§ 1
THE August weeks went by and Viola prepared herself for a return to
Morvane. Lady Grieve had wondered what the guardian would, when he saw
her, think of his ward, but she spared no conjecture for what the ward
thought already of her guardian. Yet, of the two, the latter were the
more coloured speculation. From the quiet sleep of childhood, from the
thrawn dreams of stunted adolescence, Viola had awakened to beauty
and to power. For the last days in London she had rubbed her eyes,
bewildered at the new world spread laughingly before her. At Lavenham
she had passed from drowsiness to peevish wakefulness. She left
Lavenham and passed to Morvane and to another stage of her maturing.
Peevishness--she had been jealous of Daniel’s favour when bestowed on
others, disdainful when the hands that held it were her own--gave way
to whimsical caprice. Her time at Morvane was to be one of alternating
temper and caress. She knew her power and loved it, but she was
freakish in its wielding and understood its deep, splendid origins
too little for a right use of it. It has been said she went to school
at Lavenham. She did, and most industriously. In the technique of her
young womanhood she was now word and gesture perfect, but she imagined
herself an artist for knowing the wiles of artistry, ignorant as yet
that art--whether it be art of line and colour, art of life or art of
love--is humble generosity and pain and the sweet weariness of service,
not graceful posturing before the plaudits of the crowd.
If (as maybe it did) that lesson in beauty’s despotism conducted so
brusquely by her guardian’s mother in the high parlour of the Morvane
campanile, came to her mind during those Lavenham weeks of eager
tyranny, she dismissed it straightway as the turgid mumbling of age.
Youth is youth’s only teacher; age is, at best, a warning. So Mrs.
Plethern lost her trouble, and the girl to whom she preached learnt
more of the sermon’s theme from five minutes lingering with callow
striplings in a shrubbery than from the measured phrases of the ancient
cynic.
Now, with her schooling and her innocent conceit, she faced return to
Morvane. Into her mind (she knew not why) came Charles’ presumptuous
consolation in the library. Before her eyes moved the lean hands of
Charles; about her shoulders in her fancy were his arms. She jerked her
head thus to recall his impudence. Yet, in her heart, she did not blame
him now; rather she pitied him for the temptation he endured, applauded
his restraint and courtesy. Obscurely she felt that he deserved reward,
and the delicious risk of the reward’s bestowal gave savour to her
anxiety for justice.
But there reflection ceased. That she had new impulses she was
conscious; that they were terrible and wonderful and sweet and hateful,
she was confusedly aware; but what they were or why they frightened
or cajoled her she had the wish but not the courage to inquire. The
turmoil of her secret being troubled the surface of her daily conduct;
to Daniel she became daily more perverse; but, as to him she grew in
frowardness, toward Charles in glad anticipation she felt more kind.
The day for journeying arrived. Agog to see her guardian, she glowed,
loving them all now she was leaving them. She kissed her hostess, bade
Sir Algernon good-bye, even thanked Daniel for his kindness. They
beamed upon her, grateful for sunshine after grey skies. How should
they know her warmth was born rather of excited prevision than of
grateful reverie?
Her restless journey passed. A hundred yards away she saw him on the
platform. As the train stopped, she sprang out and ran to him.
“How sweet of you! I never dreamed you’d come to meet me!”
Charles took her hands and smiled contentedly. He was a little
surprised himself at being there, but the intimate affection of her
greeting surprised him more. Looking at her fresh colour and the eager
sparkle of her eyes, he seemed to see for the first time the real
Viola. He told himself that the aloof silences of her first days at
Morvane had been but protective reserve and not, as sometimes he had
feared, a half-cleverness, aware of its defective breeding.
“I am delighted to have you back, my dear,” he said. “The house has
seemed dull while you were away.”
She shook her head gaily.
“I’m afraid it’s not me. It’s the strangeness. You aren’t used to
staying so long!”
He saluted the note of mischief in her voice.
“That is Rinka over again! You mustn’t pay these visits, if you are to
come back primed with my sins.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Plethern,” she replied demurely. “It was cheeky.”
She took his arm as they moved away. Suddenly he spoke, a little shyly.
“Viola--I have been meaning to ask you----This business of what to call
people is such a bore always. But don’t you think ‘Mr. Plethern’ a
little formal?”
“I think it’s horrid,” she said frankly.
“So do I. Can’t we change it?”
She gurgled as she climbed into the dogcart at his side. He glanced at
her with amused delight.
“The joke?”
“I was only thinking of Daniel. He asked me what I called you--whether
you were a ‘guardy.’”
“A ‘guardy’! I can’t help hoping not. Am I?”
