The Celebrity at Home

I couldn’t help thinking of a real country girl like Almeria Hermyre, when Ariadne put this confection on for the first time in the privateness of our bedroom. It was brown tweed turned up with “real cow” as Ben said; there is even a piece of leather stitched on to her shoulder where she is to rest her gun. Ariadne, who once pulled one leg, that I daresay he could easily spare, off a daddy-long-legs, and considered herself little better than a murderer!

Ben, who was present at this private view, did not like her in it, and told her so. He is so truthful that he never waits to be asked his opinion. So long as he didn’t tease her about Simon Hermyre, it did not matter, but he is quite a gentleman, though rough. Indeed, nobody mentioned Simon, though I could not help thinking of him a good deal in connection with Ariadne’s new dress. I was sure we should see him somewhere in Northumberland. It isn’t as big as America, and where there is even a faint will there is generally a way. Ariadne was thinking of him when she bought a billycock hat on purpose to stick in a moorcock’s wing Simon had once given her that he had shot. I did not interfere, for I thought if he saw her in it he might think some other fellow had given her a moorcock’s feather; there are plenty of them about, and plenty of fools to shoot them.

I myself did not make much preparation. Just a new elastic to my hat, and new laces to my boots. How delightful it is to care for no man! How it simplifies life! All this bother about Ariadne has choked me off love for a long while to come. I don’t care if it never comes my way at all. But I am only fourteen, and have not got the place in my head ready for it yet, anyway. I don’t believe that Love is a woman’s whole existence any more than it is a man’s. We are like ships, made in water-tight compartments, so that if something goes wrong with one compartment the whole concern isn’t done for. Until I am old enough to set a whole compartment aside for Love, I can be easy and watch the others wallowing. Life is one huge party to me, and the girls who are not out yet watching it through the bannisters and getting a taste of the ices now and then.

I don’t study dinners at home, we have never given one in Cinque Cento House. George entertains a good deal at the Club, when he can get Lady Scilly or some one like that to play hostess and give the signal to rise for him, a thing, somehow, that no man ever seems capable of doing for himself.

Mother and Aunt Gerty saw us off for Morpeth, at Whitby station. Aunt Gerty looked far more excited than just seeing a couple of nieces off could make her, and I soon saw the reason of it, Mr. Bowser was leaving by the same train! He went first-class of course, which was annoying for Aunt Gerty, as that made him be at the other end of the train, too far off to see how prettily she kissed her nieces good-bye, and bought them Funny Bits and chocolate creams. We got the creams anyhow. Children often profit by their elders’ foolish fancies.

Mother wouldn’t even let us kiss her out of the carriage-window for fear the train started and we got dragged out, and sure enough we did go on suddenly, in that slidy, masterful way trains have. I have a particular affinity to trains. My great-grandfather built an engine and had it called after him. When he was dying, he was taken in his chair to where the Great Northern trains pass every day, and drew his last breath as the Scotch Express rattled by.

To return. I noticed that Aunt Gerty looked awfully pleased about something, and kept sticking her hip out in an engaging way she has, and I concluded that Mr. Bowser had at last spotted her and thrown her an encouraging nod, perhaps blown her a kiss, only he is perhaps not quite low enough for that? But whatever it was, it made her happy. Oh, if they only could all get the man they want at the time they want him, what a nice place the world would be, for children at any rate! All grown-up people’s tempers come because they can’t get what they want. And here was I, boxed up with one who hadn’t got what she wanted, for a whole blessed day! She was simply weltering in love, if I may say so. She had a penny note-book ready to write poetry in, and meant to dream and write and cry for four hours. I had a nice improper six-penny of my Aunt Gerty’s, but I scarcely hoped that Ariadne would allow me to enjoy it.

Of course not. She soon began bothering. As soon as we were properly started, she pulled up her thousand times too thick veil, badly put on—Ariadne is too simple ever to learn to put on a veil properly as other women do—and looked hard at herself in her pocket looking-glass, and sighed and settled her loose tendril and unsettled it, and pinched her cheek to massage it and restore the subcutaneous deposit the doctor had told her about. She seemed hopeless and sad, for presently she said—

“No, I am not looking beautiful to-day!”

A pretty white tear, like a pearl button, shook on her eyelashes, and I wondered how long she could keep it hanging there? I do believe she was anxious to look nice because she had an idea she might see Simon at Morpeth. But one never does see people at stations, and personally, I think that Ariadne would be far prettier if she didn’t know she was pretty. It is most unkind and inconsiderate of her so-called friends to keep telling her so. It is just like our horrid lot. In Simon’s set, they would die sooner than pay a girl a compliment to her face. But she has got so hardened to it that I always have to take her down gently, so as not to hurt her, same as one does with invalids.

