Chapter 44

When old Purling bought the ----shire estates there was an ancient manor-house on the property, a picturesque but inconvenient residence, which did not at all come up to his ideas of a country gentleman's place. It was therefore incontinently pulled down, and one of the most fashionable architects of the day, having _carte blanche_ to build, erected a Palladian pile of wide frontage and imposing dimensions on the most prominent site he could find. It ought to have haunted its author like a crime; but he was spared, and the punishment fell upon the innocent who dwelt around. There was no escape from Purlington, so long as you were within a dozen miles of it. Wherever you went and wherever you looked, down from points of vantage or up from quiet dells, this great white caravanserai, with its glittering plate-glass panes and staring stucco, forced itself upon you with the unblushing effrontery of a brazen beauty, with painted face and bedizened in flaunting attire. But the heiress thought it was a very splendid place, with its pineries, conservatories, its acres of glass, and its army of retainers in liveries of rainbow hues. Mrs. Purling was a little afraid of her servants, albeit strong-minded in other respects; but it was natural she should submit to a coachman who had once worn the royal livery, or quail before a butler who had lived with a duke.

The butler met Harold on his return, extending to him a gracious patronising welcome, as if he were doing the honours of his own house.

"Misterarold," he cried, making one word of the name and title, "this is a pleasant surprise. You wus not expected, sir; not in the least."

"My mother is at home?"

"No, sir; out. In the kerridge. She drove Homersham way."

"See after my things. Here are my keys." And Harold passed on to the little morning-room which Mrs. Purling called her own. Having the choice of half-a-dozen chambers, each as big as Exeter Hall, she preferred to occupy habitually the smallest den in the house. To his surprise he found the room not untenanted. A young lady was at the book-case, and she turned seemingly in trepidation on hearing the door open.

"Miss Fanshawe," thought Harold, as he advanced with eyes that were unmistakably critical.

"I must introduce myself," he said. "I am Harold."

"The last of the Saxon kings?"

"No; the first of the Purling princes. I know you quite well. Has my mother never mentioned me?"

"I only arrived yesterday," the young lady replied, rather evading the question.

"My mother must be delighted. She told me she was looking forward eagerly to your promised visit."

"She really spoke of me?"

"In her letters; again and again."

"I hardly thought--"

"That you had taken her by storm? You have; and I was surprised, for she is not easily won."

Not a civil speech, which this girl only resented by placing a pair of old-fashioned double glasses across her small nose, and looking at him with a gravity that was quite comical.

"But now that I have met you I can readily understand."

The same look through the glasses; sphinx-like, she seemed impervious both to depreciation and compliment.

"And she has left you alone all the morning? I am afraid you must have been bored."

"Thank you. I had my work."

It was an exquisite piece of art needlework. Water-lilies and yellow irises on a purple ground. She confessed it was her own design.

"And books?"

He took up Schlegel's _Philosophy of History_ in the original.

"You read German?"

"O yes."

"And Italian? and French? and Sanscrit--without doubt?"

"Not quite; but I have looked into Max Müller, and know something of Monier Williams."

And this was one of Lady Gayfeather's girls! Was this a new process, the last dodge in the perpetual warfare between maidens and mankind?

Harold looked at the prodigy.

In appearance she was quite unlike the conventional type of a London young lady of fashion. Her fresh dimpled cheeks wore roses and a pearly bloom that spoke of healthy hours and a tranquil life; her dress was quiet almost to plainness; there was nothing modern in the style of her coiffure; Lobb would not have been proud of her boots. Her fair white hands were innocent of rings; she wore no jewelry; there was no gold or silver about her, except for the gold-rimmed glasses that made so curious a contrast to her young face, with its merry eyes and frame of mutinous curls.

"You will not be angry," said Harold earnestly, "if I tell you that you are not in the least what I expected to find you, Miss Fanshawe--"

"Miss Fanshawe!" Her gay laugh was infectious. "I'm afraid--"

But just now the butler came in to say that the carriage was coming up the drive. Harold went out to meet his mother, without noticing that the young lady also got up and hurriedly left the room.

"It's just like you, you stupid boy!" said the heiress. "Why did you give me no notice?"

"I meant to have written from Paris. But it's all for the best. You were quite right. She is perfectly charming."

"Who?"

"Miss Fanshawe. I have made her acquaintance."

"In town?"

"No, here; in your own morning-room."

"What!" The ejaculation contained volumes. "Was there ever anything so annoying! But it is all your fault for coming so unexpectedly."

"What harm? We introduced ourselves, Miss Fanshawe--"

"Miss Fiddlesticks! That's Dolly Driver, your father's cousin!"

"Indeed! Then I wish I had made the acquaintance of my father's cousins a little earlier in life. Why have I been kept in ignorance of my relatives? Where do they live?"

Mrs. Purling, instead of answering him, took him by the arm abruptly, as if to ask him some searching question; then suddenly checking herself, she said--

"Have you had lunch? It must be ready. Come into the dining-room."

"Will not Miss Driver join us?"

"She will go to the housekeeper's room, where she ought to have been sitting, and not in my boudoir."

"Mother!"

"It's as well to be plain-spoken. Dolly Driver is not of our rank in life. Her parents are miserably poor. Nevertheless,"--as if the crime hardly deserved such liberal pardon,--"I am not indisposed to help them. She is going to a situation."

"Poor girl! Companion or governess? or both?"

"Neither; she will be either housemaid or undernurse."

Harold almost jumped off his chair.

"A girl like that! as a domestic servant! Mother, it's a disgraceful shame!"

"The disgrace is in the language you permit yourself to use to me. Your travels have made you rather boisterous and _gauche_. What disgrace can there be in honest work? Household work is honourable, and was once occupation for the daughters of kings. Happily the world grows more sensible. I look to the day as not far distant when the wide-spread employment of lady-helps will solve that terrible problem--the redundancy of girls."

"My cousin will not continue redundant, I feel sure."

"She is not your cousin."

"Whether or no, she should be spared the degradation you propose. She is a girl of culture, highly educated. You cannot condemn her to the kitchen."

"The lady-helps have their own apartment; but I decline to justify myself."

And Mrs. Purling lapsed into silence. There was friction between them already.

"Where are you going?" she asked, when lunch was over.

"To the housekeeper's room."

"Harold, I forbid you. It's highly improper--it's absolutely indelicate."

"She is my cousin; besides there is a _chaperone_, Mrs. Haigh, or I'll call in the cook."

"Do you mean to set me at defiance?"

"I mean to do what I consider right, even although my views may not coincide with yours, mother."

For the rest of the day, indeed, Harold never left his newly-found cousin's side. The heiress fumed and fretted, and scolded, but all in vain. There was a new kind of masterfulness about her son which for the moment she was powerless to resist.

"Of course she will dine with us," Harold said. And of course she did, although Mrs. Purling looked as if she wished every mouthful would choke her. Of course Harold called her Dolly to her face; was she not his cousin? Quite as naturally he would have given her a cousinly kiss when he said good-night, but something in her pure eyes and modest face restrained him.

Certainly she was the nicest girl he had ever met in his life.

"Where's Doll?" he asked next morning at breakfast. "Not down?"

"Miss Driver is half-way to London, I hope," replied Mrs. Purling, curtly. She was not a bad general, and had taken prompt measures already to recover from her temporary reverse.

"I shall go after her."

"If you do, you need not trouble to return."

Nothing more was said, but anger filled the hearts of both mother and son.