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SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
A Novel
BY ANTHONY HOPE
AUTHOR OF "THE PRISONER OF ZENDA," "THE INTRUSIONS OF PEGGY," ETC.
NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
MCMVI
Copyright, 1905, by ANTHONY HOPE HAWKINS.
_All rights reserved._
Published October, 1906.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION v
PART I
MORPINGHAM
I. ENOCH GROUCH'S DAUGHTER 3
II. THE COOK AND THE CATECHISM 10
III. BEAUTIFUL JULIA--AND MY LORD 19
IV. FATE'S WAY--OR LADY MEG'S 29
V. THE VISION OF "SOMETHING BRIGHT" 40
PART II
PARIS
I. PHAROS, MANTIS, AND CO. 45
II. THE LORD OF YOUTH 55
III. THE NOTE--AND NO REASONS 64
IV. THE PICTURE AND THE STAR 72
PART III
KRAVONIA
I. THE NAME-DAY OF THE KING 79
II. AT THE GOLDEN LION 90
III. THE VIRGIN WITH THE LAMP 101
IV. THE MESSAGE OF THE NIGHT 110
V. A QUESTION OF MEMORY 118
VI. "IMPOSSIBLE" OR "IMMEDIATE"? 129
VII. THE BARONESS GOES TO COURT 139
VIII. MONSEIGNEUR'S UNIFORM 149
IX. COUNTESS ELLENBURG PRAYS 159
X. THE SOUND OF A TRUMPET 169
XI. M. ZERKOVITCH'S BEDROOM FIRE 180
XII. JOYFUL OF HEART 193
XIII. A DELICATE DUTY 203
XIV. HIS MAJESTY DIES--TO-MORROW! 216
XV. A JOB FOR CAPTAIN HERCULES 225
XVI. A FRENCHMAN AND A MATTRESS 235
XVII. INGENIOUS COLONEL STAFNITZ 246
XVIII. TO THE FAITHFUL CITY 258
XIX. THE SILVER RING 267
XX. THEY HAVE COLDS IN SLAVNA 280
XXI. ON SATURDAY AT MIKLEVNI! 292
XXII. JEALOUS OF DEATH 303
XXIII. A WOMAN AND A GHOST 313
XXIV. TRUE TO HER LOVE 325
INTRODUCTION
The following narrative falls naturally into three divisions,
corresponding to distinct and clearly marked periods of Sophy's life. Of
the first and second--her childhood at Morpingham and her sojourn in
Paris--the records are fragmentary, and tradition does little to
supplement them. As regards Morpingham, the loss is small. The annals of
a little maid-servant may be left in vagueness without much loss. Enough
remains to show both the manner of child Sophy was and how it fell out
that she spread her wings and left the Essex village far behind her. It
is a different affair when we come to the French period. The years spent
in and near Paris, in the care and under the roof of Lady Margaret
Duddington, were of crucial moment in Sophy's development. They changed
her from what she had been and made her what she was to be. Without
Paris, Kravonia, still extraordinary, would have been impossible.
Yet the surviving history of Paris and the life there is scanty. Only a
sketch is possible. A record existed--and a fairly full one--in the
Julia Robins correspondence; that we know from Miss Robins herself. But
the letters written from Paris by Sophy to her lifelong friend have,
with some few exceptions, perished. Miss Robins accounts for this--and
in view of her careful preservation of later correspondence, her apology
must be accepted--by the fact that during these years--from 1866 to
1870--she was constantly travelling from town to town and from lodging
to lodging, as a member of various theatrical companies; this nomadic
existence did not promote the careful and methodical storage of her
letters. It may, of course, be added that no such obvious interest
attached to these records as gathered round Sophy's doings after she had
exchanged Paris and the Rue de Grenelle for Slavna and the Castle of
Praslok.
When this migration has been effected, the historian is on much firmer
ground; he is even embarrassed sometimes by the abundance of material of
varying value. Apart from public records and general memory (both
carefully consulted on the spot), the two main sources flow from Sophy's
own hand. They are the Robins correspondence and the diary. Nearly to
the end the letters are very constant, very full, very instructive; but
they are composed with an obvious view to the tastes and interests of
their recipient, and by no means always devote most space to what now
seems of greatest interest. In one point, however, Miss Robins's tastes
prove of real service. This lady, who rose to a respectable, if not a
high, position as a Shakespearian actress, was much devoted to the study
of costume, and Sophy, aware of this hobby, never omits to tell her with
minute care what she herself wore on every occasion, what the other
ladies wore, and what were the uniforms, military or civil, in which the
men were arrayed. Trivial, perhaps, yet of great value in picturing the
scenes!
In her letters Sophy is also copious in depicting places, houses, and
landscapes--matters on which the diary is naturally not so full. So
that, in spite of their great faults, the letters form a valuable
supplement to the diary. Yet what faults--nay, what crimes! Sophy had
learned to talk French perfectly and to write it fairly well. She had
not learned to write English well or even decently; the letters are, in
fact, a charnel-house of murdered grammar and broken-backed sentences.
Still there emerge from it all a shrewdness and a rural vigor and
raciness which show that the child of the little Essex farm-house
survived in the writer.
But for this Kravonian period--the great period--the diary is the thing.
Yet it is one of the most unconscientious diaries ever written. It is
full of gaps; it is often posted up very unpunctually; it is sometimes
exasperatingly obscure--there may be some intention in that; she could
not tell into what hands it might fall. But it covers most of the
ground; it begins almost with Sophy's arrival in Slavna, and the last
entry records her discovery of Lord Dunstanbury's presence in Kravonia.
It is written for the most part in French, and she wrote French, as has
been said, decently--nay, even forcibly, though not with elegance; yet
she frequently relapses into English--often of a very colloquial order:
this happens mostly under the influence of anger or some other strong
emotion. And she is dramatic--that must be allowed to her. She
concentrates her attention on what she conceives (nor is her instinct
far out) to be her great scenes; she gives (or purports to give) a
verbatim report of critical conversations, and it is only just to say
that she allows her interlocutors fair play. She has candor--and that,
working with the dramatic sense in her, forbids her to warp the scene.
In the earlier parts of the story she shows keen appreciation of its
lighter aspects; as times grow graver, her records, too, change in mood,
working up to the tense excitement, the keen struggle, the burning
emotions of her last days in Kravonia. Yet even then she always finds
time for a laugh and a touch of gayety.
When Sophy herself ceases to be our guide, Lord Dunstanbury's notes
become the main authority. They are supplemented by the recollection of
Mr. Basil Williamson, now practising his profession of surgery in
Australia; and this narrative is also indebted to Colonel Markart,
sometime secretary to General Stenovics, for much important information
which, as emanating from the enemy's camp, was not accessible to Sophy
or her informants. The contributions of other actors in the drama, too
numerous to mention here, will be easily identified in their place in
the story.
A word seems desirable on one other subject, and no mean one; for it is
certain that Sophy's physical gifts were a powerful ally to her
ambition, her strong will, and her courage; it is certain, too, that she
did not shrink from making the most of this reinforcement to her powers.
All the authorities named above--not excepting Sophy herself--have
plenty to say on the topic, and from their descriptions a portrait of
her may be attempted. Of actual pictures one only exists--in the
possession of the present Lord Dunstanbury, who succeeded his
father--Sophy's Earl--a few years ago. It is a pastel, drawn just before
she left Paris--and, to be frank, it is something of a disappointment;
the taste of the 'sixties is betrayed in a simper which sits on the lips
but is alien to the character of them. Still the outline and the color
are there.
Her hair was very dark, long, and thick; her nose straight and fine, her
lips firm and a trifle full. Her complexion was ordinarily very pale,
and she did not flush save under considerable agitation of mind or
exertion of body. She was above the middle height, finely formed, and
slender. It was sometimes, indeed, objected that her shape was too
masculine--the shoulders a trifle too square and the hips too small for
a woman. These are, after all, matters of taste; she would not have been
thought amiss in ancient Athens. All witnesses agree in describing her
charm as lying largely in movement, in vivacity, in a sense of
suppressed force trying to break out, or (as Mr. Williamson puts it) of
"tremendous driving power."
