Set in Silver
leaves a gorgeous scintillating circle in my mind's eye, just as the sun
does on your body's eye, when you have looked in the face of its glory.
Oh, and the extraordinary stone veil, with its gilded ornamentation! I
shan't forget that, but shall think of it when I am old. There is an
effect as of tall rows of ripe wheat bending toward one another,
gleaming as wheat does when the breeze blows and the sun shines.
We heard the choir singing, an unseen choir of boys and men; and the
voices were like shafts of crystal, rising, rising, rising, up as far as
heaven, for all I know.
Don't you feel that the voice of a boy is purer, more impersonal and
sexless, somehow, than the clearest soprano of a woman, therefore
exactly fulfilling our idea of an angel singing?
Think of Gloucester having been laid out on the same plan as the
praetorian camp at Rome! They've proved it by a sketch map of Viollet le
Duc's; and under the city of the Saxons, and mediaeval Gloucester, lies
Gloucestra--"Fair City"--of the Romans. You can dig bits of its walls
and temples up almost anywhere if you go deep enough, people say. It
must have been an exciting place to live in when Rome ruled Britain,
because the fierce tribes from Southern Wales, just across the Severn,
were always spoiling for a fight. But now one can't imagine being
excited to any evil passion in this shrine of the great "Abbey of the
Severn Lands." The one passion I dared feel was admiration; admiration
everywhere, all the way through from the tomb of Osric the Woden who
founded the abbey, to the New Inn (which is very old, and perfectly
beautiful); in the ancient streets, at the abbot's gateway, all round the
Cathedral, inside and out, pausing at the tombs (especially that of poor
murdered King Edward II., who was killed at Berkeley Castle only a few
miles away), and so on and on, even into the modern town which is
inextricably tangled with the old.
There are quantities of interesting and lovely places, according to Sir
Lionel, where one ought to go from Gloucester, especially with a motor,
which makes seeing things easier than not seeing them; there's
Cheltenham, with a run which gives glorious views over the Severn
Valley; and Stonebench, where you can best see the foaming Severn Bore;
and Tewkesbury, which you'll be interested to know is the Nortonbury of
an old book you love--"John Halifax, Gentleman"; and Malvern; and
there's even Stratford-on-Avon, not too far away for a day's run. But
Sir Lionel has news that the workmen will be out of Graylees Castle
before long, and he says we must leave some of the best things for
another time; Oxford and Cambridge, for instance; and Graylees is so
near Warwick and Kenilworth and Stratford-on-Avon that it will be best
to save them for separate short trips after we have "settled down at
home."
How little he guesses that there'll be no settling down for me--that
already I have been with him longer than I expected! Whenever he speaks
of "getting home," and what "we" will do after that, it gives me a
horrid, choky feeling; and I'm afraid he thinks me unresponsive on the
subject of the beautiful old place which he apparently longs to have me
see, because my throat is always too shut up, when it is mentioned, to
talk about it. I can't do much more than say "Yes" and "No," in the
absolutely necessary places, and generally show symptoms of cold in the
head, if there's a hanky handy.
Of course, I am dying to see you, dearest. You know that, without my
telling, and you are everything to me--my whole world. Yet it hurts me
dreadfully to know that, when Sir Lionel Pendragon is at home, instead
of carrying out the nice plans he makes each day for "us" in the future,
he will be despising me heartily, and thinking me the very worst girl,
without exception, who ever lived. I believe he now dislikes Bloody
Queen Mary more than any other woman who ever spoiled the earth with her
offensive presence; but probably she will go up one when he gets to know
about me.
I don't doubt that he'll be angry with the real Ellaline as well, but
not absolutely disgusted with her, as he will be with me. Besides,
whatever he feels, it won't matter to her very much, except where money
is concerned, because she will be married before he knows the truth. She
won't have to live in his house, or even in the same country with him,
for her home will be in France with her soldier-husband. Unfortunately,
I'm afraid his opinion of her may matter in a mercenary way, for I have
heard the whole story--I believe the _true_ story--of Ellaline's mother
and father, as connected with Sir Lionel's past.
Mrs. Senter told it, and enjoyed telling it, because she thought it
would depress and take the spirit out of me. She hoped, I'm sure, that
it would make me shrink from Sir Lionel's society in shame and
mortification; also she very likely fancied that I might consider myself
an unfit bride for her nephew, whose attentions to me are extremely
convenient for her; but she would prefer not to have them end in
matrimony.
If I were Ellaline Lethbridge, with the feelings of Audrie Brendon, I
should have taken the recital precisely as she expected; though really I
don't think Ellaline herself, as she is, would have minded desperately,
except about the money. But being Audrie Brendon, and not Ellaline, I
could have shouted for joy at almost every word that woman said, if it
hadn't been in a cave where shouting would have made awful echoes.
You know, dear, how I have been puzzling over Sir Lionel the Noble, as
he appears to me, and Sir Lionel the Dragon, as painted by Ellaline, and
how I've vainly tried to match the pieces together. Well, thanks to Mrs.
