The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
"We won't swear, Mr. Chifney," she remarked mildly now.
"Swear! It's enough to make the whole bench of bishops swear to see
that lad."
"I did see him," Mrs. Chifney observed.
"Yes, out of window. But you didn't carry him round, and hear him
talk--knowledgeable talk as you could ask from one of his age. And
watch his face--as like as two peas to his father's."
"But her ladyship's eyes," put in Mrs. Chifney.
"I don't know whose eyes they are, but I know he can use 'em. It was as
pretty as a picture to see how he took it all."
Chifney tossed off the remainder of his tumbler of brandy and water at
a gulp.
"Swear," he repeated, "I could find it in my heart to swear like hell.
But I can find it in my heart to do more than that. I can forgive her
ladyship. By all that's----"
"Thomas, forgiveness and oaths don't go suitably together."
"Well, but I can though, and I tell you, I do," he said solemnly. "I
forgive her.--Shoot the Clown! by G--! I beg your pardon, Maria;--but
upon my soul, once or twice, when I had him in my arms to-day, I felt I
could have understood it if she'd had every horse shot that stood in
the stable."
He held the tumbler up against the lamp. But it was quite empty.
"Uncommon glad she didn't though, poor lady, all the same," he added,
parenthetically, as he set it down on the table again. "What do you
say, Maria--about time we toddled off to bed?"
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH DICKIE IS INTRODUCED TO A LITTLE DANCER WITH BLUSH-ROSES IN
HER HAT
"Her ladyship's inquired for you more than once, sir." This from Winter
meeting the pony-carriage and the returning prodigal at the bottom of
the steps.
The sun was low. Across the square lawn--whereon the Clown had found
death some thirteen years before--peacocks led home their hens and
chicks to roost within the two sexagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses that
fill in the angles of the red-walled enclosure. The pea-fowl stepped
mincingly, high-shouldered, their heads carried low, their long necks
undulating with a self-conscious grace. Dickie's imagination was aglow
like that rose-red sunset sky. The virile sentiment of all just heard
and seen, and the exultation of admitted ownership were upon him. He
felt older, stronger, more secure of himself than ever before. He
proposed to go straight to his mother and confess. In his present mood
he entertained no fear but that she would understand.
"Is Lady Calmady alone?" he asked.
"Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart are with her, Sir Richard." Winter leant down,
loosening the rug. His usual, undemonstrative speech took on a
loftiness of tone. "Mrs. William Ormiston and her daughter have driven
over with Mrs. Cathcart."--The butler was not without remembrance of
that dinner on the day following Dickie's birth. Socially he had never
considered Lady Calmady's sister-in-law quite up to the Brockhurst
level.
Richard leaned back, watching the mincing peacocks. It was so fair here
out of doors. The scent of the may hung in the air. The flame of the
sunset bathed the facade of the stately house. No doubt it would be
interesting to see new people, new relations; but he really cared to
see no one just now, except his mother. From her he wanted to receive
absolution, so that, his conscience relieved of the burden of his
disobedience, he might revel to the full in the thought of the
inheritance upon which--so it seemed to him--he had to-day entered.
Still, in his present humour, Dickie's sense of _noblesse oblige_ was
strong.
"I suppose I've got to go in and help entertain everybody," he
remarked.
"Her ladyship'll think something's wrong, Sir Richard, and be anxious
if you stay away."
The boy held out his arms. "All right then, Winter," he said.
Here Chaplin again gave that admonitory cough. Richard, his face
hardening to slight scorn, looked at him over the butler's shoulder.
"Oh! You need not be uneasy, Chaplin. When I say I'll do a thing, I
don't forget."
Which brief speech caused the butler to reflect, as he bore the boy
across the hall and up-stairs, that Sir Richard was coming to have an
uncommonly high manner about him, at times, considering his age.
An unwonted loudness of conversation filled the Chapel-Room. It was
filled also by the rose-red light of the sunset streaming in through
the curve of the oriel-window. This confused and dazzled Richard
slightly, entering upon it from the silence and sober clearness of the
stair-head. A shrill note of laughter.--Mr. Cathcart's voice saying, "I
felt it incumbent upon me to object, Lady Calmady. I spoke very plainly
to Fallowfeild."--Julius March's delicately refined tones, "I am afraid
spirituality is somewhat deficient in that case."--Then the high
flute-like notes of a child, rising clearly above the general murmur,
"_Ah! enfin--le voila, Maman. C'est bien lui, n'est-ce pas?_" And with
that, Richard was aware of a sudden hush falling upon the assembled
company. He was sensible every one watched him as Winter carried him
across the room and set him down in the long, low armchair near the
fireplace. Poor Dickie's self-consciousness, which had been so
agreeably in abeyance, returned upon him, and a red, not of the sunset,
dyed his face. But he carried his head proudly. He thought of Chifney
and the horses. He refused to be abashed.
And Ormiston, breaking the silence, called to him cheerily:--
"Hello, old chap, what have you been up to? You gave Mary and me the
slip."
"I know I did," the boy answered bravely. "How d'ye do, Mrs. Cathcart?"
as the latter nodded and smiled to him--a large, gentle, comfortable
lady, uncertain in outline, thanks to voluminous draperies of black
silk and black lace. "How d'ye do, sir?" this to Mr. Cathcart--a tall,
neatly-made man, but for a slight roundness of the shoulders. Seeing
him, there remained no doubt as to whence Mary inherited her large
mouth; but matter for thankfulness that she had avoided further
inheritance. For Mr. Cathcart was notably plain. Small eyes and snub
nose, long lower jaw, and gray forward-curled whiskers rendered his
appearance unfortunately simian. He suggested a caricature; but one,
let it be added, of a person undeniably well-bred.
