Saint Eva [A novel.] ... With a frontispiece by Sir E. Burne-Jones

Chapter I

. . . . " And on very light, moonshiny nights I come here and dance, you know. Do you want to hear what I wear ? Well, white gauze as a rule, and diamonds in my hair — it reaches to my feet, you remember. And when I'm tired of dancing I walk right along that little stream, on the water, without wetting my feet. It's lovely ! I glide along. Here in this ring of trees I hold my court " "What's a court ? " said a voice from the group of listeners. The speaker stopped, a little puzzled. She was a girl of about eighteen. In her present attitude — that is, lying full length, face downwards, on the moss, with her chin propped in her hands — she consisted chiefly of a blue cotton gown, a very large knot of brown hair, a white parting, and a pair of heels. Her hat, in shape like a demoralised basket, lay beside her.

Also a book : the story of Undine, A translated. Before her sprawled six or seven small children, dirty, entranced, and open-mouthed. Over them all, patches of shadow swung lazily to and fro as a light wind swayed the branches overhead. Every where the mysterious sounds of birds and insects and darting things, and the tinkle of thin water, were audible through the girl's voice. She went on : " The court is made up of fairies, who go my messages for me. Perhaps I'll send one to fetch you all from your beds one night, and you shall see for yourselves. You can ride here quickly on dragon-flies' backs, and watch the dancing, and if ■listen ! " The slow-dying vibrations of a stroke from the distant church clock filled the pause. "If that's one o'clock, I must go home now — this minute." She jumped up, brushed the bits of moss and the dry needles from her gown, and picked up her hat and book hurriedly.

The children scrambled un willingly to their feet. " I'll tell you more another time. Would you like me to ? " Abortive tittering and nodding. " Very well. I'll come soon. You all know your way ? " More nodding and a chorus of " Yes." "Good-bye, then." She turned and took the faint foot-track by which she had come, walking quickly. When she was out of sight she slung the strings of her hat over her arm, looked round, caught up her skirt, and ran, never taking the accepted paths, but finding straight cuts of her own choosing through the maze of trees, unhesitatingly. Somehow the atmosphere of the forest seemed appropriate to her. Some of the grace of the trees was in her undeveloped figure, and the mystery of the woods was in her face. It was a face that Rossetti would have sung to — oval, and even coloured, and small — a thought too small, perhaps.

There was a young, ethereal sweetness in the heavy-lidded eyes and in the lips — peculiarly red lips, and slightly separated. The suggestion of dependence in this expression, and in the delicate moulding of the jaw and chin, might have been called appealing by a man, and weak, perhaps, by a woman. When she reached the borders of the wood she halted, breathless, to tie on her hat ; then took the dusty road at a conventional pace. It was the high road that connects the village of Weldon to the village of Dollingford, skirting the woods for half its length. She walked towards Weldon. The church clock had struck the half-hour before she reached the big wooden gate marked " Spring fields," which she opened and passed through. You got a full view of the house from this gate. It was one of an unequal row of de tached houses standing in their own gardens, and separated from the road only by a gravel sweep.

Not an attractive house in any way, but solid, and practical, and grey, and flat. A glazed yellow front-door at the end of the gravel sweep, large plate-glass windows showing starched lace curtains, and the alabaster back of Diana ; no creepers, no irregularities of any kind to soften its severity — " a Home for Incurable Philistinism," as some one had once called it. Mrs. Druce, standing at the breakfast-room window on the left of the yellow door, and peering over the geraniums, looked like the natural internal organ of the house. She was one with it, from the top of her narrow white cap, to the soles of her hygienic shoes. As soon as Eva's blue gown came in view beyond the gate, Mrs. Druce gave her little shawl a hitch of irritation, and walked into the dining-room. There she sat down at the luncheon table, and waited, her hands crossed before her, her long front teeth a little more aggressive than in her ordinary mood.

