THE HEIRESS ENTERS INTO HER OWN
During the days and weeks which followed it was as though she were the
chief personage in a strange, continuous dream. Always she expected an
awakening--of a kind of which she did not dare to think. But the dream
continued. All at once her path was strewn with roses; up to then she
had seemed to have to pick her way, barefooted, amid stones and
thistles. No obstacle of any kind arose. Everything was smooth and
easy. Her claim to be her uncle's niece was admitted as soon as it was
made. Under her uncle's will Mr Stacey was the sole trustee. To all
intents and purposes his trusteeship was at an end when she was found.
She was of age; the property was hers to do with exactly as she would.
By no conditions was she bound. She was her own mistress; in sole
control of that great fortune. It was a singular position for a young
girl to find herself suddenly occupying.
She was glad enough to leave her affairs in the hands of Messrs Stacey,
Morris & Binns. In those early days the mere attempt to understand them
was beyond her power. They were anxious enough to place before her an
exact statement of the position she had now to occupy. To some extent
she grasped its meaning. But the details she insisted on being allowed
to assimilate by degrees.
"If I know pretty well what I have and what I haven't, what I can do
and what I can't, and what my duties and responsibilities are, say, in
three, or even six months' time, I'll be content. In the meanwhile you
must continue to do precisely what you have been doing during the time
in which I was still not found. I understand sufficiently to know that
you have managed all things better than I am ever likely to."
She provided herself with what she deemed an ample, and, indeed,
extravagant supply of clothing at Mrs Stacey's urgent request. That
lady's ideas, however, were much more gorgeous than her own. The
solicitor's wife insisted that it was only right and proper that she
should have a wardrobe which, as she put it, "was suitable to her
position." That meant, apparently, that, in the way of wearing apparel,
she should supply herself with the contents of a good-sized London
shop. To that Miss Arnott objected.
"What do you suppose I shall do with all those things?" she demanded.
"I am going into the country to stay there. I am going to live all
alone, as my uncle did. I sha'n't see a creature from week's end to
week's end--a heap of new dresses won't be wanted for that. They'll all
be out of fashion long before I have a chance of wearing them."
Mrs Stacey smiled; she was a lady of ample proportions, who had herself
a taste for sumptuous raiment.
"I fancy, dear Miss Arnott, that even now you don't realise your own
situation. Do you really suppose that--as you suggest--you will be
allowed to live all alone at Exham Park, without seeing a creature from
week's end to week's end?"
"Who is going to prevent me?"
"Dear Miss Arnott, you are positively amusing. Before you have been
there a fortnight the whole county, at least, will have been inside
your doors."
"I hope not."
The look of distress on the young lady's countenance was almost
comical.
"You speak, I think, without reflection. I, personally, should be both
grieved and disappointed if anything else were to happen."
"You would be grieved and disappointed? Good gracious! Mrs Stacey,
why?"
"It is only in accordance with the requirements of common decency that
a person in your position should receive adequate recognition. If
everyone did not call on you you would be subjected to an injurious
slight."
"Certainly that point of view did not occur to me. Up to now no one
worth speaking of has recognised my existence in the slightest degree.
The idea, therefore, that it has suddenly become everyone's duty to do
so is, to say the least, a novel one.
"So I imagined. It is, however, as I say; you see, circumstances are
altered. Quite apart from the period when you will possess a town
residence--"
"That period will be never."
"Never is a long while--a very long while. I say, quite apart from that
period, what I cannot but call your unique position will certainly
entitle you to act as one of the leaders of county society."
"How dreadful! I'm beginning to wish my position wasn't so unique."
"You speak, if you will forgive my saying so, as a child. Providence
has seen fit to place you in a position in which you will be an object
of universal admiration. With your youth, your appearance, your
fortune, not only all Hampshire, but all England, will be at your feet.
"All England! Mrs Stacey, isn't that just a little exaggerated?"
"Not in the least. On the contrary, my language, if anything, errs on
the side of being too guarded. A beautiful young girl of twenty-one,
all alone in the world, with more than a hundred thousand pounds a year
entirely under her own control--princes from all parts of the world
will tumble over each other in their desire to find favour in your
eyes."
"Then princes must be much more foolish persons than I supposed."
"My dear, of that we will say nothing. Don't let us speak evil of
dignitaries. I was always brought up to think of them with respect. To
return to the subject of your wardrobe. I have merely made these few
remarks in order to point out to you how essential it is that you
should be furnished, at the outset, with a wardrobe likely to prove
equal to all the demands which are certain to be made on one in your
position."
"All the same, I won't have five hundred dresses. Position or no
position, I know I shall be much happier with five."
It is an undoubted fact that the young lady's equipment of costumes
extended to more than five, though it stopped far short of the number
which her feminine mentor considered adequate. Indeed, Mrs Stacey made
no secret of her opinion that, from the social point of view, her
arrangements were scarcely decent.
