It was nearly a week before Kate was permitted to leave her bed, and
during that time she had learned a great deal about the economy of
Fanshawe Regis. She lay among the pillows every day a little higher,
with her natural colour coming back, looking more and more like the
Greuze, and listened to all the domestic revelations that flowed
from Mrs Mitford’s lips. The kind woman was pleased with so lively
a listener, and thus there gradually unrolled itself before Kate a
moving panorama of another existence, which the girl, perhaps, had
not sufficient imagination or sympathy to enter fully into, but which
interested her much in bits, and amused her, and to which she lent a
very willing ear. Sometimes the door of the room would be opened, and
Kate would hear the footsteps in the house of which she was now a
recognised inmate, but which she knew nothing of. There was one solemn
step that creaked and went slowly, gravely, up and down stairs, as if
life were a weighty ceremonial to be accomplished very seriously, which
was evidently the step of Dr Mitford, the Rector of Fanshawe Regis,
and rural dean; and there was a lighter springy masculine foot, which
came to the very door sometimes with flowers and letters and books for
the invalid, and which Kate did not need to be told was “my John.” In
the languor of her illness, and in the absence of other objects of
interest, this step became quite important to Kate. She was not, we are
obliged to confess, by any means a very good young woman. She was a
spoiled child, and she had been born a flirt, which could scarcely be
said to be her fault. From three years old to nineteen, which was her
present age, it had been the occupation of her existence to prey upon
mankind. Whether it was sugar-plums she played for or hearts had not
mattered very much to her. She had put forth her wiles, her smiles, her
thousand little fascinations, with a spontaneous, almost unconscious,
instinct. It was necessary to her to be pleasing somebody--to be first
in some one’s regard, whoever that some one might be. Before she had
been half a day under Mrs Mitford’s care, that good soul was her slave;
and when that innocent little bit of captivation was complete, and
when the doctor, too, showed symptoms of having put on her chains,
Kate felt her hands free, and longed for the hunting-grounds and the
excitement of the sport. John was the most likely victim, and yet she
could not get at him, being chained up here out of reach. It filled
her invalid existence with a little touch of excitement. She sent
him pretty messages in return for his roses, and listened to all his
mother’s stories of him. Not that John in himself interested the girl.
He was her natural victim, that was all, and she smiled with a vague
satisfaction at thought of the mischief which she knew she could do.
The life she lived in her room in this strange house of which she
knew nothing, yet with which she was so familiar, was the strangest
amusing episode to Kate. After the first two days Mrs Mitford kept by
her less closely, and a fresh country housemaid, full of wonder and
sympathy and admiration for the pretty young lady, came into the room
as soon as she was awake to put it in order for the day. Lizzie had a
round fresh apple-blossom face which pleased Kate’s eye, and was full
of that wondering worship for the creature so like herself in age and
nature, so infinitely above her in other matters, possessed of so many
incomprehensible fascinations and refinements, which one young woman
so often entertains for another. There had been great calculations in
the kitchen about Kate’s probable age and her beauty, the colour of her
hair, the shape of her hat, her father’s wealth, and everything about
her. The cook at Fanshawe Regis came from Camelford, where Mr Crediton
lived, and knew that his bank was the Bank of England to all the
country round, and that he was rolling in money, and spared nothing on
his only child. Lizzie had listened with open eyes to all the details
her fellow-servant knew, or could recollect or invent, of the fairy
existence of this wonderful young lady. About twenty, cook concluded
Miss Crediton was--and Lizzie was just over twenty. And she too had
blue eyes like Kate, and apple-blossom cheeks, and was about the same
height--but yet what a difference! “You’ve seen Miss Parsons as was
her maid--a stuck-up thing with her fine bonnets; her mother keeps a
millinery shop down Thistle-field way, leading out o’ Camelford,” said
cook. “She was lady’s-maid to this Miss Crediton, and a fine thing for
her too. She might take a fancy to you, Liz, if you were to flatter her
a bit.” “Laws, I never dare open my lips,” said Lizzie; “she’ll lie
there a-noticing everything with them eyes, as looks you through and
through. Them as is no skolards has no chance.” But Lizzie’s heart beat
as the morning came, and she went softly into Miss Crediton’s room,
and set the windows open, and dusted and settled and put everything to
rights. Kate watched her, saying nothing at first, not without a little
natural interest on her side in the young woman of her own age, in all
the roundness, and softness, and whiteness, and rosiness of youth.
