The Laurel Walk

“Long ago,” said Madeleine, “no books were considered rubbish. They cost too much, and the bindings were so heavy that they took up much more room. Let us go and have a look at them. Just ring the bell to let the servants know that they can come in.”

Horace led the way through a little anteroom, on the opposite side of which high doors led into the two drawing-rooms – all the rooms at Craig-Morion were lofty – down a short passage leading into a longer and wider one, then up two or three shallow steps to a sort of little dais or landing railed round with heavily carved balusters. Then, with a certain air of proprietorship, he threw open the heavy oaken door facing them, and stood back for his sister to pass in.

She gave a little cry of surprise.

“Yes,” she said, “this is quite a unique room. And oh! what a musty smell, Horace!”

The mustiness was quickly accounted for. Up to a certain height the walls were lined with books, except at one end, where two long painted windows looked out on to a dark and gloomy path among the shrubberies. The room, even in full daylight, would have been almost dark had these windows been its only source of illumination. But this was not the case, for the walls rose to the full height of that part of the house, and the arched roof was completed by a glazed dome, through which some rays of wintry sunshine lighted up the dusty old volumes into an almost uniform tint of orange-brown which would have delighted the eyes of many a painter.

“I wonder,” continued Madeleine, “if possibly in old pre-Reformation times this was a private chapel?”

“How clever of you to think of it!” said Horace. “It never struck me before, but it may very well have been so, I should say, though I am no archaeologist. We will suggest it to Ryder when he comes down. That gloomy walk,” and he crossed to one of the windows as he spoke, “is the short cut through the grounds to the church, which stands just outside the park wall. So the chaplain, if chaplain there was, must have found it convenient, as you see there is a door in this window.”

He opened it, and Madeleine looked over his shoulder at a short flight of broken, moss-grown steps leading to the ground.

“What a gloomy place!” she said, with a little shiver, caused partly no doubt by the sharp air which met her, “and how long and straight the walk is! I should not like, Horace, I confess, to pace up and down here in the twilight, and scarcely, indeed, at any time of the day – it can never be anything but twilight here!”

“They call it the ‘Laurel Walk,’” said her brother. “It is – ” but he stopped short, and Madeleine, who had retreated inside the room again, did not notice his breaking off.

“It’s too gloomy here,” she said. “Why isn’t there a fire? A huge fire would mend matters a little and be good for the books too, though the room does not seem damp, I must say.”

“No,” Horace replied, “the whole place is wonderfully dry. You see, it has splendid natural drainage from standing so high. There is a fire once a week or so, I believe, but we can have one every day if you like, though I fear the books, if there are any valuable ones, are gone past redemption with the long neglect.”

“I should like to get to the brighter part of the house – the other side,” said Madeleine, moving towards the door by which they had entered; but, to her surprise, Horace crossed the room to the other corner – that farthest from the windows, and appeared to be fumbling among the book-shelves.

“Oh come,” she said impatiently, “it is so cold, and I don’t want my first impression of the house to be a gloomy one.”

“Nor do I,” he answered; and then, glancing in his direction, Madeleine was almost startled by a sudden glow of light and warmth behind him. “You don’t call this gloomy,” he proceeded, and Madeleine, hastening forward, saw that his apparent fumbling among the books had in reality been the feeling for a spring, by which to open a door, concealed by rows of “dummy” volumes, which now stood wide open, giving access to a cosy and inviting looking sanctum or smaller library, where a splendid fire was burning, and where, moreover – for this was at an angle of the building – the morning sun penetrated brightly, through windows facing east and south.

“Oh, how charming!” cried Madeleine, hurrying over to the fireplace. “Is this where you have established yourself, Horace?”

“Yes,” he replied, “hence my intimate acquaintance with the library, and the short cut down the Laurel Walk. This is one of the jolliest rooms in the house, and you see I’ve got all my own belongings here already. And you don’t know all its attractions yet! There is a hidden door in the corner here too, opening on to a private staircase up to a couple of capital rooms – bedroom and dressing-room – which I’ve taken possession of. They communicate as well with the main part of the house, where all your rooms are. But it is jolly, isn’t it? I don’t believe Ryder has any idea how comfortable this old place might be.”

