The Queen's House. A narrative

Front matter

THE QUEEN'S HOUSE. g. Narrative. BV LIZZIE ALLDRIDGE, AUTHOR OF "BY LOVE AND LAW," "THE WORLD SHE AWOKE IN," " THE TOWER GARDENS," ETC. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY AND SON, #.ibltsf.rrs in ©tSinarg to pjcr fttajcstg the ©ttem. 1886. (All rights reserved.) PRINTED EY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS. LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES. CONTENTS OF VOL. III. CHAPTER PAGE I. His Parents ... ... ... 1 II. The Eector's Missio.v ... 14 III. Basil demonstrates ... ... 42 IV. Settled ... ... ... 57 V. Basil the Alisonite ... ... 68 VI. In the Church of the English Martyrs ... ... ... 90 VII. The Chapel of St. John ... ... 105 VIII. Above the Moat ... ... 129 IX. Mariora comes Home ... ... 143 X. The Beginning of the End ... 158 XI. Alison's Little Plot ... ... 181 XII. The Look Out ... ... 192 XIII.

The After-glow ... ... 212 XIV. Her Other Self ... ... CONTENTS. IV CHAPTER PAGE XV. Across the Water ... ... 234 XVI. He has his Wish ... ... 243 XVII. Parted: Alison ... ... 253 XVIII. Parted: Basil ... ... 258 XIX. His Sister ... ... ... 262 XX. Her Resolve ... ... 271 XXI. Mrs. Bayliss's Tenants ... 277 XXII. The Turn of the Year ... 292 XXIII. Impossible? ... ... ... 296 XXIV. Alison's New Year ... 303 XXV. What the Wall heard ... 316 XXVI. In the North ... ... 318 XXVII. Beyond the Birren ... ... 327 XXVIII. At Last ... ... . ... 330 XXIX. July ; ... ... ...

Chapter I. His Parents

The face of the Rector of Low Kelving ham beamed with satisfaction as he took in the meaning of his son's letter — by a long way the nearestapproach to anything filial he had received from him for some years. " My love, come and listen to this ! Here is such a fine letter from Basil ! " he exclaimed. He was standing at the window, letter in hand, glasses on nose. " From Basil ! That is good ! So long he bas not written ! "• and Mrs. Penrose waddled up to ber husband as fast as she could. vol. in. " He says I am to give you his love, and I'm sure I do so with all my heart ! I told you how it would be. I'm right, you see. Listen ! " They stood side by side, this oddly con trasted pair, the tall, well-preserved English clergyman, and his short, dumpy, foreign wife, with the figure like a sack, going over their son's letter with parental delight.

The wife, overjoyed at her son's remem brance of her, could do nothing but admire his love for her. Ignoring all else, she grasped what were to her the two salient points; her Basil had not forgotten her, her Basil was going to give her pleasure, was going to take her with him to some gay place, where there were shops and people. Shops and people ! And so dull the Suffolk fields were, where they saw no one! " Grand man, Basil ! Good son, Basil ; he must think always of his mother ! " she exclaimed, looking up at her husband with all her maternal love — by far her strongest affection — lighting up her still fine dark eyes. " We go see that boy to-day ! Father of Basil, to-day we must go ! How long since I do not see him ! " ",Well, my love, this is, indeed, more than I could have hoped ! " returned the father of Basil, quite overwhelmed with astonishment and delight.

"This is more than I could have hoped!" That his son was really engaged to that girl, of whom he himself so highly approved, was much, very much ; but that his son should condescend to allow him the privilege of rendering him a delicate and inter esting service, was almost too much for him. Few things, indeed, give the parents of to-day more genuine pleasure than to be respectfully, but firmly, ordered about by their children. " I told you so, my love ; I told you so ! That dear girl will be the making of our Basil ! She'll make him settle down ! " "It is a great man ! To-day we must go and see him ! To-day, queek ! Sharp ! " They managed to catch the first train up, and on one of the many platforms of the Great Eastern Terminus, they found Basil waiting for them. Truly, to see Basil stoop to be kissed on both cheeks, and embraced by that mother of his, was a sight not to be forgotten.

Basil could be very graceful and charming when he liked — and he did like just then — so he bent down to the much-wrinkled, upturned face, that had not only lost all the beauty it once had, but had grown almost hideous, and submitted, with absolute disregard of the British public, to an amount of ex travagant caressing that few English sons would ever have permitted, or, if permitted, never could have forgiven. It was a curious, sack-like figure, that he at last succeeded in getting into a cab. It was arrayed in black silk, unmistakably of the mourning hat-band kind, and much black Maltese lace. Mrs. Penrose imagined that her toilette was strictly that of the British matron of the country clergy woman's type ; ■ > and, perhaps, each article might in itself have been most orthodox, but the general effect was drapery, in the artistic sense, and not garments.