" My dear child," she began, as soon as the door was opened by Eva, still breathless, and ver}7 warm, " where have you been ? " " In the woods. I'm so sorry, mother." " Without your watch ? Now could you not make it a definite rule never to go out without your watch ? I had to ring and tell Prodgers to keep back the hot dishes. Ten minutes makes a great difference in household regulations, and very little difference in outdoor exercise. This is the second time within a fortnight that I have had to wait for you at meal times. When will you learn the value of minutes, Eva. And your appearance is most untidy — well — ' For what we are going to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.' Cold beef or kidneys ? " " Beef, please. I will try to remember about my watch." Then there was silence whilst Mrs. Druce, still perturbed, began on a damp pink sirloin.

" Did you take my note to the vicarage ? " she asked presently. . " Yes. I remembered." " That's right, dear. How was the baby ? " " Better." "That's right. Did you see anyone in the village?" " Only Dr. Hollyer." " With the new mare ? " " I think so." " The Buntings' invitation came by the second post. It's to be a garden party after all." " Must I come ? " " My dear child ! What a question ! " When Mrs. Druce rose from thanksgiving, she remarked in her church monotone : " The carriage is ordered for three o'clock. Be quite ready for the drive, please, dear." " Poor mother, I'll be ready to a glove-button, I promise," said Eva, with a laugh. She had luckily never realised the tribulation of these daily drives in the brougham (there was only one carriage, so utility decided it a brougham,) the thick smell of the leather, the dull rumbling, like an artificial headache.

It had become a natural law to her. She hummed to herself quite happily as she put on her things upstairs in her own room. It was the only room in the house that had a touch of individuality. Something in its effect suggested a cloister. There was one high window with a short grey curtain ; a narrow, straight white bed ; the simplest furniture. No efforts at banal ornamentation, no Japaneseries, no pretensions. A bookshelf with curtains of faded silk ran round the walls, and half-a-dozen engravings (the subjects religious or romantic) hung above. There was a bowl of wild flowers on the mantelshelf. The whole was sweetly spotless — suggestive of virginal asceticism. To Mrs. Druce it seemed a temple of discomfort, but, as she said, the taste was an inexpensive and a harmless one, and therefore not worth correcting.

Goodness knew that she was not responsible for these fads. And any one remembering anything of Mrs. Druce's earlier history and surroundings would have known it too. That is, she was only responsible for them, inasmuch as she had married a Corona. She came of a wealthy and respected Manchester family. Her father, Richard Rowe, having re tired early from a flourishing business which was left in the competent hands of his son, Maynard Rowe, was able to indulge his long-starved taste for foreign travel. His two daughters accompanied him with a view to culture and foreign languages. When Agnes, the elder of the two, was twenty eight, slightly embittered, and not more attractive, naturally, than she had been at seventeen, she met her fate, surprisingly enough, during a winter spent in Genoa. At the house of an English friend there she made the acquaintance of one Luigi Corona, the son of a Genoese lawyer (then and usually in difficulties).

Young Corona was amiable and weakly good-looking, and made no secret of his indigence. His creed, and the creed of his people was, briefly, the Madonna and English money. He had been refused by a plain American girl who did not appreciate his attentions, and by an English girl who did, but who had a mother with plans of her own. To Agnes Rowe his attentions were a genuine surprise. His proposal, by neatly worded letter, was a thunderclap. Richard Rowe demurred. The diversity of religion disturbed him. But his daughter's timorous desire for a despaired-of happiness touched him, and his in quiries with regard to the young man brought no evil to light, beyond a certain religious laxity, which he could pardon in a Catholic. Of long and painful scenes between Luigi and his cousin, the priest, nothing was allowed to reach Mr. Rowe's ears.

