SHE
Behold me installed in Dayton Manor
House, and brought here for the express purpose (so
Charles has written me word) of my being studied,
that it may be seen whether I am worthy to be, on some
august future occasion possibly a
member (Oh, so much to mumble!) of this great family.
Had I known it when I was leaving home, I should have
countermanded the cording of my boxes. If you
please, I do the packing, and not the cording.
I must practise being polite, or I shall be horrifying
these good people.
I am mortally offended. I am
very very angry. I shall show temper. Indeed,
I have shown it. Mr. Pollingray must and does
think me a goose. Dear sir, and I think you are
justified. If any one pretends to guess how,
I have names to suit that person. I am a ninny,
an ape, and mind I call myself these bad things because
I deserve worse. I am flighty, I believe I am
heartless. Charles is away, and I suffer no pangs.
The truth is, I fancied myself so exceedingly penetrating,
and it was my vanity looking in a glass. I saw
something that answered to my nods and howd’ye-do’s
and but I am ashamed, and so penitent I
might begin making a collection of beetles. I
cannot lift up my head.
Mr. Pollingray is such a different
man from the one I had imagined! What that one
was, I have now quite forgotten. I remember too
clearly what the wretched guesser was. I have
been three weeks at Dayton, and if my sisters know
me when I return to the vicarage, they are not foolish
virgins. For my part, I know that I shall always
hate Mrs. Romer Pattlecombe, and that I am unjust
to the good woman, but I do hate her, and I think
the stories shocking, and wonder intensely what it
was that I could have found in them to laugh at.
I shall never laugh again for many years. Perhaps,
when I am an old woman, I may. I wish the time
had come. All young people seem to me so helplessly
silly. I am one of them for the present, and
have no hope that I can appear to be anything else.
The young are a crowd a shoal of small fry.
Their elders are the select of the world.
On the morning of the day when I was
to leave home for Dayton, a distance of eight miles,
I looked out of my window while dressing as
early as halfpast seven and I saw Mr. Pollingray’s
groom on horseback, leading up and down the walk a
darling little, round, plump, black cob that made
my heart leap with an immense bound of longing to be
on it and away across the downs. And then the
maid came to my door with a letter:
’Mr. Pollingray, in return for
her considerate good behaviour and saving of trouble
to him officially, begs his goddaughter to accept
the accompanying little animal: height 14 h.,
age 31 years; hunts, is sure-footed, and likely to
be the best jumper in the county.’
I flew downstairs. I rushed out
of the house and up to my treasure, and kissed his
nose and stroked his mane. I could not get my
fingers away from him. Horses are so like the
very best and beautifullest of women when you caress
them. They show their pleasure so at being petted.
They curve their necks, and paw, and look proud.
They take your flattery like sunshine and are lovely
in it. I kissed my beauty, peering at his black-mottled
skin, which is like Allingborough Heath in the twilight.
The smell of his new saddle and bridle-leather was
sweeter than a garden to me. The man handed me
a large riding-whip mounted with silver. I longed
to jump up and ride till midnight.
Then mama and papa came out and read
the note and looked, at my darling little cob, and
my sisters saw him and kissed me, for they are not
envious girls. The most distressing thing was
that we had not a riding-habit in the family.
I was ready to wear any sort. I would have ridden
as a guy rather than not ride at all. But mama
gave me a promise that in two days a riding-habit
should be sent on to Dayton, and I had to let my pet
be led back from where he came. I had no life
till I was following him. I could have believed
him to be a fairy prince who had charmed me.
I called him Prince Leboo, because he was black and
good. I forgive anybody who talks about first
love after what my experience has been with Prince
Leboo.
What papa thought of the present I
do not know, but I know very well what mama thought:
and for my part I thought everything, not distinctly
including that, for I could not suppose such selfishness
in one so generous as Mr. Pollingray. But I came
to Dayton in a state of arrogant pride, that gave
assurance if not ease to my manners. I thanked
Mr. Pollingray warmly, but in a way to let him see
it was the matter of a horse between us. ‘You
give, I register thanks, and there’s an end.’
’He thinks me a fool! a fool!
‘My habit,’ I said, ’comes
after me. I hope we shall have some rides together.’
‘Many,’ replied Mr. Pollingray,
and his bow inflated me with ideas of my condescension.
And because Miss Pollingray (Queen
Elizabeth he calls her) looked half sad, I read it !
I do not write what I read it to be.
Behold the uttermost fool of all female
creation led over the house by Mr. Pollingray.
He showed me the family pictures.
‘I am no judge of pictures, Mr. Pollingray.’
‘You will learn to see the merits of these.’
‘I’m afraid not, though I were to study
them for years.’
‘You may have that opportunity.’
‘Oh! that is more than I can expect.’
‘You will develop intelligence on such subjects
by and by.’
