_THE DAZZLING MISS DAVISON_
[Illustration]
THE DAZZLING
MISS DAVISON
BY
FLORENCE WARDEN
AUTHOR OF
“THE HOUSE ON THE MARSH”
NEW YORK
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1910, by
THE NEW IDEA PUBLISHING CO.
Copyright, 1910, by
THE H. K. FLY COMPANY
_Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London_
(_All Rights Reserved_)
Printed in the United States of America
THE DAZZLING MISS DAVISON
CHAPTER I
A roomy, comfortable, old-fashioned house in Bayswater, with high
windows, big rooms, and little balconies just big enough to hold a
wealth of flowers in summer and a very pretty show of evergreens when
the season for flowers was past.
On October a row of asters, backed up by a taller row of foliage
plants, made the house look bright and pretty, and the young faces that
appeared at the windows of the drawing-room made it prettier still.
Mr. and Mrs. Aldington, the occupiers of the house, thought that there
was nothing pleasanter in life than the gayety of young people, and so,
as they had only two children, a son and a daughter, both grown up,
they gave a general invitation to the younger generation, of which,
particularly on a Sunday afternoon and evening, the contemporaries of
their son and daughter were not slow to avail themselves.
Especially was it the pleasure of these good-hearted people to extend
hospitality to those young folks whose lives were, for one reason or
another, not so bright as those of their own children. And many a
friendless young barrister waiting for a brief, young doctor struggling
for a practice, and many a girl whose parents had a hard time of it
in keeping up a fair position on an unfairly small income, found
recreation and a warm welcome at the old-fashioned house in Bayswater.
Some of them found more than that. Gerard Buckland, for instance, a
clever young barrister who was tired of hearing of the great things he
was to do some day, since he was unable to get even small things to do
to go on with, found at the Aldingtons something that he had stoutly
resolved to do without until he had “got on.”
He found, in other words, his “ideal.”
It was on a bright Sunday afternoon, when the big drawing-room was full
of lively people, mostly young, and all talking at once, that Gerard,
having been introduced by Arthur Aldington two Sundays previously, took
advantage for the third time of the general invitation given him by the
host and hostess, and found himself surrounded by a dozen people among
whom he knew no one except the Aldingtons themselves.
Whereupon Rose, the daughter of the house, made him sit by her, and, as
he was shyly looking over a basketful of loose photographs which he had
found on a table beside him, undertook the task of showman, and told
him all about the pictures as he looked at them one by one.
It chanced that the second picture he picked up after Rose’s arrival
was the portrait of a girl which attracted him at once.
“What an interesting face!” said he, as he looked at the photograph.
“And she’s an interesting girl too!” said Rose, who was a plain,
amiable young woman of six-and-twenty, whom everybody liked and nobody
had as yet chosen. “She’s the daughter of a Colonel, who speculated,
and then died and left his wife and two girls with scarcely anything to
live upon. Papa says it’s one of the saddest stories he knows. They’ve
gone to live in a cottage somewhere, after living in one of the most
beautiful houses you ever saw in the country, and having a flat in town
as well.”
Gerard Buckland was looking intently at the photograph, which was that
of a quite young woman with an oval face, delicate features, and an
expression which combined vivacity with intelligence.
“She looks very clever,” he said.
“Yes, so she is--and very pretty too.”
“Yes, very, very pretty.”
He was fascinated; and when he was compelled to look at other
photographs, he placed that of the girl whose story he had just heard
at the side of the basket, in such a position that he could glance at
it again from time to time, and amuse himself by speculating about
this girl who was so handsome, so clever, and so unlucky.
Rose Aldington noticed his preoccupation with the picture, and said,
with a smile--
“I see you admire her, just as everyone else does.”
“I was thinking the story a sad one,” said Gerard, rather confused at
being discovered in his act of adoration.
“Oh, well, perhaps she’ll marry well, and her sister too, and then it
will be all right. The sister is even better-looking than Ra--than she
is, and just as nice. Only unluckily she hadn’t finished growing up
when their father died, so she hasn’t had the benefit of such a good
education as the elder.”
“It’s hard upon a girl, though, when she has to marry just for money,”
observed Gerard.
“Oh, yes, of course. And I’m not sure that this particular girl would
do it either. But that’s the usual thing to say, isn’t it, when a very
pretty girl is left unexpectedly poor?”
