_November 3rd, 1904_.
I WONDER so much if it is amusing to be an adventuress, because that
is evidently what I shall become now. I read in a book all about it;
it is being nice-looking and having nothing to live on, and getting a
pleasant time out of life--and I intend to do that! I have certainly
nothing to live on, for one cannot count £300 a year--and I am
extremely pretty, and I know it quite well, and how to do my hair, and
put on my hats, and those things, so, of course, I am an adventuress!
I was not intended for this _rôle_--in fact Mrs. Carruthers adopted
me on purpose to leave me her fortune, as at that time she had
quarrelled with her heir, who was bound to get the place. Then she was
so inconsequent as not to make a proper will--thus it is that this
creature gets everything, and I nothing!
I am twenty, and up to the week before last, when Mrs. Carruthers got
ill, and died in one day, I had had a fairly decent time at odd moments
when she was in a good temper.
There is no use pretending even when people are dead, if one is writing
down one’s real thoughts. I detested Mrs. Carruthers most of the time.
A person whom it was impossible to please. She had no idea of justice,
or of anything but her own comfort, and what amount of pleasure other
people could contribute to her day!
How she came to do anything for me at all was because she had been
in love with papa, and when he married poor mamma--a person of no
family--and then died, she offered to take me, and bring me up, just
to spite mamma, she has often told me. As I was only four I had no say
in the matter, and if mamma liked to give me up that was her affair.
Mamma’s father was a lord, and her mother I don’t know who, and they
had not worried to get married, so that is how it is poor mamma came to
have no relations. After papa was dead she married an Indian officer,
and went off to India, and died too, and I never saw her any more--so
there it is, there is not a soul in the world who matters to me, or I
to them, so I can’t help being an adventuress, and thinking only of
myself, can I?
Mrs. Carruthers periodically quarrelled with all the neighbours, so
beyond frigid calls now and then in a friendly interval, we never saw
them much. Several old, worldly ladies used to come to stay, but I
liked none of them, and I have no young friends. When it is getting
dark, and I am up here alone, I often wonder what it would be like if
I had--but I believe I am the kind of cat that would not have got on
with them too nicely--so perhaps it is just as well; only to have had a
pretty--aunt, say, to love one, that might have been nice.
Mrs. Carruthers had no feelings like this. “Stuff and
nonsense”--“sentimental rubbish” she would have called them. To get
a suitable husband is what she brought me up for, she said, and for
the last years had arranged that I should marry her detested heir,
Christopher Carruthers, as I should have the money, and he the place.
He is a diplomat, and lives in Paris, and Russia, and amusing places
like that, so he does not often come to England. I have never seen him.
He is quite old--over thirty--and has hair turning gray.
Now he is master here, and I must leave--unless he proposes to marry me
at our meeting this afternoon, which he probably won’t do.
However, there can be no harm in my making myself look as attractive
as possible under the circumstances. As I am to be an adventuress, I
must do the best I can for myself. Nice feelings are for people who
have money to live as they please. If I had ten thousand a year, or
even five, I would snap my fingers at all men, and say, “No, I make my
life as I choose, and shall cultivate knowledge and books, and indulge
in beautiful ideas of honour and exalted sentiments, and perhaps one
day succumb to a noble passion.” (What grand words the thought even is
making me write!!) But as it is, if Mr. Carruthers asks me to marry
him, as he has been told to do by his aunt, I shall certainly say yes,
and so stay on here, and have a comfortable home. Until I have had this
interview it is hardly worth while packing anything.
What a mercy black suits me! My skin is ridiculously white--I shall
stick a bunch of violets in my frock, that could not look heartless, I
suppose. But if he asks me if I am sad about Mrs. Carruthers’ death, I
shall not be able to tell a lie.
I am sad, of course, because death is a terrible thing, and to die like
that, saying spiteful things to every one, must be horrid--but I can’t,
I can’t regret her! Not a day ever passed that she did not sting some
part of me--when I was little, it was not only with her tongue, she
used to pinch me, and box my ears until Doctor Garrison said it might
make me deaf, and then she stopped, because she said deaf people were
a bore, and she could not put up with them.
I shall not go on looking back! There are numbers of things that even
now make me raging to remember.
