CHAPTER V'MY LITTLE NIECE'Great festivities were afoot in the house of Lady Fairfax in Kensington. The rooms glittered in the light of hundreds of candles set in sconces on the wall; torches were blazing in their iron sockets at the outer door; beyond the garden was a boisterous confusion of coaches and chairs, the chairmen wrangling with the footmen and pages for a place by the gate; and linkboys, their lights aloft, dodged to and fro, casting gibes on their betters and showing an ability born of long practice in evading their blows.From time to time the doors opened, and footmen bawled for my lady's or my lord's coach. A certain decorum, at these moments, marked the behaviour of those without the gates. Room was made for the vehicle in question, page boys and footmen ran to their posts, my lord or my lady left the house, entered the coach and drove off. And behind them, like water in the wake of a ship, the noisy groups closed in again.To be bidden to one of the gatherings of Lady Fairfax was a coveted honour. Just how Lady Fairfax came to be the rallying point of a certain section of the Court society, no one knew. She was envied, feted, flattered, caressed. She walked into the Queen's drawing-room as if it had been her own chamber; she would leave the side of the most exalted personage in order to speak to a humble acquaintance, and there would be no change in her manner. She scolded and smiled as she pleased, and, such was the gift of the gods to her, with impunity. Like the Admiral her brother, she made her own course in the world, and next to a good friend she liked best an honest enemy. For the others, whose smile hid a snarl, she had nothing but disdain.Concerning Sir John Fairfax, a good deal of whispering ran to and fro, mainly from Whitehall and St. James's to Kensington. Exactly what post he held no one knew; that he was party to the secret diplomacy of the Court every one suspected. He was an old sailor, and in the course of his voyages had contrived to gather a vast information about the ports and defences of alien coasts. Moreover, in various parts of the world he had friends whose loyalty was unquestioned.A great many people were curious as to the nature of the long conversations, without which few days passed, between Sir John Fairfax and my Lord Churchill; but the matter of their parleys was revealed to no one, least of all to Sir John's wife. He was a smallish, grey, wizened man, with a singularly sweet smile; he had a gentle voice and an unfailing courtesy; his wife adored him, principally because he was the one person in the world whom she could neither hector nor coax into doing something he did not wish to do.Lady Fairfax went from group to group in her rooms, a gracious figure in her gown of black velvet stitched with silver, a scarf of Malines lace across her shoulders, her grey hair dressed high. No one had ever succeeded in defining her charm; she was one of those middle-aged women who made young girls discontented with their youth, and beautiful women dubious of the power of their beauty.As Lady Fairfax entered one of the card rooms, and looked from group to group, a couple of young gallants sprang from a window seat where they had been in close converse. Seeing them, their hostess beckoned with her fan, and withdrew.'What means this?' demanded my lady as the two, with deep bows, stood before her. 'Why are you leaving beauty unattended? Do not the feet of the dancers call you? Fie on you, my lord! And you, sir! Your father had known better.''It is but for Lady Fairfax to command,' replied the nobleman with another bow and an air of mock resignation.'But my father, madam,' retorted the other, who was, as a shrewd eye would see, a favourite with his hostess, 'had doubtless greater attractions offered him.''Doubtless, doubtless!' smiled the lady. 'There is, however, a story I may tell you some day. Well now, young man, will you find my husband for me? Stay—what is that noise below?'Some commotion was arising in the hall, and Lady Fairfax, being then at the head of the stairs, went slowly down, her beautiful hand catching the folds of her dress, the young men at her side.'Say that again, thou girt fool!' a voice with a strong West Country accent was shouting, 'and thou'lt rue the day.'There was the sound of a lusty smack, and a footman, with his hand to his cheek, bellowed for his ally within. The West Country voice rang out again, and there was the crack of a whip.'Be this the house of Lady Constance Fairfax or no? And if 'tis, where's her to?'The speaker, hatless, muddy, his neck-cloth torn, stared about; his knotted fist and weapon menaced the servants who had hastily approached. A few guests had strolled into the hall, and were looking curiously on. The men accompanying my lady on the stair became aware of a start, and an exclamation. Lady Fairfax dropped her robe and ran down.'Zacchary,' she said, the group gathering round the countryman falling away at her approach, 'surely 'tis thou, Zacchary!'The old groom's distressed face changed at the sound of the voice he had not heard for twenty years. He dropped on one knee, and groped for the lady's hand. Then rising, a look of devotion in his eyes, he surveyed her from head to foot.'I don't allow, Mistress Constance,' he said, scratching his head, 'that you'm changed. But you'm mighty different all the same. But'—his tone altered—''tis the young mistress, my lady. Her's without in the coach yonder, and Peter on the step, and they sons of Belial in the road bean't for letting the coach go by.''What! My little niece!' Lady Fairfax turned hastily to the young man at her side. 'I pray you, Master Beckenham, see to this matter without; and you, my lord, if you would look in the rooms above for my husband——'She needed not to finish her sentence. Master Beckenham followed Zacchary out into the square.A coach had drawn across the road, a little distance from the entrance. The equipage belonged to my Lord Fetterleigh, who was playing cards within, and the coachman was making it quite clear that until he chose he would not move his coach, his lord taking precedence of the gentlemen whose vehicles were before the gates. As for that outlandish travelling waggon beyond there (his cheek was still smarting from the valiant Peter's whip), it could wait until it was chopped up for—— The harangue was cut short. 'Move thy horses, thou vile wretch!' thundered a voice. 'I will acquaint thy lord of this.'The light of the torches fell on the face of the newcomer. The coachman, with a qualm, gathered up his reins, and Master Beckenham in his elegant buckled shoes and smart attire slipped in between the hedge and the rear of the coach, and followed Zacchary down the road.To the accompaniment of Zacchary's heartfelt remarks (sounding to the Londoner like the whinny of a horse) on the vileness of Kensington compared with Cornwall, Beckenham made his way to the country coach. He felt a certain curiosity to see the 'little niece.' A few nights ago, visiting Lady Fairfax's box between the acts, he had heard her telling how she had bidden her brother's little maid to come and stay with her a spell, that she might teach her how to set her toes when she grew taller. Lady Fairfax had never seen the child, because of the disagreement between her brother and herself about her upbringing. Here the curtain had risen, and my lady's complacent recital was stopped. Duly reporting this matter to Madam his mother (one of Lady Fairfax's honest enemies), Mr. Beckenham had been greatly diverted. For that lady and a bosom friend, counting the years on their fingers, with side glances for the unconscious victim in the box, had estimated the age of the 'little niece' as already somewhere in the shadows of the late twenties. Saying nothing, Mr. Beckenham had bided his time, and it pleased him to have an opportunity of satisfying himself on the point.The loiterers in the road had formed a sturdy group round the vehicle he sought. The coachman on the box, not liking to leave his post, was circling his whip over the heads of the nearest, and adding comments when Peter, bodyguarding on the step, failed for breath. The link boys roared with delight. Such amusement did not often come their way. And even the watch, with his lantern and staff, had stopped in his chant of 'Ten o'clock, and a fine windy night,' to listen to the voices whose tones made him at once contemptuous and envious.Mr. Beckenham doubled his elbows, and calling: 'Make way there! Make way!' in a voice of unmistakable authority, soon succeeded in reaching the door of the coach, Zacchary lumbering at his heels. Honest Peter, in the act of drawing the back of his hand across his overworked mouth, noted his approach, and his eyes brightened.''Ere be Zacchary and a gentleman, Mistress Marion. 'Ere a be.''Lead the horses to the gate,' commanded the young gentleman. 'Hand me your whip, my man.'With alacrity Peter tendered his weapon, and Mr. Beckenham, thus armed, took up the position of page on the step of the Penrock coach. The loiterers fled before the hissing lash.At the gate, Mr. Beckenham opened the coach door with a low bow, and offered his hand to the fair occupant. The light of the flambeaux fell on the two faces confronting each other. Marion's hat had fallen off, her gleaming hair fell in disorder about her face. Nervously she looked at the young man as she took his proffered assistance, and murmured a word of thanks. 'Terrified out of her wits,' summed up the youth. 'How on earth comes she to be travelling without an escort?' And a strong indignation against some unknown person seized him.Meanwhile Lady Fairfax, standing within the doorway, had been peering from time to time out into the night. She was again explaining to the group of guests in the hall that her little niece was coming from Cornwall to visit her. Her brother was doubtless with her in the coach, and had sent Zacchary to the door. Her brother was, unhappily, lame. And Zacchary, poor man, only being accustomed to see one horse at a time, was a little flustered.Behind the speaker stood a small grey-haired man, whose smile broadened into a chuckle as his wife's 'little niece' hove in sight.When Marion stepped into the house, Lady Fairfax for once in her life was speechless. About a figure almost as tall as her own a riding cloak was roughly gathered. The collar fell away from the throat, and the folds of the garment were held by a slim hand to the shoulder. At the scene in the hall, Marion shrank back a second, then stood still.'My little niece! Is it possible!'Marion allowed herself to be embraced and drawn into the house. She was vaguely aware of a gentleman with a kind smile, who patted her and called her 'my dear'; of glittering jewels and gay dresses in the background; of the throb of music in the rooms above; of the silent figure of Mr. Beckenham standing at her elbow. Then she looked again at the face before her, and the anger and dismay she had felt at the manner of her arrival melted. In her aunt's eyes she saw her father's. Her face relaxed, and she smiled.'Did you not expect me then, Aunt Constance?''What a voice!' murmured a woman at the back of the hall.Lady Fairfax gathered the slight form in her arms. 