The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
cries to me--that is natural enough"--Katherine paused--"and as it
should be. But I must needs run out and cry to you. In this we are like
links of an endless chain. What is the next link, Julius? To whom will
you cry in your turn?"
"The chain is not endless" he replied. "The last link of it is riveted
to the steps of the throne of God. I will make my cry there--my
threefold cry--for you, for Richard, and for myself, Katherine."
Lady Calmady had reached the arched side-door leading from the terrace
into the house. She paused, with her hand on the latch.
"Your God and I quarreled nearly four-and-twenty years ago--not when
Richard, my joy, died, but when Richard, my sorrow, was born," she
said. "I own I see no way, short of miracle, of that quarrel being made
up."
"Then a miracle will be worked," he answered.
"Ah! You forget I grow old," Katherine retorted, smiling; "so that for
miracles the time is at once too long and too short."
CHAPTER V
TELLING HOW QUEEN MARY'S CRYSTAL BALL CAME TO FALL ON THE GALLERY FLOOR
This world is unquestionably a vastly stimulating and entertaining
place if you take it aright--namely, if you recognise that it is the
creation of a profound humorist, is designed for wholly practical and
personal uses, and proceed to adapt your conduct to that knowledge in
all light-heartedness and good faith. Thus, though in less trenchant
phrase since she was still happily very young, meditated Madame de
Vallorbes, while standing in the pensive October sunshine upon the wide
flight of steps which leads down from the main entrance of Brockhurst
House. Tall, stone pinnacles alternating with seated griffins--long of
tail, fierce of beak and sharp of claw--fill in each of the many angles
of the descending stone balustrade on either hand. Behind her, the
florid, though rectangular, decoration of the house front ranged up,
storey above storey, in arcade and pilaster, heavily mullioned window,
carven plaque and string course, to pairs of matching pinnacles and
griffins--these last rampant, supporting the Calmady shield and
coat-of-arms--the quaint forms of which break the long line of the
pierced, stone parapet in the centre of the facade, and rise above the
rusty red of the low-pitched roofs, until the spires of the one and
crested heads of the other are outlined against the sky. About her feet
the pea-fowl stepped in mincing and self-conscious elegance--the cocks
with rustlings of heavy trailing quills, the hens and half-grown chicks
with squeakings and whifflings--subdued, conversational--accompanied by
the dry tap of many bills picking up the glossy grains of Indian-corn
which she let dribble slowly down upon the shallow steps from between
her pretty fingers. She had huddled a soft sable tippet about her
throat and shoulders. The skirt of her indigo-coloured, poplin dress,
turning upon the step immediately above that on which she stood, showed
some inches of rose-scarlet, silken frill lining the hem of it.
Helen de Vallorbes had a lively consciousness of her surroundings. She
enjoyed every detail of them. Enjoyed the gentle, southwesterly wind
which touched her face and stirred her bright hair, enjoyed the
plaintive, autumn song of a robin perched on a rose-grown wall, enjoyed
the impotent ferocity of the guardian griffins, enjoyed the small
sounds made by the feeding pea-fowl, the modest quaker grays and the
imperial splendours of their plumage. She enjoyed the turn of her own
wrist, its gold chain-bracelet and the handsome lace falling away from
and displaying it, as she held out the handfuls of corn. She enjoyed
even that space of rose-scarlet declaring itself between the dull blue
of her dress and the gray, weathered surface of the stone.
But all these formed only the accompaniment, the ground-tone, to more
reasoned, more vital enjoyments. Before her, beyond the carriage sweep,
lay the square lawn enclosed by red walls and by octagonal, pepper-pot
summer-houses, whereon--unwillingly, yet in obedience to the wild
justice of revenge--Roger Ormiston had shot the Clown, half-brother to
Touchstone, race-horse of mournful memory. As a child Helen had heard
that story. Now her somewhat light, blue-gray eyes, their beautiful
lids raised wide for once, looked out curiously upon the space of
dew-powdered turf; while the corners of her mouth--a mouth a trifle
thin lipped, yet soft and dangerously sweet for kissing--turned upward
in a reflective smile. She, too, knew what it was to be angry, to the
point of revenge; had indeed come to Brockhurst not without purpose of
that last tucked away in some naughty convolution of her active brain.
But Brockhurst and its inhabitants had proved altogether more
interesting than she had anticipated. This was the fourth day of her
visit, and each day had proved more to her taste than the preceding
one. So she concluded this matter of revenge might very well stand over
for the moment, possibly stand over altogether. The present was too
excellent, of its kind, to risk spoiling. Helen de Vallorbes valued the
purple and fine linen of a high civilisation; nor did she disdain,
within graceful limits, to fare sumptuously every day. She valued all
that is beautiful and costly in art, of high merit and distinction in
literature. Her taste was sure and just, if a little more disposed
towards that which is sensuous than towards that which is spiritual.
And in all its many forms she appreciated luxury, even entertaining a
kindness for that necessary handmaid of luxury--waste. Appreciated
these the more ardently, that, with birth-pangs at the beginning of
each human life, death-pangs and the corruption of the inevitable grave
at the close of each, all this lapping, meanwhile, of the doomed flesh
in exaggerations of ease and splendour seemed to her among the very
finest ironies of the great comedy of existence. It heightened, it
accentuated the drama. And among the many good things of life, drama,
come how and where and when it might, seemed to her supremely the best.
