Maryllia was silent. She appeared to be looking at the daisies in the grass.
"I hope," he continued quietly, "you will forgive this rather serious talk of mine. But when you spoke of 'the trend of modern thought,' it seemed necessary to me to let you know at once and straightly that I am not with it,—that I do not belong to the modern school. Professing to be a Christian minister, I try to be one,—very poorly and unsuccessfully I know,—but still, I try!"
Maryllia raised her eyes. There was a glisten on her long lashes as of tears.
"Please forgive ME!" she said simply—"And thank you for speaking as you have done! I shall always remember it, and honour you for it. I hope we shall be friends?"
She put the words as a query, and half timidly held out her little ungloved hand. He took it at once and pressed it cordially.
"Indeed, I am sure we shall!" he said heartily, and the smile that made his face more than ordinarily handsome lit up his eyes and showed a depth of sincerity and kindly feeling reflected straight from his honest soul. A sudden blush swept over Maryllia's cheeks, and she gently withdrew her hand from his clasp. A silence fell between them, and when they broke the spell it was by a casual comment respecting the wealth of apple-blossoms that were making the trees around them white with their floral snow.
"St. Rest is a veritable orchard, when the season favours it," said
Walden—"It is one of the best fruit-growing corners in England. At
Abbot's Manor, for instance, the cherry crop is finer than can be
gathered on the same acreage of ground in Kent. Did you know that?"
Maryllia laughed.
"No! I know absolutely nothing about my own home, Mr. Walden,—and I am perfectly aware that I ought to be ashamed of my ignorance. I AM ashamed of it! I'm going to try and amend the error of my ways as fast as I can. When Cicely Bourne comes to stay with me, she will help me. She's ever so much more sensible than I am. She's a genius."
"Geniuses do not always get the credit of being sensible, do they?" queried John, smiling—"Are they not supposed to be creatures of impulse, dwellers in the air, and wholly irresponsible?"
"Exactly so,"—she replied—"That is the commonplace opinion commonplace people entertain of them. Yet the commonplace people owe everything they enjoy in art, literature and science to the conceptions of genius, and of genius alone. As for Cicely, she is the most practical little person possible. She began to earn her living at the age of eleven, and has 'roughed' it in the world more severely than many a man. But she keeps her dreams,"
"And those who wish her well will pray that she may always keep them,"—said Walden—"For to lose one's illusions is to lose the world."
"The world itself may be an illusion!" said Maryllia, drawing near the garden gate and leaning upon it for a moment, as she glanced up at him with a vague sadness in her eyes,—"We never know. I have often felt that it is only a pretty little pageant, with a very dark background behind it!"
He was silent, looking at her. For the first time he caught himself noticing her dress. It was of simple pale blue linen, relieved with white embroidered lawn, and in its cool, fresh, clean appearance was in keeping with the clear bright day. A plain straw garden hat tied across the crown and under the chin with a strip of soft blue ribbon to match the linen gown, was the finish to this 'fashionable' young woman's toilette,—and though it was infinitely becoming to the fair skin, azure eyes, and gold-brown hair of its wearer, it did not suggest undue extravagance, or a Paris 'mode.' And while he yet almost unconsciously studied the picture she made, resting one arm lightly across his garden gate, she lifted the latch suddenly and swung it open.
"Good-bye!" and she nodded smilingly—"Thank you so much for letting me see your lovely garden! As soon as Cicely arrives, you must come and see her—you will, won't you?"
"I shall be most happy—-" he murmured.
"She will be so interested to hear how you sent her my telegram,"— continued Maryllia—"And Gigue too—poor old Gigue!—he is sure to come over here some time during the summer. He is such a quaint person! I think you will like him. Good-bye!"
"Good-bye—for the present!" said John with a slight note of appeal in his voice, which was not lost wholly upon the air alone, for Maryllia turned her head back towards him with a laugh.
"Oh, of course!—only for the present! We are really next-door neighbours, and I'm afraid we can't escape each other unless we each play hermit in separate caves! But I promise not to bore you with my presence very often!"
She waved the spray of white lilac he had given her in farewell, and calling her dog to her side, passed down the village road lightly, like a blue flower drifting with the May breeze, and was soon out of sight.
Walden closed the gate after her with careful slowness, and returned across the lawn to his favourite seat under his favourite apple- tree. Nebbie followed him, disconsolately snuffing the ground in the trail of the departed Plato, who doubtless, to the smaller animal's mind, represented a sort of canine monarch who ruthlessly disdained the well-meaning attentions of his inferiors. Bainton, having finished his task of training the vines across the walls of the rectory, descended his ladder, making as much noise as he could about it and adding thereto a sudden troublesome cough which would he considered, probably excite his master's sympathy and instant attention. But Walden paid no heed. He was apparently busy fumbling with his watch-chain. Bainton waited a moment, and then, unable any longer to control his curiosity, seized his ladder and deliberately carried it across the lawn, though he knew that that was not the proper way to the tool-shed where it was kept. Halting close to the seat under the apple-tree, he said:—
"Yon red honeysuckle's comin' on fine, Passon,—it be as full o' bud as a pod o' peas."
"Ay indeed!" murmured Walden, absently—"That's all right!"
Bainton paused expectantly. No further word however was vouchsafed to him, and he knew by experience that such silence implied his master's wish to be left alone. With an almost magisterial gravity he surveyed the Reverend John's bent head, and with another scrutinising glance, ascertained the nature of the occupation on which his fingers were engaged, whereupon his face expressed the liveliest amazement. Shouldering his ladder, he went his way,—and once out of earshot gave vent to a long low whistle.
"It do beat me!" he said, slapping one corduroy-trousered leg vehemently—"It do beat me altogether—it do reely now! I ain't no swearin' sort, an' bad langwidge ain't my failin', but I feel like takin' a bet, or sayin' a swear when I sees a sensible man like, makin' a fool of hisself! If Passon ain't gone looney all on a suddint, blest if I knows wot's come to 'im. 'Tain't Miss Vancourt,- -'tain't no one nor nothink wot I knows on, but I'm blowed if he worn't sittin' under that tree, like a great gaby, a' fastenin' a mis'able threepenny bit to 'is watch-chain! Did anyone ever 'ear the like! A threepenny bit with a 'ole in it! To think of a man like that turnin' to the sup'stitions o' maids an' wearin' a oley bit o' silver! It do make me wild!—it do reely now!"
And snorting with ineffable disdain, Bainton almost threw his ladder into the tool-shed, thereby scaring a couple of doves who had found their way within, and who now flew out with a whirr of white wings that glistened like pearl in the sunlight as they spread upwards and away into the sky.
"A threepenny bit with a 'ole in it!" he repeated, mechanically watching the birds of peace in their flight—"An' on his watch-chain too, along wi' the gold cross wot he allus wears there, an' which folks sez was the last thing wore by 'is dead sister! Somethin's gone wrong with 'im-somethin' MUST a' gone wrong! Ginerally speakin' a 'oley bit means a woman in it—but 'tain't that way wi' Passon for sure—there's a deeper 'ole than the 'ole in the threepenny—a 'ole wot ain't got no bottom to it, so fur as I can see. I'm just fair 'mazed with that 'ole!—'mazed an' moithered altogether, blest if I ain't!"