Corona conducted his suit with much tact and some taste, and the marriage took place, after a short engagement, at the Protestant and at the Catholic churches. Eva was christened at the Protestant church (by special clause) a year later. Corona adored the child. All that inclined to the good in his poor paltry character was brought to the surface by his worship of her. From the time that she ceased to be, in his uncomprehending eyes, a mere collection of embroideries and troubles, he had devoted himself to her utterly. Because she was his shadow, and had so shadowy a little body, he called her " Ombra mia." She reminded him, to tears, of his sister Leonora, who had died of consumption at the age of nineteen — a beautiful ghost. The Coronas were a shortlived family. Luigi Corona died when Eva was five years old.

It was the agony of leaving her that made his death-bed such a scene of abject lamentation. They could hardly tear her out of his arms when they heard the last sound. He had expressed a desire that his wife should keep the child in Genoa, near his own people. But Mrs. Corona arranged other wise. She had always been super-reserved on all domestic subjects, and even her own people could never guess whether her marriage and life in Italy had been a happiness or a regret. They could only divine the truth now, when she decided to return to England without more delay than was demanded by decency. And a year and a half after her return she married again. " Out of sheer improbability," as her sister-in law remarked, " simply because it was such a marvel that she should have married once." Her second husband — Edgar Druce — was a crumbling widower, who sadly missed his first nurse until he married a second ; also a rigid Evan gelical, so that her conscience was thoroughly healed.

He left her eight hundred pounds per annum (which doubled her own income), and the desirable freehold property of Springfields. Eva could just dimly remember those first years in Eng land, and the horror of them. She had pined for her beloved old nurse, Assunta, and the grey of the British sky was misery to her. And then she had conceived a terror of poor old Druce ; he had seized on her imagination as a mysterious grey suffering thing that made no noise. He had an unfortunate hand with children, and became her nightmare. She was overjoyed when he was gone, till her new nurse from Weldon village told her how wicked it was not to grieve for him, and so turned her relief into religious remorse. Then came the school-room days : Fraulein Klingel and a world of large maps. Fraulein Klingel came from Breslau with a thorough know ledge of her duties and three languages, hideous brown alpaca clothing, neuralgic tendencies, and an embittered temperament.

Poor Eva tried to like her very much indeed. But it was useless. There was no point of contact. Those years seemed like centuries — an endless vista of musty books, and close atmosphere (open windows might enhance neuralgia) and regulation walks, and ink spots and monotonous food, and tears. A little yellowish photograph taken at this time, and marked " Eva Corona, aged 95," showed her as a narrow, peaky child, with a pointed chin and enormous eyes, and a long plait hanging over her shoulder. Almost plain as far as form went, but already then with an expression of sweetness beyond description — the same expression that made her beautiful now. In figure she was still too delicate, though the charm of just proportion and great promise was there. She stooped a little, and for this reason her " studies " had been stopped two years ago.

It was then that she began to enjoy learning. The library downstairs had been intelligently stocked by old Druce in his animate days. Up in her own room she kept the books that she had her self collected, and the few volumes that had belonged to her father — chiefly Italian these. She liked to read in them from time to time. From her father she had also inherited, by his special wish, some old Italian instruments, very quaint in shape and faded ornamentation. They had been kept for some years in a wooden case in the box-room. Her discovery of them had been joy unspeakable. She had arranged them, all but one, over the little writing-table by the window. This one exception was a lute, the most beautiful of all in design. She had replaced the broken strings with new ones, and had taught herself to play on them in accompaniment to fragments of old Italian airs that she remembered.

This lute, with its deep, far-away tone, possessed in her imagina tion a weird personality mysteriously connected with her own, an other-world superstition that lingered in her blood. Mrs. Druce objected to this lute as " a sad-sounding old thing," so Eva mostly played when she was alone. She played in out-of the-way corners of the garden, in hidden depths of the Weldon woods, in the hollow of her favourite oak tree there. Now, when she had finished dressing and heard the brougham scrunch up the gravel drive, she touched the lute in going out, and childishly said, " Good-bye, dear."

