Chapter Six.
Enter Miggles.
Three days later the two girls were ensconced in their country quarters, and Jean was beginning to suffer from the effects of reaction. Her impressionable nature was capable of generous impulses, which found vent in such actions of self-abnegation as the present flight from town, but long-continued effort was too heavy a trial. Once settled down in the quiet house by the sea, and past the excitement of the first arrival, she began to droop and to fret, and to demand of herself and every one with whom she came in contact why she had been so foolish as to abandon her last weeks in town.
“To-night is the Listers’ ball. I was going to wear the new white. At this very moment I should have been preening before the glass. I feel a horrid conviction that it would have suited me to distraction, that I should have had the night of my life. I can’t think what you were dreaming about, Vanna, to let me rush off in that undignified way. I’m impulsive; but a word from you would have kept me straight. And you never spoke it. I don’t think I can ever forgive you. If you hadn’t any consideration for me, you might have thought of Edith. For her sake I should have stayed in town and been as nice as possible to Robert Gloucester. If a man can’t run the gauntlet of other women, he would make a poor sort of husband. When I fall in love, I shall make a point of introducing the man to the most charming women of my acquaintance, and if he shows any sign of being attracted by a special one, I’ll throw them together. I will! You see if I don’t! If he didn’t like me better than them all put together, I should be glad, thankful, delighted to let him go. Any girl would, who had a spirit. I feel that I have behaved very meanly and unkindly to poor dear Edith. Why don’t you speak? What’s the good of sitting there like a mummy? Can’t you hear?”
“Perfectly, thank you. I am listening with great interest and attention. Being of a generous nature, I refrain from repeating the remarks which you made when I did venture to expostulate, but if you will cast back your thoughts—”
“Oh, well,” interrupted Jean naughtily, “I shall just flirt with Piers. I deserve some distraction after being such a monument of virtue, and I’ll have it, or know the reason why. I wrote to tell him we were here, so he’ll come over this afternoon, and we’ll go for a walk by the sad sea waves. You might twist your ankle on the pebbles, a little innocent twist, you know, just enough to make it wise to sit down and rest while we have our tête-à-tête. Since you’ve brought me here against my will, it’s the least you can do. Piers shall have tea with us before we start. Miggles adores Piers.”
“Miggles,” formally known as Miss Miggs, was a well-known character in the Goring ménage, having been in succession, governess to Jean, housekeeper during the period of Mr Goring’s widowerhood, and afterwards governess to the two sons of the second marriage. After so many years of faithful service it seemed impossible to dispense with Miggles’s services, and in truth no one wished to do so, for she was one of the cheery souls who carry sunshine as an atmosphere. According to ordinary ideas, Miggles might have grumbled with the best, and demanded a universal toll of sympathy, for she was the most solitary of units—a woman who could not claim relationship with a angle soul in her own hemisphere. She had passed her sixtieth birthday, and despite rigid economies, possessed only a few hundred pounds between herself and want; her health, never strong, showed signs of growing more precarious, and an affection of the eyes shut her off from her loved pastimes of reading and needlework. Nevertheless, Miggles was so far from being depressed by such circumstances, that it had not even occurred to her that she deserved to be pitied. This blessed state of mind had been achieved by no conflict and struggle of the soul—no noble effort of will; religion itself had contributed little towards it. Miggles’s disposition was a birthright for which she was seemingly as little responsible as for the colour of her hair. As a child, when circumstances had offered a choice between smiles and tears, she had instinctively elected to smile; as a girl, the mere facts of life and movement had seemed sufficient to ensure complete happiness; while later on she had been so much occupied with being thankful for silver linings that the clouds themselves flitted by attracting but scanty attention. In cheery, non-consequent fashion, she would discourse of her blessings by the hour together.
“Now, would you believe it, my dear, not a soul belonging to me nearer than Australia—my nephew Henry, dear boy, but rash—such a pity! always was, from a child. Thomas now—the elder brother—he would always save. My mother was so particular about bringing us up to save. ‘Instil good principles from the beginning’ she would say. But however—what was I talking about? Ah, yes! not a soul nearer than Australia, and three letters by this morning’s post. Isn’t it wonderful? People are so kind. Really, except Monday, when there was a fashion-book from a shop—I do like seeing the fashions—there’s been something on my plate every morning. That’s so cheering to begin the day. You know some one has been thinking of you, and caring enough to sit down and write.”
Jean cast a twinkling glance across the table at Vanna.
“What did they want this time, Miggles? I bet anything you like, that every second letter was to beg for something that you have no business to give, and that you were weak enough to say yes all round. Can you deny it?”