She desired it as a lover his mistress. To detect it, to observe it,
gave her the keenest pleasure. To take a leading part in and shape it
to the turn of her own heart, her own purpose, her own wit was, so far,
her ruling passion.
And of potential drama, of the raw material of it, as the days passed,
she found increasingly generous store at Brockhurst. It invaded and
held her imagination, as the initial conception of his poem will that
of the poet, or of his picture that of the painter. She brooded over
it, increasingly convinced that it might be a masterpiece. For the
drama--as she apprehended it--contained not only elements of virility
and strength, but an element, and that a persistent one, of the
grotesque. This put the gilded dome to her silent, and perhaps slightly
unscrupulous, satisfaction. How could it be otherwise, since the
presence of the grotesque is, after all, the main justification of the
theory on which her philosophy of life was based--namely, the belief
that above all eloquence of human speech, behind all enthusiasm of
human action or emotion, the ear which hears aright can always detect
the echo of eternal laughter? And this grim echo did not affect the
charming young lady to sadness as yet. Still less did it make her mad,
as the mere suspicion of it has made so many, and those by no means
unworthy or illiterate persons. For the laugh, so far, had appeared to
be on her side, never at her expense--which makes a difference. And the
chambers of her house of life were too crowded by health and agreeable
sensations, mental activities and sparkling audacities, to have any one
of them vacant for reception, more than momentary, of that
thrice-blessed guest, pity.
And so it followed that, as she fed the mincing pea-fowl, Madame de
Vallorbes' smile changed in character from reflection to impatience. A
certain heat running through her, she set her pretty teeth and fell to
pelting the pea-hens and chicks mischievously, breaking up all their
aristocratic reserve and making them jump and squeak to some purpose.
For this precious, this very masterpiece of a drama was not only here
potentially, but actually. It was alive. She had felt it move under her
hand--or under her heart, which was it?--yesterday evening. Again this
morning, just now, she had noted signs of its vitality, wholly
convincing to one skilled in such matters. Impatience, then, became
very excusable.
"For my time is short and the action disengages itself so deplorably
slowly!" she exclaimed. "Pah! you greedy, conceited birds, which do you
hold dearest after all, the filling of your little stomachs, or the
supporting of your little dignities? Be advised by a higher
intelligence. Revenge yourselves on the grains that hit and sting you
by gobbling them up. It is a venerable custom that of feasting upon
one's enemies. And has been practised, in various forms, both by
nations and individuals. There, I give you another chance of displaying
wisdom--there--there!--La! la! what an absurd commotion! You little
idiots, don't flutter. Agitation is a waste of energy, and advances
nothing. I declare peace. I want to consider."
And so, letting the remaining handfuls of corn dribble down very
slowly, while the sunshine grew warmer and the shadows of the guardian
griffins more distinct upon the lichen-encrusted stones, Helen de
Vallorbes sank back into meditation--Yes, unquestionably the drama was
alive. But it seemed so difficult to bring it to the birth. And she
wanted, very badly, to hear its first half-articulate cries and watch
its first staggering footsteps. All that is so entertaining, you
yourself safely grown-up, standing very firm on your feet, looking
down! And it would be a lusty child, this drama, very soon reaching
man's estate and man's inspiring violence of action, striking out like
some blind, giant Samson, blundering headlong in its unseeing,
uncalculating strength.--Helen laid her hands upon her bosom, and threw
back her head, while her throat bubbled with suppressed laughter. Ah!
it promised to be a drama of ten thousand, if she knew her power, and
knew her world--and she possessed considerable confidence in her
knowledge of both. Only, how on earth to set the crystal free of the
matrix, how to engage battle, how to get this thing fairly and squarely
born? For, as she acknowledged, in the flotation of all such merry
schemes as her present one, chance encounters, interludes, neatly
planned evasions and resultant pursuits, play so large and important a
part. But at Brockhurst this whole chapter of accidents was barred, and
received rules of strategy almost annihilated, by the fact of Richard
Calmady's infirmity and the hard-and-fast order of domestic procedure,
the elaborate system of etiquette, which that infirmity had gradually
produced. At Brockhurst there were no haphazard exits and entrances.
These were either hopelessly official and public, or guarded to an
equally hopeless point of secrecy. A contingent of tall, civil
men-servants was always on duty. Richard was invariably in his place at
table when the rest of the company came down. The ladies took their
after-dinner coffee in the drawing-room, and joined the gentlemen in
the Chapel-Room, library, or gallery, as the case might be. If they
rode, Richard was at the door ready mounted, along with the grooms and
led-horses. If they drove, he was already seated in the carriage.
"And how, how in the name of common sense," Madame de Vallorbes
exclaimed, stamping her foot, and thereby throwing the now thoroughly
nervous pea-fowl into renewed agitation, "are you to establish any
relation worth mentioning with a man who is perpetually being carried
in procession like a Hindu idol? My good birds, one's never alone with