Chapter Fourteen.
A Visit of Ceremony.
At the beginning of May the first returning ray of brightness came into Maud’s life. A letter arrived from a friend of the family who had been living abroad for her daughter’s education, and had now reached Paris, preparatory to returning to England in a month’s time. It had been all work and no play for the girl during the winter, her mother wrote, and it had been long promised that the month in Paris should be entirely given over to pleasure-seeking. Mabel had drawn out a programme so lengthy and varied, that Mrs Nevins doubted whether she herself would have strength to go through it. One thing at least was certain, that the girl’s enjoyment would be doubled by the presence of a companion of her own age, who would be able to share her ecstasies, as a tired-out, middle-aged woman could never do. Therefore, might Maud come? Could Maud be spared for a month to give Mabel the very great pleasure of her society? She should have every care, and be brought back to London early in June.
Mrs Rendell carried the letter up to Maud as she practised in her room, and handed it to her with a smile; and Maud flushed and paled, and laid her hand affectionately on her little mother’s shoulder.
“Mummy! how much from you, and how much from Mrs Nevins? You have had something to do with this, I’m sure you have. The suggestion came from you in the first instance!”
“Pooh! What a child! Such notions as she takes!” cried Mrs Rendell laughingly. “How it comes about is little matter; you don’t need to be told how truly delighted Mabel will be to have you. You can believe in that, at least. And Paris! You have always wanted to go to Paris, dear!”
“Yes, mother, I have. Oh yes, always!” Maud smiled bravely, trying hard to appear as pleased and elated as her mother expected. It was not the first, nor the second, nor the twentieth time that she had discovered schemes for her own benefit during the last few weeks. School friends had been invited on visits; books for which she had wished had opportunely arrived from town; concert tickets had been purchased with unprecedented frequency. Maud fully appreciated the kindly purpose of these attentions, and, to a certain extent, enjoyed the amusements provided; but she was conscious of a dreary regret that these long-wished-for pleasures should arrive at a time when it was impossible to throw herself into them with whole-hearted enjoyment. The regret was particularly keen at this moment, for to her, as to so many girls, the first trip abroad had been the dream of a lifetime, and a pang came with the realisation of how different from her expectations the realisation must be. The ache at her heart would cloud the brightness of the beautiful city,—she would look at everything, as it were, through a veil of crape. The tears rose to her eyes despite all her efforts, and she turned hastily aside, fearing that her mother might think her ungrateful for receiving the news in such churlish fashion. Mrs Rendell, however, affected to notice nothing unusual, and talked away in cheery accents, discussing various practical matters concerning the proposed visit, in which it was impossible not to feel an interest. Maud’s tears dried gradually; she found herself suggesting amendments to the plans, and growing momentarily more interested and eager. She was to be entrusted with a sum of money with which to buy presents for her sisters, besides a well-filled purse for her own use. She and Mabel could choose their summer clothes together, amid the bewildering fascinations of Parisian fashions; and there was absolutely no limit in the amount of sight-seeing permissible. She could run the whole gamut, from the Louvre to the Catacombs, and get to know her Paris almost as well as she knew her London. What girl of twenty-three would not feel her woes assuaged by such a programme, especially in the company of a bosom friend to whom she had been devoted from childhood?
Mr and Mrs Rendell rejoiced to see Maud’s brightening face, and to hear her voice raised to its old happy ring, as she busied herself with preparations for her journey; and Nan rejoiced as much as they, and racked her brains to discover how she could best assist in the same preparations.
“Let me do some sewing for you! Do let me help!” she pleaded, and proceeded to stitch up the seams entrusted to her with such unprecedented care and neatness, that Maud hid the garments at the bottom of her box, not having the heart to disclose that the seams were on the wrong side, and must needs be as laboriously unpicked! She upset a box of tooth-powder over a blue serge skirt; squeezed a bundle of boots on the top of a chiffon bodice, and went beaming downstairs, feeling that at last she had learned to be domesticated and to render efficient service!
Maud departed smiling and cheery, and all the members of the family drew a breath of relief as she drove off from the door. The secret consciousness of her suffering had been a cloud over their spirits for the past month, and now, as was only natural, a reaction set in, when restrained spirits found their vent.
Mr and Mrs Rendell went up to town for a couple of nights to attend a dinner-party and reception, and the girls discussed how they could best organise a little festivity on their own account. It was decided to hold the first picnic of the season, bicycling to a favourite spot in the woods, where primroses and bluebells were luxuriant, and to invite Mrs Maitland and Miss Phelps to drive up in a pony cart stored with provisions for an out-of-door tea. Everything was arranged—cakes were baked, sandwiches cut, cream and milk corked up in bottles, and a basket packed with every requisite—when, “of course,” as Elsie had it, the rain descended in sheets, and the project was frustrated.
