Cicely looked quaintly meditative.
"Well, I don"t know about that! You see there have been several millions of folks born into the world, and there may have been just one naturally created singer among them!" She laughed, and touched a chord on the spinet. "The old French song exactly suits this old French instrument. I see it is an ancient thing of Paris. Gigue says I have improved--but he will never admit much, as you know. He has forbidden me to touch the C in alt, and I did it just now. I cannot help it sometimes--it comes so easy. But you must scold me, Maryllia darling, when you hear me taking it,--I don"t want to strain the vocal cords, and I always forget I"m only fourteen; I feel--oh! ever so much older!--ages old, in fact!" She sighed, and stretched her arms up above her head. "What a perfect room this is to sing in!
What a perfect house!--and what a perfect angel you are to have me with you!"
Her eyes filled with sudden tears of emotion, but she quickly blinked them away.
"Et ce cher Roxmouth?" she queried, suddenly, glancing appreciatively at the rippling gold-brown lights and shades of her friend"s hair, the delicate hues of her complexion, and the grace of her form--"Has he been to see you in this idyllic retreat?"
Maryllia gave a slight gesture of wearied impatience.
"Certainly not! How can you ask such a question, Cicely! I left my aunt on purpose to get rid of him once and for all. And he knows it;--yet he has written to me every two days regularly since I came here!"
"Helas!--ce cher Roxmouth!" murmured Cicely, with a languid gesture imitative of the "society manner" of Mrs. Fred Vancourt,--"Parfait gentilhomme au bout des ongles!"
Maryllia laughed.
"Yes,--Aunt Emily all over!" she said--"How tired I am of that phrase! She knows as well as anybody that Roxmouth, for all his airs of aristocratic propriety, is a social villain of the lowest type of modern decadence, yet she would rather see me married to him than to any other man she has ever met. And why? Simply because he will be a Duke! She would like to say to all her acquaintances--"My niece is a d.u.c.h.ess." She would feel a certain fantastic satisfaction in thinking that her millions were being used to build up the decayed fortunes of an English n.o.bleman"s family, as well as to "restore"
Roxmouth Castle, which is in a bad state of repair. And she would sacrifice my heart and soul and life to such trumpery ambitions as these!"
"Trumpery ambitions!" echoed Cicely--"My dear, they are ambitions for which nearly all women are willing to scramble, fight and die!
To be a d.u.c.h.ess! To dwell in an ancient "restored" castle of once proud English n.o.bles! Saint Moses! Who wouldn"t sacrifice such vague matters as heart, life and soul for the glory of being called "Your Grace" by obsequious footmen! My unconventional Maryllia! You are setting yourself in rank, heretical opposition to the conventionalities of society, and won"t all the little conventional minds hate you for it!"
"It doesn"t matter if they do,"--rejoined Maryllia--"I have never been loved since my father"s death,--so I don"t mind being hated."
"_I_ love you!" said Cicely, with swift ardour--"Don"t say you have never been loved!"
Maryllia caught her hand tenderly and kissed it.
"I was not thinking of you, dear!" she said--"Forgive me! I was thinking of men. They have admired me and flirted with me,--many of them have wanted to marry me, in order to get hold of Aunt Emily"s fortune with me,--but none of them have ever loved me. Cicely, Cicely, I want to be loved!"
"So do I!" said Cicely, with answering light in her eyes--"But I don"t see how it"s going to be done in my case! You may possibly get your wish, but I!--why, my dear, I see myself in futur-oe as a "prima donna a.s.soluta" perhaps, with several painted and padded ba.s.si and tenori making sham love to me in opera till I get perfectly sick of cuore and amore, and cry out for something else by way of a change! I am quite positive that love,--love such as we read of in poetry and romance, doesn"t really exist! And I have another fixed opinion--which is, that the people who write most about it have never felt it. One always expresses best, even in a song, the emotions one has never experienced."
Maryllia looked at her in a little wonder.
"Do you really think that?"
"I do! It"s not one of Gigue"s sayings, though I know I often echo Gigue!"
She went to the window. "How lovely the garden is! Come out on the lawn, Maryllia, and let us talk!" And as they sauntered across the gra.s.s together with arms round each other"s waists, she chattered on--"People who write books and music are generally lonely,--and they write best about love because they need it. They fancy it must be much better than it is. But, after all, the grandest things go unloved. Look at the sky, how clear it is and pure. Is it loved by any other sky that we know of? And the sun up there, all alone in its splendour,--I wonder if any other sun loves it? There are so many lonely things in the universe! And it seems to me that the loneliest are always the loveliest and grandest. It is only stupid ephemera that are gregarious. Worms crawl along in ma.s.ses,--mites swarm in a cheese--flies stick in crowds on jam--and brainless people shut themselves up all together within the walls of a city.
I"d rather be an eagle than a sparrow,--a star than one of a thousand bonfire sparks,--and as a mere woman, I would rather ten thousand times live a solitary life by myself till I die, than be married to a rascal or a fool!"
"Exactly my sentiments,"--said Maryllia--"Only you put them more poetically than I can. Do you know, Cicely, you talk very oddly sometimes?--very much in advance of your age, I mean?"
"Do I?" And Cicely"s tone expressed a mingling of surprise and penitence--"I didn"t know it. But I suppose I really can"t help it, Maryllia! I was a very miserable child--and miserable children age rapidly. Perhaps I shall get younger as I grow older! You must remember that at eleven years old I was scrubbing floors like any charwoman in the Convent for two centimes an hour. I gained a lot of worldly wisdom that way by listening to the talk of the nuns, which is quite as spiteful and scandalous as anything one hears in outside "wicked" society. Then I got into the Quartier Latin set with Gigue, who picked me up because he heard me singing in the street,--and altogether my experiences of life haven"t been toys and bonbons. I know I THINK "old"--and I"m sure I feel old!"
