Kitabı oku: «The Laurel Walk», sayfa 14
“Did it look to you then like a human being?” he inquired. “To me it was almost too small for that, though it certainly seemed as if it were walking slowly along; not with any jerky movement, such as the reflection of a lamp being carried about, upstairs perhaps, might have thrown out into the darkness.”
Frances shook her head.
“No lamp could have produced the effect we saw,” she said. “I just can’t account for it by natural causes, though I am really not given to superstitious fancies.”
Mr Morion was silent, but still his gaze, as well as that of his companion, was fixed on the Laurel Walk, now almost dark. Suddenly the gate gave a little click, though no one was touching it. Both started, both gave a little laugh, and at that moment a gust of cold air, though till then the evening had been very still, if chilly, passed them with a sort of sobbing sigh, a sound that seemed to be wafted along the straight gloomy path in their direction. Involuntarily, Frances gave a little shiver, and she felt rather than saw that her sensation was not unshared by her companion.
He glanced at her.
“Odd,” he said abruptly, “that breath of cold air, I mean, when all is so quiet to-night. It is a creepy spot, and not improbably the creepiness has localised the legend.”
“If it is only a legend,” said Frances. “After all, one is driven back upon one’s ignorance in such matters.”
“The ‘more things in heaven and earth’ you are thinking of, I am sure,” said he. “No one has ever said it better, and no one ever will. But we must not stand here any longer, ghost or no ghost, unless you are really to get thoroughly chilled.” And they both turned back on to the road, Mr Morion accompanying her to her own gate.
“Some time or other,” he said, as he shook hands, “I should like to hear more of our ghost story and its origin. I even doubt if I have been fully or correctly informed of the facts which started it originally.”
“Fully informed you could not be,” was the reply, “for no one knows the whole facts of the case, and I am pretty sure no one ever will. And even as to what we do know, I should not, to speak quite frankly, wish to be the one to tell you more! Very likely,” after a moment’s pause, “you know as much as we.”
With these words she passed through the gate which he was holding open for her, though a friendly little nod of farewell took away any possible savour of animosity from her words.
Ryder Morion went slowly home, this time by the lower path leading through the new open part of the park.
Chapter Eighteen
“Elise.”
That evening, that still chilly evening, was always in Frances’ mind, when she recalled the winter of the Littlewoods’ sojourn at Craig-Morion, associated with the eve of the real spring. For the next morning came one of those bursts of warmth and sunshine which go far to make amends for the trying side of our capricious climate.
And this year there was no harking back upon the winter. It said “good-bye” and went, closing the door behind it like a well-trained servant. The month of March for once was true to its proverbial character, while its often coquettish successor, April, proved, even up in the north, so altogether charming that the visitors to the big house were constantly tempted into expressions of regret that its close must see their departure for the south.
“I had no idea,” said Madeleine one day, when she and her Fir Cottage friends were primrose and cowslip gathering as busily as if they were still children, “that I should have been so sorry to leave this place, though I think I had premonitions of great enjoyment here.”
“I am so glad,” was the reply from Frances, “so very glad that you liked being here.”
“It has been more than half,” Madeleine rejoined – “three-quarters, seven-eighths, if you like – owing to all of you, as you must know.”
“Well, only think, then,” said Eira, “what your being here has been to us! But don’t talk as if it was all at an end already! We have three weeks at least of this lovely weather, for I am determined to believe in its lasting till you go.”
“I hope it will,” said Madeleine, “for more reasons than one. I waited to tell you and Betty about some news we have had.”
Betty, who was near her, glanced up quickly. Betty was looking tired and pale, notwithstanding the sunshine and the warmth. “Perhaps, indeed, because of them,” said her mother; “early springs are often trying to sensitive people.”
“Oh! I hope it is not that your brother is going away,” said Eira. “He’s so nice about planning expeditions! And now that the spring is here, there really are some you should make in the neighbourhood. There are ruins and things we have scarcely even seen ourselves. It would be nice to have a brother,” with a little sigh.
“If we had had one,” said Betty, “he could not have stayed at home. He would have most probably been away in India or the colonies, or some terrible place! A brother’s no good if you are poor.”
