Maud Verrall threw down her tennis racket; she said she was tired--a
polite excuse for the termination of a game that afforded her no
excitement. Stella Carrington was not a stimulating opponent; if she did
not miss the ball, she sent it sky-high or out of court.
Stella saw through and sympathised with the excuse. "You see," she said
regretfully, "I have had so little chance of practice. Even if we had a
tennis court at The Chestnuts, there is no one for me to play with."
"Let's go into the Lovers' Walk and talk till tea-time," Maud Verrall
suggested; if Stella could not play tennis she might at least prove a
satisfactory recipient of confidences, and Maud had much to impart that
would surely astonish the unsophisticated girl from The Chestnuts.
Arm in arm they strolled up and down the shady retreat arched over with
lilac, laburnum, syringa, while Maud discoursed on the charms of the
latest comic opera that had taken London by storm, and sang snatches of
the songs to her envious companion; from that she went on to tell of
boy-and-girl dances, and bicycling parties, and this led to disclosures
concerning "desperate" adorers who were "perfectly mad" about Miss
Verrall. There was one in particular--his name was Fred Glossop.
"Poor dear, he is awfully gone. I feel sorry for him. Would you like to
see his photograph?" She drew a folding leather case from her pocket and
displayed to the other's interested gaze the portrait of a handsome
youth with curly hair and a distinct shade on his upper lip.
"Are you going to marry him?" inquired Stella.
"Oh! I shan't marry just yet," explained Maud. "I have told him so
frankly. Perhaps in a couple of years, if I meet no one I like better,
he might do. He is quite good looking, and he's going into the Army. I
let him write to me--mother never bothers about my letters; but while I
was still at school he had to write as if he was my dearest
girl-friend--signed himself 'Lily'--because all our correspondence that
was not in the handwriting of parents was opened. I'm to "come out" when
we go back to London. I shall make my people give a fancy dress ball.
What do you think of a Greek dress--white, with a key pattern in gold,
and a big peacock feather fan?"
Stella was ruefully silent. She felt small and humble; there were no
balls, no young men, no "coming out" on her dull horizon.
"And what about you?" asked Maud with kindly, if belated, interest; "you
must have a deadly time in this hole all the year round. I'm tired of it
already. How can you stand it?"
"I have to stand it!" said Stella, grimly resigned. "But I'm going to
school--to a school at Torquay."
"How awful--a horrible place. I went there once after I had measles; and
school, too, at your age! Hasn't the term begun?"
"I suppose so, but it does not seem to matter. Anyway, it will be a
change."
"It won't be so bad if they take you to concerts and lectures, and you
go out riding. Our riding master was a picture; lots of the girls were
mad about him; but he liked me best because I didn't take too much
notice of him. Believe me, my dear, men think all the more of you if you
don't run after them. There was a creature always at the lectures we
went to who gazed at me the whole time and used to follow us when we
went out, trying to get near enough to speak to me. The other girls were
frantic with jealousy. Once or twice I gave him the chance of slipping a
note into my hand; it's quite easy--you put your hand behind your back,
like this, and gaze in another direction, and if a governess happens to
be too close, you just speak to her and distract her attention. I only
once got into a row--it was coming away from church."...
This line of conversation was pursued whenever Stella was invited to The
Court as company for Maud, and when Maud visited her friend at The
Chestnuts. What, oh! what would have been the feelings of grandmamma and
the aunts could they have overheard such vulgar, pernicious talk? To
women of their type and upbringing this dawning of the most powerful of
all instincts would have seemed a matter for the severest censure--not a
natural symptom to be guided into safe and open channels, but a danger
to be dealt with as sinful, corrupt. Intuitively Stella felt that Maud's
enthralling confidences would be condemned with horror by her relations;
and when Aunt Augusta, vaguely suspicious, inquired one day what the
two young people found to talk about, self-preservation prompted a
careless and misleading reply: "Oh, I don't know; Maud's school, and all
that sort of thing."
Reassured, Aunt Augusta considered this perfectly satisfactory and
natural, seeing that Stella was soon to begin school-life herself.
Maud Verrall's egoistical communications, innocent enough in themselves
(though scarcely to be commended), led, indirectly, after the manner of
trivial happenings, to far-reaching results. One of the immediate
consequences of Stella's newly awakened interest in the opposite sex was
her expulsion from Miss Ogle's high-principled establishment before her
first term was over.
