'My name is Courthope.' The visitor, denuded of coat and cap, presented
his card, upon which was written, 'Mr. George Courthope.'
He began telling his hostess whence he came and what was his business. A
quarry which a dead relative had bequeathed to him had had sufficient
attraction to bring him across the sea and across this railless region.
His few words of self-introduction were mingled with and followed by
regrets for his intrusion, expressions of excessive gratitude. All the
time his mind was questioning amazedly.
By the time the speeches which he deemed necessary were finished, he had
followed the girl into a spacious room, furnished in the large gay style
of the fifties, brilliantly lit, as if for a festival, and warmed by a
log fire of generous dimensions. Having led him in, listening silently
the while, and put her additional lamp upon the table, she now spoke,
with no _empressement_, almost with a manner of _insouciance_.
'You are perfectly welcome; my father would never have wished his house
to be inhospitable.'
With her words his own apologies seemed to lose their significance; he
felt a little foolish, and she, with some slight evidence of childish
awkwardness, seemed to seek a pretext for short escape.
'I will tell my sister.' These words came with more abruptness, as if
the interior excitement was working itself to the surface.
The room was a long one. She went out by a door at the farther end, and,
as with intense curiosity he watched her quickly receding form, he
noticed that when she thought herself out of his sight she entered the
other room with a skip. At that same end of the room hung a full-length
portrait of a gentleman. It was natural that Courthope should walk
towards it, trying to become acquainted with some link in the train of
circumstances which had raised this enchanted palace in the wilderness;
he had not followed to hear, but he overheard.
'Eliz, it's a _real_ young man!'
'No! you are only making up, and' (here a touch of querulousness) 'I've
often told you that I don't like make-ups that one wants too much to be
true. I'll only have the Austens and Sir Charles and Evelina and----'
'Eliz! He's _not_ a make-up; the fairies have sent him to our party.
Isn't it just fairilly entrancing? He has a curly moustache and a nice
nose. He's English, like father. He says "cawn't," and "shawn't," and
"heah," and "theyah,"--genuine, no affectation. Oh' (here came a little
gurgle of joy), 'and to-night, too! It's the first _perfectly_ joyful
thing that has _ever_ come to us.'
Courthope moved quietly back and stood before the blazing logs, looking
down into them with a smile of pure pleasure upon his lips.
It was not long before the door, which she had left ajar, was re-opened,
and a light-wheeled chair was pushed into the room. It contained a
slight, elfin-like girl, white-faced, flaxen-haired, sharp-featured, and
arrayed in gorgeous crimson. The elder sister pushed from behind. The
little procession wore an air of triumphant satisfaction, still tempered
by the proprieties.
'This is my sister,' said the mistress of the house.
'I am very glad to see you, Mr. Courthope.' The tones of Eliz were sharp
and thin. She was evidently acting a part, as with the air of a very
grand lady she held out her hand.
He was somewhat dazzled. He felt it not inappropriate to ask if he had
entered fairyland. Eliz would have answered him with fantastic
affirmative, but the elder sister, like a sensible child who knew better
how to arrange the game, interposed.
'I'll explain it to you. Eliz and I are giving a party to-night. There
hasn't been any company in the house since father died four years ago,
and we know he wouldn't like us to be dull, so when our stepmother went
out, and sent word that she couldn't come back to-night, we decided to
have a grand party. There are only to be play-people, you know; all the
people in Miss Austen's books are coming, and the nice ones out of _Sir
Charles Grandison_.'
She paused to see if he understood.
'Are the _Mysteries of Udolpho_ invited?' he asked.
'No, the others we just chose here and there, because we liked
them--Evelina, although she was rather silly and we told her that we
couldn't have Lord Ormond, and Miss Matty and Brother Peter out of
_Cranford_, and Moses Wakefield, because we liked him best of the
family, and the Portuguese nun who wrote the letters. We thought we
would have liked to invite the young man in _Maud_ to meet her, but we
decided we should have to draw the line somewhere and leave out the
poetry-people.'
The girl, leaning her forearms slightly on the back of her sister's
chair, gave the explanation in soft, business-like tones, and there was
only the faintest lurking of a smile about the corners of her lips to
indicate that she kept in view both reality and fantasy.
