MRS. SEVERN
MRS. SEVERN. A NOVEL
BY MARY E. CARTER,
AUTHOR OF 'JULIET'
'SIN COMES TO US FIRST AS A _TRAVELLER_; IF
ADMITTED, IT WILL SOON BECOME A _GUEST_; IMPORTUNATE
TO RESIDE, AND IF ALLOWED SO FAR, WILL
SOON AND FINALLY BECOME _MASTER_ OF THE HOUSE'
_IN THREE VOLUMES_
_VOL. I_
[Illustration]
LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY & SON, NEW BURLINGTON
STREET, PUBLISHERS IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY
THE QUEEN
MDCCCLXXXIX
_Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, _Edinburgh_
CONTENTS
PART I
PROLOGUE
PAGE
AT ROCOZANNE, JERSEY 1
CHAPTER I
OLD LAFER 19
CHAPTER II
A MIDSUMMER EVENING 39
CHAPTER III
BORLASE IS ABSENT-MINDED 55
CHAPTER IV
JOY AND SORROW JOIN HANDS 70
CHAPTER V
OVER THE HILLS 87
CHAPTER VI
CYNTHIA MARLOWE 108
CHAPTER VII
AT THE MIRES 133
CHAPTER VIII
'SIN THE TRAVELLER' 150
CHAPTER IX
LETTERS 170
CHAPTER X
OPINIONS AT LAFER HALL 190
CHAPTER XI
NEW LIGHTS ON OLD SUBJECTS 206
CHAPTER XII
COUNTER-OPINIONS AT OLD LAFER 230
CHAPTER XIII
SCILLA REASONS WITH HARTAS 253
MRS. SEVERN
PART I
PROLOGUE
AT ROCOZANNE, JERSEY
'It's very good of you to have met me, Ambrose.'
'But very unnecessary?'
Mr. Severn laughed consciously, but re-covered himself by spreading
his broad palm below his nostrils, and smoothing, with a slow downward
movement, the close-cut moustache and beard that concealed his lips and
chin. It was a new habit, but the growth also was new, and Ambrose was
surprised to find that it took ten years from his age.
'Well, you know I told you not to meet me.'
'You did, and you don't say for civility's sake what you don't mean.
There are some folk who believe in a system of formal introductions in
Heaven itself. If you'd wished for company to St. Brelade's you would
have left the point to my notions of propriety. However, I'll reassure
you. I am going into town with the returning train.'
'I'll wait and see you off.'
'And do as you please about driving. If you prefer to walk, the dog-cart
will wait for me.'
'Thanks, I should prefer to walk,' said Mr. Severn.
They had reached the end of the platform and now turned back towards the
bay. Its waves were tossing with spray-crested edges into which gulls
with the sun on their wings were dipping. In the distance a vista of
sun-rays streamed over St. Helier's, lying low along the shore with its
fortified heights in shadow against the blackness of a storm sweeping
up from the West. It was high tide, and Elizabeth Castle was surrounded
by a rolling sea. A curve of yellow sand, with here and there a martello
tower, marked the coast-line. The air was full of the rush of the waves
and the sough of a rising wind.
'If ever I marry, I don't think I shall act on your experience of the
previous forty hours,' said Ambrose Piton, as they strolled back to the
train with a few more leisurely people. 'A drive of five miles from
your Yorkshire moors at Old Lafer to the nearest station, Wonston, I
suppose--a rush down England to Southampton, ten hours' pitching in
a dirty sea, by our caterpillar of a train to St. Aubin's here, and
finally a three miles' walk. By Jove, you must be feeling rather done
up.'
'Oh no, I'm accustomed to such journeys. I did precisely the same with
the exception of this final walk when I came out to Jersey five months
ago and had the good fortune to fall in with Miss Hugo. You'll probably
not be a man of fifty, overwhelmed with other people's business, when
you marry, Ambrose. It's this walk to Rocozanne that amuses you,' he
added, with a genial smile. 'You think it inconsistent with a lover's
ardour that I should not go as fast as your good mare would take me. The
truth is, I want an hour's leisure. When one marries a second time and
is my age, and it is a young girl who is good enough to take one, the
responsibilities are much greater than when two young people marry; one
has more misgiving, you know, about one's wife being happy. Since I won
Clothilde I have scarcely had time to realise my good fortune. Through
this journey I've struggled with correspondence that would be arrears
of work if left over next week. And now a walk will freshen me up and
adjust my thoughts to a proper balance, since to-morrow, please God, I
shall be married. My age must be the excuse for what yours takes for
lukewarmness.'
