"O THE RARE SPRING-TIME!"
Allan called at the Grove two days after the dance--called at the
friendly hour when there was a certainty of afternoon tea, if Mrs.
Mornington were at home; and when he thought it likely that Miss
Vincent would be with her aunt.
"She will almost live at the Grove," he thought, as he walked towards
that comfortable mansion, which was nearly a mile from Beechhurst.
"Marsh House is so near. There is a path across the meadows by which
she can walk in dry weather. A girl living alone with her father will
naturally turn to her aunt for companionship, will take counsel with
her upon all household affairs, and will run in and out every day."
It was a disappointment, after having made up his mind in this way, to
see no sign of Suzette's presence in the drawing-room at the Grove.
Mrs. Mornington was sitting in the verandah with her inevitable
work-basket, just as he had found her a fortnight before, when her
brother's advent at Marsh House and the dance at the Grove were still
in the future.
She received him with her accustomed cordiality, but she did not ask
him what he thought of her niece, though he was dying to be questioned.
An unwonted shyness prevented his beginning the subject. He sat meekly
sustaining a conversation about the parish, the wrongs and rights of
the last clerical squabble, till his patience could hold out no longer.
"I hope General Vincent likes Matcham," he said at last, not daring to
touch nearer to the subject which absorbed his thoughts.
"Oh yes, _he_ likes the place well enough. He has lived his life,
and can amuse himself with his poultry-yard, and will potter about
with the hounds now and then when the cub-hunting begins. But I don't
know how it will suit _her_."
"You think Miss Vincent would prefer a livelier place?"
"Of course she would prefer it. The question is, will she put up with
this? She has never lived in an English village, though she has lived
in out-of-the-way places in India; but, then, that was camp life,
adventure, the sort of thing a girl likes. Her father idolizes her,
and has taken her about everywhere with him since she left the Sacré
Cœur at fourteen years of age. She has lived at Plymouth, at York, at
Lucknow. She has had enough adulation to turn a wiser head than hers."
"And yet--so far as a man may venture to judge within the compass of
an hour--I don't think her head has been turned," said Allan, growing
bolder.
"That's as may be. She has a clever little way of seeming wiser
than she is. The nuns gave her that wise air, I think. They have
a wonderfully refining effect upon their pupils. Do you think her
good-looking?"
"Good-looking is an odious epithet to apply to such a girl. She is
exquisitely pretty."
"I'm glad you admire her. Yes, it is a dainty kind of prettiness, ain't
it? Exquisite is far too strong a word; but I think she is a little
superior to the common run of English girls."
"I hope she may be able to endure Matcham. After all, the country round
is tolerably interesting."
"Oh, I believe she will put up with it for her father's sake, if he is
happy here. Only no doubt she will miss the adulation."
"She must not be allowed to miss it. All the young men in the
neighbourhood will be her worshippers."
Mrs. Mornington shrugged her shoulders, pursed up her lips, and made a
long slashing cut in a breadth of substantial calico.
"The young men of the neighbourhood will hardly fill the gap," she
said. "Yourself excepted, there is not an idea among them--that is
to say, not an idea unconnected with sport. If a girl doesn't care
to talk about hunting, shooting, or golf, there is no such thing as
conversation for her in Matcham."
Before Allan could reply, the drawing-room door was thrown open, and
Mrs. Mornington rose to receive a visitor. Her seat in the verandah
commanded the drawing-room as well as the garden, and she was always on
the alert for arrivals. Allan rose as quickly, expecting to see Miss
Vincent.
"Mrs. Wornock," announced the butler, with a grand air, perfectly
cognizant of the lady's social importance.
To Allan the appearance of the lady of Discombe was as startling as if
she had lived at the other end of England. And yet Mrs. Mornington had
told him that she and Mrs. Wornock exchanged three or four visits in
the course of the year.
Mrs. Mornington greeted her guest with cordiality, and the two women
came out to the verandah together. They offered a striking contrast,
and, as types of the sex, were at the opposite poles of woman. One was
of the world, worldly, large, strongly built, loud-voiced, resolute,
commanding, a woman whose surplus power was accentuated by the petty
sphere in which she lived; the other was slender and youthful in
figure, with a marked fragility of frame, pale, ethereal, and with a
girlish shyness of manner, not wanting in mental power, perhaps, but
likely to be thought inferior, from the lack of self-possession and
self-esteem. All the social advantages which surrounded Mrs. Wornock of
Discombe had been insufficient to give her the self-confidence which
is commonly superabundant in the humblest matron who has passed her
thirtieth birthday.
