“Even so,” I said, and I couldn’t help biting the end of my pen, “it could happen that I might get a feeling I wanted to kiss some one else—and there it is! Once you’re married, everything nice is wrong!”“Evangeline! I won’t let you go—out of my life—you strange little witch, you have upset me, disturbed me, I can settle to nothing. I seem to want you so very much.”“Pouff!” I said, and I pouted at him.“You have everything in your life to fill it—position, riches, friends—you don’t want a green-eyed adventuress.”I bent down and wrote steadily to LadyKatherine. I would be there about 6 o’clock, I said, and thanked her in my best style.“If I let you go, it is only for the time,” Mr. Carruthers said, as I signed my name. “Iintendyou to marry me—do you hear!”“Again I sayqui vivra verra!” I laughed, and rose with the note in my hand.Lord Robert looked almost ready to cry when I told him I was off in the afternoon.“I shall see you again,” he said. “Lady Katherine is a relation of my aunt’s husband, Lord Merrenden. I don’t know her myself, though.”I do not believe him—how can he see me again—young men do talk a lot of nonsense.“I shall come over on Wednesday to see how you are getting on,” Mr. Carruthers said. “Please do be in.”I promised I would, and then I came upstairs.And so it has come to an end, my life at Branches. I am going to start a new phase of existence, my first beginning as an adventuress!How completely all one’s ideas can changein a few days. This day three weeks ago Mrs. Carruthers was alive. This day two weeks ago I found myself no longer a prospective heiress—and only three days ago I was contemplating calmly the possibility of marrying Mr. Carruthers—and now—for heaven—I would not marry any one! And so, for fresh woods and pastures new. Oh! I want to see the world, and lots of different human beings—I want to know what it is makes the clock go round—that great, big, clock of life—I want to dance, and to sing, and to laugh, and tolive—and—and—yes—perhaps some day to kiss some one I love——!Tryland Court, Headington,Wednesday, November 9th.Goodnessgracious! I have been here four whole days, and I continually ask myself how I shall be able to stand it for the rest of the fortnight. Before I left Branches I began to have a sinking at the heart. There were horribly touching farewells with housekeepers and people I have known since a child, and one hates to have that choky feeling—especially as just at the end of it—while tears were still in my eyes, Mr. Carruthers came out into the hall, and saw them—so did Lord Robert!I blinked, and blinked, but one would trickle down my nose. It was a horribly awkward moment.Mr. Carruthers made profuse inquiries as to my comforts for the drive, in a tone colder than ever, and insisted upon my drinking some cherry brandy. Such fussing is quite unlike his usual manner, so I suppose he too felt it was a tiresomequart d’heure. Lord Robert didnot hide his concern, he came up to me and took my hand while Christopher was speaking to the footman who was going with me.“You are a dear,” he said, “and a brick, and don’t you forget I shall come and stay with Lady Katherine before you leave, so you won’t feel you are all among strangers.”I thanked him, and he squeezed my hand so kindly—I do like Lord Robert.Very soon I was gay again, andinsouciante, and the last they saw of me was smiling out of the brougham window as I drove off in the dusk. They both stood upon the steps and waved to me.Tea was over at Tryland when I arrived, such a long, damp drive! And I explained to Lady Katherine how sorry I was to have had to come so late, and that I could not think of troubling her to have up fresh for me—but she insisted, and after a while a whole new lot came, made in a hurry with the water not boiling, and I had to gulp down a nasty cup—Ceylon tea, too—I hate Ceylon tea! Mr. Montgomerie warmed himself before the fire, quiteshielding it from us, who shivered on a row of high-backed chairs beyond the radius of the hearth rug.He has a way of puffing out his cheeks and making a noise like “Bur-r-r-r”—which sounds very bluff and hearty, until you find he has said a mean thing about some one directly after. And while red hair looks very well on me, I do think a man with it is the ugliest thing in creation. His face is red, and his nose and cheeks almost purple, and fiery whiskers, fierce enough to frighten a cat in a dark lane.He was a rich Scotch manufacturer, and poor Lady Katherine had to marry him, I suppose, though, as she is Scotch herself, I daresay she does not notice that he is rather coarse.There are two sons and six daughters, one married, four grown-up, and one at school in Brussels, and all with red hair!—but straight and coarse, and with freckles and white eyelashes. So really it is very kind of Lady Katherine to have asked me here.They are all as good as gold on top, and onedoes poker work, and another binds books and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth knits ties—all for charities, and they ask everyone to subscribe to them directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth one were sitting working hard in the drawing-room—Kirstie and Jean are their names—Jessie and Maggie, the poker worker and the bookbinder have a sitting-room to themselves, their workshop they call it. They were there still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We used to meet once a year at Mrs. Carruthers’ Christmas parties ever since ages and ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and they generally had colds in their heads, and one year they gave every one mumps, so they were not asked the next. The altar-cloth one, Jean, is my age, the other three are older.It was really very difficult to find something to say, and I can quite understand common people fidgeting when they feel worried like this. I have never fidgeted since eight years ago, the last time Mrs. Carruthers boxed myears for it. Just before going up to dress for dinner Mr. Montgomerie asked blank out if it was true that Mr. Carruthers had arrived. Lady Katherine had been skirting round this subject for a quarter of an hour.I only said yes, but that was not enough, and once started, he asked a string of questions, with “Bur-r-r-r” several times in between. Was Mr. Carruthers going to shoot the pheasants in November? Had he decided to keep on thechef? Had he given up diplomacy? I said I really did not know any of these things, I had seen so little of him.Lady Katherine nodded her head, while she measured a comforter she was knitting to see if it was long enough.“I am sure it must have been most awkward for you, his arriving at all; it was not very good taste on his part, I am afraid, but I suppose he wished to see his inheritance as soon as possible,” she said.I nearly laughed, thinking what she would say if she knew which part of his inheritance he had really come to see. I do wonder if shehas ever heard that Mrs. Carruthers left me to him, more or less, in her will!“I hope you had your old governess with you, at least,” she continued, as we went up the stairs, “so that you could feel less uncomfortable—really a most shocking situation for a girl alone in the house with an unmarried man.”I told her Mr. Barton was there too, but I had not the courage to say anything about Lord Robert; only that Mr. Carruthers had a friend of his down, who was a great judge of pictures, to see them.“Oh! a valuer, I suppose. I hope he is not going to sell the Correggios!” she exclaimed.“No, I don’t think so,” I said, leaving the part about the valuer unanswered.Mr. Carruthers, being unmarried, seemed to worry her most; she went on about it again before we got to my bedroom door.“I happened to hear a rumour at Miss Sheriton’s (the wool shop in Headington, our town), this morning,” she said, “and so I wrote at once to you. I felt how terrible itwould be for one of my own dear girls to be left alone with a bachelor like that—I almost wonder you did not stay up in your own rooms.”I thanked her for her kind thought, and she left me at last!If she only knew! The unmarried ones who came down the passage to talk to Mademoiselle were not half so saucy as the old fellows with wives somewhere. Lord Bentworth was married, and he wanted me to kiss him, whereas Colonel Grimston had no wife, and he never said bo! to a goose! And I do wonder what she thought Mr. Carruthers was going to do to me, that it would have been wiser for me to stay up in my rooms. Perhaps she thinks diplomats, having lived in foreign places, are sort of wild beasts.My room is frightful after my pretty rosy chintzes at Branches. Nasty yellowish wood furniture, and nothing much matching; however there are plenty of wardrobes, so Véronique is content.They were all in the drawing-room when Igot down, and Malcolm, the eldest son, who is in a Highland Militia regiment, had arrived by a seven o’clock train.I had that dreadful feeling of being very late, and Mr. Montgomerie wanting to swear at me, though it was only a minute past a quarter to eight.He said “Bur-r-r-r” several times, and flew off to the dining-room with me tucked under his arm, murmuring it gave no cook a chance to keep the dinner waiting! So I expected something wonderful in the way of food, but it is not half so good as ourchefgave us at Branches. And the footmen are not all the same height, and their liveries don’t fit like Mrs. Carruthers always insisted that ours should do.Malcolmisa tittsy-pootsy man! Not as tall as I am, and thin as a rail, with a look of his knees being too near together. He must be awful in a kilt, and I am sure he shivers when the wind blows, he has that air. I don’t like kilts, unless men are big, strong, bronzed creatures who don’t seem ashamed of theirbare bits. I saw some splendid specimens marching once in Edinburgh, and they swung their skirts just like the beautiful ladies in the Bois, when Mademoiselle and I went out of the Allée Mrs. Carruthers told us to try always to walk in.Lady Katherine talked a great deal at dinner about politics, and her different charities, and the four girls were so respectful and interested, but Mr. Montgomerie contradicted her whenever he could. I was glad when we went into the drawing-room.That first evening was the worst of all, because we were all so strange; one seems to get acclimatized to whatever it is after a while.Lady Katherine asked me if I had not some fancy work to do. Kirstie had begun her ties, and Jean the altar-cloth again.“Do let Maggie run to your room and fetch it for you,” she said.I was obliged to tell her I never did any. “But I—I can trim hats,” I said. It really seemed so awful not to be able to do anythinglike them, I felt I must say this as a kind of defence for myself.However, she seemed to think that hardly a lady’s employment.“How clever of you!” Kirstie exclaimed. “I wish I could; but don’t you find that intermittent? You can’t trim them all the time. Don’t you feel the want of a constant employment?”I was obliged to say I had not felt like that yet, but I could not tell them I particularly loved sitting perfectly still, doing nothing.Jessie and Maggie played Patience at two tables which folded up, and which they brought out, and sat down to with a deliberate accustomed look, which made me know at once they did this every night, and that I should see those tables planted exactly on those two spots of carpet each evening during my whole stay. I suppose it is because they cannot bring the poker work and the bookbinding into the drawing-room.“Won’t you play us something?” Lady Katherine asked, plaintively. Evidently it wasnot permitted to do nothing, so I got up and went to the piano.Fortunately I know heaps of things by heart, and I love them, and would have gone on, and on, so as to fill up the time, but they all said “thank you” in a chorus after each bit, and it rather put me off.Mr. Montgomerie and Malcolm did not come in for ages, and I could see Lady Katherine getting uneasy. One or two things at dinner suggested to me that these two were not on the best terms, perhaps she feared they had come to blows in the dining-room. The Scotch, Mrs. Carruthers said, have all kinds of rough customs that other nations do not keep up any longer.They did turn up at last, and Mr. Montgomerie was purple all over his face, and Malcolm a pale green, but there were no bruises on him; only one could see they had had a terrible quarrel.There is something in breeding after all, even if one is of a barbarous country. Lady Katherine behaved so well, and talked charitiesand politics faster than ever, and did not give them time for any further outburst, though I fancy I heard a few “dams” mixed with the “bur-r-r-rs,” and not without the “n” on just for ornament, like Lord Robert’s.It was a frightful evening.Wednesday, Nov. 9th (continued).Malcolm walked beside me going to church the next day. He looked a little less depressed and I tried to cheer him up.He did not tell me what his worries were, but Jean had said something about it when she came into my room as I was getting ready. It appears he has got into trouble over a horse called Angela Grey. Jean gathered this from Lady Katherine, she said her father was very angry about it, as he had spent so much money on it.To me it does not sound like a horse’s name, and I told Jean so, but she was perfectly horrified, and said it must be a horse, because they were not acquainted with any AngelaGrey, and did not even know any Greys at all: so it must be a horse!I think that a ridiculous reason, as Mrs. Carruthers said all young men knew people one wouldn’t want to—and it was silly to make a fuss about it—and that they couldn’t help it—and they would be very dull if they were as good as gold like girls.But I expect Lady Katherine thinks differently about things to Mrs. Carruthers, and the daughters are the same.I shall ask Lord Robert when I see him again if it is a horse or no.Malcolm is not attractive, and I was glad the church was not far off.No carriages are allowed out on Sunday, so we had to walk, and coming back it began to rain, and we could not go round the stables, which I understand is the custom here every Sunday.Everything is done because it is the custom—not because you want to amuse yourself.