The Light of Scarthey Part 16

"She died when your mother was born, my dear," said Tanty, "she was not as old as you are now, and your grandfather never smiled again, or so they said."

That sobered me a little. Yet she lived her life so well, while she did live, that I who have wasted twenty precious years can find in my heart rather to envy than to pity my beautiful grandmother.

_November 5th._--It is _three o'clock in the morning_, but I do not feel at all inclined to go to bed. Madeleine is sleeping, poor pretty pale Madeleine! with the tears hardly dry upon her cheeks and I can hear her sighing in her sleep.

I was right, she is in love, and the gentleman she loves is not approved of by Tanty and the upshot of it all is we are to leave dear Bath, delightful Bath, to-morrow--to-day rather--for some unknown penitential region which our stern relative as yet declines to name. I am longing to hear more about it; but Tanty, who, though she talks so much, can keep her own counsel better than any woman I know, will not give me any further information beyond the facts that the delinquent who has dared to aspire to my sister is a person of _the name of Smith_, and that it would not do at all.

I have not the heart to wake Madeleine to make her tell me more, though I really ought to pinch her well for being so secretive--besides, my head is so full of my own day that I want to get it all written down, and I shall never have done so unless I begin at the beginning.

Yesterday, then, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Lord Dereham's coach and four came clattering up to our door to call for me. Mrs. Hambledon was already installed and Lady Soames and a dozen other of the _fas.h.i.+onables_ of Bath. My little Lord Marquis had kept the box seat for me, at which the other ladies, even my dear friend and chaperon, looked rather green. The weather was glorious, and off we went with a flourish of trumpets and whips, and I knew I should enjoy myself monstrously.

And so I did. But it was the drive back that was the _best_ of all. We never started till near nine o'clock, and Lord Dereham insisted on my sitting beside him again--at which all the ladies looked daggers _at me_ and all the gentlemen daggers _at him_. And then we sang songs and tore along uphill and down dale, under the beautiful moonlight, through the still air, till all at once we found we had lost our way.

We had to drive on till we came to an inn and we could make inquiries.

There the gentlemen opened another hamper of wine, and when we set off again I promise you they were all pretty _lively_ (and most of the ladies too, for the matter of that). As for me, who never drank anything but milk or water till six months ago, I have not learnt to like wine yet, so, though I sipped out of the gla.s.s to keep the fun going, I contrived to dispose of the contents, quietly over the side of the coach, when no one was looking.

It was a drive to remember. We came to a big hill, and as we were going down it at a smart pace the coach began to sway, then the ladies began to screech, and even the men looked so scared that I laughed outright. Lord Dereham was perfectly tipsy and he did not know the road a bit, but he drove in beautiful style and was extraordinarily amusing; as soon as the coach took to swaying, instead of slackening speed as they all begged him, he _lashed_ the horses into a tearing gallop, looking over his shoulder at the rest and cursing them with the greatest energy, grinning with rage, and looking more like a little white rat than _ever_.

"Give me the whip," said I, "and I shall whip the team while you drive."

"_Cuth me_," cried he, "if you are not worth the whole coach-load a dozen times over."

On we went; the coach rocked, the horses galloped, and I knew at any moment the whole thing might upset, and I flourished my whip and lashed at the steaming flanks and I never felt what it was to really enjoy myself before.

Presently, although we were tearing along so fast, the coach steadied itself and went as straight as an arrow; and this, it seems, it would never have done had not Lord Dereham kept up the pace.

And all the rest of the drive his lords.h.i.+p wanted to kiss me. I was not a bit frightened, though he was drunk, but every time he grew too forward I just flicked at the horses with the whip, and I think he saw that I would have cracked him across the face quite as readily if he dared to presume.

No doubt a dozen times during the day I could have secured a coronet for myself, not to speak of future 'strawberry leaves,' as my aunt says, if I had cared to; but who could think of loving a man like _that_? He can manage four horses, and he has shot two men in a duel, and he can drink three bottles of wine at a sitting, and when one tries to find something more to say for him, lo! that is all!

When we at length arrived at Camden Place, for I vowed they must leave me home the first, there was the rarest sport. My lord's grooms must set to blow the horns, for they were as drunk as their master, while one of the gentlemen played upon the knocker till the whole crescent was aroused.

Then the doors opened suddenly, _and Tanty appears_ on the threshold, holding a candle. Her turban was quite crooked, with the birds of Paradise over one eye, and I never saw her old nose look so hooked.

All the gentlemen set up a shout, and Sir Thomas Wrexham began to crow like a c.o.c.k for no reason on earth that I can think of. The servants were holding up lanterns, but the moon was nigh as bright as day.

Tanty just looked round upon them one after another, and in spite of her crooked turban I think they all grew frightened. Then she caught hold of me, and just whisked me behind her. Next she spied out Mrs.

Hambledon, who had been asleep inside the coach, and now tumbled forth, yawning and gaping.

"And so, madam," cries Tanty to her, not very loud, but in a voice that made even me tremble; "so, madam, this is how you fulfil the confidence I placed in you. A pretty chaperon you are to have the charge of a young lady; though, indeed, considering your years, madam, I might have been justified in trusting you."

Mrs. Hambledon, cut short in the middle of a loud yawn by this attack, was a sight to see.

