The History of Sir Richard Calmady: A Romance
church-bells in token thereof, foreseeing much carnal gratification in
the matter of cakes and ale. And Madame de Vallorbes, whose letters to
Richard had come to be pretty frequent during the last eight months,
was overtaken by silence and did not write at all.
But this omission on the part of his cousin was grateful, rather than
distressing, to the young man. It appeared to him very sympathetic of
Helen not to write. It showed a finely, imaginative sensibility and
considerateness on her part, which made Dickie sigh, thinking of it,
and then, so to speak, turn away his head. And to do this last was the
less difficult that his days were very full just now. And his mind was
very full, likewise, of gentle thoughts of, and many provisions for,
the happiness of his promised bride.
The young girl was timid in his presence, it is true. Yet she was
transparently, appealing, anxious to please. Her conversation was
neither ready nor brilliant, but she was very fair to look upon in her
childlike freshness and innocence. A protective element, a tender and
chivalrous loyalty, entered into Richard's every thought of her. A
great passion and a happy marriage were two quite separate matters--so
he argued in his inexperience. And this was surely the wife a man
should desire, modest, guileless, dutiful, pure in heart as in person?
The gentle dumbness which often held her did not trouble him. It was a
pretty pastime to try to win her confidence and open the doors of her
artless speech.
And then, to Richard, tempted it is true, but as yet himself unsullied,
it was so sacred and wonderful a thing that this spotless
woman-creature in all the fragrance of her youth belonged to him in a
measure already, and would belong to him, before many weeks were out,
wholly and of inalienable right. And so it happened that the very
limitations of the young girl's nature came to enhance her attractions.
Dickie could not get very near to her mind, but that merely piqued his
curiosity and provoked his desire of discovery. She was to him as a
book written in strange character, difficult to decipher. With the
result that he accredited her with subtleties and many fine feelings
she did not really possess, while he failed to divine--not from
defective sympathy so much as from absorption in his self-created idea
of her--the very simple feelings which actually animated her. His
masculine pride was satisfied in that so eligible a maiden consented to
become his wife. His moral sense was satisfied also, since he had--as
he supposed--put temptation from him and chosen the better part. Very
certainly he was not violently in love. That he supposed to be a thing
of the past. But he was quietly happy. While ahead lay the mysterious
enchantments of marriage. Dickie's heart was very tender, just then.
Life had never turned on him a more gracious face.
Nevertheless, once or twice, a breath of distrust dimmed the bright
surface of his existing complacency. One day, for instance, he had
taken his _fiancee_ for a morning drive and brought her home to
luncheon. After that meal she should sit for a while with Lady Calmady
and then join him in the library down-stairs, for he had that which he
coveted to show her. But it appeared to him that she tarried unduly
with his mother, and he grew impatient waiting through the long minutes
of the summer afternoon. A barrel-organ droned slumberously from the
other side of the square, while to his ears, so long attuned to country
silences or the quick, intermittent music of nature, the ceaseless roar
of London became burdensome. Ever after, thinking of this first wooing
of his, he recalled--as slightly sinister--that ever-present murmur of
traffic,--bearing testimony, at it seemed later, to the many activities
in which he could play, after all, but so paltry and circumscribed a
part.
And, listening to that same murmur now, something of rebellion against
circumstance arose in Dickie for all that the present was very good.
For, as he considered, any lover other than himself would not sit
pinned to an armchair awaiting his mistress' coming, but, did she
delay, would go to seek her, claim her, and bear her merrily away. The
organ-grinder, meanwhile, cheered by a copper shower from some adjacent
balcony, turned the handle of his instrument more vigorously, letting
loose stirring valse-tune and march upon the sultry air. Such music
was, of necessity, somewhat comfortless hearing to Richard, debarred
alike from deeds of arms or joy of dancing. His impatience increased.
It was a little inconsiderate of his mother surely to detain Constance
for so long! But just then the sound of women's voices reached him
through the half-open door. The two ladies were leisurely descending
the stairs. There was a little pause, then he heard Lady Calmady say,
as though in gentle rebuke:--
"No, no, dear child, I will not come with you. Richard would like
better to see you alone. Too, I have a number of letters to write. I am
at home to no one this afternoon. You will find me in the sitting-room
here. You can come and bid me good-bye--now, dear child, go."
Thus admonished, Lady Constance moved forward. Yet, to Dickie's
listening ears, it appeared that it took her an inordinate length of
time to traverse the length of the hall from the foot of the stairs to
the library door. And there again she paused, the organ, now nearer,
rattling out the tramp of a popular military march. But the throb and
beat of the quickstep failed to hasten little Lady Constance's lagging
feet, so that further rebellion against his own infirmity assaulted
poor Dick.
At length the girl entered with a little rush, her soft cheeks flushed,
her rounded bosom heaving, as though she arrived from a long and
arduous walk, rather than from that particularly deliberate traversing
of the cool hall and descent of the airy stairway.
"Ah! here you are at last, then!" Richard exclaimed. "I began to wonder
if you had forgotten all about me."
