A general scrambling movement followed this brief exordium. With shy awkwardness each young fellow lifted his cap as he shambled sheepishly past Maryllia, who acknowledged these salutes smilingly,- -Bainton assisted Spruce to rise to his feet, and then took him off under his personal escort, — and only Leach remained, convulsively gripping his dog-whip which he had picked up from the ground where the lads had thrown it, — and anon striking it against his boot with a movement of impatience and irritation.
“GOOD-morning, Mr. Leach!” said Walden pointedly. But Leach stood still, looking askance at Maryllia.
“Miss Vancourt,” he said, hoarsely; “Am I to understand that you meant what you said just now?”
She glanced at him coldly.
“That I dismiss you from my service? Of course I meant it! Of course I mean it!”
“I am bound to have fair notice,” he muttered. “I cannot collect all my accounts in a moment—”
“Whatever else you may do, you will leave this place at, once;” said Maryllia, firmly,— “I will communicate my decision to the solicitors and they will settle with you. No more words, please!”
She turned her mare slowly round on the grassy knoll, looking up meanwhile at the lovely canopy of tremulous young green above her head. John Walden watched her. So did Oliver Leach, — and with a sudden oath, rapped out like a discordant bomb bursting in the still air, he exclaimed savagely:
“You shall repent this, my fine lady! By God, you shall! You shall rue the day you ever saw Abbot’s Manor again! You had far better have stayed with your rich Yankee relations than have made such a home-coming as this for yourself, and such an outgoing for me! My curse on you!”
Shaking his fist threateningly at her, he sprang down the knoll, and plunging through the grass and fern was soon lost to sight.
The soft colour in Maryllia’s cheeks paled a little and a slight tremor ran through her frame. She looked at Walden, — then laughed carelessly.
“Guess I’ve given him fits!” she said, relapsing into one of her Aunt Emily’s American colloquialisms, with happy unconsciousness that this particular phrase coming from her pretty lips sent a kind of shock through John’s sensitive nerves. “He’s not a very pleasant man to meet anyway! And it isn’t altogether agreeable to be cursed on the first morning of my return home. But, after all, it doesn’t matter much, as there’s a clergyman present!” And her blue eyes. danced mischievously; “Isn’t it lucky you came? You can stop that curse on its way and send it back like a homing pigeon, can’t you? What do you say when you do it? ‘Retro me Sathanas,’ or something of that kind, isn’t it? Whatever it is, say it now, won’t you?”
Walden laughed, — he could not help laughing. She spoke, with such a whimsical flippancy, and she looked so bewitchingly pretty.
“Really, Miss Vancourt, I don’t think I need utter any special formula on this occasion,” he said, gaily. “You have done a good action to the whole community by dismissing Leach. Good actions bring their own reward, while curses, like chickens, come home to roost. Pray forgive me for quoting copybook maxims! But, for the curse of one ill-conditioned boor, you will have the thanks and blessings of all your tenantry. That will take the edge of the malediction; don’t you think so?”
She turned her mare in the homeward direction, and began to guide it gently down the slope. Walking by her side, John held back one of the vast leafy boughs of the great trees to allow her to pass more easily, and glanced up at her smilingly as he put his question.
She met his eyes with an open frankness that somewhat disconcerted him.
“Well, I don’t know about that!” she replied. “You see, in these days of telepathy and hypnotic suggestion, there may be something very catching about a curse. It’s just like a little seed of disease; — if it falls on the right soil it germinates and spreads, and then all manner of wicked souls get the infection. I believe that in the old days everybody guessed this instinctively, without being able to express it scientifically, — and that’s why they ran to the Church for protection agaiast curses, and the evil eye, and things of that sort. See how some of the old Scottish curses cling even to this day! The only way to take the sting out of a curse is to get it transposed” — and she smiled, glancing meditatively up into the brightening blue of the sky. “Like a song, you know! If it’s too low for the voice you transpose it to a higher key. I daresay the Church was able to do that in the days when it had REAL faith — oh! — I beg your pardon! — I ought not to say that to a man of your calling.”
