Читать книгу The Serpent's Tooth - B. M. Croker - Страница 5

Table of Contents

CHRISTMAS was approaching, and so far, Miss Glyn’s acquaintance was confined to the village of Thornby. Now and then her aunt and uncle went from home for a dine and a shoot, and on these occasions, Mrs. Hesketh took charge of the young lady, who was delighted to be her guest. At Oldcourt the atmosphere was reposeful, the surroundings subdued and luxurious, and life was leisured. Here it was seemingly ‘always afternoon.’ Letty was not sure that she would enjoy it as a permanence; perhaps there was too much of the hothouse in the air, but it was an agreeable change from The Holt, where it was figuratively a perpetual Monday, with a large washing on hand!

Cousin Maudie, an accomplished musician, encouraged her guest to practise, played her accompaniments, and delighted in her voice. Now Mrs. Fenchurch hated ‘squalling,’ had no ear, and was actually proud of the fact, that she only knew “God Save the King” by seeing people rise to their feet! Mrs. Hesketh also loved books, and the tables at Oldcourt were loaded with the newest and best publications, whether in magazine, pamphlet, or book form. Letty laid greedy hands on these, but her hostess prudently withdrew a certain amount—sociological and theological works—which were not suitable reading for Sweet Seventeen.

Letty admired—and loved—her beautiful (if rather faded) hostess, and the love and admiration were mutual. The new-comer had also made friends with the Vicar and his wife. Mr. Denton, a hale, active man of fifty, much praised by his own flock, and respected by others. Mrs. Denton, though she had lost the use of her limbs through sleeping in a damp bed, was her husband’s helper in the parish, and it was surprising what an amount of work, correspondence, and interviews centred round her sofa. She was a frail, delicate Irishwoman, with a sense of humour, a cheerful disposition, and a warm heart. Both she and her husband had taken a fancy to the ‘little girl at The Holt,’ as they called her. She reminded them of their own little girl, who had married and gone to India; to see Letty flitting about the drawing-room, or seated in Mabel’s chair, was a sight that gave them sincere pleasure. And the child was so simple and unaffected, she looked into one’s face with such sweet candid eyes, and was ever ready and glad to carry a message, sing, play, or read, to the invalid, keenly interested in little village events, and the weekly Madras letter—all she asked for in return, was to be liked!

In a surprisingly short time, this attractive stranger had entirely wound herself into the affections of the Dentons; her visits were not frequent, but on hunting days, after she had exercised the dogs, she would turn into the Rectory drawing-room, and pour out tea.

Immediately before Christmas, Mrs. Fenchurch, who was absorbed in her correspondence, sent Letty down to the Rectory with a note. When she arrived there it was still teatime, and she was surprised to find that Mrs. Denton had a guest, a good-looking young man, who appeared to find himself completely at home, since he was sitting on the end of the sofa, nursing the Rectory cat.

“Oh, Letty, so there you are!” said Mrs. Denton. “Let me introduce my nephew, Lancelot Lumley. He has come to spend Christmas with us. Lancelot, this is Miss Glyn—you have heard of her?”

“We have met before,” he said eagerly; “a couple of months ago, I think, in that railway shake-up?”

“Yes,” she assented, for here was the very travelling companion, who had worn the buffer coat, “in the train.”

“It might have been a bad business,” he continued, and described the incident to his aunt.

“I suppose it happened when you were on your way home?”

“Yes, I took first leave this year, and I’m sorry to say I have nearly come to the end of it.”

“And give us only two days, Lance—you ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“The fact is, Frances wouldn’t let me off, and Colonel Kingsnorth lent me a hunter; we have had some ripping good runs.”

“Ah!” said his aunt, “I think it was the hunter that wouldn’t let you off.” Then, turning to Letty, she explained, “My brother-in-law, Lancelot’s father, has a living twenty miles from here, at a place called Sharsley; but he might as well be in London, for it’s so dreadfully out of the way. We don’t see one another half a dozen times in the year. This note,” holding it up to Letty, “is from your aunt; she says she is so desperately busy, that she can’t help with the church decorations. You know she has always undertaken the pulpit, she sends you as her deputy, and will supply the usual pots of palms and chrysanthemums. Lancelot,” looking over at her nephew, “I intend to make use of you—you and Miss Glyn must do the pulpit between you.”

“All right,” he answered, “I am agreeable, if Miss Glyn is; but let me warn you that I have no more idea of decorating than I have of making a watch.”

“I am afraid I am not much good either,” supplemented the girl; “I’ve had no practice.”

“Miss Glyn left school two months ago,” explained Mrs. Denton.

“Were you sorry?” enquired the young man, looking over at her.

