The Heart of Una Sackville. Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
fine words—I think there’s a big sprinkling of conceit in my feelings. I do like being the Squire’s daughter, and having people stare at me as I go through the town, and rush about to attend to me when I enter a shop. Ours is only a little bit of a town, and there is so little going on that people take an extra special interest in us and our doings. I know some of the girls quite well—the vicar’s daughter and the doctor’s, and the Heywood girls at the Grange, and I am always very nice to them, but I feel all the time that I am being nice, and they feel it too, so we never seem to be real friends. Is that being a snob, I wonder? If it is, it’s as much their fault as mine, because they are quite different to me from what they are to each other—so much more polite and well-behaved.
I spend the mornings with father, and the afternoons with mother. At first she had mapped out my whole day for me—practising, reading, driving, etcetera, but I just said straight out that I’d promised to go the rounds with father, and I think she was glad, though very much surprised.
“He will be so pleased to have you! It’s nice of you, dear, to think of it, and after all it will be exercise, and there’s not much going on in the morning.”
She never seemed to think I should enjoy it, and I suppose it would bore her as much to walk round to the stables and kennels, and talk to the keepers about game, and the steward about new roofs to cottages, and cutting timber, as it does him to go to garden-parties and pay formal calls. It seems strange to live together so long and to be so different.
I have not met many strangers as yet, because Vere is bringing down a party of visitors for August, and mother is not in a hurry to take me about until I have got all my things; but one morning, when I was out with father, I met such a big, handsome man, quite young, with a brown face and laughing eyes, dressed in the nice country fashion which I love—Norfolk jacket, knickerbockers and leggings. Father hailed him at once, and they talked together for a moment without taking any notice of me, and then father remembered me suddenly, and said—
“This is my youngest daughter. Come home from school to play with me, haven’t you, Babs?” and the strange man smiled and nodded, and said, “How do, Babs?” just as calmly and patronisingly as if I had been two. For a moment I was furious, until I remembered my hockey skirt and cloth cap, and hair done in a door-knocker, with no doubt ends flying about all round my face. I daresay I looked fourteen at the most, and he thought I was home for the holidays. I decided that it would be rather fun to foster the delusion, and behave just as I liked without thinking of what was proper all the time, and then some day he would find out his mistake, and feel properly abashed. His name is Will Dudley, and he is staying with Mr. Lloyd, the agent for the property which adjoins father’s, learning how to look after land, for some day he will inherit a big estate from an uncle, so he likes to get all the experience he can, and to talk to father, and go about with him whenever he has the chance, and father likes to have him—I could tell it by the way he looks and talks. We walked miles that morning, over gates and stiles, and across brooks without dreaming of waiting for the bridges, and I climbed and splashed with the best, and Mr. Dudley twinkled his eyes at me, and said, “Well jumped, Babs!” and lifted me down from the stiles as if I had been a doll. He must be terrifically strong, for I am no light weight, and he didn’t seem to feel me at all.
After that morning we were constantly meeting, and we grew to be quite friends. He has thick, crinkly eyebrows, and is clean-shaven, which I like in his case, as his mouth has such a nice expression. He went on treating me as a child, and father seemed to think it was quite natural. He likes to pretend I am young, poor dear, so that I may be his playmate as long as possible.
Yesterday father went in to see some cottagers, and Mr. Dudley and I sat outside on a log of wood, and talked while we waited for him like this. He—patronisingly—
“I suppose it’s a great treat for you to getaway from school for a time. Where is your school? Town or country? Brighton—ugh!” and he made a grimace of disgust. “Shops—piers—hotels—an awful place! Not a bit of Nature left unspoiled; the very sea looks artificial and unlike itself in such unnatural surroundings!”
“Plenty of crocodiles on the bank, however—that’s natural enough!” I said pertly. I thought it was rather smart, too, but he smiled in a superior “I-will-because-I-must,” sort of way, and said—
“How thankful you must be to get away from it all to this exquisite calm!”
I don’t know much about young men, except what I’ve seen of Spencer and his friends, but they would call exquisite calm by a very different name, so I decided at once that Mr. Will Dudley must have had a secret trouble which had made him hate the world and long for solitude. Perhaps it was a love affair! It would be interesting if he could confide in me, and I could comfort him, so I looked pensive, and said—
“You do get very tired of the glare and the dust! Some of the girls wear smoked glasses in summer, and you get so sick of marching up and down the front. Do you hate Brighton only, or every towny place?”
“I hate all towns, and can’t understand how anyone can live in them who is not obliged. I have tried it for the last five years, but never again!” He stretched his big shoulders, and drew a long breath of determination. “I’ve said ‘Good-bye’ for ever to a life of trammelled civilisation, with its so-called amusements and artificial manners, and hollow friendships, and”—he put his hand to his flannel collar, and patted it with an air of blissful satisfaction—“and stiff, uncomfortable clothing! It’s all over and done with now, thank goodness—a dream of the past!”
“And I am just beginning it! And I expect to like it very much,” I thought to myself, but I didn’t say so to him; and he went on muttering and grumbling all the time he was rolling his cigarette and preparing to smoke.
“You don’t understand—a child like you. It’s a pity you ever should, but in a few years’ time you will be so bound round with conventions that you will not dare to follow your own wishes, unless you make a bold stroke for liberty, as I have done, and free yourself once for all; but not many people have the courage to do that—”
“I don’t think it takes much courage to give up what one dislikes, and to do what one likes best,” I said calmly; and he gave a little jump of surprise, and stared at me over the smoke of the match with amused eyes, just as you look at a child who has said a funny thing—rather precocious for its age.
“Pray, does that wise remark apply to me or to you?” he asked; and I put my chin in the air and said—
“It was a general statement. Of course, I can’t judge of your actions, and, for myself, I can’t tell as yet what I do like. I must try both lives before I can decide.”
“Yes, yes. You must run the gauntlet. Poor little Babs!” he sighed; and after that we sat for quite an age without speaking a word. He was remembering his secret, no doubt, and I was thinking of myself and wondering if it was really true that I was going to have such a bad time. That reminded me of Miss Martin and her advice, and it came to me with a shock that I’d been home a whole month, and had been so taken up with my own affairs that I had had no time to think of my “sister.” I was in a desperate hurry to find her at once. I always am in a hurry when I remember things, and the sight of the cottages put an idea into my head.
“Do you know the people who live in these cottages, Mr. Dudley? I knew the old tenants, of course, but these are new people, and I have not seen them. Are they old or young, and have they any children?”
He puffed out words and smoke in turns.
“John Williams—puff—wife—puff—one baby, guaranteed to make as much noise as five—it’s a marvel it’s quiet now—puff. You can generally hear it a mile off—”
“Is it ill, then, the poor little thing?”
“Healthiest child in the world to judge from its appearance and the strength of its lungs! Natural depravity, nothing else”—puff!
“And in the next house?”
“Thompson—oldish