Desolate splendour

That same girl, at Lavenham in August, was put finally to school, settled finally to her examination in the grammar of young womanhood. Beyond grammar lies idiom, (and Viola was to pass her life in pursuit of idiom) but at Lavenham she mastered grammar and, like many schoolgirls before and since, learnt more from her teachers’ masculinity than from their conscious skill in teaching.

With Corinne, after ten conscientious days at James Plethern’s country house, she travelled to Lavenham and to school. A little garish after the shaded greys of the Plethern manor house, Lavenham sprawled noisily on its Buckinghamshire hill, not ashamed to be red brick, to have white-painted barge-boards and a red-tiled roof and bright squares and triangles of white between the sham beam-work of its gable-ends. Like a peony in the garden of England bloomed Lavenham, assertive, complacent, parvenu, but comfortable. The Pletherns’ house also was comfortable, but with a ‘period’ comfort that made one conscious of the incongruity of Stuart tasselling and Edwardian tweeds. James felt that he owed it to his position to dwell, alike in country and in town, suitably embedded in antiquity. Wherefore his ‘little place’ was grey and mullioned and skilfully restored, figured in the illustrated press as “a veritable gem of architecture,” figured in the illustrated press as “a fragment, miraculously preserved, of England’s Middle Age.” Not so Lavenham. Sir Algernon Grieve, when he attained his knighthood and abandoned the regular service of his country for a life of squiredom, cared little for architectural perfection but a good deal for cheapness and for convenience. Lavenham was not far from London (and he anticipated summons to London for Commissions of Inquiry, for Conferences, for such official sideshows as gave scope to retired but once eminent bureaucrats), and at the same time dignified and inexpensive. There being no greater dwelling in the immediate neighbourhood, it ranked as the ‘big house,’ and Sir Algernon, in pepper and salt tweeds, could lord it genially over three villages and a few hundred acres of pasture and arable. This, with rough shooting and bouts of magisterial platitude, he accomplished to his own satisfaction. His wife opened occasional bazaars, beamed pleasantly at sweating infants on prize days, bred poodles and gardened. Daniel, tied by the exigencies of Government service, lived in Half Moon Street, and spent leave periods with his parents or elsewhere. This August he felt strongly the claims of filial duty. Further, when Corinne announced she could stay only one week and would leave Viola to ‘represent the family,’ he was conscious of the obligation that lay upon him, as an only son, to assist his mother by entertaining her young guest. From this process of entertainment arose instruction for Viola and much diversion alike for pupil and teacher.

“How were the James’?” he asked.

Corinne, strenuous and emphatic, had waved herself round the curve from the local railway station. Corinne had been rather tiresome lately, rather fatiguing with her friskiness. Viola, as she walked home across the fields with Daniel, guiltily felt relieved her friend had gone. The weather was thundery, and over the dark groups of motionless elms a sky of metallic gloom hung drowsily.

“How were the James’? Corinne is a darling, but the family a little...?”

With her disconcerting frankness of gaze she turned toward him eyes of perplexity.

“I——” she began. “Can you explain them to me? They were so kind to me.”

“And still you somehow——?”

She nodded.

“I suppose it’s beastly of me, because they did everything to make me happy——”

“Except make you happy. I know.”

They walked on in silence. The whirring of a reaper throbbed along the sluggish air. Suddenly he took her arm, holding it gently above the elbow, pinching it a little now and again in emphasis of his words.

“The trouble with James is that he’s an ambitious Puritan. Mrs. James is merely new-art enamel—peacock blues on a metal ground—but James is a Puritan with a Puritan’s obstinate perseverance and a Puritan’s cruelty. He’s the opposite to Charles, and only Charles, who is a man who thinks evil of no one because he has too many other things to think of, does not realize it. I imagine James has set himself to make a Jamesite of you. Are you a Puritan?”

She shook her head.

“I have no idea. What is it?”

“Are you afraid of laughter? Do you realize your own loveliness? Would you be shocked if in that ditch yonder we came on two yokels in each other’s arms?”

It was an early lesson. Viola was a beginner yet. She blushed and was for an instant ill at ease. But bravely she faced her teacher.

“Go on,” she said.

“There is no more,” he laughed. “I am answered and you are not a Puritan. And you are answered, for you know why James Plethern, with all his kindness, is—well, what he is. By the way, you have met the old lady?”

“Very much so. I had tea with her and——”

The abrupt silence intrigued him.

“And?” he queried.

“And she had tea with me,” Viola concluded mockingly

She was learning; learning fast. He twinkled appreciation.

“Was it a good tea?” he asked lightly.

“Good?”

“Yes. Buns and so on.”

“Oh, buns! I forget. I quite forget the buns.”

“But not the small talk?”

“No—not the small talk. You recalled it to me a moment ago.”

He gestured deprecation.

