“Father! Mother!” she whispered, instinctively stretching out her hands— “I am so lonely! — so very, very lonely!”
Only silence answered her, and the dumb perfume of the altar flowers. She rose, — and stood a moment trying to control herself, — a pretty little pitiful figure in her dainty, garden-party frock, a soft white chiffon hat tied on under her rounded chin with a knot of pale blue ribbon, and a tiny cobweb of a lace kerchief in her hand with which she dried her wet eyes.
“Oh dear!” she sighed— “It’s no use crying! It only shows what a weak little idiot I am! I’m lonely, of course, — I can’t expect anything else; I shall always be lonely — Roxmouth and Aunt Emily will take care of that. The lies they will tell about me will keep off every man but the one mean and slanderous fortune-hunter, to whom lies are second nature. And as I won’t marry HIM, I shall be left to myself — I shall be an old maid. Though that doesn’t matter — old maids are often the happiest women. Anyhow, I’d rather be an old maid than Duchess of Ormistoune.”
She dabbed her eyes with the little handkerchief again, and went slowly out of the church. And as she stepped from the shadow of its portal into the sunshiny open air, she came face to face with John Walden. He started back at the sudden sight of her, — then recollecting himself, raised his hat, looking at her with questioning eyes.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Walden!” she said, affecting a sprightly air— “Are you quite well?”
He smiled.
“Quite. And you? You look—”
“As if I had been crying, I suppose?” — she suggested. “So I have. Women often cry.”
“They do, — but—”
“But why should they? — you would say, being a man,” — and Maryllia forced a laugh.— “And that’s a question difficult to answer! Are you going into the church?”
“Not for a service, or on any urgent matter,” — replied John— “I left a book in the vestry which I want to refer to, — that’s all.”
“Fetch it,” said Maryllia— “I’ll wait for you here.”
He glanced at her — and saw that her lips trembled, and that she was still on the verge of tears. He hurried off at once, realising that she wanted a minute or two to recover herself. His heart beat foolishly fast and uncomfortably, — he wondered what had grieved or annoyed her.
“Poor little soul!” he murmured, reflecting on a conversation with which Julian Adderley had regaled him the previous day, concerning some of the guests at Abbot’s Manor— “Poor, weary, sweet little soul!”
While Maryllia, during his brief absence was thinking— “I won’t cry, or he’ll take me for a worse fool than I am. He looks so terribly intellectual — so wise and cool and calm! — and yet I think — I THINK he was rather pleased to see me!”
She smoothed her face into a smile, — gave one or two more reproving taps to her eyelids with her morsel of a kerchief, and was quite self-possessed when he returned, with a worn copy of the Iliad under his arm.
“Is that the book you wanted?” she asked.
“Yes—” and he showed it to her— “I admit it had no business to be left in the church.”
She peeped between the covers.
“Oh, it’s all Greek!” — she said— “Do you read Greek?”
“It is one of the happiest accomplishments I learned at college,” — he replied. “I have eased many a heartache by reading Homer in the original.”
She looked meditative.
“Now that’s very strange!” she murmured— “I should never have thought that to read Homer in the original Greek would ease a heartache! How does it do it? Will you teach me?”
She raised her eyes — how beautiful and blue they were he thought! — more beautiful for the mist of weeping that still lingered about their soft radiance.
“I will teach you Greek, if you like, with pleasure!” — he said, smiling a little, though his lips trembled— “But whether it would cure any heartache of yours I could not promise!”
“Still, if it cures YOUR heartaches?” she persisted.
“Mine are of a different character, I think!” — and the smile in his eyes deepened, as he looked down at her wistfully upturned face,— “I am getting old, — you are still young. That makes all the difference. My aches can be soothed by philosophy, — yours could only be charmed away by—”
He broke off abruptly. The hot blood rose to his temples, and retreated again, leaving him very pale.
She looked at him earnestly.
“Well! — by what?”
“I imagine you know, Miss Vancourt! There is only one thing that can ease the burden of life for a woman, and that is — love!”
