Alice Lorraine: A Tale of the South Downs

CHAPTER XIX.
FOUR YOUNG LADIES

The excellent people of Coombe Lorraine as yet were in happy ignorance of all these fine doings on Hilary’s part. Sir Roland knew only too well, of course, that his son and heir was of a highly romantic, chivalrous, and adventurous turn. At Eton and Oxford many little scrapes (which seemed terrible at the time) showed that he was sure to do his best to get into grand scrapes, as the landscape of his youthful world enlarged.

“Happen what will, I can always trust my boy to be a gentleman,” his father used to say to himself, and to his only real counsellor, old Sir Remnant Chapman. Sir Remnant always shook his head; and then (for fear of having meant too much) said, “Ah, that is the one thing after all. People begin to talk a great deal too much about Christianity.”

At any rate, the last thing they thought of was the most likely thing of all – that Hilary should fall in love with a good, and sweet, and simple girl, who, for his own sake, would love him, and grow to him with all the growth of love. “Morality” – whereby we mean now, truth, and right, and purity – was then despised in public, even more than now in private life. Sir Remnant thought it a question of shillings, how many maids his son led astray; and he pitied Sir Roland for having a son so much handsomer than his own.

Little as now he meddled with it, Sir Roland knew that the world was so; and the more he saw of it, the less he found such things go down well with him. The broad low stories, and practical jokes, and babyish finesse of oaths, invented for the ladies – many of which still survive in the hypocrisy of our good tongue – these had a great deal to do with Sir Roland’s love of his own quiet dinner-table, and shelter of his pet child, Alice. And nothing, perhaps, except old custom and the traditions of friendship, could have induced him to bear, as he did, with Sir Remnant’s far lower standard. Let a man be what he will, he must be moved one way or another by the folk he deals with. Even Sir Roland (though so different from the people around him) felt their thoughts around him rambling, and very often touching him: and he never could altogether help wanting to know what they thought about him. So must the greatest man ever “developed” have desired a million-fold, because he lived in each one of the million.

However, there were but two to whom Sir Roland Lorraine ever yielded a peep of his deeply treasured anxieties. One was Sir Remnant; and the other (in virtue of his office, and against the grain) was the Rev. Struan Hales, his own highly respected brother-in-law.

Struan Hales was a man of mark all about that neighbourhood. Everybody knew him; and almost everybody liked him. Because he was a genial, open-hearted, and sometimes noisy man; full of life – in his own form of that matter – and full of the love of life, whenever he found other people lively. He hated every kind of humbug, all revolutionary ideas, methodism, asceticism, enthusiastic humanity, and exceedingly fine language. And though, like everyone else, he respected Sir Roland Lorraine for his upright character, lofty honour, and clearness of mind; while he liked him for his generosity, kindness of heart, and gentleness; on the other hand he despised him a little, for his shyness and quietude of life. For the rector of West Lorraine loved nothing better than a good day with the hounds, and a roaring dinner-party afterwards. Nothing in the way of sport ever came amiss to him; even though it did – as no true sport does – depend for its joy upon cruelty.

Here, in his red house on the glebe, under the battlement of the hills, with trees and a garden of comfort, and snug places to smoke a pipe in, Mr. Hales was well content to live and do his duty. He liked to hunt twice in a week, and he liked to preach twice every Sunday. Still he could not do either always; and no good people blamed him.

Mrs. Hales was the sweetest creature ever seen, almost anywhere. She had plenty to say for herself, and a great deal more to say for others; and if perfection were to be found, she would have been perfection to every mind except her own, and perhaps her husband’s. The rector used to say that his wife was an angel, if ever one there were: and in his heart he felt that truth. Still he did not speak to her always, as if he were fully aware of being in colloquy with an angel. He had lived with her “ever so long,” and he knew that she was a great deal better than himself; but he had the wisdom not to let her know it; and she often thought that he preached at her. Such a thing he never did. No honest parson would ever do it; of all mean acts it would be the meanest. Yet there are very few parsons’ wives who are not prepared for the chance of it; and Mrs. Hales knew that she “had her faults,” and that Mr. Hales was quite up to them. At any rate, here these good folk were, and here they meant to live their lives out, having a pretty old place to see to, and kind old neighbours to see to them. Also they had a much better thing – three good children of their own; enough to make work and pleasure for them, but not to be a perpetual worry, inasmuch as they all were girls – three very good girls, of their sort – thinking as they were told to think, and sure to make excellent women.