"My darling, you are very late," Katherine said. Her back was towards
her guests as she stooped down arranging the embroidered rug across
Dickie's feet and legs. Laying his hand on her wrist he squeezed it
closely for a moment.
"I--I'll tell you all about that presently, mummy, when they're gone.
I've been enjoying myself awfully--you won't mind?"
Katherine smiled. But, looking up at her, it appeared to Richard that
her face was very white, her eyes very large and dark, and that she was
very tall and, somehow, very splendid just then. And this fed his
fearlessness, fed his young pride, even as, though in a more subtle and
exquisite manner, his late experience of the racing-stable had fed
them. His mother moved away and took up her interrupted conversation
with Mr. Cathcart regarding the delinquencies of Lord Fallowfeild.
Richard looked coolly round the room.
Every one was there--Julius, Mary, Mademoiselle de Mirancourt, while
away in the oriel-window Roger Ormiston stood talking to a pretty,
plump, very much dressed lady, who chattered, laughed, stared, with
surprising vivacity. As Dickie looked at her she stared back at him
through a pair of gold eye-glasses. Against her knee, that rosy light
bathing her graceful, little figure, leant a girl about Dickie's own
age. She wore a pale pink and blue frock, short and outstanding in the
skirts. She also wore a broad-brimmed, white hat, with, a garland of
blush-roses around the crown of it. The little girl did not stare. She
contemplated Richard languidly, yet with sustained attention. Her
attitude and bearing were attractive. Richard wanted to see her close,
to talk to her. But to call and ask her to come to him was awkward. And
to go to her--the boy grew a little hot again--was more awkward still.
Mrs. Ormiston dropped her gold eye-glasses into her lap.
"It really is ten thousand pities when these things happen in the wrong
rank of life," she said. "Rightly placed they might be so profitable."
"For goodness sake, be careful, Ella," Ormiston put in quickly.
"Oh! My dear creature, don't be nervous. Everybody's attending to
everybody else, and if they did hear they wouldn't understand. I'm one
of the fortunate persons who are supposed never to talk sense and so I
can say what I like." Mrs. Ormiston gave her shrill little laugh. "Oh!
there are consolations, depend upon it, in a well-sustained reputation
for folly!"
The laugh jarred on Richard. He decided that he did not quite like his
aunt Charlotte Ormiston. All the same he wished the charming, little
girl would come to him.
"But to return. It's a waste. To some poor family it might have been a
perfect fortune. And I hate waste. Perhaps you have never discovered
that?"
Ormiston let his glance rest on the somewhat showy figure.
"I doubt if William has discovered it either," he remarked.
"Oh! as to your poor brother William, heaven only knows what he has or
has not discovered!--Now, Helen, this conversation becomes undesirable.
You've asked innumerable questions about your cousin. Go and make
acquaintance with him. I'm the best of mothers of course, but, at
times, I really can do quite well without you."
Now surely this was a day of good fortune, for again Dickie had his
desire. And a most surprisingly pretty, little desire it
proved--seductive even, deliciously finished in person and in manner.
The boy gazed at the girl's small hands and small, daintily shod feet,
at the small, lovely, pink and white face set in a cloud of
golden-brown hair, at the innocent, blue eyes, at the mouth with
upturned corners to it. Richard was not of age to remark the eyes were
rather light in colour, the lips rather thin. The exquisite refinement
of the girl's whole person delighted him. She was delicate as a
miniature, as a figure carved in ivory. She was like his Uncle Roger,
when she was silent and still. She was like--oh, poor Dick!--some
bright glancing, small, saucy bird when she spoke and her voice had
those clear, flute tones in it.
"Since you did not come to me, I had to come to you," she said. "I have
wanted so much to see you. I had heard about you at home, in Paris."
"Heard about me?" Dickie repeated, flattered and surprised. "But won't
you sit down. Look--that little chair. I can reach it."
And leaning sideways he stretched out his hand. But his finger-tips
barely touched the top rail. Richard flushed. "I'm awfully sorry," he
said, "but I am afraid--it isn't heavy--I must let you get it
yourself."
The girl, who had watched him intently, her hands clasped, gave a
little sigh. Then the corners of her mouth turned up as she smiled. A
delightful dimple showed in her right cheek.
"But, of course," she replied, "I will get it."
She settled herself beside him, folded her hands, crossed her feet,
exposing a long length of fine, open-work, silk stocking.
"I desired enormously to see you," she continued. "But when you came in
I grew shy. It is so with one sometimes."
"You should use your influence, Lady Calmady," Mr. Cathcart was saying.
"Unquestionably the condition of the workhouse is far from
satisfactory. And Fallowfeild is too lenient. That _laisser-aller_
policy of his threatens to land us in serious difficulties. The place
is insanitary, and the food is unnecessarily poor. I am not an advocate
for extravagance, but I cannot bear to see discomfort which might be
avoided. Fallowfeild is the most kind-hearted of men, but he has a
fatal habit of believing what people tell him. And those workhouse
officials have got round him. The whole matter ought to be subjected to
the strictest investigation."