“Why should I, dear child? Such a privilege. Most kind of them to have given me the opportunity. Old clothes! I don’t suppose you ever have old clothes, Miss Vanna—they always look so fresh and new. I like to see a girl in pretty clothes. When I was young, shallis were in fashion. I don’t suppose you ever saw shallis—very stiff, not nearly so graceful as your delaines. A dear lady gave me a brown shalli, trimmed with pipings. Brown was never my colour, but it wore for years—so very kind. Nowadays I have to wear wool for my poor bones. Wool always did irritate my skin. It took me weeks to get accustomed to sleep in blankets. I used to lie awake at nights tossing from side to side, and thinking of all the poor creatures who had no warm coverings—and mine the very best Whitney, the ones from the spare room, Jean, with the blue stripes. Mrs Goring said I was to have them. I’m sure if I’d been the Queen—”
“Oh, it’s wonderful to think of. Real Whitney blankets with blue stripes, on which to toss about and groan! What luck you have, Miggles, and how thankful you ought to be that you have bones to ache. If you hadn’t had that bad feverish attack, you might have been left stranded with your own bedding. It is piteous to think of.”
Miggles shook her large, ugly head with elephantine playfulness.
“Naughty child! naughty child! You are laughing at me, I can see. It is very painful, especially during the night, and I used to be so proud of my hands. I’ve had to give up wearing my turquoise ring, the knuckles are so enlarged. That really was a trial; but when you think what other people have to bear... There’s that poor man at Oxford Circus, who wheels about on a board. I always wonder if there are any legs inside his trousers, they lie so very flat; but of course one couldn’t ask. How monotonous it would be, my dear, to sit on a board from morning till night. When I thought of that, it seemed so foolish to fret about a ring... Your dear mother gave it to me one Christmas, because I had such a desire to possess a ring. It was the only one I ever had.”
“Dear Miggles,” cried Jean fondly, “I wonder you didn’t have a dozen. I wonder that every man you met didn’t press one upon you. They would have done so, if they had known what was good for them. You would have made the dearest wife!”
Miggles smiled appreciatively.
“Well, dear, I should, though I say it myself. I should have made him very comfortable. I have such a sympathy with men, poor dears, working all day long, and banks failing, and upsetting their plans, and all the bills to pay. They do deserve a little comfort at home. My nephew’s wife—Henry’s—I can’t help feeling she’s been a little to blame. Of course there’s no denying that Henry is rash, but he could have been guided, and Florence is hasty. A nice girl, too—very nice. I wouldn’t say a word against her, but you can’t help thinking sometimes, and I’m sorry for Henry. Yes! I’ve always regretted that I never had an offer. I was never pretty, like you, my dears; but personable, quite personable. A gentleman once passed the remark that if he had been young he would have wished nothing better than that nice, wholesome-looking girl; but he was quite old—a colonel, home from India, with a liver. When they are like that they admire a fresh complexion. And of course he had a wife already. It would have been pleasant to look back and remember that some one had wished to make me his wife.” Miggles gazed at the coffeepot with an air of placid regret, which quickly melted into smiles. “But, however—he mightn’t have turned out well. One never knows, and I read a sweet little poem in a magazine which might have been written to meet my case. She said (a lady wrote it; I should think she had had a disappointment), ‘If I never have a child of my own, with its little hands, and pattering feet, still all the children of the world are mine, to love and to mother.’ Such a beautiful thought, was it not?”
“Beautiful, indeed, and so original. She was a great poet, my Miggles. Talking of suitors, Piers Rendall is coming to tea. We’ll have it here, please. Piers likes a nursery tea set out on the table, with plenty of apricot jam, and thick sensible bread-and-butter; no shavings. Plum-cake; not plain—he detests caraway seeds, and two lumps of sugar in his tea.”
“I know. I’ve poured out tea for him since he was so high,” cried Miggles, waving her hand indefinitely in the air. “He had it with me here two days before you came. It’s not many young men who would care to walk three miles to see an old woman, but I can’t say he looks well. Thin—worried! A man ought to be full of life at that age.”
“Fretting for me, dear! He’ll be all right this afternoon. You’ll see,” announced Miss Jean confidently. She would have said the same of any other young man of her acquaintance, nevertheless Vanna waited with some anxiety for the events of the afternoon. Strive as she might, she could not divest her mind of a feeling of responsibility towards Robert Gloucester; of the conviction that Jean was his by right, and that separation could end only in disaster.
At three o’clock that afternoon Piers Rendall walked up the garden path, and Jean rushed out to meet him. Vanna, from her seat in the hall, could hear the merry exchange of greetings.
