BOOK IV -- SANCHIA IN LONDON

I

London in mid-May, slogging at its pleasures under the pale sun, might

read one morning of an affray in Yorkshire, of a magistrate assaulted,

or undergardener in arms, and forget it in half-an-hour; but to Sanchia,

unaccustomed to cower, some such chance paragraph seemed one spot the

more upon her vesture, which contact with the Fulham Road had smirched

already. She had never taken cover before--and how could one be in such

a place but to hide in it? With contracted brows and bosom oppressed,

she watched the drifting millions go by, and her heart sank. Was she

become as one of these? Is not to be ashamed to be shameful? And had she

not been put to shame? If she was to hold up the head and feel the mouth

of the winged steed that she rode, she must stable him elsewhere.

She wished to forget Wanless. Let it be as if it was not, and had never

been. But she found that Glyde and his outrageous act made that not

possible. They brought her down to London's level--her in her white robe

out of stainless air; here she was still, as Glyde had made her there,

just a woman for men to quarrel over, or a bone for dogs. Her heart

surged hot against Wanless; she could not, if she would, forget

it--least of all in the Fulham Road.

She felt spotted in Mrs. Benson's spotless dwelling--largely because it

was Mrs. Benson's, partly because a smell of fried herrings drifted in

daily from the street. She felt herself the chosen of a servant, one for

whom a clown had held battle; and then she found herself resenting the

phrases, growing hot over them. A servant--Mrs. Benson, that staunch

protectress! A clown--Struan--his thin frame throbbing with fire, and

his eyes of a hawk in a cage, farset, communing with invisible things!

Why, when he was rapt in his work he never saw her at all. She was a

speck at his feet! He had sent her away once. “I'm busy,” he had said,

without looking at her; and she had gone away on tiptoe. These things

vexed her to remember, and she felt that Mrs. Benson's dwelling could

not be hers.

Mrs. Benson, too, it must be owned, had an incumbrance, which she kept

as far as might be in the lower regions of her house, but which was now

and again encountered on the stair--a shambling son, one Joe, mostly in

shirt--sleeves, distilling familiarity and beer from every pore. He was

a ne'er-do-well, whom it was his mother's cross and crown to keep in

complete idleness. He cast dreadful looks, as of an equal in snugness, a

fellow-minion, at the chiselled profile of our goddess, and was not long

before he tried for a full-faced effect. Sanchia's eyes of clear amaze

should have cut him down, but they did not. His “Morning, Miss,” was

daily reminder of a shared clay. Sanchia made herself inaccessible, and

Mrs. Benson agonised.

To apologise for her son had been as futile as to make excuses for

death; but she tried it. “You'll overlook the partiality of a mother,

Miss Percival? What am I to do? It's not that I want him to lap syrup

from a spoon--far from that. Idleness leads to impiety, and impiety

anywhere, from Tattersal's to the public, we all know. But think of what

stings me. I can't abide the thought that here am I, large Mrs. Benson,

with money to spare, turning my back upon my fatherless child. Yet

nothing short of that will do it.” Sanchia readily excused her; and

then she turned her own back upon the Fulham Road. Pimlico found her a

lodging, at the gates of whose dingy mysteries were parks, Westminster,

the sky and the river, eternal things, making for tranquillity.

It had been her first impulse, the moment she reached London, to go to

her father, with whom alone she had corresponded during her years of

exile. There was Vicky Sinclair, to be sure, her sister next in age; but

Vicky was married to a man she knew nothing of, and she found herself

shy. Fought for! Blared across London in a paragraph--championed by a

clown! How was she to meet a Captain Sinclair? Her father, surely, was

different. She never doubted his love, nor that he would take her to his

heart if she asked to go there. But could she? It would have to be done

by stealth; she must go to the city, to his office--for her mother

ruled in Great Cumberland Place, and she could not go there. She hated

secrets, and couldn't pose as a culprit; so she delayed and delayed. It

was a comfort to her to know that he was at hand: meantime, she sought

about for scope to spread her wings.

For a fortnight she drank of the gales of liberty, filled her bosom with

beauty, and let art smooth out her brows. She listened to music, looked

at pictures, renewed her reader's ticket, and spent whole days browsing

under the Bloomsbury dome. Climbing the heights, she planned out schemes

of work, felt her critical faculties renewed, studied men and women, and

found her old pleasure in quiet chuckling over their shifts. But she had

to chuckle alone, for she never spoke to a soul. For a fortnight or so

all went well--and then, quite suddenly, without any warning, going, as

it were, to the fountain for water, she found there was no bottom to her

cruse. She went to bed sanguine, she awoke morose. She saw the day with

jaundiced eyes, scorned herself, cried “Liver!” and took medicine. She

was glued to her books all day, returned late to her lodging, and found

herself in tears. She discovered a tenderness, a yearning; she lay awake

dreaming of her childhood, of her girlhood, of Vicky, of her father's

knee, of Senhouse, her dear, preposterous friend, whose grey eyes

quizzed while they loved her. Golden days with him--golden nights when

she dreamed over his eager, profuse, interminable letters! All these

sweet, seemly things were dead! Ah, no, not that, else must she die.

She cried softly, and stretched out her arms in the dark to the gentle

ghosts that peopled it. Then, being practical in grain, she jumped up,

lit candles, and wrote deliberately to each of her sisters--finally,

after much biting of the pen, to her father. Before her mood could cool

she dressed hastily, slipped out, and posted her letters. Coming back to

bed, she paused in the act to enter it--one knee upon it. Wide-eyed she

wondered why she had not written to Senhouse. To him, of all people in

the world, first of all! And his answer--a certainty. Hot came the reply

to her question, and smote her in the face. Never to him again--never.

There are certain things no woman can bring herself to do. The more she

has need of a man the less possible is it to tell him so. She sighed as

she got into her bed, and her eyes were very kind.

Of the five fair daughters of Thomas Welbore Percival, East India

Merchant in The Poultry, Philippa, the eldest, the trenchant and

clear-sighted, lived in Bryanston Square, mother of three children. Her

husband, Mr. Tompsett-King, was a solicitor, but he was much more than

that, An elderly, quiet gentleman, who talked in a whisper, and seemed

to walk in one too, he presided over more than one learned Society, and

spoke at Congresses on non-controversial topics. A sound churchman, he

deplored Romish advance on the one hand and easy divorce on the other.

The salvation of human society lay, he held, within these limits.

Distrust the emotions; submit all things to reason-love of God and love

of women. On these terms he prospered like his father before him. It all

seemed very simple to him. The handsome Philippa respected him, obeyed

him particularly, and never differed from him in opinion. But she

coloured every compliance with his decrees with an idiosyncrasy so

marked as to make them seem her own. Where he held that Rome pandered to

the emotions, she laughed it to scorn as a forcing--house of spiritual

foppery; where he saw in divorce a treason to the law of contract, she

said that it tempted women to fall. Is it not easy enough to sin?

Must we legalise it? Why put a tax upon marriage? Mr. Tompsett-King

deprecated all dottings of iotas; when Philippa stormed at society he

hummed a sad little tune. Before he left for Bedford Row he patted her

shoulder and said, “Gently does it.” Some such scene must ensue upon the

prodigal's letter.

Hawise, Lady Pinwell, next in age to Philippa, lived in the country. Her

husband was a baronet, and a handsome blond. A pretty, apple-cheeked,

round-eyed girl, very much of a kitten, she was now grown plump, sleek,

rather slow to move, and many times a mother. She deferred to her

husband in all things, and by his wish received her parents on a formal

visit once a year. She saw very little of her sisters, and as for

Sanchia--the thing was not to be heard of, not even mentioned to Sir

George. As, in fact, she burned the child's letter before she left her

bedroom, she does not come into the tale at all.

But the pensive Melusine, three years younger than Philippa, seven

older than Sanchia, may be reckoned with. She was also married, to a Mr.

Gerald Scales, the son of a baronet. He was not, however, to inherit the

title, for he had a brother, Sir Matthew, and frequent nephews. But his

means were ample for his rank and discreet amusements, and went further

and did more for him than prolific Sir Matthew's; for Melusine gave him

no sons. His circle of being, in and through which trailed with charming

languor his wife, was of more dappled sheen and of ampler circumference

than that of Bryanston Square. Having its centre in Kensington Gore, it

reached to Ranelagh on one side, to Maidenhead on the other. There was

a riverside villa down there, where Mrs. Scales gave parties in the

summertime and was punted about by flushed gentlemen in pink shirts. She

was the tallest of the five sisters, and the most graceful; near-sighted

enough for lorgnettes, an elegant young woman. She had an instinct

for attitudes, turns of the head, which were useful in _tete-a-tete_

conversations. Mentally, she was not strong, and perhaps her manner was

too elaborate: she draped herself when she sat down as if her skirts

were window-curtains. Toy Pomeranians were a hobby of hers, and the

early Florentine masters. She could read off the names of the saints

in a sacred conversation as easily as you or I a row of actresses in

a photograph shop. Mrs. Jameson's books were at her fingers' ends. Her

mother favoured her more than any of her children, and was often at her

house on visits. Gerald Scales called her the Dowager, and pleased her

vastly. He himself was Tubby to his friends.

Vicky, a year older than Sanchia, had married a Captain Sinclair, who

was stationed at Aldershot. She had been the romp of former days and,

when the storm had burst, hotly on the culprit's side. But Vicky had

been flighty, and marriage changes one. Sanchia's eyes grew wistful as

she sat, her letters on the wing, and thought of Vicky.

Her first response was from Melusine, in a telegram from Taplow which

read, “Darling, alas!” and no more. Her comment was shrewd: “Mamma is

there”--and she was right. Then came her father's letter, to pluck at

her heart-strings. He invited her to the Poultry at “any hour of the

day--and the sooner the better;” but was clear that she could not visit

Great Cumberland Place without writing to Mamma. “Doing the civil” was

his jocular way of putting it--one of Papa's little ways when he meant

more. She knew that he was right, and postponed the fond man and his

injunction. His love might be taken for granted by a favourite child.

