A tall girl was standing at the window of a drawing-room in a large
house at the corner of a certain London square.
It was a good house, though with nothing very distinctive about it; one
of the class that now, at the end of the nineteenth-century, people are
beginning to look upon as somewhat old-fashioned. There was nothing
"Queen Anne" about it, or its furniture; though, to make amends for
this, it gave the impression of dignity and stateliness: perhaps, after
all, the points that it is safest to aim at in a definitely town house,
where light and height and air are the great desiderata. And there was
nothing grim or gloomy in the colouring of the room, though a perhaps
too studied avoidance of mere prettiness, which would, I fear, have been
designated by its mistress as "tawdry frippery" or something analogous
thereto.
And this was the home--since his father's death, that is to say--of
Horace Littlewood, who at this present moment was successfully
accomplishing the afternoon call which, with Betty's assistance, he had
arranged to pay at Fir Cottage, primarily, of course, on the master of
the house, whose favour he had gained to such an extent that, after a
discussion of local matters in his study, his host had begged him to
join the ladies of the family at tea in the drawing-room.
Madeleine Littlewood, his only unmarried sister, was the tall girl who
stood gazing out into the gloom of the late winter afternoon. From the
position of the house she could see more ways than one. In the square
itself the lamps were now in process of being lighted. One by one she
saw them twinkle out, though the result was but faint and dim in
comparison with the brilliance of the adjoining street--a wide and
important one, where the presence of shops made the contrast with the
silent square the more striking.
The girl gave a little sigh.
"Dear me," she said to herself, "how well I remember watching the
lamplighter when we were children! We each used to try to catch sight
of him first. There seemed something mysterious about him. I think it
began the first winter we were ever in London; it was all so new, and
then for so long we only came up in the summer, and everything was
different. And now again it will be quite a new experience to be in the
country for so long together in the winter. I wonder how we shall like
it, and if mamma won't find it dreadfully dull, after all." She turned
from the window as she spoke, partly because at that moment the front
door bell rang sharply, and, as a rule, at this hour, she and her mother
were supposed to be "at home."
"I wonder who that is," she thought.
She was not long left in doubt, for a minute later the door was thrown
open, the butler announcing--"Mr Morion."
"Bring the lamps," she said, as she moved forward a little to greet the
newcomer, "and let Mrs Littlewood know Mr Morion is here."
"Horace is away, I suppose," were the visitor's first words.
"Yes," she replied, "the day before yesterday; in such spirits too. He
seems to be greatly taken with that eyrie of yours up in the North. He
was quite disappointed when mamma gave up thought of it."
"I hope you'll all like it," was the reply, though the tone was
indifferent enough. "But you mustn't blame me if you don't."
"Well, no!" she replied. "I can't say that you painted it for us in
very attractive colours; in fact, you have not praised it up at all."
"I could scarcely have done so," he said; "I know it so little. But
hearing what you, or rather what your mother wanted--bracing northern
air, with a touch of the sea, and to be left at peace, it would have
been rather dog-in-the-manger of me not to suggest it."
"Oh! it was very kind of you to think of us," she replied, more
cordially than she had yet spoken. "You must come down when we are
there and learn to know your own home, or rather the home of your
forefathers, for Horace tells me it was the cradle of your race. It is
odd," she went on, reflectively, "that you should never have cared to
know it better."
Something in her words or tone slightly jarred on the owner of
Craig-Morion.
He pushed his chair back a little, and hesitated in his reply.
"A great many things seem odd to outsiders," he said, dryly.
Madeleine smiled. Somehow, though she scarcely could have said why, for
she had no real antipathy to her sister-in-law's brother, she and Ryder
Morion never "got on," though underneath this surface antagonism each
had for the other a solid foundation of respect and even liking.
"Yes," she replied coolly, "it is not always the case that they see `the
most of the game.' I am afraid I am a born gossip," she added, with a
little laugh. "I like to know the ins and outs of my friends' affairs.
And oh, by-the-by, _a propos_ of Craig-Morion, you have relations there
of your own name, I hear! Do tell me something about them."