She nodded her fair head sagaciously.
“Of course! But that is just what I shall never have, — so it’s no use wanting it. I had better learn to read Greek at once, without delay! When shall I come for my first lesson?”
She laughed unforcedly now, as she looked up at him. They were walking side by side out of the churchyard.
“You are much too busy to learn Greek,” he said, laughing with her. “Your London friends claim all your time, — much to the regret of our little village.”
“Ah! — but they won’t be with me very long now,” — she rejoined— “They’ll all go after the dinner next week, except Louis Gigue. Gigue is coming for a day or two and he will perhaps stay on a bit to give lessons to Cicely. But he’s not a society man. Oh, dear no! Quite the contrary — he’s a perfect savage! — and says the most awful things! Poor old Gigue!”
She laughed again, and looked happier and brighter than she had done for days.
“You have rather spoilt the villagers,” went on Walden, as he opened the churchyard gate for her to pass out, and closed it again behind them both. “They’ve got accustomed to seeing you look in upon them at all hours, — and, of course, they miss you. Little Ipsie Frost especially frets after you.”
“I’ll go and see her very, very soon,” said Maryllia, impulsively; “Dear little thing! When you see her next, tell her I’m coming, won’t you?”
“I will,” he rejoined, — then paused, looking at her earnestly. “Your friends must find St. Rest a very old-fashioned, world-forgotten sort of place,” — he continued— “And you must, equally, find it difficult to amuse them?”
“Well, perhaps, just a little,” she admitted— “The fact is — but tell it not in Gath — I was happier without them! They bore me to death! All the same they really mean to be very nice, — they don’t care, of course, for the things I care about, — trees and flowers and books and music, — but then I am always such an impossible person!”
“Are you?” His eyes were full of gentleness as he put this question- -”I should not have thought that!”
She coloured a little — then changed the subject.
“You have seen Lady Beaulyon, haven’t you?” He bent his head in the affirmative— “Isn’t she lovely?”
“Not to me,” he replied, quietly— “But then I’m no judge.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“She is considered the most beautiful woman in England!”
“By whom?”, he enquired;— “By the society paragraphists who are paid for their compliments?”
Maryllia laughed.
“Oh, I don’t know anything about that!” she said— “I never met a paragraphist in my life that I know of. But Eva is beautiful — there is no denying it. And Margaret Bludlip Courtenay is called the youngest woman in the world!”
“She looks it!” answered Walden, with great heartiness. “I cannot imagine Time making any sort of mark upon her. Because — if you don’t mind my saying so — she has really nothing for Time to write upon!”
His tone was eminently good-natured, and Maryllia glancing at his smiling face laughed gaily.
“You are very wicked, Mr. Walden,” she said mirthfully— “In fact, you are a quiz, and you shouldn’t be a quiz and a clergyman both together. Oh, by the way! Why did
you stop reading the service when we all came in late to church that Sunday?”
He looked full at her.
“Precisely for that reason. Because you all came in late.”
Maryllia peered timorously at him, with her pretty head on one side, like an enquiring bird.
“Do you think it was polite?”
Walden laughed.
“I was not studying politeness just then,” — he answered— “I was exercising my own authority.”
“Oh!” She paused. “Lady Beaulyon and the others did not like it at all. They thought you were trying to make us ashamed of ourselves.”
“They were right,” — he said, cheerfully— “I was!”
“Well, — you succeeded, — in a way. But I was angry!”
He smiled.
“Were you, really? How dreadful! But you got over it?”
“Yes,” — she said, meditatively— “I got over it. I suppose you were right, — and of course we were wrong. But aren’t you a very arbitrary person?”
His eyes sparkled mirthfully.
“I believe I am. But I never ask anyone to attend church, — everyone in the parish is free to do as they like about that. Only if people do come, I expect them to be punctual, — that’s all.”
“I see! And if they’re not, you make them feel very small and cheap about it. People don’t like being made small and cheap, — I don’t, for instance. Now good-bye! You are coming to dine next week, remember!”
