AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER.
In the meantime something had been going on behind-backs of which nobody
took much notice. It had been discovered long before this, in the
family, that the Contessa's young companion had a name like other
people--that is to say, a Christian name. She was called by the
Contessa, in the rare moments when she addressed her, Bice--that is to
say, according to English pronunciation, Beeshee (you would probably
call it Beetchee if you learned to speak Italian in England, but the
Contessa had the Tuscan tongue in a Roman mouth, according to the
proverb), which, as everybody knows, is the contraction of Beatrice. She
was called Miss Beachey in the household, a name which was received--by
the servants at least--as a quite proper and natural name; a great deal
more sensible than Forno-Populo. Her position, however, in the little
party was a quite peculiar one. The Contessa took her for granted in a
way which silenced all inquisitive researches. She gave no explanation
who she was, or what she was, or why she carried this girl about with
her. If she was related to herself, if she was a dependent, nobody knew;
her manner gave no clue at all to the mystery. It was very seldom that
the two had any conversation whatsoever in the presence of the others.
Now and then the Contessa would send the girl upon an errand, telling
her to bring something, with an absence of directions where to find it
that suggested the most absolute confidence in her young companion. When
the Contessa sang, Bice, as a matter of course, produced herself at the
right moment to play her accompaniments, and got herself out of the way,
noiselessly, instantly, the moment that duty was over. These
accompaniments were played with an exquisite skill and judgment, an
exact adaptation to the necessities of the voice, which could only have
been attained by much and severe study; but she never, save on these
occasions, was seen to look at a piano. For the greater part of the time
the girl was invisible. She appeared in the Contessa's train, always in
her closely-fitting, perfectly plain, black frock, without an ornament,
at luncheon and dinner, and was present all the evening in the
drawing-room. But for the rest of the day no one knew what became of
this young creature, who nevertheless was not shy, nor showed any
appearance of feeling herself out of place, or uncomfortable in her
strange position. She looked out upon them all with frank eyes, in which
it was evident there was no sort of mist, either of timidity or
ignorance, understanding everything that was said, even allusions which
puzzled Lucy; always intelligent and observant, though often with a
shade of that benevolent contempt which the young with difficulty
prevent themselves from feeling towards their elders. The littleness of
their jokes and their philosophies was evidently quite apparent to this
observer, who sat secure in the superiority of sixteen taking in
everything; for she took in everything, even when she was not doing the
elder people the honour of attending to what they were saying, with a
faculty which belongs to that age. Opinions were divided as to Bice's
beauty. The simpler members of the party, Lucy and Jock, admired her
least; but such a competent critic as Lady Randolph, who understood what
was effective, had a great opinion and even respect for her, as of one
whose capabilities were very great indeed, and who might "go far," as
she had herself said. As there was so much difference of opinion it is
only right that the reader should be able to judge, as much as is
possible, from a description. She was very slight and rather tall, with
a great deal of the Contessa's grace, moving lightly as if she scarcely
touched the ground, but like a bird rather than a cat. There was nothing
in her of the feline grace of which we hear so much. Her movements were
all direct and rapid; her feet seemed to skim, not to tread, the ground
with an airy poise, which even when she stood still implied movement,
always light, untiring, full of energy and impulse. Her eyes were
gray--if it is possible to call by the name of the dullest of tints
those two globes of light, now dark, now golden, now liquid with dew,
and now with flame. Her hair was dusky, of no particular colour, with a
crispness about the temples; but her complexion--ay, there was the rub.
Bice had no complexion at all. By times in the evening, in artificial
light, or when she was excited, there came a little flush to her cheeks,
which miraculously chased away the shadows from her paleness, and made
her radiant; but in daylight there could be no doubt that she was
sallow, sometimes almost olive, though with a soft velvety texture which
is more often seen on the dark-complexioned through all its gradations
than on any but the most delicate of white skins. A black baby has a
bloom upon its little dusky cheek like a purple peach, and this was the
quality which gave to Bice's sallowness a certain charm. Her hands and
arms were of the same indefinite tint--not white, whatever they might be
called. Her throat was slender and beautifully-formed, but shared the
same deficiency of colour. It is impossible to say how much disappointed
Lucy was in the young stranger's appearance after the first evening. She
had thought her very pretty, and she now thought her plain. To remember
what the girl had said of her chances if she turned out beautiful filled
her with a sort of pitying contempt.
But the more experienced people were not of Lucy's opinion. They thought
well, on the contrary, of Bice's prospects. Lady Randolph, as has been
said, regarded her with a certain respectfulness. She was not offended
by the saucy speeches which the girl might now and then make. She went
so far as to say even that if introduced under other auspices than those
of the Contessa, there was no telling what such a girl might do. "But
the chances now are that she will end on the stage," Lady Randolph said.