From the moment of her arrival at Greystones Stella was in constant hot
water. According to the school standards she was backward, and her
capabilities were hopelessly unequal; she wasted hours that should have
resulted in progress over work she disliked, whereas in the subjects
that attracted her she outstripped her class. Her talent for music was
undeniable, but she shirked the drudgery of practice, and her fatal
facility for playing by ear was ever in the way. She was not popular,
for she made no concealment of her contempt for sickly adorations and
fashionable fawnings on governesses and senior girls. The life irked
her, and her disappointment was keen to find that at Greystones there
was no question of concerts and lectures; that no finishing extras
figured on Miss Ogle's programme such as might have afforded the sort
of excitement described by Maud Verrall as an antidote to the monotony
of school existence. She hated the daily crocodile walk; true, there was
a tennis court, but the game was a monopoly of the first class, while
the rest of the school marched two and two along dusty roads and
uninteresting byways. Stella moped.
Then, one fatal afternoon, the daily procession passed through the town,
a treat permitted once in the term, and as they all tramped the pavement
of the principal thoroughfare, past fascinating shops that held the
attention of governesses and girls, a flashy looking youth, loitering on
the kerb, caught Stella's eye. She remembered Maud Verrall and that
daring young person's adventures; what a triumph if she could tell Maud,
in the summer holidays, that she had attracted the admiration of a real
live young man! Maud had advocated a swift side-glance, especially if
one had long eyelashes. Stella tried the experiment in passing the
youth, who wore a loud waistcoat and had an immature moustache. She felt
rather alarmed at her success. The young man responded with alacrity,
and proceeded to follow the school at a discreet distance; followed when
the "crocodile" turned to climb the hill; and was still in attendance
when it reached the gate of the short drive.
Stella throbbed with excitement. She wondered what he would do now;
would he linger outside; would he return to-morrow and be there when
they emerged for the walk, just to obtain a glimpse of her as they
passed? She thought his appearance rather dreadful; but at any rate, he
was a young man, an admirer; all that she regretted was that she could
not write now and tell Maud Verrall how he had followed the school on a
blazing hot day up a steep hill, all on her, Stella's, account!
A game of tennis was in progress as the girls filed up the sloping drive
and scattered on the edge of the lawn, and at this moment, as it
happened, a ball was sent over the privet hedge into the road below.
Stella saw her chance.
"All right!" she shouted to the players. "I'll run and get it." And she
raced back down the drive and through the open gate. There was the
admirer lurking on the sidepath! He darted forward, an eager expression
on his countenance that, even in her agitation, Stella remarked was
sallow and spotty; also, as he grinned, she saw that his teeth were bad.
What a pity! But it flashed through her mind that such drawbacks need
not, when the time came, be cited to Maud. She would tell Maud, when
they met, that he was "a picture!"
Affecting not to see him, and with a fluttering heart, Stella pounced on
the tennis ball that lay in the middle of the road; and "the picture,"
murmuring something she could not catch, pounced also, and thrust a
piece of paper into her hand. Just at that moment, by all the laws of
ill-luck, Miss Ogle herself came in sight, advancing along the road,
with floating veil and fringed parasol, returning from a private
constitutional.
The letter that brought the appalling news to The Chestnuts of Stella's
disgrace was addressed to Miss Augusta Carrington. Even the customary
ignoring of unpleasant facts was not proof against such a staggering
blow. Stella! the granddaughter, the niece, the child they had cherished
and guarded and reared with such care--to think that she should have
been detected in a vulgar intrigue, and could no longer be harboured at
Greystones lest she should contaminate her schoolfellows! It was almost
too terrible to contemplate, and for once the three ladies permitted
themselves the freedom of natural behaviour. Augusta very nearly
stormed; Ellen wept bitterly; grandmamma said: "Like mother, like
daughter," in an awful voice, and "What's bred in the bone will out in
the flesh." The household was steeped in gloom. They all regretted that
there was no male head of the family to whom they could turn for advice
in this distressing difficulty; and it was Augusta who at last suggested
that Stella's godfather, Colonel Crayfield, should be consulted. Was he
not an old friend of "poor Charles"? And only a few days ago there had
come a letter from him saying that he was at home on short leave from
India, asking for news of his little goddaughter.
Augusta had answered the letter; how humiliating now, in the light of
this subsequent catastrophe, to recall the hopeful description she had
given of poor Charles's child! The confession of Stella's downfall,
should they decide to consult Colonel Crayfield, would be a painful
undertaking; but he was such a worthy, dependable character, and who
could be more fitted, as they all agreed, to give counsel in such a
terrible predicament than the child's own sponsor--the trusted friend of
the dead father, since there was no male member of the Carrington
family to whom they could appeal?
