CHAPTER XXIII
Pigott, Angela's old nurse, was by no means sorry to hear of Arthur'svisit to the Abbey House, though, having in her youth been a servantin good houses, she was distressed at the nature of his reception.But, putting this aside, she thought it high time that her darlingshould see a young man or two, that she might "learn what the worldwas like." Pigott was no believer in female celibacy, and Angela'sfuture was a frequent subject of meditation with her, for she knewvery well that her present mode of life was scarcely suited either toher birth, her beauty, or her capabilities. Not that she ever, in herhighest flights, imagined Angela as a great lady, or one of society'sshining stars; she loved to picture her in some quiet, happy home,beloved by her husband, and surrounded by children as beautiful asherself. It was but a moderate ambition for one so peerlessly endowed,but she would have been glad to see it fulfilled. For of late yearsthere had sprung up in nurse Pigott's mind an increasing dislike ofher surroundings, which sometimes almost amounted to a feeling ofhorror. Philip she had always detested, with his preoccupied air anduncanny ways.
"There must," she would say, "be something wicked about a man as isafraid to have his own bonny daughter look him in the face, to saynothing of his being that mean as to grudge her the clothes on herback, and make her live worse nor a servant-girl."
Having, therefore, by a quiet peep through the curtains, ascertainedthat he was nice-looking and about the right age, Pigott confessed toherself that she was heartily glad of Arthur's arrival, and determinedthat, should she take to him on further acquaintance, he should find awarm ally in her in any advances he might choose to make on thefortress of Angela's affections.
"I do so hope that you don't mind dining at half-past twelve, and withmy old nurse," Angela said, as they went together up the stairs to theroom they used as a dining-room.
"Of course I don't--I like it, really I do."
Angela shook her head, and, looking but partially convinced, led theway down the passage, and into the room, where, to her astonishment,she perceived that the dinner-table was furnished with a moresumptuous meal than she had seen upon it for years, the fact beingthat Pigott had received orders from Philip which she did not know of,not to spare expense whilst Arthur was his guest.
"What waste," reflected Angela, in whom the pressure of circumstanceshad developed an economical turn of mind, as she glanced at theunaccustomed jug of beer. "He said he was a teetotaller."
A loud "hem!" from Pigott, arresting her attention, stopped allfurther consideration of the matter. That good lady, who, in honour ofthe occasion, was dressed in a black gown of a formidable characterand a many-ribboned cap, was standing up behind her chair waiting tobe introduced to the visitor. Angela proceeded to go through theceremony which Pigott's straight-up-and-down attitude rendered rathertrying.
"Nurse, this is the gentleman that my father has asked to stay withus. Mr. Heigham, let me introduce you to my old nurse Pigott."
Arthur bowed politely, whilst Pigott made two obligatory curtsies,requiring a step backwards after each, as though to make room foranother. Her speech, too, carefully prepared for the occasion, isworthy of transcription.
"Hem!" she said, "this, sir, is a pleasure as I little expected, and Iwell knows that it is not what you or the likes is accustomed to,a-eating of dinners and teas with old women; which I hopes, sir, howas you will put up with it, seeing how as the habits of this house iswhat might, without mistake, be called peculiar, which I says withoutany offence to Miss Angela, 'cause though her bringing-up has beenwhat I call odd, she knows it as well as I do, which, indeed, is theonly consolation I has to offer, being right sure, as indeed I am, howas any young gentleman as ever breathed would sit in a pool of waterto dine along with Miss Angela, let alone an old nurse. I ain't such afool as I may look; no need for you to go a-blushing of, Miss Angela.And now, sir, if you please, we will sit down, for fear lest the gravyshould begin to grease;" and, utterly exhausted by the exuberance ofher own verbosity, she plunged into her chair--an example whichArthur, bowing his acknowledgements of her opening address, was notslow to follow.
One of his first acts was, at Pigott's invitation, to help himself toa glass of beer, of which, to speak truth, he drank a good deal.
Angela watched the proceeding with interest.
"What," she asked presently, "is a teetotaller?"
The recollection of his statement of the previous day flashed into hismind. He was, however, equal to the occasion.
"A teetotaller," he replied, with gravity, "is a person who onlydrinks beer," and Angela, the apparent discrepancy explained, retiredsatisfied.
That was a very pleasant dinner. What a thing it is to be young and inlove! How it gilds the dull gingerbread of life; what new capacitiesof enjoyment it opens up to us, and, for the matter of that, of painalso; and oh! what stupendous fools it makes of us in everybody else'seyes except our own, and, if we are lucky, those of our adored!
The afternoon and evening passed much as the morning had done. Angelatook Arthur round the place, and showed him all the spots connectedwith her strange and lonely childhood, of which she told him many acurious story. In fact, before the day was over, he knew all thehistory of her innocent life, and was struck with amazement at thevariety and depth of her scholastic acquirements and the extraordinarypower of her mind, which, combined with her simplicity and totalignorance of the ways of the world, produced an affect as charming asit was unusual. Needless to say that every hour he knew her he fellmore deeply in love with her.
At length, about eight o'clock, just as it was beginning to get dark,she suggested that he should go and sit a while with her father.
"And what are you going to do?" asked Arthur.
"Oh! I am going to read a little, and then go to bed; I always go tobed about nine;" and she held out her hand to say good-night. He tookit and said,
"Good-night, then; I wish it were to-morrow."
"Why?"
"Because then I should be saying, 'Good-morning, Angela,' instead of'Good-night, Angela,' May I call you Angela? We seem to know eachother so well, you see."