She saw the girl’s awe-stricken looks at herself, and was amused, and
even a little flattered, by Lizzie’s admiration,--and being weary of
silence, began to draw her out. It was chiefly from Lizzie’s account
that Kate identified all the movements of the house, and found out the
hours at which Mrs Mitford visited the schools, and when she went to
see her poor people. “When she leaves you, miss, to have a little rest
after your dinner, it’s time for the school,” said Lizzie. “Missis
never misses a day, not so long as I can remember, except now and
again, when Mr John’s been ill.”
“Is Mr John often ill?” said Kate.
“Oh no, miss; never, so to speak; but missis makes an idol of him.
Mother thinks as she makes too much an idol on him. He’s her only
son, like--it aint like having nine or ten, as most folks have,” said
Lizzie, apologetically, as she arranged the little table by Kate’s
bed-side, where there was, as usual, a bouquet of John’s roses, freshly
gathered.
“That is true,” said Kate, with a laugh which Lizzie could not
understand.
“But I’d rather have one like Mr John, than a dozen like most folks,”
Lizzie added, with energy; “most of ’em in the village is nought but
trouble to them they belongs to. It’s hard to tell of ’em what they’re
made for, them big lads. One’ll go poaching and idling, till ye don’t
know what to do with ’um; and another ’ll list, and break his folks’s
hearts. Mother says they’re a cross, but I think as they’re worse than
a cross--drinking, and fighting, and quarrelling, and never good for
nought. And them as is steady goes away, and you don’t get no good o’
them. You may laugh, miss, as don’t know no better--but there are folks
as can’t laugh.”
“I did not laugh, Lizzie,” said Kate. “I am very sorry--but why are you
so serious about it? I hope the girls are better than the lads.”
“Mother says we’ve haven’t got the same temptations,” said Lizzie,
dubiously; “but she’s old, you know, miss, and I dare to say she don’t
think on. I’ve got four brothers, all idler the one nor the other. And
if I don’t know, I don’ know who should. Mother she’s a good woman,
and I hope we’ll all pass for her sake--but missis, she never hears a
cross word from Mr John.”
“A cross word, indeed!” said Kate; “that would be unpardonable--and she
such a darling. He ought to be proud of having a mother like that. I am
very fond of her myself.”
“He’s as proud as Punch, miss,” said Lizzie, “and missis she’s proud
of him. When he’s at home he’s always by to walk wi’ her and talk with
her. Master, he’s that learned ye never know what to make of him. They
say as he’s the biggest scholard in all Huntingshire. It aint to be
expected as he would just take his little walks, and make it pleasant
like a common man.”
“And what does Mrs Mitford do when Mr John is away?” said Kate, a
little doubtful of the propriety of asking so many questions, but too
curious to let the opportunity slip.
“Oh, miss! it’s dreadful, that is,” cried Lizzie. “It’s enough to make
you cry just to look at her face. Some days she’ll go across to the
school as many as three times--and down to the village among all the
poor folks. Mother aint Church like me, miss,” the girl continued, with
a little apologetic curtsy; “she was born like in Zion, she says, and
she can’t make up her mind not to leave it; and it aint to be expected
as poor missis should be fond of Zion folks. But when any of the lads
are in trouble she never minds church nor chapel. Mother says she’s a
bit proud as her own lad is one as never gets into no trouble--and the
like of him haven’t got the same temptations, mother says. But I always
say as it’s kind of missis, all the same.”
“I should think so, indeed,” cried Kate, “and I think your mother must
be----” she was going to say a disagreeable old woman, but stopped in
time--“rather hard upon other people,” she went on, diplomatically;
“but then if Mr John goes away altogether, I am afraid Mrs Mitford will
break her heart.”
“Oh, miss, don’t you be afeared,” cried Lizzie, with bright
confidence--“he aint going away. It sounds funny, but he’s going to be
the new curate, is Mr John.”
“Oh!!” Kate gave a little cry of disappointment and dismay. “Is he a
clergyman? I never thought of that.”
“Not yet, miss,” said Lizzie, “but they say as he’s going up to the
bishop at Michaelmas or thereabouts, and then we’ll have him here for
curate, and missis will be as glad as glad.”
