Alice Lauder/Part 2/Chapter 3

I DON’T think I can manage this garden-party to-day, Clare. You will let me off, won’t you? I really don’t feel up to it, and it is so hot!

“Why, my dear child, are you not well? I wonder what you had better take?”

Alice was lying on a comfortable chintz-coloured many-cushioned sofa, in a stage attitude of complete prostration, her hands clasped above her head—vide photograph of Sarah Bernhardt—and her eyes closed, either from extreme exhaustion or from a deceitful desire to avoid examination.

Clare stood beside her in unwonted magnificence of black lace, and a pink bonnet which had borne the burden and heat of the day during most of the last London season.

As a general rule Clare did not permit anyone in the house except herself to have a headache. There are very few sovereigns who can bear to ​have a rival next the throne; and if two of a trade ever do agree, it is certainly not when both belong to the over-crowded ranks of the professional invalid. She always blamed other people for their headaches, and thought they proceeded mostly from want of exercise, or eating what did not agree with them; and unless the patient abandoned herself to a succession of Clare’s favourite remedies, and also showed signs of speedy benefit from her active though somewhat contradictory treatment, she was apt to be a little stern and incredulous. It was all the more noble of her, therefore, to be so sympathetic to a friend who was throwing her over when just on the point of starting to the Granbys’ great annual festivity.

“Well, you do seem a little feverish, and I think I’ll give you ten drops of pulsatilla and some anti-pyrine. You wouldn’t like me to stay with you?”

“Oh, not for worlds! You are so good to me, Clare, and I feel myself such a trouble sometimes. I often think I must be a millstone round your neck.”

“Well, millstones are quite the fashionable thing nowadays. No gentleman’s family is complete without one. I think of making a collection of mine and hanging them up in the ​hall at Courtlay beside the china and the old brass warming-pans. So you needn’t trouble about that. But I hope they won’t expect me to stay all day and all night too at their old garden-party.”

“Oh, no; you can get off the evening part.”

“I will if I can; and yet I feel rather curious to see what Mrs. Austin will do next. She has some people from town staying with her, and they do go on in the maddest way, so Mrs. Burton tells me. She says there was a most terrific noise in the Austins’ garden last night about ten o’clock, and there were the whole party playing blind-man’s-buff by moonlight. The Burtons’ nursemaid could hardly get the baby to sleep again. I must say that good little Mrs. Burton is a little bit of a gossip. How she does talk when she once begins! Whatever my faults are, I don’t like gossip, but some people will listen to any tales. However, it appears that our beauty has got a new young man in tow, a globe-trotter named Campbell—I think I used to know some of his people—and she simply spends hours out in the boat alone with him.”

“I don't like gossip either,” said Alice , laughing, but not very heartily. “But I do like analysis of character, and I fancy Mrs. Burton is just the woman to provide us with it.”

​“Yes, and what do you think the fair Lizzie’s latest fad is? To make her visitors cook their own dinner Poor dinner, and poor Mr. Austin! They do say her last dress cost £50 without the duty, and she just drags it about every evening. Such bad taste in a little seaside place like this! I like Mrs. Burton, and I’m going to call there on my way to-day; but I mean to give her a hint that she should not repeat so much tittle-tattle. I am a little curious to see if they mean to introduce kiss-in-the-ring this afternoon. It would just suit Mrs. Austin, if all tales are true. Well, good-bye, dear, and if you don’t find the anti-pyrine do you good, you might try some red lavender. Au revoir!” and Clare rustled majestically away with a delicious frou-frou from her black satin “foundation,” which augured ill for the reputation of the neighbours when she came to talk over things with the amusing but reprehensible Mrs. Burton.

