She would have liked to have been allowed to do something with John’s apartments, out of her love for him. But here he would not allow her to enter. His rooms were all leather, heavy mahogany, dull rich carpets and hangings, and quiet order. His father would have been quite astonished.
The two gardeners were always in despair over her, but adored her. Not for Lilybelle well-qrdered and prim paths and well-behaved flowers. There must be a riot and thunder of hues, rose-covered arbours, intricate flagged paths, birdbaths, little bright pools covered with water-lilies, and shady retreats under thick trees, all with a fine disregard for symmetry and classical taste. It was in vain that the gardeners pointed out that the land was entirely too small for such exuberance, and it would need at least three acres, instead of half an acre, to contain all this without an effect of disorder and confusion. Lilybelle had her way, but so prettily, so affectionately, that she was always obeyed, and the gardeners toiled to bring order out of chaos. Too, she was always so contrite, so anxious to placate, when she had her way, that the gardeners usually assured her hurriedly that she had better taste than they had, themselves.
Unlike the usual run of gardeners, the elder gardener was always vastly relieved when Lilybelle swooped down upon the gardens and carried off enormous masses. It “tidied” up the place, in his opinion, to have such overwhelming armfuls taken away.
As Mrs. Bowden followed Lilybelle about, trying to extract orders for the day out of the loud and running remarks constantly bursting from her smiling mouth, the housekeeper assured her mistress that she considered the new governess quite satisfactory, and a good influence upon the children.
“She is quite civil, and refined,” said Mrs. Bowden, in her gentle but resolute voice. She carefully adjusted the white cap with its fluted borders upon her little gray head. “And that is just what the children need. They have been allowed too much liberty, in my opinion. Miss Higgins was entirely too lax with them. That was because she was lazy, and preferred to munch with the maids in the kitchen to teaching the children good manners. You know yourself, Mrs. Turnbull, that their language was becoming quite outrageous. I have even heard Lavinia swear, and Louisa was becoming entirely too pert. Though,” she added, with a soft change upon her stern little brown countenance, “nothing could spoil Adelaide, nothing in the world.”
Lilybelle paused in her distribution of the flowers, and turned quickly to her housekeeper. Her big and highly flushed countenance became radiant, and foolish with love. “Oh, Adelaide, the little monkey,” she said, with a deeper tone in her loud and careless voice. “You did always spoil her, you know you did, Bowden. And such an ugly little thing, too, not to be compared with Lavinia and Louisa, who are so beautiful, the darlings.”
“I don’t regard Adelaide as being ugly,” said Mrs. Bowden, with spirit, and quite flushing in her indignation. “She has character, and refinement, and elegance. The child could not lie, no matter what happened. She is as straight as a die. You will forgive me, Mrs. Turnbull, but Adelaide is a lady, a thing I cannot say in all truth of Lavinia and Louisa, for all their handsomeness.”
Lilybelle was not offended. She laughed comfortably. “Who cares if they are ladies or not,” she said, giving Mrs. Bowden a brief hug, and having to bend considerably to do so. “You are an old bear, Bowden.”
Her voice, under years of tutelage by Miss Beardsley, had almost completely lost its old country accent. But it could never lose its strong and vital coarseness, its evidence of vivid life and exuberance. She almost never committed an error in grammar, thanks to Miss Beardsley, though she could still only read the simplest of words. Miss Beardsley had finally given up in despair at making Lilybelle literate.
She paused, after the hug bestowed on Mrs. Bowden, to think about her youngest child. In spite of her words, the look on her face betrayed that Adelaide was her pet, her love, her darling, her Benjamin. She said, wishing to urge on the housekeeper to fresh praises of the child: “It’s true she’s clever, Bowden. Too clever, her Papa says. But such a little pale face, and such big brown eyes, and the lashes too long and black for real beauty. So solemn, too, like a little monkey. You hardly ever hear her laugh.”
“Perhaps,” said Mrs. Bowden, quietly, “she hasn’t much to laugh about.”