'I think that I shall have to ask for an introduction to the Portuguese
nun,' said Courthope; 'the others, I am happy to say, I have met
before.'
A smile of approval leapt straight out of her dark eyes into his, as if
she would have said: 'Good boy! you have read quite the right sort of
books!'
Eliz was not endowed with the same well-balanced sense of proportion;
for the time the imaginary was the real.
'The only question that remains to be decided,' she cried, 'is what
_you_ would prefer to be. We will let you choose--Bingley, or Darcy,
or----'
'It would be fair to tell him,' said the other, her smile broadening
now, 'that it's only the elderly people and notables who have been
invited to dinner, the young folks are coming in after; so if you are
hungry----' Her soft voice paused, as if suspended in mid-air, allowing
him to draw the inference.
'It depends entirely on who you are, who I would like to be.' He did not
realise that there was undue gallantry in his speech; he felt exactly
like another child playing, loyally determined to be her mate, whatever
the character that might entail. 'I will even be the idiotic Edward if
you are Eleanor Dashwood.'
Her chin was raised just half-an-inch higher; the smile that had been
peeping from eyes and dimples seemed to retire for the moment.
'Oh, we,' she said, 'are the hostesses. My sister is Eliz King and I am
Madge King, and I think you had better be a real person too; just a Mr.
Courthope, come in by accident.'
'Well, then, he can help us in the receiving and chatting to them.' Eliz
was quite reconciled.
He felt glad to realise that his mistake had been merely playful. 'In
that case, may I have dinner without growing grey?' He asked it of
Madge, and her smile came back, so readily did she forget what she had
hardly consciously perceived.
When the sharp-voiced little Eliz had been wheeled into the dining-room
to superintend some preparations there before the meal was ready,
Courthope could again break through the spell that the imaginary
reception imposed. He came from his dressing-room to find Madge at the
housewifely act of replenishing the fire. Filled with curiosity,
unwilling to ask questions, he remarked that he feared she must often
feel lonely, that he supposed Mrs. King did not often make visits
unaccompanied by her daughters.
'She does not, worse luck!' Madge on her knees replied with childish
audacity.
'I hope when she returns she may not be offended by my intrusion.'
'Don't hope it,'--she smiled--'such hope would be vain.'
He could not help laughing.
'Is it dutiful then of you'--he paused--'or of me?'
'Which do you prefer--to sleep in the barn, or that I should be
undutiful and disobey my stepmother?'
In a minute she gave her chin that lift in the air that he had seen
before.
'You need not feel uncomfortable about Mrs. King; the house is really
mine, not hers, and father always had his house full of company. I am
doing my duty to him in taking you in, and in making a feast to please
Eliz when the stepmother happens to be away and I can do it peaceably.
And when she happens to be here I do my duty to him by keeping the peace
with her.'
'Is she unkind to you?' he asked, with the ready, overflowing pity that
young men are apt to give to pretty women who complain.
But she would have him know that she had not complained.
There was no bitterness in her tone--her philosophy of life was all
sweetness. 'No! Bless her! God made her, I suppose, just as He made us;
so, according to the way she is made, she packs away all the linen and
silver, she keeps this room shut up for fear it will get worn out, and
we never see any visitors. But to-day she went away to St. Philippe to
see a dying man--I think she was going to convert him or something; but
he took a long time to die; and now we may be snowed up for days, and we
are going to have a perfectly glorious time.' She added hospitably, 'You
need not feel under the slightest obligation, for it gives us pleasure
to have you, and I know that father would have taken you in.'
Courthope rose up and followed her glance, almost an adoring glance, to
the portrait he had before observed. He went and stood again face to
face with it.
A goodly man was painted there, dressed in a judge's robe. Courthope
read the lineaments by the help of the living interpretation of the
daughter's likeness. Benevolence in the mouth, a love of good cheer and
good friends in the rounded cheeks, a lurking sense of the poetry of
life in the quiet eyes, and in the brow reason and a keen sense of right
proportion dominant. He would have given something to have exchanged a
quiet word with the man in the portrait, whose hospitality, living after
him, he was now receiving.
