ELEANOR ARMYTAGE.
There was to be a great gathering of the family at aunt Alice’s house
next day, in honour of our arrival. Uncle Armytage and aunt Kate were
coming up from their country rectory with their daughter Eleanor,
a girl of my own age, and their son Rupert, a young fellow lately
from Oxford, now reading for holy orders. Aunt Kate had three more
children, but they were in the school-room, and were to be left at
home with their governess. In the evening Reginald Goodeve, whom his
sisters had proudly told me was “an officer,” and now quartered in some
suburban barracks, was coming up to dinner, and was to bring two of his
fellow-officers with him to make up the proper complement of men for
the party.
In the middle of the afternoon I was sitting in my room by myself. I
had been sorting away my clothes in the drawers and cupboards assigned
to them, having no maid of my own, and not wishing for anybody else’s,
and I had refused to go out when this was done on the plea that I
wanted to write letters. Of permitted correspondents I don’t think I
had any that I cared for sufficiently to wish to make such a sacrifice
to please them, for I disliked writing letters, and I had an intense
desire to drive in the park, and see the costumes and equipages
displayed there at this season and on such a lovely day. But I had
discovered that the Australian mail was on the point of leaving, and I
had determined to send an account of our voyage and news of our safe
arrival to little Mrs. Barton, our late clergyman’s wife, because I
knew she would gossip about it to the people who went to church the
Sunday after she got the letter, and that my dearest Tom would hear it
all. Father had said “Next mail will be time enough,” and “People never
make themselves anxious about travellers nowadays,” when I suggested to
him the propriety of writing a line to the Smiths, or of asking mother
to do so; but, of course, they did not take into account the weary
longing for good tidings that my poor, dear, lonely boy would feel. So
I allowed my cousins to carry off mother for a drive without me, and I
spread out my materials on a little table near the window, and sat down
to my task.
I had not begun to write. I was resting my head on my hand, and looking
down dreamily upon the trees and bushes in the square below--very tiny
trees and bushes, but green and shady, and sweet with early summer
blossoms--and my thoughts were very sad ones. I was thinking of the
little bush township and the little brick church, with its shingle roof
and its bell tinkling cheerily from the limb of a gum-tree, wondering
whose buggy would appropriate the particular corner of the fence where
ours used to stand, and who would sit in the choir instead of me, and
how my dear love was bearing the dreadful new solitude that had come to
him. How vividly I pictured what the Sundays would be to him now! No
merry drive home through the parrot-haunted bush, one buggy at the tail
of the other; no stopping at Narraporwidgee for the immemorial “cold
collection” (for the new owner was a retired storekeeper, ambitious,
like the merchant princes at home, in his smaller way, of becoming a
country gentleman and a J.P.); no happy talks under the apple-trees in
the warm afternoons; no hand-in-hand rambles by the river in the lovely
moonlight. I knew so well how he would go wandering about by himself,
while his father nodded over his English papers, and his mother dozed
in her armchair--how he would sit on that stump at the water’s edge,
with our two dogs running races round him, with his elbows on his knees
and his face in his hands, and think of his Kitty at the other side of
the world, and wonder if she would keep true to him through those two
long, long years.
“Oh, Tom,” I murmured aloud to the empty air, while my tears dropped
fast upon the white sheet before me, “what shall we do without one
another? Oh, what shall we do?”
There came a little tap at the door at this unfortunate juncture, and I
wiped my eyes fiercely.
“Is anybody in,” asked a sweet-tuned voice that I had never heard
before.
“It must be aunt Kate,” I said to myself, and I rose reluctantly to
admit her.
Aunt Kate was my godmother, and my father’s favourite sister. She had
been in the habit of sending little presents to me on my birthday, and
otherwise showing an interest in my existence, and it seemed quite
natural that she should seek me in this affectionate haste. But it was
not aunt Kate. It was a youthful little creature, with soft hazel eyes
and a tender pale face, dressed in the severest grey homespun, with
only big pearl buttons to trim it, and a little grey bonnet, with a
white border peeping out under it upon her smooth brown hair.
“I heard you were in, cousin Kitty,” the sweet voice said, “so I have
come to call upon you. I am Eleanor Armytage, and I am so glad you are
come home to us at last!”