The Reverend John, meanwhile, seated under his canopy of apple- blossoms, had succeeded in attaching the ''oley bit' to his chain in such a manner that it should not come unduly into notice with the mere action of pulling out his watch. He could not, for the life of him, have explained, had he been asked, the reason why he had determined to thus privately wear it on his own person. To himself he said he 'fancied' it. And why should not parsons have 'fancies' like other people? Why should they not wear ''oley bits' if they liked? No objection, either moral, legal or religious could surely be raised to such a course of procedure!
And John actually whistled a tune as he slipped back his chain with its new adornment attached, into his waistcoat pocket, and surveyed his garden surroundings with a placid smile. His interview with Miss Vancourt had not been an unpleasant experience by any means. He liked her better than when he had first seen her on the morning of their meeting under the boughs of the threatened 'Five Sister' beeches. He could now, as he thought, gauge her character and temperament correctly, with all the wonderful perspicuity and not- to-be-contradicted logic of a man. She was charming,—and she knew her charm;—she was graceful, and she was aware of her grace;—she was bright and intelligent in the prettily 'surface' way of women,— she evidently possessed a kind heart, and she seemed thoughtful of other people's feelings,—she had a sweet voice and a delightfully musical laugh,—and—and—that was about all. It was not much, strictly speaking;—yet he found himself considerably interested in weighing the pros and cons of her nature, and wondering how she had managed to retain, in the worldly and social surroundings to which she had been so long accustomed, the child-like impulsiveness of her manner, and the simple frankness of her speech.
"Of course it may be all put on,"—he reflected, though with a touch of shamed compunction at the bare suggestion—"One can never tell! It seemed natural. And it would hardly be worth her while to act a part for the benefit of an old fogey like myself. I think she is genuine. I hope so! At any rate I will believe she is, till she proves herself otherwise. Of course 'the trend of modern thought' has touched her. The cruellest among the countless cruel deeds of latter-day theism is to murder the Christ in women. For, as woman's purity first brought the Divine Master into the world, so must woman's purity still keep Him here with us,—else we men are lost— lost through the sins, not only of our fathers, but chiefly of our mothers!"
That same evening Maryllia received a prompt reply to one of the telegrams which Walden had sent off for her in the morning. It was brief and to the point, and only ran:—'Coming. Cicely';—a message which Mrs. Tapple had no difficulty in deciphering, and which she sent up to the Manor, post haste, as soon as it arrived. The telegraph-boy who conveyed it, got sixpence for himself as a reward for the extra speed he had put on in running all the way from the village to the house, thereby outstripping the postman, who being rotund in figure was somewhat heavily labouring up in the same direction with the last delivery of letters for the day. Miss Vancourt's correspondents were generally very numerous,—but on this occasion there was only one letter for her,—one, neatly addressed, with a small finely engraved crest on the flap of the envelope. Maryllia surveyed that envelope and crest with disfavour,—she had seen too many of the same kind. The smile that brightened her face when she read Cicely's telegram, faded altogether into an expression of cold weariness as with a small silver paper-knife she slowly slit the closed edges of the unwelcome missive and glanced indifferently at its contents. It ran as follows:
"MY DEAR MISS MARYLLIA,—I feel sure you do not realise the great pain you are inflicting on your aunt, as well as on myself, by declining to answer our letters except by telegram. Pray remember that we are quite in the dark as to the state of your health, your surroundings and your general well-being. Your sudden departure from town, was, if you will permit me to say so, a most unwise impulse, causing as it has done, the greatest perplexity in your own social circle and among your hosts of friends. I have done my best to smooth matters over, by assuring all enquirers that certain matters on your country estate required your personal supervision, but rumour, as you know, has many tongues which are not likely to be easily silenced. Your aunt was much surprised and disturbed to receive from you a box of peacock's feathers, without any word from yourself. She has no doubt you meant the gift kindly, but was not the manner of giving somewhat strange?—let me say eccentric? I hope you will allow me to point out to you that nothing is more fatal to a woman in good society than to attain any sort of reputation for eccentricity. I may take the liberty of saying this to you as an old friend, and as one who still holds persistently to the dear expectation, despite much discouragement, of being able soon to call you by a closer name than mere friendship allows. The disagreement between your aunt and yourself should surely be a matter of slight duration, and not sufficient in any case to warrant your rash decision to altogether resign the protection and kindly guardianship which she, on her part, has exercised over you for so many years. I cannot too strongly impress upon your mind the fatal effect any long absence from her is likely to have on your position in society, and though as yet you have only been about three weeks away, people are talking and will no doubt continue to talk. If you find your old home an agreeable change from town life, pray allow your aunt to join you there. She will do so, I am sure, with pleasure. She misses you very greatly, and I will never believe that you would wilfully cause her needless trouble. I may not, I know, express my own feelings on the subject, as I should probably only incur your scorn or displeasure, but simply as an honest man who wishes you nothing but good, I ask you quietly to consider to what misrepresentation and calumny you voluntarily expose yourself by running away, as it were, from a rightful and affectionate protector and second mother like your good aunt, and living all alone in the country without any one of your immediate circle of friends within calling distance. Is there a more compromising or more ludicrous position than that of the independent and defenceless female? I think not! She is the laughing-stock of the clubs, and the perennial joke of the comic press. Pray do not place yourself in the same category with the despised and unlovely of your sex, but remain on the height where Nature placed you, and where your charm and intelligence can best secure acknowledgment from the less gifted and fortunate. Entreating your pardon for any word or phrase in this letter which may unluckily chance to annoy you, I am. my dear Miss Maryllia,—Yours with the utmost devotion," "ROXMOUTH."
"What a humbug he is!" said Maryllia, half aloud, as she nut the letter back in its envelope and set it aside—"What a soft, smooth, civil, correctly trained humbug! How completely he ignores the possibility of my having any intelligence, even while he asks me to remain 'on the height' where it can best secure acknowledgment! He never appears to realise that my intelligence may be of such a quality as to enable me to see through him pretty clearly! And so the 'independent and defenceless female' is the laughing-stock of the clubs, is she? Well, I daresay he is quite right there! There's nothing braver for men to do at their clubs than to laugh at the 'defenceless' women who would rather fight the world alone and earn their own livelihood, than enter into loveless marriages! The quaintest part of the letter is the bit about Aunt Emily. Roxmouth must really think me a perfect idiot if he dreams that I would accept such a story as that she was 'surprised and disturbed' at receiving the box of peacock's feathers. Aunt Emily was never 'surprised' or 'disturbed' at anything in her life, I am sure! When poor Uncle Fred died, she pressed her handkerchief to her eyes for five minutes, and then sat down at her desk to write her orders for mourning. And when I spoke my mind to her about Roxmouth, she only smiled and told me not to excite myself. Then when I said I had determined to leave her altogether and go back to my own home to live, she took it quite easily, and merely stated she would have to alter her will. I assured her I hoped she would do so at once, as I had no wish to benefit by her death. Then she didn't speak to me for several days, and I came away quietly without bidding her good-bye. And here I am,—and here I mean to stay!"