He seemed as pleased as any school-boy with his new quarters; and Madeleine, on her side, was girl enough to enter into the little excitement in connection with their temporary home with equal zest. She insisted on following her brother up the little staircase to see his other rooms, then down passages and across landings to the main staircase, down which they came again to visit the drawing-rooms. Of these there were two, on the whole the most attractive rooms on the ground floor, for they had windows on both sides, and though their furniture was somewhat scanty and quaint, and there was naturally an air of unusedness about them, Madeleine’s quick eye soon decided that with a little rearrangement, some high-growing plants and ferns here and there, books, photographs, and so on, it would be easy to give them a homelike and gracious aspect.

“I thought,” said Horace, “that mother could probably use the smaller one as a sort of boudoir, and if you want a den of your own, Maddie, there’s rather a nice little corner room close to where you are, upstairs. A plainly furnished little place, as you prefer, I know, for your various avocations, which don’t always find favour in the maternal eye.”

Madeleine laughed.

“Show it to me,” she said. And upstairs again they went. The little room was greatly approved of. “Yes,” agreed Madeleine, “it is just what I like. Not so very little, after all – large enough to have a friend or two at tea privately. You must hunt me up a few more chairs and a sofa from somewhere. Yes, this room is a capital idea. I can bring in any botanical spoils, or cut out my poor work, without fear of annoying mamma by my untidiness.”

“You are very untidy, you know,” said Horace, who had all a soldier’s precision and orderliness. “I don’t mean in your dress, of course, but I do sometimes sympathise with mother.”

“Oh, don’t preach, Horace!” answered his sister, for her untidiness was an old story. “By-the-by, are there any poor people about here?”

“Scarcely any in the place itself,” said Horace. “But there is a queer fishing village not far off, the old vicar tells me, full of attraction for the artistic as well as the philanthropic. The people keep very much to themselves, and are delightfully picturesque, awfully dirty, and generally barbaric.”

“Why doesn’t he look after them, then?” said Madeleine rather sharply.

“Poor old chap,” answered Horace, “he can’t. He would if he could, even though it isn’t his business. But he has plenty of work in his own parish, even though there’s very little actual poverty.”

“Of course,” said Madeleine, “the cure of souls is the same responsibility whether it concerns the well-to-do or the poor. What is the name of the fishing village?”

“Scaling Harbour. The people are supposed to be partly of Spanish descent,” said her brother, “and they look like it.”

“Is there no church, then, or mission-room, or anything?” inquired Madeleine.

Horace shook his head.

“Certainly no church; and mission-rooms don’t seem to have found their way up here. The parson at Craig Bay should look after it, I suppose! He is certainly not overburdened with money, though.”

“And whom does the place belong to?” asked his sister.

“Partly to Ryder,” Horace replied, as if rather tired of the subject. “You can tackle him about it – you generally have a crow of some kind or other to pick with him, it seems to me.”

Madeleine flushed a little.

“Don’t say that,” she began. “To tell you the truth, I fear I have already annoyed him rather about his ‘absenteeism’ as regards this place.”

Horace laughed.

“Upon my word, Maddie,” he said, “no one can accuse you of not having the courage of your opinions. It isn’t everybody – not I, I confess, for one – who would venture to pull up Ryder Morion for anything he does or does not do, or choose to do.”

Madeleine still looked annoyed.

“I think it must run in the family,” she said, in a tone of irritation.

“What – and what family?” inquired her brother.

“Bearishness,” she replied curtly – “bearishness in the Morion family, of course.” Horace shrugged his shoulders.

They were crossing the landing to go downstairs again; but at that moment Mrs Littlewood’s maid met them with a request that Madeleine would go to her mother’s room for a moment. So, telling her brother that she would join him in a few minutes for their projected stroll round the house, she left him, to do as she was asked.

Chapter Twelve

Lady Emma “Gets it Over.”

A day or two passed. The weather fulfilled its amiable promises to the Littlewoods on their first arrival, and was all that could be desired, excepting that the cold increased.

