CHAPTER IV
Mrs. Friend passed a somewhat wakeful night after the scene in whichHelena Pitstone had bestowed her first confidences on her new companion.For Lucy Friend the experience had been unprecedented and agitating. Shehad lived in a world where men and women do not talk much aboutthemselves, and as a rule instinctively avoid thinking much aboutthemselves, as a habit tending to something they call "morbid." This atleast had been the tone in her parents' house. The old woman in LancasterGate had not been capable either of talking or thinking about herself,except as a fretful animal with certain simple bodily wants. In Helena,Lucy Friend had for the first time come cross the type of which the worldis now full--men and women, but especially women, who have no use anylonger for the reticence of the past, who desire to know all theypossibly can about themselves, their own thoughts and sensations, theirown peculiarities and powers, all of which are endlessly interesting tothem; and especially to the intellectual _elite_ among them. Already,before the war, the younger generation, which was to meet the brunt ofit, was an introspective, a psychological generation. And the great warhas made it doubly introspective, and doubly absorbed in itself. The mereperpetual strain on the individual consciousness, under the rush ofstrange events, has developed men and women abnormally.
Only now it is not an introspection, or a psychology, which writesjournals or autobiography. It is an introspection which _talks_; apsychology which chatters, of all things small and great; asking itsSocratic way through all the questions of the moment, the most trivial,and the most tremendous.
Coolness, an absence of the old tremors and misgivings that usedespecially to haunt the female breast in the days of Miss Austen, is aleading mark of the new type. So that Mrs. Friend need not have beenastonished to find Helena meeting her guardian next morning at breakfastas though nothing had happened. He, like a man of the world, took his cueimmediately from her, and the conversation--whether it ran on the returnof Karsavina to the Russian Ballet, or the success of "Abraham Lincoln";or the prospects of the Peace, or merely the weddings and buryings ofcertain common acquaintances which appeared in the morning's _Times_--wasso free and merry, that Mrs. Friend began soon to feel her anxieties ofthe night dropping away, to enjoy the little luxuries of the breakfasttable, and the pleasant outlook on the park, of the high, faded, and yetstately room.
"What a charming view!" she said to Lord Buntingford, when they rose frombreakfast, and she made her way to the open window, while Helena wasstill deep in the papers.
"You think so?" he said indifferently, standing beside her. "I'm afraid Iprefer London. But now on another matter--Do you mind taking up yourduties instanter?"
"Please--please let me!" she said, turning eagerly to him.
"Well--there is a cook-housekeeper somewhere--who, I believe, expectsorders. Do you mind giving them? Please do not look so alarmed! It is thesimplest matter in the world. You will appear to give orders. In realityMrs. Mawson will have everything cut and dried, and you will not dare toalter a thing. But she expects you or me to pretend. And I should begreatly relieved if you would do the pretending?"
"Certainly," murmured Mrs. Friend.
Lord Buntingford, looking at the terrace outside, made a suddengesture--half despair, half impatience.
"Oh, and there's old Fenn,--my head gardener. He's been here fortyyears, and he sits on me like an old man of the sea. I know what hewants. He's coming up to ask me about something he calls a herbaceousborder. You see that border there?"--he pointed--"Well, I barely know apeony from a cabbage. Perhaps you do?" He turned towards her hopefully;and Mrs. Friend felt the charm, as many other women had felt it beforeher, of the meditative blue eyes, under the black and heavy brow. Sheshook her head smiling.
He smiled in return.
"But, if you don't--would you mind--again--pretending? Would you see theold fellow, some time this morning--and tell him to do exactly what hedamn pleases--I beg your pardon!--it slipped out. If not, he'll come intomy study, and talk a jargon of which I don't understand a word, for halfan hour. And as he's stone deaf, he doesn't understand a word I say.Moreover when he's once there I can't get him out. And I've got a bit ofrather tough county business this morning. Would you mind? It's a greatdeal to ask. But if you only let him talk--and look intelligent--"
"Of course I will," said Mrs. Friend, bewildered, adding ratherdesperately, "But I don't know anything at all about it."
"Oh, that doesn't matter. Perhaps Helena does! By the way, she hasn'tseen her sitting-room."
He turned towards his ward, who was still reading at the table.
"I have arranged a special sitting-room for you, Helena. Would you liketo come and look at it?"
"What fun!" said Helena, jumping up. "And may I do what I like in it?"
Buntingford's mouth twisted a little.