A dull sort of distant blow struck
me in this remark; but I paid no heed to it.
He led me over the gardens and the
grounds. The Great John Methlyn Pollingray planted
those trees, and designed the house, and the flower-garden
still speaks of his task; but he is not my master,
and consequently I could not share his three great-grandsons’
veneration for him. There are high fir-woods
and beech woods, and a long ascending narrow meadow
between them, through which a brook falls in continual
cascades. It is the sort of scene I love, for
it has a woodland grandeur and seclusion that leads,
me to think, and makes a better girl of me. But
what I said was: ’Yes, it is the place of
all others to come and settle in for the evening of
one’s days.’
‘You could not take to it now?’ said Mr.
Pollingray.
‘Now?’ my expression of face must have
been a picture.
’You feel called upon to decline
such a residence in the morning of your days?’
He persisted in looking at me as he
spoke, and I felt like something withering scarlet.
I am convinced he saw through me,
while his face was polished brass. My self-possession
returned, for my pride was not to be dispersed immediately.
‘Please, take me to the stables,’
I entreated; and there I was at home. There I
saw my Prince Leboo, and gave him a thousand caresses.’
‘He knows me already,’ I said.
Then he is some degrees in advance of me,’ said
Mr. Pollingray.
Is not cold dissection of one’s
character a cruel proceeding? And I think, too,
that a form of hospitality like this by which I am
invited to be analysed at leisure, is both mean and
base. I have been kindly treated and I am grateful,
but I do still say (even though I may have improved
under it) it is unfair.
To proceed: the dinner hour arrived.
The atmosphere of his own house seems to favour Mr.
Pollingray as certain soils and sites favour others.
He walked into the dining-room between us with his
hands behind him, talking to us both so easily and
smoothly cheerfully naturally and pleasantly inimitable
by any young man! You hardly feel the change
of room. We were but three at table, but there
was no lack of entertainment. Mr. Pollingray
is an admirable host; he talks just enough himself
and helps you to talk. What does comfort me is
that it gives him real pleasure to see a hearty appetite.
Young men, I know it for a certainty, never quite
like us to be so human. Ah! which is right?
I would not miss the faith in our nobler essence which
Charles has. But, if it nobler? One who
has lived longer in the world ought to know better,
and Mr. Pollingray approves of naturalness in everything.
I have now seen through Charles’s eyes for several
months; so implicitly that I am timid when I dream
of trusting to another’s judgement. It is,
however, a fact that I am not quite natural with Charles.
Every day Mr. Pollingray puts on evening
dress out of deference to his sister. If young
men had these good habits they would gain our respect,
and lose their own self-esteem less early.
After dinner I sang. Then Mr.
Pollingray read an amusing essay to us, and retired
to his library. Miss Pollingray sat and talked
to me of her brother, and of her nephew for
whom it is that Mr. Pollingray is beginning to receive
company, and is going into society. Charles’s
subsequently received letter explained the ‘receive
company.’ I could not comprehend it at
the time.
’The house has been shut up
for years, or rarely inhabited by us for more than
a month in the year. Mr. Pollingray prefers France.
All his associations, I may say his sympathies, are
in France. Latterly he seems to have changed
a little; but from Normandy to Touraine and Dauphiny we
had a triangular home over there. Indeed, we have
it still. I am never certain of my brother.’
While Miss Pollingray was speaking,
my eyes were fixed on a Vidal crayon drawing, faintly
coloured with chalks, of a foreign lady I
could have sworn to her being French young,
quite girlish, I doubt if her age was more than mine.
She is pretty, is she not?’ said Miss Pollingray.
She is almost beautiful,’ I
exclaimed, and Miss Pollingray, seeing my curiosity,
was kind enough not to keep me in suspense.
’That is the Marquise de Mazardouin nee
Louise de Riverolles. You will see other portraits
of her in the house. This is the most youthful
of them, if I except one representing a baby, and
bearing her initials.’
I remembered having noticed a similarity
of feature in some of the portraits in the different
rooms. My longing to look at them again was like
a sudden jet of flame within me. There was no
chance of seeing them till morning; so, promising
myself to dream of the face before me, I dozed through
a conversation with my hostess, until I had got the
French lady’s eyes and hair and general outline
stamped accurately, as I hoped, on my mind. I
was no sooner on my way to bed than all had faded.
The torment of trying to conjure up that face was
inconceivable. I lay, and tossed, and turned
to right and to left, and scattered my sleep; but by
and by my thoughts reverted to Mr. Pollingray, and
then like sympathetic ink held to the heat, I beheld
her again; but vividly, as she must have been when
she was sitting to the artist. The hair was naturally
crisped, waving thrice over the forehead and brushed
clean from the temples, showing the small ears, and
tied in a knot loosely behind. Her eyebrows were
thick and dark, but soft; flowing eyebrows; far lovelier,
to my thinking, than any pencilled arch. Dark
eyes, and full, not prominent. I find little
expression of inward sentiment in very prominent eyes.
