‘NO MAN MAY ALWAY HAVE PROSPERITEE.’
Edgar Turchill did not go to the other end of the world to hide his
grief and mortification at this second overthrow of his fondest
hopes. He absented himself from South Hill for nearly a month, yet
so contrived as that his absence should not appear the result of
pride or anger. Mrs. Turchill’s annual sea-side holiday was as much
an institution as the opening of Parliament, or the Derby: and she
expected on all such occasions to be escorted and accompanied by
her only son. She liked a fashionable watering-place, where there
was a well-dressed crowd to be seen on parade or pier; she required
to have her leisure enlivened by a good brass band; and she would
accept nothing less in the way of lodgings than an airy bay-windowed
drawing-room in the very best part of the sea front.
‘If I am not to come to the sea-side comfortably I would rather stay
at home,’ she said to her confidante Deborah; an axiom which Deborah
received as respectfully as if it had been Holy Writ.
‘Of course, mum. Why should you come away from Hawksyard to be cramped
or moped?’ said Deborah. ‘You’ve all you can wish for there.’
Such murmurings as these had arisen when Edgar, sick to death of
Brighton and Eastbourne, Scarborough and Torquay, had tempted his
mother to visit some more romantic and less civilised shore; where
the accommodation was of the rough-and-ready order, and where there
was neither parade nor pier for the exhibition of fine clothes to the
music of brazen bands. For picturesque scenery Mrs. Turchill cared
not a jot. All wild and rugged coasts she denounced sweepingly, as
dangerous to life and limb, and therefore to be avoided. The wildest
bit of scenery she could tolerate was Beachy Head; and even that
grassy height she deemed objectionable. Nor did she appreciate any
watering-place which could not boast a smart array of shop-windows. She
liked to be tempted by trumpery modern Dresden; or to have her love of
colour gratified by the latest invention in bonnets and parasols. She
liked a circulating library of the old-fashioned, Miss Burney type;
where she could dawdle away an hour looking at new books and papers,
soothed by the sympathetic strains of a musical-box. She liked to have
her son well-dressed and in a top-hat, in attendance upon her during
her afternoon drive in the local fly, along a smooth chalky high-road
leading to nowhere in particular. She liked to attend local concerts,
or to hear Miss Snevillici, the renowned Shakespearian elocutionist,
read the Trial Scene in the ‘Merchant of Venice,’ followed by
Tennyson’s ‘Queen of the May.’
To poor Edgar this sea-side holiday seemed always a foretaste of
purgatory. It was ever so much worse than the fortnight’s hard labour
in London, for in the big city there were sights worth seeing; while
here, at the stereotyped watering-place, life was one dismal round of
genteel inactivity.
But this year Edgar was seized with a sudden desire to hasten the
annual expedition.
‘Mother, I think this lovely weather must break up before long,’ he
said briskly, with a laborious affectation of cheerfulness, as he sat
at dinner with his parent on the day after Daphne’s cruelty. ‘What
should you say to our starting for the sea-side to-morrow?’
‘To-morrow! My dear Edgar, that would be quite impossible. I shall want
a week for packing.’
‘A week! Surely Deborah could put your things into a portmanteau in six
hours as easily as in six days.’
‘You don’t know what you are talking about, my dear. A lady’s wardrobe
is so different from a man’s. All my gowns will want looking over
carefully before they are packed. And I must have Miss Piper over from
Warwick to do some alterations for me. The fashions change so quickly
nowadays. And some of my laces will have to be washed. And I am not
sure that I shall not have to drive over to Leamington and order a
bonnet. I should not like to disgrace you by appearing on the parade
with a dowdy bonnet.’
Edgar sighed. He would have liked to go to some wild Welsh or Scottish
coast, far from beaten tracks. He would have liked some sea-side
village in the south of Ireland—Dunmore, or Tramore, or Kilkee; some
quiet retreat nestled in a hollow of the cliffs, where as yet never
brass band nor fashionable gowns had come; a place to which people came
for pure love of fine air and grand scenery, and not to show off their
clothes or advertise their easy circumstances. But he knew that if he
took his mother to such a place she would be miserable; so he held his
peace.