The personality seems to stand out fairly distinct from these
descriptions, and we need the less regret that a second picture, known
to have been painted soon after her arrival in Kravonia, has perished
either through carelessness or (more probably) by deliberate
destruction; there were many in Kravonia not too anxious that even a
counterfeit presentment of the famous "Red Star" and its wearer should
survive. It would carry its memories and its reproach.
"The Red Star!" The name appears first in a letter of the Paris
period--one of the few which are in existence. Its invention is
attributed by Sophy to her friend the Marquis de Savres (of whom we
shall hear again). He himself used it often. But of the thing we hear
very early--and go on hearing from time to time. Sophy at first calls it
"my mark," but she speedily adopts Monsieur le Marquis's more poetical
term, and by that description it is known throughout her subsequent
career. The polite artist of the 'sixties shirked it altogether by
giving a half-profile view of his subject, thus not showing the left
cheek where the "star" was situated.
It was, in fact, a small birth-mark, placed just below the cheek-bone,
almost round, yet with a slightly indented outline. No doubt a lover
(and M. de Savres was one) found warrant enough for his phrase. At
ordinary times it was a very pale red in color, but (unlike the rest of
her face) it was very rapidly sensitive to any change of mood or temper;
in moments of excitement the shade deepened greatly, and (as Colonel
Markart says in his hyperbolic strain) "it glowed like angry Venus."
Without going quite that length, we are bound to allow that it was, at
these moments, a conspicuous and striking mark, and such it clearly
appeared to the eyes of all who saw it. "La dame à l'étoile rouge," says
the Marquis. "The Red-starred Witch," said the less courteous and more
hostile citizens and soldiers of Kravonia. Sophy herself appears proud
of it, though she feigns to consider it a blemish. Very probably it was
one of those peculiarities which become so closely associated and
identified with the personality to which they belong as at once to
heighten the love of friends and to attract an increased dislike or
hatred from those already disposed or committed to enmity. At any rate,
for good or evil, it is as "Red Star" that the name of Sophy lives
to-day in the cities and mountains of Kravonia.
So much in preface; now to the story. Little historical importance can
be claimed for it. But amateurs of the picturesque, if yet there be such
in this business-like world, may care to follow Sophy from Morpingham to
Paris, to share her flight from the doomed city, to be with her in the
Street of the Fountain, at venerable Praslok, on Volseni's crumbling
wall, by the banks of the swift-flowing Krath at dawn of day--to taste
something of the spirit that filled, to feel something of the love that
moved, the heart of Sophy Grouch of Morpingham, in the county of Essex.
Still, sometimes Romance beckons back her ancient votaries.
SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
PART I
MORPINGHAM
I
ENOCH GROUCH'S DAUGHTER
Grouch! That is the name--and in the interest of euphony it is
impossible not to regret the fact. Some say it should be spelled
"Groutch," which would not at all mend matters, though it makes the
pronunciation clear beyond doubt--the word must rhyme with "crouch" and
"couch." Well might Lady Meg Duddington swear it was the ugliest name
she had ever heard in her life! Sophy was not of a very different
opinion, as will be shown by-and-by. She was Grouch on both
sides--unmixed and unredeemed. For Enoch Grouch married his uncle's
daughter Sally, and begat, as his first child, Sophy. Two other children
were born to him, but they died in early infancy. Mrs. Grouch did not
long survive the death of her little ones; she was herself laid in
Morpingham church-yard when Sophy was no more than five years old. The
child was left to the sole care of her father, a man who had married
late for his class--indeed, late for any class--and was already well on
in middle age. He held a very small farm, lying about half a mile behind
the church. Probably he made a hard living of it, for the only servant
in his household was a slip of a girl of fifteen, who had, presumably,
both to cook and scrub for him and to look after the infant Sophy.
Nothing is remembered of him in Morpingham. Perhaps there was nothing to
remember--nothing that marked him off from thousands like him; perhaps
the story of his death, which lives in the village traditions, blotted
out the inconspicuous record of his laborious life.
Morpingham lies within twenty-five miles of London, but for all that it
is a sequestered and primitive village. It contained, at this time at
least, but three houses with pretensions to gentility--the Hall, the
Rectory, and a smaller house across the village street, facing the
Rectory. At the end of the street stood the Hall in its grounds. This
was a handsome, red-brick house, set in a spacious garden. Along one
side of the garden there ran a deep ditch, and on the other side of the
ditch, between it and a large meadow, was a path which led to the
church. Thus the church stood behind the Hall grounds; and again, as has
been said, beyond the church was Enoch Grouch's modest farm, held of Mr.
Brownlow, the owner of the Hall. The church path was the favorite resort
of the villagers, and deservedly, for it was shaded and beautified by a
fine double row of old elms, forming a stately avenue to the humble
little house of worship.
On an autumn evening in the year 1855 Enoch Grouch was returning from
the village, where he had been to buy tobacco. His little girl was with
him. It was wild weather. A gale had been blowing for full twenty-four
hours, and in the previous night a mighty bough had been snapped from
one of the great elms and had fallen with a crash. It lay now right
across the path. As they went to the village, her father had indulged
Sophy with a ride on the bough, and she begged a renewal of the treat on
their homeward journey. The farmer was a kind man--more kind than wise,
as it proved, on this occasion. He set the child astraddle on the thick
end of the bough, then went to the other end, which was much slenderer.
Probably his object was to try to shake the bough and please his small
tyrant with the imitation of a see-saw. The fallen bough suggested no
danger to his slow-moving mind. He leaned down towards the bough with
out-stretched hands--Sophy, no doubt, watching his doings with excited
interest--while the wind raged and revelled among the great branches
over their heads. Enoch tried to move the bough, but failed; in order to
make another effort, he fell on his knees and bent his back over it.
At this moment there came a loud crash--heard in the Rectory grounds and
in the dining-room at Woodbine Cottage, the small house opposite.
"There's another tree gone!" cried Basil Williamson, the Rector's second
son, who was giving his retriever an evening run.
He raced through the Rectory gate, across the road, and into the avenue.
A second later the garden gate of Woodbine Cottage opened, and Julia,
the ten-years-old daughter of a widow named Robins who lived there, came
out at full speed. Seeing Basil just ahead of her, she called out: "Did
you hear?"
He knew her voice--they were playmates--and answered without looking
back: "Yes. Isn't it fun? Keep outside the trees--keep well in the
meadow!"
"Stuff!" she shouted, laughing. "They don't fall every minute, silly!"
Running as they exchanged these words, they soon came to where the
bough--or, rather, the two boughs--had fallen. A tragic sight met their
eyes. The second bough had caught the unlucky farmer just on the nape of
his neck, and had driven him down, face forward, onto the first. He lay
with his neck close pinned between the two, and his arms spread out over
the undermost. His face was bad to look at; he was quite dead, and
apparently death must have been instantaneous. Sobered and appalled, the
boy and girl stood looking from the terrible sight to each other's
faces.
"Is he dead?" Julia whispered.
"I expect so," the boy answered. Neither of them had seen death before.
The next moment he raised his voice and shouted: "Help, help!" then laid
hold of the upper bough and strove with all his might to raise it. The
girl gave a shriller cry for assistance and then lent a hand to his
efforts. But between them they could not move the great log.
Up to now neither of them had perceived Sophy.
Next on the scene was Mr. Brownlow, the master of the Hall. He had been
in his greenhouse and heard the crash of the bough. Of that he took no
heed--nothing could be done save heave a sigh over the damage to his
cherished elms. But when the cries for help reached his ears, with
praiseworthy promptitude he rushed out straight across his lawn, and
(though he was elderly and stout) dropped into the ditch, clambered out
of it, and came where the dead man and the children were. As he passed
the drawing-room windows, he called out to his wife: "Somebody's hurt,
I'm afraid"; and she, after a moment's conference with the butler,
followed her husband, but, not being able to manage the ditch, went
round by the road and up the avenue, the servant coming with her. When
these two arrived, the Squire's help had availed to release the farmer
from the deadly grip of the two boughs, and he lay now on his back on
the path.
