Chapter V: A Young Lady’s Chastening--Phase Two

She came to the lodge often after that, and amused herself putting the place in order, sometimes while I was present, but more often during my absence. I knew nothing of what was in her mind; but I confess it came, just at first, to give me a sort of gloating satisfaction thus to accept without comment these ministrations of what was intended, I suppose, for imperious beauty’s atonement to the poor beast whom she had wounded herself by insulting. She did not speak much, going about her duties with a young elastic confidence; but a consciousness of unuttered protest over my indifference, of wistful glances and deprecations of my blindness, began soon to grow irksome. She wanted to put herself right with herself, I supposed, rather than with me. I was ready enough to tell her so, yet somehow could never find the words.

One day, on entering my den, I was surprised to encounter the figure of Lord Skene seated therein.

“Where’s Ira?” he asked at once.

“How should I know, sir?” I answered. “She isn’t here.”

“But she comes here at times?” he said.

“That’s her affair. She’s her own mistress, and has told me so. I can’t command even the lodge, it seems.”

“Don’t be bitter, my boy,” he replied. “Only, if I were you, I wouldn’t encourage these visitations.”

“I don’t.”

“That’s right. You see, she’s a great catch--rather a unique young party with her looks and her fortune.”

“I quite understand. I assure you, sir, I shall be only too glad if you’ll keep her away.”

“What a misogynist it is!”

He looked up at me suddenly, seemed to catch his breath, and put his hand to his forehead.

“What is it, sir?” I exclaimed.

“Eh!” he said vaguely. “Nothing--O, nothing!”

He appeared to make an effort to recall himself, and was presently smiling genially, though his loose old underlip trembled.

“What a great fellow you have grown, to be sure,” he said--“a fine personable fellow and a credit to us, too.”

“You’re very good, sir. I wish I could think the same.”

“Ah!” he said nervously. “I fancy I know what you mean. It’s that that I came about, Gaskett. You mustn’t go on brooding by yourself for ever in this infernal swamp. It reflects upon me, my boy, and upon Lady Skene. Besides, you’ve got a--a brother up there, you know” (he uttered the word with an obvious effort); “and it won’t do to have scandals started about the proverbial step-relations. You come up to the house, if you want to keep the young lady from coming down here. Its the wise alternative. Let her feed her wilfulness in company--eh?”

“What do you want me to do, sir?”

“Why, take your seat at my table, like a gentleman and a man of sense. We sha’n’t poison you.”

“Forgive my asking, sir. Didn’t she suggest this to you?”

“Who? My wife?”

“O no! Miss Christmas.”

“Why, now I come to think of it, she did mention it--a well-merited reproof, perhaps.”

“I’m beholden to her, of course.”

“You ought to count yourself beholden to me, I think. I don’t know that I’ve ever given you cause, Gaskett, to doubt my friendship.”

“No, sir. I’ll do what you wish, of course.”

“That’s right. Shoo! the place smells like a well. We must get you out of it.”

So I donned a dress suit, and played the dutiful respectable, and took my place at my lord’s table--an odd new experience for me. I felt some natural awkwardness about it at first, and bungled a little over taking wine with my stepfather, for he held to the old-fashioned customs; but his cellar was good enough to be an education in itself; and, for the rest, the ladies did not embarrass me with their notice or attentions. Indeed, from the date of this my first step towards a social reformation, Miss Christmas ignored me entirely, and took pains to impress me with the fact. I was duly impressed--and amused. I supposed, quite correctly, no doubt, that his lordship had given her a hint as to the inadvisability of her visits to me, backed by a pretty literal quotation of my own expressed wishes in the matter, and that the insult by deputy had instantly effected what the insult direct had failed to do. Women, I fancy, have no objection to being bullied in an exclusive and complimentary sort of way; but the passion of brutality loses all its charms with them when it takes an agent into its confidence. Miss Christmas was deeply offended, and let me know by implication the raptures I had forgone. She literally sparkled o’ nights, frolicking like a will-o’-the-wisp before my hopelessly unravished eyes. Her dress, her jewels, her manner, her imperious caprices, all expressed, and were designed to express, the spoilt and whimsical child of fortune--leagues overhead a nameless pensioner on that same partial goddess’s bounty. She sang--not so badly on the accidental strength of a pure little contralto voice, which of all sorts finds it easiest to keep in tune; she displayed, in the childish abandonment of her caressings of dogs and cats, the passion of thin white arms, lures wickedly unattainable to my supposed swooning senses; she talked, sweetly serious, with Lady Skene, on the subject of the divine goodness in damning three-fourths of the world for the sake of the other quarter, and dropped texts from her lips as daintily as cherry stones. If it was all designed as a sharp lesson to me, it was all signally successful. “The girl is mother to the woman,” I thought. She is a humbug here as she was a humbug in my lodge. It is nothing but her puckish instinct to play a part to desire.