This strange girl unfolded herself very little in the family. When she
spoke, she spoke with the utmost frankness, and was afraid of nobody.
But in general she sat in the regions behind the table, with its big
lamp, and said little or nothing. The others would all be collected
about the fire, but Bice never approached the fire. Sometimes she read,
sitting motionless, till the others forgot her presence altogether.
Sometimes she worked at long strips of Berlin-wool work, the
_tapisserie_ to which, by moments, the Contessa would have recourse. But
she heard and saw everything, as has been said, whether she attended or
not, in the keenness of her youthful faculties. When the Contessa rose
to sing, she was at the piano without a word; and when anything was
wanted she gave an alert mute obedience to the lady who was her relation
or her patroness, nobody knew which, almost without being told what was
wanted. Except in this way, however, they seldom approached or said a
word to each other that any one saw. During the long morning, which the
Contessa spent in her room, appearing only at luncheon, Bice too was
invisible. Thus she lived the strangest life of retirement and
seclusion, such as a crushed dependent would find intolerable in the
midst of a family, but without the least appearance of anything but
enjoyment, and a perfect and dauntless freedom.
Bice, however, had one confidant in the house, and this, as is natural,
was the very last person who would have seemed probable--it was Jock.
Jock, it need scarcely be said, had no tendency at all to the society
of girls. Deep as he was in MTutor's confidence, captain of his house,
used to live in a little male community, and to despise (not unkindly)
the rest of the world, it is not likely that he would care much for the
antagonistic creatures who invariably interfered, he thought, with talk
and enjoyment wherever they appeared. Making an exception in favour of
Lucy and an older person now and then, who had been soothing to him when
he was ill or out of sorts, Jock held that the feminine part of the
creation was a mistake, and to be avoided in every practicable way. He
had been startled by the young stranger's advances to him on the first
evening, and her claim of fellowship on the score that he was young like
herself. But when Bice first appeared suddenly in his way, far down in
the depths of the winterly park, the boy's impulse would have been, had
that been practicable, to turn and flee. She was skimming along, singing
to herself, leaping lightly over fallen branches and the inequalities of
the humid way, when he first perceived her; and Jock had a moment's
controversy with himself as to what he ought to do. If he took to flight
across the open park she would see him and understand the reason
why--besides, it would be cowardly to fly from a girl, an inferior
creature, who probably had lost her way, and would not know how to get
back again. This reflection made him withdraw a little deeper into the
covert, with the intention of keeping her in sight lest she should
wander astray altogether, but yet keeping out of the way, that he might
exercise this secret protecting charge of his, which Jock felt was his
natural attitude even to a girl without the embarrassment of her
society. He tried to persuade himself that she was a lower boy, of an
inferior kind no doubt, but yet possessing claims upon his care; for
MTutor had a great idea of influence, and had imprinted deeply upon the
minds of his leading pupils the importance of exercising it in the most
beneficial way for those who were under them.
Jock accordingly stayed among the brushwood watching where she went. How
light she was! her feet scarcely made a dint upon the wet and spongy
grass, in which his own had sunk. She went over everything like a bird.
Now and then she would stop to gather a handful of brown rustling
brambles, and the stiff yellow oak leaves, and here and there a rusty
bough to which some rays of autumn colour still hung, which at first
Jock supposed to mean botany, and was semi-respectful of, until she took
off her hat and arranged them in it, when he was immediately
contemptuous, saying to himself that it was just like a girl. All the
same, it was interesting to watch her as she skipped and skimmed along
with an air of enjoyment and delight in her freedom, which it was
impossible not to sympathise with. She sang, not loudly, but almost
under her breath, for pure pleasure, it seemed, but sometimes would
break off and whistle, at which Jock was much shocked at first, but
gradually got reconciled to, it was so clear and sweet. After awhile,
however, he made an incautious step upon the brushwood, and the crashing
of the branches betrayed him. She stopped suddenly with her head to the
wind like a fine hound, and caught him with her keen eyes. Then there
occurred a little incident which had a very strange effect--an effect he
was too young to understand--upon Jock. She stood perfectly still, with
her face towards the bushes in which he was, her head thrown high, her
nostrils a little dilated, a flush of sudden energy and courage on her
face. She did not know who he was or what he wanted watching her from
behind the covert. He might be a tramp, a violent beggar, for anything
she knew. These things are more tragic where Bice came from, and it was
likely enough that she took him for a brigand. It was a quick sense of
alarm that sprang over her, stringing all her nerves, and bringing the
colour to her cheeks. She never flinched or attempted to flee, but stood
at bay, with a high valour and proud scorn of her pursuer. Her attitude,
the flush which made her fair in a moment, the expanded nostrils, the
fulness which her panting breath of alarm gave to her breast, made an
impression upon the boy which was ineffable and beyond words. It was his
first consciousness that there was something in the world--not boy, or
man, or sister, something which he did not understand, which feared yet
confronted him, startled but defiant. He too paused for a moment, gazing
at her, getting up his courage. Then he came slowly out from under the
shade of the bushes and went towards her. There were a few yards of the
open park to traverse before he reached her, so that he thought it
necessary to relieve her anxiety before they met. He called out to her,
"Don't be afraid, it is only me." For a moment more that fine poise
lasted, and then she clapped her hands with a peal of laughter that
seemed to fill the entire atmosphere and ring back from the clumps of
wintry wood. "Oh," she cried, "it is you!" Jock did not know whether to
be deeply affronted or to laugh too.