“And as for having one always with you,” said Madeleine, “that is not to be counted on, whatever other circumstances are. I am not speaking about Horace’s present plans, though, for I hope when he comes back,” – he had not yet returned from a short absence in town, whither he had accompanied Mr Ryder Morion – “that it will be to stay nearly as long as we do. No, my news is not about him, and perhaps it is rather horrid of me not to feel more pleased about it. It is only that the Conrads are coming down upon us,” with a half-rueful smile. “Next week they come, for ten days or so; it is sure to get into a fortnight, and I feel as if it would be a finish up of this comfortable, self-arranging life that I have so enjoyed!”
“Will your sister-in-law expect you to be so much with her then?” asked Frances.
“N-no,” said Madeleine, “not exactly that. Mamma and she suit each other perfectly, and require no third person – are much better without one, indeed. But – oh, really,” with a change of tone, “I cannot explain it without seeming a little unkind, so, if I do seem so, promise to forget that part of it, for I do want you to understand about my sister-in-law. She is, so to say, a typical person, one of the best of her class, quite good and high principled, and with a strong sense of her responsibilities, and all that side of things. But yet she and I are not and never could be great friends, though, on the other hand, I am equally sure that we should never quarrel. Now with her brother, Ryder, I very often – no, I can’t say quarrel, it’s too strong an expression – but we very often openly disagree and argue it out, and yet I feel that we have more in common than Elise and I ever could have.”
Her three companions listened with great interest, Frances and Betty especially.
“I think I do understand,” said the former, “and I am sure I shall do so still better when I have seen her. But you know, Madeleine, you don’t perhaps take sufficiently into account that you yourself are not a typical person, by any means!”
“Am I not?” said Madeleine, laughing. “In what way?”
“There are very few,” said Frances gravely, “who would have remained so unspoilt, unself-engrossed as you, in the same circumstances.”
This was strong commendation, above all from such a person as Frances, whom no one could have suspected for an instant of flattery, and who yet loved to be able to admire. And whenever she had a fit occasion to express her admiration and appreciation, few things pleased her more than doing so, and few people could have done so more gratifyingly.
For such power of expression is not a common gift. Nothing is easier than to criticise with even a certain cleverness, on which its possessors will always be found to pride themselves most unduly; but to “admire,” to discern “the admirable,” of which few human beings are entirely devoid, one must indeed have risen to a far higher plane, both morally and intellectually. Nay, indeed, might not one almost add “spiritually?” And a curious anomaly is to be observed as regards this subject. One often hears the excuse – “I am not effusive – it does not come naturally to me to praise people. I have a horror of flattery” – yet this same reticence, this same powerlessness of expression disappears in a really remarkable and all but magical way when a disagreeable or hurting remark, personal or otherwise, suggests itself.
Madeleine’s pleasant brown eyes sparkled with gratification.
“I do like you to say so,” she said, “for I know you mean it, little as I feel I deserve it. Don’t you think,” she continued, “that real praise always makes one feel very humble?”
“Yes,” said Frances, with a smile, “your thinking so much of mine has that effect on me at this moment.”
“Please leave off paying each other compliments,” said Eira, “I want to hear some more about Mrs Conrad Littlewood. Is she always called ‘Elise?’ her real name is Elizabeth, I know. I don’t think Elise suits a very stately, ‘grande dame’ sort of person!”
“She isn’t that,” said Madeleine, “she is really very nice – what a stupid expression! – it is just, I suppose, that she has always lived in a certain way, and not come really into contact with the other half of the world, though she believes herself to be very wide-minded, and is benevolent. I often think if she hadn’t married my brother, though he is a good fellow too, she would have been different – really wider in her outlook.”
She smiled to herself as she spoke.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Frances.
“I was only picturing to myself,” was the reply, “how differently you and she would go about the same sort of thing, even with equally good intentions. I was thinking, down at the harbour, how you forget yourself and your own standpoint almost, for the time, in your sympathy with the people! That is how you gain their confidence. Whereas Elise, with the best will in the world, however kindly she spoke, would remain an outsider. She would come away saying one must never expect gratitude, and be very good to them all the same, and very pleased with herself for not being repelled by their peculiar offhand manners and want of deference.”
“Well,” said Betty, speaking for the first time. “I must say I should have some fellow-feeling with my namesake as regards your pet fisher-folk. They are unusually queer, you must allow; in fact, they seem to me half-savages, wherever they came from.”
“Your bark is worse than your bite, Betty,” said Eira. “I saw you hugging, yes, really hugging, one of those little black-eyed imps down there one day, one of the rare days we persuaded you to go with us. And he clung on to you like a limpet!”