‘Where would you like to go this year?’ he said presently.
‘Well, I have been considering that point, Edgar. Let me see now. We
went to Brighton last year——’
‘Yes,’ sighed Edgar, remembering what a tread-mill business the lawn
had seemed to him; how ineffably tiresome the Aquarium; how monotonous
the shops in the King’s Road, and the entertainments at the Pavilion.
‘And to Scarborough the year before.’
‘Yes,’ with a still wearier sigh.
‘And the year before that to Eastbourne; and the year before that to
Torquay. Don’t you think we might go to Torquay again this year? I hear
it is very much improved.’
‘Very much built upon, I suppose you mean, mother. More smoky
chimneys, more hotels, more churches, longer streets. I should think,
judging by what it had come to when we saw it, that by this time
Torquay must be a very good imitation of Bayswater. However, if you
like Torquay——’
‘It is one of the few places I do like.’
‘Then let it be Torquay, by all means. I’ll tell you what I’ll do,
mother. I’ll run down to Torquay to-morrow, find some nice lodgings for
you—I think by this time I know exactly what you want in that way—and
engage them for any day you like to name.’
‘That’s very kind of you, Edgar. But be sure you get some reference as
to the landlady’s character, so that you may be certain there has been
no fever case in the house during the last twelvemonth. And it would be
as well to get a local architect to look at the drains. It would be a
guinea well spent.’
‘All right, mother; I’ll do anything you like. I am longing for a blow
of sea-air.’
‘But it will be at least a week before I can come. What will you do
with yourself in the meantime?’
‘Oh, I shall contrive to amuse myself somehow. I might go on to
Dartmouth, and charter a boat, and go up the Dart. I want very much to
see the Dart. Only say on what day I may expect you at Torquay.’
‘Am I to travel alone, Edgar?’
‘You’ll have Deborah. And the journey won’t be difficult. You’ll join
the express at Swindon, don’t you know——’
‘If you think I can trust to Deborah’s care of the luggage,’ said Mrs.
Turchill dubiously. ‘She’s very steady.’
‘Steady! Well she ought to be at her age. You’ve only to get the
luggage labelled, you see, mother——’
‘I never trust to that,’ answered the matron solemnly. ‘I like Deborah
to get out at every station where the train stops, and see with her own
eyes that my luggage is in the van. Railway people are so stupid.’
Edgar did not envy Deborah. Having thus adroitly planned an immediate
departure he was off soon after daybreak next morning, and arrived
at Torquay in time for dinner. He perambulated the loneliest places
he could find all the evening, brooding over his disappointment, and
wondering if there were any foundation for Gerald Goring’s idea that
Daphne was to be won by him even yet. He slept at The Imperial, and
devoted the next morning to lodging hunting; till his soul sickened at
the very sight of the inevitable housemaid, who can’t answer the most
general inquiry—not so far as to say how many bedrooms there are in
the house, without reference to the higher powers—and the inevitable
landlady, who cannot make up her mind about the rent till she has
asked how many there are in family, and whether late dinners will be
required. Before sundown, however, after ascending innumerable flights
of stairs, and looking into a dismal series of newly-furnished rooms,
he found a suite of apartments which he believed would satisfy his
mother and Deborah; and having engaged the same for a period of three
weeks, he went down to the water’s edge, to a spot where boating men
most did congregate, and there negotiated the hire of a rakish little
yawl, just big enough to be safe in a summer sea. In this light craft
he was to sail at six o’clock next morning with a man and a boy.
‘How Daphne would enjoy knocking about this lovely coast in just such
a boat!’ he thought. ‘If she were my wife, I would buy her as pretty a
yacht as any lady could desire, and she and I would sail half round the
world together. She must be tired of the Avon, poor child.’
Daphne was very tired of the Avon. Never had the days of her life
seemed longer or drearier than they seemed to her just now, when
her faithful slave Edgar was no longer at hand to minister to her
caprices. A strange stillness seemed to have fallen upon South Hill.
