BUT AM I NOT THE NOBLER THROUGH THY LOVE?
MR. and Mrs. Dulcimer and their ward went back to Little Yafford on
the same day that saw Sir Kenrick’s departure from Southampton in the
Peninsular and Oriental steamer. The parting between the betrothed
lovers was more serious than sentimental. Beatrix was touched by
Kenrick’s devotion, and grateful for his confidence, and there was a
grave tenderness in her manner at parting which made him very happy,
for it seemed to him the promise of a warmer feeling in the future.
‘You will be thinking of me sometimes when I am away,’ he said.
‘Yes. You will be serving your country. I shall honour you for that.’
‘If there is no war I shall sell out ten months hence, and be with
you before the year is out. But if war should break out--and there
is always some trouble cooking in the witches’ caldron of Indian
politics--it may be longer before we meet. You will not forget me,
Beatrix. Your feelings will not change--if our separation should be
longer than we anticipate.’
‘I have given you my promise,’ she said, with a noble simplicity that
impressed him deeply. ‘If you were to be away ten years instead of one
year, there would be no difference. I should not break my word.’
‘And you would remember--and love me?’ he urged.
‘I have not promised to love you,’ she answered. ‘I have only promised
to be your wife.’
‘Ah!’ he sighed, ‘that is different, is it not? Well, dearest, the love
must be won somehow. Perhaps if there is some hard fighting, and I come
home with one arm the less, and a captaincy, you will think more of me.
I shall think of you when I am storming a fort--if there should be any
forts to storm.’
Then he took her in his arms, kissed the pale brow and tremulous lips,
and gave her his farewell blessing, and so left her, full of hope.
There never was man born who doubted his power to win a woman’s love.
The Vicar and his wife were both anxious that Beatrix should remain at
the Vicarage, but Beatrix had made up her mind that she ought to go
back to the Water House. The old servants were all there; nothing had
been altered since her father’s death.
‘I shall be tranquil and happy there,’ she argued, when Mrs. Dulcimer
tried to persuade her that she would be miserable. ‘I shall have my
books and piano, and shall work hard, and I shall be free to come and
see you as often as you care to have me.’
‘That would be always,’ exclaimed Mrs. Dulcimer, who had been
rapturously fond of Beatrix ever since the success of her matrimonial
scheme. ‘But, my love, you cannot possibly live alone. People would
talk.’
Beatrix shuddered. Young as she was, she had had bitter experience of
the power of evil tongues.
‘I suppose I must have what Thackeray calls a sheep dog,’ she said. ‘As
I have outgrown my governess I must have a companion. Would not Bella
do?’
‘No, dear, she is not old enough. It would be just the same as having
no one. It will be only for a year, remember, Beatrix. A year hence you
will be married, and your own mistress.’
‘If there is no war, and if Kenrick comes home.’
‘We will hope there will be no war. I shall be so proud and happy when
I see you established at Culverhouse Castle. It was my idea, you know,
long ago, before you or Kenrick dreamed of such a thing. Clement would
never have thought of it; but I saw from the very first that you and
Kenrick were made for each other.’
Mrs. Dulcimer could not refrain from these little gushes of
self-gratulation. This engagement of Sir Kenrick and the heiress was
the first grand success that had come out of all her match-making. She
had brought a good many couples together, occasionally for better, and
often for worse; but she had never before made such a match as this.
She felt as if the whole thing were her sole doing. She felt herself
the saviour of the Culverhouse family. When the mortgages came to be
paid, it would be her work.
Beatrix answered not a word. She was always grave and silent when the
absent Kenrick was talked about. Her heart could not respond to Mrs.
Dulcimer’s raptures. She liked Kenrick, and believed him noble and
disinterested; but between such liking and glad unreasoning love there
is a wide gulf.
‘Yes, my dear,’ pursued Mrs. Dulcimer, ‘if you are obstinately bent on
living at the Water House, you must have a person of middle age for
your companion.’
‘Then I should like a Frenchwoman who could not understand one word of
English,’ said Beatrix.
She had her reason for this strange desire. She remembered how Miss
Scales’s heart, or that piece of mechanism which does duty for a
heart in the Scales tribe, had been set against her by the slanderous
gossip of Little Yafford. Her new companion must be some one who could
not talk or be talked to. The knowledge of foreign tongues at Little
Yafford was happily at a minimum. Beatrix knew of no one except Bella
Scratchell who could have spoken half a dozen sentences in decent
French.