"Yes, of course," she laughed back; "everybody I know calls me Angela,so why shouldn't you?"
"And will you call me Arthur? Everybody I know calls me Arthur."
Angela hesitated, and Angela blushed, though why she hesitated and whyshe blushed was perhaps more than she could have exactly said.
"Y-e-s, I suppose so--that is, if you like it. It is a pretty name,Arthur. Good-night, Arthur," and she was gone.
His companion gone, Arthur turned and entered the house. The study-door was open, so he went straight in. Philip, who was sitting andstaring in an abstracted way at the empty fireplace with a lightbehind him, turned quickly round as he heard the footstep.
"Oh! it's you, is it, Heigham? I suppose Angela has gone upstairs; shegoes to roost very early. I hope that she has not bored you, and thatold Pigott hasn't talked your head off. I told you that we were an oddlot, you know; but, if you find us odder than you bargained for, Ishould advise you to clear out."
"Thank you, I have spent a very happy day."
"Indeed, I am glad to hear it. You must be easily satisfied, have anArcadian mind, and that sort of thing. Take some whisky, and lightyour pipe."
Arthur did so, and presently Philip, in that tone of gentlemanly easewhich above everything distinguished him from his cousin, led theconversation round to his guest's prospects and affairs, moreespecially his money affairs. Arthur answered him frankly enough, butthis money talk had not the same charms for him that it had for hishost. Indeed, a marked repugnance to everything that had to do withmoney was one of his characteristics; and, wearied out at length withpecuniary details and endless researches into the mysteries ofinvestment, he took advantage of a pause to attempt to change thesubject.
"Well," he said, "I am much obliged to you for your advice, for I amvery ignorant myself, and hate anything to do with money. I go back tofirst principles, and
believe that we should all be better withoutit."
"I always thought," answered Philip, with a semi-contemptuous smile,"that the desire of money, or, amongst savage races, its equivalent,shells or what not, was _the_ first principle of human nature."
"Perhaps it is--I really don't know; but I heartily wish that it couldbe eliminated off the face of the earth."
"Forgive me," laughed Philip, "but that is the speech of a very youngman. Why, eliminate money, and you take away the principal interest oflife, and destroy the social fabric of the world. What is power butmoney, comfort?--money, social consideration?--money, ay, and love,and health, and happiness itself? Money, money, money. Tell me," hewent on, rising, and addressing him with a curious earnestness, "whatgod is there more worthy of our adoration than Plutus, seeing that, ifwe worship him enough, he alone of the idols we set in high places,will never fail us at need?"
"It is a worship that rarely brings lasting happiness with it. In ourgreed to collect the means of enjoyment, surely we lose the power toenjoy?"
"Pshaw! that is the cant of fools, of those who do not know, of thosewho cannot feel. But I know and I feel, and I tell you that it is notso. The collection of those means is in itself a pleasure, because itgives a consciousness of power. Don't talk to me of Fate; thatsovereign" (throwing the coin on to the table) "is Fate's own seal.You see me, for instance, apparently poor and helpless, a socialpariah, one to be avoided, and even insulted. Good; before long thesewill right all that for me. I shall by their help be powerful andcourted yet. Ay, believe me, Heigham, money is a living moving force;leave it still, and it accumulates; expend it, and it gratifies everywish; save it, and that is best of all, and you hold in your hand alever that will lift the world. I tell you that there is no height towhich it cannot bring you, no gulf it will not bridge you."
"Except," soliloquized Arthur, "the cliffs of the Hereafter, and--thegrave."
His words produced a curious effect. Philip's eloquence broke offshort, and for a moment a great fear crept into his eyes.
Silence ensued which neither of them seemed to care to break.Meanwhile the wind suddenly sprang up, and began to moan and sighamongst the half-clad boughs of the trees outside--making, Arthurthought to himself, a very melancholy music. Presently Philip laid hishand upon his guest's arm, and he felt that it shook like an aspen-leaf.
"Tell me," he said, in a hoarse whisper, "what do you see there?"
Arthur started, and followed the direction of his eyes to the barewall opposite the window, at that end of the room through which thedoor was made.
"I see," he said, "some moving shadows."
"What do they resemble?"
"I don't know; nothing in particular. What are they?"
"What are they?" hissed Philip, whose face was livid with terror,"they are the shades of the dead sent here to torture me. Look, shegoes to meet him; the old man is telling her. Now she will wring herhands."
"Nonsense, Mr. Caresfoot, nonsense," said Arthur, shaking himselftogether; "I see nothing of the sort. Why, it is only the shadowsflung by the moonlight through the swinging boughs of that tree. Cutit down, and you will have no more writing upon your wall."
"Ah! of course you are right, Heigham, quite right," ejaculated hishost, faintly, wiping the cold sweat from his brow; "it is nothing butthe moonlight. How ridiculous of me! I suppose I am a little out ofsorts--liver wrong. Give me some whisky, there's a good fellow, andI'll drink damnation to all the shadows and _the trees that throwthem_. Ha, ha, ha!"
There was something so uncanny about his host's manner, and hisevident conviction of the origin of the wavering figures on the wall(which had now disappeared), that Arthur felt, had it not been forAngela, he would not be sorry to get clear of him and his shadows assoon as possible, for superstition, he knew, is as contagious assmall-pox. When at length he reached his great bare bed-chamber, not,by the way, a comfortable sort of place to sleep in after such anexperience, it was only after some hours, in the excited state of hisimagination, that, tired though he was, he could get the rest heneeded.