The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
While Julius--who, though no less devout than of yore, was happily less
fastidiously sensitive--would reply:--
"But, dearest lady, had I followed the footsteps of my Oxford friends,
remember I should not be at Brockhurst at all."
"Clearly, then, everything is well ordered," she would say, folding her
fragile hands upon her embroidery frame, "since it is altogether
impossible we could do without you. Yet I regret for your soul. It is
so capable of receiving illumination. You English--even the most
finished among you--remain really deplorably stubborn, and nevertheless
it is my fate perpetually to set my affections upon one or other of
you."
It followed that Katherine devoted much of her time to Mademoiselle de
Mirancourt, walked slowly beside her up and down the sunny, garden
paths sheltered by the high, red walls whereon the clematis and jasmine
began to show for flower; or took her for quiet, little drives within
the precincts of the park. They spoke much of Lucia St. Quentin, of
Katherine's girlhood, and of those pleasant days in Paris long ago. And
this brought soothing and comfort, not only to the old lady, but to the
young lady also--and of soothing and comfort the latter stood in need
just now.
For it is harsh discipline even to a noble woman, whose life is still
strong in her, to stand by and see another woman but a few years her
junior entering on those joys which she has lost,--marriage, probably
motherhood as well. Roger Ormiston's and Mary Cathcart's love-making
was restrained and dignified. But the very calm of their attitude
implied a security of happiness passing all need of advertisement. And
Katherine was very far from grudging them this. She was not envious,
still less jealous. She did not want to take anything of theirs; but
she wanted, she sorely wanted, her own again. A word, a look, a certain
quickness of quiet laughter, would pierce her with recollection. Once
for her too, below the commonplaces of daily detail, flowed that same
magic river of delight. But the springs of it had gone dry. Therefore
it was a relief to be alone with Mademoiselle de Mirancourt--virgin and
saint--and to speak with her of the days before she had sounded the
lovely depths of that same magic flood--days when she had known of its
existence only by the mirage, born of the dazzle of its waters, which
plays over the innocent vacant spaces of a young girl's mind.
It was a relief even, though of sterner quality, to go into the red
drawing-room on the ground floor and pace there, her hands clasped
behind her, her proud head bowed, by the half hour together. If
personal joy is dead past resurrection, there is bitter satisfaction in
realising to the full personal pain. The room was duly swept, dusted,
casements set open to welcome breeze and sunshine, fires lighted in the
grate. But no one ever sat there. It knew no cheerfulness of social
intercourse. The crimson curtains and covers had become faded. They
were not renewed. The furniture, save for the absence of the narrow
bed, stood in precisely the same order as on the night when Sir Richard
Calmady died. It was pushed back against the walls. And in the wide
empty way between the two doors, Katherine paced, saturating all her
being with thoughts of that which was, and must remain, wholly and
inalienably her own--namely, her immense distress.
And in this she took the more comfort, because something else, until
now appearing wholly her own, was slipping a little away from her.
Dickie's health had improved notably in the last few weeks. His
listlessness had vanished, while his cheeks showed a wholesome warmth
of colour. But his cry was ever. "Mother, Uncle Roger's going to such a
place. He says he'll take me. I can go, can't I?" Or, "Mother, Mary's
going to do such a thing. She says she'll show me how. She may, mayn't
she?" And Katherine's answer was always "Yes." She grudged the boy none
of his new-found pleasures, rejoiced indeed to see him interested and
gay. Yet to watch the new broom, which sweeps so clean, is rarely
exhilarating to those that have swept diligently with the old one. The
nest had held her precious fledgling so safely till now; and this
fluttering of wings, eager for flight, troubled her somewhat. Not only
was Dickie's readiness to be away from her a trifle hard to bear; but
she knew that disappointment, of a certainty, lay in wait for him, and
that each effort towards wider action would but reveal to him how
circumscribed his powers actually were.
Meanwhile, however, Richard enjoyed himself recklessly, almost
feverishly, in the attempt to disprove the teaching of that ugly dream,
and keep truth at bay. There had been further drives, and the
excitement of witnessing a forest fire--only too frequent in the
Brockhurst country when the sap is up, and the easterly wind and May
sun have scorched all moisture from the surface of the moorland. He and
Mary had bumped over fir roots and scuttled down bridle-paths in the
pony-carriage, to avoid the rush of flame and smoke; had skirmished
round at a hand gallop, in search of recruits to reinforce Ormiston,
and Iles, and a small army of beaters, battling against the blazing
line that threatened destruction to the fir avenue. Now and again, with
a mighty roar, which sent Dickie's heart into his mouth, great tongues
of flame, clear as topaz and ruby in the steady sunshine, would leap
upwards, converting a whole tall fir into a tree of fire, while the
beaters running back, grimed with smoke and sweat, took a moment's
breathing-space in the open.