Here she lifted her small arms and clasped my neck to kiss me,
whereat I--the last person in the world to be sentimental with
strangers--hugged her fervently, and then burst into violent weeping.
This is how I made the acquaintance of the best and dearest of all
my English cousins, sitting beside her on a low sofa at the foot of
the bed, with my head on her shoulder, and my hand clasped in her
lap, like a weak-minded school-girl. I cannot describe the delicacy
of her sympathy, and her delicate ways of expressing it, with so much
self-possession and such an entire absence of “gush,” and yet with
such a flutter of emotion about her, and such an evident sound of
tears in her voice. In my own rash and headlong way, I lost my heart
to her there and then. But I only indulged in what, for me, was an
extraordinary weakness for a very few seconds, and then I sat bolt
upright and abused myself roundly.
“No, I am not a bit tired, and I do not feel strange--people are
too kind to me for that; I’m just a great baby, and I’m ashamed of
myself,” I said, scrubbing my wet eyes angrily. “Pray don’t think I’m
such a donkey in the ordinary way, cousin Eleanor. To think of my
receiving you for the first time by falling on your neck and weeping,
like a born idiot!”
“Don’t call yourself any more names, Kitty,” broke in Eleanor, with
a rather hysterical laugh. “I’m sure I understand it. I know it just
happens--just once in a way--when you are thinking of things that even
if a dog comes and looks at you it upsets you somehow, when an army of
soldiers wouldn’t do it.”
When she said that--so true as it was--I thought of my dear old Spring,
and how he used to come and look at me if anything was the matter. I
could see his great, soft, wistful eyes, as he laid his nose on my
knee, and held his feathery tail poised ready to wag the moment he
was satisfied that things were not so bad as he had feared, and found
himself at liberty to offer consolation. He would never come and look
at me any more! He would stray away to Narraporwidgee, and hunt about
for his lost mistress; and Tom would go in search of him, and the two
would sadly wander back again, heavy-footed and heavy-hearted under the
sense of loss and loneliness that weighed them down. I buried my face
in the sofa cushions, and broke into such a passion of crying as I had
never indulged in since I parted from them. This time I could not get
over it so easily. Eleanor let me alone--that is to say, she went down
on her knees beside me, and coaxed my head with her small pale cheek
and her small warm hand, and she kept silence while I had it out. I
blessed her for her delicate forbearance, and began to think better of
girls from that moment, for her sake.
This was the worst fall I ever had in my daily contest with memory, set
always in battle array against me, though I was subject to periodical
reverses. And Eleanor Armytage became in a manner identified with my
inner life thenceforth, though even to her I did not confide so much
as the name of my sweetheart, or the bare fact that I had one. We had
not “things in common;” we were as unlike one another as two girls of
the same age, belonging to the same class, could well be; but in this
earliest hour of our acquaintance we inaugurated a true and tender
friendship that will certainly last our lives. Neither of us knew
what it was to say one thing and mean another; we could never take
one another in; we were incapable of that amiable, half-unconscious,
and, in the main, well-meaning hypocrisy, which, though it makes many
fervent friendships, destroys the most of them, sooner or later; we
trusted one another with the completest trust, even when our mutual
relations were the least agreeable, and occasionally they were not
as pleasant as they might have been. And these I take it, are the
essential conditions of any friendship that is worthy of the name.
When I began to show signs of recovery, Eleanor poured some water into
a hand-basin, and sponged my heated face. I sat up submissively to
have it done, feeling that I had so dreadfully disgraced myself that I
could no longer assert my dignity. “I am so sorry,” I said meekly, “but
the truth is, I had just got a little attack of homesickness before
you came in, thinking of my old friends. I hardly _ever_ cry; but, you
know, if once you do let yourself begin, almost anything will start you
afresh.”
“Yes, dear, I know, and I came just at the wrong moment. I was reading
to-day in the train as I came along an old Welsh tale of a chieftain
who buried the last of his sons, all slain in battle, and how a bird
began to sing in a tree over the grave as they laid the body in it. It
said, ‘that broke the old chiefs heart.’ It was nothing, of course, to
all that must have gone before, but it was just the particular touch
that pierced him. I am sure I understand that. Do you like reading old
poetry, Kitty?” she added, hastily, fearing this pathetic story would
tempt another outburst if she gave me time to think about it.
