In the month of May, seven years after the flight of the two boys from
Moncrief House, a lady sat in an island of shadow which was made by
a cedar-tree in the midst of a glittering green lawn. She did well
to avoid the sun, for her complexion was as delicately tinted as
mother-of-pearl. She was a small, graceful woman, with sensitive lips
and nostrils, green eyes, with quiet, unarched brows, and ruddy gold
hair, now shaded by a large, untrimmed straw hat. Her dress of Indian
muslin, with half-sleeves terminating at the elbows in wide ruffles,
hardly covered her shoulders, where it was supplemented by a scarf
through which a glimpse of her throat was visible in a nest of soft
Tourkaris lace. She was reading a little ivory-bound volume--a miniature
edition of the second part of Goethe’s “Faust.”
As the afternoon wore on and the light mellowed, the lady dropped her
book and began to think and dream, unconscious of a prosaic black object
crossing the lawn towards her. This was a young gentleman in a
frock coat. He was dark, and had a long, grave face, with a reserved
expression, but not ill-looking.
“Going so soon, Lucian?” said the lady, looking up as he came into the
shadow.
Lucian looked at her wistfully. His name, as she uttered it, always
stirred him vaguely. He was fond of finding out the reasons of things,
and had long ago decided that this inward stir was due to her fine
pronunciation. His other intimates called him Looshn.
“Yes,” he said. “I have arranged everything, and have come to give an
account of my stewardship, and to say good-bye.”
He placed a garden-chair near her and sat down. She laid her hands one
on the other in her lap, and composed herself to listen.
“First,” he said, “as to the Warren Lodge. It is let for a month only;
so you can allow Mrs. Goff to have it rent free in July if you still
wish to. I hope you will not act so unwisely.”
She smiled, and said, “Who are the present tenants? I hear that they
object to the dairymaids and men crossing the elm vista.”
“We must not complain of that. It was expressly stipulated when they
took the lodge that the vista should be kept private for them. I had
no idea at that time that you were coming to the castle, or I should of
course have declined such a condition.”
“But we do keep it private for them; strangers are not admitted. Our
people pass and repass once a day on their way to and from the dairy;
that is all.”
“It seems churlish, Lydia; but this, it appears, is a special case--a
young gentleman, who has come to recruit his health. He needs daily
exercise in the open air; but he cannot bear observation, and he has
only a single attendant with him. Under these circumstances I agreed
that they should have the sole use of the elm vista. In fact, they are
paying more rent than would be reasonable without this privilege.”
“I hope the young gentleman is not mad.”
“I satisfied myself before I let the lodge to him that he would be a
proper tenant,” said Lucian, with reproachful gravity. “He was strongly
recommended to me by Lord Worthington, whom I believe to be a man of
honor, notwithstanding his inveterate love of sport. As it happens,
I expressed to him the suspicion you have just suggested. Worthington
vouched for the tenant’s sanity, and offered to take the lodge in his
own name and be personally responsible for the good behavior of this
young invalid, who has, I fancy, upset his nerves by hard reading.
Probably some college friend of Worthington’s.”
“Perhaps so. But I should rather expect a college friend of Lord
Worthington’s to be a hard rider or drinker than a hard reader.”
“You may be quite at ease, Lydia. I took Lord Worthington at his word
so far as to make the letting to him. I have never seen the real tenant.
But, though I do not even recollect his name, I will venture to answer
for him at second-hand.”
“I am quite satisfied, Lucian; and I am greatly obliged to you. I will
give orders that no one shall go to the dairy by way of the warren. It
is natural that he should wish to be out of the world.”
“The next point,” resumed Lucian, “is more important, as it concerns
you personally. Miss Goff is willing to accept your offer. And a most
unsuitable companion she will be for you!”
“Why, Lucian?”
“On all accounts. She is younger than you, and therefore cannot
chaperone you. She has received only an ordinary education, and her
experience of society is derived from local subscription balls. And, as
she is not unattractive, and is considered a beauty in Wiltstoken, she
is self-willed, and will probably take your patronage in bad part.”
“Is she more self-willed than I?”
“You are not self-willed, Lydia; except that you are deaf to advice.”
“You mean that I seldom follow it. And so you think I had better employ
a professional companion--a decayed gentlewoman--than save this
young girl from going out as a governess and beginning to decay at
twenty-three?”
