Читать книгу The Golden Violet - Marjorie Bown - Страница 5

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"MR. THICKNESSE is coming at four o'clock, Angelica—he'll want his answer, you know."

"Indeed, I haven't given it a thought. I have my work to do."

"But you'll come down and see him?"

"Yes—if I am delayed, pray entertain him for me."

Angelica Cowley smiled as she hesitated on the threshold of the tall, dark room; it was a sunny August day and the sun-blinds were down. Mrs. Dinnies, who was seated curved over a worktable, from which she was taking up white china beads, which were piled on the polished wood surface, sighed and grimaced.

"You ought to make up your mind. It is very important—if you refuse him." The old lady stabbed with her long needle at a straying bead. "I don't see," she added defiantly, "where you are going to get another chance."

Angelica smiled viciously; dislike of her aunt gave her an inward quiver, as if her soul had been scratched.

"Chance of what?" she asked softly. "Of refusing Thomas Thicknesse? How little you understand, dear aunt."

She noted the old eyes peering over the spectacles, the old hand holding the bell-pull half embroidered with hard, white arum lilies, and closed the door on the retort the old lips were forming.

Mrs. Dinnies, of course, would have said: "No chance of refusing anyone else," and then, if Angelica had lingered in the hope of thrusting in a bitter reply, the old woman would have added in her thin, silly cackle: "You're twenty-seven. I don't know what you're thinking of, all this nonsense with books and poems—now, when I was a girl—"

Angelica reached her own rooms; she had two on the first landing of the small, neat house; that at the back, which looked on to the walled garden with the plane trees, was her bed-chamber, that which looked on to the sedate street with the pillared gateway that led into Regent's Park was her study and library.

She entered this room and seated herself before her desk, which was piled with books, papers and magazines, numbers of Keepsakes, Books of Beauty and La Belle Assemblée, with here and there a fashion plate tucked under the sheets of manuscript. The drawn-down sun-blinds filtered the' strong light and so filled the room with ochre-coloured shadow; the young woman set her lips firmly, picked up a quill with a curled feather and wrote:

"In person she was exceedingly beautiful. Her forehead was high, open and fair as infancy; her eyes large, dark and of that soft beaming expression which shows the soul in the glance; her features were fine and symmetrical, and her complexion brilliant, especially when the least excitement moved her feelings. But the prevailing expression of her face was melancholy. Her beauty, as well as her mental endowments, made her the object of much regard; but she shrunk from observation—any particular attention seemed to give her pain; so exquisite was her modesty.

"In truth, her soul was too delicate for this 'cold world of storms and clouds.' Her imagination never revelled in 'the garishness of joy'—a pensive, meditative mood was the natural tone of her mind."

Angelica paused, and, raising her head, sought, by a sidelong glance, the mirror hanging beneath the engraved portrait of John Milton; how often, when describing an imaginary heroine, had she thus, half-unconsciously, gazed at the reflection of her own features.

She took a passionate, exhaustive interest in herself; the warmest compliment ever given her by a stranger had been—"not ill-looking for a blue-stocking," but her own eager scrutiny of her charms always found much to praise.

She was tall and well-made, and she was satisfied that she had taught herself a floating or gliding fashion of walking that was infinitely graceful; her hands and arms were pretty, she was sure, and she had observed the most delicious contours of her neck, shoulders and bust; she was, like all her own heroines, extremely fair, she had a quantity of light brown hair, grey eyes, a clear, pale complexion.

Why then, with all these advantages, was she so far from being beautiful, that even she herself always turned away from her looking-glass with disappointment?

Her features were insignificant, her eyes small, her lashes light, and though her teeth were good, they caught slightly on her lower lip; she was well enough, like a hundred thousand other young Englishwomen, but only great wealth or noble birth could have gained her the title of a beauty. Angelica Cowley wished, above everything, for beauty; she would have given her talents, her fame, the money she earned (dear as these were to her) to have resembled one of those lovely creatures whom she delighted to create on paper, and she would have given everything she possessed to be the heroine of a romantic love story such as she could write, so easily, with such zest.

She glanced at her desk again. Thomas Thicknesse had asked her to marry him; not even to herself would she admit that this was the first reasonable proposal of marriage that she had ever had; two mean nobodies had courted her, one too obviously eager for her money, the other too obviously inspired by vanity and the desire to shine in the little galaxy where she was a modest star.

