Just now I"ve only had time to cry "rescue."" She hesitated a moment, then added:" I"m very much obliged to you for your a.s.sistance, Mr. Walden!--and I"m glad you also like the trees. They shall never be touched in my lifetime, I a.s.sure you I--and I believe--yes, I believe I"ll put something in my last will and testament about them--something binding, you know! Something that will set up a block in the way of land agents. Such trees as these ought to stand as long as Nature will allow them."
Walden was silent. Somehow her tone had changed from kind playfulness to ordinary formality, and her eyes rested upon him with a cool, slightly depreciatory expression. The mare was restless, and pawed the green turf impatiently.
"She longs for a gallop;" said Maryllia, patting the fine creature"s glossy neck; "Don"t you, Cleo? Her name is Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Isn"t she a beauty?"
"She is indeed!" murmured Walden, with conventional politeness, though he scarcely glanced at the eulogised animal.
"She isn"t a bit safe, you know," continued Maryllia; "n.o.body can hold her but me! She"s a perfectly magnificent hunter. I have another one who is gentleness itself, called Daffodil. My groom rides her. He could never ride Cleo." She paused, patting the mare"s neck again,--then gathering up the reins in her small, loosely- gloved hand, she said: "Well, good-morning, Mr. Walden! It was most kind of you to get up so early and come to help defend my trees! I am ever so grateful to you! Pray call and see me at the Manor when you have nothing better to do. You will be very welcome!"
She nodded gracefully to him, and a few loose curls of lovely hair fell with the action like a web of sunbeams over her brow. Smiling, she tossed them back.
"Good-bye!" she called.
He raised his hat,--and in another moment the gallop of Cleopatra"s swift hoofs thudded across the gra.s.s and echoed over the fields, gradually diminishing and dying away, as mare and rider disappeared within the enfolding green of the Manor woods. He stood for a while looking after the vanishing flash of violet, brown and gold, scudding over the turf and disappearing under the closely twisted boughs of budding oak and elm,--and then started to walk home himself. His face was a study of curiously mingled expressions.
Surprise, amus.e.m.e.nt, and a touch of admiration struggled for the mastery in his mind, and he was compelled to admit to himself, albeit reluctantly, that the doubtfully-antic.i.p.ated "Squire-ess" was by no means the sort of person he had expected to see. Herein he was at one with Bainton.
""Like a little sugar figure on a wedding-cake, looking sweet, and smiling pleasant!"" thought Walden, humorously recalling his gardener"s description; "Scarcely that! She has a will of her own, and--possibly--a temper! A kind of spoilt child-woman, I should imagine; just the person to wear all the fripperies Mrs. Spruce was so anxious about the other day, and quite frivolous enough to squeeze her feet into shoes a couple of sizes too small for her.
Beautiful? No,--her features are not regular enough for actual beauty. Pretty? Well,--perhaps she is!--in a certain sense,--but I"m no judge. Fascinating? Possibly she might be--to some men. She certainly has a sweet voice, and a very charming manner. And I don"t think she is likely to be disagreeable or discourteous. But there is nothing remarkable about her--she"s just a woman--with a bright smile,--and a touch of American vivacity running through her English insularity. Just a woman--with a way!"
And he strode on, his terrier trotting soberly at his heels. But he was on the whole glad he had met the lady of the Manor, because now he no longer felt any uneasiness concerning her. His curiosity was satisfied,--his instinctive dislike of her had changed to a kindly toleration, and his somewhat morbid interest in her arrival had quite abated. The "Five Sisters" were saved--that was a good thing; and as for Miss Vancourt herself,--well!--she was evidently a harmless creature who would most likely play tennis and croquet all day and take very little interest in anything except herself.
"She will not interfere with me, nor I with her," said Walden with a sigh of satisfaction and relief; "And though we live in the same village, we shall be as far apart as the poles,--which is a great comfort""
XI
Meanwhile, Maryllia cantered home through the woods in complacent and lively humour. The first few hours of her return to the home of her forefathers had certainly not been lacking in interest and excitement. She had heard and granted a village appeal,--she had stopped an act of vandalism,--she had saved five of the n.o.blest trees in England,--she had conquered the hearts of several village yokels,--she had thrust a tyrant out of office,--she had been cursed by the said tyrant, a circ.u.mstance which was, to say the very least of it, quite new to her experience and almost dramatic,--and,--she had "made eyes" at a parson! Surely this was enough adventure for one morning, especially as it was not yet eight o"clock. The whole day had yet to come; possibly she might be involved later on in still more thrilling and sensational episodes,--who could tell! She carolled a song for pure gaiety of heart, and told the rustling leaves and opening flowers in very charmingly p.r.o.nounced French that
"Votre coeur a beau se defendre De s"enflammer,--Le moment vient, il faut se rendre, Il faut aimer!"
