Here she made a grimace, drawing her mouth down into the elongated frown of the famous Florentine, with such an irresistibly comic effect that Adderley gave way to a peal of hearty, almost boyish laughter.
“That’s right!” said Cicely approvingly— “That’s YOU, you know! It’s natural to laugh at your age — you’re only about six or seven-and- twenty, aren’t you?”
“I shall be twenty-seven in August,” — he said with a swift return to solemnity— “That is, as you will admit, getting on towards thirty.”
“Oh, nonsense! Everybody’s getting on towards thirty, of course — or towards sixty, or towards a hundred. I shall be fifteen in October, but ‘you will admit’” — here she mimicked his voice and accent— “that I am getting on towards a hundred. Some folks think I’ve turned that already, and that I’m entering my second century, I talk so ‘old.’ But my talk is nothing to what I feel — I feel — oh!” and she gave a kind of angular writhe to her whole figure— “like twenty Methusalehs in one girl!”
“You are an original!” — said Julian, nodding at her with an air of superior wisdom— “That’s what you are!”
“Like you, Sir Moon-Calf” — said Cicely— “The word ‘moon-calf,’ you know, stands for poet — it means a human calf that grazes on the moon. Naturally the animal never gets fat, — nor will you; it always looks odd — and so will you; it never does anything useful, — nor will you; and it puts a kind of lunar crust over itself, under which crust it writes verses. When you break through, its crust you find something like a man, half-asleep — not knowing whether he’s man or boy, and uncertain, whether to laugh or be serious till some girl pokes fun at him — and then—”
“And then?” — laughed Adderley, entering vivaciously into her humour- -”What next?”
“This, next!” — and Cicely pelted him full in the face with one of her velvety cowslip-bunches— ‘And this, — catch me if you can!”
Away she flew over the grass, with Adderley after her. Through tall buttercups and field daisies they raced each other like children, — startling astonished bees from repasts in clover-cups — and shaking butterflies away from their amours on the starwort and celandines. The private gate leading into Abbot’s Manor garden stood open, — Cicely rushed in, and shut it against her pursuer who reached it almost at the same instant.
“Too bad!” he cried laughingly— “You mustn’t keep me out! I’m bound to come inside!”
“Why?” demanded Cicely, breathless with her run, but looking all the better for the colour in her cheeks and the light in her eyes— “I don’t see the line of argument at all. Your hair is simply dreadful! You look like Pan, heated in the pursuit of a coy nymph of Delphos. If you only wore skins and a pair of hoofs, the resemblance would be perfect!”
“My dear Cicely!” said a dulcet voice at this moment,— “Where HAVE you been all the morning! How do you do, Mr. Adderley? Won’t you come in?”
Adderley took off his hat, as Maryllia came across to the gate from the umbrageous shadow of a knot of pine-trees, looking the embodiment of fresh daintiness, in a soft white gown trimmed with wonderfully knotted tufts of palest rose ribbon, and wearing an enchanting ‘poke’ straw hat with a careless knot of pink hyacinths tumbling against her lovely hair. She was a perfect picture ‘after Romney,’ and Adderley thought she knew it. But there he was wrong. Maryllia knew little and cared less about her personal appearance.
“Where have you been?” she repeated, taking Cicely round the waist— “You wild girl! Do you know it is lunch time? I had almost given you up. Spruce said you had gone into the village — but more than that she couldn’t tell me.”
“I did go to the village,” — said Cicely— “and I went into the church, and played the organ, and helped the children sing a hymn. And I met the parson, Mr. Walden, and had a talk with him. Then I started home across the fields, and found this man” — and she indicated Adderley with a careless nod of her head— “asleep in a wood. I almost promised him some lunch — I didn’t QUITE—”
“My dear Miss Vancourt,” — protested Adderley— “Pray do not think of such a thing! — I would not intrude upon you in this unceremonious way for the world!”
“Why not?” said Maryllia, smiling graciously— “It will be a pleasure if you will stay to luncheon with us. Cicely has carte blanche here you know — genius must have its way!”
