A YOUNG LADY’S CHASTENING--PHASE TWO
She came to the lodge often after that, and amused herself putting
the place in order, sometimes while I was present, but more often
during my absence. I knew nothing of what was in her mind; but I
confess it came, just at first, to give me a sort of gloating
satisfaction thus to accept without comment these ministrations of
what was intended, I suppose, for imperious beauty’s atonement to the
poor beast whom she had wounded herself by insulting. She did not
speak much, going about her duties with a young elastic confidence;
but a consciousness of unuttered protest over my indifference, of
wistful glances and deprecations of my blindness, began soon to grow
irksome. She wanted to put herself right with herself, I supposed,
rather than with me. I was ready enough to tell her so, yet somehow
could never find the words.
One day, on entering my den, I was surprised to encounter the figure
of Lord Skene seated therein.
“Where’s Ira?” he asked at once.
“How should I know, sir?” I answered. “She isn’t here.”
“But she comes here at times?” he said.
“That’s her affair. She’s her own mistress, and has told me so. I
can’t command even the lodge, it seems.”
“Don’t be bitter, my boy,” he replied. “Only, if I were you, I
wouldn’t encourage these visitations.”
“I don’t.”
“That’s right. You see, she’s a great catch--rather a unique young
party with her looks and her fortune.”
“I quite understand. I assure you, sir, I shall be only too glad if
you’ll keep her away.”
“What a misogynist it is!”
He looked up at me suddenly, seemed to catch his breath, and put his
hand to his forehead.
“What is it, sir?” I exclaimed.
“Eh!” he said vaguely. “Nothing--O, nothing!”
He appeared to make an effort to recall himself, and was presently
smiling genially, though his loose old underlip trembled.
“What a great fellow you have grown, to be sure,” he said--“a fine
personable fellow and a credit to us, too.”
“You’re very good, sir. I wish I could think the same.”
“Ah!” he said nervously. “I fancy I know what you mean. It’s that that
I came about, Gaskett. You mustn’t go on brooding by yourself for ever
in this infernal swamp. It reflects upon me, my boy, and upon Lady
Skene. Besides, you’ve got a--a brother up there, you know” (he
uttered the word with an obvious effort); “and it won’t do to have
scandals started about the proverbial step-relations. You come up to
the house, if you want to keep the young lady from coming down here.
Its the wise alternative. Let her feed her wilfulness in company--eh?”
“What do you want me to do, sir?”
“Why, take your seat at my table, like a gentleman and a man of sense.
We sha’n’t poison you.”
“Forgive my asking, sir. Didn’t she suggest this to you?”
“Who? My wife?”
“O no! Miss Christmas.”
“Why, now I come to think of it, she did mention it--a well-merited
reproof, perhaps.”
“I’m beholden to her, of course.”
“You ought to count yourself beholden to me, I think. I don’t know
that I’ve ever given you cause, Gaskett, to doubt my friendship.”
“No, sir. I’ll do what you wish, of course.”
“That’s right. Shoo! the place smells like a well. We must get you out
of it.”
So I donned a dress suit, and played the dutiful respectable, and took
my place at my lord’s table--an odd new experience for me. I felt some
natural awkwardness about it at first, and bungled a little over
taking wine with my stepfather, for he held to the old-fashioned
customs; but his cellar was good enough to be an education in itself;
and, for the rest, the ladies did not embarrass me with their notice
or attentions. Indeed, from the date of this my first step towards a
social reformation, Miss Christmas ignored me entirely, and took pains
to impress me with the fact. I was duly impressed--and amused. I
supposed, quite correctly, no doubt, that his lordship had given her a
hint as to the inadvisability of her visits to me, backed by a pretty
literal quotation of my own expressed wishes in the matter, and that
the insult by deputy had instantly effected what the insult direct had
failed to do. Women, I fancy, have no objection to being bullied in an
exclusive and complimentary sort of way; but the passion of brutality
loses all its charms with them when it takes an agent into its
confidence. Miss Christmas was deeply offended, and let me know by
implication the raptures I had forgone. She literally sparkled o’
nights, frolicking like a will-o’-the-wisp before my hopelessly
unravished eyes. Her dress, her jewels, her manner, her imperious
caprices, all expressed, and were designed to express, the spoilt and
whimsical child of fortune--leagues overhead a nameless pensioner on
that same partial goddess’s bounty. She sang--not so badly on the
accidental strength of a pure little contralto voice, which of all
sorts finds it easiest to keep in tune; she displayed, in the childish
abandonment of her caressings of dogs and cats, the passion of thin
white arms, lures wickedly unattainable to my supposed swooning
senses; she talked, sweetly serious, with Lady Skene, on the subject
of the divine goodness in damning three-fourths of the world for the
sake of the other quarter, and dropped texts from her lips as daintily
as cherry stones. If it was all designed as a sharp lesson to me, it
was all signally successful. “The girl is mother to the woman,” I
thought. She is a humbug here as she was a humbug in my lodge. It is
nothing but her puckish instinct to play a part to desire.