'My little maid!' she crooned. 'My little maid!' Then, holding her at arm's length: 'But—I am speechless! How came you to travel so? But stay. First some food, and you shall tell me.'She led the girl into a little room off the hall, and while Sir John went himself for wine and cake she took off the cloak and shoes, and held the fair face between her hands. 'My little maid!' she said again. 'I had forgotten you must have grown. Tell me, sweet, one word. Is your father ill? Why is he not here?''He is not hurt,' said Marion. 'He——''Drink this, my dear,' said a kind voice, and Marion, looking up, saw her uncle at her side. A feeling of warmth and comfort stole over her. 'And I thought I had fallen among thieves,' she faltered.Meanwhile the men and women who had witnessed the arrival of the 'little niece' were talking about her in the rooms above. As the conversation drifted on to the girl's family, a gentleman strolled up to the group. Underneath the languid pose of the courtier of the day, a shrewd eye would have seen the hardened soldier. 'Did I hear you say Penrock?' he drawled.'The same. She's the daughter of Admiral Penrock—the old Salt Eagle of the fifties.'The questioner disappeared and passed downstairs, and with the privilege of old friendship lifted the tapestry curtain and walked into the little room. Sir John and Lady Fairfax sat on either side their guest before the fire. The girl was eating as she talked.'Come in, Sampson!' called his host, 'and speak to our little niece here. Marion, my dear, here is an old soldier who fought alongside your father before you were born.'Marion, whose back was towards the newcomer, laid down her spiced cake and turned in her seat, prepared to see a burly, weather-worn figure. Instead, she was aware of a slight, pale-faced man, dressed with an elegance she had never before encountered, making a low bow. For a second she was startled, then gravely held out her fingers.'I could not wait one other minute,' said the guest, his languid air falling away somewhat, 'before I had done myself the honour of paying my respects to the daughter of the bravest, loyalest gentleman it has ever been my fortune to know.'The tears dimmed Marion's eyes, and she could not find a word to say, but she smiled up suddenly into the gaunt face; and the man standing there, who had seen two generations of beauty go by, felt a stirring in his dry old heart.Here my lady broke in. 'Tut, tut, Colonel! I will not have my niece weep, even at your praise. But for yonder stupid rising still brewing trouble, we should have had my brother with us. Marion has just told us the story. Go on eating your cake, my dear. Take a chair, Colonel. So. Just as the coach was leaving Bagshot, who should come up but the King's Commissioner with a couple of officers behind him, riding hard for the west with urgent duty for my brother, who is magistrate in his parts. My niece, here, knows nothing of the mission but that it was of such urgency, with the Lord Chancellor's will behind it, that the Admiral must needs take another coach and ride back to Cornwall. The two officers escorted my niece here the rest of the way till noon to-day, when there was but the fields of Kensington to cross, and they were doubtless thinking of their dinner at St. James's. The coachman then lost his way, the dolt! and found himself in Chelsey. 'Tis only by good fortune my niece arrived in safety. But'—the lady pressed another kiss on the girl's cheek—'here she is! And she's going to stay a long, long time. Perhaps for years.'Marion was aware of a vague echo, a vision of a youth on horseback on a windy ridge that smelt of the sea: all of it somewhere in another world and another life she had lived in the long ago. She sighed. For a few minutes the talk went on, the girl paying no heed. Then Lady Fairfax, gathering her lace shawl, rose and dropped a curtsey to Mr. Sampson.'And now for bed,' said she. 'I will see you all anon.'CHAPTER VIA LADY-IN-WAITINGIt is said that the unexpected generally happens, and the truth of this was borne home to Marion during her first week in Kensington. She had looked (not without a thrill of delight and fear blended) for an immediate plunge into the excitements of the capital. Instead, she found herself, partly by accident and partly by design, passing from hour to hour and day to day in a state of almost complete seclusion. The accident that led to this state of affairs was due to Lady Fairfax's being a favourite attendant of Her Majesty; Her Majesty elected to find herself ailing on the Wednesday—the day after Marion's arrival—and Lady Fairfax's presence seemed to be the one factor that made the Royal indisposition bearable. Aunt Constance could only spare rime for an embrace and a half-hour's gossip with her niece before her coach was announced to carry her to court. She came home late in the day with the news that change of air was prescribed by the royal physician, and on Friday the Queen's household must move to Hampton Court; and should that atmosphere not prove beneficial, they might go yet further, to Tunbridge or Bath. Lady Fairfax had risked the displeasure of her august mistress and prayed for leave of absence, only to learn that the arrivals of 'little nieces' from our duchy of Cornwall do not find a place in the calendar of events at Court. When our health is improved (it was hinted) we may perhaps find it agreeable to dispense somewhat with our lady-in-waiting. Until then—as Lady Fairfax allowed herself to say, the unfortunate aunt must 'grin and bide.'So much for the 'accident' that led to Marion's seclusion. The 'design' was due to the cherished plans her aunt had formed—vaguely before her arrival, very actively on the night of her coming—for her niece's success. Lady Fairfax was delighted with her young guest. She was proud of this addition to her family treasures; a veritable jewel, she fondly said. But the jewel must be well set before being displayed to the public eye. To the inquirers visiting the house in Kensington or seeing her abroad, Lady Fairfax smilingly said that her niece had had a trying journey, and must have her beauty sleep—several days' beauty sleep, in fact (during which time it was decreed that my lady's tailor and sempstress should be hard driven). No word of this was hinted to Marion. She accepted the fact of her aunt's duties at Court as an ordinary event, and spent her time wandering about the great house and garden; noting the grandeur of the entertaining rooms, the numerous liveried servants, and the ordered stateliness of everyday life. Her windows looked out on Kensington Square, where she had glimpses of carriages coming and going, of chairmen setting down their burden at the gates, of men and women of such dress and deportment that Marion thought they must surely be the princes and princesses out of some fairy tale.Kind Sir John Fairfax was concerned for the young lady under his roof. She seemed to him to be moping.'Everything is for the best, on the whole,' declared his wife. 'I am truly grieved to leave her so much, but that would not be a loss if you would bear her company a little oftener. You forget the change this life is to the child. What is Garth? A wigwam in a forest. She must needs find her feet before she can run. And run she shall not till she be dressed. Romaine is altering a gown for everyday usage,' the lady went on, 'and then as soon as Her Majesty'smalaiseallows her to free me, we will have a few visitors some quiet night that I may see how she dances. Young Beckenham will not be sorry of the chance, and Sampson, I'll be bound, for all his languid airs, will be glad to make a leg again in a minuet. Then,' Lady Fairfax smiled demurely, 'in another week or two a ball in the honour of the coming of my niece to Kensington. And if you don't like the fuss and the pother of the ball coming on, dear lad, why, get you to Whitehall and talk secrets with my Lord Churchill.''You are riding this hobby of her gowns to death!' grumbled Sir John. 'It is bad for the girl. She'll think that nothing matters but fal-lals. And she is too much alone. Can't Her Majesty spare you an hour this evening to take her to a play? Need she be dressed for her first play?'The lady neatly dropped a kiss on the end of her husband's nose. 'That's for that!' she smiled. 