Sir Vernon was laid up with that suppressed gout which Daphne fancied
was only another name for unsuppressed ill-temper, so closely did the
two complaints seem allied. At such times Madoline was more than ever
necessary to his well-being. She sat with him in the library; she read
to him; she wrote his letters; and was in all things verily his right
hand. The most pure and perfect filial love sweetened an office which
would have seemed hard to an ungrateful or cold-hearted daughter. Yet
in the close retirement of the stern-looking businesslike chamber, with
its prim bookshelves and standard literature—not a book which every
decently-read student does not know from cover to cover—she could but
remember the bright summer days that were done; the aimless wanderings
in meadow and wood; the drives to Goring Abbey; the tea-drinkings in
the cloisters or in the gardens; the happy season which was gone. The
knowledge that this one happy summer, the first she and Gerald had
ever spent together as engaged lovers, was ended and over, made her
feel as if some part of her own youth had gone with it—something which
could never come again. It had been such an utterly happy period;
such peerless weather; such a fair gladsome earth, teeming with all
good things—even the farmers ceasing to grumble, and owning that, for
once in a way, there was hope of a prosperous harvest. And now it
was over; the corn was reaped, and sportsmen were tramping over the
stubble; the plough-horses were creeping slowly across the hill; the
sun was beginning to decline soon after five-o’clock tea; breathings of
approaching winter sharpened the sweet morning breezes; autumnal mists
veiled the meadows at eventide.
Gerald Goring had gone to Scotland to shoot grouse. It seemed to
Daphne, prowling about gardens and meadows with Goldie in a purposeless
manner that was the essence of idleness, as if the summer had gone in
a breath. Yesterday she was here, that glorious, radiant, disembodied
goddess we call Summer—yesterday she was here, and all the lanes were
sweetened with lime-blossoms, and the roses were being wasted with
prodigal profusion, and the river ran liquid gold; and to sit on a
sunny bank was to be steeped in warm delight. To-day there were only
stiff-looking dahlias, and variegated foliage, and mouse-coloured
plants, and house-leek borders, in the gardens where the roses had
been; and to sit on a grassy bank was to shiver or to sneeze. The river
had a dismal look. There had been heavy rains within the last few days,
and the willowy banks were hidden under dull mud-coloured water. There
was no more pleasure in boating.
‘You may oil her, or varnish her, or do anything that is proper to be
done with her before you put her away for the winter, Bink,’ Daphne
said to her faithful attendant; ‘I shan’t row any more this year.’
‘Lor, miss, we may have plenty more fine days yet.’
‘I don’t care for that. I am tired of rowing. Perhaps I may never row
again.’
She went into luncheon yawning, and looking much more tired than
Madoline, who had been writing letters for her father all the morning.
‘I wish I were a hunting young woman, Lina,’ she said.
‘Why, dear?’
‘Because I should have something to look forward to in the winter.’
‘If you could only employ yourself more indoors, Daphne.’
‘Do I not employ myself indoors? Why, I play billiards for hours at a
stretch when I have anyone to play with. I practised out-of-the-way
strokes for an hour and a half this morning.’
‘I am sure, dear, you would be happier if you had some more feminine
amusements; if you were to go on with your water-colour painting, for
instance. Gerald could give you a little instruction when he is here.
He paints beautifully. I’m sure he would be pleased to help you.’
‘No, dear; I have no talent. I like beginning a sketch; but directly
it begins to look horrid I lose patience; and then I begin to lay on
colour in a desperate way, till the whole thing is the most execrable
daub imaginable; and then I get into a rage and tear it into a thousand
bits. It’s just the same with my needlework; there always comes a time
when I get my thread entangled, and begin to pucker, and the whole
business goes wrong. I have no patience. I shall never finish anything.
I shall never achieve anything. I am an absolute failure.’
‘Daphne, if you only knew how it pains me to hear you talk of yourself
like that——’
‘Then I won’t do it again. I would not pain you for the wealth of this
world—not even to have it always summer, instead of a dull, abominable,
shivery season like this.’