The young girl did not attempt to sit down, but stood directly in front
of him, her hands clasped loosely, yet somewhat nervously, almost in
the attitude of a child about to recite a lesson. Her still, heifer's
eyes were situate so far apart that Dickie, looking up at her, found it
difficult to focus them both at the same glance. And this produced an
effect of slight uncertainty, even defect of vision, at once pathetic
and quaintly attractive. Her face was heart-shaped, narrowing from the
wide, low brow to the small, rounded chin set below a round, babyish
mouth of slight mobility but much innocent sweetness. Her light, brown
hair, rising in an upward curve on either side the straight parting,
was swept back softly, yet smoothly, behind her small ears. The neck of
her white, alpaca dress, cut square according to the then prevailing
fashion, was outlined with flat bands of pale, blue ribbon, and filled
up with lace to the base of the round column of her throat. Blue
ribbons adorned the hem of her simple skirt, and a band of the same
colour encircled her shapely, though not noticeably slender, waist. Her
bosom was rather full for so young a woman, so that, notwithstanding
her perfect freshness and air of almost childlike simplicity, there was
a certain statuesque quality in the effect of her white-clad figure
seen thus in the shaded library, with its russet-red walls and
furnishings and ranges of dark bookshelves.
"I am so sorry," she said breathlessly. "I should have come sooner, but
I was talking to Lady Calmady, and I did not know it was so late. I am
not afraid of talking to Lady Calmady, she is so very kind to me, and
there are many questions I wanted to ask her. She promises to help and
tell me what I ought to do. And I am very glad of that. It will prevent
my making mistakes."
Her attitude and the earnestness of her artless speech were to Richard
almost pathetically engaging. His irritation vanished. He smiled,
looked up at her, his own face flushing a little.
"I don't fancy you will ever make any very dangerous mistakes!" he
said.
"Ah! but I might," the girl insisted. "You see I have always been told
what to do."
"Always?" Dickie asked, more for the pleasure of watching her stand
thus than for any great importance he attached to her answer.
"Oh yes!" she said. "First by our nurses, and then by our governesses.
They were not always very kind. They called me obstinate. But I did not
mean to be obstinate. Only they spoke in French or German, and I could
not always understand. And since I have grown up my elder sisters have
told me what I ought to do."
It seemed to Richard that the girl's small, round chin quivered a
little, and that a look of vague distress invaded her soft, ruminant,
wide-set eyes.
"And so I should have been very frightened, now, unless I had had Lady
Calmady to tell me."
"Well, I think there's only one thing my mother will need to tell you,
and it won't run into either French or German. It can be stated in very
plain English. Just to do whatever you like, and--and be happy."
Lady Constance stared at the speaker with her air of gentle perplexity.
As she did so undoubtedly her pretty chin did quiver a little.
"Ah! but to do what you like can never really make you happy," she
said.
"Can't it? I'm not altogether so sure of that. I had ventured to
suppose there were a number of things you and I would do in the future
which will be most uncommonly pleasant without being conspicuously
harmful."
He leaned sideways, stretching out to a neighbouring chair with his
right hand, keeping the light, silk-woven, red blanket up across his
thighs with his left.
"Do sit down, Constance, and we will talk of things we both like to do,
at greater length---- Ah! bother--forgive me--I can't reach it."
"Oh! please don't trouble. It doesn't matter. I can get it quite well
myself," Lady Constance said, quite quickly for once. She drew up the
chair and sat down near him, folding her hands again nervously in her
lap. All the colour had died out of her cheeks. They were as white as
her rounded throat. She kept her eyes fixed on Richard's face, and her
bosom rose and fell, while her words came somewhat gaspingly. Still she
talked on with a touching little effect of determined civility.
"Lady Calmady was very kind in telling me I might sometimes go over to
Whitney," she said. "I should like that. I am afraid papa will miss me.
Of course there will be all the others just the same. But I go out so
much with him. Of course I would not ask to go over very often, because
I know it might be inconvenient for me to have the horses."
"But you will have your own horses," Richard answered. "I wrote to
Chifney to look out for a pair of cobs for you last week--browns--you
said you liked that colour I remember. And I told him they were to be
broken until big guns, going off under their very noses, wouldn't make
them so much as wince."
"Are you buying them just for me?" the girl said.
"Just for you?" Dickie laughed. "Why, who on earth should I buy
anything for but just you, I should like to know?"
"But"--she began.
"But--but"--he echoed, resting his hands on the two arms of his chair,
leaning forward and still laughing, though somewhat shyly. "Don't you
see the whole and sole programme is that you should do all you like,
and have all you like, and--and be happy."--Richard straightened
himself up, still looking full at her, trying to focus both these
quaintly--engaging, far-apart eyes. "Constance, do you never play?" he
asked her suddenly.
"I did practice every morning at home, but lately----"
"Oh! I don't mean that," the young man said. "I mean quite another sort
of playing."
"Games?" Lady Constance inquired. "I am afraid I am rather stupid about