The next morning James went back to school, and Muriel’s governess, Miss Vincent, returned to her duties.
Zella missed James, in whom she thought she had detected occasional flashes of a kindred spirit, and the monotonous life of regular lessons for her and Muriel seemed unutterably dreary to the spoilt little only child.
Her lessons at Villetswood had been an occasional hour of French reading with her father, music with her mother, and two hours’ English in the morning under the tuition of the Rector’s admiring daughter, whose nearest approach to criticism had always been, “You know, Zella dear, you have very great abilities, if you would make the best of them.”
Miss Vincent made no mention whatever of Zella’s abilities, but was eloquent on the subject of her extreme backwardness, and she found herself easily surpassed by Muriel at almost all their lessons.
Zella, who thought herself clever and Muriel very stupid, was angry and mortified; but she lacked the faculty of perseverance, and remained unable to demonstrate her superiority except on the rare occasions when some out-of-the-way piece of information came into question, when she could draw upon her fund of miscellaneous reading for supplying it.
At the end of six weeks she was miserable and homesick.
A longing for the old days at Villetswood, that would never return, came upon her, and the passion of the past obsessed the precocious child of fourteen.
She cried herself to sleep, as she had done during the first week or two after her mother’s death, and grew pale and heavy-eyed..
Everything was hateful: the daily lessons, where she toiled over sums and learnt dates that Muriel had mastered; three years ago; the schoolroom meals, when Miss Vincent and Muriel talked British French, and began every sentence with “Esker “; the daily walks along the muddy highroad, and the evenings in the drawing-room, when Muriel and she played draughts or halma until bedtime.
Zella resolved to go home. A vague instinct that Villetswood without her mother’s laughing, loving presence would be different, with the gladness and freedom gone from it, did not deter her.
At Villetswood was her father, who must surely become again, someday, his kindly, merry self. At Villetswood all the servants were her friends, and would be glad to welcome her again, and make much of her.
With a sense of doing something that Aunt Marianne would certainly consider contraband, Zella wrote to her father and asked if she might come home again.
She wrote the letter in the schoolroom before breakfast, taking time and trouble over the composition; for she had a nervous fear lest her father might think, as Aunt Marianne had assured her he must, that a few months of regular life with a companion of her own age would do her good.
After Zella had taken the letter down to the post-box in the hall, she went up to the schoolroom again, happier than she had been for some weeks.
It was with no shadow of apprehension that she heard Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, after luncheon, call her into the drawing-room.
“Would you like to come and talk to Aunt Marianne for a little while, instead of going for a walk?” she asked very kindly, and Zella gladly thanked her.
Just hold this skein of wool then, dear, while I wind it. I always think one should have something to do with one’s hands while one is talking.
“‘ Satan finds some mischief still For idle hands to do.’”
Zella took the skein of red wool and sat down on a small chair opposite her aunt’s sofa.
“How are your lessons getting on, dear?”
“All right, I think,” said Zella rather wonderingly.
“I’m glad to hear it, for I know you have had no very regular lessons until you came here; and that’s a great drawback, you know, Zella. You must work hard now to make up for lost time.”
Zella felt the latent resentment, which her Aunt Marianne could always rouse, rising within her.
Her face expressed defiance, but Mrs. Lloyd-Evans did not raise her eyes from the ball of wool.
“Later on,” she pursued, “when you have caught up with Muriel, it will be more interesting.”
The inference that her visit was to be of an indeterminate length alarmed Zella, and she said hastily:
“Oh, but, Aunt Marianne, I expect I shall be back at Villetswood before so very long. I’ve been here nearly three months, and I think papa will want me back soon.”
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans saw the opening for which she had been waiting.
“Dear child, you are quite right to think of that, of course, but papa won’t want you back just yet. It was quite arranged that you were to stay with us for a long visit, and I expect it will be more or less of a permanent one. You know how glad we are to have you.”
“But, Aunt Marianne—” Zella was scarlet from dismay and a sort of fear.
“You see, dear, things aren’t quite the same now. A gentleman cannot very well look after a little girl, and, besides, it would be very lonely for you at Villetswood. Papa might, of course, find a good governess for you, and leave you there under her care while he went abroad, as he so frequently does,” interpolated Mrs. Lloyd-Evans rather resentfully; “but I do not think that is very likely. In fact, I know that his real wish is to leave you under my care for a year or two.”
The foundation for this statement was not very apparent even to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans herself, but she found ample justification for it in the knowledge that gentlemen did not always quite understand what was most suitable.
“But,” said Zella faintly, “he said I should go back to him in a little while.”
“Yes, dear, and I’m sure he would let you do so if you wished to. But you are quite happy with us, aren’t you, Zella?” said Aunt Marianne very kindly indeed.
Zella could have burst into tears. It was constitutionally impossible to her to tell Aunt Marianne, when she spoke so kindly, that she was not happy at Boscombe, in spite of all that was being done for her.
She felt herself a craven and a traitor when she thought of her already written letter to her father, but Zella was morally unable to make any further reply than a rather quavering:
“Yes, Aunt Marianne.”
