Silverbeach Manor (2 page)

Temperance
Piper has had some of these numbers to look over, but she likes
neither the pictures nor the contents. More than once she has
declined the agent's advice to thus increasing her income. She has
a fair sale already for pure and innocent stories -- papers cheery
at the fireside but harmless to the soul, and she has always set
her face against over-sensational literature. Yet her poor, thin
purse seems week by week to contain less and less, and Pansy has
grown older now, with ever-increasing needs.

She is even
more painfully conscious than Pansy herself that the girl's boots
need to be soled and heeled. Her last winter's jacket is patched at
the elbows, and the straw of her dark-brown hat is frayed.
Temperance thinks it is a shame for Pansy to have to go about so
shabbily clad when all Polesheaton calls her so pretty.

"Those
novelettes might bring people into the shop," she thinks,
doubtfully, "and then they might get their groceries here, instead
of going on to Mr. Greggs' down town. I should not wonder if Mr.
Greggs takes to selling novelettes presently as an attraction. Mr.
Lade says Mrs. Price sells all the most exciting stories over at
Fir Heath, and
her
husband is a
churchwarden -- they are most respectable people. Surely there can
be no harm in doing what Mrs. Price does."

Then comes to
Aunt Temperance the memory of her class of young girls in the
Sunday school, guided by her influence, looking to her for helpful
counsel and a Christian example. She thinks of the boys in the
school Sunday after Sunday, with hearts impressionable for good or
for evil. Shall she fill the minds of those growing girls with the
notion that to be courted by the aristocracy is womanhood's noblest
ambition? Shall she be the means of leading those boys to believe
that highway robbery or piracy represents true courage and heroism
and intrepidity?

"It is very
difficult to know what to do for the best," she sighs. "We are so
miserably poor, and things look so bad in Polesheaton. There is old
Mr. Sotham giving up the rooms today, and the agent calling with
the novelettes this afternoon. I think I will sell them for a month
or so, not as a regular thing, but just to bring custom into the
shop. Then, when I can do a little better with the grocery and
stationery, then I will make a clean sweep of such papers out of my
place."

So the window
is filled that afternoon with sensational covers that fascinate a
throng of young people hanging round Miss Piper's window, and the
shop does a brisk trade in cheap "dreadfuls" day after day. Pansy
becomes absorbed in the fortunes of a girl in circumstances as
humble as her own, who is wooed under most romantic circumstances
by "a noble-looking stranger with liquid dark eyes." Somehow Aunt
Temperance does not find as much opportunity for private prayer as
before -- does not "steal away to Jesus," as was her wont from the
little dark shop and the counter sometimes.

***

Months have
rolled by, and it is the bright autumn weather when the trees
around Polesheaton are a mass of vivid colouring, from the bright
gold of the chestnut to wondrous shades of pink, and crimson that
burns like fire. The Grange garden, full of magnificent old trees,
is a marvel to behold. Part of the garden runs along the High
Street, and only a high wall divides it from Miss Temperance
Piper's humble little plot where she grows her marigolds and
lavender and sweet herbs.

Close to this
wall is a friendly tree, and all her life long Pansy has loved, by
using its branches, to seat herself on the dividing wall and gaze
upon the magic grounds which seem to her like Fairyland.

Wonderful
people have come and gone from The Grange. It belongs to Sir
Patrick Moreton now, and he is a foreign ambassador, so the old
Grange is occasionally let furnished to those recommended country
rest, though everyone gets tired of it and wonders how the
residents of Polesheaton manage to exist at all.

Pansy is
inclined to ask the same impatient question this bright autumn day
as she sits on the wall and peruses the last number of
The History of the Gipsy of Grosvenor
Square
.

"I am so sick
and tired of being poor!" she cries restlessly. "One might as well
be buried alive as live in Polesheaton, and sew and dust and teach
music to stupid children, and do just the same dull things over and
over again every day. Oh, I do wish something would happen. I wish
some of my mother's friends would die and leave me ever so much
money. I would be able to make Aunt Temperance rich and happy all
her life, and Deb could be my maid, and I would pension old Mr.
Wells because he taught me music, and Mrs. Wells because she taught
me French. Then Auntie and Deb and I would turn our backs on
Polesheaton for ever, and we would live in London all our lives. I
would go to the theatre every night, and wear sapphires and
diamonds, and ride in the Row, and marry a marquis, an earl, or a
duke. Why, one never sees anybody titled in stupid old
Polesheaton!"

Suddenly Pansy
starts, and bends her head down over her novelette with a blush.
She can usually get off the wall without detection, but today she
is too late. She has not heard the rubber tyred wheels of a Bath
chair, and she opens her dark eyes in confusion, wonder, and
admiration as she sees in the chestnut-walk a footman propelling a
lady with a quantity of light coloured, dense hair, with a handsome
fur cloak around her shoulders.

Mrs. Adair is
a worshipper of beauty, and is quite struck by the picture before
her. Pansy looks so pretty among the leaves in her old crimson
dress, her auburn waves of hair rippling around her brow.

"Do not move!"
Mrs. Adair exclaims, rousing a little from her lethargy. "Let me
sketch you just as you are. Robson, pass me my sketchbook, and
leave me here for half an hour."

Pansy
sees and hears as in a dream. She watches the movements of the
lady's pencil, but can scarcely realize that the new tenant of
Polesheaton Grange actually cares about taking her likeness. What
would the Sotham girls say -- Martha Sotham, who never knows how to
put on a hat properly; and Ellen, who actually brought her new
jacket at that grand shop in Firlands? But no real lady has ever
asked to take
their
portraits.