"Naturally! The house is at your disposal. Turn anything out youlike--and bring anything else in. There is some nice old stuff about,if you look for it. If you send for the odd man he'll move anything.Well, I'd better show you what I arranged. But you can have any otherroom you prefer."
He led the way to the first floor, and opened a door in a corner of thepillared gallery.
"Oh, jolly!" cried Helena.
For they entered a lofty room, with white Georgian panelling, a fewpretty old cabinets and chairs, a chintz-covered sofa, a stand of stuffedhumming-birds, a picture or two, a blue Persian carpet, and a largebook-case full of books.
"My books!" cried Helena in amazement. "I was just going to ask ifthe cases had come. How ever did you get them unpacked, and put hereso quickly?"
"Nothing easier. They arrived three days ago. I telephoned to a man Iknow in Leicester Square. He sent some one down, and they were allfinished before you came down. Perhaps you won't like the arrangement?Well, it will amuse you to undo it!"
If there was the slightest touch of sarcasm in the eyes that travelledfrom her to the books, Helena took it meekly. She went to thebookshelves. Poets, novelists, plays, philosophers, economists, someFrench and Italian books, they were all in their proper places. The bookswere partly her own, partly her mother's. Helena eyed them thoughtfully.
"You must have taken a lot of trouble."
"Not at all. The man took all the trouble. There wasn't much."
As he spoke, her eye caught a piano standing between the windows.
"Mummy's piano! Why, I thought we agreed it should be stored?"
"It seemed to me you might as well have it down here. We can easily hireone for London."
"Awfully nice of you," murmured Helena. She opened it and stood with herhand on the keys, looking out into the park, as though she pursued somethought or memory of her own. It was a brilliant May morning, and thewindows were open. Helena's slim figure in a white dress, the reddishtouch in her brown hair, the lovely rounding of her cheek and neck, werethrown sharply against a background of new leaf made by a giant beechtree just outside. Mrs. Friend looked at Lord Buntingford. The thoughtleaped into her mind--"How can he help making love to her himself?"--onlyto be immediately chidden. Buntingford was not looking at Helena but athis watch.
"Well, I must go and do some drivelling work before lunch. I have givenMrs. Friend _carte blanche_, Helena. Order what you like, and if Mrs.Mawson bothers you, send her to me. Geoffrey comes to-night, and we shallbe seven to-morrow."
He made for the door. Helena had turned suddenly at his last words, eyeand cheek kindling.
"Hm--" she said, under her breath--"So he has sent the telegram."
She left the window, and began to walk restlessly about the room, lookingnow at the books, now at the piano. Her face hardened, and she paid noattention to Mrs. Friend's little comments of pleasure on the room andits contents. Presently indeed she cut brusquely across.
"I am just going down to the stables to see whether my horse has arrived.A friend of mine bought her for me in town--and she was to be here earlythis morning. I want, too, to see where they're going to put her."
"Mayn't I come
too?" said Mrs. Friend, puzzled by the sudden clouding ofthe girl's beautiful looks.
"Oh, no--please don't. You've got to see the housekeeper! I'll get my hatand run down. I found out last night where the stables are. I shan't bemore than ten minutes or so."
She hurried away, leaving Mrs. Friend once more a prey to anxieties. Sherecalled the threat of the night before. But no, _impossible_! After allthe kindness and the forethought! She dismissed it from her mind.
The interview with the housekeeper was an ordeal to the gentleinexperienced woman. But her entire lack of any sort of pretension was initself ingratiating; and her manner had the timid charm of her character.Mrs. Mawson, who might have bristled or sulked in stronger hands, inorder to mark her distaste for the advent of a mistress in the house shehad been long accustomed to rule, was soon melted by the docility of thelittle lady, and graciously consented to see her own plans approved _enbloc_, by one so frankly ignorant of how a country house party should beconducted. Then it was the turn of old Fenn; a more difficult matter,since he did genuinely want instructions, and Mrs. Friend had none togive him. But kind looks, and sympathetic murmurs, mingled with honestdelight in the show of azaleas in the conservatory carried her through.Old Fenn too, instead of resenting her, adopted her. She went back to thehouse flushed with a little modest triumph.
Housewifely instincts revived in her. Her hands wanted to be doing. Shehad ventured to ask Fenn for some flowers, and would dare to arrange themherself if Mrs. Mawson would let her.
Then, as she re-entered the house, she came back at a bound to reality."If I can't keep Miss Pitstone out of mischief, I shan't be here amonth!" she thought pitifully; and how was it to be done?