"He's dead, poor fellow," said Mr. Brownlow.
"It's Enoch Grouch!" said the butler, giving a shudder as he looked at
the farmer's face. Julia Robins sobbed, and the boy Basil looked up at
the Squire's face with grave eyes.
"I'll get a hurdle, sir," said the butler. His master nodded, and he ran
off.
Something moved on the path--about a yard from the thick end of the
lower bough.
"Look there!" cried Julia Robins. A little wail followed. With an
exclamation, Mrs. Brownlow darted to the spot. The child lay there with
a cut on her forehead. Apparently the impact of the second bough had
caused the end of the first to fly upward; Sophy had been jerked from
her seat into the air, and had fallen back on the path, striking her
head on a stone. Mrs. Brownlow picked her up, wiped the blood from her
brow, and saw that the injury was slight. Sophy began to cry softly, and
Mrs. Brownlow soothed her.
"It's his little girl," said Julia Robins. "The little girl with the
mark on her cheek, please, Mrs. Brownlow."
"Poor little thing! Poor little thing!" Mrs. Brownlow murmured; she knew
that death had robbed the child of her only relative and protector.
The butler now came back with a hurdle and two men, and Enoch Grouch's
body was taken into the saddle-room at the Hall. Mrs. Brownlow followed
the procession, Sophy still in her arms. At the end of the avenue she
spoke to the boy and girl:
"Go home, Basil; tell your father, and ask him to come to the Hall.
Good-night, Julia. Tell your mother--and don't cry any more. The poor
man is with God, and I sha'n't let this mite come to harm." She was a
childless woman, with a motherly heart, and as she spoke she kissed
Sophy's wounded forehead. Then she went into the Hall grounds, and the
boy and girl were left together in the road. Basil shook his fist at the
avenue of elms--his favorite playground.
"Hang those beastly trees!" he cried. "I'd cut them all down if I was
Mr. Brownlow."
"I must go and tell mother," said Julia. "And you'd better go, too."
"Yes," he assented, but lingered for a moment, still looking at the
trees as though reluctantly fascinated by them.
"Mother always said something would happen to that little girl," said
Julia, with a grave and important look in her eyes.
"Why?" the boy asked, brusquely.
"Because of that mark--that mark she's got on her cheek."
"What rot!" he said, but he looked at his companion uneasily. The event
of the evening had stirred the superstitious fears seldom hard to stir
in children.
"People don't have those marks for nothing--so mother says." Other
people, no wiser, said the same thing later.
"Rot!" Basil muttered again. "Oh, well, I must go."
She glanced at him timidly. "Just come as far as our door with me. I'm
afraid."
"Afraid!" He smiled scornfully. "All right!"
He walked with her to the door of Woodbine Cottage, and waited till it
closed behind her, performing the escort with a bold and lordly air.
Left alone in the fast-darkening night, with nobody in sight, with no
sound save the ceaseless voice of the angry wind essaying new mischief
in the tops of the elm-trees, he stood for a moment listening fearfully.
Then he laid his sturdy legs to the ground and fled for home, looking
neither to right nor left till he reached the hospitable light of his
father's study. The lad had been brave in face of the visible horror;
fear struck him in the moment of Julia's talk about the mark on the
child's cheek. Scornful and furious at himself, yet he was mysteriously
afraid.
II
THE COOK AND THE CATECHISM
Sophy Grouch had gone to lay a bunch of flowers on her father's grave.
From the first Mrs. Brownlow had taught her this pious rite, and Mrs.
Brownlow's deputy, the gardener's wife (in whose cottage Sophy lived),
had seen to its punctual performance every week. Things went by law and
rule at the Hall, for the Squire was a man of active mind and ample
leisure. His household code was a marvel of intricacy and minuteness.
Sophy's coming and staying had developed a multitude of new clauses,
under whose benevolent yet strict operation her youthful mind had been
trained in the way in which Mr. Brownlow was of opinion that it should
go.
Sophy's face, then, wore a grave and responsible air as she returned
with steps of decorous slowness from the sacred precincts. Yet the outer
manner was automatic--the result of seven years' practice. Within, her
mind was busy: the day was one of mark in her life; she had been told
her destined future, and was wondering how she would like it.
Her approach was perceived by a tall and pretty girl who lay in the
meadow-grass (and munched a blade of it) which bordered the path under
the elm-trees.
"What a demure little witch she looks!" laughed Julia Robins, who was
much in the mood for laughter that day, greeting with responsive gleam
of the eyes the sunlight which fell in speckles of radiance through the
leaves above. It was a summer day, and summer was in her heart, too; yet
not for the common cause with young maidens; it was no nonsense about
love-making--lofty ambition was in the case to-day.
"Sophy Grouch! Sophy Grouch!" she cried, in a high, merry voice.
Sophy raised her eyes, but her steps did not quicken. With the same
measured paces of her lanky, lean, little legs, she came up to where
Julia lay.
"Why don't you say just 'Sophy'?" she asked. "I'm the only Sophy in the
village."
"Sophy Grouch! Sophy Grouch!" Julia repeated, teasingly.
The mark on Sophy's left cheek grew redder. Julia laughed mockingly.
Sophy looked down on her, still very grave.
"You do look pretty to-day," she observed--"and happy."
"Yes, yes! So I tease you, don't I? But I like to see you hang out your
danger-signal."
She held out her arms to the little girl. Sophy came and kissed her,
then sat down beside her.
"Forgive?"
"Yes," said Sophy. "Do you think it's a very awful name?"
"Oh, you'll change it some day," smiled Julia, speaking more truth than
she knew. "Listen! Mother's consented, consented, consented! I'm to go
and live with Uncle Edward in London--London, Sophy!--and learn
elocution--"
"Learn what?"
"E-lo-cu-tion--which means how to talk so that people can hear you ever
so far off--"
"To shout?"
"No. Don't be stupid. To--to be heard plainly without shouting. To be
heard in a theatre! Did you ever see a theatre?"
"No. Only a circus. I haven't seen much."
"And then--the stage! I'm to be an actress! Fancy mother consenting at
last! An actress instead of a governess! Isn't it glorious?" She paused
a moment, then added, with a self-conscious laugh: "Basil's awfully
angry, though."
"Why should he be angry?" asked Sophy. Her own anger was gone; she was
plucking daisies and sticking them here and there in her friend's golden
hair. They were great friends, this pair, and Sophy was very proud of
the friendship. Julia was grown up, the beauty of the village, and--a
lady! Now Sophy was by no means any one of these things.
"Oh, you wouldn't understand," laughed Julia, with a blush.
"Does he want to keep company with you--and won't you do it?"
"Only servants keep company, Sophy."
"Oh!" said Sophy, obviously making a mental note of the information.
"But he's very silly about it. I've just said 'Good-bye,' to him--you
know he goes up to Cambridge to-morrow?--and he did say a lot of silly
things." She suddenly caught hold of Sophy and kissed her half a dozen
times. "It's a wonderful thing that's happened. I'm so tremendously
happy!" She set her little friend free with a last kiss and a playful
pinch.
Neither caress nor pinch disturbed Sophy's composure. She sat down on
the grass.
"Something's happened to me, too, to-day," she announced.
"Has it, Tots? What is it?" asked Julia, smiling indulgently; the great
events in other lives are thus sufficiently acknowledged.
"I've left school, and I'm going to leave Mrs. James's and go and live
at the Hall, and be taught to help cook; and when I'm grown up I'm going
to be cook." She spoke slowly and weightily, her eyes fixed on Julia's
face.
"Well, I call it a shame!" cried Julia, in generous indignation. "Oh, of
course it would be all right if they'd treated you properly--I mean, as
if they'd meant that from the beginning. But they haven't. You've lived
with Mrs. James, I know; but you've been in and out of the Hall all the
time, having tea in the drawing-room, and fruit at dessert, and--and so
on. And you look like a little lady, and talk like one--almost. I think
it's a shame not to give you a better chance. Cook!"
