29 My Lady Valentine
A SPRING evening—April stars beginning to pierce through the blue one by one; a silvery haze over yonder above the firs, showing where the moon means to rise presently. An air like velvet, a soft southerly breeze stirring in the elms and chestnuts, and bending to kiss the sweet hidden violets and anemones as it flutters by. Down in a thornbush near the keeper’s gate a nightingale is singing, and everything else that flies and twitters, holds its breath to hear. So, too, does the stout, unromantic looking woman, who leans across the gate, watching and waiting and rather anxious, but charmed as well by the wonderful flow of bird-music.
Anxiety, however, soon gets the better of her again, and she peers down the long white strip of wood, bending her ear to catch the sound she listens for. But only the nightingale’s song breaks the sylvan stillness of the sweet spring evening.
“Late again,” she says to herself; “I guessed she would be. And Miss Valentine she’s such a one to nag if the poor dear is five minutes past the time. I wish the cross old cat was furder—I do.”
She glances apprehensively over her shoulder as she says it, not quite sure that Miss Dorothy Valentine may not pounce upon her, as rapidly and soundlessly as the feline to which she has compared her. But she and Philomel seem to have it all to themselves. The lofty trees and broad acres of the park spread around her; down here it is a lonely spot where even Miss Valentine, who is omnipresent, never comes. Over yonder peep the gables of the house, Manor Valentine, sparkling all along its somber brick front, with many lights.
It is an ugly, old-fashioned mansion of Queen Anne’s time—once red, of a dull, warmish-brown tint now, that contrasts very well with the green of the ivy that overruns most of it, and softens and tones down the gaunt grimness of its stiff and angular outlines. It has pointed gables, and great stacks of chimneys, and quaintly-timbered porches—in summer time, very bowers of wild-rose and honeysuckle. It has old-fashioned, prim Dutch gardens, kept at present with care, but left to run riot in the days of the late baronet, and all the old-fashioned, sweet-smelling flowers that ever bloomed, grow in beauty side by side. And here in the park are magnificent copper beeches, great green elms, branching oaks, and a world of fern and bracken waving below.
This primeval forest of untouched timber is the delight of Sir Vane Valentine’s life. Poor as Sir Rupert ever was, all these wonderful woods of Valentine were undesecrated by the axe. He held these family Dryads sacred, and left them in their lofty beauty unfelled. Fallen from its once high estate no doubt it is, but even in these latter days of decadence, Manor Valentine is a heritage to be proud of. Its present lord is proud of it—of every tradition of the old house, of every black and grim family portrait, of every tree in the stately demesne, of every queer, unfashionable flower in the Queen Anne gardens. These quaint gardens shall grow and flourish undisturbed; he has decreed it. There may be orchid houses, and an acre under glass, and ferneries to the heart’s content of his sister and cousin, but all else shall remain, a standing memorial of by-gone days, and dead and buried dames. And here in the park, leaning over the gate, looking at the moonrise and listening to the nightingale, stands faithful Jemima Ann waiting for her sovereign lady to come home. Something of the fidelity of a dog, of the wistfulness of a dog’s eyes, looks out of hers as she stands, with her face ever expectantly turned one way; and all the loyalty, all the love without question and without stint, of a dog, is there.
“I wish she would come,” she keeps whispering to herself. “Miss Valentine will jaw, and Sir Vane he’ll scowl blacker’n midnight, and that there dratted Miss Routh, she’ll sneer and say, ‘Bogged again? Ah, I thought so!’ and laugh that nasty, aggravatin’ little laugh o’ her’n. An’ scoldin’, an’ scowlin’, an’ sneerin’ is what my precious pet never was used to before she went and throwed herselfaway—worseluck !—on sich as him.” Again she glancesback apprehensively over her shoulder. Miss Valentine has an uncomfortable way of pouncing upon her victims at short range, at inopportune moments, and in the most unlikely places. Jemima Ann would not be surprised to see her glide, ghost-like, out from among the copper beeches down there, all grim and wrathful, and primed with rating to the muzzle. An austere virgin is Mistress Dorothy Valentine, even with her lamp “well trimmed and burning,” and the household here at the Manor is ruled with a vestal rod of iron.