"Quite out of
the ordinary," murmurs Mrs. Adair. "The idea of meeting such a
refined expression among these benighted rustics! I suppose the
child is lodging at the post office. Very well, she will amuse my
solitude in these wilds. What is your name, my child?"

"Pansy,"
says the girl timidly, because the surname
Piper
has always been to her an affliction
grievous to be borne.

"Pansy. What a
charming name! You look like a little flower yourself. I have made
an excellent sketch."

"Pansy was my
mother's name. She was an officer's daughter," says the girl,
anxious to show she is not of the race of the Sothams and the other
Polesheaton families.

Mrs. Adair is
a trifle deaf, but she keeps her infirmities in the background.
"You are so far away up there," she says. "I want a chat with you,
Pansy. I wish you could come over this side and keep me
company."

"The little
door that leads from the garden into the High Street was open just
now -- I looked in at the dahlias," says Pansy, with an excited
face. "Shall I come in that way, your ladyship?"

Mrs. Adair
smiles and nods, and Pansy rushes back to her room and hastily puts
on her best dress: a blue alpaca with violet quilting made in
Polesheaton style by the village dressmaker.

"Why, Miss
Pansy, whatever have you gone and put your best frock on for?"
cries Deborah, as Pansy hurries through the shop. But the girl
makes no reply. She feels that she stands on the threshold of a
fairy-like, enchanting, heart-satisfying world, for has not a lady
of position, with a splendid fur cloak, recognized her superiority
to Polesheatonites in general, and invited her across the threshold
of that wonderful garden sacred to all the traditions of the
Tatlocks and their noble friends?

Fashionable Society.

WHATEVER have
you done to yourself?" Mrs. Adair asks, putting up her eyeglass in
languid disapproval of Pansy's Sunday dress. "Where is the pretty
red frock that made such a gipsy of you among the leaves?"

"It was
old," stammers Pansy. "The
sleeves were torn. I had it
four years ago. This dress was new only last month." But she
understands the lady's smile, and hates and despises this dress
from that time forward.

"The style is
a little out of date, but it is good enough for the country," says
Mrs. Adair, indulgently. "Most of the people round here look as if
Mrs. Noah had designed their garments. I should like to see you in
a really well-made dress. It would be quite a new sensation for
you, if you really belong to these wilds. I have a crimson and gold
tea gown that would suit you delightfully, and make you quite a
treasure for an artist."

Pansy thinks
wistfully that her life is condemned to a place where tea gowns are
unknown and unappreciated, and where, year after year, she will be
doomed to blush unseen, knowing the brilliancy and glory of the
fashionable world only by the pictures and stories in the
novelettes Aunt Temperance sells.

Her large
expressive eyes look at Mrs. Adair. "Are you an artist, my lady?"
she asks, timidly.

"My tastes lie
that way, child, but I have such poor health that I paint but
little now. My nerves are out of tone, and the artistic flame
consumes my constitution -- so the physicians tell me. But I used
to paint once." Mrs. Adair sighs a little, perhaps in memory of
long-past struggling days, when she knew all the rapture and
anxieties of an art career before she chose the luxury offered by a
loveless marriage with an elderly, wealthy man who lifted her
beyond the reach of want, and clad her in "purple and fine linen."
Somehow, from that time her artistic power began to wane.

Mrs. Adair is
a widow now, with far more money than she can spend on her own ease
and enjoyment, but from the hour she turned her back on Truth, and
promised her love to one who had not in the remotest degree reached
her heart, she lost the capacity of an artist in its highest, best,
and most glorious degree. Still, as she says, her "tastes lie that
way," and her beautiful riverside mansion, Silverbeach Manor, far
away from here in the County of Surrey is the resort of artists,
both amateur and professional.

Pansy tells
the story of the elopement of her mother, an officer's daughter,
with her father, who was her music teacher.

"Of course it
was a marriage considered by many to be much beneath my mother's
family," she says. "Grandfather cast her off, being related himself
to the nobility."

After the
death of Pansy's parents, Aunt Temperance Piper had wholly provided
for Pansy, planning for her, trying ineffectually to save money for
her, dreaming of her, adoring her, counting the pretty, clever
child as the apple of her eye. Polesheaton people could relate
considerably more than Pansy now tells Mrs. Adair, who forms the
opinion that it is rather a pity for such an attractive-looking
girl to be hidden away in a remote country post office. She is
amused to see Pansy's cheeks flush and her eyes brighten to hear of
London and London gaieties.

Mrs.
Adair is entrancing the girl by an account of the occasion when she
was presented at Court, and in imagination Pansy is sailing up to
her Majesty Queen Victoria in a low-necked dress and feathers, and
a brocaded train (a full account of which would, of course, appear
in
The Polesheaton Herald,
to the dismay
and envy of the Sotham girls from the farm), when a face peers
through the open garden door, catches sight of a glimpse of Pansy's
dress amid the trees, and Deb rushes excitedly into the
garden.

"There, Miss
Pansy, if the girl at the baker's didn't say she saw you come in
here! But I couldn't never believe it!"

"Go away,
Deborah!" says Pansy with forced dignity, adding in a low voice,
"Please excuse her, your ladyship. She is only a common girl we
took out of the workhouse -- a girl who does not belong to anybody.
Who gave you permission to come into the lady's garden, Deborah?
"

"Nobody
didn't, Miss Pansy, but mistress is out, and there's a party came
after Spanish onions, and mistress didn't tell me nothing about
them. What is Spanish onions a pound, please, Miss Pansy? "

Deb takes no
notice of the fair, frizzled hair, the dainty bonnet, or the
magnificent cloak. Her whole soul is engrossed in the necessity of
obtaining the price of the onions for her mistress.