'You have given me an idea. Not to-night, but Monday (Her Majesty has promised me Monday) our little niece shall go to the play. She shall wear her white muslin frock and a rose in her hair; and not a woman in the theatre but will be sick at the thought of the pots on her dressing-table.'Sir John looked at his wife in despair, then laughed outright.'Upon my word, Connie,' said he, 'you'd have made a fine general. You lose no chances. You make every hummock into a bed for a culverin. I give it up!''But even you,' serenely concluded his companion, 'will agree that she cannot walk into Her Majesty's drawing-room in a muslin frock.'To do Lady Fairfax justice, she had no intention of burdening Marion with fal-lals, for although in those days women wore most elaborate robes, it was not considered necessary to have a new one for each ball, play, or party they attended. Moreover fashion was a sleepy, slow-moving dame, only rising to bestir herself once in a decade—and not, as is her present habit, setting a new step every year, and making her followers miserable if they fall behind in the march. A ball dress was a veritable 'creation,' made with infinite pains and pride, every stitch carefully put in, the embroideries a triumph of patience and skill (and eyesight), as indeed was all the needlework of those leisurely days, before machine-made imitations undermined its value. Dresses were worn by their owners year after year, and very often a valued gown was personally bequeathed to the next generation.Lady Fairfax had carefully hidden the slight disdain she had felt for Marion's belongings when her French sempstress, to whom she had sent an urgent call, came early on the second day after Marion's arrival. Indeed Marion's eyes had watched her aunt narrowly, and the kind-hearted woman had guessed her nervous shrinking when Madame Romaine lifted from her trunk the simple garment made by the Plymouth tailor.'But, dear heart,' Lady Fairfax had allowed herself to remark, 'where is your mother's lilac embroidered gown? Did not your father give it to you?''He never thinks of dress,' faltered Marion, feeling that she and her father were being found blameworthy, 'and—I don't think he could bear to see even me wearing my mother's bodices.'Lady Fairfax's eyes softened, and a memory came to her of the fair lady of Garth in that one winter when she flitted across the stage of London before she 'buried herself' in the west.The Frenchwoman meanwhile was sniffing in the recesses of Marion's trunk. 'I have not smelt so great a sweetness, Mademoiselle, since I was a small little one—so—playing in the garden of my uncle in Avignon, a thousand years ago!''All my mother's things still smell sweet,' said Marion to her aunt. 'She made her own waters, and grew lavender and roses and all sorts of flowers specially for them. I cannot make them near so well. Mistress Trevannion says my mother was very beautiful, too. But Father will never talk of her, except,' added Marion disconsolately, 'to say I do not in the least resemble her.'The eyes of mistress and sempstress met over the golden brown head. Marion at the moment was busying herself with another small trunk, and took from it a japanned box.'I had almost forgotten this, Aunt Constance,' she said. 'Father gave it to me in the greatest hurry, just when Curnow was fastening the boxes. If I had not known his ways, I should have thought he had been angry. But it was just that he did not want me to ask any questions.'She opened the box with a little gold key. Inside was a length of heavy embroidered silk, worked in cream and gold, on a cream ground, with a straying touch of blue and green. Pinned to the end of the length was a slip of paper.'Your mother was working this for you, and talking of when you would be grown, just before she died,' ran the words. 'Wear it, my child.' Nothing more.'That was a very sweet lady,' emphatically said the Frenchwoman as she examined the length, the other two standing silent a space.'It is most beautiful,' said Lady Fairfax. Then she glanced at the script again, and in spite of Marion's solemn look she chuckled a little.'"Wear it!" says my lord. "Wear it!" How? Pinned on the front of your bodice? I'll warrant my brother is firmly of the idea he has given you a gown. But there's something else in this trunk—another box——'Marion fumbled with the lid, and presently disclosed a casket with a velvet lining. Curled in the folds of the velvet lay a necklace of turquoise and pearl.Marion stood speechless.'I shall never dare wear that!' she said at length.Lady Fairfax, with a pleased smile, was turning the necklace about in the light.'Your mother's too, I remember it. This settles the matter,' she added to the sempstress. 'Mademoiselle's gown shall be cream and gold, with asoupçonof the blue of these turquoises. Let it be designed'—she went off into a string of technicalities. 'You will get Master Bingon at once, my good Romaine, and the two of you set to work. I give you seven days and nights for a month's employment. Can you, and will you?'Madame Romaine glanced at Marion's face. 'Solely forles beaux yeuxof Mademoiselle,' she briefly replied. 'I cannot, but I will.''Good. And bid the little Simone come here for a spell. She can have the small chamber next to Mademoiselle, and stitch at her flounces and petticoats, and perhaps persuade Mademoiselle to wear her new stays.'Marion laughed. 'I give up the battle from this moment, Aunt Constance. I will even wear the sort of stays you wish. But not,' she added firmly, 'as hard and tight as yours.'Lady Fairfax complacently surveyed her own beautiful figure in the long mirror on the wall.'La, la, Mademoiselle,' put in the Frenchwoman, 'il faut souffrir pour être belle.''Not that kind of suffering, Madame Romaine!' said Marion, with a touch of her father's dryness that made her aunt smile. 'Mademoiselle de Delauret wears hard stays, and she suffers greatly sometimes, but I have never seen any marked improvement in her looks. But who is this Simone who is coming to mount guard over me?'Here the door opened and a page boy entered. He spoke to his mistress, who drew him out of earshot of the others.'Master Beckenham again, my lady. Master Beckenham's compliments, and may he have the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship and inquiring after the health of Mistress Penrock?''Did I not tell you what to say should this happen?'I said it, my lady, and Master——''Go and say it again.'The page boy made a deep obeisance and withdrew.Lady Fairfax, smiling at her own thoughts, rejoined her niece and the sempstress. Meanwhile Madame Romaine, whose delight at finding a receptive audience was great, was telling a story about some one called Simone, a protégée of hers whose services in her own house Lady Fairfax had just requested. Simone, it appeared, had been found many years ago on a doorstep in the city—in Crutched Friars—by the Frenchwoman on her way home from a client's house. The sempstress had been minded to pass by—there are always plenty of crying children in the gutters—but she had heard the child babbling in her own tongue. And the kind-hearted woman, whose country was her dear love, picked up the little one, and solely for the sake ofla belle France, carried her home.The child, emaciated, almost starved to death, had fallen into a fever and a severe illness from which she had barely escaped with her life, and not altogether, Madame Romaine sometimes feared, with her reason. She had babbled of strange things sometimes, but the memory of her childhood seemed to have fallen off, with all the hair from her head, during her illness. 'She is one of my most valued needlewomen,' declared the sempstress, 'which is why, I suppose, my lady demands her presence here, just as if she were but a chair to sit upon, and no good whatever to me!''You have others,' placidly said Lady Fairfax, busy with her powdering box at her dressing-table. 'And I have a certain liking for the little Simone. But of course, if you prefer it—I wish not to drive you hardly—send Alice Hepworthy—but spare us her history. Seven days and nights you have. 'Tis not wise to waste an hour talking of people who do not matter in the least. Marion, my dear,' Lady Fairfax swung round, 'take warning by Romaine, and if ever you find yourself chattering, think of her. She cares not what her subject may be, so long as her tongue may wag. You are an insufferable bore, my good Romaine, with your Simones and your gutters. Begone, you rogue, and let me see your progress soon.'With a smile and a curtsey the Frenchwoman departed. She counted it one of her greatest privileges to be rated by Lady Fairfax.Madame Romaine's little French needlewoman took up her abode in a small chamber that opened off Marion's, and when that young lady was not engaged with her aunt or uncle, or the stray visitors she was allowed to see before she was presented to London society, she found Simone Leblanc very pleasant company.Simone, like Elise, had that instinct for dress which is the birthright of all Frenchwomen and the envy of their Anglo-Saxon sisters. Did Marion require a ribbon in her sunny hair, Simone knew by an unfailing instinct just where the knot should fall, found without a second's hesitation the one spot to place a rose. And when Marion, seeing herself stumble in these paths so easily tripped by the little French feet, was minded to voice her discontent with herself, Simone would reply with her rare smile: 'No, no! Mademoiselle deceives herself. Mademoiselle has great qualities. As for a little nothing like a bow or an ornament, Mademoiselle will surely see that it is one'smétier, the placing of bows and ornaments.'Marion liked the quiet, grave girl who sat so industriously hemming the flounces for her petticoats and otherwise filling the gaps her over-tried employer left neglected in the programme of Mademoiselle's dresses. Sometimes Marion would take a needle and help her, and they talked of London, Simone offering crumbs for Marion's hungering curiosity of the ways of this new world. Always when she entered the little chamber she would see the small brown head bent over a lapful of silk and muslins, the dainty hand stitching away, the face, with its look of settled gravity and absorption combined, turning at her entrance.'If she were not so serious,' mused Marion on one or two occasions, 'that little Simone would be a beautiful girl.'But beautiful or not, Simone wrought exactly the change Lady Fairfax had desired. Marion unconsciously studied the little sempstress's way of wearing her own simply made gowns: a new spectacle this, for Elise's dresses had never been simple. And the grave rebuke in the dark eyes when Marion, on seating herself, adjusted a skirt in an unbecoming way had the effect of subduing the young lady at once.'I don't know what is the matter with me,' confessed Marion to her aunt. 