Maisie Derrick. A story

Front matter

A STORY BY KATHARINE S. MACQUOID Author of " At the Red Glove," "Beside the River," etc. Vol. II. LONDON : A. D. INNES AND CO. (late WALTER SMITH AND INNES), 31 AND 32, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND. I892. TO THE MEMORY OF MY FRIEND MARGARET VELEY Gu, Love, go — if needs it must be so — Go, as the Sun goes down his western way At dying of the day, And all the earth is wrapped In shadows chill and grey. Go, Love, go — if needs it must be so — Go from my longing as the Summer goes From many a garden close, And through the branches bare The wind of Autumn blows. Go, Love, go — if needs it must be so— Go as the Tide, that, sobbing, makes it moan O'er sand'and weedy stone, And yet is drawn perforce Unto the deep unknown. Go, Love, go — if needs it must be so — Summer, and Sun, and Surges of the main, Ye cannot heed my pain !

Go, Love, go — if needs it must be so ; — But come, Love, come ! — Oh, Love, come thus again ! Come as they come, Love, going as they go ! ' Margaret Vei.ey. CONTENTS.

Chapter I. At The Manor House

For the next two days Maisie could not have said how life went. Each night was a long tortured wakefulness and each day was dream like. Drusilla did not speak of her engage ment or of Luke Stanmore, and Maisie felt that it was unnecessary to force the subject. As yet she could not analyse the dull, dread ful pain that gripped her till she could scarcely bear it. She knew in a dim far-off way that this sorrow was not purely selfish, that she grieved for Stanmore almost more than for her self. She could not believe in Drusilla's love for him, andsheshrankfromwhatsheconsidered the girl's deceit with a horror equalling the blind trust she had felt, but she only seemed to think clearly in her long wakeful nights, and she knew that the convictions that came to her VOL. II. B in those dark hours might be like most night thoughts exaggerated.

She looked so worn and pale at luncheon on Saturday that even Mr. Yardon saw the change in her. 'You want a good walk, Maisie," he said; "why don't the two of you go across the common as far as Puddock Wood ? " Drusilla gave a silvery, rippling laugh. " You dear thing" — she looked sweetly at him — -"don't you know that we are engaged this afternoon; we are going to tea with Miss Savvay." " Is. that so ? " Mr. Yardon frowned a little. "You will give my best regards to Miss Savvay, Maisie, and — -and I will come and meet you on your way home." " Thank you," Maisie said. Drusilla looked into her plate and began a game which she was very fond of playing — a game of flinging little bread pellets dexterously on her plate so as to form some definite figure. The girl bent over her plate as if she were reading her future in the shape the crumbs had taken.

She started when Maisie said — "Will you be ready at four?" They found Miss Savvay in a quaint little room at the extreme end of the entrance hall. One of the windows opened under a broad verandah wreathed with climbing plants, and two steps from this led into a little garden, or rather on to a grass-plot surrounded by flowering shrubs with a gay bed of spring flowers in the middle of the grass-plot. Miss Savvay was sitting under the verandah. Maisie had to bend her head as she passed out to greet her friend. " This is pleasant," Miss Savvay said as she kissed her; then she turned to Drusilla, " Miss Lescure, I am glad to see you." Drusilla was pleased with the admiring look she met. " You are ver}' kind to be glad. I was afraid I should be in the way," she said. " That is very sweet, you must give me a kiss, my dear; you are not likely to be in the way, it is a pleasure to look at you."

B Drusilla smiled, and then she looked back into the room behind her. "What a charming room," she said, "I never saw anything so pretty, these little brackets and all this china, I never saw any thing like it — may I go back and examine them?" Miss Savvay smiled. " This is a poor little room, but my mother was very fond of it ; you must see the Manor House itself, and you too, Maisie, you ought to see it — there is an old oak staircase, and upstairs there is a picture gallery and I believe some really valuable tapestry." " Is there a ghost ?" said Drusilla. " I have never seen one, but I was young when I left the Hall — there are always foolish stories about an old house — this one has been shut up off and on for thirty years. You have never seen it, have you, Maisie? No, I thought not, you must see it next time you come; Laurence and his friend are out to-day."