‘You would like to improve yourself in the language,’ said Mrs.
Dulcimer. She always called French ‘the language.’ ‘Well, dear, we
must put an advertisement in the _Times_; but I’m afraid it will be
difficult to get the superior kind of person to whom we could entrust
you. Of course we must state that unexceptionable references will be
required.’
The advertisement appeared, and brought a shower of letters upon
Mrs. Dulcimer, giving occasion to much consultation between her and
Beatrix, but among them all there was only one letter that gave Beatrix
an agreeable idea of the writer. This came from a lady who had only
just come to England, a childless widow, whose husband, a provincial
journalist, had lately died, and left her in reduced circumstances, and
who had come to London to try to make some use of her literary talents,
only to find that literary talents were a drug in the market.
Beatrix liked the letter. The lady’s references were satisfactory; so,
after a little time lost in negotiation, Madame Leonard was engaged,
and in due course appeared at the Water House.
Her appearance was not unpleasing to Beatrix. She was a little woman,
with light brown hair and dark brown eyes, small hands and feet. She
was neatly dressed in black, and had the manners of a lady. Since
society insisted upon her having a companion, Beatrix felt that she
could get on as well with Madame Leonard as with anybody else; and
Madame Leonard, who was evidently of a soft and affectionate nature,
seemed delighted with Beatrix.
And now the Water House revived and brightened a little, and cast
off the gloomy mantle that had hung over it through the last ten
years of Christian Harefield’s life. Mr. and Mrs. Dulcimer were often
there. Bella Scratchell came and went as she pleased. Mr. and Mrs.
Scratchell were invited to dinner occasionally, a condescension on Miss
Harefield’s part which almost overcame the hard-worked lawyer’s wife.
It was a great privilege, no doubt, to visit at the Water House, but it
involved fearful struggles beforehand in order to arrive at a toilette
which should be worthy of the occasion. There was always something
wanting, which it required all Bella’s ingenuity to supply; and even
when a happy result had been accomplished, poor Mrs. Scratchell was
not quite easy in her mind. She was so unaccustomed to dine out that
she fancied some dreadful catastrophe must needs occur in her absence.
The kitchen boiler might burst, or one of the smaller children might
tumble into the fire, or scald himself with the kettle. That kettle
was on Mrs. Scratchell’s mind all the evening, even when she was
smiling her company smile, and pretending to look at the engravings
of Continental landscapes which Beatrix showed her after dinner. Even
the Bay of Naples could not make her happy. Vesuvius reminded her too
painfully of the kitchen boiler.
Beatrix found Madame Leonard a much more pleasant companion than Miss
Scales. She was well read in her own language, and opened the wide
world of classic and modern French literature to her pupil. They
read together for hours, each taking her turn at reading aloud, and
occupying herself in the interval with those delicate fancy works which
women love.
Beatrix had let light and air into her mother’s long unused rooms,
and had taken possession of them for her own occupation. Nothing was
disturbed. The daughter respected every detail of the rooms in which
her mother had lived. It was her delight to keep all things exactly as
Mrs. Harefield had left them.
So life went on, smoothly enough. Beatrix had no friends but the
Dulcimers and the Scratchells. She carefully avoided all the ‘best
people’ of Little Yafford, and received with a chilling reserve any
advances that were made to her. To those whom she happened to meet at
the Vicarage she was coldly civil, and that was all. If the Little
Yaffordites were inclined to change their opinion about her, she gave
no encouragement to any tardy gush of friendliness. She lived among
them, but was not of them.
Miss Coyle retained her original views of Miss Harefield’s character.
Although strictly conservative by profession, as became a lady of
ancient family, Miss Coyle had that kind of radicalism which consists
in detesting every one better off than herself. She cherished a savage
hatred of Beatrix, considering it an injustice in the distribution
of wealth and power that a young woman of twenty should have ten
thousand a year, and a fine old mansion at her sole disposal, while
she, Dulcinea Coyle, should be cabined, cribbed, and confined in a
cottage hardly big enough for a dovecote. True that the cottage was
pretty, and that Miss Coyle was fond and proud of it; but she would
have been fonder and prouder of the Water House. Then Miss Coyle’s
income, being of that strictly limited order which renders the outlay
of every sixpence a matter demanding foresight and careful calculation,
naturally gave rise to comparisons with the revenue of Miss Harefield,
which was large enough for the wildest extravagance.