“I am sure I am not glad,” said Kate to herself, pouting over this
unlooked-for piece of news. Not that she cared for John. She had never
seen him, how could she care? He had saved her life, people said, but
then that was the most fantastic beginning of an acquaintance, like a
thing in a novel, and she would rather have seen no more of him ever
after, had that been all. But Kate had become interested in my John by
dint of hearing his step, and receiving his roses, and knowing him to
be her natural victim. And that he should be a clergyman spoilt all.
Curates, of course, are always fair game--but then an effective young
sportswoman like Kate Crediton can bag curates with so little trouble.
Facility, let us say, after the fashion of the copybooks, breeds
contempt. And, on the other hand, light-minded as she was, she felt
that a _clergyman_, as distinct from a curate, was a thing that
called for respect--and felt herself suddenly pulled up and brought
to a pause in all her projects for amusement. How provoking it was!
if he had been going to be a soldier, or a barrister, or an--anything
except a clergyman! She could not, for Mrs Mitford’s sake, treat him
on the ground of simple curatedom; nor would she beguile him from his
serious intentions, and wound his mother, who had been so good to her.
A clergyman! a being either ready to fall a too ready victim, or a
martyr, whom to interfere with would be sacrilege. Kate was thoroughly
_contrariée_. She felt that fortune was against her, and that this
was a climax to the misfortunes which hitherto had sat so very lightly
upon her. To be thrown from her horse and half-killed--to find herself
an inmate of a strange house which she had never heard of before--to
be introduced into a new world altogether, with the most delicious
sense of novelty and strangeness--and all to find herself at last
face to face with a clergyman! Kate could not understand what could
be meant by such a waste of means for so miserable an end. “I might
have been killed,” she said to herself, “and he only a clergyman all
the time!” She was, in short, disgusted at once with her ill fortune
and her foolish dreams. She talked no more to Lizzie, but fell back
on her pillows, and pushed the roses away with her hand. Mrs Mitford
had deceived her, John had deceived her. To think she should really
have been getting up a little romance on the subject, and he to turn
out only a clergyman after all! When John’s mother returned to the
room, after giving him a full account of her patient, along with his
breakfast, and reanimating by her son’s interest her own warm glow of
sympathy for the invalid, she was quite disturbed by the pucker on
Kate’s brow. “Dear me! I am afraid you have been doing too much,” she
said, anxiously, bending over the bed. “I have a little headache, that
is all,” said Kate, whose temper was affected. And Mrs Mitford shook
her head, and took immediate action. She had the blinds all drawn down
again which Lizzie had drawn up, and sprinkled eau-de-Cologne all
over Kate, and laid aside her own work, which required light, and
with her knitting in her hand instead, placed herself in the shade,
and said “hush” to every word her patient addressed to her. “Quiet
and darkness,” she said, softly; “hush, my dear--there is nothing
like darkness and quiet--I always find them effectual.” Poor Kate had
to make the best of it. Instead of going on with her new novel, and
chattering to her heart’s content, she had to lie silent and shut her
eyes, and be content with the eau-de-Cologne; which, after all, though
he was but a clergyman, was less interesting than John.
It was a great event to Kate, and also to the kitchen at Fanshawe
Regis, when “Miss Parsons” came from Camelford with her young
mistress’s “things.” Kate had never been ill in her life before, and
she had not been very ill or suffering much even now, so that the
feeling of state and dignity and superiority to the rest of the world
was unmixed by any severe reminiscence of pain. It gave her quite
a thrill of pleasure to see her pretty dresses again. She had been
allowed to get up to lie on the sofa by the window, and look out at
the roses, but only in her dressing-gown, which was very pretty, no
doubt, and very cool, but not so pleasant as all those fresh summer
costumes with their floating ribbons. She lay on her sofa, and watched
Parsons unpack them with lively interest. “But I should like to know
what you mean me to do with them all,” she said. “Here are enough for
all the summer; and how long do you suppose I am going to stay? Perhaps
a week--there are a dozen gowns at least.”
“I did not know which you would like, miss,” said Parsons; “nor if you
might be tempted to stay. It’s so pretty all about, and they’re all so
fond of you----”
“Fond of me!” said Kate, with a sudden blush, which surprised herself
intensely. “You goose! nobody has seen me but Mrs Mitford--and she will
be very glad to get rid of so much trouble, I should think.”
“Ah, miss! as if some folks didn’t know better than that,” said
Parsons; which confounded Kate so that she made no answer, but paused
to reflect whether the girl was mad, or if she could mean anything.