Miss Savvay was as bright as the sunshine of a spring day and full of cheery talk. Her keen, wise eyes had been feasting on Drusilla's beaut}', and as she spoke she saw a cloud fall on the lovely face. She turned at once to Maisie. " May I ask if you talked to my nephew ? " she said. " He said he had been charmingly entertained ; I hope you found him pleasant." " Ididnottalk to Captain Wentworth,"Maisie answered. " I was listening to Mr. Boyd." "Then it was you who so bewitched him." Miss Savvay looked at Drusilla as the girl turned from the china. " He said he had not heard that you were bespoken." A bright flush of annoyance showed on Drusilla's face. Miss Savvay imagined it to be a natural confusion at the mention of her engagement, and this suddenly recalled the fact, which Drusilla's beauty had put out of her remembrance, that Mr. Stanmore was a faithless flirt.

" Laurence is very pleasant," she looked at Maisie again, "it is a pity he can't marry, but unless he finds an heiress, able and willing to pay his debts, I see no chance for him." " Perhaps he does not care to marry." Maisie hardly knew why she looked at Drusilla, and saw that the girl was listening with interest. " Perhaps not ; he was laughing at his friend this morning. Mr. Boyd is so anxious to find a wife. He is one of the lucky men who need not look out for an heiress — he seems to be a millionaire. By the bye, Miss Lescure," she suddenly looked full into the room at Drusilla, " Mr. Boyd says he is sure he has met you somewhere ; do you remember him?" Drusilla felt a sudden shock. "Yes," she said, indifferently, " I saw him once when I was travelling." Miss Savvay was going to ask another question, but the girl moved to the farthest corner of the little room and seemed to be ex amining a china saucer.

Miss Savvay turned again to Maisie. " To judge by his talk Mr. Boyd must be a millionaire. He goes yachting all over the world, he has a villa on Lake Como and a lovely house on the Bay of Naples — he seems to live like a royal personage when he is at home." Drusilla longed to speak, but she continued her inspection of the china and curios on the mantel-shelf and on the brackets within the room. " Does he live abroad ? " Maisie said. " I fancy he spends most of his time abroad, but he has a beautiful place in Devonshire, called Beanlands, and he said that when he marries he shall have a house in London, in either Mayfair or Belgravia." Maisie sat looking at her friend. This common-place, gossipy talk was so unlike Miss Savvay, it puzzled her. Presently tea was brought, and Drusilla came into the verandah, and took her place near the dainty little table with its fringed cloth and its burden of old-fashioned china and silver.

Maisie leaned back with a smile on her parted lips. "You seem to be enjoying yourself," Drusilla said to her. " This place is so beautiful, from where I sit those grand old trees spread on and on, till they seem to form a wood at the end of the park ; then the grey tone of the old stone work and the old brick wing look more like a house in a story than a real one ; a house in which one race of people has lived for so long must be different from a mere modern house." Drusilla turned away her head, she was gaping. " An old house is perhaps not always healthy, " Miss Savvay said ; " there is a mustiness about this one, but there is a certain charm in the links of an unbroken succession that con nect one generation with another ; that china, for instance, which Miss Lescure was 'exam ining, is to me full of little family episodes and memories."