Angelica had rejected these wretched suitors with loathing; they had seemed to caricature her secret aspirations.

Mr. Thicknesse was different from these poor pretenders; he was a fine man, a well-placed man, a person of figure and consequence, but he was middle-aged, a widower, and Angelica was not much attracted by him; if she had had a wide choice of lovers, Thomas Thicknesse would not have been favoured. But as there was no choice—

She picked up one of the magazines and read over the review of her last novel, The Fate of Adelaide; it always soothed her to read the smoothly flowing lines of praise with which her work was invariably greeted by the ladies' journals.

"Whatever comes to Miss Cowley from without, whether through the eye or the ear, whether in nature or art, is reflected in her writings with a halo of beauty thrown about it by her own fancy; and thus presented, it appeals to our sympathies and awakens an interest which carves it upon the memory in letters of gold. But she has yet loftier claims to respect than a poetical nature. She is a philosopher, and better still, a religious philosopher—she has a pure, warm, loving heart—"

Angelica glanced up at the shelf above the desk where stood copies of her successful novels, which were so popular in the circulating libraries. The Rebels, or Revenge; Clara Martin, or The Erring Daughter; The Massacre of Palermo—an historical romance; Guido, or The Blind Boy; The Chieftain's Daughter; The Troubadours; The Crown of Virtue; Ruth, or Love's Progress; The Banker's Wife, or Court and City; The Maid of Provence, or The Olden Time.

She looked at them affectionately—one a year for the ten years since she had begun to write; there were, besides, volumes of verse, and piles of annuals, to which she had contributed sketches, tales, moralisings, lyrics and acrostics.

Success and money were represented by those well-fed-looking volumes with the gilt lettering; but something was amiss with her literary career, just as something was amiss with her own young, pleasant face.

If she was not a beauty, neither was she a genius; she earned easily a thousand pounds a year, and she received a fair amount of praise and flattery, but to the learned, the witty, the gifted, she was known only as an amusing instance of the lamentable taste of the subscribers to circulating libraries; she never faced this opinion, of which she was vaguely aware; she had always lived serenely in her own snug little world, but she could not avoid the occasional cold breeze of dissatisfaction passing over her, nor could she altogether evade the realities that sometimes darted like forked lightning on a summer day into the false, rosy clouds in which she dwelt.

"It is all make-believe, nothing has ever happened to me—if I don't take care nothing ever will." She folded her hands over the manuscript of The Golden Violet and her thoughts made her face harden.

She had had a poor little life; the daughter of a country parson, she had known rustic poverty until at seventeen years of age she had successfully copied the romances which the elder girls had smuggled into the school for the Daughters of Gentlemen where she had learned her pretty accomplishments; she had sent her effort to a publisher and found her profession. A country parsonage, a country school, the excitement of earning what had seemed large sums of money, local fame, then the tedious illness of the stern, unloved father, which had taken all her earnings, all her time, all her attention. Four years of that, then a timid adventuring into London with her mother and her widowed aunt, vexatiously without means of resources, then the long drag of the fading of the jealous, peevish Mrs. Cowley, who found this new life strange and distasteful, but who would not let go of her reluctant daughter until Death unclasped her clinging fingers.

When Mrs. Cowley died Angelica was twenty-five years of age and established in a modest little circle of friends, composed of neighbours, kindly and slightly curious, who had called on her, a few fellow-writers, a journalist or two, the editors of magazines, a number of clergymen and of social workers. Everything that Miss Cowley wrote was of "unexceptionable tone," as one of her publishers boasted, and inculcated lessons of the purest piety and the loftiest virtue, so that, naturally, she attracted to the neat house in Griston Street exactly the same kind of person as had filled her father's church and her mother's parlour.

She had been too timid to break away from any of the restrictions and conventions that surrounded her; she knew herself less even than she knew her acquaintances; confused by the falsity of the stories that she wrote continually, and that were crude day-dreams thrust into the rigid formula of the moment, she was baffled and confused into an attitude of unwilling, unacknowledged resignation.

