EPISODE OF A FRENCH NOVEL AND A RED UMBRELLA
It was in the middle of the afternoon of Saturday that Cheriton arrived
at Pen-y-Gros Castle by the station fly from Dwygyfy. George Betterton
had arrived at the same hour the previous afternoon, and by the same
medium of travel. Cheriton was received by his hostess without any
excess of cordiality. Her demeanor implied that any person of either
sex who presumed to try a fall with her did so at his or her peril.
The other members of the party were in the woods, and after Cheriton
had taken some slight refreshment, the August evening being extremely
beautiful, Miss Burden and he went to join them. The party consisted
merely of George Betterton, the wonderful Miss Perry, and the
accomplished Miss Elizabeth. Miss Burden had been enjoined strictly
beforehand not to disclose the presence of either of the newcomers.
“How is our delectable Miss Goose?” said Cheriton, poetically.
“Transformed, I am sure, into a woodland creature or a spirit of the
mountains.”
Three or four hundred yards along the wooded path which led from the
Castle to the wild hills was a shallow lake. It was formed by a number
of tiny streams that trickled down from the mountains. Small wonder was
it to find that an artist had erected his easel in this picturesque
place. It was indeed an ideal spot, in which nature attained to great
majesty and perfection, and the August evening matched it. Hardly a
cloud ringed the noble head of Gwydr in the middle distance.
A glance in passing at the artist’s canvas rendered it clear to
Cheriton and Miss Burden that the painter was not really so much
absorbed in the scenery as he ought to have been. It seemed that a
youthful, yellow-haired, blue-eyed nymph, whose physical proportions
were yet not exactly those of a fairy, was standing barefooted in
the lake. Her dress, which was torn in at least twenty-four places,
was kilted up just out of reach of the water. In one hand she held a
collection of the fauna and flora of Lake Dwygy; by means of the other
she was seeking diligently to add to their number. The yellow hair was
tumbled all about her extremely frank and sunburnt countenance. The
sleeves of a sorely rent and bedraggled garment were tucked up to the
elbows; and a remarkably characteristic form of headgear, preserving
the outward appearance of a cucumber basket, sagged about her ears in a
preposterously becoming manner.
Cheriton was a rather short-sighted man. Therefore he is to be excused
for falling into a natural error.
“A naiad, I perceive,” said he, with his great air.
Muffin was by no means abashed by the courtliness of my lord. She made
a sort of courtesy, which had quite an eighteenth-century savor about
it in its quaintness, its dignity, its grace, and its simplicity.
Unfortunately, however, the performance of it involved the hem of her
garments in the watery element.
“I am Muffin,” said she, as though she took a simple pride in that
fact. “Did you think I was Goose?”
“A thousand pardons, my dear Miss Muffin,” said Cheriton, although it
was tolerably clear that neither Miss Muffin nor himself felt that an
apology was demanded by the circumstances.
“They call me Muffin, you know,” said that artless person, wringing the
water out of her skirts with wonderful insouciance. “But my name is
Elizabeth, really. And you are Lord Something, are you not?”
“My name is Cheriton,” said that nobleman. He scrutinized the naiad
with a cool and complacent glance.
“It is so dear of you,” said she, “to be so good to Goose.”
“My dear young lady!”
“Lord Cheriton is so good to everybody,” said a pleasant and manly
voice. “But, unfortunately, he is ruining my picture.”
Cheriton turned to confront Jim Lascelles.
“Why, Lascelles, my dear fellow,” said he, “what right have you here?
Your place is in Normandy with your mother.”
“She is here,” said Jim. “We came on Wednesday.”
“Either this is a very singular coincidence,” said Cheriton, “or you
are making uncommonly rapid strides in your art.”
“Coincidence it is not,” said Jim. “We spent three delightful weeks
in Normandy, and then the scenery began to get flat and the people
primitive and angular. And as Borrow says that there are mountains in
Wales, and that its inhabitants are noted for their picturesqueness, we
really felt that a week here would not be wasted.”
“Lascelles,” said his patron, gravely, “I shall not live to see it, but
it is increasingly clear to my mind that one day you will be president
of the Royal Academy.”
“My mother appears to think so,” said Jim, modestly.
That lady was to be seen coming round the lake towards the easel.
