I
“William writes that he is home from Italy, Helena; that he is married
to Lucia Vasotti, and that he begs us to send the child to Great House
on a visit, so that it may be less lonely for Lucia—a stranger in a
strange land, as he justly observes.”
“And likely to remain so. Most unsuitable.”
“Hush, Helena, we must not be harsh. We will send the child, but only
for a short time.”
Launce was that child, and that was the first word he had of Lucia
Vasotti—her name, linked with “unsuitable.” It must have been blown to
him on some wind of chance, because he was up in the dove-house at the
time with three Ribston pippins and _The Bride of Lammermoor_. The
flutter of homely wings was in his ears, the sharp fresh apple-scent on
his lips, Lucia was maddening on the sunlit page before him, and “Lucia”
was blown past him on the keen spring air. Until he died, that name was
to him as the call of remembered music far away. Then old Pansy came and
hauled him down the ladder in a hurry to be measured for two new shirts.
Launce was the only child at that time in the family, and he was used to
being handed round a large circle of grown-ups for the comfort of this
or that member thereof, like a foot-warmer. He remembered his Uncle
William as a tall, dark man, incredibly supplied with shillings and
generous of the same. Great House he did not know, but he was a child of
steadfast mind. He went off very calmly, well shawled and muffled, with
a small black box and two white mice in a cage. It was a day’s journey,
of which he remembered little, save that the willow catkins were out and
the southward-fronting gorse in bloom along the windy coast. He reached
Great House just as a wild sunset was faring above the sea.
The house stood high for that level land, surrounded with a great sweep
of terraces and plantations. It was built upon a fair and gracious plan,
but the bitter sea and the north-east had taken their toll of it. The
gardens were starved with sand, and the trees shorn off at wind-mark as
with a sword. The buildings too were grey and wind-bitten, but now they
swam in a strange red light. On the terrace above the beach a lady paced
up and down, wrapped in a red cloak. And she moved like a moving flame
in a still mist of fire.
“That is Unsuitable Lucia,” said Launce. He turned along the terrace
path where the sea-shells gritted with the gravel, the mouse-cage tied
up in a blue handkerchief in one hand, and his cap in the other,
rehearsing the little speech that Aunt Helena had taught him last Sunday
with his collect. As a result he was not very clear whether his
“honoured aunt and the warm welcome that ever awaited dear William’s
bride, however unexpected,” held a prominent position in the Church
Service, or whether he must remind this Lucia that we have no power of
ourselves to help ourselves, but need to be kept both outwardly in our
bodies and inwardly in our souls. However, he had no time for either,
for the lady saw him, and stood, holding out her hands.
“Are you Launce?”
The child went up to her; he could see that her eyes and hair would have
been very dark without the red-gold light that shone in them as fire
shines through smoke. Then she moved quickly and kissed him, and the
vision was blotted in the folds of her red cloak, through which he saw
the world as in a flame. “Are you Launce? I am your new Aunt Lucia, but
you must call me Lucy, for I am English now. I shall love you, you
little brown, long-nosed boy. Will you love me?”
But how could the boy answer, drowned in his first vision of what a face
might be.
She laughed a little, and sent a long, ringing call up to the
house—“William, O William, here is our nephew come.” And then there was
Uncle William, jumping out of the window of the gun-room and running
down the terraces, and saying. By Gad, now, was that big boy little
Launce, and how glad he was to see him, and Mrs. Annerley had tea ready
in her room. But first he’d better give the mice to Simmons.
“I’d rather have them in my room, if Aunt Lucia does not mind. They are
not very mousy.”
“Afraid you’ll be lonely in the night, eh?”
“No, Uncle Will; I’m afraid they will be lonely, they are sensitive
mice.”
And Lucia laughed. “Why should I mind, William, the pretty little living
things in the house? There are so few of them.” She glanced at the house
with a faint shiver. The sea had suddenly taken the sun, and they moved
like grey ghosts in a ghostly garden. Only on Lucia’s face the light
seemed to linger.
Uncle Will patted her hand as he had patted Launce. “Well, come along,
laddie. You must be hungry, and Mrs. Annerley has slain the fatted calf.
But go into the gun-room first. There’s someone there you see more often
than you do me.”
“Who?”
“Your godfather.”