“The business of getting a suitable companion, and the pleasure or duty
of relieving poor people, are two different things, Lydia.”
“True, Lucian. When will Miss Goff call?”
“This evening. Mind; nothing is settled as yet. If you think better of
it on seeing her you have only to treat her as an ordinary visitor and
the subject will drop. For my own part, I prefer her sister; but she
will not leave Mrs. Goff, who has not yet recovered from the shock of
her husband’s death.”
Lydia looked reflectively at the little volume in her hand, and seemed
to think out the question of Miss Goff. Presently, with an air of having
made up her mind, she said, “Can you guess which of Goethe’s characters
you remind me of when you try to be worldly-wise for my sake?”
“When I try--What an extraordinary irrelevance! I have not read Goethe
lately. Mephistopheles, I suppose. But I did not mean to be cynical.”
“No; not Mephistopheles, but Wagner--with a difference. Wagner taking
Mephistopheles instead of Faust for his model.” Seeing by his face
that he did not relish the comparison, she added, “I am paying you a
compliment. Wagner represents a very clever man.”
“The saving clause is unnecessary,” he said, somewhat sarcastically. “I
know your opinion of me quite well, Lydia.”
She looked quickly at him. Detecting the concern in her glance, he shook
his head sadly, saying, “I must go now, Lydia. I leave you in charge of
the housekeeper until Miss Goff arrives.”
She gave him her hand, and a dull glow came into his gray jaws as he
took it. Then he buttoned his coat and walked gravely away. As he went,
she watched the sun mirrored in his glossy hat, and drowned in his
respectable coat. She sighed, and took up Goethe again.
But after a little while she began to be tired of sitting still, and she
rose and wandered through the park for nearly an hour, trying to find
the places in which she had played in her childhood during a visit to
her late aunt. She recognized a great toppling Druid’s altar that had
formerly reminded her of Mount Sinai threatening to fall on the head of
Christian in “The Pilgrim’s Progress.” Farther on she saw and avoided a
swamp in which she had once earned a scolding from her nurse by filling
her stockings with mud. Then she found herself in a long avenue of green
turf, running east and west, and apparently endless. This seemed the
most delightful of all her possessions, and she had begun to plan a
pavilion to build near it, when she suddenly recollected that this must
be the elm vista of which the privacy was so stringently insisted upon,
by her invalid tenant at the Warren Lodge. She fled into the wood at
once, and, when she was safe there, laughed at the oddity of being a
trespasser in her own domain. She made a wide detour in order to avoid
intruding a second time; consequently, after walking for a quarter of
an hour, she lost herself. The trees seemed never ending; she began to
think she must possess a forest as well as a park. At last she saw an
opening. Hastening toward it, she came again into the sunlight, and
stopped, dazzled by an apparition which she at first took to be a
beautiful statue, but presently recognized, with a strange glow of
delight, as a living man.
To so mistake a gentleman exercising himself in the open air on a
nineteenth-century afternoon would, under ordinary circumstances, imply
incredible ignorance either of men or statues. But the circumstances in
Miss Carew’s case were not ordinary; for the man was clad in a jersey
and knee-breeches of white material, and his bare arms shone like those
of a gladiator. His broad pectoral muscles, in their white covering,
were like slabs of marble. Even his hair, short, crisp, and curly,
seemed like burnished bronze in the evening light. It came into Lydia’s
mind that she had disturbed an antique god in his sylvan haunt. The
fancy was only momentary; for she perceived that there was a third
person present; a man impossible to associate with classic divinity. He
looked like a well to do groom, and was contemplating his companion much
as a groom might contemplate an exceptionally fine horse. He was the
first to see Lydia; and his expression as he did so plainly showed that
he regarded her as a most unwelcome intruder. The statue-man, following
his sinister look, saw her too, but with different feelings; for his
lips parted, his color rose, and he stared at her with undisguised
admiration and wonder. Lydia’s first impulse was to turn and fly; her
next, to apologize for her presence. Finally she went away quietly
through the trees.