She shook her head. Instinct warned her to leave him the lead. Somehow
she felt he might resent ‘Uncle Charles.’
“After all, I have a name,” he said tentatively.
“Wouldn’t that be rather----?”
“I hate to be reminded of my age.”
In silence they rattled between the dusty hedges. The tired foliage of
late summer drooped in the windless air. Here and there cornfields,
heavily yellow, waited sulkily on harvest. Viola watched him
stealthily, liking his thin lips and the powder of grey about his
temples. She wished to please him, but to appreciate his longing for
comradeship was not to lose her own sense of his seniority, still less
her new appreciation of the privilege of sex. Her hesitation was mainly
instinctive fear of familiarity. She had no wish to give points away in
the game that was to come. He misread her thoughts, taking for shyness
and for fear of familiarity, what was indeed but the old way of maid
with man.
“Don’t force yourself, my dear. Whatever is best will come naturally.
I remember similar cases in my own young days. But we shall be happier
when it is settled, especially as we are to have some time in each
other’s company.” With hardly a pause he passed to another subject. “I
have been thinking how we can entertain you. Of course, you will ask
your friends here--as if it were your own house. I propose to stay all
the winter--certainly till after Christmas--and we can invite folks
from round about. But you will get to know friends of Rinka and the
Grieves and, maybe, make independent acquaintances whom you would like
to see at Morvane. There is luckily room for guests--in reason. I have
been busy getting the house in order. Rinka has blackened my character,
I’m sure, and it is unnecessary to explain that I have in the past
found it imperative to be away a good deal....”
Grateful for his tact and sensible of the trouble he was taking to
celebrate her coming, she squeezed his arm.
“You are very good to me--Charles....” she murmured.
He neither turned nor spoke, but flushed a little and drove on with an
unusual brightness in his lazy eyes.
After lunch he took her over the whole house, showing her bedrooms
that had for years been sheeted and dismantled, but now were ready for
use again; the big drawing-room newly painted; the two high-ceilinged
saloons with their rococo plaster work, their huge marble mantelpieces,
their glittering chandeliers of lustres and gold.
“Lots of room, you see!” he said, at once proud of his house and yet
deprecating its splendour.
Viola was silenced by this pilgrimage through the fine places of her
home. The contrast to Toronto became almost unbearable. Even her
newborn imperiousness trembled before the glory of its destined throne.
“I had no idea that there was this!” she said. “How did I live in the
house for weeks and not guess?”
“Why should you guess? The place has not been open as it is now since
my father’s early married years. He put in all these elaborate state
reception rooms, you know. He made a lot of money.”
“A lot! It’s unbelievable to me, that _I_ am to live in such a
house. And from the outside----”
She checked herself, fearful of indiscretion, but he encouraged her
laughingly.
“Dear child, don’t be afraid of saying your mind! The outside _is_
misleading, certainly. I like it for that. As you will come to like it,
some day. There is a queerness about the stiff grey place seen from the
park, particularly when one knows that inside it is like a restaurant.”
“A restaurant! What a horrid thing to say! Does Mrs. Plethern approve
of your doing all this ---- for me?”
“I haven’t said anything about it,” he replied coolly. “I wanted you
to see it first. Probably she’s noticed the workmen and ladders and
general upheaval, but she has not come close to see. We’ll ask her to
come to tea, shall we, and watch how she takes it? Here’s Hopton, come
to tell us tea is ready.”
“Not now, Charles,” she begged prettily. “Ask her after tea; not now.
Let us have tea, just you and me!”
He was delighted, led her affectionately to where the silver gleamed,
made her pour out for him, purred his proud joy in her.
“As we take mother round,” he said, “you shall choose your rooms; and
your furniture also if you like. This is your coming into residence. We
must be duly ceremonious.”
She clapped her hands.
“Any rooms I like? How lovely! You really are a darling!”
They smiled at one another, radiant with the excited pleasure of the
hour.
§2
Mrs. Plethern accepted her son’s invitation and went the round of the
downstairs innovations with laconic courtesy.
“Very nice, Charles,” she said. Or; “You have taken a lot of trouble.”
Or; “I am glad to see these rooms ready for use again.” To Viola she
would turn with one of her secret smiles. “He has been energetic on
your behalf, my dear.” Or: “It is a large house for two people to live
in.” Or: “I must think of removing from my aerie.” The old lady was
fond of describing her tower as an aerie. The association of ideas was
ridiculous; also a little disgusting.
This afternoon, in the delight of her homecoming, Viola had little
consciousness of recoil, though she was hard put to it, now and then,
to meet Mrs. Plethern’s comments. They had the words of platitude but
the insistence of a double meaning.
“He has been far too kind!” she said.
