PAMELA saw the wagonette, too, as she perched on the chair, her head
level with the high window. She was so surprised and fluttered that the
Oriental bowl she was lifting down nearly dropped from her fingers. She
called through the open door to Jethro:
“Here’s a carriage at the gate. Inside, an elderly lady and a girl with
red hair. They are coming up the path.”
“Aunt Sophy--Mrs. Turle, of Turle House--and Nancy.”
“They have come to call on me.”
She gave a soft breath of satisfaction as she jumped from the chair;
her best gown, her waved hair, were justified. She had only just time
to add, “What a pity I hadn’t finished the china closet!” before they
were announced, in rustic, familiar fashion, by the red-armed
housemaid, who hadn’t yet changed her cotton gown for her afternoon
stuff one.
Mrs. Turle was a big woman with a stately carriage. Nancy was slim, and
either shy or stupid. She had a very white skin--the Turle skin, as
Jethro had said. Whenever she spoke or was spoken to, a silly pink
flooded her face. Her dress was precise and perfect in detail; the
very best that the best shop in Liddleshorn could supply. Mrs. Turle,
too, wore a stiff silk, and the set of golden sable which had been part
of her wedding outfit, and was only just beginning to look damaged by
moth. This was evidently a state call. Pamela saw her look swiftly
round the room, as she threw back her net veil with the deep hem.
Jethro, after a few awkward words--he never excelled in the presence of
women--went back to his stubble and his dog. Pamela was left alone with
these two--evidently bent on criticism--who might or might not be of
her blood. Mrs. Turle said, looking at her steadfastly:
“My dear, you are like Jethro’s mother. She died when he was born, you
know. Always weak here.” She laid her plump hand on the sable that
crossed her ample bosom. “I hope your chest is not weak. You don’t look
very strong.”
“I am quite strong, thank you,” the new cousin returned rather
awkwardly, conscious that Nancy was trying to puzzle out the
construction of her _coiffure_.
“You may think so”--Mrs. Turle dealt out the sweet, maternal smile for
which she was famous,--“but one can never be sure of one’s own
constitution. I must send you down a large bottle of the cough syrup I
make for Nancy every autumn.”
She kept looking round the room. Pamela felt sure that she resented
everything--the tablecloth with storks, the winking brass bowls, the
very petticoat, which her portly shoulders crushed.
“I should have called before,” she continued apologetically, “but I
couldn’t have the horse. We only keep one since Mr. Turle died, and my
man, Evergreen, like all old servants, must be indulged. He doesn’t
care to drive in bad weather, and we have had so many mists lately.
Besides”--there was a tinge of reproach in her purring voice--“I hadn’t
seen you at church. I didn’t know if you were ready for callers.”
“Church! Oh, I haven’t been yet. It seemed such a pity to waste half a
beautiful day indoors,” said Pamela innocently. She saw timid Nancy
glance at her mother and smile. They were very tepid people. She
already felt as if little cascades of lukewarm water played on her.
“In London,” she added, in extenuation, “so few people go to church.”
Mrs. Turle looked grave.
“I must say,” she said softly--and Pamela soon learnt that “I must say”
was her favorite formula--“that people in towns are very lax. You can’t
bring up a large family--I’ve had fifteen--without method. When my
children were little they went to church twice on Sunday--what else
could you do with boys? They would only loaf about. Next Sunday, dear,
Nancy and I will call for you. We always drive.”
“Thank you very much.”
“And you have always lived in London? Your mother and father are dead,
so Jethro told us. I knew your father. He was a very handsome young
man. I must say,” her scintillating eyes were full on the girl’s face,
“that I should never have known you for his daughter. There is no
resemblance; poor John had such regular features.”
Pamela looked a little awkward. Nancy said kindly in her weak, sweet
voice, and with her languishing smile:
“Do you ride a bicycle?”
“No. I--I’ve never had the chance.”
“Oh! you must get one. Mustn’t she, mamma? It is such fun. In the
summer we have picnics, and in the winter paper chases.”
“That would be nice.”
The cascades of tepid water were growing in volume. She was new to this
class of caller. Her London experience was pretty large; she had
knocked about in her search for bread. She knew the art jargon of
Hampstead, the conscientious struggle for intellect and high purpose
which distinguishes the prosperous quarter of Bloomsbury. She could
talk shops with a feather-headed woman, babies, even, with a bovine
one, or the divine duties of sex with the serious. But with these
people there was no give-and-take, no merry tossing with the ball, no
brightening of the wits.
“And I suppose you were living with some other relations in London?”
“No,” she said curtly, “I was working for my living. Jethro is my only
relation.”
