Produced by Hilary Caws-Elwitt
[Illustration: Emily Fox-Seton]
EMILY FOX-SETON
BEING "THE MAKING OF A
MARCHIONESS" AND "THE
METHODS OF LADY
WALDERHURST"
By
Frances Hodgson Burnett
ILLUSTRATED BY
C.D. WILLIAMS
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1901, by The Century Company
Copyright, 1901, by Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett
Copyright, 1901, by Frederick A. Stokes Company
September, 1909
[** Transcriber's note: I have corrected a few obvious printers' errors.
Details are AFTER the text so as not to interrupt the flow of what was
intended to be an enjoyable read and not a scholarly work. **]
PART ONE
Chapter One
When Miss Fox-Seton descended from the twopenny bus as it drew up, she
gathered her trim tailor-made skirt about her with neatness and decorum,
being well used to getting in and out of twopenny buses and to making
her way across muddy London streets. A woman whose tailor-made suit must
last two or three years soon learns how to protect it from splashes, and
how to aid it to retain the freshness of its folds. During her trudging
about this morning in the wet, Emily Fox-Seton had been very careful,
and, in fact, was returning to Mortimer Street as unspotted as she had
left it. She had been thinking a good deal about her dress--this
particular faithful one which she had already worn through a
twelvemonth. Skirts had made one of their appalling changes, and as she
walked down Regent Street and Bond Street she had stopped at the windows
of more than one shop bearing the sign "Ladies' Tailor and Habit-Maker,"
and had looked at the tautly attired, preternaturally slim models, her
large, honest hazel eyes wearing an anxious expression. She was trying
to discover _where_ seams were to be placed and how gathers were to be
hung; or if there were to be gathers at all; or if one had to be bereft
of every seam in a style so unrelenting as to forbid the possibility of
the honest and semi-penniless struggling with the problem of remodelling
last season's skirt at all. "As it is only quite an ordinary brown," she
had murmured to herself, "I might be able to buy a yard or so to match
it, and I _might_ be able to join the gore near the pleats at the back
so that it would not be seen."
She quite beamed as she reached the happy conclusion. She was such a
simple, normal-minded creature that it took but little to brighten the
aspect of life for her and to cause her to break into her good-natured,
childlike smile. A little kindness from any one, a little pleasure or a
little comfort, made her glow with nice-tempered enjoyment. As she got
out of the bus, and picked up her rough brown skirt, prepared to tramp
bravely through the mud of Mortimer Street to her lodgings, she was
positively radiant. It was not only her smile which was childlike, her
face itself was childlike for a woman of her age and size. She was
thirty-four and a well-set-up creature, with fine square shoulders and a
long small waist and good hips. She was a big woman, but carried herself
well, and having solved the problem of obtaining, through marvels of
energy and management, one good dress a year, wore it so well, and
changed her old ones so dexterously, that she always looked rather
smartly dressed. She had nice, round, fresh cheeks and nice, big, honest
eyes, plenty of mouse-brown hair and a short, straight nose. She was
striking and well-bred-looking, and her plenitude of good-natured
interest in everybody, and her pleasure in everything out of which
pleasure could be wrested, gave her big eyes a fresh look which made her
seem rather like a nice overgrown girl than a mature woman whose life
was a continuous struggle with the narrowest of mean fortunes.
She was a woman of good blood and of good education, as the education of
such women goes. She had few relatives, and none of them had any
intention of burdening themselves with her pennilessness. They were
people of excellent family, but had quite enough to do to keep their
sons in the army or navy and find husbands for their daughters. When
Emily's mother had died and her small annuity had died with her, none of
them had wanted the care of a big raw-boned girl, and Emily had had the
situation frankly explained to her. At eighteen she had begun to work as
assistant teacher in a small school; the year following she had taken a
place as nursery-governess; then she had been reading-companion to an
unpleasant old woman in Northumberland. The old woman had lived in the
country, and her relatives had hovered over her like vultures awaiting
her decease. The household had been gloomy and gruesome enough to have
driven into melancholy madness any girl not of the sanest and most
matter-of-fact temperament. Emily Fox-Seton had endured it with an
unfailing good nature, which at last had actually awakened in the breast
of her mistress a ray of human feeling. When the old woman at length
died, and Emily was to be turned out into the world, it was revealed
that she had been left a legacy of a few hundred pounds, and a letter
containing some rather practical, if harshly expressed, advice.
Go back to London [Mrs. Maytham had written in her feeble, crabbed
hand]. You are not clever enough to do anything remarkable in the way of
earning your living, but you are so good-natured that you can make
yourself useful to a lot of helpless creatures who will pay you a trifle
for looking after them and the affairs they are too lazy or too foolish
to manage for themselves. You might get on to one of the second-class
fashion-papers to answer ridiculous questions about house-keeping or
wall-papers or freckles. You know the kind of thing I mean. You might
write notes or do accounts and shopping for some lazy woman. You are a
practical, honest creature, and you have good manners. I have often
thought that you had just the kind of commonplace gifts that a host of
commonplace people want to find at their service. An old servant of mine
who lives in Mortimer Street would probably give you cheap, decent
lodgings, and behave well to you for my sake. She has reason to be fond
of me. Tell her I sent you to her, and that she must take you in for ten
shillings a week.