She gave a little start of surprise at finding Allan in the verandah,
but the smile with which she offered him her hand was one of pleasure.
She took the seat which Mrs. Mornington offered her--the most
comfortable chair in the verandah--and then began to apologize for
having taken it.
"I'm afraid this is your chair----"
"No, no, no. Sit where you are, for goodness' sake!" cried Mrs.
Mornington. "I never indulge myself with an easy-chair till my day's
work is done. We are going to have our tea out here." The servants
were bringing table and tray as she talked. "I'm very glad you came
to see me this afternoon, for I dare say my niece will be running in
presently--my brother Robert's daughter--and I want you to call upon
her. I told you all about her the other day when I was at the Manor."
"Would she like me to call, do you think? Of course I will call, if you
wish it; but I hardly think she will care."
"I know that she will care," replied Mrs. Mornington, busy at the
tea-table. "She is not a great performer, but she is almost as
enthusiastic about music as you are. She is a Roman, and those old
Masses of which you are so fond mean more to her than they do to most
of us."
Allan's spirits had risen with the expectation of Miss Vincent's
appearance. He had been right in his conclusions, after all.
He resumed his seat, which was near enough to Mrs. Wornock's chair for
confidential talk.
"You have quite deserted me, Mr. Carew," she said, with gentle
reproachfulness. "I thought you would have been to see me before now."
"I did not want to seem intrusive."
"You could not seem or be intrusive. You are so much more to me than
a common friend. You remind me of the past--of my son. You would be
almost as another son to me if you would let me think of you like that.
If----"
She spoke quickly, almost passionately, and her low voice had a thrill
of feeling in it which touched him deeply. What a strange impulsive
creature this woman was, in spite of the timidity and reserve that
had kept her aloof from that rural society over which she might have
reigned as a queen.
Before Allan could reply to Mrs. Wornock's unfinished speech, there
came a welcome diversion in the shape of a large black poodle,
which rushed vehemently across the lawn, stood on end beside Mrs.
Mornington's gown for a moment or two, sniffed the tea-table, wheeled
round, and rushed off again in a diagonal line towards the point whence
he had come.
This sudden black appearance was followed by an appearance in lavender
cambric, and the tall, slim form of a very elegant young woman, whose
simple attire, as at the ball, bore the true Parisian stamp, that
indescribable air of unlikeness to British dress, which is rather a
negative than a positive quality.
The brilliant dark eyes flashed a smile upon Allan, as the young lady
allowed him to take her hand _à l'Anglaise_, after she had spoken
to her aunt and been introduced to Mrs. Wornock.
"Your poodle is a little too bad, Suzie. He nearly knocked me and the
tea-table clean over."
"That is one of the aunt's innocent exaggerations," said Suzette,
laughing. "If you know her as well as I do, Mrs. Wornock, you must
know that she always talks in a large way. Poor Caro. He is only a
puppy; and I think, for a puppy, his manners are perfect."
Caro was crouching at her feet, breathing hard, for the space of half
a minute as she spoke, and then he rushed off again, circling the lawn
three or four times, with spasmodic halts by his mistress, or by the
tea-table.
"He is rather a ridiculous dog at present," apologized Suzette, fondly
watching these manœuvres; "but he is going to be very clever. He has
begun to die for his queen, and he will do wonderful things when he
is older. I have been warned not to teach him too much while he is a
puppy, for fear of addling his brain."
"I don't believe he has any brain to be addled, or at least he must
have addled it for himself with that absurd rushing about," said Mrs.
Mornington, dealing out the tea-cups, which Allan meekly handed to the
two ladies.
He had been to so many afternoon tea-parties of late that he felt as if
handing cups and saucers and cream and sugar were a kind of speciality
with him. In Suffolk he had never troubled about these things. His time
had been taken up with shooting or fishing. He had allowed all social
amenities to be performed by his mother, unaided by him. At Matcham
he had become a new being, a person to be called upon and to return
calls, with all the punctiliousness of a popular curate. He wondered at
himself as he accomplished these novel duties.
