MILDRED IS MET BY HER UNCLE, SIR DARCY LORRAINE, AT THE STATION
Sir Darcy took Mildred into the hall, the panelled walls of which were hung with stags' heads, antlers, armour and weapons, well in keeping with the carved oak of the antique furniture. A splendid white deerhound sprang forward, barking a tempestuous greeting to its master. The sound seemed to announce their arrival, for from a room beyond a tall, graceful lady came hastily, followed by a girl who might perhaps be six months younger than Mildred herself—a very pretty girl, whose slender figure, fair face, and long flaxen hair made a charming picture against the background of old oak.
Lady Lorraine welcomed her niece kindly, and was so gentle and encouraging that Mildred's shyness began slightly to thaw. Violet also made smiling overtures of friendship.
"We hear you are very musical, my dear," said Lady Lorraine. "I'm afraid Violet cares nothing about it, though she practises every day. Perhaps you will be able to spur her on a little."
"I'd never open the piano if I weren't obliged," declared Violet. "I hate lessons of any sort, so it's no use pretending I like them. When I'm grown up, I'm just going to hunt and play tennis. They're the only things worth bothering about."
"She's a true Lorraine!" laughed Sir Darcy, patting his daughter on the shoulder. "We all like outdoor sports better than books. We shall have to see how Mildred takes to the saddle. A good gallop across country would soon bring the roses into her cheeks. Can you ride, Mildred? Well, well, we'll soon teach you. Never too late to learn, is it?—though the younger you begin, the firmer your seat. Violet could manage her little Shetland by the time she was five."
"Mildred must get accustomed to country life by degrees," said her aunt. "We will not frighten her with too many things just at first."
When Sir Darcy and Lady Lorraine discussed their niece afterwards, they both decided that she had made a favourable impression upon them.
"A pretty, lady-like girl, though painfully shy," was her uncle's verdict. "I'm much relieved to notice that she has such nice manners. I was afraid we might find her lacking in many ways. I see a strong look of the Lorraines in her face, and no doubt, now she is separated from her other relations, she'll soon get used to us, and in time will forget even to think about her early surroundings, and will not wish to remember that she has ever known anything different from The Towers. I am glad we sent for her. It was certainly rather a venture, but I think the experiment seems likely to prove a success."
The wheels of life, well oiled by a handsome income, ran very smoothly at The Towers. Sir Darcy Lorraine was a fine specimen of an English country gentleman—a splendid shot, a hard rider, interested in the improvement of his estates, and to a certain degree in the welfare of his tenants. He entertained well, subscribed liberally to local charities, supported the Church, and, as a magistrate and guardian of the poor, took what part he could in the affairs of the district without allowing the ensuing duties to monopolize too much of his time. Neither public school nor college had been able to endow him with any love for learning.
"My fly-book and my cheque-book are all the literature I want," he often declared; and though he occasionally sat in his well-furnished library, he rarely, if ever, took down the handsomely bound volumes from their shelves. With other ways of life than his own he had scant sympathy, regarding the arts and sciences as harmless diversions for amateurs who might like them, and a means of livelihood for those who were obliged to take up professions to earn their bread. A good landlord and a kind master, he liked to have everybody bright and cheerful around him, but did not care to be distressed by social problems or tales of outside misery. Always in easy circumstances himself, and never having experienced any reverses, he had a vague idea that misfortunes were mostly caused by people's own fault, and that lack of success was due to lack of merit.
Lady Lorraine had been a society beauty in her girlhood, and still retained enough of her former good looks to attract a considerable amount of attention at hunt balls and garden fêtes. In her way she really worked quite hard at local duties, being always ready to open bazaars, attend flower-shows, distribute prizes, and organize charity dances. She was mildly interested in the village school, where the little boys all respectfully touched their forelocks, and the little girls dropped bob-curtsies whenever she looked at them. She occasionally visited at some of the cleanest cottages, and could never resist putting her hand in her pocket; though the Vicar, who did not approve of indiscriminate charity, complained that she pauperized those of his parishioners who knew how to whine, while the deserving went unhelped.
