A Double Knot

“I don’t know. Ugh! filthy stuff!” said Clotilde, taking the tumbler, drinking off the brown draught, and shuddering afterwards. She set down the glass, which was, after another flourish of the white jug, the spoon being held captive by the woman’s thumb, half filled again.

“Now, Miss Marie.”

Marie made a grimace, and drank her portion in turn, after which Ruth swallowed hers with the patience and long-suffering of custom.

“Now, Miss Clotilde,” said the woman, picking out something dark from the bottom of the jug with the spoon, “here’s your prune.”

This was held out in the spoon, and it was ludicrous to see the handsome, womanly girl open her ruddy lips to admit the brown swollen morsel, a similar process being gone through with Marie and Ruth.

“There, children, don’t make such a fuss about it,” said the woman. “It’s lucky for you that you’ve got aunties who take such care of you. Pretty skins and complexions you’d have if you weren’t looked after, and when you grow up, if you’re wise, you’ll treat yourselves just the same. Now then, make haste down.”

This was uttered as she left the room and closed the door, after which Clotilde waited till her steps were inaudible, when she stamped with both her feet, and ground her teeth like an angry child.

“Oh, oh, oh!” she cried. “The disgusting, filthy stuff. I’m sick of it all, ’Rie. I’ll run away with the first man who asks me, even if he’s a sweep. I hate it; I hate everything; I hate myself, and won’t submit any longer. We’re not children, and I won’t have it. Where’s our spirit, that we don’t rebel?”

“Where could we go? What could we do?” replied Marie. “It’s horrible. How could we bear it all these weary years?”

She clasped her hands, and threw herself into her chair, rocking herself to and fro, while Ruth crept softly to her side, and placed her blonde face against the riper, rounder cheek of her cousin.

It was a mute way of showing her sympathy, and Marie felt it to be so, for she turned quickly and kissed her just as the loud jangle of a large hand-bell was heard from below, and Clotilde returned from the open window.

“Come down, girls,” she said bitterly; “there’s the bell. Old Markes didn’t see the broken glass. Go on, Ruthy, and let’s get prayers over, or you’ll be afraid to tell that fib.”

The bell was still clanging as the three girls went down the one flight of stairs contained in their aunts’ share of the private apartments at Hampton Court, at the bottom of which stairs a tall, thin young man, in a striped jacket, was frantically swinging the noisy instrument to and fro – having to stop, though, to allow the young ladies to pass, when he set down the bell with a clang upon the hearth-stoned floor in a dark corner, fiercely dragged a form from under the stairs, and carried it into the dining-room.

It was a brilliant morning in May, but the one window of that dark room received none of the sunshine, for it looked north, over a festive-looking yard or quadrangle, whose stones were mossy and green, kept comfortably damp by their proximity to a basin of water, out of which spurts of water rose from what looked like pieces of black gas-pipe; while three bloated gold and two silver fish swam solemnly round and round, gaping placidly, and staring with apoplectic eyes upwards at the strange phenomenon of what must have seemed to them like a constant shower of rain.

The room was lofty, and panelled in regular compartments, all painted a pale drab, as were also the sides of the floor where the well-worn, indescribable-patterned carpet did not reach; and over this painted portion chair-legs gave uncomfortable scroops.

It was a depressing room, without a particle of ornament, and would have produced indigestion in the healthiest subject. There was a circular sideboard at one end, upon which stood a solemn-looking lamp, whose globe made a dismal boom like a funeral knell when it was removed. Twelve spindly-legged chairs covered with chintz of a washed-out material stood stiffly against the walls, and there were two uneasy chairs covered with chintz and very angular in their backs on either side of the fire, where hung a pair of old-fashioned brass bellows and a worn-out telescope toasting-fork.

As the young ladies entered the room, looking as prim and demure as the chintz-covered chairs, a thin sharp cough was heard on the stairs, followed immediately by another thin sharp cough like the echo of the first, and two very tall meagre ladies entered the room.

Each was dressed in a pale washed-out fabric, with voluminous sleeves tight at the wrists, and had her grey hair in a large cluster of curls at the temple, the back hair being kept in place by a large tortoiseshell comb similar in shape to the leather withers protector carried on the collar by the horses in a brewer’s dray.

There was a pinched, refined air about the aspect of their faces, as if they had led ascetic lives in an aristocratic shade; and as they entered the room side by side, the young ladies approached them, and were received with an old-fashioned courtly grace such as was probably presumed to be correct within these palatial walls.