Mrs. Wornock began to talk to Suzette, constrainedly at first, but the
girl's frank vivacity soon put her at her ease, and then Allan joined
in the conversation, and in a few minutes they were all three on the
friendliest terms, although the elder lady gradually dropped out of
the conversation, save for a word or two now and then when addressed
by the other two. She seemed content to sit by and listen while those
two talked, as much interested in them as they were interested in
each other. She was quick to perceive Allan's subjugation, quick to
understand that he was surrendering himself without a struggle to the
fascination of a girl who was not quite as other girls, who had nothing
hackneyed or conventional in person or manner.
After tea, they all went round the lawn, headed by Mrs. Mornington, to
look at her roses and carnations, flowers which were her peculiar pride
and care.
"If I had such a garden as yours--a day-dream in gardens--I don't
suppose I should take any trouble about a few beds of dwarf-roses and
picotees," she said to Mrs. Wornock; "but these flower-beds are all I
have to console me for the Philistinism of my surroundings."
"Oh, but you have a really fine shrubbery," urged Allan, remembering
that promenade of the other night among the lights and shadows, and
the perfume of dewy conifers. "That belt of deodara and arbutus and
rhododendrons, and this fine expanse of level lawn ought to satisfy any
lady's ambition."
"No doubt. This garden of mine always reminds me of the Church
catechism. It suggests that state of life to which it has pleased
God to call me--an eminently respectable, upper middle-class garden,
fifty years old at most; while the grounds at Discombe carry one back
three centuries, and one expects to meet fine gentlemen in ruffs and
doublets, with roses on their shoes, and talking like that book whose
name I forget, or abusing the new and detestable custom of smoking
tobacco. You will be in love with Mrs. Wornock's garden, Suzette, and
will give up all idea of improving the Marsh House flower-beds."
"No, I shan't give up, however much I may admire," protested Suzette,
sturdily. "If I had only a cottage garden, I would toil early and late
to make it beautiful."
"There is plenty of room at Marsh House," said Mrs. Wornock, "and the
garden is capable of improvement. When will you bring Miss Vincent to
see me and my peacocks, Mrs. Mornington? Pray let it be soon. Your
niece and I have at least one taste in common, and I think we ought
to be good friends. Will you come to luncheon to-morrow, you and Miss
Vincent, and you, Mr. Carew, if you are all disengaged?"
"For my part, I would throw over any engagement that was capable of
being evaded," said Mrs. Mornington, cheerily. And then in an undertone
to Allan, she added, "It will be a new sensation to eat a meal at the
Manor. This burst of hospitality is almost a miracle."
Allan accepted the invitation unhesitatingly, and began to think Mrs.
Wornock the most delightful of women, and to be angry with himself for
ever having suspected evil in her past history. Whatever was strange in
her conduct in relation to himself and to his father must be accounted
for in some way that would be consonant with guilelessness and goodness.
* * * * *
That luncheon at Discombe Manor was the beginning of a new phase
in Allan Carew's existence. All things must begin some day; and
love--serious and earnest love--is one of the things which have
their beginning, and whose beginning is sweeter than all the other
first-fruits of life. It is not to be supposed that Allan was
altogether a stranger to tender emotions, that he had come to five and
twenty years of age without ever having fancied himself in love. He
had had his boyish loves, and they had ended in disappointment. The
blighting wind of satiety had swept across his budding loves before
they had time to flower. All those youthful goddesses of his had shown
him too soon and too plainly that there was very little of Olympian
grandeur about them. As an only son with good prospects, he had been
rudely awakened to the cruel truth that the average young lady has a
sharp eye to the main chance, and that he, Allan Carew, was measured
by his expectations rather than by his merits. Very early in his youth
he made up his mind that he would never let his heart go out to any
woman who contemplated marriage from a business standpoint; and he
had been keenly on the watch for the canker of worldliness among
the flowers. Unluckily for his chances of matrimony, the prettiest
girls he had met hitherto had been the most worldly; trained perhaps
to worldliness on account of their marketable qualities. Much as he
admired high-mindedness in woman, he was not high-minded enough to seek
out virtue under an unattractive exterior; so he had almost made up his
mind to follow his uncle's example, and go through life a bachelor.