She laughed a little, and moving to the open window, looked out on the quiet beauty of the landscape. "Yes!—I too will become a laughing-stock of the clubs;—and even I may attain the distinction of being accepted as a 'joke by the comie press'! I will be an 'independent and defenceless female,' and see how I get on! In any case I'd rather be defenceless than have Roxmouth as a defender. And I shall not be alone here, now that Cicely is coming. Besides, I have two men friends in the village,—at least, I think I have! I'm sure of one,—old Josey Letherbarrow!" The smile lingered on her lips, as she still looked out on the lawn and terrace, shadowed by the evening dusk, and sweet with the cool perfume of the rising dew. "And the other,—if he should turn out as agreeable as he seemed this morning,—why, he is a tower of strength so far as respectability is concerned! What better protection can an 'independent and defenceless female' have than the minister of the parish? I can go to him for a character, ask him for a reference, throw myself and my troubles upon him as upon a rock, and make him answer for me as an honest and well-intentioned parishioner! And I believe he would 'speak up' for me, as the poor folks say,—yes, my Lord Roxmouth!—I believe he would,—and if he did, I'm certain he would speak straight, and not whisper a few small poisonous lies round the corner! For I think"—and here the train of her reflections wandered away from her aunt and her lordly wooer altogether, "yes,—I think Mr. Walden is a good man! I was not quite sure about him when I first met him,—I thought his eyes seemed deceitful,—so many parsons' eyes are!—but I looked well into them to-day,—and they're not the usual eyes of a parson at all,—they're just the eyes of a British sailor who has watched rough seas all his life,—and such eyes are always true!"
XV
On the following Monday afternoon Cicely Bourne, to whom Walden had so successfully telegraphed Maryllia's commands, arrived. She was rather an odd-looking young person. Her long thin legs were much too long for the shortness of her black cashmere frock, which was made 'en demoiselle,' after the fashion adhered to in French convents, where girls are compelled to look as ugly as possible, in order that they may eschew the sin of personal vanity,—her hair, of a rich raven black, was plaited in a stiff thick braid resembling a Chinese pigtail, and was fastened at the end with a bow of ribbon,—and a pair of wonderfully brilliant dark eyes flashed under her arching brows, suggesting something weird and witchlike in their roving glances, and giving an almost uncanny expression to her small, sallow face. But she was full of the most exuberant vitality,—she sparkled all over with it and seemed to exhale it in the mere act of breathing. Brimful of delight at the prospect of spending the whole summer with her friend and patroness, to whom she owed everything, and whom she adored with passionate admiration and gratitude, she dashed into the old-world silence and solitude of Abbot's Manor like a wild wave of the sea, crested with sunshine and bubbling over with ripples of mirth. Her incessant chatter and laughter awoke the long- hushed echoes of the ancient house to responsive gaiety,—and every pale lingering shadow of dullness or loneliness fled away from the exhilarating effect of her presence, which acted at once as a stimulant and charm to Maryllia, who welcomed her arrival with affectionate enthusiasm.
"But oh, my dear!" she exclaimed—"What a little school-guy they have made of you! You must have grown taller, surely, since November when I saw you last? Your frock is ever so much too short!"
"I don't think I've grown a bit,"—said Cicely, glancing down at her own legs disparagingly—"But my frock wore shabby at the bottom, and the nuns had a fresh hem turned up all round. That reduced its length by a couple of inches at least. I told them as modestly as I could that my ankles were too vastily exposed, but they said it didn't matter, as I was only a day-boarder."
Maryllia's eyebrows went up perplexedly.
"I don't see what that has to do with it,"—she said—"Would you have preferred to live in the Convent altogether, dear?"
"Grand merci!" and Cicely made an expressive grimace—"Not I! I should not have had half as many lessons from Gigue, and I should never have been able to write to you without the Mere Superieure spying into my letters. That's why none of the girls are allowed to have sealing wax, because all their letters are ungummed over a basin of hot water and read before going to post. Discipline, discipline! Torquemada's Inquisition was nothing to it! Of course I had to tell the Mere Superieure that you had sent for me, and that I should be away all summer. She asked heaps of questions, but she got nothing out of me, so of course she wrote to your aunt. But that doesn't matter, does it?"
"Not in the least,"—answered Maryllia, decisively,—"My aunt has nothing whatever to do with me now, nor I with her. I am my own mistress."
"And it becomes you amazingly!" declared Cicely—"I never saw you looking prettier! You are just the sweetest thing that ever fell out of heaven in human shape! Oh, Maryllia, what a lovely, lovely place this is! And is it all yours?—your very, very own?"
"My very, very own!" and Maryllia, in replying to the question, felt a thrill of legitimate pride in the beautiful old Tudor house of her ancestors,—"I wish I had never been taken away from it! The more I see of it, the more I feel I ought not to have left it so long."
"It is real home, sweet home!" said Cicely, and her great eyes grew suddenly sad and wistful, as she slipped a caressing arm round her friend's waist—"How grateful I am to you for asking me to come and stay in it! Because, after all, I am only a poor little peasant,— with a musical faculty!"
Maryllia kissed her affectionately.
"You are a genius, my dear!" she said—"There's is no higher supremacy. What does Gigue say of you now?"
"Gigue is satisfied, I think. But I don't really know. He says I'm too precocious—that my voice is a woman's before I'm a girl. It's abnormal—and I'm abnormal too. I know I am,—and I know it's horrid—but I can't help it! Whers'a the piano?"
"There isn't one in the house," said Maryllia, smiling; "Abbot's Manor has always lived about a hundred and fifty years behind the times. But I've sent for a boudoir grand—it will be here this week. Meanwhile, won't this do?" and she pointed to a quaint little instrument occupying a recess near the window—"It's a spinet of Charles the Second's period—-"
"Delightful!" cried Cicely, ecstatically—"There's nothing sweeter in the whole world to sing to!"
Opening the painted lid with the greatest tenderness and care, she passed her hands lightly over the spinet's worn and yellow ivory keys and evoked a faint fairy-like tinkling.
"Listen! Isn't it like the wandering voice of some little ghost of the past trying to speak to us?" she said—"And in such sweet tune, too! Poor little ghost! Shall I sing to you? Shall I tell you that we have a sympathy in common with you, even though you are so old and so far, far away!"
Her lips parted, and a pure note, crystal clear, and of such silvery softness as to seem more supernatural than human, floated upward on the silence. Maryllia caught her breath, and listened with a quickly beating heart,—she knew that the voice of this child whom she had rescued from a life of misery, was a world's marvel.
"Le douce printemps fait naitre,—
Autant d'amours que de fleurs;
Tremblez, tremblez, jeunes coeurs!
Des qu'il commence a paraitre
Il faut cesser les froideurs."
Here with a sudden brilliant roulade the singer ran up the scale to the C in alt, and there paused with a trill as delicious and full as the warble of a nightingale.
"Mais ce qu'il a de douceurs
Vous coutera cher peut-etre!
Tremblez, tremblez jeunes coeurs,
Le douce printemps fait naitre,
Autant d'amours que de fleurs!"
She ceased. The air, broken into delicate vibrations, carried the lovely sounds rhythmically outward, onward and into unechoing distance.
She turned and looked at Maryllia—then smiled.
"I see you are pleased,"—she said.
"Pleased! Cicely, I don't believe anyone was ever born into the world to sing as you sing!"
Cicely looked quaintly meditative.
"Well, I don't know about that! You see there have been several millions of folks born into the world, and there may have been just one naturally created singer among them!" She laughed, and touched a chord on the spinet. "The old French song exactly suits this old French instrument. I see it is an ancient thing of Paris. Gigue says I have improved—but he will never admit much, as you know. He has forbidden me to touch the C in alt, and I did it just now. I cannot help it sometimes—it comes so easy. But you must scold me, Maryllia darling, when you hear me taking it,—I don't want to strain the vocal cords, and I always forget I'm only fourteen; I feel—oh! ever so much older!—ages old, in fact!" She sighed, and stretched her arms up above her head. "What a perfect room this is to sing in! What a perfect house!—and what a perfect angel you are to have me with you!"