I have only been out for a year. Mrs. Carruthers got an attack of
bronchitis when I was eighteen, just as we were going up to town for
the season, and said she did not feel well enough for the fatigues, and
off we went to Switzerland. And in the autumn we travelled all over the
place, and in the winter she coughed and groaned, and the next season
would not go up until the last court, so I have only had a month of
London. The bronchitis got perfectly well, it was heart-failure that
killed her, brought on by an attack of temper because Thomas broke the
Carruthers vase.
I shall not write of her death, or the finding of the will, or the
surprise that I was left nothing but a thousand pounds, and a diamond
ring.
Now that I am an adventuress, instead of an heiress, of what good to
chronicle all that! Sufficient to say if Mr. Carruthers does not obey
his orders, and offer me his hand this afternoon, I shall have to pack
my trunks, and depart by Saturday--but where to is yet in the lap of
the gods!
He is coming by the 3.20 train, and will be in the house before four,
an ugly, dull time; one can’t offer him tea, and it will be altogether
trying and exciting.
He is coming ostensibly to take over his place, I suppose, but in
reality it is to look at me, and see if in any way he will be able to
persuade himself to carry out his aunt’s wishes. I wonder what it will
be like to be married to some one you don’t know, and don’t like? I am
not greatly acquainted yet with the ways of men. We have not had any
that you could call that here, much--only a lot of old wicked sort of
things, in the autumn, to shoot the pheasants, and play bridge with
Mrs. Carruthers. The marvel to me was how they ever killed anything,
such antiques they were! Some Politicians and ex-Ambassadors, and
creatures of that sort; and mostly as wicked as could be. They used
to come trotting down the passage to the schoolroom, and have tea with
Mademoiselle and me on the slightest provocation! and say such things!
I am sure lots of what they said meant something else, Mademoiselle
used to giggle so. She was rather a good-looking one I had the last
four years, but I hated her. There was never anyone young and human who
counted.
I did look forward to coming out in London, but, being so late, every
one was preoccupied when we got there--and no one got in love with
me much. Indeed, we went out very little, a part of the time I had a
swollen nose from a tennis ball at Ranelagh--and people don’t look at
girls with swollen noses.
I wonder where I shall go and live! Perhaps in Paris--unless, of
course, I marry Mr. Carruthers,--I don’t suppose it is dull being
married. In London all the married ones seemed to have a lovely time,
and had not to bother with their husbands much.
Mrs. Carruthers always assured me love was a thing of absolutely no
consequence in marriage. You were bound to love some one, some time,
but the very fact of being chained to him would dispel the feeling. It
was a thing to be looked upon like measles, or any other disease, and
was better to get it over, and then turn to the solid affairs of life.
But how she expected me to get it over when she never arranged for me
to see anyone I don’t know.
I asked her one day what I should do if I got to like some one after I
am married to Mr. Carruthers, and she laughed one of her horrid laughs,
and said I should probably do as the rest of the world. And what do
they do?--I wonder?--Well, I suppose I shall find out some day.
Of course there is the possibility that Christopher (do I like the name
of Christopher, I wonder?)--well, that Christopher may not want to
follow her will.
He has known about it for years, I suppose, just as I have, but I
believe men are queer creatures, and he may take a dislike to me. I am
not a type that would please every one. My hair is too red, brilliant
dark fiery red like a chestnut when it tumbles out of its shell, only
burnished like metal. If I had the usual white eyelashes I should be
downright ugly, but, thank goodness! by some freak of nature mine are
black and thick, and stick out when you look at me sideways, and I
often think when I catch sight of myself in the glass that I am really
very pretty--all put together--but, as I said before, not a type to
please every one.
A combination I am that Mrs. Carruthers assured me would cause
anxieties. “With that mixture, Evangeline,” she often said, “you would
do well to settle yourself in life as soon as possible. Good girls
don’t have your colouring.” So you see, as I am branded as bad from
the beginning, it does not much matter what I do. My eyes are as green
as pale emeralds, and long, and not going down at the corners with the
Madonna expression of Cicely Parker, the Vicar’s daughter. I do not
know yet what is being good, or being bad, perhaps I shall find out
when I am an adventuress, or married to Mr. Carruthers.