“Why not?” said Walden; “Pray say anything you like to me, Miss Vancourt; — I should be a very poor and unsatisfactory sort of creature if I could not bear any criticism on my vocation. Besides, I quite agree with you. The early Church had certainly more faith than it has now.”
“You’re not a bit like a parson,” said Maryllia gravely, studying his face with embarrassing candour and closeness; “You look quite a nice pleasant sort of man.”
John Walden laughed again, — this time with sincere heartiness. Maryllia’s eyes twinkled, and little dimples came and went round her mouth and chin.
“You seem amused at that,” she said; “But I’ve seen a great deal of life — and I have met heaps and heaps of parsons — parsons young and parsons old — and they were all horrid, simply horrid! Some talked Bible — and others talked the Sporting Times — any amount of them talked the drama, and played villains in private theatricals. I never met but one real minister, — that is a man who ministers to the poor, — and he died in a London slum before he was thirty. I believe he was a saint; and if he had lived in the days of the early Church, he would certainly have been canonised. He would have been Saint William — his name was William. But he was only one William, — I’ve seen hundreds of them.”
“Hundreds of Williams?” queried Walden suggestively.
This time it was Maryllia who laughed, — a gay little laugh like that of a child.
“No, I guess not!” she answered; “Some of them are real Johnnies! Oh dear me!” — and again her laughter broke forth; “I quite forgot! You said YOUR name was John!”
“So it is.” And he smiled; “I’m sorry you don’t like it!”
She checked her merriment abruptly, and became suddenly serious.
“But I do like it! You mustn’t think I don’t. Oh, how rude I must seem to you! Please forgive me! I really do like the name of John!”
He glanced up at her, still smiling.
“Thank you! It’s very kind of you to say so!”
“You believe me, don’t you?” she said persistently.
“Of course I do! Of course I must! Though unhappily a Churchman, I am not altogether a heretic.’”
The smile deepened in his eyes, — and as she met his somewhat quizzical glance a slight wave of colour rose to her cheeks and brow. She drew herself up in her saddle with a sudden, proud movement and carried her little head a trifle higher. Walden looked at her now as he would have looked at a charming picture, without the least embarrassment. She appeared so extremely young to him. She awakened in his mind a feeling of kindly paternal interest, such as he might have felt for Susie Prescott or Ipsie Frost. He was not even quite sure that he considered her in any way out of the common, so far as her beauty was concerned, — though he recognised that she was almost the living image of ‘the lady in the vi’let velvet’ whose portrait adorned the gallery in Abbot’s Manor. The resemblance was heightened by the violet colour of the riding dress she wore and the absence of any head-covering save her own pretty brown-gold hair.
“I’m glad I’ve saved the old trees,” she said presently, checking her mare’s pace, and looking back at the Five Sisters standing in unmolested grandeur on their grassy throne. “I feel a pleasant consciousness of having done something useful. They are beautiful! I haven’t looked at them half enough. I shall come here all by myself this afternoon and bring a book and read under their lovely boughs. Just now I’ve only had time to cry ‘rescue.’”
She hesitated a moment, then added:” I’m very much obliged to you for your assistance, Mr. Walden! — and I’m glad you also like the trees. They shall never be touched in my lifetime, I assure you I — and I believe — yes, I believe I’ll put something in my last will and testament about them — something binding, you know! Something that will set up a block in the way of land agents. Such trees as these ought to stand as long as Nature will allow them.”
Walden was silent. Somehow her tone had changed from kind playfulness to ordinary formality, and her eyes rested upon him with a cool, slightly depreciatory expression. The mare was restless, and pawed the green turf impatiently.
“She longs for a gallop;” said Maryllia, patting the fine creature’s glossy neck; “Don’t you, Cleo? Her name is Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt. Isn’t she a beauty?”
“She is indeed!” murmured Walden, with conventional politeness, though he scarcely glanced at the eulogised animal.
“She isn’t a bit safe, you know,” continued Maryllia; “Nobody can hold her but me! She’s a perfectly magnificent hunter. I have another one who is gentleness itself, called Daffodil. My groom rides her. He could never ride Cleo.” She paused, patting the mare’s neck again, — then gathering up the reins in her small, loosely- gloved hand, she said: “Well, good-morning, Mr. Walden! It was most kind of you to get up so early and come to help defend my trees! I am ever so grateful to you! Pray call and see me at the Manor when you have nothing better to do. You will be very welcome!”
