Soothed by the prospect of the coming of Professor Cadman-Gore, Mr. Valliscourt cooled down, and presently went to join his wife and Sir Charles Lascelles in the drawing-room. He found that apartment empty however, and on inquiry of one of the servants, learnt that Sir Charles had been gone some minutes, and that Mrs. Valliscourt was walking by herself in the garden. Mr. Valliscourt thereupon went to one of the deep bay-windows which stood open, and sniffed the scented summer air. The day’s rain had certainly left the ground wet, and he was not fond of strolling about under damp trees. The moon was high, and very beautiful in her clear fullness, but Mr. Valliscourt did not admire moonlight effects, — he thought all that kind of thing ‘stagey.’ The grave and devotional silence of the night hallowed the landscape, — Mr. Valliscourt disliked silence, and he therefore coughed loudly and with much unpleasant throat-scraping, to disturb it. Throat-scraping gave just the necessary suggestion of prose to a picture which would otherwise have been purely romantic, — a picture of shadowed woodland and hill and silver cloud and purple sky, in all of which beauteous presentments, mere humanity seemed blotted out and forgotten. Mr. Valliscourt coughed his ugly cough in order to get humanity into it, — and as he finished the last little hawking note of irritating noise, he wondered where his wife was. The garden was a large and rambling one, and had been long and greatly neglected, though the owners of the place had shrewdly arranged with Mr. Valliscourt, when he had taken the house for three months, that he should pay a gardener weekly wages to attend to it. A decent but dull native of Combmartin had been elected to this post, and his exertions had certainly effected something in the way of clearing the paths and keeping them clean, — but he was apparently incapable of dealing with the wild growth of sweet-briar, myrtle, fuchsia and bog-oak that had sprung up everywhere in the erratic yet always artistic fashion of mother Nature, when she is left to design her own woodland ways, — so that the entire pleasaunce was more a wilderness than anything else. Yet it had its attractions, or seemed to have, at least for Mrs. Valliscourt, for she passed nearly all her time in it. Now, however, owing to the long shadows, her husband could not perceive her anywhere, though presently, as he stood at the window, he heard her voice carolling an absurd ditty, of which he caught a distinct fragment concerning “Gay Bo-hem-i-ah! We’re not particular what we do In gay Bo-hem-i-ah,” — whereat, his face, cold and heavy-featured as it was, grew downright ugly in its expression of malign contempt.
“She ought to have been a music-hall singer!” he said to himself with a kind of inward snarl— “She has all the taste and talent required for it. And to think she is actually well born and well educated! What an atrocious anomaly!”
He banged the window to violently, and went within. There was a smoking-room at the back of the house, and thither he retired with his cigar-case, and one of the dullest of all the various dull evening papers.
CHAPTER III.
EARLY the next morning between six and seven o’clock, little Lionel Valliscourt was up and dressed and sitting by his bedroom window, cap in hand, waiting eagerly for Montrose to appear. He was going to see his friendly tutor off by the coach, and the idea was not without a certain charm and excitement. It was a perfect day, bright with unclouded sunshine, and all the birds were singing ecstatically. The boy’s sensitive soul was divided between sadness and pleasure, — sadness at losing the companionship of the blithe, kindly, good-natured young fellow who alone, out of all his various teachers, had seemed to understand and sympathise with him, — pleasure at the novelty of getting up ‘on the sly’ and slipping out and away without his father’s knowledge, and seeing the coach, with its prancing four horses, its jolly driver, and its still jollier red-faced guard, all at a halt outside the funny old inn, called by various wags the ‘Pack o’ Cards’ on account of its peculiar structure, — and watching Mr. Montrose climb up thereon to the too-tootle-tooing of the horn, and then finally, beholding the whole glorious equipage dash away at break-neck speed to Barnstaple! This was something for a boy, as mere boy, to look forward to with a thrill of expectation; — but deep down in his heart of hearts he was thinking of another delight as well, — a plan he had formed in secret, and of which he had not breathed a word, even to Willie Montrose. The scheme was a bold and dreadful one; and it was this, — to run away for the day. He did not wish to shirk his studies, — but he knew there were to be no lessons till his new tutor, Professor Cadman-Gore arrived, and Professor Cadman-Gore was not due till that evening at ten o’clock. The whole day therefore was before him, — the long, beautiful, sunshiny day, — and he, in his own mind, resolved that he would for once make the best of it. He had no wish to deceive his father, — his desire for an ‘escapade’ arose out of an instinctive longing which he himself had not the skill to analyse, — a longing not only for freedom, but for rest. Turning it over and over in his thoughts now, as he had turned it over and over all night, poor child, he could not see that there was any particular harm or mischief in his intention. Neither his father nor mother ever wanted him or sent for him except at luncheon, which was his dinner, — all the rest of the time he was supposed to be with his tutor, always engaged in learning something useful. But now, it so happened that he was to be left for several hours without any tutor, and why should he not take the chance of liberty while it was offered him? He was still mentally debating this question, when Montrose entered softly, portmanteau in hand.
