“Yes, — Aunt Emily always said so!” — interposed Maryllia, quietly.
“And yet think of the advantages you have had! — the education — the long course of travel! — you should really know the world by this time better than you do?” — went on the irrepressible lady— “You should surely be able to see that there is nothing so good for a woman as a good marriage. Everything in a girl’s life points to that end — she is trained for it, dressed for it, brought up to it — and yet here you are with a most brilliant position waiting for you to step into it, and you turn your back upon it with contempt! What do you imagine you can do with yourself down here all alone? There are no people of your own class residing nearer to you than three or four miles distant — the village is composed of vulgar rustics — the rural town is inhabited only by tradespeople, and though one of your near neighbours is Sir Morton Pippitt, one would hardly call him a real gentleman — so there’s really nobody at all for YOU to associate with. Now is there?”
Maryllia glanced up, her eyes sparkling.
“You forget the parson!” she said.
“Oh, the parson!” And Mrs. Courtenay tittered. “Well, you’re the last woman in the world to associate with a parson! You’re not a bit religious!”
“No,” said Maryllia— “I’m afraid I’m not!”
“And you couldn’t do district visiting and soup kitchens and mothers’ meetings” — put in Mrs. Courtenay— “It would be too sordid and dull for words. In fact, you wil simply die of ennui down here when the summer is over. Now, if you married Roxmouth—”
“There would be a gall-moon, instead of a honey one,” said Maryllia, calmly,— “But there won’t be either. I MUST finish my letters! Do you mind leaving me to myself?”
Mrs. Courtenay tossed her head, bit her lip, and rustled out of the room in a huff. She reported her ill-success with ‘Maryllia Van’ to her husband, who, in his turn, reported it to Lord Roxmouth, who straightway conveyed these and all other items of the progress or retrogression of his wooing to Mrs. Fred Vancourt. That lady, however, felt so perfectly confident that Roxmouth would, — with the romantic surroundings of the Manor, and the exceptional opportunities afforded by long afternoons and moonlit evenings, — succeed where he had hitherto failed, that she almost selected Maryllia’s bridal gown, and went so far as to study the most elaborate designs for wedding-cakes of a millionaire description.
“For,” — said she, with comfortable self-assurance— “St. Rest, as I remember it, is just the dullest place I ever heard of, except heaven! There are no men in it except dreadful hunting, drinking provincial creatures who ride or play golf all day, and go to sleep after dinner. That kind of thing will never suit Maryllia. She will contrast Roxmouth with the rural boors, and as a mere matter of good taste, she will acknowledge his superiority. And she will do as I wish in the long run, — she will be Duchess of Ormistoune.”
XXII
The long lazy afternoons of July, full of strong heat and the intense perfume of field-flowers, had never seemed so long and lazy to John Walden as during this particular summer. He felt as if he had nothing in the world to do, — nothing to fill up his life and make it worth living. All his occupations seemed to him very humdrum, — his garden, now ablaze with splendid bloom and colour, looked tawdry, he thought; it had been much prettier in spring-time when the lilac was in blossom. There was not much pleasure in punting, — the river was too glassy and glaring in the sun, — the water dripped greasily from the pole like warm oil — besides, why go punting when there was nobody but one’s self to punt? Whether it was his own idle fancy, or a fact, he imagined that the village of St. Rest and its villagers had, in some mysterious way, become separated from him. Everybody in the place, or nearly everybody, had something to do for Miss Vancourt, or else for one or other of Miss Vancourt’s guests. Everything went ‘up to the Manor ‘ — or came ‘down from the Manor’ — the village tradespeople were all catering for the Manor — and Mr. Netlips, the grocer, driving himself solemnly ever to Riversford one day, came back with a board— ‘a banner with a strange device’ — painted in blue letters on a white ground, which said:
PETROL STORED HERE.
This startling announcement became a marvel and a fascination to the eyes of the villagers, every one of them coming out of their houses to look at it, directly it was displayed.
“You’ll be settin’ the ‘ouse on fire, Mr. Netlips, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Frost, severely, putting her arms akimbo, and sniffing at the board as though she could smell the spirit it proclaimed— “You don’t know nothink about petrol! An’ we ain’t goin’ to have motor-cars often ’ere, please the Lord’s goodness!”