Emily wept for gratitude, and ever afterward enthroned old Mrs. Maytham
on an altar as a princely and sainted benefactor, though after she had
invested her legacy she got only twenty pounds a year from it.
"It was so _kind_ of her," she used to say with heartfelt humbleness of
spirit. "I never _dreamed_ of her doing such a generous thing. I hadn't
a _shadow_ of a claim upon her--not a _shadow_." It was her way to
express her honest emotions with emphasis which italicised, as it were,
her outpourings of pleasure or appreciation.
She returned to London and presented herself to the ex-serving-woman.
Mrs. Cupp had indeed reason to remember her mistress gratefully. At a
time when youth and indiscreet affection had betrayed her disastrously,
she had been saved from open disgrace and taken care of by Mrs. Maytham.
The old lady, who had then been a vigorous, sharp-tongued, middle-aged
woman, had made the soldier lover marry his despairing sweetheart, and
when he had promptly drunk himself to death, she had set her up in a
lodging-house which had thriven and enabled her to support herself and
her daughter decently.
In the second story of her respectable, dingy house there was a small
room which she went to some trouble to furnish up for her dead
mistress's friend. It was made into a bed-sitting-room with the aid of a
cot which Emily herself bought and disguised decently as a couch during
the daytime, by means of a red and blue Como blanket. The one window of
the room looked out upon a black little back-yard and a sooty wall on
which thin cats crept stealthily or sat and mournfully gazed at fate.
The Como rug played a large part in the decoration of the apartment. One
of them, with a piece of tape run through a hem, hung over the door in
the character of a _portière_; another covered a corner which was Miss
Fox-Seton's sole wardrobe. As she began to get work, the cheerful,
aspiring creature bought herself a Kensington carpet-square, as red as
Kensington art would permit it to be. She covered her chairs with
Turkey-red cotton, frilling them round the seats. Over her cheap white
muslin curtains (eight and eleven a pair at Robson's) she hung
Turkey-red draperies. She bought a cheap cushion at one of Liberty's
sales, and some bits of twopenny-halfpenny art china for her narrow
mantelpiece. A lacquered tea-tray and a tea-set of a single cup and
saucer, a plate and a teapot, made her feel herself almost sumptuous.
After a day spent in trudging about in the wet or cold of the streets,
doing other people's shopping, or searching for dressmakers or servants'
characters for her patrons, she used to think of her bed-sitting-room
with joyful anticipation. Mrs. Cupp always had a bright fire glowing in
her tiny grate when she came in, and when her lamp was lighted under its
home-made shade of crimson Japanese paper, its cheerful air, combining
itself with the singing of her little, fat, black kettle on the hob,
seemed absolute luxury to a tired, damp woman.
Mrs. Cupp and Jane Cupp were very kind and attentive to her. No one who
lived in the same house with her could have helped liking her. She gave
so little trouble, and was so expansively pleased by any attention, that
the Cupps,--who were sometimes rather bullied and snubbed by the
"professionals" who generally occupied their other rooms,--quite loved
her. Sometimes the "professionals," extremely smart ladies and gentlemen
who did turns at the balls or played small parts at theatres, were
irregular in their payments or went away leaving bills behind them; but
Miss Fox-Seton's payments were as regular as Saturday night, and, in
fact, there had been times when, luck being against her, Emily had gone
extremely hungry during a whole week rather than buy her lunches at the
ladies' tea-shops with the money that would pay her rent. In the honest
minds of the Cupps, she had become a sort of possession of which they
were proud. She seemed to bring into their dingy lodging-house a touch
of the great world,--that world whose people lived in Mayfair and had
country-houses where they entertained parties for the shooting and the
hunting, and in which also existed the maids and matrons who on cold
spring mornings sat, amid billows of satin and tulle and lace,
surrounded with nodding plumes, waiting, shivering, for hours in their
carriages that they might at last enter Buckingham Palace and be
admitted to the Drawing-room. Mrs. Cupp knew that Miss Fox-Seton was
"well connected;" she knew that she possessed an aunt with a title,
though her ladyship never took the slightest notice of her niece. Jane
Cupp took "Modern Society," and now and then had the pleasure of reading
aloud to her young man little incidents concerning some castle or manor
in which Miss Fox-Seton's aunt, Lady Malfry, was staying with earls and
special favorites of the Prince's. Jane also knew that Miss Fox-Seton
occasionally sent letters addressed "To the Right Honourable the
Countess of So-and-so," and received replies stamped with coronets. Once
even a letter had arrived adorned with strawberry-leaves, an incident
which Mrs. Cupp and Jane had discussed with deep interest over their hot
buttered-toast and tea.
Emily Fox-Seton, however, was far from making any professions of
grandeur. As time went on she had become fond enough of the Cupps to be
quite frank with them about her connections with these grand people. The
countess had heard from a friend that Miss Fox-Seton had once found her
an excellent governess, and she had commissioned her to find for her a
reliable young ladies' serving-maid. She had done some secretarial work
for a charity of which the duchess was patroness. In fact, these people
knew her only as a well-bred woman who for a modest remuneration would
make herself extremely useful in numberless practical ways. She knew
much more of them than they knew of her, and, in her affectionate
admiration for those who treated her with human kindness, sometimes
spoke to Mrs. Cupp or Jane of their beauty or charity with a very nice,
ingenuous feeling. Naturally some of her patrons grew fond of her, and
as she was a fine, handsome young woman with a perfectly correct
bearing, they gave her little pleasures, inviting her to tea or
luncheon, or taking her to the theatre.