Last time Colonel Crayfield came home, ten years ago, he had spent a
couple of days at The Chestnuts--rather a trial for hostesses who were
unaccustomed to the entertaining of gentlemen, but on the whole the
visit was felt to have been a success. Mamma and Augusta had even
suspected that he was attracted by Ellen, though, according to
Carrington custom, neither had voiced the idea. Ellen, however, could
have given him no encouragement, for nothing came of it, suitable as
such an alliance would have seemed on both sides. Colonel Crayfield was
that amphibious production of the Indian services--a military man in
civil employ, holding responsible, well-paid office; on the occasion of
his brief visit to The Chestnuts he had not disagreed with Miss Augusta
when she expressed her admiration of missionary efforts in the East; he
had only just tasted the wine that was offered him; he had not smoked in
the house, though the pantry was at his disposal for the purpose. All
these good points were recalled during the discussion that ensued as to
whether he should be approached for advice concerning his goddaughter's
future, and such recollections went far towards shaping the final
decision of grandmamma and Augusta, tearfully supported by Ellen. The
whole dreadful truth should be written to Colonel Crayfield, with an
urgent invitation to visit The Chestnuts once more.
Meantime Stella was on her way home, shamefaced, unhappy. The fuss at
Greystones had been frightful, the whole affair bewildering--the
condemnation, the feeling of hopeless inability to defend herself; then
the hasty packing, the self-righteous, disparaging attitude of the
girls, and the stares of the servants; the humiliating departure,
sentinelled to the last moment by Miss Ogle herself, wrathful and stern,
who put her into a compartment for ladies only, in the care of the
guard.
The time that elapsed between her return to The Chestnuts and the day of
Colonel Crayfield's arrival was to Stella a species of purgatory.
Grandmamma and the aunts hardly spoke to her, she was forbidden to go
beyond the garden, no explanation of her conduct was invited, though,
indeed, what explanation could she have given, since it was perfectly
true that Miss Ogle had caught her receiving a note from a strange young
man; and with it all she had not even had a chance to read the note--she
would have given _worlds_ to know what the young man had written!
The culprit was sent to the station in the village wagonette to meet her
godfather, and she welcomed the distraction, awkward though it would be
to face Colonel Crayfield in the uncomfortable circumstances. The
situation struck her as almost grotesque; here she was, driving through
the familiar lanes in the late July sunshine, as an outcast and a
sinner, to meet an old gentleman who had been summoned to sit in
judgment upon her! And, after all, she had done nothing worse, nothing
half so bad, as Maud Verrall; and Maud had not been expelled from school
as a sort of leper. She wished Maud was at The Court; but that happy
young creature was disporting herself in London, and Stella had not the
spirit left to write to her.
Arrived at the little countryside station, a six-mile drive from The
Chestnuts, she seated herself on a bench to await the train from London,
and gazed vacantly at the white palings, at the dazzling herbaceous
border, butterflies floating above it. She felt sorely oppressed, but
more from a sense of misfortune than from shame or repentance. How
unlucky she was! The future held nothing enjoyable; she saw herself
living on at The Chestnuts indefinitely. Grandmamma might die some day,
but she and the aunts would grow older and older, and they would all
continue to sing in church that they dared not choose their lot, and
would not if they might. Stella remembered the case of Miss Spurt, the
only daughter of a clergyman in a neighbouring parish, who, two or three
years back, had run away with her father's groom-gardener. The scandal
had petrified the county; whispers of it had reached Stella's sharp
ears, though the subject was never mentioned in her presence at The
Chestnuts. Now she wondered what had become of Miss Spurt, and she even
began to sympathise with the poor girl's mad action.
Supposing she herself were driven to do the same sort of thing; to
elope, for example, with the solitary porter who stood leaning against
the waiting-room wall, should he suggest such a desperate step! She
regarded him with idle attention, feeling stupefied with the prevailing
somnolence of the station, the heat of the shadeless, empty platform; he
was a fresh-looking boy, with a cap on the back of his head and a curl
of glistening hair plastered to his forehead. Suddenly he stood erect,
stretched his arms, gave a loud yawn, and seized a handbell that he
rang with deafening clamour. So here was the train at last, thank
goodness!
One or two people hurried, perspiring, breathless, on to the platform; a
few more ran over the rails from the opposite side, there being no
footbridge; the station-master emerged from his office and took up a
commanding position. The train rumbled in.