'Simone makes me feel too large, too clumsy. I haven't got big feet'—she complacently surveyed her projected slipper—'but when Simone walks across a room I think I have. I did not think there was anything the matter with my arms till I saw Simone's glance if I placed them so. Am I very countrified, Aunt Constance?''My little lamb,' said that lady with a fond embrace, 'you are finding your feet. Never mind how big they are. They are very well.'Simone had passed triumphantly the test of the shrewd, watching eyes of Lady Fairfax, who had long ago singled out the quiet girl as being the most deft of the Frenchwoman's assistants. And now, as she saw her coming and going about her niece's affairs, she decided that, considering her as a waiting woman, deftness was the least of her qualities. There was something in the ease of the girl's movements no matter in what company she found herself; something in the way she entered a thronged room on some errand, spoke to her young mistress and went out again; something in the restraint of her speech and the subtle charm of her low soft voice, that made Lady Fairfax congratulate herself again and again on the waiting woman she had found for her niece. And it was a matter of sincere regret in the entire household when Madame Romaine obdurate for once, insisted on her apprentice's return in order to help with the mass of work that was driving the sempstress into an untimely grave. As soon as the load was eased somewhat, Simone might be allowed to return; but in the meantime, excellent needlewomen were hard to find, while waiting women grew in every garden, so to speak. Thus Madame Romaine.Simone's departure, Mrs. Martin, Lady Fairfax's woman was obliged to find time to divide her care between two mistresses, and visitors coming more and more to the house, Marion's empty hours were few.True to her promise (being graciously allowed by Her Majesty) Lady Fairfax took her niece on the Monday night to see the play at the theatre near Blackfriars Bridge, Colonel Sampson being the only visitor in the box. When Marion had seated herself, and realised that the box was in full view of the body of the theatre filled with people of fashion, she shrank back in uttermost confusion. Her aunt, serenely surveying the house, nodding to acquaintances and smiling at the stiff backs of her honest enemies, was forgetful for the moment of her niece's predicament. But the gentleman at the rear of the box came to her rescue. Colonel Sampson, slipping round her chair, leisurely placed his elegantly garbed shoulder and elbow on the edge of the box, and leaning down to talk to her, sheltered her from the view of the gossiping folk in the body of the theatre. Marion vowed friendship for Colonel Sampson from that moment.Then, when the curtain rose, and her companion returned to his own chair, Marion forgot the gay crowd, forgot past, present, and future. Leaning on the edge of the box, utterly unconscious of the fact that Lady Fairfax's 'little niece' in a white muslin dress and with a rose in her hair, was being fully as much regarded as the stage, she gave herself up to the pleasure of her first play. She did not know that her laugh rose here and there the first in the house; she was totally unaware of the horror in her face when the villain of the piece unmasked his villainy. When a duel came to be fought, and swords gleamed out, she half turned and grasped Sir John's sleeve, not daring to see the blades clash. And when the curtain fell, she needed the positive assurance of her uncle and Colonel Sampson (Lady Fairfax being at the door of the box, smilingly and inexorably keeping visitors without) that the men lying there on the stage were not really dead.CHAPTER VIISIMONE LEBLANCMarion was silent in the carriage on her way home from the theatre, and absent-minded at supper. Her aunt presently thought it wise to switch off her thoughts into another channel.'She will never sleep, that precious baby,' she said in an aside to Colonel Sampson, sitting at her right hand. 'She is living the acts all over again. I cannot blame her. I wept all night after my first play.'Soon Marion's ears pricked at the sound of the word Garth; mentally she rubbed her eyes and sat up. Colonel Sampson was talking of her father—telling the sort of tales Marion had so often heard when her father and his old friends of the sea met at the friendly board, or when he had fallen back on the parson for audience. And as Mr. Sampson talked, it seemed to Marion that the bored gentleman of fashion completely disappeared and the stern, honest soldier came uppermost.Marion listened with complacent pride to the hints the speaker gave of her father's bravery and lovable little deeds.'He was ever prone to acts of generous folly,' the Admiral's sister put in at the end of one of the stories. 'And that reminds me, my dear,' turning to her niece, 'I haven't yet heard one hundredth part of your news from home——''You lead such a busy life, Aunt Constance,' put in Marion demurely, 'I don't see how you can ever think of little things like stories about Garth.''I lead a most unhappy life!' retorted the lady, 'and I hope when some one writes my memoirs he will be careful to add the fact that I bore my trials right sweetly. But I was going to say—give her some more of that jelly, John—I never had the right story of how your foolish father came to saddle himself with the little French girl.''Why,' said Marion, 'let me see now. Elise is the daughter of poor M. de Delauret, you know——'Colonel Sampson leaned forward. 'Not the de Delauret who sailed in theTriomphe Noirto the East?''The same. I have heard my father talk of that very ship.''Strange, strange!' mused the old soldier, settling back in his chair. 'I never met the gentleman myself, but I was acquainted with Madame de Delauret in the old days, before she was married.'Marion regarded the speaker with unfeigned interest. 'You knew Elise's mother! Do tell me about her, sir. I could never get Elise to talk about her.''But this is intolerable!' cried Lady Fairfax, tapping the table with her slim, jewelled fingers. 'Here I ask for a simple story, and you and my niece go off on a voyage of discovery together. John, my dear, shall we retire to my drawing-room for a dish of tea?''You see, Marion,' came her uncle's quiet voice from the head of the table, 'my lady there is accustomed to being (or thinking she is) the person of most importance, saving Her Majesty's presence, in any company.'The country girl's eyes rested shyly on the lady's face. 'I'm sure no one has a greater right,' said she.'That is a very admirable sentiment,' said Lady Fairfax gravely. 'The prisoner is dismissed with a reprimand. Now you may begin your story, leaving out theTriomphe Noir.'In her simple, straightforward way Marion then told what she knew of her father's relationship with the Frenchman and his adoption of the orphan.''Twas very noble of Tom to take on such a guardianship,' mused Lady Fairfax. 'But it was also very foolish. Only my brother would have been so blind.''How so, Aunt Constance?''Because, my dear, from what you say Elise is something of an heiress on her mother's side. Is not that so, Colonel?'The gentleman assented. 'Madame de Delauret was the daughter of the Sieur d'Artois. Her father, it is true, gave his consent to her marriage with the "penniless Breton cadet," as they were pleased to describe de Delauret, but her family more or less discarded her. Now, however, through the demise of various other members of the family, Madame de Delauret's child must inherit the Artois estates.''I still don't see how Father was blind,' persisted Marion.'Don't you, my dear child? It is this way. If Elise is her mother's heiress to that extent, she is a person of note, in a small way. She should be with the ladies of the d'Artois family. It is to be presumed their antagonism is now dead.D'ailleurs,' added the lady drily, 'if Elise is heiress 'twill be for her to pick and choose.''M. de Delauret's particular wish was to keep Elise away from French society,' replied Marion.'But Elise cannot be hid all her life under my brother's greatcoats! She has, I am sure, had a right simple, honest, healthy upbringing. Now she should be brought out to take her place.''She ought to be a very charming young lady,' mused the Colonel. 'Of such a mother and such a father. I have ever heard the most noble stories of de Delauret.''Who is managing Elise's estates?' asked Sir John, looking up from his walnuts.'I know very little about that, sir. My father's lawyer has dealings with M. de Delauret's lawyer in France and pays Elise her income, through Father, of course. But that brings to my mind—I had really forgotten—I seem to have forgotten such a lot about Garth since I came here,' penitently put in the young lady. 'The very day we came away Father had a letter from the French attorney, M. Lebrun. He is an old gentleman, it appears, and wishes to retire from his duties, and is shortly to leave everything in his son's hands. The young M. Lebrun I know nothing about. Neither Elise nor Victoire has ever seen him. But I gathered from Elise's manner she will not be sorry to have dealings with the son,' continued Marion. 'The old gentleman appears to affect her with a particular dislike. Be that as it may, old M. Lebrun is on his way to England, to visit us before he relinquishes his affairs. Father said 'twas rather unwise of him, as his health is very poor—some disease he has—I forget its name—a learned name.''Well,' said Lady Fairfax, 'let us hope the learned name will not silence M. Lebrun before he has arranged for the young lady to be taken to Paris.''Father has been thinking of a change, I know. Aunt Keziah scolded him a little, I think. You wouldn't believe,' smiled Marion, 'how Aunt Keziah and Elise hated each other.''I presume she was otherwise a general favourite?' Lady Fairfax had noted the entire absence of any personal feeling in her niece's recital of the young French girl's affairs.'Well——' Marion faltered.'You are much attached to her, I suppose.''I was—yes, I am,' said Marion stoutly. ''Twas just something she did that angered me.' She took refuge in a general attitude again. 'As for being a favourite—I think—'twas so—except for Roger. Roger could never abide her. Neither could Dick Hooper, his friend from Blundell's.''Roger?'Marion raised her clear eyes to her aunt's face. 'Roger Trevannion, you know, at the Manor.'There was a brief silence. Marion's brows were straightened a little. She seemed again to hear that sarcastic voice: 'So you are on his side, as well as Roger.' How distant it all appeared! She wondered what Roger was doing—was he allowing himself to get into any foolish scrapes?Presently Lady Fairfax held up her finger to stop the conversation that had arisen between the gentlemen. 'Hark, d' ye hear?'The windows were open, and the cry of the watch in the square was distinctly audible.'Past ten o'clock, and a fine starlight night.''To your chamber at once,' she said to Marion. 'We will talk more of this little Elise later.'