'I don't think you lukewarm,' said Piton bluntly. 'But I'll tell you
what, sir, you at fifty are more simple-minded than I at twenty-five.'
'Simple-minded? How? I don't understand.'
'You call a spade a spade and you think it is one,' said Piton lamely,
yet with a desperate resolution that showed a serious undercurrent of
thought.
'Of course, being straightforward. You would yourself.'
'Oh, certainly,' said Piton with trepidation. 'Here comes the engine,'
he added with awkward haste as he jumped on to the train.
'One moment--how is she?'
'Clothilde? Very well.'
'And Anna? It's very good of you and Mr. Piton to let us carry little
Anna off.'
'Yes it is,' said Piton. 'But they've never been separated though
they're only half-sisters. And though Anna's my father's niece and
Clothilde is not, and we should like to have her at Rocozanne, we
know she'll be better with a woman; and as we've only servants about,
it seems right that she should go with Clothilde. But my father has
explained all this,' he added, smiling. 'It's a bit of a sore point, we
begrudge her to you.'
'She must come often to Rocozanne.'
'Of course. Now we're off. Don't miss your road.'
'I know the short cuts,' said Mr. Severn, as he turned away. Piton
laughed and waved his hand. Then as he leant forward and watched him
walk up the platform, his face became serious. He was a good-looking
young fellow. Judging from his usual expression of easy good-nature, the
lines of his life had fallen in pleasant places. But now he wore a look
that passed from pain to disgust and resentment.
'If ever there were a good fellow in this world, it's Severn,' he
thought; 'and that's just what makes him fool enough to think himself
unworthy of any woman who seems lovable. I wonder when he'll begin to
see into Clothilde's genuine moral structure. Thank Heaven, he'll not
be marred though he may be maimed; he's made of sterner stuff than
he'll know of till the occasion comes, and he's very fond of Anna, and
nothing'll spoil Anna, not even Clothilde. If I thought she would,
we'd keep her at Rocozanne after all. I longed to blurt out the truth
and tell him of Clothilde's engagement to that poor fellow in India.
She doesn't care a straw for Severn. What heart she has is in the
Punjaub; but because it's given to a poor man she plays it false. And
she wrote him a letter only yesterday, in the old style! I wish Severn
had heard her tell me so--such confounded coolness! A bird in the
hand, et cetera. She'll keep in with Danby until the register's signed
with Severn; if there were a slip at the last moment the compromising
intelligence would never reach the far East, and if she didn't take up
with some one else, she might wait after all. But where would be the use
of telling Severn? It would only make him confoundedly miserable and
scandalise my father, who thinks she's had an amicable disagreement with
the Punjaub, and leave her to cajole some one else. Her beauty would do
it. By Jove, she _is_ beautiful, but she'll never look for Severn what
she looked for Danby! Heaven knows what might become of her if my father
refused to have her here again. She won't work as a music-teacher, not
she! She's dilettante, not enthusiast. Those moors Severn talks of will
be a safe place for her; her wings'll be clipped and she'll be out of
the way of mischief-making. I only hope he'll soon show the master-hand
and guide her by sheer force of example into honesty.'
When Mr. Severn left the station he struck up the ravine behind St.
Aubin's where the road inland ran. As he passed the tumble-down,
crooked old stone houses, whose gloomy dampness made them scarcely fit
for cattle, various old crones and children came out to stare at him.
There was not so tall a man on the island. They knew nothing of Anakims
as personified in Yorkshire dalesmen. His height, his massive limbs
and breadth of shoulder, his jet-black hair, fresh colour and gleaming
teeth, were a revelation to them. A group of market-people waiting at
the station for Corbière pressed up to the railings and made audible
remarks. They were in French, however, and he did not understand. Seeing
them look interested, he nodded, then raised his hat. He was less
interested in them than he had been a little earlier by a water-wheel
against the road which imprisoned a silvery stream that shot over the
edge of a brambly bank above. A little farther on was a quarry, over
whose stone he stood some moments speculating. It struck into the heart
of the hill, an ochreous blotch against the dense velvetiness of the
furze. A man in a blue blouse was chipping at its base. These touched
at once his love of colour, and his instincts as steward for a large
estate where earths and rocks were in constant consideration. There was
a short cut below the quarry to St. Brelade's, but he did not take it.