"You could not apply in a worse quarter," he said. "I know literally
nothing of them, except that the father is a peculiar, and, as far as
any personal experience of him goes, a very disagreeable man. There was
an old--complication. He believes _his_ grandfather should have
inherited the place, instead of my people, though really, as it all
happened ages before I was born, I don't see why he visits it on me."
"And _does_ he?" inquired Madeleine.
"Well, yes, I fancy so. He was very rude to me once, at all events, and
naturally that didn't add to the attractions of Craig-Morion, for these
people live almost on my own ground. But really," he went on frankly,
"there are no reasons for my avoidance of the place, except negative
ones. I get into grooves, I fear, and feel lazy about things that I
have not always done."
There was silence for a moment or two, then Miss Littlewood spoke again.
"Horace has interested me in those relations of yours," she said, "from
what he has told me of them. Let me see, cousins, are they not? But
not at all near? Or is the father a sort of great-uncle to you?"
"Oh, dear, no," replied Mr Morion, speaking more briskly than he had
yet done. "The father is actually of my own generation, though old
enough almost to be my father. I have never counted the cousinship--it
must be of the third or fourth degree by this time--in fact, as I said
before, I have had little or nothing to do with them."
Madeleine did not reply. A certain occult suspicion of unexpressed
disapproval in her mind made itself felt by her companion. He glanced
at her rapidly.
"They are very poor, from what Horace says," she remarked.
"Are they?" Mr Morion answered indifferently. "I really can't say. I
don't suppose they are rich, but there is no son, and little girls are
easily educated."
"Little girls!" repeated Madeleine, with a slight laugh. "Why, you
_are_ ignorant about them. The eldest certainly, if not the middle one,
is as old as I, four or five and twenty."
"Really?" he said, in the same tone. "I thought their father married
late in life, and I am getting to an age when youth at any stage seems
some distance from me. Poor girls! their life must be dull enough up
there with that old bear. You may be able to show them some kindness,
Madeleine. I know you are one of those people whose benevolence is
somewhat abnormally developed."
"I should like to be kind to them," she said, simply, and Mr Morion
believed her and admired her, as he often did. But yet something in her
very downrightness had a slightly irritant effect upon him, and of this
in return Madeleine was not unconscious.
"I _wonder_," she thought to herself, "why Mr Morion and I always rub
each other the wrong way? I never feel sure if he is talking in good
faith or sarcastically. I suppose one must put down a good deal to the
change in him caused by his wife's death. And yet that is long ago now,
and she was so very young, and the marriage only lasted a year or so.
Still--" Her train of thought was interrupted by the door opening to
admit her mother, who came forward with an expression of pleasure as her
eyes fell on their visitor, for Mr Morion was decidedly a favourite of
hers, and on the whole he preferred her society to that of her daughter,
though by no means unaware of the latter's great intellectual
superiority.
Mrs Littlewood was still very pretty, though she by no means obtruded
this fact, for her taste was good, and her tact excellent. As a rule,
she was a very gentle woman, but a strong will underlay the gentleness,
genuine though it was. She liked to be liked, and disliked making
herself disagreeable, in consequence of which perhaps, when her
disapproval or opposition was once aroused, it was not easily resisted.
"We have, of course, been talking about Craig-Morion," said Madeleine,
when she had provided her mother with tea. "But I can't get much
information about it."
"I really know it so little," repeated Mr Morion. "My chief feeling
about it now is the hope that you will like it, and not be
disappointed."
"That is not likely," said his hostess. "To begin with, I am one of
those philosophical people who never expect perfection, and what we do
want I think we are sure to find there: fresh, bracing air, quiet, and
some amount of amusement for Horace."
"I hope it won't be too bracing for him," said Mr Morion, "or too cold
rather, though they do say that the first winter home from India one
never feels the cold so much--still, there was his illness."