Under all her affectations her essential humanity wondered and rebelled and then drugged itself with fiction. How dull it had been, how dull! The only person with whom she was intimate she disliked cordially. How detestable was this relative who had been thrust on her by custom, this little woman who lectured and pried, scolded and advised, who was always there reminding her of what she would be when she was old. The two women had developed a fine technique of torment, which it gave them a certain pleasure to exercise; Mrs. Dinnies knew that she was indispensable to her niece, dear Angel could not live alone; if she was to retain her reputation and her public, her respectability must be unblemished; the robust young woman was caught in the mesh of her own success; at twenty-seven years of age she was forced to keep the schoolgirl standards she had so successfully proclaimed ten years before.

She sighed, leaving her desk, her unfinished novel, and wandered to the window; under the sun-blind a strip of hot pavement was visible; the stones were glaring, dusty, a scrap of dirty paper fluttered past; she had lived in this house six years.

How exciting, how delicious it had seemed to be able to earn money!

But for a long while she had been forced to spend her income on other people, who accepted her bounty jealously, grudgingly, and when she was free she had found that she had been trained so narrowly, had lived so primly, that money was not of much use to her, save as the means of obtaining the dull comforts of everyday.

She bought clothes as lavishly as fear of her aunt's sarcasm permitted, and through this obtained her principal pleasure.

Yet even the joy of self-adornment soon palled, and timidity and hesitation marred this delight; she was no more sure of her taste than of her looks or of her talents, and she knew that the clothes she really liked she did not venture to buy.

But if she were a married woman, she would have more liberty, she would be free from Mrs. Dinnies, she could, surely, have everything more as she liked it—but a doubt arose, she really knew nothing of Thomas Thicknesse beyond what his company manners told her poor observation. To marry was to accept a master, and what manner of master would this heavy, middle-aged man be?

Miss Cowley sighed; how often, with what zestful facility had she described her ideal hero!

A dark, slender creature, all afire with ardour and poetry, brilliant, tender, gracious, passionately, yet respectfully in love with the heroine, who was fair, delicate and lovely, who was always a version of herself.

It would be difficult to resign this delicious day-dream, but one could not wait for ever, and she doubted if such cavaliers as she could imagine so readily existed. It seemed to her hard on women that their fancies of masculine merit should be so lively and reality so poor.

She knew, from the letters she received from fascinated readers of her romances, that she was not alone in a vain search for a man worthy of a woman's devotion, and that the masculine charms that she had created were such as many females would relish could such male paragons be found.

Perhaps in Spain or Italy? But Angel Cowley was too timid to travel, and Mrs. Dinnies, with a hateful understanding, was always warning her against adventurers.

The scrap of soiled paper fluttered to and fro on the hot pavement, the breeze was not strong enough to move it; Miss Cowley turned away and looked round her familiar room.

It did not satisfy her; the heavy mahogany and red rep furniture, the Gothic brackets holding busts of poets, the fretwork shelves containing sets of classical authors, the vases of dried grass, the crossed fans made of palm-leaves painted with Eastern scenes, the prints of Milton, Shakespeare and Spenser, the mezzotints of Biblical scenes, her parents' funeral cards framed in black, the curtains of white lace and blue silk tied with tasselled fringe—surely nothing could be in better taste, and yet Angel Cowley felt that this was, somehow, not order, beauty or seemliness, that it all slightly irritated instead of soothing her vaguely expectant mind.

She went into her bedroom; she had often described it in her novels as "the spotless chamber" of Rosaline, Matilda, Maud or Bertha; all the drapery was white book muslin over pink satin; a Gothic prie-Dieu held her father's Geneva Bible, and she had not been able to refrain from tying a rosary and a crucifix with an azure ribbon above the bed, which she mechanically thought of as "a virgin couch."

Papistry and idolatry, Mrs. Dinnies had sneered, but Angel with a warm smile had declared that the Romish tokens were antique relics and necessary to her art.

On a heavy table by the muslin-covered bed was The Death of Abel, by Klopstock; Hervey's Meditations Among the Tombs; The Terrors of Hell displayed for the Instruction of Infancy, by the Rev. Arthur Cowley, and a favourite Keepsake with the love poems tenderly annotated by Angel herself.

Romantic and pious sketches covered the walls and human vanity was represented by a large wardrobe, a toilet table and several mirrors. Across one of the chairs was a sarcenet dress, flounce on flounce of fine white material with green velvet edgings, a purple silk bodice and a plaid sash. Miss Cowley sighed in simple pleasure and began to unhook her pale blue gown.