The moment she was out of their sight she increased her pace almost to
a run. The day was too warm for rapid movement, and she soon stopped
and listened. There were the usual woodland sounds; leaves rustling,
grasshoppers chirping, and birds singing; but not a human voice or
footstep. She began to think that the god-like figure was only the
Hermes of Praxiteles, suggested to her by Goethe’s classical Sabbat, and
changed by a day-dream into the semblance of a living reality. The
groom must have been one of those incongruities characteristic of
dreams--probably a reminiscence of Lucian’s statement that the tenant
of the Warren Lodge had a single male attendant. It was impossible that
this glorious vision of manly strength and beauty could be substantially
a student broken down by excessive study. That irrational glow of
delight, too, was one of the absurdities of dreamland; otherwise she
should have been ashamed of it.
Lydia made her way back to the castle in some alarm as to the state of
her nerves, but dwelling on her vision with a pleasure that she would
not have ventured to indulge had it concerned a creature of flesh
and blood. Once or twice it recurred to her so vividly that she
asked herself whether it could have been real. But a little reasoning
convinced her that it must have been an hallucination.
“If you please, madam,” said one of her staff of domestics, a native of
Wiltstoken, who stood in deep awe of the lady of the castle, “Miss Goff
is waiting for you in the drawing-room.”
The drawing-room of the castle was a circular apartment, with a
dome-shaped ceiling broken into gilt ornaments resembling thick
bamboos, which projected vertically downward like stalagmites. The
heavy chandeliers were loaded with flattened brass balls, magnified
fac-similes of which crowned the uprights of the low, broad,
massively-framed chairs, which were covered in leather stamped with
Japanese dragon designs in copper-colored metal. Near the fireplace was
a great bronze bell of Chinese shape, mounted like a mortar on a black
wooden carriage for use as a coal-scuttle. The wall was decorated with
large gold crescents on a ground of light blue.
In this barbaric rotunda Miss Carew found awaiting her a young lady
of twenty-three, with a well-developed, resilient figure, and a clear
complexion, porcelain surfaced, and with a fine red in the cheeks.
The lofty pose of her head expressed an habitual sense of her
own consequence given her by the admiration of the youth of the
neighborhood, which was also, perhaps, the cause of the neatness of her
inexpensive black dress, and of her irreproachable gloves, boots, and
hat. She had been waiting to introduce herself to the lady of the castle
for ten minutes in a state of nervousness that culminated as Lydia
entered.
“How do you do, Miss Goff, Have I kept you waiting? I was out.”
“Not at all,” said Miss Goff, with a confused impression that red hair
was aristocratic, and dark brown (the color of her own) vulgar. She had
risen to shake hands, and now, after hesitating a moment to consider
what etiquette required her to do next, resumed her seat. Miss Carew
sat down too, and gazed thoughtfully at her visitor, who held herself
rigidly erect, and, striving to mask her nervousness, unintentionally
looked disdainful.
“Miss Goff,” said Lydia, after a silence that made her speech
impressive, “will you come to me on a long visit? In this lonely place I
am greatly in want of a friend and companion of my own age and position.
I think you must be equally so.”
Alice Goff was very young, and very determined to accept no credit that
she did not deserve. With the unconscious vanity and conscious honesty
of youth, she proceeded to set Miss Carew right as to her social
position, not considering that the lady of the castle probably
understood it better than she did herself, and indeed thinking it quite
natural that she should be mistaken.
“You are very kind,” she replied, stiffly; “but our positions are quite
different, Miss Carew. The fact is that I cannot afford to live an
idle life. We are very poor, and my mother is partly dependent on my
exertions.”
“I think you will be able to exert yourself to good purpose if you come
to me,” said Lydia, unimpressed. “It is true that I shall give you very
expensive habits; but I will of course enable you to support them.”
“I do not wish to contract expensive habits,” said Alice, reproachfully.
“I shall have to content myself with frugal ones throughout my life.”
“Not necessarily. Tell me, frankly: how had you proposed to exert
yourself? As a teacher, was it not?”
Alice flushed, but assented.
“You are not at all fitted for it; and you will end by marrying. As
a teacher you could not marry well. As an idle lady, with expensive
habits, you will marry very well indeed. It is quite an art to know how
to be rich--an indispensable art, if you mean to marry a rich man.”
“I have no intention of marrying,” said Alice, loftily. She thought
it time to check this cool aristocrat. “If I come at all I shall come
without any ulterior object.”
“That is just what I had hoped. Come without condition, or second
thought of any kind.”
