In Silk Attire: A Novel
TextNelly was a girl of spirit. She knew she would be inspected by critical servants, and perhaps by visitors of exalted rank, and she resolved not to shame her old friend. She accurately sketched beforehand the character she would assume; fixed her demeanour; decided the tone she would adopt in speaking to Lady Annie Knottingley; and, finally, bought the current number of Punch, and dressed her hair and herself in imitation of one of the ladies of that periodical.
The carriage was sent to meet her at Corchester in the evening. The calm dignity with which she treated the servants was admirable. Nor was her dress less admirable, so far as a faithful copy of the Punch lady was concerned, except in point of colour. Unfortunately she had no guide to colour, except her own rather whimsical taste; and as several parts of her attire belonged to her dramatic wardrobe, she looked like a well-dressed lady seen through a prism.
When she entered the house, confronted the servants, was introduced to Mr. Cayley, and quietly went up to kiss Annie Brunel, her manner was excellent. A woman who makes a living by studying the ridiculous, and imitating it, can lay it aside when she chooses. Nor was her assumption of womanly dignity and reserve less a matter of ease. Nelly Featherstone was clever enough to conceal herself from the eyes of a critical London audience; surely she was able to impose on a lot of country servants, and a lawyer inexperienced in theatrical affairs.
When she came into the drawing-room before dinner, her make-up was magnificent. She was a little too gorgeous, certainly; but in these days considerable latitude is allowed in colour and shape. Miss Brunel was alone.
"Why, Nelly," she said, "what was the use of your troubling to make yourself so fine? I must have put you to so much expense."
"Well, you have," said the other. "But it isn't every day I dine at a grand house."
"And you mustn't talk to me as if I were a duchess merely because Mr. Cayley is present. I have asked him to dine with us. You must speak to me as you are speaking now."
"Oh, no, my dear, it would never do," said the practical Nelly, with a wise shake of the head. "If you don't remember who you are, I must. You are a fine lady; I am an actress. If you ask me to visit you, it is because you wish me to amuse you. But when I'm not amusing you, I must be respectful. Mr. Cayley knows who I am; the servants don't. I can be grand to them; but with him – "
"My absurd girl, why won't you be yourself? You don't need to care for Mr. Cayley, or the servants, or any one else. Mr. Cayley knows I was an actress; if the servants don't, they will very soon. And you are here merely as my friend; and I am deeply indebted to you for coming; and if Mr. Melton will only refrain from changing the pieces for weeks to come, we shall have a pleasant romp together down here. By the way, did you hear some absurd noises a few minutes ago?"
"I did."
"That was my first token of popularity. I had the lodge-keeper's children up here to tea; and as they all got a lump of cake when they went away, they collected round the door outside and cheered. I think they call that intimidation and bribery – buying the popular vote, or something of the kind."
During dinner an obvious battle was being waged between Nelly and the butler. But the official and cumbrous dignity of the one was no match for the splendid and haughty languor of Nelly's eyes, and the indolent indifference of her manner and tone. Somehow the notice of the servants was chiefly drawn to Miss Featherstone; but she decidedly managed to conquer them, and that in a style which puzzled and amused her friend at the head of the table. Nor would Nelly permit the least familiarity of approach on the part of her hostess. And as it would have been preposterous to have chatted confidentially with a person who returned these advances with a marked deference and respect, "my lady" fell into her friend's whim, and the conversation at dinner was consequently somewhat peculiar.
When the two women were left alone, however, Annie Brunel strongly remonstrated. But Nelly was firm:
"If you don't know who you are, I do."
Drawing two low easy-chairs in towards the fire, they sat down and entered into mutual confidences. The one had much to tell – the other much to suggest; and never had two children more delight in planning what they would do if they were emperors, than had these two girls in concocting plots for the benefit of all the persons they knew, and a great many more.
Miss Brunel took a note from her pocket, and gave it to her companion to read.