"I----thought you might have lost your way," he said, knitting his brows
and looking as forbidding as he knew how, by way of correcting the
involuntary sentiment that had stolen into his boyish heart.
"Then why did not you come to me?" she said, "is not that what you call
to spy--to watch when one does not know you are there?"
Jock's countenance flushed at this word. "Spy! I never spied upon any
one. I thought perhaps you might not be able to get back--so I would not
go away out of reach."
"I see," she cried, "you meant to be kind but not friendly. Do I say it
right? Why will not you be friendly? I have so many things I want to
say, and no one, no one! to say them to. What harm would it do if you
came out from yourself, and talked with me a little? You are too young
to make it any--inconvenience," the girl said. She laughed a little and
blushed a little as she said this, eyeing him all the time with frank,
open eyes. "I am sixteen; how old are you?" she added, with a quick
breath.
"Sixteen past," said Jock, with a little emphasis, to show his
superiority in age as well as in other things.
"Sixteen in a boy means no more than nine or so," she said, with a light
disdain, "so you need not have any fear. Oh, come and talk! I have a
hundred and more of things to say. It is all so strange. How would you
like to plunge in a new world like the sea, and never say what you think
of it, or ask any questions, or tell when it makes you laugh or cry?"
"I should not mind much. I should neither laugh nor cry. It is only
girls that do," said Jock, somewhat contemptuous too.
"Well! But then I am a girl. I cannot change my nature to please you,"
she said. "Sometimes I think I should have liked better to be a boy, for
you have not to do the things we have to do--but then when I saw how
awkward you were, and how clumsy, and not good for anything"--she
pointed these very plain remarks with a laugh between each and a look at
Jock, by which she very plainly applied what she said. He did not know
at all how to take this. The instinct of a gentleman to betray no angry
feeling towards a girl, who was at the same time a lady, contrasted in
him with the instinct of a child, scarcely yet aware of the distinctions
of sex, to fight fairly for itself; but the former prevailed. And then
it was scarcely possible to resist the contagion of the laugh which the
damp air seemed to hold suspended, and bring back in curls and wreaths
of pleasant sound. So Jock commanded himself and replied with an
effort--
"We are just as good for things that we care about as you--but not for
girls' things," he added, with another little fling of the mutual
contempt which they felt for each other. Then after a pause: "I suppose
we may as well go home, for it is getting late; and when it is dark you
would be sure to lose your way----"
"Do you think so?" she said. "Then I will come, for I do not like to be
lost. What should you do if we were lost? Build me a hut to take shelter
in? or take off your coat to keep me warm and then go and look for the
nearest village? That is what happens in some of the Contessa's old
books--but, ah, not in the Tauchnitz now. But it would be nonsense, of
course, for there are the red chimneys of the Hall staring us in the
face, so how could we be lost?"
"When it is dark," said Jock, "you can't see the red always; and then
you go rambling and wandering about, and hit yourself against the trees,
and get up to the ankles in the wet grass and--don't like it at all."
He laughed himself a little, with a laugh that was somewhat like a growl
at his own abrupt conclusion, to which Bice responded cordially.
"How nice it is to laugh," she said, "it gets the air into your lungs
and then you can breathe. It is to breathe I want--large--a whole world
full," she cried, throwing out her arms and opening her mouth. "Because
you know the rooms are small here, and there is so much furniture, the
windows closed with curtains, the floors all hot with carpets. Do they
shut you up as if in a box at night, with the shutters shut and all so
dark? They do me. But as soon as they are gone I open. I like far better
our rooms with big walls, and marble that is cool, and large, large
windows that you can lie and look out at, when you wake, all painted
upon the sky."
"I should think," said Jock, with the impulse of contradiction, "they
would not be at all comfortable----"
"Comfortable," she cried in high disdain, "does one want to be
comfortable? One wants to live, and feel the air, and everything that is
round."
"That's what we do at school," said Jock, waking up to a sense of the
affinities as he had already done to the diversities between them.
"Tell me about school," she cried, with a pretty imperious air; and
Jock, who never desired any better, obeyed.