CHAPTER III. OUR QUEEN OF' HEARTS.
THE chaise stopped in front of us, and before we had recovered from ourbewilderment the gardener had opened the door and let down the steps.
A bright, laughing face, prettily framed round by a black veil passedover the head and tied under the chin--a traveling-dress of a nankeencolor, studded with blue buttons and trimmed with white braid--a lightbrown cloak over it--little neatly-gloved hands, which seized in aninstant on one of mine and on one of Owen's--two dark blue eyes, whichseemed to look us both through and through in a moment--a clear,full, merrily confident voice--a look and manner gayly and gracefullyself-possessed--such were the characteristics of our fair guest whichfirst struck me at the moment when she left the postchaise and possessedherself of my hand.
"Don't begin by scolding me," she said, before I could utter a word ofwelcome. "There will be time enough for that in the course of the nextsix weeks. I beg pardon, with all possible humility, for the offense ofcoming ten days before my time. Don't ask me to account for it, please;if you do, I shall be obliged to confess the truth. My dear sir, thefact is, this is an act of impulse."
She paused, and looked us both in the face with a bright confidence inher own flow of nonsense that was perfectly irresistible.
"I must tell you all about it," she ran on, leading the way to thebench, and inviting us, by a little mock gesture of supplication, toseat ourselves on either side of her. "I feel so guilty till I've toldyou. Dear me! how nice this is! Here I am quite at home already. Isn'tit odd? Well, and how do you think it happened? The morning beforeyesterday Matilda--there is Matilda, picking up my bonnet from thebottom of that remarkably musty carriage--Matilda came and woke me asusual, and I hadn't an idea in my head, I assure you, till she beganto brush my hair. Can you account for it?--I can't--but she seemed,somehow, to brush a sudden fancy for coming here into my head. WhenI went down to breakfast, I said to my aunt, 'Darling, I have anirresistible impulse to go to Wales at once, instead of waiting tillthe twentieth.' She made all the necessary objections, poor dear, andmy impulse got stronger and stronger with every one of them. 'I'm quitecertain,' I said, 'I shall never go at all if I don't go now.' 'In thatcase,' says my aunt, 'ring the bell, and have your trunks packed. Yourwhole future depends on your going; and you terrify me so inexpressiblythat I shall be glad to get rid of you.' You may not think it, to lookat her--but Matilda is a treasure; and in three hours more I was on theGreat Western Railway. I have not the least idea how I got here--exceptthat the men helped me everywhere. They are always such delightfulcreatures! I have been casting myself, and my maid, and my trunks ontheir tender mercies at every point in the journey, and their politeattentions exceed all belief. I slept at your horrid little county townlast night; and the night before I missed a steamer or a train, I forgetwhich, and slept at Bristol; and that's how I got here. And, now I amhere, I ought to give my guardian a kiss--oughtn't I? Shall I call youpapa? I think I will. And shall I call _you_ uncle, sir, and give you akiss too? We shall come to it sooner or later--shan't we?--and we may aswell begin at once, I suppose."
Her fresh young lips touched my old withered cheek first, and thenOwen's; a soft, momentary shadow of tenderness, that was very pretty andbecoming, passing quickly over the sunshine and gayety of her face asshe saluted us. The next moment she was on her feet again, inquiring"who the wonderful man was who built The Glen Tower," and wanting to goall over it immediately from top to bottom.
As we took her into the house, I made the necessary apologies for themiserable condition of the lean-to, and assured her that, ten dayslater, she would have found it perfectly ready to receive her.She whisked into the rooms--looked all round them--whisked outagain--declared she had come to live in the old Tower, and not in anymodern addition to it, and flatly declined to inhabit the lean-to on anyterms whatever. I opened my lips to state certain objections, but sheslipped away in an instant and made straight for the Tower staircase.
"Who lives here?" she asked, calling down to us, eagerly, from thefirst-floor landing.
"I do," said Owen; "but, if you would like me to move out--"
She was away up the second flight before he could say any more. The nextsound we heard, as we slowly followed her, was a peremptory drummingagainst the room door of the second story.
"Anybody here?" we heard her ask through the door.
I called up to her that, under ordinary circumstances, I was there; butthat, like Owen, I should be happy to move out--
My polite offer was cut short as my brother's had been. We heard moredrumming at the door of the third story. There were two rooms herealso--one perfectly empty, the other stocked with odds and ends ofdismal, old-fashioned furniture for which we had no use, and grimlyornamented by a life-size basket figure supporting a complete suit ofarmor in a sadly rusty condition. When Owen and I got to the third-floorlanding, the door was open; Miss Jessie had taken possession of therooms; and we found her on a chair, dusting the man in armor with hercambric pocket-handkerchief.
