Desolate splendour

THE August weeks went by and Viola prepared herself for a return to Morvane. Lady Grieve had wondered what the guardian would, when he saw her, think of his ward, but she spared no conjecture for what the ward thought already of her guardian. Yet, of the two, the latter were the more coloured speculation. From the quiet sleep of childhood, from the thrawn dreams of stunted adolescence, Viola had awakened to beauty and to power. For the last days in London she had rubbed her eyes, bewildered at the new world spread laughingly before her. At Lavenham she had passed from drowsiness to peevish wakefulness. She left Lavenham and passed to Morvane and to another stage of her maturing.

Peevishness—she had been jealous of Daniel’s favour when bestowed on others, disdainful when the hands that held it were her own—gave way to whimsical caprice. Her time at Morvane was to be one of alternating temper and caress. She knew her power and loved it, but she was freakish in its wielding and understood its deep, splendid origins too little for a right use of it. It has been said she went to school at Lavenham. She did, and most industriously. In the technique of her young womanhood she was now word and gesture perfect, but she imagined herself an artist for knowing the wiles of artistry, ignorant as yet that art—whether it be art of line and colour, art of life or art of love—is humble generosity and pain and the sweet weariness of service, not graceful posturing before the plaudits of the crowd.

If (as maybe it did) that lesson in beauty’s despotism conducted so brusquely by her guardian’s mother in the high parlour of the Morvane campanile, came to her mind during those Lavenham weeks of eager tyranny, she dismissed it straightway as the turgid mumbling of age. Youth is youth’s only teacher; age is, at best, a warning. So Mrs. Plethern lost her trouble, and the girl to whom she preached learnt more of the sermon’s theme from five minutes lingering with callow striplings in a shrubbery than from the measured phrases of the ancient cynic.

Now, with her schooling and her innocent conceit, she faced return to Morvane. Into her mind (she knew not why) came Charles’ presumptuous consolation in the library. Before her eyes moved the lean hands of Charles; about her shoulders in her fancy were his arms. She jerked her head thus to recall his impudence. Yet, in her heart, she did not blame him now; rather she pitied him for the temptation he endured, applauded his restraint and courtesy. Obscurely she felt that he deserved reward, and the delicious risk of the reward’s bestowal gave savour to her anxiety for justice.

But there reflection ceased. That she had new impulses she was conscious; that they were terrible and wonderful and sweet and hateful, she was confusedly aware; but what they were or why they frightened or cajoled her she had the wish but not the courage to inquire. The turmoil of her secret being troubled the surface of her daily conduct; to Daniel she became daily more perverse; but, as to him she grew in frowardness, toward Charles in glad anticipation she felt more kind.

The day for journeying arrived. Agog to see her guardian, she glowed, loving them all now she was leaving them. She kissed her hostess, bade Sir Algernon good-bye, even thanked Daniel for his kindness. They beamed upon her, grateful for sunshine after grey skies. How should they know her warmth was born rather of excited prevision than of grateful reverie?

Her restless journey passed. A hundred yards away she saw him on the platform. As the train stopped, she sprang out and ran to him.

“How sweet of you! I never dreamed you’d come to meet me!”

Charles took her hands and smiled contentedly. He was a little surprised himself at being there, but the intimate affection of her greeting surprised him more. Looking at her fresh colour and the eager sparkle of her eyes, he seemed to see for the first time the real Viola. He told himself that the aloof silences of her first days at Morvane had been but protective reserve and not, as sometimes he had feared, a half-cleverness, aware of its defective breeding.

“I am delighted to have you back, my dear,” he said. “The house has seemed dull while you were away.”

She shook her head gaily.

“I’m afraid it’s not me. It’s the strangeness. You aren’t used to staying so long!”

He saluted the note of mischief in her voice.

“That is Rinka over again! You mustn’t pay these visits, if you are to come back primed with my sins.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Plethern,” she replied demurely. “It was cheeky.”

She took his arm as they moved away. Suddenly he spoke, a little shyly.

“Viola—I have been meaning to ask you——This business of what to call people is such a bore always. But don’t you think ‘Mr. Plethern’ a little formal?”

“I think it’s horrid,” she said frankly.

“So do I. Can’t we change it?”

She gurgled as she climbed into the dogcart at his side. He glanced at her with amused delight.

“The joke?”

“I was only thinking of Daniel. He asked me what I called you—whether you were a ‘guardy.’”

“A ‘guardy’! I can’t help hoping not. Am I?”