She hardly thought Lilybelle would understand this, for usually the young woman was so stupid and obvious. But to Mrs. Bowden’s surprise, Lilybelle’s large and pretty fat face suddenly clouded, and she seemed oddly distrait. She turned away and fumbled unnecessarily with the roses, and a thorn entered her thumb. She uttered a loud and really vulgar word, and thrust the thumb in her mouth, where she sucked on it vigorously. But her big blue eyes had a dark distress in them.
“Oh, Bowden, that ain’t—isn’t—so, and you know it,” she said, her articulation somewhat obscured by the thumb. She removed the digit, and examined it with too much absorption. She continued: “The little lass doesn’t make friends, not even with her own sisters. Keeps to herself, like a naughty little foreigner. No wonder they tease her.”
“They’re quite brutal to her, Mrs. Turnbull,” said Mrs. Bowden, with fresh indignation. “I know it is not my place to remark on this, but I’ve desired to speak to you of it for some time. I trust you will pardon me. Adelaide is too proud to complain, too reticent. Too, she isn’t very strong, and can’t hold her own against those big and careless girls. They pounce upon her like young animals, and maul her unpardonably. Then she will creep off to her room, and never let any one see her tears. Perhaps she is foreign to them,” added Mrs. Bowden, gravely. “Perhaps she is superior to them, for even though she is only eight years old, she quite surpasses them in her lessons. Even Miss Higgins remarked on that. And her music is really exceptional. The other girls are quite stupid at music.” Mrs. Bowden hesitated. She would have liked to have protested at Mr. Turnbull’s open and savage dislike of his youngest daughter, but refrained from doing so. However, her wise mouth tightened, trembled at the corners.
Lilybelle, despite her obtuseness, evidently caught a little of her thought, for she said, in a somewhat dull voice: “I wish Mr. T. could hear you, Bowden. Addy’s plainness offended him. With all that long straight brown hair, so fine, and not curling proper in spite of rags and hot irons. The other lasses have such pretty curls, Linny’s so black and rich, and Louisa’s so yellow and bright. And they’ve got such nice colour, too.”
“There are some,” said Mrs. Bowden, severely, “who prefer delicacy of colouring and fineness of feature and decorum to obvious prettiness. I find Adelaide a true beauty. She will never be as tall as her sisters, but she will have grace and refinement, and true breeding. There are some,” she continued courageously, “who prefer ale and whiskey, and those who prefer fine wine. Adelaide is brewed from the best, and her bouquet will be adequately appreciated some day.”
The unstable Lilybelle glowed like the sun upon the little woman. Impulsively, she bent again and kissed her with generous abandon. “O Bowden!” she exclaimed, “I know it’s so! Nobody could be sweeter or finer than my little darling! I always tell Mr. T., but he thinks I’m a fool. I know I’m a fool, but about her children, a mother knows!”
Swinging rapidly from delight to sadness, she said mournfully: “Mr. T. doesn’t understand lasses. Because the older lasses make such a to-do over him, he thinks they love him quite to death. But they’re so selfish, and grasping, even if I’m so fond of them, and say it myself. He doesn’t know that Addy is the one who loves him, truly, and more than she does me, even if I’m her own mother.”
“The child’s affection for her Papa is excessively touching,” agreed Mrs. Bowden, with sombre regret. “But, she can’t express it. She can just look at him with her great brown eyes, full of tears. Gentlemen are so oblivious. I believe Mr. Turnbull thinks Adelaide is sulky and dull.”
“Yes,” agreed Lilybelle. “And it does no good for me to tell him.”
Mrs. Bowden regarded her with secret compassion. She knew that Lilybelle’
s two older daughters despised her, mocked and ridiculed her behind her back, and reflected their father’s attitude toward their mother with malicious and childish fidelity. They never obeyed her if they could help it. They played cruel little tricks upon her, laughing loudly at her confusion and bewilderment and hurt. Nor could Lavinia, for instance, be excused on the ground of too much youth. She was almost thirteen, and physically older than her actual age, practically a young lady now. And there was Louisa, so deceptively sweet and charming and dainty, as cruel and even more merciless than her older sister, a cunning shrewd woman at eleven. No, there was no excuse for them. For all their assurance and greed and realism, they were not worthy of such a mother, ignorant and stupid though Lilybelle was. Mrs. Bowden, having suffered at the hands of the clever and the exigent and ruthless, had the highest regard and appreciation for those who were kind and pure of heart, and generous. Kindness, to her, was more than beauty, gentleness more than elegance, and charity nobler than breeding.