“Yes.”
Gerard answered quite shortly, and looked at the photograph again. And
at that moment the door opened, and an exclamation rose to his lips as
he recognized in the new arrival the very girl whose picture he held in
his hand.
He felt the blood rush to his face as he looked at her. He saw at
once that the absence of color from the photograph had given him an
altogether wrong impression of what the girl herself would be like. She
was of medium height, slender, pale, brown-haired, brown-eyed, and her
dress was plain almost to dowdiness.
But she carried herself so well, her figure was so graceful, her
expression so intelligent, and her smile so charming, that she
attracted instinctive attention in greater measure than any of the
other girls in the room.
“Rachel!” cried Mrs. Aldington.
“Miss Davison!” cried her son Arthur at the same moment.
And the new-comer was brought into the group near the fire and
surrounded, while Gerard Buckland, at a little distance, listened to
the tones of her voice, and approved of them as he had done of every
detail concerning her.
Only one thing about her seemed amiss. Well as she wore her plain,
almost shabby clothes, neat and graceful as she looked in them, Gerard
felt that they were not the clothes which she ought to be wearing, that
her beauty demanded a better setting than the plain serge skirt, the
black jacket, the gray felt mushroom hat with its trimming of a quill
and a big black rosette, which, though they became her, were not quite
smart enough either for the occasion or for her own type of womanhood.
Gerard saw the glance of Rose Aldington wander in his direction with a
sly look, and he hoped she would not forget to find an opportunity to
introduce him to the interesting guest.
He was not disappointed. Before tea was brought in, Rose had contrived
the introduction, and Gerard found himself in conversation with the
girl whom he felt to be the nearest he had yet met to the sort of
floating ideal of what is most gracious in woman, which he, in common
with most young men, carried about in his mind, ready to crystallize
into the face and form of some human, breathing, living girl.
As she interested him, so did he, perhaps, interest her. The tall, shy,
handsome fair man of five-and-twenty, who spoke so softly, but who
looked as if his voice could be heard in other and stronger tones upon
occasion, and of whom it had been whispered in her ear by Rose that
he was “so clever, bound to make a name for himself at the bar,” was
pleasant to look upon and to listen to, and the two young people, in
that pleasant twilight which Mrs. Aldington loved, and which she would
not too soon have broken in upon by gas and candles, soon began to find
that they had many things to say to each other, as they sipped tea and
nibbled cake, to the accompaniment of the other gay young voices, in
the illumination of the leaping firelight.
Somebody had drawn the talk of the whole room into the old channel
of woman’s rights and position, and immediately the whole company had
broken up into interested little couples and groups to discuss it with
the same freshness of interest as if it had never been discussed before.
Rachel Davison was rather bitter about it.
“It’s all very well to talk,” she said, “about the right of woman to
act for herself, and to make a position for herself, and the rest of
it. But you want more than the right: you must have the power. And that
is what we shall never get,” she added, with a sigh.
Gerard argued with her.
“Why shouldn’t they have the power?” he said. “When once the barriers
of prejudice are pulled down, what’s to prevent a woman from entering
any field where she feels her talents will be best employed?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“When once the barriers of prejudice are broken down!” echoed she. “But
that will be never. You don’t recognize how strong they are! Why, look
at my mother, for instance; she’s more particular about little things,
prejudices and that sort of thing, than about important ones. And she’s
not alone, she’s one of a type, the most common type. She would rather
see her daughters dead, I’m quite sure, than engaged in any occupation
which she’s been accustomed to think unwomanly.”
“But she belongs to the last generation. We go on enlarging our ideas.
You, for instance, don’t agree with her, I can see.”
“Not in everything, certainly; though I agree with her enough to
sympathize with her, and to wish that the world were just as she sees
it, with plenty of work for all, and work of the pleasantest kind--work
that one could engage in without loss of dignity, and with credit to
oneself.”
“There’s plenty of such work to be found now. What about the dignity of
labor?”
“All very well in theory, but quite a mistake in practice. At any rate,
there’s nothing dignified about any calling which I, for example, could
find to follow. Now poor mamma thinks it’s all right, that one has only
to look about to find ways of utilizing what she calls one’s talents,
and to make heaps of money by them.”
“Perhaps she’s right after all. I’m sure you wouldn’t be long in
finding an opening for yours, if you wanted one.”
