Books: The Head of the House of Coombe

F >> Frances Hodgson Burnett >> The Head of the House of Coombe

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25

"There will be many a house left without its head--houses great
and small. And if the peril of it were more generally foreseen at
this date it would be less perilous than it is."

"Lads like that!" said the old Duchess bitterly. "Lads in their
strength and joy and bloom! It is hideous."

"In all their young virility and promise for a next generation--the
strong young fathers of forever unborn millions! It's damnable!
And it will be so not only in England, but all over a blood drenched
world."

It was in this way they talked to each other of the black tragedy
for which they believed the world's stage already being set in
secret, and though there were here and there others who felt the
ominous inevitability of the raising of the curtain, the rest of
the world looked on in careless indifference to the significance of
the open training of its actors and even the resounding hammerings
of its stage carpenters and builders. In these days the two
discussed the matter more frequently and even in the tone of those
who waited for the approach of a thing drawing nearer every day.

Each time the Head of the House of Coombe made one of his so-called
"week end" visits to the parts an Englishman can reach only by
crossing the Channel, he returned with new knowledge of the special
direction in which the wind veered in the blowing of those straws
he had so long observed with absorbed interest.

"Above all the common sounds of daily human life one hears in that
one land the rattle and clash of arms and the unending thudding
tread of marching feet," he said after one such visit. "Two
generations of men creatures bred and born and trained to live as
parts of a huge death dealing machine have resulted in a monstrous
construction. Each man is a part of it and each part's greatest
ambition is to respond to the shouted word of command as a
mechanical puppet responds to the touch of a spring. To each unit
of the millions, love of his own country means only hatred of all
others and the belief that no other should be allowed existence.
The sacred creed of each is that the immensity of Germany is such
that there can be no room on the earth for another than itself.
Blood and iron will clear the world of the inferior peoples. To
the masses that is their God's will. Their God is an understudy
of their Kaiser."

"You are not saying that as part of the trick of making a jest of
things?"

"I wish to God I were. The poor huge inhuman thing he has built
does not know that when he was a boy he did not play at war and
battles as other boys do, but as a creature obsessed. He has played
at soldiers with his people as his toys throughout all his morbid
life--and he has hungered and thirsted as he has done it."

A Bible lay upon the table and the Duchess drew it towards her.

"There is a verse here--" she said "--I will find it." She turned
the pages and found it. "Listen! 'Know this and lay it to thy
heart this day. Jehovah is God in heaven above and on the earth
beneath. There is none else.' That is a power which does not
confine itself to Germany or to England or France or to the Map of
Europe. It is the Law of the Universe--and even Wilhelm the Second
cannot bend it to his almighty will. 'There is none else.'"

"'There is none else'," repeated Coombe slowly. "If there existed
a human being with the power to drive that home as a truth into
his delirious brain, I believe he would die raving mad. To him
there is no First Cause which was not 'made in Germany.' And it
is one of his most valuable theatrical assets. It is part of his
paraphernalia--like the jangling of his sword and the glitter of
his orders. He shakes it before his people to arrest the attention
of the simple and honest ones as one jingles a rattle before a
child. There are those among them who are not so readily attracted
by terms of blood and iron."

"But they will be called upon to shed blood and to pour forth
their own. There will be young things like Donal Muir--lads with
ruddy cheeks and with white bodies to be torn to fragments." She
shuddered as she said it. "I am afraid!" she said. "I am afraid!"

"So am I," Coombe answered. "Of what is coming. What a FOOL I have
been!"

"How long will it be before other men awaken to say the same
thing?"

"Each man's folly is his own shame." He drew himself stiffly
upright as a man might who stood before a firing squad. "I had a
life to live or to throw away. Because I was hideously wounded at
the outset I threw it aside as done for. I said 'there is neither
God nor devil, vice nor virtue, love nor hate. I will do and leave
undone what I choose.' I had power and brain and money. A man
who could see clearly and who had words to choose from might have
stood firmly in the place to which he was born and have spoken in
a voice which might have been listened to. He might have fought
against folly and blindness and lassitude. I deliberately chose
privately to sneer at the thought of lifting a hand to serve any
thing but the cold fool who was myself. Life passes quickly. It
does not turn back." He ended with a short harsh laugh. "This
is Fear," he said. "Fear clears a man's mind of rubbish and
non-essentials. It is because I am AFRAID that I accuse myself. And
it is not for myself or you but for the whole world which before
the end comes will seem to fall into fragments."