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, curveted and pranced daintily at every check imposed on her rein, as became an equine royalty,--she was conscious of the elastic turf under her hoofs, and glad of the fresh pure air in her nostrils,--and her mistress shared with her the sense of freedom and buoyancy which an open country and fair landscape must naturally inspire in those to whom life is a daily and abounding vigorous delight, not a mere sickly brooding over the past, or a morbid antic.i.p.ation of the future. The woods surrounding Abbot"s Manor were by no means depressing,--they were not dark silent vistas of solemn pine, leading into deeper and deeper gloom, but cheery and picturesque clumps of elm and beech and oak, at constant intervals with hazel-copse, hawthorn and eglantine,--true English woods, suggestive of delicate romance and poesy, and made magical by the songs of birds, whose silver-throated melodies are never heard to sweeter advantage than under the leafy boughs of such unspoilt green lanes and dells as yet remain to make the charm and glamour of rural England. Primroses peeped out in smiling cl.u.s.ters from every mossy nook, and the pale purple of a myriad violets spread a wave of soft colour among the last year"s fallen leaves, which had served good purpose in keeping the tender buds warm till Spring should lift them from their earth-cradles into full-grown blossom. Maryllia"s bright eyes, glancing here and there, saw and noted a thousand beauties at every turn,--the chains of social convention and ordinance had fallen from her soul, and a joyous pulse of freedom quickened her blood and sent it dancing through her veins in currents of new exhilaration and vitality. With her multi- millionaire aunt, she had lived a life of artificial constraint, against which, despite its worldly brilliancy, her inmost and best instincts had always more or less rebelled;--now,--finding herself alone, as it were, with Mother Nature, she sprang like a child to that great maternal bosom, and nestled there with a sense of glad refreshment and peace.
"What dear wildflowers!" she murmured now, as restraining Cleopatra"s coquettish gambols, she rode more slowly along, and spied the bluebells standing up among tangles of green, making exquisite contrast with the golden glow of aconites and the fragile white of wood-anemones,--"They are ever so much prettier than the hot-house things one gets any day in Paris and London! Big forced roses,--great lolling, sickly-scented lilies, and orchids--oh dear!
how tired I am of orchids! Every evening a bouquet of orchids for five weeks--Sundays NOT excepted,--shall I ever forget the detestable "rare specimens"!"
A little frown puckered her brow, and for a moment the lines of her pretty mouth drooped and pouted with a quaintly petulant expression, like that of a child going to cry.
"It was complete persecution!" she went on, crooning her complaints to herself and patting Cleopatra"s arched neck by way of accompaniment to her thoughts--"Absolute dodging and spying round corners after the style of a police detective. I just hate a lover who makes his love, if it is love, into a kind of whip to flog your poor soul with! Roxmouth here, Roxmouth there, Roxmouth everywhere!- -he was just like the water in the Ancient Mariner "and not a drop to drink." At the play, at the Opera, in the picture-galleries, at the races, at the flower-shows, at all the "crushes" and big functions,--in London, in Paris, in New York, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna,--always "ce cher Roxmouth"--as Aunt Emily said;--money no consideration, distance no object,--always "ce cher Roxmouth," stiff as a poker, clean as fresh paint, and apparently as virtuous as an old maid,--with all his aristocratic family looming behind him, and a long ancestry of ghosts in the shadow of time, extending away back to some Saxon "n.o.bles," who no doubt were coa.r.s.e barbarians that ate more raw meat than was good for them, and had to be carried to bed dead drunk on mead! It IS so absurd to boast of one"s ancestry! If we could only just see the dreadful men who began all the great families, we should be perfectly ashamed of them! Most of them tore up their food with their fingers. Now we Vancourts are supposed to be descended from a warrior bold, named Robert Priaulx de Vaignecourt, who fought in the Crusades. Poor Uncle Fred used to be so proud of that! He was always talking about it, especially when we were in America. He liked to try and make the Pilgrim-Father- families jealous. Just as he used to boast that if he had only been born three minutes before my father, instead of three minutes after, he would have been the owner of Abbot"s Manor. That three minutes"
delay and consideration he took about coming into the world made him the youngest twin, and cut off his chances. And he told me that Robert the Crusader had a brother named Osmond, who was believed to have founded a monastery somewhere in this neighbourhood, and who died, so the story goes, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, though there"s no authentic trace left of either Osmond or Robert anywhere. They might, of course, have been very decent and agreeable men,--but it"s rather doubtful. If Osmond went on a pilgrimage he would never have washed himself, to begin with,--it would have destroyed his sanct.i.ty. And as for Robert the warrior bold, he would have been dreadfully fierce and hairy,--and I"m quite sure I could not possibly have asked him to dinner!"