For Horace Littlewood had but recently returned home from his regiment
in the East, in consequence of an accident at polo, complicated by a
sharp attack of fever, and at present his future career was, to some
extent, in abeyance. His mother, whose favourite son he was, was most
anxious for him to settle down in England, to which, however, the very
fact of his dependence upon her--for Mrs Littlewood had been more or
less of an heiress--caused him to hesitate in his consent. He hated the
thought of an idle life, and was not, moreover, without experience of
the love of power, but little suspected by many who imagined that they
knew her well, latent in Mrs Littlewood.
"I think he will be all right," Horace's mother replied, "with us--
Madeleine and me--to look after him, and he is very pleased with the
shooting. Oh, yes, Mr Morion, I am sure we shall be quite satisfied,
and, if you won't take it on hearsay, the only thing to do will be for
you to come down and judge for yourself."
"Thank you very much," he replied, adding, somewhat to Madeleine's
surprise, if not to that of her mother, "Yes, I think I should like to
come down for a little while you are there." For, as a rule, any
invitation to Mr Morion was either politely put aside or accepted on
such general terms as to leave but vague probability of his ever
availing himself of it.
Mrs Littlewood glanced at him as she responded cordially that she was
delighted to hear it. And across her own mind there flashed again a
reviving hope--a hope which she had once cherished eagerly, though for
some time past it had all but faded.
"Can it be," she thought, "that, after all, he does care for Madeleine?
They say that such things often begin by a kind of antagonism. And in
many ways, _au fond_, they would be so well suited."
Madeleine's unspoken reflections ran in a very different direction.
"I wonder," she said to herself, "if it has possibly struck him that he
should know something of those poor relations of his. He is not the
sort of man to shirk a duty, or even a piece of kindness, once he
recognises it; but he has got into a curiously indifferent sort of way
of looking at things. Lives and circumstances are oddly arranged. He
is just the type of man who would have been quite happy and content, and
probably more useful in his generation, had he had moderate means and
been able to devote himself to study--as, indeed, I suppose he does; but
then comes the question, Has he a right to do so, considering that he is
a large landed proprietor, with so many, in a sense, dependent upon
him?"
She looked at him, as the thoughts, as they had often done before,
passed through her mind. He felt conscious of her involuntary
scrutinising expression, and again he grew slightly irritated.
"That girl lives upon criticising other people," he said to himself. "I
wonder what she is inwardly arraigning me for now."
To some extent he did her injustice; to a greater extent she was guilty
of the same offence towards him. But there _are_ people who, in obeying
the command of concealing from the one hand the good deeds of the other,
lose sight of the equally authoritative warning against hiding our
light, humble as we may and should esteem it, "under a bushel." And
such people must often be misjudged.
"When do you think of going down?" Mr Morion went on. "I believe
Horace mentioned a date, but I have forgotten it."
"The end of next week probably," replied Mrs Littlewood promptly, for
she still kept the reins of family plans and arrangements well in her
own grasp, her daughter being often in ignorance of them till the eve of
their accomplishment. "Horace does not come south again--or at least
only part of the way. He has an invitation to the Scoresbys for the
next few days; then he will return to Craig-Morion and be there to
welcome us--some of the servants go on Monday."
"And how do _you_ propose to employ--nowadays one is frightened to say
`amuse' to young women--yourself in my eyrie (I rather like the name),
as you call it, Madeleine?" inquired their visitor. "Horace has his
shooting, and a little hunting for a change if he thinks it worth a
short journey for, and your mother quiet, and, I trust, the
consciousness of invigoration. But what are _you_ going to do?"
"Oh," said she, "I have given no very special thought to it as yet. Of
course we shall have books, as usual--by-the-by, have you a library
there? And driving--we are taking down a little cart on purpose for me,
and Horace is looking out for a stout pony, not afraid of hills. And--
walking--I have a great idea that exploring a new country is better done
on foot than any other way, and I love exploring. I expect I shall be
able to make a guide-book for you of your unknown part of the country
before we leave it."
"But you cannot explore all by yourself," said Mr Morion, "and I don't
suppose Horace will be always at your command."
A very slight twinkle of amusement might have been discerned in
Madeleine's eyes by a close observer. She guessed that almost in spite
of himself Mr Morion was leading back again to the rather delicate
subject of his ignored relations, which seemed to have a kind of
fascination for him. And she was not unwilling to play into his hands.