"You have been seeing ominous signs?" the Duchess said leaning
forward and speaking low.

"There have been affectionate visits to Vienna. There is a certain
thing in the air--in the arrogance of the bearing of men clanking
their sabres as they stride through the streets. There is
an exultant eagerness in their eyes. Things are said which hold
scarcely concealed braggart threats. They have always been given
to that sort of thing--but now it strikes one as a thing unleashed--or
barely leashed at all. The background of the sound of clashing
arms and the thudding of marching feet is more unendingly present.
One cannot get away from it. The great munition factories are
working night and day. In the streets, in private houses, in the
shops, one hears and recognizes signs. They are signs which might
not be clear to one who has not spent years in looking on with
interested eyes. But I have watched too long to see only the
surface of things. The nation is waiting for something--waiting."

"What will be the pretext--what," the Duchess pondered.

"Any pretext will do--or none--except that Germany must have what
she wants and that she is strong enough to take it--after forty
years of building her machine."

"And we others have built none. We almost deserve whatever comes
to us." The old woman's face was darkly grave.

"In three villages where I chance to be lord of the manor I have,
by means of my own, set lads drilling and training. It is supposed
to be a form of amusement and an eccentric whim of mine and it
is a change from eternal cricket. I have given prizes and made an
occasional speech on the ground that English brawn is so enviable
a possession that it ought to develop itself to the utmost. When
I once went to the length of adding that each Englishman should
be muscle fit and ready in case of England's sudden need, I saw
the lads grin cheerfully at the thought of England in any such
un-English plight. Their innocent swaggering belief that the
country is always ready for everything moved my heart of stone.
And it is men like myself who are to blame--not merely men of my
class, but men of my KIND. Those who have chosen to detach themselves
from everything but the living of life as it best pleased their
tastes or served their personal ambitions."

"Are we going to be taught that man cannot argue without including
his fellow man? Are we going to be forced to learn it?" she said.

"Yes--forced. Nothing but force could reach us. The race is
an undeveloped thing. A few centuries later it will have evolved
another sense. This century may see the first huge step--because
the power of a cataclysm sweeps it forward."

He turned his glance towards the opening door. Robin came in with
some letters in her hand. He was vaguely aware that she wore an
aspect he was unfamiliar with. The girl of Mrs. Gareth-Lawless had
in the past, as it went without saying, expressed the final note
of priceless simplicity and mode. The more finely simple she looked,
the more priceless. The unfamiliarity in her outward seeming lay
in the fact that her quiet dun tweed dress with its lines of white
at neck and wrists was not priceless though it was well made. It,
in fact, unobtrusively suggested that it was meant for service
rather than for adornment. Her hair was dressed closely and her
movements were very quiet. Coombe realized that her greeting of
him was delicately respectful.

"I have finished the letters," she said to the Duchess. "I hope
they are what you want. Sometimes I am afraid----"

"Don't be afraid," said the Duchess kindly. "You write very correct
and graceful little letters. They are always what I want. Have
you been out today?"

"Not yet." Robin hesitated a little. "Have I your permission to
ask Mrs. James if it will be convenient to her to let Dowie go
with me for an hour?"

"Yes," as kindly as before. "For two hours if you like. I shall
not drive this afternoon."

"Thank you," said Robin and went out of the room as quietly as
she had entered it.

When the door closed the Duchess was smiling at Lord Coombe.

"I understand her," she said. "She is sustained and comforted by
her pretty air of servitude. She might use Dowie as her personal maid
and do next to nothing, but she waits upon herself and punctiliously
asks my permission to approach Mrs. James the housekeeper with
any request for a favour. Her one desire is to be sure that she
is earning her living as other young women do when they are paid
for their work. I should really like to pet and indulge her,
but it would only make her unhappy. I invent tasks for her which
are quite unnecessary. For years the little shut-up soul has
been yearning and praying for this opportunity to stand honestly
on her own feet and she can scarcely persuade herself that it has
been given to her. It must not be spoiled for her. I send her on
errands my maid could perform. I have given her a little room with
a serious business air. It is full of files and papers and she
sits in it and copies things for me and even looks over accounts.
She is clever at looking up references. I have let her sit up quite
late once or twice searching for detail and dates for my use. It
made her bloom with joy."