“Please!”

“I didn’t quite mean that,” she said quickly.

“What a dear you are!” he murmured. “I was very impertinent. That’s my failing, impertinence. Mumsie will tell you so. They used to smack me for it once.”

“And what do they do about it now?”

“It is already done. I am contrite.”

She glanced at him, with mischief at the corners of her lovely mouth.

“You aren’t one bit! At least be truthful.”

He stopped and regarded her gravely.

“Viola, you are rather unkind to me. If I have offended or shocked you, I am humiliated and repentant. Won’t you believe that?”

“I didn’t know I was offended. Or shocked. Perhaps a little rushed, that was all—Mr. Grieve.”

He gave an impatient toss of the head.

“Oh—that! Listen to me. Your name is Viola, and you are very much younger and less wise than I am. But because you are a girl and a very pretty girl—no, no, don’t interrupt!—I am your hopeless inferior and suppliant at your feet. You do not ‘Mister’ your inferiors, nor resent your elders when they call you ‘Viola.’ That’s how it works.”

A large drop of rain splashed on her hand. The thunder growled suddenly from over the hill. Daniel looked at the lowering sky, then at his companion.

“It’s coming,” he said. “Will you spoil?”

“Not spoil exactly, but I’d rather not, if it can be avoided.”

“It can. My thoughtful parent has a cowshed in the next field—designed for an occasion of this kind.”

They ran to shelter, and in a moment the storm was booming on corrugated iron a few inches above their heads. Daniel returned to the charge.

“May it be Viola, then?”

She laughed indifferently.

“There is a query to it? I had understood it to be settled.”

“Then settled it is. What shall we play at now?”

A lesson over; another ready to begin.

§ 2

“Sing us something, child.”

Viola walked obediently to the piano. She could sing; she knew she could sing; as yet she saw no profit in coyness.

“What would you like?” she asked.

Lady Grieve beamed across a wide basket of embroidery wools. A frame, with stretched canvas and on it the half-finished pattern of a stool cover, lay propped upon her knees. Lamps shone softly down the length of the white-painted gleaming drawing-room.

“I am an old stupid and like the old songs. Brahms, my dear, always Brahms.”

Simply and straightforwardly the girl sang the Sapphische Ode. As the sound of the last words died along the air, she suddenly became conscious of her audience; suddenly was she aware that she dominated the shining room, that her hostess comfortable, busy with her wools, that her host, rosy and lethargic in his chair, that Daniel, tense, wide-eyed and silent on the window-seat, were at the mercy of her voice. The sensation thrilled her. She sat on at the piano, her nerves a-flutter with the certainty of power. Then Sir Algernon spoke:

“Very good! Very good indeed! Can’t say I cared for that Brahms fellow before. Where were you trained, Viola?”

“I don’t think I was trained,” she answered. “I had a friend in Toronto who taught music and helped me.”

“A friend?” queried Daniel sharply.

Again the titillation of power. There was jealousy in the question. She recognized it for jealousy and welcomed it. Almost unconsciously she drooped her head, rubbed the keyboard with her finger, pouted ever so slightly. There was a short silence; then Lady Grieve murmured:

“Beautiful, my dear! Sing something else.”

Without hesitation Viola rippled into the opening chords of a French love song of the ’fifties, a teasing, maddening song—wayward and petulant—that offered and denied itself, that stormed and coaxed, that ended as it had begun in alluring emptiness. Why had she chosen that song? As, its performance over, she sat at the piano and abandoned herself once more to the soft intoxication of success, she asked herself that very question. Daniel supplied the answer. He rose and walked aimlessly about the room. Viola, without looking up, was conscious of his movements, conscious of Sir Algernon’s deepened rosiness, conscious of the eyes of her hostess fixed questioningly upon her. She knew why she had chosen that song; but the next moment she denied the knowledge, even to herself.

§ 3

Two days later, to celebrate Daniel’s birthday and in brilliant sunshine, was given a lawn-tennis party at Lavenham. It was a large affair, with promise of a dance to follow. Viola watched the assembling guests with a mixture of pleasure and discomfort. She was a bad tennis player: hardly a tennis player at all. Life on narrow means in a small Toronto flat had given little opportunity for membership of tennis clubs. That she should rather dread the ordeal of joining in the games at Lavenham was a sign of progress in education; that at the same time she observed the gradual mustering of visitors with glad anticipation was another sign.

“You’ll play in our set, Viola?” asked Daniel. He looked graceful and handsome in his flannels, coatless, his shirt open at the neck, his sleeves rolled to the elbow. With a shining smile she shook her head.

“Please, no. Let me watch. I’m no good at all.”

Slightly to her annoyance, he accepted the fact without demur.

“All right,” he said. “Forgive my running off.”