Both Sir Darcy and Lady Lorraine idolized their only child. To dress Violet prettily, to take her to garden parties and flower-shows, to see her admired, and finally to bring her out successfully into society, was her mother's chief ambition; and her father, though he would have preferred a boy who could inherit his title, gloried in his little daughter's fearless riding and her achievements in the hunting field.
To Mildred the beauty and novelty of her surroundings at The Towers were a source of great pleasure. As the weeks went on, and her first shyness and homesickness wore away, she began thoroughly to enjoy herself. The motoring, the riding, the many tennis parties and other festivities made an ideal holiday time, and everything seemed new and entertaining. She had soon formed a friendship with the Somervilles at the Vicarage, an amusing family, consisting of three sons and a girl of her own age. Rhoda was pleasant and companionable; and with Rodney, the second boy, Mildred found a strong bond of sympathy, for he was to go to Kirkton in the autumn to study engineering at a large motor works, and was glad to hear all that she could tell him about the city.
Though Mildred thoroughly appreciated the advantages of her new life at The Towers, she nevertheless missed the Grahams continually. Generous as the Lorraines were to her in many respects, their conduct was sometimes lacking in thoughtfulness. They were people who could only be kind in their own way. They considered they had done her an immense service by taking her away from Kirkton, and they would refer to her past surroundings with a contempt which she found it very difficult to bear. Her cousin treated her with a kindly patronage. Violet was glad to have Mildred as a companion, but made her quite understand that she was to occupy a second place. Mildred, accustomed to the "give and take" of a big school, found this attitude decidedly trying, and often longed for the congenial society of Kitty Fletcher, Bess Harrison, Maudie Stearne, or other St. Cyprian's chums, whose friendships were conducted on terms of strictest equality.
In the midst of all the pleasant arrangements at The Towers Mildred found it very difficult to get in even the hour's daily work at the violin which she had faithfully promised Professor Hoffmann not to neglect. Practising by herself seemed so different from learning from her enthusiastic teacher. Away from his watchful eye, she felt as if all kinds of faults were creeping into her playing, and she had not sufficient courage to wrestle with hard passages when she knew there was no one to appreciate her exertions. She set herself with grim determination to master certain new studies; but it was only by constant effort, and the remembrance of what the Professor would expect from her, that she could keep up to anything like the mark of his high standard.
Towards the end of August Miss Ward, Violet's governess, returned from her holidays. She was a pleasant, amiable lady, not clever, but with a general smattering of a good many subjects. She was much appreciated by Lady Lorraine, as she did not attempt to work Violet too hard, and was extremely useful at arranging flowers, writing letters and addressing invitations, and keeping the accounts of local charities. As Miss Ward was considered to be musical, Violet one day asked Mildred to bring her violin into the schoolroom.
"Is this your fiddle?" said Miss Ward, catching it up. "It looks rather a nice one. Give me the bow and let me try it."
To hear her beautiful and priceless Stradivarius called a "fiddle" was a shock to Mildred's ears, but it was nothing to the sounds which followed when the governess began to play. Such scraping and rasping notes it had never before been her misfortune to hear, even from the very worst of Herr Hoffmann's pupils, and she could not have believed that her dear violin could give vent to those harsh and discordant tones. It was playing that would have caused the Professor to tear his hair; everything about it was wrong, from the bowing to the way the instrument was held. The Stradivarius seemed to be shrieking in an agonized protest at the indignity of its treatment, and so painful was the effect on Mildred's sensitive nerves that it was all she could do to sit still with a semblance of politeness.
"Really quite a nice one! Where did you get it?" asked Miss Ward, having complacently arrived at the end of her piece, and handing back the violin to its outraged owner.
Mildred took her treasure somewhat as a mother rescues her crying child from strangers, feeling as if she owed it an apology for having entrusted it to such a 'prentice hand.
"It was my father's," she answered quietly. "It's a genuine Stradivarius, and I value it very much. I wouldn't part with it for anything else in the world."