She laughed at her own fancies, and guided her mare under a drooping canopy of early-flowering wild acacia, just for the sheer pleasure of springing lightly up in her saddle to pull off a tuft of scented white blossom.
"The fact is," she continued half aloud, "there"s n.o.body I can ask to dinner even now as it is. Not down here. The local descriptions of Sir Morton Pippitt do not tempt me to make his acquaintance, and as for the parson I met just now,-why he would be impossible!-- simply impossible!" she repeated with emphasis--" I can see exactly what he"s like at a glance. One of those cold, quiet, clever men who "quiz" women and never admire them,--I know the kind of horrid University creature! A sort of superior, touch-me-not-person who can barely tolerate a woman"s presence in the room, and in his heart of hearts relegates the female s.e.x generally to the lowest cla.s.s of the animal creation. I can read it all in his face. He"s rather good- looking--not very,--his hair curls quite nicely, but it"s getting grey, and so is his moustache,--he must be at least fifty, I should think. He has a good figure--for a clergyman;--and his eyes--no, I"m not sure that I like his eyes--I believe they"re deceitful. I must look at them again before I make up my mind. But I know he"s just as conceited and disagreeable as most parsons--he probably thinks that he helps to turn this world and the next round on his little finger,--and I daresay he tells the poor village folk here that if they don"t obey him, they"ll go to h.e.l.l, and if they do, they"ll fly straight to heaven and put on golden crowns at once. Dear me! What a ridiculous state of things! Fancy the dear old man in the smock who came to see me last night, with a pair of wings and a crown!"
Laughing again, she flicked Cleopatra"s neck with the reins, and started off at an easy swinging gallop, turning out of the woods into the carriage drive, and never checking her pace till she reached the house.
All that day she gave marked evidence that her reign as mistress of Abbot"s Manor had begun in earnest. Changing her riding dress for a sober little tailor-made frock of home-spun, she flitted busily over the old house of her ancestors, visiting it in every part, peering into shadowy corners, opening antique presses and cupboards, finding out the secret of sliding panels in the Jacobean oak that covered the walls, and leaving no room unsearched. The apartment in which her father"s body had lain in its coffin was solemnly unlocked and disclosed to her view under the t.i.tle of "the Ghost Room,"--whereat she was sorrowfully indignant,--so much so indeed that Mrs. Spruce shivered in her shoes, p.r.i.c.ked by the sting of a guilty conscience, for, if the truth be told, it was to Mrs. Spruce"s own too-talkative tongue that this offending name owed its origin. Quietly entering the peaceful chamber with its harmless and almost holy air of beautiful, darkened calm, Maryllia drew up the blinds, threw back the curtains, and opened the latticed windows wide, admitting a flood of sunshine and sweet air.
"It must never be called "the Ghost Room" again,"--she said, with a reproachful gravity, which greatly disconcerted and overawed Mrs.
Spruce--"otherwise it will have an evil reputation which it does not deserve. There is nothing ghostly or terrifying about it. It is a sacred room,--sacred to the memory of one of the dearest and best of men! It is wrong to let such a room be considered as haunted,--I shall sleep in it myself sometimes,--and I shall make it bright and pretty for visitors when they come. I would put a little child to sleep in it,--for my father was a good man, and nothing evil can ever be a.s.sociated with him. Death is only dreadful to the ignorant and the wicked."