He and Clothilde Hugo had not taken the short cuts when together, and
he remembered a point on the road which she had showed him from whence
there was a glimpse of the white houses of St. Helier's gleaming against
the amethystine sea in a land-locked setting. He went round by the road
and loitered a little, thinking of her.
How good it was of her to take him! What faith she showed in him! He
fully realised the isolation of the home to which marriage with him
would condemn her. He was not only much older than she but was impressed
by the sense of their different social positions. He had risen from
small tenant-farmer to the stewardship of Admiral Marlowe's estates,
and she was of a good old family that ranked high among the aristocracy
of proud Guernsey. He could give her comfort but not luxury. She was
beautiful, she was clever. Would she feel herself buried at Old Lafer,
or would his affection atone for the loss of social congenialities and
throw a glamour over the eeriness of winter storms and the loneliness of
summer sunshine? The innate poetry of his nature had enthroned her as a
flower among flowers at Rocozanne. He should never forget the wealth of
bloom in the garden when he entered it on his first visit, the glow of
colour from plants that were tropical compared to the homely herbs and
posies of Old Lafer. It had dazzled him. The white house, the blaze of
geranium, the scent of heliotrope, the lap of the sea that quivered in
the sun like the million facets of diamonds, the heat mists that bathed
the cliffs, the mellow mushroom tints of the old church beyond the
evergreen oaks whose glossy denseness of foliage threw the whole picture
into high relief, had impressed him with the perception of brilliancy
and ease and luxury. Clothilde, rising slowly and gracefully from a low
chair in the shade of the trees and coming towards him with outstretched
hands, gave the touch of human nature which at once subordinated all
to itself. Her eyes shone with welcome. Little Anna, running from the
gate into the churchyard betwixt whose bars she had been playing with
the grave-digger's dog, slid her fingers into his palm and stared at
him with an elfish gaze from beneath her breeze-blown hair. Clothilde
stooped, smoothed the hair and kissed the child's forehead. The action
sealed Mr. Severn's fate.
The November twilight was deepening when he reached the highest point
of his walk to-day. A few more steps took him to the edge of the cliffs
above St. Brelade's bay. The sun had set, leaving lurid gleams piercing
a fringe of cloud that seemed to have been torn from the thicker clouds
above, and would soon hide the sky-line in a driving mist of rain.
The wind was increasing. Sheets of foam dashed against Noirmont, the
bay was a waste of tumbled water driving on to the beach. His gaze
travelled across it to the church nestling at the foot of a gorge full
of chestnuts and evergreen oaks. He could distinguish the bulk of its
tower against the hill. The sea-wall that buttressed the grave-yard
was continued along the terrace garden of Rocozanne. But he could not
distinguish Rocozanne until suddenly a light flared out from a window,
and after a fitful gleam or two, settled there.
His heart leapt at the sight of that light. He pleased himself by
imagining that Clothilde had placed it on the sill perhaps to guide
him to her side. His thoughts flew to the many nights when she would
watch for him at Old Lafer. No more lonely evenings there for him, no
more comfortless home-comings to dull and empty rooms. Good God! to
think this beloved and beautiful presence was to be his guiding star.
But he must hurry now. It was certain Clothilde would be expecting
him, pressing her face to the glass and watching the road. Had it been
daylight she could have seen him silhouetted on the cliff edge. She
might expect he was driving and be growing anxious at the delay. He
walked on rapidly, the beat of his heart keeping time with his steps,
his thoughts full of vows and resolutions to compass her lifelong
happiness so far as was in his power. He remembered that once, on a
previous visit he had found her thus looking out when Ambrose and he
had walked late one night. The slight anxiety had then given her a
pinched whiteness which changed to a blush the moment her eyes lit on
them coming up the steps from the beach into the garden. She was at the
door before they were. The tide was not yet too high to admit of his
going up the steps to-day. Perhaps she would again open the door for him.