She picked her way from stone to stone in the daintiest manner,
for quagmires abounded. Jim felt quite proud of her, she looked so
admirable in her cool, green frock. She carried a French novel and a
red umbrella. No sooner did Muffin observe her than she gave a crow of
pleasure and waded forth to meet her.
Cheriton’s gaze was long and particular.
“Upon my word,” said he, “they appear to grow goddesses at Slocum
Magna.”
“And the vicinity,” said Jim.
“Certainly, my dear fellow; certainly the vicinity. We take that for
granted.”
The greeting of Jim’s mother was extremely cordial.
“This is indeed an unlooked-for pleasure,” said Cheriton.
“Am I to be censured,” said Jim’s mother, “for urging my gifted son to
follow the bent of his genius?”
“By no means,” said Cheriton. “If he really felt that the Welsh
mountains and their picturesque inhabitants were calling him, it is
most right. Velasquez would not have been Velasquez had he not obeyed
the call to Italy.”
“I blame that Goose,” said Jim’s mother, severely. “She must write to
say that they had got Muffin at Pen-y-Gros, as well as the mountains.
He gave up painting his Normandy peasant girls on the day he received
the letter.”
“May I ask one question, Miss Muffin?” said Cheriton. “Have you brought
your mauve?”
“Oh yes,” said Muffin. “But it is not good for water.”
“I presume,” said Cheriton, “that water is not good for it.”
Muffin proceeded to wring a little more moisture out of her nether
garments. She gave them an additional kilt, and began to come ashore.
“Keep in,” said Jim Lascelles, in a tone that brooked no denial. “Keep
those Foot Pieces covered or you will ruin everything.”
“Mrs. Lascelles,” said Cheriton, “I seem to remember that you have a
natural eye for scenery. I think I remarked it when you read the second
chapter of your novel. Unfortunately, my own powers of vision are so
limited that I am not always able to detect good scenery when I meet
it. Those tall things are mountains, are they not?”
“Yes, I think we have the authority of Borrow that they are,” said Mrs.
Lascelles.
“Capital,” said Cheriton, “and, as I am afraid our presence here
interferes with the nice conduct of a masterpiece, do you mind showing
me how to walk upon them? It is reckoned a good thing, I believe, for
one to be able to say one has walked upon the mountains.”
Accompanied by the French novel and the red umbrella, Cheriton picked
his way along the margin of Lake Dwygy in patent leathers with
box-cloth uppers. It was a beauteous evening, calm and free. Not a
sound was to be heard except the muffled murmur of the tiny wavelets
washing the pebbles upon which they walked. Occasionally, they heard
the call of a wood pigeon from the dense black mass behind them,
embowering the hamlet of Pen-y-Gros. Once Mrs. Lascelles thought she
detected the pipe of the curlew. Facing them was the gigantic Gwydr,
with the August sunset beginning to peer over his shoulder. His majesty
was crowned with a glory that was older than he.
The naiad and the painter’s easel were hidden now by a bend of the
lake. They were out of sight and out of hearing too. The red umbrella
rested on a large and smooth piece of slate, raised in such a manner
that it formed an ideal seat for two persons. The two admirers of
nature’s majesty were gazing around them at the immensity of things.
Neither spoke for a little while. It may have been awe that enfolded
them; on the contrary, it may have been a slight fatigue. For at least
all experience tends to teach that French novels, red umbrellas, and
patent-leather boots with box-cloth uppers are more susceptible to the
latter emotion than they are to the former. Still, it is not to be
controverted that Cheriton sighed profoundly.
“If I were that fellow Rousseau,” said he, “I think I should want to
sit down and write something.”
“Doubtless you would have done so,” said the custodian of the red
umbrella, “had you been Rousseau.”
She sat down with her French novel on the smaller half of the fragment
of slate. She looked deliciously cool and trim in her green linen
frock, embellished by a hat with a wide brim, which a Breton peasant
woman had plaited for her the summer before last. It had a piece of
blue _crêpe_ twisted round it. Did she know that she was looking well,
or had she really persuaded herself that she was wholly absorbed in
high thoughts about nature?
“Or were you Wordsworth you would feel the same, possibly,” said the
fair inhabitant of the green frock.