A tap on the door, and her aunt's thin voice:

"Angel! Angel! Mr. Thicknesse is here."

SHE FACED HIM in the overcrowded drawing-room, her slippered feet close together, her tea-cup in her hand, her features composed to an expression of abashed modesty, odd thoughts struggling in her mind. She durst not look at him; he was a weighty, important man and he had asked her to marry him; first, very formally on paper, now, by word of mouth; this was a more alarming, exciting and interesting experience than she had thought it would be.

She began, unconsciously, to idealise, to dramatise the man who had paid her this great compliment. He had a pleasant, deep voice, a firm profile, hair and whiskers of an agreeable shade of reddish brown, a tall, heavy figure, his clothes were good, in quiet taste, he had easy, well-bred manners.

Angel Cowley rapidly made the most of these good points and began to ignore others that at first had repelled her—a complexion too florid, eyes too small, a sudden, rather brutal laugh, and certain chance remarks that seemed to indicate a deplorably material outlook.

She was half-piqued, half-flattered by his tone of mastery; he seemed to take it for granted that she would accept him; he emphasized the point that she was free, no one had a right to influence her choice—if he was agreeable to her—why, all was said.

"There's Aunt Dinnies," parried Angel, fearful of seeming too easy, not knowing how to behave.

"Well, she doesn't count, I take it. She's got money of her own, hasn't she?"

"Only a hundred pounds a year."

"That's enough."

"Is it?" Miss Cowley spoke at random, quite agitated and somehow oddly pleased.

"Yes. She won't live with us, you know."

"Oh! But I never—"

Mr. Thicknesse cut through the protest.

"You must let me handle your affairs. I expect you've been too kind. Charming women always are, of course. Now, I don't suppose that you know anything about business, do you?"

"Oh, I—well—oh, indeed, I've always been—" Angel recalled her reviews, "occupied in the—contemplation of the sublime and the beautiful—you know my novels?"

"Yes."

"Well—my character is there." She laughed self-consciously. "I've never written about—business." She affected to shudder; she opened her eyes wide. "I've always looked upward."

"I know. Where have you invested your money?"

"Really—I don't think you have a right—"

He was instantly beside her on the prim settee; he took her cup of cold tea from her and grasped her hands, bringing his large, smoothly-shaven face that smelt faintly of orange-flower water and white soap, close to her cheek. "My dear girl. I love you, don't I? And you're going to marry me, aren't you? So I've got the right, haven't I?"

Angel Cowley had never known such a touch, such a tone before; everything became blurred to her; she stammered, colouring hotly; she blushed too easily.

"It's in the funds—and the Bank. I don't care about money."

"Of course not! That's why I've got to take care of you. I'm a wealthy man, and whatever you have will be just for your own pocket-money."

He kept her hands and smoothed them in his own. Angel shuddered and kept her glance averted from this masterful creature.

"I don't suppose you will want to give up your work," he smiled, lowering his voice to a deep note.

"Oh no—it is expected of me, and I love it. I can help people so. They write and tell me—"

"Yes, I have heard as much. Dear child! Your beautiful books are quite enough anxiety for you—I will take all the worry of it all—"

"Will you?" Angel spoke incoherently, only conscious of the fact that his hands—warm, firm, large—were fondling hers. "Well, I've had an offer for those American 25-cent editions, and, oh, Mr. Tarleton thinks I should publish more verse—it pays quite well—and The Golden Violet is half-completed. It is all a bother, isn't it?"

"How much do you earn a year—with all this—literature?"

"About a thousand pounds," giggled Angel, losing her head. "And I don't spend half—I suppose I've ten thousand in the funds—my stockbroker is Mr. Heron, he is so clever with my savings—and then I've got some charming jewellery and all this nice furniture, and a carriage and some lovely clothes—now, that's not so bad for a poor little country mouse, is it?"

She hardly knew what she said, but she was aware of the peculiarly brilliant quality of his smile as he at last released her moist hands, drew out his handkerchief and pressed it to his lips. She laughed to cover her embarrassment, there was something so vivid in his look that she felt desperately uneasy, yet delighted.

"You're a brave, clever little girl," said Mr. Thicknesse. "And now you're going to let me take care of you."