"Don't you think it might be rather nice to be a cook--a good cook?"
"No, I don't," answered the budding Mrs. Siddons, decisively.
"People always talk a great deal about the cook," pleaded Sophy. "Mr.
and Mrs. Brownlow are always talking about the cook--and the Rector
talks about his cook, too--not always very kindly, though."
"No, it's a shame--and I don't believe it'll happen."
"Yes, it will. Mrs. Brownlow settled it to-day."
"There are other people in the world besides Mrs. Brownlow."
Sophy was not exactly surprised at this dictum, but evidently it gave
her thought. Her long-delayed "Yes" showed that as plainly as her "Oh"
had, a little while before, marked her appreciation of the social
limits of "keeping company." "But she can settle it all the same," she
persisted.
"For the time she can," Julia admitted. "Oh, I wonder what'll be my
first part, Tots!" She threw her pretty head back on the grass, closing
her eyes; a smile of radiant anticipation hovered about her lips. The
little girl rose and stood looking at her friend--the friend of whom she
was so proud.
"You'll look very, very pretty," she said, with sober gravity.
Julia's smile broadened, but her lips remained shut. Sophy looked at her
for a moment longer, and, without formal farewell, resumed her progress
down the avenue. It was hard on tea-time, and Mrs. James was a stickler
for punctuality.
Yet Sophy's march was interrupted once more. A tall young man sat
swinging his legs on the gate that led from the avenue into the road.
The sturdy boy who had run home in terror on the night Enoch Grouch died
had grown into a tall, good-looking young fellow; he was clad in what is
nowadays called a "blazer" and check-trousers, and smoked a large
meerschaum pipe. His expression was gloomy; the gate was shut--and he
was on the top of it. Sophy approached him with some signs of
nervousness. When he saw her, he glared at her moodily.
"You can't come through," he said, firmly.
"Please, Mr. Basil, I must, I shall be late for tea."
"I won't let you through. There!"
Sophy looked despairful. "May I climb over?"
"No," said Basil, firmly; but a smile began to twitch about his lips.
Quick now, as ever, to see the joint in a man's armor, Sophy smiled too.
"If you'd let me through, I'd give you a kiss," she said, offering the
only thing she had to give in all the world.
"You would, would you? But I hate kisses. In fact, I hate girls all
round--big and little."
"You don't hate Julia, do you?"
"Yes, worst of all."
"Oh!" said Sophy--once more the recording, registering "Oh!"--because
Julia had given quite another impression, and Sophy sought to reconcile
these opposites.
The young man jumped down from the gate, with a healthy laugh at himself
and at her, caught her up in his arms, and gave her a smacking kiss.
"That's toll," he said. "Now you can go through, missy."
"Thank you, Mr. Basil. It's not very hard to get through, is it?"
He set her down with a laugh, a laugh with a note of surprise in it; her
last words had sounded odd from a child. But Sophy's eyes were quite
grave; she was probably recording the practical value of a kiss.
"You shall tell me whether you think the same about that in a few years'
time," he said, laughing again.
"When I'm grown up?" she asked, with a slow, puzzled smile.
"Perhaps," said he, assuming gravity anew.
"And cook?" she asked, with a curiously interrogative air--anxious
apparently to see what he, in his turn, would think of her destiny.
"Cook? You're going to be a cook?"
"The cook," she amended. "The cook at the Hall."
"I'll come and eat your dinners." He laughed, yet looked a trifle
compassionate. Sophy's quick eyes tracked his feelings.
"You don't think it's nice to be a cook, either?" she asked.
"Oh yes, splendid! The cook's a sort of queen," said he.
"The cook a sort of queen? Is she?" Sophy's eyes were profoundly
thoughtful.
"And I should be very proud to kiss a queen--a sort of queen. Because I
shall be only a poor sawbones."
"Sawbones?"
"A surgeon--a doctor, you know--with a red lamp, like Dr. Seaton at
Brentwood."
She looked at him for a moment. "Are you really going away?" she asked,
abruptly.
"Yes, for a bit--to-morrow."
Sophy's manner expanded into a calm graciousness. "I'm very sorry," she
said.
"Thank you."
"You amuse me."
"The deuce I do!" laughed Basil Williamson.
She raised her eyes slowly to his. "You'll be friends, anyhow, won't
you?"
"To cook or queen," he said--and heartiness shone through his raillery.
Sophy nodded her head gravely, sealing the bargain. A bargain it was.
"Now I must go and have tea, and then say my catechism," said she.
The young fellow--his thoughts were sad--wanted the child to linger.
"Learning your catechism? Where have you got to?"
"I've got to say my 'Duty towards my Neighbor' to Mrs. James after tea."
"Your 'Duty towards your Neighbor'--that's rather difficult, isn't it?"
"It's very long," said Sophy, resignedly.
"Do you know it?"
"I think so. Oh, Mr. Basil, would you mind hearing me? Because if I can
say it to you, I can say it to her, you know."
"All right, fire away."
A sudden doubt smote Sophy. "But do you know it yourself?" she asked.
"Yes, rather, I know it."
She would not take his word. "Then you say the first half, and I'll say
the second."
He humored her--it was hard not to--she looked so small and seemed so
capable. He began--and tripped for a moment over "'To love, honor, and
succor my father and mother.'" The child had no chance there. But
Sophy's eyes were calm. He ended, "'teachers, spiritual pastors, and
masters.' Now go on," he said.
"'To order myself lowly and reverently to all my betters; to hurt nobody
by word nor deed; to be true and just in all my dealing; to bear no
malice nor hatred in my heart; to keep my hands from picking and
stealing, and my tongue from evil-speaking, lying, and slandering; to
keep my body in temperance, soberness, and chastity [the young man
smiled for an instant--that sounded pathetic]; not to covet nor desire
other men's goods, but to learn and labor truly to get mine own living
and to do my duty in that state of life unto which it has pleased God to
call me.'"
"Wrong!" said Basil. "Go down two!"
"Wrong?" she cried, indignantly disbelieving.
"Wrong!"
"It's not! That's what Mrs. James taught me."
"Perhaps--it's not in the prayer-book. Go and look."
"You tell me first!"
"'And to do my duty in that state of life unto which it shall please God
to call me.'" His eyes were set on her with an amused interest.
She stood silent for a moment. "Sure?" she asked then.
"Positive," said he.
"Oh!" said Sophy, for the third time. She stood there a moment longer.
Then she smiled at him. "I shall go and look. Good-bye."
Basil broke into a laugh. "Good-bye, missy," he said. "You'll find I'm
right."
"If I do, I'll tell you," she answered him, generously, as she turned
away.
His smile lasted while he watched her. When she was gone his grievance
revived, his gloom returned. He trudged home with never a glance back at
the avenue where Julia was. Yet even now the thought of the child
crossed his mind; that funny mark of hers had turned redder when he
corrected her rendering of the catechism.
Sophy walked into Mrs. James's kitchen. "Please may I read through my
'Duty' before I say it?" she asked.
Permission accorded with some surprise--for hitherto the teaching had
been by word of mouth--she got the prayer-book down from its shelf and
conned her lesson. After tea she repeated it correctly. Mrs. James
noticed no difference.
III
BEAUTIFUL JULIA--AND MY LORD
"It seemed somehow impossible, me going to be cook there all my days."
So writes Sophy at a later date in regard to her life at Morpingham
Hall. To many of us in our youth it has seemed impossible that we should
pass all our days in the humdrum occupations and the mediocre positions
in which we have in fact spent them. Young ambitions are chronicled only
when they have been fulfilled--unless where a born autobiographer makes
fame out of his failures. But Sophy had a double portion of original
restlessness--this much the records of Morpingham years, scanty as they
are, render plain. Circumstances made much play with her, but she was
never merely the sport of chance or of circumstances. She was always
waiting, even always expecting, ready to take her chance, with arm
out-stretched to seize Occasion by the forelock. She co-operated eagerly
with Fate and made herself a partner with Opportunity, and she was quick
to blame the other members of the firm for any lack of activity or
forwardness. "You can't catch the train unless you're at the
station--and take care your watch isn't slow," she writes somewhere in
the diary. The moral of the reflection is as obvious as its form; it is
obvious, too, that a traveller so scrupulous to be in time would suffer
proportionate annoyance if the train were late.
