Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

Mrs. Lancaster’s Rival

Chapter IX. Carweston

page break

Chapter IX. Carweston.

In hours of reflection afterwards, Dick was sorry that he had betrayed himself to Randal Hawke. But after all it did not seem to matter much. Randal was so seldom there, and had plenty to interest him without interfering in Dick’s affairs. He had received his old acquaintance very kindly, considering the cool terms that they were on years ago. Altogether Dick felt justified in putting Randal out of his head.

For some days after this he haunted Flora with a persistency that sometimes seemed to worry her a little, though by degrees she resigned herself, and let him be as tame as he pleased. It was the old story over again. Dick following her about everywhere, in expeditions to Morebay, in country walks, meeting her in the streets, paying her constant visits at home. People talked, and their talk soon reached Miss Northcote. But her eyes and ears had been open enough all along, and she was not surprised, and only sorry that she had given Dick credit for better things. Her manner to him grew insensibly colder. Dick, like a sulky boy, said nothing, but walked off to Rose Cottage for consolation.

One morning Miss Northcote was going down a lane towards Fore-street, when she saw these two coming up together. They were talking rather earnestly, and did not see her till she was close upon them. Then she heard Flora say to Dick, in a quick undertone, ‘Here’s your aunt. You must go with her.’

‘Not I,’ was Dick’s answer.

Miss Northcote felt a great deal of disgust and anger. page 81 She walked on with a perfectly grave face, and was passing them with a slight bow, when Mrs. Lancaster stopped and spoke.

‘Miss Northcote, I hope you don’t think that I am taking your nephew away from you? He is very unmanageable. I can’t make him see his duty.’

Dick was going to join in with some sort of joke against himself, but looked at his aunt and held his tongue. Nobody could speak good-humouredly in the presence of that look of scorn, which curled Miss North-cote’s lip and slightly elevated her dark brows.

‘I can only wish my nephew to please himself, Mrs. Lancaster, thank you,’ she answered; and had passed on before Flora could reply.

‘You are very stupid,’ she said to Dick. ‘You are making your relations angry, and all for nothing.’

‘I will be sure that it is for nothing before I trouble myself about that,’ said Dick. ‘Thank goodness I am not responsible to any of them.’

‘I care about it, if you don’t,’ said Flora rather sadly. ‘I should like to explain to Miss Northcote that all this is no doing of mine. She does not understand, and I can’t wonder at her being vexed.’

‘O, she has a temper!’ said Dick; ‘but she is the best creature in the world, and will get over it all right, if you let her alone. I’ll settle it with her one of these days.’

That afternoon Miss Northcote ordered her pony-carriage, and drove away through the lanes to Carweston. Long before she reached it they became very narrow, with high banks covered with fern and wild flowers; here and there a gate gave a view of lovely varied slopes, the Mora, and the hills beyond. It was almost an adventure to drive down the last lane, between high walls of rock covered all over with soft green lichen where the ferns did not grow; here every kind to be found in that page 82 country had a niche to itself in the ragged edges and clefts of the rocks. Bright sprays of wild strawberries looked out amongst them, and the great clustering leaves of the primroses made one think of spring. Down the side of the lane a tiny stream went trickling over the pebbles; the larger ferns drooped over it, with leaves as well as roots drinking it in. Between one wall and the other there was only just room for the carriage wheels.

This romantic lane was not the only approach to Carweston; at the further end it opened on a wide road, leading straight into the village. But the short cut through the lanes was much more used by the St. Denys people, except by the more nervous of them, to whom the idea of meeting anything in these lanes was a terror.

The low gray church-tower and the few stone houses of Carweston stood at the head of a wide valley, down which a trout-stream ran to join the Mora. The broad slopes of the valley lay smiling in the sun; there were cornfields, and hayfields where they were carrying; orchards full of fruit, strawberry-gardens that scented the air. A steamer and two or three small boats were passing swiftly on the calm expanse of the river; beyond lay the moors and hills in a warm purple mist. It did Kate Northcote good, as she looked at it all, and even suggested this, quite without any concurrence of hers—if there was so much good in everything, might there not be a little in Mrs. Lancaster?

‘No,’ said Kate; ‘horrid scheming woman! She has been spinning her webs for Dick all this time, and has caught him, poor silly fellow. I can’t bear to think of it.’