As a bachelor he might count himself rich, and for a bachelor
Beechhurst was an admirable dwelling-place. The house had been built
for a bachelor. The rooms were spacious but few. Twice as many
bedrooms, best and secondary, would be required for a family man.
Thinking vaguely of the possibility of marriage, Allan had shuddered
as he thought of an architect exploring that delightful upper floor,
measuring walls, and tapping partitions, and discussing the best point
at which to throw out a nursery wing, and where to add three or four
servants' bedrooms.
And behold now this prudent, far-seeing young man, whose philosophy
hitherto had been the philosophy of pure selfishness, was allowing
himself to fall in love with a young lady who, for all he could tell,
might be just as mercenary and worldly-minded as the girls he had met
in Suffolk shooting-parties or in London ball-rooms. He had no reason
to suppose her any better than they. Her father was a man of moderate
means, and according to all the rules of modern life, it would be her
duty to make a good marriage. He remembered how Mrs. Mornington had
ordered her niece to save a dance for him, and he might conclude from
that and other small facts that the aunt would favour him as a suitor
for the niece. Yet the idea of worldly-mindedness never entered his
thoughts in relation to Suzette. He abandoned himself to the charm
of her delightful individuality without the faintest apprehension of
future disillusion. He thought, indeed, but little of the future.
The joys of the present were all-sufficing. To talk with her in
unrestrained frivolity, glancing from theme to theme, but always with a
grain of sentiment or philosophy in their talk; to walk beside her in
those stately alleys at Discombe, or to linger in the marble temple;
to follow the peacocks along the grass walks; to look for the nests
of the thrushes and blackbirds in the thick walls of laurel; to plan
garden-plays--Twelfth Night, Midsummer Night's Dream--in that grassy
amphitheatre, which reminded Allan of the Boboli Gardens--these things
made a happiness that filled mind and heart to the exclusion of all
thought of the future.
"I can understand the lilies better now than when I was first told to
consider them," said Allan one day, as he stood with Suzette beside a
great bed of lilium auratum.
"How do you mean?"
"Because I am as happy as they are, and take no more heed of the future
than they do. I feel as they feel when they sway in the summer wind and
bask in the summer sun, fed with the dews of night, having all things
that are good for flowers, satisfied and happy."
"You are as foolish as I am. I can't help fancying sometimes that
flowers are alive and can feel the sun and the glory of the blue sky.
To be always looking up at the sky, dumb, lifeless, not knowing! One
would hardly care for flowers if one could realize that they have
neither sense nor feeling. Yet I suppose one does realize that cruel
fact sometimes. I know when I have been looking at the roses, and
delighting in their beauty, Caro meets me as I go back to the house,
and as he leaps and frisks about me, the difference between him and the
flowers strikes me very keenly. They so beautiful and so far off, he so
near and dear--the precious living thing!"
"Ah, that is the crown of things, Miss Vincent--life! Dead loveliness
is nothing in comparison!"
"No," said Suzette. "And what a blessing that life is beautiful in
itself. One can love ugly people; one may adore an ugly dog; but who
ever cared for an ugly chair, or could become attached to an ugly
house?"
"Not knowingly; but I have known people fondly attached to the
most hideously furnished rooms. And oh, how humiliating it is for
middle-aged people like my mother to be obliged to admit that the
things we think hideous were accounted beautiful when they were young!"
This easy, trivial talk was the growth of more than one luncheon, and
a good many tea-drinkings, in the music-room or in the gardens of
Discombe. Mrs. Wornock had opened her heart and her house to Suzette as
she had never before done to any young lady in the neighbourhood, and
Suzette warmly reciprocated the kindness of the recluse. She ran in at
the Manor House almost as unceremoniously as she ran in at the Grove.
It was understood by the servants that their mistress was always at
home to Miss Vincent. And as Allan had previously been made free of the
Manor House, it was only natural that he and Suzette should meet very
often under Mrs. Wornock's mild chaperonage.