The immediate result of this disposition of hers was unhappy, and it is
not hard to sympathize with the feelings of the Brownlows. Their
benevolence was ample, but it was not unconscious; their benefits, which
were very great, appeared to them exhaustive, not only above what Sophy
might expect, but also beyond what she could imagine. They had picked
her up from the road-side and set her on the way to that sort of kingdom
with the prospect of which Basil Williamson had tried to console her.
The Squire was an estimable man, but one of small mind; he moved among
the little--the contented lord of a pin-point of the earth. Mrs.
Brownlow was a profoundly pious woman, to whom content was a high duty,
to be won by the performance of other duties. If the Squire detected in
the girl signs of ingratitude to himself, his wife laid equal blame on a
rebellion against Heaven. Sophy knew--if not then, yet on looking
back--what they felt; her references to them are charged with a remorse
whose playful expression (obstinately touched with scorn as it is) does
not hide its sincerity. She soon perceived, anyhow, that she was getting
a bad character; she, the cook _in posse_, was at open war with Mrs.
Smilker, the cook _in esse_; though, to be sure, "Smilker" might have
done something to reconcile her to "Grouch!"
Mrs. Brownlow naturally ranged herself on the side of constituted
authority, of the superior rank in the domestic hierarchy. Moreover, it
is likely that Mrs. Smilker was right in nine cases out of ten, at all
events; Sophy recognized that probability in after-life; none the less,
she allows herself more than once to speak of "that beast of a Smilker."
Mere rectitude as such never appealed to her; that comes out in another
rather instructive comment, which she makes on Mrs. Brownlow herself,
"Me being what I was, and she what she was, though I was grateful to
her, and always shall be, I couldn't love her; and what hit me hardest
was that she didn't wonder at it, and, in my opinion, wasn't very sorry
either--not in her heart, you know. Me not loving her made what she was
doing for me all the finer, you see."
Perhaps these flashes of insight should not be turned on our
benefactors, but the extract serves to show another side of Sophy--one
which in fairness to her must not be ignored. Not only was restlessness
unsatisfied, and young ambitions starved; the emotions were not fed
either, or at least were presented with a diet too homely for Sophy's
taste. For the greater part of this time she had no friends outside the
Hall to turn to. Julia Robins was pursuing her training in London, and,
later, her profession in the country. Basil Williamson, who "amused"
her, was at Cambridge, and afterwards at his hospital; a glimpse of him
she may have caught now and then, but they had no further talk. Very
probably he sought no opportunity; Sophy had passed from the infants'
school to the scullery; she had grown from a child into a big girl. If
prudent Basil kept these transformations in view, none can blame him--he
was the son of the Rector of the parish. So, when bidden to the Hall, he
ate the potatoes Sophy had peeled, but recked no more of the hand that
peeled them. In the main the child was, no doubt, a solitary creature.
So much is what scientific men and historians call "reconstruction"--a
hazardous process--at least when you are dealing with human beings. It
has been kept within the strict limits of legitimate inference, and
accordingly yields meagre results. The return of Julia Robins enables us
to put many more of the stones--or bones, or whatever they may be
called--in their appropriate places.
It is the summer of 1865--and Julia is very gorgeous. Three years had
passed over her head; her training had been completed a twelvemonth
before, and she had been on her first tour. She had come home "to
rest"--and to look out for a new engagement. She wore a blue hat with a
white feather, a blue skirt, and a red "Garibaldi" shirt; her fair hair
was dressed in the latest fashion. The sensation she made in Morpingham
needs no record. But her head was not turned; nobody was ever less of a
snob than Julia Robins, no friendship ever more independent of the ups
and downs of life, on one side or the other, than that which united her
and Sophy Grouch. She opened communications with the Hall scullery
immediately. And--"Sophy was as much of a darling as ever"--is her
warm-hearted verdict.
The Hall was not accessible to Julia, nor Woodbine Lodge to Mrs.
Brownlow's little cook-girl. But the Squire's coachman had been at the
station when Julia's train came in: her arrival would be known in the
Hall kitchen, if not up-stairs. On the morrow she went into the avenue
of old elms about twelve o'clock, conjecturing that her friend might
have a few free moments about that hour--an oasis between the labors of
the morning and the claims of luncheon. Standing there under the trees
in all her finery--not very expensive finery, no doubt, yet fresh and
indisputably gay--she called her old mocking challenge--"Sophy Grouch!
Sophy Grouch!"
Sophy was watching. Her head rose from the other side of the ditch. She
was down in a moment, up again, and in her friend's arms. "It's like a
puff of fresh air," she whispered, as she kissed her, and then, drawing
away, looked her over. Sophy was tall beyond her years, and her head was
nearly on a level with Julia's. She was in her short print gown, with
her kitchen apron on; her sleeves rolled up, her face red from the fire,
her hands too, no doubt, red from washing vegetables and dishes. "She
looked like Cinderella in the first act of a pantomime," is Miss
Robins's professional comment--colored, perhaps, also by subsequent
events.
"You're beautiful!" cried Sophy. "Oh, that shirt--I love red!" And so on
for some time, no doubt. "Tell me about it; tell me everything about
it," she urged. "It's the next best thing, you know."
Miss Robins recounted her adventures: they would not seem very dazzling
at this distance. Sophy heard them with ardent eyes; they availed to
color the mark on her cheek to a rosy tint. "That's being alive," she
said, with a deep-drawn sigh.
Julia patted her hand consolingly. "But I'm twenty!" she reminded her
friend. "Think how young you are!"
"Young or old's much the same in the kitchen," Sophy grumbled.
Linking arms, they walked up the avenue. The Rector was approaching from
the church. Sophy tried to draw her arm away. Julia held it tight. The
Rector came up, lifted his hat--and, maybe, his brows. But he stopped
and said a few pleasant words to Julia. He had never pretended to
approve of this stage career, but Julia had now passed beyond his
jurisdiction. He was courteous to her as to any lady. Official position
betrayed itself only as he was taking leave--and only in regard to Sophy
Grouch.
"Ah, you keep up old friendships," he said--with a rather forced
approval. "Please don't unsettle the little one's mind, though. She has
to work--haven't you, Sophy? Good-bye, Miss Robins."
Sophy's mark was ruddy indeed as the Rector went on his blameless way,
and Julia was squeezing her friend's arm very hard. But Sophy said
nothing, except to murmur--just once--"The little one!" Julia smiled at
the tone.
They turned and walked back towards the road. Now silence reigned; Julia
was understanding, pitying, wondering whether a little reasonable
remonstrance would be accepted by her fiery and very unreasonable little
friend; scullery-maids must not arraign social institutions nor quarrel
with the way of the world. But she decided to say nothing--the mark
still glowed. It was to glow more before that day was out.
They came near to the gates. Julia felt a sudden pressure on her arm.
"Look!" whispered Sophy, her eyes lighting up again in interest.
A young man rode up the approach to the Hall lodge. His mare was a
beauty; he sat her well. He was perfectly dressed for the exercise. His
features were clear-cut and handsome. There was as fine an air of
breeding about him as about the splendid Newfoundland dog which ran
behind him.
Julia looked as she was bidden. "He's handsome," she said. "Why--" she
laughed low--"I believe I know who it is--I think I've seen him
somewhere."
"Have you?" Sophy's question was breathless.
"Yes, I know! When we were at York! He was one of the officers there; he
was in a box. Sophy, it's the Earl of Dunstanbury!"
Sophy did not speak. She looked. The young man--he could be hardly more
than twenty--came on. Sophy suddenly hid behind her friend ("To save my
pride, not her own," generous Julia explains--Sophy herself advances no
such excuse), but she could see. She saw the rider's eye rest on Julia;
did it rest in recognition? It almost seemed so; yet there was doubt.