“Yes,” then with a burst of artless honesty—“I have been to school nearly all my life.”

“She is coming out at the Hunt Ball early in January,” announced Mrs. Denton.

“Yes, and I won’t know a single creature at it!”

“Oh, your aunt will find you plenty of partners. You could not be in better hands. I feel sure she will make a most capable chaperon. It is miraculous how she manages to get rid of the most hopeless articles at bazaars. No one can resist her!”

“And you think she will get me off!” Letty laughed, and her laugh was joyous.

“Not a doubt of it! Sooner than see you sitting out, she’d dance with you herself. And about her note—so it is all settled, Letty. You will be down here at eleven o’clock to-morrow; bring a large ball of twine, and a pair of scissors, and Miss Hoare, the schoolmistress, will start you. Remember I shall expect you and Lancelot to turn out the most beautiful pulpit that has ever been seen in Thornby.”

“I can only say that I will do my best,” said Letty, rising.

“What! you are not going yet?”

“I am afraid I must. Aunt Dorothy has quantities of things she wants me to do this evening—there’s the ticketing for the Christmas Tree.”

“Oh, poor child, I don’t envy you,” said Mrs. Denton with upraised hands. “Well, in that case, I won’t detain you—Lancelot will escort you home,” and subsequently he and the young lady left the room together; she protesting, he assuring her that if she didn’t mind, he would be glad to make the stroll an excuse for a pipe. Strange to record, until that evening, Letty had never realised how short was the distance between the Rectory and The Holt! Here in the entrance hall she encountered her aunt; Mrs. Fen, who was overwhelmed with affairs, wore a frowning brow, and carried half a dozen parcels and a Directory.

“Who was that I heard speaking just now?” she enquired sharply; “it sounded like a man’s voice?”

“It was only Mr. Lumley, Mrs. Denton’s nephew; he walked home with me.”

“Oh, so he is here, is he?” she remarked over her shoulder, as she swept into the smoking-room.

“Is that Lancelot Lumley you are talking of?” enquired Colonel Fenchurch, who was reading. “I suppose he bicycled over to spend Christmas—they find it hatefully dull without Mabel. You’d better ask him up to lunch, or something.”

“I think at this time of the year, when one has so much to do,” and Mrs. Fenchurch shot a glance at her husband, and then at Letty, “people don’t expect to be entertained.”

“Of course not,” agreed the Colonel; “I expect Lumley to entertain me—you forget that he is in my old regiment. I want to hear how the old corps is getting along. To think that a boy who joined a few years before I left, is commanding them now!”

“Oh, very well, Tom, then do as you like—ask him up to lunch or dinner.”

“He is an awfully good sort,” Colonel Fenchurch explained to Letty; “one of my favourites—none of your ‘haw-haw’ chaps. His father is a poor parson, and this boy has worked himself on—getting scholarships; he passed first out of Sandhurst. I believe he scarcely cost old Lumley a ten-pound note—he’s the hope of the family—such a good——”

“There—there, Tom,” interrupted his wife, “that’s quite enough about young Lumley! He doesn’t interest Letty, or me. Now, Letty, I can’t have you standing idle, run away, take off your things, and go out into the laundry and help Fletcher to ticket the things for the Christmas Tree.”

It is extraordinary the amount of intimacy that can result from a mutual undertaking, in which two young people are engaged. After Mr. Lumley and Miss Glyn had finished the pulpit—which to do them justice was a work of great labour crowned with success—they felt as if they had been acquainted, not for hours, but for weeks. This impression, was further strengthened when they met at dinner. Letty, wearing her plain white school frock, the young man looking handsome and well groomed in the regulation swallow tail. It transpired, that they had been engaged in decorating the church, and Mrs. Fenchurch and her husband might have been a little surprised at finding they already knew one another so well, had not the Colonel been absorbed in regimental stories, and Mrs. Fenchurch mentally composing an important letter, that was to go by that night’s post.

After dinner, when Colonel Fenchurch and his guest had each smoked an excellent cigar, the former said:

“Now you must come into the drawing-room and hear my niece sing,” and in spite of her aunt’s protestations that Letty had too much to do, and she could not possibly spare her, she was led to the piano and enchanted her listeners with two or three of Schumann’s songs, and Gounod’s “Ave Maria,” and the extraordinary impression that this beautiful girl had made upon a susceptible young man, was now complete.

Lancelot Lumley looked and listened in silence, and surrendered his heart without a further struggle. Although he knew, that it was absolute madness for him to think of Miss Glyn as anything but a star that dwelt apart! He had his way to make—she was penniless—her face, her lovely face, was her fortune.