He was in the village now, and soon traversing it, went down the
sand-bank to the beach, of which a strip was still bare of more sea than
the yeasty flakes flying on the wind. Another moment and he had mounted
the steps. They were overhung by a mass of chrysanthemums in full bloom.
He stepped between two clumps of pampas grass into the garden and faced
the low white front of Rocozanne. All was quiet and at the moment dark.
He stood motionless, listening. Then he perceived that the front door
was wide open. The next moment a glimmer of light fell high upon the
walls within and gradually diffused itself as a figure came slowly down
the stairs. It was Clothilde Hugo. She was carrying a lamp, and as she
reached the lowest step, it illumined her strongly. She was tall and
slender. Her face was pale, with exquisitely cut features, and was set
above a throat of matchless curves. A loose mass of dark wavy hair was
parted above a low white brow. Her sombre eyes gained lustrous depths by
the intensity of her unconscious gaze into the outside gloom. She wore
a black dress, long, flowing, and plain as the fashion then was. It was
cut low, and a ribbon of vividest scarlet velvet was round her throat.
Sleeves hanging from the elbow showed beautifully modelled arms, and a
scarlet band clasped her waist.
She put the lamp upon the table and stood, half-turned to the door,
listening. Oh! if only he could have known the vital fear gnawing at her
heart-strings--he was late; had he not come, had he heard anything,
_was he not coming_? Would she have to wait for Lucius Danby after all?
Well, she had not dismissed Lucius yet, that letter would only go after
she was another man's wife; he need never know----
'Clothilde!'
It was Mr. Severn's voice. He was close to her, so close indeed that
his eager eyes, dimmed with happiness, had no time to see a swift
convulsive shadow that swept over her face, seeming to recall her from
some pleasant dream to a reality that was repugnant to every sense. For
a moment she stood motionless as though paralysed. He seized her hands.
They were icy-cold.
'Clothilde,' he said again, 'my darling, my----'
She turned. Another instant and she was in his arms and had thrown her
arms round his neck. No! no! she had not longed for Lucius! _This_ was
what she had wanted. The haunting fear lest it should fail her was
gone--a fear she would never have known had she not failed another.
But he did not know this. He thought she truly loved him and him only.
CHAPTER I
OLD LAFER
'Now children, come in; bed-time!'
'Oh Anna!' came in a muffled reproachful chorus as four lap-cocks in
the meadow into which Anna Hugo was looking over the garden wall at
Old Lafer, sat up and revealed four children. Three were girls, by
name Antoinette, Emmeline, and Joan. All were handsome--with creamy
skins, dark eyes, and curly brown hair hanging to their waists over
holland smocks. These smocks were cut low at the neck and short-sleeved,
allowing rebellious shoulders to push themselves with shrugs and twists
from their confinement and showing dimpled, nut-brown elbows.
Anna smiled as the children pushed back their hair and turned their
flushed faces to her. She wondered whose voice would be the first to
protest against her hard-heartedness.
'We're playing at graves,' said Emmeline timidly, winks and nods having
failed to make Antoinette take the lead.
'For the very last time this year,' said Antoinette.
'Because this is the very last hay left out at Old Lafer; Elias says
so,' said Jack.
'Well, of course it is,' said Antoinette; 'haven't we played graves in
all the other fields in turn, silly boy?'
'Elias won't be long now, Anna,' said Emmeline. 'He's clearing the last
sledge-load by the beck, and the game is he should guess which lap-cock
is which of us.'
'And when he guesses right we give him a kiss,' said Joan.
'I don't,' said Jack.
'Because you're only a boy,' said Antoinette, whose vocation it seemed
to snub Jack and thus temper any yielding to him as the only boy, to
which others might be tempted.
'You may wait,' said Anna hastily, and as they re-covered themselves
with hay with much subdued tittering and exhortations to caution, and
calling out to Anna to be sure and say if a nose or foot were left
visible, she climbed to the top of the wall and sat down.
The sun was low--a few moments more and it would sink below the moor
behind the house. The shadows lay long on the grass. The garden was
to the right of the front door, whose flight of uneven steps led down
upon flags bright with golden bosses of stone-crop. Old Lafer had a
long frontage and a steep thatched roof with deep eaves where swallows
loved to build. The two rows of windows were latticed with leaded panes;
monthly roses reached to the sills of the lower ones. A thick growth
of ivy round the door was climbing to the eaves at the end of the house
farthest from the garden, heightening the rough effect of the lichened
stone. Below it a little stream, clear and cold as crystal, issued from
beneath the dairy and slipped down the flags in a runnel, murmuring
softly as though eager to hide in the fern-fringed trough on the other
side of the wall. The walls were all full of rue, and polypody, and
crane's-bill--a growth of years--which no one was allowed to touch.