In five minutes the two courts were in full swing. For a little while Viola watched the players, particularly the girls, envying their quick accuracy of stroke, envying also the approving nods and glances of their partners. She was interrupted by Lady Grieve.

“This is Miss Marvell, Colonel Ramsden. Viola, let me introduce Colonel Ramsden. He is a friend of Charles Plethern’s and has heard about your coming to Morvane.”

The colonel sat creakingly at her side. He had a face of mahogany and the general expression of a backward sideboard. Beneath a clipped, white moustache, his teeth shone unpleasantly. He wore a dark blue suit, tightly buttoned; on his small plump feet were patent boots.

“Aw—Miss Marvell,” he began. “Chawmed to meet you, I’m shaw! ’Str’ordinary thing your comin’ over to Plethern, y’ know, quite extr’ordin’ry!”

‘Why do they all say that?’ thought Viola. ‘As if they didn’t believe I had come after all!’ The next instant she had a flash of understanding. She recalled her guardian’s reputation; she paralleled the incredulities of old Mrs. Plethern, of James, of this idiot colonel. ‘Perhaps they really don’t believe it!’ she thought. Her first emotion was indignation. She vented it on the latest offender.

“Why so very extraordinary, Colonel Ramsden?” she asked quietly. “The boats go twice a week or more.”

He looked at her, startled. Then chuckled, awkwardly.

“Haw, haw! Twice a week! Very good! So they do, the rascals! Twice a week! Haw, haw, haw!”

“The man’s mad,” thought Viola, and forgot her resentment in amused contemplation of his futility. The colonel pulled himself together.

“Not playin’ tennis, eh?” he asked.

“I can’t play well enough.”

“Psh! Come, come! You can’t gammon an old hand like me! Fine strong girl—can’t play! Rubbish!”

She laughed.

“It’s quite true. You see, I never played in Canada. At least, hardly at all. Who is that girl playing with—Mr. Grieve?”

He screwed an eyeglass into his most serviceable eye.

“Playin’ with young Grieve?” he repeated. “Aw—that’s Jill Pickering, that is. Fine little girl—plays a good strong game. When I was a boy, girls didn’t hit as hard as they do nowadays. Dangerous thing—havin’ a row with a lady these days! Haw, haw!”

“You talk as though you were a hundred!” said Viola, “and I’m sure you’re not more than fifty.”

He shook a finger playfully.

“Now, now! Mischievous, you pretty gels! Mischievous! How you love to tease an old man!”

To his renewed embarrassment, she seemed not to have heard. In truth she was watching Jill Pickering and Daniel. They were collecting the balls for service, and, from a distance, their heads looked singularly close together. Suddenly the colonel had become a grotesque annoyance. She rose quickly.

“You will excuse me? I want to speak to Lady Grieve.”

All afternoon and until eight o’clock the tennis went on. Viola had her moments—as, for example, when the two Pickering boys competed to get her tea; as, for example, when Vallance, the poet, asked her to show him the rose garden; as, for example, when Sir Algernon, introducing her to two important ladies of the county, praised her singing with all the superlatives of ignorant enthusiasm. But on the whole she enjoyed the party less and less. There was one dreadful period when she was at last persuaded to try a game. Everything went wrong. Daniel, as her partner, was polite enough and encouraging, but she was aware that the set soon became something of a farce, that the other players lost interest and played carelessly, that the chairs ranged along the court side were almost empty, but those overlooking the other court filled to overflowing. Beaten six—love, she thanked Daniel nervously for his forbearance and regretted with an apologetic laugh that she had spoilt the game.

“It’s quite all right,” he said, and left her.

Angry that he had not denied her manifest incompetence, aggrieved that she, who had begged not to play and had been overborne, should now be blamed for a fault she had striven to avoid, Viola went into the house and to her room. It overlooked the tennis-courts. From the window she saw that once again he was partnering Jill Pickering.

“Horrid, squat, little tomboy!” thought Viola, and plumped down in a sulk on the edge of her bed. It was a quarter of an hour before she recovered her temper and her common sense sufficiently to rejoin the party. When at last she reappeared, there was consolation in the evident delight of her poet friend, whom she found, smoking in contemplative solitude, at one corner of the terrace. They took another stroll together, and he raved over Swinburne. Viola had not read Swinburne, but admired Browning.

“Oh, Browning!” said Vallance airily. “Browning’s all very well for a windy morning, but he’s terribly hearty. All that’s Browning——” He waved a contemptuous hand toward the tennis players, toward Jill Pickering leaping at the net. “Real beauty is static, not sweaty.”

Thus was Viola consoled, for if she did not understand a lot of the things he said, she knew that he was depreciating athletics, and the process, after her own recent experience, harmonized with her mood. Let it be remembered, in excuse for her pettishness, that she had not been long awake. The waking mind is first bemused, then (likely as not) a little out of temper. So with Viola.