Mrs. Mornington knew of these meetings, and, indeed, often dropped in
while the young people were there, coming to take Suzette home in her
pony-carriage, or to walk with her through the lanes. She showed no
sign of disapproval; yet, as a woman of the world, it may have occurred
to her that, since Mrs. Wornock was so fond of Suzette, it might be
wise for Suzette to refrain from attaching herself to Allan Carew,
while a superior _parti_ remained in the background in the person
of Mrs. Wornock's only son.
Happily for Allan, Mrs. Mornington, although essentially mundane, was
not a schemer. She had made up her mind that Allan was a good deal
better than the average young man, and that Beechhurst was quite good
enough for her niece, whose present means and expectations were of a
very modest order. There had been no mock humility in Mrs. Mornington's
statement of facts when she told Allan that her brother's income, from
all sources, was just big enough to enable him to live respectably at
Marsh House.
* * * * *
The foliage was beginning to show gleams of gold and red amidst the
sombre green of late summer; the hounds were beginning to meet at seven
o'clock in the crisper, clearer mornings of September; and Allan Carew
was beginning to feel himself the bond-slave of a young lady about
whose sentiments towards himself he was still entirely in the dark.
Did she care for him much, a little, not at all? Allan Carew was
continually asking himself those questions, and there was no oracle to
answer him; no oracle even in his inner consciousness, which told him
nothing of Suzette's feelings. He knew that he loved her; but he could
recall no word or look of hers which could assure him that she returned
his love. It was certain that she liked him, and that his society was
pleasant to her.
They had an infinite series of ideas in common--they thought alike upon
most subjects; and she seemed no more to weary of his society than
he of hers--yet there were times when he thought he might have been
nearer winning her love had she liked him less. Her friendship seemed
too frank ever to ripen into love. He would have liked to see her start
and blush at his coming. She did neither; but received him with her
airiest grace, and had always her laughter ready for his poor jokes,
her intellect on the alert for his serious speech about books or men.
She was the most delightful companion he had ever known; but a sister
could not have been more at her ease with him.
"I sometimes think you take me for one of your old convent friends," he
said one day, when she had prattled to him of her housekeeping and her
garden as they walked up and down the long grass alley, while the music
of the organ came to them, now loud with the lessening distance, now
sinking slowly to silence as they walked further from the house.
"Oh no; I should never take you for any one so patrician and
distinguished as Laure de Beauvais, or Athenaïs de Laroche," she
answered laughingly, "I should never dare to talk to them about eggs
and butter, the obstinacy of a cook at twenty-five pounds a year, the
ignorance of a gardener who is little better than a day labourer. But
perhaps I am wrong to talk to you of these everyday cares. I will try
to talk as I would to Athenaïs. I will dispute the merit of Lamartine's
Elegy on Byron as compared with Hugo's Ode to the King of Rome. I was
for Hugo; Athenaïs for Lamartine. We used to have terrible battles. And
now Athenaïs is married to a financier, and has a palace in the Parc
Monceau, and gives balls to all Paris; and I am living with father in a
shabby old house with three maids and a man-of-all-work."
"Talk to me as you like," he said; "talk to me as your serf, your
slave."
And then, without a moment's pause in which to arrange his thoughts,
surprised into a revelation which he had intended indefinitely to
defer, he told her that he was in very truth her slave, and that he
must be the most miserable of men if this avowal of his love touched
no answering chord in her heart.
She who was habitually so gay grew suddenly grave almost to sadness,
and looked at him with an expression which was half-frightened,
half-reproachful.
"Oh, why do you talk like this?" she cried. "We have been such
friends--so happy."
"Shall we be less friendly or less happy when we are lovers?"
That word "when" touched her keen sense of the ridiculous.
"When we are lovers!" she echoed, smiling at him. "You take everything
for granted."
"I have no alternative between confidence and despair."
"Really, really, now? Am I really necessary to your happiness?"
"You are my happiness. I come here, or I go to the Grove, and find you,
and I am happy. When I go away, I leave happiness behind me, except
the reflected light of memory; except the dreams in which your image
floats about me, in which I hear your voice, the sweet voice that is
kinder in my dreams than it ever is in my waking hours."
"Surely I am never unkind."
"No; but in my dreams you are more than kind--you are my own and my
love. You are what I hope you will be soon, Suzette--soon! Life's
morning is so short. Let us spend it together."
