ELLICE
Buddesby, in the Parish of Little Langbourne, was a small place
compared with Starden Hall. Buddesby claimed to be nothing more than a
farmhouse of a rather exalted type. For generations the Everards had
been gentlemen farmers, farming their own land and doing exceedingly
badly by it.
Matthew, late owner of Buddesby, had taken up French gardening on a
large scale, and had squandered a great part of his capital on glass
cloches, fragments of which were likely to litter Buddesby for many a
year to come.
John, his son, had turned his back on intensive culture and had gone
back to the old family failing of hops. The Everard family had probably
flung away more money on hops than any other family in Kent.
The Everards were not rich. The shabby, delightful old rooms, the
tumble-down appearance of the ancient house, the lack of luxuries
proved it, but they were exceedingly content.
Constance was a slim, pale, fair-haired girl with a singularly sweet
expression and the temper, as her brother said often enough, of an
angel. John Everard was big and broad, brown-haired, ruddy
complexioned. He regarded every goose as a swan, and had unlimited
belief in his land, his sister, and the future. There was one other
occupant of Buddesby, a slight slender, dark-haired girl, with a thin,
olive face, a pair of blazing black eyes, and a vividly red-lipped
mouth.
Eight years ago Matthew Everard had brought her home after a brief
visit to London. He had handed her over to eighteen-year-old Constance.
“Look after the little one, Connie,” he had said. “There’s not a soul
in the world who wants her, poor little lass. Her father’s been dead
years; her mother died—last week.” He paused. “I knew them both.” That
was all the information he had ever given, so Ellice Brand had come to
Buddesby, one more mouth to feed, one more pair of feet to find shoes
for.
She had many faults; she was passionate and wilful, defiant and
impatient of even Connie’s gentle authority. But there was one who
could quell her most violent outburst with a word—one who had but to
look at her to bring her to her sane senses, one whom she would,
dog-like, have followed to the end of the world, from whom she would
have accepted blows and kicks and curses without a murmur, only that
Johnny Everard was not in the habit of bestowing blows and curses on
young ladies.
Constance was twenty-six, John, the master of Buddesby, was a year
younger, and Ellice was eighteen, her slender body as yet childish and
unformed, her gipsy-like face a little too thin. But there was beauty
there, wonderful and startling beauty that would one day blossom forth.
It was in the bud as yet, but the bud was near to opening.
They were at breakfast in the comfortable, shabby old morning-room at
Buddesby. It was eight o’clock, and John had been afield for a couple
of hours and had come back with his appetite sharp set.
They rose early at Buddesby. Constance had been at her housewifely
duties since soon after six. Only Ellice had lain abed till the ringing
of the breakfast-bell.
“A letter from Helen,” Constance said.
“Helen? Oh, she’s got to Starden then?” said John.
“And wants us to come over, dear.”
“Of course! We’ll go over next week some time. I’m busy now with—”
“It wouldn’t be kind not to go at once.”
“Who is Helen?” demanded Ellice. She looked fierce-eyed at Connie and
then at John. “Who is she?” A tinge of colour came into her cheeks.
Connie saw it, and sighed a little. She knew this girl’s secret, knew
it only too well. Many an hour of anxiety and worry it had caused her.
“Helen is our aunt by marriage,” she said.
“Oh!” Ellice said, “I thought—”
John laughed. He had a jolly laugh, a great hearty laugh that did one
good to hear.
“What did you think she was, gipsy girl?” he asked, for “gipsy” was his
pet name for the little dark beauty.
“Did you think she was some young and lovely damsel who was eager to
meet me again?”
“I should hate her if she was!” the girl said, whereat John laughed
again.
“Write to Helen, Con,” he said as he rose from the table, “and say
we’ll come over to-morrow.” He paused, frowning, at thought. “I’ll
manage it somehow. I’ll drive you over in the trap. It would be useful
to have a car; I don’t know why I put off getting one.”
Constance did, and she smiled. “Wait till next year, dear.”
He nodded. “Yes, next year we’ll get one. Meanwhile write to Helen, and
tell her we’ll be over to-morrow afternoon.”
“And I?” Ellice asked.
John looked at her. “Why—no, child, you’ll stop at home and look after
the house, eh?” He nodded to them and went out.
“Is she there—alone?” Ellice asked.
“Who, dear?”
“This Helen, your aunt. Is it usual to call your aunt just plain
Helen?”
“No, I suppose it isn’t, and she is not there alone, as you ask. She is
living with a girl who has just come into a great deal of money—Miss
Joan Meredyth.”
“What is she like?” the girl asked quickly.
Constance smiled.
“I don’t know, dear. You see, I have never seen her.”
“Then I hope,” Ellice said between her clenched teeth, “I hope she is
ugly, ugly as sin!”
“I think,” said Constance gently, “that you are very silly and
foolish!”
Yet when the morrow came it was Ellice and not Constance who sat beside
John in the trap, and was driven by him the six odd miles to Starden.
For Constance had one of “her headaches.” It was no imaginary ailment,
but a headache that prostrated her and filled her with pain, that made
every sound an agony. She lay in her room, the blinds drawn, and all
the household hushed.
“I’ll write that we’ll go to-morrow, dear,” John said.
“No, go to-day. I should be glad, Johnny. Go to-day and take Ellice, I
am so much better alone; and by the time you come home perhaps I shall
have been able to sleep it off.”
So Johnny Everard drove Ellice over to Starden that afternoon.
Helen Everard received them in the drawing-room. She was fond of Johnny
Everard and his sister. This dark-faced girl she did not know, though
she had heard of her. And now she looked at her with interest. It was
an interesting face, such a face as one does not ordinarily see.
“One day, if she lives, she will be a beautiful woman,” Helen thought.
“To-day she is a gawky, passionate, ill-disciplined child; and I am
afraid, terribly afraid, she is very much in love with that great,
cheery, good-looking nephew of mine.”
“Come,” she said, “Joan is in the garden. I promised that when you came
I would take you to her. You have heard about her of course?” Helen
added to John.
“Only a little, that she is an heiress, and has come into Starden.”
“She was very poor, poor child, and I think she had a hard and bitter
time of it. Then the wheel of fortune took a turn. Her uncle died, and
left her Starden and a great deal of money. So here she is.”
Helen felt a hand grip her arm, and turned to look down into a thin
face, in which burned a pair of passionate eyes.
“Is she—pretty?” the girl asked.
“I think,” Helen said slowly, “that she is the most beautiful woman I
have ever seen.”
Unlike his usual self, John Everard was very silent and thoughtful as
he drove home later that evening. Helen had said that Joan Meredyth was
the most beautiful woman she had ever seen. He agreed with her
whole-heartedly. She had received him and Ellice kindly, yet without
much warmth, and now as he drove home in the light of the setting sun
Johnny Everard was thinking about this girl, going over all that had
happened, remembering every word almost that she had uttered.
“She is very beautiful, wonderfully beautiful,” he thought. And perhaps
he uttered his thoughts aloud, for the girl, as silent as himself, who
sat beside him, started and looked up into his face, and into the
passionate, rebellious heart of her there came a sudden wave of jealous
hatred.