" So, mother, you are glad to see me again ? " said Basil, as soon as he had packed her safely into the cab and they were driving off. " Ah, why I not see you so long, you bad b°y> you ! This riaise place this — shops so many, so many ! " said Mrs. Penrose, whose sole idea of civilization was shops. " Yes, I thought it would be about the ticket for you, mother. I say," Basil went on, "when we've got rid of him,"- — shrugging the shoulder nearest his father — " we'll go out on the spree — won't we, mother ? " " The spree ? " Mrs. Penrose asked. " Yes, the spree, the lark, the rampage, all that sort of thing, you know ! You've been croaking enough lately, I dare say. Very dull at Kelvingham ? " " Beast of place ! Dull hole ! Mariora not at home now. When she sing, makit it light in the house!

She good gairl, beautiful gairl, Mariora ! " " So the little chap is away, is she?" asked Basil. " Yes," said Mr. Penrose, " she's in the north, just now." " Let her stay there ! " said Basil, with decision. " She always was a fool. Don't let her spoil my Alison, that's all I have to say about her." " They will do each other a great deal of good," said Mr. Penrose. " Not they ! " " Really, Basil, if you are going to hamper me like this, you had better do your own business yourself," said the rector with dignity. " Of course, your sister and Miss Bayliss must know each other — that is, if /am to act in the matter." " Hang it all ! I suppose they must ! It will have to come to that ! " "Of course it will ; and what is more, I must go to work in my own way, or not at all. If you leave it to me, it will be all right ; if you don't, it will be all wrong."

" Well, I suppose you understand these creatures better than I do. Go ahead, then ! Do as you like, father, as it appears that in these entirely personal concerns every one is to have his or her own way, except the only two persons who have any right to be heard at all in the matter." " You must remember, Basil, that you now have, I am truly thankful to say, gentlewomen to deal with," observed the rector with severity. " I know it, father, only too well," said Basil. " There is not the slightest occasion to be profane about it," said Mr. Penrose, for Basil had flung in a few emphatic expletives. Then it struck him that perhaps he had gone far enough in the line of paternal rebuke, and that if he did not mind what, he was about, his son might refuse, after all, to let him conduct that interesting and delicate mission on which his whole heart was set.

It was a very long while since Basil had allowed him to do anything for him. Even when, at long intervals, Basil stayed for a night at Low Kelvingham Rectory, he invariably left behind him, on the study mantelpiece, the coins that he reckoned would exactly pay for his board and lodging. " None of your spoil for me, thank you very much, all the same ! " he used to say. Early in his teens, Basil had hit upon a little invention — an improved boot-fastening, I think it was ; — an elderly man, with a scientific turn, had got it patented for him. It had been wonderfully successful. With the proceeds, Basil had started for the continent and an indepen dent career. He had been independent ever since. He had, of late years, only made one stay of any length at Kelving ham. He had managed, however, to do a good deal of harm during that one visit.

" Well, and the financial position ? What am I to tell Mrs. Bayliss on that very important subject ? " asked Mr. Penrose, as the cab was blocked up near Aldgate church. Basil's answer was satisfactory. Pufe science — the research was not paying, of course ; no one expected that. But the little inventions were ; and the one on which Basil was building his most sanguine hopes, looked extremely promising. They crossed, at length, into the Minories, where one side of the street had been pulled down, and drove to Tower Hill. " Well, here we are," said Basil. " Mother and I will go and amuse ourselves, won't we ? I'll give you two hours, Rev., to get matters cut and dried, and to have your lunch. Mrs. Bayliss is sure to ask you to lunch ; no woman of her type could resist your uniform, even if the Venerable Nick himself wore it.

A bientot ! Woe be to you, if you fail ! But you won't ; you're such an old hand at it, aren't you ? " Laughing, Basil sprang out of the cab on to the pavement, in front of John Harbuckle's house, Mr. Penrose following, with a curious expression of importance and delight on his face. " My dear boy, you may depend on my doing my best," he said, under his voice, with emphasis. " Oh yes ! I'll give even a parent his due; he's sure to do his best, accord ing to his light, such as it is ! " returned Basil. " There you are now," he went on, pointing to the open double door. " Go straight up to the first floor, ring the bell, and ask for Mrs. Bayliss. The rest is with " " Precisely ! " said the rector, smiling with a full and delightful consciousness of what he meant to do, as he stepped from the threshold into the broad hall of John Harbuckle's house ; the whole of his plan of action, which he had carefully elaborated in the train, neatly stowed away, all ready for immediate use, within his somewhat capacious brain.