"You are quite the most delightful woman in the world," said Coombe.
"Quite."

CHAPTER XXIX

In the serious little room the Duchess had given to her Robin
built for herself a condition she called happiness. She drew the
spiritual substance from which it was made from her pleasure in
the books of reference closely fitted into their shelves, in the
files for letters and more imposing documents, in the varieties
of letter paper and envelopes of different sizes and materials
which had been provided for her use in case of necessity.

"You may not use the more substantial ones often, but you must be
prepared for any unexpected contingency," the Duchess had explained,
thereby smoothing her pathway by the suggestion of responsibilities.

The girl did not know the extent of her employer's consideration
for her, but she knew that she was kind with a special grace
and comprehension. A subtle truth she also did not recognize was
that the remote flame of her own being was fiercely alert in its
readiness to leap upward at any suspicion that her duties were
not worth the payment made for them and that for any reason which
might include Lord Coombe she was occupying a position which was
a sinecure. She kept her serious little room in order herself,
dusting and almost polishing the reference books, arranging and
re-arranging the files with such exactness of system that she
could--as is the vaunt of the model of orderly perfection--lay her
hand upon any document "in the dark." She was punctuality's self
and held herself in readiness at any moment to appear at the
Duchess' side as if a magician had instantaneously transported her
there before the softly melodious private bell connected with her
room had ceased to vibrate. The correctness of her to deference
to the convenience of Mrs. James the housekeeper in her simplest
communication with Dowie quite touched that respectable person's
heart.

"She's a young lady," Mrs. James remarked to Dowie. "And a credit
to you and her governess, Mrs. Dowson. Young ladies have gone
almost out of fashion."

"Mademoiselle Valle had spent her governessing days among the
highest. My own places were always with gentle-people. Nothing
ever came near her that could spoil her manners. A good heart she
was born with," was the civil reply of Dowie.

"Nothing ever came NEAR her--?" Mrs. James politely checked what
she became conscious was a sort of unconscious exclamation.

"Nothing," said Dowie going on with her sheet hemming steadily.

Robin wrote letters and copied various documents for the Duchess,
she went shopping with her and executed commissions to order.
She was allowed to enter into correspondence with the village
schoolmistress and the wife of the Vicar at Darte Norham and to buy
prizes for notable decorum and scholarship in the school, and baby
linen and blankets for the Maternity Bag and other benevolences. She
liked buying prizes and the baby clothes very much because--though
she was unaware of the fact--her youth delighted in youngness and the
fulfilling of young desires. Even oftener and more significantly
than ever did eyes turn towards her--try to hold hers--look after
her eagerly when she walked in the streets or drove with the
Duchess in the high-swung barouche. More and more she became used
to it and gradually she ceased to be afraid of it and began to feel
it nearly always--there were sometimes exceptions--a friendly thing.

She saw friendliness in it because when she caught sight as she so
often did of young things like herself passing in pairs, laughing
and talking and turning to look into each other's eyes, her being
told her that it was sweet and human and inevitable. They always
turned and looked at each other--these pairs--and then they smiled
or laughed or flushed a little. As she had not known when first
she recognized, as she looked down into the street from her nursery
window, that the children nearly always passed in twos or threes
and laughed and skipped and talked, so she did not know when
she first began to notice these joyous young pairs and a certain
touch of exultation in them and feel that it was sweet and quite
a simple common natural thing. Her noting and being sometimes
moved by it was as natural as her pleasure in the opening of spring
flowers or the new thrill of spring birds--but she did not know
that either.

