The Sleeping Fury (5 page)

“But, Mamma …!” Beatrix expostulated, and Lady Hadlow, raising her head, found four disappointed eyes fixed upon her.

“I'm sorry to disappoint you, my dears,” she said, tying up the parcel with string, “but you must allow me to know best.”

And that was the end of
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
— or so it seemed.

But some months after this Charlotte went, early one morning, into her sister's bedroom. Beatrix was half asleep. She turned over drowsily at the sound of the opening door, and unclosed her eyes as Charlotte approached her bed. At the same moment a book fell to the floor. Charlotte stooped and picked it up, and with a thrill of amazement recognised it. It was
Tess of the
D'
Urbervilles.

“Bee,” she gasped, “where
did
you get it from?”

Beatrix's handsome brows gathered into a little frown. “I borrowed it from Lucy Daintry,” she said.

Charlotte's jaw had dropped. “But what would Mamma say?”

Beatrix smiled at the gaping, girlish face. “What indeed?” she said nonchalantly. “That's why I have to read it in bed.”

“But, Bee, isn't it a very … a very unsuitable book?” Charlotte asked.

She was gazing at her sister in fascinated
consternation, as she might have gazed if she had seen her walk naked into the drawing-room.

“Stuff, child!” said Beatrix. “Mamma has such absurdly old-fashioned ideas that if we left it to her we should still be reading Charlotte Yonge.”

Charlotte gasped. If Beatrix had thrown a pail of icy water over her the shock could not have been greater. Mamma old-fashioned? And Beatrix, her own sister, saying so with nothing more than a calm petulance? She gasped again. Like cold water it had shocked her, but like cold water it had also been wonderfully stimulating.

Charlotte, standing there in her plain white nightgown, her shocked, earnest face crowned with curlpapers, a pigtail dangling over either ear, appeared to Beatrix exquisitely comical. She laughed outright.

“My dear Lottie,” she said, “You're too ridiculous. But if you're going to be so solemn about it, for goodness' sake go and do your hair.” Then her face grew suddenly serious. “Now mind, Charlotte, not a word to Mamma.”

Charlotte stammered. “No, Bee, no … but … but oughtn't you …”

“It would only upset her,” said Beatrix shortly. “Mamma forgets, you see, that we're no longer children. At least, I'm not. Are you?”

Charlotte gaped. “I … I hadn't thought,” she said.

“Then, my dear, it's time you did. However, Mamma must be humoured; there's no occasion to upset her.”

Beatrix's solicitude for Mamma did not deceive Charlotte. She knew well enough, and she knew that
Beatrix knew, that if Mamma got to know, Beatrix herself would be much the more upset of the two. But she said nothing; for that was the kind of thought which, when it came to her, Charlotte always left unspoken.

Beatrix threw back the bedclothes and swung her feet to the floor.

“Here, give me the book,” she said. She snatched
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
from Charlotte, crossed the room, opened a drawer, and turned back some of the contents. “There!” she said, tucking the book under them. “It'll be quite safe there.”

Charlotte still gazed wonderingly; but mixed with wonder in her eyes was an involuntary admiration. “Is it very good, Bee?” she whispered.

“Wonderful!” said Beatrix, assuming the superior worldly air which she sometimes adopted towards Charlotte; and then she added, with a slight pursing of the lips: “Undoubtedly a great work of art!”

“That's what Mr. Winchmere said,” observed Charlotte.

Beatrix glanced at her sharply; she had thought that Charlotte had caught her, as she had caught herself, aping Mr. Winchmere. But Charlotte's eyes were round and innocent; she had merely stated a fact.

• • • • • • • •

That incident, with all that it implied, coloured all Charlotte's thoughts and emotions during the weeks that followed. Even when she was not directly conscious of it, it lurked in the depths of her mind like a small bright star. Again and again throughout
the days and nights she would ask herself what was the cause of this hidden excitement that pulsed within her. Then she would recollect once more the delicious blasphemy, and the novel suggestion which had followed it—that she and Bee were no longer children, and that Mamma was absurdly unaware of the fact. The idea that Mamma was a fallible and narrowly limited woman, and that she herself was also a woman, was constantly rising up and presenting itself to her consideration, and, though it made no outward difference to her behaviour, it profoundly altered her attitude to existence. She was like a plant that has been taken out of its pot and planted in open soil: from that moment her mind, no longer cramped and confined, began to root itself more deeply in life. She began, in fact, to grow up.

