The Sleeping Fury (6 page)

The wheels and the horses' hooves were suddenly muffled. How cool it was under the long lime-avenue. Soon through the screen of hanging boughs they saw in broken glimpses the sunny yellow stone of the house, and then, as they wheeled to the right at the avenue's end, the whole house-front stood suddenly displayed, a great rectangle, many-windowed and rich with frieze and cornice and pillars, its stone mellow in the afternoon sunshine, its windows bright with reflected sky. The central portion was crowned by a pediment supported on four Corinthian pillars. Between the two inner pillars, six semicircular steps rose to the front door. Charlotte, twisting herself round on the back seat to gaze at the beloved house, saw that old Manson, the butler, and a groom were waiting at the bottom of the steps; and, as the dogcart pulled up, Lady Mardale,
small, exquisite, grey-haired, and dressed in grey silk, appeared in the doorway and came out on to the steps to welcome them.

Before the others had had time to get out of the dogcart, Charlotte was running up the steps to meet her.

• • • • • • • •

Half an hour later they were sitting with Lady Mardale in the cool drawing-room, and Charlotte, while the others talked, watched Manson and the footman solemnly and silently carry in and unfold the tea-table, lay the cloth, and set the great silver tray, laden with silver and porcelain, upon it. She loved the quiet, leisurely precision with which the mechanism of household affairs moved at Haughton, and she loved the silver and the beautiful cups and saucers, white, green, and gold, which were a part of the beauty and fineness of the place.

They had already begun tea when Lord Mardale came in and drew up a chair near to Beatrix's, who was always his favourite.

“Well, young woman,” he said to her, as Lady Mardale handed him his cup, “is it to be eight o'clock to-morrow morning, as usual.”

He always rode for half an hour before breakfast, and, when the Hadlows were at Haughton, Beatrix always accompanied him. Charlotte had never taken to riding.

“There's a nice little bay mare ready for you,” the old man went on. “I borrowed her on purpose from old Pennington.”

“But where's Dinah?” asked Beatrix.

“Dinah's too old now, poor dear. She's no longer
safe. I've had her put out to grass. We'll go and have a word with her to-morrow. As far as looks go she's a wonder still.”

“And when is the garden-party to be?” Lady Hadlow was saying to Lady Mardale.

“Ours? On the twenty-fifth. We have had to make it later than usual, because Alfred cannot get away from London till then. He will come down on the morning train, and arrive just in time. Then, as usual, there's the Penningtons'; that comes next week, on the eleventh. And there is one the day after at Stornton. Of course you'll come to the Penningtons', but I imagine you won't want to go to garden-parties two days running.
I
shall have to go, I'm afraid.”

“But certainly I shall go to both,” said Lady Hadlow. “I shouldn't dream of losing a chance of flaunting my new dresses.”

Little Lady Mardale laughed. “I always forget your insatiable appetite for society, Emily. Then, thanks to your new dresses, I shall have the pleasure of your company at Stornton. And what about you, Charlotte dear?”

“The Penningtons' will be enough for Charlotte,” said Lady Hadlow conclusively. “In two years' time, when she is Beatrix's age, it will, of course, be different.”

Lady Mardale smiled at Charlotte, who was sitting on her left, and laid an affectionate hand on hers. “Fancy my Charlotte grown up in two years' time.”

Charlotte had almost ceased to reflect on Beatrix's amazing suggestion that she was no longer a child,
but now here were Mamma and Lady Mardale casually taking it for granted that she would soon be grown up. She glanced across at Beatrix, laughing and talking there with old Lord Mardale. How different she seemed from what she was at home. She had none of the girlish shyness and awkwardness of which Charlotte was so painfully aware in herself. And how handsome she looked, so animated and self-possessed, her eyes and mouth responding archly to something—evidently something comical—that Lord Mardale was saying to her. It struck Charlotte for the first time that Beatrix was no longer a mere girl, but a lady.

Lady Hadlow was subject to neuralgia. In the autumn, after their return to Fording, she had a severer attack than usual, and the doctor recommended Harrogate. Harrogate had proved beneficial on a previous occasion, when Lady Hadlow had spent six weeks there taking the waters while Beatrix and Charlotte remained at home doing lessons with Cousin Fanny.