This sense of a wrong adjustment of fortune, together with the fact of
Mrs. Dulcimer’s desertion, rankled in Miss Coyle’s breast, and whereas
other people in Little Yafford had left off talking or thinking about
Christian Harefield’s daughter, Miss Coyle continued to think about
her, and took every convenient occasion of talking.
She was not even inclined to let Miss Harefield’s companion go free.
She happened to meet Madame Leonard one afternoon at the house of
Mrs. Scratchell, whom it was her custom to honour once or twice a year
with a patronizing call. This was too good an opportunity to be lost.
Miss Coyle rather prided herself on her acquaintance with the French
language, in which she had been thoroughly ‘grounded’ five-and-forty
years ago at an expensive boarding school. A good deal of the ground
had given way during those forty-five years, but Miss Coyle did not
know that. She was not at all afraid of addressing Madame Leonard, who
had been carrying on a friendly conversation with Mrs. Scratchell, with
the aid of a little interpretation by Bella.
Miss Coyle contrived to leave the Scratchell domicile in company with
Madame Leonard.
‘Je marcherai avec vous si vous n’avez pas d’objection,’ began Miss
Coyle, politely.
Madame Leonard declared that she would be charmed, ravished. Her manner
implied that Miss Coyle’s society was the one delight that she had
longed for ever since her arrival in Little Yafford.
‘Comment est Mademoiselle Harefield?’ asked Miss Coyle.
Madame Leonard looked mystified. A stupid person evidently, Miss Coyle
thought.
‘Vous es la nouveau gouvernesse de Mademoiselle, n’est ce pas?’
‘Mais, oui, Madame, je suis heureuse de me nommer sa dame de compagnie.’
‘Comment est elle? Est elle plus facile dans son esprit?’
Madame Leonard looked at a loss to comprehend this question.
‘The woman doesn’t understand her own language,’ thought Miss Coyle.
‘One of those Swiss-French-women one hears about, I dare say, who come
from the top of Mont Blanc, and call themselves natives of Paris.’
And then she proceeded to explain herself at more length.
‘Mademoiselle Harefield a été terriblement choquée par le mort de sa
père. Il mourissait sous des circonstances peniblement suspicieux.
Les gens de cette village ont dit des penible choses sur son mort.
Je toujours desire à penser le mieux touchant mes voisins, mais je
confesse que le mort de Monsieur Harefield était très suspicieux.
Mademoiselle Harefield est très riche. Je ne souhaite pas de mal
à elle, mais elle est une jeune personne que je ne pouvais pas me
justifier en recevant dans mon maison. Mon maison est très petit, mais
mes principes sont fortement fixés.’
This French _à la_ Stratford-atte-Bowe was quite incomprehensible
to Madame Leonard, but she perceived dimly that Miss Coyle was not
friendly to Beatrix. She bristled with indignation, and replied
in a torrent of rapid words which might have been Chaldee for any
comprehension Miss Coyle had of their meaning, but the little woman’s
gestures told that worthy lady how much she had offended.
‘Ah! vous es une temps-serveur comme vos meilleurs,’ she exclaimed,
when the Frenchwoman paused for breath. ‘Mademoselle Harefield a
beaucoup de monnaie. C’est assez pour vous. Mais quand vous laissez
elle je vous promis que ce sera difficile pour vous à trouver un autre
situation.’
And with this assertion that Madame Leonard was a time-server like her
betters, and that she would find it difficult to get another situation
when she left Miss Harefield, Miss Coyle put up a brown holland
parasol, which seemed made expressly for virtuous poverty, and vanished
in a cloud of dust, like an angry goddess.
‘But this woman is mad! I comprehend not one word that she says,’
exclaimed Madame Leonard inwardly. ‘Who can have anything to say
against that dear angel? She is an envious, a malignant.’
The warm-hearted little Frenchwoman had too much delicacy to speak of
Miss Coyle’s outburst of spite to Beatrix. She was puzzled by it, but
in no wise influenced against her pupil, whom she had taken to her
heart.