CHAPTER X
TELLING HOW MISS FELICIA VERITY UNSUCCESSFULLY ATTEMPTED A RESCUE
With the assistance of the Miss Minetts, reinforced by a bribe of five shillings, Theresa Bilson procured a boy on a bicycle, early the following morning, to convey a note the twelve miles to Paulton Lacy—Mr. Augustus Cowden's fine Georgian mansion, situate just within the Southern boundaries of Arnewood Forest. Miss Felicia Verity, to whom the note was addressed, still enjoyed the hospitality of her sister and brother-in-law; but this, as Mrs. Cowden gave her roundly to understand, must not be taken to include erratic demands upon the stables. If she required unexpectedly to visit her brother or her niece at Deadham Hard, she must contrive to do so by train, and by such hired conveyances as the wayside station of Paulton Halt at this end of her journey, and of Marychurch at the other, might be equal to supplying.
"In my opinion, Felicia, it is quite ridiculous you should attempt to go there at all to-day," Mrs. Cowden, giving over for the moment her study of the Morning Post, commandingly told her. "If Damaris has got a cold in her head through some imprudence, and if Charles has called Miss Bilson over the coals for not being more strict with her, that really is no reason why Augustus' and my plans for the afternoon should be set aside or why you should be out in the rain for hours with your rheumatism. I shall not even mention the subject to Augustus. We arranged to drive over to Napworth for tea, and I never let anything interfere with my engagements to the Bulparcs as you know. I encourage Augustus to see as much as possible of his own people.—I have no doubt in my own mind that the account of Damaris' illness is absurdly exaggerated. You know how Charles spoils her! She has very much too much freedom; and little Miss Bilson, though well-meaning, is incapable of coping with a headstrong girl like Damaris. She ought—Damaris ought I mean—to have been sent to a finishing school for another year at least. She might then have found her level. If Charles had consulted me, or shown the least willingness to accept my advice, I should have insisted upon the finishing school. It would have been immensely to Damaris' advantage. I have known all along that the haphazard methods of her education were bound to have deplorable results.—But look here, Felicia, if you really intend to go on this wild-goose-chase notwithstanding the rain, let the boy who brought the note order Davis' fly for you on his way back. He passes Paulton Halt. I shall not expect you before dinner to-night. Now that is settled."
With which she returned to her interrupted study of the Morning Post.
The above pronouncement while rendering Felicia Verity somewhat uneasy, in nowise turned her from her purpose. Her powers of sympathy were as unlimited as they were confused and, too often, ineffective. Forever she ran after the tribulations of her fellow creatures, pouring forth on them treasures of eager sympathy, but without discrimination as to whether the said tribulations were in fact trivial or profound, deserving or deserved. That anyone under any circumstances, should suffer, be uncomfortable or unhappy, filled her with solicitude. The loss of an eyelash, the loss of a fortune, the loss of the hope of a lifetime equally ranked. Illness and disease appealed to her in hardly less degree than unfortunate affairs of the heart. She practised the detection of extenuating circumstances as one might practise a fine art. She wallowed in sentiment, in short; but that with such native good-breeding and singleness of mind, as went far to redeem the said wallowings from morbidity or other offence. Her friends and acquaintances loved her, quite unconscionably made use of her, secretly laughed at her, grew weary of her, declared that "of such are the Kingdom of Heaven;" and, having successfully exploited her, turned with relief to the society of persons frankly belonging to the kingdoms of earth. Men petted but did not propose to her; affected to confide in her, but carefully withheld the heart of their confessions. Tall, thin, gently hurried and bird-like, she yet bore a quaint, almost mirthful, resemblance to her brother, Sir Charles Verity. Such was the lady who responded, in a spirit of liveliest charity, to Theresa's wildly waved flag of distress.
By the time Miss Verity reached Marychurch the rain amounted to a veritable downpour. Driven by the southwesterly wind, it swept in sheets over the low-lying country, the pallid waters, drab mud-flats, dingy grey-green salt-marsh, and rusty brown reed-beds of the estuary. The dusty road, running alongside this last through the hamlets of Horny Cross and Lampit, grew hourly deeper in gritty mud. Beyond question summer and all its dear delights were departed and the chill mournfulness of autumn reigned in their stead.
With the surrounding mournfulness, Miss Verity's simple, yet devious, mind played not ungratefully. For it seemed to her to harmonize with the true inwardness of her mission, offering a sympathetic background to the news of her niece's indisposition and the signals of distress flown by her little protégée, Theresa Bilson. The note addressed to her by the latter was couched in mysterious and ambiguous phrases, the purport of which she failed to grasp. Theresa's handwriting, usually so neat and precise, was wobbly, bearing unmistakable traces of severe agitation and haste. She hinted at nothing short of catastrophe, though whether in relation to herself, to her ex-pupil, or to Sir Charles, Miss Verity couldn't for the life of her discover. It was clear in any case, however, that affairs at The Hard had, for cause unknown, gone quite startlingly astray, and that Theresa found herself entirely unequal to righting them—hence her outcry.
