MUFFIN MAKES HER APPEARANCE AT PEN-Y-GROS CASTLE
It was now July, and in spite of Goodwood, and Lord’s, and a constant
succession of parties, Miss Perry remained faithful in her allegiance
to the Acacias. Her attendance at the wooden structure in the small
Balham back garden was not absolutely necessary, because the picture
was in quite an advanced stage, but there can be no question that
her presence was a great aid to the artist. As a rule, Lord Cheriton
conceived it to be his duty to accompany her on these pilgrimages. With
that disinterested benevolence, for which he was well known, he feared
lest the mazes of traffic in which the vast metropolis abounded should
overwhelm that ingenuous but charming child of nature. And further, he
seemed to find Mrs. Lascelles a singularly agreeable woman.
While the great things of art were toward across the garden, Mrs.
Lascelles and Lord Cheriton would sit in the tiny drawing-room with
the French window open to the grass plot, and the fierceness of the
obtrusive Balham sunshine mitigated by a sunblind, striped green
and red. Here in a couple of wicker-work chairs with ingenious
arrangements for the feet they could recline, with half an eye upon the
wooden structure at the other side of the lawn, where the wonderful
Miss Perry was just visible in _chiaroscuro_ through the open door.
They discoursed of the great days when Cheriton was a younger son, and
at the Embassy at Paris, and used to wear a stripe down the leg of his
trousers.
The world was younger in those days, and giants lived in it. That
fellow Gautier, who used to swagger at the play in a coat of
plum-colored velvet and a yellow dicky; and the dandies, the poets,
the painters, the musicians, the men in politics and diplomacy, the
gay, careless, brilliant, cosmopolitan company that thronged the French
capital before the Fall--yes, those were the days to live in and to
remember! But where were they now? Where were the snows of the year
before last?
Let us drink of the cup, for we know not what the morrow holds for us,
was the burden of Cheriton’s reflections. He had seen the great hulking
beslobbered Germans at Versailles in ’71, and he had seen the mutilated
city after peace.
“War is so _bête_,” said he. “And everything is that makes us unhappy.
I don’t believe that any fragrant thing ever sprang out of misery.
All the things we live for are wrought of happiness. I am sure, Mrs.
Lascelles, it gave you great pleasure to write the first chapter of
your novel.”
Jim’s mother smiled charmingly. She had been prevailed upon to read her
simple and unpretending narrative of life as she saw it, which could
find no publisher, because “there was not enough in it” for the public
taste.
“We must respect the public,” said Cheriton. “And of course we must
respect those who diagnose its need. But what a joy it must have been
to you to compose your little prelude to, shall I say, the works of
Stendhal!”
“Mon pauvre Arrigo Beyle!” said Jim’s mother, with a little blush of
pleasure that was really very becoming.
There was a perceptible movement in the wooden structure. A form,
divinely tall and divinely fair, appeared upon the grass plot. It was
accompanied by a stalwart, velvet-coated cavalier.
“A short interval for strawberries and cream,” said Jim.
“Most rational, my dear Lascelles,” said the lazily musical voice of
his patron from the depths of his wicker chair, “and most proper. As
I was observing to your accomplished mother, the great things of art
require an atmosphere of natural and spontaneous gladness in which to
get themselves created. Strawberries and cream, by all means. Do not
spare that national delicacy if you wish to get a final and consummate
glow upon your masterpiece.”
The attention of Miss Perry was wholly diverted by the rich display of
the national delicacy in question upon the tea-table.
“Aren’t they beauties?” said she, in thrilling tones. “I am sure Muffin
has picked the largest in the garden; and when I wrote to her, I
specially told her not to.”
“Among the select but ever-widening circle of persons,” said Cheriton,
“whom I desire to meet in the Elysian Fields, my dear Miss Goose, is
your sister, Muffin.”
“She is too sweet,” said Miss Perry. “Aren’t they beauties? I am sure
you would like her so much.”
After some liberal and copious refreshment--the afternoon was indeed
very hot--Miss Perry and Jim Lascelles returned to the service of art.
Jim’s mother was prevailed upon to open the little rosewood piano. This
time she played Brahms. Her touch, in the opinion of her listener, was
deliciously sensitive. She promised to accompany him on the Friday
following to the Opera to hear Calve in _La Bohème_. They discussed the
theaters, and waxed enthusiastic over the artless witchery of Duse as
Mirandola.
“And soon, my dear Mrs. Lascelles,” said Cheriton, with his paternal
air, “I suppose you will be off to the sea.”
“Yes,” said Jim’s mother, hopefully, “if the little study of the Tuscan
woman in the field of olives finds a purchaser.”
“One feels sure it will,” said Cheriton, with perhaps a better grounded
optimism.
Cheriton was justified of it, however. Jim Lascelles contrived a few
days later to sell that not specially significant little work for forty
pounds. In his own judgment, and in that of others, this sum was every
penny of what it was worth. It was so obviously a picture in which he
was seeking to find the right way in that carelessly happy era before
the right way had come to him so miraculously.