“When it rains and we can’t go round the stables,” Kirstie said, “we look at the old‘Illustrated London News,’ and go there on our way from afternoon church.”I did not particularly want to do that, so stayed in my room as long as I could. The four girls were seated at a large table in the hall, each with a volume in front of her when I got down at last. They must know every picture by heart, if they do it every Sunday it rains—they stay in England all the winter!Jean made room for me beside her.“I am at the ‘Sixties,’” she said. “I finished the ‘Fifties’ last Easter.” So they evidently do even this with a method.I asked her if there were not any new books they wanted to read, but she said Lady Katherine did not care for their looking at magazines or novels unless she had been through them first, and she had not time for many, so they kept the few they had to read between tea and dinner on Sunday.By this time I felt I should do something wicked; and if the luncheon gong had not sounded, I do not know what would have happened.Mr. Montgomerie said rather gallant things to me when the cheese and port came along, while the girls looked shocked, and Lady Katherine had a stony stare. I suppose he is like this because he is married. I wonder, though, if young married men are the same, I have never met any yet.By Monday night I was beginning to feel the end of the world would come soon! It is ten times worse than even having had to conceal all my feelings, and abjectly obey Mrs. Carruthers. Because she did say cynical, entertaining things sometimes to me, and to her friends, that made one laugh. And one felt it was only she who made the people who were dependent upon her do her way, because she, herself, was so selfish, and that the rest of the world were free if once one got outside.But Lady Katherine, and the whole Montgomeriemilieu, give you the impression that everything and everybody must be ruled by rules; and no one could have a right to an individual opinion in any sphere of society.You simply can’t laugh, they asphyxiate you.I am looking forward to this afternoon, and Mr. Carruthers coming over. I often think of the days at Branches, and how exciting it was, with those two, and I wish I were back again.I have tried to be polite and nice to them all here, and yet they don’t seem absolutely pleased.Malcolm gazes at me with sheep’s eyes. They are a washy blue, with the family white eyelashes (how different to Lord Robert’s!). He has the most precise, regulated manner, and never says a word of slang, he ought to have been a young curate, and I can’t imagine him spending his money on any Angela Greys, even if she is a horse or not.He speaks to me when he can, and asks me to go for walks round the golf course. The four girls play for an hour and three-quarters every morning. They never seem to enjoy anything—the whole of life is a solid duty. I am sitting up in my room, and Véronique has had the sense to have my fire lighted early. I suppose Mr. Carruthers won’t come until about four, an hour more to be got through. I have saidI must write letters, and so have escaped from them, and not had to go for the usual drive.I suppose he will have the sense to ask for me, even if Lady Katherine is not back when he comes.This morning it was so fine and frosty a kind of devil seemed to creep into me. I have beensogood since Saturday, so when Malcolm said, in his usual prim, priggish voice, “Miss Travers, may I have the pleasure of taking you for a little exercise,” I jumped up without consulting Lady Katherine, and went and put my things on, and we started.I had a feeling that they were all thinking I was doing something wrong, and so, of course, it made me worse. I said every kind of simple thing I could to Malcolm to make him jump, and looked at him now and then from under my eyelashes. So when we got to a stile, he did want to help me! and his eyes were quite wobblish! He has a giggle right up in the treble, and it comes out at such unexpected moments, when there is nothing to laugh at. I suppose it is being Scotch, he has just caughtthe meaning of some former joke. There would never be any use in saying things to him like to Lord Robert and Mr. Carruthers, because one would have left the place before he understood, if even then.There was an old Sir Thomas Farquharson who came to Branches, and he grasped the deepest jokes of Mrs. Carruthers, so deep that even I did not understand them, and he was Scotch. It may be they are like that only when they have red hair.When I was seated on top of a stile, Malcolm suddenly announced, “I hear you are going to London when you go. I hope you will let me come and see you, but I wish you lived here always.”“I don’t,” I said, and then I remembered that sounded rather rude, and they had been kind to me. “At least—you know, I think the country is dull—don’t you—for always?”“Yes,” he replied, primly, “for men, but it is where I should always wish to see the woman I respected.”“Are towns so wicked?” I asked, in mylittle angel voice. “Tell me of their pitfalls, so that I may avoid them.”“You must not believe everything people say to you, to begin with,” he said, seriously. “For one so young as you, I am afraid you will find your path beset with temptations.”“Oh! do tell me what!” I implored. “I have always wanted to know what temptations were. Please tell me. If you come to see me—would you be a temptation, or is temptation a thing, and not a person?” I looked at him so beseechingly, he never for a second saw the twinkle in my eye!He coughed pompously. “I expect I should be,” he said, modestly. “Temptations are—er—er—Oh! I say, you know, I say—I don’t know what to say——”“Oh, what a pity!” I said, regretfully. “I was hoping to hear all about it from you—specially if you are one yourself, you must know——”He looked gratified, but still confused.“You see when you are quite alone in London, some man may make love to you.”“Oh! do you think soreally?” I asked, aghast. “That, I suppose would be frightful, if I were by myself in the room! Would it be all right, do you think, if I left the sitting-room door open, and kept Véronique on the other side?”He looked at me hard, but he only saw the face of an unprotected angel, and, becoming reassured, he said gravely,“Yes, it might be just as well!”“You do surprise me about love,” I said. “I had no idea it was a violent kind of thing like that. I thought it began with grave reverence and respect—and after years of offering flowers and humble compliments, and bread and butter at tea-parties, the gentleman went down upon one knee and made a declaration—‘Clara, Maria, I adore you, be mine,’ and then one put out a lily-white hand, and, blushing, told him to rise—but that can’t be your sort, and you have not yet explained what temptation means?”“It means more or less wanting to do what you ought not to.”“Oh, then!” I said, “I am having temptation all the time, aren’t you? For instance, I want to tear up Jean’s altar-cloths, and rip Kirstie’s ties, and tool bad words on Jessie’s bindings, and burn Maggie’s wood boxes!”He looked horribly shocked—and hurt—so I added at once—“Of course it must be lovely to be able to do these things, they are perfect girls, and so clever—only it makes me feel like that because I suppose I am—different.”He looked at me critically. “Yes, you are different, I wish you would try to be more like my sisters—then I should not feel so nervous about your going to London.“It is too good of you to worry,” I said, demurely; “but I don’t think you need, you know! I have rather a strong suspicion I am acquainted with the way to take care of myself!” and I bent down and laughed right in his face, and jumped off the stile on to the other side.He did look such a teeny shrimp climbing after me! but it does not matter what is theirsize, the vanity of men is just the same. I am sure he thought he had only to begin making love to me himself, and I would drop like a ripe peach into his mouth.I teased him all the way back, until when we got into lunch he did not know whether he was on his head or his heels! Just as we came up to the door, he said:“I thought your name was Evangeline—why did you say it was Clara Maria?”“Because—it is not!!” I laughed over my shoulder, and ran into the house.He stood on the steps, and if he had been one of the stable boys he would have scratched his head.Now I must stop and dress. I shall put on a black tea frock I have. Mr. Carruthers shall see I have not caught frumpdom from my hosts!Night.I do think men are the most horrid creatures, you can’t believe what they say, or rely upon them for five minutes! Mrs. Carruthers was right, she said, “Evangeline, remember, it isquite difficult enough to trust oneself, without trusting a man.”Such an afternoon I have had! That annoying feeling of waiting for something all the time, and nothing happening. For Mr. Carruthers did not turn up after all! How I wish I had not dressed and expected him.He is probably saying to himself he is well out of the business—now I have gone. I don’t suppose he meant a word of his protestations to me. Well, he need not worry! I had no intention of jumping down his throat—only I would have been glad to see him because he is human, and not like any one here.Of course Lord Robert will be the same, and I shall probably never see either of them again. How can Lord Robert get here, when he does not know Lady Katherine. No, it was just said to say something nice when I was leaving, and he will be as horrid as Mr. Carruthers.I am thankful at least that I did not tell Lady Katherine, I should have felt such a goose. Oh! I do wonder what I shall do next. I don’t know at all how much things cost—perhapsthree hundred a year is very poor. I am sure my best frocks always were five or six hundred francs each, and I daresay hotels run away with money. But, for the moment, I am rich, as Mr. Barton kindly advanced some of my legacy to me, and oh! I am going to see life! and it is absurd to be sad! I shall go to bed, and forget how cross I feel!They are going to have a shoot here next week—Pheasants. I wonder if they will have a lot of old men. I have not heard all who are coming.Lady Katherine said to me after dinner this evening that she was sorry as she was afraid it would be most awkward for me their having a party, on account of my deep mourning, and I, if I felt it dreadfully, I need not consider they would find me the least rude if I preferred to have dinner in my room!I don’t want to have dinner in my room! Think of the stuffiness of it! and perhaps hearing laughter going on downstairs.I can always amuse myself watching faces, however dull they are. I thanked her, and saidit would not be at all necessary, as I must get accustomed to seeing people, I could not count upon always meeting hostesses with such kind thoughts as hers, and I might as well get used to it.She said yes, but not cordially.To-morrow Mrs. Mackintosh, the eldest daughter, is arriving with her four children. I remember her wedding five years ago. I have never seen her since.She was very tall and thin, and stooped dreadfully, and Mrs. Carruthers said Providence had been very kind in giving her a husband at all. But when Mr. Mackintosh trotted down the aisle with her, I did not think so!A wee sandy fellow about up to her shoulder!Oh, I would hate to be tied to that! I think to be tied to anything could not be very nice. I wonder how I ever thought of marrying Mr. Carruthers off hand!I feel now I shall never marry—for years. Of course, one can’t be an old maid! But for a long time I mean to see life first.Tryland,Thursday, Nov. 10th.“Branches,Wednesday.“Dear Miss Travers,—I regret exceedingly I was unable to come over to Tryland to-day, but hope to do so before you leave. I trust you are well, and did not catch cold on the drive.“Yours very truly,“Christopher Carruthers.”Thisis what I get this morning! Pig!Well, I sha’n’t be in if he does come—I can just see him pulling himself together once temptation (it makes me think of Malcolm!), is out of his way; he no doubt feels he has had an escape, as I am nobody very grand.The letters come early here, as everywhere, but in a bag which only Mr. Montgomerie can open, and one has to wait until everyone is seated at breakfast before he produces the key, and deals them all out.Mr. Carruthers’ was the only one for me,and it had “Branches” on the envelope, which attracted Mr. Montgomerie’s attention, and he began to “Bur-r-r-r,” and hardly gave me time to read it before he commenced to ask questionsà proposof the place, to get me to say what the letter was about. He is a curious man.“Carruthers is a capital fellow, they tell me—er—You had better ask him over quietly, Katherine, if he is all alone at Branches”—this with one eye on me in a questioning way.I remained silent.“Perhaps he is off to London, though?”I pretended to be busy with my coffee.“Best pheasant shoot in the county, and a close borough under the oldrégime; hope he will be more neighbourly—er—suppose he must shoot ’em before December?”I buttered my toast.Then the “Bur-r-r-rs” began!! I wonder he does not have a noise that ends with d—n simply, it would save him time!“Couldn’t help seeing your letter was fromBranches. Hope Carruthers gives you some news?”As he addressed me deliberately I was obliged to answer:“I have no information. It is only a business letter,” and I ate toast again.He “bur-r-r-r-d” more than ever, and opened some of his own correspondence.“What am I to do, Katherine?” he said, presently; “that confounded fellow Campion has thrown me over for next week, and he is my best gun: at short notice like this, it’s impossible to replace him with the same class of shot.”“Yes, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in that kind of voice that has not heard the question—she was deep in her own letters.“Katherine!” roared Mr. Montgomerie. “Will you listen when I speak—Bur-r-r-r!” and he thumped his fist on the table.Poor Lady Katherine almost jumped, and the china rattled.“Forgive me, Anderson,” she said, humbly, “you were saying?”“Campion has thrown me over,” glared Mr. Montgomerie.“Then I have perhaps the very thing for you,” Lady Katherine said, in a relieved way, returning to her letters. “Sophia Merrenden writes this morning, and among other things tells me of her nephew, Lord Robert Vavasour—you know, Torquilstone’s half-brother. She says he is the most charming young man, and a wonderful shot—she even suggests” (looking back a page), “that he might be useful to us, if we are short of a gun.”“Damned kind of her,” growled Mr. Montgomerie.I hope they did not notice, but I had suddenly such a thrill of pleasure that I am sure my cheeks got red. I felt frightfully excited to hear what was going to happen.