Pour encourager milor? Well, really, who can say? The emotions of a
French novel, a red umbrella, and a green linen frock with a twist of
blue _crêpe_ are so complex. Nature is complex also. There was Gwydr
straight before them with the sun dying upon his left shoulder. His
lesser brethren were already veiled in shadow. The lake had the luster
of a dark jewel; the sky was opal; and scarcely two hundred paces
distant, behind that line of boulders, the great things of art were
toward.
Although the wearer of the patent-leather boots with box-cloth uppers
was neither Rousseau nor Wordsworth, he sat down gracefully upon the
larger half of the slate, after dusting it carefully with a yellow silk
handkerchief.
“Yes,” said he, “had I been Rousseau I should have sat here indubitably
and have written about nature. But had I been Wordsworth I should have
sat here and thought about nature. There is a difference.”
Jim’s mother agreed that there was.
“I wonder,” said she, “if nature holds an opinion about us? When
one finds her like this one feels that she must be indifferent to
everything.”
“That weird fellow Gautier might have agreed with you,” said Cheriton,
“and, to my mind, he had a good head. ‘Ouf!’ he used to say, ‘nature
reminds me of your Shakespeare. Every day she makes a new masterpiece.
And then she says, Ouf! it doesn’t interest me, and she makes another.’”
“Heedless of its destiny!”
“Rightly, I think. A masterpiece can always take care of itself. Can
you guess what Gautier would have done had he sat here?”
“Smoked a cigarette,” said Jim’s mother.
“Precisely. He was so rational. Will you try one?”
Cheriton offered his case.
“I will, with pleasure, if you will try one of these,” said the wearer
of the green frock, producing her own cigarette case. “They are not so
expensive as yours, but they will be better for you.”
“_Pourquoi?_ One finds it so hard to accept the less expensive things
in life.”
“If one grows too much of a Sybarite,” said Jim’s mother, taking a
sententious puff of her Egyptian cigarette, “one is apt to lose one’s
touch.”
“That is so true,” said Cheriton, with a display of feeling that seemed
almost unnecessary. “The only really unhappy man I ever knew was a chap
who had the misfortune to ruin his palate with old brandy.”
There would have been silence had it not been for the rooks. Jim’s
mother again thought she detected the pipe of the curlew. The sun had
dipped a little closer to Gwydr’s shoulder.
“A penny for your thoughts, Mrs. Lascelles.”
Jim’s mother started perceptibly.
“I was thinking,” she said--“I was thinking about my son.”
“I had guessed it.”
“Really!”
“Yes, you looked so maternal. In the true sense, of course. There was
such a spirituality in your eyes, if I may so express myself.”
“I am so anxious about his future,” said she, removing her cigarette
from her lips with simplicity and with solicitude. As she did this,
Cheriton took occasion to observe that her eyes were gray. Strictly
speaking, her face did not obey the regular canons of beauty. Her
features were a little haphazard. But it was a face admirable alike
for sense and for animation. Cheriton, who plumed himself upon being
something of a connoisseur of the human countenance, felt that there
was a great deal in it.
“Why anxious?” said he. “His future can take care of itself.”
“I will tell you something, Lord Cheriton,” said Jim’s mother, with
great earnestness, “if I may.”
“I am overwhelmed with honor.”
“There is a wretched girl.” There was a look of dismay in eyes that
were admirably gray and solicitous.
“The dooce!” said my lord.
“He can think of nothing else, and really I don’t know what will be the
end of it.”
“Do you approve of her?” When all was said, Cheriton considered perfect
practicality to be his most eminent virtue.
“She is too far away. It would not be fair to her. I am afraid I have
been weak and foolish.” Feminine humility is always pleasant to some
people. “You see, she meant so much to my son that at first I had not
the courage to look the facts in the face. And now that at last I have
done so I fear it is too late to repair the mischief.”
“The mischief!” said Cheriton, cocking his ears at the word.
“He has asked the girl to marry him, you know, and she has consented.”
“Capital.”
“No, Lord Cheriton,” said Jim’s mother, with a little catch in her
voice; “it is far from being that. It is not in the least right that
she should marry him. It is not in the least right that he should have
asked her.”
In some subtle way, so fine are the gradations of vanity, Cheriton felt
himself to be honored by the grave vehemence of Jim’s mother. Her tone
was almost tragic. Had the gray eyes been accustomed to the use of
tears there is little doubt they would have shed them. She continued to
honor this parcel of vanities with her maternal confidence.