There was nothing Mr. Severn valued more about the place than its bits
of untutored nature. He had a horror of the pruning-knife, which Elias
would have applied ruthlessly to lilacs and thorns, clipping them back
to look tidy. These, edging the fir clump that sheltered Old Lafer from
the north, were allowed to overhang the garden, their wild sprays of
bloom following in fragrance close upon the wall-flowers that grew in a
thick border under the windows of the best parlour. The garden had been
made for the best parlour years ago when Old Lafer was the Hall and the
Marlowes lived there. It was full of old-fashioned flowers and herbs, a
garden for bees to go mad in. Mr. Severn had a row of hives under the
sunniest wall, and before the ling was in blow the bees boomed to and
fro all day on wings that should have been tipsy if they were not. When
the ling was ablow the garden knew them no more.
It was the end of July, and there was a flush on the moors which
rolled abruptly to the sky-line behind the house. In front the meadows
dipped into the valley of the Woss, then rose again to the village
of East Lafer. After this, foliage and cultivation increased. The
plain stretching away to the wolds was varied with fallow and stubble
and pasture. Its tints were opalescent. Anna loved better the deep
blue shadows that lurked in every hollow of the hills, showing their
mouldings and intensifying their sunshine.
When Elias Constantine came up the slope from the beck, he was ahead
of the sledge. His rake was over his shoulder and he leant on a holly
stick. He did not wait for the pony, straining every muscle to land its
load, but casually remarking, 'Hi, come up, Jane my bonny one!' made
for the lap-cocks. He looked up to the business, and winked at Anna as
much as to say so. He lumbered round, prodding one after the other and
contriving to gather some hint for his guesses. He was never random and
hated to be wrong. His keen old eyes did not deceive him now. When Jane
reached them they were all ready to go up the field together, the girls
shaking hay-seeds out of their hair, Jack pushing fodder under Jane's
nose each time Elias 'breathed' her.
'I'm so sorry all our hay's in,' said Antoinette, looking across the
beck to fields still in swathe and pike.
'You wouldn't be if you'd the getting of it,' said Elias. 'It's a
rarely exercising time for watching the weather and the wankly ways o'
Providence wi' shower and shine.'
'Lias, why won't Jane eat this hay?' asked Jack, whose wisps were
snuffed at and disdained.
'Because she's full.'
'Oh! you ought to say she's had plenty; Anna says so,' said Joan.
'Danged if I ought to say otherwise than I do, missie.'
'Oh! what a jolly word, banged!' said Jack.
'I reckon I was wrong there,' said Elias sheepishly.
'It wasn't banged, there's nothing to bang,' said Antoinette.
'I know there are no doors out here, Netta----'
'Now you mean Dinah when she's cross. For shame, Jack.'
'I lay that's when some one's crossed her,' said Elias, who as Dinah's
husband not only knew how doors could bang but was loyal in his excuses.
They had reached the stile now and Elias sent them over it. In his
opinion Miss Anna had waited quite long enough for the 'baärns.' Not
a bit of quiet had she had that day and she must be longing for it.
She was as the apple of his eye. Mrs. Severn might be a handsome lady
but she did not 'act handsome.' He begrudged calling 'Missis' one who
was only such as 'Master's' wife, and in spite of Dinah's exhortations
to conventional respect he very rarely did call her 'Missis'; she was
generally 'Clo' in his vocabulary. What was there of the mistress in
a woman whose time was spent in a hammock under the trees in summer,
and on the sofa in winter, twiddling on a guitar or fiddle or playing
with her children, while her husband ordered the dinners, made up
the tradesmen's books, and at nights had his rest broken by acting as
head-nurse? There had been no comfort about the place until Miss Anna
had left school. Yet Mr. Severn adored his wife! It 'maddled' him how
a man of sense could be so daft! His opinion of him would have sunk
several degrees had he not adored Miss Anna too and thus redeemed his
character from the charge of being taken by good looks. Even Elias knew
she was not handsome by the side of Mrs. Severn and her children, but
she had a smile and a sparkle in her eyes such as Mrs. Severn never had.
