On the afternoon of the day upon which this occurred, Coombe was
standing in Feather's drawing-room with a cup of tea in his hand
and wearing the look of a man who is given up to reflection.
"I saw Mrs. Muir today for the first time for several years," he
said after a silence. "She is in London with the boy."
"Is she as handsome as ever?"
"Quite. Hers is not the beauty that disappears. It is line and
bearing and a sort of splendid grace and harmony."
"What is the boy like?"
Coombe reflected again before he answered.
"He is--amazing. One so seldom sees anything approaching physical
perfection that it strikes one a sort of blow when one comes upon
it suddenly face to face."
"Is he as beautiful as all that?"
"The Greeks used to make statues of bodies like his. They often
called them gods--but not always. The Creative Intention plainly
was that all human beings should be beautiful and he is the
expression of it."
Feather was pretending to embroider a pink flower on a bit of
gauze and she smiled vaguely.
"I don't know what you mean," she admitted with no abasement of
spirit, "but if ever there was any Intention of that kind it has
not been carried out." Her smile broke into a little laugh as she
stuck her needle into her work. "I'm thinking of Henry," she let
drop in addition.
"So was I, it happened," answered Coombe after a second or so of
pause.
Henry was the next of kin who was--to Coombe's great objection--his
heir presumptive, and was universally admitted to be a repulsive
sort of person both physically and morally. He had brought into
the world a weakly and rickety framework and had from mere boyhood
devoted himself to a life which would have undermined a Hercules.
A relative may so easily present the aspect of an unfortunate incident
over which one has no control. This was the case with Henry. His
character and appearance were such that even his connection with
an important heritage was not enough to induce respectable persons
to accept him in any form. But if Coombe remained without issue
Henry would be the Head of the House.
"How is his cough?" inquired Feather.
"Frightful. He is an emaciated wreck and he has no physical cause
for remaining alive."
Feather made three or four stitches.
"Does Mrs. Muir know?" she said.
"If Mrs. Muir is conscious of his miserable existence, that is
all," he answered. "She is not the woman to inquire. Of course
she cannot help knowing that--when he is done with--her boy takes
his place in the line of succession."
"Oh, yes, she'd know that," put in Feather.
It was Coombe who smiled now--very faintly.
"You have a mistaken view of her," he said.
"You admire her very much," Feather bridled. The figure of this
big Scotch creature with her "line" and her "splendid grace and
harmony" was enough to make one bridle.
"She doesn't admire me," said Coombe. "She is not proud of me as
a connection. She doesn't really want the position for the boy,
in her heart of hearts."
"Doesn't want it!" Feather's exclamation was a little jeer only
because she would not have dared a big one.
"She is Scotch Early Victorian in some things and extremely advanced
in others," he went on. "She has strong ideas of her own as to
how he shall be brought up. She's rather Greek in her feeling for
his being as perfect physically and mentally as she can help him
to be. She believes things. It was she who said what you did not
understand--about the Creative Intention."
"I suppose she is religious," Feather said. "Scotch people often
are but their religion isn't usually like that. Creative Intention's
a new name for God, I suppose. I ought to know all about God. I've
heard enough about Him. My father was not a clergyman but he was
very miserable, and it made him so religious that he was ALMOST
one. We were every one of us christened and catechized and confirmed
and all that. So God's rather an old story."
"Queer how old--from Greenland's icy mountains to India's coral
strand," said Coombe. "It's an ancient search--that for the
Idea--whether it takes form in metal or wood or stone."
"Well," said Feather, holding her bit of gauze away from her
the better to criticize the pink flower. "As ALMOST a clergyman's
daughter I must say that if there is one tiling God didn't do, it
was to fill the world with beautiful people and things as if it
was only to be happy in. It was made to-to try us by suffering
and-that sort of thing. It's a-a-what d'ye call it? Something
beginning with P."
"Probation," suggested Coombe regarding her with an expression of
speculative interest. Her airy bringing forth of her glib time-worn
little scraps of orthodoxy--as one who fished them out of a bag of
long-discarded remnants of rubbish--was so true to type that it
almost fascinated him for a moment.
"Yes. That's it--probation," she answered. "I knew it began with
a P. It means 'thorny paths' and 'seas of blood' and, if you are
religious, you 'tread them with bleeding feet--' or swim them as
the people do in hymns. And you praise and glorify all the time
you're doing it. Of course, I'm not religious myself and I can't
say I think it's pleasant--but I do KNOW! Every body beautiful
and perfect indeed! That's not religion--it's being irreligious.