“Of course it must!” — agreed Cicely— “If genius wants to etand on its head, it must be allowed to make that exhibition of itself lest it should explode. If genius asks the lame, halt, blind and idiotic into the ancestral halls of Abbot’s Manor, then the lame, halt, blind and idiotic are bound to come. If genius summons the god Pan to pipe a roundelay, pipings there shall be! Shall there not, Mr. Pan Adderley?”
Her eyes danced with mirth and mischief, as they flashed from his face to Maryllia’s. “Genius,” — she continued— “can even call forth a parson from the vasty deep if it chooses to do so, — Mr. Walden is coming to tea this afternoon.”
“Indeed!” And Maryllia’s sweet voice was a trifle cold. “Did you invite him, Cicely?”
“Yes. I told him that you thought it rather rude of him not to have come before—”
“Oh Cicely!” said Maryllia reproachfully— “You should not have said that!”
“Why not? You did think him rude, — and so did I, — to refuse two kind invitations from you. Anyhow he seemed sorry, and said he’d make up for it this afternoon. He’s really quite good-looking.”
“Quite — quite!” agreed Julian Adderley— “I considered him exceptionally so when I first saw him in his own church, opposing a calm front to the intrusive pomposity and appalling ignorance of our venerable acquaintance, Sir Morton Pippitt. I decided that I had found a Man. So new! — so fresh! That is why I took a cottage for the summer close by, that I might be near the rare specimen!”
Maryllia laughed.
“Are you not a man yourself?” she said.
“Not altogether!” he admitted,— “I am but half-grown. I am a raw and impleasing fruit even to my own palate. John Walden is a ripe and mellow creature, — moreover, he seems still ripening in constant sunshine. I go every Sunday to hear him preach, because he reminds me of so much that I had forgotten.”
Here they went into luncheon. Maryllia threw off her hat as she seated herself at the head of the table, ruffling her hair with the action into prettier waves of brown-gold. Her cheeks were softly flushed, — her blue eyes radiant.
“You are a better parishioner than I am, Mr. Adderley!” — she said— “I have not been to church once since I came home. I never go to church.”
“Naturally! I quite understand! Few people of any education or intelligence can stand it nowadays,” he replied— “The Christian myth is well-nigh exploded. Yet one cannot help having a certain sympathy and interest in men, who, like Mr. Walden, appear to still honestly believe in it.”
“The Christian myth!” echoed Cicely— “My word! You do lay down the law! Where should we be without the ‘myth’ I wonder?”
“Pretty much where we are now,” — said Julian— “Two thousand years of the Christian dispensation leaves the world still pagan. Self- indulgence is still paramount. Wealth still governs both classes and masses. Politics are still corrupt. Trade still plays its old game of ‘beggar my neighbour.’ What would you! And in this day there is no restraining influence on the laxity of social morals. Literature is decadent, — likewise Painting; — Sculpture and Poetry are moribund. Man’s inborn monkeyishness is obtaining the upper hand and bearing him back to his natural filth, — and the glimmerings of the Ideal as shown forth in a few examples of heroic and noble living are like the flash of the rainbow-arch spanning a storm-cloud, — beautiful, but alas! — evanescent.”
“I’m afraid you are right” — said Maryllia, with a little sigh; “It is very sad and discouraging, but I fear very true.”
“It’s nothing of the kind!” — declared Cic
ely, with quick vehemence— “It’s just absolute nonsense! It is! Ah, ‘never shake thy gory locks at me,’ Sir Moon-Calf!” and she made a little grimace across the table at Julian, who responded to it with a complacent smile— “You can talk, talk, talk — of course! every man that ever sat in clubs, smoking and drinking, can talk one’s head off — but you’ve got to LIVE, as well as talk! What do you know about self-indulgence being ‘paramount,’ except in your own case, eh? Do you think at all of the thousands and thousands of poor creatures everywhere, who completely sacrifice their lives to the needs of others?”