WHEN HE HAD LEFT the house she realised that she had told him all her affairs and promised to marry him in a month's time; she felt upset, and when Mrs. Dinnies came creeping into the room, Angel was crying into a handkerchief that she herself had embroidered with forget-me-nots and moss-roses in natural colours.

"He didn't want you, after all?" asked the old woman eagerly. "You made it up about the letter?"

Angel looked up over the damp cambric; her eyes were bright with malice.

"We're going to be married. He loves me very, very much. We'll find you a dear little cottage. I'm to have all my money for myself."

Mrs. Dinnies seated herself by her work-table; with shivering hands she scattered the white china beads among the spools of silk. "A pity he's got ginger whiskers."

"How can you! They're dark chestnut. And didn't you advise me to marry him?"

"I said he was your last chance. It was very unselfish of me. But I never thought that my sister's only child would turn me out of my home in my old age—"

"He won't allow you to live with us, aunt, darling. I can't help it! He's going to sell this place, he doesn't like it, and neither," added Angel defiantly, "do I!"

"I see." Mrs. Dinnies nodded her head. "So that is it, is it? He's got you under his thumb already. And what, after all, do you know about him?"

"Don't be absurd, aunt, dear! You know quite well all about Mr. Thicknesse. It was you that pointed him out at Lydia Toulmin's party—he comes of an old Norfolk family and has a lovely place outside Norwich. He told me all about himself—he is a wealthy man—"

"But I suppose he wants you to go on writing?" sneered Mrs. Dinnies.

"Of course. He said that he first came to love me through reading my romances—he couldn't endure me to stop."

"And what about your money in the funds?"

"Don't be so coarse, aunt. I wish you wouldn't talk of it—you might say something sweet and agreeable—for once—when I'm so happy!"

"How was I to know that you liked the man? You seemed to despise him."

Angel Cowley reddened awkwardly.

"I didn't know my own heart."

"What, after all the love scenes you've written!"

"This is different."

"I suppose so." Mrs. Dinnies folded and unfolded the bell-pull embroidered with the arum lilies. Her voice was weary; she had enjoyed her tyrannical life on Angel's money, and Thomas Thicknesse seemed to her not only an interloper, but a thief; hatred shrivelled her old heart. Old and small she looked as she bent over her clumsy, garish work, her hair so thin, her neck so scraggy, her eyes so dim behind the spectacles.

"Oh, aunt!" sobbed Angel, beginning to cry again, "I'll buy you a very nice cottage."

MISS COWLEY had no near relatives to be concerned in her proposed marriage, and her friends were all duly sympathetic and kind; only Lydia Toulmin and Martin Heron expressed any doubts or warnings; Mrs. Toulmin, who made a cosy living by writing manuals for the young, reminded Angel that, though Mr. Thicknesse had been her guest, she knew nothing about him but what was general knowledge.

"He was introduced to me, Angel, darling, by a mere acquaintance—his first wife died only a year ago—I hope he is worthy of you."

Angel hoped so too; but she resented any imputation that Thomas Thicknesse was inspired by any feelings save those of romantic love; her smile stiffened as she listened to Lydia Toulmin, trying to do her duty.

"You see, you are so alone, Angel, you have no guardian. Mr. Thicknesse has been abroad a great deal."

"I know. He has estates in Jamaica. He gets a fine income from them."

Mrs. Toulmin sighed; a husband who resided permanently in Rome had given her cynical views on marriage.

"I cannot discover anyone who knows Mr. Thicknesse really well, Angel. And you are so precious to us all!"

Mr. Heron was more downright; he had handled a silly woman's business affairs efficiently and honestly for years and disliked resigning them to a stranger; his blunt comments merely provoked Miss Cowley to order him to do exactly as her future husband directed.

"I don't want to hear any more of business as long as I live! Mr. Thicknesse will do everything for me."

Her faith in her suitor appeared justified; the busybodies whispered that she was luckier than she deserved to be; a woman who feels she is likely to be left on the shelf is apt to be impulsive and reckless, and Angel Cowley seemed to have snatched rather too eagerly at what was surely her first offer of marriage.

Then, why should a man like Thomas Thicknesse want to marry her, if not for her worldly goods? She was really so ordinary.

Still, it had to be admitted that her suitor came out well from the furtive scrutiny that Angel's more meddlesome acquaintances directed towards him and his affairs.