"At the very first serious call which is made upon your resources, you
will find yourself absolutely without a thing to wear. Then you'll have
to rush up to town and have clothes made for you in red-hot haste, than
which nothing can be more unsatisfactory."
"I shall have to chance that. I hate shops and I hate shopping."
"My dear!"
"I do. I don't care how it is with other girls, it's like that with me.
I've already had more than enough of dressmakers; for ever so long I
promise you that I won't go near one for another single thing. I'm
going to the country, and I'm going to live a country life; and for the
kind of country life I mean to live you don't want frocks."
Mrs Stacey lifted up her hands and sighed. To her such sentiments
seemed almost improper. It was obvious that Miss Arnott meant to be her
own mistress in something more than name. On one question, however, she
was over-ruled. That was on the question of a companion.
It was perfectly clear, both to her legal advisers and to the senior
partner's wife, that it was altogether impossible for her to live at
Exham Park entirely companionless.
"What harm will there be?" she demanded. "I shall be quite alone."
"My dear," returned Mrs Stacey, "you won't understand. It is precisely
that which is impossible--you must not be quite alone; a young girl, a
mere child like you. People will not only think things, they will say
them--and they will be right in doing so. The idea is monstrous, not to
be entertained for a moment. You must have some sort of a companion."
Miss Arnott emitted a sound which might have been meant for a groan.
"Very well then, if I must I must--but she shall be younger than I am;
or, at anyrate, not much older."
Mrs Stacey looked as if the suggestion had rendered her temporarily
speechless.
"My dear," she finally gasped, "that would be worse than ever. Two
young girls alone together in such a house--what a scandal there would
be!"
"Why should there be any scandal?"
Miss Arnott's manner was a little defiant.
"If you cannot see for yourself I would rather you did not force me to
explain. I can only assure you that if you are not extremely careful
your innocence of evil will lead you into very great difficulties. What
you want is a woman of mature age, of wide knowledge of the world;
above all, of impregnable respectability. One who will, in a sense,
fill the place of a mother, officiate--nominally--as the head of your
household, who will help you in entertaining visitors--"
"There will be no visitors to entertain."
The elder lady indulged in what she intended for an enigmatic smile.
"When you have been at Exham Park for six months you will blush at the
recollection of your own simplicity. At present I can only ask you to
take my word for it that there will be shoals of visitors."
"Then that companion of mine will have to entertain them, that's all.
One thing I stipulate: you will have to discover her, I sha'n't."
To this Mrs Stacey willingly acceded. The companion was discovered. She
was a Mrs Plummer; of whom her discoverer spoke in tones of chastened
solemnity.
"Mrs Plummer is a distant connection of Mr Stacey. As such, he has
known her all his life; and can therefore vouch for her in every
respect. She has known trouble; and, as trouble always does, it has
left its impress upon her. But she is a true woman, with a great heart
and a beautiful nature. She is devoted to young people. You will find
in her a firm friend, one who will make your interests her own, and who
will be able and willing to give you sound advice on all occasions in
which you find yourself in difficulty. I am convinced that you will
become greatly attached to her; you will find her such a very present
help in all times of trouble."
When, a few days before they went down together to Exham Park, Miss
Arnott was introduced to Mrs Plummer in Mrs Stacey's drawing-room, in
some way, which the young lady would have found it hard to define, she
did not accord with her patroness's description. As her custom
sometimes was, Miss Arnott plunged headforemost into the midst of
things.
"I am told that you are to be my companion. I am very sorry for you,
because I am not at all a companionable sort of creature."
"You need not be sorry. I think you will find that I understand the
situation. Convention declines to allow a young woman to live alone in
her own house; I shall be the necessary figurehead which the
proprieties require. I shall never intrude myself. I shall be always in
the background--except on occasions when I perceive that you would
sooner occupy that place yourself. I shall be quick to see when those
occasions arise; and, believe me, they will be more frequent than you
may at this moment suspect. As for freedom--you will have more freedom
under the aegis of my wing, which will be purely an affair of the
imagination, than without it; since, under its imaginary shelter, you
will be able to do all manner of things which, otherwise, you would
hardly be able to do unchallenged. In fact, with me as cover, you will
be able to do exactly as you please; and still remain in the inner
sanctuary of Mrs Grundy."
Mrs Plummer spoke with a degree of frankness for which Miss Arnott was
unprepared. She looked at her more closely, to find that she was a
little woman, apparently younger than she had expected. Her dark brown
hair was just beginning to turn grey. She was by no means ugly; the
prominent characteristic of her face being the smallness of the
features. She had a small mouth, thinly lipped, which, when it was
closed, was tightly closed. She had a small, slenderly-fashioned
aquiline nose, the nostrils of which were very fine and delicate. Her
eyes were small and somewhat prominent, of a curious shade in blue,
having about them a quality which suggested that, while they saw
everything which was taking place around her, they served as masks
which prevented you seeing anything which was transpiring at the back
of them. She was dressed like a lady; she spoke like a lady; she looked
a lady. Miss Arnott had not been long in her society before she
perceived, though perhaps a little dimly, what Mrs Stacey had meant by
saying that trouble had left its impress on her. There was in her
voice, her face, her bearing, her manner, a something which spoke of
habitual self-repression, which was quite possibly the outcome of some
season of disaster which, for her, had changed the whole aspect of the
world.