“That’s right, dear. Besides, don’t you think it would be rather unkind to worry poor papa just now, when he is so glad to think that you are good and happy here? You see, it is very hard tor a gentleman to have to make arrangements for a little girl, and if you make difficulties it will bring his sad loss home to him more than ever. You understand, I know, darling.”
“Oh yes.”
“Write him nice cheerful letters, then — won’t you, dear? — and let him see that you are contented and happy.”
Zella felt as though her aunt must have seen through the letter-box and the envelope it contained, to the letter inside. But she choked out another “Yes.”
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans looked rather relieved, kissed Zella, and sent her upstairs again.
She was convinced that Louis de Kervoyou was quite unfitted to look after his daughter, and trusted that Providence would second her efforts to retain charge of Zella, or at the very least place her in a satisfactory school.
VII
Zella spent that day and the next in a characteristic agony of apprehension.
She thought that she had acted treacherously, and dreaded lest her Aunt Marianne should find it out. What if her father wrote from Villetswood to tell Aunt Marianne that Zella was unhappy under her charge, and wanted to come home at once? Or supposing he really thought, as Aunt Marianne said, that she was better at Boscombe, and wrote to say that she could not return to Villetswood for the present?
She suffered acutely in anticipating these and other varied replies to her appeal, before her father’s letter actually arrived, by return of post.
“Ma Cherie, — Je compte venir passer 2 jours chez ta tante, jeudi, si elle pent me recevoir. Sois tranquille; nous arrangerons la chose et tu feras comme tu voudra. — Ton pere qui t’aime.”
Zella felt a rush of grateful tenderness at the old indulgent tone, w
hich she had learnt to value as never before, in the well-regulated Lloyd-Evans household, from whence it was so conspicuously absent.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, beyond saying, with a heavy sigh, that it would remind one of those happy times that would never come back again, made no allusion to her brother-in-law’s proposed visit in Zella’s hearing.
But she said to her husband privately: “Henry, I hope poor Louis has no mad scheme for taking Zella back to Villetswood with him.”
“Mad scheme?” said Henry questioningly.
“Yes, dear. It would be terribly morbid and unnatural if he insisted on taking her to that big lonely house, full of sad memories and associations of dear, dear Esmee; and I shall certainly tell him so, if he suggests anything of the sort.”
“I don’t suppose he will,” Henry returned comfortably. “Probably only too glad to know she’s so well and happy here.’
“One never can tell what foreigners may think,” said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans impressively, “even when it is one’s own brother-in-law.”
Beyond kissing Zella half a dozen times on both cheeks when he arrived, Louis de Kervoyou gave no glaring evidences of his foreignness until the morning after his arrival at Boscombe.
He had regained more of his habitual joviality of manner than his sister-in-law thought particularly suitable in the space of two months, and she told her husband, in a depressed tone of voice, that it seemed very probable that poor Louis would soon want to marry again.
Zella, finding the father who had spoilt and petted her all her life apparently returned to his kindly, merry self, was too thankful at finding herself in the old light-hearted atmosphere again, to make any allusion to the bereavement which she had learned to connect with hushed tones and a tearful solemnity.
It was a slight shock to her when her father mentioned her mother’s name in a perfectly matter-of-fact manner in the course of conversation that evening, and Aunt Marianne winced so perceptibly that she felt almost obliged to draw in her breath with a little quick sound suggestive of pain. After that Louis de Kervoyou did not speak of his wife again, though he came upstairs and talked to Zella for a long while after she was in bed that evening. But he was very kind and affectionate, and obviously delighted to have her with him again.
Next morning he looked at the evidences of her toil with Miss Vincent, when Mrs. Lloyd-Evans directed her to fetch her books from the schoolroom and show papa how nicely she was getting on; but he did not seem greatly impressed, and merely observed:
“Tu n’as pas perdu ton francais, petite, hein?”
“Certainly not,” said her aunt in English. “Miss Vincent knows French thoroughly, and the children always speak it at meals.”
He made a little courteous gesture of acknowledgment towards the governess. “I am very grateful to Miss Vincent,” he said, smiling at her.
“You see, Louis, Zella really is very backward with her English, though, of course, she speaks French very nicely,” said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, giving Miss Vincent a quiet look which the governess rightly interpreted to mean that a conversation must now take place between Zella’s father and her aunt, at which Zella was not meant to assist.
The governess accordingly sent her pupil up to the schoolroom with a brisk “Now run and put away your books, dear, and get ready for a walk,” and herself followed the reluctant Zella out of the room.
But Zella’s reluctance was merely on the general principles of annoyance at being told to “run,” and dislike of being sent out of the room like a small child. She knew quite well what her father was about to say to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, and felt no desire to witness her Aunt Marianne’s reception of his tidings.
It was not without some humorous apprehension on the part of Louis de Kervoyou himself that he began:
“It has been more than good of you to take such care of the child, Marianne, and I only wish I could thank you sufficiently; but I know how gladly you’ve done it,” he added hastily, forestalling a reference, which he felt to be imminent, to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans’s dear, dear only sister.
“But I think it’s time I had her with me again, poor little thing! or she will feel I’m shirking my responsibilities,” he ended with a rather melancholy smile.
