The Light of Scarthey Part 17

This was sufficient for Miss Molly, who, for six months already accustomed to compel admiration at first sight from all specimens of the male s.e.x that came across her path, instantly vowed a deadly hatred to her cousin, and followed the party into the Landale family coach--Rupert preceding, with a lady on each arm--in a temper as black as her own locks.

It fell to her lot to sit beside the objectionable relative on the back seat, while, by the right of her minute's seniority, Madeleine sat beside Tanty in the front. The projecting wings of her headgear effectively prevented her from watching his demeanour, unless, indeed, she had turned to him, which was, of course, out of the question; but certain fugitive conscious blushes upon the young face in front of her, certain castings down of long lashes and timid upward glances, made Molly shrewdly conjecture that Mr. Landale, through all the apparent devotion with which he listened to Tanty's continuous flow of observations, was able to bestow a certain amount of attention upon her pretty neighbour.

Tanty herself conducted the conversation with her usual high hand, feigning utter oblivion of the thundercloud on Molly's countenance; and, if somewhat rambling in her discourse, nevertheless contriving to plant her points where she chose.

Thus the long drive wore to its end. The sun was golden upon Pulwick when the carriage at length drew up before the portico. Miss Sophia received them in the hall, in a state of painful flutter and timidity.

She had a const.i.tutional terror of her aunt's sharp eyes, and, though she examined her young cousins wistfully, Madeleine's unconscious air of dignity repelled her as much as Molly's deliberate pertness.

Rupert conducted his aunt upstairs, and down the long echoing corridor towards her apartment.

"Ha, my old quarters," quoth Tanty, disengaging herself briskly from her escort to enter the room and look round approvingly, "and very comfortable they are. And my two nieces are next door, I see, as gay as chintz can make them. Thank you, nephew, I shall keep you no longer. We shall dine shortly, I feel sure. Well, well, I do not pretend I am not quite ready to do justice to your excellent fare--beyond doubt, it will be excellent! Go to your room, girls, your baggage is coming up, you see; I shall send Dempsey to a.s.sist you presently. No, not you, Sophia, I was speaking to the young ones. I should like to have a little chat with you, my dear, if you have no objection."

One door closed upon Rupert as he smiled and bowed himself out, the other upon Molly hustling her sister before her.

Tanty in the highest good humour, having accomplished her desire, and successfully "established a lodgment" (to use a military term not inappropriate to such a martial spirit) for her troublesome nieces in the stronghold of Pulwick, once more surveyed her surroundings: the dim old walls, the great four-post bed, consecrated, of course, by tradition to the memory of some royal slumberer, the damask hangings, and the uncomfortable chairs, with the utmost favour, ending up with a humorous examination of the elongated figure hesitating on the hearthrug.

"Be seated, Sophia. I am glad to stretch my old limbs after that terrible drive. So here we are together again. What are you sighing for? Upon my soul, you are the same as ever, I see, the same tombstone on your chest, and blowing yourself out with sighs, just as you used.

That will never give you a figure, my poor girl; it is no wonder you are but skin and bones. Ah, can't you let the poor fellow rest in his grave Sophia? it is flying in the face of Providence, I call it, to go on perpetually stirring up his ashes like that. I hope you mean to try and be a little more cheerful with those poor girls. But, there, I believe you are never so happy as when you are miserable. And it's a poor creature you would be at any time," added the old lady to herself, after a second thoughtful investigation of Miss Landale's countenance, which had a.s.sumed an expression of mulishness in addition to an increase of dolefulness during this homily.

Here, to Miss Landale's great relief, the dying sunset, wavering into crimson and purple, from its first glory of liquid gold, attracted her aunt's attention, and Miss O'Donoghue went over to the window.

Beneath her spread the quaint garden, with its clipped box edges, and beyond the now leafless belt of trees, upon the glimmer of the bay, the outline of Scarthey, a dark silhouette rose fantastically against the vivid sky. Even as she gazed, there leapt upon its fairy turret a minute point of white.

The jovial old countenance changed and darkened.

"And Adrian is still at his fool's game over there, I suppose," she said irately turning upon Sophia. "When have you seen him last? How often does he come here? I gather Master Rupert is nothing if not the master. Why don't you answer me, Sophia?"