Anna jumped from the wall, and crossing the garden met the children on
the flags. They all trailed through the hall and up the shallow oak
stairs, talking in whispers lest mother or baby were asleep. At the
top various strips of old-fashioned corded drugget led to the several
bedroom doors. Mrs. Severn's door was ajar and Jack and Anna peeped in
together, he peering round her skirts and shaking his curly head for the
benefit of the others. There was no sound or movement. The room was low,
heavily-furnished with mahogany and looked dark. A settee covered with
red dimity was drawn across one window. Its cushions were piled high at
one end, and on them rested a dark head and the ivory-like profile of a
face on which fell the last soft gleams of sunshine.
'Clothilde,' said Anna gently.
There was no answer but she advanced, and leaning over the back of the
settee she found that Mrs. Severn's eyes were wide open.
'Come in, children, mother's awake,' she said.
The door was flung wide and they all trooped in and up to the cot where
the baby lay.
'Ah! Clothilde,' said Anna, 'there's none so deaf as those who won't
hear, is there now? I was certain you were awake but you feel lazy, and
the longer you lie here the lazier you will feel! The heat, added to
that constitutional tendency, is stupefying, isn't it?'
She spoke satirically and smiled, but at the same moment tried to
arrange the cushions more comfortably. Mrs. Severn, however, pushed her
away and sat up.
'You always think me lazy when I'm tired; you are a tiresome
contradictious creature,' she said.
'No, I don't, not always. But you would never be so tired if you were
not so lazy, which thing is a paradox! And you look so strong and well
to-night----'
'Strong! I never look strong, Anna; you might as well say robust at
once. And you know I never look vulgar.'
'Dearest, who said a word about vulgarity? I only meant as much as I
said. If to look strong means to be vulgar, then I am so and thank God
for it. But you do look well to-night, and if Mr. Borlase saw you I'm
certain he would say you were well. When are you going to delight our
eyes by being in the parlour again, you beautiful woman? What an ugly
duckling I am among you all, only Elias to comfort me with his "divine
plain face of a woman." Perhaps mine may develop into that phase.'
She had taken up a brush from the dressing-table and loosened Mrs.
Severn's hair. Brushed back from her forehead it swept the cushions in
a dark cloudy mass. Her face was as pale as marble, for now there was
no sunshine to tinge it. Its expression was one of statuesque repose.
The perfect features admitted of no play of thought or feeling; they
were not only blank as an empty page but suggested the inner blank of
utter self-absorption. She looked dreamy and apathetic. Her eyes seemed
larger but were no longer bright; their lustre was quenched as though
an impalpable mist were drawn over them. One felt that whether in joy
or sorrow her face would remain the same. But its beauty and refinement
of chiselled repose was heightened into absolute fascination by that
preoccupied indifference. It roused speculation. What had it been as a
child's face? Had no emotion in girlhood overwhelmed the abstraction,
or had some overwhelming emotion fixed it there? Would she grow old
and still wear it? Death could not enhance its calm. Borlase, her
doctor, giving her skilled attention in her hours of agony, felt with
a strange shiver that even in her agony she was, in some strange way,
impersonal--her epitaph, what could be more appropriate than this, 'She
died as she had lived, coldly?'
And now Anna's deft fingers had gathered up the rich hair and were
plaiting it into plaits to coil high on her head with a tiara-like
effect. Mrs. Severn had raised herself to admit of this manipulation
and watched it in a glass which Anna had put into her hands. When it
was complete Anna stood back and surveyed her, her own face lit up with
proud and enthusiastic delight. But this delight did not affect Mrs.
Severn, who had been pondering over her last words.
'I don't believe in the divine getting inextricably mixed with the
human,' she said.
'That's sheer perversity. You not only rob me of my crumb of comfort but
make yourself out to be heterodox. I don't believe, moreover, that you
ever have thought about it.'
'That is true.'
'Yes, you might say with Hodge, "I mostly thinks o' nowt." Hodge,
digging, is excusable, for there's no inspiration in the mould where the
only variety is in the size of the stones and the worms that he turns
up. But you are so different. I'm sure you would be happier if you were
busier--"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."'