There were other things which Mrs. Bowden might have told Lilybelle, but hot irons could not have dragged them from her. She could have told her, for instance, of a matter that was common and sniggering talk in the servants’ dining-hall, and that was of a certain discreet little house on West Fifth Street, a blind and elegant little house of white wood with green shutters, where Mr. Turnbull and a certain highly bred lady met on regular afternoons, or evenings. Where the servants had obtained this informatlon no one knew, and Mrs. Bowden had not only disdained to listen to the stories, but had ordered them to cease, in her presence, at least.
Pursuing her thoughts, Lilybelle said: “I’ve so wanted Linny to go to Miss Hartford’s School for Young Ladies at Tarrytown, but Mr. T. won’t hear of it. And Louisa ought to go, too. Such great girls to have a governess and a nursemaid! Makes them dependent, like. But Mr. T. will have his lasses at home. There will be a tutor, soon, he says. But you know how it is, Bowden,” she added, helplessly. “The lasses are so forward and sharp, and there’s no doing anything with them. I can’t manage them, really, and we can’t keep governesses. It’s beyond me.”
They went into the pretty if crowded morning room, where Lilybelle left the last of the flowers. Soft flowered curtains blew in the gentle summer wind, and the french windows opened on a slope of green that led to the brilliant gardens. Here canaries sang in white cages, and long streaks of sunlight sparkled on white ceiling and gay red walls and ruddy tiled floor. Lilybelle sat down and fanned her hot face with her kerchief. On her damp forehead the coppery hair curled in ringlets, and her white hands and neck glowed with a vibrant warmness. If she could only curb her appetite, thought Mrs. Bowden, with loving regret, she would regain her lissome figure and be most excessively handsome. But her expression, if stupid, was so kind and generous, and even sweet, that one could forgive her anything, even her enormous zest at the table.
They completed the long list of household matters, and Mrs. Bowden competently jingling her keys, was about to depart on her duties, when a housemaid entered to inform Mrs. Turnbull that she had visitors, Mr. Wilkins and Miss Beardsley. Lilybelle sprang to her feet, her sprigged hoops swirling, and uttered an exclamation of pleasure. But Miss Bowden’s withered brownish lips pursed.
Lilybelle ran through the cool freshness of the pleasant house to greet her guests, while Mrs. Bowden, remembering that Miss Beardsley was her cousin, followed more slowly.
“Such a lovely day, ma’am, and not so hot as yesterday, and the lady and I thought we’d drop in for a minute,” said Mr. Wilkins, as his hostess burst delightedly into the drawing-room. “She’d had her carriage ready for an airing, and I joined her. I trust we don’t intrude?”
“Oh, no, I’m so glad you’ve come!” cried Lilybelle, shaking hands warmly with her old friend, and then turning to kiss Miss Beardsley heartily on that august cheek. She looked at them both, her eyes shining in the polished gloom. There was something childlike in her unaffected pleasure and affection.
The years had hardly changed Mr. Wilkins at all. He was one of those men who mellow rather than age. A little more rotund, a little pinker of bald head and face, a little slower of walk, and that was all the change discernible in him. His wardrobes were slightly more magnificent, his air more gallant, his manner more genial and affable, if anything at all. As for Miss Beardsley, she withered rather than aged, becoming leaner and sparer and more commanding. Under her black bonnet her hair was very gray and flat, but her face was still uncompromising and grim, her little sunken eyes sharper. Her black bombazine gown over narrow hoops was still stiff and proper, and she moved in as stately a manner as ever.
“You look very well, child,” she remarked. “I’ve thought of you very often, even though I haven’t seen you since Easter.”
Miss Beardsley then became aware of her cousin hovering on the threshold and a tighter look appeared on her face. “Good afternoon, Elsie,” she said coldly.
But Mrs. Bowden no longer lived in abject terror of her. All the memory of years of humiliation and suffering stood in her calm brown eyes. She inclined her head. “How are you, Amanda?” she asked, in a voice as cold as Miss Beardsley’s.