Julia blushed, but she forbore from smiling or from seeking to rouse his
memory. Yet she was proud if he remembered her face from across the
footlights. The young man, too--being but a young man--blushed a little
as he gave the pretty girl by the gate such a glance as discreetly told
her that he was of the same mind as herself about her looks. These
silent interchanges of opinion on such matters are pleasant diversions
as one plods the highway.
He was gone. Julia sighed in satisfied vanity. Sophy awoke to stern
realities.
"Gracious!" she cried. "He must have come to lunch! They'll want a
salad! You'll be here to-morrow--do!" And she was off, up the drive, and
round to her own regions at the back of the house.
"I believe his Lordship did remember my face," thought Julia as she
wandered back to Woodbine Cottage.
But Sophy washed lettuces in her scullery--which, save for its base
purposes, was a pleasant, airy apartment, looking out on a path that ran
between yew hedges and led round from the lawn to the offices of the
house. Diligently she washed, as Mrs. Smilker had taught her (whether
rightly or not is nothing to the purpose here), but how many miles away
was her mind? So far away from lettuces that it seemed in no way strange
to look up and see Lord Dunstanbury and his dog on the path outside the
window at which she had been performing her task. He began hastily:
"Oh, I say, I've been seeing my mare get her feed, and--er--do you think
you could be so good as to find a bone and some water for Lorenzo?"
"Lorenzo?" she said.
"My dog, you know." He pointed to the handsome beast, which wagged an
expectant tail.
"Why do you call him that?"
Dunstanbury smiled. "Because he's magnificent. I dare say you never
heard of Lorenzo the Magnificent?"
"No. Who was he?"
"A Duke--Duke of Florence--in Italy." He had begun to watch her face,
and seemed not impatient for the bone.
"Florence? Italy?" The lettuce dropped from her hands; she wiped her
hands slowly on her apron.
"Do you think you could get me one?"
"Yes, I'll get it."
She went to the back of the room and chose a bone.
"Will this do?" she asked, holding it out through the window.
"Too much meat."
"Oh!" She went and got another. "This one all right?"
"Capital! Do you mind if I stay and see him eat it?"
"No."
"Here, Lorenzo! And thank the lady!"
Lorenzo directed three sharp barks at Sophy and fell to. Sophy filled
and brought out a bowl of water. Lord Dunstanbury had lighted a cigar.
But he was watching Sophy. A new light broke on him suddenly.
"I say, were you the other girl behind the gate?"
"I didn't mean you to see me."
"I only caught a glimpse of you. I remember your friend, though."
"She remembered you, too."
"I don't know her name, though."
"Julia Robins."
"Ah, yes--is it? He's about polished off that bone, hasn't he? Is
she--er--a great friend of yours?"
His manner was perhaps a little at fault; the slightest note of chaff
had crept into it; and the slightest was enough to put Sophy's quills
up.
"Why not?" she asked.
"Why not? Every reason why she should be," he answered with his lips.
His eyes answered more, but he refrained his tongue. He was scrupulously
a gentleman--more so perhaps than, had sexes and places been reversed,
Sophy herself would have been. But his eyes told her. "Only," he went
on, "if so, why did you hide?"
That bit of chaff did not anger Sophy. But it went home to a different
purpose--far deeper, far truer home than the young man had meant. Not
the mark only reddened--even the cheeks flushed. She said no word. With
a fling-out of her arms--a gesture strangely, prophetically foreign as
it seemed to him in after-days--she exhibited herself--the print frock,
the soiled apron, the bare arms, red hands, the ugly knot of her hair,
the scrap of cap she wore. For a moment her lips quivered, while the
mark--the Red Star of future days and future fame--grew redder still.
The only sound was of Lorenzo's worrying the last tough scrap of bone.
The lad, gentleman as he was, was good flesh and blood, too--and the
blood was moving. He felt a little tightness in his throat; he was new
to it. New, too, was Sophy Grouch to what his eyes said to her, but she
took it with head erect and a glance steadily levelled at his.
"Yes," he said. "But I shouldn't have looked at any of that--and I
shouldn't have looked at her either."
Brightly the mark glowed; subtly the eyes glowed. There was silence
again.
Almost a start marked Dunstanbury's awakening. "Come, Lorenzo!" he
cried; he raised his hat and turned away, followed by his dog, Lorenzo
the Magnificent.
Sophy took up her lettuces and carried them into the kitchen.
"There you are, at last! And what's put you in a temper now?" asked Mrs.
Smilker. She had learned the signs of the mark.
Sophy smiled. "It's not temper this time, Mrs. Smilker. I--I'm very
happy to-day," she said. "Oh, I do hope the salad will be good!"
For he who was to eat of the salad--had he not forgotten print frock and
soiled apron, bare arms, red hands, ugly knot, and execrable cap? He
would not have looked at them--no, nor at beautiful many-tinted Julia
Robins in her pride! He had forgotten all these to look at the stained
cheek and the eyes of subtle glow. She had glanced in the mirror of love
and sipped from the cup of power.
Such was her first meeting with Lord Dunstanbury. If it were ever
forgotten, it was not Dunstanbury who forgot.
The day had wrought much in her eyes; it had wrought more than she
dreamed of. Her foot was near the ladder now, though she could not yet
see the lowest rung.
IV
FATE'S WAY--OR LADY MEG'S
The scene is at Hazleby, Lord Dunstanbury's Essex seat. His lordship is
striking the top off his breakfast egg.
"I say, Cousin Meg, old Brownlow's got a deuced pretty kitchen-maid."
"There you go! There you go! Just like your father, and your
grandfather, and all of them! If the English people had any spirit,
they'd have swept the Dunstanburys and all the wicked Whig gang into the
sea long ago."
"Before you could turn round they'd have bought it up, enclosed it, and
won an election by opening it to ships at a small fee on Sundays," said
Mr. Pindar.
"Why are Whigs worse than Tories?" inquired Mr. Pikes, with an air of
patient inquiry.
"The will of Heaven, I suppose," sniffed Lady Margaret Duddington.
"To display Divine Omnipotence in that line," suggested Mr. Pindar.
"A deuced pretty girl!" said Dunstanbury, in reflective tones. He was
doing his best to reproduce the impression he had received at Morpingham
Hall, but obviously with no great success.
"On some pretext, frivolous though it be, let us drive over and see this
miracle," Pindar suggested.
"How could we better employ this last day of our visit? You'll drive us
over, Percival?"
"No, thank you, Mr. Pindar," said the young man, resolute in wisdom.
"I'll send you over, if you like."
"I'll come with you," said Pikes. "But how account for ourselves? Old
Brownlow is unknown to us."
"If Percival had been going, I'd have had nothing to do with it, but I
don't mind taking you two old sillies," said Lady Margaret. "I wanted to
pay a call on Elizabeth Brownlow anyhow. We were at school together
once. But I won't guarantee you a sight of the kitchen-maid."
"It's a pretty drive--for this part of the country," observed
Dunstanbury.
"It may well become your favorite road," smiled Mr. Pindar,
benevolently.
"And since Lady Meg goes with us, it's already ours," added Mr. Pikes,
gallantly.
So they used to go on--for hours at a time, as Dunstanbury has
declared--both at Hazleby when they were there, and at Lady Meg's house
in Berkeley Square, where they almost always were. They were pleased to
consider themselves politicians--Pikes a Whig, twenty years behind date,
Pindar a Tory, two hundred. It was all an affectation--assumed for the
purpose, but with the very doubtful result of amusing Lady Meg. To
Dunstanbury the two old waifs--for waifs of the sea of society they
were, for all that each had a sufficient income to his name and a
reputable life behind him--were sheerly tiresome--and there seems little
ground to differ from his opinion. But they were old family friends, and
he endured with his usual graciousness.