As soon as her friend was safely out of sight and hearing, Alice jumped up and rushed out to the stable- yard. “Please catch old Corkscrew, and put my saddle on!” she said to the old groom, feeling she must have fresh air and solitude at any price; and in ten minutes she had got into her habit and was cantering along the sea-beach with all the relief of an escaped ​prisoner. The horse was an intelligent old hunter which she had picked up for a few pounds in the easy colonial horse-keeping way; or rather, which had been bought and bargained for by old Mead, the Damons’ Irish soldier-retainer, who conducted all business on a dignified basis of what was suitable to the “fust families” in any part of the world. Mead was an Irishman, his wife a Scotchwoman of deepest dye, and together they made a fair working government. Mead was of a liberal nature; he was willing to give away every vegetable, fowl, or article of live stock in his mistress’s possession, if the visitor of the moment happened to please his fancy, or to praise his own principal friend and adviser—a very bald, ancient, and one-eyed fox terrier. Mrs. Mead, on the contrary, was prudent, if not parsimonious; and to the desires of the children to eat unlimited peach jam, or of her mistress to wear her second-best silk dresses in the evening, Mrs. Mead turned as little attention as Captain Nelson when the admiral’s signal waved before his blind eye—unless, indeed, she thought the occasion worthy of such splendour. Fortunately for her thrifty nature, Clare was always willing to wear what was put out for her, and was for the most part oblivious as to her outer woman—equally happy in a dust-coat which had seen ​hard service for the last five years, or the most expensive and fin-de-siècle of Julie Bond’s art-creations.

The Meads had finally adopted Alice, and allowed her an equal share of constitutional rights, so far as being tyrannized over by them, jointly and severally, could be so called. Mead was in his most conversable mood when he assisted her to mount, but she made good her escape with some slight diplomacy, and had soon left the village, the garden-party, Mrs. Austin’s peculiarities, and the impending meeting with her former friend, full five miles behind her. The sea air was fresh and life-giving; the wet sand stretched out smooth and brittle as glass, and broke under her horse’s hoofs with a pleasant shattering sound. Alice felt the comfort of being alone, and of no longer keeping up appearances. She knew this mood of depression would pass away all the sooner if she could meet it alone. After a time she left the beach and turned inland, taking a path through a little valley filled to the brim with rye grass just ready for cutting, which rolled before the summer wind in glossy corrugated waves, and changed like a pigeon’s breast in all shades of ripening brown as it moved in the sun. Under the surface of the hayfield large moon-daisies were floating, ​half submerged in green. They showed their white disks through a green transparency of grass, as they seemed to swim with the tide, or turned over, ruffled by a sudden catspaw that changed the whole colour of the valley from brown to violet. There was something very sweet and restful in the little valley; but Alice trotted on towards the rising ground above, for she had thought of a certain quiet place over there—a place where solitude and peace seemed the only inhabitants, and where she might bury the regrets and disappointments of the past without anyone else taking part in the funeral. It was a wide open stretch of moorland, lightly strewed with grey boulders of rock, over head and ears in furze and bracken, and occasionally showing the red-and-white motley of the cattle which wandered over it. On one side a line of cliffs enclosed the purple vintage of the sea in a small estuary; on the other the great dividing range, muffled in azure haze, stretched from north to south without a break. There was a small forlorn wooden church with a tin steeple, perched just at the edge of the plain, where the moorland broke down into the valley. It seemed to accentuate the stillness and solitude of the great purple plain, for one could not imagine any congregation, even on a Sunday, coming ​out of either the moorland or the sea, towards this forsaken house of prayer.

Although the day had been hot and oppressive down in the village, there was a crisp coolness and autumnal fragrance in the air that blew from azure mountain-gulfs and precipices, and Alice stopped her horse and drank it in with a sensation of relief and gratitude. The sky was covered with furrows of grey cloud, through which the long sunbeams glistened in diagonal lines, or threaded the cloud -folds like the web of a spider. She got off her horse and turned him loose in the little churchyard to enjoy the church grass, and going a few steps out into the plain, flung herself down on the bracken, and rested her head on a grey, mossy boulder, that seemed to offer the nearest approach to a pillow.

There are moments in all our lives when the world we live in, and from which we take our dye, “subdued to that we work in,” seems to slip away into obscurity, and we turn to Nature with an eager desire for her help and consolation. At such times our mother-earth reminds us that we are bone of her bone and flesh of her flesh, and our inmost being acknowledges the tie. The nutty fragrance of the furze, the haunting cry of the sea-gull, the sob of the ​waves, the warmth of the sunshine, all seem to enter our very souls, and proclaim their blood relationship to every fibre. In such a moment the sentence, “Dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return,” does not seem altogether spoken in condemnation, and we feel soothed and rested even by the unnoted roll of the earth through space, as she cradles our tiny lives, “rolled on in her diurnal course with rocks and stones and trees.”