But then, as Mrs Littlewood observed with warmth, what else could be expected up in the north, and in the month of January? For her part she enjoyed the bracing air – it was what she had wanted. Nor did Madeleine object to it: she drove with her mother in an open carriage in the afternoon, Mrs Littlewood well enveloped in furs, and she went long walks with her brother in the morning, so that before she had slept three or four nights at Craig-Morion she had already acquired some knowledge of the locality.

There came a day, however – the Friday after their arrival – when the forbidding aspect of the sky made Mrs Littlewood decide that it would be scarcely prudent to risk the possibilities of the heavy clouds, and more advisable to remain indoors. Her daughter received this ultimatum with philosophy, even though Horace was off on his own account, and not available for a walk or drive. The pony had not yet been found, though several had been interviewed. But this morning’s post had brought news of one which, according to the description, bade fair to unite all desirable qualifications, and Madeleine’s brother had gone at once – a journey of some little distance – to judge for himself as to its suitability.

Luncheon over, Madeleine, wrapping herself up warmly, started for a brisk walk to the village, which had not yet begun to pall upon her by its familiarity. Indeed, the shops were so far a source of amusement to her, combining, as most of them did, during the winter, a little of everything, including some things rarely to be found except in such “olla podrida.”

“It reminds me,” she said to herself, “of that queer little hamlet on the Devon coast, where Horace and I were sent for change of air after whooping-cough. I remember the wonderful little work-boxes, or button-boxes, with landscapes on the lid, which we considered perfect works of art, and which I am certain one could never have found in any London shops at any date. Horace and I joined together to get one for mamma, and I believe she has it still.”

She entered the shop in front of whose window she was standing, and made some trifling purchases – two or three baskets of different sizes and of rather quaint construction, which would be “just the thing,” she thought, for the treasures – botanical and others – which, even in midwinter, she seldom came home from a ramble in the country without. Then she took a fancy for some wonderful, many-coloured check material, which she caught sight of on a shelf: it was of the old-fashioned “gingham” make, and struck Madeleine as a pleasing variety for the aprons she contributed to her needlework guild. And she was much amused by finding, when she came to give her name and address for sending the somewhat bulky parcel, that doing so was quite a work of supererogation, as the well-pleased shop-woman intercepted the words of direction by a deferential, “Oh, yes, ma’am, quite right —Miss Littlewood, at the big house!”

Madeleine walked home briskly, but she had made a détour on her way to the village, and it was now later than she had imagined. As she paused in the hall on her return, intending merely to divest herself of her outermost wraps before glancing in to see if her mother was in the drawing-room, a door leading to the offices opened, and a footman – who, to tell the truth, had been posted by his superior in office, to look out for the young lady’s return, in order to pave the way for a possibly called-for mediation with his mistress – appeared, of whom she made the inquiry.

“Yes, ma’am,” was the reply. “Mrs Littlewood is in the inner drawing-room, and,” with the air of announcing an event which made Madeleine realise how far they were from London, “there are visitors, ma’am.”

“Who are they?” she inquired, with some apprehension of her mother’s displeasure.

“Lady Emma Morion and two young ladies. Bateson thought it right to say ‘at home,’ though we had no orders, owing to the name, ma’am.” But there evidently was some misgiving in his mind, not unshared by Madeleine.

“It is unlucky,” she thought, “that I should have gone out this afternoon, for I don’t want mamma to be prejudiced against these Morions, for the daughters’ sakes. Who could have thought of them calling on such a threatening day? I must do my best.” And without further delay she passed through the larger drawing-room into the smaller one, where her mother usually sat.

It was not till long afterwards – an “afterwards” bringing with it relations which allowed the tragic element to melt into the comic, on looking back to that afternoon’s history – that Madeleine fully knew the relief her appearance brought with it to the very unhappy-looking group in the boudoir.

“You came in like a ray of sunshine or a breath of fresh, sweet air,” she was told in that hereafter-to-come “afterwards.”

