Lady Nottingham's house at Bray was one of those styleless
nondescript river-side residences which, apart from the incomparable
beauty of their surroundings, have a charm of their own, elusive but
distinct. Originally it had been no more than a couple of cottages,
thatched and low-eaved, but her husband in his lifetime had dealt
with these so successfully by building out a dining-room with
bedrooms above on one side, a drawing-room and billiard-room, again
with bedrooms above, on the other, and a long row of servants' rooms
and offices, that now it was commodious enough to take in a tolerably
large party in extreme comfort.
It is true that he might have built something quite as commodious at far
less expense by pulling down the old and beginning again, but, on the
other hand, the amusement and employment he got out of it was cheap at
the additional price.
The house stood screened from the river by a thick-set hawthorn hedge,
inside which was a garden of a couple of acres in extent, in which was
combined the charm of antiquity with the technique of skilful modern
gardening. Unlike many English gardens, which are laid out to be active
in, this was clearly a place for the lazy and the lounger. There were no
tennis courts, no croquet lawns, no place, in fact, where any game could
be played that demanded either extent or uniformity of surface. A wavy,
irregular lawn, all bays and angles and gulfs of green, was fitted into
the headlands and promontories of garden beds, as the sea is fitted into
the land; but the voyager never got to open sea, so to speak, but was
always turning round corners into other gulfs.
It was impossible to imagine a place less formally laid out, or one,
considering the extent of it, where you could walk so short a way in the
same direction.
There were no straight lines anywhere, an omission fatal in the eyes
of a formalist, but paths, broad paths of grass, or narrower paths of
old paving-stone, meandered about in a manner that could hardly fail
to please.
On each side of such paths were garden beds, no mere ribbons, but wide,
deep spaces of well-nourished earth, where just now June made jungle.
Here you could sit and become part of the general heat and fragrance,
and lose your identity in summer, or, moving a little, find a tree, no
shrub, but a big living elm in tower of leaf and panoply of spreading
bough, to be cool under. Pigeons from the big dovecot in front of the
house afforded to a leisure mind a sufficiency of general conversation,
or formed a cooing chorus of approval if anybody wished to talk himself;
but one thing clearly prohibited in these warm, green places was to be
active. The actively inclined had to pass through the gate in the hedge,
and there, by turning to the left, they would find a back-water with a
whole village of boat-houses. There, to suit the measure of their
activity, they could equip themselves with the required materials; there
were punts at their disposal, or they could take unto themselves a
canoe, or a portly, broad-beamed ark, or risk themselves in outriggers
of extreme length and uncertain stability.
The house itself afforded no less scope for the various inclinations of
its inhabitants. There was a charming drawing-room where any one could
sit up, take notice, and be formal. There was an immense billiard-room,
with an alcove containing a couple of card tables, so far away from the
billiards that the sound of cannons reached the ear of the bridge-player
in a manner that could not disconcert; while for wet days and the more
exuberantly inclined there was a squash-racquet court where any amount
of exercise could be enjoyed with the smallest possible expenditure of
time.
The two original cottages had been run together, and a hall now
comprised the whole ground floor of both. Wooden joists of the
floors above made parallels down the ceiling, and it was still lit
through the small-paned windows of the original cottages, through
the squares of which the landscape outside climbed up and down over
the ridges of the glass. At one end was the fireplace, which had
once been a kitchen-range; but that removed, a large open hearth,
burning a wood fire when fires were necessary, was flanked by two
settles within the chimney-space.
At the other end, and facing it, the corresponding kitchen range of
the second cottage had also been cleared out, but the chimney above
it had been boarded in, and a broad, low settee ran round the three
sides of it. Above this settee, and planted into the wall, so that
the heads of those uprising should not come in contact with the
shelves, was a bookcase full of delectable volumes, all fit to be
taken down at random, and opened at random, all books that were
familiar friends to any who had friends among that entrancing
family. Tennyson was there, and all Thackeray; Omar Khayyam was
there, and Alice in Wonderland; Don Quixote rubbed covers with John
Inglesant, and Dickens found a neighbour in Stevenson.
But this was emphatically a room to sit down in, not to move about in,
for the levels of the floor were precarious, and a sudden step would
easily disconcert those who tried to make a promenade of it. It was as
inactive in tendency as the garden.
Outside the house was charmingly irregular. The billiard-room with the
bedrooms above it was so markedly Queen Anne that it was impossible to
believe it could be Queen Anne. Nor was it, for it was Queen Victoria.