I never came to the house but of nights to dine, conforming only, in
its strictly literal sense, with Lord Skene’s expressed wish; and then
I would dawdle out an impatient hour in the drawing-room, and the
moment the clock struck ten be off to my woods again. Lady Skene had
accepted my reappearance with no comment but the briefest greeting;
but I thought her manner to me was more chilling than ever. She seemed
resolved upon disallowing my last claim to her consideration. As a
child it had always been as if, coldly and softly, she had disengaged
my fingers one by one from her skirts to which they clung. Now we were
utterly dissevered; but I cried out still that I might not hate her.
She did not hate me, I am sure. She only looked upon me as a brand, a
thing foredoomed, whom it were useless to shape for a destiny which
could never be his. Perhaps in her deepest heart there may have lurked
a terror of herself, were she once to permit herself to think of me--a
fear that after all, in some quick frenzy, she might be moved to
disown the pietist for the mother. I will believe it. Such inhumanity
as hers seems incomprehensible without.
As I held to my wild habits by day, playing only in the evenings up to
polite convention, I was certain to encounter Miss Christmas about the
grounds, and as a matter of fact I did, many times. On such occasions
she would always pass me with a warble and a stare, or a cock to her
kittenish nose, as if I were an odorous stable-boy, which as regularly
tickled me, until one day I felt tired of it. I had run upon her at
the head of the thicket path which opened into the “Baby’s Garden,”
and I suddenly barred her way, so that she could not get round me
right or left.
“Were you going down there?” I asked, signifying the lodge.
Fury flew into her eyes.
“How dare you--how dare you suggest it!” she cried.
“Why, it wouldn’t be for the first time, you know,” I said.
She looked in helpless anger about her a moment; then faced me like a
young harpy.
“I thought, perhaps, in spite of all--of all the misfortune at your
birth--you might be a gentleman at heart. But I was mistaken, and you
are the very farthest from it; and I see now that it’s impossible ever
to hope to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”
“Thank you, for my father. My mother can answer for herself. The
pillmaker’s granddaughter is the best judge, of course.”
“Let me pass, please.”
“Not just for a minute. What did you mean by the misfortune at my
birth?”
She was still white with fury.
“Don’t you know? Don’t you know that you’ve no right to a name at all?
You might have guessed, I think.”
“How do _you_ know?”
“I know well enough. I once heard Mr Pugsley say so to Lady Skene,
when they were discussing what to do with you, and didn’t guess that I
was hidden behind the curtains. I have never forgotten it, you may be
sure.”
“I am quite sure. You listened behind curtains like a born lady. Do
you wonder that I have always instinctively detested you?”
“No; I have shown you I don’t.”
The storm in her had subsided in a moment. I wondered, but was not in
the least mollified.
“You have shown me nothing,” I said, “but the way to right myself at
last with my relations. Now you can go.”
She did not move, however, but turned as pale as her frock.
“Richard!--O, Richard!” she implored. “Don’t hit me like that. You are
so strong; and I am only a girl. I had no right to say it; it might
have meant nothing; and Lady Skene has always been so good to me.”
“What reason have you--or has she, for that matter--to expect any
consideration from me? I will know the truth.”
“Richard, make some allowance. You had insulted me too, you know.”
“I had not.”
“You had. You asked Lord Skene to stop me from going to you.”
“I didn’t. He came and asked me himself. He told me to remember you
were an heiress, and I answered that you didn’t visit me by my wish.
_You!_”
“It was detestable. I didn’t know. Do, for pity’s sake, forgive and
forget.”
“No; I have forgotten too long. I want to remember.”
“Richard! O! O!--Richard, I hate pills--I’m not a lady--won’t anything
soften you!”
And at that moment the nurse, carrying the child, came round a bend of
the garden. She stared and rocked, singing something tuneless; but
Miss Christmas, darting past me, seized the infant from her arms, and
carried it to the path.
“Richard!” she whispered, “for his sake--your little brother’s!”
My brother again. Never had anyone but this girl voluntarily assumed
the natural relationship. I wavered for the first time. She saw it,
with her sex’s quick intuition, and held out the warm soft bundle.
“Have you never taken him in your arms?” she said. “He’s so small and
weak. There, hold him, and let him plead for me.”
“Miss Christmas!” cried the nurse.
Her tone, all the immeasurable menial warning it conveyed, stiffened
me instantly. I held out my arms and received the burden.
I could have laughed at its insignificance. The apparent proportions
of it had made me expect something staggering. It lay on me like a
doll. Before I knew myself, I was smiling into the little red puffy
face.
There followed a sharp exclamation, and on the instant Lady Skene had
snatched my brother from my hands. She had come upon us unobserved.
Her face was alight with an expression I had never seen there before.
The statue had blazed into momentary life. She was a woman, and a
cruel woman confessed for the first time in my knowledge of her.
“Not yours,” she said, deep and resentful. “He has no part or concern
with you. Don’t dare to touch him or contaminate him again!”
I stood facing her without a word. In that moment my utter hate and
vindictiveness were born. As she had dealt with me, so would I deal
with her. The first card was in my hand. I turned quietly and left
them.