John had seen her, it was true, though she had not seen him. He had
saved her life; he had kept sending her roses all the time. And, no
doubt, it is quite possible that a man (poor creature!) might be
_struck_ at first sight, and never get the better of it all his
life after. The suggestion made her smile for one moment, and then
filled her with a certain contempt for John.
“Please finish your unpacking as soon as you can,” she said, with
severe politeness, to Parsons. “Take out half--that will do. I stay
here a week only. And make haste, please, for I am tired of all this
fuss.”
“Now they’ve come,” said Parsons, doggedly, “they’d best be unpacked;
and if you was to change your mind----”
“Be quiet, please, and get done and go away,” cried Kate. “You will
make me ill again, if you don’t mind.”
And then, considerably ruffled and put out, she turned her head to the
window. Mrs Mitford had scrupulously kept “the gentlemen"--her husband
and her son--out of the flower-garden, on which Kate’s windows looked.
She did not think a young lady in a dressing-gown a fit spectacle for
any eyes but her own; but Kate was almost well, and her hostess had
relaxed a little. As she looked out now she saw through the venetian
blinds two figures in the distance walking slowly along a sheltered
walk. It could only be John whom his mother was leading on in that
way. Her head was almost resting against his arm as she looked up and
talked to him. She leant upon him with that pleasant sense of support
and help which makes weakness sweet; there was even in her attitude a
something which Kate perceived dimly by instinct, but could not have
put in words; that delicious sense of surprise, and secret, sacred,
humorous consciousness of the wonder there was in it--the sweet jest of
being thus supported by her baby, her child, he whom she had carried
in her arms--was it yesterday?--which a man’s mother enjoys privately
all to herself. Somehow a little envy stole over Kate as she looked
at them. She was very fond of her father; but yet it was not such
happiness to be with him as it was for this other woman to be with her
boy. The young creature thirsting for everything that was sweetest
in life would have liked to have that too. To be sure she could not
be John’s mother, or anybody’s mother, and would have laughed with
inextinguishable laughter at herself for the thought, had she realised
it. But still she envied Mrs Mitford, feeling that kind woman to have
thus appropriated a joy beyond her reach--and what do women want with
joys at that age? Should not all be concentrated in one sweetest
draught for the rose lips, so dewy and soft with youth? Kate would have
repudiated such a sentiment, of course; and yet this was what breathed
unconsciously in her heart. She went to bed with a little spiteful
feeling against Mrs Mitford. Had not she made a clergyman of her boy on
purpose to spite Kate? If he had been a gravedigger his mother would
loved him just the same; it would have made no difference to her. If
he had been ugly, and weakly, and half his size, his mother would have
liked him quite as well; which were all so many offences against Kate,
and evidences of her inferiority. She wanted to have her own delights
and the other woman’s delights too. She wanted to be young and to be
old; to have a lover’s adoration and a son’s worship, and every other
variety that love can take. It so spited her that she cried when she
went to bed, and then burst out laughing at her own folly, and was as
silly as you can conceive it possible to be--perhaps more silly than
after nineteen any one could conceive.
Next day, after Lizzie had put the room in order, and Mrs Mitford had
paid her after-breakfast visit, and gone off to the village to see some
of her poor people, it occurred to Kate to try her own strength. Her
father was coming to dinner at the Rectory that day, and it had been
arranged that she was to be up in the evening to see him. But when all
was quiet in the house, Mrs Mitford out, the doctor not expected, and
Parsons at hand, who was not likely to thwart her mistress, Kate formed
a different plan for herself. She had her dresses taken out, just to
look at them. After being in a dressing-gown for a week, the charms of
a real _dress_, something that fits, is wonderful. Kate gave a
contemptuous glance at her white wrapper, as she gazed at all those
pretty garments, and then she glanced at herself in the glass opposite,
with her hair all loosely bundled up under her net. What a guy she
looked, lying there so long, as if she had had a fever! “A good thing
they did not bethink themselves of cutting off my hair,” she said,
under her breath; and could not but ask herself with horror whether
all the eau-de-Cologne that had been lavished on her head, and all the
showers of water, would affect her hair disadvantageously. She might as
well take it out of the net at least, and let Parsons dress it. When
this was done, Kate felt her courage rise. She sprang up from her sofa,
frightening the maid. “I am going to dress--I must dress--I can’t bear
this thing five minutes longer!” she cried.
