"GAY BOWERS"
THE old country house known as "Gay Bowers," which had been my aunt's
home ever since she married, was situated some five miles from
Chelmsford and no nearer to the railway. It was still early in the
afternoon when I reached that station, but the air struck me as rather
more than fresh as I stepped out of the train. I shivered as I buttoned
my coat more tightly about me and looked round, hoping to discern a
friendly face amid the bustling crowd on the platform, for I felt sure
that my aunt would send some one to meet me.
"Nan!" said a voice beside me, and I turned to see a tall, well-set-up
young fellow looking down on me with bright merry eyes. For a moment I
was bewildered, then I recognised the face, which was still boyish in
spite of the carefully cultivated moustache and the height from which
he gazed on me. This was Jack Upsher, son of the Vicar of Greentree,
the parish to which "Gay Bowers" belonged. He had been my playfellow
when, as a child, I spent my summer holidays at "Gay Bowers"; but of
late years he had been absent from the vicarage whenever I happened to
visit aunt. So we had not met since we were both grown-up, and it was
rather audacious of him to address me in that familiar way, but I did
not resent it, especially as he hastened to add:
"I beg your pardon; I should have said 'Miss Darracott,' but you have
altered so little from the 'Nan' I used to know, that the name sprang
of itself to my lips."
"Indeed I hoped I had altered a good deal," was my reply. "But you are
just the same, Jack, except that you have grown so immensely."
He laughed heartily as he shook my hand.
"That's right, Nan; call me 'Jack,' and snub me as you always did, and
we shall feel quite at home together. How like you to tell me that I've
grown, just as if I were a schoolboy home for the holidays!"
"It is perfectly true," I said.
"Exactly," he returned, "and I always had the truth, the whole truth,
and nothing but the truth from you. To be accurate, I stand precisely
six feet in my socks."
"Then you have attained your highest ambition?" I said.
"Not quite," he replied; "but now you mention it, I remember that as a
kid I always aspired to be six feet high. What have you in the way of
luggage, for Mrs. Lucas has kindly granted me permission to drive you
home, and the trap is waiting outside?"
I quickly found my trunk, and he directed a porter to carry it to the
conveyance. Well did I know the high, old-fashioned phaeton which
stood outside the station; but the horse which drew it was a recent
acquisition and a more mettlesome creature than the Vicar usually
drove. She would hardly stand while the porter strapped my trunk to the
back of the vehicle and Jack helped me up and saw to my comfort.
"I am told that you require the greatest care," he said gravely, as he
shook out a big, fur-lined cloak auntie had given him, and proceeded to
envelop me in it, drawing the huge collar so high above my chin that
little could be seen of me save my eyes and the tip of my nose. Then he
placed a hot stone jar beneath my feet, drew a thick rug well over my
knees and tucked it carefully in.
"How does that do?" he asked, surveying me with some satisfaction.
"First-rate," I said. "I feel ready for a journey to the North Pole."
"That's all right," he said as he sprang up beside me and signed to the
groom to stand back. The man scrambled up behind us and we were off at
a smart pace.
"What a splendid horse, and how it goes!" I said, in rather a shaky
voice. It had never been my way to indulge in nervous qualms, indeed
I had been contemptuous of girls who were easily frightened; but one
effect of illness is to humble pride, and to my shame I now realised
that I was sick with fear as Jack guided his high-stepping, swift bay
mare through the market-traffic of the narrow streets of Chelmsford.
For a few moments I heartily wished that Aunt Patty had engaged one of
the slow, rumbling old station flys to bring me to her house.
"Yes, Bess is a beauty," said Jack proudly. "It was I who persuaded
father to buy her. He was half afraid of her at first, indeed I rather
think he is so still; but I hate to drive a horse that is as tame as a
donkey."
He glanced at me as he spoke and added quickly, with a sudden change of
manner, "You are not afraid, Nan, are you?"
"Of course not," I said hurriedly, jeopardising the character for
speaking the truth with which he had credited me. I rallied my courage
with the recollection of how in my childhood I had never been afraid of
anything when Jack led the way, and as I saw the skill with which he
drove, my fears soon vanished. We were leaving the town behind, and I
began to enjoy the drive. Thanks to my aunt's thoughtfulness I was so
wrapped up as to be scarce conscious of the cold. I only felt that the
air was deliciously fresh and clear, a delightful contrast to the dull,
foggy atmosphere of London.
Many persons regard Essex as a flat and uninteresting county, but I had
always found beauty in the woods and lanes. Even on this January day
as we drove along muddy roads with brown hedges on either side, where
sapless twigs and leafless roots waited for the touch of spring, the
country did not lack charm for me. I marked with pleasure the beauty
of "wintry boughs against a wintry sky," and the emerald freshness of
pasture-lands thrown into relief by the rich brown of the upturned
earth across which strong, shaggy horses were drawing the plough.