“We are all kin, are we not, mamma?”
“Of course. So you had a career, dear? Yes. Art? So many girls go in
for that. Nancy attended the Liddleshorn school for a time. But I
don’t think the influence is good for a young woman. I must say that
drawing from a model is not _my_ idea of delicacy.”
“Never from the nude, mamma.”
“Oh! never from the nude, of course. Unless it was a foot. I think you
drew from a foot once, Nancy, love.”
“Oh, yes, mamma; but the model only came once. She hadn’t understood
that she must take her stockings off.”
Pamela was yawning. “I haven’t studied art,” she said curtly.
“Literature? A great many girls go in for that. We had an author at
Mere Cottage. A most extraordinary person. He put a Latin text over his
door. What was it, Nancy?”
“_Parva domus magna quies_, mamma.”
“Yes, something like that. I’m not quite sure that your Latin is right.
But Egbert would know. He is my son at Cambridge.”
“The people were so puzzled,” said Nancy. “Old Mrs. Chalcraft declared
it meant knock and ring. But one of the other old women said it was a
spell to keep witches away.”
“It was a stupid thing to put,” Mrs. Turle broke in with impatience.
“‘A little house for great quiet.’ That is how my son translated it--my
youngest son at Cambridge. That is absurd, of course; little houses
never _are_ quiet.”
“But he meant, mamma, that he didn’t want people to call.”
“Then he need not have troubled to put such a sentence over his door,
dear. Old Timms, who is a painter by trade, was half afraid to do it.”
“His wife made him give up the job when he got to _magna_, mamma. Some
of the old people are so superstitious. She was afraid he might be
signing some compact about his soul with the devil.”
Pamela laughed. The conversation was waking up, she thought, but Mrs.
Turle looked grave.
“It was in very bad taste,” she said, “and he need not have troubled.
No one meant to call on such people.”
“And was it literature, dear?” she continued, more genially. “We are
quite literary down here.” She laughed pleasantly, as if introducing
Pamela to a congenial atmosphere. “What is the name of that person at
the new house on the Liddleshorn Road, Nancy? She keeps a poultry farm
and takes in type-writing.”
“Samuels, mamma.”
“Yes, Mrs. Samuels. And there is Mrs. Clutton at the Buttery. Her
husband is a journalist--so she says.”
The last three words were spoken impressively. Pamela immediately
divined that Mrs. Clutton, of the Buttery, was not a local favorite.
“Nancy has a great taste for literature,” Mrs. Turle continued, with a
fond glance at her daughter, who immediately blushed. “I think that if
there had ever been any question of her going out into the world she
would have chosen literature.”
“Only I can never think of a subject,” Nancy said pathetically. “If
only I could think of a subject and get somebody else to begin!”
“We subscribe to Smith’s,” Mrs. Turle said, smiling sweetly. “We like
to keep abreast with the times. Nancy goes in for serious subjects; she
is halfway through Ruskin’s----”
“Huxley’s, mamma.”
“There is very little difference, dear. But I confine myself to current
fiction. I’m just reading Kingsley’s ‘Westward Ho!’”
“I’m not at all literary,” said Pamela. “I was governess for a time.
Then I was a companion. And--and I managed a boarding-house.”
“Really! Then you understand housekeeping. That will be a help to
Gainah, who is growing old. Ah! here she is. I suppose you have made
your elderberry wine, Gainah? I only got a cask and a half this year.”
Pamela opened her gray eyes when Mrs. Turle of Turle affectionately
greeted the housekeeper. She was astounded to see Gainah, in her black
silk, and with a worn gold chain round her scraggy neck, sit down with
the easy air of an equal on the sofa. She couldn’t understand her
position. She derided the idea of her importance--an ignorant old woman
who was always cooking. Gainah in her eyes was a servant--nothing more.
But in local opinion she was entitled to much deference. The laborers
regarded her as even more important than “young Jethro,” who was only a
stripling.
Nancy took Pamela’s hand.
“Come out in the garden,” she said. “I so love a garden. Do you?”
“I don’t know anything about it,” said Pamela, as they strolled about
in the sun, and the other girl made little gurgling comments.
“How sweet those stocks are! What a show of asters! Ours were a
failure. Evergreen doesn’t care for asters. He likes carpet-bedding and
I bought him a half-crown packet of petunia seed; so I did hope he
would succeed with the asters. You must get Jethro to build you a
little greenhouse. I could give you plenty of geranium cuttings next
spring. It is a little late to take them now. I think it is a little
late; but I must ask Evergreen. You should have a bicycle.” She was
evidently anxious to be friendly. “Would you like to join our Shakspere
class? It is quite proper, you know.”