There had been more peaceful pastimes as well--several days' fishing,
enchanting beyond the power of language to describe. The clear
trout-stream meandering through the rich water-meadows; the herds of
cattle standing knee-deep in the grass, lazily chewing the cud and
switching their tails at the cloud of flies; the birds and wild
creatures haunting the streamside; the long dreamy hours of gentle
sport, had opened up to Dickie a whole new world of romance. His
donkey-chair had been left at the yellow-washed mill beneath the grove
of silvery-leaved, ever-rustling, balsam poplars. And thence, while
Ormiston and Mary sauntered slowly on ahead, the men--Winter in mufti,
oblivious of plate-cleaning and cellarage, and the onerous duties of
his high estate, Stamp, the water-bailiff, and Moorcock, one of the
under-keepers--had carried him across the great green levels. Winter
was an old and tried friend, and it was somewhat diverting to behold
him in this novel aspect, affable and chatty with inferiors,
displaying, moreover, unexpected knowledge in the mysteries of the
angler's craft. The other two men--sharp-featured, their faces ruddy as
summer apples, merry-eyed, clad in velveteen coats, that bulged about
the pockets, and wrinkled leather gaiters reaching halfway up the
thigh--charmed Richard, when his first shyness was passed. They were
eager to please him. Their talk was racy. Their laughter ready and
sincere. Did not Stamp point out to him a water-ouzel, with impudently
jerking tail, dipping and wading in the shallows of the stream? Did not
Moorcock find him a water-rail's nest, hidden in a tuft of reeds and
grass, with ten, yellowish, speckled eggs in it? And did not both men
pluck him handfuls of cowslips, of tawny-pink avens, and of mottled,
snake-headed fritillaries, and stow them away in the fishing-baskets
above the load of silver-and-red spotted trout?
Mary had protested Dickie could throw a fly, if he had a light enough
rod. And not only did he throw a fly, but at the fourth or fifth cast a
fish rose, and he played it--with skirling reel and much advice and
most complimentary excitement on the part of the whole good
company--and brought it skilfully within range of Stamp's landing-net.
Never surely was trout spawned that begot such bliss in the heart of an
angler! As, with panting sides and open gills, this three-quarter-pound
treasure of treasures flopped about on the sunny stream bank all the
hereditary instinct of sport spoke up clearly in Dickie. The boy--such
is youthful masculine human nature--believed he understood at last why
the world was made! At dressing-time he had his sacred fish carried on
a plate up to his room to show Clara; and, but for strong remonstrance
on the part of that devoted handmaiden, would have kept it by his
bedside all night, so as to assure himself at intervals, by sense of
touch--let alone that of smell--of the adorable fact of its veritable
existence.
But all this, inspiring though it was, served but as prelude to a more
profoundly coveted acquaintance--that with the racing-stable. For it
was after this last that Dickie still supremely longed--the more so, it
is to be feared, because it was, if not explicitly, yet implicitly
forbidden. A spirit of defiance had entered into him. Being granted the
inch, he was disposed to take the ell. And this, not in conscious
opposition to his mother's will; but in protest, not uncourageous,
against the limitations imposed on him by physical misfortune. The
boy's blood was up, and consequently, with greater pluck than
discretion, he struggled against the intimate, inalienable enemy that
so marred his fate. And it was this not ignoble effort which culminated
in disobedience.
For driving back one afternoon, later than usual,--Ormiston had met
them, and Mary and he had taken a by-path home through the woods,--the
pony-carriage, turned along the high level road beside the lake, going
eastward, just as the string of race-horses, coming home from exercise,
passed along it coming west. Richard was driving, Chaplin, the second
coachman, sitting in the dickey at the back of the low carriage. He
checked the pony, and his eyes took in the whole scene--the blue-brown
expanse of the lake dotted with water-fowl, on the one hand, the
immense blue-brown landscape on the other, ranging away to the faint
line of the chalk downs in the south; the downward slope of the park,
to the great square of red stable buildings in the hollow; the horses
coming slowly towards him in single file. Cawing rooks streamed back
from the fallow-fields across the valley. Thrushes and blackbirds
carolled. A wren, in the bramble brake close by, broke into sharp sweet
song. The recurrent ring of an axe came from somewhere away in the fir
plantations, and the strident rasping of a saw from the wood-yard in
the beech grove near the house.
Richard stared at that oncoming procession. Half-way between him and
the foremost of the horses the tan ride branched off, and wound down
the hillside to the stables. The boy set his teeth. He arrived at a
desperate decision,--touched up the pony, drove on.
Chaplin leaned forward, addressing him, over the back of the seat.
"Better wait here, hadn't we, Sir Richard? They'll turn off in a
minute."
Richard did not look round. He tried to answer coldly, but his voice
shook.
"I know. That's why I am going on."
There was a silence save for the cawing of the rooks, ring of the axe,
and grinding of wheels on the gravel. Chaplin, responsible, correct,
over five-and-thirty, and fully intending to succeed old Mr. Wenham,
the head coachman, on the latter's impending retirement from active
service, went very red in the face.
"Excuse me, but I have my orders, Sir Richard," he said.
Dickie still looked straight ahead.
"Very well," he answered, "then perhaps you'd better get out and walk
on home."
"You know I'm bound not to leave you, sir," the man said.
Dickie laughed a little in uncontrollable excitement. He was close to
them now. The leading horse was just moving off the main road, its
shadow lying long across the turf. How was it possible to give way with
the prize within reach?--"You can go or stay Chaplin, as you please. I