There had always been, in earlier days, a particular kind of pleasure in Mamma's absences. It was not that Beatrix and Charlotte ever actually wished her out of the house, but rather that, when she did go, her absence produced a subtle and very pleasant change in their existence. Cousin Fanny's rule was very much milder than Mamma's, and as she had her own sitting-room, and, when Lady Hadlow was at home, lived somewhat apart from the rest of them, so during Lady Hadlow's absence, though she did emerge to some extent, she was never so much in evidence as Mamma. And so Beatrix and Charlotte were left more to themselves, and thrown much more intimately together. Charlotte remembered how they would stand on the doorstep waving to Mamma as she drove away, feeling a little sad and forlorn and apprehensive at being left without any real governor; and then how, the moment the carriage had vanished behind the shrubbery, they
would glance at one another and a delicious secret joy would rise in their hearts and blossom in their eyes. It was as if they had met after a long separation. And not only that: they became also freer and more important. In a sense, though Cousin Fanny was in charge, they felt that they were the mistresses of the house. Under Cousin Fanny's mild sway, tension was eased, manners relaxed, and all sorts of little acts of insubordination became possible. The servants, too, became more real, much more like friends—though, of course, carefully subordinated friends—of the family.

But now it was different. Beatrix was now grown up. She had left the schoolroom and become a lady of leisure, and she accompanied Lady Hadlow to Harrogate, leaving Charlotte alone to her lessons with Cousin Fanny. Beatrix's absence made all the difference: life at home, with no one but Cousin Fanny, was dull. It was not unbearable, but it was less pleasant than when they were all together, and Charlotte counted the days till her mother's and sister's return.

Then came a disappointment. “Mamma,” wrote Beatrix, “has caught a severe chill. The doctor says there is nothing to be alarmed about, but she will have to remain in bed for at least a week, and this, I am afraid, will delay the Harrogate cure. How fortunate that we took rooms instead of going to the Prince of Wales's! Mrs. Rayner, the landlady, is a most superior woman, and when I go out I feel I can safely leave Mamma with her. When we shall return home now I cannot say; probably not until a fortnight or three weeks after we had intended. The
doctor turns out to have been at school with Papa. His wife has twice invited me to tea—a kind, rather dull woman. He has a nephew, a young Dr. Swin-combe, who is staying with them—such a beau, my dear, and most entertaining besides. My poor child, I hope you are not having an overdose of Cousin Fanny. Give her my love.”

Charlotte heaved a little fluttering sigh. It was disturbing to think of Mamma ill in bed in a strange place, and the indefinite postponement of their hoped-for return depressed her. She read through Beatrix's letter again, and then, taking in for the first time some of the minor details, smiled, thinking to herself: “How like she is, in some ways, to Mamma.” Dear Bee! She would never, she supposed, have her quite to herself again. She had not fully realised that before. She felt, with a sudden small pang, that the old childish securities were deserting her.

She and Beatrix made a pretence of keeping diaries. Often weeks passed and not a word was entered, but, since her mother and Beatrix went away, Charlotte had scribbled something in hers almost every day, as a means of occupying herself.

“I had not realised till they went away,” she wrote, “that life is a continual change. Sometimes the change is slow, sometimes quick. At present our life is changing quickly. Last winter Bee left the schoolroom and came out. Bee and I, the two children, used to be one thing and Mamma another. Now Bee and Mamma, the two women, are one thing and I another. But in a year or two I too shall
have done with the schoolroom, and then what will happen?”

She stopped writing and sat up, gazing pensively in front of her. What would happen? Would they marry and leave home for good? How strange, how unimaginable, to walk out of the house for ever, leave Mamma and Bee and go to live with some man. The very thought made her quail. And what, then, would become of Cousin Fanny? Or perhaps they would never marry, but all go on living together. But even then things would not always go on being the same. Some day. … No, she ought not to think of such things. Her mind shied. But it was true, it was bound to happen, and some day she would have to face it. She forced herself to face it now. … Some day Mamma would die. She and Beatrix crept into the darkened room. She held her handkerchief in her hand; there was a choking lump in her throat; she could feel the sting of tears in her eyes. There, in the pale, white bed. … No! No! It was wrong to indulge such fancies. She shook herself free of them, locked away her diary in a drawer, and rose from her writing-desk.