"I shall live here," she said, looking round at us briskly over hershoulder.
We both remonstrated, but it was quite in vain. She told us that she hadan impulse to live with the man in armor, and that she would haveher way, or go back immediately in the post-chaise, which we pleased.Finding it impossible to move her, we bargained that she should, atleast, allow the new bed and the rest of the comfortable furniturein the lean-to to be moved up into the empty room for her sleepingaccommodation. She consented to this condition, protesting, however,to the last against being compelled to sleep in a bed, because it was amodern conventionality, out of all harmony with her place of residenceand her friend in armor.
Fortunately for the repose of Morgan, who, under other circumstances,would have discovered on the very first day that his airy retreat wasby no means high enough to place him out of Jessie's reach, the idea ofsettling herself instantly in her new habitation excluded every otheridea from the mind of our fair guest. She pinned up the nankeen-coloredtraveling dress in festoons all round her on the spot; informed us thatwe were now about to make acquaintance with her in the new characterof a woman of business; and darted downstairs in mad high spirits,screaming for Matilda and the trunks like a child for a set of new toys.The wholesome protest of Nature against the artificial restraints ofmodern life expressed itself in all that she said and in all that shedid. She had never known what it was to be happy before, because she hadnever been allowed, until now, to do anything for herself. She was downon her knees at one moment, blowing the fire, and telling us that shefelt like Cinderella; she was up on a table the next, attacking thecobwebs with a long broom, and wishing she had been born a housemaid. Asfor my unfortunate friend, the upholsterer, he was leveled to the ranksat the first effort he made to assume the command of the domestic forcesin the furniture department. She laughed at him, pushed him about,disputed all his conclusions, altered all his arrangements, and ended byordering half his bedroom furniture to be taken back again, for the oneunanswerable reason that she meant to do without it.
As evening approached, the scene presented by the two rooms becameeccentric to a pitch of absurdity which is quite indescribable.The grim, ancient walls of the bedroom had the liveliest moderndressing-gowns and morning-wrappers hanging all about them. The man inarmor had a collection of smart little boots and shoes dangling by lacesand ribbons round his iron legs. A worm-eaten, steel-clasped casket,dragged out of a corner, frowned on the upholsterer's brand-newtoilet-table, and held a miscellaneous assortment of combs, hairpins,and brushes. Here stood a gloomy antique chair, the patriarch of itstribe, whose arms of blackened oak embraced a pair of pert, new dealbonnet-boxes not a fortnight old. There, thrown down lightly on a ruggedtapestry table-cover, the long labor of centuries past, lay the brief,delicate work of a week ago in the shape of silk and muslindresses turned inside out. In the midst of all these confusions andcontradictions, Miss Jessie ranged to and fro, the active center of thewhole scene of disorder, now singing at the to
p of her voice, and nowdeclaring in her lighthearted way that one of us must make up his mindto marry her immediately, as she was determined to settle for the restof her life at The Glen Tower.
She followed up that announcement, when we met at dinner, by inquiringif we quite understood by this time that she had left her "companymanners" in London, and that she meant to govern us all at her absolutewill and pleasure, throughout the whole period of her stay. Having thusprovided at the outset for the due recognition of her authority by thehousehold generally and individually having briskly planned out all herown forthcoming occupations and amusements over the wine and fruit atdessert, and having positively settled, between her first and secondcups of tea, where our connection with them was to begin and where itwas to end, she had actually succeeded, when the time came to separatefor the night, in setting us as much at our ease, and in making herselfas completely a necessary part of our household as if she had livedamong us for years and years past.
Such was our first day's experience of the formidable guest whoseanticipated visit had so sorely and so absurdly discomposed us all. Icould hardly believe that I had actually wasted hours of precious timein worrying myself and everybody else in the house about the bestmeans of laboriously entertaining a lively, high-spirited girl, whowas perfectly capable, without an effort on her own part or on ours, ofentertaining herself.
Having upset every one of our calculations on the first day of herarrival, she next falsified all our predictions before she had been withus a week. Instead of fracturing her skull with the pony, as Morgan hadprophesied, she sat the sturdy, sure-footed, mischievous little brute asif she were part and parcel of himself. With an old water-proof cloak ofmine on her shoulders, with a broad-flapped Spanish hat of Owen's on herhead, with a wild imp of a Welsh boy following her as guide and groom ona bare-backed pony, and with one of the largest and ugliest cur-dogsin England (which she had picked up, lost and starved by the wayside)barking at her heels, she scoured the country in all directions, andcame back to dinner, as she herself expressed it, "with the manners ofan Amazon, the complexion of a dairy-maid, and the appetite of a wolf."