The usual scene of grumbling and ejaculating followed, before the girls could resign themselves to their fate. To settle down to practise and study seemed unbearably dreary after looking forward to such a charming excursion; but there was nothing else to be done, so they marched sulkily to their different occupations, and did not meet again until after four o’clock. Then the schoolroom party joined Lilias in the library, and were about to summon Nan from the attic, when Mary entered, bringing a card on a salver.
Some one had been brave enough to face the elements, and pay a call in the midst of a downpour of rain. Whom could it be? Lilias examined the card with curious eyes, and turned in surprise towards her sisters.
“Miss Thacker! Don’t know her from Adam. Who in the world is Miss Thacker?”
“Oh—er—er—Wait a moment and I’ll remember!” cried Agatha, ruffling her hair in reflection. “I’ve heard the name, I’m sure—I know! She’s the creature who’s come to Willow Cottage. She called once before, and mother said she could not for the life of her decide whether she was quite mad, or only three-quarters. What can she want?”
“Have to go and see, I suppose. Or stay, I’ll bring her in here, to have some tea, and then you can help me to entertain her; but whatever you do, don’t laugh! It’s awfully bad form to make fun of a visitor.” And Lilias left the room, to return followed by a tall female figure, which certainly approached perilously near the grotesque in appearance.
An old-fashioned poke bonnet and a gauze veil shaded a solemn white face, braids of red hair fell over the cheeks, horn-rimmed spectacles covered the eyes, while the absence of two front teeth gave a singularly blank and unpleasant expression to the mouth. A merino shawl was folded across the shoulders, and a venerable silk skirt dripped with rain upon the carpet. An extraordinary-looking figure indeed; and it would appear that eccentricity was not confined to appearance only, for the stranger returned the girls’ salutations with wriggles of the body, and began at once to talk in a soft guttural voice, running her words together without any stops, and at such express train speed that every now and then she was obliged to stop short, and give a deep gasp of exhaustion.
“S–S–Sorry your mother is from mome me dears quite counted on finding her rat ome. Said to myself at lunch must go and see Mrs Rendell s’afternoon such a kind woman full of sympathy for rothers! Hurried out and thought as had come so far might come in and see Miss Rendell as servant said at tome and disengaged!”
The big mouth opened in a gasp for breath, which was heard throughout the room, and Lilias stammered out a dismayed assent.
“Certainly—of course. So glad you did. If I can do anything I shall be most pleased—”
“Of course, my dear. Your mother’s daughter. Knew it by your face. Not tany tea, thank you, bad for digestion enjoyed bad health for many years and can only stay a minute. Called at four rouses already to-day with no result. Breaks your rart to see the callous sardness of the human race, every luxury and ease themselves and cold as sice to others. Wouldn’t believe it unless you were present to see rebuffs si get. Ladies not a mile from this souse—could mention names but won’t—pay pounds and pounds for gloves and dats and not talf-a-crown to spare for crying need, but said to myself all day, Mrs Rendell will help! I’ll get ta welcome there!”
“Oh yes, I’m sure mother would be pleased,” stammered Lilias, more and more puzzled to understand the drift of the strange woman’s remarks. From the farther end of the room a little squeaky sound was heard, elaborately turned into a cough. Lilias grew hot with embarrassment, and Miss Thacker peered suspiciously over her spectacles as she produced a circular from her satchel and handed it over for inspection. It bore the heading “Waybourne Home for Incurables,” and set forth a plea for help with which the girl was already familiar. She read it over, however, once and yet again, puzzling her head meantime as to what to do next. To refuse to give a donation was to class one’s self at once among those whose “callous sardness” had been denounced, and Lilias’s love of appreciation was so intense, that even before this unlovely stranger she could not bear to appear in an unfavourable light. She determined to delay the evil moment, and leave to her mother the unpleasant task of refusal; for it seemed in the last degree unlikely that Mrs Rendell would desire to supplement her ordinary subscription by a gift to an unauthorised collector.
“I am very sorry you should have had your walk in the rain,” she said sweetly, “but, of course, in mother’s absence I can make no promises. She will be home the day after to-morrow, if you could call again to see her.”
She flattered herself that she had evaded the difficulty very cleverly, but Miss Thacker rounded on her in unexpected fashion.
“Shouldn’t dream of asking you my love. Too much respect for your dear mother but wished to appeal to young and generous sarts like self and sisters! Any contribution however small! Every little helps. Most grateful I am sure, subscription or donation?”
“But—but,” Lilias heard three separate gasps of dismay from the window, and realising that no help was forthcoming from that quarter, nerved herself to the unpleasant task.
“We should like to subscribe very much indeed, if we could, but we have only a small allowance, and at present are doing all we can to assist another charity. I fear that we cannot spare any more money—”
Miss Thacker peered at her solemnly through her spectacles, and shook her head from side to side.