“Halloa, Princess!”
“Halloa, Slave! How are you feeling?”
“Hugging my chains! This is a piece of luck, your coming down so soon. What brought you away from the gay capital before the end of the season?”
“The train, sir! People who ask personal questions must expect to be snubbed. I ran away, but not alone. I’ve a friend with me—Miss Strangeways. Come and be introduced.”
They had entered the hall while Jean was speaking, and Vanna caught the quick frown of annoyance on the man’s face. He had a strong, well-knit figure, and a thin, nervous face. His hair was dark, his features were sharply aquiline, the whole effect was handsome and distinguished, but not altogether agreeable. The dark blue eyes had a somewhat irritable expression, and the features were subject to an occasional nervous twitching. They twitched at sight of Vanna seated in the deep cane chair facing the door, and his lips straightened themselves eloquently. Vanna knew that he was mentally wishing her at Jericho, and seeing his hoped-for tête-à-tête turned into a dull trio. But the revelation was but momentary, and nothing could have been more courteous than his greeting.
“How do you do, Miss Strangeways? I have heard so constantly about you from Jean that it is a double pleasure to find you here.”
Vanna murmured a conventional acknowledgment and felt mentally antagonistic. To feel oneself de trop is never an agreeable experience, and unreasonable though it might be, she resented both Mr Rendall’s attitude and his courteous disguise of the same. During the meal which followed she remained stiff and silent, while her three companions chatted and laughed with the ease of old friendship. Jean sparkled, her depression dispersed by the presence of a companion of the opposite sex, Miggles beamed from behind the tea-tray, and indulged in reminiscent anecdotes, to which the young man lent the most flattering attention. His bright eyes softened in genuine kindliness as he looked into her large, good-natured face, and he waited upon her with the utmost solicitude. Evidently there was a real bond of affection between the homely old woman and the handsome man. Towards Jean his attitude was more complex. Vanna, watching with jealous, anxious eyes—jealous on behalf of that other suitor whose claims she had denied—could not decide how much or how little his feelings were involved. He admired her, of course—what man would not admire Jean? They bandied words together, joked, teased, protested, without a suspicion of self-consciousness; at times they smiled at each other with undisguised affection; at other times some light word uttered by the girl seemed to strike a false note, and the irritable expression in the man’s eyes flamed into sudden anger.
“He has a passionate nature; he could feel very deeply. I think he is not happy.” Such was Vanna’s diagnosis of Piers Rendall’s character as she drank her tea and ate her plum-cake in almost uninterrupted silence. Her companions had endeavoured to draw her into the conversation. Jean had grimaced eloquently across the table, but Vanna made only a feeble response. It seemed as though Jean’s depression had been suddenly shifted on to her own shoulders; the peaceful content of the last few days had disappeared; she felt solitary, wounded, jarred. When the meal was over and the three young people started out on their walk, these feelings deepened. Had she not already received her instructions—that she was to feign an accident as an excuse for obliterating herself for the others’ benefit? Vanna set her lips with an obstinate little resolve to do nothing of the kind. She would not obtrude her society where it was not desired, but she would stoop to no pretence by way of excuse. When they had walked about a mile along the sea-front, she quietly announced her intention of sitting down.
“I don’t think I shall go any farther. I’ve brought a book. I shall sit here and rest, and you can pick me up as you come back.”
“Oh, Vanna! Why? Are you tired, dear? Aren’t you well?” demanded naughty Jean.
“Perfectly well, thank you,” replied Vanna coldly, and had the satisfaction of seeing that Piers Rendall thought her exceedingly disagreeable for her pains.
The two figures crossed the belt of pebbly stones, and walked over the sunny sands to the water’s side. Hitherto they had kept to the levelled promenade, and to Vanna’s irritated senses it appeared an added offence that, once released from her presence, they should at once hasten into solitude. She turned her eyes away and stared drearily into space. Revolt surged in her heart. It was not fair. Jean had everything—home, parents, beauty, strength, the right to be wooed and won. The world was cruel—unjust. Why should such differences exist? Her own lot was too hard. She had not deserved it. She had done her best. Circumstances had not been too easy—always there had hung a shadow; life in the little country hamlet with Aunt Mary, delicate and sad, had been by no means ideal for a young girl. Without conceit she knew herself to have been dutiful, affectionate, kind. She had put her own wishes in the background, content to minister to an old woman’s declining years. Her own turn would come. Life lay ahead, crowded with golden possibilities; when they came they would be all the sweeter for the consciousness of duty well done. And now? Ah, well, in converse with one’s nearest friend one might affect to be brave and independent, but in the solitude of one’s own woman’s heart it seemed as if those possibilities had been wiped away, and left nothing behind.
