The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
him--whether by design and arrangement, I know not. But, so far, never,
never, picture that! And yet, don't tell me, matchless mixture of pride
and innocence though he is, he wouldn't like it!"
However, she checked her irritation by contemplation of yesterday. Ah!
that had been very prettily done assuredly. For riding in the forenoon
along the road skirting the palings of the inner park, while they
walked their horses over the soft, brown bed of fallen fir-needles,--she,
her father, and Dick,--the conversation dealt with certain first
editions and their bindings, certain treasures, unique in historic
worth, locked in the glass tables and fine Florentine and _pietra dura_
cabinets of the Long Gallery. Mr. Ormiston was a connoisseur and talked
well. And Helen had sufficient acquaintance with such matters both to
appreciate, and to add telling words to the talk.
"Ah! but I cannot go without seeing those delectable things, Richard,"
she said. "Would it be giving you altogether too much trouble to have
them out for me?"
"Why, of course not. You shall see them whenever you like," he
answered. "Julius knows all about them. He'll be only too delighted to
act showman."
Just here the road narrowed a little, and Mr. Ormiston let his horse
drop a few lengths behind, so that she, Helen, and her cousin rode
forward side by side. The tones of the low sky, of the ranks of firs
and stretches of heather formed a rich, though sombre, harmony of
colour. Scents, pungent and singularly exhilarating, were given off by
the damp mosses and the peaty moorland soil. The freedom of the forest,
the feeling of the noble horse under her, stirred Helen as with the
excitement of a mighty hunting, a positively royal sport. While the
close presence of the young man riding beside her sharpened the edge of
that excitement to a perfect keenness of pleasure.
"Ah, how glorious it all is!" she cried. "How glad I am that you asked
me to come here."
And she turned to Richard, looking at him as, since the first day of
their meeting, she had not, somehow, quite ventured to look.
"But, oh! dear me! please," she went on, "I know Mr. March is an angel,
a saint--but--but--_mea culpa, mea maxima culpa_, I don't want him to
show me those special treasures of yours. He'll take the life out of
them. I know it. And make them seem like things read of merely in a
learned book. Be very charming to me, Richard. Waste half an hour upon
me. Show me those moving relics yourself."
As she spoke, momentary suspicion rose in Dickie's eyes. But she gazed
back unflinchingly, with the uttermost frankness, so that suspicion
died, giving place to the shy, yet triumphant, gladness of youth which
seeks and finds youth.
"Do, Richard, pray do," she repeated.
The young man had averted his face rather sharply, and both horses,
somehow, broke into a hand gallop.
"All right," he answered. "I'll arrange it. This evening, about six,
after tea? Will that suit you? I'll send you word."
Then the road had widened, permitting Mr. Ormiston to draw up to them
again. The remainder of the ride had been a little silent.
Yes, all that had been prettily done. Nor had the piece that followed
proved unworthy of the prelude. She ran over the scene in her mind now,
as she stood among the pocketing pea-fowl, and it caused her both mirth
and delightful little heats, in which the heart has a word to
say.--Madame de Vallorbes was ravished to feel her heart, just now and
again.--For, contradictory as it may seem, no game is perfect that has
not moments of seriousness.--She recalled the aspect of the Long
Gallery, as one of those civil, ever-present men-servants had opened
the door for her, and she waited a moment on the threshold. The true
artist is never in a hurry. The breadth of the great room immediately
before her showed very bright with candle-light and lamplight. But that
died away, through gradations of augmenting obscurity, until the
extreme end, towards the western bay, melted out into complete
darkness. This produced an effect of almost limitless length which
moved her to a childish, and at first pleasing, fancy of vague
danger--an effect heightened by the ranges of curious and costly
objects standing against, or decorating, the walls in a perspective of
deepening gloom. Turquoise-coloured, satin curtains, faded to intimate
accord with the silvered surface of the paneling, were drawn across the
wide windows. They reached to the lower edge of the stonework merely,
leaving blottings of impenetrable shadow below. While, as culmination
of interest, as living centre of this rich and varied setting, was the
figure of Richard Calmady--seen, as his custom was, only to the
waist--seated in a high-backed chair drawn close against an antique,
oak table, upon which a small _pietra dura_ cabinet shad been placed.
The doors of the cabinet stood open, displaying slender columns of
jasper and porphyry, and little drawers encrusted with raised work in
marbles and precious stones. The young man sat stiffly upright, as one
who listens, expectant. His expression was almost painfully serious. In
one hand he held a string of pearls, attached to which, and enclosed by
intersecting hoops of gold, was a crystal ball that shone with the mild
effulgence of a mimic moon. And the great room was so very quiet, that
Helen, in her pause upon the threshold, had remarked the sound of
raindrops tapping upon the many window-panes as with impatiently
nervous fingers.