‘Gerald says it is lovely in Argyleshire; balmy and warm; almost too
hot for walking over the hills.’
‘He is enjoying himself, I suppose,’ said Daphne coldly.
‘Yes; he is having capital sport.’
‘Shooting those birds that make our dining-room smell so nasty every
evening, and helping to stock Aunt Rhoda’s larder.’
‘He does not intend to stay after the end of this month. He will be
home early in October.’
Daphne did not even affect to be interested. She was feeding Goldie,
who was allowed to come in to luncheon when Sir Vernon was not in the
way.
‘I had a letter from Mrs. Turchill this morning,’ said Lina; ‘she is
enjoying herself immensely at Torquay. Edgar is very attentive and
devoted to her, going everywhere with her. He is a most affectionate
son.’
‘And a good son makes a good husband, doesn’t he, Lina? Is that idea
at the bottom of your mind when you talk of his goodness to his very
commonplace mother?’
‘I don’t want to talk of him, Daphne, to any one who values him so
little as you do.’
‘But I value him very much—almost as much as I do Goldie—but not quite,
not quite, my pet,’ she added reassuringly to the dog, lest he should
be jealous. ‘I have missed him horribly; no one to tease; no one to
talk nonsense with. You are so sensible that I could not afford to
shock you by my absurdities; and Mr. Goring is so cynical that I fancy
he is always laughing. I miss Edgar every hour of the day.’
‘And yet——’
‘And yet I don’t care one little straw for him—in the kind of way you
care for Mr. Goring,’ said Daphne, with a sudden blush.
Lina sighed and was silent. She had not abandoned all hope that Daphne
would in time grow more warmly attached to the faithful swain, whose
society she evidently missed sorely in these dull autumnal days, during
which the only possible excitement was a box of new books from Mudie’s.
‘More “Voyages to the North Pole”; more “Three Weeks on the Top
of the Biggest Pyramid”; more “Memoirs of Philip of Macedon’s
Private Secretary,”’ cried Daphne, sitting on the ground beside the
newly-arrived box, and tossing all the instructive books on the carpet,
after a contemptuous glance at their titles. ‘Here is Browning’s new
poem, thank goodness! and a novel, “My Only Jo.” Told in the first
person and present tense, no doubt; nice and light and lively. I think
I’ll take that and Browning, if you don’t mind, Lina; and you shall
have all the Travels and Memoirs.’
With the help of novels and poetry, and long rambles even in the wild
showery weather, waterproofed and booted against the storm, and wearing
a neat little felt wide-awake which weather could not spoil, Daphne
contrived to get through her life somehow while her faithful slave was
away. Was it indeed he whom she missed so sorely? Was it his footfall
which her ear knew so well; his step which quickened the beating of her
heart, and brought the warm blood to her cheek? Was it his coming and
going which so deeply stirred the current of her life? Life had been
empty of delight for the last three weeks; but was it Edgar’s absence
made the little world of South Hill so blank and dreary? In her heart
of hearts Daphne knew too well that it was not. Yet Edgar had made an
important element in her life. He had helped her, if not to forget,
at least to banish thought. He had sympathised with all her frivolous
pleasures, and made it easier for her to take life lightly.
‘If I were once to be serious I should break my heart,’ she said to
herself, as she sat curled up on the fluffy white rug by one of the
morning-room windows, her thoughts straying off from ‘My Only Jo,’
which was the most frothy of fashionable novels.
Mrs. Turchill was so delighted with Torquay, in its increased towniness
and shoppiness, its interesting Ritualistic services, at which it was
agreeable to assist once in a way, however a well-regulated mind might
disapprove all such Papistical innovations, that October had begun
before she and her son returned to Hawksyard. Edgar had been glad to
stay away. He shrank with a strange shyness from meeting Daphne; albeit
he was always longing for her as the hart for water-brooks. He amused
himself knocking about in his little yawl-rigged yacht, thinking of the
girl he loved. Mrs. Turchill complained that he had grown selfish and
inattentive. He rarely walked with her on the parade; he refused to
listen to the town band; he went reluctantly to hear Miss Snevillici:
and slumbered in his too-conspicuous front seat while that lady
declaimed the Balcony Scene from ‘Romeo and Juliet.’