Under these circumstances, it struck Miss Verity as only tasteful and tactful that her approach to the distracted dwelling should take place unheralded by rumble of wheels or beat of horse-hoofs, should be pitched in a, so to speak, strictly modest and minor key. On arriving at the front gate she therefore alighted and, bidding her grumpy and streaming flyman take himself and his frousty landau to the Bell and Horns in Deadham village there to await her further orders, proceeded to walk up the carriage-drive under the swaying, dripping trees.
About fifty yards from the gate the drive turns sharply to the left; and, just at the turn, Miss Verity suddenly beheld a tall figure clad in a seaman's oilskins and sou'wester, coming towards her from the direction of the house. Youth and good looks—more especially perhaps masculine ones—whatever rank of life might exhibit them, acted as a sure passport to Miss Verity's gentle heart. And the youth and good looks of the man approaching her became momentarily more incontestable. His bearing, too, notwithstanding the clumsiness of his shiny black over-garment, had a slightly ruffling, gallantly insolent air to it, eminently calculated to impress her swift and indulgent fancy.
The young man, on his part, calmly took stock of her appearance, as she beat up against the wind, her flapping waterproof cloak giving very inefficient protection to the rather girlish dove-grey cashmere dress, picked out with pink embroidery, beneath it. At first his eyes challenged hers in slightly defiant and amused enquiry. But as she smiled back at him, sweetly eager, ingenuously benignant, his glance softened and his hand went up to his sou'wester with a courteous gesture.
"What weather!" she exclaimed. "How fearfully wet!"—while her expression testified to a flattering interest and admiration.
"Yes, it's a wild day," he said, in answer. "I expect We've seen the last of the sun, anyhow for this week."
The incident, though of the most casual and briefest, gave a new direction to Miss Verity's thought. It pleased and intrigued her, bringing a pretty blush to her thin cheeks. "Who and what can he be?" she said to herself. "Where can I have seen him before?" And the blush deepened. "I must really describe him to Charles and find out who he is."
This monologue brought her as far as the front door, at which, it may be added, she—though by no means impatient—did in point of fact ring twice before the man-servant answered it. Although Mr. Hordle had the reputation of "being fond of his joke" in private life, in his official capacity his manner offered a model of middle-aged sedateness and restraint. To-day neither humour nor reserve were in evidence, but a harassed and hunted look altogether surprising to Miss Verity. He stared at her, stared past her along the drive, before attempting to usher her into the hall and relieve her of her umbrella and her cloak.
"Sir Charles doesn't expect me, Hordle," she said. "But hearing Miss
Damaris was unwell I came over from Paulton Lacy at once."
"Quite so, ma'am. Sir Charles has not left his room yet. He did not reach home till late, and he sat up with Miss Damaris the rest of the night."
"Oh! dear—did he? Then, of course, I wouldn't disturb him on any account, Hordle. I had better see Miss Bilson first. Will you tell her I am here?"
"I can send Laura to enquire, ma'am. But, I doubt if Miss Bilson, will care to come downstairs at present."
"She is with Miss Damaris?"
"No, ma'am, Miss Bilson is not with Miss Damaris."
Hordle paused impressively, sucking in his under lip.
"If I might presume to advise, ma'am, I think it would be wise you should see Miss Bilson in the schoolroom—and go up by the back staircase, ma'am, if you don't object so as to avoid passing Miss Damaris' bedroom door. I should not presume to suggest it, ma'am, but that our orders as to quiet are very strict."
In this somewhat ignominious method of reaching her objective Miss Verity, although more and more mystified, amiably acquiesced—to be greeted, when Hordle throwing open the schoolroom door formally announced her, by a sound closely resembling a shriek.
Entrenched behind a couple of yawning trunks, a litter of feminine apparel and of personal effects—the accumulation of a long term of years, for she was an inveterate hoarder—encumbering every available surface, the carpet included, Theresa Bilson stood as at bay.
"My dear friend," Miss Verity exclaimed advancing with kindly outstretched hands—"what is the meaning of this?"—She looked at the miscellaneous turn-out of cupboards and chests of drawers, at the display of garments not usually submitted to the public gaze. "Are you preparing a rummage sale or are you—but no, surely not!—are you packing? I cannot describe how anxious I am to hear what has occurred. My sister, Mrs. Cowden, was extremely adverse to my facing the bad weather; but, I felt your note could only be answered in person. Let me hear everything."