“Ah, yes, my dear, can if you will! Every luxury and comfort, cup overflowing, only Will is lacking. Look into your rart and ask yourself what can I deny myself for rothers? Some worldly bauble, some article of adornment which you had planned to get, which you could do without, and reap pa rich reward. What is a hat, a dress, a fan, compared to the succour rof suffering garts?”
Now, as it happened, Lilias was bound for town the very next day to buy a supply of those fineries which her soul loved, so that this suggestion was so aptly timed as to strike her dumb with confusion. She could have gushed over the poor incurables for an hour on end; was ready to shed tears at a recital of their woes; but to give up a new hat in order to devote the money to their use, this was a flight of generosity to which Miss Lilias Rendell could never attain! She grew hot with anger at the inconsiderateness of the stranger in proposing such a sacrifice, hotter than ever at the thought of the three young sisters agape to hear her answer. Here was a pretty alternative, to consent and go without some detail of her summer outfit, or to refuse and be branded as vain and selfish? Lilias chose a middle course, and, extracting half a crown from her purse, handed it over with melancholy resignation.
“I shall be pleased to give you a small donation, but I would rather my name did not appear in your list. Put it down as from a friend.”
“Or a Giver—a Cheerful Giver!” cried Miss Thacker, with an accent on the adjective which brought the blood into Lilias’s cheeks. The wretched woman seemed to have fathomed her reluctance, and to be scoffing at her beneath a pretence of approval; but surely, now that she had got what she wanted, she would take her departure, and end this most trying scene. She made a little movement of dismissal, whereupon Miss Thacker glanced appealingly at the window.
“And our rother dear young friends,” she was beginning, when suddenly she put her hands up to her face and made a curious spluttering noise, at sound of which the sisters started in dismay. She recovered herself at once, and continued her harangue with redoubled energy; but suspicion had been aroused, and could not easily be allayed. That laugh! It had been so like, so extraordinarily like; and yet that hair—that complexion—those missing teeth! It could not be! Chrissie drew nearer and nearer, staring at the stranger with searching scrutiny, met a direct glance of the eyes, and straightway flew upon her, wrenching off bonnet and veil, and twitching the horn-rimmed glasses from her nose. She squeaked and struggled, and fought the air with her woollen gloves, but it was of no avail: there she sat, discovered and exposed, with Nan’s dark tresses streaming down behind the auburn front, Nan’s dimpling smile breaking over the whitened face.
“Such callous sardness! Dragged my hair out by the roots! Is that the way you treat your visitors, my dear young friends?” she stuttered; but her dear young friends had no sympathy for her woes, and crowded round her, breathless with indignation.
“Wretched, miserable girl, so it was you all the time! What made you do it?”
“Wanted to amuse you on a wet day, and couldn’t think of anything better. Did I do it well?”
“Abominably well! I could never have believed we should have been so deceived. How you managed to disguise your voice I can’t think, and to make yourself look so awful. You are as white as a clown; and your teeth, Nan! What has become of your teeth?”
“Covered them with black sticking-plaster, that’s all. Not even for your benefit, my dears, could I extract my two front molars. I smeared my face with cold cream, and then rubbed in flour. Sticky, but efficacious, and sucked a chocolate all the time, to make my voice thick. I’ll swallow it now.” Nan gulped, and rolled her eyes in expressive enjoyment. “When I was dressed, I stole downstairs, let myself out of the side gate, and rang at the bell as bold as brass. Mary did not recognise me, so I felt I was safe; but my one terror was lest you should go upstairs to call me down.”
“And you found all the clothes in the dressing-up box! It is so long since we used it that I had almost forgotten the dear old things. The shawl and skirt I recognise, of course, but you have trimmed the bonnet yourself. I will say for you, my dear, that you made the most appalling old woman I have ever encountered.”
“But I don’t quite approve of making fun of anything so very, very sad as those dear incurables!” said Lilias solemnly. “Well, perhaps you didn’t make fun of them exactly, but it was not quite a nice subject to choose for a practical joke. We ought to think of them tenderly.—By the by, I want that half-crown, Nan. Give it back to me!”
“N–ay!” drawled Nan, shaking her head, and speaking in broad, North-country dialect, “N–ay, lass! I’ll none give it oop. It mun bide with me till I dee! I’ll give you back good coin of the realm instead, but this precious piece is mine, and shall be pierced with a hole, and chained to my side, to commemorate the occasion. It will be good for you as well as for me. You can look at it, and remember how generous you were!”
“Humph!” said Lilias, and turned to the tea-table to pour out the long-delayed tea. It was too strong to drink; and when Mary appeared in response to the bell, it was a treat to see her stagger back at the sight of the dishevelled figure in the arm-chair, and to watch the smile of benign condescension with which Nan wrinkled up her face and inclined her red-brown head.