“Merrenden, as you know, is the best judge of shooting in England,” Lady Katherine went on, in an injured voice. “Sophia is hardly likely to recommend his nephew so highly if he were not pretty good.”“But you don’t know the puppy, Katherine.”My heart fell.“That is not the least consequence—we are almost related. Merrenden is my first cousin, you forget that, I suppose!”Fortunately I could detect that Lady Katherine was becoming obstinate and offended. I drank some more coffee. Oh! how lovely if Lord Robert comes!Mr. Montgomerie “Bur-r-r-ed” a lot first, but Lady Katherine got him round, and before breakfast was over, it was decided she should write to Lord Robert, and ask him to come to the shoot. As we were all standing looking out of the window at the dripping rain, I heard her say in a low voice,“Really, Anderson, we must think of the girls sometimes. Torquilstone is a confirmed bachelor and a cripple—Lord Robert will certainly one day be Duke.”“Well, catch him if you can,” said Mr. Montgomerie. He is coarse sometimes!I am not going to let myself think much about Lord Robert—Mr. Carruthers has been a lesson to me—but if he does come—I wonderif Lady Katherine will think it funny of me not saying I knew him when she first spoke of him. It is too late now, so it can’t be helped.The Mackintosh party arrived this afternoon. Marriage must have quite different effects on some people. Numbers of the married women we saw in London were lovely, prettier, I always heard, than they had been before—but Mary Mackintosh is perfectly awful. She can’t be more than twenty-seven, but she looks forty, at least; and stout, and sticking out all in the wrong places, and flat where the stick-outs ought to be. And the four children! The two eldest look much the same age, the next a little smaller, and there is a baby, and they all squall, and although they seem to have heaps of nurses, poor Mr. Mackintosh has to be a kind of under one. He fetches and carries for them, and gives his handkerchief when they slobber—but perhaps it is he feels proud that a person of his size had these four enormous babies almost all at once like that.The whole thing is simply dreadful.Tea was a pandemonium! The four aunts gushing over the infants, and feeding them with cake, and gurgling with “Tootsie-wootsie-popsy-wopsy” kind of noises. They will get to do “Bur-r-r-rs” I am sure, when they grow older. I wonder if the infants will come down every afternoon when the shoot happens. The guests will enjoy it!I said to Jean as we came upstairs that I thought it seemed terrible to get married—did not she? But she was shocked, and said no, marriage and motherhood were sacred duties, and she envied her sister!This kind of thing is not my idea of bliss. Two really well-behaved children would be delicious, I think; but four squalling imps all about the same age isbourgeois, and not the affair of a lady.I suppose Lord Robert’s answer cannot get here till about Saturday. I wonder how he arranged it! It is clever of him. Lady Katherine said this Mr. Campion who was coming is in the same regiment, the 3rd Life Guards. Perhapswhen—but there is no use my thinking about it—only somehow I am feeling so much better to-night—gay, and as if I did not mind being very poor—that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little after dinner. Iwouldplay Patience, and never lifted my eyes from the cards!He kept trying to say things to me to get me to go to the piano, but I pretended I did not notice. A palm stands at the corner of a high Chippendale writing bureau, and Jessie happened to have put the Patience table behind that rather, so the rest of them could not see everything that was happening. Malcolm at last sat very near beside me, and wanted to help with the aces—but I can’t bear people being close to me, so I upset the board, and he had to pick up all the cards on the floor. Kirstie, for a wonder, played the piano then—a cake walk—and there was something in it that made me feel I wanted to move—to dance—to undulate—I don’t know what, and my shoulders swayed a little in time to the music. Malcolm breathed quite as if he had a cold, and said right in my ear, in a fat voice,“You know you are a devil—and I——”I stopped him at once—looked up for the first time, absolutely shocked and surprised.“Really, Mr. Montgomerie, I do not know what you mean,” I said.He began to fidget.“Er—I mean—I mean—I awfully wish to kiss you.”“But I do not a bit wish to kiss you!” I said, and I opened my eyes wide at him.He looked like a spiteful bantam, and fortunately at that moment Jessie returned to the Patience, and he could not say any more.Lady Katherine and Mrs. Mackintosh came into my room on the way up to bed. She—Lady Katherine—wanted to show Mary how beautifully they had had it done up, it used to be hers before she married. They looked all round at the dead-daffodil-coloured cretonne and things, and at last I could see their eyes often straying to my night-gown and dressing-gown, laid out on a chair beside the fire.“Oh, Lady Katherine, I am afraid you arewondering at my having pink silk,” I said, apologetically, “as I am in mourning, but I have not had time to get a white dressing-gown yet.”“It is not that, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in a grave duty voice. “I—I—do not think such a night-gown is suitable for a girl.”“Oh! but I am very strong,” I said. “I never catch cold.”Mary Mackintosh held it up, with a face of stern disapproval. Of course it has short sleeves ruffled with Valenciennes, and is fine linen cambric nicely embroidered. Mrs. Carruthers was always very particular about them, and chose them herself at Doucet’s. She said one never could know when places might catch on fire.“Evangeline, dear, you are very young, so you probably cannot understand,” Mary said, “but I consider this garment not in any way fit for a girl—or for any good woman for that matter. Mother, I hope my sisters have not seen it!!”I looked so puzzled.She examined the stuff, one could see the chair through it, beyond.“WhatwouldAlexander say if I were to wear such a thing!”This thought seemed almost to suffocate them both, they looked genuinely pained and shocked.“Of course it would be too tight for you,” I said, humbly, “but it is otherwise a very good pattern, and does not tear when one puts up one’s arms. Mrs. Carruthers made a fuss at Doucet’s because my last set tore so soon, and they altered these.”At the mention of my late adopted mother, both of them pulled themselves up.“Mrs. Carruthers we know had very odd notions,” Lady Katherine said stiffly, “but I hope, Evangeline, you have sufficient sense to understand now for yourself that such a—a—garment is not at all seemly.”“Oh! why not, dear Lady Katherine?” I said. “You don’t know how becoming it is.”“Becoming!” almost screamed Mary Mackintosh.“But no nice-minded woman wants things to look becoming in bed!”The whole matter appeared so painful to them I covered up the offending ‘nighty’ with my dressing-gown, and coughed. It made a break, and they went away, saying good-night frigidly.And now I am alone. But I do wonder why it is wrong to look pretty in bed,—considering nobody sees one, too!Tryland Court,Monday, November 14th.I havenot felt like writing; these last days have been so stodgy,—sticky I was going to say! Endless infant talk! The methods of head nurses, teething, the knavish tricks of nursemaids, patent foods, bottles, bibs—everything! Enough to put one off for ever from wishing to get married! And Mary Mackintosh sitting there all out of shape, expounding theories that can have no results in practice, as there could not be worse behaved children than hers!They even try Lady Katherine, I can see, when the two eldest, who come in while we are at breakfast each day, take the jam spoon, or something equally horrid, and dab it all over the cloth. Yesterday they put their hands in the honey dish which Mr. Montgomerie was helping himself to, and then after smearing him (the “Bur-r-r-s” were awful) they went round the table to escape being caught, and fingered the back of every one’s chair, and the door handle, so that one could not touch a thing without getting sticky.“Alexander, dearie,” Mary said, “Alec must have his mouth wiped.”Poor Mr. Mackintosh had to get up and leave his breakfast, catch these imps, and employ his table-napkin in vain.“Take ’em upstairs, do, Bur-r-r-r,” roared their fond grandfather.“Oh, father, the poor darlings are not really naughty!” Mary said, offended. “I like them to be with us all as much as possible. I thought they would be such a pleasure to you.”Upon which, hearing the altercation, bothinfants set up a yell of fear and rage, and Alec, the cherub of four and a half, lay on the floor and kicked and screamed until he was black in the face.Mr. Mackintosh is too small to manage two, so one of the footmen had to come and help him to carry them up to their nursery! Oh, I would not be in his place for the world!Malcolm is becoming so funny! I suppose he is attracted by me. He makes kind of love in a priggish way whenever he gets the chance, which is not often, as Lady Katherine contrives to send one of the girls with us on all our walks, or if we are in the drawing-room she comes and sits down beside us herself. I am glad, as it would be a great bore to listen to a quantity of it.How silly of her, though! She can’t know as much about men as even I do—of course it only makes him all the more eager.It is quite an object lesson for me. I shall be impossibly difficult myself if I meet Mr. Carruthers again, as he has no mother to play these tricks for him.Lord Robert’s answer came on Saturday afternoon. It was all done through Lady Merrenden.He will be delighted to come and shoot on Tuesday—to-morrow. Oh! I am so glad—but I do wonder if I shall be able to make him understand not to say anything about having been at Branches while I was there. Such a simple thing, but Lady Katherine is so odd and particular.The party is to be a large one, nine guns—I hope some will be amusing, though I rather fear!Tuesday nightItis quite late, nearly twelve o’clock, but I feel so wide awake I must write.I shall begin from the beginning, when every one arrived.They came by two trains early in the afternoon, and just at tea time, and Lord Robert was among the last lot.They are mostly the same sort as LadyKatherine, looking as good as gold; but one woman, Lady Verningham, Lady Katherine’s niece, is different, and I liked her at once.She has lovely clothes, and an exquisite figure, and her hat on the right way. She has charming manners too, but one can see she is on a duty visit.Even all this company did not altogether stop Mary Mackintosh laying down the law upon domestic—infant domestic—affairs. We all sat in the big drawing-room, and I caught Lady Verningham’s eye, and we laughed together! The first eye with a meaning in it I have seen since I left Branches.Everybody talked so agreeably, with pauses, not enjoying themselves at all, when Jean and Kirstie began about their work, and explained it, and tried to get orders, and Jessie and Maggie too, and specimens of it all had to be shown, and prices fixed. I should hate to have to beg, even for a charity.I felt quite uncomfortable for them, but they did not mind a bit, and their victims were noble over it.Our parson at Branches always got so red and nervous when he had to ask for anything; one could see he was quite a gentleman—but women are different, I suppose.I longed for tea!While they are all very kind here, there is that asphyxiating atmosphere of stiffness and decorum which affects every one who comes to Tryland. A sort of “The gold must be tried by fire, and the heart must be wrung by pain” kind of suggestion about everything.They are extraordinarily cheerful, because it is a Christian virtue, cheerfulness; not because they are brimming over with joy, or that lovely feeling of being alive, and not minding much what happens, you feel so splendid, like I get on fine days.Everything they do has a reason or a moral in it. This party is because pheasants have to be killed in November—and certain people have to be entertained, and their charities can be assisted through them. Oh! if I had a big house, and were rich, I would have lovely parties, with all sorts of nice people, becauseI wanted to give them a good time and laugh myself. Lady Verningham was talking to me just before tea, when the second train load arrived.I tried to be quite indifferent, but I did feel dreadfully excited when Lord Robert walked in. Oh! he looked such a beautiful creature, so smart, and straight, and lithe!Lady Katherine was frightfully stiff with him; it would have discouraged most people, but that is the lovely part about Lord Robert, he is always absolutelysans gêne!He saw me at once, of course, and came over as straight as a die the moment he could.“How do, Robert!” said Lady Verningham, looking very surprised to see him, and giving him her fingers in such an attractive way.Howare you here? And why is our Campie not? Thereby hangs some tale, I feel sure!”“Why, yes!” said Lord Robert, and he held her hand. Then he looked at me with his eyebrows up. “But won’t you introduce me toMiss Travers? to my great chagrin she seems to have forgotten me!”I laughed, and Lady Verningham introduced us, and he sat down beside us, and every one began tea.Lady Verningham had such a look in her eye!“Robert, tell me about it!” she said.“I hear they have five thousand pheasants to slay,” Lord Robert replied, looking at her with his innocent smile.“Robert, you are lying!” she said, and she laughed. She is so pretty when she laughs, not very young, over thirty I should think, but such a charm! As different as different can be from the whole Montgomerie family!I hardly spoke, they continued to tease one another, and Lord Robert ate most of a plate of bread and butter that was near.“I am dam’d hungry, Lady Ver!” he said. She smiled at him; she evidently likes him very much.“Robert! you must not use such language here!” she said.“Oh, doesn’t he say them often! thosedams!” I burst out, not thinking for a moment—then I stopped, remembering. She did seem surprised.“So you have heard them before! I thought you had only just met casually!” she said, with such a comic look of understanding, but not absolutely pleased. I stupidly got crimson, it did annoy me, because it shows so dreadfully on my skin. She leant back in her chair, and laughed.