“It doesn’t matter how you look,” I said, “there is nobody but porters to see you, and you don’t want to mash them and distract them from their work and make them get the points all wrong. I should have thought you preferred being alone. You can write in your book. Let us do George’s dodge, and stand at the window whenever we come into a station and look as repulsive as we can.”

George likes to keep the carriage all to himself, and taught us what to do to secure it, the only time he ever travelled with us. We made a prominent object of Ben, very sticky with lollipops, and managed to be by ourselves all the way.

Ariadne was unwilling to do this now. She sat still in her corner and brooded, and that did just as well, for the would-be passengers looked in and saw her, and made up their minds that she was recovering from scarlet fever, or at least measles. I stood in the window, squarely, and looked ugly for two. I was interested in the country. It is quite hideous between Whitby and Morpeth. The reason is that it is an industrial centre. I began to wish that our eating (kitchen boilers) and keeping warm (coal) didn’t mean so many people having to live black, and whole counties in a blanket of smoke. I don’t think I approve of civilization, if this is what it comes out of?

When the train slowed down at Morpeth, I could not help calling out to Ariadne, “I told you so!” for there was Christina Ball in a muslin dress, with a soft floppy chiffon hat and no veil at all. She was sitting in a little pony-cart, with an ugly child that couldn’t be hers; we saw her from the train. It was a shock to Ariadne, and she was wild to get our box into the cloak-room first and unlock it and get out one of her old dresses. But how could she dress in the waiting-room? And besides, she would be certain to muddle the next thing I told her (and so she did).

We got out of the station and into the trap. Christina had a new pony and couldn’t get down—and it was arranged that our luggage was to come on by carrier, as our wicker trunk would be sure to scratch the smart new dog-cart.

Off we went, I thought, and I am sure Ariadne thought, a little too like the wind. But Ariadne wanted to appear at ease, and casual and countrified, so she pretended to take an interest in the scenery, and said to Christina, “Look at the lovely tone of that verdigris on the pond!”

The ugly child twitched her feet under the rug beside me; she said nothing, but looked it.

“Oh, the duck-weed!” said Christina, who knows Ariadne too well to be amused by anything she says. “Miss Emerson Tree here—allow me to introduce Peter’s American niece, Miss Jane Emerson Tree—calls it the ‘stagnance.’”

The ugly child still didn’t say anything, though “stagnance” was just as absurd a word for mildew on a pond as verdigris, and I began to be quite afraid of one who, though so young, didn’t seem to want to fly out. She turned half round though, and seemed to be staring hard at the body of Ariadne’s shooting dress with its patch on the left shoulder. Christina went on enlightening us about the country and telling us the sort of things we were likely to ask and make fools of ourselves about. I do believe she was afraid of our saying something specially silly before Jane Emerson Tree, and wanted to save us from ourselves.

It came at last, and Ariadne nearly toppled out of the cart. The ugly child spoke in the most strong American accent, and the way she leant upon the last syllable of the word despise was the nastiest thing I ever heard.

“Oh, I do just despise your waist!” she said to Ariadne; “I’ve been looking at it all the way we’ve come.”

Christina absently took hold of her whip and then rattled it back in its socket. She then scolded Jane till I should have thought any ordinary child couldn’t have gone on sitting up, but this one did, never saying a word, but pursed her mouth in till there was hardly a line to be seen. Then Christina began to tell us how dull she had found it living in the country, and how difficult to get acclimatized at first.

“But in the end, the country rubs off on one,” she sighed, “and a good thing too. Oh, the mistakes I made at first! You know that Peter and I have both been staying with the dear Bishop of Guyzance.”

“Oh, Christina, you have changed!” said I.

“I know, dear, three services on Sunday and a shilling for the offertory. So different from Newton Hall and Farm Street. As I was saying, I came back from Lale Castle the day before yesterday, post haste, to hatch some chickens–”

“I thought a hen did that?” ventured Ariadne.

“Right you are! I pretended to Peter that it was an insane desire to kiss the baby, but I was an hour in the house before I even thought of the child. The hen was due to hatch fifteen. I interviewed her every hour, much to her disgust. At last, crack!—one came out–”

“You mean chipped the shell,” said Ariadne primly.

“Right again! I put it in a basket by the kitchen fire, the servants shunted it for dinner, it got cold, it died in the night. Yesterday five more happened, I popped them in the mild oven for a minute, just then some one pinched my baby—he screamed, and went on screaming like an electric-bell gone wrong. I had to go and look after him—cook made a blazing fire, do you see?—I have only saved five out of that brood.”

“How very funny!” said Ariadne, who wasn’t a bit amused.

I was. Christina told us of a little hen Peter had before, who had been used to be set to ducks, and who had learned to march them all down to the nearest pond. The first lot of chickens had been driven to a watery and unfamiliar death.