“I smiled at first,” she continued. “I am afraid I encouraged him a
little. I felt it might help his art.”
“Ah!” murmured Cheriton, with his eyeglass fixed upon Gwydr.
“I didn’t realize the danger.”
“Ah, you should,” said Cheriton, looking at Gwydr most sagaciously.
“One is ready to believe that the art of our young friend was helped
amazingly; but then, unfortunately, _l’art c’est l’homme_.”
“I have been so wicked,” said Jim’s mother.
“Imprudent, shall we say?” said Cheriton, with a paternal glance at
the picture of attractive distress that was seated beside him. “You
toyed with a barrel of gunpowder and a lighted torch, and you found
them combustible.”
“They are hopelessly in love,” said Jim’s mother, miserably.
“The dooce! Both of ’em?”
“She is quite as bad as he. Girls are such stupid creatures.”
“I have always found them so,” said Cheriton.
“The wretched creature ought to have seen from the first that a
struggling artist who lives with his old mother at Balham cannot
possibly marry her.”
“Why not?”
“Her prospects are so splendid,” said Jim’s mother, vehemently.
Cheriton assumed his gravest air.
“My dear Mrs. Lascelles,” said he, “do you assure me seriously that the
splendid nature of the young lady’s prospects renders her unfit for
your son?”
“Oh no,” said Jim’s mother; “I would not say that exactly. That is----”
“Precisely,” said Cheriton. “That is the point I wished to elucidate.
It seemed to me so painfully unmaternal that a woman and a mother
should consider a girl too good for her son. My dear Mrs. Lascelles, if
you will condescend to heed the advice of an amateur you will see that
your son marries her. If girls will be so stupid they must take the
consequences.”
“Do you really think I ought?”
“You know you ought, Mrs. Lascelles,” said Cheriton, almost sternly.
“And you know that you will. It is the least that a woman and a mother
can do.”
The mother of Jim Lascelles sighed deeply.
“Yes, Lord Cheriton,” said she, “I am afraid you are right.”
The gray eyes were fixed upon Gwydr. But Gwydr appeared to frown upon
them.
How long Jim’s mother and Lord Cheriton sat on the round slab of slate
by the marge of Lake Dwygy is not really material to this history. But
the sun was drooping lower upon the left shoulder of Gwydr, and the
shadows were creeping down from the formidable chasm of the Devil’s
Footstool and across the black tinted water. Around a buttress of rock
a punt glided into view. It was propelled by a pole and contained two
persons.
The foremost of these, who stood in the bows manipulating the pole, was
a blue-eyed and yellow-haired Amazon, bare-armed and bareheaded. Her
cheeks were gay with color, her lips with laughter. Untrammeled freedom
and the joy of living were to be discerned in every line of her ample
person. Beside her was a Homburg hat with a Guards’ ribbon.
“That fellow!” said the male occupant of the slab of slate.
Clearly the apparition of the hat was not expected by the author of
the exclamation. Also it was unwelcome to him if his tone and demeanor
truly reflected his feelings. George came ashore, as becomes a man of
nine-and-fifty, with an ample sense of responsibility. He handed Miss
Perry out of the punt with an air of ceremony, and insisted upon being
allowed to affix the boat to its moorings. He then proceeded to take a
survey of nature in her magnificence and her immensity. Then he gazed
up at the daughter of nature who appeared to be modeled on very similar
lines.
“By the way,” said he, “what time is dinner?”
“It isn’t until half-past eight,” said a drawl which had a mournful
music of its own. “Isn’t it late?”
“That man is a barbarian,” said a voice in the ear of Mrs. Lascelles.
“And what of the other one?” inquired she.
“She is a goddess.”
“Then I am afraid,” said Mrs. Lascelles, with conviction, “that she is
a barbarian also. I never heard of a goddess who wasn’t.”
It appeared there were things in the punt. Notably, a rod and tackle
and a basket containing a very tolerable capture of trout.
“What beauties!” said Miss Perry, as she came ashore with the basket.
“If I run with them straight to the cook, perhaps we might have some
for dinner.”
Miss Perry, who was surprisingly fleet of foot, was proceeding to put
this design into execution when she came full upon Mrs. Lascelles and
Lord Cheriton. The unexpected presence of the latter appeared to afford
her great pleasure.