She found Helena sitting demurely in the sitting-room, pretending to reada magazine, but really, or so it seemed to Mrs. Friend, keeping both eyesand ears open for events.
"I'm trying to get ready for Julian--" she said impatiently, throwingaway her book. "He sent me his article in the _Market Place_, but it's sostiff that I can't make head or tail of it. I like to hear him talk--buthe doesn't write English."
Mrs. Friend took up the magazine, and perceived a marked item in thetable of contents--"A New Theory of Value."
"What does it mean?" she asked.
"Oh, I wish I knew!" said Helena, with a little yawn. "And then hechanges so. Last year he made me read Meredith--the novels, I mean. _Oneof Our Conquerors_, he vowed, was the finest thing ever written. Hescoffed at me for liking _Diana_ and _Richard Feverel_ better, becausethey were easier. And _now_, nothing's bad enough for Meredith's 'stiltednonsense'--'characters without a spark of life in them'--'horriblemannerisms'--you should hear him. Except the poems--ah, except the poems!He daren't touch them. I say--do you know the 'Hymn to Colour'?" Thegirl's eager eyes questioned her companion. Her face in a moment was allsoftness and passion.
Mrs. Friend shook her head. The nature and deficiencies of her owneducation were becoming terribly plain to her with every hour inHelena's company.
Helena sprang up, fetched the book, put Mrs. Friend forcibly into anarm-chair, and read aloud. Mrs. Friend listened with all her ears, andwas at the end, like Faust, no wiser than before. What did it all mean?She groped, dazzled, among the Meredithian mists and splendours. ButHelena read with a growing excitement, as though the flashingmysterious verse were part of her very being. When the last stanza wasdone, she flung herself fiercely down on a stool at Mrs. Friend's feet,breathing fast:
"Glorious!--oh, glorious!--
"Look now where Colour, the soul's bridegroom, makesThe House of Heaven splendid for the Bride."
She turned to look up at the little figure in the chair, half laughing,half passionate: "You do understand, don't you?" Mrs. Friend again shookher head despairingly.
"It sounds wonderful--but I haven't a notion what it means!" Helenalaughed again, but without a touch of mockery.
"One has to be taught--coached--regularly coached. Julian coached me."
"What is meant by Colour?" asked Mrs. Friend faintly.
"Colour is Passion, Beauty, Freedom!" said Helena, her cheek glowing. "Itis just the opposite of dulness--and routine--and make-believe. It's whatmakes life worth while. And it is the young who feel it--the young whohear it calling--the young who obey it! And then when they are old, theyhave it to remember. Now, do you understand?"
Lucy Friend did not answer. But involuntarily, two shining tears stood inher eyes. There was something extraordinarily moving in the girl'sardour. She could hardly bear it. There came back to her momentaryvisions from her own quiet past--a country lane at evening where a manhad put his arm round her and kissed her--her wedding-evening by the sea,when the sun went down, and all the ways were darkened, and the starscame out--and that telegram which put an end to everything, which she hadscarcely had time to feel, because her mother was so ill, and wanted herevery moment. Had she--even she--in her poor, drab, little life--had hermoments of living Poetry, of transforming Colour, like others--withoutknowing it?
Helena watched her, as though in a quick, unspoken sympathy, her ownstorm of feeling subsiding.
"Do you know, Lucy, you look very nice indeed in that little blackdress!" she said, in her soft, low voice, like the voice of anincantation, that she had used the night before. "You are the neatest,daintiest person!--not prim--but you make everything you wear refined.When I compare you with Cynthia Welwyn!"
She raised her shoulders scornfully. Lucy Friend, aghast at theoutrageousness of the comparison, tried to silence her--but quite invain. Helena ran on.
"Did you watch Cynthia last night? She was playing for Cousin Philip withall her might. Why doesn't he marry her? She would suit his autocraticideas very well. He is forty-four. She must be thirty-eight if she is aday. They have both got money--which Cynthia can't do without, for she ishorribly extravagant. But I wouldn't give much for her chances. CousinPhilip is a tough proposition, as the American says. There is no gettingat his real mind. All one knows is that it is a tyrannical mind!"
All softness had died from the girl's face and sparkling eyes. She sat onthe floor, her hands round her knees, defiance in every tense feature.Mrs. Friend was conscious of renewed alarm and astonishment, and at lastfound the nerve to express them.
"How can you call it tyrannical when he spends all this time and thoughtupon you!"