She shook her head. Instinct warned her to leave him the lead. Somehow she felt he might resent ‘Uncle Charles.’

“After all, I have a name,” he said tentatively.

“Wouldn’t that be rather——?”

“I hate to be reminded of my age.”

In silence they rattled between the dusty hedges. The tired foliage of late summer drooped in the windless air. Here and there cornfields, heavily yellow, waited sulkily on harvest. Viola watched him stealthily, liking his thin lips and the powder of grey about his temples. She wished to please him, but to appreciate his longing for comradeship was not to lose her own sense of his seniority, still less her new appreciation of the privilege of sex. Her hesitation was mainly instinctive fear of familiarity. She had no wish to give points away in the game that was to come. He misread her thoughts, taking for shyness and for fear of familiarity, what was indeed but the old way of maid with man.

“Don’t force yourself, my dear. Whatever is best will come naturally. I remember similar cases in my own young days. But we shall be happier when it is settled, especially as we are to have some time in each other’s company.” With hardly a pause he passed to another subject. “I have been thinking how we can entertain you. Of course, you will ask your friends here—as if it were your own house. I propose to stay all the winter—certainly till after Christmas—and we can invite folks from round about. But you will get to know friends of Rinka and the Grieves and, maybe, make independent acquaintances whom you would like to see at Morvane. There is luckily room for guests—in reason. I have been busy getting the house in order. Rinka has blackened my character, I’m sure, and it is unnecessary to explain that I have in the past found it imperative to be away a good deal....”

Grateful for his tact and sensible of the trouble he was taking to celebrate her coming, she squeezed his arm.

“You are very good to me—Charles....” she murmured.

He neither turned nor spoke, but flushed a little and drove on with an unusual brightness in his lazy eyes.

After lunch he took her over the whole house, showing her bedrooms that had for years been sheeted and dismantled, but now were ready for use again; the big drawing-room newly painted; the two high-ceilinged saloons with their rococo plaster work, their huge marble mantelpieces, their glittering chandeliers of lustres and gold.

“Lots of room, you see!” he said, at once proud of his house and yet deprecating its splendour.

Viola was silenced by this pilgrimage through the fine places of her home. The contrast to Toronto became almost unbearable. Even her newborn imperiousness trembled before the glory of its destined throne.

“I had no idea that there was this!” she said. “How did I live in the house for weeks and not guess?”

“Why should you guess? The place has not been open as it is now since my father’s early married years. He put in all these elaborate state reception rooms, you know. He made a lot of money.”

“A lot! It’s unbelievable to me, that I am to live in such a house. And from the outside——”

She checked herself, fearful of indiscretion, but he encouraged her laughingly.

“Dear child, don’t be afraid of saying your mind! The outside is misleading, certainly. I like it for that. As you will come to like it, some day. There is a queerness about the stiff grey place seen from the park, particularly when one knows that inside it is like a restaurant.”

“A restaurant! What a horrid thing to say! Does Mrs. Plethern approve of your doing all this —— for me?”

“I haven’t said anything about it,” he replied coolly. “I wanted you to see it first. Probably she’s noticed the workmen and ladders and general upheaval, but she has not come close to see. We’ll ask her to come to tea, shall we, and watch how she takes it? Here’s Hopton, come to tell us tea is ready.”

“Not now, Charles,” she begged prettily. “Ask her after tea; not now. Let us have tea, just you and me!”

He was delighted, led her affectionately to where the silver gleamed, made her pour out for him, purred his proud joy in her.

“As we take mother round,” he said, “you shall choose your rooms; and your furniture also if you like. This is your coming into residence. We must be duly ceremonious.”

She clapped her hands.

“Any rooms I like? How lovely! You really are a darling!”

They smiled at one another, radiant with the excited pleasure of the hour.

§2

Mrs. Plethern accepted her son’s invitation and went the round of the downstairs innovations with laconic courtesy.

“Very nice, Charles,” she said. Or; “You have taken a lot of trouble.” Or; “I am glad to see these rooms ready for use again.” To Viola she would turn with one of her secret smiles. “He has been energetic on your behalf, my dear.” Or: “It is a large house for two people to live in.” Or: “I must think of removing from my aerie.” The old lady was fond of describing her tower as an aerie. The association of ideas was ridiculous; also a little disgusting.

This afternoon, in the delight of her homecoming, Viola had little consciousness of recoil, though she was hard put to it, now and then, to meet Mrs. Plethern’s comments. They had the words of platitude but the insistence of a double meaning.