“Would you like to go and be photographed to-morrow?” she asked Ariadne, and Ariadne was on the qui vive at once. “They all think one an unnatural parent here, if one doesn’t take one’s brood to be perpetuated at Oldfort every year. But the trains there are so awkward for us. I am fighting the railway authorities tooth and nail, trying to persuade them to put on a slip carriage. They do it for Keiller and his marmalade, so why not for me? Say! I am on the pony’s neck! I am going to put the seat back, take the reins a minute!”

Ariadne didn’t of course like her giving them to me, but everybody always sees at once that I am the practical one.

When the seat was arranged she went bubbling on.

“Next week is our Harvest Festival and School feast, and Ball in the school-house. The gaieties of this Parish! I haven’t had tea with myself for a whole week. I am a very hard worker, you don’t know! Peter says I lie awake at nights thinking of stodgy moral books to recommend for the Village Library. I recommend some, not all, of my late patron’s, your father’s, works. The Vicar here is a dear old dodderer, and was so shocked when I recommended him The Road to Rome! It’s a book of travel, you know. We have a young man here, too, quite an eligible, he told me so. He is so shy, you see, he says the wrong thing. I wonder whether you’ll make anything of him? To a flirt, all things are possible.”

“I am not a flirt—now,” said Ariadne.

She was nearly giving the whole thing away, only the pony bolted, at least Christina said it was an attempt at bolting. “My God, pony!” she said to it, and it stopped, shocked at her swearing, I suppose.

“And there’s Simon Hermyre in the neighbourhood. Henderland is not more than ten miles off.”

Ariadne at once sat tight—too tight. It was almost painful, and showed in her face too.

Just as we were driving in at the gate of Rattenraw, Jane Emerson Tree spoke again, and actually about Ariadne’s body.

“Any way, it’s on all crooked,” she said, as if she was continuing the previous discussion. Peter came out to meet us, and she was lifted down. They couldn’t, I suppose, leave her sitting and just put her away in the coach-house all night. That is what I should have done, and cooled her hot blood. But I saw how it was when we got in and were having tea. She had hers “laced”—I mean brandy in it. Peter is awfully proud of her and thinks she will be a great actress and astonish the world some day. She certainly mimicked Peter to his face. I will let her know if I catch her mimicking Ariadne! Peter enjoyed it. The moment a child is really rude, people think it is going to do great things. I have noticed that. Now I would no sooner think of criticizing a grown-up person’s things to her face as I would of—kissing Emerson Tree’s very ugly mug, though I wouldn’t tell her so, otherwise than by my reluctance to embrace her. Peter calls her “the little witch.”

“The little witch,” he says, “was being neglected, or thought she was, at lunch the other day, and in a trice she called out to the butler, ‘I say, Holmes, old man, look alive with those potatoes, will you!’ You should have seen the old boy’s face!”

I did see the old boy’s face. He was waiting at tea.

Christina told us stories about her all tea-time; she listened quietly as she munched buns. How when she saw the new baby she said, “Dash it all! why it’s bald!” How one rainy day she was lost, and they found her with six of her village friends walking in a straight line down to the pond, barefooted and bareheaded and their mouths open, quacking, and to catch the rain-drops like ducks do. How she has done all the absurd things children do in books, such as aspinalling the cat—as if a cat ever stayed to be aspinalled!—and gunpowder into ovens, and frogs into boots, and hedgehogs into beds. (She says so, but I believe she put the clothes-brush, and Peter mistook it with his feet in the dark!) And once when a noted Socialist man had been staying there and rashly talked before her, she had given away the furniture.

“She went solemnly down the village,” said Christina, “making presents of the unearned increment in the shape of things she didn’t want and I did. Missing tensions of sewing-machines and valves of cycles and stray door-knobs and other bits of rolling stock—all disappeared. When it came to the spare sugar-tongs and my best silver scissors, however, I had to scold her. Oh, she’ll be a great actress some day.”

We listened, and I am sure no one could tell from my face how I disapproved of it all,—unless Duse the second, who, after all, was a child too, twigged how ridiculous they were making her look? Anyhow, after she had made three usual scenes and one extraordinary one because we were there, and had been noisily taken off to bed, they left off discussing her and took up a perfectly safe subject; “shoots” and who to have. Christina teases, she always did, even in the days when she used to put us head first down rabbit-holes.

“Has he a wife?” she asks, whenever Peter proposes a man.

“My dear, I haven’t the slightest idea. All I know is he is a capital shot, and brings down his pheasants in good style!”

“These good shots bring down such bad wives—I mean from the house-party point of view,” she says. “To look at their choice, they would always seem to have fired recklessly into the brown and got pot luck. You see I am boxed up with your friends’ bad shots all day. I can’t possibly make my housewifely duties last all the morning, and I object to have Jane brought down in her best frock and her worst behaviour to make sport for idle women. And she hates grown-up ladies, and has the wit to come in with segments of the Wanny Crag on her boots and her hair full of straws, so as to be sent out of the drawing-room to ‘muck herself up.’”

“I don’t like that phrase, Christina!”