Drusilla had become silent and abstracted. She rose, and crossing the grass she bent over the rich purple background which the rhododendrons made to the green semi-circle of lawn. The tall, graceful figure in black went on, bending now and then over some rarer blossom till she passed out of sight behind the spring-flower bed in the centre of the grass. "She is very lovely," Miss Savvay said. " Do you like her, Maisie ? " Maisie hesitated an instant. " She is ver}' sweet," she said. Miss Savvay gave her friend a searching look, but Maisie bore it. There was a large myrtle in a tub, partly sheltered by the verandah, and Miss Savvay looked at it in search of a fresh sprig as she began to speak. " She is charming, but she is not a fit wife for young Stanmore, dear me, no. I have nothing to say against him, he'll get on in life fast enough, but his life will be a work-a-day one, and his wife will be called on to share his cares as well as his pleasures ; that pretty, showy creature is too expensive a luxury for a rising engineer, she should marry a millionaire."

" My grandfather says that she and Mr. Stanmore are very much attached to one another," said Maisie gravely. Miss Savvay suddenly held out the sprig of myrtle to Maisie. " Nonsense, you must not be vexed ; but I say that your grandfather is as blind as a bat about an attachment, don't know the right sort from the wrong. I said all that just now about Mr. Boyd on purpose ; I fancy our beauty will not be quite so devoted to her engineer when next they meet — Boyd is just the man for her — why should the pretty creature be robbed of her diamonds and her frocks, and all the gay things that would set her off and make her happy ? " Maisie's eyes were round with surprise ; she stared at her friend in some bewilder ment. "Do you think that money of itself will make Drusilla happy ? " she said. "Yes, I do; money would not make you happy, or me happy, Maisie, but if you gave Miss Lescure her free choice she would not hesitate.

I fancy she will care more for the means he has, than for the man she marries." "You are hard." Maisie looked after Dru silla, who stood half hidden among the trees beyond the garden ; it seemed treason to the girl to talk in this way. " I'm afraid we must not stay much longer. Mr. Yardon said he should come and meet us." " Well, then, let him come on here. I should have no scruple in saying to him what I have said to you, Maisie, and he might help matters." Maisie looked gravely at her friend. "You surely are not in earnest. It would at least make Mr. Stanmore unhappy; my grandfather would be very angry if Drusilla were to behave so ill." She rose from her seat and walked on in the direction Drusilla had taken. Miss Savvay looked after her, and shook her head. " Behave so ill, indeed ! as if anyone need keep faith with such a fickle fellow !

I wish Maisie would pluck up spirit and despise him. No, you don't, Eleanor Savvay. You know very well you would give the top joint of your little finger if you could break this engagement, and bring the engineer back to that brave, sweet girl." She was obliged to quit her reflections, for Drusilla had come back and was asking to be shown a way home through the park. " Captain Wentworth told me about it," she said, with a lovely light in her eyes. Miss Savvay looked at her less admiringly than she had done on her arrival, though she still felt the fascination of her fresh, beautiful youth. "He told you about that gate, did he?" she said, sharply. " He might also have said that no one ever uses that gate except the master, and that he only has the key of it. I am afraid it is useless to go that way to-day; you would find the gate locked, and it would be a long round back to the entrance gates."

Drusilla made the prettiest apologies; she was distressed to have suggested anything troublesome, and then she bent down to kiss her farewell. " I should like to come and see you again soon, may I ? " She spoke so caressingly, so like a dear little child, that Miss Savvay felt ashamed of her unkind thoughts. " Come whenever you like," she said, genially. " I won't say you will be as welcome as flowers in May; you are like a flower yourself, you know; like a June lily." Drusilla smiled and nodded and kissed her hand, looking back as she walked after Maisie, who was already going down the shady walk that led to the avenue.

Chapter II. In The Village

There had not been so much talk in Figgs marsh since the news of old Mrs. Savvay's death came from Rome twenty years ago. It seemed almost hard on the worthy villagers that they should get such budgets of news at one and the same time, an unfairness to the rest of the year equalling that of the flowering trees and shrubs of early June which monopolise more than their share of the year's beauty. First of all there had come the apparition of the beautiful foreign lady at the Hall without so much as a word of warning, and then the almost simultaneous love-making between her and Mr. Stanmore, and the home-coming of the Squire, Captain Wentworth. But this last event was a real grievance. It was indeed probable that the Figgsmarsh worthies, notably the carpenter, Mr. Frame, and the blacksmith, Mr. Foxley, to say nothing of the newsman, Mr. Simon, or, as he was usually called, Sim Parrot, would each and all carry a sore memory of it to their dying day.