“Come along, laddie!” he said with a kind smile— “Step gently! Nobody’s astir, — and I’ll aid and abet you in this morning’s outing. We’re going to breakfast together at Miss Payne’s, — the coach won’t be here for a long time yet.”
Lionel gave a noiseless jump of delight on the floor, and then did as he was told, creeping after his tutor down the stairs like a velvet-footed kitten, and reddening with excess of timidity and pleasure when the big hall-door was opened cautiously and closed again with equal care behind them, and they stood together among the honey-suckle and wild rose-tangles of the sweetly-scented garden.
“Let me help you carry your portmanteau, Mr. Montrose” — he said sturdily— “I’m sure I can!”
“I’m sure you can’t!” returned Montrose with a laugh, “Leave it alone, my boy, — it’s too heavy for you. Here, you can carry my Homer instead!”
Lionel took the well-worn leather-bound volume, and bore it along in both hands reverently as though it were a sacred relic.
“Where are you going, Mr. Montrose?” he asked presently,— “Have you got another boy like me to teach?”
“No, — not yet. I wonder if I shall manage to find another boy like you, eh? Do you think I shall?”
Lionel considered seriously for a moment before replying.
“Well, I don’t know,” he said at last,— “I suppose there must be some. You see when you’re an only boy, you get different to other boys. You’ve got to try and be more clever, you know. If I had two or three brothers now, my father would want to make every one of them clever, and he wouldn’t have to get it all out of me. That’s how I look at it.”
“Oh, that’s how you look at it,” echoed Montrose, studying with some compassion the delicate little figure trotting at his side,— “You think your father wants to get the brain-produce of a whole family out of you? Well, — I believe he does!”
“Of course he does!” averred Lionel solemnly, “And it is very natural if you think of it. If you’ve only got one boy, you expect a good deal from him!”
“Too much by half!” growled Montrose, sotto-voce, — then aloud he added— “Well, laddie, you needn’t fret yourself, — you are learning quite fast enough, and you know a good deal more now than ever I did at your age. I was at school at Inverness when I was a little chap, and passed nearly all my time fighting, — that’s how I learned my lessons!”
He laughed, — a joyous ringing laugh which was quite infectious, and Lionel laughed too. It seemed so droll for a boy to pass his time in fighting! — so very exceptional and extraor
dinary!
“Why, Mr. Montrose,” — he exclaimed— “what did you fight so much for?”
“Oh, any excuse was good enough for me!” returned Montrose gleefully, “If I thought a boy had too long a nose, I pulled it for him, and then we fought the question out together. They were just grand times! — grand!”
“I have never fought a boy,” — murmured Lionel regretfully, “I never had any boy to fight with!”
Montrose looked down at him, and a sudden gravity clouded his previous mirth.
“Listen to me, laddie,” he said earnestly— “When you have a chance, ask your father to send you to school. You’ve a tongue in your head, — ask him, — say it’s the thing you’re longing for, — beg for it as though it were your life. You’re quite ready for it; you’ll take a high place at once with what you know, and you’ll be as happy as the day is long. You’ll find plenty of boys to fight with, — and to conquer! — fighting is the rule of this world, my boy, and to those who fight well, so is conquering. And it’s a good thing to begin practising the business early, — practice makes perfect. Tell your father, — and tell this professor who is coming to take my place, that it is your own wish to go to a public school, — Eton, Harrow, Winchester, — any of them can turn out men.”