“Good-morning, aunt dear,” was said to each in turn by the young ladies, in return for which a little birdlike peck of a kiss was given to each soft round face, after which there was silence, each one waiting till there was a scuffle outside, and a little angry muttering, all of which was entirely ignored by the tall, thin, pale ladies, who stood with their mitten-covered hands crossed in front of them, and their eyes cast down.

Everything was so chilly, in spite of its being a warm spring morning, that the advent of a very old and battered but very hot bronze urn seemed quite to send a glow through the room as it was whisked in by the thin young man and placed upon the table, to hurry out and return directly with a crockery toast-rack, full of thin, dry husks of mortified half-burned bread.

Meanwhile, Sister Philippa unlocked a tea-caddy, while Sister Isabella let some hot water run into the pot, and poured it out into the pale blue-and-white cups.

Two caddy-spoonfuls were then placed in the pot, which was duly filled, and Sister Philippa said with grave austereness:

“My dears, will you take your places?”

Then in utter silence the three girls came to the table, and partook with their aunts of the very thin tea, sweetened with no liberal hand, while the bread-and-butter looked untempting and stale.

This went on for some few minutes, every act in connection with the breakfast being performed with scrupulous attention to etiquette, as taught in the highest old-fashioned circles.

“May I give you a little more tea, Clotilde?”

“Will you have the goodness to pass the bread-and-butter, Marie?”

“Ruth, I will trouble you, my dear, for the dry toast.”

After awhile Sister Philippa started an enlivening conversation on the number of drawing-rooms that were held by her late Majesty Queen Adelaide at which they were present as girls, Sister Isabella being of our opinion that the Court dresses of that period of history were much more modest, refined and graceful than those of to-day.

Sister Philippa agreed to this, and with her agreement the breakfast came to an end.

“We will take our morning’s walk, my dears, at once, as it is fine,” said Sister Philippa. “Will you go and dress?”

“Yes, aunt,” was chorused, and the young ladies rose, curtsied, and retired backwards from the room, to ascend to their chamber, through which Ruth had to proceed to get into the cupboard which held her bed and a small chest of drawers.

The moment they were inside the room, Clotilde rushed into the middle, gritting her teeth together and clenching her fists.

“Oh-h-h!” she exclaimed, with a cry of suppressed passion, “I can’t bear it. I shall go mad.”

Then with a bound she dashed to the bed, striking at it and seizing the pillow in her teeth.

Marie got rid of her suppressed vitality by fiercely seizing Ruth by the shoulders, shaking her angrily, and then, as if repenting, catching her about the waist, and waltzing her round the room.

“Oh, Clo! it’s horrible,” she cried, loosing Ruth to seize her sister. “Get up, and let’s quarrel or fight, or do something. I can’t – I won’t – I shan’t – I will not bear it. It’s like being mummies in a tomb.”

Clotilde turned round, and let herself sink upon the floor, with her head leaning back against the bed, biting the counterpane and twisting it viciously with her hands.

“’Rie,” she said at last, and her eyes sparkled as she spoke, “do you know what happened in the old days to the captive maidens in the stony castles?”

“Yes; the knights came and rescued them.”

“Then, why don’t they come and rescue us? I’ll run away with the first man who asks me. I’d marry that thin wretch Joseph to-morrow if he’d have me, and I’d stick pins in him all the rest of his life to see him writhe.”

“I can’t bear it much longer,” said Marie, in a low, deep voice; “I’m nineteen, Clo, and you are turned twenty, and they treat us as if we were little children still. Ah, how I hate them both!”

“Oh, Marie,” said Ruth reproachfully, “how can you say so!”

“Because I do – I do,” she cried. “I’m not a soft, smooth thing like you. If this lasts much longer I shall poison them, so as to be hung out of my misery.”

“I shan’t,” said Clotilde. “I say I’ll marry the first man who asks me. I will marry him; I’ll make him marry me; and then – ah,” she cried fiercely, as she started up, and began pacing up and down, beautiful as some caged leopard, “once I am free, what I will do! We might as well be nuns.”

“Better,” cried Marie angrily, “for we should be real prisoners, and expect no better. Now we are supposed to be free.”

“And there’d be some nice fat old father confessors to tease. Better than the smooth-faced, saintly Paul Montaigne. Oh, how I would confess!” cried Clotilde.

“Old Paul’s a prig,” said Marie.