“It is delightful to shoot five thousand pheasants, Robert,” she said.“Now, isn’t it?” replied Lord Robert. He had finished the bread and butter.Then he told her she was a dear, and he was glad something had suggested to Mr. Campion that he would have other views of living for this week.“You are a joy, Robert!” she said, “but you will have to behave here. None of the tricks you played at Fotherington in October, my child. Aunt Katherine would put you in a corner. Miss Travers has been here a week, and can tell you I am truthful about it.”“Indeed,yes!” I said.“But Imustknow how you got here,” she commanded.Just then, fortunately, Malcolm, who had been hovering near, came up and joined us, and would talk too; but if he had been a table, or a chair, he could not have mattered less to Lord Robert! He is quite wonderful! He is not the least rude, only perfectly simple and direct, always getting just what he wants, with rather an appealing expression in his blue eyes. In a minute or two he and I were talking together, and Malcolm and Lady Verningham a few yards off. I felt so happy. He makes one like that, I don’t know for what reason.“Why did you look so stonily indifferent when I came up,” he asked. “I was afraid you were annoyed with me for coming.”Then I told him about Lady Katherine, and my stupidly not having mentioned meeting him at Branches.“Oh! then I stayed with Christopher after you left—I see,” he said. “Had I met you in London?”“We won’t tell any stories about it. They can think what they please.”“Very well!” he laughed. “I can see I shall have to manœuvre a good deal to talk quietly to you here, but you will stand with me, won’t you, out shooting to-morrow!”I told him I did not suppose we should be allowed to go out, except perhaps for lunch—but he said he refused to believe in such cruelty.Then he asked me a lot of things about how I had been getting on, and what I intended to do next. He has the most charming way of making one feel that one knows him very well, he looks at one every now and then straight in the eyes, with astonishing frankness. I have never seen any person so quite without airs, I don’t suppose he is ever thinking a bit the effect he is producing. Nothing has two meanings with him like with Mr. Carruthers. If he had said I was to stay and marry him, I am sure he would have meant it, and I really believe I should have stayed!“Do you remember our morning packing?” he said, presently, in such a caressing voice. “I was so happy, weren’t you?”I said I was.“And Christopher was mad with us! He was like a bear with a sore head after you left, and insisted upon going up to town on Monday just for the day; he came over here on Tuesday, didn’t he?”“No, he did not,” I was obliged to say, and I felt cross about it still, I don’t know why.“He is a queer creature,” said Lord Robert, “and I am glad you have not seen him—I don’t want him in the way. I am a selfish brute, you know.”I said Mrs. Carruthers had always brought me up to know men were that, so such a thing would not prejudice me against him.He laughed. “You must help me to come and sit and talk again, after dinner,” he said. “I can see the red-haired son means you for himself, but, of course, I shall not allow that!”I became uppish.“Malcolm and I are great friends,” I said,demurely. “He walks me round the golf course in the park, and gives me advice.”“Confounded impertinence!” said Lord Robert.“He thinks I ought not to go to Claridge’s alone when I leave here, in case some one made love to me. He feels if I looked more like his sisters it would be safer. I have promised that Véronique shall stay at the other side of the door if I have visitors.”“Oh, he is afraid of that, is he! Well, I think it is very probable his fears will be realized, as I shall be in London,” said Lord Robert.“But how do you know,” I began, with a questioning, serious air; “how do you know I should listen? You can’t go on to deaf people, can you?”“Are you deaf?” he asked. “I don’t think so, anyway I would try to cure your deafness.” He bent close over to me, pretending to pick up a book.Oh, I was having such a nice time!All of a sudden I felt I was really living, the blood was jumping in my veins, and anumber of provoking, agreeable things came to the tip of my tongue to say, and I said them. We were so happy!Lord Robert is such a beautiful shape, that pleased me too; the perfect lines of things always give me a nice emotion. The other men look thick and clumsy beside him, and he does have such lovely clothes and ties!We talked on and on. He began to show me he was deeply interested in me. His eyes, so blue and expressive, said even more than his words. I like to see him looking down; his eyelashes are absurdly long and curly, not jet black like mine and Mr. Carruthers’, but dark brown and soft, and shaded, and oh! I don’t know how to say quite why they are so attractive. When one sees them half resting on his cheek it makes one feel it would be nice to put out the tip of one’s finger, and touch them. I never spent such a delightful afternoon. Only alas! it was all too short.“We will arrange to sit together after dinner,” he whispered, as even before the dressing gong had rung Lady Katherine cameand fussed about, and collected every one, and more or less drove them off to dress, saying, on the way upstairs, to me, that I need not come down if I had rather not!I thanked her again, but remained firm in my intention of accustoming myself to company.Stay in my room, indeed, with Lord Robert at dinner—never!However, when I did come down, he was surrounded by Montgomeries, and pranced into the dining-room with Lady Verningham. She must have arranged that.I had such a bore! A young Mackintosh cousin of Mary’s husband, and on the other side the parson. The one talked about botany in a hoarse whisper, with a Scotch accent, and the other gobbled his food, and made kind of pious jokes in between the mouthfuls!I said—when I had borne it bravely up to the ices—I hated knowing what flowers were composed of, I only liked to pick them. The youth stared, and did not speak much more. For the parson, “yes” now and then did, and like that we got through dinner.Malcolm was opposite me, and he gaped most of the time. Even he might have been better than the botanist, but I suppose Lady Katherine felt these two would be a kind of half mourning for me. No one could have felt gay with them.After dinner Lady Verningham took me over to a sofa with her, in a corner. The sofas here don’t have pillows, as at Branches, but fortunately this one is a little apart, though not comfortable, and we could talk.“You poor child,” she said, “you had a dull time. I was watching you! What did that McTavish creature find to say to you?”I told her, and that his name was Mackintosh, not McTavish.“Yes, I know,” she said, “but I call the whole clan McTavish—it is near enough, and it does worry Mary so; she corrects me every time. Now don’t you want to get married, and be just like Mary?” There was a twinkle in her eye.I said I had not felt wild about it yet. I wanted to go and see life first.But she told me one couldn’t see life unless one was married.“Not even if one is an adventuress, like me?” I asked.“Awhat!!”“An adventuress,” I said. “People do seem so astonished when I say that! I have got to be one, you know, because Mrs. Carruthers never left me the money after all, and in the book I read about it, it said you were that if you had nice clothes, and—and—red hair—and things and no home.”She rippled all over with laughter.“You duck!” she said. “Now you and I will be friends. Only you must not play with Robert Vavasour. He belongs to me! He is one of my special and particular own pets. Is it a bargain?”I do wish now I had had the pluck then to say straight out that I rather liked Lord Robert, and would not make any bargain, but one is foolish sometimes when taken suddenly. It is then when I suppose it shows if one’s head is screwed on firmly, and mine wasn’t to-night.But she looked so charming, and I felt a little proud, and perhaps ashamed to show that I am very much interested in Lord Robert, especially if he belongs to her, whatever that means, and so I said it was a bargain, and of course I had never thought of playing with him, but when I came to reflect afterwards, that is a promise, I suppose, and I sha’n’t be able to look at him any more under my eyelashes. And I don’t know why I feel very wide awake and tired, and rather silly, and as if I wanted to cry to-night.However, she was awfully kind to me, and lovely, and has asked me to go and stay with her, and lots of nice things, so it is all for the best, no doubt. But when Lord Robert came in, and came over to us, it did feel hard having to get up at once and go and pretend I wanted to talk to Malcolm.I did not dare to look up often, but sometimes, and I found Lord Robert’s eyes were fixed on me with an air of reproach and entreaty, and the last time there was wrath as well?Lady Verningham kept him with her until every one started to go to bed.There had been music and bridge, and other boring diversions happening, but I sat still. And I don’t know what Malcolm had been talking about, I had not been listening, though I kept murmuring “Yes” and “No.”He got more and moreempressé, until suddenly I realized he was saying, as we rose:“You have promised! Now remember, and I shall ask you to keep it—to-morrow!”And there was such a loving, mawkish, wobbly look in his eyes, it made me feel quite sick. The horrible part is, I don’t know what I have promised any more than the man in the moon! It may be something perfectly dreadful, for all I know! Well, if it is a fearful thing, like kissing him, I shall have to break my word,—which I never do for any consideration whatever.Oh, dear! oh, dear! it is not always so easy to laugh at life as I once thought! I almost wish I were settled down, and had not to bean adventuress. Some situations are so difficult. I think now I shall go to bed.I wonder if Lord Robert—no, what is the good of wondering; he is no longer my affair.I shall blow out the light!300,Park Street,Saturday night, Nov. 19th.I donot much care to look back to the rest of my stay at Tryland. It is an unpleasant memory.That next day after I last wrote, it poured with rain, and every one came down cross to breakfast. The whole party appeared except Lady Verningham, and breakfast was just as stiff and boring as dinner. I happened to be seated when Lord Robert came in, and Malcolm was in the place beside me. Lord Robert hardly spoke, and looked at me once, or twice, with his eyebrows right up.I did long to say it was because I had promised Lady Ver I would not play with him that I was not talking to him now like the afternoon before. I wonder if he ever guessed it. Oh! I wished then, and I have wished a hundred times since, that I had never promised at all. It seemed as if it would be wisest to avoid him, as how could I explain the change in myself. I hated the food, andMalcolm had such an air of proprietorship, it annoyed me as much as I could see it annoyed Lady Katherine. I sniffed at him, and was as disagreeable as could be.The breakfasts there don’t shine, and porridge is pressed upon people by Mr. Montgomerie. “Capital stuff to begin the day, Bur-r-r-r,” he says.Lord Robert could not find anything he wanted, it seemed. Every one was peevish. Lady Katherine has a way of marshalling people on every occasion; she reminds me of a hen with chickens, putting her wings down, and clucking, and chasing, till they are all in a corner. And she is rather that shape, too, very much rounded in front. The female brood soon found themselves in the morning-room, with the door shut, and no doubt the male things fared the same with their host, anyway we saw no more of them till we caught sight of them passing the windows in ’scutums and mackintoshes, a depressed company of sportsmen.The only fortunate part was that Malcolmhad found no opportunity to remind me of my promise, whatever it was, and I felt safer.Oh! that terrible morning! Much worse than when we were alone—nearly all of them—about seven women beyond the family—began fancy work.One, a Lady Letitia Smith, was doing a crewel silk blotting-book that made me quite bilious to look at, and she was very short-sighted, and had such an irritating habit of asking every one to match her threads for her. They knitted ties and stockings, and crocheted waistcoats and comforters and hoods for the North Sea fishermen, and one even tatted. Just like housemaids do in their spare hours to trim Heaven knows what garment of unbleached calico.I asked her what it was for, and she said for the children’s pinafores in her “Guild” work. If one doesn’t call that waste of time, I wonder what is!Mrs. Carruthers said it was much more useful to learn to sit still and not fidget than to fill the world with rubbish like this.Mary Mackintosh dominated the conversation. She and Lady Letitia Smith, who have both small babies, revelled in nursery details, and then whispered bits for us—the young girls—not to hear. We caught scraps though, and it sounded gruesome, whatever it was about. Oh! I do wonder when I get married if I shall grow like them.I hope not.It is no wonder married men are obliged to say gallant things to other people, if, when they get home, their wives are like that.I tried to be agreeable to a lady who was next me. She was a Christian Scientist, and wore glasses. She endeavoured to convert me, but I was abnormally thick-headed that day, and had to have things explained over and over, so she gave it up at last.Finally when I felt I should do something desperate, a footman came to say Lady Verningham wished to see me in her room, and I bounded up—but as I got to the door I saw them beginning to shake their heads over her.“Sad that dear Ianthe has such irregular habits of breakfasting in her room—so bad for her,” etc., etc., but thank heaven, I was soon outside in the hall, where her maid was waiting for me.
“Even so,” I said, and I couldn’t help biting the end of my pen, “it could happen that I might get a feeling I wanted to kiss some one else—and there it is! Once you’re married, everything nice is wrong!”
“Evangeline! I won’t let you go—out of my life—you strange little witch, you have upset me, disturbed me, I can settle to nothing. I seem to want you so very much.”
“Pouff!” I said, and I pouted at him.
“You have everything in your life to fill it—position, riches, friends—you don’t want a green-eyed adventuress.”