We passed woods in which the ivy—surely a well-meaning if harmful
parasite—was doing its utmost to clothe the bare trunks and limbs of
trees with a garment of vivid green. And every now and then we caught a
broad view of the open country and saw the woods and meadows melt into
the exquisite blue haze of distance.
I should have been content to gaze and enjoy in silence, but Jack
Upsher had always an abundant supply of small talk, and as we drove
along, he told me in the most amusing fashion the news of the
countryside.
"But how is it you are here now?" I asked. "I expected to hear that you
were at Woolwich."
Jack's colour rose, and he shrugged his shoulders rather awkwardly.
"That's where I ought to be," he said, with a rueful air; "but
unluckily I got ploughed in my exam. The governor was awfully mad
with me; but it was not my fault that I could not answer the idiotic
questions. Brains were never my strong point."
It was true that no one would credit Jack with scholarly tastes, but he
was by no means stupid in his own line of life. I imagined that he had
fair abilities, and it surprised me to hear of his failure, for I had
always understood that the entrance examination for Woolwich was not an
unduly stiff one.
"But how was it?" I asked. "Of course you worked hard."
"But I did not," he said; "that's the honest truth, Nan, so I suppose
you will say it was my fault, after all. You see I was sent to a coach
in town. Father thought I should work better there than at home, but
it did not answer. I found it awfully jolly to be free to do as I
liked in town after vegetating in sleepy little Greentree. There were
the circuses and shows, and no end to see and do. With lots of lively
fellows in the house I enjoyed myself immensely, but did not get much
work in. Ah, Nan! I see you want to scold me."
"Indeed I do," I said severely. "I don't know what you mean by saying
you were free to do as you liked, when your father sent you to London
to study."
"Oh, well, I meant that we were free to arrange our hours as we liked,"
replied Jack. "Our tutor did not treat us as schoolboys. We were
supposed to be in by eleven at night, but we could always get leave
for an extra hour if we liked to ask for it, and, if not, we could
contrive to get into the house without knocking at the front door. But
I did work, Nan, quite hard sometimes, after old Rooke had given me
a lecture. He warned me that I should not pass, but I quite hoped I
should scrape through somehow."
I was silent, marvelling at the difference in the feelings with which
Jack and I had contemplated our respective examinations. He would have
been content to scrape through, while I aspired to win honours! I am
afraid my thoughts at that moment had a tinge of pharisaism, for I
certainly congratulated myself that, had I gone in for Matriculation
and failed, I should have had the satisfaction of knowing that I
had done my best, and no self-reproach would have embittered my
disappointment.
It may be that Jack guessed what was passing in my mind, for, after a
few moments, he said:
"By the by, Mrs. Lucas told me that you had been working for an
exam—overworking, I believe she said, and have reduced yourself to
a condition that only country air and rural repose can mend. That
was not wise, Nan. You would do well to follow my example, for I can
confidently affirm that I have never been guilty of that folly!"
"I can well believe it," I responded with a laugh, "but you can't think
what a dreadful disappointment it has been to me to give up my exam."
"No, I can't!" he said decidedly. "I don't think girls should go in for
exams. I know I would not if I were a girl."
"You think it one of the difficult undertakings we should leave to the
superior sex, who so easily beat us in all high achievements, mental or
physical?" I said.
He coloured, but laughed good-naturedly at my sarcasm.
"That's right, Nan, don't spare me! I know I deserve it. Smite hard,
just as the little Nan used to do. She always got the better of me in
every encounter of wits. All the same, I don't see why girls should
bother themselves over exams."
"Don't you?" I said. "Then it shows a sad lack of discernment on
your part. You forget that a great many women have to earn their own
livelihood, and the test of an examination furnishes them with a
credential which is of the utmost importance to them."
"I hold it a shame that any woman should have to work for herself!" he
said hotly, and I returned with equal heat:
"And I call it a shame for man or woman not to work, and a positive sin
if they waste their opportunities—"
"Ah, you have me there!" he broke in. "The cap fits, and I put it on.
But, indeed, I mean to work better in the future."
"What are you going to do?" I asked, somewhat abashed by the readiness
with which he took my words home.
"Oh, I have yet another chance of getting into the Artillery," he said.
"I can go up again in six months' time. Meanwhile, I am working at home
under the governor's supervision. There's a man at Chelmsford who is
coaching me, and I go up to town for extra lessons."