The transition from tennis to dancing was skilfully effected. Most of the afternoon visitors drove home, dined, dressed, and came again. Those from a distance had brought their clothes and were accommodated with baths and bedrooms. There was a large dinner-party. At ten-thirty the arrivals began. By eleven o’clock the dance was in full swing. By midnight Viola had revenged herself on Miss Pickering, had booked herself for an unimaginable series of extras, was completely happy. Partners clustered round her; before the music started for another dance, its possessor would seek her out and claim her company. Of the imbecility of young men she gained much and monotonous experience.

“Toppin’ floor!” they said. “Didn’t see you playin’ this afternoon, Miss Marvell,” they said. “Bit off colour, or don’t you care for the tennis game?” Sometimes she walked the lit garden-paths, and very solicitous were they lest her shoulders (those superb, indifferent shoulders) should take cold from the evening air. Once, passing a knot of them as in the dance she glided by the greenhouse door, she heard an exchange of views on womankind.

“Knocks the lot of them, my boy!” said one.

“One great big peach!” remarked another.

She saw the glitter of discreet but hungry eyes. She knew herself the knocker and the peach.

It needed only the vision of Jill Pickering, wall-bound and neglected, as ill-at-ease in satin and decolletage as on the courts in short, white skirt, she had been Artemis, to restore Viola to the throbbing serenity of contented pride. Wherefore, in the small hours of the morning, she received Daniel with a gentle condescension when, having failed to secure an earlier number on her programme, he claimed her partnership for the dance preceding supper. They took a turn or two about the hall. He stopped at an open window and led her to the terrace. She was a little peevish, for he danced well and it was a tune she liked.

“Why so soon?” she asked. “Do I dance badly?”

He was holding her arm above the elbow, a favourite trick of his. She shook herself free.

“Your gloves are hot and sticky,” she complained.

“We’ll dance again in a moment,” he said coolly. “I only wish to inform you that I propose to take you to supper.”

“But I’m engaged!”

“To whom?”

She drew herself up and walked away from him toward the low wall that edged the terrace.

“To whom?” he repeated, following her.

“Look here, Daniel,” she said and, turning severely, faced him in the moonlight, “I suppose I can accept partners as I choose? You would not like it if I cut your dances. Please be nice and don’t spoil my evening.”

He smiled and, with elbows on the balustrade, gazed over the garden.

“Tell me what I’ve done,” he said.

“Done? Nothing. What do you mean?”

“This afternoon, I suppose. Dear Viola, don’t you realize that the son of the house has duties as well as pleasures?”

“You performed your duties bravely enough,” she muttered.

“Why, I do believe——” He stopped and, over his shoulder, studied her curiously in the faint light. Then he straightened his back and with a short laugh took her arm again.

“Never mind. I’m sorry. Let us go and dance again. Can you spare me something later in the evening? After all, it’s my birthday.”

But she was out of temper and made no reply. They danced out the few remaining moments of the waltz. Once again he led her to the garden.

“I have so little time,” he pleaded. “Be kind to me for three minutes more. Then you can go to supper.”

Softened by dancing and by the humility of his voice, she hinted at concession.

“Twenty is yours already, isn’t it? I rather think Captain Winstanley is going early. He has twenty-one.”

“You’re a dear,” he murmured, and a moment later in her ear, “and you look lovely to-night.”

She flushed with pleasure in the grateful darkness. But instinct and embarrassment prompted to hurt the flatterer.

“Who was your partner in the Lancers?” she inquired.

“Lancers? Oh—that was Jill Pickering,” he replied, and told her what she knew already.

“Such a charming old-fashioned dress!” said Viola reflectively. “I noticed it at once. Does she dance well?”

He gave her a quick look and, mindful of darkness, allowed himself the shadow of a smile.

“She’s a very old friend. They live only a mile away and they were neighbours in London, too. I’ve known her for years. We were children together.”

“Then of course she must rule your birthday party—your thirtieth birthday. Who ever would think her ten years older than I am? I suppose it’s games and all that that keep her young.”

This time he could have laughed outright, but remembering Winstanley and dance number twenty-one, he restrained himself. Fortune was kind, and from the gloom emerged his mother.

“Well, children,” she said, “are you enjoying yourselves?”

“It’s lovely, Lady Grieve. I wish it could go on for ever!”

The hostess smiled at her young guest’s enthusiasm.

“You’d soon be very hungry,” she remarked. “I think supper’s ready now. Is Daniel taking you in?”

“Alas, no!” he replied. “We both have prior claims. You will excuse me, Viola? I see your protector has arrived.”

And he walked quickly toward the lighted windows of the house, leaving Viola to the pompous civilities of her supper-partner. Lady Grieve, as she hastened about her duties, wondered what Charles Plethern would think of his ward on her return from Lavenham.