Joshua Frame had used what he was pleased to call a vast amount of brain power in the designing of a triumphal arch with which he had intended to encumber the road on the day of the Captain's home-coming. " It were a work of hart, that's what 'twere," he was saying mournfully to the blacksmith as he leaned against the cottage door-post, while old Foxley sat smoking and listening. " I'd shown it to the Vicar — sort of compliment, you understand me, neighbour, more 'en I set any store by parson's judgment, an' he says, Leave me this till to-morrow, will you ? In course I did so, an' from what the missis hev heard 'tis plain as the nose on yer face, Mr. Foxley, 'at the parson knowed as the Captain was going to sneak in in this here ordinary manner. Why, I was axially in the road near by the station an' I see the cab going along, an' I took no more account on it an' if 't had been the parson hisself, an' yet the Captain were inside.

No, Mr. Foxley, I'll not go to church come to-morrow, Sunday, nor Sunday after neither. I'm longer in the parish than what the Vicar is. I pays my doos when called on to pay 'em, an' I've not been treated on the square." Mr. Foxley took out his pipe with some alacrity. Joshua Frame's voice was monotonous, and the blacksmith considered he had been long enough on the stump for the present. " 'Tis modern, neighbour," he said, with superior wisdom. " Bless you, 'tis the small end of the wedge that's a piercin' everywhere. Why do the Squire — you calls him Capen, Joshua; to my mind he's a Capen in the army, but at home among his tenants an' his neighbours he takes his rightful title, and sure enough that's Squire of Figgsmarsh. Why do the Squire do this, say you ? the answer is not far to seek, I'm thinking."

"You're right," the carpenter answered; " 'tis the same with him as the rest. None of the gentry now-a-days don't see no use in superfluss — that's the word, superfluss — ex pense, triumphant arches, and the rest. Well, that means expense and drink money, and treating; and you see no one can't take no notice if he sets his own face again being took notice of. I'm blessed if I don't think the hard man up the hill of more valley to the tradespeople than what the Captain's like to be. Good mornin', Miss Foxley." Harriet came forward from the kitchen, but it was evident that she had not been drawn forward by the attraction exercised by Joshua Frame. Her pale blue eyes stared past him even while she nodded, and he turned to see who might be passing. Then indeed he knew that his gossip was over.

Mrs. Grieg was coming across the road, and between her and the loquacious carpenter there reigned a peaceful, but none the less for its silence, a poignant, anti pathy. VOL. II. c For this reason, doubtless, they spoke to one another with extra civility, and the carpenter stepped down on to the path so that Mrs. Grieg could pass into the cottage. But Mrs. Grieg had come out in search of sympathy ; not to pour out her trouble to such a listener as Joshua Frame. " I couldn't think of intruding," she said, " I'll look in presently when Mr. Foxley is disengaged." " Come in, ma'am, come in," the blacksmith said, heartily, his handsome old face beamed as he kept back a hardly-repressed chuckle at the civilities interchanged between his friends. He would have enjoyed their joint company, but the determination in Mrs. Grieg's closed lips warned him that he must choose between her and the carpenter.

"Good day, ma'am," Joshua said, "good day, Foxley," and nodding to Harriet, whose pale face showed above her father's high chair back, Frame went back to his carpenter's shed on the further side of Vicarage Lane. Mrs. Grieg did not begin upon her trouble; she understood mankind and their ways, as she expressed herself, too well for that. She asked how Mr. Foxley found himself; if he did not feel a touch of east wind under this warm sunshine — and in the same breath was sure he didn't, or he could not look so bright and so altogether cheering. " It is such a thing to be a family man," she said smiling, "what with Harriet" — she ventured a glance at the pale face, which showed no trace of sympathy — "and Mr. George, you are never s*o to say alone." " Bless you, ma'am," the blacksmith said, heartily, " I like to be alone so long as I have my pipe for company.