On the contrary they seem to have a fish-like dependency
of gaze on what is without, and show fishy depths,
if any. For instance, my eyes are rather prominent,
and I am just the little fool but the French
lady is my theme. Madame la Marquise, your eyes
are sweeter to me than celestial. I never saw
such candour and unaffected innocence in eyes before.
Accept the compliment of the pauvre Anglaise.
Did you do mischief with them? Did Vidal’s
delicate sketch do justice to you? Your lips and
chin and your throat all repose in such girlish grace,
that if ever it is my good fortune to see you, you
will not be aged to me!
I slept and dreamed of her.
In the morning, I felt certain that
she had often said: ’Mon cher Gilbert,’
to Mr. Pollingray. Had he ever said: ‘Ma
chère Louise?’ He might have said:
‘Ma bien aimée!’ for it
was a face to be loved.
My change of feeling towards him dates
from that morning. He had previously seemed to
me a man so much older. I perceived in him now
a youthfulness beyond mere vigour of frame. I
could not detach him from my dreams of the night.
He insists upon addressing me by the terms of our
‘official’ relationship, as if he made
it a principle of our intercourse.
’Well, and is your godpapa to
congratulate you on your having had a quiet rest?’
was his greeting.
I answered stupidly: ‘Oh,
yes, thank you,’ and would have given worlds
for the courage to reply in French, but I distrusted
my accent. At breakfast, the opportunity or rather
the excuse for an attempt, was offered. His French
valet, Francois, waits on him at breakfast. Mr.
Pollingray and his sister asked for things in the French
tongue, and, as if fearing some breach of civility,
Mr. Pollingray asked me if I knew French.
Yes, I know it; that is, I understand
it,’ I stuttered. Allons, nous parlerons
francais,’ said he. But I shook my head,
and remained like a silly mute.
I was induced towards the close of
the meal to come out with a few French words.
I was utterly shamefaced. Mr. Pollingray has got
the French manner of protesting that one is all but
perfect in one’s speaking. I know how absurd
it must have sounded. But I felt his kindness,
and in my heart I thanked him humbly. I believe
now that a residence in France does not deteriorate
an Englishman. Mr. Pollingray, when in his own
house, has the best qualities of the two countries.
He is gay, and, yes, while he makes a study of me,
I am making a study of him. Which of us two will
know the other first? He was papa’s college
friend papa’s junior, of course, and
infinitely more papa’s junior now. I observe
that weakness in him, I mean, his clinging to youthfulness,
less and less; but I do see it, I cannot be quite in
error. The truth is, I begin to feel that I cannot
venture to mistrust my infallible judgement, or I
shall have no confidence in myself at all.
After breakfast, I was handed over
to Miss Pollingray, with the intimation that I should
not see him till dinner.
’Gilbert is anxious to cultivate
the society of his English neighbours, now that he
has, as he supposes, really settled among them,’
she remarked to me. ’At his time of life,
the desire to be useful is almost a malady. But,
he cherishes the poor, and that is more than an occupation,
it is a virtue.’
Her speech has become occasionally
French in the construction of the sentences.
‘Mais oui,’ I said shyly,
and being alone with her, I was not rebuffed by her
smile, especially as she encouraged me on.
I am, she told me, to see a monde
of French people here in September. So, the story
of me is to be completer, or continued in September.
I could not get Miss Pollingray to tell me distinctly
whether Madame la Marquise will be one of the guests.
But I know that she is not a widow. In that case,
she has a husband. In that case, what is the story
of her relations towards Mr. Pollingray? There
must be some story. He would not surely have
so many portraits of her about the house (and they
travel with him wherever he goes) if she were but
a lovely face to him. I cannot understand it.
They were frequent, constant visitors to one another’s
estates in France; always together. Perhaps a
man of Mr. Pollingray’s age, or perhaps M. lé
Marquis and here I lose myself. French
habits are so different from ours. One thing I
am certain of: no charge can be brought against
my Englishman. I read perfect rectitude in his
face. I would cast anchor by him. He must
have had a dreadful unhappiness.
Mama kept her promise by sending my
riding habit and hat punctually, but I had run far
ahead of all the wishes I had formed when I left home,
and I half feared my ride out with Mr. Pollingray.
That was before I had received Charles’s letter,
letting me know the object of my invitation here.
I require at times a morbid pride to keep me up to
the work. I suppose I rode befittingly, for Mr.
Pollingray praised my seat on horseback. I know
I can ride, or feel the ’blast of a horse like
my own’ as he calls it. Yet
he never could have had a duller companion. My
conversation was all yes and no, as if it went on a
pair of crutches like a miserable cripple. I
was humiliated and vexed. All the while I was
trying to lead up to the French lady, and I could not
commence with a single question. He appears to,
have really cancelled the past in every respect save
his calling me his goddaughter. His talk was of
the English poor, and vegetation, and papa’s
goodness to his old dames in Ickleworth parish,
and defects in my education acknowledged by me, but
not likely to restore me in my depressed state.
