The Determined Bachelor (9 page)

Nicole seemed to consider this point with some solemnity. Then, blinking a little, she offered Anne a trembling smile.

“I think,” she said in a rather hoarse voice, “I shall go and learn my history lesson now.”

Anne saw the child go with mixed emotions.

She could not have said, as she rose slowly to her feet and moved toward the same window before which Nicole had stood some moments before, exactly what she felt. For some while she stood motionless, gazing out over the line of crooked rooftops leading toward the tiny arch of Westminster Bridge, with its minute line of carriages and people. In the distance the waters of the Thames sparkled beneath the brilliant sun of a clear November afternoon, and across the river
only a tiny spiderweb of streets and houses hinted at the vast population of London which had never set foot in Regent's Terrace or Bond Street. Anne had not ceased to be amazed at the immensity of the city, nor at the extraordinary diversity of life going on within. The mere sight of that panorama thrilled her, with all the richness of humanity it implied. To think that she might never have come, might at this very moment have been a mere Mrs. Siddons presiding over her parlour and her dining table, with no greater ambition man serving five courses to her husband's friends and possessing a wider command of the village gossip than her sisters! The idea made her laugh, and with a triumphant expression, she turned back into the room.

“My girl,” she murmured out loud, “you may very well have taken on more than you can manage, as Papa warned. But oh! I should infinitely prefer to fall upon a mountain path than to climb nimbly to the top of an anthill!”

And with this optimistic note, which her mother would have called foolhardy and would have brought a doubtful smile to her father's lips, she retrieved her letter from beneath the blotting pad and, having sealed it up with wax and inscribed the address upon it, crept down the stairs and laid it in the letter tray for die servant to post. This secret little mission took no more than a minute, and when Nicole had finished studying the chapter on the old Greeks, she found her governess calmly preparing a lesson in geography.

Chapter VII

That Anne Calder had indeed undertaken to climb a mountain rather than an anthill must now be admitted. She was not, as she had confessed in her letter to Ben, “exactly what she seemed,” but neither was she so
unlike
what she seemed that the reader must suspect every fact hitherto brought forth about her. Certain points, indeed, must wait to be clarified at a more auspicious moment, but the main facts of her life were as she had painted them to Lady Cardovan. Her father was certainly a clergyman in Devonshire, and her mother had borne nine children. If Anne had implied in her account of that family a certain embarrassment for money (which might well be expected, as any father of nine will readily attest), it was her only untruth. And, as it was an untruth of omission, rather than an outright lie, she may be excused, for Lady Cardovan would be the first admit that a woman is often in need of some such little deception or other in order to exist. Mrs. Calder, however, would certainly have been horrified by such an idea, for even if she was excessively fond of complaining to her husband that she had never enough funds to redecorate her house or to buy her silk from Paris, she held a dim view of propagating such news about the countryside. Indeed, it was a point of pride with her that Mr. Calder was among the most prosperous gentlemen in the county. His profession had been chosen rather from desire than penury, as is so often the case with our clergy, and as he held one of the best livings in England and had inherited a considerable sum from his father, a wealthy squire, there was more than ample provision even for nine children. Had none of his daughters married, they should still have come into ten or eleven thousand
pounds a piece, and as they were all very comely girls, that likelihood was slender. Indeed, it was amazing that they had not all of them been married before, and the reason they had not was linked closely, if somewhat obscurely, to his eldest daughter's present employment as a governess. That the reader shall not continue a moment longer in suspense, we shall set forth the story exactly as it transpired, without omitting any crucial points, but as briefly as we may:

The drama, or that part of the drama which concerns us here, and which in truth is more of a comedy, commenced one bright and warm September morning. Mr. Calder was working in his library, endeavouring to write a sermon, a task made more difficult by the presence of his wife, who had been pacing up and down the room for half an hour.

“My dear, I wish you would not walk about so much,” remarked that gentleman when he had been forced to toss out a third draft of his speech for the fault of its containing seven repetitions of the same idea.

“I do not know how you can be so calm,” retorted his wife, only pausing in her progress across the room to cast him an accusing look.

“If you find fault with my serenity, then I shall endeavour to be as distraught as you. Shall that make you happier?”

“I wish you would not be so cynical,” replied Mrs. Calder, irritably. “You have no sympathy, and no heart.”