Alice seemed to absorb something of the beauty of the hills, the peace of the wide heath, the freedom of the wind, as she rested in the warm and fragrant bed of bracken, and when she roused herself at last the skeins of sunlight were all gathered together in a glowing mass of golden cloud. She saw a white arrow of smoke darting over the plain far away, and knew it was the mail train on its long journey across the island from sea to sea, and the sight of the flying smoke brought her back to the life and struggle of this work-a-day world again. A sad little tinkling church bell began to ring with a lonely echo in the waste moorland spaces; but it did not ring all in vain, for presently half-a-dozen children, and a man who was probably the schoolmaster, appeared one after another over the cliff-line, and went into the church. Alice ​remembered then that there was a small fishing village at the foot of the cliffs, out of sight, which had probably furnished forth the little congregation; and presently, from the sound of chanting, and the low roll of the organ, she perceived that some kind of evening service or practice was going on. The voice of psalms and the murmured prayers and amens harmonized dreamily with the solitary place and the sunset. Shadowy forms of music seemed to float over the moor and fade amongst the purple wilderness of the peaks, and Alice drew near the chapel and listened, leaning against the gatepost. This was another voice, clearer and holier than the earth message. There was something strange and impressive in listening to the same psalms, the same aspirations and hopes which had stirred the hearts of generations, ever sounding on from the hot Judæan valley and holy temples of Zion, till now they floated over the untrodden moorland and everlasting hills of this new world in the South.

The English settlers who first landed on this coast half a century ago, had brought the seeds of wheat, and grafts of vine, and all the fond familiar forms of orchard and garden to plant round their dwellings; and the holy hymns and prayers of their church, which they carried like ​the ark of the covenant before them, rolled to-day over this lonely plain with ever new consolation, spoken as by a living, but not a mortal voice, in the wilderness. Alice heard the clear trebles of the children repeating:

“The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but the word of the Lord endureth for everendureth for ever. Amen.”

Overhead the three aspen trees planted in the churchyard kept up a perpetual chatter and quarrelling amongst their light grey leaves. Sometimes a breath of air would shake the trees all over with a sudden rush of sound, as when a child shakes a toy-rattle in its hand; sometimes it died away into hurried whispers and twitterings; but the trees were never entirely silent, even in the stillest and sleepiest moment of the day or night. She heard the sound of a horse’s steps coming near from over the edge of the valley, and saw the form of a rider outlined darkly against the evening sky, stopping as if in search of something; but it did not interest her, and she turned again and buried her head in her hands, while the congregation burst forth in familiar unison:

The sad minor cadences contrasted strongly ​with the triumphant spirit of the words, and seemed to lend them a more visionary melody:

But the rider was close beside her now, and as he jumped off and came up to her side she had hardly time to put on her armour of self-possession, while he took her hand and said, as if they had only parted a few hours before—

“Ah, here you are at last! I thought I was never going to see you again!”

“Indeed!” said Alice, with the smile she had hurriedly caught up, the first to hand, as it were. “Pray have you been looking for me long?”

“Since eleven o’clock this morning,” he replied in the same tone. “When Mrs. Austin told me you were in Green Street, I thought I should meet you at the garden-party this afternoon.”

“And I thought you were there now.”

“So you wouldn’t come? How horrid of you! But I have been there, and when I had waited for you for a whole hour, and had drunk three cups of tea in my despair with the eldest Miss Granby, I thought I would find out where you were. I called at the house, and your ancient ​Irishman told me you had gone out for a ride in this direction. I am not sure, but I wouldn’t like to swear that he didn’t wink sympathetically at me. Anyway, I have tracked you out, you see, and I intend to ride home with you.”

“Very well; let us go before these good people come out of church.”

