God's Good Man, Marie Corelli [me reader .txt] 📗

to one’s father’s ‘Alls— jest in a one ‘oss fly! She might ha’ ordered a kerridge an’ pair by telegram, an’ dashed it up in fine style, but a one ‘oss fly! It do take the edge off a ‘ome-comin’!—it do reely now.”

And with a kind of short grunt at the vanity and disappointment of human expectations, he went his way to the kitchen garden, there to ‘chew the cud of sweet and bitter memory’ over the asparagus beds, which were in a highly promising condition.

VIII

The one-horse fly, going at a one-horse fly pace, had made its way with comfortable jaunting slowness from Riversford to St. Rest, its stout, heavy-faced driver being altogether unconscious that his fare was no less a personage than Miss Vancourt, the lady of the Manor. When a small, girlish person, clad in a plain, close-fitting garb of navy-blue serge, and wearing a simple yet coquettish dark straw hat to match, accosted him at the Riversford railway station with a brief, ‘Cab, please,’ and sprang into his vehicle, he was a trifle sulky at being engaged in such a haphazard fashion by an apparently insignificant young female who had no luggage, not so much as a handbag.

“Wheer be you a-goin’?” he demanded, turning his bull neck slowly round—“I baint pertikler for a far journey.”

“Aren’t you?” and the young lady smiled. “You must drive me to St. Rest,—Abbot’s Manor, please!”

The heavy-faced driver paused, considering. Should he perform the journey, or should he not? Perhaps it would be wisest to undertake the job,—there was the ‘Mother Huff’ at the end of the journey, and Roger Buggins was a friend of his. Yes,—he would take the risk of conveying the humbly-clad female up to the Manor; he had heard rumours that the old place was once again to be inhabited, and that the mistress of it was daily expected;—this person in the blue serge was probably one of her messengers or retainers.

“My fare’s ten shillings,” he observed, still peering round distrustfully; “It’s a good seven mile up hill and down dale.”

“All right!” responded the young woman, cheerfully; “You shall have ten shillings. Only please begin to go, won’t you?”

This request was accompanied by an arch smile, and a flash of blue eyes from under the dark straw hat brim. Whereat the cumbrous Jehu was faintly moved to a responsive grin.

“She ain’t bad-looking, neither!” he muttered to himself,—and he was in a somewhat better humour when at last he ondescended to start. His vehicle was a closed one, and though be fully expected his passenger would put her head out of the window, when the horse was labouring up-hill, and entreat him to go faster,—which habit he had found by experience was customary to woman in a one-horse fly,- nothing of the kind happened on this occasion. The person in the blue serge was evidently both patient and undemonstrative. Whether the horse crawled or slouched, or trotted,-whether the fly dragged, or bumped, or jolted, she made no sign. When St. Rest was reached at last, and the driver whipped his steed into a semblance of spirit, and drove through the little village with a clatter, two or three people came to the doors of their cottages and looked at the vehicle scrutinisingly, wondering whether its occupant was, or was not Miss Vancourt. But a meaning wink from the sage on the box intimated that they need not trouble themselves,—the ‘fare’ was no one of the least importance.

Presently, the fine old armorial gates of the drive which led up to Abbot’s Manor were reached,—they were set wide open, this having been done according to Mrs. Spruce’s orders. A woman at the lodge came hastily out, but the cab had passed her before she had time to see who was in it. Up through the grand avenue of stately oaks and broad-branching elms, whose boughs, rich with the budding green, swayed in the light wind with a soft rustling sound as of sweeping silks on velvet, the unostentatious vehicle jogged slowly,—it was a steady ascent all the way, and the driver was duly considerate of his animal’s capabilities. At last came the turn in the long approach, which showed the whole width of the Manor, with its ancient rose-brick frontage and glorious oaken gables shining in the warm afternoon sunlight,—the old Tudor courtyard spreading before it, its grey walls and paving stones half hidden in a wilderness of spring blossom. Here, too, the gates were open, and the one-horse fly made its lumbering and awkward entrance within, drawing up with a jerk at the carved portico. The young person in blue serge jumped out, purse in hand.

“Ten shillings, I think?” she said; but before the driver could answer her, the great iron-clamped door of the Manor swung open, and a respectable retainer in black stood on the threshold.

“Oh, will you pay the driver, please?” said the young lady, addressing this functionary; “He says his fare is ten shillings. I daresay he would like an extra five shillings for himself as well,” and she smiled—“Here it is!”

She handed the money to the personage in black, who was no other than the former butler to Sir Morton Pippitt, now at the Manor on temp’ry service,’ and who in turn presented it with an official stateliness to the startled fly-man, who was just waking up to the fact that his fare, whom he had considered as a person of no account whatever, was the actual mistress of the Manor.

“Drive out to the left of the court,” said the butler imperatively; “Reverse way to which you entered.”

The submissive Jehu prepared to obey. The young person in blue serge smiled up at him.

“Good afternoon!” said she.

“Same to you, mum!” he replied, touching his cap; “And thank ye kindly!”

Whereat, his stock of eloquence being exhausted, he whipped up his steed to a gallop and departed in haste for the ‘Mother Huff,’ full of eagerness to relate the news of Miss Vancourt’s arrival, further embellished by the fact that he had himself driven her up from the station, ‘all unbeknown like.’

