V
THE VISION OF "SOMETHING BRIGHT"
With that scene in the avenue of elm-trees at Morpingham there comes afalling of the veil. Letters passed between Sophy and Julia Robins, butthey have not been preserved. The diary was not yet begun. BasilWilliamson did not move in the same world with Lady Meg and herentourage: Dunstanbury was in Ireland, where his regiment was thenstationed. For the next twelve months there is only one glimpse ofSophy--that a passing and accidental one, although not without itssignificance as throwing a light on Lady Meg's adoption of Sophy (whileit lasted it amounted to that), and on the strange use to which shehoped to be able to turn her _protegee_. The reference is, however,tantalizingly vague just where explicitness would have been of curiousinterest, though hardly of any real importance to a sensible mind.
The reference occurs in a privately printed volume of reminiscences bythe late Captain Hans Fleming, R.N., a sailor of some distinction, butbetter known as a naturalist. Writing in the winter of 1865-66 (he givesno precise date), he describes in a letter a meeting with LadyMeg--whom, it will be noticed, he calls "old Lady Meg," although at thattime she was but forty-nine. She had so early in life taken up anattitude of resolute spinsterhood that there was a tendency toexaggerate her years.
"To-day in the park I met old Lady Meg Duddington. It was piercing cold,but the carriage was drawn up under the trees. The poor spaniels on theopposite seat were shivering! She stopped me and was, for her, verygracious; she only 'Lord-helped-me' twice in the whole conversation. Shewas full of her ghosts and spirits, her seers and witches. She has gothold of an entirely new prophetess, a certain woman who calls herselfMadame Mantis and knows all the secrets of the future, both this sidethe grave and the other. Beside Lady Meg sat a remarkably striking girl,to whom she introduced me, but I didn't catch the name. I gathered thatthis girl (who had an odd mark on one cheek, almost like a pale pinkwafer) was, in old Meg's mad mind, anyhow, mixed up with theprophetess--as medium, or subject, or inspiration, or something of thatkind--I don't understand that nonsense, and don't want to. But when Ilooked sceptical (and old Pindar chuckled--or it may have been his teethchattering with the cold), Meg nodded her head at the girl and said:'She'll tell you a different tale some day: if you meet her in fiveyears' time, perhaps.' I don't know what the old lady meant; I supposethe girl did, but she looked absolutely indifferent, and, indeed, bored.One can't help being amused, but, seriously, it's rather sad for a manwho was brought up in the reverence of Lord Dunstanbury to see his onlydaughter--a clever woman, too, naturally--devoting herself to suchchildish stuff."
Such is the passage; it is fair to add that most of the Captain's bookis of more general interest. As he implies, he had had a longacquaintance with the Dunstanbury family, and took a particular interestin anything that related to it. Nevertheless, what he says has itsplace here; it fits in with and explains Lady Meg's excited and mysticalexclamation to Mr. Pindar at Morpingham, "They may speak through her!"Apparently "they" had spoken--to what effect we cannot even conjecture,unless an explanation be found in a letter of the Kravonian period inwhich Sophy says to Julia: "You remember that saying of Mantis's when wewere in London--the one about how she saw something hanging in the airover my head--something bright." That is all she says--and "somethingbright" leaves the matter very vague. A sword--a crown--the nimbus of asaint: imagination might play untrammelled. Still some prophecy wasmade; Lady Meg built on it, and Sophy (for all her apparentindifference) remembered it, and in after-days thought it worthy ofrecall. That is as far as we can go; and with that passing glimpse,Sophy Grouch (of course the mention of the wafer-like mark puts heridentity beyond question) passes out of sight for the time; indeed, asSophy Grouch, in the position in which we have seen her and in the nameunder which we have known her, she passes out of sight forever.
PART II
PARIS