They were in the temple at the end of the cypress walk, and in that
semi-sacred solitude his arm had stolen round her waist, his lips were
seeking hers, gently, yet with a force which it needed all her strength
to oppose.
"No; no; you must not. I can promise nothing yet. I have had no time to
think."
"No time! Oh, Suzette, you must have known for the last six weeks that
I adore you."
"I am not vain enough to imagine myself adored. I think I knew that you
liked me--almost from the first----"
"Liked and admired you from the very first," interrupted Allan.
"My aunt said things--hinted and laughed, and was altogether absurd;
but one's kinsfolk are so vain."
"Yes, when they have a goddess born among them."
"Oh, please don't be too ridiculous. You know that I like you; but, as
for loving, I must have a long, long time to think about _that_."
"You shall think as long as you like; so long as you do not withdraw
your friendship. I cannot live without you."
"Why should I cease to be your friend? Only promise that you will never
again talk, or behave, as foolishly as you have done this afternoon."
"I promise, solemnly promise; until you give me leave to be foolish,"
he added, with a touch of tenderness.
He felt that he had been precipitate; that he might, by this temerity,
have brought upon himself banishment from the Eden in which he was
so happy. He had been over bold in thinking that the time which had
sufficed for the growth of passionate love on his part was enough to
make this charming girl as fond of him as he was of her. He was ashamed
of his presumption. The degrees of their merit were so different; she a
being whom to know was to love; he a very commonplace young man.
Suzette was quite as easy in her manner with him after that little
outbreak as she had been before. He had promised not to renew the
attack, and in her simple truthfulness she believed all promises sacred
between well-bred people.
Mrs. Mornington dropped in at teatime, ready to drive her niece home.
It was a common thing now for Suzette to spend the whole day at
Discombe, playing classical duets with Mrs. Wornock, or sitting quietly
by her side reading or musing while she played the organ. The girl's
religious feeling gave significance to that noble music of the old
German and Italian masses which to other hearers were only music. The
acquaintance between the elder woman and the younger had ripened by
this time into a friendship which was not without affection.
"Mrs. Wornock is my second aunt, and Discombe is my second home," said
Suzette, explaining the frequency of her visits.
"And the Grove, does not that count as home?" asked Mrs. Mornington,
with an offended air.
"It is so much my home that I don't count it at all. It is more like
home than Marsh House, both for father and for me."
Later, when the pony-carriage was taking aunt and niece along the road
to Matcham, Suzette said suddenly, after a silence--
"Auntie, would it be a shock to your nerves if I were to tell you
something that happened to-day."
"My nerves are very strong, Suzie. What kind of thing was it? and did
it concern Mr. Carew _par exemple_?"
"How clever you are at guessing! Yes, it was Mr. Carew. He proposed to
me."
"And of course you accepted him."
"Of course! Oh, auntie! what do you think I am made of? I have only
known him about two months."
"What of that? If you had been brought up in the French fashion--and a
very sensible fashion it is, to my thinking--you would have only seen
him two or three times before you marched up to the altar with him.
Surely you did not reject him?"
"I may not have said positively no; but I told him that it was much
too soon--that I could not possibly love him after such a short
acquaintance, and that, if we were to go on being friends, he must
never speak of such a thing again."
"Never!"
"I think the word was never--or, at any rate, for a long, long time.
And he promised."
"He will keep his promise, no doubt. Well, Suzette, all I can say is
that you must be very difficult to please. I don't believe there is
another girl in Matcham who would have refused Allan Carew."
"What, are all the young ladies in Matcham so much alike that the same
young man would suit them all? Have they no individuality?"
"They have individuality enough to know a good young man, with an
excellent position in life, when they see one. I believe your father
will be as disappointed as I am."
"Disappointed? Because I am not in a hurry to leave him. I don't know
my father, if he is capable of such unkindness."
"Suzette, that little mind of yours is full to the brim of high-flown
notions," retorted her aunt, impatiently.
"Dear auntie, surely you are not angry?"
"Yes, Suzie, I am angry, because I have a very high opinion of Allan
Carew. I consider him a pearl among young men."
"Really, aunt! And if he were a poor curate, or a barrister
without--what do you call them--briefs? Yes, briefs! Would he be a
pearl then?"