Madge had been arranging the logs to her satisfaction, she would not
accept Courthope's aid, and now she told him who were going to dine with
them. She had great zest for the play.
'Mr. and Mrs. Bennett, of course, and we thought we might have Mr.
Knightley, because he is a squire and not so very young, even though he
is not yet married. Miss Bates, of course, and the Westons. Mrs.
Dashwood has declined, of which we are rather glad, but we are having
Mrs. Jennings.' So she went on with her list. 'We could not help asking
Sir Charles with Lord and Lady G----, because he is so important; but
Grandmamma Shirley is "mortifying" at present. She wrote that she could
not stand "so rich a regale." Sir Hargrave Pollexfen will come
afterwards with Harriet, and I am thankful to say that Lady Clementina
is not in England at present, so could not be invited.' She stopped,
looking up at him freshly to make a comment. 'Don't you detest Lady
Clementina?'
When they went into the dining-room, the choice spirits deemed worthy to
be at the board were each introduced by name to the Lady Eliz, who
explained that because of her infirmities she had been unable to have
the honour of receiving them in the drawing-room. She made appropriate
remarks, inquiring after the relatives of each, offering congratulations
or condolences as the case demanded. It was cleverly done. Courthope
stood aside, immensely entertained, and when at last he too began to
offer spirited remarks to the imaginary guests, he went up in favour so
immensely that Eliz cried, 'Let Mr. Courthope take the end of the table.
Let Mr. Courthope be father. It's much nicer to have a master of the
house.' She began at once introducing him to the invisible guests as her
father, and Madge, if she did not like the fancy, did not cross her
will. There was in Madge's manner a large good-humoured tolerance.
The table was long, and amply spread with fine glass and silver; nothing
was antique, everything was in the old-fashioned tasteless style of a
former generation, but the value of solid silver was not small. The
homely serving-woman in her peasant-like dress stood aside, submissive,
as it seemed, but ignorant of how to behave at so large a dinner.
Courthope, who in a visit to the stables had discovered that this
Frenchwoman with her husband and one young daughter were at present the
whole retinue of servants, wondered the more that such precious articles
as the young girls and the plate should be safe in so lonely a place.
Madge was seated at the head of the table, Courthope at the foot; Eliz
in her high chair had been wheeled to the centre of one side. Madge,
playing the hostess with gentle dignity, was enjoying herself to the
full, a rosy, cooing sort of joy in the play, in the feast that she had
succeeded in preparing, in her amusement at the literary sallies of
Eliz, and, above all perhaps, in the company of the new and unexpected
playmate to whom, because of his youth, she attributed the same perfect
sympathy with their sentiments which seemed to exist between themselves.
Courthope felt this--he felt that he was idealised through no virtue of
his own; but it was a delightful sensation, and brought out the best
that was in him of wit and pure joyfulness. To Eliz the creatures of
her imagination were too real for perfect pleasure; her face was tense,
her eyes shot sparkles of light, her voice was high, for her the
entertainment of the invisible guests involved real responsibility and
effort.
'Asides are allowed, of course?' said Eliz, as if pronouncing a
debatable rule at cards.
'Of course,' said Madge, 'or we could not play.'
'It's the greatest fun,' cried Eliz, 'to hear Sir Charles telling Mr.
John Knightley about the good example that a virtuous man ought to set.
With "hands and eyes uplifted" he is explaining the duty he owes to his
Maker. It's rare to see John Knightley's face. I seated them on purpose
with only Miss Matty between them, because I knew she wouldn't
interrupt.'
Courthope saw the smile in Madge's eyes was bent upon him as she said
softly, 'You won't forget that you have Lady Catherine de Bourg at your
right hand to look after. I can see that brother Peter has got his eye
upon her, and I don't know how she would take the "seraphim" story.'
'If she begins any of her dignified impertinence here,' he answered, 'I
intend to steer her into a conversation with Charlotte, Lady G----.'
Courthope had a turkey to carve. He was fain to turn from the guests to
ask advice as to its anatomy of Madge, who was carving a ham and
assuring Mr. Woodhouse that it was 'thrice baked, exactly as Serle
would have done it.'