"In strict confidence," she added.
These were the words Nelly saw: – "A friend, who has urgent reasons for remaining unknown has placed to the credit of Mr. Hubert Anerley, at the London and Westminster Bank, the sum of 30,000*l. Mr. Anerley is asked to accept this money as a free and frankly-offered gift, to be used on behalf of himself and his family. A bank-note of* 100*l. is enclosed, to satisfy Mr. Anerley that this communication is made in good faith.*"
"Thirty thousand pounds!" said Nelly, in an awed whisper. "I have often thought of some one sending me a lot of money – thousands, millions of money – but I think if any one were actually to send me a hundred pounds, I should die of surprise first and joy afterwards."
"The money has already been placed to his account at the bank; and this note will be sent to him to-morrow, when Mr. Cayley returns to town. How I should like to send old White the prompter a hundred pounds – the poor old man who has that dreadful wife!"
"Don't do anything of the kind, my dear," said Nelly, sagely. "He would starve his wife worse than ever, because he wouldn't earn a penny until he had drunk every farthing of the money you sent him."
"Perhaps you will forbid my giving you anything?"
"Certainly not; I should be glad of a cup of tea or coffee."
"Which?"
"I like coffee best, but I prefer tea," said Nelly, with grave impartiality.
Tea and coffee having been procured, they continued their talk.
"You went to my lodgings?"
"Yes."
"And secured them for an indefinite time?"
"Yes."
"And all my clothes and things are as I left them?"
"Yes – that is, as far as I could look over them. Mr. Glyn was with me."
"Oh, he has forgiven you again!"
"Certainly not," said Nelly, with a touch of indignation. "He has not forgiven me, for I never provoked a quarrel with him in my life. He has come to his senses, that is all; and he is no sooner come to them than he is off again. But this is the final blow; he will never get over this."
"This what?"
"My disappearance from London without telling him. I go back. He comes to see me; is surprised, offended; wants me to be penitent for having annoyed him by my silence. Of course I am not. Then he becomes angry, demands to know where I have been. I tell him that is my business, and he goes off in a fury. That's nothing new. But then he sends me a formal note, saying that unless I write to him and explain my absence from London he will never see me again."
"Which you will do?"
"How could I without telling him about you?"
"Say you went to visit a friend."
"Then he says, 'What friend?' with a face as black as thunder. I reply that I won't be subjected to his suspicions. He retorts that he is not suspicious; but that common-sense, and what not, and what not. I tell him that he dare not talk to a lady of his own class in the way he talks to me; and that it is because I am an actress that he is suspicious, taking up the vulgar prejudices against actresses. Now, all the time I have known him, I don't think we ever passed a day without having a quarrel about the profession."
"Your acquaintanceship must have been agreeable?"
"It has. There is nothing both of us like so much as quarrelling and making-up. For my part, I couldn't bear to have a sweetheart always pleasant, and reasonable, and sensible. I like one who is madly in love, who does extravagant things, who quarrels fearfully, and gets frantic with delight when you let him be friends again."
"But the very last time we spoke of Mr. Glyn you said he and you would never get on together, because he wanted those very virtues of solidity, and common-sense, and manly forbearance. You said he was too like yourself."
"Did I say so? Well, I have a different explanation of it every day. I only know that we perpetually quarrel, and that the making-up of quarrels is very nice."
"What would you do if I were to give you £500 a-year?"
"Go to Paris, and drive in the Bois de Boulogne with a pair of ponies," replied Nelly, with admirable precision.
"Wouldn't you marry Mr. Glyn, leave the stage, and be comfortable in some small house at Hampstead?"
"No," she said, frankly; "I haven't got the domestic faculty. I should worry his life out in a few months."
"What do you say, then, to going with me to America? I mean to leave England for a long time – for some years – and I shall spend most of the time in America, visiting the places my mother and I used to know."
"You are going to leave England?" said Nelly, looking up with earnest, curious eyes.
