AN ACT OF DISOBEDIENCE
At six o’clock Mariana knocked at the little sitting-room door, and
Rosalie opened it, quite ready to accompany her, armed with the box of
sweets.
“You must not bring those,” said the elder woman.
“But I want you to have some.”
“I’m not like you. I’m not fond of sweets, and have no intention of
making my fingers sticky.”
Then Rosalie put them down, and followed her in silence and obedience.
They went downstairs together, and took the door opening into the
central hall to the right, the one through which Rosalie had not yet
passed.
But at the threshold Rosalie stood still. It seemed to her as if a great
spider’s web was barring their further progress. A breath of darkness
and dampness was wafted out to meet them, and inclination bade her turn
back there and then. Mariana evidently noticed nothing of this
hesitation; she passed through the door, and held it open for Rosalie to
follow. The gigantic cobweb was nothing but delusion evidently, and
melted into nothingness.
“Don’t shut the door,” Rosalie whispered; but it had closed silently
even as she spoke.
And here was darkness and cold dampness. She heard her heart beat wildly
in the stillness, and groped for Mariana’s arm. It seemed cold and
lifeless, having no animation.
“Can’t we get a light?” she whispered, with dry lips, and her voice
sounded hollow in her own hearing.
“The light is farther down the passage.”
That, at least, was reassurance. It was Mariana’s voice, no different
from what it ever was, just as subdued and gentle.
By degrees her eyes became accustomed to the intense gloom, and when
Mariana turned on the one flickering light, she recognised a length of
passage similar to that in the other two wings. But here the doors were
all quite low, and made of plain black wood. There was no attempt at
adornment. The floor was plain wood, the walls, the ceilings, and
everything was dreary, damp, and cold.
The doors, too, were numbered all in red, and it was before No. 13 that
Mariana stopped. It opened to her touch, and together they entered.
“This is the room I work in,” said Mariana, and again turned on one
feeble light. It seemed the only one in the chamber.
The black rafters of oak hung low above their heads, and their heaviness
perhaps helped to increase the gloomy aspect of the place. A long table
of deal ran down the centre, with a chair at either end. This table was
covered with a white cloth reaching the ground on either side.
Two chests of oak, shabby and worn, were the only articles of furniture
the room possessed. The walls were whitewashed. Here and there the
plaster had fallen from them, with a dispiriting effect. There was
neither fireplace nor window in the room.
“Can you work in here?” Rosalie asked, looking round with an involuntary
shiver.
“Yes. One becomes accustomed to surroundings. I never notice them; I’m
too absorbed.”
She went to the table and drew away the cloth, folding it, and placing
it upon one of the vacant chairs. Below, a shimmer of satin, and gold,
and silver, all strikingly in contrast to the bareness and poorness of
the room, met the eye.
“How lovely!” said Rosalie, drawing her breath. “Do you know, I thought
that big white cloth was the material, and it looked to my eyes more
like a shroud.”
“This is only the material,” said Mariana. “I finished it the day you
came, after being engaged on it three years. It is all hand-spun and
woven, but now I’ve put the loom and spinning-wheel away in those big
chests. One does not want too many things about.”
“But who taught you?”
“Oh! it is knowledge one acquires. It needs a certain kind of brain and
a given pattern, that is all.”
Then she went over to one of the chests and opened it, and took from it
a parcel which she untied. It contained a quantity of most lovely lace,
the like of which Rosalie had never seen before.
“Did you make this?” she asked.
“No; it belongs to the Master. I found it in the lumber rooms among the
attics, and asked him for it, and so he gave it to me.”
“Gave it to you? It looks almost priceless.”
“I know—reckoned from some standpoints. But I liked the design. It is
lovers’ knots, and sprays of lily of the valley. Have you noticed it?”
“Yes.”
“It was that that put it in my head about the wedding-dress. When I have
finished, it will be a beautiful creation.”
“But do not the moths attack the lace?”
“Oh, no; you see it belongs to the Master, otherwise it would have been
eaten long ago.”
“But why do you not wear it yourself, if he gave it to you?”
Again the tired, puzzled look came over Mariana’s face.
“I have no use for it. Besides—I don’t know. I think it has something to
do with sacrifice or freedom. I can’t tell which.”
“Will you give it to Lady Flamington, do you think?”
“I shall not give it to anyone, except the one who asks.”
“But you will be besieged.”