“Of course there are such—” admitted Adderley; “But—”
“No ‘buts’ come into the case,” went on the young girl, her eyes darkening with the earnestness of her thoughts— “I have seen quite enough even in my time to know how good and kind to one another even the poorest people can be. And I have had plenty of hardships to endure, too! But I can tell you one thing — and that is, that the Christian ‘myth’ as you call it, is just the one thing that makes MY life worth living! I don’t want to talk about religion — I never do,- -I only just say this — that the great lesson of Christianity is exactly what we most need to learn.”
“In what way?” asked Julian, smiling indulgently.
“Why, — merely that if one is honest and true, one MUST be crucified. Therefore one is prepared, — and there’s no need to cry out when the nails are driven in. The Christian ‘myth’ teaches us what to expect, how to endure, and how at last to triumph!”
A lovely light illuminated her face, and Maryllia looked at her very tenderly. Adderley was silent.
“Nothing does one so much good as to be hurt,” — went on Cicely in a lighter tone— “You then become aware that you are a somebody whom other bodies envy. You never know how high you have climbed till you feel a few dirty hands behind you trying to pull you down! When I start my career as a singer, I shall not be satisfied till I get anonymous letters every morning, telling me what a fraud and failure I am. Then I shall realise that I am famous!”
“Alas!” said Julian with a comically resigned air— “I shall never be of sufficient importance for that! No one would waste a penny stamp on me! All I can ever hope to win is the unanimous abuse of the press. That will at least give me an interested public!”
They laughed.
“Is Mr. Marius Longford a great friend of yours?” enquired Maryllia.
“Ah, that I cannot tell!” replied Julian— “He may be friend, or he may be foe. He writes for a great literary paper — and is a member of many literary clubs. He has produced three books — all monstrously dull. But he has a Clique. Its members are sworn to praise Longford, or die. Indeed, if they do not praise Longford, they become mysteriously exterminated, like rats or beetles. I myself have praised Longford, lest I also get a dose of his unfailing poison. He will not praise me — but no matter for that. If he would only abuse me! — but he won’t! His blame is far more valuable than his eulogy. At present he stands like a kind of neutral whipping-post — very much in my way!”
“He knows Lord Roxmouth, he tells me,” — went on Maryllia; whereat Cicely’s sharp glance flashed at her inquisitively— “Lord Roxmouth is by way of being a patron of the arts.”
The tone of her voice, slightly contemptuous, was not lost on Adderley. He fancied he was on dangerous ground.
“I have never met Lord Roxmouth myself” — he said— “But I have heard Longford speak of him. Longford however rather ‘makes’ for society. I do not. Longford is quite at home with dukes and duchesses—”
“Or professes to be—” put in Maryllia, with a slight smile.
“Or professes to be, — I accept the correction!” agreed Adderley.
“Personally, I know nothing of him,” — said Maryllia— “I have never seen him at any of the functions in London, and I should imagine him to be a man who rather over-estimated himself. So many literary men do. That is why most of them are such terrible social bores.”
“To the crime of being a literary man I plead not guilty!” and Julian folded his hands in a kind of mock-solemn appeal— “Moreover, I swear never to become one!”
“Good boy!” smiled Cicely— “Be a modern Pan, and run away from all the literary cliques, kicking up the dust behind you in their faces as you go! Roam the woods in solitude and sing!
“‘The wind in the reeds and the rushes, The bees on the bells of thyme, The birds on the myrtle bushes, The cicale above in the lime, And the lizards below in the grass, Were as silent as ever old Tinolus was, Listening to my sweet pipings!’”
“Ah, Shelley!” cried Adderley— “Shelley the divine! And how divinely you utter his lines! Do you know the last verse of that poem:— ‘I sang of the dancing stars’?”
Cicely raised her hand, commanding attention, and went on:
“‘I sang of the dancing stars, I sang of the daedal Earth, And of Heaven, — and the giant wars, And Love and Death and Birth. And then I changed my pipings, — Singing, how down the vale of Menalus, I pursued a maiden and clasped a reed, Gods and men, we are all deluded thus! It breaks in our bosom and then we bleed; All wept, as I think both ye now would, If envy or age had not frozen your blood, At the sorrow of my sweet pipings!’”
