SHOWS GABRIELLE IN EXILE
Midway between historic Fotheringhay and ancient Apethorpe, the
ancestral seat of the Earls of Westmorland, lay the long, straggling,
and rather poverty-stricken village of Woodnewton. Like many other
Northamptonshire villages, it consisted of one long street of cottages,
many of them with dormer windows peeping from beneath the brown thatch,
the better houses of stone, with old mullioned windows, but all of them
more or less in stages of decay. With the depreciation in agriculture,
Woodnewton, once quite a prosperous little place, was now terribly
shabby and depressing.
As he entered the village, the first object that met the eye of the
stranger was a barn with the roof half fallen away, and next it a ruined
house with its moss-grown thatch full of holes. The paving was ill-kept,
and even the several inns bore an appearance of struggles with poverty.
Half-way up the long, straight, dispiriting street stood a cottage
larger and neater-looking than the rest. Its ugly exterior was
half-hidden by ivy, which had been cut away from the diamond-paned
windows; while, unlike its neighbours, its roof was tiled and its brown
door newly painted and highly varnished.
Old Miss Heyburn lived there, and had lived there for the past
half-century. The prim, grey-haired, and somewhat eccentric old lady was
a well-known figure to all on that country-side. Twice each Sunday, with
her large-type Prayer-book in her hand, and her steel-rimmed spectacles
on her thin nose, she walked to church, while she was one of the
principal supporters of the village clothing-club and such-like
institutions inaugurated by the worthy rector.
Essentially an ascetic person, she was looked upon with fear by all the
villagers. Her manner was brusque, her speech sharp, and her criticism
of neglectful mothers caustic and much to the point. Prim, always in
black bonnet and jet-trimmed cape of years gone by, both in summer and
winter, she took no heed of the vagaries of fashion, even when they
reached Woodnewton so tardily.
The common report was that when a girl she had been "crossed in love,"
for her single maidservant she always trained to a sober and loveless
life like her own, and as soon as a girl cast an eye upon a likely swain
she was ignominiously dismissed.
That the sharp-tongued spinster possessed means was undoubted. It was
known that she was sister of Sir Henry Heyburn of Caistor, in
Lincolnshire; and, on account of her social standing, she on rare
occasions was bidden to the omnium gatherings at some of the mansions in
the neighbourhood. She seldom accepted; but when she did it was only to
satisfy her curiosity and to criticise.
The household of two, the old lady and her exemplary maid, was assuredly
a dull one. Meals were taken with punctual regularity amid a cleanliness
that was almost painful. The tiny drawing-room, with its row of
window-plants, including a pot of strong-smelling musk, was hardly ever
entered. Not a speck of dust was allowed anywhere, for Miss Emily's eye
was sharp, and woe betide the maid if a mere suspicion of dirt were
discovered! Everything was kept locked up. One maid who resigned
hurriedly, refusing to be criticised, afterwards declared that her
mistress kept the paraffin under lock and key.
And into this uncomfortably prim and proper household little Gabrielle
had suddenly been introduced. Her heart overburdened by grief, and full
of regret at being compelled to part from the father she so fondly
loved, she had accepted the inevitable, fully realising the dull
greyness of the life that lay before her. Surely her exile there was a
cruel and crushing one! The house seemed so tiny and so suffocating
after the splendid halls and huge rooms at Glencardine, while her aunt's
constant sarcasm about her father--whom she had not seen for eight
years--was particularly galling.
The woman treated the girl as a wayward child sent there for punishment
and correction. She showed her neither kindness nor consideration; for,
truth to tell, it annoyed her to think that her brother should have
imposed the girl upon her. She hated to be bothered with the girl; but,
existing upon Sir Henry's charity, as she really did, though none knew
it, she could do no otherwise than accept his daughter as her guest.
Days, weeks, months had passed, each day dragging on as its predecessor,
a wretched, hopeless, despairing existence to a girl so full of life and
vitality as Gabrielle. Though she had written several times to her
father, he had sent her no reply. To her mother at San Remo she had also
written, and from her had received one letter, cold and unresponsive.
From Walter Murie nothing--not a single word.
The well-thumbed books in the village library she had read, as well as
those in the possession of her aunt. She had tried needlework, problems
of patience, and the translation of a few chapters of an Italian novel
into English in order to occupy her time. But those hours when she was
alone in her little upstairs room with the sloping roof passed, alas! so
very slowly.
Upon her, ever oppressive, were thoughts of that bitter past. At one
staggering blow she had lost all that had made her young life worth
living--her father's esteem and her lover's love. She was innocent,
entirely innocent, of the terrible allegations against her, and yet she
was so utterly defenceless!
Often she sat at her little window for hours watching the lethargy of
village life in the street below, that rural life in which the rector
and the schoolmaster were the principal figures. The dullness of it all
was maddening. Her aunt's mid-Victorian primness, her snappishness
towards the trembling maid, and the thousand and one rules of her daily
life irritated her and jarred upon her nerves.