Miss Beardsley gave her a long look of dislike. She had never quite forgiven Lilybelle for removing her victim from under her thumb, and now she quite hated her cousin. But Mr. Wilkins greeted her effusively, and asked about her health, to which Mrs. Bowden replied in a noncommittal and unbending voice. Then, inclining her head again, she glided away into the shadowy hall.
The guests seated themselves, Mr. Wilkins striking an attitude in a winged chair, Miss Beardsley sitting stiffly on the edge of a damask love-seat. Mr. Wilkins beamed fondly at Lilybelle, while even Miss Beardsley found herself helplessly unbending as usual in the presence of this young woman whom she loved as much as she could love any one. A radiant aura of health and vitality vibrated about Lilybelle, so that the air around her appeared actually luminous in the half dusk. She burst into a stream of bright and amiable chatter about a mass of inconsequentials, talking of her children and her garden, and laughing loudly with sheer happiness in the presence of her friends.
They would have tea with her, of course, in the garden, she said. She jumped up to ring for a maid, and gave the order. Then they all rose and went through the french windows out upon the brilliantly green grass, and then down the slope to a pleasant spot under the willows. A table was set there, and a lace cloth and silver placed upon it. Mr. Wilkins looked about him complacently, enjoying the fresh shade under the trees, and conversing amiably with his hostess. Miss Beardsley, who was never affected by weather, and inclined to be censorious even in the presence of flowers, eyed the flowerbeds and the distant gardeners with a stern eye. She thought the effect of the gardens very blowsy. But so like Lilybelle, certainly. She, herself, disliked flowers very much. They were untidy, and encouraged insects. As for Lilybelle, she looked about her with beaming pride.
She is such a fool, thought Miss Beardsley, with regretful contempt. Is it possible she doesn’t know about her precious husband and his lady-love? But there was no cloud in Lilybelle’s blue eyes. She prattled on, endlessly. Mr. Wilkins appeared to enjoy her conversation, and his expression was smiling and gentle as he gazed at her attentively.
Lilybelle sent for her daughters, and as she waited for them she bridled a little with pride, and simpered. “They are really impossible,” she said, articulating properly, with care, in order that Miss Beardsley might not be too ashamed of her former pupil’s speech.
“And how is my godchild?” asked Miss Beardsley.
“As naughty as ever,” said Lilybelle. Miss Beardsley looked annoyed.
“Nonsense. She is a girl of spirit,” she said, reprovingly, and settled her mitted hands in her lap with a gesture that expressed her irritation. “Louisa is quite the ringleader, I’m sure, and little Adelaide makes her impatient, and no wonder.”
At the mention of Adelaide, an alert point of light flickered in Mr. Wilkins’ protruding haze
l eyes, and he turned towards the door expectantly. But Lilybelle’s radiant exuberance was momentarily shadowed with sadness and protest.
There were young fresh voices across the grass, and three little girls appeared in a flutter of white, pink and blue muslin and spanking curls, their neat young legs encased in ruffled drawers, their girlish hoops tilting and weaving, their light feet in black slippers tied with black ribbons. Lilybelle noted with fond regret that the moist heat of the summer day had already wilted Adelaide’s painfully-wrought curls, and they had become long sleek lengths of light brown hair with a coppery overtone. It was her youngest child at whom she glanced first, and then with an indescribable melting of her whole expression. Adelaide was small and slight of build, seeming even younger than her eight years, and she moved quietly and softly and with a still pride. She had none of that spectacular beauty which seizes the casual eye in entrancement, for her little pointed face was pale and serious, the wide thin lips almost colourless, the little thin nose quite transparent and very delicate, and the large brown eyes too introspective, too quiet and reserved for the ordinary taste, for all that they had a liquid quality full of hidden light. That straight fine hair, long and gleaming, which caused Lilybelle so much regret because of its inability to retain tortuous curls, hung down her straight young back, and was confined about her head with a blue ribbon, which matched her blue muslin. To the connoisseur, however, Adelaide possessed real and transcendent beauty, reserved and cultured. To those who knew Eugenia Bollister, the resemblance between that lady and the little Adelaide was quite startling.
The Turnbulls Page 35