Lionel looked pained and puzzled.
“Yes, — I will ask,” — he said— “But I’m sure I shall be refused. Father will never hear of it. The boys in public schools all go to church on Sundays, don’t they? Well, you know I should never be allowed to do that!”
Montrose made no reply, and they walked on in unbroken silence till they reached the abode of Miss Clarinda Cleverly Payne, where on the threshold stood a bright-eyed, pleasant-faced active personage in a lilac cotton gown and snow-white mob-cap of the fashion of half a century ago.
“Good-morning sir! Nice morning! Good-morning Master Lionel! Well now, toe be sure, I dew believe the eggs is just laid for you! I heerd the hens a-clucking the very minute you came in sight! Ah dearie me! if we all did our duty when it was expected of us, like my hens, the world would get on a deal better than it dew! Walk in, sir! — walk in Master Lionel! — the table’s spread and everything’s ready; the window’s open too, for there’s a sight o’ honeysuckle outside and it dew smell sweet, I can assure you! Nothing like Devonshire honeysuckle except Devonshire cream! Ah, and you’ll find plenty o’ that for breakfast! And I’m sure this little gentleman’s sorry his kind master’s going away, eh?”
“Yes, I am very sorry, ma’am,” said Lionel earnestly, taking off his little cap politely as he looked up at the worthy Clarinda’s sunbrowned, honest countenance— “But it isn’t much use being sorry, is it? He must go, and I must stay, — and if I were to fret for a whole year about it, it wouldn’t make any difference, would it?”
“No, that it wouldn’t,” — returned Miss Payne, staring hard into the pathetic young eyes that so wistfully regarded her,— “But you see some of us can’t take things so sensibly as you do, my dear! — we’re not all so clever!”
“Clever!” echoed Lionel, with an accent of such bitterness as might have befitted a cynic of many years’ worldly experience— “I am not clever. I am only crammed.”
“Lord bless us!” exclaimed Clarinda, gazing helplessly about her,— “What does the child mean?”
“He means just what he says” — answered Montrose with a slight, rather sad smile,— “If you had to learn all the things Lionel is supposed to know—”
“Larn?” interrupted Miss Clarinda with a sharp sniff— “Thank the Lord I ain’t had no larnin’! I know how to do my work and live honestly without runnin’ into debt, — and that’s enough for me. To see the young gels nowadays with their books an’ their penny papers, all a-gabblin’ of a parcel o’ rubbish as doesn’t consarn ’em, — it dew drive me wild, I can tell you! My niece Susie got one o’ them there cheap novels one day, and down she sat, a-readin’ an’ a-readin’, an’ she let the cream boil and spoilt it, an’ later on in the day, she slipt and fell on the doorstep with a dozen new-laid eggs in her apron and broke eight o’ them, — then in a week or two she took to doin’ her hair in all sorts o’ queer towzley ways, and pinched her waist in, till she couldn’t fancy her dinner and her nose got as red as a carrot. I said nothing, — for the more you say to they young things the worse they get, — but at last I got hold o’ the book that had done the mischief and took to readin’ it myself. Lor! — I laughed till I nearly split! — a parcel o’ nonsense all about a fool of a country wench as couldn’t do nothing but make butter, and yet she married a lord an’ was took to Court with di’monds an’ fal-lals! — such a muck o’ lies was printed in that there book as was enough to bring the judgment of the Almighty on the jackass as wrote it! I went to my niece and I sez to her, sez I— ‘Susie my gel, you’re a decent, strong, well-favoured sort o’ lass, taken just as God made ye, and if you behave yourself, you may likely marry an honest farmer lad in time, — but if ye get such notions o’ lords and ladies as are in this silly lyin’ book, an’ go doin’ o’ your hair like crazy Jane, there’s not a man in Combmartin as won’t despise ye. An’ ye’ll go to the bad, my gel, as sure as a die!’ She was a decent lass, Susie, an’ she knew I meant well by her, so she just dropped the book down our old dry well in the back yard, seventy feet deep, and took to the cream agin. She’s married well now, and lives over at Woolacombe, very comfortably off. She’s got a good husband, a poultry-farm and three babies, an’ she’s no time for novel-readin’ now, thanks to the Lord!”