The dinner was as well cooked and served a meal as any under Rupert's rule, which is saying a good deal, and if the young ladies failed to appreciate the "floating island," the "golden nests," and "silver web," so thoughtfully provided for them, Tanty did ample justice to the venison.

Indeed the cloud which had been visible upon her countenance at the beginning of dinner, and which according to that downright habit of mind, which rendered her so terrible or so delightful a companion, she made no attempt to conceal, began to lift towards the first remove, and altogether vanished over her final gla.s.s of port.

After dinner she peremptorily ordered her grand-nieces into the retirement of their bedchambers, unblus.h.i.+ngly alleging their exhausted condition in front of the perfect bloom of their beautiful young vigour.

She then, over a cup of tea, luxuriously stretching her thin frame in the best arm-chair the drawing-room could afford, gave Rupert a brief code of directions as to the special attentions and care she desired to be bestowed upon her wards, during their residence at Pulwick, descanting generously upon their various perfections, gliding dexterously over her reasons for wis.h.i.+ng to be rid of them herself, and concluding with the hint--either pregnant or barren of meaning as he chose to take it--that if he made their stay pleasant to them, she would not forget the service.

Then, as Mr. Landale began, with apparent guilelessness, to put a few little telling questions to her anent the episodes which had made Bath undesirable as a residence for these young paragons, the old lady suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and sleepiness, and professed herself ready to be conducted to her bower immediately.

Meanwhile, despite the _moue de circonstance_ which Molly thought it inc.u.mbent on her to a.s.sume, neither she nor Madeleine regretted their compulsory withdrawal from the social circle downstairs.

Madeleine had her own thoughts to follow up, and that these were both engrossing and pleasant was easily evident; and Molly, bursting with a sense of injury arising from many causes, desired a special explanation with her sister, which the presence in and out upon them of Tanty's woman had prevented her from indulging in before dinner.

"So here we are at last," cried she, indignantly, after she had walked round and severely inspected her quarters, pausing to "pull a lip" of extreme disfavour at the handsome portrait of Mr. Landale that hung between the windows, "we are, Madeleine, at last, kidnapped, imprisoned, successfully disposed of, in fact."

"Yes, here we are at last," echoed Madeleine, abstractedly, warming her slender ankles by the fire.

"Have you made out yet what particular kind of new frenzy it was that seized chere Tante?" asked Miss Molly, with great emphasis, as she sat down at her toilet-table. "You are the cause of it all, my dear, and so you ought to know. It is all very well for Tanty to pretend that I have brought it on myself by not coming home till three o'clock (as if that was _my_ fault). She cannot blink the fact that her Dempsey creature had orders to pack my boxes before bedtime. Your Smith must be a desperately dangerous individual. Well," she continued, looking round over her shoulder, "why don't you say something, you lackadaisical thing?"

But Madeleine answered nought and continued gazing, while only the little smile, tilting the corners of her lips, betrayed that she had heard the petulant speech.

The smile put the finis.h.i.+ng touch to Molly's righteous anger.

Brandis.h.i.+ng a hairbrush threateningly, she marched over to her sister and looked down upon the slender figure, in its clinging white dress, with blazing eyes.

"Look here," she cried, "there must be an end of this. I can put up with your slyness no longer. How _dare_ you have secrets from me, miss?--your own twin sister! You and I, who used never to have a thought we did not share. How dare you have a lover, and not tell me all about him? What was the meaning of your weeping like a fountain all the way from Bath to Shrewsbury, and then, without rhyme or reason apparently, smiling to yourself all the way from there to Lancaster.

You have had a letter, don't attempt to deny it, it is of no use....

Oh, it is base of you, it is indeed! And to think that it is all through you that I am forced into this exile, through your _airs penches_, and your sighing and dreaming, and your mysterous _Smith_.... To think that to-night, this very night, is the ball of the season, and we are going to bed! Oh, and to-morrow and to-morrow, and to-morrow, with nothing but a knave and a fool to keep us company--for I don't think much of your female cousin, Madeleine, and, as for your male cousin, I perfectly detest him--and all the tabbies of the country-side for diversion, with perhaps a country buck on high days and holidays for a relis.h.!.+ Pah!"

Molly had almost talked her ill-humour away. Her energetic nature could throw off most unpleasant emotions easily enough so long as it might have an outlet for them; she now laid down the threatening brush, and, kneeling beside her, flung both her arms round Madeleine's shoulders.

