Princess Puck

“Do come here for Christmas,” wrote Bella to Bill from Haylands about the middle of December. “You must come, if it is only for a week. It is nonsense for Polly to say she can’t spare you; she simply must. Theresa thinks that it will do you good. She won’t believe what Polly says about the way in which you have taken this breaking off with Gilchrist; she thinks you must be upset, and that to come here might do you good. I enclose a postal order for six shillings for the fare. Polly is sure to say you can’t afford it; Theresa and I can, and we want you to come.”

And in spite of Polly’s protestations and objections Bill went. Polly could not go; she had one lodger now and could not shut the house up. But seeing that he was only one, and one who did not require much waiting on, and seeing also that Bella and Theresa had paid Bill’s fare, there was no reason why she should not go. So Bill went to Wrugglesby, and Bella and Theresa, who had driven from Ashelton for some shopping, met her and brought her home.

Bella was glad Bill was coming, although, she reflected, if the girl was really as disturbed as Theresa imagined about her broken engagement she would be but poor company and not much relief from the dulness of Haylands. For some reason or other it had been dull there that autumn, at least on the days when Jack did not come. Theresa, who had always been quiet, was more quiet than ever now; she seemed to have aged during the past months, or else Bella, used to associating with the livelier if more unprincipled Polly, thought so. “Marriage does alter people,” thought Bella, and fell to speculating about herself and Jack. There really was very little to think about at Haylands, very little to talk about in all Ashelton. Even Miss Minchin, at the fortnightly working-parties, had nothing fresh to say, and so went untiringly over the nine days’ wonder of Gilchrist Harborough’s claim to Wood Hall.

Miss Minchin might not be tired of that, but Bella was, and by the beginning of December she had heard quite enough of that and most other subjects of Ashelton conversation. But about that time she and Theresa found a fresh subject in the letter Bill wrote to them after Gilchrist’s visit to London. She wrote by one post, and by the next Polly wrote a good two ounces of lamentation, indignation, and abuse, the last both of Theresa and her “ridiculous secrecy,” and also, in a far larger degree, of Bill and her obstinacy. Theresa was much perplexed; neither she nor Bella could understand how it had come about; there was no explanation, except that Bill had availed herself of their permission to change her mind, and that somehow seemed unlikely. Bella was inclined to blame Gilchrist, and cited several instances when his devotion had fallen short of Jack’s. Theresa, on the other hand, was for putting the change down to girlish caprice. She made a point of talking to Gilchrist on the subject, but without enlightening herself to any great extent. “Of course I could not cross-question him,” she wrote to Polly, and was naturally not aware of that lady’s wrathful exclamation,—“I know I could then!”

Although Theresa did not hear this, or any other of Polly’s remarks, she could guess their nature, and her invitation to Bill was given partly with a view of saving the girl from the ceaseless bombardment of the elder cousin’s wrath. As it happened, however, Polly was comparatively merciful in her indignation; she knew when words were a waste of breath, and understood with some precision when she could, and when she could not, move her partner. Consequently Bill was let off easily, and for that, or for some other reason, she did not seem at all unhappy when she stepped out on the platform at Wrugglesby station. The sisters, who met her, recognised the fact at once, and Bella at least was glad of it as she helped to carry Polly’s hat-box to the pony-carriage. Bill talked a good deal on the homeward way, seeming anything but depressed. Once when they were clear of the town she looked round and said softly: “How beautiful it is! How very, very beautiful it is out here!”

Bella thought the girl must be expressing her delight at leaving London and all her troubles behind her. She could see no beauty in the landscape,—bare fields spread wide beneath the winter sky; gaunt, black-limbed elms and leafless hedgerows where the twilight crept mysteriously; a pale flare of sunset breaking through the ashen clouds to make the level land luminous and show near objects with a wonderful distinctness; stacks and barns and low-roofed cottages whence the smoke in thin spirals went straightly up into the evening air.

Robert came out to meet the pony-carriage with quite a cheerful smile of welcome.