Miss Vancourt herself, meanwhile, stepped into her ancestral halls, and stood for a moment, silent, looking round her with a wistful, almost pathetic earnestness.

“Tea is served in the morning-room, Madam,” said the butler respectfully, all the time wondering whether this slight, childlike- looking creature was really Miss Vancourt, or some young friend of hers sent as an advance herald of her arrival. “Mrs. Spruce thought you would find it comfortable there.”

“Mrs. Spruce!” exclaimed the girl, eagerly; “Where is she?”

“Here, ma’am-here, my lady,” said a quavering voice-and Mrs. Spruce, presenting quite a comely and maternal aspect in her best black silk gown, and old-fashioned cap, with lace lappets, such as the late Squire had always insisted on her wearing, came forward curtseying nervously.

“I hope, ma’am, you’ve had a pleasant journey—”

But her carefully prepared sentence was cut short by a pair of arms being flung suddenly round her, and a fresh face pressed against her own.

“Dear Mrs. Spruce! I am so glad to see you! You knew me when I was quite a little thing, didn’t you? And you knew my father, too! You were very fond of my father, weren’t you? I am sure you were! You must try to be fond of me now!”

Never, as Mrs. Spruce was afterwards wont to declare, had she been so ‘took back,’ as by the unaffected spontaneity and sweetness of this greeting on the part of the new mistress, whose advent she had so greatly feared. She went, to quote her own words, ‘all of a fluster like, and near busted out cryin’. It was like a dear lovin’ little child comin’ ‘ome, and made me feel that queer you might have knocked me down with a soap-bubble!’

Whatever the worthy woman’s feelings were, and however much the respectable butler, whose name was Primmins, might have been astonished in his own stately mind at Miss Vancourt’s greeting of her father’s old servant, Miss Vancourt herself was quite unconscious of any loss of dignity on her own part.

“I am so glad!” she repeated; “It’s like finding a friend at home to find you, Spruce! I had quite forgotten what you looked like, but I begin to remember now—you were always nice and kind, and you always managed so well, didn’t you? Yes, I’m sure you did! The man said tea was in the morning-room. You come and pour it out for me, like a dear old thing! I’m going to live alone in my own home now for always,—for always!” she repeated, emphatically; “Nobody shall ever take me away from it again!”

She linked her arm confidingly in that of Mrs. Spruce, who for once was too much astonished to speak,—Miss Vancourt was so entirely different to the chill and reserved personage her imagination had depicted, that she was quite at a loss how to look or what to say.

“Is this the way?” asked Maryllia, stepping lightly past the stuffed knight in armour; “Yes? I thought it was! I begin to remember everything now! Oh, how I wish I had never gone away from this dear old home!”

She entered the morning-room, guiding Mrs. Spruce, rather than being guided by her,—for as that worthy woman averred to Primmins at supper that self-same night: “I was so all in a tremble and puspration with ‘er ‘oldin’ on to my arm and takin’ me round, that I was like the man in the Testymen what had dumb devils,—and scarcely knew what ground my feet was a-fallin’ on!” The cheerful air of welcome which pervaded this charming, sunny apartment, with its lattice windows fronting the wide stretch of velvety lawn, terrace and park-land, delighted Maryllia, and she loosened her hold on Mrs. Spruce’s arm with a little cry of pleasure, as a huge magnificently coated Newfoundland dog rose from his recumbent position near the window, and came to greet her with slow and expansive waggings of his great plumy tail.

“Plato, my beauty!” she exclaimed; “How do you like Abbot’s Manor, boy? Eh? Quite at home, aren’t you! Good dog! Isn’t he a king of dogs?” And she turned her smiling face on Mrs. Spruce. “A real king! I bought him because he was so big! Weren’t you frightened when you saw such a monster?—and didn’t you think he would bite everybody on the least provocation? But he wouldn’t, you know! He’s a perfect darling—as gentle as a lamb! He would kill anyone that wanted to hurt me—oh, yes of course!—that’s why I love him!”

And she patted the enormous creature’s broad head tenderly.

“He’s my only true friend!” she continued; “Money wouldn’t buy HIS fidelity!” Here, glancing at Mrs. Spruce, she laughed merrily. “Dear Mrs. Spruce! You DO look so uncomfortable!—so—so warm! It IS warm, isn’t it? Make me some tea!—tea cools one, they say, though it’s hot to drink at first. We’ll talk afterwards!”

Mrs. Spruce, with inaudible murmurings, hastened to the tea-tray, and tried to compose her agitated nerves by bringing her attention to bear on the silver tea-kettle which Primmins had just brought in, and in which the water was beginning to bubble, in obedience to the newly-kindled flame of the spirit-lamp beneath.

Maryllia, meanwhile, stepped out on the grass terrace in front of the window, with the dog Plato at her side, and looked long and earnestly at the fair stretch of woodland scenery before her. While she thus stood absorbed, Mrs. Spruce stole covert glances at her with increased wonder and bewilderment. She looked much younger than her twenty-seven years,—her childlike figure and face portrayed her as about eighteen, not more. She stood rather under than over the medium height of woman,—yet she gave