She nodded gracefully to him, and a few loose curls of lovely hair fell with the action like a web of sunbeams over her brow. Smiling, she tossed them back.
“Good-bye!” she called.
He raised his hat, — and in another moment the gallop of Cleopatra’s swift hoofs thudded across the grass and echoed over the fields, gradually diminishing and dying away, as mare and rider disappeared within the enfolding green of the Manor woods. He stood for a while looking after the vanishing flash of violet, brown and gold, scudding over the turf and disappearing under the closely twisted boughs of budding oak and elm, — and then started to walk home himself. His face was a study of curiously mingled expressions. Surprise, amusement, and a touch of admiration struggled for the mastery in his mind, and he was compelled to admit to himself, albeit reluctantly, that the doubtfully-anticipated ‘Squire-ess’ was by no means the sort of person he had expected to see. Herein he was at one with Bainton.
“‘Like a little sugar figure on a wedding-cake, looking sweet, and smiling pleasant!’” thought Walden, humorously recalling his gardener’s description; “Scarcely that! She has a will of her own, and — possibly — a temper! A kind of spoilt child-woman, I should imagine; just the person to wear all the fripperies Mrs. Spruce was so anxious about the other day, and quite frivolous enough to squeeze her feet into shoes a couple of sizes too small for her. Beautiful? No, — her features are not regular enough for actual beauty. Pretty? Well, — perhaps she is! — in a certain sense, — but I’m no judge. Fascinating? Possibly she might be — to some men. She certainly has a sweet voice, and a very charming manner. And I don’t think she is likely to be disagreeable or discourteous. But there is nothing remarkable about her — she’s just a woman — with a bright smile, — and a touch of American vivacity running through her English insularity. Just a woman — with a way!”
And he strode on, his terrier trotting soberly at his heels. But he was on the whole glad he had met the lady of the Manor, because now he no longer felt any uneasiness concerning her. His curiosity was satisfied, — his instinctive dislike of her had changed to a kindly toleration, and his somewhat morbid interest in her arrival had quite abated. The ‘Five Sisters’ were saved — that was a good thing; and as for Miss Vancourt herself, — well! — she was evidently a harmless creature who would most likely play tennis and croquet all day and take very little interest in anything except herself.
“She will not interfere with me, nor I with her,” said Walden with a sigh of satisfaction and relief; “And though we live in the same village, we shall be as far apart as the poles, — which is a great comfort’”
XI
Meanwhile, Maryllia cantered home through the woods in complacent and lively humour. The first few hours of her return to the home of her forefathers had certainly not been lacking in interest and excitement. She had heard and granted a village appeal, — she had stopped an act of vandalism, — she had saved five of the noblest trees in England, — she had conquered the hearts of several village yokels, — she had thrust a tyrant out of office, — she had been cursed by the said tyrant, a circumstance which was, to say the very least of it, quite new to her experience and almost dramatic, — and, — she had ‘made eyes’ at a parson! Surely this was enough adventure for one morning, especially as it was not yet eight o’clock. The whole day had yet to come; possibly she might be involved later on in still more thrilling and sensational episodes, — who could tell! She carolled a song for pure gaiety of heart, and told the rustling leaves and opening flowers in very charmingly pronounced French that
“Votre coeur a beau se defendre De s’enflammer, — Le moment vient, il faut se rendre, Il faut aimer!”
Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, curveted and pranced daintily at every check imposed on her rein, as became an equine royalty, — she was conscious of the elastic turf under her hoofs, and glad of the fresh pure air in her nostrils, — and her mistress shared with her the sense of freedom and buoyancy which an open country and fair landscape must naturally inspire in those to whom life is a daily and abounding vigorous delight, not a mere sickly brooding over the past, or a morbid anticipation of the future. The woods surrounding Abbot’s Manor were by no means depressing, — they were not dark silent vistas of solemn pine, leading into deeper and deeper gloom, but cheery and picturesque clumps of elm and beech and oak, at constant intervals with hazel-copse, hawthorn and eglantine, — true English woods, suggestive of delicate romance and poesy, and made magical by the songs of birds, whose silver-throated melodies are never heard to sweeter advantage than under the leafy boughs of such unspoilt green lanes and dells as yet remain to make the charm and glamour of rural England. Primroses peeped out in smiling clusters from every mossy nook, and the pale purple of a myriad violets spread a wave of soft colour among the last year’s fallen leaves, which had served good purpose in keeping the tender buds warm till Spring should lift them from their earth-cradles into full-grown blossom. Maryllia’s bright eyes, glancing here and there, saw and noted a thousand beauties at every turn, — the chains of social convention and ordinance had fallen from her soul, and a joyous pulse of freedom quickened her blood and sent it dancing through her veins in currents of new exhilaration and vitality. With her multi- millionaire aunt, she had lived a life of artificial constraint, against which, despite its worldly brilliancy, her inmost and best instincts had always more or less rebelled; — now, — finding herself alone, as it were, with Mother Nature, she sprang like a child to that great maternal bosom, and nestled there with a sense of glad refreshment and peace.
“What dear wildflowers!” she murmured now, as restraining Cleopatra’s coquettish gambols, she rode more slowly along, and spied the bluebells standing up among tangles of green, making exquisite contrast with the golden glow of aconites and the fragile white of wood-anemones,— “They are ever so much prettier than the hot-house things one gets any day in Paris and London! Big forced roses, — great lolling, sickly-scented lilies, and orchids — oh dear! how tired I am of orchids! Every evening a bouquet of orchids for five weeks — Sundays NOT excepted, — shall I ever forget the detestable ‘rare specimens’!”
A little frown puckered her brow, and for a moment the lines of her pretty mouth drooped and pouted with a quaintly petulant expression, like that of a child going to cry.
“It was complete persecution!” she went on, crooning her complaints to herself and patting Cleopatra’s arched neck by way of accompaniment to her thoughts— “Absolute dodgin
g and spying round corners after the style of a police detective. I just hate a lover who makes his love, if it is love, into a kind of whip to flog your poor soul with! Roxmouth here, Roxmouth there, Roxmouth everywhere!- -he was just like the water in the Ancient Mariner ‘and not a drop to drink.’ At the play, at the Opera, in the picture-galleries, at the races, at the flower-shows, at all the ‘crushes’ and big functions, — in London, in Paris, in New York, in St. Petersburg, in Vienna, — always ‘ce cher Roxmouth’ — as Aunt Emily said; — money no consideration, distance no object, — always ‘ce cher Roxmouth,’ stiff as a poker, clean as fresh paint, and apparently as virtuous as an old maid, — with all his aristocratic family looming behind him, and a long ancestry of ghosts in the shadow of time, extending away back to some Saxon ‘nobles,’ who no doubt were coarse barbarians that ate more raw meat than was good for them, and had to be carried to bed dead drunk on mead! It IS so absurd to boast of one’s ancestry! If we could only just see the dreadful men who began all the great families, we should be perfectly ashamed of them! Most of them tore up their food with their fingers. Now we Vancourts are supposed to be descended from a warrior bold, named Robert Priaulx de Vaignecourt, who fought in the Crusades. Poor Uncle Fred used to be so proud of that! He was always talking about it, especially when we were in America. He liked to try and make the Pilgrim-Father- families jealous. Just as he used to boast that if he had only been born three minutes before my father, instead of three minutes after, he would have been the owner of Abbot’s Manor. That three minutes’ delay and consideration he took about coming into the world made him the youngest twin, and cut off his chances. And he told me that Robert the Crusader had a brother named Osmond, who was believed to have founded a monastery somewhere in this neighbourhood, and who died, so the story goes, during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, though there’s no authentic trace left of either Osmond or Robert anywhere. They might, of course, have been very decent and agreeable men, — but it’s rather doubtful. If Osmond went on a pilgrimage he would never have washed himself, to begin with, — it would have destroyed his sanctity. And as for Robert the warrior bold, he would have been dreadfully fierce and hairy, — and I’m quite sure I could not possibly have asked him to dinner!”
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 603