"Perhaps," she replied, "once I have made acquaintance with them, your
cousins may be good enough to accompany me in my rambles. Doubtless
they know their own neighbourhood well."
"Mr Morion's cousins?" said her mother, before he had time to say
anything. "Whom are you talking about, Madeleine? Oh, yes, I remember;
Horace said something about a family of your own name, I think," turning
to her visitor, "who are living up near there. But they are scarcely
within countable relationship, are they?"
"I'm afraid I have got into the way of thinking of them as not so, or
rather of not thinking of them at all," he replied. "But Madeleine has
been obliging enough to remind me, at least tacitly so, that blood is
thicker than water. Horace, too, has discovered that these cousins of
mine, many times removed, are very poor, so on the whole I am beginning
to feel rather guilty."
Mrs Littlewood turned to her daughter with something in her manner
which to Madeleine revealed a sense of annoyance, though her tone and
words were gentle.
"My dear child," she said, ignoring the latter part of Mr Morion's
speech, "you should be getting old enough by this time to realise that
few of us have a mission for correcting other people. In _very_ early
youth such ideas are more excusable."
Madeleine's rather pale face flushed all over. She looked reproachfully
at their guest.
"Mr Morion," she exclaimed, "I really don't think you are--" and then
she stopped.
"Mamma," with considerable appeal in her tone, "truly I don't think that
I was so impertinent as--as it sounds."
Mr Morion felt sorry for her, and again vexed with himself.
"I was more than half joking," he said apologetically. "Forgive me. I
must be becoming more bearish than I realise. You will have to take me
in hand, Mrs Littlewood."
The elder woman smiled pleasantly.
"On my side," she replied, "I fear I am growing very matter-of-fact in
my old age. But no harm is done. Of course you have only to tell us if
you wish us to make friends with the family in question. Did not,
by-the-by, one of the Avone family marry a Mr Morion? The Avones, as
every one knows, are terribly poor for their position, so it sounds as
if it might be the same."
"It is the same family," answered Mr Morion. "The mother was Lady Emma
Marne."
Then the subject of the Fir Cottage people dropped, and was not again
reverted to. Still the illusion to them had left its mark, in a decided
amount of curiosity as regarded them, in Madeleine's mind; some
self-reproach and a touch of interest in Mr Morion's; and a quick
questioning, which darted across Mrs Littlewood's, in connection with
Horace's name.
"I do hope," she was already saying to herself, "that there are no
pretty daughters among them. It would never do for Horace to entangle
himself in any stupid way, when even Conrad, who had so much less reason
to consider ways and means, made such a wise choice. But I need not be
afraid. Horace is far too difficult to please to be attracted by any
girl who has laboured under the enormous disadvantages of these poor
Miss Morions."
And she dismissed the unknown sisters from her mind, nor was the Fir
Cottage family again alluded to, even between Madeleine and herself,
when Mr Morion had taken his leave.
Madeleine thought about them, nevertheless, a good deal. She had
extracted a certain amount of information from her brother--more than
she had mentioned to the owner of Craig-Morion, more than she thought it
expedient to retail to Mrs Littlewood. For while she thoroughly, and
with reason, trusted her mother and greatly admired her, she had learnt
by long experience that even with those nearest and dearest "least said
is" not unfrequently "soonest mended." There were directions of thought
in which she felt intuitively that their two minds would not run
together. For Madeleine, beneath her calm, occasionally, in appearance,
almost too composed and self-contained manner, was at heart
enthusiastic, eager, and impetuous. She knew this well, however; she
was on her guard, and thus the very fact of her impressionable nature
made her appear cold and even "stand-off," while Mrs Littlewood's
though not unreal or insincere of its kind, often misled others into
stigmatising the daughter as hard and dictatorial--"laying down the law"
to the mother, with whom, in point of fact, she very rarely ventured to
disagree, whose slightest wish or opinion was weighted for her with
authority, but rarely, nowadays, existent in such a relationship.