" Basil is quite right, for once ! " he said to himself, as he went up the stairs. " Few people understand certain phases of feminine character better than I do. — Certain phases," he added, with a side thought for his own wife and daughter, whom he sometimes found it difficult to manage. Then he touched the well-polished brass bell by the side of the crimson baize door. " Now, mother," said Basil, seating him self beside her in the cab, after the rector had disappeared, " you and I will just go and enjoy ourselves ! And, first, we'll get something to eat that isn't English. Tired of English ? You can enjoy yourself with me, can't you ? " She gave him one upward glance, out of the unfathomable depths of her glowing eyes, as they drove off together. " With vou — always ! " she returned, with a warmth that was pathetic, considering how seldom she was permitted the luxury of her son's presence.

Poor woman ! she wanted little else to make her happy ; it very often seemed hard to her that this simple, natural pleasure should be denied her. " Well, mother," said Basil, " you make it good for my Alison ; then — " falling into her curious accent — " then I makit it very good for you ; you see how good I makit it." "Ah, my dear; but always, always I must be afraid of th' othair one ! Suppose she killit you ? Suppose she killit your naice gairl ? Always I must be afraid of her. It is because I love you so, my dear, I must always be afraid," said the mother hurriedly. " You leave that to me," said Basil severely. " All you've to do, is to be good to my Alison. So, no nonsense, mother. You understand ? " " Ahl-er-right ; I makit it good, you see, my boy ! " replied Mrs. Penrose, with an assuring nod.

"I do always just what it likit you. What else I got to live for, my dear ? " " Very well, then ; I shall come and see you, or you shall come out with me — but that will depend upon how you behave, you know," said Basil with decision. " You see ! " replied Mrs. Penrose, with a knowingness that almost suggested a wink. " I English lady now, you see ! I must wonder ! " she exclaimed eagerly, quite changing her tone, as she caught sight of a couple of Levantines, at the corner of Houndsditch. " I must wonder ! How like those men to my father ! " " I must wonder," said Basil to himself, " how the Rev. is getting on ! If he doesn't make all straight, I shall have to take Mrs. Bayliss in hand myself; and, if so, I fear she won't get quite as much satisfaction out of the tug of war as I shall." " Ah, Basil ! You grand man, you fine man ! Men of my country fine men, like vou !

Chapter II. The Rector's Mission

Could any human being have felt more absolutely and entirely happy than Alison Bayliss, as she and Basil stood together at the gate of the Tower Garden that faces the gigantic block of bonded warehouses that dominates Tower Hill ? When they had at length parted, she walked up the hill towards home in a state of ecstatic blissfulness. How had he spoken to the deepest depths of her heart ! Not only had he told her of his love to her, but of her good influence over him. " You, my soul, my conscience — all I never believed in before I saw you ! " She was unspeak ably thankful and happy and humble as she went up the hill, her face full of the strange radiancy of the inner light that was making glad her heart. At the last point from which Basil could see her she turned ; he was still at the gate, watching her.

Then she turned again towards her home, which was but a few yards further. She was walking along, as in a happy dream, under the shade of the great plane trees, when a young woman passed quite close to her, muttering to herself about her false, false lover. Alison glanced up at her. It was the young woman with the rich tawny hair and dead-white face she had seen in the loathsome den to which she had taken the wreath of Muirhead flowers for the dead baby. Alison recognized her, although the woman was sadly altered, and her first impulse was to stop her and speak to her. But the other had never seen her as they passed ; she was going along wTith uneven steps, evidently with her mind fixed on some other object than the world around her. She seemed to see nothing. But Alison distinctly heard the low muttering about the false, false lover.

Coming suddenly upon her at that moment, it gave her a shock. " So much sorrow," she said to herself, " and I so happy ! Why should I be so very happy ? Why ? " She looked back. She saw the sad, drooping figure, that once must have been so grand and liberally made, going over the same ground she herself had just trodden. She sighed for the sorrow of the world ; but she was too happy to be sad many moments. Before she had reached home — but a stone's throw from the great plane trees — she had for gotten all, except the mighty facts that she and Basil were engaged, and that her mother would have to be told about it. Alison found her mother lying on the sofa, with so very bad a headache that she could neither talk to her daughter nor look at her. So, for that evening, Alison managed to keep her secret.