“He has been far too kind!” she said.

But the note of enthusiasm struck dead on a dead atmosphere.

“Charles is always kind,” the old lady purred.

Viola tried humorous deprecation:

“I feel overawed already. Such a house blots me out! Perhaps he has done it purposely? Have you done it purposely—to make me a teeny, wretched atom?” She pouted at her guardian, while her eyes danced with laughter.

“Charles is a man of purpose, darling,” replied Mrs. Plethern, and the chuckle that followed was so audible to Viola that she wondered he said nothing, nor helped the discussion in any way save by a quiet smile.

A little later, when, to order some detail of his renovations, he left them together, Mrs. Plethern changed her tone. She became almost garrulous, urging her speech to the staccato canter of a plumed funeral-horse, flogged to indecent haste by a hearse-load of drunken mutes.

“These rooms,” she began “—these great, beautiful rooms were built for me. I ordered them. Mine was the dignity and grace they were to frame. If you had known my husband, child, you would have seen proof of the power a clever woman has over her menfolk. You know his story?... Not at all?... Oh, that he was rich? That was a small part of it. He made his money by work, Viola, hard, ruthless work. He inherited nothing, or next to nothing. This house—a ruin. A few fields—nettle-beds and heaps of stones. But he had worked and fought and came home to enjoy his wealth—and me!” She leered a moment and hurried on. “I married him to save him from himself and from robbers. They are fools, these money-makers. He, who could dominate a crowd of Tartars, was a doll in the hands of any smart adventurer from London. I came to save him from his credulity. And I did save him. You see the gardens yonder—those on this side are of his making; I saved some part of the rest—— You see how they are messed about with shrubs and pergolas and tricksey ribbon paths? That was his taste. That was his idea of finery. And then I came. He was about to ‘improve’ the house, Improve it—with a steep roof and glass and iron and windows like bulging boils! He would have made it like Clonsall. You have seen Clonsall? No? Well, perhaps you will some day. It is over there—five or six miles away. They had money at Clonsall once; and they used it to make their house a swollen villa. I saved Morvane from that. What one cares for should be secret. One’s thoughts, one’s possessions—all secret. So in a house. Start from within, and stop half-way to the outside. You see the result. Morvane is black and stern, as it has been this two hundred years. But inside we transformed it, No one could guess the kind of place I lived in, unless I asked them to come and see it. That pleased me...”

She stopped suddenly and threw a baleful look round the ornate immensity of the saloon.

“That pleased me,” she repeated a little sulkily, “——until I grew too old to leave my tower. And when I grew too old, my lovely rooms were forgotten. Shut up. Empty and dirty. I got used to that. Almost I liked to think of them, deserted and dark ... my rooms, from which I had withdrawn, from which life had withdrawn ... and now this has happened and I am invited to view the enterprise and invention of my son!”

Rising heavily to her feet she looked down at the trembling girl. Her voice became soft and treacherous.

“Do you wonder, my dear, that I am a little amused? Do you wonder that I ask myself why this should happen—now? Listen; I will tell you a story. There was a king once who built a pleasure-garden for his subjects. They wandered in it and heard music in its fine pavilions and watched their children play on the shady grass, though never a penny did they pay or were they asked to pay. But at last there came revolution, and a few professors and writers of unsuccessful books roused the mob to blind fury, so that the king was driven out and his palace converted to the use of typists and junior officials. For long enough the pleasure-gardens sank into decay, until one day the new government ran short of money. A stranger came to the city, awhile afterwards, and fell into conversation with a man next him in a tram. The tram was passing the gates of a park, in the midst of which newly-painted pavilions shone white and gold. ‘What is that place?’ asked the stranger. ‘That? Oh—that is the Palace of Love. A government show. Good idea, isn’t it? Huge revenue it brings in.’ The stranger left the city the next day. He was the ex-king.... Well, I must go back to my tower. Good-night, dear child. I have tired you a little, I fear....”

When Charles returned he found Viola seated where he had left her, head sunk in abstracted thought.

“Sorry I’ve been such an age,” he said cheerfully. “Has mother gone? What’s the matter, Viola? You look fagged out.”

With an effort she smiled reassuringly.

“It’s all right. I am a bit tired, I think. Mrs. Plethern has been telling me about these rooms.... And then ... she told me a story.... Such a queer story....”

He laughed.

“A story? Good heavens, you mustn’t worry about mother’s stories! She has her fancies, you know, like all old people. Come along! You haven’t chosen your rooms and it’s getting late.”