“How can that be when no one knows about it?” And she spread the lace
upon the ivory satin, and drew it into graceful folds, just as an
understanding artist would. As she did so, even by the meagre light
Rosalie perceived its exquisite beauty.
“Who is to be fitted for it?” she asked.
“I don’t know. One does not like to trouble people; I think I shall use
my own discretion. After all, I scarcely hope that anyone will wear it.”
“Could I be of use to you?”
“It is too cold for you to take off your dress.”
“Oh, no! Let me do it, just to feel I’ve done something in the day.”
“Thank you,” said Mariana. “You are neither too tall nor short. I think
it would show to advantage on a figure like yours. I’ll fit it for just
such a one as you.”
She cut a piece from the soft piles of satin, and began to shape it to a
bodice lining.
“Are you going to try it on with _satin_?” asked Rosalie, astounded at
such extravagance.
“Yes; inside and out must be both alike for a perfect finish. I might
use silk, but I prefer the same material.”
What a marvellous fitter on she was! and yet how wonderfully patient
Rosalie stood, the whole long evening through. It was no light twenty
minutes—not even an hour—but dragged out into three.
Mariana forgot herself evidently in her occupation, and had no mercy on
the model she was fitting. She treated her as a thing of wood and stone
till she had realised the full effect in fit of bodice, skirt, and
train, which, when perfected, she removed and folded into tissue papers,
all labelled for the purpose near at hand. Then suddenly when all was
finished she looked at her, and saw how deathly white her face had grown
under the lengthened strain.
“Ah! now you are ill, and I am to blame for it,” she said.
But Rosalie shook her head, though she shivered.
“It’s the cold; everything is so damp down here.”
“Yes. Indeed, it has been kind of you. I never hoped to get a model. We
can’t ask favours of each other here, and I’m sorry if I tired you;
but—but—I don’t know whether it may not be against the rule, so it was
best to complete it before the Master came, in order to plead
ignorance.”
Truly this last was the most human thing Mariana had ever said to her,
the only deviation from a hard, set rule of living.
“Yes,” said Rosalie, smiling despite the faintness and shivering that
overcame her. “When you’ve done a thing no one can say anything, can
they? At least, they can’t say much.”
Mariana helped her on with her customary dress, and just then the clock
outside struck nine.
“My work-time is up now,” she said. “I will return with you.”
Perhaps no one ever greeted fire, and light, and warmth as Rosalie did
when back in the small sitting-room in the storey up above. In bed at
night she remembered the moths that had flickered round the dim light,
and round her also, as if claiming this work as soon as finished, and
identifying her with it, so it almost seemed to her. And yet how
beautiful the thing had looked, how out of place with its surroundings!
Suddenly great tears of bitterness fell on the pillow for this lonely
woman, so utterly without the pale of human sympathy, and yet so
uncomplaining. How beautiful she was! Once during the fitting on she had
thrown a piece of satin on her shoulder, too busy for the second to turn
round and put it down. And how its ivory smoothness had matched the
smoothness of her neck and cheek. How well it had contrasted with her
dark eyes and hair. And then there was about her such a nameless grace
and gentle refinement! Yet there she had worked in the cold, damp cell,
and been content to work, with apparently no hope for the future, but
moths and mildew and decay.
It was in the midst of these reveries on Mariana that Rosalie fell
asleep, to wake many times throughout the night, shivering, to think
herself alone within that gloomy room below, tried on for shrouds by
ghosts with horrid grinning laughter.
It was a night in no wise likely to raise Rosalie’s spirits from the
curious depths of unreality and pain where they had fallen; yet towards
morning she fell into a sleep so deep, that she never awoke from it till
Mariana came to call and waken her.
“Mariana,” she said, “you promised you would show me Mr. Todbrook’s
portrait yesterday, and you never did.”
“It is in the picture-gallery. You could have found it for yourself.”
“I don’t know where the picture-gallery is.”
“I had forgotten. If you wait for me in the corridor after breakfast I
will show it to you.”
So after breakfast Rosalie went out into the passage to wait for her.
The gallery was downstairs in that same wing, facing toward the gardens,
where the conservatory was.
It was a very large gallery, longer than broad, with polished floor, and
seats upholstered in red velvet stood along the walls. The light was
admitted from the roof, but very beautiful electric candelabra hung from
the ceiling, which was all panelled and carved in black oak.