Chapter II

Mr. Maynard Rowe was sitting on the little landing-stage at the bottom of his garden. His figure, in the abandon of white flannels, looked more comfortable than elegant. He was smoking. His straw hat was tilted well over his eyes, to shade them as he read desultorily in a book which he was careful not to leave about — when he could think of it. Now and then he stared uninterestedly at some passing boat, the occupants of which returned the stare with that frank naivete and concen tration which would not be tolerated for a moment anywhere but on the River, where it seems to be taken for granted. As he did not move a muscle of his face when a woman presently joined him, their relationship was to be divined. It became a certainty when she threw an open letter on his book and remarked : " Short line from Dora Waterhouse.

She can't come." After which, she leaned her elbows on the little wooden rail and gazed into the water. Seen from the river she probably looked young and pretty, with her white gown and red sunshade against the slope of the green lawn. Her figure was youthful, and she was fair. More closely observed, she looked what she was, thirty-seven and nerve-worn, but exquisitely stacked up by competent hands, and decidedly clever in a small, irresponsible feminine way. " Well, it don't much matter, does it ? " said her husband, typically. " Not the least," said Mrs. Rowe, with stiffened eyebrows. " It's only as hateful as possible." " Why ? I didn't know " " Don't be irritating and unsympathetic, Maynard. It spoils my house party for the two best weeks in August — that's all." "Get some one else " "You know very well that the people who can come at a moment's notice at this time of the year are simply not worth asking."

" Oh ! " Rowe returned to his book. Mrs. Rowe looked irritably at her shoe-tips. " I wanted a nice girl for Linley. Then Grace Willingham would keep Seaford amused " " Hardly amused." "Well, in mischief, at all events; and I shouldn't have to exert myself to exhaustion, as I had to do last year with the Campton girls — dead-weights ! " " I wouldn't trouble about Lin. He's of the stuff that bachelors are made of." " Nonsense." Linley Wygall was first cousin to Mrs. Rowe, and she reckoned him among her responsibilities, more especially as he himself had a lack of initiative born of a small income and the consciousness of external disadvantages. " Where is he now, by the way ? " she added, remembering that she had not seen him to-day. It was past one o'clock, but she had not long left her bedroom.

She was a bad sleeper. " Said he'd punt Miss Wellingham up-stream till lunch -time." He took out his watch. " It's nearly that now, thank goodness." A moment later the punt rounded the bend of the river. A figure waved a hand from the pile of scarlet cushions. It was Miss Wellingham. When she landed, presently, and gave a little conscious stretch, you could see what a particularly superb figure it was. The careful simplicity of her thin muslin blouse had all the effect that it was intended to have. She was a Bond Street Juno, hyper- English, aristocratic, and classic, all at once. The face was proportionately handsome. Large lazy eyes, the skin of an infant (and of the unintellectual), hair of the very latest fashion, a creation to equally inspire the painter and the dressmaker. " It's bakin' hot in the sun," she was saying, " I shall get sunburnt — I know I shall.

We got about half way to Marlowe and there was hardly any shade, was there, Mr. Wygall ? " The voice and the manner were a shock. But it was doubtful to many whether her defects really mattered, since she fulfilled her social duties so admirably in her appearance, forcing even those who scorned " that sort of beauty " to concede the very broadest but. When she put her arm through Mrs. Rowe's and they strolled up to the house together, Mrs. Rowe looked curiously tawdry and artificial by com parison. Linley Wygall followed with Rowe. He had the expansive air of a man who has done his duty. He was always obliged to be very carefully polite to Miss Wellingham as a safeguard against being very much the reverse. He had the fastidious tastes of the self-cultured, and she jarred on them. He was probably just as distasteful to her.

His quiet, self-possessed voice and steady grey eyes carried an air of dispassionate criticism which was cheapening. And he was plain, too, in an unin teresting way ; had ordinary rounded features, only just escaped being short, and wore a humbly drooping moustache and rather bad clothes. Mrs. Rowe, who saw everything, had explained to Miss Wellingham that he was a cousin, you know, and really a dear, though he was a little difficult to get on with just at first, perhaps. And to Linley that she must confess to having asked Grace Wellingham chiefly pour faire bien dans le paysage, and to amuse Seaford, who was coming in a day or two. Her mother, the widowed Lady Wellingham of Half Moon Street, Mayfair, was an old friend of Maynard's too. Personally, she had added, the girl bored her to tears.