“He’s a humbug, I think,” said Clotilde.

“Bother your nice old fat father confessors,” cried Marie, with her eyes gleaming. “I should like them to be young, and big, and strong, and handsome.”

“And with shaven crowns,” said Clotilde maliciously. “How should you like them, Ruth?”

“I don’t know,” said Ruth simply. “I have never thought of such a thing.”

“Take that, and that, you wicked story-teller!” cried Clotilde, slapping her arms; “I know you think more about men than either of us. For my part, the man I mean to have will – ”

She stopped, for Marie laid her hand upon her lips, and they both began to prepare themselves for their walk as the grave-looking woman entered the room.

“Oh, you’re not ready, then?” she said grimly.

“No, nurse; but we shall be directly.”

“No, you needn’t; you’re not going.”

“Not going, nurse? Why?”

“The new Lancer regiment is coming to the barracks this morning, and your aunts say some of the officers may be about.”

Volume One – Chapter Two.

His Uncle’s Nephew

“Why didn’t I come? Why should I? Very kind of Lady Millet to ask me, but I’m not a society man.”

“Oh, but – ”

“Yes, I know, lad. Did the affair go off well?”

“Splendidly, only mamma left the wine to the confectioner, and the champagne – ”

“Gave you a horrible headache, eh? Serve you right; should have had toast-and-water.”

“Marcus!”

“So Malpas came, did he?”

“Yes. Bad form, too. I don’t like him, Glen. But that’s all over now. Fellow can’t always marry the woman he wants.”

“Can’t he?”

“No, of course not. I wish you had come, though.”

“Thank you! But you speak in riddles, my little Samson. What’s all over now, and what fellow can’t always marry the woman he wants? Speak out, small sage!”

“I say, Glen, I didn’t make myself.”

“True, O king!”

“’Tisn’t my fault I’m small.”

“True.”

“You do chaff me so about my size.”

“For the last time: now proceed, and don’t lisp and drawl. Who’s who? as Bailey says.”

“I thought I told you before about my sisters?”

“Often: that you have two pretty sisters – one married and one free.”

“Well, my married sister, Mrs Morrison, used, I think, to care for Major Malpas.”

“Sorry she had such bad taste.”

This in an undertone.

“Eh?”

“Go on.”

“Well, it didn’t go on or come off, as you call it.”

“As you call it, Dicky.”

“I say, don’t talk to me as if I were a bird.”

“All right. Now then, let me finish for you: mamma married the young lady to someone else, and there is just a fag-end of the old penchant left.”

“Oh, hang it, no!”

“I beg pardon! – the young lady’s, too. But, my dear Dick, I am one of the most even-tempered of men; but if you keep up that miserable fashionable drawl and lisp, I shall take hold of you and shake you.”

“But, my dear fellow – weally, Mawcus.”

“Am I to do it? Say ‘Marcus’ out plain.”

“Mawcus.”

“No! Marcus.”

“Marcus.”

“That’s better. There, hang it all, Dick, you are a soldier; for heaven’s sake be one. Try to be manly, old fellow, and pitch over those silly affectations.”

“It’s all very well for you,” said Dick Millet, in an ill-used tone. “You are naturally manly. Why, you are five feet ten at least, and broad-shouldered and strong.”

“While you are only about five feet two, and slight, and have a face as smooth as a girl’s.”

“Five feet three and a half,” said the other quickly.

“How do you know?”

“I made the sergeant put me under the standard this morning. I can’t help it if I haven’t got a heavy brown moustache like you!”

“Who said you could help it, stupid? Why, what a little gander you are, Dick! I’m eight-and-twenty, and you are eighteen.”

“Nineteen!”

“Well, nineteen, then. There, there, you are only a boy yet, so why not be content to be a boy? You’ll grow old quite fast enough, my dear lad. Do you know why I like you?”

“Well, not exactly. But you do like me, don’t you, Glen?”

“Like you? Yes, when you are what I see before me now, boyish and natural. When you put on those confounded would-be manly airs, and grow affected and mincing as some confounded Burlington Arcade dandy, I think to myself, What a contemptible little puppy it is!”

“I say, you know – ” cried the lad, and he tried to look offended.

“Say away, stupid! Well?”

Captain Marcus Glen, of Her Majesty’s 50th Lancers, a detachment of which, from the headquarters at Hounslow, were stationed at Hampton Court, sank back in his chair, let fall the newspaper he had been reading, and took out and proceeded to light a cigar, while Richard Millet flushed up angrily, got off the edge of the table where he had been sitting and swinging a neat patent-leather boot adorned with a spur, and seemed for a moment as if he were about to leave the room in a pet.