A little way beyond the church, a wall hung with masses of ivy skirted the garden of Carweston House. Then there were two square pillars, with a gate between them, and a solemn dragon sitting upright on each. One of them had lost his paws, and was a piteous sight; but page 83 some kind sprays of ivy were running up to offer themselves as a screen. Facing this gate stood the solid old house, built of great blocks of stone, which as the years passed over them had taken all manner of colours. The house was low and large, and the ivy had all its own my with one side; on the other a great-flowered magnolia and a crimson rose climbed up in beautiful rivalry.

Miss Northcote crossed the large furnished hall, where all the brown old pictures hanging round looked down on her as a friend, and where she had often sat listening to Anthony, as he played on his organ at the further end. The drawing-room, into which she went, was one of those rooms that one loves at first sight, feeling that they could never be anything but homelike. It was low and large and almost square; the crimson carpet was a little worn, the furniture was old-fashioned, and the walls were covered with pictures. At one end there was a group of musical instruments—a piano, a harp, a violoncello in its case. It was not till one had been in the room some minutes that one realised how full it was of beautiful things; they did not obtrude themselves, but seemed to belong to the place. Every ornament was good and curious; the old gilded clock in the corner was a real Louis Quatorze; the pieces of Dresden and Chelsea china stood quietly here and there, as if they had no idea of their own value, no ambition of velvet mounts or glass cases, but were too happy to attend on Mrs. Strange, and to be broken in her service, if the Fates would have it so. But the jewels of the room were three old Italian devotional pictures, which hung together near the piano at the end. One of them, an Annunciation, Anthony always declared to be a Fra Angelico, though he had no satisfactory proof of it. He said that no other mortal man could have painted the face of that angel; it must have been given in answer to the prayers of a saint.

page 84

Mrs. Strange was generally to be found in her drawing-room. She was there when Kate came in, and met her with eager welcoming hands. Kate kissed her old friend, and sat down by her on a large soft sofa near the fireplace.

Mrs. Strange was a small slender old woman, with delicate features, and bright eyes full of expression. She had known Kate Northcote all her life, and was very fond of her. After they had been talking for a few minutes she laid her hand on hers, and said,

‘What is it, Kate? You are in some trouble, I can see. I hope you came to tell me all about it.’

‘Yes, I did,’ said Kate, the tears rushing into her eyes. ‘Not that any one can help me, dear Mrs. Strange—not even you. It is about Dick.’

‘I like Dick,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘He is one of my boys. I won’t hear that he has done anything wrong. But I love you better still; so tell me.’

‘Well—it is that Mrs. Lancaster,’ said Kate. At the obnoxious name the colour rose in her cheeks, and all the anger that had half faded away came back again. ‘He is flirting with her again, just as he did before; but it is much worse now. I don’t know how to save him now.’

‘O Dick, for shame!’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘Is it want of amusement? I was a flirt myself, you know, once, and I quite remember the feeling. Send him to me to be scolded. It is a cruel thing. I thought he had too much heart for it. When he was a boy, of course, he fancied himself in love; but it can’t be that now.’

‘But I am afraid it is.’

‘No, my dear, I don’t think so,’ said Mrs. Strange decidedly. ‘Dick has too much sense to fall really in love out of his own station. No; he is behaving very badly. The poor thing is a widow, which makes it worse. It is simply for amusement.’

page 85

Kate shook her head.

‘I don’t think you need pity her: she is quite able to take care of herself. No, it is not mere flirting on Dick’s part. He is unhappy and disturbed in mind. He either is, or thinks himself, in love. Of course if she can marry him, she will.’

‘And if Dick has led her to expect it, he can’t draw back without dishonour,’ said Mrs. Strange, half to herself.

‘O, you don’t know what you are saying!’ cried Kate, in great distress.

‘Kate, I know that if all men and women were bound by one high sense of honour, there would be no foolish flirtations, no disappointments, no broken hearts, none of the sad stories that one hears every day. Very few people think of it nowadays, but I used to be taught that a lady or a gentleman never raised false hopes—if they did, they held themselves bound to fulfil them. I was a flirt once—for of course I thought these notions exaggerated—and I had very good reason to repent.’

‘But, dear Mrs. Strange, Dick may have done wrong, but I can’t give him up to that. If he marries this woman, it must be against my will,’ exclaimed Kate. ‘It would be a terrible thing for us all; and what would it be for him, poor boy, when he woke from his dream? No! I must break through it if I can.’

‘Lecture Dick as much as you please,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘If he still has room to draw back, by all means let him do it. But if his honour is engaged in the affair, he had better carry it through than give that up. If it was my own son I should say the same. I am very sorry for you, Kate.’