Senter's revelations, the puzzle no longer exists. Of course, long ago,
I made up my mind that there was a mistake somewhere, and that it wasn't
on my side; still, I couldn't understand certain things. Now, there
_isn't one detail_ which I can't understand very well; and that's why
I'm so ready to believe Mrs. Senter's story to be true. Most
disagreeable things are; and this is certainly as disagreeable for poor
little Ellaline as it was meant to be disagreeable for me.
Mrs. Senter excused herself for telling me horrid tales about my people
by saying that my ignorance gave me the air of being ungrateful to Sir
Lionel, and unappreciative of all he had done for me. That he, being a
man, was likely to blame me for extravagance and indifference to
benefits received, although aware, when he actually reflected on the
subject, that I sinned through ignorance. She thought (said she) that it
would be only fair to tell me the whole truth, as I could then change my
line of conduct accordingly; but she hoped I wouldn't give her away to
Sir Lionel or Dick, as she was speaking for my sake.
When I had promised, she informed me that "my mother," Ellaline de
Nesville, a distant cousin of Lionel Pendragon's, was engaged to him
when they were both very young. There was a lawsuit going on at the time
about some tin mines in Cornwall, from which most of his money came, for
the property was claimed by a man from another branch of the family, who
suddenly appeared waving a marriage certificate or a will, or something
melodramatic. Well, the lawsuit was decided for the other man, just
about the time that Sir Lionel (who wasn't Sir Lionel then) got shot in
the arm and seemed likely to be a cripple for life. Both blows coming
together were too much for Mademoiselle de Nesville, who was fascinating
and pretty, but apparently a frightful little cat as well as flirt, so
she promptly bolted with an intimate friend of her fiance, a Mr.
Frederic Lethbridge, rich and "well connected." They ran off and were
married in Scotland, as Ellaline the second expects to be. (Odd how even
profane history repeats itself!) And this though Mr. Lethbridge knew his
friend was desperately in love with the girl.
What happened immediately after I don't know, except that Mrs. Senter
says Sir Lionel was horribly cut up, and lost his interest in life. But
anyhow, sooner or later, the lawsuit, which had gone to a higher court,
was, after all, decided in his favour. The other man turned out to be a
fraud, and retired into oblivion with his wills and marriage
certificates. Meanwhile, Ellaline Number One awoke to the fact that her
husband wasn't as rich as he was painted, or as nice as she had fancied.
Some of his people were millionaires, but he had run through a good deal
of his fortune because he was mad about gambling. At first, when the
bride supposed that there was heaps of money, she enjoyed gambling, too,
and they were always at Longchamps, or Chantilly, or the English
race-courses, or at Aix or Monte Carlo. By and by, though, when she
found that they were being ruined, she tried to pull her husband up--but
it was too late; or else he was the sort of person who can't be stopped
when he's begun running down hill.
Probably she regretted her cousin by that time, as he was rich again,
and likely to be richer, as well as very distinguished. And when a few
years later (while our Ellaline was a baby) Frederic Lethbridge forged a
millionaire uncle's name, and had to go to prison, she must have
regretted Sir Lionel still more, for she was a little creature who loved
pleasure, and hardly knew how to bear trouble.
Mrs. Senter said that Mr. Lethbridge had been sure the uncle would
shield him rather than have a scandal in the family, and so it was a
great surprise to him to be treated like an ordinary criminal. When he
was sentenced to several years in prison, after a sensational trial, he
contrived to hang himself, and was found stone-dead in his cell. His
widow had to go and live with some dull, disagreeable relations in the
country, who thought it their duty to take her and the baby for a
consideration, and there she died of disappointment and galloping
consumption, leaving a letter for her jilted cousin Lionel, in Bengal,
which begged him to act as guardian for her child. All the money she had
at her death was a few thousand pounds, of which she had never been able
to touch anything but the income, about two hundred pounds a year; and
that sum, Mrs. Senter gave me to understand, constituted my sole right
to consider myself an heiress.
Despite the shameful way in which she had behaved to him, Sir Lionel
accepted the charge, eventually took his cousin's little girl away from
the disagreeable relatives, and put her at Madame de Maluet's, where
Mother Ellaline was educated and particularly desired her daughter to be
educated. Not only did he pay for her keep at one of the most expensive
schools in France (Madame's is that, and she prides herself on the
fact), but gave her an allowance "far too large for a schoolgirl" in the
opinion of Mrs. Senter's unknown (to me) informant.
Doesn't this account for everything that looked strange, and for all
that appeared cold-hearted, almost cruel, in Sir Lionel to Ellaline, who
had heard the wrong side of the story, certainly from Madame de
Blanchemain--a silly woman, I fancy--and perhaps even from Madame de
Maluet, whose favourite pupil Ellaline the First was?
No wonder Sir Lionel didn't write to the child, or want her to write to
him, or send her photograph, or anything! And no wonder he dreaded
having her society thrust on him when Madame de Maluet hinted that it
was hardly decent to keep his ward at school any longer. I even
understand now why, when I show the slightest sign of flirtatiousness or
skittishness, he stiffens up, and draws into his shell.
I very politely let Mrs. Senter see that I appreciated her true
disinterestedness in repeating to me this tragic family history; and of
course she was a cat twice over to do it. At the same time, I never
liked her so much in my life, because it was so splendid to have Sir