Mary was an old friend of the family, and on sufficiently intimate terms to express her opinion in terms unchequered by forms of politeness. She wished to be informed what Miss Nan would be up to next, and repeated with unction her own description of the “Hugliest old woman you ever set eyes on,” as given to cook in the kitchen, ten minutes earlier. “We’ve been talking about you ever since, and wondering what you were after.”
This was fame indeed! The girls shared in the reflected glory of Nan’s performance, and only regretted that it had not been witnessed by a larger audience, while Chrissie, in especial, bewailed the absence of her alter ego.
“Kitty will never forgive us if she doesn’t see you,” she declared. “Oh, Nan, do go and call upon Mrs Maitland! Then Kitty would see you, and you might get some more money from her! It would be the most splendid fun. Oh, Nan, do! I’ll love you for ever, if you will!”
Elsie and Agatha swelled the chorus by groans of appeal, and Nan visibly wavered. She could do nothing until she had had tea, she declared, but after that, if the rain grew less heavy, she would consider the matter; and hesitation being taken for assent, she was plied with cake and waited upon with obsequious attention. The elements seemed in favour of the scheme, for, by the time that tea was finished, the downpour was exchanged for a gentle drizzle, which could afford no excuse to a weather-proof creature like Nan Rendell. She was therefore shawled and bonneted once more, escorted to the front door by a giggling and excited quartette, and set off forthwith to tramp half a mile of muddy high road, half abashed at finding herself abroad in such a strange guise, altogether delighted at the madcap nature of the expedition.
The visit to Mrs Maitland was a huge success, for Kitty sat staring solemnly over her spectacles, while her mother had obviously much ado not to laugh outright at the eccentricities of her visitor. In the matter of donations she presented a firmer front than Lilias had done, but Nan would not allow herself to be foiled without a struggle. When Mrs Maitland said bravely, “I cannot see my way to giving anything more at present,” she bridled as with indignation, and replied—
“But you must not consider yourself, you must consider Me! Here am I, tramping through mud and mire, drenched with rain, and chilled with cold; here rare you in your comfortable home, surrounded with luxury and dease, and you turn a deaf ear to the cause si plead, and let me toil in vain. No! I cannot gaze upon your good, kind face, and believe in such callous sardness ... The smallest trifle, if it be but half a crown—”
Well, it seemed a cheap price to pay to get rid of the terrible creature! Like Lilias, Mrs Maitland meekly handed over the desired coin, and rose to her feet with an air of determination.
“And now, if you will excuse me! I am rather busy, and—”
Nan bowed and smirked, then suddenly swooped across the room to where Kitty sat, her arms stretched wide in invitation.
“And will the dear child give me a sweet kiss before ri go?”
The consternation of the “dear child” and her mother can be imagined; but discovery came with the next moment, together with such shriekings of delight, such shakings and scoldings, such questionings and exclaimings, as were proper to the occasion. Nan returned home in high glee, chuckling over the success of the afternoon’s escapade, and far from suspecting that the chief adventure still was to come. Such was the fact, however, and this is the way in which it happened.
She had passed along the high road in safety, meeting few inhabitants, owing to the inclemency of the weather, and looking forward with delight to the welcome which she would receive from her sisters. Presently Thurston House came in view, and, sure enough, there were four excited heads bobbing to and fro at the window, four broad beams of amusement to testify to the grotesqueness of her appearance. Nan lifted a solemn glance in return, and Chrissie, seized with a sudden demon of mischief, pointed a forefinger at the door opposite, and gesticulated violently in its direction. As plainly as words could speak, that forefinger said, “Call at the Grange! There’s an adventure for you, if you like! Beard the lion in his den. I dare you to do it! You dare not go!”
It was done on the impulse of the moment, and on the impulse of the moment Nan turned and skipped obediently across the street. She never thought of possible consequences; her one idea was to horrify her sisters by pretending to carry out the suggestion, and the sight of their agitated faces pressed against the pane was sufficient encouragement to sustain her courage, as a pull at the bell sent a pealing chime through the house. The appearance of the old butler in the doorway did indeed evoke a thrill of nervousness, but then, what mattered? Visitors were never admitted, and she would certainly be dismissed, even as the others had been before her!
She quite prided herself upon the sang-froid with which she made the usual inquiry—
“Mr Vanburgh is at home, I presume? Will he be able to see me this afternoon?”
“Certainly, madam. Will you walk in? Mr Vanburgh is quite at liberty.”
The horror of it seemed to take away all power of resistance. Did the man drag her in by force, or did she obey him of her own accord? Nan could not tell. The awful truth remained that the next moment she stood within the hall, and the door was shut behind her!