Her eyes filled with sudden tears of emotion, but she quickly blinked them away.
"Et ce cher Roxmouth?" she queried, suddenly, glancing appreciatively at the rippling gold-brown lights and shades of her friend's hair, the delicate hues of her complexion, and the grace of her form—"Has he been to see you in this idyllic retreat?"
Maryllia gave a slight gesture of wearied impatience.
"Certainly not! How can you ask such a question, Cicely! I left my aunt on purpose to get rid of him once and for all. And he knows it;—yet he has written to me every two days regularly since I came here!"
"Helas!—ce cher Roxmouth!" murmured Cicely, with a languid gesture imitative of the 'society manner' of Mrs. Fred Vancourt,—"Parfait gentilhomme au bout des ongles!"
Maryllia laughed.
"Yes,—Aunt Emily all over!" she said—"How tired I am of that phrase! She knows as well as anybody that Roxmouth, for all his airs of aristocratic propriety, is a social villain of the lowest type of modern decadence, yet she would rather see me married to him than to any other man she has ever met. And why? Simply because he will be a Duke! She would like to say to all her acquaintances—'My niece is a Duchess.' She would feel a certain fantastic satisfaction in thinking that her millions were being used to build up the decayed fortunes of an English nobleman's family, as well as to 'restore' Roxmouth Castle, which is in a bad state of repair. And she would sacrifice my heart and soul and life to such trumpery ambitions as these!"
"Trumpery ambitions!" echoed Cicely—"My dear, they are ambitions for which nearly all women are willing to scramble, fight and die! To be a Duchess! To dwell in an ancient 'restored' castle of once proud English nobles! Saint Moses! Who wouldn't sacrifice such vague matters as heart, life and soul for the glory of being called 'Your Grace' by obsequious footmen! My unconventional Maryllia! You are setting yourself in rank, heretical opposition to the conventionalities of society, and won't all the little conventional minds hate you for it!"
"It doesn't matter if they do,"—rejoined Maryllia—"I have never been loved since my father's death,—so I don't mind being hated."
"I love you!" said Cicely, with swift ardour—"Don't say you have never been loved!"
Maryllia caught her hand tenderly and kissed it.
"I was not thinking of you, dear!" she said—"Forgive me! I was thinking of men. They have admired me and flirted with me,—many of them have wanted to marry me, in order to get hold of Aunt Emily's fortune with me,—but none of them have ever loved me. Cicely, Cicely, I want to be loved!"
"So do I!" said Cicely, with answering light in her eyes—"But I don't see how it's going to be done in my case! You may possibly get your wish, but I!—why, my dear, I see myself in futur-oe as a 'prima donna assoluta' perhaps, with several painted and padded bassi and tenori making sham love to me in opera till I get perfectly sick of cuore and amore, and cry out for something else by way of a change! I am quite positive that love,—love such as we read of in poetry and romance, doesn't really exist! And I have another fixed opinion—which is, that the people who write most about it have never felt it. One always expresses best, even in a song, the emotions one has never experienced."
Maryllia looked at her in a little wonder.
"Do you really think that?"
"I do! It's not one of Gigue's sayings, though I know I often echo
Gigue!"
She went to the window. "How lovely the garden is! Come out on the lawn, Maryllia, and let us talk!" And as they sauntered across the grass together with arms round each other's waists, she chattered on—"People who write books and music are generally lonely,—and they write best about love because they need it. They fancy it must be much better than it is. But, after all, the grandest things go unloved. Look at the sky, how clear it is and pure. Is it loved by any other sky that we know of? And the sun up there, all alone in its splendour,—I wonder if any other sun loves it? There are so many lonely things in the universe! And it seems to me that the loneliest are always the loveliest and grandest. It is only stupid ephemera that are gregarious. Worms crawl along in masses,—mites swarm in a cheese—flies stick in crowds on jam—and brainless people shut themselves up all together within the walls of a city. I'd rather be an eagle than a sparrow,—a star than one of a thousand bonfire sparks,—and as a mere woman, I would rather ten thousand times live a solitary life by myself till I die, than be married to a rascal or a fool!"
"Exactly my sentiments,"—said Maryllia—"Only you put them more poetically than I can. Do you know, Cicely, you talk very oddly sometimes?—very much in advance of your age, I mean?"
"Do I?" And Cicely's tone expressed a mingling of surprise and penitence—"I didn't know it. But I suppose I really can't help it, Maryllia! I was a very miserable child—and miserable children age rapidly. Perhaps I shall get younger as I grow older! You must remember that at eleven years old I was scrubbing floors like any charwoman in the Convent for two centimes an hour. I gained a lot of worldly wisdom that way by listening to the talk of the nuns, which is quite as spiteful and scandalous as anything one hears in outside 'wicked' society. Then I got into the Quartier Latin set with Gigue, who picked me up because he heard me singing in the street,—and altogether my experiences of life haven't been toys and bonbons. I know I THINK 'old'—and I'm sure I feel old!"
"Not when you play or sing," suggested Maryllia.
"No—not then—never then! Then, all the youth of the world seems to rush into me,—it tingles in my fingers, and throbs in my throat! I feel as if I could reach heaven with sound!—yes! I feel that I could sing to God Himself, if He would only listen!"
Her eyes glowed with passion,—the plainness of her features was transformed into momentary beauty. Maryllia was silent. She knew that the aspirations of genius pent up in this elf-like girl were almost too strong for her, and that the very excitability and sensitiveness of her nature were such as to need the greatest care and tenderness in training and controlling. Tactfully she changed the conversation to ordinary subjects, and in a little while Cicely had learned all that Maryllia herself knew about the village of St. Rest and its inhabitants. She was considerably interested in the story of the rescue of the 'Five Sister' beeches, and asked with a touch of anxiety, what had become of the dismissed agent, Oliver Leach?
"Oh, he is still in the neighbourhood,"—said Maryllia, indifferently—"He works for Sir Morton Pippitt, and I believe has found a home at Badsworth. His accounts are not yet all handed in to my solicitors. But I have a new agent now,—a Mr. Stanways—he is just married to quite a nice young woman,—and he has already begun work. Mr. Stanways has splendid recommendations—so that will be all right."
"No doubt—so far as Mr. Stanways himself is concerned it will be all right,"—rejoined Cicely, musingly—"But if, as you say, the man Oliver Leach cursed you, it isn't pleasant to think he is hanging around here."
"He isn't hanging round anywhere,"—declared Maryllia, easily—"He is out of this beat altogether. He cursed me certainly,—but he was in a temper,—and I should say that curses come naturally to him. But, as the clergyman was present at the time, the curse couldn't take any effect." She laughed. "You know Satan always runs away from the Church."
"Who is the clergyman, and what is he like?" asked Cicely.
"He's not at all disagreeable"—answered Maryllia, carelessly— "Rather stiff perhaps and old-fashioned,—but he seems to be a great favourite with all his parishioners. His name is John Walden. He has restored the church here, quite at his own expense, and according to the early original design. It is really quite wonderful. When I was a child here, I only remember it as a ruin, but now people come from far and near to see it. It will please you immensely."
"But you don't go to it," observed Cicely, suggestively.
"No. I haven't attended a service there as yet. But I don't say I never will attend one. That will depend on circumstances."