Just now it was her sisters' judgment she craved.

Philippa wrote with her accustomed steel. It might have been a bayonet:

yet she meant to be kind.

BRYANSTON SQUARE,

_Thursday._

My Dear Sanchia,--I may as well say at once that I am not surprised to

hear from you; in fact, I have been expecting some such letter as yours

ever since I read in the _Times_ of Claire Ingram's death. Poor unhappy

woman, it was time! Some of the Pierpoints (the Godfrey P's) are

intimate friends of ours: we dined there last week; no party--just

ourselves--and heard all about it. I learned that Mr. Ingram had gone

abroad, but imagine that he will be in London before the end of the

season. Have you written to Mamma? If not, _pray do so_. I assure you

that it will be taken as it is meant. Nothing but good can come of it.

Of that I am sure.

Now, as to your proposals. I think I will ask you to come to me _here_.

I am very busy, with calls a thousand ways. I really have no afternoons

free for as far forward as I can see--except Sundays, which I devote

entirely to Tertius and religion. No woman ought to separate the

two--love of God, love of husband in God. Sooner or later, all women

learn it. Then the mornings are naturally occupied with the house and

the children. They have Miss Meadows; but she is young and absurdly

inconsequent. I don't see how you can expect a girl in her teens to work

miracles. In fact, I don't want her to, and am at hand to see that she

doesn't.

I have spoken to Tertius, and you must forgive me for saying that we

both think, under the circumstances, it would look, and be, better in

every way if you came here, in the first instance. Without discussing

what is done, and (I pray) done with, you will see, I think, that for

me _to seek you out_ would be, to say the least of it, unusual. You left

our father's house for reasons of your own; I had left it to be married

to Tertius. Forgiveness, if you wish it from me, is yours: countenance

of the step you took--never. You will not ask it. So come here any

morning that suits you, and I shall be pleased. You will find me ready

to do everything I can, to put you on your proper footing in the sphere

to which you were born.--Believe me, my dear Sanchia, your affectionate

sister, PHILIPPA TOMPSETT-KING.

_P. S._--The Church's arms are very wide. One cannot be too thankful, as

things have turned out, that Claire Ingram never sued for divorce. God

is most merciful.

There was some knitting of brows over this, and some chuckling. Comedy

is the Art of the Chuckle; but it is very seldom that one of the persons

in the play can practise that which delights us. Sanchia was such a

person. She could detach herself from herself, see her own floutings and

thwackings, and be amused. At the same time her reply to Philippa was

curt.

“You,” she wrote, “are busy, and I am not. I will come to you one of

these fine mornings, and must trust to Miss Meadows' sense of fitness

not to work miracles that day.”

A day or two later came a telegram from Vicky Sinclair. “Just got your

letter. Coming at twelve. Vicky.” Sanchia glowed. “Just like her, the

darling.” Philippa's astringent proposal was put aside.

At twelve thirty-five there lit from a hansom an eager and pretty little

lady, all in gauzy tissues and lace scarf, who knocked at the door

like a postman and flew up the stair into Sanchia's arms. “Oh, Sancie,

Sancie, how sweet of you to write! Now we are all going to be happy

again forever after. Oh, and here's Cuthbert--I forgot.” In the doorway

stood the erect form, and smiled the bronzed face of Captain Sinclair of

the Greys. His “How d'ye do, Miss Sanchia!” was accompanied by a look

of such curious enquiry that Sanchia gave him two fingers, said, “Quite

well, thank you,” and no more. Much more had been expected, and the

Captain was somewhat taken aback. He had been ready to welcome the

prodigal and admire her too. What's more, he had already very much

admired her. To have one's generous motions damped by a coolness of that

sort is sickening. But there it was: what could one say? what could one

do? He went to the window and stood there, whistling in a whisper until

his wife dismissed him. To the Cavalry Club stalked he, working himself

into virtuous heat. There, at luncheon with a friend, he expatiated,

which was unwise and unmannerly at once. But his own wrongs swallowed up

his wife's rights.

“I'll be damned, Jack,” he took up his parable, “I'll be damned if

ever I do a woman a good turn any more. Never, never again. Gel I

know--relative of mine she is, by marriage--goes a purler with a chap.

Knew something of the chap too--so did you, I expect. Not a bad chap,

by any means, barring this sort of thing. Well, now she's in town--all

over--settled down, y'know. Writes to my wife. Well, I thought it was no

good bein' stiff in these things. Against the spirit of the age--what?

So I said we'd do the handsome thing and go up. We both wanted a spell

of easy--so it was handy. Besides, I wanted to see the gel. I own to

that. And there's no doubt she's a clinker; quiet, you know, and steady;

looks right at you, far in; sees the lot at a glance. Palish gel, not

too big; but well set up. Square shoulders--deep-chested gel. That

sort.” He stared at the table-cloth hard.

“I was taken by her, mightily taken. So when she and my wife had done

kissin', I put in my little oar. 'How d'ye do, Miss--' I won't mention

names, though upon my dick I don't know why I should be squeamish. But

there it was; and I'd have kissed her, as you do kiss your wife's--well,

cousin, let's say--if you want to. Bless you, not a bit of it. Proud as

pepper. Gives me a finger. 'Quite well,' says she. 'Quite well, thank

you--' and drops me. Drops _me_! Good Lord!”

He drank deeply of beer. “Well now, I tell you, that's the last time,

absolutely the last time I do the civil thing to--well, to that sort,

if she's my wife's grandmother.” He stared out of window, mist over his

blue eyes. “They're all for marrying her now. It seems it can be done.

Chap's to be screwed up. Then she'll be patronising me, you'll see.

Because I was decently civil--that was as far as I was prepared to go;

bare civility--and two fingers for it--'Quite well, thank you!' Oh, damn

it. Waiter--more beer.”

II

Vicky was enchanting; for half-an-hour Sanchia was at the top of bliss.

To be petted and diminutived by a butterfly--it was like that; for

though the child was a year older than she, six years of marriage had

made a baby of her. Her audacities of old had become artless prattle,

her sallies were skips in the air. Yet to be purred over by a kitten was

pure joy. “You darling!' You darling little Sancie! You beautiful, pale,

Madame-de-Watte-ville kind of person! Oh, my treasure--and I thought I

should never see you again!” So she cooed while she cuddled, Sanchia,

for her part, saying little, but kissing much. Her lips were

famished; but Vicky's must be free for moments if her words were to be

intelligible. During such times she stroked or patted the prodigal, and

let her browse on her cheeks.

By-and-by, raptures subsiding, the pair settled down for talk, and the

discrepancies which eight years had made began to show up, like rocks

and boulders in a strand left bare by the ebb. Grotesque the shapes of

some of them, comical others; but wrecks and dead things come to light

at low water--spectral matter, squalid, rueful matter. And there are

chasms set yawning, too, which you cannot bridge. Sanchia was to be

lacerated.

No doubt it was laughable at first, as _naivete_ is. “Cuthbert was very

funny about it”--for instance. “He was awfully anxious to see you, you

know--you had never met, I think?--and yet not quite liking it. He said

it was a great risk; he seemed to think I ought not to be there. He

takes great care of me, the darling. And there was little Dickie,

you see. Sancie! he can just walk--a kind of totter from my knees to

Cuthbert's--and then so proud of himself! Cuthbert said that my duty was

to Dickie; but I told him that I meant to come.”

Yes, it was comical. “Did Captain Sinclair think I should give him a

complaint?” Sanchia was smiling, with eyes and mouth; but the smile was

fixed.

Vicky hugged her. “You dear one! prettiness is your complaint. I should

like him to have some of that.” She held her at arms' length, looked and

glowed, and kissed. She took a serious tone, for the matter was serious.

“You know, Sancie, you're the only beauty in our family, the only real

beauty. Philippa's awfully handsome, I know, and greatly admired--and

I've always said that Melot was _lovely_. There are those three sorts

of women, you know. Philippa's handsome, Melot's lovely, and you're

beautiful. Then there's prettiness. I know I'm rather pretty: everybody

says so. Besides, there's Cuthbert. Oh, you can always tell! For one

thing--he's so fussy about my clothes--you've no idea.” She preened

herself, like a pigeon in the sun, before she returned to her praises.

“But you! You're quite different. You're like a goddess.” She touched

her curiously. “Yes, I thought so. Exactly like a goddess.” She sighed.

“I can't think how you do it. Swedish exercises? I know it's wonderful

what they do for you--_in no time_. But you have to think about them all

the while, and I think of Cuthbert--and Dickie--and the horses--and,

oh, all sorts of things! Those sort, I mean,--nice things.” She pondered

Sanchia's godhead, shaking her pretty draperies out, then recalled

herself. “Oh, yes, about coming here. Of course I knew that Mamma would

make a fuss--but I had determined long ago, before I dreamed that it

would ever happen, not to tell _her_ a word. It was only Cuthbert who

made me feel--well, _serious_. He is so wise, such a man of the

world! But I told him that I meant to come whatever he could say--and

afterwards it turned out that he wanted to come too. He was really quite

keen. Wasn't that sweet of him? You would adore Cuthbert if you knew

him as well as I do. But, of course, that's absurd.” She suddenly became

intense. “Sancie!” she said, then stopped and peered.

“Yes?” It was a sobered goddess who waited for close quarters. Vicky put

her question, but peered no more.

“I wish you would tell me one thing, which--has always puzzled me. But

don't, if you would rather not. How did you--I simply can't understand

it--how did you ever--? I suppose you loved him very much?”

Sanchia was in a hard stare. “Yes,” she said slowly, “I suppose I did.”