“Oh,” said Betty coolly, “that was because he was like a little Murillo! and his mother looked quite fierce.”
“Nonsense,” said Frances. “She was intensely gratified and horribly shy. If our poor friends can be so misunderstood, Madeleine, I think on the whole we had better not suggest Mrs Conrad Littlewood’s visiting them. Is it next week she and your brother are coming?”
“Yes,” Madeleine replied. “We must make the best of our time till then.”
And she and Frances went on talking together on the subject which their conversation had drifted into – “that everlasting Scaling Harbour,” as naughty Betty called it.
“I hope,” said Eira, when Madeleine had left them and they were turning in at their own gate, “I hope Horace Littlewood will come back a few days before those other people come up – just for us to have a sort of Saint Martin’s Summer of what this winter has been. For I feel convinced that once they are here it will be the real good-bye to it all.”
“Or,” thought Frances in her secret heart, “the real beginning;” but aloud she said nothing, though she endorsed Eira’s hopes as regarded Horace’s return. Somehow – how was it, she asked herself, that she felt more drawn to him, more nearly sure of her own capacity for responding to the devotion which, from her first suspicion of its existence, had profoundly touched and gratified her, in his absence than when actually with him? Was it always so, she wondered, or was she in any way, thanks to her delayed experience in such things, exceptional? If only there were any one, any woman, she could quite entirely confide in! If her mother had been what – in fiction at least – some mothers are to their daughters – closer, in fuller sympathy, more able, as it were, to recall her own youth and the perplexities, hopes, and fears which doubtless had their place in it – how gladly would Frances have confided in her! But as things were, this would have been useless, nay, more than useless, impossible.
“I know,” she thought, “how good and unselfish mamma is. Never was there a better wife, but I have read somewhere that every woman is more wife than mother, or vice versa. I think the former must be the case with mamma, and in one way I should be glad of it, for I think it has given more object and motive to my own life, in the trying to be a real elder sister to the others.”
Eira’s hopes as to what she had spoken of as a “Saint Martin’s Summer,” in connection with the pleasant experiences of the last two or three months, were not destined to be fulfilled.
For the expected guests at Craig-Morion arrived there some days before Horace Littlewood’s own return.
A day or two afterwards Lady Emma called, but found no one at home, somewhat to the disappointment of her daughters, whose curiosity concerning Mrs Littlewood the younger had been naturally aroused by Madeleine’s description of her. All the more welcome, therefore, was Madeleine’s own appearance at Fir Cottage about five o’clock the following afternoon.
“I thought I was never going to get here again, and that the end of everything had come,” she exclaimed, as she threw herself into the most luxurious of the wicker chairs, the pride of the sisters’ little sitting-room, which Eira drew forward for her eagerly, as soon as her bright face was perceived at the door.
By good luck, as some special formalities in the shape of curtains changing or something of the kind were taking place in the drawing-room, a pleasant fire was burning in the little grate, for however bright and sunny spring days may be, it is rarely the case that their close is not chilly. And Lady Emma was herself spending the afternoon with her husband in the study.
“How cosy it is in here!” Madeleine went on. “I just managed to escape before I was caught for tea. When Elise is there I really don’t see that it does her any harm for her to act daughter of the house – every one knows that mamma and she are devoted to each other.”
“Then you have not had tea?” said Frances quickly, “nor, for a wonder, have we. Eira – ” but Eira had already disappeared, returning in an incredibly short time, followed by the parlour-maid and a welcome little clatter of tea-cups, for Madeleine’s attractiveness had not stopped short at winning the younger members of the household – Mr Morion appreciating her quick intelligence, and Lady Emma often declaring that Miss Littlewood’s manners reminded her of the days of her own maidenhood, when the young knew what it was to pay some deference and attention to their elders – thanks to which fortunate circumstances, “tea in our own room” had been more readily conceded than would otherwise have been the case.
Frances glanced at their guest with a little smile, though she waited to speak till the servant had closed the door behind her.
“You are not quite,” she said, “in your usual spirits, Madeleine.”
“No,” was the honest reply. “Somehow Elise seems to rub me the wrong way this time more than usual, and it makes me blame myself, for I know she means to be nice, and she is really interested in the old place and all about it, as she should be, of course.”