"I remember you always hated parsons," said Cicely, thoughtfully.
Maryllia laughed.
"Yes, I always did!"
"And you always will, I suppose?"
"Well, I expect I shall have to tolerate Mr. Walden,"—Maryllia answered lightly,—"Because he's really my nearest neighbour. But he's not so bad as most of his class."
"I daresay he's a better type of man than Lord Roxmouth," said Cicely. "By the way, Maryllia, that highly distinguished nobleman has spread about a report that you are 'peculiar,' simply because you won't marry him? The very nuns at the Convent have heard this, and it does make me so angry! For when people get hold of the word 'peculiar,' it is made to mean several things."
"I know!" and for a moment Maryllia's fair brows clouded with a shadow of perplexity and annoyance—"It is a word that may pass for madness, badness, or any form of social undesirability. But I don't mind! I'm quite aware that Roxmouth, if he cannot marry me, will slander me. It's a way some modern men have of covering their own rejection and defeat. The woman in question is branded through the 'smart set' as 'peculiar,' 'difficult,' 'impossible to deal with'— oh yes!—I know it all! But I'm prepared for it—and just to forestall Roxmouth a little, I'm going to have a few people down here by way of witnesses to my '-peculiar' mode of life. Then they can go back to London and talk."
"They can, and they will,—you may be sure of that!" said Cicely, satirically—"Is this a 'dressed' county, Maryllia?"
Maryllia gave vent to a peal of laughter.
"I should say not,—but I really don't know!" she replied,—"People have called on me, but I have not, as yet, returned their calls. We'll do that in this coming week. The only person I have seen, who poses as a 'county' lady, is an elderly spinster named Tabitha Pippitt, only daughter of Sir Morton Pippitt, who is a colonial manufacturer, and, therefore, not actually in the 'county' at all. Miss Tabitha was certainly not 'dressed,' she was merely covered."
"That's the very height of propriety!" declared Cicely—"For, after all, covering alone is necessary. 'Dress,' in the full sense of the word, implies vanity and all its attendant sins. Gigue says you can always pick out a very dull, respectable woman by the hidecmsness of her clothes. I expect Miss Tabitha is dull."
"She is—most unquestionably! But I'm afraid she is only a reflex of country life generally, Cicely. Country life IS dull,—especially in England."
"Then why do you go in for it?" queried Cicely, arching her black brows perplexedly.
"Simply to escape something even duller,"—laughed Maryllia—"London society and its 'Souls'!"
Cicely laughed too, and shrugged her shoulders expressively. She understood all that was implied. And with her whole heart she rejoiced that her friend whom she loved with an almost passionate adoration and gratitude, had voluntarily turned her back on the 'Smart Set,' and so, of her own accord, instead of through her godfathers and godmothers, had 'renounced the devil and all his works, the pomps and vanity of this wicked world and all the sinful lusts of the flesh.'
Within a very few days St. Rest became aware of Cicely's quaint personality, for she soon succeeded in making herself familiar with everybody in the place. She had a knack of winning friends. She visited old Josey Letherbarrow, and made him laugh till he nearly choked, so that Maryllia had to pat him vigorously on the back to enable him to recover his breath—she cut jokes with Mrs. Tapple,— chatted with the sexton, Adam Frost, and scattered 'sweeties' galore among all his children,—and she furthermore startled the village choir at practice by suddenly flitting into the church and asking Miss Eden, the schoolmistress, to allow her to play the organ accompaniment, and on Miss Eden's consenting to this proposition, she played in such a fashion that the church seemed filled with musical thunder and the songs of angels,—and the village choristers, both girls and boys, became awestruck and nervous, and huddled themselves together in a silent group, afraid to open their mouths lest a false note should escape, and spoil the splendour of the wonderful harmony that so mysteriously charmed their souls. And then, calming the passion of the music down, she turned with gentlest courtesy to Miss Eden, and asked: 'What were the children going to sing?'—whereupon, being told that it waft a hymn called 'The Lord is my Shepherd,' she so very sweetly entreated them to sing it with her, that none of them could refuse. And she led them all with wondrous care and patience, giving to the very simple tune, a tender and noble pathos such as they had never heard before, yet which they unconsciously absorbed into their own singing, as they lifted up their youthful voices in tremulous unison.
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,
He maketh me down to lie,
In pleasant fields where the lilies grow.
And the river runneth by.
"The Lord is my Shepherd; He feedeth me
In the depth of a desert land,
And lest I should in the darkness slip,
He holdeth me by the hand.
"The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want,
My mind on Him is stayed,
And though through the Valley of Death I walk,
I shall not be afraid.
"The Lord is my Shepherd; O Shepherd sweet,
Leave me not here to stray;
But guide me safe to Thy heavenly fold,
And keep me there, I pray!"
John Walden, passing through the churchyard just at this time, heard the rhythmic rise and fall of the quaint old melody with a strange thrill at his heart. He had listened to the self-same hymn over and over again,—every year the school-children re-studied and re-sang it,—but there was something altogether new in its harmony this time,—something appealing and pathetic which struck to the inmost core of his sensitive nature. Noiselessly, he entered the church, and for a moment or two stood unobserved, watching the little scene before him. Cicely was at the organ, and her hands still rested on the keys, but she was speaking to the members of the choir.
"That is very nicely done,"—she said, encouragingly—"But you must try and keep more steadily together in tune, must they not, Miss Eden?"—and she turned to the schoolmistress at her side, who, with a smile, agreed. "You"—and she touched pretty Susie Prescott on the arm,—"You sing delightfully! It is a little voice—but so very sweet!"
Susie blushed deeply and curtsied. It had got about in the village that Miss Vancourt's young friend from Paris was a musical 'prodigy,' and praise from her was something to be remembered.
"Now listen!" went on Cicely—"I'm not going to sing full voice, because I'm not allowed to yet,—but this is how that hymn should go!" And her pure tones floated forth pianissimo, with slow and tender solemnity:—
"The Lord is my Shepherd; O Shepherd sweet,
Leave me not here to stray;
But guide me safe to Thy heavenly fold,
And keep me there, I pray!
Amen!"
Silence followed. The children stood wonder-struck, and Miss Eden's eyes filled with emotional tears.
"How beautiful!" she murmured—"How very beautiful!"
Cicely rose from the organ-stool, and turned round.
"Here is Mr. Walden," she said, in quite a matter-of-fact way as she perceived him. "It IS Mr. Walden, isn't it?"
"Yes, it is," replied John, advancing with a smile—"And very fortunate Mr. Walden is to have heard such lovely singing!"
"Oh, that's not lovely," said Cicely, carelessly—"I was only humming the last verse, just to put the expression right. I thought it must be you!—though, of course, as I have not been introduced to you, I couldn't be sure! Maryllia—Miss Vancourt—has told me all about you,—and I know she has written twice since I've been here to ask you up to the Manor—once to tea, and once to dinner. Why haven't you come?" Walden was slightly embarrassed by this point- blank question. It was perfectly true he had received two invitations from the lady of the Manor, and had refused both. Why he had refused, he could not himself have told.
"I suppose you didn't want to meet me!" said Cicely, showing all her white teeth in a flashing smile—"But there's no escape for it, you see,—here I am! I'm not such a rascal as I look, though! I've been playing accompaniments for the children!—go on singing, please!"— and she addressed Miss Eden and Susie Prescott, who collecting their straying thoughts, began hesitatingly to resume the interrupted practice—"It's a nice little organ—very full and sweet. The church is perfectly exquisite! I come in every day to look at it except Sundays."