“I remember!” he rejoined, as he raised his hat in farewell. “And do you think you will learn Greek?”
“I am sure I will! — as soon as ever all these people are gone. The week after next I shall be quite free again.”
“And happy?”
She hesitated.
“Not quite, perhaps, but as happy as I ever can be! Good-bye!”
She held out her hand. He pressed it gently, and let her go, watching her as she moved along the road holding up her dainty skirt from the dust, and walking with the ease and graceful carriage which was, to her, second nature. Then he went into his own garden with the Iliad, and addressing his ever attentive and complaisant dog, said:
“Look here, Nebbie — we mustn’t think about her! She’s a bewildering little person, with a good deal of the witch glamour in her eyes and smile, — and it’s quite absurd for such staid and humdrum creatures as you and I, Nebbie, to imagine that we can ever be of the slightest service to her, or to dream that she ever gives us a single thought when she has once turned her back upon us. But it is a pity she should cry about anything! — her eyes were not made for tears — her life was not created for sorrow! It should be all sunshine and roses for her — French damask roses, of course!” and he smiled— “with their hearts full of perfume and their petals full of colour! As for me, there should only be the grey of her plots of lavender, — lavender that is dried and put away in a drawer, and more often than not helps to give fragrance to the poor corpse ready for burial!”
He sighed, and opened his Homer. Greek, for once, failed to ease his heartache, and the Iliad seemed singularly over-strained and deadly dull.
XXI
That evening before joining her guests at the usual eight o’clock repast, Maryllia told Cicely Bourne of the disagreeable ‘surprise’ which had been treacherously contrived for her at Sir Morton Pippitt’s tea-party by the unexpected presence of the loathed wooer whom she sought to avoid.
“Margaret Bludlip Courtenay must certainly have known he was to be there,” — she said— “And I think, from her look, Eva Beaulyon knew also. But neither of them gave me a hint. And now if I were to say anything they would only laugh and declare that they ‘thought it would be fun.’ There’s no getting any help or sympathy out of such people. I’m sorry! — but — as usual — I must stand alone.”
“I daresay every one of them was in the plot — men and all, if the truth were told!” — burst out Cicely, indignantly— “And Mrs. Fred is at the bottom of the mischief. It’s a shame! Your aunt is a brute, Maryllia! I would say so to her face if she were here! She’s a calculating, selfish, title-grubbing brute! There! What are you going to do?”
“Nothing!” — and Maryllia looked thoughtfully out of the window at the flaming after-glow of the sunset, bathing all the landscape in a flood of coppery crimson— “I shall just go on as usual. When I go down to dinner presently, I shall not speak of to-day’s incident at all. Eva Beaulyon and Margaret Courtenay will expect me to speak of it — and they will be disappointed. If they allude to it, I shall change the subject. And I shall invite Roxmouth and his tame pussy, Mr. Marius Longford, to dinner next week, as guests of Sir Morton Pippitt, — that’s all.”
Cicely opened her big dark eyes.
“You will actually invite Roxmouth?”
“Of course I will — of course I MUST. I want everyone here to see and understand how absolutely indifferent I am to him.”
“They will never see — they will NEVER understand!” said Cicely, shaking her mop of wild hair decisively— “My dear Maryllia, the colder you are to ‘ce cher Roxmouth’ the more the world will talk! They will say you are merely acting a part. “No woman in her senses, they will swear, would discourage the attentions of a prospective Duke.”
“They may say what they like, — they may report me OUT of my senses if they choose!” declared Maryllia, hotly— “I am not a citizeness of the great American Republic that I should sell myself for a title! I have suffered quite enough at the hands of this society sneak, Roxmouth — and I don’t intend to suffer any more. His methods are intolerable. There is not a city on the Continent where he has not paid the press to put paragraphs announcing my engagement to him — and he has done the same thing with every payable paper in London. Aunt Emily has assisted him in this, — she has even written some of the announcements herself, sending them to the papers with my portrait and his, for publication! And because this constantly rumoured and expected marriage does not come off, and because people ask WHY it doesn’t come off, the pair of conspirators are reduced to telling lies about me! I almost wish I could get small-pox or some other hideous ailment and become disfigured, — THEN Roxmouth might leave me alone! Perhaps Providence will arrange it in that way.”