"Hoighty-toighty, ma'am!" she cried, indignantly, as soon as she could get her voice; "here's a fine to-do. It is my fault, of course, that Lord Dereham should mistake the road. And my fault too, no doubt, that your miss should make an exhibition of herself riding on the box with the gentlemen at this hour of night, when I implored her to come inside with me, were it only for the sake of common female propriety."

"Common female indeed!" echoed Tanty, with a snort; "the poor child knew better."

"Cuth the old cats! they'll have each other'th eyeth out," here cried my lord marquis, interposing his little tipsy person between them. He had scrambled down the box after me, and was listening with an air of profound wisdom that made me feel fit to die laughing. "Don't you mind her, old lady," he went on, addressing Tanty; "Mith Molly ith quite able to take care of herself--damme if she'th not."

Aunt Donoghue turned upon him majestically.

"And then that is more than can be said for you, my poor young man,"

she exclaimed; and I vow he looked as sobered as if she had flung a bucket of cold water over him. Upon this she retired and shut the door, and marched me upstairs before her without a word.

Before my room door she stopped.

"Mrs. Dempsey has already packed your sister's trunks," she said, in a very dry way; "and she will begin to pack yours early--I was going to say to-morrow--but you keep such hours, my dear--it will be _to-day_."

I stared at her as if she had gone mad.

"You and your sister," she went on, "have got beyond me. I have taken my resolution and given my orders, and there is not the least use making a scene."

And then it came out about Madeleine. At first I thought I would go into a great pa.s.sion and refuse to obey, but after a minute or two I saw it was, as she said, no use. Tanty was as cool as a cuc.u.mber. Then I thought perhaps I might mollify her if I could cry, but I couldn't pump up a tear; I never can; and at last when I went into my room and saw poor Madeleine, who has cried herself to sleep, evidently, I understood that there was nothing for us but to do as we were told.

And now I can hear Tanty fussing about her room still--she has been writing, too--cra, cra, cra--this last hour. I wonder who to? After all there is some fun in being taken off mysteriously we don't know where. I should like to go and kiss her, but she thinks I am abed.

CHAPTER XI

A MASTERFUL OLD MAID

No contrary advice having reached Pulwick since Miss O'Donoghue's _letter of invoice_, as Mr. Landale facetiously described it, he drove over to Lancaster on the day appointed to meet the party.

And thus it came to pa.s.s that through the irresistible management of Miss O'Donoghue, who put into the promotion of her scheme all the energy belonging to her branch of the family, together with the long habit of authority of the _Tante a heritage_, the daughters of Cecile de Savenaye returned to that first home of theirs, of which they had forgotten even the name.

Mr. Landale had not set eyes on his valuable relative for many years, but her greeting, at the first renewal of intercourse which took place in the princ.i.p.al parlour of the Lancaster Inn, was as easily detached in manner as though they had just met again after a trifling absence and she was bringing her charges to his house in accordance with a mutual agreement.

"My dear Rupert," cried she, "I am glad to see you again. I need not ask you how you are, you look so extremely sleek and prosperous.

Adrian's wide acres are succulent, hey? I should have known you anywhere; though to be sure, you are hardly large enough for the breed, you have the true Landale stamp on you, the unmistakable Landale style of feature. _Semper eadem._ In that sense, at least, one can apply your ancient and once worthy motto to you; and you know, nephew, since you have conveniently changed your faith, both to G.o.d and king, this sentiment strikes one as a sarcasm amidst the achievements of Landale, you backsliders! Ah, we O'Donoghues have better maintained our device, _sans changier_."

Rupert, to whom the well-known volubility of his aunt was most particularly disagreeable, but who had nevertheless saluted the stalwart old lady's cheek with much affection, here bent his supple back with a sort of mocking gallantry.

"You maintain your _device_, permit me to say, my dear aunt, as ostentatiously in your person as we renegade Landales ourselves."

"Pooh, pooh! I am too old a bird to be caught by such chaff, nephew; it is pearls before.... I mean it is too late in the day, my dear.

Keep it for the young things. And indeed I see the sheep's eyes you have been casting in their direction. Come nearer, young ladies, and make your cousin's acquaintance," beckoning to her nieces, who, arrayed in warm travelling pelisses and beaver bonnets of fas.h.i.+onable appearance, stood in the background near the fireplace.

"They are very like, are they not?" she continued. "Twins always are; as like as two peas. And yet these are as different as day and night when you come to know them. Madeleine is the eldest; that is she in the beaver fur; Molly prefers bear. Without their bonnets you will distinguish them by their complexion. Molly has raven hair (she is the truest O'Donoghue), whilst Madeleine is fair, _blonde_, like her Breton father."

The sisters greeted their new-found guardian, each in her own way.

And, in spite of the disguising bonnets and their surprising similarity of voice, height, and build, the difference was more marked than that of beaver and bear.

Madeleine acknowledged her kinsman's greeting with a dainty curtsey and little half-shy smile, marked by that air of distinction and breeding which was her peculiar characteristic. Molly, however, who thought she had reasonable cause for feeling generally exasperated, and who did not see in Mr. Rupert Landale, despite his good looks and his good manner, a very promising subst.i.tute for her Bath admirers (nor in the prospect of Pulwick a profitable exchange for Bath), came forward with her bolder grace to flounce him a saucy "reverence,"

measuring him the while with a certain air of mockery which his thin-skinned susceptibility was quick to seize.

He looked back at her down the long tunnel of her bonnet, appraising the bloom and beauty within with cold and curious gaze, and then he turned to Madeleine and made to her his courteous speech of welcome.