Her enjoyment of these things was so frank and grateful that the Cupps
counted them among their own joys. Jane Cupp--who knew something of
dressmaking--felt it a brilliant thing to be called upon to renovate an
old dress or help in the making of a new one for some festivity. The
Cupps thought their tall, well-built lodger something of a beauty, and
when they had helped her to dress for the evening, baring her fine, big
white neck and arms, and adorning her thick braids of hair with some
sparkling, trembling ornaments, after putting her in her four-wheeled
cab, they used to go back to their kitchen and talk about her, and
wonder that some gentleman who wanted a handsome, stylish woman at the
head of his table, did not lay himself and his fortune at her feet.
"In the photograph-shops in Regent Street you see many a lady in a
coronet that hasn't half the good looks she has," Mrs. Cupp remarked
frequently. "She's got a nice complexion and a fine head of hair,
and--if you ask _me_--she's got as nice a pair of clear eyes as a lady
could have. Then look at her figure--her neck and her waist! That kind
of big long throat of hers would set off rows of pearls or diamonds
beautiful! She's a lady born, too, for all her simple, every-day way;
and she's a sweet creature, if ever there was one. For kind-heartedness
and good-nature I never saw her equal."
Miss Fox-Seton had middle-class patrons as well as noble ones,--in fact,
those of the middle class were far more numerous than the duchesses,--so
it had been possible for her to do more than one good turn for the Cupp
household. She had got sewing in Maida Vale and Bloomsbury for Jane Cupp
many a time, and Mrs. Cupp's dining-room floor had been occupied for
years by a young man Emily had been able to recommend. Her own
appreciation of good turns made her eager to do them for others. She
never let slip a chance to help any one in any way.
It was a good-natured thing done by one of her patrons who liked her,
which made her so radiant as she walked through the mud this morning.
She was inordinately fond of the country, and having had what she called
"a bad winter," she had not seen the remotest chance of getting out of
town at all during the summer months. The weather was beginning to be
unusually hot, and her small red room, which seemed so cosy in winter,
was shut in by a high wall from all chance of breezes. Occasionally she
lay and panted a little in her cot, and felt that when all the private
omnibuses, loaded with trunks and servants, had rattled away and
deposited their burdens at the various stations, life in town would be
rather lonely. Every one she knew would have gone somewhere, and
Mortimer Street in August was a melancholy thing.
And Lady Maria had actually invited her to Mallowe. What a piece of good
fortune--what an extraordinary piece of kindness!
She did not know what a source of entertainment she was to Lady Maria,
and how the shrewd, worldly old thing liked her. Lady Maria Bayne was
the cleverest, sharpest-tongued, smartest old woman in London. She knew
everybody and had done everything in her youth, a good many things not
considered highly proper. A certain royal duke had been much pleased
with her and people had said some very nasty things about it. But this
had not hurt Lady Maria. She knew how to say nasty things herself, and
as she said them wittily they were usually listened to and repeated.
Emily Fox-Seton had gone to her first to write notes for an hour every
evening. She had sent, declined, and accepted invitations, and put off
charities and dull people. She wrote a fine, dashing hand, and had a
matter-of-fact intelligence and knowledge of things. Lady Maria began to
depend on her and to find that she could be sent on errands and depended
on to do a number of things. Consequently, she was often at South Audley
Street, and once, when Lady Maria was suddenly taken ill and was
horribly frightened about herself, Emily was such a comfort to her that
she kept her for three weeks.
"The creature is so cheerful and perfectly free from vice that she's a
relief," her ladyship said to her nephew afterward. "So many women are
affected cats. She'll go out and buy you a box of pills or a porous
plaster, but at the same time she has a kind of simplicity and freedom
from spites and envies which might be the natural thing for a princess."
So it happened that occasionally Emily put on her best dress and most
carefully built hat and went to South Audley Street to tea. (Sometimes
she had previously gone in buses to some remote place in the City to buy
a special tea of which there had been rumours.) She met some very smart
people and rarely any stupid ones, Lady Maria being incased in a
perfect, frank armour of good-humoured selfishness, which would have
been capable of burning dulness at the stake.
"I won't have dull people," she used to say. "I'm dull myself."
When Emily Fox-Seton went to her on the morning in which this story
opens, she found her consulting her visiting-book and making lists.
"I'm arranging my parties for Mallowe," she said rather crossly. "How
tiresome it is! The people one wants at the same time are always nailed
to the opposite ends of the earth. And then things are found out about
people, and one can't have them till it's blown over. Those ridiculous
Dexters! They were the nicest possible pair--both of them good-looking
and both of them ready to flirt with anybody. But there was too much
flirting, I suppose. Good heavens! if I couldn't have a scandal and keep
it quiet, I wouldn't have a scandal at all. Come and help me, Emily."
Emily sat down beside her.