"Why except Sundays?" asked Walden, amused.
She gave him a quaint side-glance.
"I'll tell you some day,—not now!"—she answered—"This is not the fitting time or place." She moved to the altar rails, and hung over them, looking at the alabaster sarcophagus "This thing has a perfect fascination for me!" she went on—"I can't bear not to know whose bones are inside! I wonder you haven't opened it."
"It was not meant to be opened by those who closed it," said Walden, quietly.
Cicely drooped her gipsy-bright eyes.
"That's one for me!" she thought—"He's just like what Maryllia says he is,—very certain of his own mind, and not likely to move out of his own way."
"I think," pursued Walden—"if you knew that someone very dear to you had been laid in that sarcophagus 'to eternal rest,' you would resent any disturbance of even the mere dust of what was once life,- -would you not?"
"I might;" said Cicely dubiously—"But I have never had any 'someone very dear to me' except Maryllia Vancourt. And if she died, I should die too!"
John was silent, but he looked at her with increased interest and kindliness.
They walked out of the church together, and once in the open air, he became politely conventional.
"And how is Miss Vancourt?" he enquired.
"She is very well indeed,"—replied Cicely—"But tremendously busy just now with no end of household matters. The new agent, Mr. Stanways, is going over every yard of the Abbot's Manor property with her, and she is making any quantity of new rules. All the tenants' rents are to be reduced, for one thing—I know THAT. Then there are a lot of London people coming down to stay—big house- parties in relays,—I've helped write all the invitations. We shall be simply crowded at the end of June and all July. We mean to be very gay!"
"And you will like that, of course?" queried Walden, indulgently, while conscious of a little sense of hurt and annoyance, though he knew not why.
"Naturally!" and Cicely shrugged her shoulders carelessly, "Doesn't the Bible say 'the laughter of fools is like the crackling of thorns under a pot'? I love to set the pot down and hear the thorns crackle!"
What a weird girl she was! He looked at her in mute amaze, and she smiled.
"Do come up to tea some afternoon!" she said coaxingly, "We should be so glad to see you! I know Maryllia would like it—she thinks you are rather rude, you know! I'm to be here all the summer, but I'll try to be good and not say things to vex you. And as you're a clergyman, I can tell you all about myself—like the confessional secrets! And when you hear some of my experiences, you won't wonder a bit at my queer ways. I can't be like other girls of my age,—I really CAN'T!—my life won't let me!"
Her tone was one of light banter, but her eyes were wistful and pathetic. Walden was conscious of a sudden sympathy with this wild little soul of song, and taking her hand, pressed it kindly.
"Wait till I see some of your 'queer ways,' as you call them!" he said, with a genial laugh—"I know you sing very beautifully-is that a 'queer way'?"
Cicely shook her mop-like tresses of hair back over her shoulders with a careless gesture.
"It is—to people who can't do it!" she said. "Surely you know that? For example, if you preach very well—I don't know that you do, because I've never heard you, but Maryllia's housekeeper, Mrs. Spruce, says you've got 'a mouth of angels'—she does really!" and, as Walden laughed, she laughed with him—"Well, as I say, if you preach very well with a mouth of angels, there must be several parsons round here who haven't got that mouth, and who say of you, of course metaphorically: 'He hath a devil'! Isn't it so?"
John hesitated.
"No doubt opinions differ,"—-he began.
"Oh, of course!—you can get out of it that way, if you like!" she retorted, gaily—"You won't say uncharitable things of the rest of your brethren if you can help it, but you know—yes, you must know that parsons are as jealous of each other and as nasty to each other as actors, singers, writers, or any other 'professional' persons in the world. In fact, I believe if you were to set two spiteful clergymen nagging at each other, they'd beat any two 'leading ladies' on the operatic stage, for right-down malice and meanness!"
"The conversation is growing quite personal!" said Walden, a broad smile lighting up his fine soft eyes—"Shall we finish it at the Manor when I come up to tea?"
"But are you really coming?" queried Cicely—"And when?"
"Suppose I say this afternoon—-" he began. Cicely clapped her hands.
"Good! I'll scamper home and tell Maryllia! I'll say I have met you, and that I've been as impudent as I possibly could be to you—-"
"No, don't say that!" laughed Walden—"Say that I have found you to be a very delightful and original young lady—-"
"I'm not a young lady,"—said Cicely, decisively—"I was born a peasant on the sea-coast of Cornwall—and I'm glad of it. A 'young lady' nowadays means a milliner's apprentice or a draper's model. I am neither. I am just a girl—and hope, if I live, to be a woman. I'll take my own ideas of a suitable message from you to Maryllia— don't YOU bother!" And she nodded sagaciously. "I won't make ructions, I promise! Come about five!"
She waved her hand and ran off, leaving Walden in a mood between perplexity and amusement. She was certainly an 'original,' and he hardly knew what to make of her. There was something 'uncanny' and goblin-like in her appearance, and yet her sallow face had a certain charm when the smile illumined it, and the light of aspiration burned up in the large wild eyes. In any case, she had persuaded him in a moment, as it were, and almost involuntarily, to take tea at the Manor that afternoon. Why he had consented to do what he had hitherto refused, he could not imagine. Cicely's remark that Miss Vancourt thought him 'rather rude,' worried him a little.
"Perhaps I have been rude"—he reflected, uneasily—"But I am not a society man;—I'm altogether out of my element in the company of ladies—and it seemed so much better that I should avoid being drawn into any intimacy with persons who are not likely to have anything in common with me—but of course I ought to be civil—in fact, I suppose I ought to be neighbourly—-"
Here a sudden irritation against the nature of his own thoughts disturbed him. He was not arguing fairly with himself, and he knew it. He was perfectly aware that ever since the day of their meeting in the village post-office, he had wished to see Miss Vancourt again. He had hoped she might pass the gate of the rectory, or perhaps even look into his garden for a moment,—but his expectation had not been realised. He had heard of Cicely Bourne's arrival,—and he had received two charmingly-worded notes from Maryllia, inviting him to the Manor,—which invitations, as has already been stated, he had, with briefest courtesy, declined. Now, why,—if he indeed wished to see her again,—had he deliberately refused the opportunities given him of doing so? He could not answer this at all satisfactorily to his own mind, and he was considerably annoyed with himself to be forced to admit the existence of certain portions of his mental composition which were apparently not to be probed by logic, or measured by mathematics.
"Well, at any rate, as I have promised the little singer, I can go up to tea just this once, and have done with it," he decided—"I shall then be exonerated from 'rudeness'—and I can explain to Miss Vancourt—quite kindly and courteously of course—that I am not a visiting man,—that my habits are rather those of a recluse, and then—for the future—she will understand."
Cicely Bourne, meanwhile, on her way back to the Manor through the fields, paused many times to gather cowslips, which were blooming by thousands in the grass at her feet, and as she recklessly pulled up dozens of the pale-green stems, weighted with their nodding golden honey-bells, she thought a good deal about John Walden.