Good gracious, think of the cripples and lepers and hunchbacks!"
"And the idea is that God made them all--by way of entertaining
himself?" he put it to her quietly.
"Well, who else did?" said Feather cheerfully.
"I don't know," he said. "Certain things I heard Mrs. Muir say
suggested to one that it might be interesting to think it out."
"Did she talk to you about God at afternoon tea?" said Feather.
"It's the kind of thing a religious Scotch woman might do."
"No, she did not talk to me. Perhaps that was her mistake. She
might have reformed me. She never says more to me than civility
demands. And it was not at tea. I accidentally dropped in on the
Bethunes and found an Oriental had been lecturing there. Mrs.
Muir was talking to him and I heard her. The man seemed to be a
scholar and a deep thinker and as they talked a group of us stood
and listened or asked questions."
"How funny!" said Feather.
"It was not funny at all. It was astonishingly calm and serious--and
logical. The logic was the new note. I had never thought of reason
in that connection."
"Reason has nothing to do with it. You must have faith. You
must just believe what you're told not think at all. Thinking is
wickedness--unless you think what you hear preached." Feather was
even a trifle delicately smug as she rattled off her orthodoxy--but
she laughed after she had done with it. "But it MUST have been
funny--a Turk or a Hindoo in a turban and a thing like a tea gown
and Mrs. Muir in her Edinburgh looking clothes talking about God."
"You are quite out of it," Coombe did not smile at all as he
said it. "The Oriental was as physically beautiful as Donal Muir
is. And Mrs. Muir--no other woman in the room compared with her.
Perhaps people who think grow beautiful."
Feather was not often alluring or coquettish in her manner to
Coombe but she tilted her head prettily and looked down at her
flower through lovely lashes.
"_I_ don't think," she said. "And I am not so bad looking."
"No," he answered coldly. "You are not. At times you look like a
young angel."
"If Mrs. Muir is like that," she said after a brief pause, "I
should like to know what she thinks of me?"
"No, you would not--neither should I--if she thinks at all," was
his answer. "But you remember you said you did not mind that sort
of thing."
"I don't. Why should I? It can't harm me." Her hint of a pout
made her mouth entrancing. "But, if she thinks good looks are the
result of religiousness I should like to let her see Robin--and
compare her with her boy. I saw Robin in the park last week and
she's a perfect beauty."
"Last week?" said Coombe.
"She doesn't need anyone but Andrews. I should bore her to death if
I went and sat in the Nursery and stared at her. No one does that
sort of thing in these days. But I should like to see Mrs. Muir to
see the two children together!" "That could not easily be arranged,
I am afraid," he said.
"Why not?"
His answer was politely deliberate.
"She greatly disapproves of me, I have told you. She is not proud
of the relationship."
"She does not like ME you mean?"
"Excuse me. I mean exactly what I said in telling you that she has
her own very strong views of the boy's training and surroundings.
They may be ridiculous but that sort of thing need not trouble
you."
Feather held up her hand and actually laughed.
"If Robin meets him in ten years from now-THAT for her very strong
views of his training and surroundings!"
And she snapped her fingers.
Mrs. Muir's distaste for her son's unavoidable connection the man
he might succeed had a firm foundation. She had been brought up in
a Scottish Manse where her father dominated as an omnipotent and
almost divine authority. As a child of imagination she had not been
happy but she had been obedient. In her girlhood she had varied
from type through her marriage with a young man who was a dreamer,
an advanced thinker, an impassioned Greek scholar and a lover
of beauty. After he had from her terrors of damnation, they had
been profoundly happy. They were young and at ease and they read
and thought together ardently. They explored new creeds and cults
and sometimes found themselves talking nonsense and sometimes
discovering untrodden paths of wisdom. They were youthful enough
to be solemn about things at times, and clever enough to laugh
at their solemnity when they awakened to it. Helen Muir left the
reverent gloom of the life at the Manse far behind despite her
respect for certain meanings they beclouded.
"I live in a new structure," she said to her husband, "but it is
built on a foundation which is like a solid subterranean chamber.
I don't use the subterranean chamber or go into it. I don't want
to. But now and then echoes--almost noises--make themselves heard
in it. Sometimes I find I have listened in spite of myself."