“What makes you say that? At least I know. Of course, it’s the sort
of thing a man must say to a woman. But, as a matter of stern fact, I
haven’t any talents, and for a woman without to look for remunerative
and dignified labor is just the most appalling waste of time
imaginable.”
“I’m quite sure you have talents, only perhaps you don’t recognize them
yourself yet.”
“What makes you speak so certainly, when I tell you I have not?”
Gerard hesitated.
“I’m not quite sure whether I dare tell why. The thing I should have to
say, if I were to tell the truth, is the sort of thing some ladies as
young as you don’t care to hear.”
He looked at her with shy interest, and she, alert and inquisitive,
insisted upon his explaining.
“Whether I like to hear it or not, I must know what you mean,” she
said, with charming imperiousness.
“Well, then, Miss Davison, you look--may I say it?--‘brainy.’”
She nodded, smiling.
“I’ve been told that before, but the look is deceptive. I’m only just
not quite an idiot. I can’t do anything--except one thing that I don’t
think I’ll own to,” she added, with a laugh.
“Let me put you through a short catechism. Can’t you play?--the piano,
I mean.”
“Not even well enough to get through the accompaniment of a song at
sight, or to play an easy piece that I haven’t diligently practiced
till the family is tired to death of it.”
“Can’t you paint?”
“Oh, yes, I can copy drawing-master’s pictures, which are like nothing
in heaven or earth or the water under the earth.”
“You can sing, I feel sure.”
“Yes, I can, but you have to sit very near the piano to hear me.”
“Then you have some other accomplishments which you have concealed from
me,” said Gerard, affecting a judicial frown.
Miss Davison laughed merrily.
“Well, I have one, but wild horses shan’t drag from me what it is. And,
if you knew, you would not advise me to use it.”
“Come, come, I must have complete confession. No half-way measures.
Let me see if I can’t suggest a way of utilizing this mysterious
accomplishment.”
She laughed, blushed crimson, and suddenly opening her hand, showed
him, lying flat on the palm, a little silver pencil-case, at sight of
which he uttered an exclamation.
“Why, that’s mine, isn’t it?” said he. “How did you--”
He stopped, she laughed, and Rose Aldington, who was sitting near,
joined in her mirth, which was of rather a shame-faced kind.
“Showing off again, Rachel?” she said.
Miss Davison laughed, gave the pencil-case back to Gerard, and said,
with a demure look--
“There! that’s my best accomplishment. I flatter myself I can pick
pockets with any amateur living. Now you wouldn’t recommend me to take
to that as a livelihood, would you?”
He was amused, almost dismayed, but protested earnestly that there must
be a hundred ways in which such exceeding dexterity could be profitably
exercised without having recourse to the profession she suggested.
But, in the meantime, Rose Aldington having drawn the attention of the
rest of the people in the room to Rachel’s accomplishment, she was
called upon to give another exhibition of her skill, and this she did
in various ways, transferring trifles from the mantelpiece to the table
and back again so quickly and cleverly that the eye could not follow
her movements, and performing other little feats requiring extreme
delicacy of touch and quickness of eye, until they all told her she
would make her fortune if she were to set up as a conjurer.
Gerard, however, was more deeply interested than the rest. He learned
from her that she performed these various tricks without ever having
been taught conjuring, and he argued from this that, if she were only
to train her special faculties in some given direction, she could not
fail to become exceedingly expert.
“I should have thought,” he said, “that you would make a very clever
milliner, with your wonderfully light touch.”
Miss Davison sighed.
“I believe I should,” she said; “but my mother won’t hear of
it. Prejudice again! And I daresay that the talent which seems
extraordinary when it is untrained, would turn out quite commonplace if
I were to be pitted, at any calling such as millinery, against those
who have for years been brought up to it.”
“I don’t think so,” said Gerard. “Indeed, I’m sure you do yourself
an injustice. Your lightness of hand and quickness of eye are quite
remarkable. And the wonderful way in which you move, so that you get
from one place to another without being seen on the way, if I may so
express it, reminds one rather of a bird than of the average solid,
stolid thing we call a human being.”
Miss Davison was amused, rather pleased, by his evident enthusiasm, and
when he modestly and stammeringly expressed a hope that she would let
him know if she decided to make any practical use of her talents, she
told him that when she and her mother came to town, she would ask him
to go and see them.
“At present,” she added, “we are living quite in the country, and we
can’t receive any visitors because my mother is not well enough.”
“And how shall I know--through the Aldingtons--when you come to town?”
asked Gerard eagerly.
“Oh, yes; they will know before anyone. Mrs. Aldington is such a dear,
and so is her husband; and so, for that matter, are Arthur and Rose.
Yes, whenever we come up, and wherever we settle, they will know our
address at once.”
When Miss Davison rose to go, Gerard Buckland was not long in following
her. He came up with her before she reached the corner of the street,
and begged to be allowed to see her to the station.
But she refused, saying quite gently that she must get used to going
about alone, and that it was the first step towards women’s rights.
He looked pained.
“I should have been so very grateful to you if you had let me call upon
you!” he said humbly, wistfully.
Her face grew grave.
“No,” she said; “I can’t do that. The plain truth is that my mother
has not yet got over a terrible change in circumstances which we’ve
suffered not long ago, and she can’t bear that anyone should see us in
what is practically a workman’s cottage. Prejudice again, of course,
but it has to be considered.”
“May I hope for the pleasure of meeting you again at the Aldingtons?”
“Oh, yes, I’m often there. I shall be very pleased to see you again
when I go there.”
She gave him her hand and he was obliged to bid her good-bye and leave
her.
But the impression she had made upon him was so strong, deepened,
no doubt, by the circumstances in which she was placed, and also,
perhaps, by her resolute attitude which was neither coquetry nor
prudery, but simply pride, that he could scarcely think of anything
for the next few days but the pale oval face and the big brown eyes,
alternately gay and grave, and the soft voice that was different from
the voices of other girls.
He went to the Aldingtons assiduously after that, always hoping to
meet Miss Davison again. But each time he was disappointed, and at
last he grew ashamed of calling so often, and of being so dull when
he was there, and absented himself for a couple of months from the
old-fashioned Bayswater house and its gay circle.
Then he called again, but only to hear that nothing had been seen or
heard of the Davisons for some time. At last, six months after his
meeting with Rachel, and while the remembrance of her face, her voice,
and her quietly outspoken opinions was still fresh upon him, Gerard met
Arthur Aldington one day in the Strand and was at once reproached for
neglecting them.
Gerard made excuses, and asked after Miss Davison.
Arthur’s face changed.
“I don’t know what’s happened to them,” said he, with a perplexed
look. “I haven’t seen anything of any of them till a day or two ago.
And then”.... He checked himself, and said, “You were quite gone on
Rachel, weren’t you?”
“I admired her immensely,” said Gerard. “I wanted to see her again, but
she wouldn’t let me call; said her mother didn’t like receiving people
in a cottage, after the sort of life she’d been used to.”
Arthur smiled.
“Oh, that was all rot,” said he simply. “Mrs. Davison is the most
fluffy, gentle old lady in the world. It was Rachel who was ashamed
of their simple way of living, always Rachel. She twists her mother
and sister round her little finger, and she could have had the entire
population of London to call if she’d chosen.”
Gerard looked hurt.
“She’s an odd girl,” went on Arthur. “The other day I met her for the
first time for months at the Stores. I went there to get some things
for mother, and I ran against Rachel. She was beautifully dressed,
looked awfully smart, and seemed quite confused at meeting me. She
didn’t answer when I asked her where she was living, but said her
mother was at Brighton and her sister at school in Richmond. And I
asked her why she hadn’t been to see us, and she said she had meant to
come, but had been busy. And she promised to come last Sunday, but she
didn’t.”
“Is she living in town?”
“I don’t know; but she’s doing well, anyhow. She looked remarkably
prosperous. She puzzled me altogether.”
Gerard, whose interest in Rachel Davison had been revived and
strengthened by this meeting, and these details concerning the girl who
had roused his keen admiration, called next Sunday at the Aldingtons,
but only to be disappointed and still further puzzled by the accounts
he received of Rachel Davison.
For Rose had met her, shopping at Marshall and Snelgrove’s, and Rachel,
who was exquisitely dressed and accompanied by a well-dressed but
undistinguished-looking man had cut her dead.
“She’s married, I suppose, and to some sweep whom she doesn’t want to
introduce to us,” suggested Arthur.
And Gerard’s spirits ran down to zero at the thought.