PART TWOCHAPTER I
IT is seldom that the imagination is disappointed in the “ancestral piles” of England. The United Statesian, particularly, surrounded from birth by all that is commonplace and atrocious in architecture, is affected by the grey imposing Fact, brooding heavily under the weight of its centuries, with a curious commixion of delight, surprise, and familiarity. All the rhapsodies of the poets, all the minute descriptions of the old romanticists, train the imagination, bend it into a certain relationship with the historic decorations of another hemisphere, yet stop short of conveying an impression of positive reality. The product of a new world, a new civilisation, as he stands before the carved ruins of an abbey’s cloisters, or the grey ivy-grown towers and massive scarce-punctured walls of an ancient castle, feels a slight shock of surprise that it is really there. But the surprise quickly passes; in a brief time, with the fatal adaptability of the American, it is an old story, a habit. He examines it with curiosity, intelligent or vulgar, according to his rank, but novelty has fled.
Maundrell Abbey stands in the very middle of an estate six miles square. The land undulates gentlyfrom the gates to the house, woods on one side of the drive, a moor on the other. At the opposite end of the estate are several farms, a fell of great height, and several strips of woods, in the English fashion. Not far from the Abbey, on a steep low hill set with many trees, are a chapel and a churchyard.
As Cecil and Lee drove toward their home at the close of an August day the bride forgot the bridegroom in her eagerness to knit fact to fancy. The moor was turning purple, the woods close by were full of sunlight, a wonderful shimmer of gold and green; with no hint that they too, before the greed of man fell heavily upon them, may have been as dark and solemn as the forests of California. Now and again she had a glimpse of a grey pile and a flash of water.
They reached the top of a hillock of some altitude, and Cecil ordered the coachman to pause. Lee rose in her seat and looked down on the Abbey. It was quite different from the structure in her brain, but no less satisfying. All that was in ruin was a long row of Gothic arches, so fragile that the yellow sunlight pouring through seemed a crucible in which they must melt. The rest of the building was an immense irregular mass at the back, but continued from the cloisters in a straight severe line, which terminated in a tower. Weeds and grass sprang from the arches, ivy covered the tower; before the Abbey was a lake, on which swans were sailing; peacocks strutted on the lawns. The fell behind was turning red; in a field far away were many cows; over all hung the low powdered sky, brooded the peace and repose, which,were one shot straight from the blue, one would recognise as English.
“It is the carving that makes the cloisters look so fragile,” said Cecil. “They will stand a long while yet. The crypt, which is now the entrance hall, and a stone roof which once covered a part of the church and is now over the drawing-room, are all that is left of the original Abbey, except two stone staircases. The tower is Norman, and as there is a tradition that a Maundrell owned these lands before the Church, when the latter was despoiled, and Henry VIII. gave the estate to another Maundrell, it took the family name. Oliver Cromwell left precious little of the Abbey, but it was rebuilt in the reign of Charles II., and there is nothing later than the succeeding reign. That chapel on the hill dates from Henry VIII. only. We have service there on Sundays. Our vault is underneath. Only the old abbots and monks are buried in the graveyard. Well? Are you satisfied?”
Lee nodded and smiled. She was so well satisfied that she hoped to lose herself in the pleasurable sensation of a dream realised, and forget certain disappointments and tremors. She had indulged in the dream of an enthusiastic welcome by the tenantry, triumphal arches, and other demonstrations of which she had read; for Cecil was the heir of this splendid domain, and he was bringing home his bride. But they had driven from the station as unobtrusively as two guests invited for a week’s shooting. Tiny had said to her the day before her departure for England:
“Make up your mind not to expect anything over there, and you will save yourself a great deal of disappointment.When you feel a chill settling over you, shake it off with the reflection that English ways are not our ways. They are the most casual people in the world, and their hospitality, although genuine, is so different from ours, that it seems at first no hospitality at all.”
Lee deliberately forced these words into her mind as Cecil lifted her from the carriage and she passed between two rigid footmen into the crypt of the Abbey. The vast dim columned greyness of the crypt was beautiful and impressive, and surely it was haunted in the midnight by indignant friars, but, save for the approaching butler, it was empty.
“Aren’t your father and stepmother at home?” asked Lee, as Cecil joined her.
“Father’s probably on the moors, and Emmy always lies down in the afternoon,” said Cecil indifferently. “We’ll go straight up to my old rooms. I hope you’ll like them, but of course if you don’t, you can take your choice of the others.”
They followed the butler up an immense stone staircase, then down five long corridors, whose innumerable windows framed so many different views of the grounds that Lee felt sure nothing less than a reel of silk would guide her back and forth. The corridors were lined with pictures and cabinets and curiosities of many centuries, but Lee barely glanced at them, so absorbed was she in wondering if the Abbey were a mile square. Cecil’s rooms were in the tower, and the tower was at the extreme right of the building’s front, but those corridors appeared to traverse the entireback and every wing. At length they passed under a low stone arch, ascended a spiral stone staircase, entered a small stone room fitted up with a desk, a sofa, and two chairs, and Cecil said:
“Here we are.”
“Well, I shall be glad to rest. Isn’t there a short cut to the grounds? If there isn’t, I’ll have to take all my exercise indoors.”
“There’s a door at the foot of the tower. And you’ll be a famous walker this time next year. You Californians are so lazy.”
He opened the door of the bedroom, a large old-fashioned severely-furnished room with a dressing-room beyond. Lee, who was luxurious by nature and habit, did not like it, but consoled herself with the charming landscape beyond the window.
“Do you think you’ll like it up here?” asked Cecil anxiously. “I’d never feel at home anywhere else. I insisted upon these rooms when I was a boy, because Charles II. hid in them once for a week; but another reason why I like them now is because they are out of earshot of all the row—Emmy’s house-parties are rather noisy.”
“Oh, I am sure I shall love it, and I like the idea of being quite alone with you; but do let me fix them up a little; I should feel like a nun.”
“Do anything you like. And if that room is hopeless, there are any number of boudoirs to choose from. This is the only part of the Abbey that isn’t full of windows. And your maid will sleep quite close. We’ll have a bell put in.” He took out his watch. “It’s just five. I’ll send you tea at once, and then go andlook up father. You’d better lie down until it’s time to dress for dinner.”
“Well, for Heaven’s sake, come back for me, or I’ll not move.”
Cecil pinched her cheek, kissed her, and departed. Her own maid had refused to cross the ocean, and Cecil had written to the housekeeper requesting that a new one might await them. The girl arrived with the tea-tray, asked Lee for her keys, and without awaiting orders, began at once to unpack the trunks that had arrived with the travellers. She accomplished her task so swiftly and so deftly, that Lee, with a long train of inefficient maids in mind, reflected gratefully that she would doubtless be spared any personal effort for the thousand and one details which went to make up the physical comfort she loved.
The maid laid a wrapper over the back of a chair, dragged the trunks into the antechamber, returned, and courtesied.
“Will your ladyship take off your frock and rest awhile?” she asked.
Lee gave a little jump. It was the first time she had been so saluted. It made her feel a part of that ancient tower, she reflected, with what humour was in her at the moment,—more at home. The maid undressed her, and she lay down on the sofa in the sitting-room to await the return of her lord. The maid, remarking that she should return at seven to dress her ladyship for dinner, retired.