Then came the cottage section, which had a thatched roof, on which grew
wallflowers and the pink pincushions of valerian, and following that was
a low, stern line of building containing kitchens and servants' rooms,
which made no pretence to be anything except that which it was.
But over pseudo-Queen Anne, genuine George I. cottages, and frankly
Edwardian kitchens, there rose a riot of delectable vegetation. White
jasmine and yellow jasmine strove together like first cousins who hate
each other, jackmanni and tropaeolum were rival beauties, and rambler
roses climbed indifferently about, made friends where they could, and
when they found themselves unable, firmly stabbed their enemies and
strangled their remains.
Charming, however, as it all was, it had no mood to suggest. It but
accentuated the moods of those who came there, and by its very
vagueness and softness reflected the spirits of its visitors. It
was impossible to imagine a place more conducive to foster and
cherish a man's inclinations; to the lover it would be a place ideal
for a honeymoon, to the studious an admirable study. In the Italian
phrase the whole place was _simpatico_; it repeated and crooned over
to every one the mood in which he came to it. And if a lover would
find it an adorable setting for his beloved and himself, so, too, it
would mock and rail in sympathy with one who was cynical and bitter.
But since most people are not in any particular mood, and when they
come into the country require light and agreeable diversion, Lord
Nottingham had been quite right in providing so ample a
billiard-room, so engaging a library, so varied a fleet of
river-craft.
Daisy and Gladys had come down here the day before Lady Nottingham
and the rest of the party were to arrive, and they found plenty to
occupy them. The house had not been used since Easter, and wore
that indescribable look of uninhabitableness which results from a
thorough house-cleaning. Everything, even in the irregular hall,
looked angular and uncomfortable; chairs were set square to tables;
tables were set at mathematically precise angles; blinds were all
drawn down exactly four inches from the tops of the windows; and all
the books were in their shelves.
It was all too tidy to have been lived in, and, therefore, too tidy to
live in, and it took Daisy nearly an hour to take the chill off the
room, as she put it, though the heat here was nearly as intense as it
had been in town. Gladys, who was no good at this subtle business of
restoring life to a dead room, occupied herself with writing out the
names of the guests very neatly on cards, which she then, with equal
neatness, affixed to the doors of their rooms.
Daisy paused at the end of this hour and surveyed the room with
satisfaction. "For one who has till so lately been a corpse it isn't
bad," she said. "Don't you see the difference, Gladys? It was like a
refrigerator before. Yes, let's have tea at once, shall we, and then go
out? There's lots more to do. We must pick great boughs of laburnum and
beech for all the big vases. Gardeners are no good at that; nor are you,
dear, for that matter. You tell them to pick boughs, and they pick
button-holes."
"I hate picking flowers at all," said Gladys. "They are so much nicer
where they are."
Daisy poured out tea.
"I know you think that," she said, "and I entirely disagree. Whenever
you see flowers in a house you think what a pity they are not growing in
the garden; whereas, whenever I see flowers in a garden, it seems to me
such a pity they are not in the house. Of course, when the house is
quite, quite full, I don't mind the rest remaining in the garden."
Gladys laughed.
"I think that's like you," she said. "You want to use things on the
whole, and I on the whole want to let them enjoy themselves."
"That sounds as if you thought yourself a perfect saint of unselfishness
and me a greedy pig," remarked Daisy. "If you don't come to tea I shall
eat all the strawberries. Perhaps you wish they had never been picked,
and left to rot on their stems by way of enjoying themselves."
Gladys finished the last name on her packet of cards for guests' rooms.
"No, I don't go as far as that," she said, "because I like the taste of
them, which you can't get at unless you eat them. Now flowers look much
nicer when they are growing."
"Yes, but they are not yours so much when they are growing," said Daisy.
"I like them in my house, in my vases. Yes, I suppose I am greedy. Oh, I
am going to enjoy myself these next few days. All the people I like best
are coming, and they mostly like me best. That is such an advantage.
Wouldn't it be awful to like somebody very much and find he didn't like
you? What a degrading position! Oh dear, what a nice world!"
"More than usual?"
"Much more. I'm dreadfully happy inside. Don't you know how you can be
immensely happy outside and not really be happy at all? But when you are
happy inside you are happy altogether, and don't mind a wet day or going
to the dentist's one scrap. Isn't it funny how one gets happy inside all
in a moment? I suppose there is a cause for everything, isn't there?
Ugh! there's an earwig. Oh, it's going your way, not mine. I wonder what
the cause of earwigs is. I wish they would find it out and reason it
away."
Gladys put an empty inverted teacup over the earwig.