During the long, hot journey from London, Colonel Crayfield had been
repenting his good-natured acquiescence to what seemed to him a rather
exacting, inconsiderate request. At first his fancy had been tickled by
the notion that he, an elderly bachelor, should present himself in this
semi-parental rôle; also he was anxious to see the little girl, his
godchild, who apparently threatened to follow in her mother's footsteps,
though from what he remembered of Charles Carrington, she was more
likely to have inherited unstable tendencies from her father! Charles
had always been foolish and weak where affairs of the heart were
concerned; but in his final "affair," with the young wife of a
singularly unsuitable husband, he was certainly more to be pitied than
blamed. That time he had really been _done for_, and he had behaved well
in the circumstances; he, Colonel Crayfield, had stood by the guilty
pair, and helped Charles to change his regiment, had consented to be
sponsor to the unwelcome child. But, with the usual result of
good-natured actions, it seemed that his responsibilities were never to
end; and partly for the sake of Charles Carrington's memory, partly to
satisfy a newly aroused interest, here he was on his way to give counsel
to three old prudes in the matter of a naughty girl who had got into a
scrape at school! What form this counsel was to take he had not the
remotest idea; he knew nothing about schoolgirls; probably it was all a
storm in a teacup. What on earth had persuaded him to waste his time in
such useless fashion!
As he stepped out of the train in company with a few women bearing
market baskets and a sprinkling of farmers wearing breeches and gaiters,
he wished again that he had not yielded to sentiment and curiosity;
visits bored him; he had been bored on the last occasion, ten years ago,
when he had gone on duty to The Chestnuts. He remembered the ordeal
well: Charles's formal, austere old mother, his uninteresting sisters,
the undrinkable wine, Charles's child of six or seven years old, who had
sniffed and fidgeted and refused to make friends, and was no different
from other children of her age; he even remembered that the village was
a long distance from the station, and he hoped that neither of the
Carrington spinsters had come to the station to meet him.
Stella, standing expectant on the platform, saw a powerful-looking man,
clean shaven, blunt-featured, inclined to stoutness, who moved
ponderously--rather like a big Chinaman, a mandarin. As she stepped
forward he stared at her, and the stare gave her an odd feeling of
shyness. She would have to introduce herself; he did not know that she
was to meet him at the station. He was not at all what she had
expected; she had pictured a fussy old person with a protruding
stomach, a beard, and spectacles!
Colonel Crayfield was equally taken aback. His experienced glance had
been instantly arrested by the vision of a remarkably good-looking girl,
tall and slim, who, though her skirt only reached to her ankles, whose
hair was tied back with a large ribbon bow, was clearly no child; and he
had gazed at the vision as he would hardly have permitted himself to
gaze had he realised that the girl was his goddaughter! All the same,
the situation entertained him; he no longer wished he had refused to
respond to Miss Carrington's appeal.
Colonel Crayfield raised his hat. "Then you are Stella--my godchild? How
d'ye do, Stella?"
The radiant brown eyes met his own. What an unnecessarily pretty
creature; no wonder there had been trouble connected with boys!
"Yes, they sent me to meet you," and she flushed with the consciousness
that he knew of her misbehaviour.
"Very kind of them to send you; very kind of you to come!" He looked
around. "Now for my bag," he added briskly, "and then we can be off."
Stella sighed with mingled doubt and relief; instinctively she felt that
to Colonel Crayfield she was no criminal. Yet the remembrance of his
glance when he first set eyes upon her, not knowing who she was, still
disturbed her strangely. She abandoned all attempt to understand the
doubt, and allowed her relief full play. Her spirits rose. During the
drive to The Chestnuts she chattered freely, pointing out landmarks,
telling stories of the people and the past; and never once did her
godfather allude to the reason of his coming, for which consideration
she was deeply grateful.
On arrival at The Chestnuts even the solemn faces of grandmamma and the
aunts could not depress her; she sprang from the wagonette and ran into
the house with a gaiety most unbecoming in one who had been expelled
from school on a charge that was truly shocking.
After tea she escaped, went down to the stream at the bottom of the
garden and watched grandmamma pacing the terrace in front of the house
on Colonel Crayfield's arm. Grandmamma wore her brown bonnet and her
cashmere shawl, and carried her ebony walking-stick. Stella ached to
know what they were saying; of course, it was to do with herself, and
how she should be punished. If only that nice old fellow would devise
some means of escape for her from her deadly imprisonment!
Mrs. Carrington was saying: "Stella is very irresponsible, and does not
seem to realise how badly she has behaved. I fear she has inherited her
mother's light nature, and what we are to do with her is a problem. It
is not as if we could hope for a suitable marriage in the future,
situated as we are."
"It is a difficult question," said Colonel Crayfield evasively. His eyes
turned to the slim figure that flitted beside the stream. He knew by the
weighty silence that followed that he was expected to make some useful
suggestion.
At last he said desperately: "If I were not a bachelor and could offer
her a chance in India----" then he paused.
