They all looked bright and healthy. They had all the fair complexion and fine roseate bloom which mark the typical English beauty, a loveliness of colour which can almost afford to dispense with perfection of form. They were slenderly made. In a doctor’s parlance, there was not much of them to fall back upon—not much in hand at the beginning of a long illness. They were tall and willowy, rather narrow-chested, Vansittart noted with a pang. Yes, assuredly Eve was the flower of the flock. Her chest was broader, her throat fuller and more firmly moulded than the chests and throats of her sisters. The poise of her head was more decided, her whole bearing argued a stronger constitution. She was the offspring of her mother’s youth, before any indication of disease had darkened the young life. She was the offspring of her father’s early manhood. The doctors had augured well for her on this account.
The winter was spent very quietly at Merewood. Vansittart hunted and shot, and he often went home earlier in the winter dusk than became him as a sportsman, in order to take tea with Eve beside the fire. His mother lingered at Merewood, so that Eve should not be alone, the link between the two women strengthening day by day. The sisters came over from Haslemere, and enjoyed all the luxuries of a well-appointed house. Eve and her husband went for two or three short visits to Redwold Towers, and Sir Hubert and Lady Hartley came to Merewood; he for the last of the pheasants—having pretty nearly cleared his own woods, extensive as they were—she for the pleasure of being with Eve, to whom she was sincerely attached.
And so the winter went by, a not unhappy winter. How could a young wife be unhappy, adoring and adored by her husband? Hymen’s torch glowed with gentlest light beside that hearth where the pine logs were heaped so liberally, pine logs from Vansittart’s paternal woods.
Eve was in high health at Easter, radiant, full of life and spirits, albeit in no wise forgetful of that grave on the hill where the Maréchal Niel roses were growing so luxuriantly, and which was being carefully tended by stranger hands. There are those at Cannes who take a loving pride in that Garden of Death, whose care it is that this place of rest should be for ever beautiful, a paradise of peace, the very memory whereof should be sweet in the thoughts of the bereaved. Eve could think now with resignation of that tranquil spot, and of the young life which had come to a sudden pause on earth. Was it a full stop, or only a hyphen? Was it the end of the book, or only the bottom of the page, with the last word repeated over-leaf, to carry on the story without a break?
Mrs. Vansittart insisted that her children should have the free use of the house in Charles Street for the London season. She wanted Eve to enjoy the privileges of her position as the wife of a man of good family and good means. She had also a lingering hope that in the high pressure of London society her son might awaken to some worthy ambition—political or social, and might try to make his mark in the world. She had always been ambitious for him—had always wanted him to do something more than shoot his own pheasants, improve the cottages on his estate, and live within his means. For a young man of his social status, the political arena offered fair scope for ambition, and Mrs. Vansittart had the common idea that any man of good abilities can succeed in politics.
CHAPTER XXII.
“SO VERY WILFUL.”
Another Easter over, another season beginning, and with all the usual auguries of a season of exceptional splendour—auguries to be exchanged later for dismal elegies upon a season of surpassing dulness and stagnation, which had disappointed everybody, and all but ruined the West End tradesmen. As this jubilant vaticination and these melancholy wailings are repeated year after year, they have come to be of little more significance than the chirping of the newly arriving swifts under the eaves, or the twittering of the swallows assembled for their autumnal flight. Seasons come and seasons go. People are hopeful before the fact, and disappointed after the fact; the great chorus of humanity goes on. Such is life. A season of hope and disillusion. Contemplate existence from the severest standpoint of the agnostic metaphysician, or from the most exalted platform of the Christian saint, and the ultimate fact is the same. We begin in hope to end in sorrow.
For Signora Vivanti the after-Easter season began under cheeriest conditions. Her success at the Apollo had been unbroken. The longer she acted a part, the more spirited her acting became. Ignorant and uncultured as she was, she possessed the gift of “gag,” knew when and where to introduce a word or a look which delighted her audience; and the management and her brother and sister artists—more especially the brothers—gave her full scope. These little inspirations of hers became licensed liberties, and her rôle grew and strengthened under her hands. She was the most popular actress who had appeared at the Apollo since the building of the theatre.