All I know is that I want to _live_, and feel the blood rushing through
my veins. I want to do as I please, and not have to be polite when I
am burning with rage. I want to be late in the morning if I happen
to fancy sleeping, and I want to sit up at night if I don’t want to
go to bed! So, as you can do what you like when you are married, I
really hope Mr. Carruthers will take a fancy to me, and then all will
be well! I shall stay upstairs until I hear the carriage-wheels, and
leave Mr. Barton--the lawyer--to receive him. Then I shall saunter
down nonchalantly while they are in the hall. It will be an effective
entrance. My trailing black garments, and the great broad stairs--this
is a splendid house--and if he has an eye in his head he must see my
foot on each step! Even Mrs. Carruthers said I have the best foot she
had ever seen. I am getting quite excited. I shall ring for Véronique
and begin to dress!... I shall write more presently.
_Thursday evening._
IT is evening, and the fire is burning brightly in my sitting-room
where I am writing. _My_ sitting-room!--did I say? Mr. Carruthers’
sitting-room I meant--for it is mine no longer, and on Saturday, the
day after to-morrow, I shall have to bid good-bye to it forever.
For yes--I may as well say it at once--the affair did not walk. Mr.
Carruthers quietly, but firmly, refused to obey his aunt’s will, and
thus I am left an old maid!
I must go back to this afternoon to make it clear, and I must say my
ears tingle as I think of it.
I rang for Véronique, and put on my new black afternoon frock, which
had just been unpacked. I tucked in the violets in a careless way.
Saw that my hair was curling as vigorously as usual, and not too
rebelliously for a demure appearance, and so, at exactly the right
moment, began to descend the stairs.
There was Mr. Carruthers in the hall. A horribly nice-looking, tall
man, with a clean-shaven face, and features cut out of stone. A square
chin, with a nasty twinkle in the corner of his eye. He has a very
distinguished look, and that air of never having had to worry for his
things to fit, they appear as if they had grown on him. He has a cold,
reserved manner, and something commanding and arrogant in it, which
makes one want to contradict him at once, but his voice is charming.
One of that cultivated, refined kind, that sounds as if he spoke a
number of languages, and so does not slur his words. I believe this
is diplomatic, for some of the old ambassador people had this sort of
voice.
He was standing with his back to the fire, and the light of the big
window with the sun getting low was full on his face, so I had a good
look at him. I said in the beginning that there was no use pretending
when one is writing one’s own thoughts for one’s own self to read when
one is old, and keeping them in a locked-up journal, so I shall always
tell the truth here--quite different things to what I should say if
I were talking to someone, and describing to them this scene. Then I
should say I found him utterly unattractive, and in fact, I hardly
noticed him! As it was, I noticed him very much, and I have a tiresome
inward conviction that he could be very attractive indeed, if he liked.
He looked up, and I came forward with my best demure air, as Mr. Barton
nervously introduced us, and we shook hands. I left him to speak first.
“Abominably cold day,” he said, carelessly. That was English and
promising!
“Yes, indeed,” I said. “You have just arrived?”
And so we continued in this banal way, with Mr. Barton twirling his
thumbs, and hoping, one could see, that we should soon come to the
business of the day; interposing a remark here and there, which added
to the _gêne_ of the situation.
At last Mr. Carruthers said to Mr. Barton that he would go round and
see the house; and I said tea would be ready when they got back. And so
they started.
My cheeks would burn, and my hands were so cold, it was awkward and
annoying, not half the simple affair I had thought it would be upstairs.
When it was quite dark, and the lamps were brought, they came back to
the hall, and Mr. Barton, saying he did not want any tea, left us to
find papers in the library.
I gave Mr. Carruthers some tea, and asked the usual things about sugar
and cream. His eye had almost a look of contempt as he glanced at me,
and I felt an angry throb in my throat. When he had finished he got up,
and stood before the fire again. Then, deliberately, as a man who has
determined to do his duty at any cost, he began to speak:
“You know the wish--or rather, I should say, the command, my aunt left
me,” he said--“in fact she states that she had always brought you up
to the idea. It is rather a tiresome thing to discuss with a stranger,
but perhaps we had better get it over as soon as possible, as that
is what I came down here to-day for. The command was, I should marry
you.”--He paused a moment. I remained perfectly still, with my hands
idly clasped in my lap, and made myself keep my eyes on his face.
