Zella, in spite of what she had supposed to be an iron resolution against impressionability, began to feel herself justly rebuked.
“Besides, Zella dear, it would really be just what you want at Villetswood. I have often felt that the want of a lady at the head of a household is such a terrible thing, and especially now that you are at home and beginning to grow up. You see, dear, Tante Stephanie will be able to look after the servants, and order the meals, and see to the housekeeping, and all those things which you could not manage. And, then, there will be somebody to sit at the head of the table later on, if poor papa should wish to entertain a little, which he very likely will, now that you are come out.”
Zella’s conviction that she did not want Tante Stephanie to come and live at Villetswood increased by leaps and bounds, but she went on listening to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans’s gentle volubility in a sort of fascinated silence.
“I quite see that for the first moment or two the idea may seem rather strange, but you should overcome that, and only think of what is right, dear. Now, Aunt Marianne does not want to influence you in any way, so you shall make up your mind quite quietly and give me the telegram to take away when I go. Think over what I have been saying, dear, and remember that verse of poetry I am always so fond of:
“‘He prayeth best who loveth best.’”
And Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, to mark the earnestness of her determination not to influence Zella, went to the window and gazed into the street below, having first placed the telegraph form and a pencil at her niece’s elbow.
Zella sat wrestling with her own weakness and the old insidious dread of being disapproved of. She did not really want Tante Stephanie at Villetswood, and she felt certain that her father had, according to his wont, meant exactly what he said in asking her to telegraph her wishes. If she wrote, “Ask Tante Stephanie for a long visit,” he would understand, and would not make the invitation a permanent one.
Aunt Marianne, from the window, sighed heavily, and shifted her weight patiently from one foot to the other.
How selfish it would seem not to want poor Tante Stephanie, who was all alone in the world, old and poor, Zella mentally phrased it, with more pathos than accuracy, to share her home at Villetswood! This was an opportunity for one of those sacrifices that only God would know about, reflected Zella with a distinct recollection of Reverend Mother, and an undercurrent of satisfaction at the thought that Aunt Marianne as well as God would thus be forced to recognize her unselfishness. She would yield to the generous impulse.
She did so.
Then, with a quiet that was artistic in its restraint, she put the telegram into Aunt Marianne’s hand.
“I was selfish,” she observed with a beautiful simplicity, “but that is all over now.”
Aunt Marianne, largely responsible for having wrought Zella to this pitch, disconcertingly failed to rise to the occasion.
“You must have put more than twelve words, dear, which is very extravagant, especially with these foreign telegrams. Still, that is very nice.”
“It cost me something, but I’m glad I did it,” untruly observed Zella, determined to rouse Aunt Marianne to a fitting perception of her niece’s virtue.
This time she did not miss her effect.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans was recalled to more solemn issues.
“Yes, Zella dear, and I am very, very glad, too. Do you know that Aunt Marianne actually said a little prayer for you to decide rightly — just a few words, since I always think the best prayers are really those one makes up for oneself — asking that you should see how unkind it would be to disappoint poor Aunt Stephanie, and should make a little effort, and then write a really nicely worded welcoming telegram,” said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, in the carefully explanatory rhetoric reserved by her for directions issued to the Almighty and to any painstaking but obtuse official at the Army and Navy Stores.
“The prayer was answered, you see,” said Zella, anxious to direct the conversation back into a more personal channel.
“Yes, dear; but Aunt Marianne always thinks that the best way to end up all prayers — give me the telegram, and I will put it in my little bag, so as not to forget it — the best way to end up a prayer, dear, is always ‘Thy will be done.’”
XXIV
On this last pious truism Mrs. Lloyd-Evans took her leave, saying to Zella at the drawing-room door:
“No, dear, don’t come downstairs with Aunt Marianne; you would rather keep quiet to-day, one knows.” She appeared further to make herself clear in some subtle manner by adding: “I mean, one knows that you would rather keep quiet to-day.”
Having thus elucidated her meaning, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans went slowly downstairs, adjusted to her face the expression that the butler would consider suitable to one in grief, and was let out at the hall door.
“My dear Henry, how did you get here?” she demanded in a tone of such astonishment that it almost sounded shocked, when at the corner of South Audley Street she encountered her husband.
“I lunched at the club, dear, and meant to walk back across the Park. Are you going home now?”
“Yes.”
At the unwonted brevity of this reply, Henry suddenly bethought himself of his wife’s recent errand, and the appropriate inquiry sprang almost automatically to his lips:
“How did you find poor little Zella?”
“Poor little thing! I am very glad I went to her,” which immediately impressed on Henry’s mind a doleful conviction that his wife had found Zella inconsolable at the loss of the Baronne.
“Has she heard from Louis?”
“Yes, he telegraphed; although I cannot help feeling that it was a very extravagant thing to do, when a letter would have cost so much less and explained a great deal better. However, it was really to tell Zella that he has arranged for her Aunt Stephanie, as she calls herself, to come and live with them at Villetswood,” said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, believing herself to be stating the case accurately.
Henry Lloyd-Evans whistled softly.