Vicky's head darted back.

“Ah! But now you don't a bit. I knew you didn't! Sancie, that's what

I can't understand. Because, you know, when you're married you do.

You always love the same person. You must--you can't help it. He's

so natural; he knows things that you know. He knows--everything. Oh,

Sancie, I can't talk about it, but you understand, don't you?”

Poor Sancie nodded, not able to look up. Alas for her secrets, offered,

taken, and forgotten! But Vicky's vivacious fingers groped in her empty

cupboard. “And then, as well as that, you _ought_ to love him. You see,

you've promised; it's all been made so sacred. You never forget it--the

clergyman, and the altar, and the hymns. You're all in white--veiled.

And you kneel there--before the altar--and he holds your hand. And the

ring, oh, Sancie, the feeling of the ring!” She opened her little hand

and looked down at the smoothed gold, coiled below the diamonds and

pearls. “You never forget the first feel of that. It means--everything!”

She blushed, and said, in a hushed sort of way, “It meant--Dickie, to

me.”

Sanchia drooped and bled. Vicky, deep in her holy joys, was remorseless.

Even when she turned once more to her sister's affairs her consolation

made wounds.

“Cuthbert said that it would come all right now--now that Mrs.

Ingram-the wife--was--That's rather horrible. Even you must feel that.

Instead of being sorry that his wife is dead, one has to be awfully

glad. I suppose you felt that at once; and of course _he_ did. Poor

woman! I wonder if she was buried in her ring.” She eyed her own. “No

one would dare take it off. I made Cuthbert promise me this morning.

But--of course people do marry again, and it will be practically the

same as that.” She reflected. “Yes, practically, it will, but--oh, it's

very extraordinary! You've had all your fun of engagement and all that,

long ago.” She looked down deeply at her hand; and then she gazed at her

sister. “And, oh, Sancie, you've had your honeymoon!” Before the deadly

simplicity of that last stroke Sanchia fell, and lay quivering. She

could not ask for mercy, she could explain, extenuate, nothing. Huddled

she lay. At this aching moment the one thing that the world held worth

her having seemed to be the approbation of this butterfly child.

For Vicky's happiness was specific. Nuptial bliss lay, as it were,

crystallised within it. There are moments in one's life when love itself

seems lust, and safety the only holy thing. Vicky, tearing at her heart,

had turned her head.

Vicky once gone, with promise of frequent intercourse by letter and

otherwise, it was to Philippa's fine house and respectable man-servant

she next surrendered herself. The meeting was cool, but not intolerable

to a goddess sore from Vicky's whip. Philippa could ply a longer lash,

but not by the same right, nor with the same passion to drive it home.

Sanchia's eyes met hers upon the level; and if the elder had a firmly

modelled chin, so had the younger sister. Her strength, too, lay, as it

always had, in saying little, whereas Philippa's _forte_ was dialogue.

But it needs two for that. After the first greeting there came a pause,

in which the embarrassment, upon the whole, was Mrs. Tompsett-King's.

The trenchant lady had had her sailing orders, and was going to follow

them. Mr. Tompsett-King had told her that Sanchia must be led, not

driven, into Ingram's arms. “Assume the best of her, my dear friend,” he

had said, “if you wish to get the best out of her. Take right intentions

for granted. It is very seldom that a woman can resist that kind of

flattery. So far as I can read your sister's mind, she has suffered from

your mother's abrupt methods. I beg of you not to repeat them. Nothing

but mischief could come of it.” When Mr. Tompsett-King called her his

dear friend, she knew that he was serious.

But Sanchia's mood had not been reckoned with: Philippa was not Vicky.

In the old days, in a wonderfully harmonious household, there had been a

latent rivalry between her and all her juniors. The greatest trouble had

been with Sanchia, the deliberate. And so it was now that when the elder

warmed to her task of making bad best, she was suddenly chilled by

that old pondering and weighing which had always offended her. Sanchia

replied to her assumptions and suppositions by saying simply that she

didn't know where Mr. Ingram was, and that he was no better informed of

her than she of him. But surely--Philippa raised her brows--but surely

she knew when he was coming to London? Sanchia's head-shake shocked her.

There was but one conclusion to be drawn from it.

“There's been a quarrel,” then said she.

“No,” Sanchia answered--as if thinking it out--“no, I shouldn't say

that. I should say, a difference of opinion.”

“My dear,” said Philippa--and the phrase with her was one of

reproof--“on essentials there can have been none. He will wait a year,

of course. Under the circumstances, a full year. But--”

Sanchia had replied, “I don't know what he means to do. I have left

Wanless.”

“Oh, of course, of course. But--I was going to say--I fully expect that

he has written to Mamma.” Sanchia's eyebrows and her, “I should think

that unlikely. Why should he write to Mamma?” frightened Philippa, while

to Mr. Tompsett-King's mind they were clear gain. It was necessary,

after it, to get on to surer ground. The interview terminated by an

understanding that Sanchia should write to her mother.

Philippa took her husband to dine in Great Cumberland Place that night;

and there, he with Mr. Percival, she with the lady, obtained the terms

of a settlement. Sanchia was to be allowed a hundred a year--for the

present. (Mr. Percival intended privately to make it two.) Everything

was to be assumed in her favour; but she was not to be asked to meet

company. Neither Mrs. Percival nor Philippa could be brought to that,

and Mr. Percival, so far as he was concerned, had no desire for any

sort of company but hers. He was one of those men made rosy-gilled for

happiness. Good fellowship, the domestic affections--if they were not

there, they must appear to be. His friends of the city were always on

his lips--Old Tom Peters--Old Jack Summers--Old Bob--Old Dick. Good

fellows every one. All the pet names in the family had been his. To him

belonged Pippa and Sancie, Melot and Vicky. “My girls,” or “My rascals,”

he used to call them to Tom Peters or Jack Summers, and bring them

home jerky little tin pedestrians from the city, or emus pulling little

carts; or (later on) bowls of goldfish or violet nosegays from Covent

Garden. If he had a nearer passion, it was to stand well with all the

world. That's two passions, however, to his score; and the struggle

between them, in Sanchia's case, had taken him as near tragedy as the

easy man could go. Heaven be praised, the good times were come again.

Now he was all for the return of the prodigal, without conditions--“and

no questions asked,” as he put it.

But in this he could not get his dear desire. Philippa's sense of

justice was inflamed, as well as her moral sense. What! you eat a cake,

and then, instead of sitting down to your plain bread and butter--away

you flounce, and get ready to eat another cake! That's dead against the

proverb, that's monstrous, that's offensive. “Mamma, mamma,” Philippa

had protested, “you can never have her back to flourish her sin in all

our faces.”

“Thank you, Philippa, for reminding me, however gratuitously, of my

duties to society,” had been Mrs. Percival's acknowledgment. She liked

sin as little as Philippa, but she liked being lectured a great deal

less. Poor Mr. Percival had pulled his whiskers throughout the debate,

and now sighed as he bit them. His girl was to be denied him--but he

could give her two hundred a year, and go to see her often. That was

comfort.

And then the meeting took place. First with Mamma, who had never liked

her, and was now a little afraid of what she might do. For Philippa had

made it quite plain that if Sanchia was not humoured, she would have

nothing to say to Ingram. “She's exhausted her criminal passion--that's

what it comes to,” was Philippa's judgment. “Now she will have to be

cajoled.” So Mrs. Percival was cowed into civility.

The pair conversed, rather painfully, for perhaps an hour. They had

tea. All the effort to talk was made by Sanchia, who broached the

children--Philippa's three, Vicky's one--and got nothing but perfunctory

enthusiasm in reply. Mrs. Percival was far too sincerely interested in

herself to care for children. The sons-in-law proved a better subject.

Here she could point a moral inwards. She extolled them

highly--never was woman so blessed in her daughters' husbands. Mr.

Tompsett-King--“Tertius, the soul of honour: the most delicate-minded

man I have ever known. And sensitive to a fault! I assure you--” Captain

Sinclair was “our gallant Cuthbert,” or “my soldier son.” “Sweet little

Vicky's knight! chivalry lives again in him. It has been the greatest

blessing in my days of trouble to be sure of the ideal happiness of

those two young lives. Ah! one does have one's consolations.”

Such eulogium seemed to leave little to be said for Melusine and her

prize; and yet it was certain that Mrs. Percival favoured Gerald Scales

above the others. A lift of the voice was observable--“Gerald, who,

naturally, is quite at home at Marlborough House...” “Gerald, with that

charming old-world courtesy of his...” “Dear Lady Scales told me that

of her two sons, Gerald should have been the baronet. Poor Sir Matthew

suffers from hay-fever to that extent.... But Gerald is a splendid

young man. Darling Melot is, I need not tell you, fully appreciated at

Winkley.” This was the seat of Sir Matthew, in Essex.

Sanchia, for her part, having regained the throne of her serenity--from

which Vicky had toppled her of late--by means of Philippa, was able

to contemplate this singular parent of hers with the interest due to

a curious object, and some internal amusement. She was too far removed

from her to be moved, too much estranged to be hurt. She wondered at

herself for feeling so little of what, in the days of babyhood, she had

firmly held to be the devout opinion. She found that, from a child, she

had always judged her mother, and was sure now that her mother knew it.

She remembered how hopeless she had always known it to be, to explain

any attitude of mind she may have exhibited and been blamed for. So now,

though it was abundantly clear to her what was hoped of her, and though

she could see perfectly well that the chance of her doing it was so

risky that she must be handled like a heavy fish on a light line,

she made no effort whatever to show why what was to be hoped for was

absurdly impossible. She watched her mother sail about it and about in

ever narrowing circles, heard herself commended for her promptitude in

leaving Wanless, answered enquiries as to Ingram's behaviour under what

Mrs. Percival otiosely called “his bereavement,” echoed speculations at

to his whereabouts--played, in short, vacantly an empty part, and kept

her mother upon tenterhooks. She gained civil entreaty this way.