Mrs. Spruce wisely held her peace, and dutifully followed her new mistress to the morning-room, where she had to undergo what might be called quite a stiff examination regarding all the household and housekeeping matters. Armed with a fascinating little velvet-bound notebook and pencil, Maryllia put down all the names of the different servants, both indoor and outdoor (making a small private mark of her own against those who had served her father in any capacity, and those who were just new to the place), together with the amount of wages due every month to each,--she counted over all the fine house linen, much of which had been purchased for her mother"s home-coming and had never been used;--she examined with all a connoisseur"s admiration the almost priceless old china with which the Manor shelves, dressers and cupboards were crowded,--and finally after luncheon and an hour"s deep cogitation by herself in the library, she wrote out in a round clerkly hand certain "rules and regulations," for the daily routine of her household, and handed the doc.u.ment to Mrs. Spruce,--much to that estimable dame"s perturbation and astonishment.
"These are my hours, Spruce," she said--"And it will of course be your business to see that the work is done punctually and with proper method. There must be no waste or extravagance,--and you will bring me all the accounts every week, as I won"t have bills running up longer than that period. I shall leave all the ordering in of provisions to you,--if it ever happens that you send something to table which I don"t like, I will tell you, and the mistake need not occur again. Now is there anything else?"--and she paused meditatively, finger on lip, knitting her brows--"You see I"ve never done any housekeeping, but I"ve always had notions as to how I should do it if I ever got the chance to try, and I"m just beginning. I believe in method,--and I like everything that HAS a place to be in IN its place, and everything that HAS a time, to come up to its time. It saves ever so much worry and trouble! Now let me think!--oh yes!--I knew there was another matter. Please let the gardeners and outdoor men generally know that if they want to speak to me, they can always see me from ten to half-past every morning.
And, by the way, Spruce, tell the maids to go about their work quietly,--there is nothing more objectionable than a noise and fuss in the house just because a room is being swept and turned out. I simply hate it! In the event of any quarrels or complaints, please refer them to me--and--and--" Here she paused again with a smile-- "Yes! I think that"s all--for the present! I haven"t yet gone through the library or the picture-gallery;--however those rooms have nothing to do with the ordinary daily housekeeping,--if I find anything wanting to be done there, I"ll send for you again. But that"s about all now!"
Poor Mrs. Spruce curtseyed deferentially and tremulously. She was not going to have it all her own way as she had fondly imagined when she first saw the apparently child-like personality of her new lady.
The child-like personality was merely the rose-flesh covering of a somewhat determined character.
"And anything I can do for you, Spruce, or for your husband,"
continued Maryllia, dropping her business-like tone for one of as coaxing a sweetness as ever Shakespeare"s Juliet practised for the persuasion of her too tardy Nurse--"will be done with ever so much pleasure! You know that, don"t you?" And she laid her pretty little hands on the worthy woman"s portly shoulders--"You shall go out whenever you like--after work, of course!--duty first, pleasure second!--and you shall even grumble, if you feel like it,--and have your little naps when the midday meal is done with,--Aunt Emily"s housekeeper in London used to have them, and she snored dreadfully!
the second footman--QUITE a nice lad--used to tickle her nose with a straw! But I can"t afford to keep a second footman--one is quite enough,--or a coachman, or a carriage;--besides, I would always rather ride than drive,--and my groom, Bennett, will only want a stable-boy to help him with Cleo and Daffodil. So I hope there"ll be no one downstairs to tease you, Spruce dear, by tickling YOUR nose with a straw! Primmins looks much too staid and respectable to think of such a thing."
She laughed merrily,--and Mrs. Spruce for the life of her could not help laughing too. The picture of Primmins condescending to indulge in a game of "nose and straw" was too grotesque to be considered with gravity.
"Well I never, Miss!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed--"You do put things that funny!"
"Do I? I"m so glad!" said Maryllia demurely--"it"s nice to be funny to other people, even if you"re not funny to yourself! But I want you to understand from the first, Spruce, that everyone must feel happy and contented in my household. So if anything goes wrong, you must tell me, and I will try and set it right. Now I"m going for an hour"s walk with Plato, and when I come in, and have had my tea, I"ll visit the picture-gallery. I know all about it,--Uncle Fred told me,"--she paused, and her eyes darkened with a wistful and deepening gravity,--then she added gently--"I shall not want you there, Spruce,--I must be quite alone."