I bent down and wrote steadily to LadyKatherine. I would be there about 6 o’clock, I said, and thanked her in my best style.
“If I let you go, it is only for the time,” Mr. Carruthers said, as I signed my name. “Iintendyou to marry me—do you hear!”
“Again I sayqui vivra verra!” I laughed, and rose with the note in my hand.
Lord Robert looked almost ready to cry when I told him I was off in the afternoon.
“I shall see you again,” he said. “Lady Katherine is a relation of my aunt’s husband, Lord Merrenden. I don’t know her myself, though.”
I do not believe him—how can he see me again—young men do talk a lot of nonsense.
“I shall come over on Wednesday to see how you are getting on,” Mr. Carruthers said. “Please do be in.”
I promised I would, and then I came upstairs.
And so it has come to an end, my life at Branches. I am going to start a new phase of existence, my first beginning as an adventuress!
How completely all one’s ideas can changein a few days. This day three weeks ago Mrs. Carruthers was alive. This day two weeks ago I found myself no longer a prospective heiress—and only three days ago I was contemplating calmly the possibility of marrying Mr. Carruthers—and now—for heaven—I would not marry any one! And so, for fresh woods and pastures new. Oh! I want to see the world, and lots of different human beings—I want to know what it is makes the clock go round—that great, big, clock of life—I want to dance, and to sing, and to laugh, and tolive—and—and—yes—perhaps some day to kiss some one I love——!
Tryland Court, Headington,
Wednesday, November 9th.
Goodnessgracious! I have been here four whole days, and I continually ask myself how I shall be able to stand it for the rest of the fortnight. Before I left Branches I began to have a sinking at the heart. There were horribly touching farewells with housekeepers and people I have known since a child, and one hates to have that choky feeling—especially as just at the end of it—while tears were still in my eyes, Mr. Carruthers came out into the hall, and saw them—so did Lord Robert!
I blinked, and blinked, but one would trickle down my nose. It was a horribly awkward moment.
Mr. Carruthers made profuse inquiries as to my comforts for the drive, in a tone colder than ever, and insisted upon my drinking some cherry brandy. Such fussing is quite unlike his usual manner, so I suppose he too felt it was a tiresomequart d’heure. Lord Robert didnot hide his concern, he came up to me and took my hand while Christopher was speaking to the footman who was going with me.
“You are a dear,” he said, “and a brick, and don’t you forget I shall come and stay with Lady Katherine before you leave, so you won’t feel you are all among strangers.”
I thanked him, and he squeezed my hand so kindly—I do like Lord Robert.
Very soon I was gay again, andinsouciante, and the last they saw of me was smiling out of the brougham window as I drove off in the dusk. They both stood upon the steps and waved to me.
Tea was over at Tryland when I arrived, such a long, damp drive! And I explained to Lady Katherine how sorry I was to have had to come so late, and that I could not think of troubling her to have up fresh for me—but she insisted, and after a while a whole new lot came, made in a hurry with the water not boiling, and I had to gulp down a nasty cup—Ceylon tea, too—I hate Ceylon tea! Mr. Montgomerie warmed himself before the fire, quiteshielding it from us, who shivered on a row of high-backed chairs beyond the radius of the hearth rug.
He has a way of puffing out his cheeks and making a noise like “Bur-r-r-r”—which sounds very bluff and hearty, until you find he has said a mean thing about some one directly after. And while red hair looks very well on me, I do think a man with it is the ugliest thing in creation. His face is red, and his nose and cheeks almost purple, and fiery whiskers, fierce enough to frighten a cat in a dark lane.
He was a rich Scotch manufacturer, and poor Lady Katherine had to marry him, I suppose, though, as she is Scotch herself, I daresay she does not notice that he is rather coarse.
There are two sons and six daughters, one married, four grown-up, and one at school in Brussels, and all with red hair!—but straight and coarse, and with freckles and white eyelashes. So really it is very kind of Lady Katherine to have asked me here.
They are all as good as gold on top, and onedoes poker work, and another binds books and a third embroiders altar-cloths, and the fourth knits ties—all for charities, and they ask everyone to subscribe to them directly they come to the house. The tie and the altar-cloth one were sitting working hard in the drawing-room—Kirstie and Jean are their names—Jessie and Maggie, the poker worker and the bookbinder have a sitting-room to themselves, their workshop they call it. They were there still, I suppose, for I did not see them until dinner. We used to meet once a year at Mrs. Carruthers’ Christmas parties ever since ages and ages, and I remember I hated their tartan sashes, and they generally had colds in their heads, and one year they gave every one mumps, so they were not asked the next. The altar-cloth one, Jean, is my age, the other three are older.
It was really very difficult to find something to say, and I can quite understand common people fidgeting when they feel worried like this. I have never fidgeted since eight years ago, the last time Mrs. Carruthers boxed myears for it. Just before going up to dress for dinner Mr. Montgomerie asked blank out if it was true that Mr. Carruthers had arrived. Lady Katherine had been skirting round this subject for a quarter of an hour.
I only said yes, but that was not enough, and once started, he asked a string of questions, with “Bur-r-r-r” several times in between. Was Mr. Carruthers going to shoot the pheasants in November? Had he decided to keep on thechef? Had he given up diplomacy? I said I really did not know any of these things, I had seen so little of him.
Lady Katherine nodded her head, while she measured a comforter she was knitting to see if it was long enough.
“I am sure it must have been most awkward for you, his arriving at all; it was not very good taste on his part, I am afraid, but I suppose he wished to see his inheritance as soon as possible,” she said.
I nearly laughed, thinking what she would say if she knew which part of his inheritance he had really come to see. I do wonder if shehas ever heard that Mrs. Carruthers left me to him, more or less, in her will!
“I hope you had your old governess with you, at least,” she continued, as we went up the stairs, “so that you could feel less uncomfortable—really a most shocking situation for a girl alone in the house with an unmarried man.”
I told her Mr. Barton was there too, but I had not the courage to say anything about Lord Robert; only that Mr. Carruthers had a friend of his down, who was a great judge of pictures, to see them.
“Oh! a valuer, I suppose. I hope he is not going to sell the Correggios!” she exclaimed.
“No, I don’t think so,” I said, leaving the part about the valuer unanswered.
Mr. Carruthers, being unmarried, seemed to worry her most; she went on about it again before we got to my bedroom door.
“I happened to hear a rumour at Miss Sheriton’s (the wool shop in Headington, our town), this morning,” she said, “and so I wrote at once to you. I felt how terrible itwould be for one of my own dear girls to be left alone with a bachelor like that—I almost wonder you did not stay up in your own rooms.”
I thanked her for her kind thought, and she left me at last!
If she only knew! The unmarried ones who came down the passage to talk to Mademoiselle were not half so saucy as the old fellows with wives somewhere. Lord Bentworth was married, and he wanted me to kiss him, whereas Colonel Grimston had no wife, and he never said bo! to a goose! And I do wonder what she thought Mr. Carruthers was going to do to me, that it would have been wiser for me to stay up in my rooms. Perhaps she thinks diplomats, having lived in foreign places, are sort of wild beasts.
My room is frightful after my pretty rosy chintzes at Branches. Nasty yellowish wood furniture, and nothing much matching; however there are plenty of wardrobes, so Véronique is content.
They were all in the drawing-room when Igot down, and Malcolm, the eldest son, who is in a Highland Militia regiment, had arrived by a seven o’clock train.
I had that dreadful feeling of being very late, and Mr. Montgomerie wanting to swear at me, though it was only a minute past a quarter to eight.
He said “Bur-r-r-r” several times, and flew off to the dining-room with me tucked under his arm, murmuring it gave no cook a chance to keep the dinner waiting! So I expected something wonderful in the way of food, but it is not half so good as ourchefgave us at Branches. And the footmen are not all the same height, and their liveries don’t fit like Mrs. Carruthers always insisted that ours should do.
Malcolmisa tittsy-pootsy man! Not as tall as I am, and thin as a rail, with a look of his knees being too near together. He must be awful in a kilt, and I am sure he shivers when the wind blows, he has that air. I don’t like kilts, unless men are big, strong, bronzed creatures who don’t seem ashamed of theirbare bits. I saw some splendid specimens marching once in Edinburgh, and they swung their skirts just like the beautiful ladies in the Bois, when Mademoiselle and I went out of the Allée Mrs. Carruthers told us to try always to walk in.
Lady Katherine talked a great deal at dinner about politics, and her different charities, and the four girls were so respectful and interested, but Mr. Montgomerie contradicted her whenever he could. I was glad when we went into the drawing-room.
That first evening was the worst of all, because we were all so strange; one seems to get acclimatized to whatever it is after a while.
Lady Katherine asked me if I had not some fancy work to do. Kirstie had begun her ties, and Jean the altar-cloth again.
“Do let Maggie run to your room and fetch it for you,” she said.
I was obliged to tell her I never did any. “But I—I can trim hats,” I said. It really seemed so awful not to be able to do anythinglike them, I felt I must say this as a kind of defence for myself.
However, she seemed to think that hardly a lady’s employment.
“How clever of you!” Kirstie exclaimed. “I wish I could; but don’t you find that intermittent? You can’t trim them all the time. Don’t you feel the want of a constant employment?”
I was obliged to say I had not felt like that yet, but I could not tell them I particularly loved sitting perfectly still, doing nothing.
Jessie and Maggie played Patience at two tables which folded up, and which they brought out, and sat down to with a deliberate accustomed look, which made me know at once they did this every night, and that I should see those tables planted exactly on those two spots of carpet each evening during my whole stay. I suppose it is because they cannot bring the poker work and the bookbinding into the drawing-room.
“Won’t you play us something?” Lady Katherine asked, plaintively. Evidently it wasnot permitted to do nothing, so I got up and went to the piano.
Fortunately I know heaps of things by heart, and I love them, and would have gone on, and on, so as to fill up the time, but they all said “thank you” in a chorus after each bit, and it rather put me off.
Mr. Montgomerie and Malcolm did not come in for ages, and I could see Lady Katherine getting uneasy. One or two things at dinner suggested to me that these two were not on the best terms, perhaps she feared they had come to blows in the dining-room. The Scotch, Mrs. Carruthers said, have all kinds of rough customs that other nations do not keep up any longer.
They did turn up at last, and Mr. Montgomerie was purple all over his face, and Malcolm a pale green, but there were no bruises on him; only one could see they had had a terrible quarrel.
There is something in breeding after all, even if one is of a barbarous country. Lady Katherine behaved so well, and talked charitiesand politics faster than ever, and did not give them time for any further outburst, though I fancy I heard a few “dams” mixed with the “bur-r-r-rs,” and not without the “n” on just for ornament, like Lord Robert’s.
It was a frightful evening.
Wednesday, Nov. 9th (continued).
Malcolm walked beside me going to church the next day. He looked a little less depressed and I tried to cheer him up.
He did not tell me what his worries were, but Jean had said something about it when she came into my room as I was getting ready. It appears he has got into trouble over a horse called Angela Grey. Jean gathered this from Lady Katherine, she said her father was very angry about it, as he had spent so much money on it.
To me it does not sound like a horse’s name, and I told Jean so, but she was perfectly horrified, and said it must be a horse, because they were not acquainted with any AngelaGrey, and did not even know any Greys at all: so it must be a horse!
I think that a ridiculous reason, as Mrs. Carruthers said all young men knew people one wouldn’t want to—and it was silly to make a fuss about it—and that they couldn’t help it—and they would be very dull if they were as good as gold like girls.
But I expect Lady Katherine thinks differently about things to Mrs. Carruthers, and the daughters are the same.
I shall ask Lord Robert when I see him again if it is a horse or no.
Malcolm is not attractive, and I was glad the church was not far off.
No carriages are allowed out on Sunday, so we had to walk, and coming back it began to rain, and we could not go round the stables, which I understand is the custom here every Sunday.
Everything is done because it is the custom—not because you want to amuse yourself.
“When it rains and we can’t go round the stables,” Kirstie said, “we look at the old‘Illustrated London News,’ and go there on our way from afternoon church.”
I did not particularly want to do that, so stayed in my room as long as I could. The four girls were seated at a large table in the hall, each with a volume in front of her when I got down at last. They must know every picture by heart, if they do it every Sunday it rains—they stay in England all the winter!
Jean made room for me beside her.
“I am at the ‘Sixties,’” she said. “I finished the ‘Fifties’ last Easter.” So they evidently do even this with a method.