I told her I liked poetry of all sorts, if it really was poetry, and
not sentimental platitudes in rhyme. And then we had a discussion
about Tennyson, and our first “falling out”--for, having cordially
agreed that the music of some of his descriptive passages, and the
perfect beauty of some special poems and verses were enough to haunt
one’s memory to one’s dying day, she went on to glorify him as an
infallible deity in human shape, while I contended that a man who
wrote such shocking bad grammar as he sometimes did hadn’t learned his
art, notwithstanding the years he had been about it. First, she denied
the accusation against his grammar with indignation (touched with an
air of kindly toleration for a critic who probably did not know good
grammar when she saw it); and then I quoted several passages in proof
of it from a volume lying on a table at my hand, in a clear prose
voice of triumph. Whereat, having to shift her ground, she planted
herself upon the very popular theory that a great poet was “above those
trivial considerations,” as being, in her opinion, a perfectly safe
basis of operations. Upon which I hotly insisted that a poet had his
responsibilities as well as his privileges in his dealings with his
mother tongue, and asked her what she would think of a great poet who
sat down in a room with her with his hat on.
Finding this argument unproductive, we went on to discuss books in
general, and in particular the literature of the colonies; whence I
drifted into reminiscences of Narraporwidgee life, and Eleanor told me
of her home in Norfolk. And so we talked--puzzling one another a little
at times, I with my childish ignorance of some things and my wide and
cultured acquaintance with others, and she with the strange, formal
lines of thought and judgment in which her clear intellect flowed,
until my cousins came home, and found us laughing and gossiping over a
cheerful cup of tea, like old friends.
I must introduce the rest of my relations in a few words, and have done
with it. Here is the family party, on its way to dinner:--
First in order, next to mother and uncle Groodeve, is dear aunt Kate,
with her gentle face like Eleanor’s, her soft grey hair, her soft grey
dress--less like father in some ways than aunt Alice, but with more
of his genial frankness in her kind eyes. A very pretty woman she
must have been when she was young; even now she has a certain bloom
and brightness in her fair faded face that is very winning to me,
expressing, as it clearly does, a warm, and loving, and sympathetic
nature. She is younger than aunt Alice, but she does not wear a
low-bodied dress, and flowers in her hair, as Mrs. Goodeve does. Some
soft old lace, and a pearl brooch at her throat, and a little lace cap
with lappets on her head, are the modest ornaments of her elderly lady
costume; and father tells her, as he lays his broad palm on the thin
fingers she rests on his coat sleeve, that she is prettier than she was
when she was the belle of the family, and all the beaux of the county
were after her.
Uncle Armytage, though he comes last, as aunt Alice’s chosen squire,
must be introduced with his wife. Tall, large-framed, majestic, with
fine lines at the corners of his mouth, and a noble old Roman nose much
elevated in the air, he has a dignified and imposing presence which
awes me just a little. His voice is measured, his accent particularly
pure and refined, his manner the least trifle verging upon pompousness;
but, as mother says, and she ought to know, there is no mistaking him
for a well-born and well-bred gentleman in whatever company you find
him. Every one defers to him as if by instinct; every one listens
when he lays down the law, which he does with the least possible
imperiousness; and the servants wait on him with a silent assiduity
that marks their (always correct) estimate of his social importance. As
a clergyman, he is one of a class by no means rare in England, I am
told; but looking at him on the outside I am quite sure _I_ never met
one the least like him before.
Behind aunt Kate and father, I come sailing downstairs, radiant in
white net and the inevitable jewel that I am so proud of; and Reginald
Goodeve is my cavalier. A handsome young man in the common sense of
the term, with shaven cheeks and close-cropped head, a bold pair of
dark eyes, and a delicate, silky, dark moustache, not to speak of a
tall and slender figure which evening clothes become, he justifies
his sisters’ inordinate admiration of him perhaps, though I do not
consider him worthy to be for a moment compared with Tom. Perhaps I
am a little prejudiced to-night in my first impressions. I remember
Tom’s warning to me not to have “anything to do with” him, because
he was not a nice fellow; and I cannot help feeling that there is a
shade of familiarity in his way of talking to me that is not so much
cousinly as an indication that he considers me a colonial bumpkin,
and, as such, not requiring the strict courtesy demanded by ladies
of his own world. And then he asked me about Tom just now, before we
left the drawing-room, in a particularly offensive manner. “How’s Tom
Jones--Jack Robinson--what’s the fellow’s name?--that young bushman of
yours who was at Christchurch--whom Bertie Armytage brought here to a
ball once?”