She did not allude to, or even hint at, her sister-in-law’s “tone,” when “those other Morions,” as she called them, had been spoken of, though this had, in point of fact, been the chief cause in her own mind of the annoyance she had experienced – annoyance the more difficult to pass over philosophically as it had to be borne in silence, past experience having well taught her that any expressed disagreement with Elise, on her part, was sure to do more harm than good.
“And for Horace’s sake,” she said to herself, “I must be as wise as possible. Perhaps when she sees them for herself, if I don’t set up her opposition, she will be won over, to some extent at least.”
“Poor Madeleine!” said Frances sympathisingly, “yes, I agree with you. I think that sort of thing is more trying than – almost than a quarrel, an honest quarrel, between friends even, which often puts things right again.”
“Oh, far, far more,” said Madeleine, yet in spite of the emphasis she spoke absently. “I must not forget,” she began again after a little pause, “that I have a message from mamma. If I don’t see Lady Emma, will some of you undertake to deliver it conscientiously? It is to ask you all to tea to-morrow, to meet Elise of course. I think that your father and mother are going to be asked more formally to dine next week, but of course I had no message about that.”
“I doubt if they will be able to go,” said Frances, “for papa is anticipating a touch of bronchitis, having already got a cold,” and she could not repress a tiny smile.
“I doubt,” said Eira, “very seriously indeed, my dear Madeleine, if the youngest Miss Morion will be able to join you to-morrow afternoon!”
“Why not?” exclaimed Frances; “oh, you must come, Eira,” for Eira’s comfortable absence of self-consciousness had often been a relief in the somewhat strained position brought about greatly by Mrs Littlewood’s undoubted prejudice against Frances, of late even more marked than heretofore.
“Oh,” replied Eira airily, “because I should be terrified out of my wits by your respected sister-in-law. And as I’ve two elder sisters, I don’t see that I need sacrifice myself.”
“Don’t talk nonsense,” said Madeleine. “You know you are never really shy or frightened. You are quite different from little Betty here.”
Eira reared her head.
“Perhaps that is true,” she said, “but I have feelings, all the same, Madeleine. If there is one thing in the world that I hate, it is being criticised.”
“You don’t suppose anyone likes it,” said Betty, “and I don’t quite see why you, the youngest of us all, should imagine that you will come in for much of it. It’s rather conceited of you!”
Eira’s colour rose.
“You might credit me with disliking the idea of it for us all,” she said. “You really are getting into the way of saying such disagreeable things, Betty.”
Before Betty had time to reply, perhaps fortunately so, Frances interrupted the discussion.
“My dear Eira,” she said, “it is all very well to treat Madeleine to the privileges of intimate friend in the shape of small family jars, but I really think you are overdoing it a little.”
“Yes,” agreed Madeleine, though the kindly laugh which accompanied her words took from them any possible sting. “You will end by making me the self-conscious one if you don’t take care. I shall feel as if I had been dreadfully disloyal to poor Elise if I have made you feel so about her! She is not unkind, and she does not mean to be censorious. It is only – I wish I could make you understand – that she has got an orthodox little conventional standard of her own that she tries to fit every one into, and if they won’t go in, why then – ”
“A kind of bed of oh! what was the man’s name? It begins with P – Pro – ” said Eira.
“Procrustes,” said Frances, with a smile; and Madeleine laughed. Only Betty remained grave.
“The results are not quite so terrible in Elise’s case,” said her sister-in-law. “You really need not be afraid of her. But I am rather afraid of my own sensations to-morrow! If the poor thing looks at you, or makes the mildest remark, you will suspect something personal! You, at least, Eira, will do so, and then you will get onto your high horse at once!”
“No, no,” said Frances, “she will not be so foolish. Mounting one’s high horse is a very lowering proceeding.”
“Yes,” said Eira, “I think I agree with you – on consideration. And if I come, Madeleine, please forget all the silly things I have said. Candidly speaking, I think my chief feeling about your sister-in-law is curiosity. I liked Mr Ryder Morion, and it is interesting to fit in what you have said of her with a certain amount of resemblance to him – her brother.”
But Eira’s curiosity was not destined to be directly gratified as soon as she expected. For Lady Emma, on receiving the invitation, decided that it was far better not to accept it too literally as regarded the “all of you,” and it was accompanied by her two elder daughters only that she set forth, the following afternoon, on the visit to the Craig-Morion of much more formality than the recent almost familiar intercourse which even the elders of the two households had half-unconsciously drifted into.