Marcus Glen saw this and smiled.

“Have a cigar, Dick?” he said.

The lad frowned, and it was on his lips to say, “Thanks, I have plenty of my own,” but his eyes met those of the speaker looking kindly and half laughingly in his, and the feeling of reverence for the other’s manly attributes, as well as his vanity at being the chosen friend of one he considered to be the finest fellow in the regiment, made him pause, hesitate, and then hold out his hand for the cigar.

“Better not take it, Dick. Tobacco stops the growth.”

The boy paused with the cigar in his hand, and the other burst into a merry laugh, rose lazily, lit a match, and handed it to the young officer, clapping him directly after upon the shoulder.

“Look here, Dick,” he said; “shall I give you the genuine receipt how to grow into a strong, honest Englishman?”

“Yes,” cried the lad eagerly, the officer and the would-be man dropped, for the schoolboy to reassert itself in full force. “I wish you would, Glen, ’pon my soul I do.”

“Forget yourself then, entirely, and don’t set number one up for an idol at whose shrine you are always ready to worship.”

“I don’t quite understand you,” said the lad, reddening ingenuously.

“Oh yes, you do, Dick, or you would not have been measured this morning, and made that little nick with the razor on your cheek in shaving off nothing but soap. If you did not worship your confounded small self, you would not have squeezed your feet into those wretched little boots, nor have waxed those twenty-four hairs upon your upper lip; and ’pon my word, Dick, that really is a work of supererogation, for the world at large, that is to say our little world at large, is perfectly ignorant of their existence.”

“Oh, I say, you are hard on a man, Glen! ’Pon my soul, you are;” and the handsome little fellow looked, with his flushed cheeks and white skin, more girlish than ever.

“Hard? Nonsense! I don’t want to see you grow into a puppy. I must give you a lesson now and then, or you’ll be spoiled; and then how am I to face Lady Millet after promising what I did?”

“Oh, I had a letter from mamma this morning,” said the lad; “she sent her kindest regards to you.”

“Thank her for them,” said the young officer. “Well, so the party went off all right, Dick?”

“Splendid! You ought to have been there. Gertrude would have been delighted to see you.”

“Humph! Out of place, my boy. Lady Millet wants a rich husband for your sister. I’m the wrong colour.”

“Not you. I don’t want Gerty to have someone she does not like.”

“But I thought you said that there was a Mr Huish, or some such name?”

“Well, yes, there is; but it may not come off. Mamma hates the Huishes.”

“You’re a character, Dick!” said the officer laughingly. “There, I’m going to make you dissipated to get you square, so light your cigar, my lad; I won’t bully you any more,” he continued, smiling good-humouredly, “and you may shave till your beard comes if you like, and wax your – your eyebrows – I mean moustache, and dandify yourself a little, for I like to see you smart; but an you love me, as the poet says, no more of that confounded lisp. Now then, you’ve been reconnoitring, have you, and spying out the barrenness of the land?”

“Yes, and it’s a horrible one-eyed sort of a place. Why don’t you come and have a look?”

“I shall presently. Seen the Palace?”

“I had a walk round and went into the gardens, which are all very well – old-fashioned, you know; but the private apartments are full of old maids.”

“Ah, yes; maiden ladies and widows. Sort of aristocratic union, I’ve heard. Good thing for you, Dick.”

“Why?” said the lad, who had again perched himself on the edge of the table and was complacently glancing at his boots.

“Because your inflammable young heart will not be set on fire by antique virgins and blushing widows of sixty.”

“I don’t know so much about that,” cried the lad excitedly, taking off his natty little foraging cap. “Marcus, dear boy, I was walking round a cloister sort of place with a fountain in the middle, and then through a blank square court, and I saw three of the loveliest women, at one of the windows, I ever saw in my life.”

“Distance lends enchantment to the view, my dear boy. If you had gone closer you would have seen the wrinkles and the silvery hairs, if they had not been dyed.”

“I tell you they weren’t old,” continued Dick, whose eyes sparkled like those of a girl.

“I’m not a marrying man, for reasons best known to my banker and my creditors.”

“Two of them were dark and the other was fair,” continued the lad, revelling in his description. “Oh, those two dark girls! You never saw such eyes, such hair, such lovely complexions. Juno-like – that they were. I was quite struck.”