“Here, brother-in-law Laziness,” Bill said, filling his arms with Theresa’s parcels; “take some more, you can have these. I’ve got the sugar, T.”

And they went indoors, Robert’s setter slobbering over Bill,—she never had a dress that could be hurt by a dog’s caress—and sheepishly following them into the forbidden precincts of the house.

“You are jolly cold, I expect,” Robert said as he poked the fire into a blaze. “Get your boots off and warm your feet. Where are your slippers? In this thing? Is this the key tied on outside?”

Bill said it was; in her opinion to tie its key to the handle of an article was a sure way of having the key when you wanted it. Robert unfastened the box and rummaged over the contents with clumsy hands till he found the shoes; afterwards he put the things back anyhow, so that the box had to be carried up-stairs with the lid open.

How they talked that evening! Bella and Robert, even Theresa as well as Bill. Bill wanted to know everything, about the horses and dogs, the cows and pigs; what that stack had yielded when it was threshed, how the potatoes were keeping, why the long meadow was ploughed. She wanted to know all about everybody in the place, how they were and what new clothes they had; she wanted to know when Jack came last and when he was coming next, what quantity of butter Theresa was getting now, and the pattern of the lace Bella had bought for her petticoats.

Somehow or other the commonplaces of life, the veriest trivialities assumed a vivid interest with Bill; the life which had seemed rather dull in the living became full of humour and incident when told to her. Her own life in London, when she told them about it, seemed almost fascinating. Bella found herself wishing that she had insisted on joining the lodging-venture; she did not realise that the life, like the flat wintry landscape, required to be looked at through the lens of a particular kind of mind to assume the aspect it did for Bill.

One could not help being conscious of Bill’s presence in the house. By the next afternoon Theresa was beginning to be aware of the difference she made. Bill had been in the attic that morning and looked over the nuts and apples that she herself had put there; she had brought down the rotten ones and brought down also the rose-leaves, put away to dry and forgotten. She had been round the barns and stables and out into the frozen garden, round the orchard to look for broken branches and dead wood for burning, into the icy dairy to help Jessie and hear about her love-affairs.

“It’s like openin’ the winders on a summer mornin’,” Jessie said, when just before dinner Bill passed the kitchen-door with some Christmas roses she had found in a sheltered corner of the garden. She had gone to the pantry to arrange them in a glass, singing as she did so. Strangely enough she had not sung or whistled since that September morning at Bymouth when she mimicked the birds while Kit Harborough wrung out her wet bathing-dress. But she did not know this, neither did Jessie, though she heard the singing appreciatively now. Still, it was not that which caused her remark when Bill, now quiet, passed the kitchen-door.

“It do freshen the house up wonderfully to have you here again, miss; it’s for all the world like openin’ the winders on a sunny mornin’.”

But Bill scarcely understood the allusion any more than Theresa did the fact. Theresa certainly did not understand; she was glad to have the girl back again, but she felt that she was more incomprehensible than ever. Her whole attitude towards Gilchrist and the broken engagement was extraordinary to Theresa. She questioned Bill of course, and learned practically nothing, though her questions were answered freely enough. Bill was glad when the questioning was over; she was very tired of the subject and she wanted to hear about Bella’s trousseau; also she wanted to go and see Mr. Dane.

Mr. Dane knew nothing about the engagement; there was no reason now why Bill should tell him, yet that afternoon, as she knelt on his hearth-rug in the twilight, she suddenly determined to do so and to ask his opinion on her own course of action. It was after one of those pleasant, companionable silences which often fell between them that she approached the subject, entirely without introduction, as was her way. “Monseigneur,” she said abruptly, “do you think it is ever right to break a promise,—a promise to marry someone, I mean?”

“To marry someone?” Mr. Dane repeated, and though his tone was only surprised there was a gravity in his manner as if he feared trouble in the near future. “Yes,” he said after a moment’s consideration, “in some circumstances I do think it right to break such a promise.”

“What circumstances?”