“That’s rather hard luck on Zella, isn’t it?”
“No, dear, why should it be? That little dog is positively trying to follow us, Henry; I wish you would not whistle. You must remember we are in London. And why should it be hard luck on Zella? On the contrary, what one has always felt is that she needs someone to mother her, and to look after that great house at Villetswood and all those servants. That old housekeeper has always seemed to me both careless and artful. Besides, it will no doubt be a real blessing to the poor woman herself.”
“I dare say,” said Henry, rightly concluding that the poor woman referred to was Mdlle de Kervoyou. “Will she be very badly off?”
“Practically penniless,” Mrs. Lloyd-Evans’s inventive genius prompted her mournfully to reply. “These foreigners, poor things, very seldom save anything, and have not our safe investments, either, for what little money they may scrape together. I always think that system of francs and centimes is very fishy, to say the least of it.”
“The decimal system is used practically all over the Continent, Marianne, and, in fact, it is only supposed to be a question of time before we take to it ourselves.”
“You may call it by any grand name you please, dear,” inexorably returned his wife, “but that does not make it any safer or more practical; and the result of it all is that poor Miss de Kervoyou, the moment her mother dies, has to go and live on her half-brother’s charity, which is what it really amounts to.”
Henry, well inured to the reasoning peculiar to Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, did not dispute the logic of her present conclusion, and merely inquired:
“Then, she is going, is she?”
“Oh yes; the whole thing is practically settled. I think poor little Zella was rather upset for the first moment or two at its having been arranged so quickly; but one was able to show her how selfish any objection would be, and she wrote quite a nice cordial answer. No, Henry, don’t cross until that motor-bus is out of the way. The policeman will make us a sign. We must stop
at a post-office, dear, though a telegram seems to me a foolish and unnecessary expense.”
“Then, why send one, my dear? What do you want to telegraph about f”
“My dear Henry, you are not attending to a word I say. I have just told you that Louis sent Zella a prepaid telegram, and she begged me to send the answer for her. I have it in my little bag. We can stop in Sloane Street.”
“I see. Well, I hope they’ll hit it off. It seems a sensible arrangement enough.”
Across the Park and down the length of Sloane Street Mrs. Lloyd-Evans demonstrated that it was, and only drew attention in the merest aside to the blackness of the London trees and the indisputable difference between the green of London and the green of the country. But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, like the majority of humanity, was to discover that there lies an unexpected difference between a sensible arrangement in theory and that same sensible arrangement carried into practice.
A week later Louis de Kervoyou brought his sister, in all the crepe-shrouded blackness prescribed by the laws of French mourning, to Villetswood.
Zella, in her inmost heart thinking it a gross injustice on the part of Providence that she should be plunged into an atmosphere of grief on the very threshold of her coming out, travelled with her father and aunt from London, and was relieved to find that both appeared perfectly capable of sustaining an ordinary conversation and of behaving very much as usual.
Tante Stephanie, indeed, almost scandalized her by the perfect calm with which she remarked, on establishing herself at Villetswood:
“Maman serait ravie de me voir avec une si belle chambre. Elle regrettait toujours ce vilain mur sur lequel je donnais dans l’appartement Rue des Ecoles. Esperons que le bon Dieu l’appelera vite au Paradis, d’ou elle pourra voir comme je suis bien logee.”
Zella did not know what to reply, and felt awkward. Finally she said rather haltingly, “Grand’mere can see you from heaven, I am sure, dear Aunt Stephanie,” and immediately felt as though she had impertinently tried to interfere with the judgments of the Almighty, the more especially when Mdlle de Kervoyou returned calmly:
“Maman was very good, a saint if you will, but she anticipated her little bit of Purgatory like the rest of us, and we must pray for her, Zella, my dear child. But I need not ask it of you.”
“No, indeed,” said Zella, with a fervour in her tones entirely due to her ardent hope that Tante Stephanie would only indulge in these aspirations when they were alone.
But Mdlle de Kervoyou, being a gentlewoman, and, moreover, one of more experience than her niece gave her credit for, did not shame Zella’s youthful sensitiveness by any ill-timed allusion to her parent’s probable sojourn in Purgatory.
The gentle French lady made herself beloved of the servants and of the village, but assumed none of the prerogatives of mistress of Villetswood, which position she apparently took for granted to belong to Zella.
Zella was pleased to find that she still sat at the head of her father’s table, and, while holding in reserve a graceful tableau of unselfish sweetness rendering up the keys to a domineering intruder, was yet relieved to find that no such display was needed. But the keys, left in her undisputed possession, gradually became more burdensome than gratifying, and Zella almost found herself wishing that Mdlle de Kervoyou would realize more nearly Mrs. Lloyd-Evans’s ideal of a resident aunt.
The absence of a dramatic element in her life began to depress her, as it must all natures accustomed to feed upon artificial emotions, and Zella began to long for any incident, however disturbing, that should mar the peace of Villetswood.
Louis did not, like a father in a book, remain absorbed in melancholy reflection, locked in his study, for hours together. On the contrary, he rode with his daughter almost daily, read French aloud to her and to his sister in the evenings, and listened gladly to her music.