On Christmas morning as he sat alone in the Rectory pew, his eyes often wandered across the aisle, in search of Miss Glyn. How her sweet voice appeared to rise and swell above all others; and to the infatuated lover it seemed, that the beautiful fair-haired girl, with the rapt, devotional expression, was the embodiment of a Herald angel! When the service was over, Lumley met his angel in the porch; here they exchanged seasonable greetings and received congratulations on their joint embellishment of the pulpit. Then, very late on Christmas night, Lumley ran up to The Holt to bid them all good-bye. He was hurrying home early the next morning, as his leave had nearly expired; but brief as this visit was, he found an opportunity to say to Letty:

“I hear you are coming out at the Hunt Ball the end of January? Perhaps I can get leave for it. I generally try to put in an appearance—you know it’s in my part of the world, and I see all my friends there.”

The real gist of these explanations and excuses was summed up at the end of the sentence:

“I say, Miss Glyn, if I do manage to turn up—will you keep a couple of waltzes for me?”

At which request the young lady coloured, and replied:

“Yes, with pleasure.”

By and by the little seed planted by Mrs. Hesketh began to peep above ground, and Letty Glyn’s will came to life. It made its first appearance on the arrival of certain patterns from London, and the question of a selection from among these, for a best afternoon, and two evening dresses. Mrs. Fenchurch was not disposed to allow her niece any choice in the matter. After looking at them critically, and fingering the textures, she said:

“The dark green will make you a nice afternoon frock; and you will want a smart black evening dress, and a ball-gown. Fletcher can make them all with a little assistance from Mrs. Cope in the village. For the ball dress, I fancy this white brocade trimmed with apple-green satin. How do you think that will look?”

“I don’t think I should care about it,” replied Letty.

“What!” exclaimed her aunt, staring at her in glassy amazement, “it would be charming. I remember I had a ball dress something like it years ago.”

“But fashions have changed since then,” objected the girl; “don’t you think a dress for a débutante should be soft, and all white, with perhaps a little silver?”

“Now, my dear, what can you possibly know about it?”

“Not much, I admit; we were very plainly dressed at school, and our clothes, I must confess, were dowdy, yet now and then, one had a chance of seeing what was worn—for instance, at the opera.”

“Do you mean on the stage?”

“Oh no, I mean the lovely elegant Court ladies that were in the boxes.”

“Then what is your own idea?” her aunt enquired sarcastically.

“I should like a soft white crêpe over white satin—with some silver embroidery on the body.”

“Yes, I daresay you would!” sneered Mrs. Fenchurch; “why the materials alone of such a dress would cost at least ten pounds.”

“I have ten pounds,” was the unexpected reply; then, colouring a little in answer to her aunt’s sharp interrogative glance, “uncle gave it to me for a Christmas box.”

For a moment Mrs. Fenchurch was speechless; she had never heard a word of this present, and to tell the truth, Uncle Tom when he placed the ten-pound note in the girl’s hand had said:

“This is just a little secret between you and me.” Now it was a secret no longer!

Mrs. Fenchurch’s feelings were altogether too much for her. She hastily collected her patterns, rose, and without a word flounced out of the room.

It seemed to Mrs. Fenchurch, that this simple schoolgirl was obtaining an extraordinary and disastrous ascendancy not only in the village, but in the household. The servants—little country chits, whom she had herself trained since they went out of pinafores—would do anything for Miss Glyn. Sam the pug (Mrs. Fenchurch’s own private dog) had handed over his heart to the girl, and attached himself to her exclusively—and as for Tom, he was her slave! It was Letty, Letty, Letty, all day; and when this girl began to make her appearance in a wider circle, would she, Mrs. Fenchurch—influential Mrs. Fenchurch—have to take a back seat?

It was also evident to Mrs. Fenchurch, that of late this interloper had developed in many ways, and was inclined to enter into conversation, and even to offer opinions! This sort of thing must be nipped without delay. Once she began to take an inch, it would soon become an ell—the inch, would be the selection of her ball-gown. It was too ridiculous that a girl of seventeen who had never been to a dance in her life, should dare to set up her taste in opposition to her own.

With a stern resolve implanted in her mind, Mrs. Fenchurch sat down and wrote off to London, ordering materials, which included the white brocade, and green satin trimming.

In two or three days the order had arrived, and after breakfast, she summoned Letty into her bedroom—a delightful chamber with large bow windows and bright chintzes, facing full south, and overlooking the lawns.

“You want to see me, aunt?” she asked as she entered (inwardly quaking) and awaited instructions.