CHAPTER V
'MY LITTLE NIECE'
Great festivities were afoot in the house of Lady Fairfax in Kensington. The rooms glittered in the light of hundreds of candles set in sconces on the wall; torches were blazing in their iron sockets at the outer door; beyond the garden was a boisterous confusion of coaches and chairs, the chairmen wrangling with the footmen and pages for a place by the gate; and linkboys, their lights aloft, dodged to and fro, casting gibes on their betters and showing an ability born of long practice in evading their blows.
From time to time the doors opened, and footmen bawled for my lady's or my lord's coach. A certain decorum, at these moments, marked the behaviour of those without the gates. Room was made for the vehicle in question, page boys and footmen ran to their posts, my lord or my lady left the house, entered the coach and drove off. And behind them, like water in the wake of a ship, the noisy groups closed in again.
To be bidden to one of the gatherings of Lady Fairfax was a coveted honour. Just how Lady Fairfax came to be the rallying point of a certain section of the Court society, no one knew. She was envied, feted, flattered, caressed. She walked into the Queen's drawing-room as if it had been her own chamber; she would leave the side of the most exalted personage in order to speak to a humble acquaintance, and there would be no change in her manner. She scolded and smiled as she pleased, and, such was the gift of the gods to her, with impunity. Like the Admiral her brother, she made her own course in the world, and next to a good friend she liked best an honest enemy. For the others, whose smile hid a snarl, she had nothing but disdain.
Concerning Sir John Fairfax, a good deal of whispering ran to and fro, mainly from Whitehall and St. James's to Kensington. Exactly what post he held no one knew; that he was party to the secret diplomacy of the Court every one suspected. He was an old sailor, and in the course of his voyages had contrived to gather a vast information about the ports and defences of alien coasts. Moreover, in various parts of the world he had friends whose loyalty was unquestioned.
A great many people were curious as to the nature of the long conversations, without which few days passed, between Sir John Fairfax and my Lord Churchill; but the matter of their parleys was revealed to no one, least of all to Sir John's wife. He was a smallish, grey, wizened man, with a singularly sweet smile; he had a gentle voice and an unfailing courtesy; his wife adored him, principally because he was the one person in the world whom she could neither hector nor coax into doing something he did not wish to do.
Lady Fairfax went from group to group in her rooms, a gracious figure in her gown of black velvet stitched with silver, a scarf of Malines lace across her shoulders, her grey hair dressed high. No one had ever succeeded in defining her charm; she was one of those middle-aged women who made young girls discontented with their youth, and beautiful women dubious of the power of their beauty.
As Lady Fairfax entered one of the card rooms, and looked from group to group, a couple of young gallants sprang from a window seat where they had been in close converse. Seeing them, their hostess beckoned with her fan, and withdrew.
'What means this?' demanded my lady as the two, with deep bows, stood before her. 'Why are you leaving beauty unattended? Do not the feet of the dancers call you? Fie on you, my lord! And you, sir! Your father had known better.'
'It is but for Lady Fairfax to command,' replied the nobleman with another bow and an air of mock resignation.
'But my father, madam,' retorted the other, who was, as a shrewd eye would see, a favourite with his hostess, 'had doubtless greater attractions offered him.'
'Doubtless, doubtless!' smiled the lady. 'There is, however, a story I may tell you some day. Well now, young man, will you find my husband for me? Stay—what is that noise below?'
Some commotion was arising in the hall, and Lady Fairfax, being then at the head of the stairs, went slowly down, her beautiful hand catching the folds of her dress, the young men at her side.
'Say that again, thou girt fool!' a voice with a strong West Country accent was shouting, 'and thou'lt rue the day.'
There was the sound of a lusty smack, and a footman, with his hand to his cheek, bellowed for his ally within. The West Country voice rang out again, and there was the crack of a whip.
'Be this the house of Lady Constance Fairfax or no? And if 'tis, where's her to?'
The speaker, hatless, muddy, his neck-cloth torn, stared about; his knotted fist and weapon menaced the servants who had hastily approached. A few guests had strolled into the hall, and were looking curiously on. The men accompanying my lady on the stair became aware of a start, and an exclamation. Lady Fairfax dropped her robe and ran down.
'Zacchary,' she said, the group gathering round the countryman falling away at her approach, 'surely 'tis thou, Zacchary!'
The old groom's distressed face changed at the sound of the voice he had not heard for twenty years. He dropped on one knee, and groped for the lady's hand. Then rising, a look of devotion in his eyes, he surveyed her from head to foot.
'I don't allow, Mistress Constance,' he said, scratching his head, 'that you'm changed. But you'm mighty different all the same. But'—his tone altered—''tis the young mistress, my lady. Her's without in the coach yonder, and Peter on the step, and they sons of Belial in the road bean't for letting the coach go by.'
'What! My little niece!' Lady Fairfax turned hastily to the young man at her side. 'I pray you, Master Beckenham, see to this matter without; and you, my lord, if you would look in the rooms above for my husband——'
She needed not to finish her sentence. Master Beckenham followed Zacchary out into the square.
A coach had drawn across the road, a little distance from the entrance. The equipage belonged to my Lord Fetterleigh, who was playing cards within, and the coachman was making it quite clear that until he chose he would not move his coach, his lord taking precedence of the gentlemen whose vehicles were before the gates. As for that outlandish travelling waggon beyond there (his cheek was still smarting from the valiant Peter's whip), it could wait until it was chopped up for—— The harangue was cut short. 'Move thy horses, thou vile wretch!' thundered a voice. 'I will acquaint thy lord of this.'
The light of the torches fell on the face of the newcomer. The coachman, with a qualm, gathered up his reins, and Master Beckenham in his elegant buckled shoes and smart attire slipped in between the hedge and the rear of the coach, and followed Zacchary down the road.
To the accompaniment of Zacchary's heartfelt remarks (sounding to the Londoner like the whinny of a horse) on the vileness of Kensington compared with Cornwall, Beckenham made his way to the country coach. He felt a certain curiosity to see the 'little niece.' A few nights ago, visiting Lady Fairfax's box between the acts, he had heard her telling how she had bidden her brother's little maid to come and stay with her a spell, that she might teach her how to set her toes when she grew taller. Lady Fairfax had never seen the child, because of the disagreement between her brother and herself about her upbringing. Here the curtain had risen, and my lady's complacent recital was stopped. Duly reporting this matter to Madam his mother (one of Lady Fairfax's honest enemies), Mr. Beckenham had been greatly diverted. For that lady and a bosom friend, counting the years on their fingers, with side glances for the unconscious victim in the box, had estimated the age of the 'little niece' as already somewhere in the shadows of the late twenties. Saying nothing, Mr. Beckenham had bided his time, and it pleased him to have an opportunity of satisfying himself on the point.
The loiterers in the road had formed a sturdy group round the vehicle he sought. The coachman on the box, not liking to leave his post, was circling his whip over the heads of the nearest, and adding comments when Peter, bodyguarding on the step, failed for breath. The link boys roared with delight. Such amusement did not often come their way. And even the watch, with his lantern and staff, had stopped in his chant of 'Ten o'clock, and a fine windy night,' to listen to the voices whose tones made him at once contemptuous and envious.
Mr. Beckenham doubled his elbows, and calling: 'Make way there! Make way!' in a voice of unmistakable authority, soon succeeded in reaching the door of the coach, Zacchary lumbering at his heels. Honest Peter, in the act of drawing the back of his hand across his overworked mouth, noted his approach, and his eyes brightened.
''Ere be Zacchary and a gentleman, Mistress Marion. 'Ere a be.'
'Lead the horses to the gate,' commanded the young gentleman. 'Hand me your whip, my man.'
With alacrity Peter tendered his weapon, and Mr. Beckenham, thus armed, took up the position of page on the step of the Penrock coach. The loiterers fled before the hissing lash.
At the gate, Mr. Beckenham opened the coach door with a low bow, and offered his hand to the fair occupant. The light of the flambeaux fell on the two faces confronting each other. Marion's hat had fallen off, her gleaming hair fell in disorder about her face. Nervously she looked at the young man as she took his proffered assistance, and murmured a word of thanks. 'Terrified out of her wits,' summed up the youth. 'How on earth comes she to be travelling without an escort?' And a strong indignation against some unknown person seized him.
Meanwhile Lady Fairfax, standing within the doorway, had been peering from time to time out into the night. She was again explaining to the group of guests in the hall that her little niece was coming from Cornwall to visit her. Her brother was doubtless with her in the coach, and had sent Zacchary to the door. Her brother was, unhappily, lame. And Zacchary, poor man, only being accustomed to see one horse at a time, was a little flustered.
Behind the speaker stood a small grey-haired man, whose smile broadened into a chuckle as his wife's 'little niece' hove in sight.
When Marion stepped into the house, Lady Fairfax for once in her life was speechless. About a figure almost as tall as her own a riding cloak was roughly gathered. The collar fell away from the throat, and the folds of the garment were held by a slim hand to the shoulder. At the scene in the hall, Marion shrank back a second, then stood still.
'My little niece! Is it possible!'