This narrative, delivered volubly with much oratorical gesture and scarcely any pauses, left Miss Clarinda well-nigh out of breath, and as she and her visitors were now in the one ‘best parlour’ of the cottage, she ceased talking, and bustled about to get them their breakfast. Montrose leaned out of the open lattice-window where the ‘sight o’ honeysuckle’ hung in fragrant garlands, and inhaled the delicious perfume with a deep breath of delight.
“It’s a bonnie place, this Devonshire,” — he said, half to himself and half to Lionel— “But it’s not so bonnie as Scotland.”
Lionel had sat down in the window-nook with rather a weary air, the Homer volume still clasped in his hands.
“Are you going to Scotland soon?” he asked.
“Yes. I shall go straight home there for a few days and see my mother.” Here the young man turned and surveyed his small pupil with involuntary tenderness. “I wish I could take you with me,” he added softly— “My mother would love you, I know.”
Lionel was mute. He was thinking to himself how strange it would seem to be loved by Mr. Montrose’s mother, as he was not loved by his own. At that moment, Clarinda Cleverly Payne brought in the breakfast in her usual smart, bustling way; — excellent tea, new milk, eggs, honey, cream, jam, home-made bread, and scones smoking hot, were all set forth in tempting profusion, and to crown the feast, an antique china basket filled with the rosiest apples and juiciest pears, was placed in the centre of the table. William Montrose, B.A. and his little friend sat down to their good cheer, each with very different feelings,— ‘oor Willie’ with a hearty and appreciative appetite, — the boy with only a faint sense of hunger, which was over-weighted by mental fatigue and consequent physical indifference. However he tried to eat well to please the kindly companion from whom he was so soon to be parted, — and it was not till he had quite finished, that Montrose, pushing aside his cup and plate, addressed the following remarks to his late pupil, —
“Look here, Lionel,” he said, “I don’t want you to forget me. If ever you should take it into your head to run away,” — here a deep blush crimsoned Lionel’s face, for was he not going to run away that very day?— “or — or anything of that sort, just write and tell me all about it first. A letter will always find me at my mother’s house, The Nest, Kilmun. I don’t, of course, wish to persuade you to run away” — (he looked as if he did though!) “because that would be a very desperate thing to do, — still, if you feel you can’t hol
d up under your lessons, or that Professor Cadman-Gore is too much for you, why, rather than break down altogether, you’d better show a clean pair of heels. I expect I’m giving you advice which a good many people would think very wrong on my part, — all the same, boys do run away at times, — it has been done!” Here his merry blue eyes twinkled. “And if you have any more of that giddiness you complained of the other day, — or if you go off in a dead faint as you did last week, — you really mustn’t conceal these sensations any longer, — you must tell your father, and let him take you to see a doctor.”
Lionel listened with an air of rather wearied patience.
“What’s the good of it!” he sighed— “I’m not ill, you know. Besides I’ve had the doctor before, and he said there was nothing the matter with me. Doctors don’t seem to be very clever, — my mother was ill two years ago, and they couldn’t cure her. When they gave her up and left her alone, she got well. Things always appear to go that way, — the more you do, the worse you get.”
Montrose was quite accustomed to such a hopeless tone of reasoning from the boy, — yet somehow, on this bright summer morning when he, in the full enjoyment of health and liberty, was going home to those who loved him, the absolute loneliness of this child’s life and his pathetic resignation to it, smote him with a keener sense of pain than usual.
“And as for running away” — continued Lionel, flushing as he spoke— “I might do that perhaps for a few hours,... but if I tried to run away for good and go for a sailor, which is what I should like, I should only be brought back, — you know I should. And if I wrote to you about it, I should get you into dreadful trouble. You don’t seem to think of all that, Mr. Montrose, but I think of it.”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 375