She meant to do her best, and she did it, and she was not one to do such things by halves. As far as “good-will” went Frances Morion was certainly not behind her; but then Frances was at a disadvantage from her want of social experience – more at a disadvantage than the quiet calm of her manner might have led one to suppose, as this only made her appear somewhat impassive and phlegmatic. Madeleine, on the contrary, forearmed by a certain amount of knowledge of the ground, discarded for once the self-containedness which was usual to her, and which she had learned to adopt as a cloak for her real impulsiveness. Nothing could have been easier, kindlier, more girlish even, without a touch of self-assertion, than her greeting of the three strangers – Lady Emma stiffly established on one end of her hostess’ sofa, her eldest daughter a chair or two off, cudgelling her brains for some observations which might possibly draw forth a spark of kin-making “nature” in the direction of sympathy from Mrs Littlewood; Betty seated at a much greater distance, dreamily gazing out into the wintry garden, apparently indifferent, in reality throbbing with disappointment for Frances’ sake at “Mr Littlewood’s” non-appearance, and at the well-bred unapproachableness of the two seniors of the party.

She had begged to be allowed to come, and Lady Emma had given in, little suspecting the girl’s real motive of hoping, by some innocent tact and diplomacy, to help the position, perhaps to “throw them together,” as Eira expressed it, seeing that it was almost a case of “three being no company.”

“For mamma and Mrs Littlewood are sure to talk,” said Eira, “and then Miss Littlewood would absorb Frances, and Frances in her usual dreadfully unselfish way would think herself bound to talk only to her, and he would feel himself snubbed very likely.”

And, alas! “mamma and Mrs Littlewood” found nothing to say; and for once even Frances seemed discomfited, and no “he” appeared, and his sister evidently did not want to make friends. For her mother forgot to mention – or refrained from doing so – that Madeleine was out.

Altogether it was a terrible fiasco, and Betty’s one great longing was to get out, and rush home, and burst into tears in the arms of the sympathetic Eira, when – the door opened, and, with it, light and life and “sugar and spice and all things nice” seemed almost immediately to pervade the atmosphere.

Madeleine’s first greeting – to Lady Emma, of course – had just that touch of deference which gratified the elder woman. Mrs Littlewood, who, to give her her due, was feeling far more conscious of being bored and stupid herself – for to tell the truth she had been more than half asleep when the visitors were announced – than of any positive irritation at them, gave an inaudible sigh of relief. Frances, when the newcomer turned to her with something in her eyes which said tacitly, “I hope you will like me, I mean to like you,” was won on the spot. Only Betty’s half-childish gravity, her big dark eyes fixing themselves on Madeleine with dubious inquiry – only Betty struck Madeleine as somewhat baffling and unresponsive. The thought darted quickly through her mind:

“I wonder if this is the youngest of the or the middle one, whom Horace spoke of as a ‘changeable sort of girl not easy to understand.’ I fancy she must be that one. She is pretty, very pretty, but the other one is almost beautiful.”

We all know how much more quickly thoughts pass through our minds than it takes to relate them. The sound of the door opening seemed still in the visitors’ ears as Madeleine seated herself in the best position for talking to Frances, and at the same time keeping an alert though dutiful eye on the two mammas.

“I am so sorry I was out when you came,” she began. “I wish I had happened to meet you in the park; I should have turned back, as I had really nothing to do of the least consequence.”

“I am very glad you have come in,” said Frances, in a tone that gave the commonplace words real meaning. “But we have only been here a few minutes.”

“What a gloomy day it is!” resumed Madeleine. “My mother was afraid of going out, though really, mamma,” she went on, turning to her, “it is scarcely colder than yesterday.”

“Do you dread the cold much?” inquired Lady Emma. “I did when we first came here, but once I got used to it a little I found it really less insidious than the damp of the winters of my own old home.”

Mrs Littlewood brightened up.

“In Ireland that was, I believe?” she inquired, with more interest than she had yet shown. “How one’s life changes! I was brought up principally abroad, a good deal in hot climates, as my father had several diplomatic appointments in South America and elsewhere, and yet now I prefer a cold, or at least a bracing, climate to any other.”

“So do I,” said Lady Emma, “though it necessitates some care. I make a rule of never staying out – ” But Madeleine listened to no more – the good ladies were sufficiently launched on their way probably to as much intimacy as they would ever achieve. This reflection, however, did not trouble Mrs Littlewood’s daughter.

