Set in Silver Part 13

I should rather have liked to watch Ellaline's face as she climbed the hill, her feet light on yielding gra.s.s, where the gold of b.u.t.tercups and turquoise of harebells lay scattered--as she climbed, and as she reached the top, to see England spread under her eyes like a great ring. But that privilege was Burden's. I hope he appreciated it. Mine was to escort Mrs. Senter. I was glad she didn't chat. I hate women who chat, or spray adjectives over a view.

You remember it all, don't you? On one side, looking landward, we had a Constable picture: a sky with tumbled clouds, shadowed downs, and forests cleft by a golden mosaic of meadows. Seaward, an impressionist sketch of Whistler's: Southampton Water and historic Portsmouth Harbour; stretches of glittering sand with the sea lying in ragged patches on it here and there like great pieces of broken gla.s.s. Over all, the English suns.h.i.+ne pale as an alloy of gold and silver; not too dazzling, yet discreetly cheerful, like a Puritan maiden's smile; but not like Ellaline's. Hers can be dazzling when she is surprised and pleased.

I think I recall your talk with me on a height overlooking the harbour--perhaps the same height. We painted a lurid picture, to harrow our young minds, of the wreck of the _Royal George_. And we said, gazing across the Downs, that England looked almost uninhabited. Well, it appears no more populous now, luckily for the picture. I heard Ellaline saying to d.i.c.k Burden that the towns and villages might be playing at hide and seek, they concealed themselves so successfully. Also I heard her advise him to read "Puck of Pook's Hill," and was somewhat disappointed that she'd already had it, as I bought it for her in Southsea yesterday. Probably she won't care to read it again. Perhaps I had better give the book to Mrs. Senter, who is a more intellectual woman than you and I supposed when she was playing with us all in India.

But one doesn't talk books with pretty women in the East.

You remember the day you and I walked to Winchester from Portsmouth, starting early in the morning, with our lunch in our pockets? Well, we came along the same way, past old William of Wykeham's Wickham, the queer mill built of the _Chesapeake's_ timbers, and Bishops' Waltham, where the ruins of the Episcopal palace struck me as being grander than I had realized. Ellaline was astonished at coming upon such a splendid monument of the past by the roadside, and was delighted to hear of the entertainment Coeur de Lion was given in the palace after his return from the German captivity. Of course the story of the famous "Waltham Blacks" pleased her too. Women can always forgive thieves, provided they're young, gay, and well born.

When Mrs. Senter found that Ellaline and my sister were in the habit of sitting in the tonneau, Young Nick beside me, she asked, after a little hesitation, if she might take his place, leaving the chauffeur to curl himself up on the emergency seat at my feet. She said that half the fun of motoring was to sit by the man at the wheel and share his impressions, like being in the forefront of battle, or going to the first performance of a play, or being in at the death with a hunt. So now you can imagine me with an amusing neighbour, for naturally I consented to the change. Neither Ellaline nor Emily had suggested companioning me, and though I must say I had thought of proposing it to Ellaline, I hadn't found the courage. She would no doubt have been too polite to refuse, while perhaps disliking the plan heartily. Now, Burden has been allotted a place with her and my sister, which is probably agreeable to Ellaline.

Curious! Even the frankest of girls--and I believe Ellaline to be as frank as her s.e.x allows--can be secretive in an apparently motiveless way. Why should she tell me one moment that she didn't like Burden, and the next (practically) ask me to invite him and his aunt to travel with us, because she "admires Mrs. Senter immensely"? Or perhaps it is that the child doesn't know her own mind. I am studying her with deepening interest, but am not likely to have as many opportunities now there are more of us. She and Burden, being the young girl and the young man of the party, will, of course, be much together, and Mrs. Senter will fall to my lot for any excursions which may not interest, or be too tiring for, Emily. This boy's presence makes me realize, as I didn't until I had a young man of twenty-one constantly under my eyes, that the knocking of the "younger generation" has already begun to sound on my door. I had better hearken, I suppose, or some one else will kindly direct my attention to the noise. I confess I don't like it, but it's best to know the worst, and keep the knowledge in the heart, rather than read it in the mockery of some pretty girl's eyes--a pretty girl to whom one is an "old boy," perhaps.

Jove, Pat, that sticks in my gorge! It's not a thought to take to bed and go to sleep with if one wants pleasant dreams. I'm stronger than I ever was, my health is perfect, I have few gray hairs, my back is straight. I feel as if the elixir of youth ran hot in my veins. Yet one sees headlines in the papers, "Too Old at Forty." And--one is forty. It didn't matter--that is, I didn't think of it, until the coming of this boy.

His very ideas and manners are different from mine. No doubt they're the approved ideas and manners of his generation, as we had ours at his age.