A stable clock, high up in a breezy turret among the trees, strikes nine. But it is not dark. A misty twilight, through which the moon, like a silver ship, sails, vails the green world. Jemima Ann, however, hears, and anxiety turns to agony. “I wish—I wish she would come,”‘ she cries out, in such vehemence of desire, that the wish seems to bring about its own fulfillment. Afar off, comes the rapid tread of horses’ hoofs down the high road, and in a moment, dashing up the bridle path, the horse and rider she looks for comes. She has just time to dart back when both horse and rider fly over the low gate, then with a laugh the big black horse is pulled down on his hind legs, there is a flourish in space of two iron front hoofs, then the rider, still laughing, leans over to where, under the trees, Jemima Ann has sought sanctuary.
“It is you, Jemima Ann,” she says.
“Me, Miss Snowball,” answers a panting voice, “it’s me. I thought you’d never come. I wish you would not jump over gates, Miss Snowball. You’ll kill yourself yet. I declare, it gives me such a turn every time you do it—”
The young lady laughs again, springs lightly down, and with the bridle over her arm, gathers up her long riding-habit with the other hand. “Bogged, as usual, you see, Jemima,” she says, ruefully,” and in for black looks, as usual, if I am caught. I won’t be caught. I’ll steal up the back way, and into your sanctum, you dear old solemn Jemima, and you shall fetch me down an evening dress, and I will repair damages, and no one be the wiser. Have you been waiting long?”
“Nearly an hour, Miss Snowball. It’s just gone nine.”
“Is it ! You see I carry no watch, and—” glancing up with a quick look of aversion at the house—” I am never in a hurry to come back. Have I been missed?” carelessly.
“Yes, Miss. Miss Valentine asked me where you was, and looked cross.
“It is Miss Valentine’s metier to look cross, my Jemima. Any one else?”
“Well,” reluctantly,” Sir Vane—”
“Yes. Sir Vane—go on.”
“He kind o’ cussed like, between his teeth sorter, when he heerd you’d gone without the groom. He said folks hereabouts would think he’d up and married a wild Injun—always a-gallopin’ break-neck over the country, without so much as a servant. He said,” hesitatingly, “he’d put a stop to sich goin’s on, or know the reason, why.”
“Ah!” slowly, “did he say all this to you?”
“Kind o’ to me—kind o’ to himself. But I allowed he wanted me to hear it, and tell you.”
“Which you are faithfully doing,” says Sir Vane’s wife, with a laugh that has rather a bitter ring. “And Miss Dorothy—was she drinking in all this eloquence?”
“She was there. Yes, Miss Snowball.”
“And Miss Routh? —the family circle would not be complete without the lovely Camilla.”
“Miss Camilla was in the drawing-room. She has company—the kirnal. Don’t you see all the front windows lit—and hark to the singing—that’s her at the pianner. I guess that was why Sir Vane was put out at your being away—the kirnal came promiscus with some other officers, and it made him mad ’cause you, wan’t in to dinner. The gentlemen is in the dining-room yet, drinking wine.”
“Officers—Miss Routh’s friends—odd that Sir Vane should invite them to dinner. How many are there, Jemima?”
“Three. I heerd Miss Routh call one of them ‘my lord.’ If you dress in my room, Miss Snowball, what shall I bring you down?”
“I don’t care a pin, Jemima—it does not matter With the beauteous Camilla to look at, my most ravishing toilet would be but love’s labor lost. Bring down anything you chance to light on—the dress I wore yesterday, for instance. But first, as I have missed my dinner, it seems, and am hungry, you shall bring me some coffee and chicken, or pate, or anything good you can get—there is no use in facing misfortune starving. Lock your door, and admit no one for the next three quarters of an hour, though the whole Valentine family should besiege it in force.”