Campbell mounted her on the old chestnut, and they rode off towards the valley. Both turned round for a moment and took a look at the blue-shadowed hills, and the sunset fading under the low ribbed line of cloud, as if the scene were something memorable.

“This is something like a garden-party!” and turning round, he caught her eye examining him with the questioning interest of a ten years’ interval. They both laughed like children , conscious of each other’s thoughts, and then rode on through the brimming valley, where the grass was still running and playing with the wind, and shooting into light and shade under the last reflections of sunset.

“Well, what have you been doing with yourself all this time?” he said at last, after a pause full of recollections. “You are a great artist now, I suppose.”

“Oh, no, no; just the other way. I have lost my voice, and can’t sing a note.”

​“Have you really? Well, that is a shame!” and there was real sympathy in his voice. “I have so often thought of you, and always expected you were getting on like a house on fire.”

“Oh no! Fate has been against me. And yet I was working so hard and getting on so well! And there is a kind of I-told-you-so-ness about it all which is very hard to bear. But don’t let us talk about it now. Tell me about our old friends on board the ‘Suez.’ Do you ever hear of them? And what has become of your friend, Lady May?”

“Oh, Lady May has married again, and is as fat as a haystack now. Her husband died, you know, and she married a young fellow who was always hanging round her, just out of pity, I believe.”

“Well, people say that pity is akin to love; but for my part I think she must be a very poor relation. I must say I never thought Lady May was good-looking, though some people did, apparently.”

“Oh yes, I’ll own up. I used to think her a great star, but I was young and foolish then. And haven’t you ever met the chief engineer again? How you could put up with that sort of cad was always a mystery to me. He was so terribly second-rate.”

​“That’s why he suited me at that time.” Alice leaned over Corkscrew’s neck and caressed his chestnut mane, while her eyes invited a contradiction.

“It’s no use, wild horses would not drag a compliment out of me to-day, after you refused to meet me. I did think you had more friendship.”

“You haven’t told me how you came to be in our village yet,” she responded, thinking it more prudent to move the previous question. Like most country-bred Australians, Alice had begun to ride almost as soon as she could walk; indeed, to the dwellers on the great inland plains walking is an art of very secondary value. Her figure harmonized with every movement of the old hunter, as easily as a sea-gull adapts itself to the wave; and the soft evening air dyed her cheek with unwonted carnation and gave to eyes and smile the flitting transitory beauty that the poet celebrates as the greatest charm of all earthly things—

She had changed greatly from the untamed Bohemian girl of former days. The best art of the stage had by slow degrees formed and modulated her movements, and had given her figure ​the flexible grace that comes from training and habit; while ten years of study and art had stamped a fairer inscription on her mobile face and expression. Campbell would hardly have recognized her. The shining knot of hair under her neat hat, the calm superiority of her London habit, the pose of her head, the indefinable grace of manner and harmony of voice—all gave him a new and interesting impression. He felt pleased, too, that he had discerned something of her promise in former days, and he said to himself that this renewal of friendship would be an agreeable interlude in his visit. Alice would understand him, and play Mozart, and talk music and art as of old. He should not want any other companion for the time, and, much as he admired Mrs. Austin’s beauty, he confessed to himself that one might have too much of a good thing. One never seemed to have too much of Alice Lauder. In fact, that was her great charm, and it was very pleasant to be together again. He had never met any other girl quite like her in all his wanderings, and she interested him—not in the least because she satisfied his ideal, but because of the impression of something bright and distinctive in her quality, some indefinable native touch of character, which had never quite faded from his memory. Above all, she was ​companionable, and that, to a man of the world who wanted rest, and the soothing, not the exciting influence of das ewige weibliche, was simply a necessary of life.

“Oh, I have been home on sick leave, but they wouldn’t let me stay in England for the winter. England was too cold, and India was too hot, and I couldn’t stand health-resorts. Some of my people tried to get me to the south of France, but there were too many London people there. I always flee from nice people as from a pestilence; so I fled.”

“Wasn’t that rather a pity?”

“For the nice people? Perhaps. However, I wanted a place like this to be idle in. I like this new country and the easy open-air colonial life. It suits me all to pieces! I think I shall put in the winter here—your winter—and go back to India in the spring like a giant refreshed.”