Their patroness--they would hardly have gibed at the word--was a more
notable person. Lady Meg--the world generally, and Sophy always, spoke
of her by that style, and we may take the same liberty--was only child
of the great Earl of Dunstanbury. The title and estates passed to his
grandnephew, but half a million or so of money came to her. She took the
money, but vowed, with an outspoken thankfulness, that from the
Dunstanbury family she had taken nothing else. If the boast were true,
there must have been a powerful strain of eccentricity and perversity
derived from elsewhere. All the Dunstanbury blood was Whig; Lady Meg
counted the country ruined in 1688. Even Dunstanbury had been a man of
sensibility; Lady Meg declared war on emotion--especially on the
greatest of all emotions. The Dunstanbury attitude in thought had always
been free, even tending to the materialistic; Lady Meg would believe in
anything--so long as she couldn't see it. A queer woman, choosing to go
to war with the world and infinitely enjoying the gratuitous conflict
which she had herself provoked! With half a million pounds and the
Duddington blood one can afford these recondite luxuries--and to have a
Pindar and a Pikes before whom to exhibit their rare flavor. She was
aggressive, capricious, hard to live with. Fancies instead of purposes,
whims instead of interests, and not, as it seems, much affection for
anybody--she makes rather a melancholy picture; but in her time she made
a bit of a figure, too.
The air of the household was stormy that day at Morpingham--an incentive
to the expedition, not a deterrent, for Lady Meg, had she known it.
Sophy was in sore disgrace--accused, tried, and convicted of
insubordination and unseemly demeanor towards Mrs. Smilker. The truth
seems to be that this good woman (Rest her soul! She has a neat
tombstone in Morpingham church-yard) loved--like many another good
creature--good ale sometimes a trifle too well; and the orders she gave
when ale had been plentiful did not always consort with her less-mellow
injunctions. In no vulgar directness, but with a sarcasm which Mrs.
Smilker felt without understanding, Sophy would point out these
inconsistencies. Angered and humiliated, fearful too, perhaps, that her
subordinate would let the secret out, Mrs. Smilker made haste to have
the first word with the powers; and against the word of the cook the
word of the cook-maid weighed as naught. After smaller troubles of this
origin there had come a sort of crisis to-day. The longest of long
lectures had been read to Sophy by mistress and repeated (slightly
condensed) by master; then she was sent away to think it over; an abject
apology to outraged Mrs. Smilker must be forthcoming, or banishment was
the decree. Informed of this ultimatum, Sophy went out and hung about
the avenue, hoping for Julia to appear. Soon Julia came and heard the
story. She had indignation in readiness, and--what was more to the
purpose--a plan. Soon Sophy's eyes grew bright.
Into this storm-tossed house came Lady Meg and her spaniels. This unkind
name, derived at first from the size and shape of Mr. Pindar's ears
(they were large, and hung over at the top), had been stretched to
include Mr. Pikes also, with small loss of propriety. Both gentlemen
were low of stature, plump of figure, hairy on the face; both followed
obediently at the heels of commanding Lady Meg. The amenities of the
luncheon-table opened hearts. Very soon the tale of Sophy's iniquities
was revealed; incidentally, and unavoidably if Sophy's heinous fault
were to appear in its true measure, the tally of the Brownlows'
benevolence was reckoned. But Mrs. Brownlow won small comfort from Lady
Meg: she got a stiff touch of the truth.
"Ran in and out of the drawing-room!" she said. "Did she? The truth is,
Lizzie, you've spoiled her, and now you're angry with her for being
spoiled."
"What is she now, Mrs. Brownlow?" asked Pindar, with a sly intention.
Was this Percival's deuced pretty girl?
"She works in the kitchen, Mr. Pindar."
"The girl!" his eyes signalled to Mr. Pikes. "Let Lady Meg see her," he
urged, insinuatingly. "She has a wonderful way with girls."
"I don't want to see her; and I know your game, Pindar," said Lady Meg.
"I'm afraid she must go," sighed Mrs. Brownlow. Her husband said, more
robustly, that such an event would be a good riddance--a saying
repeated, with the rest of the conversation, by the butler (one William
Byles, still living) to the gratified ears of Mrs. Smilker in the
kitchen.
"But I'm not easy about her future. She's an odd child, and looks it."
"Pretty?" This from Mr. Pindar.
"Well, I don't know. Striking-looking, you'd rather say, perhaps, Mr.
Pindar."
"Let her go her own way. We've talked quite enough about her." Lady Meg
sounded decisive--and not a little bored.
"And then"--Mrs. Brownlow made bold to go on for a moment--"such a funny
mark! Many people wouldn't like it, I'm sure."
Lady Meg turned sharply on her. "Mark? What do you mean? What mark?"
"A mark on her face, you know. A round, red mark--"
"Big as a threepenny bit, pretty nearly," said the Squire.
"Where?"
"On her cheek."
"Where is the girl?" asked Lady Meg. Her whole demeanor had changed, her
bored air had vanished. "She seemed fair excited," Mr. Byles reports.
Then she turned to the said Byles: "Find out where that girl is, and let
me know. Don't tell her anything about it. I'll go to her."
"But let me send for her--" began the Squire, courteously.
"No, give me my own way. I don't want her frightened."
The Squire gave the orders she desired, and the last Mr. Byles heard as
he left the room was from Lady Meg:
"Marks like that always mean something--eh, Pindar?"
No doubt Mr. Pindar agreed, but his reply is lost.
The girls in the avenue had made their plan. Sophy would not bow her
head to Mrs. Smilker, nor longer eat the bread of benevolence embittered
by servitude. She would go with Julia; she, too, would tread the
boards--if only she could get her feet on them; and when did any girl
seriously doubt her ability to do that? The pair were gay and laughing,
when suddenly through the gate came Lady Meg and the spaniels--Lady Meg
ahead as usual, and with a purposeful air.
"Who are they?" cried Sophy.
Hazleby is but twelve miles from Morpingham. Julia had been over to see
the big house, and had sighted Lady Meg in the garden.
"It's Lady Margaret Duddington," she whispered, rather in a fright.
There was time for no more. Lady Meg was upon them. Sophy was identified
by her dress, and, to Lady Meg's devouring eyes, by the mark.
"You're the girl who's been behaving so badly?" she said.
Seeing no profit in arguing the merits, Sophy answered "Yes."
At this point Julia observed one old gentleman nudge the other and
whisper something; it is morally certain that Pindar whispered to Pikes:
"Percival's girl!"
"You seem to like your own way. What are you going to do? Say you're
sorry?"
"No. I'm not sorry. I'm going away."
"Come here, girl, let me look at you."
Sophy obeyed, walking up to Lady Meg and fixing her eyes on her face.
She was interested, not frightened, as it seemed. Lady Meg looked long
at her.
"Going away? Where to?"
Julia spoke up. "She's coming with me, please, Lady Margaret." Julia, it
would seem, was a little frightened.
"Who are you?"
"Julia Robins. My mother lives there." She pointed to Woodbine Cottage.
"I--I'm on the stage--"
"Lord help you!" remarked Lady Meg, disconcertingly.
"Not at all!" protested Julia, her meaning plain, her expression of it
faulty. "And I--I'm going to help her to--to get an engagement. We're
friends."
"What's she going to do with that on the stage?" Lady Meg's forefinger
almost touched the mark.
"Oh, that's all right, Lady Margaret. Just a little cold cream and
powder--"
"Nasty stuff!" said Lady Meg.
A pause followed, Lady Meg still studying Sophy's face. Then, without
turning round, she made a remark obviously addressed to the gentlemen
behind her:
"I expect this is Percival's young person."
"Without a doubt," said Pikes.
"And Percival was right about her, too," said Pindar.
"Think so? I ain't sure yet," said Lady Meg. "And at any rate I don't
care twopence about that. But--" A long pause marked a renewed scrutiny.
"Your name's Sophy, isn't it?"
"Yes." Sophy hesitated, then forced out the words: "Sophy Grouch."
"Grouch?"
"I said Grouch."
"Humph! Well, Sophy, don't go on the stage. It's a poor affair, the
stage, begging Miss Julia's pardon--I'm sure she'll do admirably at it.
But a poor affair it is. There's not much to be said for the real
thing--but it's a deal better than the stage, Sophy."
"The real thing?" Julia saw Sophy's eyes grow thoughtful.