Tante Stephanie, not content with a definite thought unspoken refusal to play the part of petty tyrant towards her niece, also gracefully avoided the role of intellectual wet-blanket that seemed so obviously assigned to her by all literary conventions, and proved herself the most cultivated of companions, with literary and artistic tastes and education that were not unnaturally considerably wider and deeper than those of her niece.
Finally, the unfortunate Zella was deprived of her last possible grievance, the monotony of life in the depths of the country, by the indulgence of her father, who took her to London on every possible excuse, and gave her carte blanche to invite anyone she pleased to Villetswood as soon as the first months of Tante Stephanie’s deep mourning were over.
Zella felt that life had become uninteresting to an unbearable degree.
Her religious experiences had lost their novelty, and her intercourse with the Almighty was now confined to a tepid and unthinking formula uttered night and morning when she remembered, and a hasty, ejaculatory “Oh, please let it be all right” in any sudden crisis. This, in letters to the convent, was gratefully referred to as “the habit learnt at the dear convent, of raising my heart and mind to God at any difficult moment during the day.”
The Catholic Church, whereof she had now been a member for nearly three years, had become an institution represented by the unwelcome appearance of plats maigres on days when she least expected or desired them, and the effort involved by an early drive on Sundays and holidays of obligation to the Catholic church, five miles away. Tante Stephanie, who might, Zella considered, have reasonably been expected to take an absorbing interest in the paths by which her niece had been led into the true fold, showed no disposition to encourage the recital of Zella’s spiritual experiences. Her only recognition of any deeper bond between them took the form of frequent requests that Zella would mention the names of various defunct French relatives in her prayers, and a matter-of-course taking for granted that she would prefer to attend a Low Mass as well as a High one on Sundays.
Zella was bored.
She wrote verses about her impassioned and sorrowful soul, which she sent to Alison St. Craye with a wistful hopefulness. Alison replied on a postcard: “Little one, you do not know how to use words yet. To me, they always present themselves as splashes of yellow sunlight on a cold marble floor.”
Zella felt as though the cold marble floor might serve as analogy in another capacity. Discouraged, she thought of writing a book. With one eye, as it were, on Alison’s approbation, she decided that a prose idyll would be her best form of self-expression.
She would write of the blue sky, the whispering trees of the forest, God’s innocent woodland creatures. Drawing a leather arm-chair close to the library fire, she did so.
Local colour abounded.
She skimmed two or three volumes of Richard Jefferies, and kept a copy of the “Pageant of Summer” on a small table beside her bed in company with the “Imitation of Christ” given her by Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, and a small edition de luxe of Omar Khayyam. But after a very little while the prose idyll languished, was half heartedly resumed at lengthening intervals, then ceased altogether. Zella sent the fragment to Alison St. Craye and wrote, with some subtlety:
“I do not feel certain that you will, (forgive me, Alison), altogether understand all that this incomplete fragment means to me. It has no literary merit, no attempt at completeness, even, but I hope that just its sincerity may make an appeal to those who know. You see, I was born in the country, and the love of Nature is in my blood. I sometimes wonder whether that love can ever be quite the same thing to those not born within sight and sound of the rustling forest.”
Thus Zella, aware that Miss St. Craye’s eyes had first opened to the glare of London lights. But if she had hoped by this subtle allusion to force the hand of Alison, she speedily discovered her fallacy. A second postcard, even briefer than the first one had been, revealed to Zella with some bitterness that her literary offspring was ill-timed — had, in fact, launched itself upon Miss St. Craye’s attention in one of her rare moods of rather ponderous humorousness.
She read in Alison�
��s large square handwriting, that studiously sloped downhill in accordance with the general belief that this is characteristic of those who have known much trouble and suffering, the disconcerting message:
“Zella, — No, you are right; I do not understand your ‘fragment.’ Neither do you; for there is nothing to understand. Find yourself, little one, is my advice, and until you have done so do not write. Your well-wisher — do you know that quaint old term, I wonder? — A. St. C.”
Zella, feeling bitterly disgusted at her well-wisher’s lack of insight, put Richard Jefferies into the bookcase again, and, after a month of desultory novel-reading of the lightest kind, discovered that she was a realist of the most passionate description.
She underlined several passages in “Anna Karenina,” bought a cheap edition of Galsworthy’s plays, and began to write another book. This time she really did achieve half a dozen chapters before the desire for an audience obsessed her too strongly to be resisted.
But Alison St. Craye should be given no further opportunity for unworthy facetiousness.
Zella read over her own production critically, thought that it was good, and wondered if Tante Stephanie would understand it. It did not occur to her to test her father.
“Tante Stephanie, I should rather like to read you something, when you have time, and if it wouldn’t bore you.”
“Something you have written?” hazarded Stephanie, looking pleased.
“Yes. Just the beginning, you know. And I want you to tell me exactly what you think,” said Zella eagerly and quite untruly.
“Very well, my dear. I shall like to hear it, and it is very nice of you to let me. I know that maman always said you would write one of these days.”
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 25