"What made you happy inside?" she asked.
"Well, darling Aunt Alice started it two afternoons ago when we came
back from the Zoo. I had a delightful talk, and she gave me some
excellent advice. She quite realized that I wasn't exactly what most
people would call being in love with him, but she advised me anyhow to
make up my mind whether I would say 'yes' or 'no,' and recommended
'yes.' And so I did make up my mind, and the very next day, do you know,
Gladys, when I dragged you away from the ball so early----"
"Because you had a headache," said Gladys, ruthlessly.
She had been enjoying herself, and still a little resented Daisy's
imperious order to go away.
"You needn't rub it in, darling. Well, that very night something
happened to me that frightened me at first. I began to feel quite
differently about him."
Daisy got up quickly.
"I've been so dreadfully happy ever since," she said, "although
sometimes I've felt quite miserable. Do you see the difference, or
does it sound nonsense? Let me explain. I've only felt miserable,
but I was happy. Gladys, I do believe it's It. It does make one feel
so infinitesimal, and so immense."
Gladys looked up quickly at her cousin. Whatever It was, this was
certainly a Daisy who was quite strange to her--Daisy with a strange,
shy look in her eyes, half exulting in this new feeling, half ashamed of
it.
"I hardly slept at all that night," she said, "and yet the night
didn't seem in the least long. And I don't think I wanted to sleep
except now and then when I felt miserable. And I believe it's the
same thing that makes me feel miserable which makes me so happy.
Gladys, I shall be so shy of him to-morrow when he comes here that
he will probably think I'm in the sulks. And he's coming early
probably, before any of the others--before lunch, in fact."
Gladys got up.
"Oh, Daisy, I don't think you ought to have arranged that," she said.
"Do you mean he will find just you and me here?"
Daisy laughed.
"He needn't find you unless you like," she said. "And I didn't exactly
arrange it. I told him you and I would be alone here, and he asked if he
might get down early. I couldn't exactly forbid him; besides, darling, I
didn't want to."
"Mother wouldn't like it," said Gladys.
"So please don't tell her," remarked Daisy. "I hate vexing people.
She won't find out either. We shall go on the river or something,
and come back after the rest of the people have arrived. You are so
old-fashioned, Gladys; besides, it isn't certain that he will come.
He only said he would if he could. But he is the sort of man who
usually can when he wishes."
"I ought to tell mother," said Gladys.
"I know, but you won't."
Daisy laughed again, and then suddenly, without reason, her spirits
fell.
"Oh dear, what a little beast I have been!" she said. "I did arrange
that he should come, Gladys; at least, I made it imperative that he
should ask if he might, and now it seems so calculating and
cold-blooded. Girls like whom I used to be till--till about
forty-eight hours ago are such brutes. They plot and scheme and
entrap men. Pigs! I almost hope he won't come. I do, really. And yet
that wouldn't do either, for it would look as if he had found me out
and was disgusted with me. I believe you are all wrong, both you and
Aunt Alice, and that he doesn't care for me in the least. He has
flirted with half London. It isn't his fault; women have always
encouraged him, just as I have done. What beasts we are!"
"Oh, well, come and pick boughs of laburnum," said Gladys. "Let's go and
do something. We've been indoors all the afternoon."
"But I don't want to pick boughs of laburnum," said Daisy. "Why should
we do the gardener's work? I want to cry."
"Very well, cry," said Gladys. "Oh, Daisy, I'm not a brute. I am so
sorry you feel upset. But you know you are very happy; you have told me
so. I should like to be immensely sympathetic, but you do change so
quickly, I can't quite keep up. It must be very puzzling. Do you suppose
everybody is like you when she falls in love?"
"And I wish I was dead," said Daisy, violently, having arrived at that
dismal conclusion by some unspoken train of thought. "I wish I was a
cow. I wish I was a boy."
"But you can't be a cow or a boy," said Gladys, gravely, "and you don't
really wish you were dead."
Daisy suddenly had a fit of the giggles, which before long infected her
cousin also, and they both lay back in their chairs in peals of helpless
laughter. Now and then one or other would recover a little, only to be
set off again by the temporarily hopeless case, and it was not till they
had laughed themselves tired that the fit subsided.
Daisy mopped her streaming eyes.
"L-let's pick laburnum," she said at length. "How silly you are! But it
would save such a lot of trouble to be a cow. If I laugh any more I
shall be sick."
"Come into the garden, then," said Gladys. "Oh dear! I didn't mean
_that_. Don't laugh again, Daisy; it does hurt so dreadfully."