He continued, finding I did not answer--just a faint tone of resentment
creeping into his voice--because I would not help him out, I suppose--I
should think not! I loved annoying him!
“It is a preposterous idea in these days for any one to dispose of
people’s destinies in this way, and I am sure you will agree with me
that such a marriage would be impossible.”
“Of course I agree,” I replied, lying with a tone of careless
sincerity. I had to control all my real feelings of either anger or
pleasure for so long in Mrs. Carruthers’ presence that I am now an
adept.
“I am so glad you put it so plainly,” I went on sweetly. “I was
wondering how I should write it to you, but now you are here it
is quite easy for us to finish the matter at once. Whatever Mrs.
Carruthers may have intended me to do, I had no intention of obeying
her, but it would have been useless for me to say so to her, and so I
waited until the time for speech should come. Won’t you have some more
tea?”
He looked at me very straightly, almost angrily, for an instant;
presently, with a sigh of relief, he said, half laughing--
“Then we are agreed, we need say no more about it!”
“No more,” I answered, and I smiled too, although a rage of anger
was clutching my throat. I do not know who I was angry with--Mrs.
Carruthers for procuring this situation, Christopher for being
insensible to my charms, or myself for ever having contemplated for a
second the possibility of his doing otherwise. Why, when one thinks of
it calmly, should he want to marry me? A penniless adventuress with
green eyes, and red hair, that he had never seen before in his life. I
hoped he thought I was a person of naturally high colour, because my
cheeks from the moment I began to dress had been burning and burning.
It might have given him the idea the scene was causing me some emotion,
and that he should never know!
He took some more tea, but he did not drink it, and by this I guessed
that he also was not as calm as he looked!
“There is something else,” he said. And now there was almost an
awkwardness in his voice. “Something else which I want to say, though
perhaps Mr. Barton could say it for me--but which I would rather say
straight to you--and that is you must let me settle such a sum of
money on you as you had every right to expect from my aunt, after the
promises I understand she always made to you----”
This time I did not wait for him to finish! I bounded up from my
seat--some uncontrollable sensation of wounded pride throbbing and
thrilling through me.
“Money!--Money from you!” I exclaimed. “Not if I were starving!”--then
I sat down again, ashamed of this vehemence. How would he interpret
it! But it galled me so, and yet I had been ready an hour ago to have
accepted him as my husband! Why, then, this revolt at the idea of
receiving a fair substitute in gold? Really, one is a goose, and I had
time to realize, even in this tumult of emotion, that there can be
nothing so inconsistent as the feelings of a girl.
“You must not be foolish!” he said, coldly. “I intend to settle the
money whether you will or no, so do not make any further trouble about
it!”
There was something in his voice so commanding and arrogant, just as
I noticed at first, that every obstinate quality in my nature rose to
answer him.
“I do not know anything about the law in the matter; you may settle
what you choose, but I shall never touch any of it,” I said, as calmly
as I could; “so it seems ridiculous to waste the money, does it not?
You may not, perhaps, be aware I have enough of my own, and do not in
any way require yours.”
He became colder and more exasperated.
“As you please, then,” he said, snappishly, and Mr. Barton, fortunately
entering at that moment, the conversation was cut short, and I left
them.
They are not going back to London until to-morrow morning, and dinner
has yet to be got through. Oh! I do feel in a temper, and I can never
tell of the emotions that were throbbing through me as I came up the
great stairs just now. A sudden awakening to the humiliation of the
situation! How had I ever been able to contemplate marrying a man
I did not know, just to secure myself a comfortable home! It seems
preposterous now. I suppose it was because I have always been brought
up to the idea, and until I came face to face with the man, it did
not strike me as odd. Fortunately he can never guess that I had been
willing to accept him--my dissimulation has stood me in good stead. Now
I am animated by only one idea! To appear as agreeable and charming to
Mr. Carruthers as possible. The aim and object of my life shall be to
make him regret his decision. When I hear him imploring me to marry
him, I shall regain a little of my self-respect! And as for marriage,
I shall have nothing to do with the horrid affair! Oh dear no! I shall
go away free, and be a happy adventuress--I have read the “Trois
Mousquetaires,” and “Vingt Ans Après”--Mademoiselle had them--and I
remember milady had only three days to get round her jailer, starting
with his hating her, whereas Mr. Carruthers does not hate me, so that
counts against my only having one evening. I shall do my best--!