He was indubitably Thomas Thicknesse, Esquire, of Thicknesse Manor, Norfolk, with estates in Jamaica, which he frequently visited; a new florid tomb in a dingy parish church attested to the virtues of Camilla Thicknesse and to the grief of her desolate husband; the childless woman had left behind nothing but silence; she had been a Welch heiress married twenty years before; it was all quite inoffensive and no one was much concerned in Angel Cowley's fortunes, so she went her way and had her will without much opposition. The lawyer who had managed the late Mr. Cowley's humble affairs met Mr. Thicknesse's man of business, and handsome settlements were made upon the future wife; even Mrs. Dinnies could find no fault, though she detested the cottage at Twickenham that Mr. Thicknesse had found for her so promptly, and passionately ill-wished her niece.

When Angel was alone she felt frightened and depressed, and the image of Thomas Thicknesse appeared before her fancy in sombre and even repulsive colours, while thoughts of her future marriage and her married life seemed alarming and unpleasant.

Often she would weep nervously out of home-sickness for the peaceful days now nearly over; she would embrace Mrs. Dinnies affectionately and swear that they should not part. But when she was with the smiling, heavy man, she was all excitement, obedience and a half-shy pleasure. What most fascinated her was the fact that this strong masculine creature seemed real to her in a way that nothing else ever had seemed real, as if he were a proper denizen of the earth, heir to all the earth might offer, and she, and all that had ever happened to her, were but so many wisps of artificial moonshine.

A WEEK BEFORE their wedding he asked her if she would care to go to Jamaica as soon as they were married; her facile fancy played with the project, which seemed fantastic and beautiful.

"Oh, the spice islands! And have you any slaves? Poor things! I might write about one of them—a captive King!"

"I have about three hundred slaves, and they are well treated and quite happy."

"Then what a number of servants I shall have! Do they wear liveries, and shall I ride in a palanquin?"

"You shall do as you please. It is a lovely island and there is plenty of good society—a poetess would be a great success there."

"I should like to go. Yet it is a long way." She was delighted, yet nervous.

"You could return whenever you wanted to—there is always Thicknesse and the town house—that is let now, as I told you, but it will be mine again in a year's time."

Angel Cowley knew nothing about Jamaica save that rum and sugar came from that island, which was extremely hot and inhabited by black slaves and a few white planters.

"Could I write there?" she asked doubtfully, half tempted by, half frightened of, this proffered novelty.

"Of course. I have a large house, I could build you another if you wish. The climate is like Paradise—and there is a mail-packet to England every month. Why," added Mr. Thicknesse, with one of his sudden, coarse laughs, "you ought, under the conditions out there, to be able to write two or three romances a year. A great deal of time is wasted in this stupid London life."

LYDIA TOULMIN advised her not to go to the West Indies among all those poor heathen, but Angel had been told by Mr. Thicknesse that the Church of England had been established by law in Jamaica for years and that the Island lacked nothing save gifted, pure women like herself.

The idea had taken her fancy, she saw herself as a ministering angel among grateful savages, as a fair white Queen among bowing slaves; both prospects were romantic—how stupid her past seemed in contrast with this brilliant future!

Meanwhile she bought clothes; this was her main interest; when she was with the dressmaker, the milliner, the shoemaker, in the linendraper's or the haberdasher's, she forgot everything, even Jamaica, even Thomas Thicknesse.

But in the quiet of the night she would wake up suddenly and think of him, cowering in the pillows, wondering in the dark.

How odd it was that when she was with him he seemed to fascinate her completely, to lift her up off the ground, as it were, and carry her along in the air—whirl her off her feet—yes, that was what she meant.

And yet, when she was away from him—alone, not distracted by people or clothes, she felt alarmed, even slightly sick at the thought of him, and even in a state of panic at the contemplation of marriage with him—or with any man.

Was it possible, she asked herself, huddling in her bed, that there was something in the romantic conventions that she had so glibly and so thoughtlessly described? That to marry without love was not only wrong, but terrible?

How often had she dwelt on the anguish of a harassed maiden forced into some "unblessed nuptials" from which she had been rescued only at the last moment.

Angel had never paused to ask herself if she believed or did not believe in these sensations on which she had dwelt with such satisfaction to her readers and such profit to herself.