"Not when you play or sing," suggested Maryllia.
"No--not then--never then! Then, all the youth of the world seems to rush into me,--it tingles in my fingers, and throbs in my throat! I feel as if I could reach heaven with sound!--yes! I feel that I could sing to G.o.d Himself, if He would only listen!"
Her eyes glowed with pa.s.sion,--the plainness of her features was transformed into momentary beauty. Maryllia was silent. She knew that the aspirations of genius pent up in this elf-like girl were almost too strong for her, and that the very excitability and sensitiveness of her nature were such as to need the greatest care and tenderness in training and controlling. Tactfully she changed the conversation to ordinary subjects, and in a little while Cicely had learned all that Maryllia herself knew about the village of St.
Rest and its inhabitants. She was considerably interested in the story of the rescue of the "Five Sister" beeches, and asked with a touch of anxiety, what had become of the dismissed agent, Oliver Leach?
"Oh, he is still in the neighbourhood,"--said Maryllia, indifferently--"He works for Sir Morton Pippitt, and I believe has found a home at Badsworth. His accounts are not yet all handed in to my solicitors. But I have a new agent now,--a Mr. Stanways--he is just married to quite a nice young woman,--and he has already begun work. Mr. Stanways has splendid recommendations--so that will be all right."
"No doubt--so far as Mr. Stanways himself is concerned it will be all right,"--rejoined Cicely, musingly--"But if, as you say, the man Oliver Leach cursed you, it isn"t pleasant to think he is hanging around here."
"He isn"t hanging round anywhere,"--declared Maryllia, easily--"He is out of this beat altogether. He cursed me certainly,--but he was in a temper,--and I should say that curses come naturally to him.
But, as the clergyman was present at the time, the curse couldn"t take any effect." She laughed. "You know Satan always runs away from the Church."
"Who is the clergyman, and what is he like?" asked Cicely.
"He"s not at all disagreeable"--answered Maryllia, carelessly-- "Rather stiff perhaps and old-fashioned,--but he seems to be a great favourite with all his parishioners. His name is John Walden. He has restored the church here, quite at his own expense, and according to the early original design. It is really quite wonderful. When I was a child here, I only remember it as a ruin, but now people come from far and near to see it. It will please you immensely."
"But you don"t go to it," observed Cicely, suggestively.
"No. I haven"t attended a service there as yet. But I don"t say I never will attend one. That will depend on circ.u.mstances."
"I remember you always hated parsons," said Cicely, thoughtfully.
Maryllia laughed.
"Yes, I always did!"
"And you always will, I suppose?"
"Well, I expect I shall have to tolerate Mr. Walden,"--Maryllia answered lightly,--"Because he"s really my nearest neighbour. But he"s not so bad as most of his cla.s.s."
"I daresay he"s a better type of man than Lord Roxmouth," said Cicely. "By the way, Maryllia, that highly distinguished n.o.bleman has spread about a report that you are "peculiar," simply because you won"t marry him? The very nuns at the Convent have heard this, and it does make me so angry! For when people get hold of the word "peculiar," it is made to mean several things."
"I know!" and for a moment Maryllia"s fair brows clouded with a shadow of perplexity and annoyance--"It is a word that may pa.s.s for madness, badness, or any form of social undesirability. But I don"t mind! I"m quite aware that Roxmouth, if he cannot marry me, will slander me. It"s a way some modern men have of covering their own rejection and defeat. The woman in question is branded through the "smart set" as "peculiar," "difficult," "impossible to deal with"-- oh yes!--I know it all! But I"m prepared for it--and just to forestall Roxmouth a little, I"m going to have a few people down here by way of witnesses to my "-peculiar" mode of life. Then they can go back to London and talk."
"They can, and they will,--you may be sure of that!" said Cicely, satirically--"Is this a "dressed" county, Maryllia?"
Maryllia gave vent to a peal of laughter.
"I should say not,--but I really don"t know!" she replied,--"People have called on me, but I have not, as yet, returned their calls.
We"ll do that in this coming week. The only person I have seen, who poses as a "county" lady, is an elderly spinster named Tabitha Pippitt, only daughter of Sir Morton Pippitt, who is a colonial manufacturer, and, therefore, not actually in the "county" at all.
Miss Tabitha was certainly not "dressed," she was merely covered."
"That"s the very height of propriety!" declared Cicely--"For, after all, covering alone is necessary. "Dress," in the full sense of the word, implies vanity and all its attendant sins. Gigue says you can always pick out a very dull, respectable woman by the hidecmsness of her clothes. I expect Miss Tabitha is dull."
"She is--most unquestionably! But I"m afraid she is only a reflex of country life generally, Cicely. Country life IS dull,--especially in England."
"Then why do you go in for it?" queried Cicely, arching her black brows perplexedly.
"Simply to escape something even duller,"--laughed Maryllia--"London society and its "Souls"!"
Cicely laughed too, and shrugged her shoulders expressively. She understood all that was implied. And with her whole heart she rejoiced that her friend whom she loved with an almost pa.s.sionate adoration and grat.i.tude, had voluntarily turned her back on the "Smart Set," and so, of her own accord, instead of through her G.o.dfathers and G.o.dmothers, had "renounced the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world and all the sinful l.u.s.ts of the flesh."