"Yes."
"You will forgive my saying it – you have had some peculiar secret from me for a long time – not your coming here, but something quite different. I knew that when you suddenly left the stage, and wouldn't return, for no reason whatever. Why should you have left the stage, of all people?"
"I left it simply because I got to dislike it – to hate it!"
Nelly Featherstone said nothing, but she was evidently not satisfied with the answer. She remained unusually thoughtful for some time.
"And now you are going to America," she said. "Is there no other reason besides your wish to visit those places you speak of?"
"There is; but it is of no consequence to any one."
CHAPTER XXXIX.
'THE COULIN.'
The snow that shone and gleamed in the sunlight along the Berkshire hills lay thick in the London squares, and was trampled brown and dry in the London streets; and yet even in the City it was white enough to throw a light upon the faces of the passers-by, until commonplace countenances underwent a sort of transfiguration; and there was in the atmosphere a pearly radiance that brightened the fronts of the grey houses, and glimmered into small and dingy rooms.
"Let all the light come in," said Dove, lying in bed, with a strange transparent colour in her cheeks, and a wan lustre in her beautiful violet eyes; and when they let the strong light in, it fell on her face, and painted away the shadows under the eyebrows until the head that lay on the soft pillow acquired a strange ethereal glory – a vision coloured with sunlight.
"You haven't played 'The Coulin' for me for a long time now, Dove," said Mr. Anerley.
"You used never to like my playing 'The Coulin;' why do you want me to play it now?"
"I wish you were well enough to play anything, my darling."
The girl stretched out her tiny pale hand towards his:
"How you have petted me lately! If I were to get up just now and sing you the song I used to sing you, you wouldn't laugh at my 'meghily' any more, would you?"
"Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now" – the words sounded in his ears as the refrain of some spirit-song, heard long ago, in happy times, down in the far-off legendary Kentish Eden, where they had once lived.
"A letter for you, papa," said Mrs. Anerley, entering the room.
"I don't want it," he said, petulantly and angrily turning away – quarrelling with the mist of bitter tears that rose around his eyes.
She glanced from him to Dove (her kindly eyes brightened as they met the quiet look of the girl), laid the letter down, and left the room again. Mechanically he took up the letter, opened it, and read it. Before he had finished, however, he seemed to recall himself; and then he read it again from the beginning – carefully, anxiously, with strange surprise on his face. He looked at the envelope, again at the letter, and finally at the bank-note which he held in his hand.
"Dove, Dove!" he said, "look at this! Here is the money that is to take us all down to St. Mary-Kirby again – back to the old house, you know, and your own room upstairs; and in a little while the springtime will be in, and you and I shall go down to the river for primroses, as we used to do. Here it is, Dove – everything we want; and we can go, whenever you brighten up and get strong enough to move."
"But where did you get the money, papa?"
"God must have looked at your face, my darling, and seen that you wanted to go to St. Mary-Kirby."
"And you have plenty of money, papa, to spend on anything?"
All his ordinary prudence forsook him. Even without that guarantee of the bank-note, he would at once have believed in the genuineness of the letter, so eager was he to believe it for Dove's dear sake.
"Plenty of money, Dove? Yes. But not to spend on anything. Only to spend on you."
"There was Will's knock," she said; "he has just come in time to hear the news. But go and tell him in another room, papa, for I am tired."
So he left the room, and, as Will had come in, the two men had a long consultation over this strange letter.
"You need not remain long in suspense, sir," said Will; "write me out a cheque for fifty pounds, and I will take it down to the bank."
"But I have none of the printed cheques of the bank."
"You don't need one. That is a vulgar error. Any bit of paper with a stamp on it will do."
"But they must know that my signature is genuine."
"True. You must come down with me and see the manager. In any case, we can bear the disappointment, if the thing is a hoax. When you have ascertained that you are a rich man, father, I'll give you another piece of good news."