But her father's bustling entry changed all this. She had not known of

herself how susceptible she still was. Vicky had made her cower; but her

father made her cry.

He affected a bluff ease in his manner of greeting her. “Well, Sancie,

well, my dear, well, well”--and then he cleared his throat; but he did

not dare to look at her. Sancie answered him by jumping into his arms,

and upset him altogether. “Oh, my girl, my girl--my little Sancie--” and

then the pair of them mingled tears, while Mrs. Percival, who thought

this exhibition out of place “under the circumstances,” and not in the

best possible taste, tapped her foot on the carpet, and wished that

Philippa had been here.

But, once they were beyond a certain flood mark, as she know by long

acquaintance, Mr. Percival's emotions must be given play. She retired,

therefore, and left the clinging pair. Directly she was gone, the good

gentleman's embrace of his child grew straighter, and his kisses of her

brows and hair more ardent. He humbled himself before her, thanked her

for coming back to him. “My darling, it was fine of you to come! 'Pon my

soul, it was fine!”

“No, darling, no,” she protested, smiling sadly at his fondness.

“I always loved you, my child! My Sancie--you know that of your old

father, hey?” He pinched her cheek before he kissed it again. “'Pon my

life, it cut me down like a frost to do--what was done.”

“I know, I know,” Sanchia murmured, and then begged him not to speak of

it.

“Ah, but I must, you know,” he vowed. “What! A damned unnatural

father!...” And then he held her closely, while he whispered his

anxiety. “Sancie--tell me, my lamb--put my mind at rest. He--that

fellow--that Ingram--he was good to you, hey? He didn't--hey?”

She vowed in her turn. “Oh, yes, dearest, yes. Of course he was. I was

very happy, except for--what couldn't be helped, you know.”

“Yes, yes--it couldn't be helped. I know that you felt that. I was

bound--for the others, don't you see?--sake of example. That sort of

thing, don't you see?” He shook his head. “We can't have that, you know.

It don't do--in the long run. Very irregular, hey? And your mother, you

know--she takes these things to heart. Goes too far, _I_ say. Sometimes

goes a little to extremes, you know.” He grew quite scared as he

recalled the scene. “I shall never forget”--shuddering, he clasped

her close. “My darling girl, let's be happy again! It shall be right

as--well, as rain, you know--now. We'll have you with a child on your

knee in no time,--hey?” He seemed to think that marriage alone could

work this boon. Again--as before with Vicky--Sanchia had not the heart

to gainsay him. She allowed him to speculate as he would; and her

mother, returning, found the pair, one on the other's knee, with the

future cut and dried.

But Sanchia rose at her entry.

“Dearest, I must go now,” she told him, “but I'll see you again very

soon.”

He urged her to stay and dine. “We're quite alone, you know! No ceremony

with our child, hey!”

But she smilingly refused. “No, darling, I won't stop now. I'll come

again--” her mother's stretched lips, stomaching what she could not

sanction, stood, as it were, before the home doors.

He looked wistfully at her--aware, he too, of the sentries at the gate.

“You might--we are pretty lonely here, we old people--I should have said

you might come back--there's your old room, you know--eating its head

off, hey?”

Sanchia kissed him. “Darling--we'll see. We'll talk about it soon. But

I must go now--to my books. I'm working very hard, at my Italian. I've

forgotten--lots.”

He had to let her go--but, manlike, he must relieve himself in a man's

way. He drew her into his study, bade her “see what she should see.” He

went to his desk and sat to his cheque-book. He returned with the slip

wet in his hand. “There, my child, there. That will keep the wolf from

the door, I hope. For a day or two, you know.” She read, “Miss Sanchia

Percival--two hundred pounds sterling.” It brought the tears to her eyes

again. It was so exactly like him.

“You darling--how ridiculous of you--but how sweet!”

He glowed under her praises. “Plenty more where that came from,

Sancie,”--then piously added, “Thank God, of course.”

Sanchia, in the hall, turned to her mother. “Good-bye, mother,” she

said, and held her hand out. Her mother took it, drew her in, and kissed

her forehead. “Good-bye, my child”; she could not, for her life, be

more cordial than that. The offence itself seemed a pinprick beside the

rankle of the wound to her pride. This child had set up for herself,

and was now returned--without extenuation, without plea for mercy. Mrs.

Percival was one of those people who cannot be happy unless their right

to rule be unquestioned. Had the girl humbled herself to the dust,

grovelled at her feet, she would have taken her to her breast. But

Sanchia stood upright, and Mrs. Percival felt the frost gripe at her

heart. It must be so.

Her father went with her to the door--his arm about her waist. “Come

soon,” he pleaded, and when she promised, whispered in her ear--“Come to

The Poultry, if you'd rather: I'm always there--as you know. Come, and

we'll lunch together. You'll be like a nosegay in the dusty old place.”

“Yes, yes, I shall come--often,” she told him, and nestled to his side.

Then she put up her cheek for his kiss. “Good-night, Papa dear,” He wept

over her, and let her go. Then he returned to his hearth and his wife.

In his now exalted mood he was really master of both, and Mrs. Percival

knew it. “You gave her the money, I suppose?” she said; and he, “Yes, my

dear, I gave her two hundred pounds.” He had doubled the sum agreed, but

Mrs. Percival let it pass.

III

Upon this footing her affairs now stood; she was to be one of the

family, with two hundred pounds a year to her credit, the run of her

teeth in the house, and (by a secret arrangement) as often in her

father's company as she could find time to be. Meantime, by her own

deliberate choice, she maintained her lodging in Pimlico, and read at

the Museum most days of the week. She prepared herself to be happy, and

under a buoyant impulse, due to the softening of her affections, wrote

to her friend Mr. Chevenix, and asked him to come to see her. That he

briskly did.

She received him cordially. It was good to see the cheerful youth again,

and to be able to rejoice in the man of the world he affected to be. A

man of the world--throned, at it were, upon the brows of a suckling.

Wisdom was justified of her child. “So you cut it? Thought you would.

Wanless Hall is all very well in its little way--when the rainbows

are jumping, what? D'you remember that fish? And old Devereux--_Salmo

deverox_? My certy, what a lady! But Nevile--” he shook his head. “No,

no. Some devil had entered into him: he was a gloomy kind of tyrant.

I don't know, by the way, what's happened to him. Travelling, or

something, I fancy. He was always a rolling stone, as you know.

But he'll come round, you'll see. Oh, Lord, yes. He'll sulk out his

devil--and be the first to apologise. Well--never mind old Nevile.

You'll see, one of these days. Now, I say, what are you doing with

yourself up here? Any good?”

She named her Italian studies, and made him open his eyes.

“Italian? _Tante grazie_, and all that! But that don't take you very

far, you know. Your teeth will crack a tougher nut. Now, I'll tell you

what you do. You come and see my old Aunt Wenman--”

She was highly amused. “Why should I see your old Aunt Wenman? Does she

know Italian?”

“Italian! God bless you, if she knows English, it's as much as she does.

Learnt the Catechism once, I s'pose. She's a good old sort--Lady Maria

Wenman, widow of my old Uncle Charles, and my mother's sister at that.

She'll take to you--she'll take to you.”

“I don't see--” said Sanchia, puzzled. The youth explained.

“Well, you see--you'll forgive me, I know--it's _tone_ you want just

now. She'll give you that. She's something to pull against. You get your

back up against her, and hang on. That's the ticket. She's a good soul,

is Aunt Maria--lots of tone--gives parties to all and sundry. You meet

some rare fish in those waters--Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics.

They'll amuse you--give you bones to pick. I don't get on with 'em

myself--too simple, I am, you know. They talk their politics, or

domestic afflictions, and I feel so delicate I don't know what to

do. There was one chap I remember--Golowicz his name was--big,

red-whiskered, conspiracy chap ... told me all about his mother--tears

running down his cheeks. I didn't know her from Adam, you know, but

still--Oh, you'll like Aunt Wenman. She'll want you to live with her,

and you might do much worse.” Sanchia listened, smiled, and pondered. It

was not her way to be disposed of so simply.

What was impressive to her about this conversation was the real

reticence underlying the chatter of her friend. She could feel his

conviction of her want of tone; she was convinced of it herself. Her

purpose in life seemed gone. Once it had been love, next it had been the

ordering of affairs. The second had been so absorbing that she had not

missed the first; indeed, she had believed it there until the very end,

when she had called it up, and had no answer. But now--what aim had she,

in this lonely, empty life she was leading, whose hours were so many

that she had to fill them up with Italian got out of books? Without

knowing it, it was life she wanted, not books. She with her brains,

vitality, beauty, and charm had been growing in these graces

unawares, flowering in secret at Wanless under her aprons, behind her

account-books and garden gloves. Now that all these swaddling bands

were stripped off her, behold her, armed at all points for the lists.

So Chevenix had beheld her, it seems. Let her see the world, approve

her mettle, run her career. Chevenix, watching her, judged in those

pondering eyes, in that half-smile which had charmed him before, a kind

of quivering expectancy new to her. He judged her tempted, and renewed

his suggestions on a later day.

“What you want,” he then told her, “is to try a fall or two with the

world. You've been too snug, you know--too long under glass. You left

the school-room to go to Wanless--and where were you there? Under cover.

You want the sun, the wind, and the rain; you want to know what these

things feel like--and how the rest of us take 'em. And you want to be

seen, if you let me say that. We all like being looked at, I believe. I

know that I do, when I'm quite sure about my hat. Now you won't get much

of that in a Warwick Street two-pair front, let me tell you--no, nor

in your B 17, or whatever your seat is, at the Museum. You're a

star--you're to shine. Well, give 'em a turn in Charles Street. I'll fix

it up for you. I wish you'd think it over.”

She gave him grateful looks, but said little. Nevertheless, he went away

encouraged. A week or so later she found a card upon her table: that of

a Mrs. John Chevenix.

“That's my sister-in-law,” the friendly youth presently told her.

“That's Mrs. John. You go and see her. She's a good sort of woman.

You'll meet Aunt Wenman there. I thought it all out, and that's the

way to get at it. She'll jump at you, in my opinion. She loves orphans.

Collects 'em. You go!”

She was due in the city on a visit to her father, was, in fact, dressed

for it in her best white frock, roses in her hat. She promised to think

of it--and of course would return Mrs. John's call. The amiable Chevenix

accompanied her as far eastward as it was possible for him to go. He

went, indeed, farther, and in full view of Saint Paul's decided upon

a visit to that sanctuary. You never know your luck, he said. He might

meet Senhouse there. He had been hunting the recessed philosopher high

and low.

“Great sport if we met him now--you, who look like lunching at the

Savoy or somewhere, and he like a fakir! What should you do? Fall in his

arms?” Sanchia had mist over the eyes.

“I believe I should,” she admitted. “I should love to see him again.”

“He'll turn up at Aunt Wenman's, I'll bet you,” Chevenix felt sure. “She

rakes 'em in--all sorts. Do you think about her, now, there's a dear.

You won't be able to stick it at home, you know.”

“I am sure that I shan't go home,” Sanchia said. “And I _am_ thinking

about your aunt.”

“Right,” cried Chevenix, and briskly mounted the steps of the cathedral.

Mr. Percival had provided a tea for her which had the appearance of a

banquet. The table seemed sunk in flowers; a great urn held the

tea. There were buns in pyramids, snow-mantled cakes, apricot jam,

strawberries, clotted cream. Nothing was too good for his beloved, as

he cried aloud when he saw her, fresh and glowing in her lace frock and

flower-wreathed hat.

“My girl--and upon my soul, a picture!”

She blushed at his praises, and came within kissing distance. “You make

a school-treat of me, dearest. You mustn't be wicked with your money, or

I shan't come any more to see you. I won't be spoiled.”

“No, my dear, no--and you can't be,” he assured her. “Good Lord, my

child, you're the only one I've got left. All my birds flown but you!

And I had five of the sweetest, sauciest, happiest girls in England once

upon a time.... Now, come you and pour out a cup of tea for your foolish

old father. We're snug here--hey? Better than Great Cumberland--hey? You

monkey!” He pinched her ear--and felt that they shared a secret.

She caught his happiness, and bathed in his praises, feeling as it were

the sun upon her cheeks. How she loved to be loved! How she loved to be

praised for her good looks! The world had grown suddenly kind again;

the world was good. There, ahead of her, stood Mrs. John Chevenix and a

friendly Lady Maria, beckoning her to London delights, a friendly world

of admiring eyes. She was to be looked at--she was to listen--and be

heard. Her heart beat, eyes shone starry. Life, which had seemed behind

her, now danced before, a gay procession. She told her father what

seemed to be in the wind. He listened and stared.

“Lady Maria, hey! We _are_ going up in the world. The peerage! Charles

Street, Berkeley Square! I remember young Chevenix: he had swell

connections--yes, yes. How things come about. This will please your

mother, my dear. She sets a store by such things.” Their eyes met, and

she nodded.

“Yes, I thought of that. But what do _you_ feel about it, Papa? You

see--I couldn't very well come back to Great Cumberland Place.”

He did see that, poor man. “No, chick, no. That wouldn't work out--that

sum. You and your mother never did add up very well--No, no. Much as I

should have liked it. But Charles Street? Hum. I'm a plain man, you

see, a plain, old comfortable merchant--and the older I grow, the

more comfortable I get, I believe. Now, I don't see myself in Berkeley

Square, making a bow to Lady Maria. My poor old back's too stiff for

that. But if you're contented--if you're to have your deserts--for

you're a little beauty, my love, and there's no mistake about it--why,

what can I say? And I know you won't forget Papa in The Poultry--hey?”

She held him her hand across the tea-cups, smiling with her eyes. “Do

you really think I shall?”

He caught fast to the little hand. “No, child, no! Though, mind you, I

deserve it. When I think that I let you be packed out of my house--neck

and crop--to the devil, for aught I knew--I grow cold. My dear, it's

taken me suddenly at night--when I've been wakeful--and I've groaned in

my agony. It don't do to think of--hideous! Women make fools of us men,

and knaves as well. But there! You know your mother's way. I mustn't

speak against her, of course. No, no. She's a good woman.” He looked as

if he tried hard to believe it.

Sanchia, her hand still held, had grown serious. “Papa,” she said, “I

want you to understand me altogether. I should do it again, I believe,

if I really loved somebody.”

He looked at her anxiously, then away from her, while he patted her

caught hand. “Yes, my dear, yes. I understand that you feel like that.

It's queer--to me, you know. I don't pretend to see it as you do. But I

trust you. I know you're a good girl. Only--it's not the old-fashioned

way; and your mother--”

“Mamma,”' she said, “is different. She thinks I'm wicked; you think I'm

good. I don't know what I am--I don't understand myself at all; but I'm

quite sure that I should do it again, if it had to be done.” Her

eyes grew large with the certainty of her argument. She had a divine

seriousness, a rapt look, as of one inspired from within. “I don't see

how you can help it, if you see quite clearly that the person needs you.

It seems disloyalty. It seems making too much of yourself--as if what

happened to that part of you mattered! And it seems making too little of

yourself, too--as if you shrank, as if you were afraid of vile people.

One can't afford to be afraid--for the sake of such a small thing.”

Mr. Percival, nodding, patting her hand, put in a gentle remonstrance.

“I shouldn't say that, Sancie, I shouldn't indeed. It used to be

considered everything in the world, to a woman.”

She mused, then decided. “No. I can't understand that. It's not

everything in the world. It's almost nothing compared to other

things--like freedom. To me the only thing that seems to matter is one's

mind. Freedom for that! You can give up anything else. But that you must

have--if you are to live at all.”

He made a loyal effort to follow her thought, but it led him into dismal

regions where he found himself unnerved. “I don't know, upon my soul,

where you get these notions of yours, my dear. I don't indeed. Not from

me, I believe.”

She smiled gently at him, but with a wistful tinge, as if she felt her

isolation. “I don't know, either--but there they are. I always know what

I've got to do. I see it, or feel it, ahead of me. There's a path that

way, a path the other. I see the fork, and have to follow one of them. I

always know which.”

That was equally beyond him. He left it, and returned to a more

practical puzzlement. “But when--when you make up your mind

about--_him_, you know? I wish you would tell me.”

“I'll tell you everything I can, dearest, of course.”

“Well, now, your freedom, you know. Your freedom of mind. Now, you gave

him your freedom, didn't you! And your mind too? Didn't you, now?”

She had to consider that, and he watched her with anxiety. But she

looked him fairly in the face with her answer, so that he read the truth

in her eyes. “No,” she told him. “No. He never had that, luckily for me.

I always knew what I had to do before he did. I could always see where

he was right and I was wrong--or the other way about. I don't think I

could ever give up my judgment. At least--” She had to think again; and

again she answered him, but with heightened colour. “If I did--it would

be a different sort of person altogether. Quite a different person.”

His face fell. This didn't sound like marriage-bells. “Oh, my dear!” he

said ruefully. “You don't mean to tell me--”

She jumped up and hugged him. “You darling old thing, of course not.”

But she kept her face buried in his whiskers. “If I ever did that--give

up my mind, I mean--I believe I should be happier.”

Mr. Percival had no doubt about that. He had old-fashioned opinions.

IV

Mrs. John Chevenix, a young and lively woman with ash-coloured hair,

audacious nose, and a clear complexion, was devoted to her husband's

family, and especially tender to our young friend and Sanchia's, with

whom she had a strong alliance. Her husband had a sense of humour, which

he indulged for the most part in silence. He spoke rarely, swallowed

his laughter, and yet was good company. You felt his sympathy, found

yourself depending on it. You gauged his relish by a twinkle, by a

deeper shade of purple in his cheeks, by a twitching ear. The Stock

Exchange gave him a sufficiency, and his wife, with her taste for

dinner-parties, saw to it that it gave him no more. “Let's bleed old

John,” was Bill Chevenix's pleasant way of suggesting an escapade which

might run into hundreds. “It will do him good,” Mrs. John used to agree;

and John Chevenix would chuckle internally, and say, “Go it, you two.”

On these terms they were all very happy.

Bill Chevenix had told his sister-in-law as much about Sanchia as he

thought fitting. To begin with, he took all responsibility upon himself

for the opening scene of her wild adventure. He had introduced “the

chap” into the Percival household, and it was he, too, who had

_not_ introduced the fact of his unhappy marriage. “Took it all for

granted--thought they knew it--forgot they didn't belong to that

gang--your gang, my gang, Nevile's gang. Rotten of me, my dear, but

there you are.” Mrs. John understood him to feel more contrite than he

appeared. And next he lauded Sanchia, after his own manner. As thus:

“A queer young fish. You can't judge her by the rules of the game. She

shows her strength by breaking 'em. She'd break anything and anybody.

Oh, she's as deep as the Dogger. But mighty pleasant with it, you know,

Fine, quiet style of her own. And a beauty. My word, but she's like a

rose.” Then his eyes met hers confidentially. A wink passed. “No. We're

great friends. That's all there is to it, on my honour. But you can't

leave a girl like that stranded, can you now? Especially when you've

run her aground yourself--in a way. So I thought of old Aunt Wenman in

a minute. In fact, I've seen her about it, and, by George, she hit on a

phrase in a trice. 'Unfortunate attachment.' She's perfectly happy with

that, and rather keen. Now all you have to do is to give a party, and

I'll ask Sancie.”