Mariana led the way to the portrait of the late owner of the Marble
House. There he stood in the correct evening dress for a man of his
position, with one hand leaning on a table and the other by his side. He
was slightly built and scarcely of middle height, with a refined,
delicate, and quiet face, and a look of wistful melancholy in his eyes
that interested and attracted Rosalie.
“Who painted it?” she asked, after studying it for some time.
“I don’t know. There is no name to it. I think myself the Master may
have done it. It was painted after death.”
“From his corpse?” asked Rosalie, in horror.
“Oh, no! From memory, I should say.”
“Does Mr. Barringcourt paint, then?”
“In his spare time, yes. I think he must have done this. I don’t know
who else could. Even millionaires are bad to remember when once they’ve
passed away.”
“Is it like him?”
“I don’t know. But Everard says it is almost lifelike.”
“Who is Everard?”
“The man who keeps the door.”
“I don’t like him at the door. Do you?”
Mariana looked up with almost startled eyes. “Don’t like him? I like
everyone.”
“I don’t like him,” persisted Rosalie. “He’s one of those men who always
does what he is told. If Mr. Barringcourt told him to wring your neck
round, or mine, he’d do it soon—as soon as wink.”
“Of course,” said Mariana, as if that were the acme of perfection.
“Well, he has neither heart nor head. Now, if Mr. Barringcourt told me
to wring your neck, I’d tell him to do it himself, I’d had no practice
that way.”
Mariana looked at her in utter surprise, and then suddenly she sank back
upon the velvet seat, and began to laugh. Unhappily, her merriment did
not last, for almost as suddenly she jumped up again, her face white
with pain, and her features drawn and contracted.
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake don’t make me laugh! The pain at my heart is
something terrible,” and she caught Rosalie’s arm in her hand, quite
unconscious of the strength of the grip she had taken.
In surprise and alarm, the unconscious offender stood still.
“What is it?” she gasped at length. “Is the pain very bad?”
Mariana looked at her and nodded.
“Talk about one’s heart breaking,” she said, with a wintry smile. “Every
time I laugh I get that feeling.”
“Let us go away,” said Rosalie, noticing that the great pallor of her
face did not decrease.
“Yes. It’s time I was back at—at the wedding garment.”
“But you’re not going to that damp, dark place this morning, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I shall come with you.”
“No. I told Everard, and he does not approve.”
“But he is not master here.”
“No; but his advice is very good to go upon.”
“Did I not tell you how heartless he was?”
“You mistake what is meant for kindness. Let us go.”
In the central hall she took leave of Rosalie, and disappeared inside
the gloomy eastern wing. And Rosalie made no further attempt to come
with her, for her horror of the previous night was still fresh in her
mind.
“I don’t know how Mariana can do it,” she thought, standing still in the
great hall. “It’s killing her. She looked like death this morning. And
to go there right away, to be buried in that damp sepulchre! It’s
terrible, terrible! I _hate_ Mr. Barringcourt! He’s bad—right-down bad!
The worst man I know!”
But then she knew so very few.
She was awakened from this reverie to find Everard, the doorkeeper,
coming toward her.
Her first impulse was to turn away and walk toward the staircase, which
she did.
“Miss Paleaf!”
His tone attracted her immediate attention. There was a certain strong
gravity in it that appealed to what gravity and steadiness there was in
her.
“Yes,” she answered, turning round to view this wringer of necks in
prospective.
“You have endeavoured to do an incredible amount of harm since coming
here. Don’t you think it would be advisable to practise a little
self-control?”
“Yes. I think if it were practicable it would be advisable to shut
myself up in a tin box, or oak, perhaps, and turn round once a week for
recreation.”
“You rush from one extreme to the other without any attempt at reason.”
“And—and you?”
“For Mariana’s sake I wish to advise you to be careful.”
“Not for my own?”
“No. I know nothing about you, and you seem pretty capable of looking
after yourself.”
Rosalie looked at him, not knowing whether her dislike was growing or
lessening.
“Do you know you’re taking a great liberty?” she said, her colour rising
despite her efforts to keep cool.
“Yes. And under the circumstances it is pardonable.”
“What circumstances?”
“You are doing your best to destroy the happiness and peace of a working
woman.”
“Happiness! Happiness! Do you call it happiness to be fastened up in
there the greater part of the day-time?” And she pointed to the door
through which Mariana had passed a short time before.
“When she is contented it is, at least, the nearest approach to
happiness. And your ignorant meddling can never have a good result.”