"You see, it is my early August party," said her ladyship, rubbing her
delicate little old nose with her pencil, "and Walderhurst is coming to
me. It always amuses me to have Walderhurst. The moment a man like that
comes into a room the women begin to frisk about and swim and languish,
except those who try to get up interesting conversations they think
likely to attract his attention. They all think it is possible that he
may marry them. If he were a Mormon he might have marchionesses of
Walderhurst of all shapes and sizes."
"I suppose," said Emily, "that he was very much in love with his first
wife and will never marry again."
"He wasn't in love with her any more than he was in love with his
housemaid. He knew he must marry, and thought it very annoying. As the
child died, I believe he thinks it his duty to marry again. But he hates
it. He's rather dull, and he can't bear women fussing about and wanting
to be made love to."
They went over the visiting-book and discussed people and dates
seriously. The list was made and the notes written before Emily left the
house. It was not until she had got up and was buttoning her coat that
Lady Maria bestowed her boon.
"Emily," she said, "I am going to ask you to Mallowe on the 2d. I want
you to help me to take care of people and keep them from boring me and
one another, though I don't mind their boring one another half so much
as I mind their boring me. I want to be able to go off and take my nap
at any hour I choose. I will _not_ entertain people. What you can do is
to lead them off to gather things or look at church towers. I hope
you'll come."
Emily Fox-Seton's face flushed rosily, and her eyes opened and sparkled.
"O Lady Maria, you _are_ kind!" she said. "You know how I should enjoy
it. I have heard so much of Mallowe. Every one says it is so beautiful
and that there are no such gardens in England."
"They are good gardens. My husband was rather mad about roses. The best
train for you to take is the 2:30 from Paddington. That will bring you
to the Court just in time for tea on the lawn."
Emily could have kissed Lady Maria if they had been on the terms which
lead people to make demonstrations of affection. But she would have been
quite as likely to kiss the butler when he bent over her at dinner and
murmured in dignified confidence, "Port or sherry, miss?" Bibsworth
would have been no more astonished than Lady Maria would, and Bibsworth
certainly would have expired of disgust and horror.
She was so happy when she hailed the twopenny bus that when she got into
it her face was beaming with the delight which adds freshness and good
looks to any woman. To think that such good luck had come to her! To
think of leaving her hot little room behind her and going as a guest to
one of the most beautiful old houses in England! How delightful it would
be to live for a while quite naturally the life the fortunate people
lived year after year--to be a part of the beautiful order and
picturesqueness and dignity of it! To sleep in a lovely bedroom, to be
called in the morning by a perfect housemaid, to have one's early tea
served in a delicate cup, and to listen as one drank it to the birds
singing in the trees in the park! She had an ingenuous appreciation of
the simplest material joys, and the fact that she would wear her nicest
clothes every day, and dress for dinner every evening, was a delightful
thing to reflect upon. She got so much more out of life than most
people, though she was not aware of it.
She opened the front door of the house in Mortimer Street with her
latch-key, and went upstairs, almost unconscious that the damp heat was
dreadful. She met Jane Cupp coming down, and smiled at her happily.
"Jane," she said, "if you are not busy, I should like to have a little
talk with you. Will you come into my room?"
"Yes, miss," Jane replied, with her usual respectful lady's maid's air.
It was in truth Jane's highest ambition to become some day maid to a
great lady, and she privately felt that her association with Miss
Fox-Seton was the best possible training. She used to ask to be allowed
to dress her when she went out, and had felt it a privilege to be
permitted to "do" her hair.
She helped Emily to remove her walking dress, and neatly folded away her
gloves and veil. She knelt down before her as soon as she saw her seat
herself to take off her muddy boots.
"Oh, _thank_ you, Jane," Emily exclaimed, with her kind italicised
manner. "That _is_ good of you. I _am_ tired, really. But such a nice
thing has happened. I have had such a delightful invitation for the
first week in August."
"I'm sure you'll enjoy it, miss," said Jane. "It's so hot in August."
"Lady Maria Bayne has been kind enough to invite me to Mallowe Court,"
explained Emily, smiling down at the cheap slipper Jane was putting on
her large, well-shaped foot. She was built on a large scale, and her
foot was of no Cinderella-like proportions.
"O miss!" exclaimed Jane. "How beautiful! I was reading about Mallowe in
'Modern Society' the other day, and it said it was lovely and her
ladyship's parties were wonderful for smartness. The paragraph was about
the Marquis of Walderhurst."
"He is Lady Maria's cousin," said Emily, "and he will be there when I
am."
She was a friendly creature, and lived a life so really isolated from
any ordinary companionship that her simple little talks with Jane and
Mrs. Cupp were a pleasure to her. The Cupps were neither gossiping nor
intrusive, and she felt as if they were her friends. Once when she had
been ill for a week she remembered suddenly realising that she had no
intimates at all, and that if she died Mrs. Cupp's and Jane's would
certainly be the last faces--and the only ones--she would see. She had
cried a little the night she thought of it, but then, as she told
herself, she was feverish and weak, and it made her morbid.
"It was because of this invitation that I wanted to talk to you, Jane,"
she went on. "You see, we shall have to begin to contrive about
dresses."
"Yes, indeed, miss. It's fortunate that the summer sales are on, isn't
it? I saw some beautiful colored linens yesterday. They were so cheap,
and they do make up so smart for the country. Then you've got your new
Tussore with the blue collar and waistband. It does become you."