Mr. Netlips smiled a superior smile.
“My good woman,” — he said, with his most magisterial air— “if you will kindly manage your own business, which is that of pruning the olive and uprooting the vine, and leave me to manage my establishment as the reversible movement of the age requires, it will be better for the equanimity of the gastritis.”
“Good Lord!” and Mrs. Frost threw up her hands— “You’re a fine sort of man for a grocer, with your reversibles and your gastritis! What in the world are you talking about?”
Mr. Netlips, busy with the unpacking of a special Stilton cheese which he was about to send ‘up to the Manor,’ waved her away with one hand.
“I am talking above your head altogther, Mrs. Frost,” — he said, placidly— “I know it! I am aware that my consonances do not tympanise on your brain. Good afternoon!”
“Petrol Stored Here!” — said Bainton, standing squat before the announcement, as he returned from his day’s work— “Hor-hor-hor! Hor- hor! I say, Mr. Netlips, don’t blow us all into the middle of next week. Where does ye store it? Out in the coal-shed? It’s awful ‘spensive, ain’t it?”
“It is costly,” — admitted Mr. Netlips, with a grandiose manner, implying that even if it had cost millions he would have been equal to ‘stocking’ it— “But the traveling aristocrat does not interrogate the lucrative matter.”
“Don’t he?” and Bainton scratched his head ruminatively. “I s’pose you knows what you means, Mr. Netlips, an’ you gen’ally means a lot. Howsomever, I thought you was dead set against aristocrats anyway — your pol’tics was for what you call masses, — not classes, nor asses neither. Them was your sentiments not long ago, worn’t they?”
Mr. Netlips drew himself up with an air of offended dignity.
“You forestall me wrong, Thomas Bainton,” — he said— “And I prefer not to amplify the conference. A sentiment is no part of a political propinquity.”
With that, he retired into the recesses of his ‘general store,’ leaving Bainton chuckling to himself, with a broad grin on his weatherbeaten countenance.
The ‘Petol’ board displayed on the front of Mr. Netlips’ shop, however, was just one of those slight indications which showed the vague change that had crept over the erstwhile tranquil atmosphere of St. Rest. Among other signs and tokens of internal disquiet was the increasing pomposity of the village post-mistress, Mrs. Tapple. Mrs. Tapple had grown so accustomed to various titles and prefixes of rank among the different guests who came in turn to stay at the Manor, that whereas she had at one time stood in respectful awe of old Pippitt because he was a ‘Sir,’ she now regarded him almost with contempt. What was a ‘Sir’ to a ‘Lord’? Nothing! — less than nothing! For during one week she had sold stamps to a real live Marquis and post-cards to a ‘Right Honourable,’ besides despatching numerous telegrams for the Countess of Beaulyon. By all the gods and little fishes, Sir Morton Pippitt had sunk low indeed! — for when Mrs. Tapple, bridling with scorn, said she ‘wondered ‘ow a man like ’im wot only made his money in bone-boilin’ would dare to be seen with Miss Vancourt’s real quality’ it was felt that she was expressing an almost national sentiment.
Taking everything into consideration, it was not to be denied that the new element infused into the little village commun
ity had brought with it a certain stir and excitement, but also a sense of discontent. And John Walden, keenly alive to every touch of feeling, was more conscious of the change than many another man would have been who was not endowed with so quick and responsive a nature. He noted the quaint self-importance of Mrs. Tapple with a kindly amusement, not altogether unmixed with pain, — he watched regretfully the attempts made by the young girls of his little parish to trick themselves out with cheap finery imported from the town of Riversford, in order to imitate in some fashion, no matter how far distant, the attire of Lady Beaulyon, whose dresses were a wonder, and whose creditors were legion, — and he was sincerely sorry to see that even gentle and pretty Susie Prescott had taken to a new mode of doing her hair, which, though elaborate, did not suit her at all, and gave an almost bold look to an otherwise sweet and maidenly countenance.
“But I am old, — and old-fashioned too!” — he said to himself, resignedly— “The world must move on — and as it moves it is bound to leave old times behind it — and me with them. I must not complain — nor should I, even in my own heart, find too many reproaches for the ways of the young.”
And involuntarily he recalled Tennyson’s lines: —
“Only ‘dust to dust’ for me that sicken at your lawless din, — Dust in wholesome old-world dust before the newer world begin!”