_Thursday night._
I WAS down in the library, innocently reading a book when Mr.
Carruthers came in. He looked even better in evening dress, but he
appeared ill-tempered, and no doubt found the situation unpleasant.
“Is not this a beautiful house?” I said, in a velvet voice, to break
the awkward silence, and show him I did not share his unease. “You had
not seen it before, for ages, had you?”
“Not since I was a boy,” he answered, trying to be polite. “My aunt
quarrelled with my father--she was the direct heiress of all this,
and married her cousin, my father’s younger brother--but you know the
family history, of course----”
“Yes.”
“They hated one another, she and my father.”
“Mrs. Carruthers hated all her relations,” I said demurely.
“Myself among them?”
“Yes,” I said slowly, and bent forward, so that the lamplight should
fall upon my hair. “She said you were too much like herself in
character for you ever to be friends.”
“Is that a compliment?” he asked, and there was a twinkle in his eye.
“We must speak no ill of the dead,” I said, evasively.
He looked slightly annoyed, as much as these diplomats ever let
themselves look anything.
“You are right,” he said. “Let her rest in peace.”
There was silence for a moment.
“What are you going to do with your life now?” he asked, presently. It
was a bald question.
“I shall become an adventuress,” I answered deliberately.
“A _what_?” he exclaimed, his black eyebrows contracting.
“An adventuress. Is not that what it is called? A person who sees life,
and has to do the best she can for herself.”
He laughed. “You strange little lady?” he said, his irritation with me
melting. And when he laughs you can see how even his teeth are, but the
two side ones are sharp and pointed like a wolf’s.
“Perhaps after all you had better have married me!”
“No, that would clip my wings,” I said frankly, looking at him straight
in the face.
“Mr. Barton tells me you propose leaving here on Saturday. I beg
you will not do so--please consider it your home for so long as you
wish--until you can make some arrangements for yourself. You look so
very young to be going about the world alone!”
He bent down and gazed at me closer--there was an odd tone in his voice.
“I am twenty, and I have been often snubbed,” I said, calmly; “that
prepares one for a good deal. I shall enjoy doing what I please.”
“And what are you going to please?”
“I shall go to Claridge’s until I can look about me.”
He moved uneasily.
“But have you no relations? No one who will take care of you?”
“I believe none. My mother was nobody particular you know--a Miss
Tonkins by name.”
“But your father?” He sat down now on the sofa beside me; there was a
puzzled, amused look in his face--perhaps I was amazing him.
“Papa? Oh! Papa was the last of his family--they were decent people,
but there are no more of them.”
He pushed one of the cushions aside.
“It is an impossible position for a girl--completely alone. I cannot
allow it. I feel responsible for you. After all, it would do very well
if you married me--I am not particularly domestic by nature, and should
be very little at home--so you could live here, and have a certain
position, and I would come back now and then to see you were getting
on all right.”
One could not say if he were mocking, or no.
“It is too good of you,” I said, without any irony, “but I like
freedom, and when you were at home it might be such a bore----”
He leant back, and laughed merrily.
“You are candid, at any rate!” he said.
Mr. Barton came into the room at that moment, full of apologies for
being late. Immediately after, with the usual ceremony, the butler
entered and pompously announced, “Dinner is served, sir.” How quickly
they recognize the new master!
Mr. Carruthers gave me his arm, and we walked slowly down the picture
gallery to the banqueting hall, and there sat down at the small round
table in the middle, that always looks like an island in a lake.
I talked nicely at dinner. I was dignified and grave, and quite frank.
Mr. Carruthers was not bored. The _chef_ had outdone himself, hoping to
be kept on. I never felt so excited in my life.
I was apparently asleep under a big lamp, after dinner in the
library--a book of silly poetry in my lap--when the door opened and
he--Mr. Carruthers--came in alone, and walked up the room. I did not
open my eyes. He looked for just a minute--how accurate I am! Then he
said, “You are very pretty when asleep!”
His voice was not caressing, or complimentary, merely as if the fact
had forced this utterance.