“Oh, miss! you’ll catch your death,” cried Parsons, not indeed knowing
why, but delivering the first missile of offence that came to her
hand. But Parsons was far from being a person of spirit, or able to
cope with her young mistress. She stood helplessly by, protesting,
but making no effort to resist, except the passive one of giving no
assistance. Kate flew at her dress with a sense of novelty which gave
it an additional charm. She buttoned herself into it with a certain
delight. “Oh, how nice it is to feel one has something on!” she cried,
tossing her wrapper to the other side of the room; and she fastened
her belt, and tied her ribbons, and did everything for herself with a
sweep of enthusiasm. The reader has only seen her as an invalid, and
Kate was very well worth looking at. She was a little over the middle
height; her figure was very slender and pliant and graceful--upright,
yet bending as if with every breeze. Her hair was warm sunny brown
hair; her eyes were dark-violet blue, large, and limpid, and full of
a startled sweetness, like the eyes of a fawn. They had the child’s
look of surprise at the fair world and wonderful beings among which
it finds itself, which has always so great a charm; and with that
blue ribbon in her pretty hair, and the clear blue muslin dress, she
was like a flower. And then she had that glory of complexion which we
are so fond of claiming as specially English. Nothing could be more
delicate or more lovely than the gradations of colour in her face--her
lips a rich rose, her cheeks a little paler--a soft rose-reflection
upon her delicate features and white throat. It was not “the perfect
woman nobly planned” which came to your mind at sight of so pretty a
creature. She was a Greuze--an article of luxury, worth quantities of
money, and always delightful to look at--an ornament to any chamber,
the stateliest or the simplest. She might have been placed in a palace
or in a cottage, and would not have looked out of place in either; and
there was enough beauty in her to decorate the place at once, and make
up for all lack of colour or loveliness besides. But what she might
have beyond the qualities of the Greuze the spectator could not tell.
What harm or good she might have it in her to do--what might be the
result even of this first unexpected appearance of hers in the house
which she had taken by storm--it was impossible to predict. It could
not but be either for good or evil; but, looking into the lovely,
flower-like face, into her surprised sweet eyes, the most keen observer
would have been baffled. She was full of childish delight in the
novelty--a half-mischievous, half-innocent pleasure in the anticipation
of producing some effect in the quiet unsuspicious house; but that was
all that could be made out. She stood before the glass for a minute
contemplating her perfected toilette with the highest satisfaction.
She looked like a wreath of that lovely evanescent convolvulus, which
is blue and white and rose all at once. “Am I nice?” she said to the
bewildered Parsons; who replied only by a bewildered exclamation of
“Oh, miss!” and then Kate turned, poising herself for one moment on
her heel in uncertainty. She took one of John’s roses and placed it in
her belt; and then, with a little wave of her handkerchief, and, as it
were, flourish of trumpets, she opened her door and stepped forth into
the unknown.
Here let us pause for a moment. To step for the first time into a new
country is thrilling to the inexperienced traveller; but to put your
foot into a new house,--a place which is utterly strange to you, and
yet which you are free to penetrate through as if it were your own--to
take your chance of stumbling against people whom you know intimately
and yet have no acquaintance with--to set out on a voyage of discovery
into the most intimate domestic shrines, with no light but that of
your own genius to guide you,--is more thrilling still. Kate stepped
briskly over the threshold of her own room, and then she paused aghast
at her own audacity. The cold silence of the unknown hushed her back as
if she had been on an expedition into the arctic regions. She paused,
and her heart gave a loud beat. Should she retire into the ascertained
and lawful place from which Parsons was watching with a face of
consternation, or should she go on? But no! never!--put it in Parson’s
power to taunt her with a retreat--that could not be! She gave another
little wave of her handkerchief, as if it had been her banner, and went
on.
But it must be avowed that when she was out of sight of Parsons and her
own room, Kate paused again and panted, and clung to the banisters,
looking down the broad, handsome staircase. She could see down into
the hall, with all its closed doors, looking so silent, so strange, so
suggestive. She did not know what she would find there; and nobody knew
her or expected her. A distant sound from the kitchen, Lizzie’s hearty,
youthful laugh, struck with a consolatory sound upon her ear. But
alas! she was not bound to the kitchen, where she had friends, but to
investigate those closed doors, with such wonders as might be within.
She clung to the great polished oak banister for a moment, feeling her
heart beat; and then, “courage!” cried Kate, and launched herself into
the unknown world below stairs.