But the note of enthusiasm struck dead on a dead atmosphere.
“Charles is always kind,” the old lady purred.
Viola tried humorous deprecation:
“I feel overawed already. Such a house blots me out! Perhaps he has
done it purposely? Have you done it purposely--to make me a teeny,
wretched atom?” She pouted at her guardian, while her eyes danced with
laughter.
“Charles is a man of purpose, darling,” replied Mrs. Plethern, and the
chuckle that followed was so audible to Viola that she wondered he said
nothing, nor helped the discussion in any way save by a quiet smile.
A little later, when, to order some detail of his renovations, he
left them together, Mrs. Plethern changed her tone. She became almost
garrulous, urging her speech to the staccato canter of a plumed
funeral-horse, flogged to indecent haste by a hearse-load of drunken
mutes.
“These rooms,” she began “--these great, beautiful rooms were built for
_me_. _I_ ordered them. _Mine_ was the dignity and grace
they were to frame. If you had known my husband, child, you would have
seen proof of the power a clever woman has over her menfolk. You know
his story?... Not at all?... Oh, that he was rich? That was a small
part of it. He made his money by _work_, Viola, hard, ruthless
_work_. He inherited nothing, or next to nothing. This house--a
ruin. A few fields--nettle-beds and heaps of stones. But he had worked
and fought and came home to enjoy his wealth--and me!” She leered a
moment and hurried on. “I married him to save him from himself and from
robbers. They are fools, these money-makers. He, who could dominate
a crowd of Tartars, was a doll in the hands of any smart adventurer
from London. I came to save him from his credulity. And I did save
him. You see the gardens yonder--those on this side are of _his_
making; I saved some part of the rest---- You see how they are messed
about with shrubs and pergolas and tricksey ribbon paths? That was his
taste. That was his idea of finery. And then I came. He was about to
‘improve’ the house, _Improve_ it--with a steep roof and glass
and iron and windows like bulging boils! He would have made it like
Clonsall. You have seen Clonsall? No? Well, perhaps you will some day.
It is over there--five or six miles away. They had money at Clonsall
once; and they used it to make their house a swollen villa. I saved
Morvane from that. What one cares for should be secret. One’s thoughts,
one’s possessions--all secret. So in a house. Start from within, and
stop half-way to the outside. You see the result. Morvane is black and
stern, as it has been this two hundred years. But _inside_ we
transformed it, No one could guess the kind of place I lived in, unless
I asked them to come and see it. That pleased me...”
She stopped suddenly and threw a baleful look round the ornate
immensity of the saloon.
“That pleased me,” she repeated a little sulkily, “----until I grew too
old to leave my tower. And when _I_ grew too old, my lovely rooms
were forgotten. Shut up. Empty and dirty. I got used to that. Almost
I liked to think of them, deserted and dark ... _my_ rooms, from
which I had withdrawn, from which life had withdrawn ... and now this
has happened and I am invited to view the enterprise and invention of
my son!”
Rising heavily to her feet she looked down at the trembling girl. Her
voice became soft and treacherous.
“Do you wonder, my dear, that I am a little amused? Do you wonder
that I ask myself why this should happen--_now_? Listen; I will
tell you a story. There was a king once who built a pleasure-garden
for his subjects. They wandered in it and heard music in its fine
pavilions and watched their children play on the shady grass, though
never a penny did they pay or were they asked to pay. But at last there
came revolution, and a few professors and writers of unsuccessful
books roused the mob to blind fury, so that the king was driven out
and his palace converted to the use of typists and junior officials.
For long enough the pleasure-gardens sank into decay, until one day
the new government ran short of money. A stranger came to the city,
awhile afterwards, and fell into conversation with a man next him in a
tram. The tram was passing the gates of a park, in the midst of which
newly-painted pavilions shone white and gold. ‘What is that place?’
asked the stranger. ‘That? Oh--that is the Palace of Love. A government
show. Good idea, isn’t it? Huge revenue it brings in.’ The stranger
left the city the next day. He was the ex-king.... Well, I must go
back to my tower. Good-night, dear child. I have tired you a little, I
fear....”
* * * * *
When Charles returned he found Viola seated where he had left her, head
sunk in abstracted thought.
“Sorry I’ve been such an age,” he said cheerfully. “Has mother gone?
What’s the matter, Viola? You look fagged out.”
With an effort she smiled reassuringly.
“It’s all right. I am a bit tired, I think. Mrs. Plethern has been
telling me about these rooms.... And then ... she told me a story....
Such a queer story....”
He laughed.
“A story? Good heavens, you mustn’t worry about mother’s stories! She
has her fancies, you know, like all old people. Come along! You haven’t
chosen your rooms and it’s getting late.”