Alice Lorraine liked all these girls. They were so kind, and sweet, and simple; and when they had nothing whatever to say, they always said it so prettily. And they never pretended to interfere with any of her opinions, or to come into competition with her, or to talk to her father, when she was present, more than she well could put up with. For she was a very jealous child; and they were well aware of it; and they might let their father be her mother’s brother ten times over, before she would hear of any “Halesy element” – as she once had called it – coming into her family more than it had already entered: and they knew right well, while they thought it too bad, that this young Alice had sadly quenched any hopes any one of them might have cherished of being a Lady Lorraine some day. She had made her poor brother laugh over their tricks, when they were sure that they had no tricks; and she always seemed to throw such a light upon any little harmless thing they did. Still they could afford to forget all that; and they did forget it; especially now, when Hilary would soon be at home again.

It was now July; and no one had heard for weeks from that same Hilary. But this made no one anxious, because it was the well-known manner of the youth. Sometimes they would hear from him by every post, although the post now came thrice in a week; and then again for weeks together, not a line would he vouchsafe. And as a general rule he was getting on better, when he kept strict silence.

Therefore Alice had no load on her mind, at all worth speaking of, while she worked in her sloping flower-garden, early of a summer afternoon. It was now getting on for St. Swithin’s day; and the sun was beginning to curtail those brief attentions which he paid to Coombe Lorraine. He still looked fairly at it, as often as clouds allowed in the morning, almost up to eight o’clock; and after that he could still see down it over the shoulder of the hill. But he felt that his rays made no impression (the land so fell away from him), they seemed to do nothing but dance away downward, like a lasher of glittering water.

Therefore, in this garden grew soft and gentle-natured plants, and flowers of delicate tint, that sink in the exhaustion of the sunglare. The sun, in almost every garden, sucks the beauty out of all the flowers; he stains the sweet violet even in March; he spots the primrose and the periwinkle; he takes the down off the heartsease blossom; he browns the pure lily-of-the-valley in May; and, after that, he dims the tint of every rose that he opens: and yet, in spite of all his mischief, which of them does not rejoice in him?

The bold chase, cut in the body of the hill, has rugged sides, and a steep descent for a quarter of a mile below the house – the cleft of the chalk on either side growing deeper towards the mouth of the coombe. The main road to the house goes up the coombe, passing under the eastern scarp, but winding away from it, here and there, to obtain a better footing. The old house, facing down the hill, stands so close to the head of the coombe, that there is not more than an acre or so of land behind and between it and the crest; and this is partly laid out as a courtyard, partly occupied by out-buildings, stables, and so on, and the ruinous keep ingloriously used as a lime-kiln; while the rest of the space is planted, in and out, with spruce and birch-trees, and anything that will grow there. Among them winds a narrow outlet to the upper and open Downs – not much of a road for carriage-wheels, but something in appearance betwixt a bridle-path and a timber-track, such as is known in those parts by the old English name, a “borstall.”

As this led to no dwelling-house for miles and miles away, but only to the crown of the hills and the desolate tract of sheep-walks, ninety-nine visitors out of a hundred to the house came up the coombe, so that Alice from her flower-garden, commanding the course of the drive from the plains, could nearly always foresee the approach of any interruption. Here she had pretty seats under laburnums, and even a bower of jessamine, and a noble view all across the weald, even to the range of the North Downs; so that it was a pleasant place for all who love soft sward and silence, and have time to enjoy that rare romance of the seasons – a hot English summer.

Only there was one sad drawback. Lady Valeria’s windows straightly overlooked this pleasant spot, and Lady Valeria never could see why she should not overlook everything. Beyond and above all other things, she took it as her own special duty to watch her dear granddaughter Alice; and now in her eighty-second year she was proud of her eyesight, and liked to prove its power.

“Here they come again!” cried Alice, talking to herself, or her rake, and trowel; “will they never be content? I told them on Monday that I knew nothing; and they will not believe it. I have a great mind to hide myself in my hole, like that poor rag-and-bone boy. It goes beyond my patience quite, to be cross-examined and not believed.”

Those whom she saw coming up the steep road at struggling and panting intervals, were her three good cousins from the rectory – Caroline, Margaret, and Cecil Hales; rather nice-looking and active girls, resembling their father in face and frame, and their excellent mother in their spiritual parts. The Anglican period of young ladies – the time of wearing great crosses, and starving, and sticking as a thorn in the flesh of mankind, lay as yet in the happy future. A parson’s daughters were as yet content to leave the parish to their father, helping him only in the Sunday-school; and for the rest of the week, minding their own dresses, or some delicate jobs of pastry, or gossip.