"I must say I think that a Tussore always looks fresh," said Emily, "and
I saw a really nice little tan toque--one of those soft straw ones--for
three and eleven. And just a twist of blue chiffon and a wing would make
it look quite _good_."
She was very clever with her fingers, and often did excellent things
with a bit of chiffon and a wing, or a few yards of linen or muslin and
a remnant of lace picked up at a sale. She and Jane spent quite a happy
afternoon in careful united contemplation of the resources of her
limited wardrobe. They found that the brown skirt _could_ be altered,
and, with the addition of new _revers_ and collar and a _jabot_ of
string-coloured lace at the neck, would look quite fresh. A black net
evening dress, which a patron had good-naturedly given her the year
before, could be remodelled and touched up delightfully. Her fresh face
and her square white shoulders were particularly adorned by black. There
was a white dress which could be sent to the cleaner's, and an old pink
one whose superfluous breadths could be combined with lace and achieve
wonders.
"Indeed, I think I shall be very well off for dinner-dresses," said
Emily. "Nobody expects me to change often. Every one knows--if they
notice at all." She did not know she was humble-minded and of an angelic
contentedness of spirit. In fact, she did not find herself interested in
contemplation of her own qualities, but in contemplation and admiration
of those of other people. It was necessary to provide Emily Fox-Seton
with food and lodging and such a wardrobe as would be just sufficient
credit to her more fortunate acquaintances. She worked hard to attain
this modest end and was quite satisfied. She found at the shops where
the summer sales were being held a couple of cotton frocks to which her
height and her small, long waist gave an air of actual elegance. A
sailor hat, with a smart ribbon and well-set quill, a few new trifles
for her neck, a bow, a silk handkerchief daringly knotted, and some
fresh gloves, made her feel that she was sufficiently equipped.
During her last expedition to the sales she came upon a nice white duck
coat and skirt which she contrived to buy as a present for Jane. It was
necessary to count over the contents of her purse very carefully and to
give up the purchase of a slim umbrella she wanted, but she did it
cheerfully. If she had been a rich woman she would have given presents
to every one she knew, and it was actually a luxury to her to be able to
do something for the Cupps, who, she always felt, were continually
giving her more than she paid for. The care they took of her small room,
the fresh hot tea they managed to have ready when she came in, the penny
bunch of daffodils they sometimes put on her table, were kindnesses, and
she was grateful for them. "I am very much obliged to you, Jane," she
said to the girl, when she got into the four-wheeled cab on the eventful
day of her journey to Mallowe. "I don't know what I should have done
without you, I'm sure. I feel so smart in my dress now that you have
altered it. If Lady Maria's maid ever thinks of leaving her, I am sure I
could recommend you for her place."
Chapter Two
There were other visitors to Mallowe Court travelling by the 2:30 from
Paddington, but they were much smarter people than Miss Fox-Seton, and
they were put into a first-class carriage by a footman with a cockade
and a long drab coat. Emily, who traveled third with some workmen with
bundles, looked out of her window as they passed, and might possibly
have breathed a faint sigh if she had not felt in such buoyant spirits.
She had put on her revived brown skirt and a white linen blouse with a
brown dot on it. A soft brown silk tie was knotted smartly under her
fresh collar, and she wore her new sailor hat. Her gloves were brown,
and so was her parasol. She looked nice and taut and fresh, but notably
inexpensive. The people who went to sales and bought things at three and
eleven or "four-three" a yard would have been able add her up and work
out her total. But there would be no people capable of the calculation
at Mallowe. Even the servants' hall was likely to know less of prices
than this one guest did. The people the drab-coated footman escorted to
the first-class carriage were a mother and daughter. The mother had
regular little features, and would have been pretty if she had not been
much too plump. She wore an extremely smart travelling-dress and a
wonderful dust-cloak of cool, pale, thin silk. She was not an elegant
person, but her appointments were luxurious and self-indulgent. Her
daughter was pretty, and had a slim, swaying waist, soft pink cheeks,
and a pouting mouth. Her large picture-hat of pale-blue straw, with its
big gauze bow and crushed roses, had a slightly exaggerated Parisian
air.
"It is a little too picturesque," Emily thought; "but how lovely she
looks in it! I suppose it was so becoming she could not help buying it.
I'm sure it's Virot."
As she was looking at the girl admiringly, a man passed her window. He
was a tall man with a square face. As he passed close to Emily, he
stared through her head as if she had been transparent or invisible. He
got into the smoking-carriage next to her.
When the train arrived at Mallowe station, he was one of the first
persons who got out. Two of Lady Maria's men were waiting on the
platform. Emily recognised their liveries. One met the tall man,
touching his hat, and followed him to a high cart, in the shafts of
which a splendid iron-gray mare was fretting and dancing. In a few
moments the arrival was on the high seat, the footman behind, and the
mare speeding up the road. Miss Fox-Seton found herself following the
second footman and the mother and daughter, who were being taken to the
landau waiting outside the station. The footman piloted them, merely
touching his hat quickly to Emily, being fully aware that she could take
care of herself.
This she did promptly, looking after her box, and seeing it safe in the
Mallowe omnibus. When she reached the landau, the two other visitors
were in it. She got in, and in entire contentment sat down with her back
to the horses.
The mother and daughter wore for a few minutes a somewhat uneasy air.