“‘Wholesome old-world dust’!” he mused— “Yes! I think it WAS more wholesome than our too heavily manured soil!”
And a wave of pained regret and yearning arose in him for the days when life was taken more quietly, more earnestly, more soberly — with the trust and love of God inspiring the soul to purity and peace — when to find a woman who was at the same time an atheist was a thing so abnormal and repulsive as to excite the utmost horror in society. Society! why, now, many women in society were atheists, and made no secret of their shame!
“I must not dwell on these thoughts,” — he said, resolutely. “The sooner I see Brent, the better. I’ve accepted his invitation for the last week of this month — I can be spared then for two or three days- -indeed, I doubt whether I shall even be missed! The people only want me on Sundays now — and — though I do try not to notice it, — a good many of the congregation are absent from their usual places.”
He sighed. He would not admit to himself that it was Maryllia Vancourt— ‘Maryllia Van’ — or rather her guests who had exercised a maleficent influence on his little cure of souls, and that because the ‘quality’ did not go to church on Sundays, then some of the villagers, — like serfs under the sway of nobles, — stayed away also. He realised that he had given offence to this same ‘quality,’ by pausing in his reading, when they entered late on the one occasion they did attend divine service, — but he did not care at all for that. He knew, that the truth of the mischief wrought by the idle, unthinking upper classes of society, is always precisely what the upper classes do not want to hear; — and he was perfectly aware in his own mind that his short, but explicit sermon, on the ‘Soul,’ had not been welcome to any one of his aristocratic hearers, while it had been a little over the heads of his own parishioners.
“Mere waste of words!” he mused, with a kind of self-reproach— “I don’t know why I chose the text or subject at all. Yes — yes! — I do know! Why do I play the deceiver with myself! She was there — so winsome — so pretty! — and her soul is sweet and pure; — it must be sweet and pure, if it can look out of such clear windows as her eyes. Let all the world go, but keep that soul, I thought! — and so I spoke as I did. But I think she scarcely listened — it was all waste of time, waste of words, — waste of breath! I shall be glad to see dear old Brent again. He wants to talk to me, he says — and I most certainly want to talk to him. After the dinner-party at the Manor, I shall be free. How I dread that party! How I wish I were not going! But I have promised her — and I must not break my word!”
He began to think about one or two matters that to him were not altogether pleasing. Chief among these was the fact that Sir Morton Pippitt had driven over twice now ‘to inspect the church’ — accompanied by Lord Roxmouth, and the Reverend ‘Putty’ Leveson. Once Lord Roxmouth had left his card at the rectory, and had written on it: ‘Wishing to have the pleasure of meeting Mr. Walden’ — a pleasure which had not, so far, been gratified. Walden understood that Lord Roxmouth was, or intended to be, the future husband of Miss Vancourt. He had learned something of it from Bishop Brent’s letter- -but now that his lordship was staying as a guest at Badsworth Hall, rumour had spread the statement so very generally that it was an almost accepted fact. Three days had been sufficient to set the village and county talking; — Roxmouth and his tools never did their mischievous work by halves. John Walden accepted the report as others accepted it — only reserving to himself an occasion to ask Miss Vancourt if it were indeed true. Meantime, he kept himself apart from the visitors — he had no wish to meet Lord Roxmouth — though he knew that a meeting was inevitable at the forthcoming dinner-party at Abbot’s Manor. Bainton had that dinner-party on his mind as well as his master. He had heard enough of it on all sides. Mrs. Spruce had gabbled of it, saying that ‘what with jellies an’ ices an’ all the things as has to be thought of an’ got in ready,’ she was ‘fair mazed an’ moithered.’ And she held forth on the subject to one of her favourite cronies, Mrs. Keeley, whose son Bob was still in a state of silent and resentful aggressiveness against the ‘quality’ for the death of his pet dog.