I asked her if there were not any new books they wanted to read, but she said Lady Katherine did not care for their looking at magazines or novels unless she had been through them first, and she had not time for many, so they kept the few they had to read between tea and dinner on Sunday.
By this time I felt I should do something wicked; and if the luncheon gong had not sounded, I do not know what would have happened.
Mr. Montgomerie said rather gallant things to me when the cheese and port came along, while the girls looked shocked, and Lady Katherine had a stony stare. I suppose he is like this because he is married. I wonder, though, if young married men are the same, I have never met any yet.
By Monday night I was beginning to feel the end of the world would come soon! It is ten times worse than even having had to conceal all my feelings, and abjectly obey Mrs. Carruthers. Because she did say cynical, entertaining things sometimes to me, and to her friends, that made one laugh. And one felt it was only she who made the people who were dependent upon her do her way, because she, herself, was so selfish, and that the rest of the world were free if once one got outside.
But Lady Katherine, and the whole Montgomeriemilieu, give you the impression that everything and everybody must be ruled by rules; and no one could have a right to an individual opinion in any sphere of society.
You simply can’t laugh, they asphyxiate you.I am looking forward to this afternoon, and Mr. Carruthers coming over. I often think of the days at Branches, and how exciting it was, with those two, and I wish I were back again.
I have tried to be polite and nice to them all here, and yet they don’t seem absolutely pleased.
Malcolm gazes at me with sheep’s eyes. They are a washy blue, with the family white eyelashes (how different to Lord Robert’s!). He has the most precise, regulated manner, and never says a word of slang, he ought to have been a young curate, and I can’t imagine him spending his money on any Angela Greys, even if she is a horse or not.
He speaks to me when he can, and asks me to go for walks round the golf course. The four girls play for an hour and three-quarters every morning. They never seem to enjoy anything—the whole of life is a solid duty. I am sitting up in my room, and Véronique has had the sense to have my fire lighted early. I suppose Mr. Carruthers won’t come until about four, an hour more to be got through. I have saidI must write letters, and so have escaped from them, and not had to go for the usual drive.
I suppose he will have the sense to ask for me, even if Lady Katherine is not back when he comes.
This morning it was so fine and frosty a kind of devil seemed to creep into me. I have beensogood since Saturday, so when Malcolm said, in his usual prim, priggish voice, “Miss Travers, may I have the pleasure of taking you for a little exercise,” I jumped up without consulting Lady Katherine, and went and put my things on, and we started.
I had a feeling that they were all thinking I was doing something wrong, and so, of course, it made me worse. I said every kind of simple thing I could to Malcolm to make him jump, and looked at him now and then from under my eyelashes. So when we got to a stile, he did want to help me! and his eyes were quite wobblish! He has a giggle right up in the treble, and it comes out at such unexpected moments, when there is nothing to laugh at. I suppose it is being Scotch, he has just caughtthe meaning of some former joke. There would never be any use in saying things to him like to Lord Robert and Mr. Carruthers, because one would have left the place before he understood, if even then.
There was an old Sir Thomas Farquharson who came to Branches, and he grasped the deepest jokes of Mrs. Carruthers, so deep that even I did not understand them, and he was Scotch. It may be they are like that only when they have red hair.
When I was seated on top of a stile, Malcolm suddenly announced, “I hear you are going to London when you go. I hope you will let me come and see you, but I wish you lived here always.”
“I don’t,” I said, and then I remembered that sounded rather rude, and they had been kind to me. “At least—you know, I think the country is dull—don’t you—for always?”
“Yes,” he replied, primly, “for men, but it is where I should always wish to see the woman I respected.”
“Are towns so wicked?” I asked, in mylittle angel voice. “Tell me of their pitfalls, so that I may avoid them.”
“You must not believe everything people say to you, to begin with,” he said, seriously. “For one so young as you, I am afraid you will find your path beset with temptations.”
“Oh! do tell me what!” I implored. “I have always wanted to know what temptations were. Please tell me. If you come to see me—would you be a temptation, or is temptation a thing, and not a person?” I looked at him so beseechingly, he never for a second saw the twinkle in my eye!
He coughed pompously. “I expect I should be,” he said, modestly. “Temptations are—er—er—Oh! I say, you know, I say—I don’t know what to say——”
“Oh, what a pity!” I said, regretfully. “I was hoping to hear all about it from you—specially if you are one yourself, you must know——”
He looked gratified, but still confused.
“You see when you are quite alone in London, some man may make love to you.”
“Oh! do you think soreally?” I asked, aghast. “That, I suppose would be frightful, if I were by myself in the room! Would it be all right, do you think, if I left the sitting-room door open, and kept Véronique on the other side?”
He looked at me hard, but he only saw the face of an unprotected angel, and, becoming reassured, he said gravely,
“Yes, it might be just as well!”
“You do surprise me about love,” I said. “I had no idea it was a violent kind of thing like that. I thought it began with grave reverence and respect—and after years of offering flowers and humble compliments, and bread and butter at tea-parties, the gentleman went down upon one knee and made a declaration—‘Clara, Maria, I adore you, be mine,’ and then one put out a lily-white hand, and, blushing, told him to rise—but that can’t be your sort, and you have not yet explained what temptation means?”
“It means more or less wanting to do what you ought not to.”
“Oh, then!” I said, “I am having temptation all the time, aren’t you? For instance, I want to tear up Jean’s altar-cloths, and rip Kirstie’s ties, and tool bad words on Jessie’s bindings, and burn Maggie’s wood boxes!”
He looked horribly shocked—and hurt—so I added at once—
“Of course it must be lovely to be able to do these things, they are perfect girls, and so clever—only it makes me feel like that because I suppose I am—different.”
He looked at me critically. “Yes, you are different, I wish you would try to be more like my sisters—then I should not feel so nervous about your going to London.
“It is too good of you to worry,” I said, demurely; “but I don’t think you need, you know! I have rather a strong suspicion I am acquainted with the way to take care of myself!” and I bent down and laughed right in his face, and jumped off the stile on to the other side.
He did look such a teeny shrimp climbing after me! but it does not matter what is theirsize, the vanity of men is just the same. I am sure he thought he had only to begin making love to me himself, and I would drop like a ripe peach into his mouth.
I teased him all the way back, until when we got into lunch he did not know whether he was on his head or his heels! Just as we came up to the door, he said:
“I thought your name was Evangeline—why did you say it was Clara Maria?”
“Because—it is not!!” I laughed over my shoulder, and ran into the house.
He stood on the steps, and if he had been one of the stable boys he would have scratched his head.
Now I must stop and dress. I shall put on a black tea frock I have. Mr. Carruthers shall see I have not caught frumpdom from my hosts!
Night.
I do think men are the most horrid creatures, you can’t believe what they say, or rely upon them for five minutes! Mrs. Carruthers was right, she said, “Evangeline, remember, it isquite difficult enough to trust oneself, without trusting a man.”
Such an afternoon I have had! That annoying feeling of waiting for something all the time, and nothing happening. For Mr. Carruthers did not turn up after all! How I wish I had not dressed and expected him.
He is probably saying to himself he is well out of the business—now I have gone. I don’t suppose he meant a word of his protestations to me. Well, he need not worry! I had no intention of jumping down his throat—only I would have been glad to see him because he is human, and not like any one here.
Of course Lord Robert will be the same, and I shall probably never see either of them again. How can Lord Robert get here, when he does not know Lady Katherine. No, it was just said to say something nice when I was leaving, and he will be as horrid as Mr. Carruthers.
I am thankful at least that I did not tell Lady Katherine, I should have felt such a goose. Oh! I do wonder what I shall do next. I don’t know at all how much things cost—perhapsthree hundred a year is very poor. I am sure my best frocks always were five or six hundred francs each, and I daresay hotels run away with money. But, for the moment, I am rich, as Mr. Barton kindly advanced some of my legacy to me, and oh! I am going to see life! and it is absurd to be sad! I shall go to bed, and forget how cross I feel!
They are going to have a shoot here next week—Pheasants. I wonder if they will have a lot of old men. I have not heard all who are coming.
Lady Katherine said to me after dinner this evening that she was sorry as she was afraid it would be most awkward for me their having a party, on account of my deep mourning, and I, if I felt it dreadfully, I need not consider they would find me the least rude if I preferred to have dinner in my room!
I don’t want to have dinner in my room! Think of the stuffiness of it! and perhaps hearing laughter going on downstairs.
I can always amuse myself watching faces, however dull they are. I thanked her, and saidit would not be at all necessary, as I must get accustomed to seeing people, I could not count upon always meeting hostesses with such kind thoughts as hers, and I might as well get used to it.
She said yes, but not cordially.
To-morrow Mrs. Mackintosh, the eldest daughter, is arriving with her four children. I remember her wedding five years ago. I have never seen her since.
She was very tall and thin, and stooped dreadfully, and Mrs. Carruthers said Providence had been very kind in giving her a husband at all. But when Mr. Mackintosh trotted down the aisle with her, I did not think so!
A wee sandy fellow about up to her shoulder!
Oh, I would hate to be tied to that! I think to be tied to anything could not be very nice. I wonder how I ever thought of marrying Mr. Carruthers off hand!
I feel now I shall never marry—for years. Of course, one can’t be an old maid! But for a long time I mean to see life first.
Tryland,
Thursday, Nov. 10th.
“Branches,Wednesday.
“Dear Miss Travers,—I regret exceedingly I was unable to come over to Tryland to-day, but hope to do so before you leave. I trust you are well, and did not catch cold on the drive.
“Yours very truly,
“Christopher Carruthers.”
Thisis what I get this morning! Pig!
Well, I sha’n’t be in if he does come—I can just see him pulling himself together once temptation (it makes me think of Malcolm!), is out of his way; he no doubt feels he has had an escape, as I am nobody very grand.
The letters come early here, as everywhere, but in a bag which only Mr. Montgomerie can open, and one has to wait until everyone is seated at breakfast before he produces the key, and deals them all out.
Mr. Carruthers’ was the only one for me,and it had “Branches” on the envelope, which attracted Mr. Montgomerie’s attention, and he began to “Bur-r-r-r,” and hardly gave me time to read it before he commenced to ask questionsà proposof the place, to get me to say what the letter was about. He is a curious man.
“Carruthers is a capital fellow, they tell me—er—You had better ask him over quietly, Katherine, if he is all alone at Branches”—this with one eye on me in a questioning way.
I remained silent.
“Perhaps he is off to London, though?”
I pretended to be busy with my coffee.
“Best pheasant shoot in the county, and a close borough under the oldrégime; hope he will be more neighbourly—er—suppose he must shoot ’em before December?”
I buttered my toast.
Then the “Bur-r-r-rs” began!! I wonder he does not have a noise that ends with d—n simply, it would save him time!
“Couldn’t help seeing your letter was fromBranches. Hope Carruthers gives you some news?”
As he addressed me deliberately I was obliged to answer:
“I have no information. It is only a business letter,” and I ate toast again.
He “bur-r-r-r-d” more than ever, and opened some of his own correspondence.
“What am I to do, Katherine?” he said, presently; “that confounded fellow Campion has thrown me over for next week, and he is my best gun: at short notice like this, it’s impossible to replace him with the same class of shot.”
“Yes, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in that kind of voice that has not heard the question—she was deep in her own letters.
“Katherine!” roared Mr. Montgomerie. “Will you listen when I speak—Bur-r-r-r!” and he thumped his fist on the table.
Poor Lady Katherine almost jumped, and the china rattled.
“Forgive me, Anderson,” she said, humbly, “you were saying?”
“Campion has thrown me over,” glared Mr. Montgomerie.
“Then I have perhaps the very thing for you,” Lady Katherine said, in a relieved way, returning to her letters. “Sophia Merrenden writes this morning, and among other things tells me of her nephew, Lord Robert Vavasour—you know, Torquilstone’s half-brother. She says he is the most charming young man, and a wonderful shot—she even suggests” (looking back a page), “that he might be useful to us, if we are short of a gun.”
“Damned kind of her,” growled Mr. Montgomerie.
I hope they did not notice, but I had suddenly such a thrill of pleasure that I am sure my cheeks got red. I felt frightfully excited to hear what was going to happen.
“Merrenden, as you know, is the best judge of shooting in England,” Lady Katherine went on, in an injured voice. “Sophia is hardly likely to recommend his nephew so highly if he were not pretty good.”