“I think I’ll wait till to-morrow, if you don’t mind.”
A shadow of disappointment clouded his face. It was a genuine face,
clever and selfish perhaps, but genuine.
She felt a sudden compunction. “Don’t press me, Charles! It’s lovely
of you to do all this for me, and I’m awfully, awfully grateful. But I
can’t choose to-night. Let me off till to-morrow.”
In a moment he was his usual gay self. “Of course, my dear. Much wiser.
Why not lie down a bit before dinner? I have rushed you about too much,
like the unimaginative old fool I am!”
She patted his hand and they left the saloon together.
But at dinner she was still listless. The gaiety of the afternoon,
the pleasure of homecoming, of feeling welcome, that had relaxed so
suddenly the bonds of diffident restraint, had vanished. Charles
sought to rouse interest in one subject after another, until, as the
meal progressed and Viola slipped farther and farther into the remote
shadows of preoccupation, he thought to connect his mother with the
queer extinction of his ward’s serenity. Over coffee and for half an
hour on the cool, dark terrace, with the indifferent whisper of the
avenue sounding faintly beyond the flower-beds, he kept up quiet,
casual talk of guests and merrymaking.
“Belinda will come, whether I ask her or not,” he said. “You will be
writing to Daniel?”
Viola nodded.
“He asked me to,” she remarked candidly.
Charles smiled to himself.
“When is he free to come?” he asked.
“Any time--I gathered!”
“We may sleep peacefully till October, then. I always judge the
international situation by Foreign Office leave. Naïve of me, no doubt,
but then I am.”
She rustled appreciatively.
“I have been with Corinne,” she reminded him.
“Has the kitten left me no shade of innocence?”
“Innocence isn’t everything.”
He pretended dismay.
“Viola! At your age to have such cynicism!”
When she had said good night and left him alone, he reverted to his
mother’s share in the whole problem of the girl’s future. If he had no
illusions about his mother, he was also too indolent ever thoroughly
to have appreciated her nature. He had felt dimly that as sole
companion for a young girl, Mrs. Plethern was unsatisfactory; but her
shortcomings had seemed due as much to infirmity and disparity of age
as to qualities of character. For a time he had considered finding
some young woman to live at Morvane and partner Viola. But he had
disliked the thought of establishing a poor relation in his house,
and with other suitable women he had no acquaintance. Even Belinda
Grieve could not be trusted to select so momentous a dependent. In
the end, therefore, he had decided himself to take charge of Viola’s
home-making and to remain steadily at Morvane for the first period of
her new life. This determination had driven his mother from his mind;
she had become once again an incidental, no more obtrusive than of
old; she would be present in her tower as she had ever been; she would
influence Morvane and its inhabitants as little as she had ever done.
Recent happenings, however, suggested a revision of judgment. Was the
old lady so negligible? Had she been negligible this very afternoon?
Had she not, mysteriously but completely, extinguished in Viola the
flame of merriment that had warmed his heart from the first moment
of meeting on the country platform? Guardianship had at present all
the lure of novelty. He was jealous of his lately assumed dominion,
and interference--from his mother or from any other quarter--was
inadmissible. The sooner Mrs. Plethern understood the limitations of
her duty, the better for all concerned. His face set a little grimly
and he watched with narrowing lids the curving gleam of his cigarette
flung over the dim coping of the balustrade into the darkness of the
lawn. Then, with the arrogant haste of an impulsive nature, he rose
from his chair and walked quickly toward the campanile.
But, woefully for the girl in whose defence he armed himself, there
came to crowd her from his mind another, older championage. Wilkinson
had reported--Charles recalled the letter on the luncheon-table; the
imminence of Viola had driven it from his memory--that extension of
Morvane might be possible toward the north; Wilkinson was awaiting his
employer’s sanction to negotiate. Charles stood in mid-lawn, seeking to
visualize the land to which his agent made reference. It was contiguous
to Morvane, but of respectable extent and agriculturally desirable;
were it Plethern land, the holding between its boundary and that of
Morvane proper could gradually be ‘influenced’. Charles nodded approval
to his thoughts. He must reply to Wilkinson at once; to-morrow for Mrs.
Plethern; to-morrow for the self-assertion of a guardian; to-day for
Morvane. He turned on his heel and sought his library.
Over her patience cards the old lady gloomed in untutored malice;
lovely in her virgin bed, golden Miss Viola slept her way to
cheerfulness again.
Thus imperceptibly do crises come and go; another day and Charles’
resolution would be past; another day and Viola (unwarned, unarmed)
must take, for good or ill, the road of unprotected luxury.