The brain which has worked through many years in unison with the
soul to which it was apportioned has evolved a knowledge which
has deep cognizance of the universal law. The brain of the old
Duchess had so worked, keeping pace always with its guide, never
visualizing the possibility of working alone, also never falling
into the abyss of that human folly whose conviction is that all
that one sees and gives a special name to is all that exists--or
that the names accepted by the world justly and clearly describe
qualities, yearnings, moods, as they are. This had developed
within her wide perception and a wisdom which was sane and kind
to tenderness.

As she drove through the streets with Robin beside her she saw
the following eyes, she saw the girl's soft friendly look at the
young creatures who passed her glowing and uplifted by the joy of
life, and she was moved and even disturbed.

After her return from one particular morning's outing she sent
for Dowie.

"You have taken care of Miss Robin since she was a little child?"
she began.

"She was not quite six when I first went to her, your grace."

"You are not of the women who only feed and bathe a child and keep
her well dressed. You have been a sort of mother to her."

"I've tried to, your grace. I've loved her and watched over her
and she's loved me, I do believe."

"That is why I want to talk to you about her, Dowie. If you were
the woman who merely comes and goes in a child's life, I could
not. She is--a very beautiful young thing, Dowie."

"From her little head to her slim bits of feet, your grace. No
one knows better than I do."

The Duchess' renowned smile revealed itself.

"A beautiful young thing ought to see and know other beautiful young
things and make friends with them. That is one of the reasons for
their being put in the world. Since she has been with me she has
spoken to no one under forty. Has she never had young friends?"

"Never, your grace. Once two--young baggages--were left to have
tea with her and they talked to her about divorce scandals and
corespondents. She never wanted to see them again." Dowie's face
set itself in lines of perfectly correct inexpressiveness and she
added, "They set her asking me questions I couldn't answer. And
she broke down because she suddenly understood why. No, your grace,
she's not known those of her own age."

"She is--of the ignorance of a child," the Duchess thought it out
slowly.

"She thinks not, poor lamb, but she is," Dowie answered. The
Duchess' eyes met hers and they looked at each other for a moment.
Dowie tried to retain a non-committal steadiness and the Duchess
observing the intention knew that she was free to speak.

"Lord Coombe confided to me that she had passed through a hideous
danger which had made a lasting impression on her," she said in
a low voice. "He told me because he felt it would explain certain
reserves and fears in her."

"Sometimes she wakes up out of nightmares about it," said Dowie.
"And she creeps into my room shivering and I take her into my bed
and hold her in my arms until she's over the panic. She says the
worst of it is that she keeps thinking that there may have been
other girls trapped like her--and that they did not get away."

The Duchess was very thoughtful. She saw the complications in
which such a horror would involve a girl's mind.

"If she consorted with other young things and talked nonsense with
them and shared their pleasures she would forget it," she said.

"Ah!" exclaimed Dowie. "That's it."

The question in the Duchess' eyes when she lifted them required
an answer and she gave it respectfully.

"The thing that happened was only the last touch put to what she'd
gradually been finding out as she grew from child to young girl.
The ones she would like to know--she said it in plain words once to
Mademoiselle--might not want to know her. I must take the liberty
of speaking plain, your grace, or it's no use me speaking at all.
She holds it deep in her mind that she's a sort of young outcast."

"I must convince her that she is not--." It was the beginning of
what the Duchess had meant to say, but she actually found herself
pausing, held for the moment by Dowie's quiet, civil eye.

"Was your grace in your kindness thinking--?" was what the excellent
woman said.

"Yes. That I would invite young people to meet her--help them to
know each other and to make friends." And even as she said it she
was conscious of being slightly under the influence of Dowie's
wise gaze.

"Your grace only knows those young people she would like to know."
It was a mere simple statement.

"People are not as censorious as they once were." Her grace's tone
was intended to reply to the suggestion lying in the words which
had worn the air of statement without comment.

"Some are not, but some are," Dowie answered. "There's two worlds
in London now, your grace. One is your grace's and one is Mrs.
Gareth-Lawless'. I HAVE heard say there are others between, but
I only know those two."

The Duchess pondered again.

"You are thinking that what Miss Robin said to Mademoiselle Valle
might be true--in mine. And perhaps you are not altogether wrong
even if you are not altogether right."