Grandmamma glanced at him furtively. Was he thinking of Ellen? What an
admirable solution of the difficulty were he to marry Ellen, and thereby
not only secure a most suitable wife for himself, but provide an equally
suitable haven for Stella till the child could be settled in life. And
just at that moment, as if in response to the old lady's thoughts, Ellen
herself came out of the house. Really, Mrs. Carrington reflected, Ellen
did not look anything like her age, and she was dressed so
becomingly--not too much in the present fashion, which all three ladies
considered so ugly. Grandmamma suddenly discovered that she was
fatigued; that she had taken sufficient exercise for to-day, and would
step into the drawing-room for a rest before dinner. Oh, dear no!--Ellen
and Colonel Crayfield must not trouble about her; no need for them to
come indoors just yet on such a pleasant evening; she would prefer to be
quiet, and perhaps a short nap....
So Ellen and Colonel Crayfield took a little stroll in the garden, and
the gentleman also took the opportunity to make a request connected with
his own comfort.
"I hope I shall not be giving too much trouble, dear Miss Ellen," he
said with diffidence, "but might a tray be put in my bedroom overnight?
I am afraid I am a victim to old Indian habits, and one of them is that
I wake very early and long for a cup of tea. I have my own kettle and
spirit stand--I never move without them in England--so that if a teapot
and some tea, and a little milk----"
Ellen eagerly assented. Of course; it would be no trouble at all. She
was _so glad_ he should have mentioned it. "And I do hope you will ask
for exactly what you want. I will tell Betty, and see that she arranges
the tray properly."
"If it might be a fairly big teapot and a breakfast cup ..." pursued
Colonel Crayfield. (What he had suffered in English households from
"dainty little morning tea-sets"!--a teapot the size of an apple, a cup
to match, tea so thick and strong that it might have been jam.)
Ellen wondered nervously if there would be enough milk left overnight
for the visitor's tray. Betty was always so careful not to take more
than was actually required for the household. "I think I will just run
indoors," she said apologetically, "and tell Betty what to do, so that
she will be sure not to forget anything."
"You are more than kind!" exclaimed Colonel Crayfield with fervour; but
he did not add that he hoped she would speedily return and continue
their stroll. And when Ellen reappeared, smiling and triumphant, he was
nowhere to be seen. Neither was Stella in sight; and Ellen finally
discovered the pair in the kitchen garden.
Stella had crawled beneath a net that protected the gooseberries from
the birds. Colonel Crayfield was standing stolid and large on the path,
and Stella was handing him berries through the meshes of the net. He was
not eating the fruit, and Ellen felt that this was compatible with his
dignity and his years. She could not imagine Colonel Crayfield sucking
gooseberries and throwing the skins about! It seemed he was collecting
them for Stella, who, bent double, was robbing the bushes--such an
ungainly attitude for a young lady.
"Stella!" called Aunt Ellen in reproof, "you are tearing your frock!"
The child looked a disgraceful object as she emerged from the nets; a
long rent in one of her sleeves disclosed a round white arm with a red
scratch in the flesh, her face was crimson, her hair in disorder, she
was covered with twigs and bits, and her mouth was sticky with
gooseberry juice. Laughing, she held out her skirt, like an apron, for
the fruit that filled Colonel Crayfield's large mahogany-coloured hands.
Ellen felt truly ashamed of her niece. What would Colonel Crayfield be
thinking of his goddaughter, and of the way in which she had been
brought up! Had Ellen observed the look in Colonel Crayfield's eyes at
the moment, she would probably have mistaken it for astonished
disapproval; as it was, she only observed that he gazed at Stella in
silence, at the shining hair that fell over her forehead, at the
wide-open brown eyes, thickly lashed and full of mischief, at the
flushed cheeks and parted lips, that showed a row of faultless little
teeth, and at the red scratch on the white forearm.
Stella, unabashed, proffered her skirt, full of fruit, to her aunt. "Do
have some, Aunt Ellen," she cried joyously. "They're ripping, especially
the big, hairy fellows."
"You will spoil your dinner," said Aunt Ellen severely, "as you have
already spoilt your frock."
"Like little Miss Jane," and Stella chanted:
"Greedy, greedy little Miss Jane,
I'll never give _her_ a present again.
She spent her sixpence on raspberry rock,
And spoilt her dinner as well as her frock."
Colonel Crayfield actually laughed; moreover, he accepted a gooseberry
from Stella's grubby fingers and ate it fastidiously, burying the skin
in the mould with the toe of his boot.
That evening grandmamma's hopes ran high. Augusta sent Stella to bed
early, and afterwards Colonel Crayfield listened, apparently entranced,
while Ellen played the piano--played "Yorkshire Bells" and "The Village
Blacksmith."