I wear my hair short, and think no more of its existence except to wash and brush it; but this d.i.c.k parts his in the middle, and sleeks the long locks back, keeping them smooth as a surface of yellowish satin, with bear's grease or lard, or some appalling, perfumed compound. His look is a mixture of laziness and impudence, and half his sentences he ends up with "What?" or even "What-what?" His way with women is slightly condescending, and takes their approval for granted. There's no youthful shyness about him, and what he wants he expects to get; but with _me_ he puts on an irritating, though, I fear, conscientious air of deference that relegates me to the background of an older generation; sets me on a pedestal there, perhaps; but I have no wish for a pedestal.

Still, to do him justice, the lad is neither ill-looking nor ill-mannered. Indeed, women may consider him engaging. His aunt seems devoted to him, and says he is irresistible to girls. I think if no "greenery yallery" haze floated before my eyes, I might see that he is rather a decent boy, extremely well-groomed, alert, with good, short features and bright eyes. When he walks with Ellaline he has no more than an inch the advantage of her in height, but he has a well-knit figure and a "Sandhurst bearing."

"Crabbed age and youth cannot live together."

Am I crabbed age?

Well, this long digression ought to bring me on as far as Winchester, where we came yesterday afternoon, late. We should have been earlier (though our start was delayed by our guests' preparations), but Ellaline was fascinated by the pretty village of Twyford. You remember it? She'd been reading it up in a guide-book, and would stop for a look at the place where the Fair Fitzherbert was said to have been married to her handsome prince, later George IV. I can't recall hearing that story, though certainly Mrs. Fitzherbert's relations lived near; but I knew Pope was sent down from school there because of a satire he wrote on the master, and that Franklin visited and wrote in Twyford.

It was after four when I turned the car round that sharp corner which swings you into the Market Square of what is to me the grandest and most historic town of England. Why, it _is_ England! Didn't the Romans get their Venta Belgarum, which finally developed into Winta-ceaster and Winchester, from the far older Celtic name for an important citadel?

Wasn't there a Christian church before the days of Arthur, my alleged ancestor? Wasn't the cathedral begun by the father of aelfred on the foundations of that poor church as well as those of a Roman temple?

Wasn't it here that the name of Anglia--England--was bestowed on the United Kingdoms, and wasn't it from Winchester that aelfred sent out the laws that made him and England "Great"?

Ellaline delights in the fact that the said Roman temple was Apollo's, as well as Concord's, she having named my car Apollo, and the Sun G.o.d being her favourite mythological deity at the moment. Apropos of mythology, by the way, she was rather amusing this morning on the subject of Icarus, who, she contends, was the pioneer of sporting travel. If he didn't have "tire trouble," said she, he had the nearest equivalent when his wax wings melted.

I should have enjoyed playing cicerone in Winchester, knowing and loving the place as I do, if it hadn't been for d.i.c.k Burden's air of thinking such knowledge as mine quite the musty-fusty luggage of the old fogy.

There's no use pretending it didn't rub me up the wrong way!

Yesterday after arriving, Emily clamoured for tea, so we attempted no further sightseeing, but drove straight to this delightful old hotel, which was once a nunnery, and has still the nunnery garden, loved by the more enterprising of cathedral rooks. Or are they the nuns come back in disguise? This, you'll guess, is Ellaline's idea.

On the way here, however, there was the beautiful City Cross in the High Street. It would have been a disgrace not to stop for a look at it, even though we could return; and Ellaline was most enthusiastic. She doesn't know much about these things (how could she)? but she feels by instinct the beauty of all that is really fine; whereas Mrs. Senter, though maybe better instructed, is more _blasee_. Indeed, though she admires the right things, she is essentially the modern woman, whose interest is all in the present and future. I can't imagine her reading history for the sheer joy of it, as the child would and evidently has. Mrs. Senter would prefer a French novel; but it would have to be well written. She would accept no trash. She has an elastic mind, I must say, and appeared satisfactorily shocked when I told her how the Cross would have been chopped up by Paving Commissioners in the eighteenth century if the people hadn't howled for its salvation.

The same sort of fellows did dump aelfred and his queen out of their comfortable stone coffins, you know, to use the stone. Brutes! What was St. Swithin thinking of to let them do it? A mercy it didn't occur to some commission to take down Stonehenge. They could have made a lot of streets with that.

In the Market Place, too, there was the ancient Fair of Winchester to think of, the fair that had no rival except Beaucaire; and I had been telling them all, on the way into the town, how the woods round the city used to swarm with robbers, hoping to plunder the rich merchants from far countries. Altogether, I fancy even d.i.c.k was somewhat impressed by the ancient as well as modern importance of Winchester by the time we drove to the hotel.

By and by, when we had our rooms and were washed and refreshed, we drank tea in the garden, where old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers were sweet; plenty of roses, stocks, and pansies. (I had an old Scottish nurse when I was a foot or two high, and I've never forgotten what she said about pansies.

"They have aye the face of a smacked cat!" It's true, isn't it? A cat glares and puts its ears back when it's smacked. Not that I ever smacked one to see.)