But soon another interest began to encroach. The date of the annual visit to Haughton drew near. This visit was always, for the Hadlows, the great event of the year, and involved elaborate preparations, chief among them the choosing and ordering of hats and dresses for the great Haughton garden-party which always took place during their visit. Every morning, for a whole month before they set out for Haughton, Charlotte awoke to a sense of delighted anticipation; it seemed as if her life had been keyed up to a tone richer and more intense than usual, and she would lie in bed luxuriating in the Haughton feeling—a sense of something exquisite and orderly and infinitely leisured, of high, airy rooms and passages, soft carpets, smooth, sunlight-dappled lawns and brooding trees, and, as the centre
and heart of the whole scene, old Lord and Lady Mardale—he so jovial and courteous and so extraordinarily handsome, with his short white beard and his shock of white hair; she an exquisite little woman with the warmest heart and most beautiful manners Charlotte had ever known, who ruled Haughton like a beneficent but autocratic queen; and, lastly, Alfred, who came for brief visits when he could escape from his London parish, Alfred, whom Lord and Lady Mardale and everyone at Haughton, and Lady Hadlow and Beatrix and Charlotte, all worshipped.

The day they started for Haughton was for Charlotte, as it always was, a marvellous day. As they drove from home to the station she felt that she was being transported into an intenser life, an earthly Paradise of which, each year, she was allowed a brief taste. The whole journey was one irresponsible delight, for Lady Hadlow never dreamt of delegating any of the responsibility for luggage, tickets, or porters to either her or Beatrix. What Lady Hadlow herself didn't look after was looked after by Elizabeth, the head housemaid, who always accompanied them as lady's maid to Haughton. The journey to London was glorified for Charlotte by the thought of their destination and of the holiday before them. Lady Hadlow and Beatrix read books or magazines, but Charlotte was too thrilled to read. She sat idle, gazing out of the window in quiet ecstasy. At London Bridge their luggage was heaped on a four-wheeler—a “growler,” as Lady Hadlow called it, with a certain arch consciousness of her indulgence in slang. Then Beatrix and Charlotte got in, and then an unfailing incident occurred: Elizabeth stood aside to allow Mamma to follow, and Mamma said: “Now jump in, Elizabeth!” and, having taken a final look outside at the luggage, and inside to make sure that Beatrix and Charlotte and Elizabeth were really
there, she got in herself, and the jogging journey across London began.

It delighted Charlotte to watch the town gliding like a slow panorama-show past the cab-window. She always looked out especially for St. Paul's and Trafalgar Square. They sat for the most part silent, silent with excitement; and when they spoke it was only in brief phrases.

Up to this point the journey, but for the thought of Haughton, was identical with various other journeys—the yearly visit to London and visits to other friends; but as soon as they began to approach Paddington it took on its own unique quality, for they never went to Paddington unless they were going to Haughton.

Charlotte threw herself back with a sigh of complete happiness in her seat in the first-class carriage. Elizabeth having seen them duly installed, with Lady Hadlow's dressing-case and the bundle of umbrellas and parasols on the rack above their heads and the luncheon-basket on the seat beside Lady Hadlow, had gone off to her own place in a third-class carriage.

“Now don't forget, Elizabeth, that we change at Wilmore,” Lady Hadlow had called to her as she went. She had said it twice a year, once on the way to Haughton and once on the way back, throughout all the twenty years that Elizabeth had been in her service.

No sooner had the train started than Beatrix and Charlotte began to clamour for food. They were ravenous, with that ravenousness which comes of the excitement of travel. But Lady Hadlow was obdurate.

“Not until we are out of London!” she said.

To picnic—for, after all, luncheon out of a basket was a picnic—within the precincts of London would have been preposterous, and for half an hour Beatrix and Charlotte stared hungrily from the carriage windows for the first signs of trees and meadows.

“Now,” shouted Beatrix. “There's a field, Mamma.”

Lady Hadlow raised her eyes from
The Queen.
“That, my dear Beatrix!” she said, with a twinkle in her eye. “No one in her senses could call that a field.”