“Foolish?”

“No, no; the Lelys in one of the rooms are nothing to them.”

“Lilies?”

“Nonsense – Lelys: the pictures, Court beauties. I could only stand and gaze at them.”

“Young buck – at gaze,” said the other, smiling at the boy’s enthusiasm. “What was the fair one like?”

“Oh, sweet and Madonnaesque – pensive and gentle. Look here, Marcus, you and I will have a walk round there presently.”

“Not if my name’s Marcus,” said the other, laughing. “Go along, you silly young butterfly, scenting honey in every flower. I say, Dick, shall you go in full review order?”

“I wish you weren’t so fond of chaffing a fellow.”

“Did the maidens – old, or young, or doubtful – at the window see our handsome young Adonis with his clustering curls?”

“Hang me if I ever tell you anything again!” cried the lad pettishly. “Where do you keep your matches? You are always chaffing.”

“Not I,” said the other, turning himself lazily in his chair, “only I want to see you grow into a matter-of-fact man.”

“Is it a sign of manhood to grow into a Diogenes sort of fellow, who sneers at every woman he sees?” said the lad hotly.

“No, Dick, but it’s a sign of hobble-de-hoyishness to be falling in love with pretty housemaids and boarding-school girls.”

“Which I don’t do,” said the lad fiercely.

“Except when you are forming desperate attachments to well-developed ladies, who, after your stupid young heart has been pretty well frizzled in the imaginary fire cast by their eyes, turn out to be other men’s wives.”

“I declare you are unbearable, Glen,” cried the lad hotly.

“My dear Dick, you are the most refreshing little chap I ever knew,” said the other, rising. “There, put on your cap, my boy, and let’s go;” and leaving the direction of their course to his younger companion, Captain Glen found himself at last on the broad walk facing the old red-brick Palace.

“I wonder you have never seen it before.”

“So do I; but I never did. Well, old Dutch William had a very good idea of taking care of himself, that’s all I can say.”

“But come along here; some of the interior is very curious, especially the quadrangles.”

“So I should suppose,” said Glen drily. “But I have a fancy for examining some of these quaint old parterres and carven trees, so we’ll turn down here.”

Richard Millet’s countenance twitched, but he said nothing; and together they strolled about the grounds, the elder pointing out the pretty effects to be seen here and there, the younger seeing nothing but the faces of three ladies standing at a window, and longing to be back in that cloister-like square to gaze upon them again.

“This place will be dull,” said Glen, as he seated himself upon a bench at the edge of a long spread of velvet turf; “but better than dingy Hounslow, and I’ve come to the conclusion that we might be much worse off. The society may turn out pretty decent, after all. This old garden will be splendid for a stroll. And – look there, Dick, the inhabitant of the land is fair. Here is another chance for you to fall in love.”

“What, with one of those old – Oh, I say, look, look! I did not see them at first. Those are the very girls.”

For Richard Millet’s face had been turned in the other direction, and when he first spoke he had only caught sight of the Honourable Misses Dymcox, walking side by side for their morning walk, closely followed by their three nieces, to make up for a close confinement to the house for three days, consequent upon the coming of the fresh troops to the barracks; the military being a necessary evil in the eyes of these elderly ladies, and such dreadful people that they were to be avoided upon all occasions.

“Oh, those are the damsels, are they?” said Glen, watching the little party as they walked straight on along a broad gravel path. “The old ladies look as if they were marching a squad of an Amazonian brigade to relieve guard somewhere. My word: how formal and precise! Now, I’ll be bound to say, my lad, that you would like to see where they are posted, and go and commit a breach of discipline by talking to the pretty sentries.”

“I should,” cried Dick eagerly. “Did you notice them?”

“Well, I must own that they are nice-looking, young inflammable, certainly.”

“But that first one, with the dark hair and eyes – she just glanced towards me – isn’t she lovely?”

“Well, now, that’s odd,” said Glen, smiling. “I suppose it was my conceit: do you know, I fancied that she glanced at me. At all events, I seemed to catch her eye.”

“Ah, it might seem so, but of course she recognised me again! Let’s walk gently after them.”

“What for?”

“To – er – well, to see which way they go.”

“I don’t want to know which way they go, my dear lad, and if I did, why, we can see very well from where we are. There they go, along that path to the right; you can see their dresses amongst the trees; and now they have turned off to the left. Would you like to stand upon the seat?”