"He would be just as good a young man, but not a husband for you.
Don't expect romantic ideas from me, Suzette. If I ever was romantic,
it was so many years ago that I have quite forgotten the sensation."
"And you cannot conjure back your youth in order to understand me,"
said her niece, musingly. "You are not like Mrs. Wornock, whose mind
seems always dwelling upon the past."
"Has she talked to you of her youth?" Mrs. Mornington asked quickly.
"Not directly; but she has talked vaguely sometimes of feelings
long dead and gone--of the dead whom she loved--her father whom she
lost when she was seventeen, and whose spirit--as she thinks--holds
communion with her in her solitary daydreams at the organ. He was a
musician, like herself, passionately fond of music."
"I hope you will not take up any of Mrs. Wornock's fads."
"Not unless you call music a fad."
"No, no, music is well enough, and I like you to practise and improve
your playing. But I hope you will never allow yourself to believe in
poor Mrs. Wornock's nonsense about spirit-rapping, and communion with
the dead. You must see that the poor woman is _toquée_."
"I see that she is dreamy; and I am not carried away by her dreams.
I think her the most interesting woman I ever met. Don't be jealous,
auntie darling, I should never be as fond of her as I am of you."
"I hope not!"
"Only I can't help being interested in her. She is _simpatica_."
"'Simpatica!' I hate the word. I never heard any one talked of as
simpatica who hadn't a bee in her bonnet. I really don't know if your
father ought to allow you to be so much at the Manor."
"I am going to take him to see Mrs. Wornock to-morrow afternoon. I know
he will be in love with her."
"It would be a very good thing if he were to marry her, and make a
sensible woman of her."
"Mrs. Wornock with a second husband! The idea is hateful. She would
cease to interest me, if she were so commonplace as to marry. I prefer
her infinitely with what you call her fads."
"'Crabbed age and youth cannot live together,'" said Mrs. Mornington,
quoting one of the few poets with whom she had any acquaintance.
"You and I would never think alike, I suppose, young woman. And so
you refused Mr. Carew, and told him never to talk to you of love or
wedlock, and you refused Beechhurst, yonder," pointing with her whip
across the heath to where the white walls of Allan Carew's house smiled
in the afternoon sunlight. "I know what your uncle Mornington will say
when I tell him what a little fool you have been."
"Auntie, why is it you want me to marry, Mr. Carew?" Suzette asked
pleadingly. "Is it because he is rich? Is it for the sake of
Beechhurst?"
"No, Miss Minx, it is because I believe him to be a good young man--a
gentleman--and as true as steel."
Suzette gave a little sigh, and for a minute or so was dumb.
"Do you know why I have always been glad that my father is an
Englishman?" she asked presently.
"Why, because he is an Englishman, I suppose. I should think any girl
would be English if she could."
"No, auntie, I am not so proud of my father's country as all that. I
have been glad of my English father because I knew that English girls
are allowed to make their own choice in marriage."
"And a very pretty use you are going to make of your privileges,
refusing the best young man in the neighbourhood. If you were my
daughter, I should be half inclined to send for one of those whipping
ladies we read about, and have you brought to your senses that way."
"No, you wouldn't, auntie. You wouldn't be unkind to daughter or to
niece."
"Well, you have your father to account to. What will he say, I wonder?"
"Only that his Suzie is to do just as she likes. Do you know that I
refused a subaltern up at the Hills, a young man with an enormous
fortune whom ever so many girls were trying to catch--girls and widows
too--he might have had a large choice."
"And what did my brother say to that?"
"He only laughed, and told me that I knew my own value."
Mrs. Mornington was thoughtful for the rest of the way. Perhaps, after
all, it was a good thing for a girl to be difficult to please. A
girl as bright and as pretty as Suzette could afford to give herself
airs. Allan would be sure to propose to her again; and then there was
Geoffrey Wornock, who was expected home before Christmas. Who could
tell if Geoffrey might not be as deeply smitten with this charming
hybrid as Allan? and Discombe was to Beechhurst as sunlight unto
moonlight, in extensiveness and value.
"And yet I would rather she should marry Carew," mused Mrs. Mornington.
"I should be afraid of young Wornock."