The ride was beautiful. We went the length of
a twelve-mile ridge between Ickleworth and Hillford,
over high commons, with immense views on both sides,
and through beech-woods, oakwoods, and furzy dells
and downs spotted with juniper and yewtrees old
picnic haunts of mine, but Mr. Pollingray’s
fresh delight in the landscape made them seem new and
strange. Home through the valley.
The next day Miss Pollingray joined
us, wearing a feutre gris and green plume, which
looked exceedingly odd until you became accustomed
to it. Her hair has decided gray streaks, and
that, and the Queen Elizabeth nose, and the feutre
gris! but she is so kind, I could not even
smile in my heart. It is singular that Mr. Pollingray,
who’s but three years her junior, should look
at least twenty years younger at the very
least. His moustache and beard are of the colour
of a corn sheaf, and his blue eyes shining over them
remind me of summer. That describes him.
He is summer, and has not fallen into his autumn yet.
Miss Pollingray helped me to talk a little. She
tried to check her brother’s enthusiasm for
our scenery, and extolled the French paysage.
He laughed at her, for when they were in France it
was she who used to say, ’There is nothing here
like England!’ Miss Fool rode between them attentive
to the jingling of the bells in her cap: ‘Yes’
and ‘No’ at anybody’s command, in
and out of season.
Thank you, Charles, for your letter!
I was beginning to think my invitation to Dayton inexplicable,
when that letter arrived. I cannot but deem it
an unworthy baseness to entrap a girl to study her
without a warning to her. I went up to my room
after I had read it, and wrote in reply till the breakfast-bell
rang. I resumed my occupation an hour later,
and wrote till one o’clock. In all, fifteen
pages of writing, which I carefully folded and addressed
to Charles; sealed the envelope, stamped it, and destroyed
it. I went to bed. ’No, I won’t
ride out to-day, I have a headache!’ I repeated
this about half-a-dozen times to nobody’s knocking
on the door, and when at last somebody knocked I tried
to repeat it once, but having the message that Mr.
Pollingray particularly wished to have my company
in a ride, I rose submissively and cried. This
humiliation made my temper ferocious. Mr. Pollingray
observed my face, and put it down in his notebook.
’A savage disposition,’ or, no, ‘An
untamed little rebel’; for he has hopes of me.
He had the cruelty to say so.
‘What I am, I shall remain,’ said I.
He informed me that it was perfectly
natural for me to think it; and on my replying that
persons ought to know themselves best: ’At
my age, perhaps,’ he said, and added, ’I
cannot speak very confidently of my knowledge of myself.’
’Then you make us out to be
nothing better than puppets, Mr. Pollingray.’
’If we have missed an early
apprenticeship to the habit of self-command, ma
filleule.’
‘Merci, mon parrain.’
He laughed. My French, I suppose.
I determined that, if he wanted to study me, I would
help him.
‘I can command myself when I choose, but it
is only when I choose.’
This seemed to me quite a reasonable
speech, until I found him looking for something to
follow, in explanation, and on coming to sift my meaning,
I saw that it was temper, and getting more angry, continued:
’The sort of young people who
have such wonderful command of themselves are not
the pleasantest.’
‘No,’ he said; ‘they disappoint
us. We expect folly from the young.’
I shut my lips. Prince Leboo
knew that he must go, and a good gallop reconciled
me to circumstances. Then I was put to jumping
little furzes and ditches, which one cannot pretend
to do without a fair appearance of gaiety; for, while
you are running the risk of a tumble, you are compelled
to look cheerful and gay, at least, I am. To fall
frowning will never do. I had no fall. My
gallant Leboo made my heart leap with love of him,
though mill-stones were tied to it. I may be vexed
when I begin, but I soon ride out a bad temper.
And he is mine! I am certainly inconstant to
Charles, for I think of Leboo fifty times more.
Besides, there is no engagement as yet between Charles
and me. I have first to be approved worthy by
Mr. and Miss Pollingray: two pairs of eyes and
ears, over which I see a solemnly downy owl sitting,
conning their reports of me. It is a very unkind
ordeal to subject any inexperienced young woman to.
It was harshly conceived and it is being remorselessly
executed. I would complain more loudly in
shrieks if I could say I was unhappy; but
every night I look out of my window before going to
bed and see the long falls of the infant river through
the meadow, and the dark woods seeming to enclose
the house from harm: I dream of the old inhabitant,
his ancestors, and the numbers and numbers of springs
when the wildflowers have flourished in those woods
and the nightingales have sung there. And I feel
there will never be a home to me like Dayton.