Afterward, I was not of a mind to propose anything. I thought each had better follow his or her inclination for what was left of the day; and mine was to stroll out and review old memories. I should have liked to take Ellaline, but fancied she might prefer society nearer her own age.

However, I came across her in the High Street, alone, gazing fascinated at the window of an antique shop. There are some attractive ones in Winchester.

I wasn't sure if she weren't waiting for d.i.c.k, who might have strolled away from her for a minute, so I would have pa.s.sed on if she hadn't turned.

"Did you ever see anything so beautiful?" she asked me.

I had, but I didn't say so. I liked her to like everything in my Winchester, so I inquired what she admired most in the shop window. She hardly knew. But there was some wonderful old jewellery.

The girl was right. The antique jewellery was particularly good. There were some admirable necklaces and rings, with fine stones.

"What's your birth month?" I asked, on a sudden thought.

"July," said she.

"What--this very month? I hope the birthday hasn't pa.s.sed."

"No-o, not yet," she answered reluctantly. She saw by now what was in the wind, and didn't want to seem greedy.

I persisted. "Tell me when."

"The twenty-fifth. But you are _not_ to."

"Not to--what?"

"You know."

"Yes, I will. It's a guardian's duty to his ward, and in this case a pleasure."

"I'd much rather you didn't, really." And she looked as grave as a statue of Justice. "Some day you'll know why."

I waived the subject at this point, for I felt obstinate, and wanted to give her a present. There was, and is, no doubt in my mind that her reason is a schoolgirl reason. Madame de Maluet has probably brought her up to believe it is not _comme il faut_ for a _jeune fille_ to accept a present from a _monsieur_. Still, her voice and expression were so serious, even worried, that I'm wondering if it could be anything else.

Anyhow, I have bought the present, and intend to give it her on the 25th. It is a quaint old marquise ring, with a cabuchon ruby surrounded by very good diamonds. I think she will like it, and I don't see why she shouldn't have it--from me. I feel as if I would like to make up to her for the injustice I've been doing her in my mind all these years since she was a little child, left to me--poor, lonely baby. Only I don't quite know how to make up. I don't even dare to confess myself, and say I am sorry I never seemed to take any interest in her as she grew up.

She must have wondered why I never asked to have her picture sent me, or wanted her to write--or wrote; and she must have felt the cold neglect of the only person (except an old French lady, her G.o.dmother) who had any rights over her. Beast that I was! And I can't explain why I was a beast. No doubt she adores the legend (it can't be a memory) of her mother, and I would have it always so. She need never know any of the truth, though of course, when she marries I shall have to tell the man one or two things, I suppose.

I'll let you know next time I write how the ring is received.

This morning, after breakfast, we all walked about the streets of Winchester, and, of course, went to the cathedral, where we stopped till nearly two o'clock.

The town and the place have all their old charm, and even more for me; the "Piazza"; the huddled, narrow streets full of mystery, the Cathedral Close with its crowded entrance, its tall trees that try to hide cathedral glories from common eyes; its mellow Queen Anne and Georgian houses which group round in a pleasant, self-satisfied way, as if they alone were worthy of standing-room in that sacred precinct.

To me, there's no cathedral in England that means as much of the past as Winchester. You know how, in the nave, you see so plainly the transition from one architectural period to another? And then, there are those splendid Mortuary Chests. Think of old Kynegils, and the other Saxon kings lying inside, little heaps of haunted dust.

I was silly enough to be immensely pleased that the child picked out those Mortuary Chests in their high resting place, and the gorgeous alleged tomb of William Rufus, as the most unforgettable among the smaller interests of Winchester Cathedral, for they are the same with me; and it's human to like our tastes shared by (a few) others. She was so enchanted to hear how William the Red was brought by a carter to be buried in Winchester, and about the great turquoise and the broken shaft of wood found in the tomb, that I hadn't the heart to tell her it probably wasn't his burial place, but that of Henri de Blois.

Of course she liked b.l.o.o.d.y Mary's faldstool--the one Mary sat in for her marriage with Philip of Spain; and the MSS. signed by aelfred the Great as a child, with his father.

Women are caught by the personal element, I think, more than we are. And so interested was she in Jane Austen's memorial tablet, that she wouldn't be satisfied without going to see the house where Jane died.

There were so many other things to see, that Emily and Mrs. Senter would have left that out, but I wanted the girl to have her way.

Poor little, sweet-hearted Jane! She was only forty-one when she finished with this world--a year older than I. But doubtless that was almost old for a woman of her day, when girls married at sixteen, and took to middle-aged caps at twenty-five. Now, I notice, half the mothers look younger than their daughters--younger than any daughter would dare to look after she was "out."

A good many interesting persons seem to have died in Winchester, if they weren't clever enough to be born in the town. Earl G.o.dwin set an early example in that respect. Died, eating with Edward the Confessor--probably too much, as his death was caused by apoplexy, and might not have happened if Edward hadn't been too polite to advise him not to stuff.