‘If it were not for Deborah I should feel horribly lonely,’ complained
Mrs. Turchill. ‘And it is not right that I should be dependent upon a
servant for society.’
Gerald had not yet returned. He had gone on a yachting expedition
with an old college chum. He was enjoying the wild free life, and his
letters to Madoline were full of fun and high spirits.
‘Next year we shall be here together, perhaps,’ he wrote. ‘I think
you would like the fun. It would be so new to you after the placid
pleasures of South Hill. And what a yacht we would have! This I am now
upon is a mere cockleshell to the ship I would build for my dear love.
There should be room enough for you and all your pets—Fluff and the
squirrel, your books, your piano, and for Daphne, too, if she would
like to come; only she is such a wild young person that I should live
in constant fear of her falling overboard.’
Madoline read this passage to Daphne laughingly. ‘You see that he
remembers you, dear. The thought of you enters into his plans for the
future.’
‘He is very kind: I am much obliged to him,’ Daphne answered icily.
It was not the first time she had responded coldly to Madoline’s
mention of her lover. Her sister felt the slight against her idol, and
was deeply wounded.
‘Daphne,’ she said in a voice that was faintly tremulous in spite of
her effort to be calm, ‘you have said many little things lately—or
perhaps it is hardly what you have said, but only your looks and
tones—which make me think that you dislike Gerald.’
‘Dislike him! No, that is impossible. He has all the attributes which
make people admired and liked.’
‘Yet I don’t think you like him.’
‘It is not in my nature to like many people. I like Edgar. I love
you, with all my heart and soul. Be content with that, darling,’ said
Daphne, kneeling by Madoline’s side, resting the bright head, with its
soft silken hair, on her shoulder—the face looking downward and half
hidden.
‘No; I cannot be content. I made up my mind that Gerald was to be as
dear to you as a brother—as dear as the brother you lost might have
been, had God spared him and made him all we could wish. And now you
set up some barrier of false pride against him.’
‘I don’t know about false pride. I can hardly be very fond of a man who
ridicules me, and treats me like a child, or a plaything. Affection
will scarcely thrive in an atmosphere of contempt.’
‘Contempt! Why, Daphne, what can have put such an idea into your head?
Gerald likes and admires you. If you knew how he praises your beauty,
your fascinating ways! You would not have him praise you to your face,
would you? My pet, I should be sorry to see you spoiled by adulation.’
‘Do you suppose I want praise or flattery?’ cried Daphne angrily.
‘I want to be respected. I want to be treated like a woman, not a
child. I——Forgive me, Lina dearest. I daresay I am disagreeable and
ill-tempered.’
‘Only believe the truth, dear. Gerald has no thought of you that is
not tender and flattering. If he teases you a little now and then it
is only as a brother might tease you. He wishes you to think of him
in every way as a brother. It always wounds me when you call him Mr.
Goring.’
‘I shall never call him anything else,’ said Daphne sullenly.
‘And if you do not marry as soon as I do——’
‘I shall never marry——’
‘Dearest, forgive me for not believing that. If you are not married
next year you will have a second home at the Abbey. Gerald and I have
chosen the rooms we intend for you; the dearest little boudoir over the
porch, with an oriel window, just such a room as will delight you.’
‘You are all that is good: but I don’t suppose I shall be able often
to take advantage of your kindness. When you are married it will be my
duty to dance attendance upon papa, and to try and make him like me.
I don’t suppose I shall ever succeed but I mean to make the effort,
however unpleasant it may be to both of us.’
‘My sweet one, you are sure to win his love. Who could help loving you?’
‘My father has helped it all this time,’ answered Daphne, still moody
and with downcast eyes.
* * * * *
Edgar and his mother stayed away till the third week in September.