Mrs. John thought that was too casual. “You mustn't treat her like a

dancing man,” she told him. “I shall call on her, and you can tell her

I'm coming. We'll do the thing in form.”

All this had been done, and the call returned. Sanchia's still serenity,

seen through the rosy mist of her momentary confusion, pleased Mrs.

John. The invitation was made and accepted in parting.

“Do come. We shan't have many people, you know; but I won't let you be

dull. And Bill will be there, of course--and you rather like Bill--and a

queer old Aunt of ours who knows everybody. So I hope you won't mind.”

“I'm sure I shan't,” Sanchia said, and then they shook hands.

Bill Chevenix, who had been present, waved himself away from the

doorstep. “By-by, my dear,” he said. “You've done bravely by me. Isn't

she splendid?”

“I like her,” said Mrs. John. “But she's rather unapproachable.”

Bill chuckled. “That's her little way. She don't kiss easily.”

Mrs. John said that he ought to know.

The party was anything but dull. Lady Maria dined with seven other

people, the best that could be mustered on short notice--and Sanchia

came in at ten o'clock, when the drawing-room was full. She came with an

elderly friend, a Mrs. Quantock, whose acquaintance she had made in

an omnibus, and renewed at the British Museum. Mrs. Quantock was an

authoress by profession, a poetess by temperament. Her emotions, not

always under control, consorted oddly with her broad and placid face.

She knew Lady Maria Wenman, and it was she who actually performed the

introduction, Mrs. John being fast at her stair-head.

“I particularly want you to know my dear friend--Miss Sanchia

Percival--Lady Maria Wenman. A great heart, Lady Maria, in a frame of

steel.”

“Oh, indeed,” said Lady Maria. Then, “Come and sit with me, my dear;

I've heard about you. But I hope you've left your steels at home.”

“If I had a trumpet,” said good Mrs. Quantock, “instead of a penny

whistle, all the world should hear what I think of Sanchia.”

“Then it's a very good thing you haven't,” said Lady Maria. “The less

young ladies are trumpeted in public the better!”

Sanchia, during this interchange, had stood smiling and self-possessed;

but she was a little fluttered, and looked none the worse for that.

Without a word she obeyed the twinkling and puckered old lady, sat by

her on the sofa and awaited, her hands folded in her lap, what might

be in store for her. She liked the looks of Lady Maria, and had no

disrelish for her sharp tongue, nor fear of what might fall to her share

when Mrs. Quantock took herself off. She liked the little, deep-set,

dark grey eyes, the beaked nose, like the prow of a trireme, and the

drawn-in mouth, which seemed to be victim of the astringencies it was

driven to utter. And then she liked the signs of race, the disregard

of opinion, the keen look which lit on a man or woman and saw him

negligible and left him in the road. She had herself an artist's eye for

style, and saw in Lady Maria the grand manner. The praise or blame of

such as she would be worth having; awaiting either, she felt herself

braced. She could envisage the past, collect it, display it in her lap

without fear. “Here's my life's work, so far as it has gone. Now beat

me, if you will; I'm not afraid of honest blows.” She knew there would

be no sham outcries from this high-looking old dame.

Lady Maria Wenman was rich, imperious, whimsical, and afraid only of

boredom. By birth a daughter of Lord Starcross, by fate the widow of a

judge, she was strongly of opinion that she could do as she pleased. It

was not so clear to her that other people could also; but the reason

of that was that other people, not immediately about her, were not

themselves clear. She once said of a prime minister, “My dear, he seemed

to me a very good sort of man”; and that was her attitude all the world

over towards those not connected with her by blood or the affections.

Marks of race she had, but not pride of it. She was her own fountain of

honour, and were you omnibus-tout or commander-in-chief, if she liked

you you were in being, if not, you didn't exist. One consequence of this

was that she hated nobody, and was offended at nothing. The vices or

crimes of a non-existent world were mere shadows, naturally; those of

her circle of cognizance she had a way, very much her own, of accounting

for. A trick of hers, which had become inveterate, was to explain states

of being by phrases. These not only explained, they seemed to condone;

and to her there's no doubt, they accounted for everything. Mr. William

Chevenix, aware of her foible, did not scruple to turn it to his ends

when putting before her Sanchia's case. “You see, Aunt, one rather

admires her loyalty to the chap. He was precious miserable, and she

pitied him. Well, we know what comes of that, don't we? It turns to

liking, and gratitude, and all those swimmy feelings; and then they swim

together, all in a flux, eh? And there you are.” To which, when Lady

Maria had nodded her head of kindly vulture sagely, and mused aloud, “I

see; an unfortunate attachment. Very common, I believe, and quite sad,”

he knew that he had scored a point. When she had added, “We must do

what we can, of course; I'll see her; I've nobody with me just now,” he

presumed that he had won the rubber.

Apart from the comfortable _cliche_ in which she was seen enfolded,

Sanchia pleased the eye. Her father, in league with her throughout, had

“stood” her a frock, the cunningest that Madame Freluche could supply,

and would have added pearls for her hair and neck if she had not

tenderly refused them. She took his counsels in the general--that

she was to show them what was what, “for the honour of the Percival

girls”--and her own for the particular; would have no ornaments at all.

By an entirely right instinct she chose to wear black. It set her off as

dazzlingly fair, as more delicate than she was. Her eyes, from her pale

brows and faintly tinted cheeks, gleamed intensely, burningly blue. Her

strength appeared in her shut lips and firm chin--subtle, and, as Mrs.

Quantock said, like that of steel wire.

She did not talk much, but what she said was simple and direct. She

seemed to be reticent about herself, not by any means from shame,

but because her acts and intentions appeared too obvious to be worth

rehearsing. Once or twice her laugh, low and musical, showed that she

relished a joke. Lady Maria occasionally made jokes. Here was a girl who

understood them.

To the old gentlewoman, who never beat about bushes, but mostly walked

through them, Sanchia's bluntness made immediate appeal. Her reply, for

instance, to the enquiry, What had induced her to go on with the affair,

was a counter-question. “What else could I do?” she had asked, with

pencilled brows arched. “I thought it made no difference. I wanted to,

you see. What you do is nothing compared with what you want to do.”

“Then why do it, my dear?” said Lady Maria. Sanchia did not blink the

answer, “Nevile wanted me. He was very unhappy.”

“Well,” said the old woman, “what is he now?” This time Sanchia did not

reply.

Lady Maria drew her lips in until her mouth looked like a dimple in

her face. “Oho! That's it, is it? He's neglected you, and now you don't

care?”

“I care for some things very much,” said Sanchia. “I want to please

Papa, and Vicky, my sister, you know--and I think I want to put myself

right with the world. But--”

“But you don't care two pins about him?”

Sanchia shook her head sadly. Her brows were arched to her hair. “No,”

she said, “I don't care one pin.”

Lady Maria was no fool. She saw exactly what was going to happen, and

no reason why she should not declare it. She had formed already a high

enough opinion of Sanchia--which is to say no more than that she liked

her--to be sure that it would not influence her conduct. “I'll tell you

what the end of this will be,” she said. “You'll have him on the floor,

kissing your toes. He'll be mad to have you--and you'll marry him. Then

he'll be your slave for life. And they tell me that's the happiest state

a woman can live in. I have some reason for believing it. I and the

judge got along admirably, though the poor man might have bored me to

extinction. Oh, you'll do very well. But don't make him jealous.”

Sanchia considered this. “I don't think he would be jealous,” she

decided; “but we are rather premature, aren't we?” And then she related,

as if they were an anecdote, the circumstances of her departure from

Wanless.

Lady Maria listened carefully, nodding a dispassionate head at details

which would have raised Philippa's hair, and depilated Mrs. Percival.

“I think he's a human being, if you'll allow me to say so,” was the

conclusion she came to. “It was no affair of the gardener's that I can

see; and to be battered in your own drive by your own servant, even you

must allow to be provoking.”

“Oh,” Sanchia assured her, “I didn't at all mind his being vexed. But he

accused me of--all sorts of things.”

“Of course he did, my dear,” cried Lady Maria. “He was in a towering

rage. How was he to know that you hadn't egged on the gardener?”

“By what he knew of me already,” said Sanchia with spirit. Lady Maria

twinkled; but her scrutiny was keen. “I don't think you have explained

the gardener,” she told her. Sanchia blushed.

“He's a boy,” was her suggestion: but Lady Maria's comment on that was,

“And a bruiser it seems.”

Sanchia smiled gently. “Poor Struan! He was very difficult. He made

me furiously angry. What he did was outrageous. But I am sure he is a

genius.”

“What!” cried her ladyship. “A genius at gardening? or at thrashing

gentlemen?”

Sanchia said simply, “It's extraordinary what he can do with plants.

He's certainly a genius there. He's like a plant himself. He never goes

to bed, but walks about the garden all night, talking to them.”

“Like a burglar,” said Lady Maria. “Pray, what does he talk to them

about? Growing?”

“Sometimes, I think. I don't know what he says to them. But he talks

about all sorts of things.”

“You, for instance?” Lady Maria asked, suddenly; and Sanchia blushed

again, and presently looked at Lady Maria. “He's always nice to me,” she

said, mildly.

“I think,” her ladyship resumed, “I think I like to think of him best in

prison;” and then washed him out of her memory as she faced more serious

topics.

“It will be much better for you to come to me,” she told Sanchia. “I'm

an old woman, and an old tyrant, I daresay, but I'm somebody, you know.