“Yes, I do think this is a wonderful climate, and it has quite set me up. But I shouldn’t have guessed you required much setting up—you don’t look like it.”

“Oh, you should have seen me before the voyage! I was a scarecrow. And when I got home to England it was not all pleasure. My poor old father was dead. I never seemed to realize it before I got home and found his place ​empty, and all the old home was broken up. We had to let the old place, and when I went down there for a day just to see it again, I never felt so miserable in all my life. You often hear people say what a shock it is to go back again in that sort of way, and you read of it in books, but when you realize it yourself———”

“Yes,” said Alice, “I can understand that.” It seemed perfectly natural that he should tell her of his affairs, as if they were old friends meeting again after ten years’ interval. “And your mother?”

“Oh, my mother is as pretty and young as ever. I’ve never seen anyone like her. She lives in London now, and we had a glorious time there with music—just wallowed in it all the season. You know what music means there, don’t you? I must just have missed you, by the bye, last season.”

“London is too delicious if it wasn’t for that ‘eternal want of pence, that vexes public men.’”

“Oh yes, that’s a fact. And we are all hard up in our family now. I have two younger brothers who must be put into professions, and it takes all we can do to get them started. But I expect to get a good billet by-and-by. My uncle Lanetop is a relation of some great guns ​out in India, and I have made a fair record in my work, though I say it myself.”

A pause, while the horses’ feet crunched the wet glassy sand. Alice felt a certain desire to know more of his acquaintance with the Austin family, but could not bring herself to inquire. However, he went on presently:

“When I was staying with the boss—I mean his Excellency—I met your friend Mrs. Austin, and she asked me to come down here, and I’m very glad of it now.”

“Ah, you admire her, of course!”

“Oh, she’s a terror!—to use her own favourite expression—beautiful, truly beautiful, which is a word I don’t often use; and so thoroughly colonial—such a perfect type!”

“I don’t know about that.”

“Well, I didn’t say she was the best type. I have a curiosity to see her husband. I know a good many professional beauties, and I think I can form a good idea of him from my former experience of that class, though I’ve never met the worthy man.”

“I don’t believe you can!”

“Isn’t he a very kind, quiet, thread-papery little middle-aged man who sits on the edge of his chair, apologizes for everything in his house, and gives hundred-pound notes anony​mously to charities? Ah, I thought I was right! You can’t deny my penetration, though you would like to.”

“Not more unlike than the crayon sketches you used to make of the passengers on board ship. But here we are at home now. Where are you staying?”

“At the hotel just now. The Austins asked me to stay with them, but I feared the pace would be rather rapid for an invalid, even one so robust as I am. I mean to get a couple of rooms in some farmhouse near, if I find the place suits me, and Jenkins, my man, approves of it. It would be a good centre for excursions, and I could see something of the country without much bother. I can’t stand being a Cook’s tourist.”

“I think you will like it. It is a nice dreamy little place, where you can eat as much lotus as you like without anyone objecting. There is no Society with a capital S, but there are plenty of nice friendly people about, and the scenery is lovely all round.”

“There are no lions in the path, then? You can solemnly assure me that there are no ruins, nor picture galleries, nor historical museums within twenty miles?”

“None whatever.”

​“Thank heaven for that! I shall stay on. A little boating, a little fishing, a good deal of fiddling, and as much loafing in the open air as possible. That will just suit me. Let me help you down, or will you ride up to the door?”

Toto was standing at the gate with his short legs well apart, and his hands in his pockets, in the favourite attitude of the big boy next door.

“Well, Toto, have you been to your Latin lesson?” said Alice, dismounting.

“Yes, I have, and muck it is,” replied Toto, with a realistic imitation of the big boy’s favourite expression. “It’s jolly slow all by myself, and Dulcie won’t come and play with me; she only plays with her jolly dolls. Who’s that man?”

“That man is going to play marbles with you some day soon, and lick you into a cocked hat,” said Campbell, riding away with his old delightful air of camaraderie, perfected by long practice amongst the viceregal courts and the pallid beauties of India’s coral strand.