But Mrs. Bayliss was much better — in fact, quite well — the next morning, and a very few minutes after she had seen her daughter, she was quite certain that Alison and Basil had met, and, if not actually engaged, at least understood each other. Why, Alison could not even look at her mother in a natural way ; and as for conversation — Bah ! Of course, Mrs. Bayliss knew all about it, without being told ; for Alison was about as transparent as the clearest glass. " Alison says she won't keep our engagement a secret," Basil Penrose had written to his father ; but if he had observed his usual accuracy, he would have struck out " won't," and have written " can't " instead. At the same time, Alison found it quite as impossible to tell her mother what had happened. Mrs. Bayliss waited for her daughter to speak ; she, moreover, gave her plenty of opportunities ; but it was of no use, Alison was silent.

She looked so sweet, so pretty, with her heightened, tremulous colour, and her bright eyes, that her mother could not help being touched. But the more she felt vol. in. the situation, the more she hated Basil, for daring to have the insolence to make love to this dear child of hers, who repre sented to Mrs. Bayliss an ideal young womanhood she herself had never possessed. Mrs. Bayliss remembered well enough that, in the days of her own youth, she had never dreamed of telling her mother about her love affairs. But then, in her own eyes, she had been only an ordinary mortal, quite fallible, and not the transcendental maiden she fondly imagined her daughter to be. When Sunday had passed, and then Monday, without a word from Alison, the mother's romantic respect for her daughter became gradually lowered ; she began to suspect that Alison was, after all, only such a one as she herself had been.

" It is inconceivable ! " she said to herself. " I can't understand how Alison can have gone to church twice with me, and not have told me ! It only shows how bad that man's influence over her must be. I cannot understand how a girl like Alison can have yielded so blindly to him! I cannot endure the idea of that creature exercising such a power over my Alison. I hate that man ! I always shall hate him. If he had had one spark of true manliness in him, he would have come and confronted me boldly. I despise a man who is a coward in love ! My James wasn't ! " So it was a very dull Sunday, both for Alison and her mother ; dull, that is, as far as their intercourse with each other went. Mentally, they were both in a highly excited state, and each longing to throw herself into the other's arms. Early on Monday morning, Alison had a long letter from Basil, telling her what he had done.

It was her very first love-letter, and it was most strangely like Basil ; for he always had the power of putting himself into everything he did. It was charming to read ; charming to look at. Like its author, it was strongly picturesque, and full of passionate love, touched here and there with that whimsical playfulness Alison found so attractive. It filled her with wonder and joy. After she had read it through and through, she stood still gazing dreamily at it, hardly daring to believe it real, or, being real, really for her. He had written to his father, he said. He had requested him to come up to town at once. " But ought I to let the news come from a stranger ? I don't think I ought/' she said to herself, a dozen times over, during the day. " I wonder when Mr. Penrose will come ? As soon as possible, no doubt.

In the meantime, I shall go crazy. I must tell her." But all that day she could not. On Tuesday morning she was upstairs in Uncle John's den, tr}ing to write, but quite unable to put away her own affairs, when she broke off in the middle of a sentence with : "As a matter of absolute right or wrong, what ought I to do ? I don't like my mother to hear the news from a stranger. Shall I ? Is it my duty — ought I to go and tell her myself? Certainly, I know her better than any one else does. Yes, I must tell her myself! Oh, if she only liked him, even a little ! But to go and tell her that I am engaged to a man she turned out of the house ! Oh, what an awful, awful thing to do ! What a shame ! I don't know how I'm to forgive her for that ; really, I don't ! I'm afraid if I do go and tell her, I may fly into one of my dreadful tempers.

Perhaps I'd better not attempt it. I don't think I can. I won't ! " She beat a tattoo against the leg of the table with her slipper, she played five-finger exercises with her fingers on her desk. " It must come from me ! It shall ! " she decided at length. " I owe it to my mother. ' How far does the lady's filial duty extend ? ' ' My filial duty goes a long way.' ' She smiled — how fondly, how proudly — as she recalled the scene on the Prisoner's Walk. Her elbow was on the desk, her fingers, for the moment, clutching the collar of her dress; she leaned her head back against her wrist, and looked out of the window up into the grey sky, smiling, — smiling, — smiling! What a dear face it was ! Few people ever saw Alison at her very best ; no one, not even Basil, had seen her look as she looked then.