And I'm pretty lonely, and happen to want company just now. It will be

good that you have a foothold to your name when your Nevile Ingram comes

after you. I shall bring him to reason quicker than most people, I don't

doubt. Your quarrel is absurd; you can't afford to quarrel with your

bread and cheese. You've your father, you'll say; but my answer is that

it's not very decent to live upon your father when you've got yourself

kicked out of his house. I quite see your point of view, mind you. These

things will happen, and in theory you're perfectly in the right. It's

your practice that won't do. All for love and the world well lost--very

fine indeed. But so long as we're in the world, you see, we _can't_ lose

it. There it is. Now you've had your kisses, and can afford to settle

down; but you must do it in the world's way if you want peace and

quietness; and I'm very ready to help you. Really, I don't see anything

better for you--short of your own home.”

“I shall never go there again,” Sanchia told her, directly.

“Very right, my dear,” said the old lady. “Then you had better come to

me.”

Sanchia said, “I should like that,” and Lady Maria, taking her by the

chin, patted her cheek.

“And so should I, my dear,” she said--and the thing was as good as

settled.

Mrs. John, released from her stair-head, came up presently; Bill

Chevenix was with her. “Dear Aunt Wenman,” she said, “I haven't had a

word with you since you came; but I'm sure you've been happy.”

“Miss Sanchia and I have been swearing eternal friendship,” said Lady

Maria.

“Exchanging drops of blood, eh, Aunt?” chirped the cheerful youth.

“Nothing like it.”

“I have no blood to spare, William,” she replied, “and if I had, Miss

Sanchia has too much. Now you can take her away while I talk to Helen.

Good-by, my dear,” she bade Sanchia.

“Good-by, Lady Maria,” the girl replied, with deeply sincere eyes.

“You've been very kind to me.”

“Fiddlesticks,” said Lady Maria. “I like you. Now run away, the pair of

you.”

“Right, Aunt,” said Chevenix, and crooked his arm.

After a decent interval, in which we may suppose formal visits exchanged

between Charles Street and Great Cumberland Place, Sanchia set up her

rest in the former mansion. The time was full June.

V

The string of episodes which discovered before the autumn was over the

heart of Mr. Cyrus Worthington at her feet hardly deserves record in

her history but for the fillip which it gave to her spirits. Tribute is

tribute, and Mr. Worthington was a warrantable gentleman. The tarnish

she had discerned upon her armour, the foxmarks upon her fair page,

dispersed under his ardent breath; she realised herself desirable and

loveworthy; she arose from the thicket in which she cowered with the

light of triumph prophetic in her eyes, the flush of victory after

victory prophetic in her cheeks. Therefore Mr. Worthington's career in

the Charles Street lists shall be chronicled.

He was a portly widower, a banker, a father, who made his bow to Lady

Maria some three times a year when he dined in Charles Street. In

return, he received her ladyship once during a summer at his mansion of

Fallowlea, Walton-on-Thames. On such occasions the Misses Worthington

and their cousins, the Pascoe girls, who lived at Esher, would enact a

pastoral play in the shrubberies with various entangled curates, with

young Sam Worthington from Oxford and friends of his. Mr. Worthington

himself, master of the difficult art of declining verse as if it were

bad prose, rehearsed the Prologue and Epilogue in a master's gown and

mortarboard, which he would retain for the rest of the afternoon. It

was in that guise that, his caution deserting him, he allowed himself to

dwell upon Sanchia's beauty.

Lady Maria had taken her down to Walton in mid-July; she had chanced to

meet Melusine there, and the two had embraced as sisters should. It is

to be owned that her adoption by Charles Street had restored her credit

with her family more certainly than any white sheet and taper which she

could have supported would have done. Her mother was highly gratified,

though she affected a shrug when good Mr. Percival, in the simplicity

of his heart, overflowed with the joy of it. “Sancie in Berkeley

Square--where Lord Rosebery lives: think of that, my dear!” And Mrs.

Percival, who knew where Lord Rosebery lived as well as anybody, would

reply, “These things will be balanced hereafter. Neither you nor I,

Welbore, are assessing angels, I believe. I pray to God that she has

made her peace with our Church.”

“Chapel Royal,” said Mr. Percival, “will be her ladyship's ticket--or

St. James's, Piccadilly. They tell me that the great world go there now

in the evenings, dressed for dinner.” Privately he vowed that, should

his Sancie be one of those immaculate worshippers, she should not fail

in toilet. And he had not missed the point so far as you might think.

Philippa Tompsett-King, who had been present when these things were

discussing, had lifted an inflamed face over the dinner-table. “I only

know,” she had said, “that I would rather live in Bloomsbury than have

her conscience. Cynicism has always seemed to me the sin against the

Holy Ghost.” But Melusine Scales, the gentle creature, had written

meekly of her joy; and Vicky Sinclair said to her husband, the

captain--“Sancie always tumbles on her feet. She always did--like a

sweet cat.” Shrewd and affectionate at once, she alone had discerned the

god's prerogative immanent in the youngest daughter of Thomas Welbore

Percival.

But the picture of Sanchia and Melusine, two fair girls, standing

together embraced under the cedarn shade had smitten deep into the

well-cased heart of Cyrus Worthington. He had come upon them at a pretty

moment, when Melusine, the willowy and tall, having opened her arms to

the dear truant, one arm still about her, with her free hand touched her

cheek that lips might meet lips. “Darling, I'm so glad--so very glad,”

she was whispering, and Sanchia, with the same light laughing in her

eyes, “Dear old Melot--how sweet you are to me.” Mr. Worthington pushed

back his mortarboard and revealed the crimson chevron which it had

bitten into his bald brow. “A charming scene--two charming young

ladies! Mrs. Gerald Scales and her sister, I think. Lady Maria's

adoption--charming, charming!” A right instinct sent him tiptoe over his

lawn, another made him doff his mortarboard.

“Mrs. Scales, we begin. The hunt is up. Poesy calls, 'Follow, follow,

follow!' Your sister, I think?”

Sanchia played the rogue. “Oh, Mr. Worthington, have you forgotten

already? Lady Maria explained me half-an-hour-ago. Must Melusine

introduce me again?”

“Not for the world, Miss Percival, not for the world!” the banker

protested. “I was in a sense explaining myself. Pray, do not suppose

that I forget either you or my manners so completely. No, no. But I am a

little near-sighted, I fear; there is a little difficulty of focussing;

nothing organic, no loss of function.” He cleared his throat, and to

give himself assurance, jingled half-crowns with his plunged hand. “No

loss of function whatever.” He took the thing a little more seriously

than he need, was in danger of labouring it. Melusine turned the talk.

He invited them to the play, as “master of the revels,” and walked

between them, looking a very decent figure of a don on a college lawn,

substantial, serene, and with an air of displaying his possessions:

_“Parva sed apta mihi; Deus nobis haec otia fecit!”_ He still possessed

the rags of his Latin. “This little bay-tree will interest you, Miss

Percival. It was planted many years ago by the late Lord Meeke--the

uncle of the present peer. We had had some business relations; they were

happily cemented into something more intimate by this little fellow.”

He touched it tenderly. “A sturdy growth! Like my affection for my noble

but departed friend. Dear me! _Labuntur anni_, indeed!” His fig tree,

which some one else had planted, his laburnum--a slip from one at

Rickmansworth, the seat of the late Lord Mayor Burgess--a catalpa

seedling from Panshanger, which the late Lady Cowper did him the honour

to present with her own hands: as Sanchia said afterwards to Melot, his

garden was rather like a cemetery of dead friendships....

Then they sat to witness the revels. Sanchia's fancy, uplifted by her

contentment, played with the play, and suggested flights undreamed

of for many a year. She sat by Melusine and her husband, and Mr.

Worthington watched her in the long intervals of his duty. Charming

indeed, and most high-bred: now where did old Welbore Percival, whom he

met daily in Throgmorton Street, fetch up such a strain of blood? His

wife, too, Kitty Blount, as she had been--what had Kitty Blount been but

a high-coloured, bouncing romp of a girl when they had all been paddling

together at Broadstairs? Extraordinary! And now here was one of his

girls sister-in-law of a county baronet--none of your city knights,

mind you--and the other, with the lift of a princess and the clear sight

which is hers by title. Extraordinary!

And there was another thing: where had old Welbore and Kitty Blount kept

her all this time? And why wasn't she married, a girl like that? She

came next to Mrs. Scales, he supposed. Well, but there was another,

younger still, married only the other day--to an army man. He remembered

Welbore chirping about it at a Board meeting. What was that in the

Bible--what was it? Ha!--“But thou hast kept the good wine until now.”

By George, he must remember that for old Welbore. And now he came

to think of it, old Jack Etherington had come in one morning full of

Percival's daughter--“A lovely gal”--he had said, that old Jack--“colour

of a Mildred Grant--quiet as the truth.”

Such were the ruminations of Cyrus Worthington at his own garden-party,

and he pursued them at favoured moments--with his glass of port at

dessert, with his last cigar, with his whisky night-cap. In the city

next day he rallied Thomas Welbore, who betrayed unlimited relish for

the diversion; and within a few days more he left a card in Charles

Street and took a late train to Walton-on-Thames. Asked in due course

to dinner, he handed Sanchia to the table, and spent the evening by her

side. He begged her better acquaintance with his daughters, made the

most of that which he had with Melusine Scales, and ended a successful

adventure by winning Lady Maria's acceptance “for herself and her young

friend,” of a banquet at the Cooper's Company of which he was warden.

The occasion was a great one-a foreign potentate, the Prime Minister,

Lord Mayor, and Sheriffs. The Coopers were to distinguish themselves,

or be extinguished. He could promise them of the best. Sanchia, new to

courtship, was quietly elated, and her amusement did nothing to diminish

her elation. She had never been wooed before: there had been nothing of

the kind in those shuddering days when she and Ingram, trembling in each

other's sight, had mutely cried across the waste of London for balm upon

their wounds. The flattery of attentions had never been hers, nor the

high credit of admiration so respectful as the good merchant's. He

esteemed her the fairest and holiest of women, was as timid as a boy in

her company, gasped like a fish and grew unmannerly hot; but I defy a

young woman to be anything but gratified. Miranda shunned Caliban; but

had she not rather he had been there to be shunned?