Though Alice had talked so of running away, she knew quite well that she never could do it, unless it were for a childish joke; and swiftly she was leaving now the pretty and petty world of childhood, sinking into that distance whence the failing years recover it. Therefore, instead of running away, she ran down the hill to meet her cousins; for truly she liked them decently.

“Oh, you dear, how are you? How wonderfully good to come to meet us! Madge, I shall be jealous in a moment if you kiss my Alice so. Cecil – what are you thinking of? Why, you never kissed your cousin Alice.”

“Oh yes, you have all done it very nicely. What more could I wish?” said Alice; “but what could have made you come up the hill, so early in the day, dears?”

“Well, you know what dear mamma is. She really fancied that we might seem (now there is so much going on) really unkind and heartless, unless we came up to see how you were. Papa would have come; but he feels it so steep, unless he is coming up to dinner; and pony, you know – Oh, she did such a thing! The wicked little dear, she got into the garden, and devoured £10 worth of the grand new flower, just introduced by the Duchess – ‘Dallia,’ or ‘Dellia,’ I can’t spell the name. And mamma was so upset that both of them have been unwell ever since.”

“Oh, Dahlias!” answered Alice, whose grapes were rather sour, because her father had refused to buy any; “flaunty things in my opinion. But Caroline, Madge, and Cecil, have you ever set eyes on my new rose?”

Of course they all ran to behold the new rose; which was no other than the “Persian yellow,” a beautiful stranger, not yet at home. The countless petals of brilliant yellow folding inward full of light, and the dimple in the centre, shy of yielding inlet to its virgin gold, and then the delicious fragrance, too refined for random sniffers, – these and other delights found entry into the careless beholder’s mind.

“It makes one think of astrologers,” cried Caroline Hales; “I declare it does! Look at all the little stars! It is quite like a celestial globe.”

“So it is, I do declare!” said Madge. But Cecil shook her head. She was the youngest, and much the prettiest, and by many degrees the most elegant of the daughters of the rectory. Cecil had her own opinion about many things; but waited till it should be valuable.

“It is much more like a cowslip-ball,” Alice answered, carelessly. “Come into my bower now. And then we can all of us go to sleep.”

The three girls were a little hot and thirsty, after their climb of the chalky road; and a bright spring ran through the bower, as they knew, ready to harmonize with sherbet, sherry-wine, or even shrub itself; as had once been proved by Hilary.

“How delicious this is! How truly sweet!” cried the eldest, and perhaps most loquacious, Miss Hales; “and how nice of you always to keep a glass! A spring is such a rarity on these hills; papa says it comes from a different stratum. What a stratum is I have no idea. It ought to be straight, one may safely say that; but it always seems to be crooked. Now, can you explain that, darling Alice? You are so highly taught, and so clever.”

“Now, we don’t want a lecture,” said Madge, the blunt one; “the hill is too steep to have that at the top. Alice knows everything, no doubt, in the way of science, and all that. But what we are dying to know is what came of that grand old astrologer’s business.”

“This is the seventh or eighth time now,” Alice answered, hard at bay, “that you will keep on about some little thing that the servants are making mountains of. My father best knows what it is. Let us go to his room and ask him.”

“Oh no, dear! oh no, dear? How could we do that? What would dear uncle say to us? But come, now tell us. You do know something. Why are you so mysterious? Mystery is a thing altogether belonging to the dark ages, now. We have heard such beautiful stories, that we cannot manage to sleep at night, without knowing what they are all about. Now, do tell us everything. You may just as well tell us every single thing. We are sure to find it all out, you know; and then we shall all be down on you. Among near relations, dear mamma says, there is nothing to compare with candour.”

“Don’t you see, Alice,” Madge broke in, “we are sure to know sooner or later; and how can it matter which it is?”

“To be sure,” answered Alice, “it cannot matter. And so you shall all know, later.”

This made the three sisters look a little at one another, quietly. And then, as a desperate resource, Madge, the rough one, laid eyes upon Alice, and, with a piercing look, exclaimed, “You don’t even understand what it means yourself.”

“Of course, I do not,” answered Alice; “how many times have I told you so; yet you always want further particulars! Dear cousins, now you must be satisfied with a conclusion of your own.”

