THE SQUARE.
It was a rainy afternoon when Cara reached the Square. It had been
settled, against Miss Cherry’s will, that she was to go alone. The girl,
who was often ‘queer,’ especially when anything connected with her
natural home, her father’s house, was in question, had requested that it
should be so--and Miss Charity approved, to whose final decision
everything was submitted at Sunninghill. ‘Don’t interfere with her,’
Miss Charity had said; ‘she is like her mother. She has a vein of
caprice in her. You never could argue (if you remember) with poor Annie.
You had either to give in to her, or to say no once for all, and stick
to it. Carry is not like her mother all through--there are gleams of the
Beresford in her. But there is a vein of caprice, and I wouldn’t cross
her, just at this crisis of her life.’
‘But I don’t see why it should be such a crisis. It is a change of
scene, to be sure, and leaving us ought to be a trial,’ said Miss
Cherry, dubiously. The feeling within herself was, that she would have
been glad had she been more sure that this was a trial. Girls were
ungrateful in their lightheartedness, and sometimes loved the risks of
independence. ‘It is not as if she were going among strangers,’ said
Miss Cherry. ‘She is going to her home, and to her father.’
‘A father whom she has never known since she was a child--a house that
has never lost the shadow of that dying!’
‘Then why must not I go with her?’ said Miss Cherry. The old lady
shrugged her shoulders, but said no more. And Cara got her way. As she
was to go alone, she was packed, with all her belongings, into the
carriage; nurse going with her, who was to help in the housekeeping, and
take care of the young mistress of the old familiar house. The railway,
it is true, would have carried them there in half the time; but Cara
liked the preparation of the long, silent drive, and it pleased the
elder ladies that their darling should make her solitary journey so to
her father’s house. The road led through beautiful royal parks, more
than one, and by glimpses of the pleasant river. It was like an
old-fashioned expedition made in the days before railways, with full
time for all the anticipations, all the dreams, of what was to come.
Though her mind was full of natural excitement and sadness, Cara could
not help feeling herself like one of the heroines of Miss Austen’s
novels as she drove along. She had plenty of grave matters to think
about, and was very much in earnest as to her life generally; yet, with
the unconscious doubleness of youth, she could not help feeling only
half herself, and half Elizabeth Bennet or Catherine Moreland going off
into the world. And, indeed, without sharing the difficulties of these
young ladies, Cara Beresford in her own person had no small problem
before her. To fill the place of her mother, an accomplished woman, she
who was only a girl; to make his home pleasant to her father; to set
agoing once more something like family life. And she only seventeen, and
so differently situated, she said to herself, from other girls! Had she
not enough to think of? The trees and the bridges, the gleams of shining
river, the great stretches of wooded country, all glided past her like
things in a dream. It was they that were moving, not she. Nurse talked
now and then; but nurse’s talking did not disturb Cara; she knew by long
experience just how to put in convenient ayes and noes, so as to keep
the good woman going. And thus she went on, her head full of thoughts.
Her difficulties were more grave than those which generally fall to the
lot of so young a girl--but, nevertheless, with the frivolity of youth,
she could feel herself something like Catherine Moreland, hurrying along
to Northanger Abbey, and all the wonders and mysteries there.
She had expected to find her father already arrived and awaiting her;
but he did not come until she had been an hour or two in the
house--which was half a relief and half an offence to her. She was
received with a kind of worship by John and cook, to whom their young
mistress, whom they had only known as a child, was a wonder and delight,
and who mingled a greater degree of affectionate familiarity with the
awe they ought to have felt for her than was quite consistent with
Cara’s dignity. They were anxious to pet and make much of her on her
arrival--cook hurrying upstairs, unnecessarily Cara thought, to show how
prettily her room had been prepared; and John bringing her tea, with
cake and the daintiest bread and butter, and a broad smile of pleasure
on his face. Cara thought it incumbent upon her to send away the cake
and bread and butter, taking only the tea, to prove beyond all power of
misconception that she was no longer a child--but she was sorry for it
after, when John, protesting and horrified, had carried it away
downstairs again. Still, though one is slightly hungry, it is best to
keep up one’s dignity, and ‘begin,’ as Aunt Cherry said, ‘as you meant
to go on.’ Cara would not let herself be governed by old servants, that
she had determined--and it was best to show them at once that this could
not be.
Then she went up with some shrinking, feeling like a sea-bather making
the first plunge, into the drawing-room, which no one had used for the
last five years. She was obliged to confess that it was very pretty,
notwithstanding that it frightened her. She half expected some one to
rise from the chair before the first newly-lighted October fire to
receive her as she went in. The little cabinets, the pretty brackets for
the china, the scraps of old lace upon the velvet, the glimmer of old,
dim, picturesque mirrors, the subdued yet brilliant colour in the bits
of tapestry, all moved her to admiration. At Sunninghill they had, as
became a lady’s house, many pretty things, but with as little idea of
art as it is possible in the present day to succeed in having. Miss
Cherry knew nothing of art; and it had been invented, Miss Charity
thought, since her days, which was the time when people liked to have
respectable solid furniture, and did not understand æsthetics. The
graceful balance and harmony of this new old house gave Cara a new
sensation of admiring pleasure--and yet she did not like it. It would be
hard to tell what was the cause of the painful impression which
prejudiced her mind--yet there it was. Her own mother--her dead
mother--that visionary figure, half nurse, half goddess, which gives a
quite visionary support and consolation to some motherless children,
did not exist for Cara. She remembered how she had been sent off to the
Hill when they went away to enjoy themselves, and how she had been sent
off to the nursery when they sat talking to each other. It had been a
happy home, and she had been petted and made much of by times--but this
was what she recollected most clearly. And then there rose up before
her, intensified by distance, that scene in her mother’s room, which she
had never confided to any one. She resented this mystery that was in the
past, which returned and wrapped her in a kind of mist when she came
back. Why had not her parents been straightforward people, with no
mysteries such, as Cara said to herself, she hated? Why was there a
skeleton in the cupboard? All the things she had read in books about
this had made Cara angry, and it vexed her to the heart to feel and know
that there was one in her home. She had buried the secret so completely
in her own bosom that it had made an aching spot all round it where it
lay: like that bit of a garden which lies under a noxious shadow--like
that bit of a field where a fire has been--was this place in her heart
where her secret lay. She felt it, in all its force, when she came home.
At the Hill there were no secrets; they lived with their windows open
and their hearts, fearing no sudden appearance, no discovery. But here
it seemed that the old trouble had been waiting all these years, till
the girl went back who alone knew all about it, the father’s past and
the mother’s past; and even the atmosphere of the long-shut-up house
felt pernicious. Cara did not like to look round her as it came to be
dark, lest she see _some one_ sitting in the corner in the shadow. It
seemed to her more than once that somebody moved in the distance, going
out or coming in, with a sweep of a long skirt, just disappearing as she
looked up. This meant, I suppose (or at least so many people would say),
that her digestion was not in such good order as it should have
been--but digestion was not a thing which came within Cara’s range of
thought.
Her father arrived about half-past six by the Continental train. Cara
stood at the door of the drawing-room, with her heart beating, wondering
if she ought to run down and receive him, or if he would come to her.
She heard him ask if she had come, and then he added, ‘I will go to my
room at once, John. I suppose dinner is nearly ready. I did not expect
to have been so late. Bring my things to my room.’
‘Shall I call Miss Cara, sir?’
‘No; never mind. I shall see her at dinner,’ he said.
And Cara instinctively closed the drawing-room door at which she had
been standing, as she heard him begin to come up the stairs. She stood
there, with her heart beating, in case he should call her; but he did
not. Then she too went to dress, with a chilled and stifled sensation,
the first sense of repulse which she had ever experienced. When she was
ready, she went back again very quickly and noiselessly, leaving the
door open. By-and-by her father’s step became audible coming down, and
he paused when he got to the door; but then resumed and went on again,
sending her word that she would find him in the dining-room. It was
unreasonable, the high swelling of offence and injured pride that she
felt in her heart--but there it was. Was this how he meant to use
her--her, his only child--now the mistress of his house? She went down,
after an interval of proud and painful reluctance, a slim, girlish
creature, in her white dress, her blue eyes somewhat strained and large,
more widely opened than was consistent with perfect composure. She was
not beautiful, like her mother. A certain visionary youthful severity
was in her looks. She was different altogether, different in every way,
from the pet and darling of the ladies at the Hill. Her father had not
seen her since she had leaped into long dresses and young-womanhood, and
he was startled by the change. Involuntarily, as he looked at her, her
mother’s description of the child Cara came back to his mind. Perhaps he
was all the more quick to notice this that his eye had been caught as he
paused at the drawing-room door by the last purchase he had made in
bric-à-brac, the Buen Retiro cup, of which his wife had said playfully
that Cara would insist that he should tell the dealer the exact value
before he bought it. This strange idea brought a half smile to his face,
and yet his memories were so far from smiling. The cup had been broken
to bits in the careless packing of that last journey home, when
bric-à-brac had lost all interest in the gathering mists of suffering
and despondency--and then afterwards, in an interval of apparent
improvement, had been carefully put together and placed on a shelf, high
up, where its imperfections were not visible. It was the sight of it
which had kept Beresford from going into the room. He would have made
the effort for Cara’s sake, he thought, but that this relic, so
connected with the last chapter of all, had thrust that recollection
upon him. He had never entered poor Annie’s drawing-room since the week
she died.
‘Well, Cara, my dear, I am glad to see you,’ he said, putting his arm
round his daughter, and kissing her. ‘You must forgive me for not coming
upstairs. How you have grown!--or rather, you have become a young lady
all at once. I don’t know that you are much taller.’
‘No; I have not grown,’ said Cara. ‘I suppose the long dress makes a
difference. It is that, perhaps.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Sit down, my dear; dinner waits. I have had a long
journey, and I want something. I never eat much when I am travelling. I
came by Dieppe, which is a route I detest. Ah, I forgot! You have never
been across the Channel, yet, Cara.’
‘No.’
They both recollected why--and that ‘the next expedition’ after those
long honeymooning travels was to have been accompanied by ‘the child.’
Cara remembered this with a certain bitterness; her father merely with
melancholy sentiment.
‘Ah!’ he said, vaguely, ‘we must mend that--some day. And how are the
aunts? I can fancy that my sister looks just as she always did. She and
I are at the age when people change little. But Aunt Charity? she is
getting quite an old woman now--over seventy. Have you been dull in the
country, Cara? or have they petted you so much that you will feel it
dull to be here?’
He looked at her with a smile which lit up his face, and touched her
heart just a little; but the question touched something else than her
heart--her pride and sense of importance.
‘I was not dull,’ she said. ‘One is not dull when one has something to
do--and is with those whom one loves.’
‘Ah!’ he said, looking at her with a little curiosity; ‘that is a better
way of putting it, certainly,’ he added, with a smile.
Then there was a pause. John, behind Mr. Beresford’s chair, who had been
in the house when Cara was born, and who thought he knew his master
thoroughly, had much ado not to interfere, to whisper some instructions
in her father’s ear as to how a child like this should be dealt with,
or to breathe into Cara’s an entreaty that she would humour her papa. He
said to his wife afterwards that to see them two sitting, pretending to
eat their dinners, and never speaking, no more nor if they were wax
images--or, when they did talk, talking like company--made him that he
didn’t know whether he was standing on his head or his heels. How many
hints our servants could give us if decorum permitted their
interference! John felt himself a true friend of both parties, anxious
to bring them as near to each other as they ought to be; but he knew
that it would have been as much as his place was worth had he ventured
to say anything. So he stood regretfully, wistfully, behind backs and
looked on. If he could but have caught Miss Cara’s eye! but he did not,
not even when, in the confusion of his feelings, he offered her mustard
instead of sugar with her pudding. _Her_ feelings were so confused also
that she never noticed the mistake. Thus the dinner passed with nothing
but the sparest company conversation. There were but these two in the
world of their immediate family, therefore they had no safe neutral
ground of brothers and sisters to talk about.