Now her curiosity, her fear, asked questions that her immaturity could not answer.

Sometimes, even during the day, she would feel through her own chatter a cold doubt which would be pointed by a look or a laugh from Mrs. Dinnies, a sigh from Lydia Toulmin, or by the absence of Martin Heron from her parties.

She could not, amid all these distractions, finish her novel, The Golden Violet; her publishers were disappointed, but she promised the final instalment of her romance before Christmas, and meanwhile she wrote verses for the annuals, scribbling them quickly on the top of a bonnet-box, on her bedside table, or on her knee in the carriage when she drove to the mantua-maker's.

Her future husband escorted her and Mrs. Dinnies on a visit to Thicknesse; it was a tedious journey, disliked bitterly by the old woman, and Angel's impression of the Manor House was such as to confirm her decision to go to Jamaica.

It was, she thought, a dull, prim-looking mansion, and the cousins in residence gave but a formal welcome; Angel had seen too much of rusticity when she was a child to feel any desire to live in the country; she preferred to live in town and to sigh after rural delights.

Two days before the wedding Mrs. Dinnies made a final attempt to dissuade Angel from marrying Mr. Thicknesse.

"Break it off now and give him a lesson. He's the most selfish, disagreeable man I've ever met."

"You know that it is no good talking to me like that—with everything packed up, too."

"That's it, your mind is always running on trifles."

"As if it were a trifle—leaving home!"

"So it was home, was it?" sneered Mrs. Dinnies.

The two women sat in a dismantled room; many of the larger pieces of furniture had been sold, some others had been stored, a few articles had gone to the Twickenham cottage; Angel's books, pictures, clothes and ornaments were in great sea-chests; the lease of the house was for sale; it seemed to Angel really a shocking thing that her orderly life, to which she had become so perfectly accustomed, should be broken up like this—however was it that she had consented to such an upset? Surely not for the same petty reason as made her throw away an old comfortable slipper because a new, pinching one looked smart and elegant!

But underneath all her trepidation and dismay was a grim resolve to see this odd, fascinating, exciting adventure through. She looked at Mrs. Dinnies and giggled.

"You're a fool," said the old woman miserably. "And to think that you can earn all that money. Remember that you have promised to give me some before you go. Fifty pounds, at least it is all that I shall ever get from you."

"Oh yes, I have told Mr. Thicknesse about it."

"Why need you tell him? Have you given him all your money even before you're married?"

"He is looking after my affairs," said Angel. "It is agreeable to have a gentleman to do everything for me."

She hurried upstairs, practising a light, tripping movement that fluttered her long, fringed scarf. Her apartments looked desolate without their furnishings; nostalgia and excitement pinched her heart. She was baffled by the perversity of her own thoughts; she wanted her life to change, but not like this; she wanted to be married, but not to this man; she wanted indeed to be a different creature from what she was, with a different destiny altogether from what she had...

Lonely and apprehensive she began to cry, sitting on the edge of her bed; she was only consoled when she glanced up and saw her reflection in the one remaining mirror; her dress of green and yellow striped muslin with the short puce-coloured jacket was really very handsome and became her very well; she tossed out her foot coquettishly and admired her neat ankle so prettily bound by the straps of her doeskin sandal.

They were married in Trinity Church, Marylebone; Mr. Thicknesse had two impressive-looking men as his witnesses, and Angel Cowley had a large number of friends to support her; she was dressed in white sarcenet with a number of jingling little ornaments, many of them the gifts of unknown admirers. Her easily stimulated imagination threw a romantic haze over the scene; the dreary interior of the trim church was turned by her fancy into a scene of Gothic splendour; how often had her pen glided over descriptions of brides being "led to the altar." She contrived to ignore the elderly and unknown relative—a distant cousin and provincial schoolmaster—who gave her away, she contrived not to look at the bridegroom, nor at any of her friends and acquaintances; all was fused, for her, in one emotional blur.

The wedding breakfast was at an hotel, where Mr. Thicknesse seemed well known and where he was certainly well served; everything was done very handsomely, and Angel drank sherry and port and laughed and cried and had no regrets at all.

IN THIS MANNER and under these circumstances was Angelica Cowley, the popular lady novelist, married to Thomas Thicknesse, of Thicknesse Manor, Norfolk, and Venables Penn, Jamaica.