"Ma pet.i.te Madeleine," she coaxed, in the mother tongue, "tell thy little sister thy secrets."

A faint flush crept to Madeleine's usually creamy cheeks, a light into her eyes. She turned impulsively to the face near hers, then, as if bethinking herself, pursed her lips together and shook her head slightly.

"Do you remember, ma cherie," she said, at last, "that French tale Mrs. Hambledon lent us in which it is said _'Qui fuit l'amour, l'amour suit.'_"

"Well?" asked Molly, eagerly, her lips parted as if to drink in the expected confidence.

"Well," replied the other, "well, perhaps things may not be so bad after all. Perhaps," rising from her seat, and looking at her sister with a little gentle malice, while she, too, began to disrobe her fairer beauty for the night, "some of your many lovers may come after you from Bath! Oh, Molly!" with a little scream, for Molly, with eyes flas.h.i.+ng once more, had sprung up from her knees to inflict a vicious pinch upon the equivocator's arm.

"Yes, miss, you shall be pinched till you confess." Then flouting her with a sudden change of mood, "I am sure I don't want to know your wonderful secret,"--seizing her comb and pa.s.sing it crackling through her hair with quite unnecessary energy--"Mademoiselle la Cachotiere.

Anyhow, it cannot be very interesting.... _Mrs. Smith!_ Fancy caring for a man called Smith! If you smile again like that, Madeleine, I shall beat you."

The two sisters looked at each other for a second as if hesitating on the brink of anger, and then both laughed.

"Never mind, I shall pay you out yet," quoth Molly, tugging at her black mane. "So our lovers are to come after us, is _that_ it? Do you know, Madeleine," she went on, calming down, "I almost regret now that I would not listen to young Lord Dereham, simpleton though he be. He looked such a dreadful little fright that I only laughed at him.... I should have laughed at him all my life. But it would perhaps have been better than this dependence on Tanty, with her sudden whims and scampers and whisking of us away into the wilderness. Then I should have had my own way always. Now it's too late. Tanty told me yesterday that she sees he is a dissolute young man, and that his dukedom is only a Charles II. creation, and 'We know what that means,' she added, and shook her head. I am sure I had not a notion, but I shook my head too, and said, 'Of course, that made it impossible.' I was really afraid she would want me to marry him. She was dreadfully pleased and said I was a true O'Donoghue. Oh, dear! I don't know _anything_ about love. I can't imagine being in love; but one thing is certain, I could never, never, never allow a horrid little rat like Lord Dereham to make love to me, to kiss me, nor, indeed, any man--oh, horror! How you are blus.h.i.+ng, my dear! Come here into the light. It would be good for your soul, indeed it would, to confess!"

But Madeleine, burying her hot cheeks in her sister's neck and clasping her with gentle caresses, was not to be drawn from her reticence. Molly pushed her off at last, and gave a hard little good-night kiss like a bird-peck.

"Very well; but you might as well have confessed, for I shall find out in the long run. And who knows, perhaps you may be sorry one day that you did not tell me of your own accord."

CHAPTER XII

A RECORD AND A PRESENTMENT.

The gallery of family portraits at Pulwick is one of the most remarkable features of that ancient house.

It was a custom firmly established at the Priory--ever since the first heralds' visitation in Lancas.h.i.+re, when some mooted point of claims to certain quarterings had been cleared in an unexpected way by the testimony of a well-authenticated ancestral portrait--for each successive representative to add to the collection. One of the first cares of every Landale, therefore, on succeeding to the t.i.tle was to be painted, with his proper armorial and otherwise distinguis.h.i.+ng honours jealously delineated, and thus hung in the place of honour over the high mantelshelf of the gallery--displacing on the occasion his own immediate and revered predecessor.

The chain was consequently unbroken from the Elizabethan descendants of the first acquirers of ecclesiastical property at Pulwick, down to the present Light-keeper of Scarthey.

But whilst the late Sir Thomas appeared in all the majesty of deputy-lieutenant, colonel of Militia, magistrate, and sundry other honourable offices, in his due place on the right of the present baronet, the latter figured in a character so strange and so incongruous that it seemed as if one day the dignified array of Landales--old, young, middle-aged, but fine gentlemen, all of them--must turn their backs upon their degenerate kinsman.