"The gilding of the cage," said Helena stubbornly. "That is the way womenhave always been taken in. Men fling them scraps to keep them quiet. Butas to the _real_ feast--liberty to discover the world for themselves,make their own experiments--choose and test their own friends--no, thankyou! And what is life worth if it is only to be lived at somebody'selse's dictation?"
"But you have only been here twenty-four hours--not so much! And youdon't know Lord Buntingford's reasons--"
"Oh, yes, I do know!" said Helena, undisturbed--"more or less. I told youlast night. They don't matter to me. It's the principle involved thatmatters. Am I free, or am I not free? Anyway, I've just sent thattelegram."
"To whom?" cried Mrs. Friend.
"To Lord Donald, of course, asking him to meet me at the Ritz nextWednesday. If you will be so good"--the brown head made her a ceremonialbow--"as to go up with me to town--we can go to my dressmaker'stogether--I have got heaps to do there--then I can leave you somewherefor lunch--and pick you up again afterwards!"
"Of course, Miss Pitstone--Helena!--I can't do anything of the sort,unless your guardian agrees."
"Well, we shall see," said Helena coolly, jumping up. "I mean to tell himafter lunch. Don't please worry. And good-bye till lunch. This time I amreally going to look after my horse!"
A laugh, and a wave of the hand--she had disappeared. Mrs. Friend wasleft to reflect on the New Woman. Was it in truth the war that hadproduced her?--and if so, how and why? All that seemed probable was thatin two or three weeks' time, perhaps, she would be again appealing to thesame agency that had sent her to Beechmark. She believed she was entitledto a month's notice.
Poor Lord Bunting
ford! Her sympathies were hotly on his side, so far asshe had any understanding of the situation into which she had beenplunged with so little warning. Yet when Helena was actually there at herfeet, she was hypnotized. The most inscrutable thing of all was, how shecould ever have supposed herself capable of undertaking such a charge!
The two ladies were already lunching when Lord Buntingford appeared,bringing with him another neighbouring squire, come to consult him oncertain local affairs. Sir Henry Bostock, one of those solid, grey-hairedpillars of Church and State in which rural England abounds, was firstdazzled by Miss Pitstone's beauty, and then clearly scandalized by someof her conversation, and perhaps--or so Mrs. Friend imagined--by therather astonishing "make-up" which disfigured lips and cheeks Nature hadalready done her best with.
He departed immediately after lunch. Lord Buntingford accompanied him tothe front door, saw him mount his horse, and was returning to thelibrary, when a white figure crossed his path.
"Cousin Philip, I want to speak to you."
He looked up at once.
"All right, Helena. Will you come into the library?"
He ushered her in, shut the door behind her, and pushed forward anarm-chair.
"You'll find that comfortable, I think?"
"Thank you, I'd rather stand. Cousin Philip, did you send that telegramthis morning?"
"Certainly. I told you I should."
"Then you won't be surprised that I too sent mine."
"I don't understand what you mean?"
"When this morning you said there would be seven for dinner to-night, Iof course realized that you meant to stick to what you had said aboutLord Donald yesterday; and as I particularly want to see Lord Donald, Isent the new groom to the village this morning with a wire to him to saythat I should be glad if he would arrange to give me luncheon at the Ritznext Wednesday. I have to go up to try a dress on."
Lord Buntingford paused a moment, looking apparently at the cigarettewith which his fingers were playing.
"You proposed, I imagine, that Mrs. Friend should go with you?"
"Oh, yes, to my dressmaker's. Then I would arrange for her to gosomewhere to lunch--Debenham's, perhaps."
"And it was your idea then to go alone--to meet Lord Donald?" Helooked up.
"He would wait for me in the lounge at the Ritz. It's quite simple!"
Philip Buntingford laughed--good-humouredly.
"Well, it is very kind of you to have told me so frankly, Helena--becausenow I shall prevent it. It is the last thing in the world that yourmother would have wished, that you should be seen at the Ritz alone withLord Donald. I therefore have her authority with me in asking you eitherto write or telegraph to him again to-night, giving up the plan. Betterstill if you would depute me to do it. It is really a very foolishplan--if I may say so."
"Why?"
"Because--well, there are certain things a girl of nineteen can't dowithout spoiling her chances in life--and one of them is to be seen aboutalone with a man like Lord Donald."
"And again I ask--why?"
"I really can't discuss his misdoings with you, Helena. Won't you trustme in the matter? I thought I had made it plain that having been devotedto your mother, I was prepared to be equally devoted to you, and wishedyou to be as happy and free as possible."