Mrs. Anerley was left with Dove, and the two men drove off to the bank. The manager had expected the visit. He warded off Will's bold inquiries with a grave silence; he had received certain instructions – it was not his business to say from whom.
"Before I can avail myself of this money," said Mr. Anerley, "you must at least answer me one question. Was it placed in your hands by Frederick Hubbard – by Count Schönstein?"
"No."
"Thank you."
So they went out into the free air, and lo! London was changed. It was no longer a cruel and bitter mother, starving her children, heedless of their cries and their sufferings; but a gracious empress, profuse of feasts, with stores of pleasures in her capacious lap. And this generous creature was to exercise all her power on behalf of Dove; and pure air, and the sweet sunlight, and the sharp hunger of health, were once more to make the young girl's face less shadowy and unreal.
"Now for your news, Will," said the old man, cheerfully.
"Nothing much, sir," said he. "Only that I have gained the appointment, and the company guarantees me 1000*l.* a year for three years. It never rains but it pours, you see; and if Heaven would only send one more good – "
"My poor girl's health," said the old man; and he would have given up all his money, and been glad to suffer far greater privations than he had done for the rest of his life, only to secure that one supreme blessing.
When they returned to the house, Mrs. Anerley came to say that Dove wanted to see Will, alone. He went into the room, and stooped over her, and kissed her forehead, and took her hand. She looked very pleased and happy.
"Papa won't be vexed any more. He has got plenty of money, has he not?" she said.
"Yes; but that money is for them. Our money, Dove, must come from me; and I have got it – I have got the appointment – and so hurry, hurry fast and get well; and then, hey! for a carriage, and cream-white horses, and jingling bells to take my Dove to church."
She pressed his hand slightly; and her eyes were wistful and absent. The beautiful land lay along the horizon, and she strained her vision to see it, and the sight of it – for it was so very beautiful – made her sad.
"Come close down, Will, and let me whisper to you. I have taken a fancy into my head lately. I never spoke of it, for I knew neither you nor papa had money; but now it is different. You said we were to be married."
"Why talk of our 'maghiage' in that melancholy way, you provoking mouse!"
"Don't laugh at me, Will! What I have been thinking is this: that I should like to know that I could be married to you at any time without having to wait until I was better – which might be for such a long, long time; and I should like to know that at any moment I could say to you, 'Will, make me your wife now,' and you could come into the room, and all the people would know that I was your wife."
There are ghastly dreams in which the sleeper, gazing on a broad and sunny landscape, suddenly becomes conscious of a cold and terrible pressure, and lifting up his eyes sees a broad cloth, white and black like a funeral pall, descending slowly from the sky, and shutting out the glad sunlight, and gliding down upon the earth. All living things fly from it; if they remain, they grow fixed and immovable, and their eyes become glazed as the eyes of death.
As terrible as such a dream was the vague, scarcely-to-be-imagined suggestion which these patient simple words of Dove bore with them; and Will, horror-stricken by the picture on which her absent eyes seemed now to be gazing (with its dreadful hint about the people standing around), demanded why she should ask this thing, or why she troubled her mind with it.
"My dearest," she said, with a faint smile stealing across the childlike face, "it does not vex me. It pleases me. There is nothing dreadful about the idea to you, is there? I cannot go with you to church to be married. When you talk of a carriage, and white horses, and bells, it seems to me to be so far off – so very, very far away – that it is of no use, and it makes me miserable. But now, if we were married here, how I should like to hear you call me your wife, as you went about the room!"
"And so you shall, my pet, whenever you please. But for you to turn such a dreadful heretic, Dove, and imagine that a marriage outside a church is a marriage at all! Why, even a dispensation from the Archbishop of Canterbury seems sacrilegious where there are no bridecake, and old slippers, and a lot of carriages."