They were evidently sociable persons, but were not quite sure how to
begin a conversation with an as yet unintroduced lady who was going to
stay at the country house to which they were themselves invited.
Emily herself solved the problem, producing her commonplace with a
friendly tentative smile.
"Isn't it a lovely country?" she said.
"It's perfect," answered the mother. "I've never visited Europe before,
and the English country seems to me just exquisite. We have a summer
place in America, but the country is quite different."
She was good-natured and disposed to talk, and, with Emily Fox-Seton's
genial assistance, conversation flowed. Before they were half-way to
Mallowe, it had revealed itself that they were from Cincinnati, and
after a winter spent in Paris, largely devoted to visits to Paquin,
Doucet, and Virot, they had taken a house in Mayfair for the season.
Their name was Brooke. Emily thought she remembered hearing of them as
people who spent a great deal of money and went incessantly to parties,
always in new and lovely clothes. The girl had been presented by the
American minister, and had had a sort of success because she dressed and
danced exquisitely. She was the kind of American girl who ended by
marrying a title. She had sparkling eyes and a delicate tip-tilted nose.
But even Emily guessed that she was an astute little person.
"Have you ever been to Mallowe Court before?" she inquired.
"No; and I am _so_ looking forward to it. It is so beautiful."
"Do you know Lady Maria very well?"
"I've known her about three years. She has been very kind to me."
"Well, I shouldn't have taken her for a particularly kind person. She's
too sharp."
Emily amiably smiled. "She's so clever," she replied.
"Do you know the Marquis of Walderhurst?" asked Mrs. Brooke.
"No," answered Miss Fox-Seton. She had no part in that portion of Lady
Maria's life which was illumined by cousins who were marquises. Lord
Walderhurst did not drop in to afternoon tea. He kept himself for
special dinner-parties.
"Did you see the man who drove away in the high cart?" Mrs. Brooke
continued, with a touch of fevered interest. "Cora thought it must be
the marquis. The servant who met him wore the same livery as the man up
there"--with a nod toward the box.
"It was one of Lady Maria's servants," said Emily; "I have seen him in
South Audley Street. And Lord Walderhurst was to be at Mallowe. Lady
Maria mentioned it."
"There, mother!" exclaimed Cora.
"Well, of course if he is to be there, it will make it interesting,"
returned her mother, in a tone in which lurked an admission of relief.
Emily wondered if she had wanted to go somewhere else and had been
firmly directed toward Mallowe by her daughter.
"We heard a great deal of him in London this season," Mrs. Brooks went
on.
Miss Cora Brooke laughed.
"We heard that at least half a dozen people were determined to marry
him," she remarked with pretty scorn. "I should think that to meet a
girl who was indifferent might be good for him."
"Don't be too indifferent, Cora," said her mother, with ingenuous
ineptness.
It was a very stupid bit of revelation, and Miss Brooke's eyes flashed.
If Emily Fox-Seton had been a sharp woman, she would have observed that,
if the _rôle_ of indifferent and piquant young person could be made
dangerous to Lord Walderhurst, it would be made so during this visit.
The man was in peril from this beauty from Cincinnati and her rather
indiscreet mother, though upon the whole, the indiscreet maternal parent
might unconsciously form his protection.
But Emily only laughed amiably, as at a humorous remark. She was ready
to accept almost anything as humour.
"Well, he _would_ be a great match for any girl," she said. "He is so
rich, you know. He is very rich."
When they reached Mallowe, and were led out upon the lawn, where the tea
was being served under embowering trees, they found a group of guests
eating little hot cakes and holding teacups in their hands. There were
several young women, and one of them--a very tall, very fair girl, with
large eyes as blue as forget-me-nots, and with a lovely, limp, and long
blue frock of the same shade--had been one of the beauties of the past
season. She was a Lady Agatha Slade, and Emily began to admire her at
once. She felt her to be a sort of added boon bestowed by kind Fate upon
herself. It was so delightful that she should be of this particular
house-party--this lovely creature, whom she had only known previously
through pictures in ladies' illustrated papers. If it should occur to
her to wish to become the Marchioness of Walderhurst, what could
possibly prevent the consummation of her desire? Surely not Lord
Walderhurst himself, if he was human. She was standing, leaning lightly
against the trunk of an ilex-tree, and a snow-white Borzoi was standing
close to her, resting his long, delicate head against her gown,
encouraging the caresses of her fair, stroking hand. She was in this
attractive pose when Lady Maria turned in her seat and said:
"There's Walderhurst."
The man who had driven himself over from the station in the cart was
coming towards them across the grass. He was past middle life and plain,
but was of good height and had an air. It was perhaps, on the whole,
rather an air of knowing what he wanted.
Emily Fox-Seton, who by that time was comfortably seated in a cushioned
basket-chair, sipping her own cup of tea, gave him the benefit of the
doubt when she wondered if he was not really distinguished and
aristocratic-looking. He was really neither, but was well-built and
well-dressed, and had good grayish-brown eyes, about the colour of his
grayish-brown hair. Among these amiably worldly people, who were not in
the least moved by an altruistic prompting, Emily's greatest capital
consisted in the fact that she did not expect to be taken the least
notice of. She was not aware that it was her capital, because the fact
was so wholly a part of the simple contentedness of her nature that she
had not thought about it at all. The truth was that she found all her
entertainment and occupation in being an audience or a spectator. It did
not occur to her to notice that, when the guests were presented to him,
Lord Walderhurst barely glanced at her surface as he bowed, and could
scarcely be said to forget her existence the next second, because he had
hardly gone to the length of recognising it. As she enjoyed her
extremely nice cup of tea and little buttered scone, she also enjoyed
looking at his Lordship discreetly, and trying to make an innocent
summing up of his mental attitudes.