“I think I’ll wait till to-morrow, if you don’t mind.”

A shadow of disappointment clouded his face. It was a genuine face, clever and selfish perhaps, but genuine.

She felt a sudden compunction. “Don’t press me, Charles! It’s lovely of you to do all this for me, and I’m awfully, awfully grateful. But I can’t choose to-night. Let me off till to-morrow.”

In a moment he was his usual gay self. “Of course, my dear. Much wiser. Why not lie down a bit before dinner? I have rushed you about too much, like the unimaginative old fool I am!”

She patted his hand and they left the saloon together.

But at dinner she was still listless. The gaiety of the afternoon, the pleasure of homecoming, of feeling welcome, that had relaxed so suddenly the bonds of diffident restraint, had vanished. Charles sought to rouse interest in one subject after another, until, as the meal progressed and Viola slipped farther and farther into the remote shadows of preoccupation, he thought to connect his mother with the queer extinction of his ward’s serenity. Over coffee and for half an hour on the cool, dark terrace, with the indifferent whisper of the avenue sounding faintly beyond the flower-beds, he kept up quiet, casual talk of guests and merrymaking.

“Belinda will come, whether I ask her or not,” he said. “You will be writing to Daniel?”

Viola nodded.

“He asked me to,” she remarked candidly.

Charles smiled to himself.

“When is he free to come?” he asked.

“Any time—I gathered!”

“We may sleep peacefully till October, then. I always judge the international situation by Foreign Office leave. Naïve of me, no doubt, but then I am.”

She rustled appreciatively.

“I have been with Corinne,” she reminded him.

“Has the kitten left me no shade of innocence?”

“Innocence isn’t everything.”

He pretended dismay.

“Viola! At your age to have such cynicism!”

When she had said good night and left him alone, he reverted to his mother’s share in the whole problem of the girl’s future. If he had no illusions about his mother, he was also too indolent ever thoroughly to have appreciated her nature. He had felt dimly that as sole companion for a young girl, Mrs. Plethern was unsatisfactory; but her shortcomings had seemed due as much to infirmity and disparity of age as to qualities of character. For a time he had considered finding some young woman to live at Morvane and partner Viola. But he had disliked the thought of establishing a poor relation in his house, and with other suitable women he had no acquaintance. Even Belinda Grieve could not be trusted to select so momentous a dependent. In the end, therefore, he had decided himself to take charge of Viola’s home-making and to remain steadily at Morvane for the first period of her new life. This determination had driven his mother from his mind; she had become once again an incidental, no more obtrusive than of old; she would be present in her tower as she had ever been; she would influence Morvane and its inhabitants as little as she had ever done. Recent happenings, however, suggested a revision of judgment. Was the old lady so negligible? Had she been negligible this very afternoon? Had she not, mysteriously but completely, extinguished in Viola the flame of merriment that had warmed his heart from the first moment of meeting on the country platform? Guardianship had at present all the lure of novelty. He was jealous of his lately assumed dominion, and interference—from his mother or from any other quarter—was inadmissible. The sooner Mrs. Plethern understood the limitations of her duty, the better for all concerned. His face set a little grimly and he watched with narrowing lids the curving gleam of his cigarette flung over the dim coping of the balustrade into the darkness of the lawn. Then, with the arrogant haste of an impulsive nature, he rose from his chair and walked quickly toward the campanile.

But, woefully for the girl in whose defence he armed himself, there came to crowd her from his mind another, older championage. Wilkinson had reported—Charles recalled the letter on the luncheon-table; the imminence of Viola had driven it from his memory—that extension of Morvane might be possible toward the north; Wilkinson was awaiting his employer’s sanction to negotiate. Charles stood in mid-lawn, seeking to visualize the land to which his agent made reference. It was contiguous to Morvane, but of respectable extent and agriculturally desirable; were it Plethern land, the holding between its boundary and that of Morvane proper could gradually be ‘influenced’. Charles nodded approval to his thoughts. He must reply to Wilkinson at once; to-morrow for Mrs. Plethern; to-morrow for the self-assertion of a guardian; to-day for Morvane. He turned on his heel and sought his library.

Over her patience cards the old lady gloomed in untutored malice; lovely in her virgin bed, golden Miss Viola slept her way to cheerfulness again.

Thus imperceptibly do crises come and go; another day and Charles’ resolution would be past; another day and Viola (unwarned, unarmed) must take, for good or ill, the road of unprotected luxury.