In times of trouble and upheaval the sufferer is constantly exhorted by sympathetic friends to turn resolutely away from the sad past, and look ahead. Onward! they are told—press onward! Life lies not in the past, but in the future. Despair comes of looking back, courage with expectation. Poor Vanna recalled these axioms with a weary heart. That was just what she dared not do. What could the future hold for her?
She sat very still, her hands clasped on her lap, her eyes shut against the glare. The sun seemed cruel to-day; the dance of golden light across the sands, the sight of those two light-stepping figures in the distance. She would help Jean, help others, who were in need. There was no lack of work in the world for hands which were willing and free. She could make other people happy; could live a noble, selfless life. Even so, and at the thought, the lips of three-and-twenty quivered, and the salt tears flowed. She wanted to be happy herself—longed to be happy. The selfless life sounded barren and cold; it roused no flicker of joy. “How shall I bear it?” asked Vanna of herself. “How can I live, looking on, always looking on, having no part? Even to-day with Jean—my darling Jean—and that strange man, I felt sore and angry and—bad! He thought me a cross, ungracious girl. His opinion does not matter, but other people will think so too if I behave in the same way; and that would be terrible. I could not exist if people did not care for me. In self-defence I must overcome. But how to do it?”
Vanna leant her head on her hands and sent up a wordless prayer. In her own fashion she was deeply religious, but it was not the fashion of her day. Her aunt had been shocked and distressed by her heterodox sentiments, and had spent many hours in prayer for her niece’s conversion, while Vanna, in her turn, had been fully as shocked at the old woman’s conventional ideas.
Aunt Mary had been the most tender and forgiving of mortals. Her memory, tenacious till death of the smallest kindness shown towards her, was absolutely incapable of retaining an injury. If any one offended, her own anxiety was to find for them a means of reform; to her charity there seemed literally no end.
When a trusted servant repaid endless kindnesses by a flagrant theft, Aunt Mary was bowed down with penitence for occasional carelessness on her own part which might possibly have led the sinner into temptation. “I remember distinctly one Sunday night when I left my purse in the dining-room, and was too lazy to go downstairs to fetch it, and at other times I have left change lying about. It was wrong of me—terribly wrong. One never knows what need there may be—what pressing need—and to see the money lying there before her eyes!”
To the scandal of the neighbourhood, instead of giving the offender in charge, or at least dismissing her in shame and ignominy, Aunt Mary tearfully apologised for her own share in the crime, and proposed a future partnership in which both should endeavour to amend their ways. Jane was sullen and unresponsive, too much overcome by surprise perhaps to be able to express any gratitude. That she felt it all the same was testified by her dog-like devotion to her mistress. All went well until another year had passed, when in a sudden burst of emotion the maid confessed to a fresh peccadillo. Now, indeed, any sane person would have realised the folly of keeping such a sinner in the house, and, hurling reproaches on her head, would have promptly ejected her from the threshold; but Aunt Mary was once more content to play the part of comforter. “I have my own besetting sins, Jane,” she said gently, “and I fear I have given way to them many times during this past year. You have kept straight until the last week, and you have confessed your fault. Have courage! You have made a good start. I shall treat you exactly as before, and trust you more fully!”
That was the end of Jane’s offences. Henceforth to the day of her mistress’s death she remained the most faithful and loyal of handmaids. Such was Aunt Mary, who devoutly worshipped a God whom she believed capable of torturing for eternity a sinner who had transgressed during a few short years of life, or a helpless infant who had chanced to die unbaptised! She was likewise convinced that the whole non-Protestant world was irrevocably damned, and harboured serious doubts with regard to Dissenters and the High Church party. She accepted as final and irrefutable every doctrine which she had been taught as a child, and would have been as ready to believe that Jonah swallowed the whale as the accepted version of the story, if it had been so inscribed in the Bible. To think for oneself on matters religious she considered profane; to expect fuller light with fuller knowledge—a blasphemy. To her mind the whole duty of man was comprised in attending his parish church, supporting his vicar, and subscribing to the creeds—Athanasian included. Aunt and niece had had the nearest approach to a quarrel which they had ever known one day when the girl’s intolerance had broken forth into words:
“Aunt Mary,” she had cried, “your religion is wicked! You are good in spite of it. You don’t really believe it. You only think you do. You subscribe ten and sixpence a year to the South American mission, and lie down in peace and sleep, believing the whole continent to be damned, while if one poor dog were suffering outside your gate you could not rest until you had rescued it. Can ten and sixpence buy peace, while a continent perishes? Your creed is unworthy of you!”