Lady Maria seemed to like him and to be pleased to see him. He himself
seemed, in an undemonstrative way, to like Lady Maria. He also was
evidently glad to get his tea, and enjoyed it as he sat at his cousin's
side. He did not pay very much attention to any one else. Emily was
slightly disappointed to see that he did not glance at the beauty and
the Borzoi more than twice, and then that his examination seemed as much
for the Borzoi as for the beauty. She could not help also observing that
since he had joined the circle it had become more animated, so far at
least as the female members were concerned. She could not help
remembering Lady Maria's remark about the effect he produced on women
when he entered a room. Several interesting or sparkling speeches had
already been made. There was a little more laughter and chattiness,
which somehow it seemed to be quite open to Lord Walderhurst to enjoy,
though it was not exactly addressed to him. Miss Cora Brooke, however,
devoted herself to a young man in white flannels with an air of tennis
about him. She sat a little apart and talked to him in a voice soft
enough to even exclude Lord Walderhurst. Presently she and her companion
got up and sauntered away. They went down the broad flight of ancient
stone steps which led to the tennis-court, lying in full view below the
lawn. There they began to play tennis. Miss Brooke skimmed and darted
about like a swallow. The swirl of her lace petticoats was most
attractive.
"That girl ought not to play tennis in shoes with ridiculous heels,"
remarked Lord Walderhurst. "She will spoil the court."
Lady Maria broke into a little chuckle.
"She wanted to play at this particular moment," she said. "And as she
has only just arrived, it did not occur to her to come out to tea in
tennis-shoes."
"She'll spoil the court all the same," said the marquis. "What clothes!
It's amazing how girls dress now."
"I wish I had such clothes," answered Lady Maria, and she chuckled
again. "She's got beautiful feet."
"She's got Louis Quinze heels," returned his Lordship.
At all events, Emily Fox-Seton thought Miss Brooke seemed to intend to
rather keep out of his way and to practise no delicate allurements. When
her tennis-playing was at an end, she sauntered about the lawn and
terraces with her companion, tilting her parasol prettily over her
shoulder, so that it formed an entrancing background to her face and
head. She seemed to be entertaining the young man. His big laugh and the
silver music of her own lighter merriment rang out a little
tantalisingly.
"I wonder what Cora is saying," said Mrs. Brooke to the group at large.
"She always makes men laugh so."
Emily Fox-Seton felt an interest herself, the merriment sounded so
attractive. She wondered if perhaps to a man who had been so much run
after a girl who took no notice of his presence and amused other men so
much might not assume an agreeable aspect.
But he took more notice of Lady Agatha Slade than of any one else that
evening. She was placed next to him at dinner, and she really was
radiant to look upon in palest green chiffon. She had an exquisite
little head, with soft hair piled with wondrous lightness upon it, and
her long little neck swayed like the stem of a flower. She was lovely
enough to arouse in the beholder's mind the anticipation of her being
silly, but she was not silly at all.
Lady Maria commented upon that fact to Miss Fox-Seton when they met in
her bedroom late that night. Lady Maria liked to talk and be talked to
for half an hour after the day was over, and Emily Fox-Seton's admiring
interest in all she said she found at once stimulating and soothing. Her
Ladyship was an old woman who indulged and inspired herself with an
Epicurean wisdom. Though she would not have stupid people about her, she
did not always want very clever ones.
"They give me too much exercise," she said. "The epigrammatic ones keep
me always jumping over fences. Besides, I like to make all the epigrams
myself."
Emily Fox-Seton struck a happy mean, and she was a genuine admirer. She
was intelligent enough not to spoil the point of an epigram when she
repeated it, and she might be relied upon to repeat it and give all the
glory to its originator. Lady Maria knew there were people who, hearing
your good things, appropriated them without a scruple. To-night she said
a number of good things to Emily in summing up her guests and their
characteristics.
"Walderhurst has been to me three times when I made sure that he would
not escape without a new marchioness attached to him. I should think he
would take one to put an end to the annoyance of dangling unplucked upon
the bough. A man in his position, if he has character enough to choose,
can prevent even his wife's being a nuisance. He can give her a good
house, hang the family diamonds on her, supply a decent elderly woman as
a sort of lady-in-waiting and turn her into the paddock to kick up her
heels within the limits of decorum. His own rooms can be sacred to him.
He has his clubs and his personal interests. Husbands and wives annoy
each other very little in these days. Married life has become
comparatively decent."
"I should think his wife might be very happy," commented Emily. "He
looks very kind."
"I don't know whether he is kind or not. It has never been necessary for
me to borrow money from him."
Lady Maria was capable of saying odd things in her refined little
drawling voice.
"He's more respectable than most men of his age. The diamonds are
magnificent, and he not only has three superb places, but has money
enough to keep them up. Now, there are three aspirants at Mallowe in the
present party. Of course you can guess who they are, Emily?"