Marion allowed herself to be embraced and drawn into the house. She was vaguely aware of a gentleman with a kind smile, who patted her and called her 'my dear'; of glittering jewels and gay dresses in the background; of the throb of music in the rooms above; of the silent figure of Mr. Beckenham standing at her elbow. Then she looked again at the face before her, and the anger and dismay she had felt at the manner of her arrival melted. In her aunt's eyes she saw her father's. Her face relaxed, and she smiled.
'Did you not expect me then, Aunt Constance?'
'What a voice!' murmured a woman at the back of the hall.
Lady Fairfax gathered the slight form in her arms. 'My little maid!' she crooned. 'My little maid!' Then, holding her at arm's length: 'But—I am speechless! How came you to travel so? But stay. First some food, and you shall tell me.'
She led the girl into a little room off the hall, and while Sir John went himself for wine and cake she took off the cloak and shoes, and held the fair face between her hands. 'My little maid!' she said again. 'I had forgotten you must have grown. Tell me, sweet, one word. Is your father ill? Why is he not here?'
'He is not hurt,' said Marion. 'He——'
'Drink this, my dear,' said a kind voice, and Marion, looking up, saw her uncle at her side. A feeling of warmth and comfort stole over her. 'And I thought I had fallen among thieves,' she faltered.
Meanwhile the men and women who had witnessed the arrival of the 'little niece' were talking about her in the rooms above. As the conversation drifted on to the girl's family, a gentleman strolled up to the group. Underneath the languid pose of the courtier of the day, a shrewd eye would have seen the hardened soldier. 'Did I hear you say Penrock?' he drawled.
'The same. She's the daughter of Admiral Penrock—the old Salt Eagle of the fifties.'
The questioner disappeared and passed downstairs, and with the privilege of old friendship lifted the tapestry curtain and walked into the little room. Sir John and Lady Fairfax sat on either side their guest before the fire. The girl was eating as she talked.
'Come in, Sampson!' called his host, 'and speak to our little niece here. Marion, my dear, here is an old soldier who fought alongside your father before you were born.'
Marion, whose back was towards the newcomer, laid down her spiced cake and turned in her seat, prepared to see a burly, weather-worn figure. Instead, she was aware of a slight, pale-faced man, dressed with an elegance she had never before encountered, making a low bow. For a second she was startled, then gravely held out her fingers.
'I could not wait one other minute,' said the guest, his languid air falling away somewhat, 'before I had done myself the honour of paying my respects to the daughter of the bravest, loyalest gentleman it has ever been my fortune to know.'
The tears dimmed Marion's eyes, and she could not find a word to say, but she smiled up suddenly into the gaunt face; and the man standing there, who had seen two generations of beauty go by, felt a stirring in his dry old heart.
Here my lady broke in. 'Tut, tut, Colonel! I will not have my niece weep, even at your praise. But for yonder stupid rising still brewing trouble, we should have had my brother with us. Marion has just told us the story. Go on eating your cake, my dear. Take a chair, Colonel. So. Just as the coach was leaving Bagshot, who should come up but the King's Commissioner with a couple of officers behind him, riding hard for the west with urgent duty for my brother, who is magistrate in his parts. My niece, here, knows nothing of the mission but that it was of such urgency, with the Lord Chancellor's will behind it, that the Admiral must needs take another coach and ride back to Cornwall. The two officers escorted my niece here the rest of the way till noon to-day, when there was but the fields of Kensington to cross, and they were doubtless thinking of their dinner at St. James's. The coachman then lost his way, the dolt! and found himself in Chelsey. 'Tis only by good fortune my niece arrived in safety. But'—the lady pressed another kiss on the girl's cheek—'here she is! And she's going to stay a long, long time. Perhaps for years.'
Marion was aware of a vague echo, a vision of a youth on horseback on a windy ridge that smelt of the sea: all of it somewhere in another world and another life she had lived in the long ago. She sighed. For a few minutes the talk went on, the girl paying no heed. Then Lady Fairfax, gathering her lace shawl, rose and dropped a curtsey to Mr. Sampson.
'And now for bed,' said she. 'I will see you all anon.'
CHAPTER VI
A LADY-IN-WAITING
It is said that the unexpected generally happens, and the truth of this was borne home to Marion during her first week in Kensington. She had looked (not without a thrill of delight and fear blended) for an immediate plunge into the excitements of the capital. Instead, she found herself, partly by accident and partly by design, passing from hour to hour and day to day in a state of almost complete seclusion. The accident that led to this state of affairs was due to Lady Fairfax's being a favourite attendant of Her Majesty; Her Majesty elected to find herself ailing on the Wednesday—the day after Marion's arrival—and Lady Fairfax's presence seemed to be the one factor that made the Royal indisposition bearable. Aunt Constance could only spare rime for an embrace and a half-hour's gossip with her niece before her coach was announced to carry her to court. She came home late in the day with the news that change of air was prescribed by the royal physician, and on Friday the Queen's household must move to Hampton Court; and should that atmosphere not prove beneficial, they might go yet further, to Tunbridge or Bath. Lady Fairfax had risked the displeasure of her august mistress and prayed for leave of absence, only to learn that the arrivals of 'little nieces' from our duchy of Cornwall do not find a place in the calendar of events at Court. When our health is improved (it was hinted) we may perhaps find it agreeable to dispense somewhat with our lady-in-waiting. Until then—as Lady Fairfax allowed herself to say, the unfortunate aunt must 'grin and bide.'
So much for the 'accident' that led to Marion's seclusion. The 'design' was due to the cherished plans her aunt had formed—vaguely before her arrival, very actively on the night of her coming—for her niece's success. Lady Fairfax was delighted with her young guest. She was proud of this addition to her family treasures; a veritable jewel, she fondly said. But the jewel must be well set before being displayed to the public eye. To the inquirers visiting the house in Kensington or seeing her abroad, Lady Fairfax smilingly said that her niece had had a trying journey, and must have her beauty sleep—several days' beauty sleep, in fact (during which time it was decreed that my lady's tailor and sempstress should be hard driven). No word of this was hinted to Marion. She accepted the fact of her aunt's duties at Court as an ordinary event, and spent her time wandering about the great house and garden; noting the grandeur of the entertaining rooms, the numerous liveried servants, and the ordered stateliness of everyday life. Her windows looked out on Kensington Square, where she had glimpses of carriages coming and going, of chairmen setting down their burden at the gates, of men and women of such dress and deportment that Marion thought they must surely be the princes and princesses out of some fairy tale.
Kind Sir John Fairfax was concerned for the young lady under his roof. She seemed to him to be moping.
'Everything is for the best, on the whole,' declared his wife. 'I am truly grieved to leave her so much, but that would not be a loss if you would bear her company a little oftener. You forget the change this life is to the child. What is Garth? A wigwam in a forest. She must needs find her feet before she can run. And run she shall not till she be dressed. Romaine is altering a gown for everyday usage,' the lady went on, 'and then as soon as Her Majesty'smalaiseallows her to free me, we will have a few visitors some quiet night that I may see how she dances. Young Beckenham will not be sorry of the chance, and Sampson, I'll be bound, for all his languid airs, will be glad to make a leg again in a minuet. Then,' Lady Fairfax smiled demurely, 'in another week or two a ball in the honour of the coming of my niece to Kensington. And if you don't like the fuss and the pother of the ball coming on, dear lad, why, get you to Whitehall and talk secrets with my Lord Churchill.'
'You are riding this hobby of her gowns to death!' grumbled Sir John. 'It is bad for the girl. She'll think that nothing matters but fal-lals. And she is too much alone. Can't Her Majesty spare you an hour this evening to take her to a play? Need she be dressed for her first play?'
The lady neatly dropped a kiss on the end of her husband's nose. 'That's for that!' she smiled. 'You have given me an idea. Not to-night, but Monday (Her Majesty has promised me Monday) our little niece shall go to the play. She shall wear her white muslin frock and a rose in her hair; and not a woman in the theatre but will be sick at the thought of the pots on her dressing-table.'
Sir John looked at his wife in despair, then laughed outright.
'Upon my word, Connie,' said he, 'you'd have made a fine general. You lose no chances. You make every hummock into a bed for a culverin. I give it up!'
'But even you,' serenely concluded his companion, 'will agree that she cannot walk into Her Majesty's drawing-room in a muslin frock.'
To do Lady Fairfax justice, she had no intention of burdening Marion with fal-lals, for although in those days women wore most elaborate robes, it was not considered necessary to have a new one for each ball, play, or party they attended. Moreover fashion was a sleepy, slow-moving dame, only rising to bestir herself once in a decade—and not, as is her present habit, setting a new step every year, and making her followers miserable if they fall behind in the march. A ball dress was a veritable 'creation,' made with infinite pains and pride, every stitch carefully put in, the embroideries a triumph of patience and skill (and eyesight), as indeed was all the needlework of those leisurely days, before machine-made imitations undermined its value. Dresses were worn by their owners year after year, and very often a valued gown was personally bequeathed to the next generation.