"Until I went to take care of Miss Robin I had only had places
in families Mrs. Gareth-Lawless' set didn't touch anywhere. What
I'm remembering is that there was a--strictness--shown sometimes
even when it seemed a bit harsh. Among the servants the older ones
said that is was BECAUSE of the new sets and their fast wicked
ways. One of my young ladies once met another young lady about
her own age--she was just fifteen--at a charity bazaar and they
made friends and liked each other very much. The young lady's
mother was one there was a lot of talk about in connection with a
person of very high station--the highest, your grace--and everyone
knew. The girl was a lovely little creature and beautifully
behaved. It was said her mother wanted to push her into the world
she couldn't get into herself. The acquaintance was stopped, your
grace--it was put a stop to at once. And my poor little young lady
quite broke her heart over it, and I heard it was much worse for
the other."

"I will think this over," the Duchess said. "It needs thinking
over. I wished to talk to you because I have seen that she has fixed
little ideas regarding what she thinks is suited to her position
as a paid companion and she might not be prepared. I wish you to
see that she has a pretty little frock or so which she could wear
if she required them."

"She has two, your grace," Dowie smiled affectionately as she said
it. "One for evening and one for special afternoon wear in case
your grace needed her to attend you for some reason. They are as
plain as she dare make them, but when she puts one on she can't
help giving it A LOOK."

"Yes--she would give it all it needed," her grace said. "Thank
you, Dowie. You may go."

With her sketch of a respectful curtsey Dowie went towards the
door. As she approached it her step became slower; before she
reached it she had stopped and there was a remarkable look on her
face--a suddenly heroic look. She turned and made several steps
backward and paused again which unexpected action caused the Duchess
to turn to glance at her. When she glanced her grace recognized
the heroic look and waited, with a consciousness of some slight
new emotion within herself, for its explanation.

"Your grace," Dowie began, asking God himself to give courage if
she was doing right and to check her if she was making a mistake,
"When your grace was thinking of the parents of other young ladies
and gentlemen--did it come to you to put it to yourself whether
you'd be willing--" she caught her breath, but ended quite
clearly, respectfully, reasonably. "Lady Kathryn--Lord Halwyn--"
Lady Kathryn was the Duchess' young granddaughter, Lord Halwyn
was her extremely good-looking grandson who was in the army.

The Duchess understood what the heroic look had meant, and her
respect for it was great. Its intention had not been to suggest
inclusion of George and Kathryn in her pun, it had only with pure
justice put it to her to ask herself what her own personal decision
in such a matter would be.

"You do feel as if you were her mother," she said. "And you are a
practical, clear-minded woman. It is only if I myself am willing
to take such a step that I have a right to ask it of other people.
Lady Lothwell is the mother I must speak to first. Her children
are mine though I am a mere grandmother."

Lady Lothwell was her daughter and though she was not regarded
as Victorian either of the Early or the Middle periods, Dowie as
she returned to her own comfortable quarters wondered what would
happen.

CHAPTER XXX

What did occur was not at all complicated. It would not have been
possible for a woman to have spent her girlhood with the cleverest
mother of her day and have emerged from her training either
obstinate or illogical. Lady Lothwell listened to as much of the
history of Robin as her mother chose to tell her and plainly felt
an amiable interest in it. She knew much more detail and gossip
concerning Mrs. Gareth-Lawless than the Duchess herself did. She
had heard of the child who was kept out of sight, and she had
been somewhat disgusted by a vague story of Lord Coombe's abnormal
interest in it and the ugly hint that he had an object in view.
It was too unpleasantly morbid to be true of a man her mother had
known for years.

"Of course you were not thinking of anything large or formal?"
she said after a moment of smiling hesitation.

"No. I am not launching a girl into society. I only want to help
her to know a few nice young people who are good-natured and
well-mannered. She is not the ordinary old lady's companion and
if she were not so strict with herself and with me, I confess I
should behave towards her very much as I should behave to Kathryn
if you could spare her to live with me. She is a heart-warming
young thing. Because I am known to have one of my eccentric fancies
for her and because after all her father WAS well connected, her
present position will not be the obstacle. She is not the first
modern girl who has chosen to support herself."

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25