"Maryllia never told me he was handsome,"—she mused; "But he is! I wonder why she didn't mention it? So odd of her,—because really there are very few good-looking men anywhere, and one in the shape of a parson is a positive rarity and ought to go on exhibition! He's clever too—and—obstinate? Yes, I should say he was obstinate! But he has kind eyes. And he isn't married. What a comfort THAT is! Parsons are uninteresting enough in themselves as a rule, but their wives are the last possibility in the way of dullness. Oh, that honeysuckle!" And she sprang over the grass to the corner of a hedge where a long trail of the exquisitely-scented flower hung temptingly, as it seemed within reach, but when she approached it, she found it just too high above her to be plucked from the bough where its tendrils twined. Looking up at it, she carolled softly:
"O Fortune capricieuse!
Comme tu es cruelle!
Pourquoi moques-tu ton esclave
Qui sert un destin immortel!"
Here a sudden rustle in the leaves on the other side of the hedge startled her, and a curious-looking human head adorned profusely with somewhat disordered locks of red hair perked up enquiringly. Cicely jumped back with an exclamation.
"Saint Moses! What is it?"
"It is me! Merely me!" and Sir Morton Pippitt's quondam guest, Mr. Julian Adderley, rose to his full lanky height, and turned his flaccid face of more or less comic melancholy upon her—"Pray do not be alarmed! I have been reposing under the trees,—and I was, or so I imagine, in a brief slumber, when some dulcet warblings as of a nightingale awoke me"—here, stooping to the ground for his hat, he secured it, and waved it expressively—"and I have, I fear, created some dismay in the mind of the interesting young person who, if I mistake not, is a friend of Miss Vancourt?"
Cicely surveyed him with considerable amusement.
"Never mind who I am!" she said, coolly—"Tell me who YOU are! My faith!—you are as rough all over as a bear! What have you been doing to yourself? Your clothes are covered with leaves!"
"Even as a Babe in the Wood!" responded Adderley, "Yes!—it is so!" and he began to pick off delicately the various burs and scraps of forest debris which had collected and clung to his tweed suit during his open-air siesta—"To speak truly, I am a trespasser in these domains,—they are the Manor woods, I know,—forbidden precincts, and possibly guarded by spring-guns. But I heeded not the board which speaks of prosecution. I came to gather bluebells,—innocent bluebells!—merely that and no more, to adorn my humble cot,—I have a cot not far from here. And as for my identity, my name is Adderley—Julian Adderley—a poor scribbler of rhymes—a votre service!"
He waved his hat with a grand flourish again, and smiled.
"Oh I know!" said Cicely—"Maryllia has spoken of you—you've taken a cottage here for the summer. Pick that bit of honeysuckle for me, will you?—that long trail just hanging over you!"
"With pleasure!" and he gathered the coveted spray and handed it to her.
"Thanks!" and she smiled appreciatively as she took it. "How did you get into that wood? Did you jump the hedge?"
"I did!" replied Adderley.
"Could you jump it again?"
"Most assuredly!"
"Then do it!"
Whereupon Adderley clapped his hat on his head, and resting a hand firmly on one of the rough posts which supported the close green barrier between them, vaulted lightly over it and stood beside her.
"Not badly done,"—said Cicely, eyeing him quizzically—"for 'a poor scribbler of rhymes' as you call yourself. Most men who moon about and write verse are too drunken, and vicious to even see a hedge,— much less jump over it."
"Oh, say not so!" exclaimed Adderley—"You are too young to pass judgment on the gods!"
"The gods!" exclaimed Cicely—"Whatever are you talking about? The gods of Greece? They were an awful lot—perfectly awful! They wouldn't have been admitted EVEN into modern society, and that's bad enough. I don't think the worst woman that ever dined at a Paris restaurant with an English Cabinet Minister would have spoken to Venus, par exemple. I'm sure she wouldn't. She'd have drawn the line there."
"Gracious Heavens!" and Adderley stared in wonderment at his companion, first up, then down,—at her wild hair, now loosened from its convent form of pigtail, and scarcely restrained by the big sun- hat which was tied on anyhow,—at her great dark eyes,—at her thin angular figure and long scraggy legs,—legs which were still somewhat too visible, though since her arrival at Abbot's Manor Maryllia had made some thoughtful alterations in the dress of her musical protegee which had considerably improved her appearance—"Is it possible to hear such things—-"
"Why, of course it is, as you've got ears and HAVE heard them!" said Cicely, with a laugh—"Don't ask 'is it possible' to do a thing when you've done it! That's not logical,—and men do pride themselves on their logic, though I could never find out why. Do you like cowslips?" And she thrust the great bunch she had gathered up against his nose—"There's a wordless poem for you!"
Inhaling the fresh fine odour of the field blossoms, he still looked at her in amazement, she meeting his gaze without the least touch of embarrassment.
"You can walk home with me, if you like!"—she observed condescendingly—"I won't promise to ask you into the Manor, because perhaps Maryllia won't want you, and I daresay she won't approve of my picking up a young man in the woods. But it's rather fun to talk to a poet,—I've never met one before. They don't come out in Paris. They live in holes and corners, drinking absinthe to keep off hunger."
"Alas, that is so!" and Adderley began to keep pace with the thin black-stockinged legs that were already starting off through the long grass and flowers—"The arts are at a discount nowadays. Poetry is the last thing people want to read."
"Then why do you write it?" and Cicely turned a sharp glance of enquiry upon him—"What's the good?"
"There you offer me a problem Miss—er—Miss—-"
"Bourne,"—finished Cicely—"Don't fight with my name—it's quite easy—though I don't know how I got it. I ought to have been a Tre or a Pol-I was born in Cornwall. Never mind that,—go on with the 'problem.'"
"True—go on with the problem,"—said Julian vaguely, taking off his hat and raking his hair with his fingers as he was wont to do when at all puzzled—"The problem is—'why do I write poetry if nobody wants to read it'—and 'what's the good'? Now, in the first place, I will reply that I am not sure I write 'poetry.' I try to express my identity in rhythm and rhyme—but after all, that expression of myself may be prose, and wholly without interest to the majority. You see? I put it to you quite plainly. Then as to 'what's the good?'—I would argue 'what's the bad?' So far, I live quite harmlessly. From the unexpected demise of an uncle whom I never saw, I have a life-income of sixty pounds a year. I am happy on that—I desire no more than that. On that I seek to evolve myself into SOMETHING—from a nonentity into shape and substance—and if, as is quite possible, there can be no 'good,' there may be a certain less of 'bad' than might otherwise chance to me. What think you?"
Cicely surveyed him scrutinisingly.
"I'm not at all sure about that"—she said—"Poets have all been doubtful specimens of humanity at their best. You see their lives are entirely occupied in writing what isn't true—and of course it tells' on them in the long run. They deceive others first, and then they deceive themselves, though in their fits of 'inspiration' as they call it, they may, while weaving a thousand lies, accidentally hit on one truth. But the lies chiefly predominate. Dante, for example, was a perfectly brazen liar. He DIDN'T go to Hell, or Purgatory, or Paradise—and he DIDN'T bother himself about Beatrice at all. He married someone else and had a family. Nothing could be more commonplace. He invented his Inferno in order to put his enemies there, all roasting, boiling, baking or freezing. It was pure personal spite—and it is the very force of his vindictiveness that makes the Inferno the best part of hid epic. The portraits of Dante alone are enough to show you the sort of man he was. WHAT a creature to meet in a dark lane at midnight!"
Here she made a grimace, drawing her mouth down into the elongated frown of the famous Florentine, with such an irresistibly comic effect that Adderley gave way to a peal of hearty, almost boyish laughter.
"That's right!" said Cicely approvingly—"That's YOU, you know! It's natural to laugh at your age—you're only about six or seven-and- twenty, aren't you?"