‘Is your room comfortable?’ Mr. Beresford said, when they had got
through a comfortless meal. ‘If I had been here sooner, I should have
refurnished it; but you must do it yourself, Cara, and please your own
taste.’
‘I don’t think I have any taste,’ she said.
‘Ah, well!--perhaps it does not matter much; but the things that pleased
you at ten will scarcely please you at seventeen. Seventeen are you? and
_out_, I suppose? One might have been sure of that. Cherry would have no
peace till she had you to go to parties with her.’
‘We very rarely go to parties,’ said Cara, with dignity. ‘Of course at
seventeen one is grown up. One does not require parties to prove
_that_.’
He looked at her again, and this time laughed. ‘I am afraid you are very
positive and very decided,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it is necessary, my
dear, to be so sure of everything. You must not think I am finding
fault.’
Her heart swelled--what else could she think? She did not wish, however,
to appear angry, which evidently was impolitic, but shifted the subject
to her father’s recent travels, on which there was much to be said. ‘Are
you going to the geographical meeting? Are they to have one expressly
for you, like last year?’ she said, not without a hidden meaning, of
which he was conscious in spite of himself.
‘You know what they said last year? Of course there was no reason for
it; for I am not an explorer, and discovered nothing; but how could I
help it? No; there will be no meeting this time, thank Heaven.’
And he saw that a faint little smile came upon Cara’s lips. Instead of
being delighted to see that her father had come to such honour, this
little creature had thought it humbug. So it was--but it galled him to
know that his daughter felt it to be so. Had she laughed out, and given
him an account of the scene at the Hill; how Aunt Cherry had read the
account out of the papers with such joy and pleasure; and Aunt Charity
had wiped her spectacles and taken the paper herself to read the record
of his valiant deeds--the little family joke would have drawn them
together, even if it had been half at his expense. But no man likes to
feel that his claims to honour are judged coolly by his immediate
belongings, and the little remark wounded him. This, he said to himself,
was not the sort of sweet girl who would make the house once more a home
to him. He let her go upstairs without saying anything of his further
intentions for the evening. And Cara felt that she had been unsuccessful
in the keynote she had struck; though without blaming herself seriously,
for, after all, it was he and not she who ought to have struck this
keynote. She went upstairs in a little flutter of dissatisfaction with
herself and him. But, as soon as she had got upstairs, Cara, with true
feminine instinct, began to make little overtures of reconciliation. She
went round the room to see what could be done to make it more homelike.
She lighted the candles on the mantelpiece, and placed some books
uppermost on the table, about which she could talk to him. She was not
fond of work in her own person, but she had read in good story-books
that needlework was one of the accessories to an ideal scene of
domesticity--therefore, she hunted up a piece of work and an oft-mislaid
case with thimble and scissors, and placed them ready on a little table.
Then she called John, softly, as he went upstairs, to ask him if her
father took tea, or rather, when he took tea, the possibility of leaving
out that ceremonial altogether not having occurred to her.
‘If you please, miss,’ said John, with a deprecating air, ‘master has
had his cup of coffee, and he’s gone out. I think he ain’t gone no
further than next door; and I’ll make bold to say as he’ll be
back--soon,’ said John.
Cara went back to her chair, without a word; her heart beat high--her
face grew crimson in spite of herself. She retreated to her seat and
took up a book, and began to read at a furious pace. She did not very
well know what it was about; but she had read a long chapter before
John, going downstairs and then coming up again in a middle-aged,
respectable butler’s leisurely way, could place the little tea-tray on
the table near her. There was but one cup. It was evident that she was
expected to take this refreshment alone. She gave a little good-humoured
nod at the man as he looked round, with the comprehensive glance of his
class, to see if anything wanted removal--and went on reading. The book
was about unconscious cerebration, and other not highly intelligible
things. Some of the phrases in it got entangled, like the straws and
floating rubbish on a stream, with the touch of wild commotion in her
mind, and so lived in her after this mood and a great many others had
passed away. She went on reading till she had heard John go down, and
reach his own regions at the bottom of the stairs. Then she put the book
down, and looked up, as if to meet the look of some one else who would
understand her. Poor child! and there was no one there.
This was Cara’s first night in the Square.