I've a deal to think about, taking one day with another." She gazed at him admiringly. "No doubt of it," she said, "with such a head as yours, so full of wisdom, you could never be at a loss, as some are." Harriet stuck her tongue into her cheek. She had a secret belief that Mrs. Grieg aimed c at being her step-mother, and that this flattery was one of her weapons to that end. Foxley half closed one eye, and then he looked compassionately at his visitor. " We are all at a loss sometimes," he said, " but I take it a woman can help a man with her hands, while the man helps her with his head; so as I've said before, neighbour, when there's trouble forrard you can lay it before me." He had not turned his head, but he knew that his daughter could hear every word he said. He knew too that jealousy interfered with Harriet's cookery, and he was in no fear of offending Mrs. Grieg.

"I might call it apuzzle more than a trouble." Mrs. Grieg's narrow forehead puckered into yellow furrows. " It's concerning my lodger — and it beats me." She heard Harriet's gown rustle as she leaned forward to listen. The blacksmith had begun to smoke, and he did not interrupt. " You thought, and I thought, that he was far gone on Miss Derrick; and then when the French lady come he was always runnin' up to see her. He don't go near so often since Miss Derrick came back, and yet I've been told by one as ought to know that he's as good as promised to Miss Lescure." Harriet gave a defiant snort. " It's not true ; who said it ? " Mrs. Grieg raised her eyebrows. It was wonderful, she thought, that this big flabby woman could live with such a polite young fellow as her brother, and such a nice old gentleman as Mr. Foxley, who to Mrs. Grieg represented perfection in most ways, and yet could be so uncouth — yes, uncouth was the word for Harriet, and it must be owned that Foxley's daughter looked repulsive enough as she bent forward, her eyes darker than usual with anger, and her heavy-lipped mouth pushed forward in sullen challenge.

" I don't care for gossip," said Mrs. Grieg. " Mr. Vernon told us last Sunday we didn't ought to gossip about what's not our business, though this partly is my business, because when Mr. Stanmore marries, he'll not want to live in lodgings." She looked up. Harriet was scowling till her yellow pallor was hideous to behold. " I mean this," Mrs. Grieg's words came more quickly. " Four days ago Mr. Stanmore and the beauty was sitting hand in hand in the summer-house in the garden, and all at once," Mrs. Grieg lowered her voice as if she were speaking of a crime, " he kissed her," she said, severely. " Well," said the blacksmith, " I don't blame him if he got the chance, there's no wonder in that, surely." Mrs. Grieg felt so disturbed that she forgot to watch Harriet. " Well," she said, " Mr. Stanmore's not free; he hasn't ways like some gents; if Mr. Stanmore kisses a lady it's because he cares for her, and so on; now this happened four days ago, and yet my lodger hasn't took a bit of notice to me about it, no more than if nothing had happened."

The blacksmith smoked on; his daughter stood leaning against the wall, unbelieving and contemptuous. Mr. Foxley was a crony of Warren's, and he sometimes heard of the doings at Yardon Hall from the butler; but he was a safe con fidant, and, moreover, he had a complete dis belief in the discretion of women. " Give a female anything to keep," he said, " she can't doit; there aint nothing she's so liberal in as news — she'll always add some of her own to a story afore she passes it on." " Tell ye what it is, Mrs. Grieg," he said at last, "you've no call to worry yourself, 'tis maybe a secret between the young folks — and the lea«t said about it, the better. The old gentleman is hard, no doubt on it; per haps he don't want to lose his pretty visitor — we can't tell, time will show, so make your mind easy."