"Now you're becoming kind again, Will. And you'll do as I ask without bothering me about reasons? What I should like, you know, would be the power of getting married when I wanted – if I could have the dispensation, as you say, all ready, and just at any moment I might terrify you by crying out, 'Will, come and marry me!' I might be merciful, too, you know, Will; and perhaps let you off, if you were very good and attentive. I'd tell you some day to go to the drawer and take out the paper and burn it. It would be like giving a slave his freedom."
"You will be such a dreadful tyrant when you're married, Dove, that I shudder to think of what you'll do to me."
"I think I should have been very kind to you, Will," said the girl, suddenly bursting into tears, and turning away her face from him.
Next morning Dove was a great deal better, everybody thought. Even the doctor spoke cheerfully, and the whole house was radiant. A thaw had set in; the air was foggy, and damp, and close; and the streets were in that condition which melted snow and drizzling rain generally produce in London; but inside the house there was sunlight enough for all concerned. And when, on the following morning, the weather cleared, and the sun painted bars of yellow on the curtains of the windows, it seemed as if the old sad anxious time were past, and the dawn of a new and happy life had broken over them.
Nevertheless, Dove did not give up her idea of the special licence and the private marriage. Rather she lay and brooded over it; and sometimes her face was moved with a happy delight which those around her could not well understand. Indeed, her heart was so bent upon it, that they all agreed to acquiesce in her wishes, and the necessary steps were taken to secure the legalization of the ceremony. The covert opposition which the proposal had met was surely not due to any opposition to the marriage, on the part of any one concerned, but to another and vaguer feeling, which no one of them dared to reveal to the other.
Said Dove to him suddenly this morning —
"Is Miss Brunel in town, Will?"
"I don't know, Dove."
"It is such a long time since she came to see me; I wonder if it was because you treated her so coldly the last time she was here."
"I?"
"You did not speak to her as you ought to have clone. You kept near me, and kept speaking to me, as if you imagined I was afraid she would take you away from me again. I know you did it to please me; but I could see something in her face, Will, that seemed to say that I needn't be afraid, and that she wouldn't come again. I should be sorry for that. Will you go and ask her to come again?"
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"And you will speak to her just as you speak to me. I can't be jealous, Will – of her, because she did not try to take you from me."
"I will go if you like, Dove," said Will; "but considering – "
"I have considered" (with petulant haste). "I have nothing to do all day but lie and consider – and how many things I have considered within this day or two! I have altered my mind completely about the marriage. I won't have you marry me, Will – "
"But all the forms have been gone through – "
She lay silent and meditative for some time, and then she said —
"I am sorry to have given you so much trouble; but I should like to alter all my plans. You know the betrothals they have in French stories and in the operas: I should like to have a betrothal, Will, and all you will have to get for me is a big sheet of paper and a marriage-ring."
How eagerly he accepted the offer! This pretty notion of hers, which was obviously only meant to please a passing whim, was so much more grateful to him than the marriage proposal, with its black background:
"We will have it at once, Dove; and I think you are so well that you might drink a little champagne with us to grace the ceremony. Then I shall be able to call you my wife all the same, and you shall wear the wedding-ring; and then, you know, we can have the white horses and the carriages afterwards. But I am afraid the betrothal contract will be frightfully inaccurate; I don't know the terms – "
"Get a sheet of paper, Will, and I will tell you what to write down."
He got the paper, and, at her dictation, wrote down the following words —
"We two, loving each other very dearly, write our names underneath in token that we have become husband and wife, and as a pledge of our constant love."
She smiled faintly when he placed the writing before her, and then she leant back on the pillow, with a satisfied air. Mrs. Anerley now came into the room, and Will, obeying some further commands, went off to see whether Annie Brunel was yet in her old lodgings, and also to purchase a wedding-ring for the ceremony on which Dove had set her heart.
Miss Brunel's landlady told Will that her lady-lodger would probably return the next day, with which piece of information he returned. He also showed Dove the wedding-ring; and she placed it on her finger, and kept it there.