Nor was this feeling modified by the reception which awaited them. Conrad Littlewood’s wife was nothing if not ceremonious. She prided herself, and that somewhat unduly – for she was a less clever woman intellectually than she believed – on her infallible discrimination as to shades of position, and still more of character as affecting such position. There were people decidedly beneath her to whom she considered it quite “safe” and even expedient to unbend to the point of making herself charming, in the superficial sense of the word. There were others, again, whom even she recognised as superiors in every sense of the word, whom she would on no account have condescended to appear to court. To-day she was in a not unpleasing state of expectancy as regarded these hitherto unknown relations. Kinship to a certain point she recognised as establishing its own distinct claims; beyond this, “I must wait till I see them,” she said to herself, for she did not pin her faith by any means to her mother-in-law’s dicta on such points, and in the present instance still less than usual.
“For, after all, they are my own blood-relations,” she thought, “and it is only through us that they are anything to Mrs Littlewood, or that she has had anything to do with them. And she does take up prejudices. I can see that she dislikes the eldest daughter.” And in this, as we know, Elise was not mistaken, for as regarded Frances the dowager lady had allowed her own keen and true perceptions to be unfairly clouded.
The visitors were ushered into the large drawing-room, hitherto but rarely occupied during the daytime. There was also an atmosphere of things being to a greater extent en grand tenue than had been usual; and the very look of Mrs Conrad’s tall figure, robed in unexceptionable, somewhat severe attire, as she rose and stood aside for a moment till the first greetings had been exchanged, effectually destroyed the old association of pleasurable intimacy.
Lady Emma, as was always the case when she chose to give herself a little trouble, was fully equal to the occasion. She held out her hand with the amiable but slightly indifferent air of an elder to a much younger woman, in whom nevertheless she feels in duty bound to show some special interest.
“I am pleased to meet you,” she said. “I hope you are pleasantly impressed by this place?”
Mrs Conrad was somewhat taken aback.
She covered this at once by turning to the two girls.
“Your daughters, I suppose?” she said, more stiffly than she had intended to speak, for the first glimpse of Frances’ graceful and yet dignified person also tended to bewilder her, and her eyes rested with greater satisfaction on Betty’s less imposing figure and dainty face, out of which two grave dark eyes were looking up, with the unconscious expression of childlike appeal habitual to her when she was feeling shy. And the touch of Elise’s fingers as they met those of the younger girl had a kindly pressure entirely wanting in that which she bestowed upon Frances.
“I feel, after all, that I shall agree with mother,” was the thought that flashed across her mind: “the little one is infinitely the nicer. The elder girl is handsome, but evidently too pleased with herself. Independently of outside circumstances, not at all what we should choose for – ” But the consciousness of some pause in the conversation that had followed the Morions’ entrance aroused her to her duties to the visitors, and prevented her from pursuing her private reflections further.
She turned to Frances, who was sitting near her, as she was not sorry to see. For the unfavourable prepossession had by no means diminished her curiosity as to this certainly not “commonplace-looking” girl.
And Elise Littlewood was fond of thinking of herself as a student of character.
“I suppose you are devoted to the country, Miss Morion?” she said. “Naturally so. It must be in many ways delightful,” with the smallest of sighs, “to be able to enjoy it in the spring and early summer.”
“Of course,” said Frances, “those seasons are the loveliest everywhere. But I don’t quite agree with you that one naturally likes what one has the most of. On the contrary, many people long for the things that don’t come in their way,” and as she spoke a slight twinkle of amusement might have been discerned in her usually quiet eyes.
“Perhaps so,” was the rejoinder, “though it is perfectly impossible for any one to judge fairly of a kind of life they have never experienced.”
The touch of acerbity in the speaker’s tone roused Frances to a very rare impulse of self-assertion, and she was on the point of a reply which, however courteous, would not have tended to smooth matters, when there came an unexpected distraction in the sound of wheels driving up rapidly to the hall door, for the windows of the large drawing-room looked on to the front entrance.
“Who can that be?” said the elder Mrs Littlewood.
“It is too early for Conrad,” said his wife, “and yet,” for by this time she was glancing out of the window – “yes, it is a dog-cart; why, I declare, it is Horace!”
“Horace!” exclaimed his mother, “impossible! He was not to return till next week, and then only to – say good-bye.”
But all the same she rose to her feet, and turned towards the door with a word of apology to Lady Emma.