Mrs. Rowe was easily bored. Even Linley, for whom she had a real liking and respect, never put her in her best spirits. She was looking forward to Seaford for that, and meanwhile allowed herself to flag. To-day she was worried by the disturbance in her house-party arrangements. And then people had dropped in during the afternoon and stayed too long, and tired her out. " Baker," she remarked suddenly as that lady was dressing her (and Truefitt's) hair for dinner later on, " I look fifty. I cannot manage in the country any longer — and these long days will be the death of me. You never can have the lights brought in till it's time to go to bed — when your whole appearance depends on them. When do the days begin to shorten again, Baker ? I always forget." " I'm a bad one at puzzlesem," said Baker, who was tacitly allowed the use of her humour, such as it was.

" But you're shore to look well in the new bluem — suits you to perfection, blue does." " It won't matter anyhow. I've got one of my yawning fits coming on. I feel it. I shall come up early to-night, Baker." Being ready before eight o'clock, she went into her husband's dressing-room and sat down there. "Tired?" he asked, with as much interest as could be spared from a white tie. " Slight headache," said Mrs. Rowe. " Those people bored me. Never mind. I forgot to tell you that I had a letter from Agnes this afternoon. She wants the address of a seedsman, or some thing." Rowe grunted. "An address is one of the few things I don't mind giving her," he said. His sister, Mrs. Druce, was not a favourite topic with him. In fact, he had lived on the extreme edge of a quarrel with Agnes until marriage separated them, and he still considered intercourse a danger.

Her mode of life, from religious convic tions to antimacassars, was abhorrent to him. They seldom met now. Mrs. Rowe obliged herself to fulfil such duties as the kinship demanded — an occasional, very occasional — one-afternoon visit to Springfields, without pre-arrangement, and now and then an invitation to town when the risk of its being accepted seemed remote. But on her last visit her point of view had undergone altera tions. It chanced that she had not seen Eva for more than a year and a half. She was just about to end her call, again without having seen her, when the girl had come in from a walk, and Mrs. Rowe had found herself staying on in sheer amazement. She had a theory that girls of that age, and in that section of society, were either offensively shy, or else inclined to little vulgarities (in the social sense of the word) — vulgarities of manner, speech, appearance even, which might probably recur to their riper minds with some anguish.

Eva had struck her as shy, certainly, but with a peculiar sylvan shyness rather than with the kangaroo awkwardness that she had ex pected. In fact, Mrs. Rowe had brought away the impression that her niece had unfairly developed an individuality for which even the most acute could not have been prepared. " Oddly enough, I had been thinking about Eva only to-day," she went on. " Do you know, I've a good mind to have the girl down here for a couple of days, ' on appro.,' as the shops say. She might do instead of Dora Waterhouse." " That child ? " "My dear, she's about eighteen, and looked like a Burne-Jones, or a Rossetti, when I saw her last. I told you at the time. And I believe she plays the guitar, or something, and sings charmingly." "Lord!" "She might be quite a hit, if her clothes are not too impossible.

Shouldn't wonder if Linley liked her, with his foible for quiet people. And I'm frightfully sorry for her." " So am I, heaven knows ! " " It's a bit risky, of course," reflectively. "So I should say," decisively. "She'll incur Agnes." " Not in the least." " Well, do as you like." After dinner, Rowe and Grace Wellingham played billiards. Linley was marker. Mrs. Rowe left the billiard-room after a while on account of the smoke, which increased her headache. She dawdled into the drawing-room, sipped her coffee, yawned, altered the position of one or two of the thousand ornaments, and then swept suddenly to her desk, and wrote : " My dear Agnes, " The address is Plover's, The Hatch, near Leatherhead, and Maynard says they are excellent. " I had hoped to be able to drive down and see B you before leaving town for ' Monabri,' but alas ! was always prevented by my health or some tire some duty.

One of my chief reasons for wishing to come was a hope that I might be able to induce you to let me carry off Eva for a few days this summer. Maynard and I know her so little ; we should much like to know her better. This is a very healthy spot — we live out of doors. " I would not press you to let us keep her for more than three or four days, knowing how much you would miss her." She paused ; then went on : " I need hardly add how careful I should be to bear in mind her age and its impressionability , and to think of her moral as well as her bodily welfare whilst she is with us." She read this over with a downward smile. " Serve her right," she said to herself, " She's the sort that manufactures hypocrites. Tiresome old frump." Then on again. " I suggest the fourteenth or fifteenth of this month (next Tuesday or Wednesday), but can alter the date if this should not suit.

" Ever, my dear Agnes, your affectionate sister, "Molly Rowe." She felt that this bit of diplomacy added greatly to her chances of success. Mrs. Druce's moral attitude towards her brother's menage had been manifested on one or two unpleasurable occa sions. " And, after all," she consoled herself, " it's doing the girl a kindness." As she wrote, she had had visions of Eva kneel ing in that unspeakable dining-room at Spring fields, with Mrs. Druce, all red shawl and front teeth, reading the family prayers. As a matter of fact, at the moment when Mrs. Rowe took up her pen to write that letter, it chanced that Eva, in her little grey room, took up her lute to restore a broken string — a task per formed always with a certain pensiveness since, in the religion of the old lute, a broken string signi fied a broken thread in her destiny.

Chapter III

" I've been waiting to see, my dear Clay, how long it would take you to find out that your smoke is blowing in my face, and that I'm not loving it," Mrs. Rowe was saying. Seaford sprang to his feet, laughed, apologised, and creaked into the wicker chair on her other side. They were sitting on the white trellised verandah that runs along the whole front of Monabri. Eva had been pouring out the tea for Mrs. Rowe (she did most things for Mrs. Rowe just now), and was looking riverwards at nothing in particular. The tea-table had not yet been removed. The setting sun made blinding spots of light on the silver, and little glories on the gilt rims of the cups. Mrs. Rowe, under her red parasol, glowed in a less searching sunset-effect of her own. " How shall I punish myself ? " said Seaford. " Ve — e — ry leniently, if we leave it to you, I should say.

Do you know, I sometimes think that respect for our poor, dear sex is not among your brilliant characteristics, Clay ? " "Libel!" laughed Seaford (it was fortunate that his laugh was a delightful one, for it was apt to be frequent). " Libel, every bit of it ! " "Who was it that said that great respect often forfeited respect ? " said Mrs. Rowe. " It was any one but me." " Mere chance. But you can't help yourself. You belong to an age which encourages contempt for all things visible and invisible, including us, I suppose. Personally, I believe clothes have a great deal to do with it. Chivalry requires a certain setting. You can't do heroic things in a silk hat, for instance. Clothes have an immense effect on the morale, and it isn't nearly enough recognised. I have a yellow satin, for instance, in which I could commit crimes with ease, I'm certain ; and, oh ! a blue muslin which nearly takes me to heaven without the preliminaries.

I maintain that the clothes of the day — I mean men's clothes — are the reason why this century makes love so — so tire somely." " Who makes love tiresomely ? " said Miss Wellingham, strolling up at this point with one of Rowe's novels under her arm (he had left it in the punt). "All men, according to Mrs. Rowe," said Sea ford. " We're starting a new theory." " I don't agree with it," said Miss Wellingham, looking at Seaford, who returned the look. They were old acquaintances, had much the same set in London, and had already met this summer at his married sister's house in Surrey. " I should like to collect experiences on this head," said Seaford, with mock seriousness. " It might be interesting to hear the various pros and cons— especially the cons. Mrs. Rowe, will you kindly begin ? " There was a laugh.