Mrs. Severn listlessly submitted to the vehement kiss with which Anna
finished her lecture.
'When you quote Satan I am at home, but I know nothing of Hodge,' she
said in her slow mellifluous voice.
Anna laughed. It was like demonstrating logic to a jelly-fish to argue
with Clothilde.
'I really believe that's a fact,' she said, 'though Hodge lives at your
doors, and we'll hope Satan has no foothold in the neighbourhood. But
how profane we are! How shocked Canon Tremenheere would be if he heard
us! By the bye, do you know his sister Julia's husband is dead--died
after a few weeks' illness?'
'What could she expect when she married again?'
'He was a strong man and she has been so ailing. What sorrows she has
had!'
'Sorrows? And if she has, she has had great joys too.'
'Oh Clothilde! Well, let us hope that will console her now. Do you think
it would console you?'
'Me? How can I say, Anna? I know neither, I have had neither. The
superlative does not enter into my experience of life.'
'It's your own fault then, dearest,' said Anna wistfully. 'Life is what
we make it. Joy won't come unbidden; we must help to prepare the ground
or there'll only be a weedy plant that will wither in the sun. The joys
of one are the cares of another. I suppose Dad and the children are
cares to you.'
Mrs. Severn was silent. Anna turned, and leaning against the window
looked down into the garden. Its midsummer brilliancy had faded with the
sunshine, and the tangle of flowers, missing the caresses of breeze and
sun and bees, looked subdued and shame-faced. At least so she fancied.
A dewy sweetness hung above, floating up to her in incense-like whiffs.
The landscape was becoming neutral. Above the valley there spread, as
she looked, a haze of blue smoke from a cottage by the beck at the
corner where it tumbled into the Woss.
'Mr. Borlase rode past about six,' said Mrs. Severn suddenly. She
scrutinised Anna as she spoke.
'He would be going into Wherndale. Perhaps he'll come in for supper on
his way home. Dad will be back soon.'
'You might let him see baby, she's been restless. But John is not coming
home to-night. I've had a note from the office; he's gone to Scotland
on business, something important occurred, and nothing would satisfy
the Admiral but that he should start at once. And there's a letter from
Rocozanne, from Ambrose, somewhere,' she added vaguely, searching in
the folds of her dressing-gown. As that was useless she got up, and,
while shaking her draperies, discovered it on the floor. Anna picked
it up. It was addressed to her. She turned it over, half expecting to
find the seal broken. Mrs. Severn had had a habit of opening all the
Rocozanne letters until lately, when Anna had firmly expostulated. This,
however, was intact.
'Why didn't you send it down?' said Anna. 'How long have you had it? You
could have thrown it out when you heard me in the garden. You must have
heard me there.'
'It was enclosed and I forgot it. John's news upset me. Really, the
Admiral might have a little consideration for me. Now read the letter,
Anna. Is there any news from Rocozanne? I suppose the Kerrs' yacht won't
have got to Jersey yet; they can't have seen Miss Marlowe?'
'Oh dear no! They were only leaving Zante on the 15th. But I haven't
time to read it now,' said Anna. Reproach had kindled an unexpected
brilliancy over her whole face, and she looked at Mrs. Severn with eyes
that suddenly glowed with finely controlled anger. 'Every one is busy
because of the hay, and I'm going to see the children to bed. Come,
children, kiss mother. What, Joan, pick-a-pack?'
She knelt for Joan to clasp her neck, then tucking her little fat legs
under her arms, rose and careered on to the landing. Joan was not too
tired to gurgle with laughter at the jogging. The others ran after them,
having dabbed random kisses on Mrs. Severn's face and throat. They left
the door wide open in spite of her charge to them to shut it.
'Netta, Jack, Jack,' she called. But they were heedless.
She watched them dart across the landing, and listened to the dying
away down a passage of steps and voices. Then a door banged, raising
reverberating echoes in the rambling old house, and when they died away,
all was still. She got up and closed the door herself. As she re-crossed
the room she did not pause at her baby's cot, but went up to the mirror
and stood before it for some moments, thinking how admirably these loose
white draperies set off her dark hair and sombre eyes. She had a strong
impression that she ought to have been a prophetess, or a tragic singer.
Nature had overlooked her own opportunities. There is a difference
between being created and being a creation.