In the long glass which faced them from floor to ceiling, Mrs. Fenchurch beheld the full-length reflections of her niece and herself; she, in a rough tweed gown, spare, weather-beaten, long-nosed, elderly; the girl, in a cheap blue serge, slim, erect, beautiful as the morning—and with all her best days to come! A sharp spasm of anger and jealousy darted through her mind. Alas! alas! Her own best days had gone by. She, Dorothy Fenchurch, was entering on the season of the sere and yellow leaf—and was conscious of an agonising self-pity.

“Oh yes, it’s about your ball dress. Here,” tearing open her parcel, “are the materials—they came to-day.”

It was undeniably a heavy and matronly brocade that she unfolded, and as for the green satin ribbon, whatever it might look at night, it was hideous by day!

“Oh!” exclaimed the girl, “so you got the brocade after all—and I have sent for the white crêpe.”

“You have sent for the white crêpe—without consulting me!” repeated Mrs. Fenchurch, speaking as it were in capital letters.

“Well, you see uncle gave me the money to spend as I pleased. The crêpe has come too, and is really lovely. May I show it to you?”

“No, I don’t want to see it! I am amazed at your daring to do such a thing as order a dress without my permission. One thing I can promise you, and that is, that it won’t be made up! You go to the ball—if you go at all—in a gown of my selection.”

“Then, I think,” and the girl became very red, “that I will stay at home. Yes—I should look too ridiculous.”

“You will look exactly as I choose!” declared Mrs. Fenchurch, suddenly losing her self-control; the smouldering resentment which had been gathering for weeks now bursting into flames; a strange, wild fury, all the long-pent-up grievances, annoyances, jealousies, finding outlet at last. It must be confessed that just at the moment, she was suffering torture from neuralgia in her face—the result of long rides in piercing cold, or damp evenings, when the day’s sport was over.

“May I ask if you understand your position here? Do you realise that but for me, you would be now out earning your bread as a nursery governess—are you aware, that ever since you were born, your father’s people have never given you a single penny, and that all the burden of your maintenance has fallen on us—or rather, I should say, on me? And here, instead of being grateful for a happy home, and for every luxury and indulgence, you are setting yourself up, and saying what you will wear, and defying me to my face. Go to your room—I hate the sight of you!”

Letty had listened to this bitter indictment with rapidly changing colour; she knew that her aunt had never cared for her; but that she absolutely hated her, and felt her to be a burden and an interloper, came as a revelation. She left the room in silence, and Mrs. Fenchurch, who was trembling with passion, snatched up the brocade, carried it into the maid’s working-room, and commanded her to lose no time about making it up for Miss Glyn. But afterwards, when she had cooled, Mrs. Fen began to realise that she had gone too far; for once in her life she acknowledged to herself, that she had said too much.

Colonel Fenchurch was surprised and concerned when he saw his niece at lunch with a very white face, and very red eyes. She ate scarcely a morsel, and seemed to find considerable difficulty in swallowing or speaking. On his wife’s brow there sat a heavy cloud, and he noticed the servants glancing significantly at one another—something had happened—there had been a blow up! But he, being a cautious and somewhat nervous little gentleman, talked about the weather and a lame horse, and withdrew as soon as possible into the shelter of his smoking-room; where he consoled himself with a recent copy of the Field, and a good cigar.

During the afternoon, Mrs. Fenchurch, having fortified herself with a large glass of port and quinine, climbed up to the top of the house, to make the amende to her niece.

“Well, Letty,” she began as she entered, “I am sorry we have had a difference of opinion; but I suppose you will allow that you are little more than a child, and that I am a woman of experience, and should know what should be done, and worn, better than yourself?”

Letty stood up, her lips twitched, and her eyes filled with tears as she answered:

“I am sorry, aunt, that you are displeased with me, and I—I—suppose I was impertinent. I meant no harm in sending for the crêpe dress, and indeed I thought it would save you buying my ball-gown.”

This was precisely the attitude of which Mrs. Fenchurch most warmly approved, and as the girl looked completely cowed, she said:

“I am sorry that I lost my temper—so let us make it up; and as you have bought the white crêpe, you shall wear it. The other will come in later,” and having offered, what she considered, a most remarkable concession, Mrs. Fen kissed her niece sharply, and walked downstairs. After she had departed, Letty stood listening to her descending footsteps; somehow her aunt’s footsteps, coming or going, invariably made her heart flutter like that of some terrified animal. When the last sound had died away, she flung herself down upon her bed. She didn’t care about the ball, or the crêpe dress—or anything! She was an interloper; no one wanted her. How bitter it was, to eat bread that was begrudged. In what shape or form could she ever find release?

It was agonising to reflect, that she might go on living month after month, and year after year, under the roof of a woman who had called her a pauper, and a burden.