She had always been rather grave about her little son and when
her husband's early death left him and his dignified but not large
estate in her care she realized that there lay in her hands the
power to direct a life as she chose, in as far as was humanly
possible. The pure blood and healthy tendencies of a long and
fine ancestry expressing themselves in the boy's splendid body
and unusual beauty had set the minds of two imaginative people
working from the first. One of Muir's deepest interests was the
study of development of the race. It was he who had planted in
her mind that daringly fearless thought of a human perfection as
to the Intention of the Creative Cause. They used to look at the
child as he lay asleep and note the beauty of him--his hands, his
feet, his torso, the tint and texture and line of him.
"This is what was MEANT--in the plan for every human being--How
could there be scamping and inefficiency in Creation. It is
we ourselves who have scamped and been incomplete in our thought
and life. Here he is. Look at him. But he will only develop as he
is--if living does not warp him." This was what his father said.
His mother was at her gravest as she looked down at the little god
in the crib.
"It's as if some power had thrust a casket of loose jewels into
our hands and said, 'It is for you to see that not one is lost',"
she murmured. Then the looked up and smiled.
"Are we being solemn--over a baby?" she said.
"Perhaps," he was always even readier to smile than she was. "I've
an idea, however, that there's enough to be solemn about--not too
solemn, but just solemn enough. You are a beautiful thing, Fair
Helen! Why shouldn't he be like you? Neither of us will forget
what we have just said."
Through her darkest hours of young bereavement she remembered
the words many times and felt as if they were a sort of light she
might hold in her hand as she trod the paths of the "Afterwards"
which were in the days before her. She lived with Donal at Braemarnie
and lived FOR him without neglecting her duty of being the head
of a household and an estate and also a good and gracious neighbour
to things and people. She kept watch over every jewel in his
casket, great and small. He was so much a part of her religion
that sometimes she realized that the echoes from the subterranean
chamber were perhaps making her a little strict but she tried to
keep guard over herself.
He was handsome and radiant with glowing health and vitality. He
was a friendly, rejoicing creature and as full of the joy of life
as a scampering moor pony. He was clever enough but not too clever
and he was friends with the world. Braemarnie was picturesquely
ancient and beautiful. It would be a home of sufficient ease and
luxury to be a pleasure but no burden. Life in it could be perfect
and also supply freedom. Coombe Court and Coombe Keep were huge
and castellated and demanded great things. Even if the Head of the
House had been a man to like and be proud of--the accession of a
beautiful young Marquis would rouse the hounds of war, so to speak,
and set them racing upon his track. Even the totally unalluring
"Henry" had been beset with temptations from his earliest years.
That he promptly succumbed to the first only brought forth others.
It did not seem fair that a creature so different, a splendid
fearless thing, should be dragged from his hills and moors and
fair heather and made to breathe the foul scent of things, of whose
poison he could know nothing. She was not an ignorant childish
woman. In her fine aloof way she had learned much in her stays in
London with her husband and in their explorings of foreign cities.
This was the reason for her views of her boy's training and
surroundings. She had not asked questions about Coombe himself,
but it had not been necessary. Once or twice she had seen Feather
by chance. In spite of herself she had heard about Henry. Now and
then he was furbished up and appeared briefly at Coombe Court or
at The Keep. It was always briefly because he inevitably began to
verge on misbehaving himself after twenty-four hours had passed.
On his last visit to Coombe House in town, where he had turned
up without invitation, he had become so frightfully drunk that he
had been barely rescued from the trifling faux pas of attempting
to kiss a very young royal princess. There were quite definite
objections to Henry.
Helen Muir was NOT proud of the Coombe relationship and with
unvaried and resourceful good breeding kept herself and her boy from
all chance of being drawn into anything approaching an intimacy.
Donal knew nothing of his prospects. There would be time enough
for that when he was older, but, in the meantime, there should be
no intercourse if it could be avoided.
She had smiled at herself when the "echo" had prompted her to the
hint of a quaint caution in connection with his little boy flame
of delight in the strange child he had made friends with. But it
HAD been a flame and, though she, had smiled, she sat very still
by the window later that night and she had felt a touch of weight
on her heart as she thought it over. There were wonderful years
when one could give one's children all the things they wanted, she
was saying to herself--the desires of their child hearts, the joy
of their child bodies, their little raptures of delight. Those
were divine years. They were so safe then. Donal was living
through those years now. He did not know that any happiness could
be taken from him. He was hers and she was his. It would be horrible
if there were anything one could not let him keep--in this early
unshadowed time!