“But--” began Alice, and stopped, bewildered by the pace at which the
negotiation was proceeding. She murmured a few words, and waited for
Lydia to proceed. But Lydia had said her say, and evidently expected a
reply, though she seemed assured of having her own way, whatever Alice’s
views might be.
“I do not quite understand, Miss Carew. What duties?--what would you
expect of me?”
“A great deal,” said Lydia, gravely. “Much more than I should from a
mere professional companion.”
“But I am a professional companion,” protested Alice.
“Whose?”
Alice flushed again, angrily this time. “I did not mean to say--”
“You do not mean to say that you will have nothing to do with me,” said
Lydia, stopping her quietly. “Why are you so scrupulous, Miss Goff? You
will be close to your home, and can return to it at any moment if you
become dissatisfied with your position here.”
Fearful that she had disgraced herself by ill manners; loath to be taken
possession of as if her wishes were of no consequence when a rich
lady’s whim was to be gratified; suspicious--since she had often heard
gossiping tales of the dishonesty of people in high positions--lest she
should be cheated out of the salary she had come resolved to demand; and
withal unable to defend herself against Miss Carew, Alice caught at the
first excuse that occurred to her.
“I should like a little time to consider,” she said.
“Time to accustom yourself to me, is it not? You can have as long as you
plea-”
“Oh, I can let you know tomorrow,” interrupted Alice, officiously.
“Thank you. I will send a note to Mrs. Goff to say that she need not
expect you back until tomorrow.”
“But I did not mean--I am not prepared to stay,” remonstrated Alice,
feeling that she was being entangled in a snare.
“We shall take a walk after dinner, then, and call at your house, where
you can make your preparations. But I think I can supply you with all
you will require.”
Alice dared make no further objection. “I am afraid,” she stammered,
“you will think me horribly rude; but I am so useless, and you are so
sure to be disappointed, that--that--”
“You are not rude, Miss Goff; but I find you very shy. You want to
run away and hide from new faces and new surroundings.” Alice, who was
self-possessed and even overbearing in Wiltstoken society, felt that
she was misunderstood, but did not know how to vindicate herself. Lydia
resumed, “I have formed my habits in the course of my travels, and so
live without ceremony. We dine early--at six.”
Alice had dined at two, but did not feel bound to confess it.
“Let me show you your room,” said Lydia, rising. “This is a curious
drawingroom,” she added, glancing around. “I only use it occasionally to
receive visitors.” She looked about her again with some interest, as if
the apartment belonged to some one else, and led the way to a room on
the first floor, furnished as a lady’s bed-chamber. “If you dislike
this,” she said, “or cannot arrange it to suit you, there are others, of
which you can have your choice. Come to my boudoir when you are ready.”
“Where is that?” said Alice, anxiously.
“It is--You had better ring for some one to show you. I will send you my
maid.”
Alice, even more afraid of the maid than of the mistress, declined
hastily. “I am accustomed to attend to myself, Miss Carew,” with proud
humility.
“You will find it more convenient to call me Lydia,” said Miss Carew.
“Otherwise you will be supposed to refer to my grandaunt, a very old
lady.” She then left the room.
Alice was fond of thinking that she had a womanly taste and touch
in making a room pretty. She was accustomed to survey with pride her
mother’s drawing-room, which she had garnished with cheap cretonnes,
Japanese paper fans, and knick-knacks in ornamental pottery. She felt
now that if she slept once in the bed before her, she could never be
content in her mother’s house again. All that she had read and believed
of the beauty of cheap and simple ornament, and the vulgarity of
costliness, recurred to her as a hypocritical paraphrase of the “sour
grapes” of the fox in the fable. She pictured to herself with a shudder
the effect of a sixpenny Chinese umbrella in that fireplace, a cretonne
valance to that bed, or chintz curtains to those windows. There was in
the room a series of mirrors consisting of a great glass in which she
could see herself at full length, another framed in the carved oaken
dressing-table, and smaller ones of various shapes fixed to jointed arms
that turned every way. To use them for the first time was like having
eyes in the back of the head. She had never seen herself from all points
of view before. As she gazed, she strove not to be ashamed of her dress;
but even her face and figure, which usually afforded her unqualified
delight, seemed robust and middle-class in Miss Carew’s mirrors.