Lady Fairfax had carefully hidden the slight disdain she had felt for Marion's belongings when her French sempstress, to whom she had sent an urgent call, came early on the second day after Marion's arrival. Indeed Marion's eyes had watched her aunt narrowly, and the kind-hearted woman had guessed her nervous shrinking when Madame Romaine lifted from her trunk the simple garment made by the Plymouth tailor.
'But, dear heart,' Lady Fairfax had allowed herself to remark, 'where is your mother's lilac embroidered gown? Did not your father give it to you?'
'He never thinks of dress,' faltered Marion, feeling that she and her father were being found blameworthy, 'and—I don't think he could bear to see even me wearing my mother's bodices.'
Lady Fairfax's eyes softened, and a memory came to her of the fair lady of Garth in that one winter when she flitted across the stage of London before she 'buried herself' in the west.
The Frenchwoman meanwhile was sniffing in the recesses of Marion's trunk. 'I have not smelt so great a sweetness, Mademoiselle, since I was a small little one—so—playing in the garden of my uncle in Avignon, a thousand years ago!'
'All my mother's things still smell sweet,' said Marion to her aunt. 'She made her own waters, and grew lavender and roses and all sorts of flowers specially for them. I cannot make them near so well. Mistress Trevannion says my mother was very beautiful, too. But Father will never talk of her, except,' added Marion disconsolately, 'to say I do not in the least resemble her.'
The eyes of mistress and sempstress met over the golden brown head. Marion at the moment was busying herself with another small trunk, and took from it a japanned box.
'I had almost forgotten this, Aunt Constance,' she said. 'Father gave it to me in the greatest hurry, just when Curnow was fastening the boxes. If I had not known his ways, I should have thought he had been angry. But it was just that he did not want me to ask any questions.'
She opened the box with a little gold key. Inside was a length of heavy embroidered silk, worked in cream and gold, on a cream ground, with a straying touch of blue and green. Pinned to the end of the length was a slip of paper.
'Your mother was working this for you, and talking of when you would be grown, just before she died,' ran the words. 'Wear it, my child.' Nothing more.
'That was a very sweet lady,' emphatically said the Frenchwoman as she examined the length, the other two standing silent a space.
'It is most beautiful,' said Lady Fairfax. Then she glanced at the script again, and in spite of Marion's solemn look she chuckled a little.
'"Wear it!" says my lord. "Wear it!" How? Pinned on the front of your bodice? I'll warrant my brother is firmly of the idea he has given you a gown. But there's something else in this trunk—another box——'
Marion fumbled with the lid, and presently disclosed a casket with a velvet lining. Curled in the folds of the velvet lay a necklace of turquoise and pearl.
Marion stood speechless.
'I shall never dare wear that!' she said at length.
Lady Fairfax, with a pleased smile, was turning the necklace about in the light.
'Your mother's too, I remember it. This settles the matter,' she added to the sempstress. 'Mademoiselle's gown shall be cream and gold, with asoupçonof the blue of these turquoises. Let it be designed'—she went off into a string of technicalities. 'You will get Master Bingon at once, my good Romaine, and the two of you set to work. I give you seven days and nights for a month's employment. Can you, and will you?'
Madame Romaine glanced at Marion's face. 'Solely forles beaux yeuxof Mademoiselle,' she briefly replied. 'I cannot, but I will.'
'Good. And bid the little Simone come here for a spell. She can have the small chamber next to Mademoiselle, and stitch at her flounces and petticoats, and perhaps persuade Mademoiselle to wear her new stays.'
Marion laughed. 'I give up the battle from this moment, Aunt Constance. I will even wear the sort of stays you wish. But not,' she added firmly, 'as hard and tight as yours.'
Lady Fairfax complacently surveyed her own beautiful figure in the long mirror on the wall.
'La, la, Mademoiselle,' put in the Frenchwoman, 'il faut souffrir pour être belle.'
'Not that kind of suffering, Madame Romaine!' said Marion, with a touch of her father's dryness that made her aunt smile. 'Mademoiselle de Delauret wears hard stays, and she suffers greatly sometimes, but I have never seen any marked improvement in her looks. But who is this Simone who is coming to mount guard over me?'
Here the door opened and a page boy entered. He spoke to his mistress, who drew him out of earshot of the others.
'Master Beckenham again, my lady. Master Beckenham's compliments, and may he have the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship and inquiring after the health of Mistress Penrock?'
'Did I not tell you what to say should this happen?
'I said it, my lady, and Master——'
'Go and say it again.'
The page boy made a deep obeisance and withdrew.
Lady Fairfax, smiling at her own thoughts, rejoined her niece and the sempstress. Meanwhile Madame Romaine, whose delight at finding a receptive audience was great, was telling a story about some one called Simone, a protégée of hers whose services in her own house Lady Fairfax had just requested. Simone, it appeared, had been found many years ago on a doorstep in the city—in Crutched Friars—by the Frenchwoman on her way home from a client's house. The sempstress had been minded to pass by—there are always plenty of crying children in the gutters—but she had heard the child babbling in her own tongue. And the kind-hearted woman, whose country was her dear love, picked up the little one, and solely for the sake ofla belle France, carried her home.
The child, emaciated, almost starved to death, had fallen into a fever and a severe illness from which she had barely escaped with her life, and not altogether, Madame Romaine sometimes feared, with her reason. She had babbled of strange things sometimes, but the memory of her childhood seemed to have fallen off, with all the hair from her head, during her illness. 'She is one of my most valued needlewomen,' declared the sempstress, 'which is why, I suppose, my lady demands her presence here, just as if she were but a chair to sit upon, and no good whatever to me!'
'You have others,' placidly said Lady Fairfax, busy with her powdering box at her dressing-table. 'And I have a certain liking for the little Simone. But of course, if you prefer it—I wish not to drive you hardly—send Alice Hepworthy—but spare us her history. Seven days and nights you have. 'Tis not wise to waste an hour talking of people who do not matter in the least. Marion, my dear,' Lady Fairfax swung round, 'take warning by Romaine, and if ever you find yourself chattering, think of her. She cares not what her subject may be, so long as her tongue may wag. You are an insufferable bore, my good Romaine, with your Simones and your gutters. Begone, you rogue, and let me see your progress soon.'
With a smile and a curtsey the Frenchwoman departed. She counted it one of her greatest privileges to be rated by Lady Fairfax.
Madame Romaine's little French needlewoman took up her abode in a small chamber that opened off Marion's, and when that young lady was not engaged with her aunt or uncle, or the stray visitors she was allowed to see before she was presented to London society, she found Simone Leblanc very pleasant company.
Simone, like Elise, had that instinct for dress which is the birthright of all Frenchwomen and the envy of their Anglo-Saxon sisters. Did Marion require a ribbon in her sunny hair, Simone knew by an unfailing instinct just where the knot should fall, found without a second's hesitation the one spot to place a rose. And when Marion, seeing herself stumble in these paths so easily tripped by the little French feet, was minded to voice her discontent with herself, Simone would reply with her rare smile: 'No, no! Mademoiselle deceives herself. Mademoiselle has great qualities. As for a little nothing like a bow or an ornament, Mademoiselle will surely see that it is one'smétier, the placing of bows and ornaments.'
Marion liked the quiet, grave girl who sat so industriously hemming the flounces for her petticoats and otherwise filling the gaps her over-tried employer left neglected in the programme of Mademoiselle's dresses. Sometimes Marion would take a needle and help her, and they talked of London, Simone offering crumbs for Marion's hungering curiosity of the ways of this new world. Always when she entered the little chamber she would see the small brown head bent over a lapful of silk and muslins, the dainty hand stitching away, the face, with its look of settled gravity and absorption combined, turning at her entrance.
'If she were not so serious,' mused Marion on one or two occasions, 'that little Simone would be a beautiful girl.'
But beautiful or not, Simone wrought exactly the change Lady Fairfax had desired. Marion unconsciously studied the little sempstress's way of wearing her own simply made gowns: a new spectacle this, for Elise's dresses had never been simple. And the grave rebuke in the dark eyes when Marion, on seating herself, adjusted a skirt in an unbecoming way had the effect of subduing the young lady at once.
'I don't know what is the matter with me,' confessed Marion to her aunt. 'Simone makes me feel too large, too clumsy. I haven't got big feet'—she complacently surveyed her projected slipper—'but when Simone walks across a room I think I have. I did not think there was anything the matter with my arms till I saw Simone's glance if I placed them so. Am I very countrified, Aunt Constance?'
'My little lamb,' said that lady with a fond embrace, 'you are finding your feet. Never mind how big they are. They are very well.'