I was very angry at his impertinence, and I answered him haughtily, and
then, seeing him taken aback and puzzled to understand why I should
fire up at such an innocent question, I crimsoned to the colour of a
peony; whereupon he smiled mischievously, and began to tease me in
what I thought an extremely vulgar manner. However, he is too bright,
and chatty, and good-humoured to be repelled altogether; and, as we go
down the stairs, arm in arm, all in the bright gaslight, I am in too
high spirits to be disagreeable, even if I wished.
Behind us, in her noiseless way, glides pretty Eleanor, in her sober
draperies of black gauze, with one white rose in her smooth hair,
shining out against the sleeve of her gigantic attendant, Captain
Damer. I need not describe her, though I long to do it over again, and
Captain Damer is only a huge, ponderous, good-natured fellow, with the
biggest red moustache I ever saw, and a voice like muffled thunder.
Behind these again hops cousin Bertha on the arm of Lieutenant Wiggles.
Bertha is gorgeous in frizzled hair and a bower of artificial flowers,
and a gown so tight about her legs that it puzzles me to understand how
she will get upstairs again when dinner is over. Lieutenant Wiggles is
a little, skipping, dancing-master sort of man, with a high metallic
voice that reaches me distinctly, even through the thickness of Captain
Damer’s body and his tremendous bass notes.
“Your pretty little colonial heiress far exceeds my expectations,” he
is saying (the horrid little wretch, I should like to box his ears!).
“Yes,” replies Bertha, also in a clear falsetto, and with a peculiar
drawl that I notice she wears in the evening, with her other full-dress
ornaments; “yes, she has agreeably surprised us all. You really would
hardly know she was colonial if you were not told.”
“I am quite sure I should not. And her dress--really now, her dress is
quite perfect--now, isn’t it?”
“Oh, her dress!” says Bertha, with what sounds like a sharper
intonation of voice. “Of course her dress is the correct thing, for it
was made at one of the best houses in Paris. She did not bring _that_
from Australia.”
“She brought that fine figure, though.”
Here Captain Damer begins to thunder away to Eleanor with a somewhat
angry vehemence. I know he is kindly trying to shut off that obtrusive
dialogue from my ears, and I feel grateful to him. I inwardly determine
that I will make myself pleasant to him when he comes up from his
wine, and that I will not speak to Lieutenant Wiggles if I can help
it. Bella Goodeve and Bertie Armytage bring up the rear of the family
procession, which is closed by aunt Alice and her distinguished
brother-in-law. Bella is a weak copy of Bertha, and both of them (as
far as I can judge from so short an acquaintance) fair types of a
common class of fashionable young ladies not quite in the best society.
Cousin Bertie is like his father, in a loose, unformed, elementary way,
with a thin, bright-eyed, hook-nosed face, a large frame unfilled and
angular, and the shy, quiet manners of a gentlemanly boy. Some day he
will be big and handsome, I think to myself, if he does not study too
much, or fall into consumption.
And so we sail, and sweep, and rustle into the dining-room, two and
two, and are marshalled to our places at the table, which is simply a
great bank of flowers, with a shining fringe of silver and crystal
all round it, lit up by that dazzling gaslight which I enjoy so much,
and which never makes my head ache as it does mother’s. Uncle Armytage
stands up and says grace, the velvet-footed servants begin to glide
about with plates and dishes; Mr. Goodeve beams upon his family party,
and says “Welcome” in every line of his kind, ugly, fat face. And my
dear father looks round on us all, and sighs, and says to aunt Alice,
“We only want James here to make it all complete.”
“James!” echoes Mr. Goodeve, with cold astonishment. “James!--my dear
Harry, what are you thinking of?”
“I can’t help thinking, now we are all together and happy, that I wish
poor James were here, too,” repeats my dearest daddy, gravely.
The remark is evidently considered by the company (some of them, at any
rate) a proof of the disastrous effects of bush life in blunting the
polite perceptions of even well-born gentlemen, but mother looks up at
him with quick, glad eyes; and, as for me, it is all I can do to keep
from running round the table to kiss him.