Launce went to the gun-room with a happy face, and greeted his godfather
with a nod, as one boy greets another. Mr. Geoffrey Launcelot was
sitting on the table, apparently busy in admiring his own legs, very
effective in new gaiters. He went straight to the point, as was his
custom. “How’s the brown rabbit?”
“Well, sir, thank you, and has seven little ones. I’ve given two to
Bill’s boy.”
“That’s right. Always give away what you don’t want yourself. How’s
Foxy?”
“He’s well too.”
“And what do you think of your new aunt?”
Launce stood gazing at him above the mouse-cage. He opened his lips to
speak, but the vision came on him again, and something beat in his heart
and choked his throat like the flutter of prisoned wings. He stood
stammering, and felt with amazement his own cheeks grown wet with tears.
Mr. Launcelot handed him a handkerchief with an unmoved face. “Boy,”
said he, “I’m sometimes damnably afraid you’re going to be a poet.”
Launce steadied his nerves with Mrs. Annerley’s veal pie. He slept in a
little gaunt room looking out over the gardens. Downstairs there was
music—Lucia’s laughter, the piano. Uncle Will’s hunting songs, and then
young Geoffrey’s tenor, high and wild as a bugle, ringing through the
hollow corridors.
He fell asleep to the unaccustomed music, and he awoke to music—the
bleak music of the wind and the sea.
He was late for breakfast, but Geoffrey was even later, strolling in
imperturbably after the eggs, his curly hair still sleek from the sea.
“To-day,” Uncle Will announced, “we’re going to unpack wedding
presents.”
Unpack—a happy word. Launce awoke from a dream of Lucia’s morning face
behind the urn.
“Well, boy?”
“I have a new knife, sir. If I might cut the strings—?”
“Come into the hall. They are all there. And you shall cut all the
strings.”
The grey old hall was littered with packages and cases and straw; the
wind shook the curtains, and drove along the floor a fine dust that was
not dust of the earth, but sand of the sea. Launce was sent for Lucia’s
red cloak, a happy errand. And when he came back they had knocked a
wooden case apart and stood above the swathed contents, waiting with a
smile for the offices of the new knife.
There were many strings to be cut, but at last the packing and the
sackcloth fell away. And Launce cried out suddenly and was silent. He
felt again that flutter as of wings in his heart.
Yesterday he had looked his first on beauty living and mortal. Now he
looked his first on beauty dead and all but immortal.
A boy was there, sleeping in the honey-coloured marble that seemed to
have drunk its fill of some long-remembered sun. So soft, so warm, so
golden-grey it shone in the dusk of the hall, that Launce cried out
again to touch it and find it cold. The boy lay with his head thrown
back on his arm. Vine-leaves, broken now, were falling from his hand,
clinging to his curls, and vine-leaves lay where his little goat-hooves
had crushed them ere he slept. His face was neither good nor evil, only
beautiful. And his happy sleep seemed so light a thing that a laugh, a
song, the touch of a bird’s wing or the shadow of a falling leaf must
serve to break it, and awaken him to some unknown life apart from evil
and from good, the rising and setting of whose days and nights was
beauty.
“Well, my lady,” cried Uncle Will in his big voice, “you know where that
comes from, hey?”
With one of her swallow-swift movements, Lucia stooped above it. “The
villa,” she murmured, “the gardens, the laughing sea, and the sun—” She
laid her cheek suddenly to the smooth, cold cheek of the sleeping faun.
“I kiss you, O beautiful, for the sea and the sun—for Italy—”
“You are an odd kitten, Lucia,” said Uncle Will, “and you have some dust
on your cheek. Let me wipe it off for you. And don’t forget to tell Mrs.
Annerley about those sweetbreads.”
To Launce—and another—it seemed the little faun should have smiled and
wakened beneath that kiss of hers.
Launce wrote home that evening:
“My dear Aunt Helena, I am very Well. The mice are very Well. Uncle
William is very Well, and will write when he can gain Leisure. Aunt
Lucia is very well. I am glad to be here to prevent her from being
Lonely. My dear Godfather is here too, to prevent her from being Lonely.
He sends his Compliments, and did not tell me how to spell it. He has
new Gaiters. He has a new Horse, which he calls Monseigneur. I do my
Latin daily, and am, my dear Aunt, your loving and dewtiful Nephew,
Launce. My dear Aunt. She is bewtiful.”