“Perhaps,” said Pamela vaguely.
Directly she heard the tea bell she hastened her steps almost rudely.
She was determined that Gainah should not take the head of the table,
and she managed to slip on to the oak stool behind the urn just as the
two elder women came along the corridor.
Gainah sat down at the side, shaking her hands and vibrating her head
with anger. But Mrs. Turle smiled approval.
“You must find a young lady in the house a great help,” she said
innocently, as she sat down, spreading her thick silk skirt flat
beneath her. “Nancy always pours out for me.”
Pamela was sulky. She hated what she called a “sit-down” tea. Tea was
not a meal; it was an interlude, a good way of helping out an idle
afternoon.
Jethro on the high stool at the end was hospitably carving a ham. The
smiling housemaid kept coming with fresh plates of toasted tea-cake,
preserve, or buns.
“You must give me the recipe for these rice cakes,” Mrs. Turle said.
“Two cups of rice flour,” returned Gainah solemnly.
“You beat your butter to a cream, of course?”
“Yes. Two eggs.”
“That is very economical. We have hardly any eggs. The hens are all
getting broody again, and I must say an October brood is not worth
hatching. I wish Evergreen would let me have a non-setting breed.”
“Nothing better than Leghorns,” said Jethro.
“Tch!” interrupted Gainah, with her air of absolutism, “Langshans are
better.”
“But they are not nice table birds.” Mrs. Turle smiled on them both and
took another cake. “Now, I must say I like the Plymouth Rock--only its
legs are yellow.”
Pamela, with the superior air of a being on a higher plane, poured out
her newly-found aunt a third cup of tea.
The talk went on. She heard Gainah and Mrs. Turle talk of wine-making,
cider-making, apple-storing.
“Our Blenheims,” Gainah complained, “have all gone a-bitel.”
“They will go mildewed some years. I don’t know why,” returned Mrs.
Turle sympathetically; “ours have kept beautifully so far. I’ll ask
Evergreen if we can spare you some.”
It was a very long meal. The dying sun straggled round the house and
filled the dull room with yellow light. Through the latticed window
they could see the mist rising like a huge bridal wreath from the wet
grass. Mrs. Turle got up hurriedly when the housemaid came in to say
that her carriage had come round.
“You must spend a long afternoon with us soon,” she said, kissing
Pamela. “What are we doing on Wednesday, Nancy?”
“It’s the Shakspere class, mamma.”
“Of course. Pamela must join the Shakspere class. Mrs. McAlpine, my
dear, who started it, is extremely clever--she reads German novels in
the original. And she is very particular--they only read the _nice_
parts of the plays. I inquired into that when Nancy joined. For
although one admires and loves dear Shakspere, I must say one is never
sure of him. It seems such a pity. Are we free on Thursday, Nancy?”
“I usually go round with the _Parish Magazines_, mamma--it is the third
Thursday in the month.”
“So it is. And Friday is unlucky. I don’t believe in such nonsense, of
course, but it is as well not to run unnecessary risk. And Saturday,
that is no day at all.”
“I usually give out stores on Saturday, mamma.”
“Then we’ll say Monday. No, Tuesday--that will give us time to make a
cake. I must ask some more of your relations to meet you, dear. And,
Nancy, we must be careful with the cake; Maria’s are always so
excellent, and she is so critical. And now run out, dear, and tell
Evergreen I’ll come in a moment. I’m afraid he won’t like being kept in
the mist.”
On Tuesday Jethro, who was driving into Liddleshorn, dropped Pamela at
Turle. She stood and watched him out of sight, admiring the smartly
turned-out trap and his broad back in the light covert coat. Then she
went, with lagging feet, up the drive.
Turle was an old house which had been improved into an appearance of
juvenility. Mr. Turle bought it when he retired with a comfortable
fortune from the milling--a comfortable fortune, and a determination on
the part of his wife--to end his days as a gentleman. He spent so much
money that people forgot that he had been a miller. When he died his
widow was actually on the skirts of small gentrydom. She was a
diplomatic woman, and managed to steer fairly clear of family
connections who were still in superior family trade. She drove her
social four-in-hand skillfully, and kept several distinct sets in
perfect balance, smiling on them all with the same motherly, expansive
sweetness, yet never offending the aristocratic susceptibilities of
Mrs. Sugden, the Paper King’s wife, who called on her twice a year,
nor hurting the feelings of the Jeremy Crisp girls, whose father still
carried on the family grocer’s business in Liddleshorn.