I never came to the house but of nights to dine, conforming only, in its strictly literal sense, with Lord Skene’s expressed wish; and then I would dawdle out an impatient hour in the drawing-room, and the moment the clock struck ten be off to my woods again. Lady Skene had accepted my reappearance with no comment but the briefest greeting; but I thought her manner to me was more chilling than ever. She seemed resolved upon disallowing my last claim to her consideration. As a child it had always been as if, coldly and softly, she had disengaged my fingers one by one from her skirts to which they clung. Now we were utterly dissevered; but I cried out still that I might not hate her. She did not hate me, I am sure. She only looked upon me as a brand, a thing foredoomed, whom it were useless to shape for a destiny which could never be his. Perhaps in her deepest heart there may have lurked a terror of herself, were she once to permit herself to think of me--a fear that after all, in some quick frenzy, she might be moved to disown the pietist for the mother. I will believe it. Such inhumanity as hers seems incomprehensible without.

As I held to my wild habits by day, playing only in the evenings up to polite convention, I was certain to encounter Miss Christmas about the grounds, and as a matter of fact I did, many times. On such occasions she would always pass me with a warble and a stare, or a cock to her kittenish nose, as if I were an odorous stable-boy, which as regularly tickled me, until one day I felt tired of it. I had run upon her at the head of the thicket path which opened into the “Baby’s Garden,” and I suddenly barred her way, so that she could not get round me right or left.

“Were you going down there?” I asked, signifying the lodge.

Fury flew into her eyes.

“How dare you--how dare you suggest it!” she cried.

“Why, it wouldn’t be for the first time, you know,” I said.

She looked in helpless anger about her a moment; then faced me like a young harpy.

“I thought, perhaps, in spite of all--of all the misfortune at your birth--you might be a gentleman at heart. But I was mistaken, and you are the very farthest from it; and I see now that it’s impossible ever to hope to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

“Thank you, for my father. My mother can answer for herself. The pillmaker’s granddaughter is the best judge, of course.”

“Let me pass, please.”

“Not just for a minute. What did you mean by the misfortune at my birth?”

She was still white with fury.

“Don’t you know? Don’t you know that you’ve no right to a name at all? You might have guessed, I think.”

“How do _you_ know?”

“I know well enough. I once heard Mr Pugsley say so to Lady Skene, when they were discussing what to do with you, and didn’t guess that I was hidden behind the curtains. I have never forgotten it, you may be sure.”

“I am quite sure. You listened behind curtains like a born lady. Do you wonder that I have always instinctively detested you?”

“No; I have shown you I don’t.”

The storm in her had subsided in a moment. I wondered, but was not in the least mollified.

“You have shown me nothing,” I said, “but the way to right myself at last with my relations. Now you can go.”

She did not move, however, but turned as pale as her frock.

“Richard!--O, Richard!” she implored. “Don’t hit me like that. You are so strong; and I am only a girl. I had no right to say it; it might have meant nothing; and Lady Skene has always been so good to me.”

“What reason have you--or has she, for that matter--to expect any consideration from me? I will know the truth.”

“Richard, make some allowance. You had insulted me too, you know.”

“I had not.”

“You had. You asked Lord Skene to stop me from going to you.”

“I didn’t. He came and asked me himself. He told me to remember you were an heiress, and I answered that you didn’t visit me by my wish. _You!_”

“It was detestable. I didn’t know. Do, for pity’s sake, forgive and forget.”

“No; I have forgotten too long. I want to remember.”

“Richard! O! O!--Richard, I hate pills--I’m not a lady--won’t anything soften you!”

And at that moment the nurse, carrying the child, came round a bend of the garden. She stared and rocked, singing something tuneless; but Miss Christmas, darting past me, seized the infant from her arms, and carried it to the path.

“Richard!” she whispered, “for his sake--your little brother’s!”

My brother again. Never had anyone but this girl voluntarily assumed the natural relationship. I wavered for the first time. She saw it, with her sex’s quick intuition, and held out the warm soft bundle.

“Have you never taken him in your arms?” she said. “He’s so small and weak. There, hold him, and let him plead for me.”

“Miss Christmas!” cried the nurse.

Her tone, all the immeasurable menial warning it conveyed, stiffened me instantly. I held out my arms and received the burden.

I could have laughed at its insignificance. The apparent proportions of it had made me expect something staggering. It lay on me like a doll. Before I knew myself, I was smiling into the little red puffy face.

There followed a sharp exclamation, and on the instant Lady Skene had snatched my brother from my hands. She had come upon us unobserved. Her face was alight with an expression I had never seen there before. The statue had blazed into momentary life. She was a woman, and a cruel woman confessed for the first time in my knowledge of her.

“Not yours,” she said, deep and resentful. “He has no part or concern with you. Don’t dare to touch him or contaminate him again!”

I stood facing her without a word. In that moment my utter hate and vindictiveness were born. As she had dealt with me, so would I deal with her. The first card was in my hand. I turned quietly and left them.