“No one could possibly think that, Louis, if you leave her here, where she will always have a home and a mother’s care — unless, indeed, you think she ought to be at school?”
“Certainly not. There has never been any question of her going to school. But, my dear Marianne, Villetswood is Zella’s natural home, even though circumstances have altered.”
“They have indeed,” said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans agitatedly; “and you surely cannot intend, Louis, to keep her alone in that great house, with no one but the servants. For although a father may be very devoted, a girl must have a mother, at Zella’s age, or some good woman to take a mother’s place.”
“I do not think anyone can do that,” said Louis gravely; “but Zella shall not lack care.”
“Governesses are sometimes very artful, Louis, and you might find many unforeseen difficulties with them.”
“No doubt,” replied Louis dryly, rather inclined to laugh at the delicately veiled insinuation. “But for the moment I had not thought of getting a governess for Zella. It will be education enough, for the present, if I take her abroad with me.”
All Mrs. Lloyd-Evans’s most cherished prejudices settled round the fatal word “abroad,” and she was silent from sincere dismay.
“I want a companion, and it will do Zella good,” said Louis serenely. “Besides, it is time we went to visit my mother.”
“Paris?” almost groaned his sister-in-law.
“No. She is in Rome for the winter, and is very anxious that Zella and I should join her there for a couple of months.”
Rome, to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans’s thinking, was merely one degree worse than Paris, in harbouring the Pope and a society mainly composed of intriguing and loose-living Cardinals. Nor did she belong to the class that is accustomed to travelling as a matter of course, and, as she afterwards said to Henry, it seemed to her nothing less than scandalous that an old woman of seventy, like the Baronne de Kervoyou, should be rushing all over the globe at her time of life.
Louis, who with his wife was accustomed to spending a week in Paris or a fortnight in Italy whenever the fancy seized them, only partially understood her dismay.
“We shall be back by the middle of February, I expect,” he said kindly, “and Zella will enjoy seeing Italy.”
“Christmas in Rome!”
He misunderstood her. “The New Year is more of a festival there, I fancy.”
“No wonder, in a country without any religion but Romanism!”
“Oh,” said Louis rather humorously, “if that is what you are thinking of, there is an English church all right, and Zella can attend it; though I admit I much prefer the Catholic ones myself. But my mother, as a matter of fact, will be exceedingly particular about all that.”
“Louis,” said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans warmly, “you have a perfect right to do as you please with your own child.”
Few words could have conveyed her unalterable disapproval more effectively.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans gave no sign of disapproving her brother-in-law’s decision before his child, to Zella’s intense relief. A shade of added gravity in Aunt Marianne’s manner might merely be attributed to the responsibility, which she took upon herself as a matter of course, of superintending Zella’s packing and purchasing one or two additions to her mourning.
“You see, dear,” she gravely told her niece, “you will hardly be able to get anything very suitable out there. I know what foreign shops are.”
“We shall be two nights in Paris,” said Zella.
“A little girl cannot shop in a town like Paris,” Mrs. Lloyd-Evans told her, thereby infuriating Zella, who since her father’s arrival had ceased to regard herself as a little girl.
The term, so obnoxious to fourteen, was now felt by Zella to be only appropriate to Muriel. For
the past two months, Zella felt that she had been regarded by all her surroundings as Muriel’s inferior in education, sense, and virtue; and, though Muriel herself was utterly unconscious on the subject, Zella had resented the knowledge passionately, and took full advantage of her present triumphant emancipation, suddenly magnificently self-confident again.
Muriel was frankly envious of a cousin whose father could suddenly arrive, as Uncle Louis had done, and take his daughter away from Miss Vincent and the routine of lessons and walks, to spend the winter abroad.
Miss Vincent said rather coldly:
“This will be an opportunity, Zella, for you to learn Italian. I hope you will make the most of it.”
“When shall you start?” Muriel asked wistfully.
“We are going to London on Monday, and to Paris next day; but I dare say we shall stay there a day or two,” said Zella in the most matter-of-fact tone at her command. “Of course, I know Paris quite well already.”
“You are lucky,” said Muriel enviously.
“I am rather fond of travelling!” observed Zella casually.
Even the submissive Muriel was moved at this to say rather defiantly:
“Of course, I shall go abroad myself when I’m seventeen, to finish my education. I expect I shall go to Germany, so as to work at my violin-playing.”
This reference to an accomplishment which she did not herself possess did not please Zella, and she replied that perhaps by that time, Muriel would have given up the fiddle. Muriel was offended, and the two cousins might have parted with some coldness but for the chastening influence of the Last Evening.
It was a modified edition of that Last Evening consecrated to James’s departure, and the weight of it oppressed Zella strangely. She had not been happy at Boscombe, and had been glad to know she was leaving; yet she found herself gazing regretfully round the drawing-room, grown so familiar in the last two months, and at her silent relatives, of whom only her father was talking cheerfully and unconstrainedly.
She despised Muriel, and found her irritating and uncongenial; but she now sat and held Muriel’s hand, and promised to write her long letters from Rome.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 7