Then Rosalie was silent, and with no heart to answer she turned away,
and went upstairs to the little sitting-room.
Her own heart ached enough in all conscience. O God! to be free! away
from all this coldness and hardness, and gloom and silence.
She buried her face in her hands and cried from utter dejection. When
she went to wash her hands and face for dinner, she was dismayed at her
own plain looks. She was very far from being ready for a meal, and made
little attempt or pretence at eating what was placed before her. At last
the young man who waited on her presented a red lozenge to her on a
silver plate.
“What is it?” she asked, not being accustomed to this particular dish.
“The nutriment you require to keep you in health. You have eaten
nothing, and this is less troublesome if you have no appetite.”
She frowned in indecision, and for one minute looked at him and then at
it. Then without another word she ate the contents of her plate, and
afterwards a plate of plain milk pudding.
But when alone again the same weak desire to cry began to gain upon her,
and it was only after a very hard fight she overcame it.
“I don’t know how it is,” she sighed. “They make you do things here
however much you don’t want to. I wonder now if the eating of my dinner
was a lesson in self-control.”
Then she went back to her bedroom and shut the door, and knelt down by
the bed to pray, if prayer it could be called. Despite her efforts,
everything was most incoherent and jumbled, broken by big sobs, and
ending in no prayer at all, but silence. At last the silence must have
brought its effect of soothing, for Rosalie rose from her knees with
scarcely a vestige of the past emotion upon her face. She combed her
hair and smoothed her dress, and then went for her hat.
“I’ll go into the garden,” she said, “and see if I can see the city.”
It was a glorious afternoon, with just sufficient sharpness for autumn
in the air. It was considerably after three by the tower clock, and she
recognised with regret there was time for little more than an hour
there. Her hopes were realised. From the top of the red bank of flowers
she could view the city very plainly. She saw right across to the
high-standing temple, with every building of note and height rising in
between. Behind her she could see nothing, for the wall rose
exceptionally high, but from here she could look in the direction of the
old home, and to that other magnificent erection that contained all the
best prayers and aspirations of her dumb life.
After all, to look on to the sights of freedom is in a measure to the
prisoner freedom itself.
From the city beyond, Rosalie’s eyes wandered back toward the mansion.
There was something wanting in it; its magnificent outline attracted and
repelled.
“What a lovely fairy story one could write about it,” she sighed. “It
seems to me a kind of haunted, sleeping palace; and everything looks so
strong, and dark, and silent, and yet beautiful, that I don’t know
whether the story would have to turn out well or ill.”
She sat down on the rustic seat with the arbour of trailing leaves
twining above it, and dreamily contemplated the wide expanse of city.
Suddenly she heard the ominous striking of the mansion clock.
One! two! three! four! five!
Rosalie turned her eyes from the sky and looked at it. A faint pink
flush from the sun was shining on it, and she clasped her hands.
“I won’t go in. They can’t do anything to me if I don’t. Five o’clock!
the very nicest time of all the day—the only time to see the city and
the sun look at their best. It isn’t wrong of me; I know it isn’t. I
haven’t done anything wrong that I should be a prisoner. I haven’t,
really. I feel I haven’t!”
The sunset deepened.
Suddenly the great gates leading from the garden flew open to admit a
dog-cart and one chestnut horse driven by Mr. Barringcourt. Behind him
sat a groom, and as they took the sweep of drive leading past her toward
the terrace steps, her eyes fell on the horse and man in livery.
She saw that they did not belong to this place. What was there about
everyone who lived here that made them different from all else? That
groom was just the ordinary groom that one saw every day within the
streets and parks.
As Mr. Barringcourt passed below he suddenly looked up, and catching
sight of her, took off his hat and smiled. Rosalie’s heart gave a leap
of excitement.
The flush of evening had dyed her pale cheeks, and given lustre to her
eyes. She watched the light vehicle draw up below the central steps, saw
Mr. Barringcourt dismount, and the groom lead the horse away by the
shorter carriage drive. Rosalie clasped her hands and watched, and made
no sign of moving down.
And the sunset deepened.
For one minute Mr. Barringcourt stood on the steps looking at his boots,
or maybe on the ground, in apparent thoughtfulness; then he turned round
with sudden decision, and crossed the lawn to the path leading towards
the bank of flowers where she stood. Yet no step downward did Rosalie
take in that direction, and so he came up the narrow, winding path, and
very shortly reached her.