'Stupid!--it was apples that were baked,' whispered Eliz.
'You see,' said Madge, when she had told him how to begin upon the
turkey, 'we wondered very much what a dinner of "two full courses" might
be, and where the "corner dishes" were to be set. We did not quite
know--do you?'
'You must not have asides that are not about the people,' cried Eliz
intensely. 'Catherine Moreland's mother is talking common sense to
General Tilney and Sir Walter Eliot, and there'll be no end of a row in
a minute if you don't divert their attention.'
Eliz had more than once to call the other two to account for talking
privately adown the long table.
'What a magnificent ham!' he exclaimed. 'Do you keep pigs?'
Madge had a frank way of giving family details. 'It was once a _dear_
little pig, and we wanted to teach it to take exercise by running after
us when we went out, but the stepmother, like Bunyan, "penned it"--
'"Until at last it came to be,
For length and breadth, the bigness which you see."'
More than once he saw Madge's quick wit twinkle through her booklore.
When he was looking ruefully at a turkey by no means neatly carved, she
gave the comforting suggestion, '"'Tis impious in a good man to be
sad."'
'I thought it one of the evidences of piety.'
'It is true that he was "Young" who said it, but so are we; let us
believe it fervently.'
When Madge swept across the drawing-room, with her amber skirts
trailing, and Eliz had been wheeled in, they received the after-dinner
visitors. Courthope could almost see the room filled with the quaint
creations to whom they were both bowing and talking incessantly.
'Mr. Courthope--Miss Jane Fairfax--I believe you have met before.'
Madge's voice dropped in a well-feigned absorption in her next guest;
but she soon found time again to whisper to him a long speech which Miss
Bates had made to Eliz. Soon afterwards she came flying to him in the
utmost delight to repeat what she called a "lovely sneap" which Lady
G---- had given to Mrs. Elton; nor did she forget to tell him that Emma
Woodhouse was explaining to the Portuguese nun her reasons for deciding
never to marry. 'Out of sheer astonishment she appears to become quite
tranquillised,' said Madge, as if relating an important fact.
His curiosity concerning this nun grew apace, for she seemed a favourite
with both the girls.
When it was near midnight the imaginary pageant suddenly came to an
end, as in all cases of enchantment. Eliz grew tired; one of the lamps
smoked and had to be extinguished; the fire had burned low. Madge
declared that the company had departed.
She went out of the room to call the servant, but in a few minutes she
came back discomfited, a little pout on her lips. 'Isn't it tiresome!
Mathilde and Jacques Morin have gone to bed.'
'It is just like them,' fretted Eliz.
At the fretful voice Madge's face cleared. 'What does it matter?' she
cried. 'We are perfectly happy.'
She lifted the lamp with which he had first seen her, and commenced an
inspection of doors and shutters. It was a satisfaction to Courthope to
see the house. It was a French building, as were all the older houses in
that part of the country, heavily built, simple in the arrangements of
its rooms. Every door on the lower floor stood open, inviting the heat
of a large central stove. Insisting upon carrying the lamp while Madge
made her survey, he was introduced to a library at the end of the
drawing-room, to a large house-place or kitchen behind the dining-room;
these with his own room made the square of the lower story. A wing
adjoining the further side was devoted to the Morins. Having performed
her duty as householder, Madge said good-night.
'We have enjoyed it ever so much more because you were here.' She held
out her hand; her face was radiant; he knew that she spoke the simple
truth.
She lifted the puny Eliz in her arms and proceeded to walk slowly up the
straight staircase which occupied one half of the long central hall. The
crimson scarfs hanging from Eliz, the length of her own silk gown,
embarrassed her; she stopped a moment on the second step, resting her
burden upon one lifted knee to clutch and gather the gorgeous raiment in
her hand.
'You see we put on mother's dresses, that have always been packed away
in the garret.'
Very simply she said this to Courthope, who stood holding a lamp to
light them in their ascent. He waited until the glinting colours of
their satins, the slow motion of the burden-bearer's form, reached the
top and were lost in the shadows of an open door.