"The world--places--London--Paris--men and women--Lord help them! Come
with me, and I'll show you all that."
"What shall I do if I come with you?"
"Do? Eat and drink, and waste time and money, like the rest of us. Eh,
Pindar?"
"Of course," said Mr. Pindar, with a placid smile.
"I sha'n't be a--a servant again?"
"Everybody in my house is a slave, I'm told, but you won't be more of a
slave than the rest."
"Will you have me taught?"
Lady Meg looked hard at her. For the first time she smiled, rather
grimly. "Yes, I'll have you taught, and I'll show you the Queen of
England, and, if you behave yourself, the Emperor of the French--Lord
help him!"
"Not unless she behaves herself!" murmured Mr. Pindar.
"Hold your tongue, Pindar! Now, then, what do you say? No, wait a
minute; I want you to understand it properly." She became silent for a
moment. Julia was thinking her a very rude woman; but, since Mr. Pindar
did not mind, who need?
Lady Meg resumed. "I won't make an obligation of you--I mean, I won't be
bound to you; and you sha'n't be bound to me. You'll stay with me as
long as you like, or as long as I like, as the case may be. If you want
to go, put your visiting-card--yes, you'll have one--in an envelope and
send it to me. And if I want you to go, I'll put a hundred-pound note in
an envelope and send it to you--upon which you'll go, and no reasons
given! Is it agreed?"
"It sounds all right," said Sophy.
"Did you always have that mark on your cheek?"
"Yes, always. Father told me so."
"Well, will you come?"
Sophy was torn. The stage was very attractive, and the love she had for
Julia Robins held her as though by a cord. But was the stage a poor
thing? Was that mysterious "real thing" better? Though even of that this
strange woman spoke scornfully. Already there must have been some
underground channel of understanding between them; for Sophy knew that
Lady Meg was more than interested in her--that she was actually excited
about her; and Lady Meg, in her turn, knew that she played a good card
when she dangled before Sophy's eyes the Queen of England and the
Emperor of the French--though even then came that saving "Lord help
him!" to damp an over-ardent expectation.
"Let me speak to Julia," said Sophy. Lady Meg nodded; the girls linked
arms and walked apart. Pindar came to Lady Meg's elbow.
"Another whim!" said he, in a low voice. Pikes was looking round the
view with a kind of vacant contentment.
"Yes," she said. His lips moved. "I know what you said. You said: 'You
old fool!' Pindar."
"Never, on my life, my lady!" They seemed more friends now than
patroness and client. Few saw them thus, but Pindar told Dunstanbury,
and the old gentleman was no liar.
"Give me one more!" she whispered, plainly excited. "That mark must mean
something. It may open a way."
"For her?" he asked, smiling.
"It must for her. It may for me."
"A way where?"
"To knowledge--knowledge of the unknown. They may speak through her!"
"Lady Meg! Lady Meg! And if they don't, the hundred-pound note! It's
very cruel."
"Who knows?--who knows, Pindar? Fate has her ways."
He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. "Not half as amusing as your
ladyship's!"
Sophy, twenty yards off, flung her arms round Julia. The embrace was
long; it spoke farewell. Lady Meg's eyes brightened. "She's coming with
me," she said. Pindar shrugged his shoulders again and fell back to
heel. Sophy walked briskly up.
"I'll come, my lady," she said.
"Good. To-morrow afternoon--to London. Mrs. Brownlow has the address.
Good-bye." She turned abruptly on her heel and marched off, her retinue
following.
Julia came to Sophy.
"We can write," she said. "And she's right. You must be for the real
thing, Sophy!"
"My dear, my dear!" murmured Sophy, half in tears. "Yes, we must write."
She drew back and stood erect. "It's all very dark," she said. "But I
like it. London--and Paris! On the Seine!" Old lessons came back with
new import now.
"The Emperor of the French!" Julia mocked--with tears in her eyes.
A sudden thought occurred to Sophy. "What did she mean by 'Percival's
young person'? Is his name Percival?"
Julia gave a little cry. "Lord Dunstanbury's? Yes. You've seen him
again?"
She drew out the story. It made the sorrow of parting half forgotten.
"You owe this to him, then! How romantic!" was actress Julia's
conclusion--in part a true one, no doubt. But Sophy, looking deeper,
fingered the Red Star. She had tracked the magnet of Lady Meg's regard,
the point of her interest, the pivot of decision for that mind of
whims.
V
THE VISION OF "SOMETHING BRIGHT"
With that scene in the avenue of elm-trees at Morpingham there comes a
falling of the veil. Letters passed between Sophy and Julia Robins, but
they have not been preserved. The diary was not yet begun. Basil
Williamson did not move in the same world with Lady Meg and her
entourage: Dunstanbury was in Ireland, where his regiment was then
stationed. For the next twelve months there is only one glimpse of
Sophy--that a passing and accidental one, although not without its
significance as throwing a light on Lady Meg's adoption of Sophy (while
it lasted it amounted to that), and on the strange use to which she
hoped to be able to turn her _protégée_. The reference is, however,
tantalizingly vague just where explicitness would have been of curious
interest, though hardly of any real importance to a sensible mind.
The reference occurs in a privately printed volume of reminiscences by
the late Captain Hans Fleming, R.N., a sailor of some distinction, but
better known as a naturalist. Writing in the winter of 1865-66 (he gives
no precise date), he describes in a letter a meeting with Lady
Meg--whom, it will be noticed, he calls "old Lady Meg," although at that
time she was but forty-nine. She had so early in life taken up an
attitude of resolute spinsterhood that there was a tendency to
exaggerate her years.
"To-day in the park I met old Lady Meg Duddington. It was piercing cold,
but the carriage was drawn up under the trees. The poor spaniels on the
opposite seat were shivering! She stopped me and was, for her, very
gracious; she only 'Lord-helped-me' twice in the whole conversation. She
was full of her ghosts and spirits, her seers and witches. She has got
hold of an entirely new prophetess, a certain woman who calls herself
Madame Mantis and knows all the secrets of the future, both this side
the grave and the other. Beside Lady Meg sat a remarkably striking girl,
to whom she introduced me, but I didn't catch the name. I gathered that
this girl (who had an odd mark on one cheek, almost like a pale pink
wafer) was, in old Meg's mad mind, anyhow, mixed up with the
prophetess--as medium, or subject, or inspiration, or something of that
kind--I don't understand that nonsense, and don't want to. But when I
looked sceptical (and old Pindar chuckled--or it may have been his teeth
chattering with the cold), Meg nodded her head at the girl and said:
'She'll tell you a different tale some day: if you meet her in five
years' time, perhaps.' I don't know what the old lady meant; I suppose
the girl did, but she looked absolutely indifferent, and, indeed, bored.
One can't help being amused, but, seriously, it's rather sad for a man
who was brought up in the reverence of Lord Dunstanbury to see his only
daughter--a clever woman, too, naturally--devoting herself to such
childish stuff."
Such is the passage; it is fair to add that most of the Captain's book
is of more general interest. As he implies, he had had a long
acquaintance with the Dunstanbury family, and took a particular interest
in anything that related to it. Nevertheless, what he says has its
place here; it fits in with and explains Lady Meg's excited and mystical
exclamation to Mr. Pindar at Morpingham, "They may speak through her!"
Apparently "they" had spoken--to what effect we cannot even conjecture,
unless an explanation be found in a letter of the Kravonian period in
which Sophy says to Julia: "You remember that saying of Mantis's when we
were in London--the one about how she saw something hanging in the air
over my head--something bright." That is all she says--and "something
bright" leaves the matter very vague. A sword--a crown--the nimbus of a
saint: imagination might play untrammelled. Still some prophecy was
made; Lady Meg built on it, and Sophy (for all her apparent
indifference) remembered it, and in after-days thought it worthy of
recall. That is as far as we can go; and with that passing glimpse,
Sophy Grouch (of course the mention of the wafer-like mark puts her
identity beyond question) passes out of sight for the time; indeed, as
Sophy Grouch, in the position in which we have seen her and in the name
under which we have known her, she passes out of sight forever.