“If the person giving the promise finds out afterwards that he or she does not love the one to whom it is given.”

“If one of the two finds that out?” Bill said in surprise. “You do not really think that is enough? You would not break a promise for that, you would not think it honourable; it would not be either—neither honourable nor right.”

“It would not be right for some people,” Mr. Dane admitted; “but for others—” he broke off abruptly, and after a pause turned to her with an almost terrible earnestness. “Child,” he said, “do not think I am trifling with right and wrong; indeed I am not. Yet still I say that, though it might not be honourable for some to break such a promise, for you it would not be a question of honour or dishonour but of absolute necessity.”

“I did not think so.”

“You?” he exclaimed with an excitement which astonished her; “you did not think so?”

“No,” she said, “I did not. I promised to marry Gilchrist Harborough, but I did not love him.”

“Then, in God’s name, do not marry him! You don’t know what you are doing. Do you think it worse to break your promise and dishonour your word, or to break a man’s heart and dishonour him, yourself, and God’s law, all that is most holy and most binding on earth?”

And then Bill realised what she had done, and how her words had wounded her friend. Had he not married a woman who did not love? Had he not suffered to the full the uttermost bitterness of which he spoke? As she realised how she had reopened the tragedy of his life the girl was struck dumb with remorse, too grieved for the moment to think of explaining the circumstances of her own affairs.

But Mr. Dane did not know the reason of her silence, and he went on, his face drawn and stern. “You do not know your own history nor the danger which may threaten you. I do; and knowing, I say you must not, cannot marry a man you do not truly love. It is a mockery to pray ‘lead us not into temptation’ and then to put yourself in temptation’s way. There is a passion which is stronger than you; it may sleep now but it will not always sleep, believe me, it will not always sleep. Listen now: first concerning your mother. You did not know her, neither did I, but you yourself told me she married in defiance of her parents; she loved the man and counted them well lost for him. And he,—he loved her, bewitched her, desired her,—she had no will but to go,—I know how it was done.”

“You knew my father!”

“No, I knew his father. I saw the spell at work; I know the will of those Alardys and the power of their love; I have good reason to know. Your grandmother, the first Wilhelmina, I knew her too. She was another man’s wife; she married him though she did not love him; she thought it was safe; she did not know—then came this other—”

He stopped abruptly. He was pacing the far side of the room with the restlessness almost of a young man; he stood in the shadow now, but she sat regarding him wide-eyed, something almost of horror in her face. That he should tear open these old wounds for her, his wife’s grandchild, Wilhelmina’s grandchild! Wilhelmina! Yes, she knew now, the links in the chain were joined and she knew, although she murmured,—“My grandmother, Wilhelmina Corby?”

“Yes,” he said, and then he came into the firelight and his face was very pitiful. “Child, child,” he said sadly, “there are passions of which you know nothing; pray God you never may!”

The girl’s eyes suddenly filled with tears: “Do you not hate me?” she whispered.

But he did not hate her. The blessed years which had taught him not to hate, taught him to be merciful as well as just. “No, Princess Puck,” he said, smiling gently, “I do not think I hate you.”

She crept dog-like to his side of the fire. “Shall I tell you something,” he said, reaching a hand down to touch her hair, “something which I do not count the least of my blessings this year?—God’s goodness in sending to me, whom He has denied wife or child, a little brown elf for a granddaughter.”

Bill could not speak. She only mutely pressed against his chair, and for a long time they sat silent while he softly stroked her hair and the ashes fell quietly on the hearth. At last the old man spoke again; he had been thinking of the girl’s half-made confidence and it troubled him greatly. “This promise of which you spoke,” he said,—“is it to be kept or broken?”

Bill started like one awakening. “Broken,” she said, “I have broken it”; and she told him the whole story, always, of course, excepting that which was said, or rather was not said, when she and Kit Harborough met under the beeches on a day when a dream proved to be a dream no longer. But perhaps Mr. Dane discovered a little of that for himself, for when he said good-bye to her that night he realised that his Princess Puck was a child no more.