable of such wisdom. I thought she +would have asked for four-and-twenty bridesmaids,’ said Gerald with a +cynical laugh. + +‘She is much more sensible than you have ever given her credit for +being,’ answered Madoline, a little offended at his tone. ‘She has +behaved sweetly since her engagement.’ + +‘And—you—think—she—is—happy?’ + +How slowly he said this, stirring his tea all the while, as if the +words were spoken mechanically, his thoughts being wide-away from them. + +‘Do you suppose I should be satisfied if I were not sure, in my own +mind, of her happiness? How can she fail to be happy? She is engaged to +a thoroughly good man, who adores her; and if—if she is not quite as +deep in love with him as he is with her, there is no doubt that her +affection for him will increase and strengthen every day.’ + +‘Naturally. He will flatter and fool her till—were it only from sheer +vanity—she will ultimately find him necessary to her existence. I +knew he had only to persevere in order to win her. I told him so last +summer.’ + +‘And Edgar is grateful to you for encouraging him when he was inclined +to despair. He told me so yesterday. But do not let us talk of Daphne +all the time. I want you to tell me about yourself. How good it was of +you to come down to say good-bye!’ + +‘Could I do less, dearest? Good-byes are always painful, even when the +parting is to be of the briefest, as in this case: but from the moment +I knew you wished to see me it was my duty to come.’ + +‘Can you stay here to-night?’ + +‘I can stay exactly ten minutes, and no more. I have to catch the +half-past six express.’ + +‘You are not going to the Abbey?’ + +‘No. I have written to my steward, and I am such a _roi fainéant_ at +the best of times that my coming or going makes very little difference. +I leave the new hot-houses under your care and governance, subject +to MacCloskie, who governs you. All their contents are to be for the +separate use and maintenance of your rooms while I am away.’ + +‘I shall be smothered with flowers.’ + +‘May there be never a thorn among them! And now, love, adieu. This +time to-morrow I shall be steaming out of the Mersey. I have to see +that Dickson has not come to grief in the preparation of my outfit. +A man wants a world of strange things for Canada, according to the +outfitters. My own love, good-bye!’ + +‘Good-bye, Gerald dearest, best, good-bye. Every wind that blows will +make me miserable while you are on the sea. You’ll let me know directly +you arrive, won’t you? You’ll put me out of my misery as soon as you +can?’ + +‘I’ll cable the hour I land.’ + +‘That will be so good of you,’ she said, going with him to the door. + +How calm and clear the frosty evening looked! how vivid the steely +stars up yonder above the feathery tree-tops! how peaceful and happy +all the world! + +‘God bless you, dear one!’ said each to each, as they kissed their +parting kiss—both hearts so heavy; but one so pure and free from guile; +the other so weighed down by secret cares that could not be told. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV. + +‘AY FLETH THE TIME, IT WOL NO MAN ABIDE.’ + + +Nearly six months had gone since that wintry parting, when the lovers +clasped hands and blessed each other under the sign of Aries; and now +it was midsummer, and all the fields were green, and the limes were +breaking into blossom, and the hawthorn-flower was dead, and the last +of the blue-bells had faded, and all the white orchard-blooms, the +tender loveliness of spring, belonged to the past; for the beauty of +earth and nature is a thing of perpetual change, so closely allied with +death that in every rapture there is the beginning of a regret. + +Gerald Goring had returned, not quite so soon as he had promised beside +the winter hearth, but in time to offer birthday greetings to Lina, +and to assist in those legal preparations and argumentations which +preceded the marriage settlement; in this case a formidable document, +involving large interests, and full of consideration for children and +grandchildren yet unborn; for daughters dying unmarried, or requiring +to be dowered for marriage; for sons who might have to make marriage +settlements of their own. There was to be a complete family history, +put hypothetically, in Miss Lawford’s marriage settlement. + +Vainly had Lina tried to dower her sister with half, or at least some +portion of her own wealth. Daphne obstinately refused to accept any +such boon; and Edgar as obstinately sustained her in her determination. + +‘I won’t accept a penny,’ said she. + +‘I don’t want a halfpenny with her,’ said he; a refusal which +Mrs. Turchill considered supreme folly on the part of son and +daughter-in-law; for what improvements might have been made at +Hawksyard with a few spare thousands, whereas her son’s income, though +ample for all the needs and comforts of this life, left no margin for +building. + +‘Why should not Daphne have a range of hot-houses like those Mr. Goring +has built for her sister?’ argued Mrs. Turchill. ‘Or why should not you +rebuild the stables, which are dreadfully old-fashioned?’ + +‘I would not change the dear old fashion for worlds, mother, now that +I have made every sanitary improvement,’ answered Edgar; ‘least of all +would I improve Hawksyard into a modern house with Goring’s money.’ + +‘But it is not Mr. Goring’s money that is offered; it is Miss +Lawford’s.’ + +‘That is the same thing. The loss would be his. Don’t talk any more +about it, mother; Daphne and I have made up our minds.’ + +This was decisive; for Mrs. Turchill knew that Daphne’s word was +Edgar’s law. She was reconciled to the idea of the marriage, but in +her confidences with Deborah, she could not help talking of her son’s +attachment as an infatuation. + +Gerald had come back considerably improved in health and spirits by +his Canadian and Hudson’s Bay adventures. He had crossed the Turtle +Mountain, and the arid plains beyond, and from the crest of one of the +Sweet Grass Hills had seen the rugged and snowy outline of the Rockies, +standing out in full relief against the western sky-line. He had shot a +bear or two, and had some experience of wolves. He had eaten pemmican, +and ridden a woolly horse; he had slept at a Hudson’s Bay station, and +had passed a night or two, half-frozen and wholly awake, under canvas. +Variety and adventure had done him good physically and mentally; and he +told himself that of that fever which had tormented him when he left +England—a fever of foolish longings and fond regrets, idle thoughts +of things that might have been—he was cured wholly. Yet who shall say +whether time might not show some resemblance between this cure and that +of a dangerous lunatic, who is discharged from Bedlam a sane man, and +who cuts his mother’s head off with a carving-knife a fortnight after +his release? + +The double wedding was to take place in October. Nothing could induce +Sir Vernon to consent to an earlier date. + +‘I shall lose my darling soon enough,’ he said, ignoring Daphne in his +calculations of loss. ‘Let me keep her till the end of the summer. Let +us spend this one summer together. Who knows that it may not be my +last?’ + +Any wish expressed by her father would have governed Madoline’s +conduct, and this wish, expressed so stringently, could not be +disregarded. Sir Vernon was frequently ailing, in a languid +half-hearted way, which looked like hypochondriasis, but might be +actual disease, and a part of that organic evil which was never +clearly described. His doctor recommended an entire change of +scene—Switzerland, the Engadine, if he could make up his mind to travel +so far, and to be satisfied with the simpler diet and accommodation +of that skyey world. There was a good deal of discussion, and it was +ultimately settled that Sir Vernon and his daughters should start for +Switzerland at the end of June, and move quietly about there, studying +the invalid’s pleasure in all things. Sir Vernon set his face against +the Engadine, preferring the more civilised shores of Lake Leman, which +he knew by heart. + +Daphne had never been beyond Fontainebleau, and was enraptured at the +idea of seeing snow-clad mountains and strange people. Gerald and Edgar +were to be of the party, and they were only to return to England in +time for the double wedding. The sisters were to be married on the same +day, after all. That had been settled for them arbitrarily by family +and friends, despite Daphne’s objection; and Warwickshire people were +already beginning to speculate upon the details of the ceremony, and +to wonder what dean or bishop would be privileged to tie the knot, +assisted by the Rev. Marmaduke Ferrers. + +Daphne’s conduct since her engagement had been unobjectionable. Nobody +could deny her sweetness, or could fail to approve the sobriety which +had come over her manners and conversation. Her hot fits and cold fits, +her high spirits and low spirits, were all over. She was uniformly +amiable and uniformly grave—not taking rapturous pleasure in anything, +but seemingly contented with her lot in life, devoted in her affection +to her sister, unvaryingly kind to her lover. Edgar was never tired of +thanking heaven for the blessedness of his lot. He had remitted his +tenants five-and-twenty per cent. of their March rents; not that there +was any special need for such indulgence, but because he longed to be +generous to somebody, and to disseminate his overflowing joy. + +‘I shall do the same for you next October, in honour of my marriage,’ +he said in his speech at the audit dinner; ‘and after that I shall want +all the money you can pay me, as a family man.’ + +Madoline, utterly happy in her lover’s society, after that interval of +severance which had seemed so long and dreary, cared very little where +their lives were to be spent, so long as they were to be together. Yet +the idea of revisiting Lake Leman—which she had seen and loved seven +years ago in a quiet pilgrimage with her father—with Gerald for her +attendant and companion, had a certain fascination. + +‘It is rather like anticipating our honeymoon, is it not, dear?’ he +asked laughingly. ‘But when the honeymoon comes we shall find some new +world to explore.’ + +‘Would you like to take me to the Red River?’ + +‘I think that would be a shade too rough, even for your endurance. +The Italian lakes, and a winter in Rome, would suit us better. It is +all very well for a man to travel in a district where he has to cover +his face with a muffler, and head the driving snow, till he is nearly +suffocated with his frozen breath, and has to get himself thawed +carefully at the first camp-fire; but that kind of experience lasts +a long time, and it is pleasing to fall back upon the old habit of +luxurious travelling, and to ride in a _coupé_ through Mont Cenis or +St. Gotthard, and to arrive at one’s destination without any large risk +of being swallowed whole in a swamp, or burned alive in a prairie fire.’ + +‘I shall delight in seeing Rome with you,’ Madoline answered gently. + +‘I thought you would like it. I really know my Rome. It is a subject I +have studied thoroughly, and I shall love playing cicerone for you.’ + +It was midsummer, a perfect midsummer evening, the placid sky still +faintly tinted with rose and amethyst yonder where the sun had just +gone down behind the undulating line of willows. The little town of +Stratford lay in its valley, folded in a purple cloud, only the slender +church spire rising clear and sharp against that tranquil evening sky. +Daphne had stolen away from Madoline and Gerald, who were sitting on +the terrace, while Edgar, chained to his post in the dining-room by +a lengthy monologue upon certain political difficulties, with which +Sir Vernon was pleased to favour him, vainly longed for liberty to +rejoin his idol. She had put on her hat, and had set out upon a lonely +pilgrimage to Stratford. They were all to leave South Hill early +to-morrow, and it was Daphne’s fancy to bid good-bye to the church +which sheltered those ashes it were the worst of sacrilege to disturb. + +It was an idle fancy, no doubt, engendered of a mind prone to idle +thoughts; but Daphne, having no urgent occupation for her time this +evening, fancied she had a right to indulge it. + +‘I am going for a little walk,’ she had told Edgar, as she left the +dining-room; ‘don’t fidget yourself about me.’ + +From which moment poor Edgar had been in agonies of restlessness, +turning an ear deafer than any adder’s to Sir Vernon’s disquisition +upon the critical state of the country, and the utter incapacity of the +men in office to deal with such a crisis, and inwardly chafing against +every extension of the subject which prolonged the seemingly endless +discourse. + +‘A little walk!’ and why, and where, and with whom? Vainly did Edgar’s +strained gaze explore the distant landscape. From his position at the +dinner-table, he could see a fine range of country ten or fifteen miles +away; but never a glimpse of terrace or garden by which Daphne must go. +And it was the rule of his life to show Sir Vernon the extremity of +respect, an almost old-fashioned and Grandisonian reverence. Therefore +to cut short that prosy discourse was impossible. + +The blessed moment of release came at last. Sir Vernon finished his +claret with a sigh, and left nation and ministry to their fate. Edgar +hurried to the terrace. Gerald and Madoline were sipping their coffee +at a little rustic bamboo table, the Maltese Fluff lying luxuriously in +his mistress’s silken lap. + +‘Have you any idea where Daphne has gone?’ Edgar asked despairingly. + +‘No, indeed. I saw her stroll down towards the river. Perhaps she has +gone to see her aunt.’ + +‘Thanks, yes, I daresay,’ replied Edgar, speeding off towards the +Rectory without waiting to consider whether the clue were worth +following. + +While Mr. Turchill was hastening across the fields at a racing pace, +Daphne was seated in her boat, quietly drifting towards Stratford, +along a dreamy twilit river, where every willow had a ghostly look in +the evening dimness. + +She was full of grave thoughts on this her last night in Warwickshire. +It was more than a year—a year and a quarter—since she had come home +for good, as the phrase goes, and a year and a quarter makes a large +section of a young life. The years are so long in early youth, when the +heart and mind live so fast, and every day is a history: so strangely +different from the monotonous years of middle age, which glide past +unawares, like the level flats seen from a canal-boat, each meadow so +like the last that the voyager is unconscious of progress, till he +feels the salt breath of Death’s ocean creeping across the low marshes +of declining life, and knows that his journey is nearly done. + +To Daphne that year at South Hill had been a lifetime. How ardently she +had felt and thought and suffered within the time; what resolutions +made and broken; what fevers of dangerous delight, and dull intervals +of remorse; what wild wicked hopes; what black despair! Looking back +at the time that was gone and dead, she was inclined to exaggerate its +joys, to gloss over its pain. + +‘At the worst I have been happy with him,’ she said, remembering how +much of that vanished time had been spent in Gerald Goring’s society, +‘though he is nothing to me, and never can be anything to me but a man +to be shunned; yet we have been happy together, and that is something.’ + +She remembered some lines of Dryden’s which Gerald had quoted in her +presence: + + ‘To-morrow do thy worst, for I have lived to-day. + Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine, + The joys I have possessed, in spite of Fate, are mine.’ + +She had lived her day. There had been moments in the past; moments +that had stirred the deeps of her soul with a power as mysterious as +the sweep of the angelic wing on Bethesda’s pool; moments when she had +fancied herself beloved by him, whom to love was treason. These stood +out upon the page of memory in fiery characters, and in their supernal +light all the rest of the record seemed dull and dark. There had been +hours of unquestioning bliss when she had in no wise reasoned upon +her happiness, when she had not asked herself whether she was loved +or scorned, but had been happy as the summer insects are among the +flowers, vivified by the sunshine, asking nothing but to live and enjoy +that glorious warmth and brightness. So at times she had abandoned +herself to the delight of his society, whom she had loved from the hour +of their first meeting, giving all her heart and mind to him at once, +as utterly as Juliet gave hers to Romeo. + +She had lived her day. The long vista of to-morrow and to-morrow opened +before her joyless gaze, and she could look down the tranquil path it +was her fate to tread, a wife beloved and honoured, a sister fondly +loved, a daughter reconciled with her father, mistress of a fine old +house, full of quaint and pleasant associations, established for life +in the heart of rural scenes which her soul loved. Surely it was not a +destiny to be contemplated with such profound sadness as shadowed her +face to-night, while she leant listlessly on her oars and drifted down +the full dark river. + +All was very quiet below the bridge when she landed at the +boat-builder’s yard, and left her craft in charge of that amphibious +and more than half-intoxicated hanger-on who is generally to be found +waiting on fortune at every landing-stage. The walk to the church was +dark and shadowy; lights twinkling in the low cottage windows; glimpses +of home-life dimly seen through open doors. Daphne walked quickly to +the avenue of limes, that green odorous aisle that leads to the porch. +There had been evening service, and the lights were still burning +here and there, and the heavy old door stood ajar. Daphne pushed it +gently open, and crept into the church, past the stately monuments of +mediæval Cloptons, whose marble effigies reposed in solemn pomp upon +sculptured tombs, rich in armorial emblazonment. In the faint light and +mysterious shadow the stony figures looked like real sleepers, waiting +for the last dread summons. Daphne stole past them with noiseless +footfall, and crept along the aisle to the lovely old chancel, where, +just within the altar-rails, William Shakespeare takes his last earthly +rest. The sexton came out of the vestry to see whose footfall it was +that fell so lightly on that everlasting flint. Daphne was standing by +the altar-rail in a reverie, looking up at the calm sculptured face, +so serene in its contentment with a life which, in the vast range and +dominion of a mind that was in itself a kingdom, had held all things +worth having. These are the full and rounded lives, complete and +perfect in themselves, the calm and placid lives of contemplative men, +for whom the gates of the spiritual universe stand ever open, who are +in no wise dependent upon the joys, and gains, and triumphs of this +work-a-day world. + +‘Were you always happy, my calm-faced Shakespeare?’ wondered Daphne. +‘Could you have sounded all the deeps of sorrow without having yourself +suffered? I think not. Yet there seems hardly any room in your life for +great sorrow, except perhaps in the loss of that child who died young. +Was Ann Hathaway your only love, I wonder—you who wrote so sweetly of +sorrowful hopeless love—or was there another, another whom we know as +Juliet, and Imogen, and Cordelia: another from whom you always lived +far apart, yet whom you always loved?’ + +‘I beg your pardon, miss,’ said the sexton; ‘I’m going to lock up the +church.’ + +‘Let me stay a few minutes longer,’ pleaded Daphne, taking out her +purse. ‘I am going away from England to-morrow, and I have come to say +good-bye to the dear old church.’ + +‘Are you going to be away long, miss?’ + +‘Nearly three months.’ + +‘That’s a very short time,’ said the old man, pocketing Daphne’s +half-crown. ‘I thought perhaps you were going away for many years—going +to settle somewhere across the sea. It hardly seems like saying +good-bye to the church if you are to be back among us this side +Michaelmas.’ + +‘No,’ said Daphne dreamily, looking along the shadowy nave, where +broken rays of moonlight from the painted windows shone upon the dark +oak benches like dropped jewels. ‘It is not long; but one never knows. +To-night I feel as if it were going to be for ever. I am so fond of +this old church.’ + +‘No wonder, miss. It’s a beautiful church. You should hear the +Americans admire it. I suppose they’ve nothing half as good in their +country.’ + +The moon was up when Daphne left the church, and walked round by +head-stones and memorial-crosses to the shaded path beside the river, +where here and there a seat on the low wall invited the weary to repose +in the cool shade of ancient elms. The broad full river looked calm and +bright under the moonlit sky; the murmur of the weir sounded like a +lullaby. + +Daphne walked slowly to the end of the path, and stood for a long time +looking down at the river. She felt curiously loth to leave the spot. +Yet it was time she were on her homeward way. They would miss her, +perhaps, and be perplexed, and even anxious about her. But in the next +moment she dismissed the idea of any such anxiety on her behalf. + +‘Lina will not think about me while Mr. Goring is with her; and my +father is not likely to trouble himself. There is only poor Edgar, and +he will guess which way I have come, and follow me if he takes it into +his head to be uneasy.’ + +Reassured by this idea, Daphne resolved to gratify her fancy for +farewells to the uttermost, and to say good-bye to the house where the +poet was born. Stratford streets were very empty and quiet at this +period of the summer evening, and she met only a few people between +the churchyard and the sacred dwelling. To a stranger, entrance into +the sanctuary at such an hour would have been out of the question; but +Daphne was on friendly terms with the lady custodians of the temple, +and knew she could coax them to unlock the door for her pleasure. Never +lamp or candle was admitted within the precincts, but on such a night +as this there would be no need for artificial light; and Daphne only +wanted to creep into the quaint old rooms, to look round her quietly +for a minute or two, and feel the spirit of the place breathing poetry +into her soul. + +‘I have such a strange fancy that I may never see these things again,’ +she said to herself as she stood in the moonlit garden, where only such +flowers grew as were known in Shakespeare’s time. + +The two ladies lived in a snug little house with a strictly Elizabethan +front, and casement windows that looked into the poet’s garden. All +that taste, and research, and an ardent love could do had been done to +make Shakespeare’s house and its surroundings exactly what they were +when Shakespeare lived. The wise men of Stratford had brought their +offerings, in the shape of old pictures, and manuscripts, and relics +of all kinds; the rooms had been restored to their original form and +semblance; and pilgrims from afar had no longer need to blush for the +nation which owned such a poet and held his memorials so lightly. A +very different state of things from the vulgar neglect which obtained +when Washington Irving visited Stratford. + +The maiden warders of the house were a little surprised at so late a +visit, but received Daphne kindly all the same, and were disposed to be +indulgent to girlish enthusiasm in so worthy a cause. It was against +the rules to open the house at so late an hour; but as no light was +needed, Daphne should be allowed just to creep in, and bid good-bye to +the hearth beside which Shakespeare had played at his mother’s knees. + +‘One would think you were going away for a long while, Miss Lawford,’ +said one of the ladies, smiling at Daphne’s eager face. + +It was exactly what the sexton had said, and Daphne made the same +answer as she had given him. + +‘One never knows,’ she said. + +‘Ah, but we know. You are coming home to be married in the autumn. We +have heard all about it. Stratford Bells will ring a merry peal on that +day, I should think; though I suppose the wedding will be at Arden +Church. I am so glad you are going to settle in the neighbourhood, like +your sister. What a grand place Goring Abbey is, to be sure! My sister +and I drove over in a fly last summer to look at it. We went all over +the house and grounds. It is a beautiful place. Yet I don’t know but +that I like Mr. Turchill’s old manor-house best.’ + +‘So do I,’ answered Daphne absently. + +‘Of course you do!’ cried the other sister, laughing. ‘That’s only +natural.’ + +They all three went across the garden in the moonlight, and the elder +sister unlocked the house-door. + +‘Would you like go in alone?’ she asked. ‘You are not afraid of +ghosts?’ + +‘Of Shakespeare’s ghost? No, I should dearly love to see him. I would +fall on my knees and worship the beautiful spirit.’ + +‘Go in, then. We’ll wait in the garden.’ + +Daphne went softly into the empty house. It was more ghostly than the +church—more uncanny in its emptiness. She felt as if the disembodied +souls of the dead were verily around and about her. That empty hearth, +on which the moonbeams shone so coldly; those dusky walls; a vacant +chair or two; a gleam of coloured light from an old scrap of stained +glass. How cold it all felt in its dismal loneliness. She tried to +conjure up a vision of the poet’s home three hundred years ago—in its +old-world simplicity, its homely comfort and repose; a world before +steam-engines, gas, and electricity; a world in which printing and +gunpowder were almost new. To think of it was like going back to the +childhood of this earth. + +Daphne left the outer door ajar, and crept softly through the rooms, +half expectant of ghostly company. What tricks moonbeam and shadow +played upon the walls, upon the solid old timber crossbeams, where in +the unregenerate days, a quarter of a century ago, pilgrims used to +pencil their miserable names upon the wood or whitewash, childishly +fancying they were securing to themselves a kind of immortality. +Daphne stood by the window with her heart beating feverishly, and her +ear strained to catch the footfall of the sisters in the garden, and +thus to be sure of human company. She looked along the empty street, +moonlighted, peaceful; even the tavern over the way a place of seeming +tranquillity, notable only by its glimmering window and red curtain. +The silence and shadowiness of the house were beginning to frighten her +in spite of her better reason, when a step came behind her—a firm light +tread which her ear and heart knew too well. It seemed almost as if her +heart stopped beating at the sound of that footfall. She stood like a +thing of marble, scarce breathing. The step had crossed the threshold +of the outer room, and was drawing nearer, when an eager voice outside +broke the spell: + +‘Is she there? Have you found her?’ + +It was Edgar’s voice at the outer door. + +‘Yes. Where else should she be?’ answered Gerald Goring. + +‘Well, my lady, I hope you are satisfied with the nice little dance you +have led us,’ he said to Daphne as coolly as if he had been talking to +a refractory child. + +‘You need not have troubled yourself about me,’ she answered curtly. ‘I +told Lina I was coming for a walk. How did Edgar know I was here?’ + +‘Edgar knew nothing,’ answered Gerald, with a light laugh that was +something too scornful for perfect friendship. ‘Edgar would as soon +have looked for you at Guy’s Cliff or Warwick Castle, or in the moon. +I knew you were nothing if not Shakespearian; and when I heard you had +taken your boat I guessed you had gone to worship at your favourite +shrine. We heard of you at the church, and hunted for you among the +trees and tombs.’ + +‘And then we went back to the landing-stage, where you always stop, +don’t you know, when you go as far as Stratford, and finding you had +not come back for your boat, I was almost in despair. But Gerald +suggested Shakespeare’s birthplace, and here we are.’ + +It was Gerald, then, who had found her; it was Gerald whose quick +sympathy, prompt to divine her thoughts, had told him where she would +be. Her future husband, the man to whom she was bound, had guessed +nothing, had no faculty for understanding her fancies, whims, and +follies. How wide apart must she and he remain all their lives, though +nominally one! + +They all three went quietly back to the garden, where the sisters were +waiting, amused at Daphne’s folly, and thinking it quite the most +charming thing in girlhood; for to these vestals Shakespeare was a +religion. + +‘I am really very sorry to have caused you so much trouble,’ said +Daphne, apologising in a general way; ‘but I had no idea my absence +would give anyone concern. Perhaps I have been longer than I intended +to be.’ + +‘It struck ten a quarter of an hour ago,’ said Edgar. + +‘That’s really dreadful; I had no idea it was so late.’ + +Daphne bade the sisters good-bye, apologising humbly for her nocturnal +visit. They went to the garden-gate with her, and stood there watching +the light slim figure till it vanished in the moonlight, full of +interest in her prettiness and her fancies. + +‘Is it not a sweet face?’ asked one. + +‘And was it not a sweet idea to come and bid good-bye to this house +before she went abroad?’ said the other. + +Daphne and her companions walked down to the landing-stage, talking +very little by the way. Edgar and his betrothed side by side, Gerald +walking apart with a cigar. + +Daphne wanted to row, but Edgar insisted on establishing her in the +stern, wrapped in a shawl which he found in the boat. He took the +sculls, and Gerald reclined in the bows, smoking and looking up at the +night sky. + +It was a lovely night, all the landscape sublimated by that glory of +moonbeam and shadow into something better and more beautiful than +its daylight simplicity; every little creek and curve of the river a +glimpse of fairyland; all things so radiantly and mysteriously lovely +that Daphne almost hoped to see the river-god and his attendant nymphs +disporting themselves in some reedy shallow. + +‘On such a night as this one would expect to see the old Greek gods +come back to earth. I can’t help feeling sorry sometimes, like Alfred +de Musset, that they are all dead and gone,’ she said, looking with +dreamy eyes down the moonlit tide across which the shadows of the +willows fell so darkly. + +‘I think, considering the general tenor of their conduct, every +proper-minded young lady ought to feel very glad we have got rid of +them,’ said Gerald, throwing away the end of his cigar, which fizzed +and sparkled and made a little red spot in the moonlit water, a light +that was of the earth earthy amidst all that heavenly radiance. ‘How +would you like to be run away with by a wicked old man disguised as a +bull; or to have the earth open as you were gathering daffodils, and a +still wickeder old gentleman leap out of his chariot to carry you off +to Tartarus?’ + +‘How dare you call Zeus old?’ cried Daphne indignantly. ‘The gods were +for ever young.’ + +‘Well, he was a family man at any rate, and ought to have known better +than to go masquerading about the plains and valleys when he ought to +have been sitting in state on Olympus,’ answered Gerald. ‘Now such a +river on such a night as this puts me in mind of old German legends +rather than of Greek gods and goddesses. I shouldn’t be a bit surprised +if Miss Daphne Lawford were suddenly to develop into an Undine, and +take a header into the river, cleaving the silvery tide, and going +down to depths beyond any earthly fathom-line, leaving Turchill and me +aghast in the boat.’ + +‘I have often envied Undine,’ answered Daphne; ‘I love the river so +dearly that years ago I used really to fancy that there must be a +bright world underneath it, where there are gnomes and fairies, and +where one might be happy for ever. Even now, though I have left off +believing in fairies, I cannot help thinking that there is profound +peace at the bottom of this quiet river.’ + +‘If you were to go down experimentally in a diving-bell, I’m afraid +you’d find only profound mud,’ said Gerald, with his cynical laugh. + +Since his return from Canada he had treated Daphne much in the old +fashion—as if she were a child upon whose foolishness his wisdom looked +down from an ineffable height. There was nothing in manner, word, or +look to show that he remembered that one fatal moment of self-betrayal, +when his passionate heart gave up its secret. + +‘I wonder what Daphne will think of this turbid Avon after she has seen +Lake Leman,’ he speculated presently, ‘eh, Turchill?’ + +‘The lake is a great deal wider,’ said Edgar, with his matter-of-fact +air; ‘and those capital steamers are a great attraction.’ + +‘A lake with steamers upon it! Too horrible!’ cried Daphne. ‘I shall +not like it half so well as my romantic Avon, though its waters are +sometimes “drumly.” Dear old Avon!’—they were at the boat-house by this +time, and she was stepping on shore as she spoke—‘how long before I +shall see you again?’ + +‘Less than three months,’ said Edgar, clasping her hand as she sprang +up the steps which Bink had cut in the meadow bank. ‘Not quite three +months; and then, darling,’ in a lower tone, ‘you will be all my own, +and I shall be the happiest man on earth.’ + +‘Who knows?’ returned Daphne. ‘How can one be sure when one is leaving +a place that one will ever come back to it? Good-bye, dear old river!’ +she cried, turning to look back at it with eyes full of tears. ‘I feel +as sad as if I were taking my last look at you.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XXV. + +‘BUT I WOT BEST WHER WRINGETH ME MY SHO.’ + + +Twenty-four hours after that quiet row up the moonlit river, the South +Hill party were on the Calais steamer, tossing and tumbling about in +the Channel, much to the discomfiture of Mrs. Mowser, who was a bad +sailor, and took care to make everybody in the ladies’ cabin perfectly +familiar with that fact. There was nothing of the Spartan about +Mowser, nothing in any wise heroic in her conduct under the trial of +sea-sickness. Yet there was a kind of martyrlike fidelity in her; for +even in her agony she never let her mistress’s travelling-bag and +jewel-box out of her eye—nay, would hardly trust those valuables out +of her own grasp, clutching at them convulsively in the throes of her +malady, and suspecting evil intentions in guileless fellow-sufferers. + +It was a lovely night, and Madoline and Daphne both stayed on deck, to +the indignation of Mowser, who was sure Miss Lawford would catch cold, +and declared it was all Miss Daphne’s doing. + +‘I thought you’d have come down to the cabin and had a comfortable +lay-down,’ said Mowser when they had all scrambled or staggered up the +oozy steps, and had been interrogated as to their names by an alert +official, in a manner somewhat alarming to the sleepy and feeble-minded +voyager. + +Then came a weary hour or so in the warm light refreshment-room, a +cup of coffee, or a _bouillon_, a few stifled yawns, an occasional +excursion to the platform, and finally the welcome departure, by flat +fields and unknown marsh-lands, with the inevitable row of poplars +against the horizon. Daphne seemed to know the depressing landscape by +heart. Her father, muffled in his corner, slept peacefully. Madoline +slumbered, or seemed to slumber. Gerald and Edgar had secured a _coupé_ +to smoke in; and by a judicious arrangement with the guard Sir Vernon +and his daughters had a compartment all to themselves. But not one wink +of sleep visited Daphne’s eyelids. Wearily she watched the monotonous +landscape, enlivened a little now and then by a glimpse of village +life in the clear cold light of early morning; cattle moving about +in misty meadows, casements opening to the balmy air. What a long +journey it seemed to that one wakeful passenger! but the longest—were +it even a long unprofitable, uneventful life-journey—must end at last; +and by-and-by there came the cry of ‘Paris!’ and the mandate that +all passengers were to pass into the great bare luggage repository +to answer for the contents of bags and baggage; a weary interval, +during which the South Hill party loitered in bleak waiting-rooms, +while Jinman and Mrs. Mowser delivered up keys, and satisfied the +requirements of the State. + +A long day in Paris, during which Sir Vernon reposed from his fatigues +at the Bristol Hotel, while the young people went about sight-seeing; +a dinner at Bignon’s, where Daphne protested she could perceive no +difference between the much-vaunted _consommé_ of that establishment +and Mrs. Spicer’s clear soup; an evening at the Français, where they +saw Got in Mercadet; and then off again in the early summer morning by +the eight o’clock train for Dijon and Geneva, a twelve hours’ journey. + +It was a peerless morning. Paris, with its busy markets and +teeming life, seemed brimming over with brightness and gaiety; +boulevard-building in full progress; waggons coming in from the +country; artisans hurrying, grisettes tripping to their work. Daphne’s +spirits rose with the thought of fresh woods and pastures new. + +‘I have been longing all my life to see Switzerland,’ she said, when +all the difficulties of departure were overcome, and the train was +speeding gaily past suburban gardens, and groves, and bridges, ‘and now +I can hardly believe I am going there. It is a journey to dream about +and look forward to, not to come to pass.’ + +‘Are no bright things ever to come to pass? Is all life to be dull +and colourless?’ asked Gerald Goring, sitting opposite her in the +railway-carriage, with Lina by his side. They were all together to-day, +having established themselves as comfortably as possible in the +spacious compartment, and having provided themselves largely with light +literature, wherewith to beguile the tedium of the journey. + +‘I don’t know about you,’ said Daphne; ‘you are an exceptional person, +and have been able to realise all your dreams!’ + +‘Not all,’ answered Gerald gravely: ‘I suppose no one ever does that.’ + +‘You have but to form a wish, and, lo! it is gratified,’ murmured +Daphne, taking no notice of his interruption. ‘Last winter it flashed +across your brain that it would be nice to shoot cariboos—poor innocent +harmless cariboos, who had never injured you—and, in a thought, you are +off and away by seas and rivers and snow and ice to gratify the whim. +What pleasure can Switzerland have for you? Every inch of it must be as +vapidly familiar as that dear old English Warwickshire which you esteem +so lightly.’ + +‘Perhaps; but it is a pleasure to revisit a familiar place with those I +love. I was a poor solitary waif when I went through Switzerland, from +Geneva to Constance, from Lindau to Samaden, picking up my companions +by the way, or travelling in Byronic solitude—though, by the way, I +doubt if Byron ever was much alone. Judged by his poetry, he may be a +gloomy and solitary spirit; but judged by his life and letters, he was +a social soul.’ + +‘I like to think of him as gloomy and alone,’ said Daphne, with a +determined air. ‘Please don’t dispel all my illusions.’ + +Edgar was sitting by her side, cutting up magazines and newspapers, +watchful of her every look, thinking her every word delightful, ready +to minister to her comfort or pleasure, but without much ability to +entertain her with any conversational brightness—unless they two +could have been alone, and could have talked of their future life at +Hawksyard; the stables, the gardens, the horses they were to ride +together next winter, when Daphne was to take the field, a heaven-born +Diana. He was never tired of talking of that happy future, so near, so +near, and to which he looked forward with such fervent hope. + +They were nearing Fontainebleau; already the forest showed dark on the +horizon. Daphne, so vivacious hitherto, became curiously silent. She +sat looking towards that distant line of wood, that smiling valley +with its winding river. All her soul was in her eyes as she looked. +Two years ago—almost day for day, two years—and her heart had awakened +suddenly from its long sleep of childish innocence to feel and to +suffer. + +Gerald stole a look—guiltily as it were—at the too expressive face. +Yes, she remembered. Her soul was full of sad and tender memories. He +could read all her secrets in those lovely eyes, the lips slightly +parted, the lace about her neck stirred faintly by the throbbing of her +heart. She had no more forgotten Fontainebleau and their meetings there +than he had. To each it dated a crisis in life: for each it had given a +new colour to every thought and feeling. + +Lina, her hands moving slowly in some easy knitting, looked up at her +sister. + +‘Are we not near Fontainebleau, where you spent your holidays once?’ +she asked. + +‘Yes,’ Daphne answered shortly. + +‘You speak as if you had not been happy there.’ + +‘I liked the place very much; but it was a dull life. Poor Miss Toby +and her sick headaches, and Dibb for my only companion.’ + +‘And Dibb was ineffably stupid,’ said Gerald, suddenly forgetting +himself, and moved to laughter at the thought of honest Martha’s +stolidity; ‘at least, I have often heard you say as much,’ he added +hastily. + +‘She was a good harmless thing, and I won’t have her ridiculed,’ +said Daphne, brightening, all serious thoughts taking flight at the +absurdity of Gerald’s lapse. ‘I wonder if she has finished that crochet +counterpane.’ + +‘Finished it! Of course not,’ cried Gerald. ‘She is the sort of girl +who would die, and come to life again in a better world still working +at the same counterpane—as I imagine from your description of her,’ he +concluded meekly. + +They were leaving Fontainebleau far behind them by this time; its old +church, and its palace, with all its historic memories of Francis and +Henri, Napoleon and Pius VII. The forest was but a dark spot in the +vanishing distance; they were speeding away to the rich wine country +with its vast green plains, and steep hillsides clothed with vines. At +two o’clock they were at Dijon, and seemed to have been travelling a +week. Sir Vernon grumbled at the dust and heat, and regretted that he +had undertaken the whole journey in a day. + +‘We ought to have stayed the night at Dijon,’ he said fretfully, when +they were out of the station, steaming away towards Macon, after a +hurried luncheon in the well-furnished refreshment-room. + +‘It is a wretchedly dull place to stop at, sir,’ said Gerald; ‘hardly +anything to see.’ + +‘At my age a man does not want always to be seeing things,’ growled Sir +Vernon; ‘he wants rest.’ + +The day had been oppressively hot—a sultry heat, a sunbaked landscape. +Madoline and her sister bore it with admirable patience, beguiling the +tedium of those long hours now with conversation, now with books, anon +with quiet contemplation of the landscape, which for a long way offered +no striking features. It was growing towards evening when they entered +the Jura region, and found themselves in a world that was really worth +looking at: a wild strange world, as it appeared to Daphne’s eye; vast +rolling masses of hill that seemed to have been thrown up in long waves +before this little world assumed shape and solidity; precipitous green +slopes, grassy walls that shut out the day, and the deep rapid river +cleaving its tumultuous course through the trough of the hills. + +‘Don’t you think this is better than Stratford-upon-Avon?’ asked Gerald +mockingly, as he watched Daphne’s excited face, her eyes wide with +wonder. + +‘Ever so much wilder and grander. I should like to live here.’ + +‘Why?’ + +‘Because in such a world one would forget oneself. One’s own poor +little troubles would seem too mean and trumpery to be thought about.’ + +‘No man’s trouble is small or mean to the sufferer himself,’ replied +Gerald. ‘There is nothing grand or dignified in the abstract notion of +Job’s boils; yet to him they meant an unendurable agony which tempted +him to curse his Creator and destroy his own life. I don’t believe the +grandest natural surroundings would lessen one’s sense of the thorn in +one’s side.’ + +‘I don’t think you have any thorns, Daphne,’ said Edgar tenderly, +‘or that you need take refuge from your sorrows among these +desolate-looking mountains.’ + +‘Of course not. I was only speaking generally,’ answered Daphne +lightly; ‘but oh! what a mighty world it is—hills that climb to the +sky, and such lovely tranquil valleys lying between those dark earth +walls. Vines, and water-mills, and waterfalls tumbling over rocky beds. +If Switzerland is much grander than this, I think its grandeur will +kill me. I can hardly breathe when I look up at those great dark hills.’ + +‘I don’t know that there is anything in Switzerland that impresses one +so much as one’s first view of the Jura,’ said Gerald. ‘It is the giant +gateway of mountain-land—the entrance into a new world.’ + +The heat seemed to increase rather than diminish with the shades of +evening. No cool breeze sprang up with the going down of the sun. The +sultry atmosphere thickened, and became almost stifling; and then, just +as it was growing dark, big raindrops came splashing down, a roar of +thunder rolled along the hills, like a volley of cannon; thin threads +of vivid light trembled and zigzagged behind the hill-tops, and the +storm which had been brooding over them all the afternoon broke in real +earnest. + +‘A thunderstorm in the Jura,’ exclaimed Gerald; ‘what a lucky young +woman you are, Mistress Daphne! Here is one of Nature’s grandest +effects got up as if on purpose to give you pleasure.’ + +‘I hope it may cool the air,’ said Sir Vernon, from the comfortable +corner where he had been fitfully slumbering ever since they left the +French territory. + +Daphne sat looking out of the window, and spoke never a word. She +was drinking in the beauty and grandeur of this unspeakable region, +trying to fill her soul with the form and manner of it. Yes, it was +worth while living, were it only to see these mountain peaks and +gorges; these hurrying waters and leaping torrents; these living forces +of everlasting Nature. She had been weary of her life very often of +late, so weary that she would gladly have flung it off her like a +worn-out garment, and have lain down in dull contentment to take her +last earthly rest; but to-night she was glad to be alive—to see the +forked lightnings dancing upon the mountain-sides; to hear all earth +shudder at the roar of the thunder; to feel herself a part of that +grand conflict. A little later, when they had gone through an almost +endless tunnel, and were nearing Geneva, the thunder grew more and more +distant, seemed to travel slowly away, like an enemy’s cannon firing +stray shots as the foe retreated; and the night sky flung off its black +cloud-mantle, and all the stars shone out of a calm purple heaven; +while the little lights of the city, faint yellow spots upon the dark +blue night, trembled and quivered in the distance. + +‘Isn’t this dreadfully like one’s idea of Manchester?’ said Daphne, +when they were in the station, and tickets were being collected in the +usual businesslike way. + +‘Can there be a higher model than Manchester for any commercial city?’ +asked Gerald. + +‘Commercial! Oh, I hope there is nothing commercial in Switzerland. I +have always thought of it as a land of mountains and lakes.’ + +‘So is Scotland, yet there is such an element as trade in that country.’ + +‘You are bent on destroying my illusions. Oh, what a horrid row +of omnibuses!’ cried Daphne, as they came out of the station and +confronted about twenty of those vehicles, with doors hospitably open, +and commissionaires eager to abduct new arrivals for their several +hotels. ‘And where is Mont Blanc?’ she inquired, looking up at the +surrounding chimney-pots. + +‘At your elbow,’ answered Gerald; ‘but you may not see him to-night. +The monarch of mountains is like our own gracious sovereign, and is not +always visible to his subjects.’ + +There was a private carriage from the Beau Rivage Hotel waiting for the +South Hill party, and in this they all drove down a hilly-street, which +was bright and clean, and wide, and prosperous-looking, but cruelly +disappointing to Daphne. Jinman and Mowser followed in the omnibus with +the luggage. Mowser, like Daphne, was considerably disappointed. + +‘If this is Switzerland, I call it very inferior to Brighton,’ she said +snappishly. ‘Where are the glaziers and the mountings?’ + +‘Did you expect to find them just outside the station?’ demanded the +more travelled Jinman. ‘I have lived months in Switzerland and never +seen a glashyeer. I don’t hold with having one’s bones rattled to bits +upon a mule for the sake of seeing a lot of dirty ice. One can look at +that any hard winter on the Serpentine.’ + +‘Swisserland is Swisserland,’ answered Mowser sententiously, ‘and I +don’t hold with travelling all this way from home—I’m sure I thought +this blessed day would never come to an end—unless we are to see +somethink out of the common.’ + +‘The hotels are first-class,’ said Jinman, ‘and so are the restorongs +on board the boats. Nobody need starve in Switzerland.’ + +‘Can we get a decent cup of tea?’ asked Mowser. ‘There’s not a +scullery-maid at South Hill as would drink such cat-lap as they brought +me at the Bristol.’ + +Jinman explained that the teapot was an institution fully understood in +the Helvetian States. + +‘They’re a more domestic people than the French,’ said Jinman +condescendingly, ‘I must say that for them. But Genever is the poorest +place for restorongs I was ever at; plenty of your caffy-staminies, +where you may drink bad wine and smoke bad cigars to your heart’s +content; but hardly a decent house where you can get a dejoonay à la +fourchette, or give a little bit of dinner to a friend. The hotels have +got it all their own way.’ + +‘They ought to,’ answered Mowser, ‘when there’s such a many of ’em. I +wonder they can all pay.’ + +At the Beau Rivage, Sir Vernon and his daughters found a spacious +suite of rooms on the third floor, many-windowed, balconied, looking +over the lake. The two young men had secured quarters a little way off +at the International. Sir Vernon grumbled at being put on the third +storey, after having given due notice of his coming; but the American +dollar and the Russian rouble had bought up the first and second stages +of the big hotel, and an English country gentleman must needs be +contented with an upper floor. But the rooms were lovely, and Daphne +was delighted with their altitude. + +‘We are all the nearer Mont Blanc,’ she said, standing half in and half +out of the window; ‘one of the waiters told me it was over there—_tout +près_—but though I have been straining my eyes ever since, I can’t +discover a gleam of snow behind those dark hills.’ + +There were the loveliest flowers on the tables and cabinets, such +flowers as one hardly expects to find at an hotel, were it never so +luxurious. Madoline admired them wonderingly. + +‘One would think the people here knew my particular vanity, and were +anxious to gratify me,’ she said; and then turning to one of the +waiters who was arranging books and writing-desks on the tables, she +asked: ‘Have you always such lovely flowers in the rooms?’ + +‘No, madame. They were ordered this morning by a telegram from Paris.’ + +‘Father! No, Gerald; it must have been your doing.’ + +‘A happy thought while I was loitering about that miserable +railway-station,’ replied Gerald. + +‘How good of you! Dear flowers. They make the place seem like home.’ + +‘When you are settled at Montreux we can arrange for the contents of +the Abbey hot-houses to be sent you weekly. It will be something for +that pampered menial MacCloskie to look after, in the intervals of his +cigars and metaphysical studies. I have an idea that he employs all his +leisure in reading Dugald Stewart. There is a hardness about him which +I can only attribute to a close study of abstract truth.’ + +Daphne was standing out in the balcony, with Edgar at her side, looking +down at the scene below. Geneva seemed pretty enough in this night +view—a city of lake and lamplight, ringed round with mountains; a city +of angles and bridges, sharp lines, lofty houses, peaked roofs; the +dark bulk of a cathedral, with, a picturesque lantern on the roof, +dominating all the rest. + +‘I think if it would only lighten I could see Mont Blanc,’ said Daphne, +with her eyes fixed upon that bit of sky to which the waiter had +pointed when she questioned him about the mountain. ‘One good vivid +flash would light it up beautifully.’ + +‘My dearest, how dangerous!’ exclaimed Edgar; ‘pray, come out of the +balcony. You might be blinded.’ + +‘I’ll risk that. It will not be the first time I have stared the +lightning out of countenance.’ + +A summer flash lit up the sky as she spoke. There was one wide quiver +of pale blue light, but never a glimpse of snow-clad peak gleamed from +the distance. + +‘How horrid!’ exclaimed Daphne; ‘but that was a very poor flash. I’ll +wait for a better one.’ + +She waited for half-a-dozen, in spite of Edgar’s urgent efforts to lure +her indoors, but the summer flashes showed her nothing but their own +vivid light. + +‘If the electric light prove no better than that for all practical +uses, I don’t envy the inventor,’ she exclaimed with infinite disgust. + +Dinner was served in the adjoining room, but Madoline and her sister +begged to be excused from dining. They would take tea together in the +drawing-room while the three gentlemen dined. Sir Vernon declared that +he had no appetite, but he was willing to sit down, for the public good +as it were. After which protest he did ample justice to a _sole à la +Normande_, and a _poulet à la Marengo_, to say nothing of such pretty +tiny kickshaws as _gâteau St. Honoré_ and ice-pudding. + +For Madeline and Daphne a round table was spread with a snowy cloth, +a pile of delicious rolls, unquestionable butter, and a glass dish of +pale golden honey, excellent tea, and cream—a thoroughly Arcadian meal. + +‘Dearest, how brightly your eyes are sparkling,’ said Lina, with an +admiring look at the young face opposite. ‘I can see you are enjoying +yourself.’ + +‘Yes, there is always a pleasure in novelty. Why cannot one pass all +one’s life in new places? The world is wide enough. It is only our own +foolishness that keeps us tied, like a poor tethered animal, to one +dull spot.’ + +‘Why, Daphne, I thought you were so fond of home, that the banks of the +Warwickshire Avon made up your idea of earthly paradise!’ + +‘Sometimes, yes. But lately I have grown terribly tired of +Warwickshire.’ + +‘That’s a bad hearing; and next year, when you are settled at +Hawksyard——’ + +‘Please don’t speak of that. Thank Heaven we are three days’ journey +from Hawksyard. Let me forget it if I can.’ + +‘Daphne, how can you talk like that of a dear old place which is to be +your home—a place where one of the best men living was born?’ + +‘If you think him such a wonder of goodness, why did you not have +him when he asked you?’ cried Daphne, in a sudden fit of irritation. +Those nerves of hers, always too highly strung, were to-night at their +sharpest tension. ‘I am sick to death of hearing him praised by people +who don’t care a straw about him.’ + +‘Daphne!’ exclaimed Lina, more grieved than offended at this outburst. + +Daphne was on her knees beside her sister in the next moment. + +‘Forgive me, darling, I am hideously cross and disagreeable. I suppose +it is that tiresome lightning and the annoyance of not seeing Mont +Blanc. All that long, dusty, fusty journey, and nothing but an hotel +and a lamp-lit town at the end of it. I wanted to find myself in the +very heart of mountains, and glaciers, and avalanches.’ + +‘I think you know how honestly I like Edgar,’ said Madoline, believing +in her guilelessness that Daphne had resented her praise of Mr. +Turchill because she fancied it hollow and insincere. ‘I daresay if I +had not cared for Gerald long before Edgar proposed to me, I might have +given Mr. Turchill a different answer. I cannot tell how that might +have been. My life has had only one love. I loved Gerald from the days +when he first came to South Hill, a school-boy, when he used to tell +me all his troubles and his triumphs, when any success of his made me +prouder than if it had been my own. My heart was given away ages before +Edgar ever spoke to me of love.’ + +‘I know, dear; I can understand it all; only, don’t you know, when +everybody conspires to praise the young man to whom one is engaged, +and when all one’s relations are everlastingly congratulating one +upon one’s good fortune—the implication being that it is quite +undeserved—there is a kind of weariness that creeps over one’s soul at +the sound of those familiar phrases.’ + +‘I will never praise him again, dear,’ answered Lina, smiling at her. +‘I shall be perfectly contented to know that you value him as he +deserves to be valued, and that your future happiness is assured by his +devoted love.’ + +Daphne gave a fretful little sigh, but made no further protest. She was +thinking that she had seen a Newfoundland dog every whit as devoted as +Edgar. Yet the affection of that Newfoundland would have hardly been +deemed all-sufficient for the happiness of a lifetime. + +She went back to the table, and did execution upon the rolls and honey +with a healthy girlish appetite, despite that feverish unrest which +disturbed the equal balance of her mind. + +Daphne ordered Edgar to attend her on an exploration of the city next +morning, directly after breakfast. + +‘Madoline and my father know the place by heart,’ she said; ‘and, of +course, Mr. Goring is tired of it. How could a man who is weary of all +creation care for Geneva?’ + +‘Who told you I was weary of creation?’ asked Gerald languidly. + +‘Your ways and your manners,’ replied Daphne. ‘I knew as much the first +time I saw you.’ + +The weather was clear and bright, the town looking its best, as Daphne +and her lover left the hotel on their excursion. They were to be back +before noon, at which hour they were to start with Gerald and Madoline +for Ferney. + +‘If it were not for the lake this place would be beneath contempt,’ +said Daphne decisively, as they crossed the low level bridge, and +lingered to look at the sapphire Rhone, and to speculate upon that +deepened azure hue which the waters assume when they flow from the lake +into the river. ‘It is no more like the Geneva of my dreams than it is +like Jerusalem the Golden.’ + +‘Is it not really?’ + +‘Of course not. My idea of Switzerland was a succession of mountain +ledges, varied by an occasional plank across a torrent. Imagine +my revulsion of feeling at finding a big businesslike town, with +omnibuses, and cafés, and manufactories, and everything that is +commonplace and despicable.’ + +‘But, surely, I think you must have known that Geneva was a town,’ +faltered Edgar, grieved at his dear one’s ignorance, and glad to think +his mother was not by to compare this foolishness with her own precise +geographical knowledge, acquired thirty years ago at Miss Tompion’s, +and carefully harvested in the store-house of a methodical mind. + +‘Well, perhaps I may have expected something in the way of a city; a +semi-circle of white peaky houses on the margin of the lake; a mediæval +watch-tower or two; a Gothic gateway, the very gate that was shut +against Rousseau, don’t you know; and Mont Blanc in full view.’ + +‘I call it a very fine town,’ said Edgar, venturing to disagree with +his beloved. + +‘I wish it did not swarm so with English and Americans. I have heard +nothing but my own tongue since I came out,’ protested Daphne. + +She was better pleased presently when they mounted a narrow street on +the side of a breakneck hill. She was tolerably satisfied with the +cathedral, where the tomb of the great Protestant leader Henri de Rohan +took her fancy by its massive grandeur, couchant lions at its base, +the soldier in his armour above. She was interested in the pulpit from +which Calvin and Theodore de Bèze preached the Reformed Faith, and was +somewhat disgusted with her companion for his utter ignorance of the +historic past, save inasmuch as it was feebly reflected in the most +limited and conventional course of instruction. + +‘What did you learn at Rugby?’ she asked impatiently. ‘You don’t seem +to know anything.’ + +‘We didn’t give much time to history, except Livy and Xenophon,’ +answered Edgar, feebly apologetic. + +‘And therefore you are not a bit of use as a cicerone. You really ought +to subscribe to Mudie and read a lot of instructive books. There’s no +good in reading old histories; people are always discovering letters +and archives that put the whole story of the past in a new light. You +must get your history hot from the press.’ + +‘I would rather take my information at second-hand from you, dear,’ +answered Edgar meekly. ‘It seems natural to women to read a great deal, +and to find almost a second life in books, but men——’ + +‘Are so shamefully lazy that their capacity for taking in knowledge is +exhausted by the time they have skimmed the daily papers,’ answered +Daphne. ‘And now, please, take me to the museums Mr. Goring told you +about.’ + +With some trouble, and a good deal of inquiring, they found a private +collection of art and _bric-à-brac_, historical relics, furniture, +delft, and china, that was well worth seeing. Then, having regaled +their eyes upon this to the uttermost, they scampered off to the +public museum, where the only objects of thrilling interest were the +manuscripts and letters of dead and gone celebrities, from Calvin +downwards. They found that famous reformer’s penmanship as angular as +his character; they found Bossuet a careless and sprawling writer; +Fénelon careful, neat, and fine; the Duc de Richelieu a fop even in the +use of his pen, his writing exquisitely clear, minute, and regular; +while De Maintenon’s hand was large, bold, angular, and eminently +readable—the natural indication of an unscrupulous managing temper, a +woman born to govern, by fair means or foul. Daphne lingered a little +over Rousseau’s manuscript of ‘Julie,’ a work of delicate neatness, +evidently copied from the rough draft. + +‘Is not “Julie” one of the novels which one mustn’t read?’ asked +Daphne, when she had perused half a page. ‘It looks uncommonly dull. I +thought wicked stories were always interesting.’ + +Edgar had never heard of ‘Julie.’ It was doubtful if he had ever +heard of Rousseau; but at this remark he hurried Daphne away from the +manuscript, lest some snaky little bit of immorality should uncurl +itself on the page, and lift up its evil head before her. It was time +for them to get back to the hotel, so they gave but a cursory glance at +the pictures and other treasures of the museum, and hastened into the +glare of the broad white street, where Edgar insisted upon putting his +betrothed into a fly. They found Madoline and Gerald waiting for them +in the porch of the Beau Rivage, and a smart open carriage with a pair +of horses ready to take them to Ferney. + +‘Thank goodness we are going away from Geneva,’ said Daphne, as the +carriage rattled through the wide clean streets towards the country; +‘and now I suppose we shall see something really Swiss.’ + +‘You will see the home of a great man of letters,’ answered Gerald, +looking at her lazily with those languid dreamy eyes whose shifting hue +had so puzzled her in the forest of Fontainebleau, ‘and as you are such +a hero-worshipper, that ought to satisfy you.’ + +‘I don’t care a straw for Voltaire,’ said Daphne. + +‘Indeed! And pray how much do you know about him?’ + +‘Everything. I have read Carlyle’s description of him in “Frederick the +Great.” He was a horrid man; cringed to his goat-faced eminence Dubois; +allowed himself to be caned by the Duc de Rohan’s hired bravoes, the +Duc looking on out of a hackney coach window all the time.’ + +‘Don’t say allowed himself. I don’t suppose he could help it.’ + +‘He ought to have prevented it. Imagine a great man beginning his +career by being beaten in the public streets.’ + +‘Who knows that your Shakespeare did not get a sound drubbing from Sir +Thomas Lucy’s gamekeepers, before he was stung into retaliating by +that exquisitely refined lampoon which tradition ascribes to him? You +worship your Swan of Avon for what he wrote, not for what he did. Can +you not deal the same measure to Voltaire?’ + +‘I don’t know anything of his writing, except a few speeches out of +“Zaïre,” and an epitome of his “Louis Quatorze.” If you are going to +put him on an equality with Shakespeare——’ + +‘I am not. But I say that as an all-round literary worker he never had +an equal, unless it were Scott, who has surpassed him in many things, +and who could, I believe, have equalled him on any ground.’ + +‘Scott was an old dear,’ answered Daphne, with her usual flippancy, +‘and I would rather have “Kenilworth” and “The Bride of Lammermoor” +than all this Voltaire of yours ever wrote.’ + +‘And which you, most conscientious of critics, never read.’ + +‘Well, Daphne, what do you think of the country?’ asked Madoline, now +that they had left the city and were driving slowly up hill through a +pastoral district. ‘Is it not pretty?’ + +‘Pretty,’ cried Daphne, ‘of course it is pretty; but it isn’t Swiss. +What do I care for prettiness? There is enough of that and to spare in +Warwickshire. Why,’ with ineffable disgust, ‘the country is absolutely +green!’ + +‘What colour did you expect it to be?’ asked Edgar, smiling at her +energetic displeasure. + +‘White, of course! One dazzling sweep of snow. One blinding world of +whiteness.’ + +‘If you want that kind of thing you had better go to the North Pole,’ +said Gerald. + +‘Not I. If this is Switzerland I have done with travelling. I daresay +the North Pole is as tame as Stratford High Street.’ + +‘Does not that grand Jura range frowning yonder content you?’ asked +Gerald. ‘Is not your eye satisfied by the cloud-wrapped Alps on the +other side of that blue lake?’ + +‘No; they are too far off. I want to be among them—a part of them. +After a hypocritical waiter telling me last night that Mont Blanc was +_là, tout près_, a truthful chambermaid confessed this morning that it +is fourteen hours’ drive to Chamounix, and then one is only at the foot +of the mountain. As for this landscape we are now travelling through——’ + +‘It is uncommonly like Jersey,’ said Edgar. ‘I took my mother there for +her holiday five summers ago. It is a capital place for boating and +rambling about, and crossing over to the other islands: but the mater +didn’t like it. The people weren’t genteel enough for her. The gowns +and bonnets weren’t up to her mark.’ + +They were at Ferney by this time, a rustic village with one or two +humble cafés, a few small shops, a farm-yard. Here Daphne descried +a pair of oxen drawing a waggon of hay—noble beasts, dappled and +tawny—and the sight of these gave a foreign air to the scene which in +some wise lessened her disgust. + +A shaded shrubberied drive admitted them to the house where Voltaire +lived so long and so peacefully, and which is now in the occupation of +a gentleman who graciously allows it to be shown—rather ungraciously—by +his major-domo. Lightly as Daphne had spoken of Voltaire, she was too +keenly imaginative not to be interested in the house which any famous +man had inhabited. Two quiet rooms, _salon_ and bed-chamber, looked +into a short broad alley of trees, a garden, and summer-house perched +high on the hillside, and commanding a wide prospect of fertile valley +and gloomy mountain. All things in those two rooms were exactly as +they had been in the great man’s lifetime; everything was exquisitely +neat, and all the colours had faded to those delicate half-tints which +the artistic soul loveth: faint grays and purples, fainter greens and +fawn colours. Here was the narrow bed on which Voltaire slept, with its +embroidered coverlet; chairs and _fauteuils_ covered with tapestry; +walls upholstered with figured satin damask, pale with age; Lekain’s +portrait over the bed; Madame du Châtelet’s opposite, where the great +satirist’s cynical glance must have rested on it as he awakened from +his slumbers. + +They all looked reverently at these things, hushed and subdued by the +thought that they were amidst the surroundings of the dead; belongings +that had once been familiar and precious to him who now slept the last +long sleep in his vault at the Pantheon; where never-ending gangs of +Cook’s tourists are perpetually being ushered into his mausoleum, and +perpetually asking one another who was Voltaire? + +They loitered a little in the garden, wrote their names in a +visitors’-book, and then went back to explore the village, and to take +a modest luncheon of coffee and bread and butter, sour claret, and +Gruyère cheese at one of the humble taverns, while the horses stood at +ease before the door, and the driver refreshed himself modestly at the +expense of his fare. + +They drove home to the hotel by a way which passed through a quaint +village, and then skirted the lake, and which was somewhat more +romantic than the country road by which they had come, and Daphne +expressed herself satisfied, on the whole, with her first day in +Switzerland. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVI. + +‘FORBID A LOVE AND IT IS TEN TIMES SO WODE.’ + + +Sir Vernon showed himself especially gracious to his younger daughter +and her lover next morning at breakfast, when the itinerary of their +holiday was discussed. So far as his own pleasure was concerned, he +would have liked nothing better than to go straight to Montreux, where +a delightful villa, with a garden sloping to the lake, had been secured +for his accommodation; but he did not forget that Daphne had seen +nothing of Switzerland, and Edgar very little; and for their sakes he +was ready to make considerable sacrifices. + +‘I am a wretched traveller, and I detest sight-seeing,’ he said +languidly; ‘but I don’t wish to spoil other people’s pleasure. Suppose +we make a little round before we settle down in our villa by the +lake? Let us go to Fribourg and hear the organ, and then on to Berne +for a day or so, and then to Interlaken. There I can rest quietly in +my own rooms at the Jungfraublich, while you young people drive to +Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald, and do any little climbing in a mild way +which is compatible with the safety of your necks and bones generally; +and then we can come straight back to Montreux. How would you like +that, Madoline?’ + +‘Very much, indeed, dear father. It will be a delight to me to go over +the old ground with Daphne.’ + +‘And you, Goring?’ + +‘I am Lina’s slave—her shadow; true as the dial to the sun.’ + +‘Papa,’ said Daphne, drawing her chair nearer to him, and with a +coaxing look which no man but a father could have resisted, ‘it is +so good of you to propose such a charming trip, and I shall enjoy it +immensely; but would it be any way possible, now we are so near, to go +to Chamounix, and get to the top of Mont Blanc; or, at least, part of +the way up?’ + +‘No, my dear. Quite out of the question.’ + +‘But it is only a drive to Chamounix; and there is a diligence goes +every morning.’ + +‘Edgar can take you there next year, when you are married. I am too old +for a drive of fourteen hours’ duration.’ + +Daphne looked miserable. Mont Blanc was the central point of all her +desires. It irked her to be so near and not to reach the world-famous +mountain. She looked at Edgar doubtfully. No; she could not realise the +idea of coming back next year, alone with him. She had never been able +to project her mind into that future in which they two should be one, +bound by a sacred yoke, doomed to be for ever together. From any casual +glance at such a future her mind always shrank away shudderingly, as +from the dim memory of a bad dream. + +‘I don’t believe I shall ever come to Switzerland again,’ she said +discontentedly, when breakfast was finished and her father had retired +to his own room to write letters. + +Madoline was sitting at work by an open window, silken water-lilies and +bulrushes developing themselves gradually under her skilful fingers, on +a ground of sage-green cloth. The tables were covered with books and +miniature stands; the room was bright with flowers, and looked almost +as home-like as South Hill; but before the evening Mowser and Jinman +would have packed all these things, and despatched the greater part of +them to Montreux, while the travellers went on to Fribourg in light +marching order, which in this case meant about three portmanteaux per +head. Some books must, of course, be taken, and drawing materials, and +fancy-work, and a writing-desk or two, and camp-stools for sitting +about in romantic places, and a good deal more, which made a formidable +array of luggage by-and-by when Sir Vernon and his family were +assembled at the railway-station. + +‘Do you mean to tell me that we require all these things for a week or +ten days?’ he said, scowling at the patient Jinman, who was standing +on guard over a compact pyramid of trunks, portmanteaux, and Gladstone +bags, umbrellas, sunshades, and heterogeneous etceteras. + +‘I don’t think there’s anything could have been dispensed with, Sir +Vernon,’ answered Jinman. ‘The books and ornaments and most of the +heavy luggage have gone on to Montrooks.’ + +‘Great Heaven, in the face of this would any man marry, and make +himself responsible for feminine existences!’ exclaimed Sir Vernon, +shrugging his shoulders disgustedly as he turned away; yet Jinman could +have informed him that his own share of the luggage was quite equal to +that of his daughters. + +They were all established presently in a German railway compartment: +Sir Vernon seated in his corner and absorbed in an English newspaper, +whose ample sheet excluded every glimpse of lake and wooded slopes, +Alps and Jura; while Edgar smoked on the platform outside, and Daphne +stood at the open door, gazing at the changing landscape: the smiling +lake below; the dark slopes and mountain range on the farther shore; +the villages nestling in the valley on this nearer bank; the cosy +little homesteads and bright gardens; the vine-clad terraces, divided +by low gray walls; the quaint old churches, with tiled roofs and square +clock-towers; and yonder, far away at the end of the lake, Chillon’s +gloomy fortress, which she recognised with a cry of delight, having +seen its presentment in engravings and photographs, and knowing Byron’s +poem by heart. + +She gave a sigh of regret as a curve of the line carried her away from +the azure lake and its panorama of hills. + +‘I can hardly bear to leave it,’ she said; ‘but, thank Heaven, we are +coming back to it soon.’ + +‘You are reconciled to Switzerland, then, in spite of your +disillusions,’ said Gerald. + +‘Reconciled! I should like to live and die here.’ + +‘What! abandon your beloved Shakespeare’s country?’ + +‘I am heartily sick of Shakespeare’s country.’ + +‘Daphne,’ cried Edgar, with a look of deepest mortification, ‘that is a +bad look-out for poor old Hawksyard.’ + +‘Hawksyard is a dear old place, but I don’t want to be reminded of +it—or of anything else in Warwickshire—now I am in Switzerland. I want +to soar, if I can. I am in Byron’s country. He lived there,’ pointing +downwards to where they had left Lausanne and Ouchy. ‘He wrote some +of his loveliest poetry there; his genius is for ever associated with +these scenes. Sad, unsatisfied spirit!’ + +Her eyes filled with sudden tears at the thought of that disappointed +life, seeking solace from all that is loveliest in Nature, shunning the +beaten tracks, yet never finding peace. + +‘If you are very good,’ said Gerald gravely, ‘within the next ten +minutes I will show you something you are anxious to see.’ + +‘What is that?’ + +‘Mont Blanc. Get your glass ready.’ + +‘Why, we left him behind us, across the lake, sulkily veiled in +impenetrable cloud.’ + +‘He will show himself more amiable presently. You will get a good view +of him in five minutes if you focus your glass properly and don’t +chatter.’ + +Daphne spoke never a word, but stood motionless, with her landscape +glass glued to her eyes, and waited, as for a divine revelation. + +Yes, yonder it arose, white and cloudlike on the edge of the blue +summer sky, the mighty snow-clad range, of which Mont Blanc is but a +detail—the grand inaccessible region; mountain-top beyond mountain-top; +peak above peak; everlasting, untrodden hills, producing nothing, +pasturing nothing, stupendous and ghastly as the polar seas; a world +apart from all other worlds; a spectacle to awe the dullest soul and +thrill the coldest heart; a revelation of Nature’s Titanic beauty. + +‘Oh, it must have been such mountains as those that the Titans hurled +about them when they fought with Zeus,’ cried Daphne when she had gazed +and gazed till the last gleam of those white crests vanished in the +distance. + +‘Do you feel better?’ asked Gerald, with his mocking smile. + +‘I feel as if I had seen the world that we are to know after death,’ +answered Daphne. + +‘Would you be surprised to hear that these excrescences, which you +think so grand, are but modern incidents in the history of the earth? +Time was when Switzerland was one vast ice-field: nay, if we can +believe Lyell, the clay of London was in course of accumulation as +marine mud at a time when the ocean still rolled its waves over the +space now occupied by some of the loftiest Alpine summits.’ + +‘Please don’t be instructive,’ exclaimed Daphne. ‘I want to know +nothing about them, except that they are there, and that they are +beautiful.’ + +At Fribourg they drove down the narrow street to the Zähringer Hof, the +hotel by the suspension bridge, where from a balcony they looked down +a sheer descent to the river, and to the roofs and chimneys of the old +town lying in a cleft of the hills, while yonder, suspended in mid-air, +a mere spider-thread across the sky, stretched the upper and loftier +bridge. It was nearly dinner-time when they arrived. There were dark +clouds on the horizon, and only gleams of watery sunshine behind the +gray old watch-towers on the crest of the hill across the river. + +‘I’m afraid we are going to have another storm,’ said Gerald, lounging +against the embrasure of a window, and looking as if Fribourg, with its +modern suspension bridges and mediæval watch-towers, were just the most +uninteresting place in the world. + +He looked thoroughly worn-out and weary, as if he had been +labouring hard with body and mind all day, instead of lolling in a +railway-carriage, staring listlessly at the landscape. Sir Vernon, the +ostensible invalid, was not more languid. + +‘Let it come down,’ cried Daphne; ‘but whatever the weather may be, +I shall go and hear the organ after dinner. There is the bell for +vespers. How nice it is to find oneself in a Roman Catholic town, with +vesper-bells ringing, and dear old priests and nuns and all sorts of +picturesque creatures walking about the streets!’ + +They dined in their own sitting-room, Sir Vernon having a good old +English dislike to any intercourse with unintroduced fellow-creatures. +To sit at a _table-d’hôte_ with the Tom, Dick, and Harry of cockney +Switzerland would have been abhorrent to him. + +‘We may get a worse dinner in our own room,’ he said, looking +doubtfully at some unknown spoon-food offered to him by way of an +_entrée_, ‘but we avoid rubbing shoulders with the kind of people who +travel nowadays.’ + +‘Are they so much worse than the people who used to travel——’ + +‘When I was a young man? Yes, Daphne, quite a different race,’ said Sir +Vernon with authority. ‘Gerald was right. We are in for another storm.’ + +A quiver of livid light, a crash of thunder, and black darkness yonder +behind the hills gave emphasis to his statement. Daphne flew to the +window to look at the bridges and the towers, which were almost +expunged from the face of creation by a thick blinding rain. A waggon +was crawling across the nearer and lower bridge, and the whole fabric +rocked under its weight. + +‘Nobody will dream of going to the cathedral to-night,’ said Sir Vernon. + +But the waiter in attendance declared that everyone would go. There +would be a concert on the great organ from eight to nine. The cathedral +was close by; there would be a carriage in waiting at ten minutes to +eight to convey those guests who graciously deigned to patronise the +concert, for which the waiter was privileged to dispose of tickets. +Furthermore, the storm would assuredly abate before long. It was but a +thunder-shower. + +Daphne stood at the window watching the thunder-shower, which seemed +to be drowning the lower town and flooding the river. The rain came +down in torrents; the thunder roared and bellowed over the hills; the +chainwork of the suspension bridge creaked and groaned. + +Sir Vernon protested that the storm made him nervous, and retired to +his room, leaving the young people to do as they pleased. + +They sat in the stormy dusk sipping their coffee, ready to put on their +hats and be off the minute the carriage was announced. Daphne wore a +gown of some creamy-white material, which gave her a ghostly look in +the gloom. + +‘You have heard this famous organ, Lina,’ she said. ‘Is it really worth +stopping at Fribourg on purpose to hear it when, with a little more +time and trouble, one might get half-way up Mont Blanc?’ + +‘It is a wonderful organ; but you will be able to judge for yourself in +a few minutes.’ + +‘We should have been getting near Chamounix by this time, if we had +started by this morning’s diligence,’ sighed Daphne. + +‘Restless, unsatisfied soul! still harping on the mountain,’ said +Gerald. + +‘I have seen him, at least,’ exclaimed Daphne, clasping her hands; +‘that is something. Far, far away, like a glimpse of another world: but +still I have seen him. Shall we see him again to-morrow, do you think, +on the way to Interlaken?’ + +‘I’m afraid not. To-morrow I shall have the honour to introduce you to +the Jungfrau.’ + +‘I don t care a straw for her,’ exclaimed Daphne contemptuously. + +‘What, not for Manfred’s mountain? Can you, who have so devoured your +Byron, be indifferent to the background of that gloomy individual’s +existence?’ + +‘There is an interest in that, certainly; but Mont Blanc is my +beau-ideal of a mountain.’ + +Here the carriage was announced. The two girls put on their hats and +wraps, soft China crape and gray camel’s-hair shawls, and hurried down +to the hall. The rain was still falling, the thunder still grumbling +amidst distant hills. They crowded into the fly, and were jolted over +stony and uneven ways to the cathedral. + +They went in at a narrow little door to a great dark church, with +solitary lamps dotted about here and there in the gloom. Everything had +a mysterious look; the richly-carved oak, the shrines, the chapels, the +shrouded altar far away at the end. + +There were, perhaps, a hundred people sitting about in high narrow pews +with massive carved oak seats, sitting here and there in a scattered +way, all wrapped in shadow and gloom, silent, overawed, expectant. + +Madoline and Daphne walked side by side up the long nave, between two +lines of oaken seats, the two men following; then midway between the +organ and the altar, they went into one of the pews—Lina first, then +Daphne. She had been sitting there a minute or so looking about the dim +dark church before she discovered that it was Gerald, and not Edgar, +who sat by her side. Edgar had taken the seat behind them. + +They sat there for five or ten minutes, hushed and listening; the rain +splashing on the roof, the distant thunder reverberating; nothing to +be seen in the vast building but those yellow lamps gleaming here and +there, and patching with faint light an isolated statue, or a pulpit, +or a clustered column. + +At last, when the silence, broken only by faintest whisperings among +the expectant audience, had endured for what seemed a weary while, +the organ pealed forth in a grand burst of sound, which swept along +the arched roof, and filled the church with music. Then after that +crash of mighty chords came tenderest phrases, a flowing melody that +sank low as a whisper, and then that strain of almost supernatural +likeness to the human voice rose up above the legato arpeggios of the +accompaniment, and thrilled every ear—tender, angelic, a divine whisper +of love and melancholy. Daphne had risen from her seat, and stood with +her arms resting upon the massive woodwork in front of her, gazing up +through the darkness towards that glimmering spot of light yonder, +near the arch of the roof, which showed where the organ was, far away, +mysterious. + +Oh, that heavenly voice, with its soul-moving sadness! A rush of tears +streamed from her eyes; she stretched out her hands unconsciously, as +if yearning for some human touch to break the mournful spell of that +divine sorrow, and the hand nearest Gerald was clasped in the darkness; +clasped by a warm strong hand which held it and kept it—kept it without +a struggle, for, alas! it lay unresistingly in his. They drew a little +nearer to each other involuntarily, shudderingly happy—with the deep +sense of an unpardonable guilt, a shameful treason; yet forgetting +everything except that vain foolish love against which both had fought +long and valiantly. + +A peal of thunder on the organ within, an answering peal from the storm +without. The mimic tempest blended itself with heaven’s own artillery; +and at the terrible sound those guilty creatures in the church let go +each other’s hands. Daphne clasped hers before her face, and sank on +her knees. + +‘Pity me and help me, O God!’ she prayed, and looking up she saw just +above her in a marble niche the image of the Mother of God; and in this +moment of temptation and self-abandonment, it seemed to her a natural +thing that women should ask a woman’s mediation in their hour of sorrow. + +A funeral hymn of Sebastian Bach’s pealed from the organ with an awful +grandeur which thrilled every listener; and then came a silence, and +after that the low murmur of the storm dying away in the distance, from +the overture to ‘William Tell,’ the flutelike tones of the ‘_Ranz des +Vaches_,’ telling of pastoral valleys and solemn mountains, a life of +Arcadian innocence and peace. + +With those lighter, gayer strains the concert ended, and they all went +slowly and silently out of the church. The storm was over, and the moon +was breaking through dark clouds. + +‘Don’t let us go back in that jingling abomination of a fly,’ said +Gerald, striding on over the wet pavement, leaving the two girls to +follow with Edgar Turchill. + +They picked their way through the streets. The town was all dark and +quiet, save for a glimmering yellow candle here and there under a +gable; there was none of the brightness and out-of-door life of a +French town. A couple of omnibuses and a fly or two carried off the +people who had been in the cathedral to their several hotels. + +Gerald Goring was waiting for them in front of the Zähringer. + +‘What made you hurry on so?’ asked Madoline wonderingly. + +‘Did I hurry? I think it was you others who crawled. That music +irritated my nerves a little. It is full of studied effects; the +organist has trained himself to play upon the emotions of his audience, +now soaring to the seraph choir, now going down to the depths of +Pandemonium. The thunderstorm and the organ together would have been +too much for anybody. Oh, pray don’t go indoors yet,’ he exclaimed, as +they were all three moving towards the entrance of the hotel. ‘Let us +go for a walk on the bridge. Don’t you know that after the organ the +great feature of Fribourg is the bridge?’ + +‘If we are to be on our way to Interlaken to-morrow, we had better see +all we can to-night,’ said the practical Edgar. + +They went on the bridge; Gerald still walking ahead, and keeping in +some wise aloof from them. Daphne had not spoken since they left the +cathedral. + +‘Had the music an unpleasant effect upon you too, dear, that you are so +silent?’ Madoline asked, as they two walked side by side. + +‘It was only too beautiful,’ answered Daphne. + +‘And you are glad we came here.’ + +‘No. Yes. I would rather have been half-way up Mont Blanc.’ + +‘Poor child! But that is a pleasure in reserve for another holiday. I +know Edgar will take you wherever you like to go.’ + +‘Do you think so? What a dance I shall lead him!’ cried Daphne with +a mocking laugh. ‘I shall not be content with Mont Blanc or the +Matterhorn. I shall insist upon seeing all the extinct volcanoes, the +wonderful fiery mountains that have burned themselves out. Cotopaxi is +about the mildest hill he will be invited to climb.’ + +Mr. Turchill had dropped into the background, and was quietly enjoying +his cigar, unaware of the pleasures in store for him. Gerald walked +ever so far ahead, cigarless, a gloomy figure. + +‘I’m afraid either the thunder or the organ has given Gerald one of his +nervous headaches,’ said Lina anxiously. + +The moon showed herself fitfully athwart hurrying clouds, now lighting +up hills and watch-towers, river and rugged ravine, with a wild +Salvator-Rosa-esque effect, now hidden altogether, and leaving all in +gloom. Midway upon the bridge Madoline and Daphne stopped, and stood +looking down into the hollow below, where the quiet sleeping town +was dimly visible, with its quaint street lamps, and rare gleams of +light from narrow casements, and stony ways shining after the rain. +Here, when they had stood for some minutes, Edgar joined them, having +finished his cigar, and he and Madoline began to talk about the place; +he questioning, she expounding its features. + +While they two were talking, Gerald came slowly back, and stood by +Daphne’s side, a few paces apart from the others. She said never a +word. They stood side by side for some minutes like statues. She was +wondering if he could hear the passionate throbbing of her heart, which +would not be stilled. + +They were standing thus, as if bound by a spell, when a heavy waggon +came creeping slowly along the bridge, making the spot on which they +stood tremble and sway under their feet. + +‘We are hanging by a thread between time and eternity,’ said Gerald, +drawing closer to her. ‘What if the thread were to snap, and drop us, +hand in hand, into the black gulf of death?’ + +She did not shudder at the thought, but turned and looked at him in the +moonlight, with a strange sad smile. + +‘Would you be glad?’ he asked softly. + +‘Yes,’ she answered, between a sigh and a whisper, still looking up +at him with that pathetic smile; and his eyes looked fondly down into +hers, losing themselves in the depth of a fathomless mystery. + +‘Do you know that this bridge is the second longest in the world, +three hundred yards long, and a hundred and sixty-eight feet above +the river?’ asked Edgar Turchill’s matter-of-fact tones, as he walked +towards them, cheerful, contented, pleased with himself and all the +world. + +‘For God’s sake spare us a gush of second-hand Baedeker,’ cried Gerald +with intense irritation. ‘As if any living soul, except a Cook’s +tourist, could care how many feet or how many yards long a bridge is. +It is the effect one values, the general idea that one is on that very +bridge of Al Sirât, laid over the midst of hell, and finer than a +hair, and sharper than the edge of a sword, over which the righteous +must pass to Mahomet’s paradise. It is the notion of man’s audacity in +making perilous ways that is really delightful. When that waggon went +across just now, I thought the last straw was being laid, and we were +all going.’ + +Edgar came round to Daphne with a calm air of proprietorship which made +her shudder. + +‘What an interesting evening we have had!’ he said. + +‘Very.’ + +‘You look pale and tired. Has it all been too much for you?’ he asked +tenderly. + +‘I think that organ would be too much for anyone.’ + +‘Do you know—I am no judge, and you mustn’t laugh at me for expressing +an opinion—I hardly thought it equal, as an organ, to the one at St. +Paul’s. I took my mother there once when all the charity children were +assembled. I can’t tell you what a grand sight it was, the dome crowded +with their fresh young faces.’ + +‘Oh, for pity’s sake don’t talk about it,’ cried Daphne, almost +hysterically. ‘To compare that dark solemn cathedral, with just a few +people dotted about among the shadows, and the thunder pealing over the +roof—to compare such a scene with that pagan St. Paul’s, and the dome +crowded with rosy-cheeked children, all white caps and pinafores and +yellow worsted stockings!’ + +‘I was talking of the organ,’ replied Edgar, somewhat offended. + +‘Then why introduce the charity children? Oh, please let my thoughts +dwell upon that dark church to-night; let me remember the music, the +darkness.’ + +‘Daphne, dearest one, you are crying,’ exclaimed Edgar, startled at the +sound of a stifled sob. + +‘Who would not cry at such music?’ + +‘But so long after. You are nervous and hysterical.’ + +‘I am only tired. Please don’t worry me,’ retorted Daphne fretfully, +wrapping herself tightly in her soft gray shawl, and quickening her +pace. + +She said not a word more till they were inside the Zähringer Hof, +when she wished the other three a brief good-night, declaring herself +utterly worn out, and tripped lightly upstairs to her room on the +second storey. Madoline’s room was next her sister’s, and when she +went up a few minutes later, and knocked at the door of communication +between the two rooms, Daphne excused herself from opening it. + +‘I’m dreadfully sleepy, dear,’ she said; ‘please leave me alone for +to-night!’ + +‘Willingly, dearest, if you are sure you are not ill.’ + +‘Not the least in the world.’ + +‘And there is nothing you want Mowser to do for you?’ + +‘Nothing. She has unpacked my things. I have everything I want.’ + +‘Then good-night, and God bless you.’ + +‘Good-night,’ answered Daphne, but invoked no blessing upon the sister +she loved so well. Prayer breathed from such a guilty heart would be +almost blasphemy. + +She walked up and down the room for a long time, up and down, up and +down, her soul filled with ineffable joy. Yes; guilty, treacherous, +vile, ungrateful as she knew herself to be, she could not stifle that +wild sense of happiness, the rapture of knowing herself beloved by +the man she loved. Nothing but evil could ever come out of that love; +nothing but struggle, and sorrow, and pain; yet it was deep delight to +have been loved, the one perfect joy that was possible for her upon +this earth. To have missed it would have been never to have lived: and +now death might come when it would. She had lived her life; she had had +her day. + +That this love was a thing of guilt, a scorpion to be crushed and +trodden under her foot, she never questioned. Not for an instant +did it enter into her mind that she could profit by Gerald Goring’s +inconstancy, that she was to take to herself the lover whose faith had +been violated by to-night’s revelation. Never did it occur to her that +any alteration in his future or hers was involved in the admissions +which each had made to the other. + +‘He knows that I love him; he knows how weak and vile I am,’ she said +to herself. ‘If Lina were to know too? If she were to see me with +the mask off my face, what a monster of perfidy and ingratitude I +should seem to her! Oh, I should die of shame. I could never endure +the discovery. And to make her unhappy—her to whom I owe so much, my +dearest, my best, the guardian angel of my life. Oh, Lina, Lina, if you +knew!’ + +She flung herself on her knees beside the bed, and, with hands clasped +above her head, breathed her passionate prayer: + +‘Let me die to-night. Oh, Thou who knowest how sinful and weak I am, +let me die to-night!’ + + + + +CHAPTER XXVII. + +‘I MAY NOT DON AS EVERY PLOUGHMAN MAY.’ + + +A chambermaid brought Daphne a letter at half-past six o’clock next +morning. She had fallen asleep in the summer sunlight after a night of +almost utter sleeplessness; the warm air blowing in upon her across +the hills on the opposite side of the river; the noises of the early +awakened town floating up from the valley below. + +She started from her pillow, scared and agitated at the sound of +the chambermaid’s knock, and took the letter with a trembling hand. +Gerald’s writing! She knew it too well; yet this was the first letter +he had ever addressed to her. + +‘How dare he write to me?’ she exclaimed angrily, as she tore open the +envelope. + +The letter began with no fond words of endearment. The writer dashed at +his meaning with passionate directness, with feeling too intense to be +eloquent. + + ‘Tell me what I am to do. After last night, my future, my life, are in + your hands. Both belong to you if you will have them. Shall I break + the truth to Lina? Shall I tell her how, little by little, in spite of + myself, my heart has been beguiled away from that calm affection which + was once all-sufficient for the joy of life; how a new and passionate + love has replaced the old; and that, although I shall honour, respect, + and admire her as the first and best of women till the end of my days, + I am no longer, I never can be again, her lover? I think, Daphne, that + the hard, outspoken, brutal truth may be the wisest and best. Let us + look Fate in the face. Neither you nor I can ever be happy asunder. + Will the sacrifice of my happiness secure Lina’s? Answer me from your + heart of hearts, my beloved, as you answered me on the bridge last + night.’ + +There was not an instant’s doubt in Daphne’s mind as to how this letter +must be answered. Lina’s happiness sacrificed to hers! Lina, so good, +so pure-minded, in all things so much above her, to be made miserable, +in order that she might triumph in a successful treachery! + +‘I don’t think the most virtuous person in the world could loathe me +worse than I should loathe myself, if I were to do this thing,’ she +said to herself resolutely. + +She sat down by the open window, wrapped in her loose white +dressing-gown, her soft golden hair falling over her shoulders like a +veil, her cheeks pale, her eyes heavy, an image of youthful sorrow. + + ‘Not for this wide world,’ she wrote, answering Gerald Goring’s + question as directly as he had asked it, ‘not to be completely and + unspeakably happy would I rob my sister of her happiness; not if it + could be done without making me a monster of ingratitude, the most + treacherous and despicable of women. All you and I have to do is to + forget our folly of last night, and to be true, each of us, to the + promises we have made. You would be, indeed, a loser, condemned to + pay a life-long penalty for your foolishness, if you could barter + such a flower as Madoline for such a weed as me. Be true to her, and + you will find your reward in that truth. Do you know how good she is; + how priceless in her purity and love; and could you let her go for my + sake—for a creature who is compounded of faults and inconsistencies, + caprices, self-will; a creature with no more soul than Undine? + Remember how long she has loved you; think how much she is above you + in the beauty of her character; how fitted she is to make your home + happy, your life nobler and better than it could ever be without + her. Why, if, in some moment of madness, you were to surrender her + love, your life to come would be one long regret for having lost her. + Forget, as I shall forget; be true, as I will be true, heaven helping + me; and let me write myself, without a blush, in this my first, and, + perhaps, my last letter to you,—Your Sister, + + DAPHNE.’ + +Her eyes were streaming with tears as she wrote. Every word came from +her heart. There was no duplicity of thought, no lurking hope that +Gerald might refuse to be ruled by her. She wrote to him faithfully, +honestly, resolutely, her heart and mind exalted by her intense +love of her sister. And when the letter was sealed and given to the +chambermaid—who must have wondered a little at this outbreak of +letter-writing before breakfast as a new development in the British +tourist—she stole softly to the door leading into Madoline’s room and +opened it as noiselessly as she could. + +Lina was still asleep, the calm beautiful face turned towards the +sunlight, the long dark lashes dropping on the oval cheek, the lips +faintly parted. Daphne crept to the bed-side and sat down beside her +sister’s pillow. Lina awoke and looked up at her. + +‘My pet, have you been here long? Is it late?’ she asked. + +‘Late for you, love. About half-past seven. I have only this moment +come in.’ + +‘How white and haggard you look!’ said Lina anxiously. ‘Have you had a +bad night?’ + +‘I did not sleep particularly well. I seldom can in a strange place.’ + +‘Daphne, I am afraid you are ill—or unhappy. There was something in +your manner last night that alarmed me.’ + +‘I am not ill: and I have not felt so happy for a long time as I feel +this morning.’ + +‘Why, dearest?’ + +‘Because I have been making good resolutions, and I mean to act upon +them.’ + +‘Would it be too much to ask what they are?’ + +‘Oh, a general determination to be very obedient to you, and very +respectful to my father, and very tolerant of Edgar’s stupidities, and +all that kind of thing, don’t you know?’ + +‘My darling, I can’t bear to hear you talk of Edgar like that. He is so +thoroughly good.’ + +‘Yes,’ sighed Daphne, with an air of resignation. ‘If there were only a +little rift in his goodness, I should get on with him so much better. +It is dreadful to have to deal with a man whose excellence is always +putting one to shame.’ + +‘I think you could be easily worthy of him.’ + +‘No, I couldn’t. And if I could I wouldn’t. And now I must run away +and dress, for I want to explore those hills across the river before +breakfast.’ + +She looked bright and fresh and full of youthful energy an hour +afterwards, when she went down to the sitting-room, where Edgar was +loafing about wearily, longing for her to appear. Her neat tailor gown +of darkest olive cashmere, and coquettish little olive-green toque, +set off the pearly tints of her complexion and the brightness of her +loosely-coiled hair. She came into the room buttoning a long Swedish +glove, the turned-back sleeve showing the round white arm. + +‘What a fetching get-up,’ said Edgar, who was apt to embellish his +speech with those flowers of slang which are in everybody’s mouth; ‘but +what is the use of those long gloves tucked away under the sleeve of +your gown?’ + +‘No use,’ answered Daphne; ‘but they’re fashionable. I want you to +come and ramble on that hill over there before breakfast. Do you mind?’ + +‘Mind!’ cried Edgar. ‘You know I am always delighted to walk with you. +But, I say, Daphne, what was the matter with you last night? You were +so cross.’ + +‘I know I was; but I am never going to be cross again. I am going to +turn over a new leaf. I have been wild and wilful, but I am not wilful +now.’ + +‘You are always the dearest and best of girls,’ answered Edgar +fatuously. + +They passed Gerald Goring on the stairs. Daphne gave him a friendly +nod, just the easiest salutation possible; but her cheek paled as she +went by, and her reply to Edgar’s next observation was somewhat wide of +the mark. + +He talked Baedeker to her as they went across the bridge; and he talked +Baedeker about the watch-towers; and still again Baedeker when, in the +course of their wanderings, they came to a chapel on a height, from +whence there was a lovely view, exquisitely beautiful in the clear calm +summer morning. They roamed about together till it was time to go back +to the ten o’clock breakfast, by which hour Sir Vernon had resigned +himself to the ordeal of facing his family. + +After breakfast there came more sight-seeing, Sir Vernon having decided +upon going on to Berne by a late afternoon train. So they all set out +together in a roomy landau to explore the town and neighbourhood. They +went into the arsenal, where a funny old man in a blue blouse showed +them ancient and modern gunnery. They saw the venerable lime-tree which +stands in front of the Town Hall and the Rathhaus, propped up with +wood and stone; a tree which, according to tradition, was originally a +twig borne by a young native of Fribourg when he arrived in the town, +breathless from loss of blood, to bring the news of the victory of +Morat. ‘Victory!’ he gasped, and died. + +Gerald, more than usually cynical this morning, declined to believe in +either the twig or the heroic messenger. + +‘I always shut my mind against all these romantic stories upon +principle,’ he said languidly. ‘The outcome of all modern research—Mr. +Brewer, and all the rest of it—is to prove that none of these +delightful traditions has a germ of truth in it. It saves a great deal +of trouble to begin by disbelieving them.’ + +They went about the town in rather a dawdling desultory way, looking at +the fronts of old houses, at the queer little shops, and finally paused +before the church of St. Nicholas, which they had seen so dimly last +night. Edgar insisted upon going in, but Daphne would go no farther +than the doorway, where she looked respectfully at the bas-reliefs +which she was told to admire. + +‘I saw quite enough of it last night,’ she said, when Edgar urged her +to go in and explore the interior. + +‘Why, Daphne, it was too dark for you to see anything.’ + +‘All churches are alike,’ she answered impatiently. ‘Please don’t +worry.’ + +Sir Vernon, who happened to be within earshot, looked at his daughter +curiously, wondering at this development of modern manners. Could a +pearly delicacy of complexion, luminous eyes of that dark gray which +is almost violet, and bright gold hair, quite make amends for this +utter want of courtesy? But Edgar appeared perfectly content to be so +treated; and it was Edgar who was most concerned in the matter. + +They dawdled away a long morning seeing the town and driving about +the somewhat pastoral landscape which surrounds it, lunched late, and +started at five o’clock for Berne, where they arrived at the Berner +Hof in time for a late dinner. Daphne grumbled a little on the way, +protesting against the landscape between Fribourg and Berne as a +relapse into English pastoral scenery. + +‘What do I want with meadows, and orchards, and cottages?’ she +exclaimed. ‘I can see those in England. If it were not for the cows +living on the ground-floor, and the fodder being carried up to the roof +by those queer slanting covered ways, there wouldn’t be a shade of +difference between the houses here and those at home, except that these +are ever so much dirtier.’ + +‘You ought to have come a few million years ago, when Switzerland was a +glacial chaos,’ said Gerald. + +The Berner Hof pleased Sir Vernon by its spaciousness and air of +English comfort, but it impressed Daphne as an hotel which would have +been more in keeping with Liverpool or Manchester. + +‘I had quite made up my mind that in Switzerland we should stop at +wooden _châlets_ perched upon mountain ledges, with an impending +avalanche always in view, and the “_Ranz des Vaches_” sounding in the +distance all day long.’ + +‘There are such hostelries,’ answered Gerald; ‘but I think, if you +found yourself at one of them, you would be rather inclined to wish +yourself at the Berner Hof, or the Beau Rivage.’ + +Next day was the first Tuesday in the month, and the occasion of the +monthly market, a grand assemblage of small dealers from the adjacent +country. + +They all went out directly after breakfast, and proceeded straight +to the noble central street, a mile in length, which under various +names pierces the town in a straight unbroken line from one end to +the other. Very old and quaint are the houses in this long street, +many of them built over arcades, under which the foot-passengers walk, +and within whose arches the market-people set out their stalls. The +drapery stalls, gay with many-coloured handkerchiefs fluttering in the +summer air; the jewellers’ stalls, all twinkling and flashing with that +silver trinketry which is a national institution, chains of endless +length, necklaces, earrings, bracelets, glittering in the sun; stalls +loaded with fruits and vegetables; stalls of gaudy-coloured pottery, +jugs and jars of queerest, quaintest shapes; and up and down the stony +street cows and oxen being led perpetually, meek, submissive, gentle, +beautiful, in an endless procession; while every here and there under +a countryman’s cart the patient dogs of burden lay at rest, placid +but watchful, faithful guardians of the master’s property. It was a +scene of picturesque and national life which pleased Daphne immensely. +She had never seen such a market before, never seen so long a street, +except the monotonous length of a Parisian boulevard as she was being +jolted along in a fly from station to station. Here she saw the people +in their national costume. Here Switzerland seemed really Swiss. + +She flew from stall to stall, admiring, selecting, bargaining, wanting +to buy a barrowful of red and orange pots and pans. + +‘They would look so lovely in the corridor at South Hill, on high +brackets,’ she said. + +‘I’m afraid the brackets would have to be very high,’ answered Lina, +smiling at her. + +‘I suppose you mean that for a sneer,’ retorted Daphne, ‘but if Mr. +Burne Jones, or Mr. Rosetti, or Mr. Morris were to say those pots and +pans were the right thing, there would be an eruption of them over the +walls of every fashionable room in England. I consider them positively +lovely. And as for the silver chains, I shall never live without one +round my neck.’ + +‘Come and make your selection,’ said Edgar, pointing to one of +the biggest and grandest stalls in the open place near the famous +clock-tower, where the cock was to crow, and the figure of grim old +Time was to turn his glass, and all manner of wonderful things were +to happen just before the striking of the hour. This stall showed the +best array of silver trinketry which they had seen yet, and the country +people were clustered about it, gazing at the bright new silver, and +a good deal at golden-haired Daphne in her creamy Indian silk gown, a +radiant figure under a creamy silk umbrella. + +‘Choose the prettiest, Daphne, and wear it for my sake,’ said Edgar, +with his portly leather purse in his hand, an English pigeon offering +himself up to be plucked. + +‘_Combien?_’ he asked, rather proud of his readiness with a foreign +language, pointing to the handsomest of the chains, a duster of many +slender chainlets, about three yards long. + +‘_Wie viel?_’ asked Daphne, with a compassionate glance at her +affianced. + +‘It is ver sheep,’ answered the vendor, showing a disgusting +familiarity with the English tongue. ‘Gut und sheep, sehr schön, ver +prurty, funf pound Englees.’ + +‘Five pounds!’ screamed Daphne: ‘why, I thought it would be about five +shillings! Pray come away, Mr. Turchill. They see we are English.’ + +She turned from the stall indignantly, and marched across to look +at the fountain, where the gigantic figure of an ogre, in the act +of dropping a child into the yawning cavern of his jaws, stands out +against the tall white houses, balconied, jalousied, like a bit of +Parisian boulevard made picturesque by a dash of Swiss quaintness. +The vegetables and the pottery stalls, and the fluttering cotton +handkerchiefs were grouped all about the fountain, a confusion of vivid +colour. + +‘That is something like a statue,’ cried Daphne, looking up +unblinkingly at the giant grinning at her through a warm hazy +atmosphere. ‘A dear old thing which recalls the fairy-tales of +one’s childhood, instead of a stupid old Anglo-Indian general, whom +nobody ever heard of, riding a tame old horse. Why don’t we have +Kindlifressers and other fairy tale statues in the London streets? They +would make London ever so much livelier.’ + +Here Edgar came after her, carrying a small box neatly papered and tied +up, which he put into her hand. + +‘May you never wear heavier fetters than these!’ he said, having +composed the little speech as he came along. + +‘What,’ she exclaimed, ‘did you actually buy the chain after all? Well, +I do despise you. Could you not see that the man was swindling you?’ + +‘He was not so bad as you think. I only gave him three pounds for the +chain, and I believe it is worth as much as that. I should think it +cheap at thirty if you were pleased with it,’ he added, with homely +tenderness. + +‘Oh, you poor predestined victim to extortion,’ exclaimed Daphne, +looking at him with a serio-comic air. ‘Such a man as you ought never +to go about without a keeper. However, as you have been so good as +to allow yourself to be fleeced for my sake, I accept the chain with +pleasure, and will wear it as the badge of my future captivity.’ + +She shot a swift side-glance at Gerald as she spoke, curious to see +how he took this direct allusion to an engagement which it had been +her habit somewhat to ignore. He was standing looking listlessly along +the street, interested neither in man nor woman; but though he had an +air of utter vacancy, eyes that saw not, ears that heard not, Daphne +detected a quiver of lip and brow, which showed her that the shot had +gone home. + +Sir Vernon had gone to the museum to look at the pictures, leaving the +young people free to wander where they pleased until dinner-time. They +went up and down the arched ways, looking at the shops and stalls, the +country people, the dogs, the cattle; then turned aside from this busy +thoroughfare, where all the life and commerce of the canton seemed to +have concentrated itself, to explore the dusky cathedral, where all was +silence, and coolness, and repose. There was one great disappointment +for Daphne. The grand panoramic picture of the Alps, for which the +minster terrace is celebrated, was not on view to-day. The mountains +hid themselves behind a gauzy veil, a warm vapour which thickened the +air above the old city. + +‘I can’t think what I have done to offend the Alps,’ cried Daphne +petulantly. ‘They seem to bear a grudge against me. They wouldn’t show +me their frosty pows at Geneva, and they won’t at Berne. I am not going +to break my heart about them, however. Please let us get the cathedral +over as fast as we can, and go and look at the bears. I am dying to see +the live bears; for I have seen so many inanimate ones in stone, and +wood, and iron, that I seem to have bears on the brain.’ + +They were standing in the open square in front of the cathedral, +looking up at the bronze statue of Rudolph von Erlach, with the four +seated bears at its base. They went into the church presently, and +admired the fifteenth-century stained glass, and sculptured Pietas, and +the choir stalls. As they were leaving the church, they saw a man and +a woman going quietly into the vestry, preceded by the minister in his +black gown. + +‘A wedding evidently,’ whispered Edgar to Daphne. ‘Wouldn’t you like to +see a Swiss wedding?’ + +‘Do you think they are going to be married? What a sober idea of +matrimony! I should have thought a Swiss wedding would have been like a +scene in an opera.’ + +An inquiry of the verger proved that it was really a wedding, so +they all crept quietly into the spacious vestry, and stood in the +background, while the priest tied the knot according to the Calvinistic +manner. + +It was not a grandiose or thrilling ceremonial, yet there was a +certain sober earnestness in its very simplicity. The rite, shorn +of all ornament, was a religious rite performed with all the grave +businesslike straightforwardness of a civil agreement. Matrimony thus +approached wore a somewhat appalling aspect: no sweet harmony of boyish +voices shrilling a bridal hymn; no mighty organ exploding suddenly +in the crashing chords of Mendelssohn’s Wedding March; only a man +and woman standing before a priest in a naked stony vestry; a priest +who interrogated them coldly, with his eyes on his book, very much +as if he had been hearing them their Catechism. The man had a dull +indifferent look, and there was that in the bearing and appearance +of the dowdily-dressed woman which hinted that the marriage was an +after-thought. + +Daphne shuddered as she came out of the sunless vestry. + +‘That is not my idea of a quiet wedding,’ she said. ‘Please let us go +to the bears; I am dying to see something cheerful.’ + +They went back to the crowded arcades, the stalls, the processional +cattle, and all the life and bustle of a monthly market, and down the +whole length of the street, till they found themselves on a bridge that +spanned a deep hollow between two hills. On one side of the bridge +they looked down into the cattle market, where a multitude of blue +blouses, of every shade and tone, from the vivid azure garment bought +yesterday, to the faded and patched coat of age and poverty, mixed up +with the brown, and cream, and roan, and dun of the cows and oxen, +made a wonderful harmony in blues and browns. On the other side there +was a famous bear-pit, where half-a-dozen mangy-looking animals are +maintained in a state of inglorious repose for the honour of the city. + +The bear is not a handsome or a graceful beast, nor does his woolly +front beam with intelligence. Yet he has a look of ponderous +benevolence, a placid air of being nobody’s enemy but his own, which +commends him to those who enjoy his acquaintance only at a distance. +He is fond of being fed, and has an amiable greediness, which brings +him in direct sympathy with his patrons. There is something childlike, +too, and distinctly human in his love of buns, to say nothing of his +innate aptitude for dancing. These qualities are liable to distract +the judgment of his admirers, who forget that at heart he is still a +savage, and that his hug is mortal. + +Daphne had provided herself with a bag of cakes, and immediately +became on the friendliest terms with three ragged-looking Bruins who +were squatting on their haunches, ready to receive the favours of +an admiring public. She would not believe Baedeker’s story of the +English officer, who fell into the den, and was killed by these woolly +monsters, after a desperate fight for life. + +‘I couldn’t credit anything unkind of them,’ she protested. ‘See how +patiently that dear thing waits, with his mouth wide open, and how +dexterously he catches a bit of roll.’ + +Even the delight of leaning upon a stone parapet to feed bears in a not +too odoriferous den must come to an end at last, and Daphne, having +had enough of the national beasts, consented to get into a roomy open +carriage which Gerald had found while she was dispensing her favours, +to the admiration of half-a-dozen country people, who were leaning +lazily against the parapet, and wondering at the beauty of the two +English girls in their cool delicate-hued raiment. + +There was plenty to admire in the neighbourhood of Berne, albeit the +Alps were in hiding, and after a light luncheon at a confectioner’s +in one of the arcades, they drove about till it was time to dress for +dinner. + +They started early on the next afternoon for Thun, and between Berne +and Thun the Jungfrau first revealed herself in all her virginal +beauty—whiter, purer than all the rest of the mountain world—to +Daphne’s delighted eyes. Never could she take her fill of gazing on +that divine pinnacle, that heaven-aspiring mount, rising above a +cluster of satellite hills, like Jupiter surrounded by his moons. + +‘If you told me that on that very mountain-top Moses saw God, I should +believe you,’ cried Daphne, deeply moved. + +‘I am sorry to say the pinnacle on which Jehovah revealed Himself to +His chosen mouthpiece is a shabby affair in comparison with yonder +peak, a mere hillock of seven thousand feet or so,’ said Gerald, +looking up from the day before yesterday’s _Times_. + +‘You have seen it?’ + +‘I have stood on Serbâl, and Gebel Mousa, and Bas Sasâfeh, the three +separate mountain-tops which contend for the honour of having been +trodden by the feet of the Creator.’ + +‘How delightful to have seen so much of this world!’ + +‘And to have so little left in this world to see,’ answered Gerald; +‘there is always the reverse of the shield.’ + +‘It will make it all the pleasanter for you to settle down at Goring +Abbey,’ said Daphne, assuming her most practical tone. ‘You will not be +tormented by the idea of all the lovely spots of earth, the wonderful +rivers and forests and mountains which you have not seen, as Edgar and +I must be at dear old Hawksyard. But we mean to travel immensely, do we +not, Edgar?’ + +Another distinct allusion to her coming life, the near approaching +time when she and Edgar would be one. The Squire of Hawksyard smiled +delightedly at this recognition of the bond. + +‘I am sure to do whatever you wish, and go wherever you like,’ he +answered; ‘but I am tremendously fond of home, one’s own fireside, +don’t you know, and one’s own stable.’ + +‘And one’s own china-closet, and one’s own linen-presses,’ added +Daphne, laughing; ‘and one’s own jams and pickles and raspberry +vinegar. Are not those things numbered among the delights of Hawksyard? +But I mean you to take me to the Amazon, and when we have thoroughly +done the Andes, we’ll go over the Isthmus of Panama, and across Mexico, +and finish up with the Rockies. They are only a continuation of the +same range, don’t you know, the backbone of the two Americas.’ + +Edgar laughed as at an agreeable joke. + +‘But I mean it,’ protested Daphne, with her elbow resting on the ledge +of the window, and her eyes devouring the Jungfrau. ‘We are going to be +a second Mr. and Mrs. Brassey in the way of travelling.’ + +Mr. Turchill looked somewhat uncomfortable, moved by the thought of a +hunting-stable running to seed, at home, while he, a wretched sailor at +the best of times, lay tossing in some southern archipelago, all among +dusky islanders, and reduced to a fishy and vegetable diet. If Daphne +were in earnest the sacrifice would have to be made. Upon that point +he was certain. Never could he resist that capricious creature; never +could he deny her a pleasure, or beat down her airy whims with the +sledge-hammer of common sense. + +‘I believe we shall be one of the most foolish couples in Christendom,’ +he said aloud; ‘but I think we shall be one of the happiest.’ + +‘A girl must be very hard-hearted who could not be happy with you, +Edgar,’ said Madoline, looking at him with a frank sisterly smile. ‘You +are so thoroughly good and kind.’ + +‘Ah, but goodness and kindness don’t always score, you know,’ he +replied, with a laugh in which there was just a shade of sadness. + + + + +CHAPTER XXVIII. + +‘LOVE IS NOT OLD, AS WHAN THAT IT IS NEW.’ + + +Sir Vernon’s party had sailed over the smiling waters of Thun, with its +villa-dotted shores, and its low amphitheatre of pastoral hills which +form the foreground to the sublimer mountain-land. They and all their +belongings had been carried into Interlaken by the funny little railway +across the Bodelei, that fertile garden-ground between two lakes, which +has such an obvious air of having begun life under water. They had seen +the long rank of prosperous-looking omnibuses waiting for travellers, +and in one of those vehicles they had been carried away from the +walnut-tree boulevard, and all the gaiety and fashion of Interlaken, +to a rustic road ascending the hill towards the pine-woods, and the +mountain peaks far away beyond them, piled up against the sky. + +Here at the Jungfraublich they found a charming suite of rooms prepared +for them; rooms not gorgeously furnished or richly ornamented, but +with long French windows which looked upon as fair a landscape as the +eye of man could desire to behold. There rose the Jungfrau in her +sublime beauty, above the fertile valley with its lakes and meadows, +its _châlets_ and gardens, orchards and _bosquets_; all the simplicity +and prettiness of Nature on a small scale lying at the feet of the +immensities. + +It was twilight when they arrived, and the first star of evening, a +faint luminous spot in the blue gray, hovered over the snowy pinnacle +of the mountain. + +‘Oh, you dear!’ cried Daphne, to the mountain and not to the star; +‘you will be a part of my life from this night. How shall I ever live +without you when I go back to Warwickshire?’ + +‘You will have to console yourself with an occasional glimpse of the +Wrekin or the Cotswolds,’ said Madoline, laughing. + +‘I am almost sorry I ever came to Switzerland,’ murmured Daphne, +turning away from the open window with a sigh, when she had gazed, and +gazed, as if she would fain have made herself a part of the thing she +looked at. + +‘Why, dearest?’ asked Lina. + +‘Because I shall be always longing to come back here. I shall never be +able to tolerate the eternal flatness of home—mole-hills instead of +mountains.’ + +‘Hawksyard is rather flat, I admit,’ said Edgar, apologetically; +‘but it is remarkably well drained. There isn’t a healthier house in +England.’ + +‘Will not all their modern aestheticism—their Queen Anne worship; their +straight garden walks, and straight-backed chairs; their everlasting +tea-trays, and Japanese screens, and sunflowers, and dadoes—sicken +you after this mountain-land?’ cried Daphne. ‘Such a narrow, petty, +childish idea of beauty! Have these perpendicular people ever seen the +Jungfrau, do you suppose?’ + +‘Seen her, and outlived her, and ascended to a higher empyrean of art,’ +answered Gerald. ‘You poor child, do you know that you are going into +raptures about things which a well-bred person would hardly deign to +mention, any more than a Pytchley man would stoop to talk about the +Brighton Harriers? This is cockney Switzerland, as cockney as the +Trossachs, or Killarney, as Ramsgate and Margate. Everybody knows the +Jungfrau, at least by sight; everybody has been at Interlaken. It is +the chief rendezvous of the travellers who come in flocks, and are +driven from pillar to post like sheep, with an intelligent interpreter +playing the part of sheep-dog. I hope you will do the Matterhorn and +Monte Rosa before you go home; and then you will be acquainted with a +brace of mountains which may be spoken about in polite society.’ + +‘The Jungfrau is good enough for me,’ answered Daphne; ‘I shall never +behold anything more beautiful. Manfred loved her.’ + +‘I beg your pardon, that amiable gentleman did not love anything. “And +you, ye mountains,” he exclaims, “why are ye beautiful? I cannot +love ye.” He does not care for the sun, nor for his fellow-men, nor +for his own life. He has all the misanthropy of Hamlet, without +Hamlet’s unselfish reasons for being misanthropic. However, I suppose +to young ladies in their teens he will always appear an interesting +character. No doubt you will be starting with your alpenstock at +daybreak to-morrow in search of the Witch of the Alps. You will most +likely discover her by one of the bridges on the road to Grindelwald, +offering dirty bunches of edelweiss, or indifferently fresh milk, to +the passers-by.’ + +‘Daphne is going nowhere without me,’ said Lina, laying her hand +caressingly upon her sister’s shoulder. ‘She is too enthusiastic to be +trusted in strange places. You will not go anywhere alone, will you, +darling?’ + +‘I will do nothing in this world to vex you,’ answered Daphne +earnestly, with the straightest, clearest look in her lovely eyes. + +Gerald Goring heard her tone, and saw that direct and truthful gaze. +He knew well how much that little speech meant; how grave and complete +was the promise in those few words. Yes, she would be true, she would +be faithful: were it at the cost of two broken hearts. He began to +perceive that he had underrated the moral force of this seemingly +volatile creature; physically so fragile, so made up of whims and +fancies, yet, where honour and affection were concerned, so staunch. + +Later in the evening, after they had dined, and Sir Vernon had retired +for the night, Mr. Goring loitered alone in the terraced garden of the +hotel. The mountain, faintly touched with silvery light from a young +moon, rose in front of him, and below glimmered those earthlier lights +which told of human life—yellow candle-light in wooden _châlets_; the +flare of the gas yonder, faint in the distance, where the walnut-tree +walk was all alive with the light of its hotels and its modest Kursaal. +A fitful gust of music from the band came floating up the valley. +Behind him the hotel stood out whitely against a background of dark +pine-woods; lights in many windows. Those ten lighted windows in a row +on the first storey belonged to Sir Vernon’s apartments. He looked +up, vaguely wondering which was Daphne’s window. That one, at the end +of the range, most likely—the casement wide open to the night and the +mystic mountain-land. While he was deciding this a white-robed figure +stepped lightly out upon the balcony, and stood there, gazing at the +far-away peaks faintly outlined against a purple sky. + +There were three or four other loungers upon the terrace, each with +his cigar, the luminous point of which gleamed here and there among +the bushes like a glowworm. There was no reason why Daphne should +distinguish Gerald Goring from the rest, as he sat in an angle of the +stone balustrade, half hidden in the shadow of an acacia, lonely, +dissatisfied; yet it was painful to him, in his egotism, to see her +standing there, immovable, a lovely statuesque form, with upturned face +and clasped hands, worshipping the blind, dumb, unresponsive goddess +Nature, and all unconscious that he, her lover, with a human heart to +feel and to suffer, was looking up at her with passionate yearning from +the dewy darkness below. + +‘She does not care a jot for me; she is harder than the nether +millstone,’ he said to himself savagely. ‘Yet I once thought her the +softest, most yielding thing in creation—a being so impressionable that +she might be moulded by a thought of mine. I feared the touching of our +spirits, as if I were flame and she tinder. Yet our souls have touched, +and kindled, and burst into a blaze; and she has strength of mind to +pluck herself away unscathed, not a feather of her purity scorched, +from that fiery contact.’ + +He sat in his shadowy corner, lazily finishing his cigar, and looking +up at the figure in the balcony till it slowly melted from his gaze, +and a muslin curtain was dropped across the open window. Then he left +the garden and wandered away up the wooded hillside, by narrow winding +paths, which seemed to have no particular direction, but to have been +worn by the footprints of other idlers as purposeless—it might be as +unhappy—as he. He stayed in the shadowy wood for a long time, smoking a +second cigar, and preferring that perfumed solitude, and his own gloomy +thoughts to any diversion which the little lighted town down in the +green hollow yonder could have furnished him. And then, at last, on the +verge of midnight, when all the lighted windows of the Jungfraublich +had gone out one after another, and the big white barrack looked blank +and bare, he turned and groped his way back to it through the sinuous +woodland paths, and was admitted by a sleepy porter, who was mildly +reproachful at having been kept up so long. + +A grand excursion had been planned for the next day, Sir Vernon +approving the scheme, and politely requesting to be left out of it. + +‘You wouldn’t know what to do with me,’ he said. ‘I should be a burden +to you, and I should be terribly tiresome to myself. I have letters to +write which will occupy me all the morning, and in the afternoon I can +stroll down to the Kursaal, or sit in the garden here, or take a little +walk in the wood. You will be back before nine o’clock, I daresay.’ + +Madoline was loth to leave her father for so long a day. He was an +invalid, and required a good deal of attention, she reminded him. + +‘There is Jinman, my dear; he can do all I want. Of course it is much +pleasanter for me to be waited on by you; but Jinman is very handy, and +will serve on a pinch.’ + +‘But all those letters, dear father,’ urged Lina, looking at an +alarming bundle of businesslike documents. ‘Could I not help you with +those? Could not the greater part of them stand over till we are at +Montreux?’ + +‘Some of them might, perhaps; but some must be answered to-day. Don’t +worry yourself about me, Lina; I know you have set your heart upon +going up to Müren with Daphne.’ + +‘I should like to show her the scenery which delighted me so years +ago,’ answered Lina; ‘but I can’t bear the idea of leaving you for so +long.’ + +‘My dear child, you are talking nonsense,’ said Sir Vernon testily. ‘In +October you are going to leave me altogether.’ + +‘Yes; but I shall not be leaving you in a strange hotel; and I shall be +so near, at your beck and call, always.’ + +Sir Vernon, having made up his mind to the sacrifice, carried it out +with consistent fortitude. He himself ordered the carriage which was +to carry off his beloved daughter, with those other three who were +comparatively indifferent to him. + +They drove away from the hotel immediately after a seven o’clock +breakfast, in the clear light of morning, while the fields and hedges +were still dewy, and the earth wore her fairest freshest colours and +breathed out her sweetest odours. Soon after they left the village they +came to the road beside the deep and rapid Lutschine, which cleaves the +heart of the valley. On either side rose a lofty wall of hills, slope +above slope, climbing up to heaven, clothed to the very summit with +tall feathery firs, some of stupendous size, the sombre tints of these +patriarchs relieved by the tender green of the young larches; the White +Lutschine rushing on all the while, a wild romantic stream, tumbling +and seething over masses of stone. Here by the river bank they stopped +to see the murder-stone, an inscription cut on the face of the rock, +which tells how at this spot a brother slew his brother. + +It is a lovely drive, so lovely that it is hardly possible for the +mind to be distracted from its fairness by any other thought. Daphne +sat silent in her corner of the carriage, drinking in the beauty of +the scene, her gaze wandering upward and upward to those mighty hills, +those forests upon the edge of heaven, so remote, so inaccessible in +their loveliness, the greenery pierced every here and there by narrow +streamlets that came trickling down like wandering flashes of silvery +light. Solitude and silence were the prevailing expression of that +exquisite scene. The cattle had all been removed to the upper regions, +to remote pastures on the borderland of the everlasting snow-fields; of +human life there were few signs; only a distant _châlet_ showing here +and there, perched on some ledge of the green hills. The voice of the +river was the one sound that broke the summer stillness. + +There was a pleasant contrast to this solemn loneliness, this silent +loveliness of Nature without humanity, when the carriage drove +jingling up to the inn at Lauterbrunnen, where there was all the life +and bustle of a country inn at fair-time or market. Many vehicles +and horses in the open space in front of the house; a long verandah, +under which travellers were sitting resting after an early morning +tramp from Mürren or Grindelwald; guides, with swarthy sunburnt faces, +homely, good-natured, unintelligent, sitting at ease upon a long stone +parapet, waiting their chances; a great fuss and noise of taking +horses in and bringing horses out; a call for hay and water; a few +people strolling down the road to look at the Staubach, and telling +each other admiringly, inspired by the prophet Baedeker, that it is +the highest unbroken fall in the world. It was very glorious in the +morning sunshine, a dim rainbow-tinted arc of spray; and Daphne thought +of the Witch of the Alps, and how she had worn this cloudlike fall as +a garment, when she showed herself to Manfred. There was no inn there +in those far-away romantic days—no odour of bad brandy and worse wine; +no tourists; no cockneyism of any kind—only the sweet pastoral valley +in its lonely beauty, and the solemn regions of mountain and snow +rising whitely above its placid greenery, and walling it in from the +commonplace earth. + +There was a halt of half an hour or so at Lauterbrunnen, just long +enough to pay proper homage to the Staubach, and to explore the queer +little primitive village, and for Daphne to burden herself with a +number of souvenirs, all more or less of a staggy or goaty order, +bargaining sturdily for the same with the sunburnt proprietor of a +covered stall opposite the inn, whose honesty in no case demanded +more than thrice the amount he was prepared to accept. By the time +Daphne had concluded her transactions with this merchant of mountain +_bric-à-brac_, and had made herself spiky with paper-knives and +walking-sticks of the horny kind—which treasures she reluctantly +surrendered to the safe keeping of an inn servant, to be packed in the +carriage against her return—the steeds were ready to convey the two +ladies up the mountain-path, the gentlemen being bent upon going up on +foot. Daphne wanted to walk, and had just bought herself an alpenstock +with that view, but Lina would not let her undertake the journey; so +she handed Edgar her alpenstock, and allowed herself to be hoisted +into a queer kind of saddle, with a railing round it, and Lina being +similarly mounted, they began the ascent, going through more mud, just +at starting, than seemed compatible with such perfect summer weather. + +‘I hope, Edgar,’ said Daphne gravely, ‘that you won’t take your idea of +my horsemanship from my performance on this animal, and in this saddle, +or else I am afraid you’ll never let me ride Black Pearl.’ + +Edgar laughingly assured her that her seat was perfection, even in the +railed-in saddle, and that she should have the best horse money could +buy, or judgment secure. + +The two young men went on before them, leaping from stone to stone, and +making great play with their alpenstocks as they bounded across the +streamlets which frequently intersected their path. It was a narrow, +narrow way, winding up the shoulder of the hill, now in sunlight, now +in shade; the summer air sweetened with the scent of the pine-trees; +pine-clad slopes above, pine-clad slopes below, sometimes gently +slanting downward, a green hillside which little children might play +upon, sometimes a sheer descent, terrible to the eye; _châlets_ dotting +the meadows far below; villages spread out on the greensward of the +valley, and looking like clusters of toy houses; the road winding +through the valley like a silver ribbon; the awful Jungfrau range +facing them, as they ascended, in all its unspeakable majesty; grander, +and yet ever grander, as they came nearer to it. + +Sometimes, as they rode through the pine-trees, they seemed to be +riding straight into the snowy mountains; they were so close, so close +to that white majesty. Then as they came suddenly into the open, those +airy peaks receded, remote as ever, melting farther and farther away as +one rode after them, like a never-to-be-reached fairyland. + +‘I could almost cry with vexation,’ exclaimed Daphne after one of these +optical illusions. ‘I thought we were close to the Jungfrau, and there +she stands smiling down at me, with her pallid enigmatical smile, from +the very top of the world. Edgar, if you love me, you must take me up +that impertinent mountain before I am year older.’ + +‘You were talking yesterday of the Cordilleras.’ + +‘I know, but we must finish off the Alps first—Mont Blanc, and +the Jungfrau, the Schreckhorn, the Rothhorn, the Matterhorn, the +Finsteraarhorn, and all the rest of them. I cannot be defied by the +insolence of Nature. She has thrown her gauntlet, and I must positively +pick it up. If the mountain won’t come to Mahomet—and the general +experience seems to show that mountains are obstinate things—Mahomet +must go to the mountain. I mean to have it out with Mont Blanc before I +die.’ + +‘I don’t believe a lady has ever done the ascent,’ said Edgar, leading +his mistress’s meek and patient steed along a winding ledge. The animal +was a mere infant, rising three, but as free from skittishness as if he +had been rising three-and-twenty. + +‘That shows how densely ignorant you must be of the age you live in,’ +protested Daphne. ‘Be sure that there is nothing in this life which the +man of the present can do which the woman of the present won’t imitate; +and the more essentially masculine the thing is the more certain she is +to attempt it.’ + +‘But I hope you don’t rank yourself among masculine women, Daphne,’ +murmured Edgar, drawing protectingly near her, as they turned a sharp +corner. + +‘I don’t; but I mean to ascend Mont Blanc.’ + +They were approaching the village on the height. The Lauterbrunnen +valley was sinking deeper and deeper into remoteness, a mere green +cleft in the mountains. They had met and passed many people on +their way: ladies being carried down by sturdy natives in a kind of +sedan-chair, something of the palki species; voyagers struggling +upwards with their belongings, with a view to spending some days in the +quiet settlement among the snow-peaks; guides jogging by with somebody +else’s luggage; mules laden with provisions. The guides gave each +other a grinning good-day as they passed, and exchanged remarks in a +_patois_ not very easy to understand; remarks that had a suggestion of +being critical, and not altogether commendatory, of the clients at that +moment under escort. + +‘Here we are, up in the skies at last,’ cried Daphne, as she sprang +lightly to the ground, spurning her lover’s proffered aid, and just +brushing against the eager arms held out to receive her; ‘and oh how +dreadfully far away the top of the Jungfrau still is, and how very +dirty she looks now we are on a level with her shoulder!’ + +‘It is too late in the year for you to see her in her virginal purity. +A good deal of the snow has melted,’ said Madoline apologetically. + +‘But it ought not to melt. I thought I was coming to a region of +eternal snow. Why, the lower peaks are horribly streaky and brown. +Thank Heaven the Silberhorn still looks dazzlingly white. And is this +Mürren? A real mountain village? How I wish we were going to live here +for a month.’ + +‘I fancy you would get horribly tired of it,’ suggested Gerald Goring. + +She did not stay to argue the point, but ordered Edgar to explore the +village with her immediately. The big wooden barrack of an hotel, +with its bright green blinds and pine balconies, looked down upon +her, the commonplace type of an advanced civilisation. Young men, +all affecting a more or less Alpine-Clubbish air, lounged about in +various easy attitudes; young women, in every variety of hat and gauze +veil, read Tauchnitz novels, or made believe to be sketching, under +artistic-looking umbrellas. Daphne made but a cursory survey of this +tourist population before she started off upon her voyage of discovery, +with Edgar in delighted attendance on her steps. Madoline and Gerald, +who both knew all that there was to be known about Mürren, were content +to loiter in the garden of the Hôtel des Alpes, dreamily contemplative +of the sublimities around and about them. + +‘I give you half an hour for your explorations,’ said Gerald, as Daphne +and her swain departed; ‘if you are not back by that time, Lina and I +will eat all the luncheon. At this elevation luncheon is not a matter +to be trifled with. There are limits to the supplies.’ + +He went into the hotel to give his orders, while Lina walked slowly up +and down one of the terraced pathways, looking at the wild chaos of +glacier and rock before her, looking, yet seeing but little of that +chilly grandeur, caring but little for its origin or its history, with +sad eyes turned inward, vaguely contemplating a vague sorrow. + +It was not a grief of yesterday’s date—it was a sorrow made up of +doubts and anxieties which had their beginning in Gerald Goring’s +letter telling her of his intended trip to Canada. From that hour to +this she had perceived a gradual change in him. His letters from the +Western world, kind and affectionate as they had been, were altogether +different from the letters he had written to her in former years. When +he came back the man himself seemed different. He was not less kind, or +less attentive, less eager to gratify and to anticipate her wishes. To +her, and in all his relations with her, he was faultless: but he was +changed. Something had gone out of him—life, spirit, soul, the flame +which makes the lamp glorious and beautiful; something was faded and +dead in him; leaving the man himself a gentlemanly piece of mechanism, +like one of those victims to anatomical experiment from whose living +body the brain, or some particular portion of the brain, has been +abstracted, and which mechanically performs and repeats the same +actions with a hideous soulless monotony. ‘Was it that he loved her +less? Was it that he had ceased to love her?’ she had asked herself, +recoiling with shuddering heart-sickness from the thought; as if she +had found herself suddenly on the verge of some horrible abyss, and +seen inevitable ruin and death below. No, she told herself, judging his +heart by her own. A love that had grown as theirs had grown, side by +side with the gradual growth of mind and body, a love interwoven with +every memory and every hope, was not of the kind to change unawares +to indifference. She was perfectly free from the taint of vanity; +but she knew that she was worthy of her lover’s love. She, who had +been her father’s idol, the object of respect and consideration from +all about her, was accustomed to the idea of being beloved. She had +been told too often of her beauty not to know that she was handsomer +than the majority of women. She knew that in mental power she was her +lover’s equal: by birth, by fortune, by every attribute and quality, +she was fitted to be his wife, to rule over his household, and to be a +purifying and elevating influence in his life. His mother had loved her +as warmly as it was possible for that languid nature to love anything. +Their two lives were interwoven by the tenderest associations of +the past as well as by the solemn engagement which bound them in the +present. No, it was not possible for Madoline, seeing all things from +the standpoint of her own calm and evenly-balanced mind, to imagine +infidelity in a lover so long and so closely bound to her. Those sudden +aberrations of the human mind which wreck so many lives, for which no +looker-on can account, and which make men and women a world’s wonder, +had never come within the range of her experience. + +Rejecting the idea of inconstancy, Madoline was compelled to find some +other reason for the indefinable change which had slowly been revealed +to her since Gerald’s last home-coming. What could it be except the +languor of ill-health, or, perhaps, the terrible satiety of a life +which had so few duties, and so many indulgences, a life that called +for no effort of mind, for not one act of self-denial? + +‘Every man ought to have a career,’ she said to herself. ‘My poor +Gerald has none; no ambition; nothing to hope for, or work for, +or build upon. The new days of his life bring him nothing but old +pleasures. He is getting weary and worn out in the very morning of +existence. What will he be when the day begins to wane?’ + +She had been thinking of these things for a long time, and had +determined upon opening her mind to her lover, seriously, candidly, +without reserve, with all the outspoken freedom of one who deemed +herself a part of his life, his second self. + +Here, in the face of these solemn heights, which seem ever typical of +the loftier aims of life—all the more so, perhaps, because of that air +of unattainableness which pervades them—she felt as if they were more +alone, farther from all the sordid considerations of worldly wisdom +than in the valley below. She could speak to him here from her heart of +hearts. + +He was walking by her side along one of the narrow paths, just where a +rustic fence separated the grounds of the hotel from the steep mountain +side—walking somewhat listlessly, lost in a dreamy silence—when she put +her arm gently through his and drew a little nearer to him. + +‘Gerald dearest, I want to talk to you—seriously.’ + +He turned suddenly, and looked at her, with more of alarm in his +countenance than she had anticipated. + +‘Don’t be frightened,’ she said with a sweet smile. ‘I am not going to +be severe. I am only anxious.’ + +‘Anxious about what?’ + +‘About you, dear love; about your health, mental and physical. You +remember what you told me before you went to Canada.’ + +‘Yes.’ + +‘Your trip did you good, did it not?’ + +‘Worlds of good. I came home a whole man.’ + +‘But since you came home the old feeling of languor has returned, has +it not? You take so little interest in life; you look at everything +with such a weary indifferent air.’ + +‘My dearest, do you expect me to go into raptures with the beaten +tracks and cockney lions of Switzerland, as poor little Daphne does? +There is not a yard of the ground we have been passing over that I +do not know by heart—that I have not seen under every condition of +atmosphere, and in every variety of circumstances. You forget how +many months of my life I wasted in balancing myself upon razor-edged +_arrêtes_, and hewing my way up perpendicular peaks with an ice-axe. I +cannot gush about these dear old familiar mountains, or fall into an +ecstasy because the lakes are bluer and broader than our Avon.’ + +‘I don’t expect you to be ecstatic, dear; I only want to know that +you are happy, and that you take a healthy interest in life. I have +been thinking lately that a man in your position ought to have a +public career. Without public duties the life of a very rich man must +inevitably be idle, since all his private duties are done by other +people. And an idle life never yet was a happy one.’ + +‘Spoken like a copy-book, my dearest,’ answered Gerald lightly. ‘Well, +I own I have led an idle life hitherto, but some of it has been rather +laborious idleness; as when I accomplished the passage of the Roththal +Sattel and ascended yonder Jungfrau between sunrise and sundown; or +when I came as near death as a man can come, and yet escape it, while +climbing the Pointe des Ecrins, in the French Alps.’ + +‘I want you by-and-by to think of another kind of labour, Gerald,’ +said Lina, with tender seriousness. ‘I want you to think of doing good +to your fellow-men—you, who are so gifted, and who have the means of +carrying out every benevolent intention. I want you to be useful in +your generation, and to win for yourself one of those great enduring +names which are only won by usefulness.’ + +‘Come now, my sweetest monitor, there you shoot beyond the mark. Surely +Virgil and Horace, Dante and Shakespeare, have won names of wider glory +than all the useful men who ever lived. That idea of usefulness has +never had much charm for me. I have not a practical mind. I take after +my mother, who was one of the lilies of the field, rather than after my +father, who belonged to the toilers and spinners. If I had discovered +in my nature any vein of the gold of poetry, I would have been willing +to dig hard for that immortal ore; but as I can’t be a poet, I don’t +care to be anything else.’ + +‘And with your talents and your wealth you con be content to be +nothing?’ exclaimed Lina, deeply shocked. + +‘Nothing, except a tolerably indulgent landlord, a patron +of the fine arts, on a small scale, and by-and-by, if you +please—your—obedient—husband.’ + +The last words came somewhat slowly. + +‘If you are happy, I am content,’ said Lina, with a sigh; ‘but it is +because I fancy you are not happy that I urge you to lead a more active +life, to give yourself greater variety of thought and occupation.’ + +‘And do you think that, if I were unhappy, the wear and fret of public +life, the dealing with workers whose chief object seems to be to +frustrate and stultify each other’s efforts; to be continually baulked +and disappointed; to have my most generous impulses ridiculed, my +loftiest hopes cried down as the dreams of a madman; perhaps, at the +close of my career, after I had given my days and nights, my brain +and body, to the public cause, to be denounced as an incendiary and a +lunatic—do you think a career of that kind would ensure happiness? No, +love, Providence, in its divine wisdom, has allowed me to belong to +the lotus-eating class. Let me nibble my lotus, and lie at ease in my +sunshiny valley, and be content to let others enjoy the rapture of the +fray.’ + +‘If I could be sure that you were happy,’ faltered Lina, feeling very +unhappy herself. + +‘Ought I not to be happy, when you are so good to me?’ he asked, taking +her hand and pressing it tenderly, with very real affection, but an +affection chastened by remorse. ‘I am as happy as a man can be who has +inherited a natural bent to melancholy. My mother was not a cheerful +woman, as you know.’ + +This was an undeniable fact. Lady Geraldine, after having made what +some people called a splendid marriage, and others a _mésalliance_, +had gone through life with an air of subdued melancholy, an elegant +pensiveness which suited her languid beauty as well as the colours +she chose for her gowns, or the flowers she wore in her hair. She +had borne herself with infinite grace, as one whose cup of life was +tinctured with sorrow, beneath the snowy calm of whose bosom the slow +consuming fire of grief was working its gradual ravages. She died of an +altogether commonplace disease, but she contrived so to bear herself +in her decay, that when she was dead everybody was convinced she had +perished slowly of a broken heart, and that she had never smiled after +her marriage with Mr. Giles-Goring. This was society’s verdict upon a +woman who had lived an utterly selfish and self-indulgent life, and who +had spent fifteen hundred a-year upon her milliner. + +Lina and Gerald strolled up and down for a little while, almost +in silence. She had said her say, and nothing had come of it. Her +disappointment was bitter; for she had fancied that it needed but a +few words from her to kindle the smouldering fires of ambition. She +had supposed that every man was ambitious, however he might allow his +aspirations to be choked by the thorns of this world: and here she had +found in the lover of her choice a man without the faintest desire +to achieve greatness, or to do good in his generation. Had he been +such a man as Edgar Turchill, she would have felt no surprise at his +indifference to the wider questions of life. Edgar was a man born to do +his duty in a narrow groove; a large-hearted, simple-minded creature, +but little removed from the peasant who tills the fields, and whose +desires and hopes are shut in by the narrow circle of village life. But +Gerald Goring—Gerald, whose ardent boyhood, whose passion for all the +loftier delights of life, had lifted him so high above the common ruck +of mankind—to find him at nine-and-twenty a languid pessimist, willing +to live a life as selfish and as useless as his mother had led before +him: this was indeed hard. And it was harder still for Madoline to +discover how much she had overrated her influence upon him. A few years +ago a word from her had been sufficient to urge him to any effort, to +give bent and purpose to his mind; but a few years ago he had been +still warm with the flush and fire of early youth. + +Daphne and Edgar joined them presently, both warm and breathless after +a small experiment in the climbing way. + +‘We have seen everything, and we have been up a mountain,’ exclaimed +Daphne. ‘It is the funniest little village—a handful of wooden cottages +perched on a narrow track straggling along anyhow on the very edge of +the hill; a little new church that looks as if it had dropped from the +clouds; a morsel of a post-office; a stack of wood beside every house; +and a bundle of green vegetables hanging to dry in every porch and +balcony. Poor people, do they live upon dried vegetables, I wonder? We +found an English lady and her son sitting in the middle of the road—if +you can call it a road—sketching a native boy. He was a very handsome +boy, and sat as still as a statue. We stood ever so long and watched +the two artists; and then we had a climb; and Edgar says I am a good +climber. Do you think,’ coaxingly to Lina, ‘we might try the Silberhorn +after luncheon?’ + +They lunched in a sunny airy corner of the big bare _salle-à-manger_ +merrily enough, or with that seeming gaiety of heart which brightens +so many a board, notwithstanding that the stream flows darkly enough +below the ripple and the gleam. Daphne had made it the business of her +life to seem happy and at ease ever since that fatal night at Fribourg. +She wanted Gerald Goring to believe that she was satisfied with her +lot—nay, even that she was honestly attached to her plighted husband, +and that her conduct that night had been but a truant impulse, a +momentary aberration from common sense and duty. She was fighting her +battle bravely, sometimes smiling with an aching heart, sometimes +really succeeding in being happy, with the inconsiderate unreasoning +happiness of youth and health, and the rapture of living in a world +where all was alike new and beautiful. After luncheon she went out with +Edgar for another ramble, until it should be time to begin the descent +to Lauterbrunnen. They had all agreed to walk down, in a leisurely +way, after tea; and the horses had already gone back with the two men +who had led them up. Daphne wanted to learn where and how she could +get nearest to the mountains. It seemed provoking to see them there, +so near, and yet as far beyond her reach as if she had been looking at +them from her window at Interlaken. + +‘Would it really be too much for an afternoon walk?’ she asked, gazing +longingly at the Silberhorn. + +Gerald explained the preparations and the assistance, and the length of +time which would be required for any attempt upon that snowy crest. + +‘Please show me the very ledge where the child’s red frock used to be +seen,’ she asked, perusing the wilderness of crag and peak. + +‘What child? what frock?’ asked Edgar. + +‘Don’t you know that ever so many years ago a lammergeier carried +off a child from this village of Mürren, and alighted with it upon +an inaccessible shelf of rock on the side of the Jungfrau, and that +for years afterwards some red scraps, the remnants of the poor baby’s +clothes, were seen amongst the snow?’ + +‘A pitiful story, wherever you found it,’ said Gerald; ‘but I think the +baby’s frock would have been blown away or buried under the snow before +the vulture had forgotten the flavour of the baby.’ + +And then, seeing that Daphne hungered for any information about yonder +mountain, he condescended to tell her how he and a couple of friends, +allied by the climbing propensity rather than by ancient friendship, +had ascended the north face of the Silberhorn, with the idea of finding +a direct route over its summit to the top of the Jungfrau; how after +ten hours of very hard work they had planted their feet on the top of +the dazzling peak, only to find the snow falling thickly round them, +and the Jungfrau and the Giessen glacier already hidden behind a fleecy +cloud; how, after waiting in vain for the storm to pass, they had made +a perilous descent to the upper plateau of the Giessen glacier; and +how there, amidst thick clouds and driving snow, they groped their way +round the edges of huge crevasses before they hit on a practical path +descending the ice-fall; and how, finding the night closing in upon +them, they were fain to sit upon a ledge of rock under a sheltering +cliff till daybreak. + +‘Poor things!’ exclaimed Daphne with infinite compassion; ‘and you +never reached the top of the Jungfrau after all.’ + +‘Not by that way. I have scaled her granite point from the Roththal +Sattel.’ + +‘And is it very lovely up there?’ + +‘_C’est selon._ When I mounted, the Maiden was wrapped in cloud, and +there was no distant view, nor could we spare more than a quarter of an +hour for rest on the summit; but we saw an avalanche or two on our way, +and altogether we had a very good time.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XXIX. + +‘I MEANE WELL, BY GOD THAT SIT ABOVE.’ + + +It was pleasant to drink tea at a little table in the garden of the +inn, with the white mountain world spread before them in all its glory, +flushed with the golden lights of afternoon. Edgar looked ineffably +happy as he sat sipping his tea and watching Daphne eat bread and +honey, which seemed her chief nutriment in this part of the world; for +Swiss poultry and Swiss veal, for all the varieties of _vol-au-vent_, +_fricandeau_, _ris de veau_, and _fricassée_, under which the +inevitable calf disguised himself, she showed herself absolutely +indifferent; but she had an infinite capacity for Swiss rolls and Swiss +honey. + +While they were sitting at tea, resting before they began the downward +walk, Mr. Turchill produced a letter which that morning’s post had +brought him from his mother: one of those worthy commonplace letters +which set one’s teeth on edge when read aloud amidst the loftiest +aspects of nature. But Edgar saw nothing beyond the love and the +kindness in his mother’s epistle, and would have read it on the summit +of Caucasus, yea, on that topmost untrodden snow-peak which the +Persians call the Holy Mountain, and would have perceived no discord +between the letter and the scene. + +‘The dear mother’s letter is full of you, Daphne,’ he said; ‘would it +bore you and Mr. Goring if I were to read a little of it, Lina?’ + +Mr. Goring protested, with a stifled yawn, that he would be delighted. +‘There is nothing,’ he asserted, ‘more interesting than domestic +correspondence. Look at the Paston letters, for instance. And I +could fancy your mother writing quite in the Paston style,’ he added +graciously. + +Edgar unfolded the thin, closely written sheet, written in those neat, +sloping characters which had been drilled into all the young ladies +at Miss Tompion’s academy, and crossed—for the habit of crossing a +letter had obtained in Mrs. Turchill’s youth, and she returned to +it instinctively under stress of foreign postage, albeit twopence +halfpenny is not a ruinous amount to pay for a letter. + +‘“I am pleased to hear that Daphne is enjoying herself, and that she +is so enthusiastic about the scenery. I remember, when I learned +drawing at Miss Tompion’s, doing a very pretty sketch of Chamounix, +with Mont Blanc in the background, in black and white chalks on tinted +paper. I believe some of the snow was scratched in with a penknife +by Signor Pasticcio, but all the rest was my very own, and papa gave +me a sovereign when the drawing was sent home. It used to hang in +your father’s dressing-room, but one of the housemaids contrived to +break the glass one day with her broom-handle, and I did not care +to go to the expense of having it reglazed: Gilbert is so dear for +all jobs of that kind. I have always understood that the Jungfrau is +very inferior to Mont Blanc; but as you say Byron admired it I have +no doubt it is very beautiful, though, of course, in a minor degree. +Every geography will tell you that Mont Blanc is the higher. I hope you +are careful to avoid wet feet”—hum—hum—hum,’ mumbled Edgar, skipping +the tender mother’s injunctions about his care of his health, and +hurrying on to that part of the letter which related to Daphne. ‘Oh, +here it is. “Tell Daphne, with my love, that I am going carefully over +all the house-linen—weeding out all the sheets that are weak in the +middle”—dear old mother! she always will go into details—“and making a +large addition to the table-linen. I have also had a new inventory made +in duplicate. I know that the modern idea is for the bride to provide +the house-linen. That is all very well when the husband is a young +man who has his own way to make in the world, but not for my boy, who +has a home of his own—a fine old house which his ancestors have lived +in, and spent their money upon, from generation to generation. I hope +Daphne will be as fond of the old Hawksyard glass and china—which, as +she knows, is the collection of more than a century—as she is of the +mountains; but I’m afraid the romantic kind of temperament which goes +into raptures with mountains is hardly the disposition which could take +delight in housekeeping, and the many details of home-life.”’ + + * * * * * + +‘I hope you won’t be angry with her for saying that,’ added Edgar +apologetically, as he hastily folded the letter, feeling that he had +read too much. ‘You know she means it kindly.’ + +‘I know she has been ever so much more indulgent than I deserve,’ +answered Daphne gaily; ‘I mean to be a most dutiful daughter-in-law, +and to learn everything your mother will deign to teach me in the way +of housekeeping, from hemming tea-cloths to making mincemeat. One ought +to make one’s own mincemeat, ought one not, Edgar? Do you and I belong +to the class who make their own mincemeat?’ + +‘I think it’s rather a question of inclination than of rank, love. +But I’d rather you left the pies and puddings to the cook. I’d rather +have you riding across the Vale of the Red Horse with me than stoning +raisins or chopping suet in the still-room.’ + +‘And I would rather, too.’ + +‘Do you know that there is a great deal of quiet sagacity in your +mother’s gentle depreciation of Daphne’s passion for mountain scenery?’ +said Gerald, his face lighting up with something of the old mischievous +spirit, something of that gaiety of heart with which he had teased +Daphne in the days when she was Poppæa and he was Nero! ‘This frantic +admiration of snow-peaks is only a modern feeling, a mere fashion +and fad of the moment, like the worship of Chippendale furniture and +Adam chimney-pieces. The old Greeks knew nothing of it. The ancients +never raved about their mountains. They valued them only because their +tops touched the blue ether, the world peopled by the gods. Even your +Shakespeare, the man of universal mind, had no passion for mountain +lands.’ + +‘Because he had never seen anything higher than the Wrekin, poor +darling!’ said Daphne, with delicious compassion; as if she were +speaking of a London Arab who had never seen a buttercup. + +‘Ruskin thinks it was good for his genius to have seen so little. +“No mountain passions were to be allowed to Shakespeare,” he says; +“Shakespeare could be allowed no mountains—not even any supreme natural +beauty. He had to be left with his kingcups and clover, pansies, the +passing clouds, the Avon’s flow, and the undulating hills and woods of +Warwickshire, lest it should make him in the least overrate their power +on the strong, full-fledged minds of men.”’ + +‘That is remarkably clever,’ said Daphne; ‘but there is a tone of +calm superiority about it which makes my blood boil. Why will all the +critics insist upon patronising Shakespeare, as if they knew so much +more about him than ever be know about himself? Talk of vivisection +indeed, vivisection is not half so atrocious as the way Shakespeare has +been treated by modern criticism!’ + +And now, when all the valley below them lay steeped in golden light, +when the northward-facing mountains were beginning to take the chill +cold gray of evening, and the western pinnacles were flushed with rose +and purple, they began their descent of the narrow winding way, gaily, +to all seeming, for they talked a good deal, and Daphne lingered on her +way to gather the wild flowers that grew on the thymy banks—harebells, +and clover, gentian, and the Alpine rose, a white starry flower with +a long fragile stem, and delicate ferns, and here and there a handful +of wild strawberries. Gerald had more than once to insist upon her +hastening her footsteps, lest night should overtake them on the steep +mountain path. + +‘If you loiter so much I will put you into a wooden sledge when we get +to the half-way house, and run you down the mountain,’ he threatened. + +Lovelier and yet more lovely looked the pine-woods, the green slopes, +the fertile valley, the far-away white peaks, so shadowy, so awful in +the changing lights of evening. Half the sky was ablaze with crimson +and orange, fading off into tender opalescent greens and purples, the +indescribable hues of rare jasper and rarer jade, as they neared the +Staubach. They had loitered as long as it was safe to loiter. The lamps +were lighted at the inn, and their coachman was watching for their +return. They drove home through the gray twilight, which was fast +deepening into night, and through a landscape of deepest gloom—a narrow +region, walled in by dark hills; dim lights, dotted here and there +amidst the darkness, ever so far apart, telling of lonely lives, of +humble peasant homes where pleasure and variety were unknown, a life of +monotonous labour, hidden from the world. + +‘Have you enjoyed your day, Daphne?’ asked Lina, as they drove home, +the rapid river flowing noisily beside them, the white foam on the +waters flashing through the gloom. + +‘Enjoyed it? There is no word big enough to say how delightful it has +been! It is a day that will stand apart in the history of my life,’ +answered Daphne, slipping her hand lovingly through her sister’s arm. + +‘What a privileged nature to be so easily made happy!’ said Gerald, +with a palpable sneer. + +People are apt to let slip society’s mask in such a moment, on a dark +road shut in by mountain and wood, after a long and thoughtful silence, +forgetting that feeling is audible in the darkness, though faces are +hidden, and the clouded brow or the quiver of the lip is invisible. + +Gerald Goring had been thinking deeply during the hillside walk and +the homeward drive, touched inexpressibly by Madoline’s affection, and +trying as honestly as was possible to a character which was not given +to mental or moral effort—trying to face a future clouded over with +fears. Could he ever be again as he had been, Madoline’s true lover? +This was the question which he asked himself, coming down the hill in +the glory of the evening light, a little aloof from the other three. +His honour and reverence for her were in nowise lessened by that fatal +passion which had changed the current of his life. He knew that of +all women he had ever met she was the noblest and the best; that, with +her, life would be lifted above the sordid, vulgar level of selfish +pleasures and sensual indulgences; that, as her husband, he could not +fail to become in somewise useful to his species, to win some measure +of renown, and to leave a name behind him that would sound sweet in the +ears of generations to come. He could imagine her in the riper beauty +of matronhood, the mother of his children, training up his sons to +tread the loftier paths of life, rearing his daughters in an atmosphere +of purity and love. He pictured her at the head of his household; he +told himself that with such a wife he must be an idiot if he missed +happiness. And then he looked with gloomy despairing eyes at the other +side of the question, and tried to realise what his life would be with +the butterfly being who had crept into his heart and made herself its +empress. + +As well as he knew Lina’s perfection did he know Daphne’s faultiness. +She was frivolous, selfish, shallow, capricious, vehement. Yes, but +he loved her. She had no higher idea of this world than as a place +made exquisitely beautiful in order that she might be happy in it; +nor of her fellow-creatures than as persons provided to minister to +her pleasures; nor of the future beyond life than as a vague misty +something which had better not be thought about; nor of duty, but +as a word found in the Church Catechism, and which one might banish +from one’s mind after one’s confirmation. Yes, but he loved her. +Her faultiness did not lessen his love by the weight of a grain of +thistledown. He yearned to take her to his heart, faulty as she was, +and cherish her there for ever. He longed to spend the rest of his days +with her, and it seemed to him that life would be worthless without +her. She might prove a silly wife, a careless mother. Yes, but he loved +her. For him she was just the one most exquisite thing in creation, the +one supreme necessity of his soul. + +‘“_Animæ dimidium meæ._” Yes, that is what she is,’ he said to himself +as he sat in the summer darkness, with dreamy eyes looking upward to +the lonely melancholy hills, where huge arollas of a thousand years’ +growth spread their black branches against the snow-line just above +them. What a desolate world it looked in the gathering gloom!—only a +few solitary stars gleaming in the infinite remoteness of the sky, the +moon not yet risen above yonder snowy battlements. + +It was past nine o’clock when they drove into the shrubberied approach +to the Jungfraublich. The hotel looked dazzling after the obscurity of +the valley. Daphne would have liked to dash into the billiard-room and +challenge her lover to a game; but, since it was impossible for a young +lady to play at a public table, she went upstairs to the sitting-room +on the first floor, where Sir Vernon was waiting for them, and where +there was a table spread with tea, cold chickens, and rolls and honey. +Lina sat by her father, telling him the history of their day, and +hearing all he had to say about his letters and papers. Edgar was +in tremendous spirits, and inclined to make fun of the queer little +village on the edge of everlasting snows; Daphne was talkative; Sir +Vernon was gracious. It was only Gerald Goring who bore no part in +the conversation. He looked worn and wearied with the day’s work, and +yet it had been nothing for an Alpine climber; a mere constitutional +walk, barely enough to keep a man in training. When tea was over he +retired to the balcony, and sat there, smoking cigarettes and watching +the moon climb the dark slopes of heaven; while the others looked over +newly-arrived papers and periodicals, and discussed to-morrow’s trip to +Grindelwald and the glaciers. + +The morning came, as fair and fresh a dawn as ever peeped shyly +across the edge of the Alps, but Gerald, watching the slow kindling +of that rosy glow after a sleepless night, greeted the new day with +no thanksgiving. To him, in his present frame of mind, it would have +seemed a good thing if that day had never dawned; if this planet +Earth had dropped out of its place in the starry procession, and gone +down to darkness and chaos, like a torch burnt out. He rose with that +inexorable sun, which pursues his course with so little regard for the +griefs and perplexities of humanity, and was out in the dewy woods +above the hotel before civilised people were stirring. Anything was +better than to lie on a sleepless couch staring at the light. Here, +moving about among the dark pine-stems, treading the narrow tracks, +shifting his point of view at every turn in the path, life was less +intolerable. He could think better—his brain was clearer—his pulse less +feverish. + +‘What was he to do?’ he asked himself helplessly. What did Wisdom +counsel? What did Honour urge? Surely about this latter voice there +could be no question. Honour would have him be true to Madoline, at +any sacrifice of his own feelings. Duty was plain enough here. He had +pledged himself to her by every bond which honest men hold sacred. He +must keep his word. + +‘But if we are both miserable for life?’ he asked himself. ‘Can she be +happy if I am wretched? And what charm has existence for me without +Daphne?’ + +‘You must forget Daphne,’ urged Duty; ‘your first and nobler love must +obtain the mastery. You must pluck this idle weed, this mere caprice, +out of your heart.’ + +He told himself that the thing was to be done and he would try honestly +to do it. He would steel himself against Daphne’s wiles. Did not +Ulysses pluck himself away from the enchantress’s fatal island, wrench +himself out of her very web, and get home to Ithaca sound in body and +mind, and live happy ever afterwards with his faithful Penelope? Or at +least this is the popular idea of Ulysses, in spite of those breathings +of slander which make the Circe episode something more than Platonic. +What nobler image can life give than that of a faithful lover, a loyal +husband, tempted and yet true? Nor did poor little Daphne go out of +her way to exercise Circean arts. She charmed as the flowers charm, +innocently and unconsciously. She was no Becky Sharp, weaving a subtle +web out of people’s looks and smiles, drooping lashes, lifted eyelids, +the arrowy gleams of fatal green eyes. She wanted to be faithful to her +lover, and loyal to her sister. Her letter had been straight and true. +If he sinned, he sinned of his own accord, and had no such excuses as +Adam used against the partner God had given him. + +He wandered about restlessly, in an utterly purposeless way, till it +was time to go back to the seven o’clock breakfast. He would have liked +to start alone for the shining slate mountain yonder, to spend the day +there in a sultry solitude, lying on his back and staring up at the +unfathomable blue, smoking a little, reading Heine a little—Heine’s +ballad-book had been his gospel of late—idling away the empty day, +and growing wiser and better in solitude. But he was pledged to go in +beaten tracks; to go and eat and drink at The Bear, and gaze at the +lower glacier, like a Cook’s tourist, and be faintly interested in the +coachman’s exposition of the view, and be blandly tolerant of girls +selling edelweiss, and boys waking the echoes with Alpine horns, and +all the conventional features of that exquisite drive from Interlaken +to Grindelwald. + +However much he might affect to despise the familiar route, he could +not deny the beauty of the landscape by-and-by, when they were all +seated in the carriage and had crossed the Lutschine for the first +time, and were climbing slowly up the raised road above the river. +It was a brilliant morning, the wooded hills steeped in sunlight +and balmy summer air; the tender green of the young shoots showing +bright against the sombre darkness of the everlasting pines; water +rushing down the hillsides every here and there, sometimes a torrent, +sometimes a fine thread like spun glass, dropping from crag to crag. +The two young men got out of the carriage and walked up the hills; the +valley through which the road wound was exquisitely verdant—a scene of +pastoral beauty, fertile, richly wooded, but passing lonely. Daphne +sorely missed the dappled kine which relieve and animate a Warwickshire +landscape. + +‘What in Heaven’s name has become of the cattle?’ she exclaimed. +‘Here are meadows, and homesteads, and gardens, and orchards, but +not a living object in the landscape. I thought Switzerland swarmed +with cows, and was musical with cowbells. And where is the chorus of +herdsmen singing the “_Ranz des Vaches_?”’ + +‘Perhaps there has been an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, and the +cows have all been condemned,’ speculated Edgar. + +Gerald explained that the cattle and their keepers had all gone up into +the higher regions to crop the summer herbage. + +‘And that accounts for this green and silent valley,’ said Daphne. ‘It +is rather a romantic idea; but I should have liked to see the cattle +all the same. I adore cows. I think a Jersey cow, with her stag-like +head and eyes, is almost the loveliest thing in creation.’ + +‘You shall have a herd of them at Hawksyard,’ exclaimed Edgar eagerly; +‘and I will build you a Swiss cowhouse at the end of the walnut walk.’ + +‘Thank you so much,’ said Daphne, with a faint smile, ‘but I was +thinking of them only in the abstract.’ + +There were times when any allusion to Hawksyard and the future +irritated her like the sting of a summer insect. + +Children appeared at every turn of the circuitous road. Here a sickly, +large-eyed girl offered a handful of dingy edelweiss; there an unkempt +ill-fed boy ran beside the horses, flapping off the flies with a leafy +branch of ash or walnut; anon appeared the mountain musician playing +his plaintive strain upon the native horn, and waking melancholiest +echoes amid the solemn hills. The road crossed the river several times, +over covered bridges, wooden arcades, which made a picturesque bit in +the landscape, a pleasant lounging place too, on such a summer morning. +But there seemed to be nobody about save the fly-flapping boys, and +women and children offering new milk or the everlasting edelweiss. + +It was the first time Daphne had seen the little velvety white flower, +and she was keenly interested in it. + +‘Poor little colourless ice-blossom, so pale and dull-looking, like a +life without joy or variety!’ she said. ‘They say that it grows under +the snow. How nice it would be to go and hunt for it oneself! Please +give the children plenty of money, Edgar.’ And Mr. Turchill, whose +pockets were always full of loose Helvetian coins—leaden sous and +dingy-looking half-francs—scattered his largesse among the natives with +a liberality rare in modern excursionists. + +Half-way up the hill they came to a rustic restaurant, where the horses +stopped to blow, and where the coachman invited the ladies to go and +see a tame chamois in a little shed at the back of the house. + +‘He will be the first of his race I have seen,’ said Daphne, ‘though in +Manfred’s time this part of the country seems to have been overrun by +them.’ + +They went through the restaurant kitchen to the shed behind it, to +see the four-footed mountaineer. He was a melancholy little animal, +altogether a shabby specimen of the chamois tribe, and looked sadly +forlorn in his narrow den. One of his horns had been broken off, +perhaps in the struggles that attended his capture. + +‘It is a painful sight,’ said Daphne, turning away with a sigh. + +She would have given all her pocket-money to set the chamois free; but +he was one of the attractions of the house, and could not have been +easily ransomed. + +And now again across the Black Lutschine, by another covered bridge, +and up the steep winding road through a narrow gorge in the hills, +until the cleft widens, and the Grindelwald valley opens before them in +all its glory, ringed round with mountains, the Great Eiger standing +boldly out in front of them, with broad patches of snow on his dark +stony front, behind a bold edge of pine-clad hill. There is unspeakable +grandeur in that bleak and rugged mountain rising above the verdure and +beauty of the nearer hills. + +Daphne clasped her hands in unalloyed delight. + +‘It would be worth while coming to Switzerland if it were only for +this,’ she exclaimed; ‘yet I am tortured by the idea of all the +mountain-passes, glaciers, and waterfalls that we are not going to see. +I have a great mind to throw away my Baedeker. He makes me positively +miserable with suggestions that I can’t carry out.’ + +‘You will be able to see all you care about next year,’ said Edgar, +‘when you and I are free to go where we like. I believe it will be +always where _you_ like.’ + +‘Next year seems half a century off,’ she answered carelessly. + +Their journey was nearly done. The carriage went down into the valley, +then climbed another hill, and they had paused the outskirts of the +village of Grindelwald, and were drawing up in the garden in front of +the Bear Hotel. Very full of life and bustle was the inn garden on +this bright summer morning. Tourists without number standing about, +or sitting under the verandah, Americans, Germans, English, French, +all full of life and enjoyment; some starting with their alpenstocks, +intent on pedestrian excursions; ladies and sedentary middle-aged +gentlemen being hoisted on to mules; carriages driving in; horses being +fed and cleaned; a Babel of languages, a perpetual moving in and out. + +Mr. Goring ordered a slight refection of wine and coffee, rolls and +honey, to be brought to a pleasant spot under the verandah, at a point +where the view across the deep valley to the hills beyond was widest +and grandest. Here they rested themselves a little before starting on +foot for the lower glacier. Both Madoline and Daphne were in favour of +walking. + +‘I went on a mule when I was here with my father,’ said Lina, ‘and I +remember thinking how much I should have preferred being free to choose +my own path.’ + +It was a lovely walk, so soon as they were clear of the hotels and +boarding-houses, and the scattered wooden _châlets_ of the village, +just such a ramble as Daphne loved; a narrow footpath winding up and +down a verdant hillside—here a garden, and there an orchard—funny +little cottages and cottage-gardens perched anyhow on slopes and angles +of the road; a rustic bridge across the rocky bed of a river; and there +in front of them the glacier—a mass of corrugated ice lying on a steep +slope between two mountains—shining, beautiful, like a pale sapphire. +They loitered as much as they pleased by the wayside, Daphne straying +here and there as her fancy led her—a restless, birdlike creature, +almost seeming to have wings, so lightly did she flutter from hillock +to crag, so airy was the step with which she skimmed along the narrow +rocky pathway, beaten by the feet of so many travellers. They spent a +good deal of time in the immediate neighbourhood of the glacier, ‘doing +it thoroughly,’ as Edgar remarked afterwards, with a satisfied air; and +then they went quietly back to The Bear, and dined in a corner of the +big, barren dining-room, and drove back to Interlaken in the summer +dusk, Gerald almost as silent as he had been the night before during +the much shorter drive from Lauterbrunnen. + +‘I’m afraid it bores you to go over the ground you know so well,’ said +Madoline, grieved at her lover’s silence, which looked like depression, +or mental weariness. + +‘No; the country is too lovely, one could hardly tire of it,’ he +answered; ‘but don’t you think it intensely melancholy? There is +something in the silence and darkness of these hills which fills my +soul with gloom. Even the lights scattered about here and there are so +remote and so few that they only serve to intensify the solitude. So +long as sunlight and shadow give life and motion to the scene it is gay +enough; but with nightfall one finds out all at once how desolate it +is.’ + +There was more excursionising next day, and again on the next; then +came Sunday morning and church, and then a walk through the pine-woods +to see some athletic sports that were held in a green basin which made +a splendid amphitheatre, round whose grassy sides the audience sat +picturesquely grouped on the velvet sward. On this day the young women +came out in all the glory of their canton costume—snowy habit-shirts +and black velvet bodices, silver chains pendent from their shoulders, +silver daggers or arrows thrust through their plaited hair, long +silk aprons of brightest colours—a costume which gave new gaiety to +the landscape. Then in the evening there was a concert at the little +conversation-house in the walnut avenue, a concert so crowded by native +and foreigner that there was never an empty seat in the verandah, and +the waiters were at their wits’ ends to keep everyone supplied with tea +and coffee, lemonade and wine. After the concert there were fireworks, +coloured lights to glorify the fountains—almost the gayest, brightest +scene that Daphne’s eyes had ever looked upon. Then, when Bengal lights +and rockets had faded and vanished into the summer night, they walked +quietly back to the hotel under a starry sky. + +‘I believe Daphne likes Bengal lights better than stars,’ said Gerald +mockingly, as he gave Madoline his arm, and went on with her in advance +of the others, across a field that lay on the other side of the walnut +walk. + +‘You may believe anything you like of Daphne’s bad taste and general +idiocy,’ the girl retorted; and Lina was distressed at thinking how +disagreeable these two, whom she would have had so affectionately +attached, always were to each other. + +And all the while Gerald Goring was wondering what he was to do with +his life—whether it were possible to break the chain which bound him, +that golden chain which had once been his chief glory—whether it were +possible to reconcile honour and love. + +They left Interlaken next morning, and went straight through to the +little station at Montreux. Daphne, who had pored over her Baedeker +till she fancied that she knew every inch of Switzerland, was deeply +grieved at not being able to go on to Lucerne and the Rigi, Flüelen, +and all the Tell district; but Sir Vernon would go no farther than +Interlaken. He considered that he had made a sufficient sacrifice of +his own comfort already for his younger daughter’s pleasure. + +‘I hate moving about, and I detest hotels,’ he said; ‘I am yearning for +the quiet of my own house.’ + +After this no more could be said. Daphne gave herself up to silent +contemplation of the Jungfrau range throughout the journey, by boat and +rail, hardly taking her eyes from those snowy peaks till they melted +from her view, fading ghostlike in the blue ether. + +‘They seem to be a part of my life,’ she said, as she turned from the +carriage window with a regretful sigh; ‘I cannot bear to think that I +have seen the last of them.’ + +‘Only for this year,’ answered Edgar cheerily, not caring much for +mountains in the abstract, but ready to admire anything that Daphne +loved. ‘It is such an easy matter to come to Switzerland nowadays. The +Jungfrau is as accessible as Brighton Pier.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XXX. + +‘THER WAS NO WIGHT, TO WHOM SHE DURSTE PLAIN.’ + + +They had been at Montreux more than a week, and it seemed to Daphne as +if she had lived half her life on the shore of the beautiful lake, with +the snowy summit of the Dent du Midi rising yonder in its inaccessible +grandeur, above the fertile hills of the foreground, those precipitous +green slopes, where _châlets_ and farms were dotted about picturesquely +in positions that would have seemed perilous for birds’ nests. + +The villa was charming; a white-walled _château_ all plate-glass +windows, verandahs, balconies, brightened from roof to basement by +crimson and white Spanish blinds. The rooms were prettily furnished +in a foreign style—commodes, cabinets, clocks, candelabra, and Louis +Quatorze chairs of a painfully upright architecture. To these Sir +Vernon had added several easy-chairs and couches of the _pouf_ species, +hired from an upholsterer at Geneva. Photographs in velvet or ivory +frames, books, work-baskets, easels, and five-o’clock tea-tables, +brought from South Hill, gave a home-like air to the rooms; and a +profusion of the loveliest flowers, exquisitely arranged, told of +Madoline’s presence. + +There was a delicious garden sloping down to the lake, whose +gently-curving shore made here a lovely bay; a garden in which +roses grew as they only grow in the neighbourhood of water. There +were summer-houses of the airiest construction; trellised walks, +rose-shaded; a parterre of carefully-chosen flowers, with a fountain in +the centre; and the blue bright water at the edge of the lawn. + +Here Daphne had established her boat, a light skiff with a felucca +sail and a striped awning, to be used at pleasure; a boat which, seen +flitting across the lake in the sunshine, looked like a swallow. +There was a capital boat-house at a corner of the lawn, wooden and +delightfully Swiss, with balconies fronting the lake, and an upper room +in which one could take one’s pleasure, sketching, writing, reading, +tea-drinking. The weather had been peerless since their arrival at +Montreux; and Madoline and Daphne spent the greater part of their lives +out of doors. They were always together, Daphne rarely leaving the +shelter of her sister’s wing. She had become amazingly industrious, and +had begun a tremendous piece of work in crewels, neither more nor less +than a set of curtain-borderings for the drawing-room at Hawksyard. +Vainly had Madoline entreated her to begin with an antimacassar or a +fender-stool, some undertaking which would demand but a reasonable +exercise of patience and perseverance. Daphne would hear of no work +that was not gigantic. + +‘Do you think Cheops would ever have been famous if he had begun to +make pyramids on a small scale?’ she asked. ‘He would have exhausted +his interest in the idea, frittered away his enthusiasm upon trifles. +How much wiser it was in him to make a dash at something big while his +fancy was at a white heat! If I don’t embroider a set of curtains I’ll +do nothing.’ + +‘Well, dearest, you must follow your own fancy,’ answered Lina gently; +‘but I’m afraid your life will be a history of great beginnings.’ + +Daphne began with extraordinary industry upon a bold pattern of +sunflowers and acanthus leaves, huge sunflowers, huge foliage, on a +Pompeian-red ground. Whenever she was not in her boat, skimming about +the lake, she was toiling at a leaf or a sunflower, sitting on a +cushion at Lina’s feet, the sunny head bent over her work, the slim +white fingers moving busily, the dark brows knitted, in the intensity +of her occupation. She was always intent upon finishing a leaf, or a +stalk, or a petal, or on realising the grand effect of a completed +flower. She would sit till the last available moment before dinner, +rushing off to dress in a frantic hurry, and reappearing just as the +subdued announcement of dinner was being breathed into Sir Vernon’s +ear. Edgar was filled with delight to see her so occupied. It seemed to +him a pledge of future domesticity. + +‘It is so sweet to see you working for our home,’ he said one +afternoon, seated on the grass at her feet, and placidly watching every +stitch. + +‘Eh?’ she said, looking up in half-surprise, being much more interested +in the sunflowers for their own sakes than in their future relation to +the old Warwickshire Grange. ‘Oh yes, to be sure. I hope I shall finish +the curtains; but it is a dreadful long way to look forward. There will +be three hundred and fifty-five sunflowers. I have done one and a half. +That leaves just three hundred and fifty-three and a half to do. I +rather wish it were the other way.’ + +‘Beginning to flag already?’ said Lina, who was sketching a little bit +of the mountain landscape on the other side of the lake, a bold effect +of sun and shadow. + +‘Not the least in the world,’ cried Daphne; ‘only I do so long to +see the effect of the curtains when they are finished. It will be +stupendous. But do you know, Edgar, I am afraid your mother will detest +them. One requires to be educated up to sunflowers; and Mrs. Turchill +belongs to that degraded period of art in which people could see beauty +in roses and lilies.’ + +‘One can hardly look back upon those dark ages without a shudder,’ said +Gerald Goring, stretched on a rustic bench close at hand, looking up at +the blue sky, an image of purposeless idleness. ‘Thank Providence we +have emerged from the age of curves into the age of angles—from the +Hogarthian to the Burne-Jonesian ideal of beauty.’ + +‘There was a period in my own life when I had not awakened to the +loveliness of the sunflower,’ said Daphne gravely. ‘I know the first +time I was introduced to one in crewel-work I thought it hideous; but +since I have known Tadema’s pictures I am another creature. Yet I doubt +if, even in my regenerate state, a garden all sunflowers would be quite +satisfactory.’ + +‘You would require the Roman atmosphere, classic busts and columns, +Tyrian-dyed draperies, and everybody dressed in the straight-down +Roman fashion,’ replied Gerald languidly. ‘No doubt Poppæa was fond +of sunflowers; and I daresay they grew in that royal garden where +Messalina held such high jinks that time her imperial husband came home +unexpectedly and somewhat disturbed the harmony of the evening.’ + +It was altogether an idle kind of life which they were leading just now +at Montreux. During the first week Edgar and Daphne had excursionised +a little upon the nearest hillsides in the early morning before +breakfast; but lovely as were the chestnut-woods and the limpid +streamlets gushing out of their rocky beds and dripping into stone +troughs fringed with delicate ferns, exquisite as was the morning air, +and the fairy picture of the lake below them, developing some new charm +with every hundred yards of the ascent, Daphne soon wearied of these +morning rambles, and seemed glad to forego them. + +‘The weather is getting horribly oppressive,’ she said, ‘or perhaps +I am not quite so strong as I used to be. I would rather sit in the +garden and amuse myself more lazily.’ + +‘You must not pretend to be an invalid,’ said Edgar cheerily; ‘come +now, Daphne: why, there are not many girls can handle a pair of sculls +as you do.’ + +‘I didn’t say I was an invalid. In my boat I feel in my element, but +listlessly creeping about these hills wearies me to death.’ + +‘You are very different from me,’ answered Edgar reproachfully. ‘Your +company is always enough for my happiness.’ + +‘Then you shall have as much of my company as you please in the garden +or on the lake. But pray let us be idle while we can. When Aunt Rhoda +arrives we shall be goaded to all kinds of excursionising, dragged up +every hill in the district.’ + +‘I thought you wanted to climb mountains?’ + +‘Yes, mountains; Mont Blanc, or the Matterhorn, or Monte Rosa—anything +respectable. But to exhaust one’s energy in scaling green banks! Why, +in Wales they would call the Col du Jaman a bank. However, when Aunt +Rhoda arrive I shall be equal to the effort. Of course we shall have to +do Chillon.’ + +‘I thought you were so interested in Chillon.’ + +‘Yes, as an image in my mind. I love to gaze at its dark towers from +the distance, to send my fancies back to the Middle Ages, penetrate the +gloomy prison and keep the captives company—but to go over the cells +formally, in the midst of a little herd of tourists, staring over each +other’s shoulders, and treading upon each other’s toes—to be shown by +a snuffy old custodian the ring to which Bonnivard was chained, the +grating out of which he could see the “little isle that in his very +face did smile”—that is a kind of thing which I absolutely abhor.’ + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Ferrers had written to her brother, informing him that as she +had been all her life longing for a glimpse of Swiss scenery, and +that as so favourable an opportunity had now presented itself for the +gratification of that desire, she had made up her mind to come straight +to Montreux by herself. + +‘It is a tremendous undertaking for one who has travelled so little,’ +she wrote; ‘for you know, dear Vernon, how my devotion to Lina and +your interests kept me a prisoner at South Hill during those years in +which I should naturally have been seeing all that is worth seeing in +this beautiful world. It is an awful idea to travel all the way from +Warwickshire to Lake Leman, with only a maid, but I feel that this is +a golden opportunity which must not be lost. To be in Switzerland with +you and dearest Lina will be a delight, the memory of which will endure +all my life. It is quite hopeless to suppose that dear Marmaduke can +ever travel with me beyond Cheltenham, or Bath, or Torquay. His health +and his settled habits both forbid the thought. Why, then, should I not +take advantage of your being in Switzerland to realise a long-cherished +wish? I shall be no trouble to you: I do not ask you even to receive me +under your roof, unless indeed you happen to have a spare room or two +at your disposal. You can make arrangements for me and my maid to live +_en pension_ at one of those excellent hotels which I am told abound +on the banks of the lake, and I can spend all my days with you without +feeling myself either a burden or an expense.’ + +‘What are we to do, Lina?’ asked Sir Vernon, when his elder daughter +had read the letter; ‘your aunt will be a terrible bore in any case, +but I suppose she will be a little less of a nuisance if we put her out +of the house.’ + +‘There are three spare rooms,’ said Lina. ‘It would be rather +inhospitable to send her to an hotel—if she will not be any trouble to +you, dear father——’ + +‘Oh, she will be no trouble to me,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘I’ll take care of +that.’ + +‘Then I think you had better let me write and ask her to stay with us.’ + +‘Ask her!’ quoth Sir Vernon, ‘egad, she has asked herself.’ + +The letter was written, and by return of post there came a gushing +reply, announcing that Mrs. Ferrers had broken the intelligence of her +departure to dear Marmaduke, who had borne the blow better than might +have been expected, and who was amiably resigned to the loss of his +wife’s society during the ensuing six weeks. Is not a modern Anglican +cleric bound to imitate in somewise the example of the early Christian +martyrs? Fire or sword he is not called upon to suffer, nor to fight +with wild beasts in the arena; but these small domestic deprivations +are a scourge of the flesh, which tend to exercise his heroic temper. + +‘Todd,’ said Marmaduke, in a fat and unctuous voice, ‘you must take +particular care of me while your mistress is away. You know what I +like, Todd, and you must make sure that I have it.’ + + * * * * * + +Mrs. Ferrers arrived one sunny afternoon, with three Saratoga trunks, +and the newest things in sunshades. She had a generally exhausted air +after her journey, and declared that she seemed to have been travelling +since the beginning of the world. + +‘The dust, the heat, the glare between Paris and Dijon I can never +describe,’ she protested as she sank into the most luxurious of the +easy-chairs, which her eagle eye had detected at the first glance. + +‘Please don’t try,’ said Gerald, ‘we went through it all ourselves.’ + +‘It was something too dreadful,’ murmured Aunt Rhoda, looking so cool +and ladylike in her pale-gray cashmere gown and flounced sicilienne +petticoat, that it was difficult to believe she had ever been a victim +to dust and heat. + +She was refreshed with tea and bread and butter, and looked round her +with placid satisfaction. + +‘It is really very sweet,’ she murmured. ‘This villa reminds me so +much of the Fothergills’ place just above Teddington Lock—the lawn—the +flower-beds—everything. But, do you know, Switzerland is not quite so +Swiss as I expected to find it.’ + +‘That was just what Daphne said,’ answered Madoline. + +‘Did she really?’ murmured Aunt Rhoda, looking across at Daphne, who +was sitting idly by the low tea-table. Mrs. Ferrers felt a little vexed +with herself at being convicted of coinciding with Daphne. + +‘I suppose it is inevitable,’ she said, with a lofty air, ‘that a +place of which one has dreamed all one’s life, which one has pictured +to oneself in all the brightest colours of one’s own mind and fancy, +should be just a little disappointing. It was tiresome to be told +at Geneva that Mont Blanc had not been seen for weeks, and it was +provoking to find the cabman horribly indifferent about Rousseau—for, +of course, I made a point of going to see his house.’ + +‘And did you go to Ferney?’ asked Daphne eagerly. ‘Isn’t it pretty?’ + +‘My dear Daphne, you forget that I am a clergyman’s wife,’ said Mrs. +Ferrers, with dignity. ‘Do you suppose that I would worship at the +shrine of a man who made a mock of religion?’ + +‘Not of religion,’ muttered Gerald, ‘but of priestcraft.’ + +‘But you were interested about Rousseau,’ said Daphne. ‘I thought they +were both wicked men—that there was nothing to choose between them.’ + +‘Voltaire’s infidelity was more notorious,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers; ‘I +could never have told Marmaduke that I visited the house of an avowed——’ + +‘Deist,’ interjected Gerald. + +Hard pressed, Mrs. Ferrers was constrained to admit that she had never +read a line written by either Voltaire or Rousseau, and that she had +only a kind of dictionary idea of the two men, so vague that their +images might at any moment become confounded in her mind. + +When she had reposed a little after her journey, and had seen the +contents of the Saratoga trunks arranged in wardrobe and drawers, Aunt +Rhoda showed herself a most ardent votary of the picturesque. She had +a volume of Byron in her hand all day, and quoted his description of +Leman and Chillon in a way that was almost as exasperating as the +torture inflicted by a professional punster. She insisted upon being +taken to Chillon on the morning after her arrival. She made Gerald +organise an excursion from Evian to the mountain village above, at the +foot of the Dent d’Oche, for the following day. She made them take +her to the Rochers de Naye, to the Gorge du Chauderon; to Lausanne by +steamer one day, to Nyon another day. She was always exploring the +guide-books in search of excursions that could be managed between +sunrise and sundown. + +Sir Vernon, having settled himself in his study at Montreux, with books +and papers about him, was just as much dependent for his comfort and +happiness upon Lina’s society as ever he had been at South Hill. It +was out of the question that a daughter so unselfish and devoted could +leave her invalid father day after day. Thus it happened that Madoline +in a manner dropped out of the excursionising party. Gerald could +not be dispensed with—though he more than once declared in favour of +staying at home—for nobody else was familiar with those shores, and +Mrs. Ferrers protested that it would be impossible to get on without +him. + +‘You all have your Baedekers,’ he argued, ‘and you are only going over +beaten tracks. What more can you want?’ + +‘Beaten tracks!’ exclaimed Aunt Rhoda indignantly. ‘I’m sure those +pathways you took us up yesterday on the way to the Dent d’Oche had +never been trodden upon except by the cows. And I hate groping about +with my nose in a guide-book. One always misses the things best worth +seeing. Do you think we could get on without him, Daphne?’ she asked +in conclusion, appealing to her younger niece, to whom she had been +unusually amiable ever since her arrival. + +‘I think we might manage without Mr. Goring,’ Daphne answered gravely, +with never a glance at Gerald. She had scrupulously avoided all +direct association with him of late. ‘Edgar and I are getting to know +Switzerland and Swiss ways wonderfully well.’ + +‘Have you ever been to the Gorge du Chauderon?’ asked Aunt Rhoda. + +Daphne confessed that this particular locality was unknown to her. She +did not even know what the Gorge was, except that it sounded, in a +general way, like a glen or ravine. + +‘Then how can you talk such arrant nonsense?’ demanded her aunt +contemptuously. ‘What good could you or Edgar be in a place that +neither of you have ever seen in your lives? You can’t know the proper +way to get to it, or the safest way to get away from it. We should all +tumble over some hidden precipice, and break our necks.’ + +‘Baedeker doesn’t say anything about precipices,’ said Daphne, with her +eyes on that authority. + +‘Baedeker thinks no more of precipices than I think of a country lane,’ +answered Aunt Rhoda. + +‘I am sure Lina would like to have Mr. Goring at home sometimes,’ said +Daphne. Gerald had strolled out into the garden while they talked. +‘Could we not get a guide?’ + +‘I detest guides,’ replied her aunt, who knew that those guardians of +the strangers’ safety were expensive, and fancied she might have to pay +her share of the cost. ‘Gerald may just as well be with us as moping +here. I know what my brother is, and that he will keep Lina dancing +attendance upon him all day long.’ + +Mr. Goring went with them everywhere, and seemed nothing loth to +labour in their service. He knew the ground thoroughly, and led them +over it in a quiet leisurely way, unknown to the average tourist, who +goes everywhere in a scamper, and returns to his native land with his +mind full of confused memories. He had to put up with a great deal of +Aunt Rhoda’s society during all these excursions, and was gratified +with lengthy confidences from that lady; for Daphne was loyal to her +faithful lover, and walked with him and talked with him, and gave him +as much of her company as was possible. She talked of Hawksyard and her +future mother-in-law, of the tenants, and the villagers, the horses and +dogs. She talked of hunting and shooting, of everything which most +interested her lover; and then she went home in the evening so weary +and worn out and heart-sick that she was glad to sit quietly in the +verandah after dinner, petting a tawny St. Bernard dog called Monk, +a gigantic animal, who belonged to the house, and who had attached +himself to Daphne from her first coming with a warm regard. He was her +sole companion very often in her boating excursions, when she went +roaming about the lake in her light skiff, enjoying all the loveliness +of the scene, as she could only enjoy it, in perfect solitude. + +‘Surely it is hardly safe for that child to go about without a +boatman,’ exclaimed Mrs. Ferrers, as she stood at the open window of +her brother’s study, watching the swallow-sail as it flitted across the +sunlit ripples, bending to every movement of the water. ‘Vernon, do you +know that the lake is over a thousand feet deep?’ + +‘I don’t think the depth of water makes any difference,’ replied Sir +Vernon calmly. ‘The Avon is deep enough to drown her; yet we never +troubled ourselves about her aquatic amusements in Warwickshire. I have +Turchill’s assurance that she is perfect mistress of her boat, and I +think that ought to be enough.’ + +‘Of course if you are satisfied I ought to be,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, +with her ladylike shrug; ‘but I can only say that if I had a daughter +I should not encourage her in a taste for boating. In the first place, +because I cannot dispossess my mind of the idea of danger; and in the +second, because I consider such an amusement revoltingly masculine. +Daphne’s hands are ever so much wider since she began to row. I was +horrified the other day at discovering that she wears six-and-a-half +gloves.’ + +Daphne liked those quiet mornings on the lake, or a ramble among +vineyards or orchards, with Monk for her sole companion, better than +the formal pilgrimages to some scene made famous by the guide-books. +Those excursions with her aunt and Mr. Goring and Edgar had become +passing wearisome. The strain upon her spirits was too great. The +desire to appear gay and happy and at ease exhausted her. The effort +to banish thought and memory, and to take a rapturous pleasure in +the beauty of a picturesque scene, or the glory of a summer sky, was +becoming daily more severe. To talk twaddle with Edgar, to smile in his +face, with that gnawing pain, that passion of longing and regret always +troubling her soul, was a slow torture which she began to think must +sooner or later be mortal. + +‘Can I go on living like this for ever?’ she asked herself, after +one of those endless summer days, when, in the same boat, in the +same carriage with Gerald Goring, lunching at the same inn, admiring +the same views, treading the same narrow paths or perilous wooden +footbridges, she had yet contrived to keep herself aloof from him. +‘Can I always go on acting a part—pretending to be true when I am +false to the core of my wicked heart, pretending to be happy when I am +miserable?’ + +The mountains and the lake were beginning to lose something of their +enchantment, something of their power to lift her out of herself and +to make her forget human sorrow amidst the immensities of Nature. She +did not love them less as they grew familiar, nay, her love increased +with her knowledge; but the distraction diminished. She could think +of herself and her own sorrow now, under the walls of Chillon, just +as keenly as in the elm walk in Stratford churchyard. The wide lake +glittering in the morning sun was no longer a magical picture, before +which every thought of self faded. Gliding dreamily along the blue +water she gave herself up to a sadness that was half bitter, half +sweet; bitter, because she knew that her life was to be spent apart +from Gerald Goring; sweet, because she was so certain of his love. He +told her of it every day, however carefully she avoided all direct +association with him: told her by veiled words, by stolen looks, by +that despondency and gloom which hung about him like a cloud. Love has +a hundred subtle ways of revealing itself. A fatal passion needs not to +be expounded in the preachments of a St. Preux, in the moral lectures +and intellectual flights of a Julie. Briefer and more direct is the +language of an unhappy love. It reveals itself unawares; it escapes +from the soul unconsciously, as the perfume from the rose. + +Daphne was very thankful when her aunt’s active and insatiable spirit +was fain to subside into repose; not because Mrs. Ferrers was tired +of sight-seeing, but simply because she had conscientiously done +every lion within a manageable distance of Montreux. In her secret +soul Aunt Rhoda thought contemptuously of the bluest, biggest, lake +in Switzerland, and all the glory of the Savoy range. Had not these +easily-reached districts long ceased to be fashionable? Her soul +yearned for Ragatz or Davos, St. Moritz or Pontresina, the only places +of which people with any pretence to good style ever talked nowadays. +It was all very well for Byron to be eloquent about Lake Leman or +ecstatic about Mont Blanc; for in his time railways and monster +steamboats had not vulgarised Savoy, and a gentleman might be rapturous +about scenes which were only known to the travelled Englishman. But +to-day, when every Cook’s tourist had scaled the Montanvert, when ‘Arry +was a familiar figure on the skirts of the Great Glacier, who could +feel any pride or real satisfaction in a prolonged residence on the +Lake of Geneva. With all those subtle wiles of which a worldly woman +is mistress did Mrs. Ferrers try to direct her brother’s thoughts and +fancies towards the Engadine. She reminded him how the fashionable +London physician had lauded the life-giving, youth-renewing quality +of the atmosphere, and had particularly recommended Pontresina, if he +could but manage the journey. + +‘But I can’t manage it, and I don’t mean to manage it,’ retorted Sir +Vernon testily. ‘Do you suppose I am going to endure a jolting drive of +twenty-four hours——’ + +‘Fourteen at most,’ murmured his sister. + +‘A great deal you know about it! Do you think I am going to be carted +up hill and down hill in order to get beforehand with winter on a bleak +plateau, diversified with glaciers and pine-trees? It is absurd to +suggest such a thing to a man in weak health.’ + +‘It is for your health that I make the suggestion, Vernon,’ replied +his sister meekly. ‘You cannot deny that Dr. Cavendish recommended the +Engadine.’ + +‘Simply because the Engadine is the last fad of the moneyed classes. +These doctors all sing the same song. One year they send everyone to +Egypt, another year they try to popularise Algiers. One would suppose +they were in league with the Continental railways and steam companies. +One might get one’s nerves braced just as well at Broadway or Malvern, +or on the Cornish moors; one might get well or die just as comfortably +at Penzance or Torquay. You quite ignore the trouble of a change of +quarters. I have made myself thoroughly comfortable here. If I were to +go to the Engadine I should take only Lina and Jinman, and you would +have to take Daphne home and keep her at the Rectory till our return.’ + +This was not at all what Mrs. Ferrers had in view. She had taken for +granted that if she could induce her brother to go to the Engadine +she would be taken, as a matter of course, in his train. He was a +free-handed man in all domestic matters, though he very often grumbled +about his poverty; and he would have paid his sister’s expenses without +a thought, if he were willing to endure her company. But it seemed that +he was not willing, and that she had been unconsciously urging him to +her own ruin. To have her Swiss experiences suddenly cut short, to +have that audacious little flirt Daphne planted upon her for a month’s +visit! The thing was too horrible to contemplate. + +‘My dear Vernon,’ she exclaimed, with affectionate eagerness, ‘if +you do not feel yourself equal to the journey it would be madness to +undertake it.’ + +‘Exactly my own idea. Please say no more about it,’ he answered coldly. +‘I am sorry you are tired of Montreux.’ + +‘Tired! I adore the place. It is positively delicious. A little +stifling, perhaps, in the heat of the day, but beyond measure, lovely.’ + +After this Mrs. Ferrers never more spoke word about St. Moritz or +Pontresina. She saw by last week’s society papers that everybody worth +talking about was taking his or her pleasure in that exalted region; +but she only sighed and kept silence. The ‘society papers’ ignored +Lake Leman altogether, nor did they ever mention Mont Blanc. It seemed +as if they hardly knew that such things existed. Their contributors all +went straight through. Aunt Rhoda remembered how, many years before, +when she had gone through the Trossachs and had been full of enthusiasm +and delight, and had gone home proud of her tour, her travelled friends +had so scorned her that she had never again ventured to mention Katrine +or Lomond, Inversnaid or the Falls of Clyde. + +She settled down as well as she could to the domestic quiet of +Montreux—the mornings and afternoons in the garden; the everlasting +novels and poetry and crewel-work; Daphne and the St. Bernard sitting +on the sloping grass by the edge of the water, or loitering about among +the flowers. She bore this luxurious monotony as long as she could, and +then she was seized with a happy thought which opened a little vista of +variety. + +She discovered, one sultry afternoon, that Lina was looking pale and +fagged, and called her brother’s attention to that fact. + +‘I don’t wish to alarm you, Vernon,’ she said, as they were all +sitting at afternoon tea on the lawn, in the shade of a magnificent +willow, whose long tresses trailed in the lake; ‘but I believe if you +don’t give Lina a little change from this baking valley, she will be +seriously ill.’ + +‘Pray don’t say that, Aunt Rhoda; I assure you that I am perfectly +well,’ remonstrated Madoline, looking up from her cups and saucers. + +‘My dear, you are one of those unselfish creatures who go on pretending +to be well until they sink,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers, with an air of +knowing ever so much more about Lina than Lina knew herself. ‘You +are languishing—positively pining for mountain air. Everybody is not +created with the constitution of a salamander,’ she added, with a +contemptuous glance at Daphne, who was sitting in the full glare of the +afternoon sun, ‘and for anybody except a salamander this place for the +last three days has been almost intolerable. Dearly as I love you all, +and delighted as I am to be with you, it has been only the idea of the +dust and the heat of the railway that has prevented my going back to +Warwickshire.’ + +Sir Vernon looked uneasily at his beloved daughter. He had kept her a +good deal about him; he had let her stay at home to bear him company, +when the others were breathing the cool air of the lake, or climbing +into the fresher atmosphere of the hills; and now it slowly dawned upon +him that his selfishness might have endangered her health. Rhoda was +always an alarmist—one of those unpleasant people who scent calamity +afar off, and are prescient of coming trouble in the hour of present +joy; but it was true that Madoline was pale and languid-looking. She +had a fatigued look, and her beauty had lost much of its bloom and +freshness. + +‘Lina is not looking well,’ he said, glancing at her uneasily; ‘what +can we do for you, dear?’ + +‘Nothing, father,’ answered Lina, with her gentle smile: ‘there is +nothing the matter.’ + +‘You told me this morning that you could not sleep last night,’ +murmured Mrs. Ferrers. + +‘It was a very warm night,’ admitted Lina, vexed at her aunt’s +fussiness. + +‘Warm! It was stifling. This lake is at the bottom of a basin, +completely shut in by hills,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, as if she had made a +discovery. ‘I’ll tell you what we could do, Vernon. I might take the +two girls up to the hotel at Glion, or at Les Avants. They are both +very nice rustic hotels, clean and airy. A few days in that mountain +air would pick Lina up wonderfully.’ + +‘Would you like to go, dear?’ asked Sir Vernon doubtfully. + +‘I should like it of all things, if you would go with us,’ answered his +daughter; ‘but I don’t want to leave you.’ + +‘Never mind me, Lina. I can get on pretty well for a few days, sorely +as I shall miss you. I suppose three or four days will be enough?’ + +‘Ample,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, delighted at having gained her point. ‘We +can ramble about and see everything that is to be seen in three or four +days.’ + +‘So be it, then. Start as soon as you like. You had better send Jinman +up at once to engage rooms for you. This is Monday. I suppose if you +start to-morrow morning you can come back on Friday.’ + +‘Certainly. Three days in that magnificent air will be quite long +enough to make Lina strong,’ replied Mrs. Ferrers, assured that in +three days she would have exhausted the pleasures of a lively hotel and +picturesque surroundings. + +‘I wish you were coming with us, dear father,’ said Madoline. + +‘My dearest, do you think it would do me any good to have my old +bones dragged up an almost perpendicular hill, and to put up with the +indifferent accommodation of a rustic hotel? I am much better taking my +ease here. The young men will want to go with you, no doubt.’ + +‘If you please, sir,’ answered Edgar. + +Gerald Goring said never a word, but it was taken for granted that he +meant to go. He and Madoline must, of course, be inseparable until that +solemn knot should be tied which would make them one and indivisible +for ever and ever. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXI. + +‘I WOLDE LIVE IN PEES, IF THAT I MIGHT.’ + + +They had been three days at the homely, comfortable hotel at Les +Avants, and Madoline was looking all the better for the fresh hillside +air, an improvement upon which Mrs. Ferrers expatiated as the latest +confirmation of the one all-abiding fact of her own ineffable wisdom. +It was one of the loveliest days there had been in all that delicious +month of summer weather—passing warm, yet with a gentle west wind that +faintly stirred the heavy chestnut leaves, and breathed on Daphne’s +cheek, or fluttered round her neck like a caress, scarcely moving the +soft lace ruffle round her throat. It was a day on which a white gown +seemed the only thing possible in costume, and Daphne and Lina were +both dressed in white. It was not by any means the kind of day for +climbing or excursionising of any kind, as even that ardent explorer +Aunt Rhoda was fain to confess; rather a day on which to wander gently +up and down easy paths, or to sit in the pine-woods reading Tennyson or +Browning, or adding a few lazy stitches to the last sunflower in hand. + +‘You seem to go at your work with a good deal less vigour, Daphne,’ +said Edgar, seated at his lady’s feet, on a carpet of fir-needles, his +knees drawn up to his chin, clad in light-gray alpaca, and a Panama hat +on the back of his head—a cool but not especially becoming costume. Mr. +Turchill was not one of those few men who look well in unconventional +clothes. + +‘The weather is too warm for industry.’ + +‘I’m afraid those curtains will never be finished.’ + +‘Oh yes, they will!’ said Daphne, ‘I mean to persevere. I may be a +very old woman by the time they are done, but I am not going to give +in. Lina says my life is a thing of shreds and patches. I will show +her that I am not to be daunted by the stupendousness of a task. Three +hundred and fifty-one and a quarter sunflowers still to be done. +Doesn’t it rather remind you of that type of the everlasting—a rock +against which a bird scrapes its beak once in a thousand years, and +when the bird has worn away the whole rock, time will come to an end? +Please go on with “Luria,” and try to be a little more dramatic and a +little less monotonous.’ + +‘I am a wretched reader,’ said Edgar apologetically, as he looked for +his place; ‘but I think I might read a shade better if I understood +what I was reading. Browning is rather obscure.’ + +‘I’m afraid you have not a poetic mind. You didn’t seem to understand +much of “Atalanta in Calydon,” which you so kindly read to us +yesterday.’ + +‘I’m afraid I didn’t,’ confessed the Squire of Hawksyard, with +praiseworthy meekness. ‘Modern poetry is rather difficult. I can always +understand Shakespeare, and Pope, and Crabbe, and Byron, but I own that +even Wordsworth is beyond me. His meaning is pretty clear, but I can’t +discover his beauties.’ + +‘Simply because your intellectual growth was allowed to stop when you +left Rugby. But I insist upon you learning to appreciate Tennyson and +Browning; so please go on with “Luria.”’ + +‘In my opinion, Daphne,’ remarked Aunt Rhoda, with an oracular air, ‘it +would have been much better for the balance of your mind if you had +read a great deal more prose and a great deal less poetry. Good solid +reading of a thoroughly useful kind would have taught you to think +properly, and to express yourself carefully, instead of perpetually +startling people by giving utterance to the wildest ideas.’ + +‘I think I speak as the birds sing,’ answered Daphne, ‘because I can’t +help it.’ + +‘The habit of sober thought is a valuable one, which I hope you will +acquire by-and-by, when you are mistress of a household; or else I am +sorry for your future husband.’ + +‘Please don’t be sorry for me, Mrs. Ferrers,’ protested Edgar, +reddening angrily, as he always did at any slight to Daphne; ‘I am so +perfectly contented with my fate that it would be a waste of power to +pity me.’ + +‘It is early days yet,’ sighed Aunt Rhoda. ‘But I live in the hope that +Daphne will steady and tone down before she becomes a wife.’ + +‘If you don’t begin to read this instant,’ whispered Daphne, with her +rosy lips close to Edgar’s ear, ‘I shall be made the text of one of +Aunt Rhoda’s homilies.’ + +Edgar took the hint, and plunged anyhow and anywhere into the pages of +Browning. + +They lived all day in the woods, taking their luncheon picnic fashion +under the pine-trees. The two young men catered, and fetched and +carried for them, assisted by Mowser. They brought cold fowls, +and sliced Strasbourg ham, and salad, fruit and cake, a bottle of +Bordeaux, and another of a Swiss white wine, which was rather like +a weak imitation of Devonshire perry. But such a meal, spread upon +a snow-white tablecloth under pine-trees, over whose dark feathery +tops gleam the blue bright summer heaven, is about the most enjoyable +banquet possible for youthful revellers. Even Aunt Rhoda admitted that +it was an agreeable change from the home comforts of Arden Rectory. + +‘I hope my dear Rector is being taken care of,’ she murmured +plaintively, when she had dulled the edge of an appetite sharpened by +that clear air. + +‘I hope you will all do justice to the chickens,’ said Gerald, looking +across at Daphne, who sat by Edgar’s side in a thoroughly Darby and +Joanish manner. ‘I remember once being at a picnic in a forest where +an elderly fowl was made quite a feature of. My hostess fancied I was +desperately hungry, and was quite distressed at my avoidance of the +ancient bird.’ + +Daphne’s eyes were on her plate, but a slow smile crept over her +face in spite of herself. She and Gerald had scarcely looked at each +other in all those days among the pine-trees. They had lived in daily +intercourse, and yet contrived to dwell as completely apart as if the +lake had flowed between them; as if he, like St. Preux, had gazed +across the blue waters to catch the glimmer of his beloved’s casement, +and she, like Julie, had pined in the home that was desolate without +love’s fatal presence. It was hardly possible for resolve to have +been firmer than Daphne’s had been since that night at Fribourg. It +was hardly possible for an honest purpose to have been more honestly +fulfilled. + +Mowser, waiting upon the picnickers, saw that significant look of +Gerald’s, and Daphne’s answering smile; just as she had seen many +things at South Hill and elsewhere which only her observant eyes had +noted. + +‘Still at your old tricks, my young lady,’ she said to herself; ‘but +Jane Mowser has got an eye upon you, and your mockinventions shan’t +succeed, if Mowser’s faithful service can circum-prevent you.’ + +After luncheon they all sat idly looking down at the distant lake, +lying so far beneath their feet, like a pool of blue water in the +hollow of the hills, or wandered a little here and there, searching +out higher points from which to look down at the lake, or across to +the cloud-wrapped Alps. As the day wore on the light western breeze +dropped and died away, and there came the stillness of a sultry August +afternoon, just such an atmosphere as that of the lotus-eaters’ isle, +the land where it was always afternoon. + +Aunt Rhoda, who had lunched more copiously than the others, succumbed +to the enervating influence of summer. The outline antimacassar +on which she had been diligently stitching a design of infantine +simplicity—a little girl with a watering-pot, a little boy with an +umbrella—dropped from her hands. The blue lake below winked at her in +the sunshine like a Titanic eye. The soft sweet breath of the pines +gratified her nostrils, and that delicious sense of being gently baked +through and through in Nature’s slow oven finally overcame her, and she +sank into a thoroughly enjoyable slumber, a sleep in which she knew she +was sleeping, and tasted all the blessedness of repose. + +Daphne sat on a knoll a little way below her aunt, struggling with a +sunflower, heartily tired of it all the time, and painfully oppressed +by the consciousness of three hundred and fifty-one sunflowers +remaining to be done after this one. + +‘It is like the line of the Egyptian kings,’ she murmured with a sigh. +‘An endless procession—too stupendous for the imagination to grasp.’ + +Edgar, stretched at the feet of his adored, had fallen as fast asleep +as Aunt Rhoda. Madoline and Gerald had wandered off to the higher +grounds. They were going to the Col du Jaman for anything Daphne knew +to the contrary. + +This particular sunflower now approaching a finish seemed the most +irritating of all his tribe. Daphne tightened her thread, pulled it +into a knot, boggled at the knot, lost patience, and threw the work +aside in a rage. + +‘Who could do crewel-work on such a stifling day?’ she cried, looking +angrily down at the lake, with its girdle of towns and villages, +gardens and vineyards; looking angrily even at picturesque Chillon, +with its mediæval turrets and drawbridge, angrily at the calm, +snow-shrouded Dent du Midi, and the dark green hills around its base. + +Then, having explored the wide landscape with eyes blind for this +moment to its beauty, she looked discontentedly at the reclining form +at her feet, the faithful lover, slumbering serenely, oblivious of +wasps and centipedes. + +‘A log,’ she muttered to herself, ‘a log. Blind and deaf! Good; yes, I +know he is good, and I try to value him for his goodness; but oh, how +weary I am—how weary—how weary!’ + +She flung aside her work, and wandered away along a narrow winding +pathway, trodden by the feet of previous wanderers, upward and upward +towards the granite point of the Dent du Jaman, gray against the +sapphire sky. She walked, scarcely knowing where she went, or why: +urged by a fever of the mind, which hurried her any whither to escape +from the weariness of her own thoughts; as if such escape were possible +to humanity. + +She had been walking along the same serpentine path for nearly an +hour, neither knowing nor caring where it might be leading her. The +gray peak of the granite rock always rose yonder in the same distant +patch of blue above the dark pine-trees. It seemed as if she might go +on mounting this hilly path for ever and get no nearer to that lonely +point. + +‘It as far off as happiness or contentment,’ she said to herself; ‘vain +to dream of reaching it.’ + +She stopped at last, and looked at her watch, feeling that the +afternoon was wearing on, and that it might be time for her to hurry +back to the family circle. It was past five, and the dinner hour was +seven; and she had been roaming upwards by paths which might lead her +astray in the descent, one woodland path being so like another. She +began her homeward journey, walking quickly, her thoughtful eyes bent +upon the ground. She was hurrying on, absorbed in her own thoughts, +when her name was uttered by that one only voice which had power to +thrill her soul. + +‘Daphne!’ + +She looked up and saw Gerald Goring, seated on a fallen pine-trunk, +smoking. + +He flung away his cigarette and came towards her. + +‘Good afternoon,’ she said, with a careless nod; ‘I am hurrying back to +dinner.’ + +He put out his hand and caught her by the arm, and drew her towards him +authoritatively. + +‘You are not going to escape me so easily,’ he said, pale to the lips +with strongest feeling. ‘No; you and I have a long reckoning to settle. +What do you think I am made of, that you dare to treat me as you have +done for the last month? Am I a dog to be whistled to your side, to be +lured away from love and fealty to another by every trick, and grace, +and charm within the compass of woman’s art, and then to be dismissed +like a dog—sent back to my former owner? You think you can cure me of +my folly—cure me by silence and averted looks—that I can forget you and +be again the man I was before I loved you. Daphne, you should know me +better than that. You have kindled a fire in my blood which you alone +can quench. You have steeped me in a poison for which you have the only +antidote. Oh! my Œnone! my Œnone! will you refuse the balm that can +heal my wounds, the balsam that you alone can bestow?’ + +Daphne looked at him without flinching, the sweet girlish face deadly +pale, but fixed as marble. + +‘I told you what I thought and meant in my letter,’ she said quietly. +‘I have never wavered from that.’ + +‘Never wavered!’ he cried savagely. ‘You are made of stone. I have +been trying you. I have been waiting for you to give way. I knew it +must come in the end, for I know that you love me—I know it—I know +it. I have known it almost ever since I came back to South Hill, and +saw your cheek whiten when you recognised me; and I have been waiting +to see how long this drama of self-sacrifice would last—how long you +would deny your love, and falsify your whole nature. It has lasted long +enough, Daphne. The chase has been severe enough. Your tender feet have +been wounded by the thorny ways of self-sacrifice. Your poor Apollo’s +patience is well-nigh worn out. My love, my love, why should we go on +dissembling to each other, and to all the rest of the world, looking at +each other with stony countenances—dumb—cold, when every throb of each +burning heart beats for the other, when every feeling in each breast +responds to its twin soul, as finely as a note of music to the touch +of the player? Let us end it all, Daphne. Let us make an end of this +long dissimulation—this life of hypocrisy. Come with me, dear; fly with +me. Now, Daphne—now, this instant, before there is time for either of +us to repent. We can be married to-morrow morning at Geneva—it can be +easily managed in that Puritan city. Come away with me, my beloved. +I will honour and respect your purity as faithfully as if a hundred +knights rode at your saddle-bow. My beloved, do you think that good can +come to anyone by a life-long lie, by the trampling out of Nature’s +sweetest purest feeling in two loving hearts?’ + +He had drawn her to his breast. Folded in a lover’s arms for the first +time in her life, she looked up into eyes whose passionate ardour +seemed to encompass her with a divine flame: as if this man who clasped +her to his breast had been indeed the old Greek god, sublime in the +radiance of youth and genius and immortal beauty. + +‘Daphne, will you be my wife?’ + +‘I cannot answer that question yet,’ she said slowly, falteringly, +after a pause of some moments. ‘You must give me time. Let me go +now—this instant. I must hurry back to the hotel.’ + +‘What! when I hold you in my arms for the first time?—when I am steeped +in the rapture of a satisfied love? Oh Daphne, if you knew how often +in feverish dreams I have held you thus; I have looked down into your +eyes, and drunk the nectar of your lips. What?’ as she drew herself +suddenly away from him; ‘even now you refuse me one kiss—the solemn +pledge of our union; cruel, too cruel girl!’ + +‘To-morrow shall decide our fate,’ she said. ‘For pity’s sake, as you +are a gentleman, let me go.’ + +He released her that moment. His arms dropped at his sides, and she was +free. + +‘There was no necessity for that appeal,’ he said coldly; ‘you can +go—alone if you choose—though I should like to walk back to the hotel +with you. I left—your sister’ (it seemed as if it were difficult for +him to pronounce Lina’s name) ‘in the garden before I strolled up here. +I thought you were with your devoted lover. You say to-morrow shall +decide our fate. I cannot imagine why you should hesitate, or postpone +your decision. I know that you love me as fondly as I love you, and +that neither of us can ever care for anyone else. Promise me at least +one thing before we part to-day. Promise me that you will break off +this pitiful mockery of an engagement to a man whom you despise.’ + +‘I do not despise him—that is too hard a word—but I promise that I will +never be Edgar Turchill’s wife.’ + +‘Lose no time in letting him know that. My blood boils and my heart +sickens every time I see him touch your hand. Thank God, he keeps his +kisses for your hours of privacy.’ + +‘He has never kissed me but once in my life,’ said Daphne, tossing up +her head, and blushing angrily. + +‘Thank God again.’ + +‘Good-bye,’ she said, looking at him with a pathetic tenderness, love +struggling with despair. + +He leaned against the brown trunk of a fir-tree, pale to the lips, +his eyes fixed on the ground, where the mosses and starry white +blossoms, and tremulous harebells, and delicate maidenhair fern shone +like jewels in the golden patches of light which flickered with every +movement of the dark branches above them. His eyes perused every leaf +and every petal, noting their form and colour with mechanical accuracy +of observation. His pencil could have reproduced every detail of that +little bit of broken ground six months afterwards. + +‘Daphne,’ he said huskily, ‘you are very cruel to me. I am not going to +let you see how low a man can sink when he loves a woman as weakly, as +blindly, as madly as I love you. I am not going to show you how base he +can be—how sunk in his own esteem. There is some remnant of pride left +in me. I am not going to crawl at your feet, or to shed womanish tears. +But I tell you all the same, you are breaking my heart.’ + +‘It is all foolishness,’ said Daphne, pale, but calm of speech and +eye, every nerve braced in the intensity of her resolution. ‘It is +folly and madness from beginning to end. You confessed as much just +this moment. Why should I sacrifice my honour and my self-respect to +gratify a weak, blind, mad love? I love my sister with a truer, better, +holier affection than I could ever feel for you—if I had been your wife +five-and-twenty years, and it were our silver wedding-day.’ + +She smiled even in her despair at the impossible image of herself and +Gerald Goring grown middle-aged and stout and commonplace, like the +principal figures in a silver wedding. + +‘Why cannot you let the past be past—forget that you ever have been so +foolish, so false, as to care for me?’ + +‘Forget! yes, if I could do that. It would be as easy to pluck my +heart out of my body and go on living comfortably afterwards. No, +Daphne, I can never forget. No, Daphne, I can never go back to the old +calm tranquil love. It never was love. It was friendship, affection, +respect—what you will, but not love. I never knew what love meant till +I knew you.’ + +‘Good-bye,’ she said gently, perceiving that an argument of this kind +might go on for ever. + +It was sweet to hear him plead; there was even a fearful kind of +happiness—half sweet, half bitter—in being alone with him in that +silent wood, in knowing that he was her own; heart, mind, and soul +devoted to her; ready to sacrifice honour and good name for her sake: +for what would the world say of him if he jilted Madoline and ran away +with Madoline’s sister? Her breast swelled with ineffable pride at the +thought of her triumph over this man to whom her girlish heart had +given itself unwittingly, on just such a summer afternoon as this, two +years ago. The man who had so often seemed to scorn her, to regard her +only as a subject for friendly ridicule, in the beginning of things at +South Hill. He was at her feet; she had made him her slave. Her heart +thrilled with delight at the knowledge of his love; yet above every +selfish consideration was her thought of her sister, and that made her +firm as the granite peak of Jaman yonder, rising sharply above its +black girdle of firs. + +She looked at him for a few moments steadily, with a curious smile, +a smile which lighted up the expressive face with an almost inspired +look. Her hand rested lightly on the lace at her throat, the +finger-tips just touching the pearl necklace, Lina’a new year’s gift, +which she wore constantly. It was her talisman. + +‘Let us shake hands,’ she said, ‘and part friends.’ + +‘Friends!’ he echoed scornfully, ‘am I ever anything else than your +friend? I am your slave. The greater includes the less.’ + +He clasped her hand in both of his, lifted it to his lips, and then let +her go without a word. + +The smile faded from her face as she turned from him. She went slowly +down the hill by the winding path. Gerald took a hasty survey of the +scene, and then struck downwards by a descent that seemed almost +perpendicular. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXII. + +‘FOR LOVE AND NOT FOR HATE THOU MUST BE DED.’ + + +When Daphne and Gerald were gone, and the fair woodland scene was +empty, a third figure came slowly out of the fir-grove, a substantial +form clad in a rusty black-silk gown, short petticoats, side-laced +cashmere boots, and a bonnet which was only thirty years behind the +prevailing fashion. This antique form belonged to Jane Mowser, who +carried a little basket of an almost infantine shape, and who had +been gathering wild strawberries for her afternoon refreshment. While +thus engaged she had espied Daphne’s white frock gleaming athwart the +dark stems of the firs, and had contrived to skirt the pathway, and +keep the young lady in view. Thus she had been within earshot when +Daphne and Gerald Goring met, and had heard the greater part of their +conversation. ‘I’ve known it and foreseen it. I knew it would come +to this from the very beginning,’ she muttered breathlessly; ‘and I’m +thankful that I’m the chosen instrument for finding them out. Oh, my +poor Miss Madoline, what a viper you have nourished in your loving +bosom! Oh, the artfulness of that anteloping girl! pretending to reject +him, and leading him on all the time, and meaning to run away with him +to-morrow, and be married on the sly at Geneva, as truly as my name is +Mowser. But I’ll put a stop to their goings on. I’ll let in the light +upon their dark ways. Jane Mowser will prove a match for an antelope +and a traitor.’ + +The little basket trembled in Mrs. Mowser’s agitated grasp, as she +trotted briskly downhill to the hotel. ‘I’ll make their baseness known +to Sir Vernon,’ said Mowser, ‘and if he has the heart of a man he’ll +crush that fair-haired young viper.’ + +Having detested Daphne from the day of her birth, Mowser now felt a +virtuous thrill, the sense of a relieved conscience, in the idea that +Daphne had justified her dislike. It would have been pain and grief to +her had the girl turned out well; but to have her judgment borne out, +her wisdom made clear as daylight, every evil feeling of her heart +fully excused by the girl’s bad conduct, this was comfort which weighed +heavily in the scale against her honest sorrow for the mistress whom +she honestly loved. + +She had no idea that the revelation she was going to make must +necessarily lead to the cancelment of Madoline’s engagement. Her notion +was that if Sir Vernon were made acquainted with the treachery that had +been going on in his family circle, he would turn his younger daughter +out of doors, and compel Gerald Goring to keep faith with his elder +daughter. She allowed nothing for those finer shades of feeling which +generally lead to the breaking of matrimonial engagements. It seemed to +her that if a man had got himself engaged to a girl, and wanted to cry +off, he must be taken by the scruff off his neck, as it were, and made +to fulfill his promise. + +When seven o’clock came and the _table-d’hôte_, Daphne was shut up in +her own room with a bad headache; Mr. Goring was missing; and there +were only Aunt Rhoda, Madoline, and Edgar to take their accustomed +places near one end of the long table. A little pencilled note from +Daphne had been brought to Madoline by one of the chambermaids, just +before dinner: + +‘I have been for a long, long walk, and the heat has given me a +dreadful headache. Please excuse my coming to dinner. I will have some +tea in my room.’ + +‘That foolish girl has been walking too far for her strength, no +doubt,’ said Mrs. Ferrers. ‘She is always in extremes. But what has +become of Mr. Goring? Has he been overwalking himself too?’ + +‘I think not,’ answered Lina, smiling; ‘we were dawdling about together +near the hotel till four o’clock, and I don’t suppose he would start +for a long ramble after that.’ + +‘Then why is he not at dinner?’ + +This question was unanswerable. They could only speculate vaguely about +the absent one. Nobody had seen him after he parted from Madoline at +the garden gate. Perhaps he had walked to Vevey, perhaps to Montreux, +miscalculating the distance, and the time it would take him to go +and return. There was an uncomfortable feeling all through the slow +protracted dinner, Madoline’s eyes wandering to the door every now +and then, expecting to see Gerald enter; Edgar out of spirits because +Daphne was absent; Mrs. Ferrers overcome by the heat, and beginning to +perceive that Swiss scenery was a delight of which one might become +weary. + +‘I am so vexed with myself for falling asleep and letting Daphne roam +about alone,’ said Edgar, staring absently at a savoury mess of veal +and vegetable to which he had mechanically helped himself. + +‘I don’t see why you should blame yourself for Daphne’s want of common +sense,’ answered Aunt Rhoda somewhat snappishly. ‘It was an afternoon +that would have sent anybody to sleep. Even I, who am generally so +wakeful, closed my eyes for a few minutes over my book.’ + +If Mrs. Ferrers had confessed that she had been snoring vigorously for +an hour and a half, she would have been nearer the truth. + +Dinner came to its formal close in the shape of an unripe dessert, and +there was still no sign of Gerald. Edgar went up to the corridor and +knocked at Daphne’s door to inquire if her head were better. + +She answered from within in a weary voice: + +‘Thanks; no! It is aching awfully. Please don’t trouble yourself about +me. Go for a nice walk with Lina.’ + +‘Don’t you think if you were to come out and sit in the garden the cool +evening air would do you good?’ + +‘I couldn’t lift my head from the pillow.’ + +‘Then you will not be well enough to go back to Montreux to-morrow +morning? We had better put off the journey.’ + +‘On no account. I shall be quite well to-morrow. It is only a headache. +Please go away and enjoy your evening.’ + +‘As if I could enjoy life without you. Good-night, darling. God bless +you!’ + +‘Good-night,’ replied the tired voice, and he went away sorrowing. + +What was his life worth without her? Absolutely nothing. He had chosen +to make this one delight, this one love, the all-in-all of existence. + +He went down into the garden with a moody dejected air and joined Lina, +who was sitting in a spot where the view of the valley below and the +height above was loveliest; but Lina was scarcely more cheerful than +Edgar. She was beginning to feel seriously uneasy at Gerald’s absence. + +‘You don’t think anything can have happened—any accident?’ she asked +falteringly. + +‘Do you mean that he can have tumbled off a precipice? Hardly likely. +A man who has climbed Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau would scarcely come +to grief hereabouts. I think the worst that has befallen him is to have +lost his dinner.’ + +They sat in the garden till the valley and lake below were folded in +darkness, and the moon was climbing high above the dark fir trees and +the gray peak, and then Lina’s heart was lightened by the sound of a +sympathetic tenor voice, whose every tone she knew, singing _La Donna e +mobile_, in notes that floated nearer and nearer as the singer came up +the grassy slope below the garden. She went to meet him. + +‘My dear Gerald, I have been miserable about you.’ + +‘Because I didn’t appear at dinner? Forgive me, dearest. The heat gave +me a racking headache, and I thought a tremendous walk was the only way +to cure it. I have been down to Montreux, and seen your father, who is +pining for your return. He looked quite scared when I dashed into the +garden where he was reading his paper on the terrace by the lake. I was +not ten minutes at Montreux altogether.’ + +‘Dear father! It was very good of you to go and see him.’ + +‘It was only a peep. I’m sorry you felt fidgety about me.’ + +‘I am sorry you had a headache. It seems an epidemic. Daphne was not +able to appear at dinner for the same reason.’ + +‘Poor little Daphne!’ + + * * * * * + +They were to start upon their return journey early next morning, so +as to reach Montreux before the tropical heat of afternoon. They all +breakfasted together in Madoline’s sitting-room between six and seven, +Aunt Rhoda, who was a great advocate of early rising, looking much the +sleepiest of the party. Daphne was pale and spiritless, but as she +declared herself perfectly well nobody could say anything to her. + +They started at seven o’clock. There were two carriages; a roomy +landau, and a vehicle of composite shape and long service for Mowser +and the luggage. Daphne at once declared her intention of walking. + +‘The walk downhill through fields and orchards and vineyards’ will be +lovely,’ she said. + +‘Delicious,’ exclaimed Edgar; ‘but don’t you think it is rather too far +for a walk?’ + +‘Are you too lazy to walk with me?’ + +‘I don’t think you need insult me by such a question.’ On which Daphne +set out without another word, waving her hand lightly to Madoline as +she vanished at a turn in the road. + +Gerald Goring handed the two ladies to their seats in the landau, and +took his place facing them. He had a listless worn-out look, as if his +pedestrianism last night had exhausted him. + +‘You are not looking well, Gerald,’ Lina said anxiously, disturbed at +seeing his haggard countenance in the clear morning light. + +‘My dearest, who could possibly look well in such a languid atmosphere +as this? We are in a vaporous basin, shut in by a circle of hills. Down +at Montreux it is like being at the bottom of a gigantic forcing-pit; +here, though we fancy ourselves ever so high, we are only on the side +of the incline. The wall still rises above us. At this season we ought +to be at Davos or Pontresina.’ + +‘Those are the only places people go to nowadays,’ said Mrs. Ferrers +discontentedly. ‘I shall be almost ashamed to tell my friends where I +have been. All the people one meets in society go to the Engadine.’ + +‘I don’t think that idea need spoil our enjoyment of this lovely +scenery,’ said Madoline. ‘Look at Daphne and Mr. Turchill, what a way +they are below us!’ + +She pointed with her sunshade to a glancing white figure among the +chestnut groves below. Edgar and Daphne had descended by those steep +straight paths which made so little of the distance, while the horses +were travelling quietly along the gentle windings of the road. It was +a lovely drive to Montreux, the town and its adjacent villages looking +like a child’s toys set out upon a green table; the castle of Chillon +distinctly seen at every turn of the road; the hillsides shaded by +Spanish chestnuts, big and old; verdant slopes mounting up and up +towards a blue heaven. They passed the little post and telegraph office +at Glion, a wooden hut, baked through and through with the sun, like +an oven; the hotel where the children were at play in the garden, and +a few early-rising adults strolled about rather listlessly, waiting +for breakfast; and then down by the ever-winding road, past many a +trickling waterfall; sometimes a mere cleft in the rock, sometimes a +stony recess in a low wall, fringed with ferns, where the water drops +perpetually into the basin below, and so by wooded slopes descending +steeply to the sapphire lake, past the parish church, picturesquely +situated on the hillside, and by many a public pump with a double +spout, and tanks where the women were washing linen or vegetables under +an open roof. Some kind of industry was going on at all these public +fountains; or at least there was a group of children dabbling in the +water. + +They were at Montreux before ten o’clock; Sir Vernon delighted to have +his elder daughter back again, and even inquiring civilly about Daphne, +who had not yet arrived, despite the tremendous spurt she and Edgar had +begun with. + +‘That is just like Daphne,’ said her father, when he was told how she +had insisted on walking all the way. ‘She is always beginning something +tremendous and never finishing it. I daresay we shall have Turchill +down here presently in search of a carriage to bring her the second +half of the way.’ + +‘Yesterday she gave herself a headache by roaming about the hills,’ +said Aunt Rhoda; ‘she has not a particle of discretion.’ + +‘Do you expect her to be full of wisdom at eighteen, Auntie?’ asked +Madoline deprecatingly. + +‘I can only say, my dear, that at eighteen I was not a fool,’ replied +Mrs. Ferrers sourly; and Lina did not argue the question further, +knowing but too well how her aunt was affected towards Daphne. + +The pedestrians made their appearance five minutes later, none the +worse for their long walk through fields and vineyards, and across +cottage-gardens and orchards, a walk full of interest and diversity. +Daphne, flushed with exercise, looked ever so much better than she had +looked at breakfast, where she had been without appetite even for her +beloved rolls and honey. + +‘I have a little business to arrange in Geneva,’ said Gerald, while +they were all sitting about the airy drawing-room in a purposeless way, +before settling down into their old quarters and old habits. ‘I think +I shall take the train, as the quicker way, and then I can be back to +dinner.’ + +Madoline looked surprised. + +‘Have you anything very important to do in Geneva?’ she asked; ‘you +never said anything about it before.’ + +‘No; it is a necessity which has arisen quite lately. I’ll tell you all +about it—afterwards. Good-bye till dinner-time. You must be tired after +your morning drive, and you won’t feel inclined for much excursionising +to-day.’ + +‘I’m afraid we’ve seen everything there is to be seen within a +manageable distance,’ said Mrs. Ferrers, rather dolefully. + +Daphne was sitting near the door. She had dropped into a low deep +chair, and sat with her straw hat in her lap, full of wild flowers +which she had gathered on her way down. Gerald stooped as he passed +her, and took one of the half-withered blossoms—things so fragile in +their delicate beauty that they faded as soon as plucked—and put it in +his breast. The act was so carelessly done that no one seeing it would +have perceived any significance in it, or could have guessed that the +hand which took the flower trembled with suppressed feeling, and that +the heart against which it lay beat loud with passion. + +‘I am going to make all arrangements for our marriage,’ he said in a +low voice. + +‘Good-bye,’ she answered, looking straight up at him. + +He was gone. Her gaze followed him slowly to the door, and lingered +there; then she rose and gathered up her flowers. + +‘I think I’ll go to my room and lie down,’ she said to Madoline. +‘Please don’t let Edgar come worrying about me. Tell him to amuse +himself without my company for once in a way.’ + +‘My dearest, I don’t think he has any idea of amusing himself without +you in Switzerland. How tired you look, my poor pet! Go and lie down +and get a nice refreshing sleep after your walk. You shall not be +disturbed till I come myself to bring you some tea. That will be better +for you than coming down to luncheon.’ + +‘I don’t feel much inclined for sleep, though I confess to being tired. +I should like you to come and sit with me for a little, Lina, soon +after luncheon, if you don’t mind.’ + +‘Mind! My darling, as if I were not always glad to be with you.’ + +Daphne went slowly up to her room, very slowly, with automatic steps, +as one who walks in his sleep. The dark gray eyes looked straight into +space, fixed and heavy with despair. + +‘He is mad, and I am mad,’ she said to herself. ‘How can it +end—except——’ + +Her room was bright and pretty, gaily furnished in that bright foreign +style which studies scenic effect rather than solid comfort; French +windows opening upon a balcony, shaded with a striped awning. The +windows looked on to the lake, across the bright blue water to the +opposite shore, with its grand and solitary hills, its villages few +and far apart. Daphne stood for a long while looking dreamily at the +expanse of bright water, and the bold and rugged shore beyond; at +Chillon in its rocky corner; at the deep dark gorge whence the yellow +Rhone comes rushing in, staining Lake Loman’s azure floor. How lovely +it all was—how lovely, and yet of how little account in the sum of +man’s destiny! All Nature’s loveliness was powerless to mend one broken +heart. + +‘What was it that he read on my hand that day at Fontainebleau?’ she +asked herself. ‘Was it this? was it this?’ + +A steamer went by laden with people, a band playing a waltz tune. The +world seemed full of thoughtless souls, for whom life meant only idle +empty pleasures. Daphne turned away from that sunlit scene sick at +heart, wishing that she were lying quietly in one of those green dells +through which they had passed to-day, a leafy hollow hidden in the +hillside, and that life were ebbing away without an effort. + +‘Seneca was a wise and learned man,’ she thought; ‘but with all his +wisdom he found it difficult to die. Cleopatra’s death sounds easier—a +basket of fruit and a little gliding snake a bright pretty creature +that a child might have played with, and been stung to death unawares.’ + +She threw herself on the bed, not tired from her walk, which seemed +as nothing to the lithe active limbs, but weary of life and its +perplexities. Oh, how he loved her, and how she loved him! And what a +glorious godlike thing life would be in his company! Glorious, but it +must not be; godlike, but honour barred the way. + +‘Oh God! let me never forget what she has been to me,’ she prayed, with +clasped hands, with all her soul in that prayer—‘sister, mother, all +the world of love, and protection, and comfort—teach me to be true to +her; teach me to be loyal.’ + +For two long hours she lay, broad awake, in a blank tearless despair; +and then the door was gently opened, and Madoline came softly into the +room and seated herself by the bed. Daphne was lying with her face to +the wall. She did not turn immediately, but stretched out her hand to +her sister without a word. + +‘Dearest, your hand is burning hot; you must be in a fever,’ said +Madoline. + +‘No; there is nothing the matter with me.’ + +‘I’m afraid there is. I’m afraid that walk was too fatiguing. I have +ordered some tea for you.’ The maid brought it in as she spoke; not +Mowser; Mowser had kept herself aloof with an air of settled gloom, +ever since her return to Montreux. ‘I hope you have had a nice long +sleep.’ + +‘I have not been able to sleep much,’ answered Daphne, turning her +languid head upon her pillow, and then sitting up on the bed, a +listless figure in a tumbled white gown, with loose hair falling +over shoulders; ‘I have not been able to sleep much, but I have been +resting. Don’t trouble about me, Lina dear. I am very well. What +delicious tea!’ she said, as she tasted the cup which Madoline had just +poured out for her. ‘How good you are! I want to talk with you—to have +a long serious talk—about you and—Mr. Goring.’ + +‘Indeed, dear. It is not often my lively sister has any inclination for +seriousness.’ + +‘No; but I have been thinking deeply of late about long engagements, +and short engagements, and love before marriage, and love after +marriage—don’t you know.’ Her eyes were hidden under their drooping +lids, but her colour changed from pale to rose and from rose to pale as +she spoke. + +‘And what wise thoughts have you had upon the subject, dearest?’ asked +Lina lightly. + +‘I can hardly explain them; but I have been thinking—you know that I am +not desperately in love with—poor Edgar. I have never pretended to be +so; have I, dear?’ + +‘You have always spoken lightly of him. But it is your way to speak +lightly of everything; and I hope and believe that he is much more dear +to you than you say he is.’ + +‘He is not. I respect him, because I know how good he is; but that +is all. And do you know, Lina, I have sometimes fancied that your +feeling for Mr. Goring is not much stronger than mine for Edgar. You +are attached to him; you have an affection for him, which has grown +out of long acquaintance and habit—an almost sisterly affection; but +you are not passionately in love with him. If he were to die you would +be grieved, but you would not be heartbroken.’ She said this slowly, +deliberately, her eyes no longer downcast, but reading her sister’s +face. + +‘Daphne!’ cried Madoline, ‘how dare you? How can you be so cruel? Not +love him! Why, you know that I have loved him ever since I was a child, +with a love which every day of my life has made stronger—a love which +is so rooted in my heart that I cannot imagine what life would be like +without him. I am not impulsive or demonstrative—I do not talk about +those things which are most dear and most sacred in my life, simply +because they are too sacred to be spoken about. If he were—to die—if I +were to lose him—no, I cannot think of that. It is heartless of you to +put such thoughts into my mind. My life has been all sunshine—a calm +happy life. God may be keeping some great grief in store for my later +days. If it were to come I should bow beneath the rod; but my heart +would break all the same.’ + +‘And if the grief took another shape—if he were to be false to you?’ +said Daphne, laying her hand, icy cold now, upon her sister’s. + +‘That would be worse,’ answered Lina huskily; ‘it would kill me.’ + +Daphne said not a word more. Her hands were clasped, as in prayer; the +dark sorrowful eyes were lifted, and the lips moved dumbly. + +‘I ought not to have talked of such things, dear,’ she said, gently, +after that voiceless prayer. ‘It was very foolish.’ + +Lina was profoundly agitated. That calm and gentle nature was capable +of strongest feeling. The image of a terrible sorrow—a sorrow which, +however unlikely, was not impossible—once evoked was not to be banished +in a moment. + +‘Yes; it was foolish, Daphne,’ she answered tremulously. ‘No good can +ever come of such thoughts. We are in God’s hands. We can only be happy +in this life with fear and trembling, for our joy is so easily turned +into sorrow. And now, dear, if you are quite comfortable, and there is +nothing more I can do for you, I must go back to Aunt Rhoda. I promised +to go for a walk with her.’ + +‘Isn’t it too warm for walking?’ + +‘Not for Aunt Rhoda’s idea of an afternoon walk, which is generally to +stroll down to the pier, and sit under the trees watching the people +land from the steamers.’ + +‘Shall you be out long, do you think?’ + +‘That will depend upon Aunt Rhoda. She said something about wanting +to go in the steamer to Vevey, if it could be done comfortably before +dinner.’ + +‘Good-bye! Kiss me, Lina. Tell me you are not angry with me for what I +said just now. I wanted to sound the depths of your love.’ + +‘It was cruel, dear; but I am not angry,’ answered Lina, kissing her +tenderly. + +Daphne put her arms round her sister’s neck, just as she had done years +ago when she was a child. + +‘God bless you, and reward you for all you have been to me, Lina!’ she +faltered tearfully; and so, with a fervent embrace, they parted. + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIII. + +‘IS THERE NO GRACE? IS THERE NO REMEDIE?’ + + +When the door closed on Madoline, Daphne rose and changed her +crumpled muslin for a dressing-gown, and brushed the bright silky +hair and rolled it up in a loose knot at the back of her head, and +bathed her feverish face, and put on a fresh gown, and made herself +altogether a respectable young person. Then she seated herself before +a dressing-table, which was littered all over with trinket-boxes and +miscellaneous trifles more or less indispensable to a young lady’s +happiness. + +She had acquired a larger collection of jewellery than is usually +possessed by a girl of eighteen. + +There were all Madoline’s birthday and New Year gifts: rings, lockets, +bracelets, brooches, all in the simplest style, as became her youth, +but all valuable after their kind. And there were Edgar’s presents: a +broad gold bracelet, set with pearls, to match her necklace; a locket +with her own and her lover’s initials interwoven in a diamond monogram; +a diamond and turquoise cross; and the engagement ring—a half-hoop of +magnificent opals. + +‘I wonder why he chose opals,’ mused Daphne, as she put the ring into +the purple-velvet case in which it had come from the jeweller’s. +‘Most people think them unlucky; but it seems as if my life was to be +overshadowed with omens.’ + +She put all her lover’s presents together, and packed them neatly in a +sheet of drawing-paper, the largest and strongest kind of wrapper she +could find. Then, when she had lighted her taper and carefully sealed +this packet, she wrote upon it: ‘For Edgar, with Daphne’s love’—a +curious way in which to return a jilted lover’s gifts. + +Then she sat for some time with the rest of her treasures opened out +before her on the table where she wrote her letters, and finally she +wrapped up each trinket separately, and wrote on each packet. On one: +‘For Madame Tolmache;’ on another: ‘For Miss Toby;’ on a third: ‘For +Martha Dibb.’ On a box containing her neatest brooch she wrote: ‘For +dear old Spicer.’ There were others inscribed with other names. She +forgot no one; and then at the last she sat looking dreamily at a +little ring, the first she had ever worn—best loved of all her jewels, +a single heart-shaped turquoise set in a slender circlet of plain gold. +Madoline had sent it to her on her thirteenth birthday. The gold was +worn and bent with long use, but the stone had kept its colour. + +‘I should like him to have something that was mine,’ she said to +herself; and then she put the ring into a tiny cardboard box, and +sealed it in an envelope, on which she wrote: ‘For Mr. Goring.’ + +This was the last of her treasures, except the pearl necklace which she +always wore—her amulet, as she called it—and now she put all the neat +little packages carefully away in her desk, and on the top of them she +laid a slip of paper on which she had written: + +‘If I should die suddenly, please let these parcels be given as I have +directed.’ + +This task being accomplished at her leisure, and the desk locked, she +went once more to the open window, and looked out at the lake. The +atmosphere and expression of the scene had changed since she looked +at it last. The vivid dancing brightness of morning was gone, and the +mellow light of afternoon touched all things with its pensive radiance. +The joyousness of the picture had fled. Its beauty was now more in +harmony with Daphne’s soul. While she was standing there in an idle +reverie, a peremptory tap came at the door. + +‘Come in,’ she answered mechanically, without turning her head. + +It was Mowser, whose severe countenance appeared round the half-open +door. + +‘If you please, Miss Daphne, Sir Vernon wishes to speak to you, +immediate, in his study.’ + +Seldom in Daphne’s life had such a message reached her. Sir Vernon had +not been in the habit of seeking private conferences with his younger +daughter. He had given her an occasional lecture _en passant_, but +however he might have disapproved of the flightiness of her conduct, he +had never summoned her to his presence for a scolding in cold blood. + +‘Is there anything wrong?’ she asked hurriedly; but Mowser had +disappeared. + +She went slowly down the broad shallow staircase, and to the room which +her father had made his private apartment. It was one of the best rooms +in the house, facing the lake, and sheltered from the glare of the sun +by a couple of magnificent magnolia trees, which shaded the lawn in +front of the windows. It was a large room with a polished floor, and +pretty Swiss furniture, carved cabinets, and a carved chimney-piece, +and a little blue china clock set in a garland of carved flowers. + +Sir Vernon was seated at his writing-table, grim, stern-looking, his +open despatch-box before him in the usual official style. A little way +off sat Edgar Turchill, his folded arms resting on the back of a high +chair, his face hidden. It was the attitude of profound despondency, +or even of despair. One glance at her father’s face, and then at that +lowered head and clenched hands, told Daphne what was coming. + +‘You sent for me,’ she faltered, standing in the middle of the bare +polished floor, and looking straight at her father, fearlessly, for +there is a desperate sorrow which knows not fear. + +‘Yes, madam,’ replied Sir Vernon in his severest voice. ‘I sent for +you to tell you, in the presence of the man who was to have been your +husband, that your abominable treachery has been discovered.’ + +‘I am not treacherous,’ she answered, ‘only miserable, the most +miserable girl that ever lived.’ + +Edgar lifted up his face, and looked at her, with such a depth of +tender reproachfulness, with such ineffable pity as made his homely +countenance altogether beautiful. + +‘I hoped I should have made you happy,’ he said. ‘God knows I have +tried hard enough.’ + +She neither answered nor looked at him. Her eyes were fixed upon her +father—solemn tearless eyes, a marble passionless face—she stood +motionless, as if awaiting judgment. + +‘You are the falsest and the vilest girl that ever lived,’ retorted Sir +Vernon. ‘Perhaps I ought hardly to be surprised at that. Your mother +was——’ + +‘For God’s sake, spare her!’ cried Edgar huskily, stretching out +his arm as if to ward off a blow, and the word on Sir Vernon’s lips +remained unspoken. ‘That is no fault of hers. Let her bear her own +burden.’ + +‘She ought to find it heavy enough, if she has a heart or a +conscience,’ cried Sir Vernon passionately. ‘But I don’t believe she +has either. If she had a shred of self-respect, or common gratitude, +or honour, or womanly feeling, she would not have stolen her sister’s +lover.’ + +‘I did not steal him,’ answered Daphne resolutely. ‘His heart came +to me of its own accord. We both fought hard against Fate. And even +now there is no harm done; it has been only a foolish fancy of Mr. +Goring’s; he will forget all about it when I am—far away. I will never +look in his face again. I will go to the uttermost end of the earth, +to my grave, rather than stand between him and Madoline. Oh father, +father, you who have always been so hard with me, do you remember that +day at South Hill, directly after Mr. Goring came home, when I begged +you, on my knees, to send me back to school, to France, or Germany, +anywhere, so that I should be far away from my happy home—and from him?’ + +Her tears came at this bitter memory. Yes, she had fought the good +fight: but so vainly, to such little purpose! + +‘I knew that I was weak,’ she sobbed,’and I wanted to be saved from +myself. But I am not so wicked as you think. I never tried to steal +Mr. Goring’s heart. I have never imagined the possibility of my being +in any way the gainer by his inconstancy. I have told myself always +that his love for me was a passing folly, of which he would be cured, +as a man is cured of a fever. I do not know what you have been told +about him and me, or who is your informant; but if you have been told +the truth you must know that I have been true to my sister—even in my +misery.’ + +‘My informant saw you in Mr. Goring’s arms; my informant heard his +avowal of love, and your promise to run away with him, and be married +at Geneva.’ + +‘It is false. I made no such promise. I never meant to marry him. I +would die a hundred deaths rather than injure Madoline. I am glad you +know the truth. And you, Edgar, I have tried to love you, my poor dear; +I have prayed that I might become attached to you, and be a good wife +to you in the days to come. I have been honest, I have been loyal. +Ask Mr. Goring, by-and-by, if it is not so. He knows, and only he can +know, the truth. Father, Madoline need never be told that her lover has +wavered. She must not know. Do you understand? She must not! It would +break her heart, it would kill her. He will forget me when I am far +away—gone out of his sight for ever. He will forgot me; and the old, +holier, truer love will return in all its strength and purity. All this +pain and folly will seem no more to him than a feverish dream. Pray do +not let her know.’ + +‘Do you think I would do her so great a wrong as to let her marry a +traitor? a false-hearted scoundrel, who can smile in her face, and make +love to her sister behind her back. She is a little too good to have +your leavings foisted upon her.’ + +‘If you tell her, you will break her heart.’ + +‘That will lie at your door. I would rather see her in her coffin than +married to a villain.’ + +Edgar rose slowly from his seat and moved towards the door. He had +nothing to do with this discussion. His mind could hardly enter into +the question of Gerald Goring’s treachery. It was Daphne who had +betrayed him; Daphne who had deceived him, and mocked him with sweet +words; Daphne whose liking had seemed more precious to him than any +other woman’s love, because he believed that no other man had ever +touched the virginal unawakened heart. And now he was told that she +could love passionately, that she could give kiss for kiss, and rain +tears upon a lover’s breast, that from first to last he had been her +victim and her dupe! + +‘Good-bye, Daphne!’ he said, very quietly. ‘I am going home as fast +as train and boat can take me. I would have been contented to accept +something less than your love, believing that I should win your heart +in time, but not to take a wife whose heart belonged to another man. +You told me there was no one else; you told me your heart was free.’ + +‘I told you there was no one else who had ever cared for me,’ faltered +Daphne, remembering her equivocating answer that evening at South Hill. + +‘I don’t want to reproach you, Daphne. I am very sorry for you.’ + +‘And I am very sorry that an honest man whom I respect should have +been fooled by a worthless girl,’ said Sir Vernon. ‘Give him back his +engagement ring. Understand that all is over between you and him,’ he +added, turning to his daughter. + +‘I wish it to be so. I have put all your presents together in a parcel, +Edgar,’ answered Daphne. ‘You will receive them in due course.’ + +‘It is best to be off with the old love before we are on with the new,’ +quoted Sir Vernon scornfully; ‘and she says she did not mean to run +away with Goring, in spite of this deliberate preparation.’ + +Edgar was gone. Daphne and her father were alone, the girl still +standing on the very spot where she had stood when she first came into +the room. + +‘I have told you nothing but the truth,’ she said. ‘Why are you so hard +with me?’ + +‘Hard with you!’ he echoed, getting up from before his desk and looking +at her with vindictive eyes as he moved slowly towards the door. ‘How +can I be hard enough to you? You have broken my daughter’s heart.’ + +‘Father!’ she cried, falling on her knees and clinging to him in her +despair. ‘Father, is she to have all your love? Have you no tenderness, +no pity left for me? Am I not your daughter too?’ + +‘Your mother was my wife,’ he answered curtly, pushing her out of his +way as he passed from the room. + +He was gone. She knelt where he had left her, a desolate figure in the +spacious bright-looking room, the afternoon sun making golden bars upon +the brown floor, her yellow hair touched here and there with glintings +of yellow light. + +She remained in the same attitude for some minutes, her heavy eyelids +drooping over tearless eyes, her arms hanging listlessly, her hands +loosely clasped. Her mind for a little while was a blank: and then +there came into it unawares a verse, taken at random, from a familiar +hymn: + + ‘The trials that beset you, + The sorrows ye endure, + The manifold temptations, + That death alone can cure.’ + +‘That death alone can cure,’ she repeated slowly, pushing back the +loose hair from her eyes; and then she rose from her knees and went out +through an open window into the garden. + +It was about five o’clock. There was a look of exquisite repose over +all the scene, from the snow-bound summit of the Dent du Midi yonder, +down to the gardens that edged the lake, like a garland of summer +flowers encircling that peerless blue. It was abright glad-looking +world, and passing peaceful. Far away beyond that grand range of hills +lay the ice-fields of Savoy, the everlasting glaciers, gliding with +impalpable motion in obedience to some mysterious law which is still +one of Nature’s secrets, the wilderness of snow-clad peaks and wild +moraines, the gulfs and caverns, the unfathomable abysses of silence +and of death. Daphne thought of those unseen regions with a thrill of +awe as she walked slowly down the slope of the lawn. + +‘I have seen so little of Switzerland after all,’ she said to herself, +‘so little of this wide wonderful world.’ + +She went to the toy _châlet_, the dainty opera-stage boat-house where +her boat was kept. There was no friendly Bink here to launch the +skiff for her, but the lower part of the boat-house jutted out over +the gable, and the boat was always bobbing about in the limpid water. +She had only to go down the wooden steps, unmoor her boat, and row +away over that wide stretch of placid water which she had never seen +disturbed by a tempest. + +As she was stepping into the boat, the dog Monk came bounding and +leaping across the grass, and bounced into her arms, putting his huge +fore-feet on her shoulders, and swooping an affectionate tongue over +her pallid face. He had not seen her since her return from the hills, +and was wild with rapture at the idea of reunion. + +‘No, Monk, not to-day,’ she said gently, as he tried to get into the +boat with her; ‘not to-day, dear faithful old Monk.’ + +The huge creature could have upset the boat with one bound; and +the little hand stretched out to push him back must have been as a +fluttering rose-leaf against his sinewy breast; but there was a moral +force in the blanched face and the steady eye which dominated his brute +power. He recoiled, and lifted up his head with a plaintive howl as the +boat shot off, the twin sails, the white and scarlet awning, flashing +in the sun. + +A little way from the shore Daphne paused, resting on her oars, and +looking back at the bright garden, with its roses and magnolias, and +many-coloured flower-beds, the white villa gay with its crimson-striped +blinds; and then with one wide gaze she looked round the lovely +landscape, the long range of hills, in all their infinite variety of +light and shadow, verdant slopes streaked with threads of glittering +water, vineyards and low gray walls, rising terrace above terrace, +quaint Vevey, and gray old Chillon, the black gorge that lets in the +turbid Rhone; churches with square towers and ivy-covered walls; and +yonder the inexorable mountains of Savoy. For a little while her +eye took in every detail of the scene: and then it all melted from +her troubled gaze, and she saw not that grand Alpine chain, showing +cloudlike amid the clouds, but the brown Avon and its dipping willows, +the low Warwickshire hills and village gables, the distant spire of +Stratford above the many-arched bridge, the water-meadows at South +Hill, and the long fringe of yellow daffodils waving in the March wind. + +‘Oh for the reedy banks and shallow reaches of the Avon!’ she thought, +her heart yearning for home. + +Then with bowed head she bent over her oars, and the light boat shot +away across the wake of a passing steamer; it shot away, far away to +the middle of the lake; it vanished like a feather blown by a summer +breeze; and it never came back again. + + * * * * * + +The empty boat drifted ashore at Evian in the gray light of morning, +while Gerald Goring, with a couple of Swiss boatmen, was rowing about +the lake, stopping to make inquiries at every landing-place, sending +scouts in every direction, in quest of that missing craft. No one ever +knew, no one dared to guess, how it had happened: but every one knew +that in some dark spot below that deep blue water Daphne was at rest. +The dog had been down by the boat-house all night, howling fitfully +through the dark silent hours. He had not left the spot since Daphne’s +boat glided away from the steps. + +It had been a night of anguish and terror for all that household at +Montreux—a night of agitation, of alternations of hope and fear. Even +Sir Vernon was profoundly moved by anxiety about the daughter to whom +he had given so little of his love. He knew that he had been hard and +merciless in that last interview. He had thought only of Madoline; and +the knowledge that Madoline had been wronged—that the elder sister’s +love had been tempted to falsehood by the arts and coquetries of the +younger sister—had stung him to a frenzy of anger. Nothing could be +too bad for the ingrate who had sinned against the best of sisters. He +was too hard a man to give the sinner the benefit of the doubt, and +to believe that she had sinned unconsciously. In his mind Daphne had +wickedly and deliberately corrupted the heart of her sister’s affianced +husband. Angry as he had felt with Gerald, his indignation against the +weaker vessel was fiercer than his wrath against the stronger. + +Mowser had told her story with truth as to the main facts; but with +such embellishments and heightened colouring as made Daphne appear +the boldest and most depraved of her sex. In Mowser’s version of that +scene in the pine-wood there was no hint of temptation resisted, of +a noble soul struggling with an unworthy passion, of a tender heart +trying to be faithful to sisterly affection, while every impulse of a +passionate love tugged the other way. All Mowser could tell was that +Miss Daphne had sobbed in Mr. Goring’s arms, that he had kissed her, +as she, Mowser, had never been kissed, although she had kept company +and been on the brink of marriage with a builder’s foreman; and that +they had talked of being married at Geneva—leastways Mr. Goring had +asked Miss Daphne to run away with him for that purpose, and she +had not said no, but had only begged him to give her twenty-four +hours—naturally requiring that time to pack her clothes and make all +needful preparation for flight. + +Passionately attached to his elder daughter, and always ready to think +evil of Daphne, Sir Vernon needed no confirmation of Mowser’s story. +It was only the realisation of what he always feared—the mother’s +falsehood showing itself in the daughter—hereditary baseness. It was +the girl’s nature to betray. She had all her mother’s outward graces +and too fascinating prettiness. How could he have hoped that she would +have any higher notions of truth and honour? + +Moved to deepest wrath at the wrong done to Madoline, Sir Vernon’s +first impulse had been to send for Gerald Goring, in order to come +to an immediate understanding with that offender. He was told that +Mr. Goring had gone to Geneva, and was not expected home before eight +o’clock. He then sent for Edgar, and to that unhappy lover bluntly +and almost brutally related the story of Daphne’s baseness. Edgar was +inclined to disbelieve, nay, even to laugh Mowser’s slander to scorn; +but Mowser, summoned to a second interview, stuck resolutely to her +text, and was not to be shaken. + +‘I can’t believe it,’ faltered Edgar, stricken to the heart, ‘unless I +hear it from her own lips.’ + +‘Go and fetch her,’ said Sir Vernon to Mowser, and then had followed +Daphne’s appearance, and those admissions of hers which told Edgar only +too clearly how he had been deceived. + +The two men, Gerald and Edgar, passed each other on the railway between +Lausanne and Geneva—Edgar on his way to the city, Gerald going back to +Montreux. Mr. Goring wondered at seeing his friend’s pale face glide +slowly by as the two trains crossed at the junction. + +‘It looks as if she had given him his quietus already,’ he said to +himself. ‘My brave little Daphne!’ + +He was going back to Montreux with his heart full of hope and gladness. +He had taken all the needful measures at Geneva to make his marriage +with Daphne an easy matter, would she but consent to marry him. And +he had no doubt of her consent. Could a girl love as she loved, and +obstinately withhold herself from her lover? + +He forgot the pain he must inflict on one who had been so dear; forgot +the woman who had been the guiding star of his boyhood and youth; +forget everything except that one consummate bliss which he longed +for—the triumph of a passionate love. That crown of life once snatched +from reluctant Fate, all other things would come right in time. +Madoline’s gentle nature would forgive a wrong which was the work of +destiny rather than of man’s falsehood. Sir Vernon would be angry and +unpleasant, no doubt; but Gerald Goring cared very little about Sir +Vernon. The world would wonder; but Gerald cared nothing for the world. +He only desired Daphne, and Daphne’s love; having all other good things +which life, looked at from the worldling’s standpoint, could give. + +The sun was setting as he approached Montreux, and all the lake was +clothed in golden light. Rose-hued mountains, golden water, smiled at +him as if in welcome. + +‘What a lovely world it is!’ he said to himself; ‘and how happy Daphne +and I will be in it—in spite of Fate and metaphysical aid. There I go, +quoting the Inevitable, as usual!’ + +He walked quickly from the station to the villa, eager to see Daphne, +to hear her voice, to touch the warm soft hand, and be assured that +there was such a being, and that he had not been the dupe of some +vision of intangible loveliness, as Shelley’s Alastor was in the +cavern. That last look of Daphne’s haunted him—so direct, so solemn a +gaze, so unlike the shy glance of conscious love. Nay, it resembled +rather the look of some departed spirit, returning from Pluto’s drear +abode to take its last fond farewell of the living. + +The vestibule stood open to the road, an outer hall filled with plants +and flowers, an airy Italian-looking entrance. Gerald walked straight +in, and to the drawing-room. It was striking eight as he entered. + +‘I hope you won’t wait for me,’ he began, looking round for Daphne; +‘I am a dusty object, and I don’t think I can make myself presentable +under twenty minutes. The train dawdled abominably.’ + +Mrs. Ferrers and Madoline were standing by the open window, looking +out. Lina turned, and at the first glimpse of her pale face Gerald +knew that there was something wrong. There had been a scene, perhaps, +between the sisters. Daphne had betrayed herself and him. Well! The +truth must be told very soon now. It were best to precipitate matters. + +‘We are frightened about Daphne,’ said Lina; ‘she went out in her boat +a little before five—the gardener saw her leave—and she has not come +back yet.’ + +Three hours. It was long, but she was fond of solitary excursions on +the lake. + +‘I don’t think there is much cause for alarm in that,’ he said, trying +to speak lightly, yet with a strange terror at his heart. ‘Shall I get +a boat and go after her? I had better, perhaps; she cannot be very far +off—dawdling about by Chillon, I daresay. Those dank stone walls have a +fascination for her.’ + +‘Yes, I shall be glad, if you don’t mind going. My father seems uneasy. +It is so strange that she should stay away three hours without leaving +word where she was going. Edgar is out. My aunt and I have not known +what to do, and when I told my father just now he looked dreadfully +alarmed.’ + +‘I will go this instant, and not come back till I have found her,’ +answered Gerald huskily. + +That last look of Daphne’s was in his mind. That never-to-be-forgotten +look from her dark eyes lifted fearlessly, with sad and steady gaze. + +‘Oh God! did it mean farewell?’ + +He was out on the lake all night, with two of the most experienced +boatmen in the district, and it was only in the gray of morning that he +heard of the empty boat blown ashore a little below Evian—Evian, where +they had landed so merrily once from the same cockleshell boat, on a +sunny morning, for a pilgrimage to a drowsy village on the hills, a +cluster of picturesque homesteads sheltered by patriarchal walnut and +chestnut trees, where looking downward through the rich foliage they +saw the blue lake below. + +The evening had been calm. There had been no accident or collision of +any kind on the lake; the little boat showed no sign of injury. It lay +on the shingly shore, just as the fishermen had pulled it in; an empty +boat. That was all. + +Gerald stayed at Evian, and from Evian wrote briefly to Madoline +telling her all. + +‘My life for the last six months has been a tissue of lies,’ he wrote; +‘and yet, God knows, I have tried to be true and honest, just as she +tried; but she with more purpose, yes, poor child! with much more +fidelity than mine. I wanted to tell you the truth when we were at +Fribourg, to make an end of all shams and deceptions, but she would not +let me. She meant to hold to her bond with Edgar—to be true to you. She +would have persevered in this to the end, if I had let her. But I would +not, and she has died rather than do you a wrong; it is my guilt—mine +alone. The brand of Cain is on me: and, like Cain, I shall be a +wanderer till I die. I do not ask you to forgive me, for I shall never +forgive myself; or to pity me, for mine is a grief which pity cannot +touch. If I could hope that you could ever forget me there would be +comfort in the thought; but I dare not hope for that. You might forget +your false lover, but how can you forget Daphne’s murderer?’ + +To this letter Madoline answered briefly: ‘You have broken my sister’s +heart and mine. A little honesty, a little truth, would have spared us +both. You might have been happy in your own way, and I might have kept +my sister. You are right—I can neither forget nor forgive. I thought +till this trouble came upon me that I was a Christian; I know now, God +help me! how far I am away from Christian feeling. All I can hope or +pray about you is that we two may never see each other’s face again. I +send you Daphne’s legacy.’ + +Enclosed in the letter was the little packet containing the turquoise +ring, with ‘For Mr. Goring’ written on the cover in Daphne’s dashing +penmanship. The hand had not trembled, though the heart beat high, when +that superscription was penned. + + * * * * * + +Sir Vernon stayed at Montreux for more than a month after that fatal +summer day, though the very sight of lake and mountain in their +inexorable beauty, so remote from all human trouble or human pity, +was terrible to him. Madoline urged him to stay. There were hours in +which, after many tears and many prayers, faint gleams of hope visited +her sorrowful soul. Daphne might not be dead. She might have landed +unnoticed at one of those quiet villages, and made her way to some +distant place where she could live hidden and unknown. Those farewell +gifts left in her desk must needs mean a deliberate departure: but they +need not mean death. She might be hiding somewhere, little knowing the +agony she was inflicting on those who had loved her, fearing only to be +found and taken home. Madoline could fancy her sister self-sacrificing +enough to live apart from home and kindred all her days, to earn her +bread in a stranger’s house. Oh, if it were thus only, and not that +other and awful fate—a young life flung away in its flower, a young +soul going forth unbidden to meet God’s judgment, burdened with the +deadly sin of self-murder! + +‘Let us stay a few days longer, father,’ she pleaded. ‘We may hear +something. There may be some good news.’ + +‘God grant that it may be so,’ answered Sir Vernon, without a ray of +hope. + +What of his remorse whose hardness had pressed so heavily upon his +child in that last hour of her brief life, whose bitter words had +perhaps confirmed the sinner in her desperate resolve, making it very +clear to her that this earth held no peaceful haven, that for her there +was no fatherly breast on which she could pour out the story of her +weakness and her struggle—no friend with the father’s sacred name from +whom she could ask counsel or seek protection? Alone in her misery, she +had sought the one refuge which remained for her—death; believing that +by that fatal deed she would secure her sister’s peace. + +‘His heart will return to its truer nobler love when I am gone,’ +she said to herself. Poor shallow soul, unsustained by any deep +sense of religion, or by any firm principle; tender heart, strong in +unquestioning fidelity. It was easy to follow out the train of false +reasoning which made her believe that death would be best; that in +throwing away her fair young life she was making a sacrifice to love +and honour. + + * * * * * + +They remained at Montreux till the beginning of October, till autumnal +tints were stealing over the landscape, and the happy vintage-time had +begun, making all those gentle slopes alive with picturesque figures, +every turn in the road a scene for a painter. It was a dreary time +for Madoline and her father. Edgar was with them; called back from +Geneva by a telegram on the night of Daphne’s disappearance. He, like +his rival, had been unweary in his endeavour to obtain some knowledge +of Daphne’s fate. He had been from village to village, had made his +inquiries at every landing-place along the lake—had availed himself +of every local intelligence; but all to no purpose. One of the Vevey +boatmen had seen Daphne’s light skiff as she rowed swiftly towards +the middle of the lake. He saw the little boat dancing in the wake of +a steamer, watched it and its girl-owner till it floated into smooth +water, and then saw the boat never more. + +There had been no reason for an accident upon that particular +afternoon; no sudden gust of wind; no mysterious rising of the lake; +nothing. In a sultry calm the little boat had last been seen gliding +smoothly over the smooth blue water. + +Had she rowed to the end of the lake, where the tumultuous Rhone rushes +in from rocky St. Maurice, and been swamped by those turbid waters? Who +could tell? The stranded boat bore no sign of having been under water. + +The time came when they must go back, when to remain any longer by the +lake seemed mere foolishness, a persistent brooding upon sorrow; more +especially as Sir Vernon’s health had become much worse since this +calamity had fallen upon him, and a change of some kind was imperative. + +Aunt Rhoda had gone home a week after the fatal day, though to the last +expressing herself willing to remain and comfort Madoline. + +‘You are very kind, Aunt, but you could not comfort me. You did not +care for her,’ Lina answered, with a touch of bitterness. + +So Mrs. Ferrers, aggrieved at this rebuff, had gone back to her Rector, +whom she found more painfully affected by Daphne’s evil fate than she +thought consistent with his clerical character. + +‘I shall never look at the garden in summer-time without thinking of +that bright face and girlish figure flitting about among the roses, +as I have seen her in the days that are gone,’ he said; ‘a man of my +age is uncomfortably reminded of his shortening lease of life when the +young are taken before him.’ + +And now that bitter day came upon which Madoline was obliged to leave +the banks of the fatal lake, and turn her sad face homewards, to South +Hill. South Hill without Daphne, without Gerald—those two familiar +figures gone out of her life for ever; the house empty of laughter and +gladness for evermore! All the sweetest things of life proved false, +every hope crushed, every possibility of future happiness gone from her +for ever! She could imagine no new hopes, no fresh beginning of life. +To do her duty to an invalid father; to use her ample fortune for the +comfort and advantage of the friendless and the needy, was all that +remained to her; a narrow round of daily tasks not less monotonous than +the humblest char’s, because she wore a silk gown and lived in a fine +house. So far her prayer had been granted. She and Gerald Goring had +never met since Daphne’s death. He had been heard of at Evian and then +at Vevey; but none of the South Hill people had seen him. + +Edgar went back with them, a man so changed by grief that it would be +hard for the mother, who had seen him go forth in the strength and +gladness of happy youth, to recognise the haggard hopeless countenance +of the son who returned to her. He had borne his trouble bravely, +asking comfort from no one, anxious to console others whenever +consolation seemed possible. He had tried his best to persuade Madoline +that Daphne’s boat had been overturned by the current, that the sweet +young life had been lost by accident. Those carefully-sealed packets in +the desk hinted at a darker doom; yet it might be that they had been +prepared by Daphne under some vague idea of leaving home, in order to +escape the difficulties of her position; an intention to be carried out +at some indefinite time. + +Hawksyard in the autumn, with white vapours stealing over the +low meadows at sunrise and sunset, with the large leaves of the +walnut-trees drifting heavily down, seemed a fitting place for a man +to nurse his grief and meditate upon the greatness of his loss. Edgar +roamed about the gardens and the fields like an unquiet spirit, or rode +for long hours in the lonely lanes, keeping as much as possible aloof +from all who knew him. Even the approach of the hunting season gave him +no pleasure. + +‘I shall not hunt this year,’ he told his mother. ‘Indeed I doubt if I +shall ever follow the hounds again.’ + +‘Don’t say that, Edgar,’ cried Mrs. Turchill plaintively. ‘Wretched +as I am every day you are out with the hounds, I should be still more +miserable if you were to deprive yourself of your favourite amusement. +But you will think differently next October, I hope, dear. It isn’t +natural for young people to go on grieving for ever.’ + +‘Isn’t it, mother?’ asked her son bitterly. ‘Isn’t it natural for a +watch to stop when its mainspring is broken?’ + +The application of this inquiry was beyond Mrs. Turchill, so she made +no attempt to answer it. + +She had been very good to her son since his sorrowful home-coming, not +tormenting him with futile consolations, but offering him that silent +sympathy which has always healing in it. Of Daphne’s fate she knew no +more than that the girl had gone out on the lake one sunny afternoon +and had never come back again. The announcement in _The Times_ had +said: ‘Accidentally drowned in the Lake of Geneva,’ and Mrs. Turchill +had never thought of seeking to know more. But she was much exercised +in her mind as the autumn wore into winter at the prolonged absence of +Gerald Goring. + +‘Why does not Mr. Goring come back?’ she inquired of Edgar. ‘I should +think poor Miss Lawford must need his society now more than ever. It is +natural that the wedding should be postponed for a few months; but Mr. +Goring ought not to be away.’ + +‘That engagement is broken off, mother,’ her son answered briefly. + +‘Broken off! But why?’ + +‘I can’t tell you. That concerns no one but Miss Lawford and Mr. +Goring. Don’t trouble about it, mother.’ + +At any other time Mrs. Turchill would have troubled very much about +such a piece of intelligence, would have insisted upon knowing the +rights and wrongs of the matter, and of expatiating upon it at her +leisure. But her respect for Edgar’s grief made her very discreet; and +seeing that the subject was painful to him, she said no more about +it No more to him, that is to say, but very much more to Deborah, to +whom she discoursed freely upon the extraordinary fact, delicately +suggesting that as Deborah was on intimate terms with the upper +servants at South Hill, she would no doubt hear all the ins and outs of +the story in due time. + +‘I should be the last person to encourage gossip,’ remarked the matron +with dignity, ‘but there are some things which people cannot help +talking about, especially where a young lady is as much beloved and +respected as Miss Lawford.’ + +Deborah went to South Hill on her next Sunday out, and drank tea in the +housekeeper’s room, where Mrs. Spicer, though unable to speak with dry +eyes of Miss Daphne, was nevertheless much interested in the fit and +fashion of her black gown, the quality of which Deborah both appraised +and admired. But Mrs. Spicer only knew that Miss Lawford’s engagement +was broken off. She knew nothing as to the why and the wherefore, but +she surmised, somewhat vaguely, that Miss Lawford had turned against +Mr. Goring after her sister’s death. + +Only one of the South Hill servants could have explained the cause of +that cancelled engagement, and she had been dismissed with a handsome +pension, and had gone to live in the outskirts of Birmingham, with her +own kith and kin. Sir Vernon could never endure the presence of the +faithful Mowser after Daphne’s death. ‘You did your duty, according to +your lights, I have no doubt,’ he said, when he sent her away; ‘but I +can never look at you without regretting that you did not hold your +tongue. You have told Miss Lawford nothing—about—that scene in the +pine-wood, I hope?’ + +Mowser protested that she would have had her tongue cut out rather than +speak one such word to her mistress. + +‘I am glad of that. She knows too much already—enough to make her life +miserable. We must spare her what pain we can.’ + +Mowser assented, with a convulsion of her elderly throat, which looked +like a repressed sob. The pension promised was liberal; but it was a +hard thing to be dismissed, to be told that life at South Hill could be +carried on without her. + +‘I don’t know what Miss Lawford will do when I’m gone,’ she faltered +tearfully; ‘I’m used to her ways, and she’s used to mine. A strange +maid will seem like an antelope to her.’ + +Sir Vernon stared, but did not deign to discuss the probabilities as +to his daughter’s feelings. He ordered Jinman—who on the strength +of knowing two or three dozen substantives in French and Italian, +considered himself an accomplished linguist—to conduct Mrs. Mowser to +Geneva, and to book her through, so far as it were possible, to her +native shores. He felt that he could breathe more freely when that evil +presence was out of the house. ‘She provoked me to torture that poor +child in her last hour upon earth,’ he thought. ‘She maddened me with +the idea that Lina’s lover had been stolen from her.’ + + + + +CHAPTER XXXIV. + +‘SENS LOVE HATH BROUGHT US TO THIS PITEOUS END.’ + +FROM THE REV. JULIAN TEMPLE TO MISS AYLMER. + + + ‘Schaffhausen, September 11th, 187—. + + ‘MY DEAR FLORA, + +‘You ask me for a detailed account of the melancholy accident on the +Matterhorn, of which I had the misfortune to be an eye-witness, and +the memory of which will haunt me for years to come—yes, even in that +blessed time when I shall be quietly settled down in domestic life +with my dear girl, and must needs have a thousand reasons for being +completely happy. + +‘I kept you so well posted in my movements, until the occurrence of +this unhappy event made it painful to me to write about our Alpine +experiences, that you no doubt remember how Trevor and I, after our +successful attempt upon the Finsteraarhorn, made our way quietly down +to Zermatt, by way of Thun and Vispach. Never shall I forget the +calm delight of the last day’s walk between Vispach and Zermatt. The +distance is only thirty miles, we were in high spirits and in excellent +condition for the tramp, and we had a cart for our mountaineering gear, +and our knapsacks, so were able to take things easily. + +‘We started at six o’clock, breakfasted at St. Nicolas, and reached +Zermatt early in the evening. Our road—a mule-path for the greater part +of the way—led us through scenes of infinite variety, and opened to us +views of surpassing grandeur and beauty. Amidst all the wildness of +a mountainous landscape we were struck with the profusion of flowers +which gave life and colour to the foreground, and the wild fruits +which rivalled the flowers in their vivid beauty; beds of Alpine +strawberries, thickets of raspberries and barberries, bordered the +path, and every village we entered lay sheltered amidst patriarchal +walnut or chestnut trees. + +‘How can I describe to you the glory of the Matterhorn, as that +mighty monolith reveals itself for the first time to the eve of +the traveller?—an obelisk of dazzling whiteness cleaving the blue +sky, blanking out earth and heaven with its gigantic form, the one +mountain-peak which reigns supreme in a kingly solitude, not lifting +his proud head from a group of brother peaks, not buttressed by +inferior hills, but solitary as the Prince of Darkness, a being apart +and alone. Mont Blanc overawes by massive grandeur, but I should choose +the Matterhorn for the monarch of mountains. + +‘The sun was setting as we crossed the Visp for the last time before +entering Zermatt. Trevor and I had been in the gayest spirits +throughout our journey. We had rested two hours at St. Nicolas, and +had taken a leisurely luncheon at Randa. We were full of talk about +the day after to-morrow, which date we had chosen for our attempt on +the Matterhorn, thinking it wise to give ourselves a day’s rest, or at +least partial rest, after our thirty miles’ walk, and to leave time for +engaging guides and making all necessary preparations in a leisurely +manner. + +‘Trevor was a stranger to the district, but he had done much good work +on Mont Blanc, and he had behaved so well on the Finsteraarhorn that I +had no doubt of his mettle. I had familiarised myself with the Monte +Rosa group three years before, and I knew the Zermatt guides and their +ways and manners. We interviewed some of these gentry after our dinner, +and I picked two of the sturdiest and trustiest, made my bargain with +them, and told them to examine our ropes and other gear carefully by +daylight next morning. + +‘We had a pleasant evening, sauntering about the quiet little town in +the light of a glorious full moon, smoking our cigars, talking of our +future prospects, of the Church, and of you. Yes, dear love, Trevor is +just one of those faithful souls with whom a man can talk about his +sweetheart. + +‘Next morning we breakfasted at daybreak and started luxuriously on +a brace of mules for the Riffelberg, to reconnoitre our mountain. +How grand and beautiful was the circle of snow-clad peaks which we +beheld from that dark hillside: Monte Rosa on the south-east, on the +south-west the Matterhorn, on the east, the Cima de Jassi, to the +west the Dent Blanche, to the north-eastward the Dom, and westward +the Weisshorn—gigantic crags and domes and solitary peaks, all bathed +in sunshine, and as dazzling in their glorified whiteness as the sun +himself! We spent some hours in quiet contemplation of that sublime +and awful scene gazing at that circle of Titanic peaks, which had a +sphinx-like and mysterious air as they looked back at us in their dumb +unapproachable majesty. + +‘“Is it not a kind of blasphemy to pollute them with our footsteps, to +be always trying to get nearer and nearer to them, into Nature’s Holy +of Holies?”’ I asked, carried away by the grandeur of the scene. + +‘But Trevor’s manner of look at the question was practical rather than +imaginative. + +‘“I shouldn’t like to go back without having done the Matterhorn,” he +said, “though the terrible accident a few years ago makes one inclined +to be cautious.” + +‘We had a rough-and-ready luncheon on the Rothe Kumm, and took our time +about the descent. It was nearly dark when we got back to Zermatt. +The _table-d’hôte_ dinner was over, and we dined together at a small +table in a corner of the coffee-room, a table near a window, that stood +open to a verandah. As we took our seats we noticed that there was a +gentleman sitting smoking a little way from the window. I sat facing +him, and as we began dinner he asked politely whether his cigar annoyed +us. This broke the ice, and he began to talk of our intended ascent, +which he had heard of from the guides. + +‘“I should very much like to join you,” he said. “We could take another +guide if you think it advisable. I am used to Alpine climbing. I came +here on purpose to ascend the Matterhorn, and I shall do it in any +case; but it would be pleasant to have congenial company,” he added, +with a light laugh. + +‘“Pleasant for us as well as for you,” I replied, for there was +something particularly winning in his manner; “but you must not +consider me impertinent if I say that you hardly seem in strong enough +health for mountain climbing. You look as if you had not long recovered +from a severe illness.” + +‘“Do I?” he asked, in the same light tone; “I was always a sallow +individual. No, I have not been ill; and I am sinewy and wiry enough +for pretty hard work in the climbing way, though I have no superfluous +flesh. I don’t think you’ll find me an encumbrance to you; but if you +have any doubt upon the subject you can ask your chief guide, Peter +Hirsch, for my character, He and I have done same pretty rapid ascents +together in past years.” + +‘He handed me his card. “Mr. Goring, Goring Abbey, Warwickshire.” + +‘There was nothing of the braggart about him, and I had no doubt as +to his Alpine experience, but I could not dispossess myself of the +idea that he was in weak health, and out of condition for a fatiguing +ascent; for though the approach to the Matterhorn has been made much +easier than it was in ’65, when it was ascended for the first time by +Mr. Whymper and three other gentlemen, with most lamentable results, it +is still a toughish piece of work. + +‘I heard a good deal of Mr. Goring later from our landlord; he was well +known in the district, and known as an experienced mountaineer. He was +a man of large wealth, very generous, very good to the poor. He had +been living in Switzerland for the past year, shifting from town to +town along the banks of Lake Leman, but never leaving the shores of the +lake, until a few weeks ago, when he set out on a walking expedition +to Italy. He had stopped at Zermatt on his way southward; had idled +away his days in a listless purposeless way; now doing a little +climbing, now spending whole days lying about in the woods, with his +books and his sketching materials. He kept himself as much aloof from +the tourists as it was possible for him to do, occupying his own rooms, +and never dining at the _table-d’hôte_; and the landlord was surprised +that he should wish to join our party. His story was at once romantic +and tragical. He had come to Montreux with the family of the young lady +to whom he was engaged. This young lady was accidentally drowned in +the lake last summer, and Mr. Goring had never left the scene of her +untimely death till he came to Zermatt. + +‘I asked the landlord if there was any fear of his mind being affected +by this trouble, and he assured me that there was not the slightest +ground for such an idea. Mr. Goring kept himself to himself; but he +was as rational and as clever a man to talk to as any gentleman the +landlord had ever known. + +‘This settled the matter. To make assurance doubly sure I engaged a +third guide, and a young man to help in carrying tents, ropes, etc., +and we set out, a little party of seven, gaily enough, in the early +morning. We meant to take things quietly, and to spend the first night +in the tent, or in blanket-bags, if the weather were as mild as it +promised to be. We carried provisions enough to last for three days, +in case the ascent should take even longer than we anticipated. We +took sketching materials, a tin box for any botanical or entomological +specimens we might collect, and two or three well-worn volumes of +poetry which had accompanied us in all our excursions, but had not been +largely read. The great and varied book of Nature had generally proved +all-sufficient. + +‘We left Zermatt soon after five, the Lac Noir between eight and nine, +and a little before noon we had chosen our spot for a camping-place, +eleven thousand feet high, and the men set to work making a platform +for the tent, while we took our ease on the mountain, basking in +the sunshine, sketching, collecting a little, and talking a great +deal. We found Mr. Goring a delightful companion. He was a man of +considerable culture; had travelled much and read much. There was a +dash of nineteenth-century cynicism in his talk, and it was but too +easy to see that his view of this life and the world beyond it was of +that sombre hue which so deeply overshadows modern thought. Still he +was a most agreeable companion; and Trevor told me more than once, in a +confidential aside, that our new acquaintance was a decided acquisition. + +‘In all our conversation, which was perfectly unreserved on all sides, +it was noticeable that Mr. Goring talked very little of himself or of +his own affairs. He spoke vaguely of an idea of going on to Italy, and +wintering at Naples, but rather as an intention he had entertained and +abandoned, than as one which he meant to carry out. + +‘I ventured to say that I should have thought that, for a man of his +culture, Paris or Berlin would have been a pleasanter wintering-place; +but he shrugged his shoulders and declared that he detested both these +cities, and the society to be found in them. “French charlatanism or +German pedantry,” he said, “God knows which is worse.” + +‘There was a magnificent sunset. Never shall I forget the awful beauty +of the sky and mountains as we watched the decline of that ineffable +glory—watched in silence, subdued to gravity by the unspeakable +grandeur of that mighty panorama, in the midst of which our own +littleness was brought painfully home to our minds. + +‘The night was singularly mild, and we preferred sleeping in our +blanket-bags to the stuffy atmosphere of a tent. + +‘We were up before daybreak next morning, and breakfasted merrily +enough by the light of the stars, which were dropping out of the purple +sky, like lamps burned out, as the colder light of day crept slowly +along the edges of the eastward snow-peaks—such a livid ghastly light. +I remember wondering at Mr. Goring’s good spirits, which seemed by no +means to accord with the landlord’s account of him. Had there been +anything forced or hysterical about his gaiety I should have taken +alarm: but nothing could be easier or more natural than his manner; +and I was pleased to think that, however deeply he might regret the +poor girl whom he had lost by so sad a fate, he had his hours of +forgetfulness and tranquillity. + +‘We made the ascent slowly but easily, our guides seeing no risk from +any quarter; and between one and two o’clock we stood on the top of +that peak which of all others had most impressed me by its grand air +of solitude and inaccessibility. Throughout the ascent Mr. Goring had +shown himself a skilful and experienced mountaineer; and there was no +thought further from my mind than the apprehension of hazard to him +more than to anyone of us in the descent, or of recklessness on his +part. + +‘We stayed on the summit a little over an hour, and then prepared +ourselves for the descent. There were some difficult bits to be passed +in going down, and it was suggested by the most experienced of the +guides that we should be all roped together with the stoutest of our +Alpine-Club ropes. But this Mr. Goring negatived. “Where there is only +one rope, a false step for one means death to all,” he said. “It was +that which caused the calamity in Mr. Whymper’s descent; if the rope +had not broken there would not have been a man left to tell the story +of that fatal day.” At his urgent request we formed ourselves into +three parties, each of the guides being roped to one of us. He chose +the least experienced of the three men, and he, with this youngest of +the guides, went first. + +‘“You need not be afraid about me,” he said cheerily. “I am as +sure-footed as the best guide in Zermatt.” + +‘The two men who were with us assented heartily to this, and my own +observation went far to assure me that Mr. Goring’s assertion was no +idle boast. + +‘Those were the last words I ever heard him speak. We were all intent +upon the descent, the guides cutting footsteps now and then in the ice. +There was neither inclination nor opportunity for much talk of any +kind. Mr. Goring and his companion moved more quickly than we did; and +I began to fear, as I saw the two dark figures ever so far below us +amidst the dazzling whiteness, that there was a dash of recklessness in +him after all. + +‘This made me feel uneasy, and I found my attention wandering from my +own position, which was not without peril, to those two in advance +of us. Suddenly, to my surprise, I saw Goring change places with the +guide, who until this moment had been foremost. I saw also in the same +instant that the rope which had been hanging somewhat loosely between +them a minute or so before—always a source of danger—was now tightly +braced. It seemed to me that Goring stood still for a moment or two, +looking down the sheer precipice that yawned on one side of him, as if +admiring the awful grandeur of the abyss, then I saw a sharp sudden +movement of his right arm; there was a cry from the guide, and in the +next moment a dark figure slid with a fearful velocity along the smooth +whiteness of the frozen snow, and then shot over the edge, and dropped +from precipice to precipice to the Matterhorn glacier below, a distance +of nearly four thousand feet. How the guide contrived to maintain his +footing in that awful moment I know not. He never could have done it +had the rope been slack before it broke—or was severed. In those last +words lies the saddest part of the story. It is the guide’s opinion, +and mine, that the rope was deliberately cut by Mr. Goring. He could +scarcely have done this all at once by one movement of his knife; but +the guide believes that he had contrived to cut it three parts through, +unobserved by him, in the course of the descent. I asked how it came +about that he and the guide changed places, and the young man told me +that it was at Mr. Goring’s desire, a desire so calmly and naturally +expressed that it had occasioned neither wonder nor alarm. + +‘His body has not been found, though the people of Zermatt have been +diligent in their search. He lies locked in his frozen tomb in some +crevasse of the glacier. + +‘A very beautiful marble cross has been erected to his memory in the +little churchyard at Zermatt. I am told that it exactly resembles one +that was placed last year in the churchyard at Montreux, in memory of +the young lady who was drowned in the lake near that town. + +‘It may interest you to know that Mr. Goring’s will bequeaths the whole +of his enormous fortune to the elder sister of this unfortunate lady, +the testator being assured that she will make a much more noble use of +that fortune than he could ever have done. + +‘Those are the words of the legacy.’ + + +THE END. + + + LONDON: + PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, + STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. + + + + +MISS BRADDON’S NEW NOVEL. + +MOUNT ROYAL + +Opinions of the Press. + + +‘“Mount Royal” is a very readable book, and the interest is sustained +by the _dénouement_ being left in doubt to the very end of the +penultimate chapter.’—_Times._ + +‘Miss Braddon’s numerous admirers can hardly fail to have been struck +by the remarkable advance shown by her most recent novels, not only +in point of style, but in the natural delineation of those phases +of modern society which no living writer of fiction treats more +agreeably or with more sustained power. The most striking instance +of this may, perhaps, be found in “Vixen;” and if the present work +is not superior to that charming tale—which would involve excellence +of an unexceptionally high order—it will, at least, not suffer from +comparison with its predecessor. The plot will be preferred by many, +as dealing with the more tragic side of life, and with more serious +issues; but, granting that such preference must be a matter of taste, +all will admit the touch of a master-hand in development of the +action and the carefully artistic treatment which renders each of the +_dramatis personæ_, estimable or otherwise, a living sentient being, +with human idiosyncrasies and distinct personality.... The scene, by +the bye, in which this episode occurs is unquestionably one of the +finest and most dramatic that even Miss Braddon has ever written, and +is only to be surpassed in point of intensity by the two still finer +interviews between Leonard and his wife, and the remorseful woman and +her intended tool, the adventurer De Cazalet.... We may say, without +hesitation, that Miss Braddon has never employed her great talents +to better purpose than in “Mount Royal.” It is the worthy work of a +thorough artist.’—_Morning Post._ + +‘Miss Braddon’s ever-active and ever-fascinating pen has just completed +a new work of fiction, entitled “Mount Royal.” If it does not appeal as +immediately and powerfully to the feelings as “Lady Audley’s Secret,” +or “Lucius Davoren,” or some of the gifted authoress’s more recent +novels, such as “Vixen,” it is replete with all the freshness and +charm which she has taught the public to expect from her, which makes +the book one that will attract by its power as well as charm by its +style.’—_Daily Telegraph._ + +‘Miss Braddon has never, in our opinion, written a novel at once more +clever and more true than this.’—_Morning Advertiser._ + +‘The interest is unmistakable, and the way in which this is sustained +from first to last proves that its author’s command of the art of +storytelling has in no wise diminished.’—_Observer._ + +‘“Mount Royal” is entitled to rank high among our modern works of +fiction.’—_Society._ + +‘Miss Braddon has maintained in “Mount Royal” the standard of her later +period.’—_Athenæum._ + +‘The story is clearly developed and vigorously written.’—_Pall Mall +Gazette._ + +‘“Mount Royal” will not only be found a pleasant sea-side companion +during the coming season, but a friend in need during many a solitary +hour in the country. It is not only one of the best ever written by +the author of “Lady Audley’s Secret,” but one of the most original +likewise.’—_Court Journal._ + +‘To return for a last word to “Mount Royal,” the more we have of Miss +Braddon, and the less of Miss Rhoda Dendron and Weeder, the better, in +our opinion, for all novel-readers, old and young.’—_Punch._ + +‘As a novelist, she is almost without a rival in the art of +plot-weaving; so delicate are her meshes, and so subtle her +discrimination, that the inherent interest of her books carries us +along with her. She is the high priest of a school which, since +she inaugurated it, has had many more or less feeble imitators.... +Painfully and terribly true to life, and rightly understood, “Mount +Royal” is capable of making us appreciate truth and purity more +heartily than ever.’—_Evening News._ + +‘The great body of novel-readers who have for so many years found +recreation and delight in the brilliant works of imagination which have +come from the pen of Miss Braddon, will need no inducement to turn to +a new story by this accomplished authoress.... As is always the case +in Miss Braddon’s stories, the characters are powerfully drawn. They +are not merely people of whom we read, but seem to enjoy an actual +existence during the time that their movements are being followed +with such rapt attention. The lives of these inhabitants of the old +Cornish manor-house, known as Mount Royal, are not free from the cares +and excitement which the world calls sensational, albeit the stronger +element is made subordinate to gentler and more subtle influences. +Judged relatively to other works, “Mount Royal” must be awarded a +place midway between the early impulsiveness of “Lady Audley” and the +charming fancy displayed in “Vixen,” the novel in which Miss Braddon’s +maturer style reached its highest excellence.... Readers will find +in “Mount Royal,” in its pathetic views of life and love, echoes of +their own experience that are sure to command absorbing interest. Miss +Braddon’s romantic spirit has been in no way quenched; but in this last +novel its brighter rays are tempered by experience and the saddening +influence of earth’s sorrows and troubles.’—_Daily Chronicle._ + +‘An interesting and clever story. The excitement and expectation +are well sustained throughout; the incidents are original, and the +characters are neatly drawn. Miss Braddon has written some delightful +pictures of scenery in Cornwall.’—_Sunday Times._ + +‘That Miss Braddon’s hand has not lost its cunning is evidenced by the +excellent work which she has given us in “Mount Royal.” The same skill +in construction, the same charm of description as marked her earlier +efforts, are all here in this present work, matured and mellowed, +it may be, by experience, but not one whit dulled or destroyed by +lapse of time. We welcome “Mount Royal.” Miss Braddon has given us a +story which, while it adds to her fame as an authoress, increases our +indebtedness to her: the healthy tone of “Mount Royal” is not one of +its least charms.’—_Pictorial World._ + +‘For one “who has been long in city pent” the pictures of Cornish +scenery, drawn by the free bold hand of the authoress, are delightful; +no landscape-painter could produce a more vivid impression.... We +anticipate that this powerful tragic story will enhance the high +reputation of its authoress.’—_Echo._ + +‘The situations are worked out with so much skill, and the probability +of details is so well managed, that the story can be followed with the +keenest interest.’—_St. James’s Gazette._ + +‘There is much effective writing in the course of the novel, and we +must add that the minor characters are individualised with all the +accustomed power of the authoress.’—_News of the World._ + +‘Miss Braddon never disappoints her readers. Whoever takes up “Mount +Royal” will be prepared for an interesting story, excellently well +told, and that they will get. Her scenes never fall flat, nor does +her weapon ever miss fire. The incidents of her stories are always +marshalled with very great skill, so as to produce the best effect +which is to be got from them. In fewer words, Miss Braddon is, as our +readers know without our telling them, a story-teller of consummate +ability. To be able to conceive a thrilling plot is one thing; to be +able to work it out in a story is another. Miss Braddon has from the +beginning shown that she possesses both these gifts. Her fertility +in plot-making is nothing short of marvellous; and when we find that +her conceptions are always worked out by the aid of characters of +flesh and blood, who stand prominently forth from the canvas, and look +at you with living eyes, we are lost in wonder at a fancy, a power, +so inexhaustible. Scarcely ever is there a trace of any strain, any +fatigue. We might say that she appears to be telling a story for the +first time, did not the ease and skill displayed in the process betray +to the close observer a vast amount of practice added to natural +talents of a high order. Her descriptive power and her dramatic +instinct are never weakened. She never fails to bring before the reader +the objects of persons she is describing. Moreover, she can describe +indirectly as well as directly.’—_Lloyd’s Weekly London Newspaper._ + +‘Many of the descriptions of the scenery of Cornwall are well worth +reading; while London fashionable circles are hit off in a vein of +satire occasionally, but with a considerable resemblance, we should +imagine, to what really takes place. The scene where Christabel meets +Psyche in her own dwelling is full of womanly tenderness, and suggests +to the poor victim the existence of a world of compassion of which +she had never dreamed. The marshalling and management also of the +characters as a whole reveal, it must be admitted, the possession of +high artistic powers, as well as a wide observation of men and things. +Major Broe is drawn to the life. Mrs. Tregonell senior, with her +mother’s fondness for the roving Leonard, is also as true to nature as +can well be imagined.’—_Liverpool Mercury._ + +‘Miss Braddon, if not the most industrious of modern novelists, is +certainly unrivalled in this respect among those whose works are in +great demand at the circulating libraries. Let the reader once become +really interested in the fortunes of the lovely, but unhappy, Mrs. +Tregonell, and he will not willingly put down the book until the end of +the third volume.’—_Manchester Examiner and Times._ + +‘We have followed the plot out with considerable interest, and no fault +is to be found in the novel in the way of dulness.’—_John Bull._ + +‘The scene in which her new novel is chiefly laid is to the full as +enchanting as it is painted by her skilful hand. That there is plenty +to interest and something to excite in any book from the pen of Miss +Braddon may be taken for granted. The ingenuity of the plot is worthy +of the author.’—_London Figaro._ + +‘A most attractive and interesting novel. The genius of Miss Braddon +evolves a number of most ingenious plots, and the reader’s interest is +kept engaged through the development of them with absorbing power. Miss +Braddon deals with persons and places that are familiar to us, and her +descriptions of the scenery of the north coast, of Tintagel, Boscastle, +and all the neighboring shores, are photographed with great clearness +in beautiful language and with perfect knowledge. Miss Braddon’s +works are always interesting, and these volumes will add to her +well-established reputation. There are many phases of life described +in them which we know exist; but there are few who have the power of +placing either the people or their surroundings so completely before +us. She hits off admirably the follies and fashions of the hour as they +prevail in fashionable life. So great was the demand for Miss Braddon’s +new novel, “Mount Royal,” the other day, that the circulating libraries +subscribed for the whole of the first edition, and the publisher had to +go to press immediately with a new impression.’—_Plymouth Western Daily +Mercury._ + +‘In “Mount Royal” Miss Braddon appears to us not only to have surpassed +her own previous performances, numerous and successful as they have +been, but even to have distanced all her competitors in that class of +literature. We know of no recent novel which we would place before +“Mount Royal” in its power of exciting the emotions.’—_Sheffield Post._ + +‘“Mount Royal” is an addition to the Braddon library that will be +heartily welcomed by all who can appreciate a sound, healthy, and +thoroughly interesting novel.’—_Belfast News Letter._ + +‘Taking the novel altogether, “Mount Royal” will compare favourably +with any that have preceded it from the same pen. In point of character +delineation and skilfulness of construction, its merits are very +considerable.’—_Bradford Observer._ + +‘“Mount Royal” is well written, as all Miss Braddon’s books are. It is +bright, and catches with great accuracy the precise tone of the people +whose lives are being sketched. A good novel.’—_Scotsman._ + +‘“Mount Royal” is powerful and artistic—a finished bit of +workmanship.’—_Edinburgh Daily Review._ + +‘We may fairly say of it that it contains many sparkling passages +and many happy thoughts. It shows that the writer has an extensive +acquaintance with the best English authors, and it shows that she is an +adept in word-painting.’—_Sheffield Daily Telegraph._ + +‘Miss Braddon’s last production is as engrossing, as dramatic, and as +fresh as if it were only her second or third. There is not a dull page +in the three volumes.’—_Brighton Fashionable Visitors’ List._ + +‘“Mount Royal” is an exceptionally favorable specimen. The story is +told with singular neatness, and grace almost equally unusual in works +of this kind. The novel is, without doubt, a good and a bright one, +with plenty of incidents and plenty of character.’—_Manchester Courier._ + +‘The story, as a whole, is extremely interesting. It is emphatically +a novel of the present day, and we predict for it an extensive +demand.’—_York Herald._ + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes + + pg 49 Changed: Miss Dibb made the acqaintance of a strange man + to: Miss Dibb made the acquaintance of a strange man + + pg 92 Changed: there is a South Pole, too, isn’t here, dear + to: there is a South Pole, too, isn’t there, dear + + pg 109 Changed: She folded the soft wollen wrap + to: She folded the soft woollen wrap + + pg 110 Changed: she was still digging and and scraping + to: she was still digging and scraping + + pg 112 Changed: the Maltese terrior Fluff in her lap + to: the Maltese terrier Fluff in her lap + + pg 138 Changed: There was not even a shrubberry + to: There was not even a shrubbery + + pg 188 Changed: see that this luxurions home-education + to: see that this luxurious home-education + + pg 220 Changed: and faithful, pious, self-sacricing + to: and faithful, pious, self-sacrificing + + pg 235 Changed: the perfact outline of the throat + to: the perfect outline of the throat + + pg 235 Changed: hand that lay inhert upon Fluff + to: hand that lay inert upon Fluff + + pg 243 Changed: deferred boyond luncheon time + to: deferred beyond luncheon time + + pg 255 Changed: toboggining at the Falls of Montmorenci + to: tobogganing at the Falls of Montmorenci + + pg 261 Changed: Daphne had never been beyond Fontainbleau + to: Daphne had never been beyond Fontainebleau + + pg 270 Changed: surprised if Miss Dapne Lawford + to: surprised if Miss Daphne Lawford + + pg 282 Changed: furniture, delf, and china + to: furniture, delft, and china + + pg 302 Changed: It was not a grandoise or thrilling ceremonial + to: It was not a grandiose or thrilling ceremonial + + pg 321 Changed: That is remakably clever + to: That is remarkably clever + + pg 372 Changed: to whom she dicoursed freely upon + to: to whom she discoursed freely upon + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75506 *** |