She was looking out at the Spring night with all its stars lit
and gleaming over the Park which she could see from her window.
Suddenly she left her chair and rang for Nanny.
"Nanny," she said when the old nurse came, "tell me something about
the little girl Donal plays with in the Square gardens."
"She's a bonny thing and finely dressed, ma'am," was the woman's
careful answer, "but I don't make friends with strange nurses and
I don't think much of hers. She's a young dawdler who sits novel
reading and if Master Donal were a young pickpocket with the
measles, the child would be playing with him just the same as far
as I can see. The young woman sits under a tree and reads and the
pretty little thing may do what she likes. I keep my eye on them,
however, and they're in no mischief. Master Donal reads out of
his picture books and shows himself off before her grandly and she
laughs and looks up to him as if he were a king. Every lad child
likes a woman child to look up to him. It's pretty to see the
pair of them. They're daft about each other. Just wee things in
love at first sight."
"Donal has known very few girls. Those plain little things at the
Manse are too dull for him," his mother said slowly.
"This one's not plain and she's not dull," Nanny answered. "My
word! but she's like a bit of witch fire dancing--with her colour
and her big silk curls in a heap. Donal stares at her like a young
man at a beauty. I wish, ma'am, we knew more of her forbears."
"I must see her," Mrs. Muir said. "Tomorrow I'll go with you both
to the Gardens."
Therefore the following day Donal pranced proudly up the path to
his trysting place and with him walked a tall lady at whom people
looked as she passed. She was fair like Donal and had a small head
softly swathed with lovely folds of hair. Also her eyes were very
clear and calm. Donal was plainly proud and happy to be with her
and was indeed prancing though his prance was broken by walking
steps at intervals.
Robin was waiting behind the lilac bushes and her nurse was already
deep in the mystery of Lady Audley.
"There she is!" cried Donal, and he ran to her. "My mother has come
with me. She wants to see you, too," and he pulled her forward by
her hand. "This is Robin, Mother! This is Robin." He panted with
elation and stood holding his prize as if she might get away before
he had displayed her; his eyes lifted to his tall mother's were
those of an exultant owner.
Robin had no desire to run away. To adore anything which belonged
to Donal was only nature. And this tall, fair, wonderful person
was a Mother. No wonder Donal talked of her so much. The child could
only look up at her as Donal did. So they stood hand in hand like
little worshippers before a deity.
Andrews' sister in her pride had attired the small creature like
a flower of Spring. Her exquisiteness and her physical brilliancy
gave Mrs. Muir something not unlike a slight shock. Oh! no wonder--since
she was like that. She stooped and kissed the round cheek delicately.
"Donal wanted me to see his little friend," she said. "I always
want to see his playmates. Shall we walk round the Garden together
and you shall show me where you play and tell me all about it."
She took the small hand and they walked slowly. Robin was at
first too much awed to talk but as Donal was not awed at all and
continued his prancing and the Mother lady said pretty things
about the flowers and the grass and the birds and even about the
pony at Braemarnie, she began now and then to break into a little
hop herself and presently into sudden ripples of laughter like
a bird's brief bubble of song. The tall lady's hand was not like
Andrews, or the hand of Andrews' sister. It did not pull or jerk
and it had a lovely feeling. The sensation she did not know was
happiness again welled up within her. Just one walk round the
Garden and then the tall lady sat down on a seat to watch them play.
It was wonderful. She did not read or work. She sat and watched
them as if she wanted to do that more than anything else. Donal
kept calling out to her and making her smile: he ran backwards
and forwards to her to ask questions and tell her what they were
"making up" to play. When they gathered leaves to prick stars and
circles on, they did them on the seat on which she sat and she
helped them with new designs. Several times, in the midst of
her play, Robin stopped and stood still a moment with a sort of
puzzled expression. It was because she did not feel like Robin.
Two people--a big boy and a lady--letting her play and talk to
them as if they liked her and had time!
The truth was that Mrs. Muir's eyes followed Robin more than they
followed Donal. Their clear deeps yearned over her. Such a glowing
vital little thing! No wonder! No wonder! And as she grew older she
would be more vivid and compelling with every year. And Donal was
of her kind. His strength, his beauty, his fearless happiness-claiming
temperament. How could one--with dignity and delicacy--find out
why she had this obvious air of belonging to nobody? Donal was
an exact little lad. He had had foundation for his curious scraps
of her story. No mother--no playthings or books--no one had ever
kissed her! And she dressed and soignee like this! Who was the
Lady Downstairs?