Pamela liked Turle. The farm-buildings were hidden, the surrounding
meadows had been knocked into a miniature park and planted with trees.
They were young trees, but everything must have a beginning.
When she was announced she saw that the big drawing-room was full of
strange women. She looked hurriedly from one face to another, finding
family characteristics everywhere. Mrs. Turle kissed her.
“You don’t look quite up to the mark,” she said affectionately. “A
touch of bile?”
She was introduced to all of them; handed over from one to another,
like a bale of samples. They had been engrossed at her entrance over a
big box of fancy work. One of the Jeremy Crisp girls--who was only a
girl by courtesy--went into elderly raptures over a woolwork jacket,
which looked a capital fit for an organ-grinder’s monkey, and was
intended for a baby.
“The box comes round to us once a quarter,” Mrs. Turle explained. “It
goes round to all members. Every member works something, prices it,
puts it in the box, and sends it on to another member. If we see
anything we like we buy it.”
Pamela was beginning to find out that her new cousins and aunts were
tremendously busy women--over nothing at all; that they had a frenzy
for belonging to classes and societies; that they took themselves and
their efforts very seriously.
The cheerful coal fire winked on the foolish satisfied faces with their
ridiculous monotony of outline and color. A crunching on the gravel
made everybody glance out of the window. Mrs. Turle seemed a little
frightened and annoyed. She looked deprecatingly at Cousin Maria
Furlonger, from the “Warren,” who was so very exclusive, who moved in
such a good set, and habitually went up to help Mrs. Sugden when she
gave a charitable entertainment.
“It’s Mrs. Clutton, my dear. You didn’t want to meet her, did you?”
“Oh, never mind, Aunt Sophy. I needn’t know her if I meet her again.”
“I wish she wouldn’t drop in so unceremoniously,” poor Mrs. Turle said
in a hurried whisper. “Mrs. Sugden was here the other day. She begged
me to let her out of the back door because Mrs. Clutton was coming in
at the front. Of course a woman in her position couldn’t possibly meet
anybody like that.
“My dear,” she swept her ample skirts across the room, “this is a
pleasure. Nancy and I were wondering what had happened to you. We’ve
seen nothing of you for at least three days. You’re a little pale. The
weather is trying, and makes one look so fagged and worn.”
It was a trick of Aunt Sophy’s to compassionate everyone and comment on
the fragility of their appearance. Pamela, when she grew to know
her better, was never sure whether it was a feline trick or a
sympathetic one.
The new-comer was dark and lean. She was a young woman, whose face
looked as if it had weathered storms. She was carelessly dressed in
perfectly cut clothes, rather worn. She carried a damp, loosely-tied
parcel, which she handed to Nancy.
“Here are your pinks and white phloxes. Put the roots in soon.”
“If Evergreen has time to-morrow----”
“Don’t wait for him; he’ll kill them. Gardeners have a knack of
sticking their spades through the things they dislike. Do it yourself.
I am so glad I can’t afford a gardener--to give me a plant for the
table when he chooses.” Her eye fell on a melancholy petunia.
“Have you been to any more sales, dear?” asked Mrs. Turle. “Have you
added to your interesting collection of nice old things?”
“Oh, yes!” Mrs. Clutton’s voice became enthusiastic. “I went to such a
delightful sale at Carrsland. I bought a little oak table. A dealer ran
it up to thirty shillings--the wretch! He passed me on the road! I was
walking, as usual; he was cycling. I instantly smelt him out as a
dealer, and I was half inclined to tip him off the bicycle with the
point of my umbrella, gag him, bind him to a tree until the sale was
over. I wish I had; it would have been so deliciously simple.”
There was an awkward silence; then Nancy said, in her gently gushing
way:
“I wish you’d ride a bicycle. It’s such fun.”
Maria Furlonger, of the “Warren,” added politely:
“Yes. You should ride; it’s so good for the brain; and I’ve heard you
write--or something of the sort.”
“Bicycling’s very bad for one’s logic; you can’t imagine a logician on
a bicycle. I don’t write; my husband does.”
Mrs. Turle, anxious for perfect harmony, and knowing--also sharing--the
local skepticism regarding Mrs. Clutton’s husband, put in blandly:
“Mr. Clutton is a journalist. He has gone for a tour round the world.”
“Oh!”
Maria Furlonger’s wide smile full in Mrs. Clutton’s face was a little
dangerous.
Mrs. Turle added quite irrelevantly:
“Poor Mrs. Peter Hone has another baby. That’s twelve.”