She drew Theresa from behind the luggage entrenchments, and, putting aside an assortment of derelict hats and artificial flowers strewn in most admired confusion on the sofa, made her sit down upon the said piece of furniture beside her.
Whereupon, in the pensive, rain-washed, mid-day light, which served to heighten rather than mitigate the prevailing, very unattractive and rather stuffy disorder obtaining in the room, Theresa Bilson, not without chokings and lamentations, gave forth the story of her—to herself quite spectacular—deposition from the command of The Hard and its household. She had sufficiently recovered her normal attitude, by this time, to pose to herself, now as a heroine of one of Charlotte Bronte's novels, now as a milder and more refined sample of injured innocence culled from the pages of Charlotte Yonge. A narrow, purely personal view inevitably embodies an order of logic calculated to carry conviction; and Theresa, even in defeat, retained a degree of self-opinionated astuteness. She presented her case effectively. To be discharged, and that in disgrace, to be rendered homeless, cast upon the world at a moment's notice, for that which—with but trifling, almost unconscious, manipulation of fact—could be made to appear as nothing worse than a venial error of judgment, did really sound and seem most unduly drastic punishment.
Miss Verity's first instinct was to fling herself into the breech; and, directly her brother emerged from his room, demand for her protégée redress and reinstatement. Her second instinct was—she didn't, in truth, quite know what—for she grew sadly perplexed as she listened.
Her sympathy, in fact, split into three inconveniently distinct and separate streams. Of these Theresa's woes still claimed the widest and deepest, since with Theresa she was in immediate and intimate contact. Yet the other two began to show a quite respectable volume and current, as she pictured Damaris marooned on the Bar and Sir Charles ravished away from the seasonable obligation of partridge shooting to take his place at his daughter's bedside.
"But this young Captain Faircloth, of whom you speak," she presently said, her mind taking one of its many inconsequent skippits—"who so providentially came to the dearest child's assistance—could he, I wonder, be the same really very interesting-looking young man I met in the drive, just now, when I came here?"
And Miss Verity described him, while a pretty stain of colour illuminated her cheek once more.
"You think quite possibly yes?—How I wish I had known that at the time. I would certainly have stopped and expressed my gratitude to him. Such a mercy he was at hand!—Poor dearest Damaris! I hope his good offices have already been acknowledged. Do you know if my brother has seen and thanked him?"
The expression of Theresa's round little face, still puffy and blotched from her last night's weeping, held a world of reproachful remindings.
"Ah! no," the other cried conscience-stricken—"no, of course not. How thoughtless of me to ask you. And"—another mental skippit—"and that you should be forbidden the sick-room too, not permitted to nurse Damaris! My poor friend, indeed I do feel for you. I so well understand that must have caused you more pain than anything."
A remark her hearer found it not altogether easy to counter with advantage to her own cause, so wisely let it pass in silence.
"I know—I know, you can hardly trust yourself to speak of it. I am so grieved—so very grieved. But one must be practical. I think you are wise to yield without further protest. I will sound my brother—just find out if he shows any signs of relenting. Of course, you can understand, I ought to hear his view of the matter too—not, that I question your account, dear friend, for one instant. Meanwhile make all your arrangements."
"The village!"—Theresa put in, with a note of despair this time perfectly genuine.
"Ah, yes—the village. But if I take you away, in my fly I mean, that will give you a position, a standing. It will go far to prevent unpleasant gossip!"
Miss Verity's soul looked out of her candid eyes with a positive effulgence of charity.
"Oh! I can enter so fully into your shrinking from all that. We will treat your going as temporary, merely temporary—in speaking of it both here and at Paulton Lacy. Of course, you might stay with your friends, the good Miss Minetts; but I can't honestly counsel your doing so. I am afraid Sir Charles might not quite like your remaining in Deadham directly after leaving his house. It might be awkward, and give rise to tiresome enquiries and comment. One has to consider those things.—No—I think it would be a far better plan that you should spend a week at Stourmouth. That would give us time to see our way more clearly. I know of some quite nice rooms kept by a former maid of Lady Bulparc's. You would be quite comfortable there—and, as dinner at Paulton Lacy isn't till eight, I could quite well go into Stourmouth with you myself this afternoon. And, my dear friend, you will, won't you, forgive my speaking of this"—
Miss Verity—whose income, be it added, was anything but princely—gave an engagingly apologetic little laugh.
"Pray don't worry yourself on the score of expense. The week in Stourmouth must cost you nothing. As I recommend the rooms I naturally am responsible—you go to them as my guest, of course.—Still I'll sound my brother at luncheon, and just see how the land lies. But don't build too much on any change of front. I don't expect it—not yet. Later, who knows Meanwhile courage—do try not to fret."