"Can you remember a tune?" asked Miss Ward, to whom the magic name of Stradivarius appeared to imply very little. "I should like to hear how you can play."
"Yes, do, Mildred!" added Violet. "I've only heard sounds from your bedroom before breakfast, when I was much too sleepy to listen to them."
Mildred paused a moment. She longed to plunge into the "Frühlingslied", but knew it was impossible to do it justice when the orchestra was lacking, so she began instead the Polonaise which she had given as an encore at the Students' Concert. Violet listened in amazement to the true, clear notes. She had never before heard such playing, and though she was quite unmusical, she fully recognized the difference between a good performance and a bad one.
"You did score a triumph over Miss Ward!" she remarked to Mildred afterwards, when the two girls were alone. "I dared not laugh, but it was too funny to watch her face while you were fiddling. You took all the spirit out of her. She had been anxious to teach me her scraping, squeaking instrument, but I declined with thanks. I can't bear the sound of it. Gelert always howls dreadfully the moment she begins, and I feel as if I want to howl too! I'm made to strum on the piano for an hour every day, but I hate it. It's all nonsense! What's the use of learning a thing you don't care about? The only music I really like to hear is a view halloo or a good tally-ho!"
As the summer went on, Mildred thought the scenery at Castleford seemed to grow more and more beautiful. The ripened corn gave a golden touch to the fields, the moorlands were ablaze with purple heather, and on the hillside slopes the bracken was beginning to turn to gorgeous shades of ochre and sienna brown. She and Violet took many walks with Sir Darcy round the estate, and she was beginning now to know the neighbourhood quite well. One day Sir Darcy, who was busy talking with a keeper, left the two girls to rest on a stone at the head of the precipice which bounded the lake.
"How lovely it looks!" said Mildred. "I think it is the most exquisite view I've ever seen in my life."
Violet gazed thoughtfully at the purple-grey lake lying below them, the encircling woods in all the glory of their summer green seeming richer in contrast with the peaks of the craggy hills behind. By the water's edge stretched lush meadows, the village and the church could be seen in the blue distance, and close at hand rose the turrets and chimneys of The Towers. Violet did not very often think about such things, but just then a verse came into her head which she had sung in the psalms at church the Sunday before, and which had caught her attention at the time—
"The lot is fallen unto me in a fair ground: yea, I have a goodly heritage."
"Yes," she replied with a long breath; "it's the dearest place on earth to me. There's no other like it anywhere. And it's our own, as far as you can see it—that's the best of it! The Lorraines have held it ever since the Conquest. It's Father's, and some day I suppose it will come to me. I can't take the title, but luckily the land is not entailed now. It's grand to think of possessing all this. Mildred, you shall live here with me as long as you like. I want you to enjoy it too. I'm most dreadfully sorry for you. It's hard luck to have absolutely nothing of your own."
Mildred looked down where her cousin's beautiful inheritance lay stretched before her. Her heart was too full to answer. Perhaps for a moment a shade of envy crossed her mind. It was indeed a fortunate lot to be heiress to such broad acres and so old a name. Some of the best things that life could offer had fallen to Violet's share. And what had she herself? An old violin, and the skill to play it—that was all! A possession utterly valueless in Violet's eyes, yet in those of Dr. and Mrs. Graham and the Professor a rare and special talent such as God gives to but very few in this world—a talent to be taken humbly, and rejoiced in, and treasured zealously, and cultivated carefully, and which might bring more joy and beauty into the lives of others than even these glorious woods and waters; for music can lift the soul to the very summit of earthly ecstasy, and in some of its divinest strains we can almost catch an echo of the chorus of the "choir invisible" above. She could not explain—it was quite impossible to put into words what she only felt deep down in her heart; but as she quietly thanked Violet for her offer, it seemed to her that, in spite of her lack of lands, she was not quite portionless. God's gifts to His children were not all alike. To one the estates handed down by a long line of ancestors from the past; to another the genius that has the power to create for itself. Which was the nobler bequest she could not tell, but she knew that after all she, too, had an inheritance.