And how different from all the others he appeared! How full of life and
animation! how strong! how quick at seeing, and therefore understanding!
How weak and lifeless her hand felt in his! And suddenly she felt that
intense admiration for strength which all weak things must have. Yet she
searched his face narrowly for that tired and weary look that she had
seen there twice before.
Her scrutiny was well returned. Out of the purity of a lonely spirit
longing for some companionship her clear eyes had looked full into his,
the ending of a day of weakness and tears and silent waiting. And under
the deep scrutiny of those stronger eyes she had not power to look aside
till every little secret not worth hiding had been read. Then having got
rid of all the weakness, Rosalie came to the reserve strength.
She drew her hand out of his, and asked suddenly, with an everyday
interest:
“Have you any horses of your own, Mr. Barringcourt, or do you hire them
all?”
“I have my own; but they’re too good for everyday work.”
“But when do you exercise them?”
“Occasionally at midnight I give them a run round. They are black, so
they don’t show. Nor do they advertise their coming by too much noise.”
This time she looked at him with puzzled incredulity.
“What do you mean?”
“What I say. Why are you waiting here?”
“To see the sun set.”
“It has set.”
“I’m waiting for the afterglow.”
And as she spoke, the whole sky from east to west flushed to a sudden
lowering crimson. It was reflected on his face, on hers, shone from the
many windows—red—red—a sea of golden red and copper colour, dyeing all
things.
“But you have no business out here after sunset, have you?” he said.
“I don’t know. You should be judge of that.”
“I’m judge of nothing except the mood I’m in, and to-day I’m not sorry
to find you here; but it’s rather a dangerous game to play in a place
where strict discipline is observed. Don’t you know it?”
“No. I couldn’t imagine any punishment worse than being a prisoner.”
“Could you not? Oh, there are many worse. You are a prisoner at large,
you must remember.”
“The reason why I stayed out is because I could think of nothing I had
done wrong.”
“Are you a good judge of your misdoings?”
“I don’t know. A tongue makes things so complicated.”
He laughed. “What have you been doing since I went away?”
“Trying to be contented, and help Mariana.”
“Help Mariana?”
“Yes. I tried on a dress for her last night, but the room was so gloomy
I dare not go again this morning.”
“What kind of a dress were you trying on?”
“A wedding-dress that gave me the shivers. Do you know, Mr.
Barringcourt, I think Mariana the most splendid woman I ever met.”
“Indeed.”
“Yes, and I think she’s the most shamefully ill-used woman, too.”
“No one is ill-used, except dogs and dumb animals in general.”
Rosalie gave him one of her sidelong penetrating glances.
“Well,” said she, “there are dumb animals and dumb animals; Mariana is
dumb.”
“Indeed!”
“What I mean is, she never complains.”
“Very sensible of her. There is no one to listen.”
“There is Everard! She asks his advice upon everything.”
“She told you that?”
“Yes. She talks about everything but her own hard life.”
“That is why you wish her to speak about it. Did she do so, you would
wish her silent. The world is very contrary, Rosalie.”
He stepped aside to let her pass before him down the narrow path. There
was no alternative but to obey, as the sunset had now completely died
away, and the dusk of night and its accompanying chilliness had wandered
in, bringing a sense of desolation, of misery.
The Master did not lead the way to the side door, but approached the
central one. He let himself in by touching some spring acting in the
toad’s head, and Rosalie followed with a creepy sense of awe as she
passed between these high doors, with their magnificent workmanship all
hidden in the dusk.
The darkness of the big conservatory was partly dispelled by tiny
electric lights, coloured crimson, that glimmered here and there among
the foliage like glow-worms in a forest. As they passed the
picture-gallery, Mr. Barringcourt noticed that the door was open.
“Who has been in there?” he asked.
“Mariana and I went this morning to see Mr. Todbrook’s portrait. Who
painted it?”
“I did—from memory. A man’s best friend should represent him most
faithfully. Don’t you think so?”
“But had you nothing to work from?”
“Oh, no! Nothing but memory. Memory is a very wonderful thing if one
only cultivates it.”
“If I died, do you think you could paint me?” asked Rosalie, turning her
face up to his.
“No,” he answered. “I have not known you quite long enough. I could
attempt nothing better than a caricature at present.”
She laughed, and said: “I must endeavour to live a little longer, then.”