So, in order to kill time, and at the same time to study the antiquities
of the neighbourhood--her father having taught her so much deep
antiquarian knowledge--it had been her habit for three months past to
take long walks for many miles across the country, accompanied by the
black collie Rover belonging to a young farmer who lived at the end of
the village. The animal had one day attached itself to her while she was
taking a walk on the Apethorpe road; and now, by her feeding him daily
and making a pet of him, the girl and the dog had become inseparable. By
long walks and short train-journeys she had, in three months, been able
to inspect most of the antiquities of Northamptonshire. Much of the
history of the county was intensely interesting: the connection of old
Fotheringhay with the ill-fated Mary Queen of Scots, the beauties of
Peterborough Cathedral, the splendid old Tudor house of Deene (the home
of the Earls of Cardigan), the legends of King John concerning King's
Cliffe, the gaunt splendour of ruined Kirby, and the old-world charm of
Apethorpe. All these, and many others, had great attraction for her. She
read them up in books she ordered from London, and then visited the old
places with all the enthusiasm of a spectacled antiquary.
Every day, no matter what the weather, she might be seen, in her thick
boots, burberry, and tam o'shanter, trudging along the roads or across
the fields accompanied by the faithful collie. The winter had been a
comparatively mild one, with excessive rain. But no downpour troubled
her. She liked the rain to beat into her face, for the dismal,
monotonous cheerlessness of the brown fields, bare trees, and muddy
roads was in keeping with the tragedy of her own young life.
She knew that her aunt Emily disliked her. The covert sneers, the
caustic criticisms, and the go-to-meeting attitude of the old lady
irritated the girl beyond measure. She was not wanted in that painfully
prim cottage, and had been made to understand it from the first day.
Hence it was that she spent all the time she possibly could out of
doors. Alone she had traversed the whole county, seeking permission to
glance at the interior of any old house or building that promised
archaeological interest, and by that means making some curious
friendships.
Many people regarded the pretty young girl who made a study of old
churches and old houses as somewhat eccentric. Local antiquaries,
however, stared at her in wonder when they found that she was possessed
of knowledge far more profound than theirs, and that she could decipher
old documents and read Latin inscriptions with ease.
She made few friends, preferring solitude and reflection to visiting and
gossiping. Hers was, indeed, a pathetic little figure, and the
countryfolk used to stare at her in surprise and sigh as she passed
through the various little hamlets and villages so regularly, the black
collie bounding before her.
Quickly she had become known as "Miss Heyburn's niece," and the report
having spread that she was "a bit eccentric, poor thing," people soon
ceased to wonder, and began to regard that pale, sad face with sympathy.
The whole country-side was wondering why such a pretty young lady had
gone to live in the deadly dullness of Woodnewton, and what was the
cause of that great sorrow written upon her countenance.
Her daily burden of bitter reflection was, indeed, hard to bear. Her one
thought, as she walked those miles of lonely rural byways, so bare and
cheerless, was of Walter--her Walter--the man who, she knew, would have
willingly given his very life for hers. She had met her just punishment,
and was now endeavouring to bear it bravely. She had renounced his love
for ever.
One afternoon, dark and rainy, in the gloom of early March, she was
sitting at the old-fashioned and rather tuneless piano in the damp,
unused "best room," which was devoid of fire for economic reasons. Her
aunt was seated in the window busily crocheting, while she, with her
white fingers running across the keys, raised her sweet contralto voice
in that old-world Florentine song that for centuries has been sung by
the populace in the streets of the city by the Arno:
In questa notte in sogno l'ho veduto
Era vestito tutto di braccato,
Le piume sul berretto di velluto
Ed una spada d'oro aveva allato.
E poi m'ha detto con un bel sorriso;
Io no, non posso star da te diviso,
Da te diviso non ci posso stare
E torno per mai pin non ti lasciare.
Miss Heyburn sighed, and looked up from her work. "Can't you sing
something in English, Gabrielle? It would be much better," she remarked
in a snappy tone.
The girl's mouth hardened slightly at the corners, and she closed the
piano without replying.
"I don't mean you to stop," exclaimed the ascetic old lady. "I only
think that girls, instead of learning foreign songs, should be able to
sing English ones properly. Won't you sing another?"
"No," replied the girl, rising. "The rain has ceased, so I shall go for
my walk;" and she left the room to put on her hat and mackintosh,
passing along before the window a few minutes later in the direction of
King's Cliffe.
It was always the same. If she indulged herself in singing one or other
of those ancient love-songs of the hot-blooded Tuscan peasants her aunt
always scolded. Nothing she did was right, for the simple reason that
she was an unwelcome visitor.
She was alone. Rover was conducting sheep to Stamford market, as was his
duty every week; therefore in the fading daylight she went along,
immersed in her own sad thoughts. Her walk at that hour was entirely
aimless. She had only gone forth because of the irritation she felt at
her aunt's constant complaints. So entirely engrossed was she by her own
despair that she had not noticed the figure of a man who, catching sight
of her at the end of Woodnewton village, had held back until she had
gone a considerable distance, and had then sauntered leisurely in the
direction she had taken.
The man kept her in view, but did not approach her. The high, red
mail-cart passed, and the driver touched his hat respectfully to her.
The man who collected the evening mail from all the villages between
Deene and Peterborough met her almost every evening, and had long ago
inquired and learnt who she was.
For nearly two miles she walked onward, until, close by the junction of
the road which comes down the hill from Nassington, the man who had been
following hastened up and overtook her.
She heard herself addressed by name, and, turning quickly, found herself
face to face with James Flockart.