So they went on talking; Kate Northcote trying to persuade herself that Mrs. Strange’s ideas were far too exalted for this world, and yet knowing all the time, in the nobleness of her own nature, that her old friend was right.

page 86

‘Here is Anthony coming through the garden,’ said Mrs. Strange, after a time. ‘We have talked about this enough for the present. You must not let it weigh on your mind too much. Only have it out with Dick as pleasantly as you can.’

‘It was a pity that he ever came home,’ said Kate despondingly.

‘Not at all. He might have got into scrapes out there. Don’t be anxious. He won’t be far wrong in the end, if he only keeps on the straight road and in the daylight.’

Anthony came in hot and tired from walking; but his first anxiety was to show Miss. Northcote some stone knives that had been found in a quarry near Carweston.

‘How are they at Pensand?’ said his mother, after he had talked about these for some minutes. ‘At least, how is the poor little prisoner, for I care about nobody else?’

‘Miss Ashley!’ said Kate, rather surprised, and looking from Mrs. Strange to Anthony.

He had just dropped into an armchair, with his long legs stretched out and his arms folded. He made an odd face and shook his head.

‘I shall have to run away with her. I must carry her off one of these days. It is unbearable. She talks to me; she tells me that she is moped to death. “My blessed child,” said I to her, “had I but wings, I’d take you for a long flight where no guardian could dream of overtaking us. We would hover over Pensand a few minutes, for the sake of the bird’s-eye view, and then away to the West.” “That would be too delightful,” said she, and there was a tear under the smile.’

‘But that was naughty of you,’ said Mrs. Strange. ‘You only make her more restless and discontented.’

‘Perhaps so. But I never will acquiesce in tyranny. page 87 To me there is nothing more terrible than the content of a slave. A prisoner who does not wish for freedom—ah, that is a depth indeed.’

‘Does he startle you, Kate?’ said Mrs. Strange.

‘Not by saying that. I quite feel the same. But when I was at Pensand, Miss Ashley seemed so very happy, on such good terms with the General. I have not seen her since. I’m afraid I have not thought about her much. She interests you, then, Anthony?’

‘A butterfly struggling from the chrysalis,’ said Anthony, in a low voice. ‘A child still, that would be happy and adventurous like other children, if it could. A mind clear from suspicion, a heart full of faith in its fellow-creatures, and love for them, who have never fed it on anything but husks. Has that an uninteresting sound?’

‘No, indeed. Is she all that, poor girl? And is she so very dull at Pensand?’

‘She is alone. She knows every yard inside the gates, and the General forbids her to go outside them. He tells me she is shy, and does not wish to make acquaintance. Poor Queen Mab!’

‘What can be the General’s reason, I wonder?’ said Miss Northcote. ‘Has Randal been there much? Dick met him in the village not long ago.’

‘Randal!’ said Anthony, suddenly springing out of his chair. As he stood before Kate, drawing himself up to his full height, she could not help looking at him with something like admiration. His face, his whole bearing, seemed on fire with enthusiastic indignation. ‘Do you mean it, Kate? Do you think the old General could be such a scoundrel? Randal! She has only seen him once; but she dislikes him, she shrinks from him; and no wonder. It I thought that any such diabolical plot existed—’

‘Patience, my dear Anthony,’ said Mrs. Strange.

page 88

‘No more patience for me, mother, in such a case as that.’

‘What makes you dislike Randal so much?’ said Kate. She was afraid she thought it only too likely that General Hawke meant the heiress for his son. ‘Is there any harm in him?’

‘Harm! I hate him,’ said Anthony.

‘Rector, it is a good thing that your people can’t hear you,’ said Mrs. Strange.

‘Mother, the whole parish knows, I hope, that I hate rascality. Harm in Randal, Kate? There is nothing that I could lay to his charge in so many words, except being an insolent snob. But don’t men’s faces tell you their characters? Did you ever like Randal?’

‘Never very much, though I must confess that I always thought him good-looking. But I have not seen him for some time.’

‘You never liked him; that is enough,’ said Anthony, who was gradually coming down into his natural manner. ‘My mother never liked him. What is to be said for a man, when two good women and a young girl are taught by their own heaven-born instincts to dislike him?’

He threw himself back in his chair again, leaned his head on his hand, and seemed deep in thought, from which he was roused a few minutes later by his mother’s voice.

‘Anthony, give Kate her tea. And go and get some flowers for her.’

Mrs. Strange always ruled the talk in her own house, and never allowed a disagreeable subject to go on long. She made both Kate and Anthony understand that she would have no more at present of their respective grievances. They must make themselves agreeable; and so they did, both loving her dearly, and thinking her the wisest and best woman in the world.