“My dear, you forget yourself. You shock me deeply. Such words from a young girl’s lips are terrible to hear. Profane! Rebellious! The poor, dear vicar! I must ask you never again to allow yourself to speak in this way. If the wicked thoughts arise, at least let them not find vent in words.”
After this Vanna was careful to avoid religious discussions with her aunt, but she noted with amusement that next year the good lady’s South American subscription had been increased by half a crown.
Now Aunt Mary had been moved up to a higher class, and the scales of ignorance had fallen from her eyes. The puzzles of life were solved for her, but her niece was still struggling with her tasks, and they were hard to learn. She sat with her hands clasped round her knees, the sea breeze blowing back the hair from the set, white face. Aunt Mary would have said that this trouble was God’s will—His direct dispensation; but Vanna could not accept this explanation. It was surely not God’s will that in past generations two people had put their own happiness before duty. Aunt Mary would have said again that as regards herself this punishment for the sins of others was “permitted,” and intended to be. Well!—one had only to look around the world, at everyday happenings, to realise that the Almighty did not interfere with natural laws. Thrust an arm into the fire, and that arm burns; infect your child with disease, and that child suffers, despite your prayers and entreaties. It is inevitable; but the sufferings were surely of men’s causing, “The thing of all others which, according to my light, must most ‘grieve’ the Spirit of God is the way in which His own children misjudge Him,” Vanna told herself slowly. “Dear, sweet Aunt Mary, who believed Him capable of things to which she herself would never condescend—all the good people who look out upon a sky full of worlds, and believe that their own particular tiny sect hold the monopoly of truth, and that every one who differs from them must inevitably be lost. Perhaps—who knows? it is misjudging Him just as cruelly to believe that the ghastly happenings of our life are of His choice. He has given us free-will; we make mistakes and suffer for them, and make others suffer too; but that’s our own doing, and—reverently speaking—outside His power. He is sorry for us—infinitely sorry, waiting and longing to send help, when our eyes are open to receive it. Perhaps I’m wrong, I can’t tell; but it’s the belief that helps me most, and removes the sting. I have such a big trouble for a woman to face—a lonely life; such a big effort to make—to look at happiness through the eyes of others, and keep sweet, and generous, and ungrudging. I need so much help...”
The minutes passed, while Vanna sat motionless, buried in thought. Passers-by cast curious glances at the still figure seated upon the pebbly beach above the fringed line of seaweed—her scarlet cloak gathered round her shoulders, her dark hair blown back from her face. It was not a beautiful nor even a pretty face in the usual acceptance of the words: the features were neither good enough to be noticeable, nor bad enough to jar. The only beauties were found in the dark, finely arched eyebrows, the oval shape of the face, and the stag-like setting of the small head, to which characteristics Vanna owed that air of distinction which redeemed her from the commonplace. Piers Rendall had paid little attention to the quiet girl who had sat beside him at the tea-table, and afterwards made an unwelcome third in the walk along the sea-front; but as he and Jean retraced their steps across the sands an hour later, his eyes turning towards the waiting figure fastened on the pale face, and lingered there.
We all own a mental picture-gallery which we carry about with us till death. Some of the pictures are ours by deliberate choice, printed on memory by loving intent; others, pain has stamped in undying lines; a few have gained their place as it were by accident. We had no intention of yielding them a place, no interest in the purchase; quietly and all uninvited they ranged themselves against the walls, and refused to be dislodged. Piers Rendall’s glance had been turned in indifference, almost dislike; but to the end of his life the picture of Vanna remained with him, as she sat on the grey stones, above the belt of seaweed, with the scarlet cloak round her shoulders, and the hair blown back from her face. Jean’s merry banter fell on deaf ears; he was not listening; had for the moment forgotten her existence. Her eye followed his, divining the explanation; she smiled expectantly, waiting until he should speak.
“What is the matter with that girl?”
“Tiredness, I should say. Bored! Sick of waiting so long. It was your fault. You would go on.”
“Nonsense. It’s more than that. What has happened to her?”
“Nothing; I told you so. She has serious bouts sometimes. She has one now. So would you have, if you sat in this wind, getting chilled through for an hour on end.”
“I am sorry to hear that. If it has not already happened, it must be still before her. It is written in her face.”
“Piers, how tiresome! Leave my Vanna alone. What is in her face?”
“Tragedy!” said Piers Rendall.