And this bred in her a corresponding nervousness--sensation to her,
heretofore, almost unknown. The darkness yonder began to provoke a
disagreeable impression, queerly challenging both her eyesight and her
courage. Old convent teachings, regarding the Prince of Darkness and
his emissaries, returned upon her. What if diabolic shapes lurked
there, ready to become stealthily emergent? She had scoffed at such
archaic fancies in the convent, yet, in lonely hours, had suffered
panic fear of them, as will the hardiest sceptic. A certain little
scar, moreover, carefully hidden under the soft hair arranged low on
her right temple, smarted and pricked. In short, her habitual
self-confidence suffered partial eclipse. She was visited by the
disintegrating suspicion, for once, that the eternal laughter might,
possibly, be at her expense, rather than on her side.
But she conquered such suspicion as contemptible, and cast out the
passing weakness. The bare memory of it angered her now, causing her to
fire a volley of yellow corn at a lordly peacock, which sent him
scuttling down the steps on to the gravel in most plebeian haste. Yes,
she had speedily cast out her weakness, thank heaven! What was all the
pother about after all? This was not the first time she had played
merry games with the affairs and affections of men. Madame de Vallorbes
smiled to herself, recalling certain episodes, and shook her charming
shoulders gleefully, as she looked out into the sunny morning. And
then, was there not ample excuse? This man moved her more than
most--more than any. She swore he did. Her attitude towards him was
something new, something quite different, thereby justifying her
campaign. And therefore, all the bolder for her brief self-distrust and
hesitation, she had swept across the great room, light of foot, and
almost impertinently graceful of carriage.
"Here you are at last!" Dickie had exclaimed, with a sigh as of relief.
"I shan't want anything more, Powell. You can come back when the
dressing-bell rings." Then, as the valet closed the door behind him, he
continued rapidly:--"Not that I propose to victimise you till then,
Helen. You mustn't stay a bit longer than you like. I confess I'm
awfully fond of this room. I'm almost ashamed to think how much time I
waste in it. Doing what? Oh, well, just dreaming! You see it contains
samples of the doings of all my father's people, and I return to
primitive faiths here and to perform acts of ancestor worship."
"Ah! I like that!" Helen said. And she did. Picture this man, long of
arm, unnaturally low of stature, and astonishingly--yes, quite
astonishingly good-looking, moving about among these books and
pictures, these trophies of war and of sport, these oriental jars, tall
almost as himself, and all the other strange furnishings from out
distant years and distant lands! Picture him emerging from that well of
soft darkness yonder, for instance! Helen's eyes danced under their
arched and drooping lids, and she registered the fact that, though
still frightened, her fright had changed in character. It was grateful
to her palate. She relished it as the bouquet of a wine of finest
quality. Meanwhile her companion talked on.
"The ancestor worship? Oh yes! I dare say you might like it for a
change. Getting it as I do, as habitual diet, it is not remarkably
stimulating. The natural man prefers to find occasion for worshipping
himself rather than his ancestors, after all, you know. But a little
turn of it will serve to fill in a gap and lessen the monotony of your
visit. I am afraid you must be a good deal bored, Helen. It must seem
rather terribly humdrum here after Paris and Naples, and--well--most
places, at that rate, as you know them."
Richard shifted his position. And the crystal moon encompassed by
golden bands, crossing and intersecting one another like those of a
sidereal sphere, gleamed as with an inward and unearthly light,
swinging slowly upon the movement of his hand.
"You must feel here as though the clock had been put back two or three
centuries. I know we move slowly, and conduct ourselves with tedious
deliberation. And so, you understand, you mustn't let me keep you. Just
look at what you like of these odds and ends, and then depart without
scruple. It's rather a fraud, in any case, my showing them to you.
Julius March, as I told you, is much better qualified to."
"Julius March, Julius March," Madame de Vallorbes broke in. "Do, I
beseech you, dear Cousin Richard, leave him to the pious retirement of
his study. Is he not middle-aged, and a priest into the bargain?"
"Unquestionably," Dickie said. "But, pardon me, I don't quite see what
that has to do with it."
Thereupon Madame de Vallorbes made a very naughty, little grimace and
drummed with her finger-tips upon the table.
"La! la!" she cried, "you're no better than all the rest. Commend me to
a clever man for incapacity to apprehend what is patent to the
intelligence of the most ordinary woman. Look about you."--Helen
sketched in their surroundings with a quick descriptive gesture.
"Observe the lights and shadows. The ghostly wavings of those pale
curtains. Smell the potpourri and spices. Think of the ancestor
worship. Listen to the protesting wind and rain. See the mysterious
treasure you hold in your hand. And then ask me what middle-age and the
clerical profession have to do with all this! Why, nothing, just
precisely nothing, nothing in the whole world. That's the point of my
argument. They'd ruin the sentiment, blight the romance, hopelessly
blight it--for me at least."
The conversation was slightly embarrassed, both Helen and Richard
talking at length, yet at random. But she knew that it was thus, and
not otherwise, that it behooved them to talk. For that which they said
mattered not in the least. The thing said served as a veil, as a cloak,
merely, wherewith to disguise those much greater things which,
perforce, remained unsaid.--To cover his and her lively consciousness
of their present isolation, desired these many days and now obtained.
To conceal the swift, silent approaches of spirit to spirit, so full of
inquiry and self-revelation, fugitive reserves and fugitive distrusts.
To hide, as far as might be, the existence of the hungry,
all-compelling _joie de vivre_ which is begotten whensoever youth thus