We were driving rapidly across a breezy common, and, as he spoke, the
wind caught my cloak and blew it across my face. He leaned forward to
pull it down, and to tuck the rug more closely about me, and I caught
an unusually serious look from his dark eyes as he said:
"I mean to be good now, Nan. I have promised Mrs. Lucas. She was
talking to me only yesterday. She is an angel—a veritable angel, and so
sad and lonely now at 'Gay Bowers.' I am glad you have come to be with
her. You will cheer her."
"I should like to cheer her," I said, and then fell silent, for we
were almost at "Gay Bowers," and I was beginning to dread the meeting
with my aunt. Like many another young girl, I felt a morbid shrinking
from any one on whom a heavy stroke of bereavement had fallen. I felt
incapable of giving true sympathy, and was nervous lest I should do or
say the wrong thing.
It was a story told against me at home that once, some years before,
when mother sent me to carry a parcel to a poor woman who had just lost
her husband, and she said to me, "Oh, miss, it's a terrible thing to be
left a widow with four children—" all I could say by way of consolation
was, "Yes, but you know it might have been worse—you might have been
left with eight!" Certainly my suggestion had the desired effect, for
she responded briskly, "You're quite right, miss, so I might!" Yet
my matter-of-fact condolence long furnished Olive with a joke at my
expense.
We had left the common and were descending a long, narrow lane with
trees on either side. The mud was rather slippery, and Jack had to give
all his attention to his horse. Then we mounted a shorter hill, and the
white gate came in sight. It had been set open in anticipation of our
arrival, and we drove at once up the short drive to the door of the
long, low, red-bricked house, a very ordinary-looking abode with five
straight windows piercing the upper part, and below two on each side of
the white porch, yet not without a certain individuality of its own. In
summer, green creepers and climbing roses beautified the front of the
house, but now their branches showed bare and brown as they clung to it.
I need not have dreaded the meeting with my aunt. She came smiling to
the door as Jack helped me down from the phaeton. Her face looked pale
and thin, but there was the sweet, loving look in her eyes I had always
seen there, and every sign of sorrow was resolutely held in check.
Always slight in appearance, she looked slimmer than ever in her plain,
black gown. It was strange to see her wearing the little gauzy cap with
its long, white streamers, but it did not take me long to decide that
it was eminently becoming to my aunt's winsome face, at once so gentle
and so strong.
"I am very glad to see you, dearest Nan," she said. "It is so good of
you to come to me."
"Good of me to come" when it had been "Hobson's choice" as far as I was
concerned! But it was like Aunt Patty to put it in that way.
Jack did not stay a minute after he had seen my luggage carried into
the house. He drove off, saying that he would be sure to see me again
before long.
With her arm about me, aunt led me across the wide hall. The little
room to the left of the entrance had been uncle's peculiar sanctum, and
Sweep, his favourite dog, a black retriever, lay on the mat outside it.
She viewed my arrival with indifference, and only faintly wagged her
tail when I bent to pat her. With her forepaws extended and her muzzle
resting on them she crouched in an attitude of profound dejection.
"You must be dreadfully tired, dear Nan," aunt said. "A cosy tea will
be ready in a few moments. Perhaps you had better not go upstairs till
afterwards."
But I was too excited just then to know how tired I was, and I elected
to go to my room. The house had the pure, sweet aroma I always
associate with country houses, but it seemed strangely quiet and bare
as we went upstairs. I saw that uncle's coats and hats had disappeared
from the spot where they used to hang, though his guns and sticks still
kept their places in the hall. A feeling of awe came to me with the
sense of missing him.
Several rooms opened on to the spacious landing at the head of the
stairs. I was pleased to find that aunt had given me the one above the
porch, adjoining her own. It was a fair-sized room, but not so large
as most of the bedrooms in the house. The window opened on to the top
of the porch, which formed a little balcony on which it was possible
to sit. The fact that this had been forbidden ground in my childhood
probably accounted for the attraction the room had for me.
With a bright fire glowing on the hearth, and thick, soft-hued curtains
draping the window, the room looked delightfully cosy at this hour. I
detected various little improvements which auntie had made with a view
to my comfort. A bunch of snowdrops adorned the dressing-table, and a
tiny bookcase to the right of the bedstead presented a charming array
of volumes. Remembering the doctor's prohibition, I was thankful that
Aunt Patty had not thought it necessary to banish these.
"Oh, auntie, what a sweet room!" I cried. "It all seems so restful and
quiet after London. Oh, you don't know how I have longed for rest and
quiet!"
"I can well imagine that there is little quiet in your home during the
children's holidays," she said. "Well, you will find it quiet enough
here, dear, and can rest as much as you please."
"But I want to help you too, auntie," I said quickly.
"So you shall, dear," she replied; "we will help one another."
Her voice was a trifle tremulous, and I saw there were tears in her
eyes. But the next minute she was smiling as she helped me off with my
coat.