When they came back to Hawksyard cub-hunting was in full swing, and
Mr. Turchill rose at five o’clock three mornings a week to ride to the
kennels. He rode with two sets of hounds, making nothing of distance.
He bought himself a fifth hunter—having four good ones already—which
was naturally supposed to overtop all the rest in strength, pace, and
beauty. His mother began to fear that the stables would be her son’s
ruin.
‘Three thousand a-year was considered a large income when your father
and I were married,’ she said; ‘but it is a mere pittance now for a
country gentleman in your position. We ought to be careful, Edgar.’
‘Who said we were going to be careless, mother mine? I am sure you are
a model among housewives,’ said Edgar lightly.
‘You’ve taken on a new man in the stable, I hear, Edgar—to attend to
your new horse, I suppose.’
‘Only a new boy at fourteen bob a week, mother. We were rather
short-handed.’
‘Short-handed! With four men!’
Edgar could not stop to debate the matter. It was nine o’clock, and he
was eating a hurried breakfast before starting on his useful covert
hack for Snitterfield, where the hounds were to meet. It was to be the
first meet of the season, an occasion for some excitement. Pleasant to
see all the old company, with a new face or two perhaps among them, and
a sprinkling of new horses—young ones whose education had only just
begun. Edgar was going to exhibit his new mare, an almost thoroughbred
black, and was all aglow with pride at the thought of the admiration
she would receive. He looked his best in his well-worn red coat, new
buckskins, and mahogany tops.
‘I hope you’ll be careful, Edgar,’ said his mother, hanging about him
in the hall, ‘and that you won’t go taking desperate jumps with that
new mare. She has a nasty vicious look in her hind legs; and yesterday,
when I opened the stable-door to speak to Baker, she put back her ears.’
‘A horse may do that without being an absolute fiend, mother. Black
Pearl is the kindest creature in Christendom. Good-bye.’
‘Dinner at eight, I suppose,’ sighed Mrs. Turchill, who preferred an
earlier hour.
‘Yes, if you don’t mind. It gives me plenty of time for a bath. Ta, ta.’
He had swung himself on to the thick-set chestnut roadster, and was
trotting merrily away on the other side of the drawbridge, before his
mother had finished her regretful sigh. The groom had gone on before
with Black Pearl. These hunting mornings were the only occasions on
which Mr. Turchill forgot his disappointment. The keen delight of fresh
air, a fast run, pleasant company, familiar voices, brushed away all
dark thoughts. For the moment he lived only to fly across the level
fields, in a country which seemed altogether changed from the scene of
his daily walks and rides; all familiar things—hedges, bills, commons,
brooks—taking a look of newness, as if he were galloping through a
newly-invented world. For the moment he lived as the bird lives—a thing
of life and motion, a creature too swift for thought or pain or care.
Then, after the day’s hard riding, came the lazy homeward walk side
by side with a friend, and friendly talk about horses and dogs and
neighbours. Then a dinner for which even a lover’s appetite showed no
sign of decay. Then pleasant exhaustion; a cigar; a nap; and a long
night of dreamless rest.
No doubt it was this relief afforded by the hunting season which saved
Mr. Turchill from exhibiting himself in the dejected condition which
Rosalind declared to be an essential mark of a lover. No lean cheek or
sunken eye, neglected beard or sullen spirit, marked Edgar when he came
to South Hill. He seemed so much at his ease, and had so much to tell
about that first meet at Snitterfield, and the delightful run which
followed it, that Daphne was confirmed in her idea that in affairs of
the heart Mr. Turchill belonged to the weathercock species.
‘If he could get over your rejection of him, you may suppose how easily
he would get over mine,’ she said to her sister.
Yet she was very glad to have Edgar back again: to be able to order
him about, to beat him at billiards, or waltz with him in the dusky
hall between five-o’clock tea and the dressing-bell, while Lina played
for them in the morning-room. In this one accomplishment Daphne was
teacher, and a most imperious mistress.
‘If you expect me to be seen dancing with you at the Hunt Ball, you
must improve vastly between this and January,’ she said.