“It 's forbidden, sir.”
“No one goes there without express invitation from Miss Stella,” said John, indiscreetly. “If any one did, I don't know what would happen to him.”
He left her with a new idea in her confused little brain. Mr. Risca was obviously speaking the truth, as he himself had just been summoned by the mysterious princess. Unity knew that she was very beautiful and lay all her life on a bed looking out to sea; that she was an angel of goodness; that she was worshipped by the whole household, even by the humbler members of the servants' hall, who had never seen her. A kitchen-maid summoned into the presence for the first time—it was a question of the carriage of coal—decked herself out in her trimmest and cleanest and departed on her errand with the beating heart of one who approaches royalty. There was a tradition, too, that Miss Stella was magically endowed with a knowledge of everything that went on in the house and that nothing was done without her bidding and guidance. Special flowers in the garden were grown for Miss Stella. Special fowls in the poultry-yard laid eggs exclusively for Miss Stella. A day was bright because Miss Stella had requested the sun to shine. Unity knew all this, and when John went out, her heart began to flutter with a wild hope. She laid her sewing in her lap and pictured the scene: the maid would open the door. “Unity, Miss Stella desires to see you.” The fairy-books said that you kissed a princess's hand. I think this must have been Unity Blake's first day-dream. It was a sign of a spirit's emancipation.
The days passed, however, without the dream coming true. But she was very humble. Why should Miss Stella want to see any one so ugly and unimportant? Besides, the garden, with its walks and lawns and shrubberies and great, green trees; the unimagined sea rolling from, the purple rim far away, to dash itself in spray upon the shingle of the beach; the almost terrifying freedom; the young animal's unconscious exultation in returning health; the feminine, instinctive delight in tasteful dress; the singular absence of harsh, cold speech; the curious privilege of satiating her young hunger at every meal—all these new joys combined to protect her from disappointment. There was Constable, too. At her first meeting with the great dog in the garden, she was paralyzed with fright. He stood some way off, watching her with pricked-up ears; then he walked slowly up to her, and smelled her all over with awful gravity. She felt his cold nose touch her cheek. She could not run. Every instant she expected him to open his huge mouth and devour her. But after an eternity he turned away with a sniff, and suddenly began to roll on his back, writhing his neck and body in odd contortions and throwing up his great feet in the air. A gardener appeared from a shrubbery close by, and Unity made a wild rush for his protection. The man saw that she was frightened and reassured her. Constable had only wanted to make certain that she was not a wicked person come with intent to harm Miss Stella. He was Miss Stella's own dog, her bodyguard, who saw to it that no unauthorized person came into her presence.
“He would be fierce then?” she asked.
The gardener was amused. “He 'd gobble you up like winking.” He called the dog, who rose in a dignified way from his gambol.
“Just pat him on the head, and don't look afraid,” counselled the gardener.
So Unity, taking courage, did as she was bidden, and Constable, searching her soul with his wise eyes, admitted her to his friendship. From that time she looked forward to her casual meetings with the dog, although she always felt a certain awe at his strength and bulk, even when he allowed her to be most familiar. And he was invested with a human significance that also made for reverence. Gambol though he might, like the friskiest and least responsible of lambs, he filled, in the workaday hours of life, a post of extraordinary honour and responsibility. He had his being in that inner shrine of mystery where the fairy-princess dwelt; he guarded her most sacred body; he was her most intimate friend and servant. Sometimes, holding the dog's face between her hands, she would ask a child's question.
“What does she talk to you about? Why don't you tell me?” And she would whisper messages in his ear. Once she stuck a dandelion in his collar, and bade him give it to his mistress with her love. Then frightened at her own temerity, she took it back. The dream did not come true, but Constable became a very substantial and comforting part of its fabric.
Then there was Walter Herold. He had the faculty of getting through the deep-encrusted shell of apathy which baffled her other friends. His quick, laughing eyes and sensitive face compelled confidence. He did not wrap himself in the gloomy majesty of her protector, nor was he abrupt and disconcerting like Sir Oliver. The iron repression of her life had kept her dumb. Even now, when she took the initiative in conversation, making a statement or asking a question instead of answering one, instinct jerked her eyes from her interlocutor to space around, as though in apprehension of the fall of an audacity-avenging thunderbolt. Ignorant and inarticulate, she now had unjustly a reputation for sullenness in the household. Keen and sympathetic as were Lady Blount and the nurse, who had undertaken to give her elementary instruction in personal and table manners, they could elicit nothing but commonplaces from the chaotic mind. To Herold alone could the child that she was chatter freely. She told him of her life at the orphanage, the daily routine, the squabbles with school-mates. She spoke of her five-months' inferno.