The day arrived, at last, when the heiress made her first appearance at
Exham Park. The house had been shut up, and practically dismantled, for
so long, that the task of putting it in order, collecting an adequate
staff of servants, and getting it generally ready for its new mistress,
occupied some time. Miss Arnott journeyed with Mrs Plummer; it was the
first occasion on which they had been companions. The young lady's
sensations, as the train bore her through the sunlit country, were of a
very singular nature; the little woman in the opposite corner of the
compartment had not the faintest notion how singular.
Mr Stacey met the travellers at the station, ushering them into a
landau, the door of which was held open by a gigantic footman in
powdered hair and silk stockings. Soon after they had started, Miss
Arnott asked a question,--
"Is this my carriage?"
The gentleman replied, with some show of pomposity,--
"It is one of them, Miss Arnott, one of them. You will find, in your
coach-houses, a variety of vehicles; but, of course, I do not for a
moment pretend that you will find there every kind of conveyance you
require. Indeed, the idea has rather been that you should fill the
inevitable vacancies in accordance with the dictates of your own
taste."
"Whose idea is the flour and the silk stockings?"
She was looking up at the coachman and footman on the box.
"The--eh?--oh, I perceive; you allude to the men's liveries. The
liveries, Miss Arnott, were chosen by your late uncle; I think you will
admit that they are very handsome ones. It has been felt that, in
deference to him, they should be continued, until you thought proper to
rule otherwise."
"Then I'm afraid that they won't be continued much longer. In such
matters my uncle's tastes were--I hope it isn't treason to say
so--perhaps a trifle florid. Mine are all the other way. I don't like
floured heads, silk stockings, or crimson velvet breeches; I like
everything about me to be plain to the verge of severity. My father's
ideal millionaire was mine; shall I tell you what that was?"
"If you will be so good."
"He held that a man with five thousand a year, if he were really a
gentleman, would do his best not to allow it to be obvious to the man
who only had five hundred that he had more than he had."
"There is something to be said for that point of view; on the other
hand, there is a great deal to be said for the other side."
"No doubt. There is always a great deal to be said for the other side.
I am only hinting at the one towards which I personally incline."
Presently they were passing along an avenue of trees. "Where are we
now?"
"We are on your property--this is the drive to the house."
"There seems to be a good deal of it."
"It is rather more than three miles long; there are lodge gates at
either end; the house stands almost in the centre."
"It seems rather pretty."
"Pretty! Exham Park is one of the finest seats in the country. That is
why your uncle purchased it."
After a while they came in sight of the house.
"Is that the house? It looks more like a palace. Fancy my living all
alone in a place like that! Now I understand why a companion was an
absolute necessity. It strikes me, Mrs Plummer, that you will want a
companion as much as I shall. What shall we two lone, lorn women do in
that magnificent abode?"
As they stepped in front of the splendid portico there came down the
steps a man who held his hat in his hand, with whom Mr Stacey at once
went through the ceremony of introduction.
"Miss Arnott, this is Mr Arthur Cavanagh, your steward."
She found herself confronted by a person who was apparently not much
more than thirty years of age; erect, well-built, with short, curly
hair, inclined to be ruddy, a huge moustache, and a pair of the
merriest blue eyes she had ever seen. When they were in the house, and
Mr Stacey was again alone with the two ladies, he observed, with
something which approximated to an air of mystery,--
"You must understand, Miss Arnott, that, as regards Mr Cavanagh, we--my
partners and myself--have been in a delicate position. He was your
uncle's particular _protege_. I have reason to know that he came to
England at his express request. We have hardly seen our way--acting
merely on our own initiative--to displace him."
"Displace him? Why should he be displaced? Isn't he a good steward?"
"As regards that, good stewards are not difficult to find. Under the
circumstances, the drawbacks in his case are, I may almost say,
notorious. He is young, even absurdly young; he is not ill-looking, and
he is unmarried."
Miss Arnott smiled, as if Mr Stacey had been guilty of perpetrating a
joke.
"It's not his fault that he is young; it's not my fault that I am
young. It's nice not to be ill-looking, and--I rather fancy--it's nice
to be unmarried." She said to Mrs Plummer as, a little later, they were
going upstairs together, side by side, "What odd things Mr Stacey does
say. Fancy regarding them as drawbacks being young, good-looking and
unmarried. What can he be thinking of?"
"I must refer you to him. It is one of the many questions to which I am
unable to supply an answer of my own."
When she was in her own room, two faces persisted in getting in front
of Miss Arnott's eyes. One was the face of Mr Arthur Cavanagh, the
other was that of the man who was serving a term of twelve months' hard
labour, and which was always getting, as it were, between her and the
daylight.