The sale of the Tuscan woman in the field of olives was curiously
providential coming when it did, for Jim himself had abandoned all
hope of the sea for that year. Yet neither he nor his mother was
really surprised that a corner was found for her in one of the lesser
reception rooms at Cheriton House.
“It is a great bargain,” said Jim’s mother. “Really she is worth so
much more.”
“A modest fiver represents her merits,” said Jim, who was without
illusions upon the subject.
Nevertheless Jim and his mother proposed to spend a whole month in
Normandy upon the proceeds of the sale. Cheriton, who had inherited a
certain quantity of suppressed gout along with the ancestral acres,
made his annual pilgrimage to Harrogate to drink the waters; and the
Hill Street _ménage_ was removed to a dilapidated fortress in Wales.
And it was to this retreat, by a signal act of grace, of which few
would have suspected its authoress to be capable, that Muffin was
summoned from Slocum Magna to spend a fortnight with her sister, “who,
all things considered, had been a good girl.”
Miss Perry wept large round tears of delight when she communicated
this glad news to Tobias. That stay of her solitude had, by the guilty
connivance of Miss Burden, been provided during the second week of his
sojourn in the vast metropolis with a more hygienic and commodious
structure than a wicker basket.
Muffin arrived at Pen-y-Gros Castle on a sultry August afternoon, in
a somewhat antiquated fly which took an hour to come from the railway
station at a place called Dwygyfy, or words to that effect. It appeared
that the train was due to arrive at that center of civilization at
seven o’clock the previous evening, but for some mysterious reason did
not arrive there until the next day. At least, according to Muffin’s
thrilling narrative of her adventures upon the Cambrian railway, she
had found herself at a quarter to eleven the previous night at a place
called Llan-something, where they have the mountains, with only four
shillings and ninepence in her chain purse, together with a return
ticket from Dwygyfy, and a canary in a wicker cage, which she had
brought from Slocum Magna for Aunt Caroline.
However, “All’s well that ends well,” as Shakespeare says. Muffin
accepted the situation in the philosophical spirit for which she had
already acquired a reputation. She curled herself upon three chairs in
the first-class waiting-room at the railway station at Llan-something,
with Polly’s luggage basket for her pillow and the canary by her side,
and she awoke just in time to catch the train to Dwygyfy about noon the
next day.
Muffin’s hair was not quite so yellow as her sister’s. Her eyes were
not quite so blue; her appetite was not quite so big; her physique
not quite so stupendous. Nor was her drawl quite so ridiculous; she
was not quite such a “silly”; but her nature was equally docile and
responsive. When Muffin arrived in triumph, wearing her wonderful
adventures like a heroine in a romance, Aunt Caroline was in her
boudoir. In a former and more warlike epoch it had been the armory,
but it was now transformed by the art of Waring and Maple into a most
comfortable sanctuary where an old _dévote_ could tell her beads. Not
that the occupant of the boudoir was thus engaged, when Miss Perry led
her sister proudly by the hand, canary and all, into the presence of
her august and formidable relation.
“Aunt Caroline, this is Muffin!” announced that Featherbrain,
breathlessly. “Isn’t she a sweet?”
Aunt Caroline put up her glass in her time-honored manner. But there
was something about Muffin that disarmed her. Whether it was Muffin
herself, or her famous mauve, which, although in its third season, and
decidedly rumpled owing to long exposure on the Cambrian railway, was
certainly very becoming, or whether it was the canary, or her charming
docility, or her candor and simplicity, it would be wrong to say
positively, but Aunt Caroline accepted the present and a most cordial
embrace in the spirit in which they were proffered.
“I have brought you this, Aunt Caroline,” said Muffin, “because you
have been so kind to Araminta, and because it is so dear of you to have
me.”
“Thank you, my dear,” said Aunt Caroline.
Aunt Caroline actually said, “My dear!”
Certainly it may have been that a recent illness had lowered her
vitality; yet it is hard to believe that that can have been really
the case, for she was still a very resolute minded old lady. But Miss
Burden was amazed that she should permit herself such an unparalleled
license of expression. Ponto was also. Indeed, he appeared to resent
it, for he sat up and looked daggers at the canary. Dogs are so
jealous, pugs particularly.
In every way Muffin’s fortnight was a great success. She took the
frankest pleasure in ascending mountains, bestriding waterfalls, in
leaping chasms, in descending precipices, and in tearing her frock on
the slightest possible pretext. Not her mauve, of course. The _pièce
de résistance_ of her extremely limited wardrobe was kept in reserve
for high days and holy days. But she gave up the golden hours to the
sheer delight of soaking her shoes and stockings in sloughs and mud and
watercourses which an unerring instinct enabled her to discover in the
most unlikely places; in rending her garments--second best, of course,
so they really did not matter--in tearing her fingers upon briars and
boulders and furze-bushes; and in using the brand-new straw the general
outfitter at Slocum Magna had supplied her with for the sum of one
shilling and elevenpence halfpenny--there is only one price for straw
hats at Slocum Magna provided you pay cash--to convey rare ferns and
_recherché_ specimens of the fauna and flora of the neighborhood.