But at dinner that night the question of Cousin Fanny, who sat opposite to her, came back into her mind. Cousin Fanny had been so long a part of her daily life that Charlotte had never before considered her with detachment; and now, with that question as to her future in her mind, she contemplated her as if for the first time. Even in summer Cousin Fanny always looked a little cold. Her small, pale, thin face, Charlotte realised, must once have been very pretty. In a faded way it was pretty still.

Her grey hair was of the kind which is always untidy; when it was golden its untidiness must have brought an added charm. Her thick brows and long lashes and her eyes, which were dark blue, were even now very beautiful.

“Cousin Fanny,” she said, “what will you do when I stop having lessons?”

Cousin Fanny winced almost imperceptibly at the question, and Charlotte, detecting it, realised that she had been unintentionally cruel.

“My dear child, how can I tell?”

“But I mean, you won't leave us, will you?”

“That depends on your mother, Charlotte. There is no reason why she should keep me here when both you girls are done with lessons.”

“Then where will you go?”

“Where indeed?” said Cousin Fanny with a wan smile. “I shall have to try to find some sort of a place.”

A sudden pity rose in Charlotte at the thought of this poor little woman sent away to start again among strangers. “Oh, but that would be dreadful, wouldn't it?” She put out a hand and took Cousin Fanny's. “I'm sure Mamma will want you to stay with us. Then Beatrix and I could go on with our French and Italian.”

“But in a few years you will both probably be married.”

Married! She had been thinking of that this afternoon. “I'm not at all sure I want to marry,” she said.

“But of course you'll want to marry, Charlotte. Surely you don't want to be an old maid?”

“But you didn't marry, Cousin Fanny.”

“My case was different, Charlotte. I had to look after my mother until I was forty, and then it was too late.”

“Well, and perhaps Beatrix and I will have to look after Mamma.”

“Your mother is rich enough to keep servants, and a companion too if necessary. My mother, you see, could only afford a general servant. No, Charlotte dear, whatever you do, don't be an old maid. It's a terrible thing to have no one but yourself to live for. I'm not speaking, now, of myself. I am fortunate in having you and Beatrix to live for, at least for the present.”

Charlotte thought of Beatrix's letter: “I hope you are not having an overdose of Cousin Fanny.” That was what Cousin Fanny was to them—something of which one could easily have too much; while, for Cousin Fanny, she and Beatrix were simply life itself. Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She swallowed them down, and, dinner being over, rose from the table. But Cousin Fanny had seen the tears, and as they went together out of the dining-room she put her arm through Charlotte's.

“You're very kind to your old cousin, my dear,” she said.

At the end of the week Beatrix wrote again: “Mamma is certainly no worse; in fact, it looks as if she were beginning to shake off her chill. I had tea again yesterday with the doctor and his wife. My beau was there, and taught me a very curious cat's cradle invented by the Fiji islanders or some such people. You ask me what colour his hair is.
Black, my dear; or as near black as makes no matter; and his eyes are a greenish grey—hazel, I suppose. You must not refer to him again when you write, or Mamma, who of course insists on seeing your letters to me, will begin to take him seriously.”

That last sentence set Charlotte thinking. Could Bee be taking her beau seriously? Charlotte had up till now imagined that these references to him were merely one of Beatrix's lively inconsequences, but now this indirect hint, this phrase which might lead the reader to infer that it was not serious, was leading Charlotte to infer the exact opposite. For Charlotte knew her Bee well. Beatrix never told direct lies, but sometimes she had wicked little diplomacies which neatly avoided the truth. Why had she not added, “And, of course, it's
not
serious,” after the remark about Mamma taking it seriously? Was Beatrix falling in love? Charlotte felt secretly and profoundly interested. If only Beatrix would confide in her, allow her to share vicariously this wonderful thing that was happening! She sat, with Beatrix's letter in her lap, gazing in front of her with rapt, wide-eyed intensity.