A victoria was driving past the Gardens. It was going slowly because
the two people in it wished to look at the spring budding out of
hyacinths and tulips. Suddenly one of the pair--a sweetly-hued
figure whose early season attire was hyacinth-like itself--spoke
to the coachman.
"Stop here!" she said. "I want to get out."
As the victoria drew up near a gate she made a light gesture.
"What do you think, Starling," she laughed. "The very woman
we are talking about is sitting in the Gardens there. I know her
perfectly though I only saw her portrait at the Academy years ago.
Yes, there she is. Mrs. Muir, you know." She clapped her hands and
her laugh became a delighted giggle. "And my Robin is playing on
the grass near her--with a boy! What a joke! It must be THE boy!
And I wanted to see the pair together. Coombe said couldn't be
done. And more than anything I want to speak to HER. Let's get
out."
They got out and this was why Helen Muir, turning her eyes a moment
from Robin whose hand she was holding, saw two women coming towards
her with evident intention. At least one of them had evident
intention. She was the one whose light attire produced the effect
of being made of hyacinth petals.
Because Mrs. Muir's glance turned towards her, Robin's turned
also. She started a little and leaned against Mrs. Muir's knee,
her eyes growing very large and round indeed and filling with a
sudden worshipping light.
"It is--" she ecstatically sighed or rather gasped, "the Lady
Downstairs!"
Feather floated near to the seat and paused smiling.
"Where is your nurse, Robin?" she said.
Robin being always dazzled by the sight of her did not of course
shine.
"She is reading under the tree," she answered tremulously.
"She is only a few yards away," said Mrs. Muir. "She knows Robin
is playing with my boy and that I am watching them. Robin is your
little girl?" amiably.
"Yes. So kind of you to let her play with your boy. Don't let her
bore you. I am Mrs. Gareth-Lawless."
There was a little silence--a delicate little silence.
"I recognized you as Mrs. Muir at once," said Feather. unperturbed
and smiling brilliantly, "I saw your portrait at the Grosvenor."
"Yes," said Mrs. Muir gently. She had risen and was beautifully
tall,--"the line" was perfect, and she looked with a gracious calm
into Feather's eyes.
Donal, allured by the hyacinth petal colours, drew near. Robin made
an unconscious little catch at his plaid and whispered something.
"Is this Donal?" Feather said.
"ARE you the Lady Downstairs, please?" Donal put in politely,
because he wanted so to know.
Feather's pretty smile ended in the prettiest of outright laughs.
Her maid had told her Andrews' story of the name.
"Yes, I believe that's what she calls me. It's a nice name for a
mother, isn't it?"
Donal took a quick step forward.
"ARE you her mother?" he asked eagerly.
"Of course I am."
Donal quite flushed with excitement.
"She doesn't KNOW," he said.
He turned on Robin.
"She's your Mother! You thought you hadn't one! She's your Mother!"
"But I am the Lady Downstairs, too." Feather was immensely amused.
She was not subtle enough to know why she felt a perverse kind of
pleasure in seeing the Scotch woman standing so still, and that
it led her into a touch of vulgarity. "I wanted very much to see
your boy," she said.
"Yes," still gently from Mrs. Muir.
"Because of Coombe, you know. We are such old friends. How queer
that the two little things have made friends, too. I didn't know.
I am so glad I caught a glimpse of you and that I had seen the
portrait. GOOD morning. Goodbye, children."
While she strayed airily away they all watched her. She picked up
her friend, the Starling, who, not feeling concerned or needed,
had paused to look at daffodils. The children watched her until
her victoria drove away, the chiffon ruffles of her flowerlike
parasol fluttering in the air.
Mrs. Muir had sat down again and Donal and Robin leaned against
her. They saw she was not laughing any more but they did not know
that her eyes had something like grief in them.
"She's her Mother!" Donal cried. "She's lovely, too. But she's--her
MOTHER!" and his voice and face were equally puzzled.
Robin's little hand delicately touched Mrs. Muir.
"IS--she?" she faltered.
Helen Muir took her in her arms and held her quite close. She
kissed her.
"Yes, she is, my lamb," she said. "She's your mother."
She was clear as to what she must do for Donal's sake. It was the
only safe and sane course. But--at this age--the child WAS a lamb
and she could not help holding her close for a moment. Her little
body was deliciously soft and warm and the big silk curls all in
a heap were a fragrance against her breast.