“But you don’t know the puppy, Katherine.”
My heart fell.
“That is not the least consequence—we are almost related. Merrenden is my first cousin, you forget that, I suppose!”
Fortunately I could detect that Lady Katherine was becoming obstinate and offended. I drank some more coffee. Oh! how lovely if Lord Robert comes!
Mr. Montgomerie “Bur-r-r-ed” a lot first, but Lady Katherine got him round, and before breakfast was over, it was decided she should write to Lord Robert, and ask him to come to the shoot. As we were all standing looking out of the window at the dripping rain, I heard her say in a low voice,
“Really, Anderson, we must think of the girls sometimes. Torquilstone is a confirmed bachelor and a cripple—Lord Robert will certainly one day be Duke.”
“Well, catch him if you can,” said Mr. Montgomerie. He is coarse sometimes!
I am not going to let myself think much about Lord Robert—Mr. Carruthers has been a lesson to me—but if he does come—I wonderif Lady Katherine will think it funny of me not saying I knew him when she first spoke of him. It is too late now, so it can’t be helped.
The Mackintosh party arrived this afternoon. Marriage must have quite different effects on some people. Numbers of the married women we saw in London were lovely, prettier, I always heard, than they had been before—but Mary Mackintosh is perfectly awful. She can’t be more than twenty-seven, but she looks forty, at least; and stout, and sticking out all in the wrong places, and flat where the stick-outs ought to be. And the four children! The two eldest look much the same age, the next a little smaller, and there is a baby, and they all squall, and although they seem to have heaps of nurses, poor Mr. Mackintosh has to be a kind of under one. He fetches and carries for them, and gives his handkerchief when they slobber—but perhaps it is he feels proud that a person of his size had these four enormous babies almost all at once like that.
The whole thing is simply dreadful.
Tea was a pandemonium! The four aunts gushing over the infants, and feeding them with cake, and gurgling with “Tootsie-wootsie-popsy-wopsy” kind of noises. They will get to do “Bur-r-r-rs” I am sure, when they grow older. I wonder if the infants will come down every afternoon when the shoot happens. The guests will enjoy it!
I said to Jean as we came upstairs that I thought it seemed terrible to get married—did not she? But she was shocked, and said no, marriage and motherhood were sacred duties, and she envied her sister!
This kind of thing is not my idea of bliss. Two really well-behaved children would be delicious, I think; but four squalling imps all about the same age isbourgeois, and not the affair of a lady.
I suppose Lord Robert’s answer cannot get here till about Saturday. I wonder how he arranged it! It is clever of him. Lady Katherine said this Mr. Campion who was coming is in the same regiment, the 3rd Life Guards. Perhapswhen—but there is no use my thinking about it—only somehow I am feeling so much better to-night—gay, and as if I did not mind being very poor—that I was obliged to tease Malcolm a little after dinner. Iwouldplay Patience, and never lifted my eyes from the cards!
He kept trying to say things to me to get me to go to the piano, but I pretended I did not notice. A palm stands at the corner of a high Chippendale writing bureau, and Jessie happened to have put the Patience table behind that rather, so the rest of them could not see everything that was happening. Malcolm at last sat very near beside me, and wanted to help with the aces—but I can’t bear people being close to me, so I upset the board, and he had to pick up all the cards on the floor. Kirstie, for a wonder, played the piano then—a cake walk—and there was something in it that made me feel I wanted to move—to dance—to undulate—I don’t know what, and my shoulders swayed a little in time to the music. Malcolm breathed quite as if he had a cold, and said right in my ear, in a fat voice,
“You know you are a devil—and I——”
I stopped him at once—looked up for the first time, absolutely shocked and surprised.
“Really, Mr. Montgomerie, I do not know what you mean,” I said.
He began to fidget.
“Er—I mean—I mean—I awfully wish to kiss you.”
“But I do not a bit wish to kiss you!” I said, and I opened my eyes wide at him.
He looked like a spiteful bantam, and fortunately at that moment Jessie returned to the Patience, and he could not say any more.
Lady Katherine and Mrs. Mackintosh came into my room on the way up to bed. She—Lady Katherine—wanted to show Mary how beautifully they had had it done up, it used to be hers before she married. They looked all round at the dead-daffodil-coloured cretonne and things, and at last I could see their eyes often straying to my night-gown and dressing-gown, laid out on a chair beside the fire.
“Oh, Lady Katherine, I am afraid you arewondering at my having pink silk,” I said, apologetically, “as I am in mourning, but I have not had time to get a white dressing-gown yet.”
“It is not that, dear,” said Lady Katherine, in a grave duty voice. “I—I—do not think such a night-gown is suitable for a girl.”
“Oh! but I am very strong,” I said. “I never catch cold.”
Mary Mackintosh held it up, with a face of stern disapproval. Of course it has short sleeves ruffled with Valenciennes, and is fine linen cambric nicely embroidered. Mrs. Carruthers was always very particular about them, and chose them herself at Doucet’s. She said one never could know when places might catch on fire.
“Evangeline, dear, you are very young, so you probably cannot understand,” Mary said, “but I consider this garment not in any way fit for a girl—or for any good woman for that matter. Mother, I hope my sisters have not seen it!!”
I looked so puzzled.
She examined the stuff, one could see the chair through it, beyond.
“WhatwouldAlexander say if I were to wear such a thing!”
This thought seemed almost to suffocate them both, they looked genuinely pained and shocked.
“Of course it would be too tight for you,” I said, humbly, “but it is otherwise a very good pattern, and does not tear when one puts up one’s arms. Mrs. Carruthers made a fuss at Doucet’s because my last set tore so soon, and they altered these.”
At the mention of my late adopted mother, both of them pulled themselves up.
“Mrs. Carruthers we know had very odd notions,” Lady Katherine said stiffly, “but I hope, Evangeline, you have sufficient sense to understand now for yourself that such a—a—garment is not at all seemly.”
“Oh! why not, dear Lady Katherine?” I said. “You don’t know how becoming it is.”
“Becoming!” almost screamed Mary Mackintosh.“But no nice-minded woman wants things to look becoming in bed!”
The whole matter appeared so painful to them I covered up the offending ‘nighty’ with my dressing-gown, and coughed. It made a break, and they went away, saying good-night frigidly.
And now I am alone. But I do wonder why it is wrong to look pretty in bed,—considering nobody sees one, too!
Tryland Court,
Monday, November 14th.
I havenot felt like writing; these last days have been so stodgy,—sticky I was going to say! Endless infant talk! The methods of head nurses, teething, the knavish tricks of nursemaids, patent foods, bottles, bibs—everything! Enough to put one off for ever from wishing to get married! And Mary Mackintosh sitting there all out of shape, expounding theories that can have no results in practice, as there could not be worse behaved children than hers!
They even try Lady Katherine, I can see, when the two eldest, who come in while we are at breakfast each day, take the jam spoon, or something equally horrid, and dab it all over the cloth. Yesterday they put their hands in the honey dish which Mr. Montgomerie was helping himself to, and then after smearing him (the “Bur-r-r-s” were awful) they went round the table to escape being caught, and fingered the back of every one’s chair, and the door handle, so that one could not touch a thing without getting sticky.
“Alexander, dearie,” Mary said, “Alec must have his mouth wiped.”
Poor Mr. Mackintosh had to get up and leave his breakfast, catch these imps, and employ his table-napkin in vain.
“Take ’em upstairs, do, Bur-r-r-r,” roared their fond grandfather.
“Oh, father, the poor darlings are not really naughty!” Mary said, offended. “I like them to be with us all as much as possible. I thought they would be such a pleasure to you.”
Upon which, hearing the altercation, bothinfants set up a yell of fear and rage, and Alec, the cherub of four and a half, lay on the floor and kicked and screamed until he was black in the face.
Mr. Mackintosh is too small to manage two, so one of the footmen had to come and help him to carry them up to their nursery! Oh, I would not be in his place for the world!
Malcolm is becoming so funny! I suppose he is attracted by me. He makes kind of love in a priggish way whenever he gets the chance, which is not often, as Lady Katherine contrives to send one of the girls with us on all our walks, or if we are in the drawing-room she comes and sits down beside us herself. I am glad, as it would be a great bore to listen to a quantity of it.
How silly of her, though! She can’t know as much about men as even I do—of course it only makes him all the more eager.
It is quite an object lesson for me. I shall be impossibly difficult myself if I meet Mr. Carruthers again, as he has no mother to play these tricks for him.
Lord Robert’s answer came on Saturday afternoon. It was all done through Lady Merrenden.
He will be delighted to come and shoot on Tuesday—to-morrow. Oh! I am so glad—but I do wonder if I shall be able to make him understand not to say anything about having been at Branches while I was there. Such a simple thing, but Lady Katherine is so odd and particular.
The party is to be a large one, nine guns—I hope some will be amusing, though I rather fear!
Tuesday night
Itis quite late, nearly twelve o’clock, but I feel so wide awake I must write.
I shall begin from the beginning, when every one arrived.
They came by two trains early in the afternoon, and just at tea time, and Lord Robert was among the last lot.
They are mostly the same sort as LadyKatherine, looking as good as gold; but one woman, Lady Verningham, Lady Katherine’s niece, is different, and I liked her at once.
She has lovely clothes, and an exquisite figure, and her hat on the right way. She has charming manners too, but one can see she is on a duty visit.
Even all this company did not altogether stop Mary Mackintosh laying down the law upon domestic—infant domestic—affairs. We all sat in the big drawing-room, and I caught Lady Verningham’s eye, and we laughed together! The first eye with a meaning in it I have seen since I left Branches.
Everybody talked so agreeably, with pauses, not enjoying themselves at all, when Jean and Kirstie began about their work, and explained it, and tried to get orders, and Jessie and Maggie too, and specimens of it all had to be shown, and prices fixed. I should hate to have to beg, even for a charity.
I felt quite uncomfortable for them, but they did not mind a bit, and their victims were noble over it.
Our parson at Branches always got so red and nervous when he had to ask for anything; one could see he was quite a gentleman—but women are different, I suppose.
I longed for tea!
While they are all very kind here, there is that asphyxiating atmosphere of stiffness and decorum which affects every one who comes to Tryland. A sort of “The gold must be tried by fire, and the heart must be wrung by pain” kind of suggestion about everything.
They are extraordinarily cheerful, because it is a Christian virtue, cheerfulness; not because they are brimming over with joy, or that lovely feeling of being alive, and not minding much what happens, you feel so splendid, like I get on fine days.
Everything they do has a reason or a moral in it. This party is because pheasants have to be killed in November—and certain people have to be entertained, and their charities can be assisted through them. Oh! if I had a big house, and were rich, I would have lovely parties, with all sorts of nice people, becauseI wanted to give them a good time and laugh myself. Lady Verningham was talking to me just before tea, when the second train load arrived.
I tried to be quite indifferent, but I did feel dreadfully excited when Lord Robert walked in. Oh! he looked such a beautiful creature, so smart, and straight, and lithe!
Lady Katherine was frightfully stiff with him; it would have discouraged most people, but that is the lovely part about Lord Robert, he is always absolutelysans gêne!
He saw me at once, of course, and came over as straight as a die the moment he could.
“How do, Robert!” said Lady Verningham, looking very surprised to see him, and giving him her fingers in such an attractive way.Howare you here? And why is our Campie not? Thereby hangs some tale, I feel sure!”
“Why, yes!” said Lord Robert, and he held her hand. Then he looked at me with his eyebrows up. “But won’t you introduce me toMiss Travers? to my great chagrin she seems to have forgotten me!”
I laughed, and Lady Verningham introduced us, and he sat down beside us, and every one began tea.
Lady Verningham had such a look in her eye!
“Robert, tell me about it!” she said.
“I hear they have five thousand pheasants to slay,” Lord Robert replied, looking at her with his innocent smile.
“Robert, you are lying!” she said, and she laughed. She is so pretty when she laughs, not very young, over thirty I should think, but such a charm! As different as different can be from the whole Montgomerie family!
I hardly spoke, they continued to tease one another, and Lord Robert ate most of a plate of bread and butter that was near.
“I am dam’d hungry, Lady Ver!” he said. She smiled at him; she evidently likes him very much.
“Robert! you must not use such language here!” she said.