Mrs. Grieg sighed; she had eased her mind, but she was not comforted. She liked her lodger; he paid regularly, he gave little trouble, he spoke and behaved like a gentle man, and he kept early hours. She wished to linger, but she knew Mr. Foxley's ways; he had had enough of her for the present, so she gave a friendly nod, and took her leave of the blacksmith. Harriet had retreated to the kitchen, and a low gibbering sound indicated that she was talking to herself. Her father knew that this was a sign of mental disturbance, and he feared that it might take effect later on the cooking of his supper; he also knew that re monstrance was useless; so he sat still, while every now and then some abusive epithet sounded above the monotonous gibber in which the woman's frenzy found vent. It seemed to Foxley that Harriet was threatening Miss Lescure, but he could not hear any co herent meaning in her bursts of anger.

He smiled sadly as he gave himself up to the soothing influence of his pipe. " Poor lass," he said, " her brains wasn't all born with her, and she knows it, and her temper gets fretted in seeking for her strayed wits — poor fractious soul."

Chapter III. In The Summer-house

As Maisie and Drusilla went down to the Manor House there had been little talk between them. Maisie had been unusually silent, and Drusilla had walked on, singing in a pleasant but thin voice, some fragments of French songs. As they came home the girls seemed to have changed characters; Maisie was brighter than she had been for days; it had been delightful to see her old friend's kind face, and Miss Savvay's warm kisses and the ten der clasp of her fingers lingered with the girl as she walked homewards. Even to this tried friend Maisie could not have told her trouble — as much as she could she kept her own mental sight closed to the wound that had been dealt her; but that great mysterious power, sympathy, had made itself telt, and without one spoken word a healing touch had been laid on her grief.

She could hardly believe that this comfort had come within reach. Her friend had said she should make a long stay at the Manor House; for weeks to come Maisie knew that she would find love and help close at hand. She had spoken more than once to Drusilla since they left the wood, but she had only received monosyllables in reply: Miss Les cure had lagged behind; she was troubled by an unpleasant memory, and its presence doubled the steepness of the way. "Are you tired?" Maisie stopped and looked round at her companion. " Tired ! " Drusilla's voice sounded irri table, "I should think so; my back aches with this steep climb. I had no idea it was such a hill." "We are nearly home," Maisie said, en couragingly. " Stay," she added as Mr. Yar don came in sight, "my grandfather has kept his word — there he is, coming to meet us; he will help you along."

Miss Lescure's fair face had a defeated look on it; she only smiled faintly when she met Mr. Yardon. " Are you tired ? " Hjs eyes had passed over Maisie, and rested on the face he loved to look at. " Take my arm, young lady, you have not had proper training, or you'd make nothing of such a walk." " I call it a desperately tiring one," Drusilla pouted, and turned away her head. Mr. Yardon looked at his grand-daughter. " That Foxley woman wants to speak to you," he said. "I told Warren to let her wait in the hall." "I'll go on," Maisie said, but the bright ness left her face. She had been listening to the lark's song with that uplifted feeling which sometimes seems to be in the very air of spring. Now it ceased to move her; the men tion of Harriet Foxley had brought her back to reality, and her burden was once more weighing at her heart.

As she went down and then up the steps of the sunk fence she was conscious that this mood was not one in which she ought to in dulge. She wished she could get to like this woman ; but, besides Harriet's covert insolence, the prying, peering curiosity in her eyes had always a disconcerting effect on Maisie. She found Harriet sitting in a corner of the hall; the woman rose slowly when she saw Miss Derrick. " Father says," she looked so inquisitively that Maisie felt her colour rise, " that Miss Savvay, the lady at the Manor House, is a friend of yours, Miss " She paused here, and stood staring as if so far she had been repeating by rote, and had forgotten the end of her sentence. Maisie smiled at her. "Sit down; you must be tired with your walk up hill. Can I do anything for you with Miss Savvay, Harriet ?