Simone had passed triumphantly the test of the shrewd, watching eyes of Lady Fairfax, who had long ago singled out the quiet girl as being the most deft of the Frenchwoman's assistants. And now, as she saw her coming and going about her niece's affairs, she decided that, considering her as a waiting woman, deftness was the least of her qualities. There was something in the ease of the girl's movements no matter in what company she found herself; something in the way she entered a thronged room on some errand, spoke to her young mistress and went out again; something in the restraint of her speech and the subtle charm of her low soft voice, that made Lady Fairfax congratulate herself again and again on the waiting woman she had found for her niece. And it was a matter of sincere regret in the entire household when Madame Romaine obdurate for once, insisted on her apprentice's return in order to help with the mass of work that was driving the sempstress into an untimely grave. As soon as the load was eased somewhat, Simone might be allowed to return; but in the meantime, excellent needlewomen were hard to find, while waiting women grew in every garden, so to speak. Thus Madame Romaine.
Simone's departure, Mrs. Martin, Lady Fairfax's woman was obliged to find time to divide her care between two mistresses, and visitors coming more and more to the house, Marion's empty hours were few.
True to her promise (being graciously allowed by Her Majesty) Lady Fairfax took her niece on the Monday night to see the play at the theatre near Blackfriars Bridge, Colonel Sampson being the only visitor in the box. When Marion had seated herself, and realised that the box was in full view of the body of the theatre filled with people of fashion, she shrank back in uttermost confusion. Her aunt, serenely surveying the house, nodding to acquaintances and smiling at the stiff backs of her honest enemies, was forgetful for the moment of her niece's predicament. But the gentleman at the rear of the box came to her rescue. Colonel Sampson, slipping round her chair, leisurely placed his elegantly garbed shoulder and elbow on the edge of the box, and leaning down to talk to her, sheltered her from the view of the gossiping folk in the body of the theatre. Marion vowed friendship for Colonel Sampson from that moment.
Then, when the curtain rose, and her companion returned to his own chair, Marion forgot the gay crowd, forgot past, present, and future. Leaning on the edge of the box, utterly unconscious of the fact that Lady Fairfax's 'little niece' in a white muslin dress and with a rose in her hair, was being fully as much regarded as the stage, she gave herself up to the pleasure of her first play. She did not know that her laugh rose here and there the first in the house; she was totally unaware of the horror in her face when the villain of the piece unmasked his villainy. When a duel came to be fought, and swords gleamed out, she half turned and grasped Sir John's sleeve, not daring to see the blades clash. And when the curtain fell, she needed the positive assurance of her uncle and Colonel Sampson (Lady Fairfax being at the door of the box, smilingly and inexorably keeping visitors without) that the men lying there on the stage were not really dead.
CHAPTER VII
SIMONE LEBLANC
Marion was silent in the carriage on her way home from the theatre, and absent-minded at supper. Her aunt presently thought it wise to switch off her thoughts into another channel.
'She will never sleep, that precious baby,' she said in an aside to Colonel Sampson, sitting at her right hand. 'She is living the acts all over again. I cannot blame her. I wept all night after my first play.'
Soon Marion's ears pricked at the sound of the word Garth; mentally she rubbed her eyes and sat up. Colonel Sampson was talking of her father—telling the sort of tales Marion had so often heard when her father and his old friends of the sea met at the friendly board, or when he had fallen back on the parson for audience. And as Mr. Sampson talked, it seemed to Marion that the bored gentleman of fashion completely disappeared and the stern, honest soldier came uppermost.
Marion listened with complacent pride to the hints the speaker gave of her father's bravery and lovable little deeds.
'He was ever prone to acts of generous folly,' the Admiral's sister put in at the end of one of the stories. 'And that reminds me, my dear,' turning to her niece, 'I haven't yet heard one hundredth part of your news from home——'
'You lead such a busy life, Aunt Constance,' put in Marion demurely, 'I don't see how you can ever think of little things like stories about Garth.'
'I lead a most unhappy life!' retorted the lady, 'and I hope when some one writes my memoirs he will be careful to add the fact that I bore my trials right sweetly. But I was going to say—give her some more of that jelly, John—I never had the right story of how your foolish father came to saddle himself with the little French girl.'
'Why,' said Marion, 'let me see now. Elise is the daughter of poor M. de Delauret, you know——'
Colonel Sampson leaned forward. 'Not the de Delauret who sailed in theTriomphe Noirto the East?'
'The same. I have heard my father talk of that very ship.'
'Strange, strange!' mused the old soldier, settling back in his chair. 'I never met the gentleman myself, but I was acquainted with Madame de Delauret in the old days, before she was married.'
Marion regarded the speaker with unfeigned interest. 'You knew Elise's mother! Do tell me about her, sir. I could never get Elise to talk about her.'
'But this is intolerable!' cried Lady Fairfax, tapping the table with her slim, jewelled fingers. 'Here I ask for a simple story, and you and my niece go off on a voyage of discovery together. John, my dear, shall we retire to my drawing-room for a dish of tea?'
'You see, Marion,' came her uncle's quiet voice from the head of the table, 'my lady there is accustomed to being (or thinking she is) the person of most importance, saving Her Majesty's presence, in any company.'
The country girl's eyes rested shyly on the lady's face. 'I'm sure no one has a greater right,' said she.
'That is a very admirable sentiment,' said Lady Fairfax gravely. 'The prisoner is dismissed with a reprimand. Now you may begin your story, leaving out theTriomphe Noir.'
In her simple, straightforward way Marion then told what she knew of her father's relationship with the Frenchman and his adoption of the orphan.
''Twas very noble of Tom to take on such a guardianship,' mused Lady Fairfax. 'But it was also very foolish. Only my brother would have been so blind.'
'How so, Aunt Constance?'
'Because, my dear, from what you say Elise is something of an heiress on her mother's side. Is not that so, Colonel?'
The gentleman assented. 'Madame de Delauret was the daughter of the Sieur d'Artois. Her father, it is true, gave his consent to her marriage with the "penniless Breton cadet," as they were pleased to describe de Delauret, but her family more or less discarded her. Now, however, through the demise of various other members of the family, Madame de Delauret's child must inherit the Artois estates.'
'I still don't see how Father was blind,' persisted Marion.
'Don't you, my dear child? It is this way. If Elise is her mother's heiress to that extent, she is a person of note, in a small way. She should be with the ladies of the d'Artois family. It is to be presumed their antagonism is now dead.D'ailleurs,' added the lady drily, 'if Elise is heiress 'twill be for her to pick and choose.'
'M. de Delauret's particular wish was to keep Elise away from French society,' replied Marion.
'But Elise cannot be hid all her life under my brother's greatcoats! She has, I am sure, had a right simple, honest, healthy upbringing. Now she should be brought out to take her place.'
'She ought to be a very charming young lady,' mused the Colonel. 'Of such a mother and such a father. I have ever heard the most noble stories of de Delauret.'
'Who is managing Elise's estates?' asked Sir John, looking up from his walnuts.
'I know very little about that, sir. My father's lawyer has dealings with M. de Delauret's lawyer in France and pays Elise her income, through Father, of course. But that brings to my mind—I had really forgotten—I seem to have forgotten such a lot about Garth since I came here,' penitently put in the young lady. 'The very day we came away Father had a letter from the French attorney, M. Lebrun. He is an old gentleman, it appears, and wishes to retire from his duties, and is shortly to leave everything in his son's hands. The young M. Lebrun I know nothing about. Neither Elise nor Victoire has ever seen him. But I gathered from Elise's manner she will not be sorry to have dealings with the son,' continued Marion. 'The old gentleman appears to affect her with a particular dislike. Be that as it may, old M. Lebrun is on his way to England, to visit us before he relinquishes his affairs. Father said 'twas rather unwise of him, as his health is very poor—some disease he has—I forget its name—a learned name.'
'Well,' said Lady Fairfax, 'let us hope the learned name will not silence M. Lebrun before he has arranged for the young lady to be taken to Paris.'
'Father has been thinking of a change, I know. Aunt Keziah scolded him a little, I think. You wouldn't believe,' smiled Marion, 'how Aunt Keziah and Elise hated each other.'
'I presume she was otherwise a general favourite?' Lady Fairfax had noted the entire absence of any personal feeling in her niece's recital of the young French girl's affairs.
'Well——' Marion faltered.
'You are much attached to her, I suppose.'
'I was—yes, I am,' said Marion stoutly. ''Twas just something she did that angered me.' She took refuge in a general attitude again. 'As for being a favourite—I think—'twas so—except for Roger. Roger could never abide her. Neither could Dick Hooper, his friend from Blundell's.'
'Roger?'
Marion raised her clear eyes to her aunt's face. 'Roger Trevannion, you know, at the Manor.'
There was a brief silence. Marion's brows were straightened a little. She seemed again to hear that sarcastic voice: 'So you are on his side, as well as Roger.' How distant it all appeared! She wondered what Roger was doing—was he allowing himself to get into any foolish scrapes?
Presently Lady Fairfax held up her finger to stop the conversation that had arisen between the gentlemen. 'Hark, d' ye hear?'
The windows were open, and the cry of the watch in the square was distinctly audible.
'Past ten o'clock, and a fine starlight night.'
'To your chamber at once,' she said to Marion. 'We will talk more of this little Elise later.'