Muffin was a singularly learned creature. She could tell you who was
the lawful owner of the pink egg with brown spots, or the gray egg
with cream ones. She could point out the tracks of the weasel; she
could discern where a squirrel lurked among the foliage when the
ordinary person would have been baffled completely. She was familiar
with the habits and appearance of the stoat. Every tree and bush
enabled her to unfold her knowledge. Not only did it embrace all the
objects in nature, but also she had a passion for collecting every
wayside flower and every herb that grew.
Her store of information and her desire for its acquisition were not
confined to dry land merely. In the numerous rills and small lakes in
which the mountains abounded she spent many choice hours. Sometimes she
removed her shoes and stockings; sometimes she did not. It depended
upon whether she happened to remember that she was wearing these
encumbrances before wading in in search of trout or minnows or mere
botanical knowledge. However, as became a natural leader of fashion at
Slocum Magna, she generally contrived in some sort to kilt her dress.
In all undertakings of this character, whether by flood or field,
Muffin was pre-eminent. But it must be said that her sister Goose was
a very willing, assiduous, and by no means inefficient lieutenant. Of
course one so accomplished as Muffin despised her attainments really.
For instance, she was never absolutely clear as to which was a weasel
and which was a stoat, and whether a plover made a whirr with its wing
like a partridge, and which kind of fish it was that herons cared for
most particularly; but Goose, although rather a “silly,” was full
to the brim with zeal and docility. Docility was, indeed, her great
characteristic. She was incapable of questioning the most arbitrary
command of her natural superior.
Elizabeth was Muffin’s name in baptism, and that, of course, was the
name Aunt Caroline called her by. From the moment of her arrival, as
you have seen, her august relation relented towards her. Why she should
have done so baffled all who had an expert knowledge of the character
of that old woman. Perhaps she felt instinctively that there was
something in Elizabeth. If that was the case, her instinct did not lead
her astray.
There was certainly no guile in Muffin. But she had a way with her.
She was a very handsome girl too, although whether she was of the
style to take the town, as her sister had done, is perhaps a matter
for conjecture. But for some reason Aunt Caroline took to her from the
beginning. She even deigned on fine mornings to accompany Elizabeth
into the woods which enfolded Pen-y-Gros Castle on every side, walking
quite nimbly with the aid of her stick, and with Ponto waddling beside
her. She would endure Elizabeth’s discourse upon the fowls of the air
and the beasts of the field; and she would even go to the length of
carrying personally the specimens Elizabeth selected of the flora of
the district. And the manner in which Elizabeth navigated the lake at
the foot of the mountains, or the stream at the back of the castle,
filled her with amusement.
Two days before the fortnight was at an end Aunt Caroline did a thing
without precedent. She actually invited Muffin to stay a fortnight
longer. Muffin crowed with delight when she received the invitation.
She adored her sister Goose for one thing. Each had brought up the
other, and neither had a thought which the other did not share. And in
her fearless and impulsive way Muffin had formed in her own mind an
ardently idealist picture of her formidable relation. And neither good
report nor ill could possibly disturb it.
“The girl has sense, Burden,” said Aunt Caroline, on the day the
edict was issued that Elizabeth was to remain a fortnight longer at
Pen-y-Gros Castle. “She appears to favor me much more than she does
Polly. I think George Betterton ought to see her. Bring me some ink and
a pen with a broad point.”
There and then this old lady of ripe years composed a letter for the
benefit of the Duke of Brancaster in a hand that was remarkably firm
and full of character.
Pen-y-Gros Castle, North Wales, 25 August, 190--
DEAR GEORGE,--_If you are returned from Homburg, come and spend a
week-end here. Wales is looking very well just now, and the lake is
full of trout. I should like you to have your revenge at piquet._
_Believe me_,
_Very sincerely yours_,
CAROLINE CREWKERNE.
No sooner had this letter been composed than the Fates themselves began
to take an active interest in affairs. The air in that particular
corner of the Welsh Principality became charged with magnetism.
The letter to George Betterton had scarcely been posted an hour when
a communication bearing the Harrogate postmark was delivered to the
Countess of Crewkerne, Pen-y-Gros Castle. It said--
MY DEAR CAROLINE,--_Having effected my annual cure, and feeling in
consequence immeasurably the better able in mind and body to cope
with the things of this world, I have proposed to myself to spend the
week-end with you in your Welsh fastness. You will be interested to
learn that I have given a certain matter the most anxious and careful
consideration, which I do not need to remind you is demanded by its
highly critical nature. I am now in a position to make a definite
offer, provided there has been no foreclosure._
_I remain, my dear Caroline_,
_Always yours_,
CHERITON.
Having read this letter twice very carefully, the recipient proceeded
to tear it up into small pieces. There was a dangerous light in her eye.
“Humph!” said she, ominously. “I am not sure, Cheriton, that you have
not overstayed your market.”
All the same, the second communication did not appear wholly to
displease the person to whom it was addressed.