“It’s somethin’ too terrible, I do assure you!” she said— “the way these ladies and gentlemen from Lunnon eats fit to bust themselves! When they fust came down, I sez to cook, I sez— ‘Lord bless ’em, they must ‘ave all starved in their own ‘omes’ — an’ she laughed — she ‘avin ‘sperience, an’ cooked for ‘ouse-parties ever since she learned makin’ may’nases [mayonnaise] which she sez was when she was twenty, an’ she’s a round sixty now, an’ she sez, ‘Lor, no! It do frighten one at first wot they can put into their stummicks, Missis Spruce, but don’t you worry — you just get the things, and they’ll know how to swaller ’em.’ Well now, Missis Keeley, if you’ll b’lieve me” — and here Mrs. Spruce drew a long breath and began to count on her fingers— “This is ‘ow we do every night for the visitors, makin’ ready for hextras, in case any gentleman comes along in a motor which isn’t expected — fust we ‘as horduffs—”
“Save us!” exclaimed Mrs. Keeley— “What’s they?”
“Well I calls ’em kickshaws, but the right name is horduffs, Primmins sez, bein’ a butler he should know the French, an’ ’tis a French word, an’ it’s nothin’ but little dishes ‘anded round, olives an’ anchovies, an’ sardines an’ messes of every kind, enough to make ye sick to look at ’em — they swallers ’em, an’ then we sends in soup — two kinds, white an’ clear. They swallers THAT, an’ the fish goes in — two kinds — the old Squire never had but one — THAT goes down, an’ then comes the hentreys. Them’s sometimes two — sometimes four — it just depends on the number we ‘as at table. They’se all got French names — there’s nothing plain English about them. But they’se only bits o’ meat an’ fowl, done up in different ways with sauces an’ vegetables, an’ the quality eats ’em up as though they was two bites of an apple. Then we sends in the roast and b’iled — and they takes good cuts off both — then there’s game, — now that’s nearly allus all eat up, for I like to pick a bone now and then myself if it comes down on a dish an’ no one else wants it — but there’s never a morsel left for me, I do assure you! Then comes puddings an’ sweets — then cheese savouries — then ices — an’ then coffee — an’ all the time the wine’s a-goin’, Primmins sez, every sort, claret, ‘ock, chably, champagne, — an’ the Lord alone He knows wot their poor insides feels like when ’tis all a-mixin’ up together an’ workin’ round arterwards. But, as I sez, ‘tain’t no business o’ mine if the fash’nables ‘as trained their stummicks to be like the ostriches which eats, as I’m told, ‘ard iron nails with a relish, I o
nny know I should ‘a’ bin dead an’ done with long ago if I put a quarter of the stuff into me which they puts into theirselves, while some of the gentlemen drinks enough whiskey an’ soda to drown ’em if ’twas all put in a tub at once—”
“But Miss Vancourt,” interrupted Mrs. Keeley, who had been listening to her friend’s flow of language in silent wonder,— “She don’t eat an’ drink like that, do she?”
“Miss Maryllia, bless ‘er ‘art, sits at her table like a little queen,” — said Mrs. Spruce, with emotion— “Primmins sez she don’t eat scarce nothin’, and don’t say much neither. She just smiles pretty, an’ puts in a word or two, an’ then seems lookin’ away as if she saw somethink beautiful which nobody else can see. An’ that Miss Cicely Bourne, she’s just a pickle!— ‘ow she do play the comic, to be sure! — she ran into the still-room the other day an’ danced round like a mad thing, an’ took off all the ladies with their airs an’ graces till I nearly died o’ larfin’! She’s a good little thing, though, takin’ ‘er all round, though a bit odd in ‘er way, but that comes of bein’ in France an’ learnin’ music, I expect. But I really must be goin’ — there’s heaps an’ heaps to do, but by an’ by we’ll have peace an’ quiet again — they’re all a-goin’ next week.”
“Well, I shan’t be sorry!” — and Mrs. Keeley gave a short sigh of satisfaction— “I’m fair sick o’ seein’ them motor-cars whizzin’ through the village makin’ such a dust an’ smell as never was, — an’ I’m sure there’s no love lost ‘tweens Missis Frost an’ me, but it do make me worrited like when that there little Ipsie goes runnin’ out, not knowin’ whether she mayn’t be run over like my Bob’s pet dog. For the quality don’t seem to care for no one ‘cept theirselves — an’ it ain’t peaceful like nor safe as ’twas ‘fore they came. An’ I s’pose we’ll be seein’ Miss Maryllia married next?”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli (Illustrated) (Delphi Series Eight Book 22) Page 627