Mrs. Spruce again curtseyed humbly, and was about to withdraw, when Maryllia called her back.
"What about the clergyman here, Mr. Walden?"--she asked--"Is he a nice man?--kind to the village people, I mean, and good to the poor?"
Mrs. Spruce gave a kind of ecstatic gasp, folded her fat hands tightly together in front of her voluminous ap.r.o.n, and launched forth straightway on her favourite theme.
"Mr. Walden is jest one of the finest men G.o.d ever made, Miss," she said, with solemnity and unction--"You may take my word for it! He"s that good, that as we often sez, if m"appen there ain"t no saint in the Sarky an" nowt but dust, we"ve got a real live saint walkin"
free among us as is far more "spectable to look at in his plain coat an" trousers than they monks an" friars in the picter-books wi"
ropes around their waistses an" bald crowns, which ain"t no sign to me o" bein" full o" grace, but rather loss of "air,--an" which you will presently see yourself, Miss, as "ow Mr. Walden"s done the church beautiful, like a dream, as all the visitors sez, which there isn"t its like in all England--an" he"s jest a father to the village an" friends with every man, woman, an" child in it, an" grudges nothink to "elp in cases deservin", an" works like a n.i.g.g.e.r, he do, for the school, which if he"d "ad a wife it might a" been better an"
it might a" been worse, the Lord only knows, for no woman would a"
come up "ere an" stood that patient watchin" me an" my work, an" I tell you truly, Miss Maryllia, that when your boxes came an" I had to unpack "em an" sort the clothes in "em, I sent for Pa.s.son Walden jest to show "im that I felt my "sponsibility, an" he sez, sez he: "You go on doin" your duty, Missis Spruce, an" your lady will be all right"--an" though I begged "im to stop, he wouldn"t while I was a- shakin" out your dresses with Nancy--"
Here she was interrupted by a ringing peal of laughter from Maryllia, who, running up to her, put a little hand on her mouth.
"Stop, stop, Spruce!" she exclaimed--"Oh dear, oh dear I Do you think I can understand all this? Did you show the parson my clothes- -actually? You did!" For Mrs. Spruce nodded violently in the affirmative. "Good gracious! What a perfectly dreadful thing to do!"
And she laughed again. "And what is the saint in the Sarky?" Here she removed her hand from the mouth she was guarding. "Say it in one word, if you can,--what is the Sarky?"
"It"s in the church,"--said Mrs. Spruce, dauntlessly proceeding with her flow of narrative, and encouraged thereto by the sparkling mirth in her mistress"s face--"We calls it Sarky for short. Josey Letherbarrow, what reads, an" "as larnin", calls it the Sarky f.a.gus, an" my Kitty, she"s studied at the school, an" SHE sez "it"s Sar-KO- f.a.gus, mother," which it may be or it mayn"t, for the schools don"t know more than the public-"ouses in my opinion,--leastways it"s a great long white coffin what"s supposed to "ave the body of a saint inside it, an" Mr. Walden he discovered it when he was rebuildin"
the church, an" when the Bishop come to conskrate it, he sez "twas a saint in there an" that"s why the village is called St. Rest--but you"ll find it all out yourself. Miss, an" as I sez an" I don"t care who "ears me, the real saint ain"t in the Sarky at all,--it"s just Mr. Walden himself,--"
Again Maryllia"s hand closed her mouth.
"You really must stop, Spruce! You are the dearest old gabbler possible--but you must stop! You"ll have no breath left--and I shall have no patience! I"ve heard quite enough. I met Mr. Walden this morning, and I"m sure he isn"t a saint at all! He"s a very ordinary person indeed,--most ordinary--not in the very least remarkable.
I"m. glad he"s good to the people, and that they like him--that"s really all that"s necessary, and it"s all I want to know. Go along, Spruce!--don"t talk to me any more about saints in the Sarky or out of the Sarky! There never was a real saint in the world--never!--not in the shape of a man!"
With laughter still dancing in her eyes, she turned away, and Mrs.
Spruce, in full possession of restored nerve and vivacity, bustled off on her round of household duty, the temporary awe she had felt concerning the new written code of domestic "Rules and Regulations"