"I shall be twenty-seven in August,"—he said with a swift return to solemnity—"That is, as you will admit, getting on towards thirty."
"Oh, nonsense! Everybody's getting on towards thirty, of course—or towards sixty, or towards a hundred. I shall be fifteen in October, but 'you will admit'"—here she mimicked his voice and accent—"that I am getting on towards a hundred. Some folks think I've turned that already, and that I'm entering my second century, I talk so 'old.' But my talk is nothing to what I feel—I feel—oh!" and she gave a kind of angular writhe to her whole figure—"like twenty Methusalehs in one girl!"
"You are an original!"—said Julian, nodding at her with an air of superior wisdom—"That's what you are!"
"Like you, Sir Moon-Calf"—said Cicely—"The word 'moon-calf,' you know, stands for poet—it means a human calf that grazes on the moon. Naturally the animal never gets fat,—nor will you; it always looks odd—and so will you; it never does anything useful,—nor will you; and it puts a kind of lunar crust over itself, under which crust it writes verses. When you break through, its crust you find something like a man, half-asleep—not knowing whether he's man or boy, and uncertain, whether to laugh or be serious till some girl pokes fun at him—and then—-"
"And then?"—laughed Adderley, entering vivaciously into her humour-
-"What next?"
"This, next!"—and Cicely pelted him full in the face with one of her velvety cowslip-bunches—'And this,—catch me if you can!"
Away she flew over the grass, with Adderley after her. Through tall buttercups and field daisies they raced each other like children,— startling astonished bees from repasts in clover-cups—and shaking butterflies away from their amours on the starwort and celandines. The private gate leading into Abbot's Manor garden stood open,— Cicely rushed in, and shut it against her pursuer who reached it almost at the same instant.
"Too bad!" he cried laughingly—"You mustn't keep me out! I'm bound to come inside!"
"Why?" demanded Cicely, breathless with her run, but looking all the better for the colour in her cheeks and the light in her eyes—"I don't see the line of argument at all. Your hair is simply dreadful! You look like Pan, heated in the pursuit of a coy nymph of Delphos. If you only wore skins and a pair of hoofs, the resemblance would be perfect!"
"My dear Cicely!" said a dulcet voice at this moment,—"Where HAVE you been all the morning! How do you do, Mr. Adderley? Won't you come in?"
Adderley took off his hat, as Maryllia came across to the gate from the umbrageous shadow of a knot of pine-trees, looking the embodiment of fresh daintiness, in a soft white gown trimmed with wonderfully knotted tufts of palest rose ribbon, and wearing an enchanting 'poke' straw hat with a careless knot of pink hyacinths tumbling against her lovely hair. She was a perfect picture 'after Romney,' and Adderley thought she knew it. But there he was wrong. Maryllia knew little and cared less about her personal appearance.
"Where have you been?" she repeated, taking Cicely round the waist— "You wild girl! Do you know it is lunch time? I had almost given you up. Spruce said you had gone into the village—but more than that she couldn't tell me."
"I did go to the village,"—said Cicely—"and I went into the church, and played the organ, and helped the children sing a hymn. And I met the parson, Mr. Walden, and had a talk with him. Then I started home across the fields, and found this man"—and she indicated Adderley with a careless nod of her head—"asleep in a wood. I almost promised him some lunch—I didn't QUITE—-"
"My dear Miss Vancourt,"—protested Adderley—"Pray do not think of such a thing!—I would not intrude upon you in this unceremonious way for the world!"
"Why not?" said Maryllia, smiling graciously—"It will be a pleasure if you will stay to luncheon with us. Cicely has carte blanche here you know—genius must have its way!"
"Of course it must!"—agreed Cicely—"If genius wants to etand on its head, it must be allowed to make that exhibition of itself lest it should explode. If genius asks the lame, halt, blind and idiotic into the ancestral halls of Abbot's Manor, then the lame, halt, blind and idiotic are bound to come. If genius summons the god Pan to pipe a roundelay, pipings there shall be! Shall there not, Mr. Pan Adderley?"
Her eyes danced with mirth and mischief, as they flashed from his face to Maryllia's. "Genius,"—she continued—"can even call forth a parson from the vasty deep if it chooses to do so,—Mr. Walden is coming to tea this afternoon."
"Indeed!" And Maryllia's sweet voice was a trifle cold. "Did you invite him, Cicely?"
"Yes. I told him that you thought it rather rude of him not to have come before—-"
"Oh Cicely!" said Maryllia reproachfully—"You should not have said that!"
"Why not? You did think him rude,—and so did I,—to refuse two kind invitations from you. Anyhow he seemed sorry, and said he'd make up for it this afternoon. He's really quite good-looking."
"Quite—quite!" agreed Julian Adderley—"I considered him exceptionally so when I first saw him in his own church, opposing a calm front to the intrusive pomposity and appalling ignorance of our venerable acquaintance, Sir Morton Pippitt. I decided that I had found a Man. So new!—so fresh! That is why I took a cottage for the summer close by, that I might be near the rare specimen!"
Maryllia laughed.
"Are you not a man yourself?" she said.
"Not altogether!" he admitted,—"I am but half-grown. I am a raw and impleasing fruit even to my own palate. John Walden is a ripe and mellow creature,—moreover, he seems still ripening in constant sunshine. I go every Sunday to hear him preach, because he reminds me of so much that I had forgotten."
Here they went into luncheon. Maryllia threw off her hat as she seated herself at the head of the table, ruffling her hair with the action into prettier waves of brown-gold. Her cheeks were softly flushed,—her blue eyes radiant.
"You are a better parishioner than I am, Mr. Adderley!"—she said— "I have not been to church once since I came home. I never go to church."
"Naturally! I quite understand! Few people of any education or intelligence can stand it nowadays," he replied—"The Christian myth is well-nigh exploded. Yet one cannot help having a certain sympathy and interest in men, who, like Mr. Walden, appear to still honestly believe in it."
"The Christian myth!" echoed Cicely—"My word! You do lay down the law! Where should we be without the 'myth' I wonder?"
"Pretty much where we are now,"—said Julian—"Two thousand years of the Christian dispensation leaves the world still pagan. Self- indulgence is still paramount. Wealth still governs both classes and masses. Politics are still corrupt. Trade still plays its old game of 'beggar my neighbour.' What would you! And in this day there is no restraining influence on the laxity of social morals. Literature is decadent,—likewise Painting;—Sculpture and Poetry are moribund. Man's inborn monkeyishness is obtaining the upper hand and bearing him back to his natural filth,—and the glimmerings of the Ideal as shown forth in a few examples of heroic and noble living are like the flash of the rainbow-arch spanning a storm-cloud,—beautiful, but alas!—evanescent."
"I'm afraid you are right"—said Maryllia, with a little sigh; "It is very sad and discouraging, but I fear very true."
"It's nothing of the kind!"—declared Cicely, with quick vehemence— "It's just absolute nonsense! It is! Ah, 'never shake thy gory locks at me,' Sir Moon-Calf!" and she made a little grimace across the table at Julian, who responded to it with a complacent smile—"You can talk, talk, talk—of course! every man that ever sat in clubs, smoking and drinking, can talk one's head off—but you've got to LIVE, as well as talk! What do you know about self-indulgence being 'paramount,' except in your own case, eh? Do you think at all of the thousands and thousands of poor creatures everywhere, who completely sacrifice their lives to the needs of others?"