“Oh, doesn’t he say them often! thosedams!” I burst out, not thinking for a moment—then I stopped, remembering. She did seem surprised.
“So you have heard them before! I thought you had only just met casually!” she said, with such a comic look of understanding, but not absolutely pleased. I stupidly got crimson, it did annoy me, because it shows so dreadfully on my skin. She leant back in her chair, and laughed.
“It is delightful to shoot five thousand pheasants, Robert,” she said.
“Now, isn’t it?” replied Lord Robert. He had finished the bread and butter.
Then he told her she was a dear, and he was glad something had suggested to Mr. Campion that he would have other views of living for this week.
“You are a joy, Robert!” she said, “but you will have to behave here. None of the tricks you played at Fotherington in October, my child. Aunt Katherine would put you in a corner. Miss Travers has been here a week, and can tell you I am truthful about it.”
“Indeed,yes!” I said.
“But Imustknow how you got here,” she commanded.
Just then, fortunately, Malcolm, who had been hovering near, came up and joined us, and would talk too; but if he had been a table, or a chair, he could not have mattered less to Lord Robert! He is quite wonderful! He is not the least rude, only perfectly simple and direct, always getting just what he wants, with rather an appealing expression in his blue eyes. In a minute or two he and I were talking together, and Malcolm and Lady Verningham a few yards off. I felt so happy. He makes one like that, I don’t know for what reason.
“Why did you look so stonily indifferent when I came up,” he asked. “I was afraid you were annoyed with me for coming.”
Then I told him about Lady Katherine, and my stupidly not having mentioned meeting him at Branches.
“Oh! then I stayed with Christopher after you left—I see,” he said. “Had I met you in London?”
“We won’t tell any stories about it. They can think what they please.”
“Very well!” he laughed. “I can see I shall have to manœuvre a good deal to talk quietly to you here, but you will stand with me, won’t you, out shooting to-morrow!”
I told him I did not suppose we should be allowed to go out, except perhaps for lunch—but he said he refused to believe in such cruelty.
Then he asked me a lot of things about how I had been getting on, and what I intended to do next. He has the most charming way of making one feel that one knows him very well, he looks at one every now and then straight in the eyes, with astonishing frankness. I have never seen any person so quite without airs, I don’t suppose he is ever thinking a bit the effect he is producing. Nothing has two meanings with him like with Mr. Carruthers. If he had said I was to stay and marry him, I am sure he would have meant it, and I really believe I should have stayed!
“Do you remember our morning packing?” he said, presently, in such a caressing voice. “I was so happy, weren’t you?”
I said I was.
“And Christopher was mad with us! He was like a bear with a sore head after you left, and insisted upon going up to town on Monday just for the day; he came over here on Tuesday, didn’t he?”
“No, he did not,” I was obliged to say, and I felt cross about it still, I don’t know why.
“He is a queer creature,” said Lord Robert, “and I am glad you have not seen him—I don’t want him in the way. I am a selfish brute, you know.”
I said Mrs. Carruthers had always brought me up to know men were that, so such a thing would not prejudice me against him.
He laughed. “You must help me to come and sit and talk again, after dinner,” he said. “I can see the red-haired son means you for himself, but, of course, I shall not allow that!”
I became uppish.
“Malcolm and I are great friends,” I said,demurely. “He walks me round the golf course in the park, and gives me advice.”
“Confounded impertinence!” said Lord Robert.
“He thinks I ought not to go to Claridge’s alone when I leave here, in case some one made love to me. He feels if I looked more like his sisters it would be safer. I have promised that Véronique shall stay at the other side of the door if I have visitors.”
“Oh, he is afraid of that, is he! Well, I think it is very probable his fears will be realized, as I shall be in London,” said Lord Robert.
“But how do you know,” I began, with a questioning, serious air; “how do you know I should listen? You can’t go on to deaf people, can you?”
“Are you deaf?” he asked. “I don’t think so, anyway I would try to cure your deafness.” He bent close over to me, pretending to pick up a book.
Oh, I was having such a nice time!
All of a sudden I felt I was really living, the blood was jumping in my veins, and anumber of provoking, agreeable things came to the tip of my tongue to say, and I said them. We were so happy!
Lord Robert is such a beautiful shape, that pleased me too; the perfect lines of things always give me a nice emotion. The other men look thick and clumsy beside him, and he does have such lovely clothes and ties!
We talked on and on. He began to show me he was deeply interested in me. His eyes, so blue and expressive, said even more than his words. I like to see him looking down; his eyelashes are absurdly long and curly, not jet black like mine and Mr. Carruthers’, but dark brown and soft, and shaded, and oh! I don’t know how to say quite why they are so attractive. When one sees them half resting on his cheek it makes one feel it would be nice to put out the tip of one’s finger, and touch them. I never spent such a delightful afternoon. Only alas! it was all too short.
“We will arrange to sit together after dinner,” he whispered, as even before the dressing gong had rung Lady Katherine cameand fussed about, and collected every one, and more or less drove them off to dress, saying, on the way upstairs, to me, that I need not come down if I had rather not!
I thanked her again, but remained firm in my intention of accustoming myself to company.
Stay in my room, indeed, with Lord Robert at dinner—never!
However, when I did come down, he was surrounded by Montgomeries, and pranced into the dining-room with Lady Verningham. She must have arranged that.
I had such a bore! A young Mackintosh cousin of Mary’s husband, and on the other side the parson. The one talked about botany in a hoarse whisper, with a Scotch accent, and the other gobbled his food, and made kind of pious jokes in between the mouthfuls!
I said—when I had borne it bravely up to the ices—I hated knowing what flowers were composed of, I only liked to pick them. The youth stared, and did not speak much more. For the parson, “yes” now and then did, and like that we got through dinner.
Malcolm was opposite me, and he gaped most of the time. Even he might have been better than the botanist, but I suppose Lady Katherine felt these two would be a kind of half mourning for me. No one could have felt gay with them.
After dinner Lady Verningham took me over to a sofa with her, in a corner. The sofas here don’t have pillows, as at Branches, but fortunately this one is a little apart, though not comfortable, and we could talk.
“You poor child,” she said, “you had a dull time. I was watching you! What did that McTavish creature find to say to you?”
I told her, and that his name was Mackintosh, not McTavish.
“Yes, I know,” she said, “but I call the whole clan McTavish—it is near enough, and it does worry Mary so; she corrects me every time. Now don’t you want to get married, and be just like Mary?” There was a twinkle in her eye.
I said I had not felt wild about it yet. I wanted to go and see life first.
But she told me one couldn’t see life unless one was married.
“Not even if one is an adventuress, like me?” I asked.
“Awhat!!”
“An adventuress,” I said. “People do seem so astonished when I say that! I have got to be one, you know, because Mrs. Carruthers never left me the money after all, and in the book I read about it, it said you were that if you had nice clothes, and—and—red hair—and things and no home.”
She rippled all over with laughter.
“You duck!” she said. “Now you and I will be friends. Only you must not play with Robert Vavasour. He belongs to me! He is one of my special and particular own pets. Is it a bargain?”
I do wish now I had had the pluck then to say straight out that I rather liked Lord Robert, and would not make any bargain, but one is foolish sometimes when taken suddenly. It is then when I suppose it shows if one’s head is screwed on firmly, and mine wasn’t to-night.But she looked so charming, and I felt a little proud, and perhaps ashamed to show that I am very much interested in Lord Robert, especially if he belongs to her, whatever that means, and so I said it was a bargain, and of course I had never thought of playing with him, but when I came to reflect afterwards, that is a promise, I suppose, and I sha’n’t be able to look at him any more under my eyelashes. And I don’t know why I feel very wide awake and tired, and rather silly, and as if I wanted to cry to-night.
However, she was awfully kind to me, and lovely, and has asked me to go and stay with her, and lots of nice things, so it is all for the best, no doubt. But when Lord Robert came in, and came over to us, it did feel hard having to get up at once and go and pretend I wanted to talk to Malcolm.
I did not dare to look up often, but sometimes, and I found Lord Robert’s eyes were fixed on me with an air of reproach and entreaty, and the last time there was wrath as well?
Lady Verningham kept him with her until every one started to go to bed.
There had been music and bridge, and other boring diversions happening, but I sat still. And I don’t know what Malcolm had been talking about, I had not been listening, though I kept murmuring “Yes” and “No.”
He got more and moreempressé, until suddenly I realized he was saying, as we rose:
“You have promised! Now remember, and I shall ask you to keep it—to-morrow!”
And there was such a loving, mawkish, wobbly look in his eyes, it made me feel quite sick. The horrible part is, I don’t know what I have promised any more than the man in the moon! It may be something perfectly dreadful, for all I know! Well, if it is a fearful thing, like kissing him, I shall have to break my word,—which I never do for any consideration whatever.
Oh, dear! oh, dear! it is not always so easy to laugh at life as I once thought! I almost wish I were settled down, and had not to bean adventuress. Some situations are so difficult. I think now I shall go to bed.
I wonder if Lord Robert—no, what is the good of wondering; he is no longer my affair.
I shall blow out the light!
300,Park Street,
Saturday night, Nov. 19th.
I donot much care to look back to the rest of my stay at Tryland. It is an unpleasant memory.
That next day after I last wrote, it poured with rain, and every one came down cross to breakfast. The whole party appeared except Lady Verningham, and breakfast was just as stiff and boring as dinner. I happened to be seated when Lord Robert came in, and Malcolm was in the place beside me. Lord Robert hardly spoke, and looked at me once, or twice, with his eyebrows right up.
I did long to say it was because I had promised Lady Ver I would not play with him that I was not talking to him now like the afternoon before. I wonder if he ever guessed it. Oh! I wished then, and I have wished a hundred times since, that I had never promised at all. It seemed as if it would be wisest to avoid him, as how could I explain the change in myself. I hated the food, andMalcolm had such an air of proprietorship, it annoyed me as much as I could see it annoyed Lady Katherine. I sniffed at him, and was as disagreeable as could be.
The breakfasts there don’t shine, and porridge is pressed upon people by Mr. Montgomerie. “Capital stuff to begin the day, Bur-r-r-r,” he says.
Lord Robert could not find anything he wanted, it seemed. Every one was peevish. Lady Katherine has a way of marshalling people on every occasion; she reminds me of a hen with chickens, putting her wings down, and clucking, and chasing, till they are all in a corner. And she is rather that shape, too, very much rounded in front. The female brood soon found themselves in the morning-room, with the door shut, and no doubt the male things fared the same with their host, anyway we saw no more of them till we caught sight of them passing the windows in ’scutums and mackintoshes, a depressed company of sportsmen.
The only fortunate part was that Malcolmhad found no opportunity to remind me of my promise, whatever it was, and I felt safer.
Oh! that terrible morning! Much worse than when we were alone—nearly all of them—about seven women beyond the family—began fancy work.
One, a Lady Letitia Smith, was doing a crewel silk blotting-book that made me quite bilious to look at, and she was very short-sighted, and had such an irritating habit of asking every one to match her threads for her. They knitted ties and stockings, and crocheted waistcoats and comforters and hoods for the North Sea fishermen, and one even tatted. Just like housemaids do in their spare hours to trim Heaven knows what garment of unbleached calico.
I asked her what it was for, and she said for the children’s pinafores in her “Guild” work. If one doesn’t call that waste of time, I wonder what is!
Mrs. Carruthers said it was much more useful to learn to sit still and not fidget than to fill the world with rubbish like this.
Mary Mackintosh dominated the conversation. She and Lady Letitia Smith, who have both small babies, revelled in nursery details, and then whispered bits for us—the young girls—not to hear. We caught scraps though, and it sounded gruesome, whatever it was about. Oh! I do wonder when I get married if I shall grow like them.
I hope not.
It is no wonder married men are obliged to say gallant things to other people, if, when they get home, their wives are like that.
I tried to be agreeable to a lady who was next me. She was a Christian Scientist, and wore glasses. She endeavoured to convert me, but I was abnormally thick-headed that day, and had to have things explained over and over, so she gave it up at last.
Finally when I felt I should do something desperate, a footman came to say Lady Verningham wished to see me in her room, and I bounded up—but as I got to the door I saw them beginning to shake their heads over her.
“Sad that dear Ianthe has such irregular habits of breakfasting in her room—so bad for her,” etc., etc., but thank heaven, I was soon outside in the hall, where her maid was waiting for me.