Horace had not said _much_, after all. He had not seemed inclined to
discuss the family whose acquaintance he had made the first time he went
down to Craig Bay with "Old Milne." And this of itself struck Madeleine
as unlike him, and prepared the ground with her for greater curiosity
concerning them. She had satisfied herself that one, at least, of the
sisters was "pretty"--"very pretty, indeed, if she were decently
dressed," but beyond that, and replying to some of her questions as to
the manner of living, etc, of the Fir Cottage Morions, she had found her
brother more reticent than usual. Of this, the principal reason had
been his own annoyance with himself for his clumsy blunder, as he styled
it, to which he could not but attribute the "not at home" with which he
had been met the second time he called, and which somehow he had not
felt inclined to relate to his sister.
Had it been possible for Madeleine to have seen him _this_ evening, she
would have found his mood greatly changed, for, thanks to Betty's
inspiration, and the good tact of Frances and her mother, this third
bearding of the lion in his den was crowned with success.
Horace left the cottage after a somewhat prolonged visit in the best of
spirits, full of projects for introducing his sister and his new friends
to each other--inclined, as he had never before been in his life, to see
everything through very rosy-coloured spectacles.
The next few days passed monotonously enough for Madeleine. She missed
her brother; the weather was wretchedly dull and gloomy; there was no
interest in looking up such friends as were winter residents in London,
and likely to be returning there after spending Christmas in the
country, seeing that she herself was on the verge of leaving; there was
no interesting shopping to do, as Craig-Morion was not likely to make
great demands on her wardrobe. In short, everything seemed very flat
and unexciting: an impression increased by the more or less dismantled
aspect of the house in preparation for a long absence. Nothing seemed
worth while, and Madeleine felt half ashamed of herself.
It was with feelings very much the reverse of those of one anticipating
an "exile"--as some of their friends had chosen to call their voluntary
banishment to an out-of-the-way part of the country--that both Madeleine
and her mother found themselves at last fairly started on their journey.
"I don't know how it is," said the former, when they were comfortably
seated in the railway carriage, "that I have never felt better pleased
to leave London than just now; not even after a hot summer. Don't you
feel a little the same, mamma? Somehow I fancy you do."
"Yes," Mrs Littlewood replied, "I am glad to get away. I have a sort
of longing to feel myself farther north, and, above all, free to do just
as we like, and to see no one if we are not inclined for it. I suppose
Conrad and Elizabeth will be coming to us, but not just yet, I hope.
They are sure to prefer waiting till the days are a little longer," and
she turned to the book with which she was provided, with an evident and
wise determination not to tire herself by talking in the train.
Madeleine did not regret this, for she was not inclined to talk either.
After a certain point on the journey, the country was new to her, and
therefore interesting, and she regretted the early falling darkness
which soon hid the outside world from view.
It was _quite_ dark when they reached Craig Bay, quite dark and very
cold when they stepped out on to the platform, where her brother had no
difficulty in at once distinguishing them, as they were almost the only
arrivals.
It was cheering to hear his voice in welcome.
"Come on quickly," he said, as he gave his arm to his mother, "the
carriage is waiting for you, and I have made everything as comfortable
as I could. You must expect a tiresome bit of hill, though at first the
road is on the level; it takes more than half an hour to get to the
house."
"I am glad of it," said Madeleine; "I want to forget everything about
trains and stations, and everything civilised and modern."
Horace laughed.
"I don't think the absence of civilisation will be as pleasant as you
think," he said; "but it isn't as bad as that; it is really a place
where comfort and antiquity might be excellently blended."
And when at last they turned in at the lodge gates, and a few minutes
later found themselves in front of the somewhat rugged granite steps
leading up to the door, and then, in another moment, inside the lofty
arched hall, of which the walls were hung round with trophies of the
chase interspersed with old--and, it must be confessed, rusty--armour, a
great wood fire burning in the vast stone hearth, an indescribable
feeling of isolation and yet homelikeness pervading all--Madeleine drew
a deep breath of satisfaction.
"It is delightful," she said, turning to her brother. "I am sure we are
going to love being here."