But that evening the insidious disease from which the girl was suffering withdrew the treacherous semblance of health it had lent to her burning cheeks, and it was obvious that she had grown rapidly worse. They all saw it, and would not confess it to each other. They only noticed that Mrs. Anerley did not stir now from Dove's bedside.
Mr. Anerley spent nearly the whole of that night in walking up and down his own room – from time to time stealthily receiving messages, for they would not admit to Dove that they felt much anxiety about her. The man seemed to have grown greyer; or perhaps it was the utter wretchedness of his face that made him look so old and careworn. Will sate in an easy-chair, gloomily staring into the fire. The appointment he had so eagerly sought and so joyfully gained, fancying it was to bring them all back again into pleasant circumstances, was only a bitter mockery now. He could not bear to think of it. He could bear to think of nothing when this terrible issue was at stake in the next room.
In the morning, when the first grey light was sufficiently clear to show Dove's face to the nurse and Mrs. Anerley, the latter looked at the girl for a long time.
"Why do you look at me so, mamma?" she asked.
She could not answer. She went into the next room, and crying, "Oh, Hubert, Hubert, go and look at my Dove's face!" burst into tears on her husband's bosom. And yet there was nothing remarkable about the girl's face – except, perhaps, to one who had watched it critically all the night through, and was alarmed by the transition from the ruddy lamplight to the grey and haggard tone of the morning.
The doctor came, and went away again, saying nothing.
Towards the forenoon, Dove said to Will —
"I want to hear 'The Coulin' – "
"Not 'The Coulin,' Dove," he pleaded.
"When Miss Brunel comes, perhaps she will play it. The music is simple. Put it on the piano – and – and send for her."
He himself went for her – out into the bright light of that fresh spring morning. Annie Brunel, when he found her, was in her poor lodgings, dressed in the simple black dress in which he had last seen her.
"I was going up to see Dove," she said, "when I heard she had sent for me. But – is there anything the matter?"
"Dove is ill," he said, abruptly. "I – I cannot tell you. But she wants you to come and – play a piece of music for her."
Neither of them spoke a word all the way to the house. When Annie Brunel, pale and calm and beautiful, went to the girl, and took up her white hand, and kissed her, there was a pleased smile on Dove's face.
"Why didn't they tell me you were ill?" she said. "I should have been here before."
"I know that," said Dove, in a whisper, "for – for you have always been kind to me. You have come in time – but I am too weak to tell you – ask Will – the betrothal – "
The brief explanation was speedily given; and then Dove said —
"I am very tired. Will you go into the next room, and play me 'The Coulin;' and when you come back – ?"
She went to Dove's piano, and found there the air which she knew so well. And as she played it, so softly that it sounded like some bitter sad leave-taking that the sea had heard and murmured over, Dove lay and listened with a strange look on her face. Will's hand was in hers, and she drew him down to her, and whispered —
"I could have been so happy with you, Will: so very happy, I think. But I had no right to be. Where is the – the paper – I was to sign?"
He brought it, and put it on the table beside her bedside; and Miss Brunel came into the room, and went over to Dove.
"That is the paper I must sign," said the girl. "But how can I? Will you – will you do it for me? But come closer to me and listen, for I have – a secret – "
When Annie Brunel bent down her head to listen, Dove drew the wedding-ring off her finger, kissed it tenderly, and put it on her companion's hand; and then she said, looking Annie in the face with a faint smile in the peaceful violet eyes – "It is your own name you must sign."
At the same moment she lay back exhausted, and to Mr. Anerley, who had hurriedly stepped forward to take her hand, she sighed wearily – "I am so tired; I shall rest." And presently a beautiful happy light stole over the girlish features; and he heard her murmur indistinctly – as if the words were addressed to him from the other world – the old familiar line, "Meghily, meghily shall I sleep now."
They were the last words that Dove uttered; and the cause of the last smile that was on her sweet face.