She did not see the grey sky ; only those two figures on the Prisoner's Walk, one of which she knew was Basil, the other, Alison. She lingered ; the scene was too pleasant to disturb, the picture too sweet to break up. But it melted away of itself. St. Paul's, as seen from the Tower wall, dissolved into her father's grave ; the Thames into the rushing Birren Water ; the two figures into her mother's and herself, in deepest mourning-. Her eyes dimmed ; she rose at once, smoothed her hair, which had been touched of late too many times by her nervous fingers, and went downstairs, ready to put her arms round the widow's neck, and tell her all. Her mother was writing letters in the dining-room. " Are you busy, mother ? " Alison asked, her voice wavering up and down, as it always did when she was agitated.

It was at the prosaic hour of midday — no twilight to veil blushes and make confi dences easy. Mrs. Bayliss looked up, pen in hand. " I am writing to Scotland, dear ; but the five o'clock post will do for that. We really ought to be in Birrendale now. We are losing all the fine weather." " You haven't spoken to me before about going away again. And we only came home last week, mother ! " said Alison, a little reproachfully, getting into the corner of the sofa nearest her mother. " Why haven't you talked to me about this ? " " Oh, I was only writing a tentative little note — fishing for an invitation, in point of fact. I dare say I shall find some one who will take us in. Cauld-knowe won't be empty for three weeks to come, you know ; that will make it so late," and Mrs. Bayliss put her pen on the rest, and turned to her daughter for what she hoped would prove a confidential talk.

"I — I — don't exactly care about going to Scotland just now," faltered Alison. "Well, dear, you know you will have to meet Alec, as a connection of Mac and Jessie's, some time or another; so, really, the sooner it happens, the better. Alec is far too sensible of what is due to you, and too thoroughly a gentleman, to be in any way disagreeably importunate ; although, from what I hear, I am sure he must have taken your refusal very terribly to heart, poor dear fellow ! " " I wasn't thinking about that when I spoke," said Alison ; " I was thinking about — that is — there is something I want to tell you very much " " You have seen Basil Penrose again, I suppose," said Mrs. Bayliss, in as level a tone as she could assume, giving " her antipathy " merely his name, and carefully refraining from such terms as " that fiend," or " that wretched man at the Tower."

Alison bent her head slowly. " I — I — like him," she murmured. " Yes, I know you do. I don't. By the-by, Uncle John told me, just before he went out, that he met Hugh Merriman in Cockspur Street, on Saturday. He is ordered to India ; they start this week. Uncle John asked him if he were coming down to the Tower, to say good-bye to his friends there. He said, ' No, I shall write. I can't run the risk of meeting Penrose.' John remarked that be had thought they were such great chums. ' So we were,' said the poor young fellow, and he seemed, John said, desperately hurt — ' so we were ; and then he dropped me like a hot copper!' ' " Dropped like a hot copper ! " The phrase jarred painfully on Alison's nerves. Mrs. Bayliss saw her shot had told, so she gave it a moment or two before she went on — " For my own part, I like a man who sticks to his friends."

" Yes, but they must be real friends, before you can stick to them ! " exclaimed Alison, rushing in wildly to rescue her lover from the implication of fickleness. " Now it is utterly impossible that — that — Basil Penrose could ever have made a friend — really and truly a friend — of Hugh Merriman. It is out of all question." ' " And why ? " " Why ? Why — why — they are on such totally different levels, don't you see ! " cried Alison, with that shy defiance of hers blazing up. Mrs. Bayliss did not think fit to tell her daughter that the young Guardsman, wdiile lamenting Basil's change of mind, had, with true British pluck, wound up with, " But still, I maintain he's the Coming Man ! " or, no doubt, Alison would have raised the gallant young soldier's level a. good deal nearer Basil's. " So, Alison," continued Mrs. Bayliss, dismissing the Guardsman, " you have seen Basil Penrose again ?

" " More than once. Yes — " hesitating ; then, hurriedly — " I wish you liked him, mother ! Why don't you ? " "Because I detest him!" was the widow's answer to herself; but, determined to be amiable, she said kindly, laying her hand gently on her daughter's arm — " Why do you Uke him, my dear child ? " " I don't know ! I do. He is different from every one else in the world." " My sweet darling, they always are ; your father was ; but, thank God, there was none of the Basil Penrose in him ! " "You hate him ! You do, you do! You turned him out of the house ! How could you be guilty of such a disgraceful thing ? " broke out Alison passionately. "He — he — would have come here often, if you had not been so — so — I don't want to say anything to hurt your feelings, so " " I admit I was unwise ; I went a little too far," put in Mrs. Bayliss, who knew very well the value of a judicious apology.