“After all,” she said, seating herself on a chair that was even more
luxurious to rest in than to look at; “putting the lace out of
the question--and my old lace that belongs to mamma is quite as
valuable--her whole dress cannot have cost much more than mine. At any
rate, it is not worth much more, whatever she may have chosen to pay for
it.”
But Alice was clever enough to envy Miss Carew her manners more than
her dress. She would not admit to herself that she was not thoroughly
a lady; but she felt that Lydia, in the eye of a stranger, would answer
that description better than she. Still, as far as she had observed,
Miss Carew was exceedingly cool in her proceedings, and did not take
any pains to please those with whom she conversed. Alice had often made
compacts of friendship with young ladies, and had invited them to call
her by her Christian name; but on such occasions she had always called
themn “dear” or “darling,” and, while the friendship lasted (which was
often longer than a month, for Alice was a steadfast girl), had never
met them without exchanging an embrace and a hearty kiss.
“And nothing,” she said, springing from the chair as she thought of
this, and speaking very resolutely, “shall tempt me to believe that
there is anything vulgar in sincere affection. I shall be on my guard
against this woman.”
Having settled that matter for the present, she resumed her examination
of the apartment, and was more and more attracted by it as she
proceeded. For, thanks to her eminence as a local beauty, she had not
that fear of beautiful and rich things which renders abject people
incapable of associating costliness with comfort. Had the counterpane of
the bed been her own, she would have unhesitatingly converted it into a
ball-dress. There were toilet appliances of which she had never felt the
need, and could only guess the use. She looked with despair into the two
large closets, thinking how poor a show her three dresses, her ulster,
and her few old jackets would make there. There was also a dressing-room
with a marble bath that made cleanliness a luxury instead of one of the
sternest of the virtues, as it seemed at home. Yet she remarked that
though every object was more or less ornamental, nothing had been placed
in the rooms for the sake of ornament alone. Miss Carew, judged by her
domestic arrangements, was a utilitarian before everything. There was
a very handsome chimney piece; but as there was nothing on the mantel
board, Alice made a faint effort to believe that it was inferior in
point of taste to that in her own bedroom, which was covered with blue
cloth, surrounded by fringe and brass headed nails, and laden with
photographs in plush frames.
The striking of the hour reminded her that she had forgotten to prepare
for dinner. Khe hastily took off her hat, washed her hands, spent
another minute among the mirrors, and was summoning courage to ring
the bell, when a doubt occurred to her. Ought she to put on her gloves
before going down or not? This kept her in perplexity for many seconds.
At last she resolved to put her gloves in her pocket, and be guided
as to their further disposal by the example of her hostess. Then, not
daring to hesitate any longer, she rang the bell, and was presently
joined by a French lady of polished manners--Miss Carew’s maid who
conducted her to the boudoir, a hexagonal apartment that, Alice thought,
a sultana might have envied. Lydia was there, reading. Alice noted with
relief that she had not changed her dress, and that she was ungloved.
Miss Goff did not enjoy the dinner. There was a butler who seemed to
have nothing to do but stand at a buffet and watch her. There was also a
swift, noiseless footman who presented himself at her elbow at intervals
and compelled her to choose on the instant between unfamiliar things
to eat and drink. She envied these men their knowledge of society, and
shrank from their criticism. Once, after taking a piece of asparagus
in her hand, she was deeply mortified at seeing her hostess consume the
vegetable with the aid of a knife and fork; but the footman’s back was
turned to her just then, and the butler, oppressed by the heat of the
weather, was in a state of abstraction bordering on slumber. On the
whole, by dint of imitating Miss Oarew, who did not plague her with any
hostess-like vigilance, she came off without discredit to her breeding.
Lydia, on her part, acknowledged no obligation to entertain her guest
by chatting, and enjoyed her thoughts and her dinner in silence. Alice
began to be fascinated by her, and to wonder what she was thinking
about. She fancied that the footman was not quite free from the same
influence. Even the butler might have been meditating himself to
sleep on the subject. Alice felt tempted to offer her a penny for her
thoughts. But she dared not be so familiar as yet. And, had the offer
been made and accepted, butler, footman, and guest would have been
plunged into equal confusion by the explanation, which would have run
thus:
“I saw a vision of the Hermes of Praxiteles in a sylvan haunt to-day;
and I am thinking of that.”