Thus, under Lady Maria's watchful eye, the thing proceeded, and Mr.

Worthington, within an ace of committing himself, scared his family. The

climax was reached at Kissingen, whither the infatuated gentleman had

followed his charmer.

She was very kind to him, but perfectly clear that she could not,

and would not, make him the happiest of men. She said that she was

flattered, which I believe to have been true, though he deprecated the

phrase. “My dear young lady--ha! I must really be allowed--I assure you

that you overwhelm me. Flattered--oh, Lord!” He limped the conclusion,

and left for England that night.

She felt the thing to have been rather ridiculous, and yet she was

pleased. She was gently elated, and had a kindly eye for herself as

she dressed before her glass. Power lay with her; she could choose

and weigh, accept or refuse. She was loveworthy yet. In spite of her

disaster, a man had sought her. Others would do that same, moved by what

had moved him. Shining eyes, body's form, softness, roundness--she had

hardly thought of these things before, nor looked at them with an eye to

their value. Mr. Worthington's ardent glances had illuminated her own,

and by-and-by she found, oddly enough, that they threw a backward

beam, and illuminated others. She found herself smiling tenderly as she

thought of Jack Senhouse, and repeating some of that poetry which he

had literally poured into her lap. It was so long ago! But when she

remembered how much it had puzzled her, she now found that she was not

puzzled by it at all.

Your eyes are twin mountain lakes, and the lashes of them

Like the swishing sedge

That hideth the water's edge....

Were her eyes, then, so fair! Mr. Worthington had found them so. Others

would--others had.

“Thy face drinketh the light,”--he had written that of her--and now

she knew that he had believed it. Had Nevile felt these things? Could

Nevile--as she knew him? Her lip curved back. If she could not think

of herself without thinking of Nevile--who wanted to mangle her--better

take the veil.

But she felt the strange reality behind that wild and adoring passion

of Jack Senhouse's, which had made him so incalculable a mixture. He

advised her, and adored, he received her confidences, and emptied verses

out of his heart into her lap. And she had had nothing to give him, who

had given her all! All indeed; for now she saw that he had loved her

beyond measure, reason, or stint.

There had been that last of his letters--a despairing cry from

Chanctonbury, written when she was Nevile's shadow, and he hers. She

felt stabbed to the heart to remember how perfunctorily she had read

that. How did it go? What had he said? She could not recall the words,

but their sense beat upon her. Oh, he had set her too high! He had

called her Artemis--the chaste, the bright. Artemis the Bright had been

one of his names for her--and Queen Mab another. He had set her too

high! And how far had she fallen? She bowed her burning head, and even

as she did so, remembered another phrase of his, sent with flowers--a

line from the Anthology, begging her to grant his rose “the grace of

a fair breast.” No longer fair, no longer fair--except to Nevile, who

craved it--and to a Mr. Worthington.

The bravest gentleman, a poet, a thinker, a man like a beacon-fire, had

loved her and cried her aloud as a goddess out of his reach. “Farewell,

Sanchia, too dear for my possessing!” She had the words. And she had

passed him by for Nevile, who made her a housekeeper, and loved her

when he wanted solace. What more had Jack said? What, indeed, had he

not said? That her life was like the scent of bean-flowers over a

hedgerow--a fragrance caught in passing by wayfarers, whereby men and

women might thank God for a fair sight who had chanced upon her in the

street. Praise indeed! But he had loved her, and saw her so--and

all that was gone for ever. He had left her because he dared not do

otherwise, and now he was happy without her. Her new-found elation was

like to die in self-pity. It required more than the complacency inspired

by Mr. Worthington to clear her eyes.

Thus were the flowers laid up for her by an honest merchant changed for

a wreath of rue as he was reminded of his better--his better and (she

thought) hers, alas! A wave of desire to catch back at far-off things

played her a trick. She found herself yearning for her childhood, found

herself crying for her innocence, for the sweet scent of opening

life. Even as she longed and strained, she knew herself vain. But the

temptation for the semblance of what was gone was strong and took a

subtle form. If she could not have the thing, she would have the thing's

name; if she could not be innocent again, she would ape innocency.

Prodigal of Pity as she has been, she could say to Senhouse's ghost, I

am no more worthy of thee; and from that to being worthy was but a short

step. The rest of her sojourn abroad was preparation for what was to be

done on her return home.

Her treasure lay hidden there, in a desk in her room: three portly

packets of letters, tied with ribbon, and labelled “Jack to Me.” Stained

and yellow, she now turned over the pages, and inhaled the faint, sweet

scent of them--a scent as of lavender and tears. Her eyes filled, her

heart beat; but she read on and on. Impossible praises! Love beyond

reason, without bounds--immeasurable homage! Did any man ever--save

Dante--love a woman so greatly, set her so high? So presently she was

caught up into a kind of heaven of wonder, and spent a night with the

past.... From that she arose clear-eyed to meet the future. If she had

been so loved, so served by man so generous and so fine, the rest of her

life might well be spent in testimony. Her single aim now should be to

recover herself, to be what he had once seen her. And for all this high

remembrance and high hope--thanks to Mr. Cyrus Worthington!

Lady Maria, as the weeks went by, watched her carefully, and marked the

change. Sanchia was very subdued, and now went to church. This to the

old lady, who did not, was remarkable. She was not aware, naturally,

of a passage in a letter which pictured her in church--with her “dear

obsequious head, bowed in a fair place to a fair emblem.” She could not

have understood, if she had had it explained, that the girl, conscious

of her stiff neck, was teaching herself obsequiousness for the sake of

him who had seen her so and found her dear. None of these things

were for Lady Maria's comprehension; but she reflected aloud upon

church-going, and got her young friend to explanations.

“Yes,” Sanchia said, “I do go to church. For a long time, you see, I

couldn't--but now I feel that I can. We were all brought up to go to

church.”

“So was I,” said Lady Maria, “and that, I take it, is why I don't go

now. I was taught to take it as physic.”

Sanchia's explanation, which she yielded on pressure, of why she had

stopped, was very artless. “I wanted to do something that they thought

wicked, but which I thought quite good. If I went to confession, I

should have been told that I was wicked. So I couldn't go. It was a

difference of opinion, you see.”

“Beg pardon,” said Lady Maria, “but I don't see. What you mean is that,

if you'd told your priest you were going off with Ingram, he'd have

said, Don't, and put you under the necessity of disobeying him.” She

owned to it. And then she owned to something more. If the difficult

choice came before her again, she would think twice. “I can't see,

even now, that I was wrong in what I did. I am sure it must be right,

somehow, to follow your own conscience. But I do see that it's a pity to

break rules. Yes, I see that.”

“I didn't suppose myself religious,” Lady Maria had replied, “but if

that is what your religion tells you, I agree with it. It's common

sense. What's a heart or two compared with peace and quietness? And how,

pray, is a child of eighteen to know what her conscience is worth?”

“It is all she has to go upon,” said Sanchia; but the old lady retorted,

“Nothing of the kind. She's got the experience of all Nature behind her,

from the poultry-yard to the House of Lords. You'll find that the Ten

Commandments are rigidly enforced among the cocks and hens. If a member

of the zenana breaks bounds there, she rues it. How else do you suppose

this world is to be peopled? Read the history of marriage, my dear.

You'll find that the more primitive your man the more complicated his

marriage laws. Why, bless my soul, I don't need the Church to tell me

that I mustn't run away with a married man. I can learn that from the

pigeons in the piazza at Venice. But I suppose I'm an old pagan. Now,

you run away to your priest and make a clean breast of it.”

Perhaps Lady Maria was fanciful, but she put down this return to the

Church's knees to the fact that Mr. Worthington had gone upon his. “The

child finds that she's a valuable article,” she said to herself; “so

she locks herself up in the cupboard, like the best china.” Sanchia's

resolution persisted, and enthusiasm followed its growth. She frequented

the churches early in the mornings, and one fine day presented herself

in the vestry of one of them. Upon her knees, but with unbent head

and eyes fixed steadily to the grille, she rehearsed her tale from the

beginning, neither faltering nor losing countenance. What followed upon

that was not communicated to her protectress, nor do I care to pry.

I imagine that she had always said her prayers, but that now she was

answering them.

That is, when one thinks upon it, the first office of prayer.

VI

Lady Maria Wenman grew to be extremely fond of Sanchia, really as fond

of her as she was capable of becoming of anybody. She had been good to

travel with, and was good to live with. She found her so reasonable, she

said. One could discuss anything without shocking her, or without fear

of being made uncomfortable by seeing her discomfort. Lady Maria, in

fact, being entirely without prejudice, experienced the little luxury of

being able to express herself without trampling.

On her side also, Sanchia sincerely liked her old protectress, and found

Charles Street agree with her. There was a primordial air about it,

which made habits seem like laws of Nature; an absence of fuss which

soothed her nerves, and did much better than slay her monsters for

her, when it exposed them for no monsters at all, but simple, everyday,

rather tiresome concomitants of our makeshift existence.

“You will, of course, marry Nevile Ingram,”--thus Lady Maria disposed

of the most dread of all monsters--“because it is, on the whole, more

agreeable to avoid scandal, and because it is certainly more decent

to pay one's bills. Long credit is a mistake; but you found it a

convenience, I suppose; and now you are in funds, you will, of course,

get out of debt. If only that you may run into it again at need, you

will draw a cheque. Now, you had eight years of it at Wanless, you

tell me? Very well, my dear, that must be written off Society's books.

Meanwhile, the more you see of amusing, emancipated people like Alexis

Morosine the better.”