“Beau-tiful! — beau-tiful!” sighed Adderley— “But so remote! — so very remote! Alas! — who reads Shelley now!”
“I do” — said Cicely— “Maryllia does. You do. And many more. Shelley didn’t write for free-libraries and public-houses. He wrote for the love of Art, — and he was drowned. You do the same, and perhaps you’ll be hung! It doesn’t much matter how you end, so long as you begin to be something no one else can be.”
“You have certainly begun in that direction!” said Julian.
Cicely shrugged her shoulders.
“I don’t know! I am myself. Most people try to be what they’re not. Such a waste of time and effort! That’s why I’ve taken a fancy to the parson I met this morning, Mr. Walden. He is himself and no other. He is as much himself as old Josey Letherbarrow is. Josey is an individuality. So is Mr. Walden. So is Maryllia. So am I. And” — here she pointed a witch-like finger at Adderley— “so would you bes if you didn’t ‘pose’ as much as you do!”
“Cicely!” murmured Maryllia, warningly, though she smiled.
A slight flush swept over Adderley’s face. But he took the remark without offence, thereby showing himself to be of better mettle than the little affectations of his outward appearance indicated.
“You think so?” he said, placidly— “That is very dear of you! — very young! You may be right — you may be wrong, — but from one so unsophisticated as yourself it is a proposition worth considering — to pose, or not to pose! It is so new — so fresh!”
XVI
Walden kept his promise and duly arrived to tea at the Manor that afternoon. He found his hostess in the library with Cicely and Julian. She was showing to the latter one or two rare ‘first editions,’ and was talking animatedly, but she broke off her conversation the moment he was announced, and advanced to meet him with a bright smile.
“At last, Mr. Walden!” she said— “I am glad Cicely has succeeded where I failed, in persuading you to accept the welcome that has awaited you here for some time!”
The words were gracefully spoken, with just the faintest trace of kindly reproach in their intonation. Simple as they were, they managed to deprive John of all power to frame a suitable reply. He bowed over the little white hand extended to him, and murmured something which was inaudible even to himself, while he despised what he considered his own foolishness, clumsiness and general ineptitude from the bottom of his heart. Maryllia saw his embarrassment, and hastened to relieve him of it.
“We have been talking books,” — she said, lightly— “Mr. Adderley has almost knelt in adoration before my Shakespeare ‘first folio.’ It is very precious, being uncalendared in the published lists of ordinary commentators. I suppose you have seen it?”
&
nbsp; “Indeed I have” — replied Walden, as he shook hands with Cicely and nodded pleasantly to Julian— “I’m afraid, Miss Vancourt, that if you knew how often I have sat alone in this library, turning over the precious volumes, you might be very angry with me! But I have saved one or two from the encroaches of damp, such as the illuminated vellum ‘Petrarch,’ and some few rare manuscripts — so you must try to forgive my trespass. Mrs. Spruce used to let me come in and study here whenever I liked.”
“Will you not do so still?” queried Maryllia, sweetly— “I can promise you both solitude and silence.”
Again a wave of awkwardness overcame him. What could he say in response to this friendly and gentle graciousness!
“You are very kind,” — he murmured.
“Not at all. The library is very seldom used — so the kindness will be quite on your side if you can make it of service. I daresay you know more about the books than I do. My father was very proud of them.”
“He had cause to be,” — said Walden, beginning to recover his equanimity and ease as the conversation turned into a channel which was his natural element— “It is one of the finest collections in England. The manuscripts alone are worth a fortune.” Here he moved to the table where Adderley stood turning over a wondrously painted ‘Book of Hours’— “That is perfect twelfth-century work” — he said— “There is a picture in it which ought to please Miss Cicely,” and he turned the pages over tenderly— “Here it is, — the loveliest of Saint Cecilias, in the act of singing!”
Cicely smiled with pleasure, and hung over the beautifully illuminated figure, surrounded with angels in clouds of golden glory.
Delphi Collected Works of Marie Corelli Page 614