On days when incessant rain kept her indoors, she amused herself with anew freak. Making friends everywhere, as became The Queen of Hearts,she even ingratiated herself with the sour old housekeeper, who hadpredicted so obstinately that she was certain to run away. To theamazement of everybody in the house, she spent hours in the kitchen,learning to make puddings and pies, and trying all sorts of recipeswith very varying success, from an antiquated cookery book which shehad discovered at the back of my bookshelves. At other times, when Iexpected her to be upstairs, languidly examining her finery, and idlypolishing her trinkets, I heard of her in the stables, feeding therabbits, and talking to the raven, or found her in the conservatory,fumigating the plants, and half suffocating the gardener, who was tryingto moderate her enthusiasm in the production of smoke.
Instead of finding amusement, as we had expected, in Owen's studio, shepuckered up her pretty face in grimaces of disgust at the smell of paintin the room, and declared that the horrors of the Earthquake at Lisbonmade her feel hysterical. Instead of showing a total want of interestin my business occupations on the estate, she destroyed my dignityas steward by joining me in my rounds on her pony, with her vagabondretinue at her heels. Instead of devouring the novels I had orderedfor her, she left them in the box, and put her feet on it when she feltsleepy after a hard day's riding. Instead of practicing for hours everyevening at the piano, which I had hired with such a firm conviction ofher using it, she showed us tricks on the cards, taught us new games,initiated us into the mystics of dominoes, challenged us with riddles,and even attempted to stimulate us into acting charades--in short, triedevery evening amusement in the whole category except the amusement ofmusic. Every new aspect of her character was a new surprise to us, andevery fresh occupation that she chose was a fresh contradiction toour previous expectations. The value of experience as a guide isunquestionable in many of the most important affairs of life; but,speaking for myself personally, I never understood the utter futility ofit, where a woman is concerned, until I was brought into habits of dailycommunication with our fair guest.
In her domestic relations with ourselves she showed that exquisitenicety of discrimination in studying our characters, habits and tasteswhich comes by instinct with women, and which even the longest practicerarely teaches in similar perfection to men. She saw at a glance all theunderlying tenderness and generosity concealed beneath Owen's externalshyness, irresolution, and occasional reserve; and, from first to last,even in her gayest moments, there was always a certain quietly-impliedconsideration--an easy, graceful, delicate deference--in her mannertoward my eldest brother, which won upon me and upon him every hour inthe day.
With me she was freer in her talk, quicker in her actions, readierand bolder in all the thousand little familiarities of our dailyintercourse. When we met in the morning she always took Owen's hand, andwaited till he kissed her on the forehead. In my case she put both herhands on my shoulders, raised herself on tiptoe, and saluted me brisklyon both cheeks in the foreign way. She never differed in opinion withOwen without propitiating him first by some little artful compliment inthe way of excuse. She argued boldly with me on every subject under thesun, law and politics included; and, when I got the better of her, neverhesitated to stop me by putting her hand on my lips, or by dragging meout into the garden in the middle of a sentence.
As for Morgan, she abandoned all restraint in his case on the secondday of her sojourn among us. She had asked after him as soon as she wassettled in her two rooms on the third story; had insisted on knowing whyhe lived at the top of the tower, and why he had not appeared to welcomeher at the door; had entrapped us into all sorts of damaging admissions,and had thereupon discovered the true state of the case in less thanfive minutes.
From that time my unfortunate second brother became the victim of allthat was mischievous and reckless in her disposition. She forcedhim downstairs by a series of maneuvers which rendered his refugeuninhabitable, and then pretended to fall violently in love with him.She slipped little pink three-cornered notes under his door, entreatinghim to make appointments with her, or tenderly inquiring how he wouldlike to see her hair dressed at dinner on that day. She followed himinto the garden, sometimes to ask for the privilege of smelling histobacco-smoke, sometimes to beg for a lock of his hair, or a fragment ofhis ragged old dressing-gown, to put among her keepsakes. She sighed athim when he was in a passion, and put her handkerchief to her eyes whenhe was sulky. In short, she tormented Morgan, whenever she could catchhim, with such ingenious and such relentless malice, that he actuallythreatened to go back to London, and prey once more, in the unscrupulouscharacter of a doctor, on the credulity of mankind.
Thus situated in her relations toward ourselves, and thus occupied bycountry diversions of her own choosing, Miss Jessie passed her time atThe Glen Tower, excepting now and then a dull hour in the long evenings,to her guardian's satisfaction--and, all things considered, not withoutpleasure to herself. Day followed day in calm and smooth succession, andfive quiet weeks had elapsed out of the six during which her stay wasto last without any remarkable occurrence to distinguish them, when anevent happened which personally affected me in a very serious manner,and which suddenly caused our handsome Queen of Hearts to become theobject of my deepest anxiety in the present, and of my dearest hopes forthe future.