“Then what is it?”

“It's an enclosure,” said Lady Hadlow, with exaggerated indifference, turning her attention back to
The Queen.

“Mamma, how provoking you are!”

Charlotte watched them, smiling.

“There!” shouted Beatrix again. “There's another, and another. The whole place is fields. I shall open the basket.” She leapt from her seat.

“Beatrix!” Lady Hadlow's stern voice arrested her. Beatrix, half amused and half annoyed, began to pout. Then, with a sigh, Lady Hadlow closed
The Queen
and turned to the luncheon-basket, and, with the two girls twittering beside her, began to unpack it.

By the time the picnic was over and the basket repacked they were approaching Wilmore. The little train for Templeton, which was the station for Haughton, was waiting, as it always was, on the other side of the platform. Very small and undignified it seemed, compared with the noble engine and
long coaches of the express. Elizabeth and a porter, under the stern command of Lady Hadlow, established them in a small, faded first-class carriage, and, soon after they had seen the express glide out of the opposite platform, their engine gave a ridiculous little toot, and the small train began to joggle uneasily out of Wilmore. After following the main line for a hundred yards or so, it suddenly heeled dangerously over and took a sharp bend to the left. The main line was behind them now, and on the little branch-line they were plunging deep into the pleasant rolling country. How delightful it was to see once more the familiar stations—Wichford, Shelling, Lavington, Abbot's Randale, King's Randale; they knew them all by heart, the unique personality of each station and the scene in which it was set; the reedy mere just beyond Lannock where a pair of swans sailed idly in water that looked like sky; the old water-mill on the little river at Rimple, its wooden wheel dripping green. Now they were slowing down for Annet Brook; the next station would be Templeton. As soon as the train had started again, Lady Hadlow began to get things down from the rack. They were all ready long before they were half way to Templeton. The last three minutes seemed half an hour. At last there was the familiar rush of the bridge overhead, the shuddering of the brakes, the lamp-posts with their oil lamps and the white palings rippling more and more slowly past the windows. Lady Hadlow let down the window and looked out. Then she drew in her head and the door was opened, revealing Walter, the groom, smiling and holding the door open for them to descend.

When Lady Hadlow had seen that Walter had brought everything out of their carriage, and had herself verified both Elizabeth and the heavy luggage, she passed, with Beatrix and Charlotte in her wake, through the gate in the white railings where the booking-clerk, who had been at Temple-ton as long as Charlotte could remember, was collecting tickets. Two vehicles stood waiting in the station yard. One was the Haughton luggage-cart; of the other Charlotte could only see, over her mother's shoulder, the smart pair of chestnuts. She knew them well; they were Phil and Kester. Kester was, as usual, fidgeting with his bit; she could hear the continual clinking of it. Then she saw that the carriage behind the chestnuts was the four-wheeled dogcart with yellow wheels, and by that she knew that Lord Mardale had driven down himself to meet them. And there he was on the box, handsome and benevolent, with his short square white beard and his tall grey felt hat. A sudden little fountain of affection rose in her heart. He was waving to them with his disengaged hand. Lady Hadlow ran forward.

“My dear Lord Mardale, how nice of you to meet us.”

Walter, the groom, helped her up to the seat beside Lord Mardale, who stretched a hand to her from above.

“Well, and how is the trio?” he asked, smiling at them. “Delighted to see you, my dear Emily. Now, you two girls, skip up behind.”

Walter handed the two girls to the back seat, and Lord Mardale took off the brake. As they moved out of the station yard, Charlotte saw Elizabeth climbing
into the front of the luggage-cart, while Walter and a porter hoisted the luggage into the back.

How intoxicating it was to be whirling along towards Haughton again, with the station buildings slipping away before their eyes and the road flowing out from under the footboard like a swift grey mill-race. Beatrix and Charlotte glanced at one another and laughed with sheer delight. Lord Mardale kept up a smart pace; the luggage-cart was not yet in sight behind.

“Just listen to Mamma,” said Beatrix to Charlotte, with a grin. Lady Hadlow was chattering as if to make up for months of silence. Sunlight and shadow flew over them; dust steamed away behind them; in half an hour they swung into the Haughton gates.