Cicely uttered an exclamation of horror.
“Oh, don’t say such a thing, Maryllia! It’s too dreadful! You are the prettiest, sweetest creature I ever saw, and I wouldn’t have a scar or a blemish on your dear face for a million Roxmouths! Have patience! We’ll get rid of him!”
Maryllia gave a hopeless gesture.
“How?”
“Well, I don’t quite know!” and Cicely knitted her black brows perplexedly— “But don’t worry, Maryllia! I believe it will all come right. Something will happen to make short work of him, — I’m sure of it!”
“You are an optimist,” — said Maryllia, kissing her— “and you’re very young! I have learned that in this best of all possible worlds, human nature is often the worst part of all creation, and that when you want to avoid a particularly objectionable human being, that being is always round the corner. However, if I cannot get rid of Roxmouth, I shall do something desperate! I shall disappear!”
“Where to?” asked Cicely, startled.
“I don’t know. Nowhere that you cannot find me!”
She laughed, — she had recovered her natural buoyancy and light- heartedness, and when she joined her party at dinner that evening, she showed no traces of annoyance or fatigue. She made no allusion to Lord Roxmouth’s appearance at Sir Morton Pippitt’s, and Mrs. Bludlip Courtenay, glancing at her somewhat timorously, judged it best to avoid the subject. For she knew she had played a mean trick on the friend whose guest she was, — she knew she had in her pocket a private letter from Mrs. Fred Vancourt, telling her of Lord Roxmouth’s arrival at Badsworth Hall, and urging her to persuade Maryllia to go there, and to bring about meetings between the two as frequently as possible, — and as she now and then met the straight flash of her
hostess’s honest blue eyes, she felt the hot colour rising to her face underneath all her rouge, and for once in her placid daily life of body-massage and self-admiration, she felt discomposed and embarrassed. The men talked the incident of the day over among themselves when they were left to their coffee and cigars, and discussed the probabilities and non-probabilities of Miss Vancourt becoming the Duchess of Ormistoune, with considerable zest.
“She’ll never have him — she hates him like poison!” — declared Lord Charlemont.
“Not surprised at that,” — said another man— “if she knows anything about him!”
“He has gone the pace!” murmured Mr. Bludlip Courtenay thoughtfully, dropping his monocle out of his eye and hastily putting it back, as though he feared his eye itself might escape from its socket unless thus fenced in— “But then, after all — wild oats! Once sown and reaped, they seldom spring again after marriage.”
“I think you’re wrong there!” said Charlemont— “Wild oats are a singularly perpetual crop. In many cases marriage seems to give them a fresh start.”
“Will there be a good harvest when YOU marry, Charly?” asked one of the company, with a laugh.
“Oh, I shouldn’t wonder!” he returned, good-naturedly— “I’m just as big a fool as any other man. But I always do my best not to play down on a woman.”
“Woman” — said Mr. Bludlip Courtenay, sententiously— “is a riddle. Sometimes she wants a vote in elections, — then, if it’s offered to her, she won’t have it. Buy her a pearl, and she says she would rather have had a ruby. Give her a park phaeton, and she declares she has been dying for a closed brougham. Offer her a five-hundred- guinea pair of cobs, and she will burst into tears and say she would have liked a ‘little pug-dog — a dear, darling, little Japanese pug- dog’ — she has no use for cobs. And to carry the simile further, give her a husband, and she straightway wants a lover.”
“That implies that a husband ceases to be a lover,” — said Charlemont.
“Well, I guess a husband can’t be doing Romeo and ‘oh moon’-ing till he’s senile,” observed a cadaverous looking man, opposite, who originally hailed from the States, but who, having purchased an estate in England, now patriotically sought to forget that he was ever an American.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 625