“Sympathy is wasted on the poorer classes,” Mrs. Clutton put in, with
her calm, dogmatic air. “You pet them too much. Once it was lap-dogs;
now it’s paupers. Any old dame with a clean apron and a courtesy, any
old man with his trousers tied round the calf and his chin like
stubble, can take you in. Merely a question of livery! Now, it is the
man in the top hat who wants petting--the man who is at his wits’ end
to keep up his insurance payments.”
The tea bell rang. They all filed solemnly into the dining-room.
Maria Furlonger, who was rather taken with Pamela’s silence, which, of
course, meant modesty, began to tell her graciously about the old Manor
House at Carrsland, where her father, Jethro’s mother’s brother, had
been born.
“It’s a very old place. There is a moat all round. It has been filled
up.”
“I am so glad it has been filled,” cried another cousin. “It was so
awkward, so dangerous. You see”--addressing herself to Pamela--“it was
just under the drawing-room window, and a lady might so easily have
fallen out. What a terrible thing it would be for a lady to fall out of
her own drawing-room window--into a moat!”
“When ladies have a tendency that way they should sign the pledge,”
said Mrs. Clutton tersely.
Nancy, meeting her mother’s diplomatic eye, rushed into the breach:
“Have you heard about the nice butcher boy?”
“That boy at Churnside’s?”
“Yes. He has stolen ten pounds. They have arrested him.”
“Dishonesty on a small scale never pays,” said Mrs. Clutton. “Honesty
is really the best policy--now that we have such an excellent police
force.”
She was putting on her gloves, and they looked at each other with
secret satisfaction. She seemed anxious to go. She looked as if the
double row of placid faces irritated her. Mrs. Turle and Nancy kissed
her. The former said:
“Come in again soon; we see so little of you. And take a tonic,
dear--you’re really looking run down.”
“What a vulgar person!” said Maria Furlonger, when the place was clear
of her.
Annie Jayne--the Jaynes of the “Mount”--said:
“She struck me as being a little weak--mentally. Dear mother used to
say that no properly-balanced woman should have opinions of her
own--outside the domestic circle.”
“I must say that some of her remarks are in bad taste,” Mrs. Turle
admitted gently. It was her policy to offend nobody, to speak ill of
nobody; ill-natured remarks never helped your social ascent.
“She’s quite incorrigible,” one of the Jeremy Crisps said. “Do you know
that she cut Mr. Meadows?”
“She didn’t!”
“She _did!_”
“The clergyman of the parish! A rural dean!”
“He called on her--merely a parochial call. He said that he liked to be
identified with all his parishioners--whatever their views. Could
anything be more broad, more generous?”
“Well?”
The Jeremy Crisp girl continued:
“She actually laughed in his face, and said she had not any views;
didn’t he consider views narrow?”
“She’s not a lady.”
“That’s not all. He met her in the lane next day. He nodded most
affably; you know his rule: a nod to people who walk, a bow to those
who keep a carriage. It is a wise rule--it defines the classes so
well, which is absolutely necessary, or where should we be?”
One or two superior cousins sneered at each other across the teacups.
The airs of these Jeremy Crisps!
“_She cut him dead!_”
“I spoke to her about _that_,” Mrs. Turle said gently.
“Well! What did she say? Short sight? She wears glasses for effect, no
doubt.”
“Those eye-glasses make one look so intelligent, they really do,” put
in a quiet cousin, who had scarcely spoken all the afternoon; “I
thought of getting some.”
“She said that the men of her acquaintance might touch their hats or
raise them--which they choose. If none of us would put that
insufferable Mr. Meadows in his place, she must.”
“You never should have called on her, Aunt Sophy.”
“My dear Maria, she is a neighbor. And you never know how these queer
people from London may turn out. Sometimes they prove desirable. I
hesitated a long time, though, when I heard her husband was a
journalist: very often journalist means swindler.”
“She looks to me like a woman who drinks,” Maria Furlonger said. “Drink
makes people talk at random; drink makes people forget their duty to
their superiors in the parish.”
“Dear mother always said that a drunken woman was such a much more
painful sight than a drunken man,” Annie Jayne said. “Oh! I can’t
believe it of her, Maria. She was quite nice to Baby the other day.”
Annie had her first baby, and thought of very little else besides. If
anyone admired Baby she concluded, in her simple, ardently maternal
way, that such admiration was a moral certificate.
“Drink! Nonsense!” said Mrs. Turle, quite sharply for her. “I must say
she has very clever ideas. She told me the other day that she was
thinking of patenting an automatic arrangement for making cyclists
swallow their own dust--though it would never do for you, Nancy, with
your chest. Why, here is Jethro. I suppose he has come to take you
away, Pamela?”