She takes a side entrance, runs lightly up a stair, along a dimly-lit passage, and into the small sitting-room reserved for the use of my lady’s maid—for the use of my lady herself. Often enough it is her harbor of refuge in troubled times, the only room among the many the big house contains, in which she ever feels even remotely “at home.” In the long and frequent hours of heart-sickness, home-sickness, disappointment, sharply wounded pride, bitter regret, she comes here, and with all the world shut out, bears the bitterness of her terrible mistake, her love less marriage, in silence and alone.
It is but a small room, cozy and carpeted, and there are books, and flowers, and pictures, and needle-work, and the few relics of the old life, Dolores, Lady Valentine, has brought with her from Rome. It is all the cozier now, for the wood fire that burns and sparkles cheerily, and the little rocking-chair that sways invitingly before it. Miss Dorothy has uplifted voice, and hands, and eyes in protest against so luxurious a chamber being given to a waiting-maid, but though Miss Dorothy is the supreme power behind the throne, and mistress of the Manor, Sir Vane’s young wife has shown she can assert herself when she chooses.
“Jemima Ann is my friend. You understand, Miss Valentine? Something more than my maid. Her sitting-room—mine, when I feel like it, as well—is to be pretty.”
And pretty it is. As a rule, Lady Valentine lets things go; it is not worth while, she says, wearily; life will not be worth the living if it is to be lived in a perpetual wrangle. Let Miss Dorothy do as she pleases. When one has made direst shipwreck of one’s life, it is hardly worth the trouble of quarreling over the flotsam and jetsam. And Miss Dorothy does do as she pleases with a very high hand. And so it comes that Sir Vane’s bride flies here as to the “shadow of a great rock in a weary land,” oftener and more often, or mounts her black horse and flies over the hills and far away, out of reach of Miss Dorothy’s rasping tones. Safe in this harbor of refuge, Jemima Ann leaves her mistress, locking the door after her according to orders, and goes for the coffee and accompaniments. Dolores stands by the fire, holding her riding-whip in her hand, her long, muddied habit trailing behind her, her eyes on the fire. She has thrown off her hat, and the fire-shine falls full upon her, standing quite still, and very thoughtful here. Look at her. It is seven months since her wedding day—as many years might have passed, and not wrought so striking a change in her. She looks taller than of old, and, it seems, even more slender, but that may be due to the long, tightly-fitting habit. Her face is certainly thinner, with an expression of dignity and gravity that it never used to wear. All the old sparkling, child-like brightness is gone, or flashes out so rarely as to render its absence more conspicuous. A look, not quite of either hardness or defiance, and yet akin to both, sets her mouth—the look of one whom those about her force to hold her own, the look of one habitually misunderstood. All the bounteous chevelure doree that of old fell free, is twisted in shining coils tightly around the small, deer-like head. The golden locks, like the fair one who wears them, have lost their sunny freedom forever. She has tasted of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, and found it bitter. The old sparkle, the old joyous life of love, and trust in all things and creatures, is at an end forever. Snowball Trillon—Dolores Macdonald—have gone, never to return; and left in place this rather proud-looking, this reserved and self-poised Lady Valentine. The fair head holds itself well up defiantly, a stranger might think; the blue eyes are watchful, as of one ever on guard. But pride and defiance alike drop from her as she stands here alone—a great fixed sadness only remains. The blue eyes that gaze at the leaping light are strangely mournful, the sensitive lips lose their haughty curve and droop. She has made a great, a bitter, an irreparable mistake. She has bound herself for life to a tyrant, a harsh, loveless household despot, a man whose heart—such as it is—is now, and ever has been, in the keeping of Camilla Routh. She has made her sacrifice, and made it in vain, that a man, mercenary and money-loving, might have the Valentine fortune. She has thought to learn to love him, she has thought that he loved her—she knows that love never has, and never will, enter into the unnatural compact. She has made, as many women before her have made, a fatal mistake; she has done a wrong in marrying Sir Vane Valentine that her whole life long can never undo.