“It is not the least necessary,” she thought, “for them to see very much of each other. Neither wishes it, I am sure, and it will do just as well, or better, to be just on friendly terms, and leave me free to see as much as I can of the daughters, at least of this eldest one. I quite agree with Horace about her,” and she turned with a pleasant feeling of relief again to Frances, feeling at liberty now to give to her her whole attention, not troubling herself specially about the younger girl with the dreamy, just now almost gloomy eyes, who still sat gazing out of the window, as if absorbed in the wintry scene before her.

The next few minutes passed rapidly for the two elder girls. Something in Frances’ quiet eyes told Madeleine that the attraction she felt was reciprocated, and not likely to be effervescent, and already they touched upon several topics which promised to call forth their common sympathy – like glades in a forest clearing, gently lighted by the sunshine, inviting and promising further charm in exploring at one’s leisure.

Then afternoon-tea made its appearance, and Madeleine’s duties in dispensing it, tactfully aided by Frances, for still the little figure in the window sat motionless, scarcely arousing itself even when summoned to come nearer the tea-table.

“Can I help you in any way?” she – Betty – asked, half mechanically. Then, seeing that everybody’s wants had been supplied, she retreated again, cup in hand, to the corner.

“What a queer girl she seems,” thought Madeleine. “Perhaps she is only desperately shy.”

Suddenly the door opened, and Horace made his appearance. By this time the fading daylight was giving a shadowy look to the room, and for the first moment the young man’s eyes were a little at a loss. But the fire was burning brightly, and another glance or two revealed to him the position of things. It all looked very comfortable and friendly, and a feeling of satisfaction stole through him, though his manner was studiously quiet, almost deferential as he shook hands with Lady Emma and her elder daughter. Then turning in quest of Betty, whom he had early perceived by her window, to his surprise he found her flown. For with one of her sudden movements – Betty’s impulses were not confined to speech – she had darted at his entrance across the room towards the tea-table, and was now established as near to Madeleine as she could manage, looking up in her face, greatly to the latter’s surprise, with a curious air of determination to find something to talk about to her!

Considerably amused, a little puzzled, but nothing loath, Madeleine responded to Betty’s unexpectedly friendly overture.

“She is a funny little thing,” she thought. “But Horace will enjoy talking to Miss Morion;” and she devoted herself with kindly unselfishness to encourage Betty’s spasm of sociability.

“Do you care for pictures?” inquired the younger girl, so abruptly that Madeleine for an instant or two scarcely took in the sense of the words.

“Pictures,” she repeated absently, “what kind of pictures?” with the sort of smile with which one encourages a timid child.

“Oh! I don’t know exactly,” said Betty, “any kind of pictures. I – I suppose you see lots in London?”

“Do you mean in exhibitions?” said Madeleine. “Yes, of course, they are always interesting. I don’t paint myself, though; do you?”

“Oh dear, no,” said Betty, with rather unnecessary emphasis; “and I don’t know anything about pictures. I don’t think I care for them much.” And then, as she fancied that Madeleine’s head was veering in the direction of Frances and her brother, she burst out into another little rush of polite conversation.

“I have never been in London,” as if this fact was sure to enlist her companion’s interest, which, to tell the truth, it did.

“Really?” said Madeleine. “I rather envy you. I often do envy those who have not seen much or travelled much till they were old enough to understand something of what they saw.”

At another time Betty would have understood and probably taken up the suggestions in this remark, but just now her brain, by no means a deficient one, was too absorbed by one dominant idea.

“They are getting on nicely,” she thought as some snatches of the tête-à-tête a few chairs off caught her ears. “I must keep Miss Littlewood talking to me, or Eira will think me stupid when I tell her about it.”

“Frances was there once,” she said, “for a fortnight. She got to know several of the shops, which was a very good thing, wasn’t it? She wrote down the names and addresses of some of them, and just lately we have written for things – we had – ” here she stopped and grew crimson, and Madeleine, wondering what could be the cause of this sudden embarrassment, said kindly: