Winifred Mount. A novel ... New edition

Chapter I If

happiness be as evenly distributed as some men would have us think, then must Wini fred Mount hold her physical attractions, and such trifling consolations as that she was well fed, well clothed, well housed in the light of com pensations for the dull monotony of the life that was hers up to her eighteenth year. Other girls went home for the holidays, and returned to school bringing with them accounts of the outer world of which Winifred knew so little. Thus at second hand she learnt something of places where dis cipline and use made way for freedom and beauty. What other knowledge she had of the world was gathered from books. And the books, while they were a delight in themselves, were the source of A her discontent. They were for her the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and she knew the dreariness of her lot.

They told her that she was in prison, that her prison was narrow, and that the world, of which she could see but a meagre slice as she gazed with longing and wondering eyes through the straight and barred windows of her prison-house, was broad and sunny and decked with flowers which should be hers to pluck. Others plucked them and showed her bunches of sweet blossoms. Agatha Twine, a strange girl, whose hysterical tendencies had showed themselves indirectly in a lack of interest in all that surrounded her at home, here at Choseville, to which she had been sent by the advice of a doctor, was never tired of talking to Winifred of country life ; of horses and hunting ; of autumn woods and the sound of the gun ; of lunches with the shooters in old farm houses ; of the coming and the going of guests, and of the thousand things that make up the daily round of easy and prosperous country life.

Elsie Luttrell told her of London. ' Your life is the same — the life of you two,' she said to these girls. 'You meet at each other's houses. You map out your lime so that all of it is filled.' ' Are you sure you haven't any relations, Wini fred?' ' My father,' said Winifred. 'But you must have other relations — aunts, I mean (we all have aunts !), and cousins, and — and things of that sort." ' I don't know of any — things of that sort,' said Winifred. She did not smile. The topic was one of frequent discussion. ' Winifred will turn out to be a princess,' said the London girl merrily. 'You have probably been put here for family reasons, and when you are grown up — quite grown up, I mean — they will be removed, they always are half-way through the book, and you will be received back into your kingdom.' ' I used to expect something once,' said Winifred, ' but I have given up hoping for anything.' She looked up at the schoolhouse as she spoke.

Her prison did not look uncheerful with the sun blazing upon its green shutters. One of the younger girls was swinging in the garden. At a certain point the child swung out of the shade of the trees, and then her hair made a flash of gold which caught Winifred's attention. She was watching for it when her friend spoke again. ' Madame de Valois must know.' ' She knows as little as I do.' ' But you have been with her almost your whole life. She must know something.' ' I don't think she knows more than she has told me for all that. I was talking to her again the other day. She doesn't think that my father can be poor, because he has paid her very well for me — " handsomely " was her word.' 'I am sure Madame de Valois' word was " 'anseumly," ' said Elsie Luttrell the London girl. She mimicked the voice and face of the school mistress as she spoke, and Agatha Twine the country-house girl laughed.

Madame de Valois herself crossed the garden at this moment. 'You amuse yourselves, mesdemoiselles. That is right. Miss Luttrell, your music lesson at four, remember. Your hat Winifred, the sun, your complexion!' Madame de Valois had a passion for giving directions. ' It doesn't matter much about that, madame,' said Winifred. ' My dear, some day you think differently.' She passed on down the path, and for five minutes the girls could see her blue shawl among the shrubs and flowers before it disappeared into the house. ' She's not a bad old thing,' said Elsie. ' Look, girls : " Some day you tink differently." ' In a moment Miss Luttrell's face had twisted itself into a resemblance to that of Madame de Valois. The likeness was creditably recognisable, and Agatha and Winifred laughed. There was something that was beguiling in the expression of Winifred's face when merriment took the discontented curl from her lips.

The key note of her life at the period it had reached was dissatisfaction, and the look of protest and mutiny which her features so often wore threatened to be come habitual. This disappeared, however, com pletely when she laughed, and the potential lisht-heartedness of her nature revealed itself. She was cramped in her narrow surround ings. Elsie ought to have been an actress,' said Agatha presently ; ' oughtn't she, Winifred ? ' 'There isn't the least occasion for that,' said Winifred. 'You take to the stage as a way of escape from yourself, or to use it as an outlet — just as a certain type of school-girl writes poetry. You don't want an escape from yourself if you are lucky enough to live a large life. Elsie's lot is cast in very pleasant places, and she will find plenty of scope for acting there.' Elsie, beginning to laugh, was on the point of saying that Winifred spoke like a book, when something in the speaker's face caused her to be less frivolous. ' I don't know about the large life,' she said instead. ' What do you call a large life, and how do you know that I am going to lead it ? ' Winifred ignored the interruption, and con tinued, — ' I believe that nine-tenths of the women that take to the stage do it for the reasons that — that will perhaps make me think of it some day as the one way of getting freedom.' ' Winifred,' said Agatha, primly.

Some English dancing girls had visited Chose ville recently, and the performance having been pronounced good of its kind, and harmless, Madame de Valois had taken a few of the older girls to see it. Elsie Luttrell had during the last holidays had a few lessons in skirt-dancing, but to Winifred the thing had all the charm of novelty. ' It is a way,' she said, ' and I have been thinking of it lately. I have been thinking of all the ways. I could dance like those girls.' She jumped up from her seat as she spoke, and, humming a waltz, she moved gracefully to the swaying measure of the air. She was supple, and controlled with sufficient accuracy the balance of her body. The lines of her figure were bold and noble. The promise of her beauty was unmistakable. Elsie Luttrell was moved to enthusiasm. ' I saw a photograph of Miss Boston, in the holidays — the American girl that everyone was talking about.

She is supposed to be lovely. She isn't a patch on you, Winifred.' Miss Mount did not reply. She finished her waltz. ' Whistle that whistling tune, Agatha — the thing Emmeline Blood heard at the Christie Ministrels.' ' Defendu,' said Miss Twine. ' I had a pe'nitence last week for whistling.' ' Well, then, Elsie,' said Winifred ; ' though I don't see, Agatha, why you should be afraid to break the rules when it is your last term.' Miss Luttrell without any ado began to whistle and Winifred began to dance. Agatha Twine listened and watched for a few moments in silence, and then composed her lips to an O and whistled too. Winifred's skirts swung out in the quicker movement of her steps. Her small feet played lightly on the smooth lawn. An expert would have seen that the scheme of the dance was unconsidered ; but the charm and the grace of it were patent, and potent too. ' I can't finish it,' she said, laughing. ' It ought to end up with a sort of stamp at the last note a sort of staccato step.

You know — ' 'And you ought to look at the audience with defiant self-approval, and with a sort of surprise at finding them there,' said Elsie Luttrell. ' You could do that — the defiance, I mean.' The self-approval too, thought Winifred, if she knew that her art was good ; but she did not say so. She had an idea that Agatha Twine would not have understood. Moreover, Agatha said at this moment, — ' What a lot of sorts ! A sort of stamp, a sort of staccato step, a sort of surprise.' ' Hear me sing a song of sorts,' cried Elsie, and with modestly lowered eyelids she gave a verse of one of those things that periodically drive London mad. The facial changes of expression from primness to unrestraint as she plunged into the refrain with a kick and a curious movement of her elbows was wonderful.

Madame de Valois would have been horrified, and Elsie's end-of-the age mother would have been delighted. ' How dreadful of you, Elsie,' said Agatha. Winifred said nothing for a few moments. She was looking at Elsie as if she saw her now for the first time. ' Why have you never done that before ? ' she asked when at last she spoke. Elsie shook her head. ' I have never been able to remember the tune,' she said, smiling. ' It only came into my head just now — quite suddenly.' When four o'clock struck Miss Luttrell said Bother, and went to her music lesson. Agatha looked after her. ' I hope Elsie will turn out well,' she said. ' How middle-aged of you,' said Winifred. There was a pause. Elsie had reached the house, and at the door she glanced back and gave once more the curious movement of her elbows.

Then she entered with downcast eyes and folded hands. ' I love Elsie,' said Winifred. ' I like her too,' said Agatha. There was another pause. ' Mamma doesn't care very much for her mother,' said Agatha then. ' She is a widow, and she en tertains a great deal. Mamma says she is socially successful.' ' Socially successful ? ' ' It means having your guests asked for you by someone else,' said Agatha. The sound of Miss Luttrell's inaccuracies on the piano came from a green-shuttered window. ' I love Elsie,' said Winifred again. ' She will never play,' said Agatha. 'She will never want to,' said Winifred. 'She has splendid health and splendid spirits. She will not have to go to music for consolation.' 'You look at things from such strange points of view,' said Agatha. ' You take everything as a weapon or a shelter or a — how shall I put it?

I can't quite express what I mean. You appear to look at life as a fight.' 'So it is,' said Winifred. At this period, and as the result of her unusual circumstances, her place in the world seemed to be that of a combatant. Her cynicism had come before its time, and there was therefore the hope that since it came not of maturity it might grow less persistent as years should pass. There was nothing in her actual life that was unhappy. Madame de Valois treated her with kindness and affection. She was liked by her companions, and, if some of them indeed stood in awe of her, there was not in the school one who did not secretly admire her. Yet her life seemed to lack every thing. ' We all have the right to be happy — an equal right,' she said presently. ' Don't you think it is an equal right?' She addressed Agatha, but she looked at the swing.

She had been looking at it for some moments before she saw that the golden-haired child had given place to a bigger girl, who sat clumsily in the seat, and whose black head gave out no flash of colour when the sun struck it. Agatha thought before she replied. The question had a Socialistic ring, and Agatha, by inherit ance, disapproved of Socialism. She had all the old views, so she fenced. ' It depends upon what is meant by happiness,' she said. Winifred knew that. She shrugged her shoulders. The conversation turned to other matters. The piano rattled on and presently ceased. Then Miss Luttrell made her appearance and joined her friends. * Agatha appealed to her on the question of happiness. ' Oh,' said Winifred, ' it doesn't matter. I don't know why I raised the point.' ' And I have no opinions,' cried Elsie merrily ; 'and I have done my practising, and I don't mean to do another thing for the rest of the day.

To what mischief can I lend my idle hands? Let us turn Black Alice out of the swing. Come, girls. Winifred, you will remember some day that I told you you were a princess, and would be re stored to your kingdom. It isn't as if you had done anything to forfeit your rights.' Winifred laughed. ' I have been here since I was three,' she said.

Chapter II Thus

stood three girls upon the threshold of life. Agatha Twine and Elsie Luttrell were leaving at the end of the term. Winifred was to remain, as she had remained year after year at the seasons that saw the breaking up of the school. It seemed to be her destiny — to stay behind. She set her teeth. ' I will write to you every week,' said Agatha. ' You must come and stay with us,' said Elsie. Both girls kissed her. The omnibus was at the door. All was con fusion and excitement and Winifred was outside it and apart. Girls ran up and down the stairs. Faces were flushed and eyes sparkled. Madame de Valois stood upon the steps and gave directions shrilly. She was rapidly reducing to a state of distraction bordering on frenzy the governess who was to convoy the home-going party. Miss Vance, cooling down in the train later on, and recovering some of her scattered wits, allowed to herself that there had been a moment at which she had not known a trunk from its owner, nor the seventeen tickets from an umbrella or a packet of sandwiches.

All had been shaken round in her head till selection and distribution were impossible. ' You have the money for the extra in the boat,' said Madame de Valois. ' Be sure you ask, and do not pay too much. Now, see that you have it right — the difference for the class. Of course I gave it to you. Are you dreaming, Miss Vance ? I think you are demented. Look in your purse, quick. You will miss the train. Where is your purse? Why, you put it in your bag yourself ; I saw you. There it is — now, count. Two, four, six, comme ca — and Alice Brown is not to stay on deck. You hear me — and she is to wear her coat all the time, and the muffler for her throat. And at Dover you are to ask which part of the train is for Victoria and which part for Charing Cross. You go yourself to Charing Cross, and you give the young ladies who go to Victoria into charge to the guard.

Now, you understand, and make no mistake. Now, look ! look ! You leave the tickets behind if you do that. Put them in your bag at once. And the money for baggage. Like that. And see that no one forgets her wraps. And if Nora Green is troublesome on the way you are to report her to me. Now, quick you must go. En venture, mesdemoiselles. Good bye all of you. Now, quick, or you miss the train. Where is Bertha Lane ? Quick ! ' The girls scrambled into the omnibus. Miss Vance, with flushed face and full hands and harassed eyes, followed her charges into the vehicle. She found presently that she had forgotten her own bundle of shawls, but she had not the courage to stop the driver and send back for it. Happily one of the servants discovered it in time to meet her with it at the station. The scene was repeated in all its details at the end of every term.

Winifred Mount, with a grim expression, watched the omnibus out of sight. She waved her handkerchief to Elsie Luttrell, but she did not smile. Madame de Valois gave a sigh of relief and turned into the house. Winifred went round into the empty garden. It looked inexpressibly empty. The silence, too, struck her with a sense of deser tion. She looked down the still paths. The swing did not move. Nothing moved. The day was grey. She looked up at the house. The shutters were all pushed back and the windows were open. Not a sign of life to be seen at one of them. She sat down moodily on the bench where she had sat with her two friends. They were on their way to their bright futures, these two girls, and she was left behind. Would nothing move in the empty garden ? The sight of Black Alice, the unpopular girl, in the swing would have been grateful.

Black Alice monopolised the swing. She turned the smaller girls out of it habitually, and she was heartily disliked amongst her schoolfellows, but Winifred would have welcomed even her. The solitude was horrible. Eight weeks of empty days must pass before the girls returned. Eight weeks of being alone. She shuddered at the thought, and the expression of sullenness deepened upon her face. There was the sound of an opening door, and Winifred looked round. It was Madame de Valois who approached her. Winifred rose to her feet from respectful custom, but she neither smiled nor did she advance to meet her. 'What would you like to do to-day?' said Madame de Valois kindly. ' I am sorry that I have no holiday amusements for you ; but we could drive this afternoon if you like ? ' ' If you wish it, madame,' said Winifred. ' But it is you, my dear.

It is for you.' ' I do not care,' said Winifred. ' My dear, I wanted to please you.' Madame de Valois' tone told Winifred that she had been ungracious. * It was kind of you to think of it,' she hastened to say. ' Madame, you must forgive me to-day' The schoolmistress laid a gentle hand upon her shoulder. ' My dear, I understand you.' It was then, and quite suddenly, that Winifred sank down upon the bench and covered her face with her hands. Winifred seldom wept. She had a pride that did not make tears come easily to her. Madame de Valois did not remember that she had ever seen her overcome before. She sat down beside her, and put her arms round her. ' How long is it to go on ? ' said Winifred, as soon as her sobbing could allow her to speak articulately. ' How long is it to go on ? Am I to be alone all my life?

Am I always to be left behind ? It is killing me. It is hardening me. What have I done ? ' She could not control herself. She was shaken by the passion of tears that possessed her. Her beautiful young body was convulsed. Madame de Valois did not try to stay the outburst. It scarcely surprised her, for she was not unobser vant, and she had known that sooner or later the forces which she had seen at work in Winifred must lead to an outward expression of her revolt. She had long foreseen the effect upon a thinking B and passionate nature of the life of exile to which the girl had been condemned. She had, of course, her own conjectures as to the probable reason for this exile, but, as Winifred supposed, she was ignorant as the girl herself of the actual facts of the case. So long as Winifred was a child she had taken her lot as her lot with little question.

She had been content with such information as Madame de Valois could give her. She knew that her circumstances were different from those of other girls, and she accepted the contrast without com bating its justice. She even derived a certain satisfaction from its mystery. She knew that she had a father, but that she never wrote to him. Madame de Valois had told her that, in accord ance with his wishes, as expressed in the instructions which he had given to her, his daughter was not to communicate with him. For many years this sufficed for Winifred. She was kindly treated, she had all that she wanted in the way of clothes and pocket-money, and if she had not the amusements of other girls, she had never had them, and therefore could not miss them. But time had opened her eyes. It was inevit able.

Madame de Valois had known that the day must come when Winifred would demand the explanation which it would not be in her power to give. She had indeed told her all that she knew. For long now had she watched the deepening mutiny of Winifred's expression. A thousand chance words, or gestures, had prepared her for the storm that was brewing. Her affection for her pupil was real and warm, and she saw her discontent and unhappiness with concern. ' My dear,' she said softly, ' my dear.' She kissed the silky hair. How beautiful it was, and how long. It was rich in colour and luxurious, and it had waves and undulations that no hair dresser's art could have achieved. Moreover, it had a lustre of which even the grey day with the low clouds could not rob it. After a time Winifred recovered her self-control. ' I am going to write to my father,' she said.

She spoke very quietly. Madame de Valois was perhaps prepared for some active step for she made no protest. Wini fred was surprised. In her present mood opposi tion would not have been without a certain attraction for her. It would have strengthened her determination. She had expected to have to fight for permission to carry out her project. She had half wished indeed that the permission would be refused, and that she would have the opportunity of taking the law into her own hands. She was in a frame of mind for open rebellion. As Madame de Valois did not gainsay her, she proceeded. ' I am going to demand to go home. Why should I be left here year after year as if I belonged to nobody ? It is unjust. I have stood the neglect of my father long enough. I am seventeen now. I am at the age when girls leave school, and I am going to force my father to acknowledge me.' Winifred spoke without vehemence as yet, but the trembling of her hand told how great was the effort to maintain her composure.

Madame de Valois still preserved her silence. In truth, she did not know how to reply. When, at length, she answered it was with a warning that acted as an irritant to Winifred's strained nerves. ' I cannot prevent your writing. I have your father's instructions that he does not wish to hear from you ; but if you demand his address I do not see that I can withhold it. But have a care, my dear, have a care. You may bring upon yourself some knowledge which had best be kept from you.' ' What do you mean, madame ? ' ' I know nothing. There must be reasons, family reasons. ... I cannot tell. You would not under stand . . .' ' I think I should understand,' said Winifred. ' I think I know what you mean. I am not a child, and, in any case, it is for girls situated as I am to know things before their time.

Such knowledge can be kept from happier girls.' Madame de Valois looked at her in amaze ment. ' And if I am what you think — and I don't care if I am. I don't care ! I don't care ! I don't care ! — then it seems to me that my claims upon my father are but ten times greater.' 'Winifred!' Madame de Valois could say nothing else. ' Why should I care ? ' said Winifred, more quietly. ' If it is true it is not my fault. There may be children who will accept the punishment of the sins of their fathers, but I am not one of them. If what you think is the real explanation of my circumstances, then I refuse to allow it to affect my life. I refuse, that is all. I am as good as girls more happily born. I am not to be trampled on. I want life, and I will have it. I will have it.' Madame de Valois could only look at Winifred and gasp.

She had no words to meet the philosophy of this girl, who, shut away from the outer world, had somehow absorbed the modern spirit. That this development should have proceeded un observed under her very eyes was matter enough for surprise, but that Winifred's views and attitude should symbolise those of the most-advanced tendencies of latter day civilisation was matter for a further wonder still. She had then never known this girl who had grown up beside her and in her care. In the light of the knowledge that had just been vouchsafed to her she could only marvel, too, at the recent tears. Such independence of circumstances as Winifred had just shown seemed at first incompatible with the exhibition of the weaker emotions. Subsequent thought, however, made both phases of feeling intelligible to her.

The greyness of the day began to lift. An aperture in the veil of cloud allowed a glimpse of bluest sky behind. The sun struggled out presently and gilded half the world. The flowers and trees asserted their colours. The greens and reds were most vivid. Some points of glass or pebble sparkled like diamonds in the brown soil of a bed. Winefred looked down the garden and noted absently the change in the day. The sunlight against a dark background of cloud was brilliant, and insisted on a comparison to gold. Birds which had been twittering began to sing. A tortoiseshell cat came daintily towards Madame de Valois and rubbed itself luxuriously against her knees. Presently it stretched itself in the sunlight on the grass at her feet. The yellow eyes of the animal gleamed. The pause which succeeded Winifred's words seemed likely to last Madame broke the silence. ' My dear, you shall write to your father.

I do not think that I should be justified in preventing you. I will write to him myself and tell him this. I have hitherto followed implicitly his instructions, but it is true what you say ; you are no more a child. I have known it for long, and yet it seems to me as if to-day for the first time I grasp the meaning. My dear, we must jump to no con clusions. Part of what has been said to-day, I shall never cease to regret — never ! ' ' I regret nothing that has been said,' said Wini fred. ' I mean to face things through life. I wish tilings to face me. I want to see clearly. Above all, I want to face the unalterable.'

Chapter III Winifred

made two beginnings to her letter : ' My dear father,' ' Dear father,' and rejected them for a third which was allowed to stand. The letter that was posted ran thus : — 1 Maison Rouge, Choseville, 'France, \_th July. ' Father, — Though I know from Madame de Valois that it is your wish that I should not com municate with you, I have made up my mind to write to you. The restrictions that you imposed upon me as a child can no longer bind me. I suppose that the relations between father and daughter were never more curious than in our case. I do not know you. If I have ever had any recollection of you, and it seems to me that in the early days I had some vague remembrance of you, time has entirely effaced it. I don't know whether you are old or young. I don't know whether I have any relations but yourself.

All that I know is, that for more than fourteen years you have ignored my existence. My mother I have been told is dead ; but in the general un certainty of all that concerns me I know nothing more about her. Was injustice ever greater than this ! I live, and you are responsible for my life. I ask you, in common fairness, to think of this. I cannot tell how you will receive this letter. I am writing as I feeL Remember that I am as one in the dark. If I knew you I might express myself differently. I cannot tell ; and so I put down facts baldly. There may be circumstances which, if I knew them, would throw a new light upon your treatment of me. In my ignorance you must forgive me if I have only seen it as harsh. Father, I could love you, and there are moments when I hate you. Shall I cross that out or leave it?