"That's an appeal to sentiment," said Helena, resolutely. "Of course Iknow it all sounds horrid. You've been as nice as possible; and anybodywho didn't sympathize with my views would think me a nasty, ungratefultoad. But I'm not going to be coaxed into giving them up, any more thanI'm going to be bullied."
Lord Buntingford surveyed her. The habitual slight pucker--as though ofanxiety or doubt--in his brow was much in evidence. It might have meantthe chronic effort of a short-sighted man to see. But the fine candideyes were not short-sighted. The pucker meant something deeper.
"Of course I should like to understand what your views are," he said atlast, throwing away one cigarette, and lighting another.
Helena's look kindled. She looked handsomer and more maenad-like thanever, as she stood leaning against Buntingford's writing-table, her armsfolded, one slim foot crossed over the other.
"The gist of them is," she said eagerly, "that _we_--the women of thepresent day--are not going to accept our principles--moral--orpolitical--or economic--on anybody's authority. You seem, Cousin Philip,in my case at any rate, to divide the world into two sets of people,moral and immoral, good and bad--desirable and undesirable--that kind ofthing! And you expect me to know the one set, and ignore the other set.Well, we don't see it that way at all. We think that everybody is apretty mixed lot. I know I am myself. At any rate I'm not going to beginmy life by laying down a heap of rules about things I don'tunderstand--or by accepting them from you, or anybody. If Lord Donald's abad man, I want to know why he is a bad man--and then I'll decide. If herevolts my moral sense, of course I'll cut him. But I won't take anybodyelse's moral sense for judge. We've got to overhaul that sort of thingfrom top to bottom."
Buntingford looked thoughtfully at the passionate speaker. Shouldhe--could he argue with her? Could he show her, for instance, a letter,or parts of it, which he had received that very morning from poor LukePreston, his old Eton and Oxford friend? No!--it would be useless. In herpresent mood she might treat it so as to rouse his own temper--let alonethe unseemliness of the discussion it must raise between them. Or shouldhe give her a fairly full biography of Jim Donald, as he happened to knowit? He revolted against the notion, astonished to find how strong certainold-fashioned instincts still were in his composition. And, after all, hehad said a good deal the night before, at dinner, when Helena'sinvitation to a man he despised as a coward and a libertine had beenfirst sprung upon him. There really was only one way out. He took it.
"Well, Helena, I'm very sorry," he said slowly. "Your views are veryinteresting. I should like some day to discuss them with you. But theimmediate business is to stop this Ritz plan. You really won't stop ityourself?"
"Certainly not!" said Helena, her breath fluttering.
"Well, then, I must write to Donald myself. I happen to possess the meansof making it impossible for him to meet you at the Ritz next Wednesday,Helena; and I shall use them. You must make some other arrangement."
"What means?" she demanded. She had turned very pale.
"Ah, no!--that you must leave to me. Look here, Helena"--his tonesoftened--"can't we shake hands on it, and make up? I do hate quarrellingwith your mother's daughter."
Involuntarily, through all her rage, Helena was struck by the extremesensitiveness of the face opposite her--a sensitiveness often disguisedby the powerful general effect of the man's head and eyes. In a calmermood she might have said to herself that only some past suffering couldhave produced it. At the moment, however, she was incapable of anythingbut passionate resentment.
All the same there was present in her own mind an ideal of what theaction and bearing of a girl in her position should be, which, with thehelp of pride, would not allow her to drift into mere temper. She put herhands firmly behind her; so that Buntingford was forced to withdraw his;but she kept her self-possession.
"I don't see what there is but quarrelling before us, Cousin Philip, ifyou are to proceed on these lines. Are you really going to keep me tomy promise?"
"To let me take care of you--for these two years? It was not a promise tome, Helena."
The girl's calm a little broke down.
"Mummy would never have made me give it," she said fiercely, "if shehad known--"
"Well, you can't ask her now," he said gently. "Hadn't we better make thebest of it?"
She scorned to reply. He opened the door for her, and she sweptthrough it.
Left to himself, Buntingford gave a great stretch.
"That was strenuous!"--he said to himself--"uncommonly strenuous. Howmany times a week shall I have to do it? Can't Cynthia Welwyn doanything? I'll go and see Cynthia this afternoon."
With which very natural, but quite foolish resolution, he at lastsu
cceeded in quieting his own irritation, and turning his mind to apolitical speech he had to make next week in his own village.