And Miss Verity descended the backstairs again.
"Poor creature—now her mind will be more at rest, I do trust. I am afraid Charles has been rather severe. I never think he does quite understand women. But how should he after only being married for three—or four years, was it?—Such a very limited experience!—It is a pity he didn't marry again, while Damaris was still quite small—some really nice woman who one knows about. But I suppose Charles has never cared about that side of things. His public work has absorbed him. I doubt if he has ever really been in love"—Miss Verity sighed.—"Yes, Hordle, thanks I'll wait in the long sitting-room. Please let Sir Charles know I am there, that I came over to enquire for Miss Damaris. He is getting up?—Yes—I shall be here to luncheon, thanks."
But, during the course of luncheon, that afore-mentioned split in Miss Verity's sympathies was fated to declare itself with ever growing distinctness. The stream consecrated to Theresa's woes—Theresa herself being no longer materially present—declined in volume and in force, while that commanded by Felicia's affection for her brother soon rushed down in spate. Perhaps, as she told herself, it was partly owing to the light—which, if pensive upstairs in the white-walled schoolroom, might, without exaggeration, be called quite dismally gloomy in the low-ceilinged dining-room looking out on the black mass of the ilex trees over a havoc of storm-beaten flower-beds—but Sir Charles struck her as so worn, so aged, so singularly and pathetically sad. He was still so evidently oppressed by anxiety concerning Damaris that, to hint at harsh action on his part, or plead Theresa's cause with convincing earnestness and warmth, became out of the question. Miss Verity hadn't the heart for it.
"Be true to your profession of good Samaritan, my dear Felicia," he begged her with a certain rueful humour, "and take the poor foolish woman off my hands. Plant her where you like, so long as it is well out of my neighbourhood. She has made an egregious fiasco of her position here. As you love me, just remove her from my sight—let this land have rest and enjoy its Sabbaths in respect of her at least. I'll give you a cheque for her salary, something in excess of the actual amount if you like; for, heaven forbid, you should be out of pocket yourself as a consequence of your good offices.—Now let us, please, talk of some less unprofitable subject."
Brightly, sweetly eager, Miss Verity hastened to obey, as she believed, his concluding request.
"Ah! yes," she said, "that reminds me of something about which I do so want you to enlighten me.—This young Captain Faircloth, who so opportunely appeared on the scene and rescued darling Damaris, I believe I met him this morning, as I walked up from the front gate. I wondered who he was. His appearance interested me, so did his voice. It struck me as being so quaintly like some voice I know quite well—and I stupidly cannot remember whose."
The coffee-cups chattered upon the silver tray as Hordle handed it to
Miss Verity.
"You spoke to him then?" Sir Charles presently said.
"Oh! just in passing, you know, about the weather—which was phenomenally bad, raining and blowing too wildly at the moment. I supposed you had seen him. He seemed to be coming away from the house."
Charles Verity turned sideways to the table, bending down a little over the tray as he helped him. The coffee splashed over into the saucer; yet it was not the hand holding the coffee-pot, but those holding the tray that shook. Whereupon Charles Verity glanced up into the manservant's face, calmly arrogant.
"Pray be careful, Hordle," he said. And then—"Is Miss Verity right in supposing Captain Faircloth called here this morning?"
"I beg your pardon, Sir Charles. Yes, Sir Charles, he did."
"What did he want?"
"He came to enquire after Miss Damaris, Sir Charles. I understood him to say he was going away to sea shortly."
"Did he ask for me?"
"No, Sir Charles," rather hurriedly; and later, with visible effort to recapture the perfection of well-trained nullity.—"He only asked after Miss Damaris."
"When he calls again, let me know. Miss Damaris wishes to see him if she is sufficiently well to do so."
"Very good, Sir Charles."
And during this conversation, Felicia felt keenly distressed and perplexed. It made her miserable to think evil of anyone—particularly an old and trusted servant. But from the moment of her arrival Hordle's manner had seemed so very strange. Of course it was horrid even to suspect such a thing; but was it possible that he over-indulged sometimes, that he, in plain English, drank? Poor dear Charles—if he knew it, what an additional worry! It really was too deplorable.—Anyway she could alleviate his worries to a certain extent by carrying Theresa off. She would do so at once.—Was there an evening train from Stourmouth, which stopped at Paulton Halt? Well—if there wasn't she must get out at Marychurch, and drive from there. She only trusted she would be in time to dress for dinner. Harriet was such a stickler for etiquette.
From all which it may be deduced that the confessions, made to Miss Verity to-day, had this in common with those habitually heard by her—that the point of the story had been rather carefully left out.