“It is so nice that you have come,” said she, with slow breathlessness.
“Muffin is here. _Have_ you seen her? Isn’t she a sweet? And aren’t
these trout beauties? Gobo caught seven and I caught two. I will just
run with them to the cook, and then I will find Muffin.”
Before Cheriton could find an opportunity to reply fittingly, Miss
Perry passed on to Pen-y-Gros Castle in the manner of a heavy-footed
yet distinctly fast-moving whirlwind.
“The ridiculous creature,” said Jim’s mother, with a laugh.
“It seems to me,” said Cheriton, “that our wonderful Miss Perry
develops now she is in her native element.”
George Betterton, having moored the punt, came up along the pebbles.
He carried the rod and tackle. His tread was heavy, and, owing to his
recent exertions, he was blowing like a grampus. He seemed to accept
the presence of Cheriton as a natural corollary. They greeted one
another with the reserve which among their countrymen is held to be the
guarantee of a genuine character.
“Fine evenin’,” said George.
“Fine evening,” said Cheriton.
“For fish,” said Jim’s mother. “They appear to have bitten beautifully.”
“Caught fourteen,” said George, almost with animation. “If they average
an ounce, they average two pound apiece.”
“I understood Miss Perry to say you had caught nine,” said Mrs.
Lascelles.
“Fourteen,” said George, with the resolute air of a man who does not
brook contradiction. “Where’s the gal got to?”
“Little Miss Tucker desires trout for her supper,” said Cheriton.
“There she goes. Leaps the boulders like a chamois, by gad!”
“I tell you what, Cheriton,” said George, “that gal can handle a punt
with the best of ’em. She knows how to throw a fly too. Very sure hand.
Uncommonly clever gal at fishin’.”
“You surprise me,” said Cheriton. “Three minnows in a net one would
expect to be the limit of her talent in the delicate art of Piscator.”
“There is a dear little trout stream behind the Parsonage at Slocum
Magna,” said Mrs. Lascelles, demurely.
“Seen her sister, Cheriton?” inquired George. “They call her Crumpet.
Smart young gal.”
“_Muffin_, my dear fellow, _Muffin_” said his friend, in a tone of
pained expostulation.
“Smart as paint,” said George, with a perilous approach to enthusiasm.
“Makes her own flies and tackle, and can find as much bait in a quarter
of an hour as will last for a week.”
“The merits of a good upbringing,” said Cheriton, rising from the slab
of slate, “are not easily to be overestimated.”
Mrs. Lascelles also rose. All three strolled by the margin of the lake
until they came upon the easel. Jim Lascelles was assiduously utilizing
what remained of the daylight. There was still a glow about Gwydr’s
left shoulder which was reflected upon the canvas. Muffin was seated
on the pebbles, complacently putting on her shoes and stockings.
“Did you catch anything?” she demanded of the bearer of the rod and
tackle.
“Sixteen,” said that sportsman, robustly.
“How splendid! _Do_ let me see them.”
“You will have to wait until dinner, my dear,” said George. “They have
gone to the pot.”
“Good progress, Lascelles?” inquired Cheriton, conducting an amused
examination of Jim’s labors.
“I think I have done a good day’s work,” said Jim, packing up his tools.
“Yes, I think you have. I must have the refusal of it for Cheriton
House. By the way, have you heard anything from my friend Kendal?”
“I am to go to Yorkshire in the autumn to paint Lady Priscilla.”
“Excellent! And remember, if Kendal is to respect you, your price must
be not a penny less than five hundred guineas.”
As the party turned away from the lake, a dryad emerged from the wood,
breathless and bareheaded. She had three trout in a basket.
“It will be all right,” she announced. “We shall have them for dinner.
There are six, one apiece for everybody except Ponto, and Miss Burden
thinks trout are not good for him. And I’ve brought three for you, dear
Mrs. Lascelles.”
“Then you are a very noble girl,” said Jim’s mother, “and I highly
appreciate your act of self-sacrifice.”
By this time Muffin had resumed her shoes and stockings and had risen
from the pebbles. Her sister took her by the hand and led her forward
with an air of the most admirable simplicity.
“Lord Cheriton,” said she, “this is Muffin.”
“I am already honored,” said my lord, “by an acquaintance which I shall
strive to cultivate.”