Emily Fox-Seton almost blushed. She felt a little indelicate.
"Lady Agatha would be very suitable," she said. "And Mrs. Ralph is very
clever, of course. And Miss Brooke is really pretty."
Lady Maria gave vent to her small chuckle.
"Mrs. Ralph is the kind of woman who means business. She'll corner
Walderhurst and talk literature and roll her eyes at him until he hates
her. These writing women, who are intensely pleased with themselves, if
they have some good looks into the bargain, believe themselves capable
of marrying any one. Mrs. Ralph has fine eyes and rolls them.
Walderhurst won't be ogled. The Brooke girl is sharper than Ralph. She
was very sharp this afternoon. She began at once."
"I--I didn't see her"--wondering.
"Yes, you did; but you didn't understand. The tennis, and the laughing
with young Heriot on the terrace! She is going to be the piquant young
woman who aggravates by indifference, and disdains rank and splendour;
the kind of girl who has her innings in novelettes--but not out of them.
The successful women are those who know how to toady in the right way
and not obviously. Walderhurst has far too good an opinion of himself to
be attracted by a girl who is making up to another man: he's not
five-and-twenty."
Emily Fox-Seton was reminded, in spite of herself, of Mrs. Brooke's
plaint: "Don't be too indifferent, Cora." She did not want to recall it
exactly, because she thought the Brookes agreeable and would have
preferred to think them disinterested. But, after all, she reflected,
how natural that a girl who was so pretty should feel that the Marquis
of Walderhurst represented prospects. Chiefly, however, she was filled
with admiration at Lady Maria's cleverness.
"How wonderfully you observe everything, Lady Maria!" she exclaimed.
"How wonderfully!"
"I have had forty-seven seasons in London. That's a good many, you know.
Forty-seven seasons of débutantes and mothers tend toward enlightenment.
Now there is Agatha Slade, poor girl! She's of a kind I know by heart.
With birth and beauty, she is perfectly helpless. Her people are poor
enough to be entitled to aid from the Charity Organisation, and they
have had the indecency to present themselves with six daughters--six!
All with delicate skins and delicate little noses and heavenly eyes.
Most men can't afford them, and they can't afford most men. As soon as
Agatha begins to go off a little, she will have to step aside, if she
has not married. The others must be allowed their chance. Agatha has had
the advertising of the illustrated papers this season, and she has gone
well. In these days a new beauty is advertised like a new soap. They
haven't given them sandwich-men in the streets, but that is about all
that has been denied them. But Agatha has not had any special offer, and
I know both she and her mother are a little frightened. Alix must come
out next season, and they can't afford frocks for two. Agatha will have
to be sent to their place in Ireland, and to be sent to Castle Clare is
almost like being sent to the Bastille. She'll never get out alive.
She'll have to stay there and see herself grow thin instead of slim, and
colourless instead of fair. Her little nose will grow sharp, and she
will lose her hair by degrees."
"Oh!" Emily Fox-Seton gave forth sympathetically. "What a pity that
would be! I thought--I really thought--Lord Walderhurst seemed to admire
her."
"Oh, every one admires her, for that matter; but if they go no further
that will not save her from the Bastille, poor thing. There, Emily; we
must go to bed. We have talked enough."
Chapter Three
To awaken in a still, delicious room, with the summer morning sunshine
breaking softly into it through leafy greenness, was a delightful thing
to Miss Fox-Seton, who was accustomed to opening her eyes upon four
walls covered with cheap paper, to the sound of outside hammerings, and
the rattle and heavy roll of wheels. In a building at the back of her
bed-sitting-room there lived a man whose occupation, beginning early in
the morning, involved banging of a persistent nature.
She awakened to her first day at Mallowe, stretching herself
luxuriously, with the smile of a child. She was so thankful for the
softness of her lavender-fragrant bed, and so delighted with the lovely
freshness of her chintz-hung room. As she lay upon her pillow, she could
see the boughs of the trees, and hear the chatter of darting starlings.
When her morning tea was brought, it seemed like nectar to her. She was
a perfectly healthy woman, with a palate as unspoiled as that of a
six-year-old child in the nursery. Her enjoyment of all things was so
normal as to be in her day and time an absolute abnormality.
She rose and dressed at once, eager for the open air and sunshine. She
was out upon the lawn before any one else but the Borzoi, which rose
from beneath a tree and came with stately walk toward her. The air was
exquisite, the broad, beautiful stretch of view lay warm in the sun, the
masses of flowers on the herbaceous borders showed leaves and
flower-cups adorned with glittering drops of dew. She walked across the
spacious sweep of short-cropped sod, and gazed enraptured at the country
spread out below. She could have kissed the soft white sheep dotting the
fields and lying in gentle, huddled groups under the trees.
"The darlings!" she said, in a little, effusive outburst.
She talked to the dog and fondled him. He seemed to understand her mood,
and pressed close against her gown when she stopped. They walked
together about the gardens, and presently picked up an exuberant
retriever, which bounded and wriggled and at once settled into a steady
trot beside them. Emily adored the flowers as she walked by their beds,
and at intervals stopped to bury her face in bunches of spicy things.
She was so happy that the joy in her hazel eyes was pathetic.