“I cannot at all see that,” said Caroline.

“Really, you are too bad,” cried Margaret.

“Do you think that this is quite fair?” asked Cecil.

“You are too many for me, all of you,” Alice answered, steadfastly. “Suppose I came to your house and pried into some piece of gossip about you, that I had picked up in the village. Would you think that I had a right to do it?”

“No, dear, of course not. But nobody dares to gossip about us, you know. Papa would very soon stop all that.”

“Of course he would. And because my father is too high-minded to meddle with it, am I to be questioned perpetually? Come in, Caroline, come in, Margaret, come in, dear Cecil; I know where papa is, and then you can ask him all about it.”

“I have three little girls at their first sampler – such little sweets!” said Caroline; “I only left them for half an hour, because we felt sure you must want us, darling. It now seems as if you could hold your own in a cross-stitch we must not penetrate. It is nothing to us. What could it be? Only don’t come, for goodness’ sake, don’t come rushing down the hill, dear creature, to implore our confidence suddenly.”

“Dear creature!” cried Alice, for the moment borne beyond her young self-possession – “I am not quite accustomed to old women’s words. Nobody shall call me a ‘dear creature’ except my father (who knows better) and poor old Nanny Stilgoe.”

“Now, don’t be vexed with them,” Cecil stopped to say in a quiet manner, while the two other maidens tucked up their skirts, and down the hill went, rapidly; “they never meant to vex you, Alice; only you yourself must feel how dreadfully tantalizing it is to hear such sweet things as really make us afraid of our own shadows; and then to be told not to ask any questions!”

“I am sorry if I have been rude to your sisters,” the placable Alice answered; “but it is so vexatious of them that they doubt my word so. Now, tell me what you have heard. It is wonderful how any foolish story spreads.”

“We heard, on the very best authority, that the old astrologer appeared to you, descending from the comet in a fire-balloon, and warned you to prepare for the judgment-day, because the black-death would destroy in one night every soul in Coombe Lorraine; and as soon as you heard it you fainted away; and Sir Roland ran up, and found you lying, as white as wax, in a shroud made out of the ancient gentleman’s long foreign cloak.”

“Then, beg Cousin Caroline’s pardon for me. No wonder she wanted to hear more. And I must not be touchy about my veracity, after lying in my shroud so long. But truly I cannot tell you a word to surpass what you have heard already; nor even to come up to it. There was not one single wonderful thing – not enough to keep up the interest. I was bitterly disappointed; and so, of course, was every one.”

“Cousin Alice,” Cecil answered, looking at her pleasantly, “you are different from us, or, at any rate, from my sisters. You scarcely seem to know the way to tell the very smallest of small white lies. I am very sorry always; still I must tell some of them.”

“No, Cecil, no. You need tell none; if you only make up your mind not to do it. You are but a very little older than I am, and surely you might begin afresh. Suppose you say at your prayers in the morning, ‘Lord, let me tell no lie to-day!’”

“Now, Alice, you know that I never could do it. When I know that I mean to tell ever so many; how could I hope to be answered? No doubt I am a story-teller – just the same as the rest of us; and to pray against it, when I mean to do it, would be a very double-faced thing.”

“To be sure, it would. It never struck me in that particular way before. But Uncle Struan must know best what ought to be done in your case.”

“We must not make a fuss of trifles,” Cecil answered, prudently; “papa can always speak for himself; and he means to come up the hill to do it, if Mr. Gates’ pony is at home. And now I must run after them, or Madge will call me a little traitor. Oh, here papa comes, I do declare. Good-bye, darling, and don’t be vexed.”

“It does seem a little too bad,” thought Alice, as the portly form of the rector, mounted on a borrowed pony, came round the corner at the bottom of the coombe, near poor Bonny’s hermitage – “a little too bad that nothing can be done, without its being chattered about. And I know how annoyed papa will be, if Uncle Struan comes plaguing him again. We cannot even tell what it means ourselves; and whatever it means, it concerns us only. I do think curiosity is the worst, though it may be the smallest, vice. He expects to catch me, of course, and get it all out of me, as he declared he would. But sharp as his eyes are, I don’t believe he can have managed to spy me yet. I will off to my rockwork, and hide myself, till I see the heels of his pony going sedately down the hill again.”

With these words, she disappeared; and when the good rector had mounted the hill, “Alice, Alice!” resounded vainly from the drive among the shrubs and flowers, and echoed from the ramparts of the coombe.