“My dear,” responded the clergyman, putting down his pen with a smile, “I am incapable of pleasing you. What would you rather I did? Perhaps I should go down to the kitchens and upset the cook by rushing back and forth, wailing all the while.”

Mrs. Calder did not trouble herself to reply to this sally. Her husband delighted in teasing her, and her present mood would not permit her to indulge him.

“If you will not be disturbed upon
my
account,” said she after a moment's pause, “perhaps you will just allow yourself to think of your daughters.”

“I see no reason to be upset, even for my daughters, my dear. They are all strong, healthy girls, and while none of them shows much wisdom, they are not any of them dim-witted. On the contrary, I believe you ought to be thanking me for giving you four such remarkable girls.”

Mrs. Calder could tolerate no more. She raised her hands to Heaven, and a strange strangled sound issued from her lips. “Do you have no pity on me, Arthur? Must you torment
me into the grave?” she cried, upon which Mr. Calder looked up in amazement, and would undoubtedly have made some jesting remark had not he seen by her expression that his lady had exhausted her resources of tolerance.

“Here you sit calmly, only bent on tormenting me with your awful jokes, whilst our daughters are all in danger of being spinsters.”

The clergyman raised one eyebrow and wondered how this could be. “It seems to me that today of all days you have no reason to complain. Our eldest daughter, if I am not much mistaken, is at this very moment being solicited for her hand in marriage.”

“Yes, that is very true. Solicited indeed! But Anne will not accept him, depend upon it!”

“I am delighted to hear you say so, Eliza, for it only upholds my opinion that Anne is not an idiot. If she did consent to become Mrs. Siddons, I am afraid I should have to think less of her.”

“Oh! How can you say so!”

“Very easily: Siddons is an idiotic boor.”

“He is a fine young man, and devoted to you.”

“He is a young man with four thousand a year and not another stroke to recommend him. He is also, if you will pardon my saying so, less devoted to
me
than he is to the idea that he is a fine young man.”

“He gave the parish a great deal of money, you said so yourself.”

“So that he might look up from his pew and see his name inscribed in gold upon the wall.”

“Nevertheless,” returned Mrs. Calder, resisting the impulse to lose her temper, “he would make Anne a fine husband, if she were not so ill-natured and stubborn.”

“If all you have said about him is true,” retorted her husband, smiling, “he does not deserve an ill-natured wife. I am so heartily set against the match, my dear, that I shall make Anne a gift of a new gown if she declines him.”

“If she declines him, I hope you will scold her roundly!”

The conversation was abruptly ended by the sound of a closing door, ensuing footsteps, and the murmur of voices in the passage. Mrs. Calder put a finger to her lips and endeavoured to hear what was being said, but failing this, was forced to wait till the closing of the front door told her that Mr. Siddons had gone away. She flew out into the hallway to discover the news, and Mr. Calder, who felt a great deal
more curiosity about the outcome of the interview than he would admit, returned to his labours. He was not allowed time to get much past the first page of his sermon, however, before there came a knock at the door. His eldest daughter stood before him with a bowed head.

“My mother sent me to you, Sir,” said she, with the air of a miscreant.

Mr. Calder regarded his daughter with a grave look. At length he said, “You have refused young Siddons, I suppose?”

A nod was all the reply she could make. “I hope you will not think ill of me, Papa,” said she, “but the idea of sitting next to him at dinner is awful enough. The idea of facing him at the breakfast table, I cannot bear.”

Mr. Calder suppressed his smile, and looked solemn: “This is very perplexing news for your mother, I fear.”

“I hope she will forgive me at last, Sir, but I could not bring myself to marry a man for
her
sake whom I could not marry for my
own
.”

“Your three sisters will take the news very hard. They are none of them free to marry until you have, your mother says, lest we give up on you completely, and declare you a spinster.”

Anne contrived to look guilty. “Perhaps that is what you ought to do then, for I do not know that I shall ever meet the man I wish to marry.”

“You have rejected four already, my dear,” said her papa, regarding her solemnly. “Four eligible young men have crept away from your door, mortified and wounded.”

“Three of them have recovered sufficiently to marry other girls,” replied Anne with equal gravity. “I cannot think I am so terrible a slayer of men as not to be persuaded that Mr. Siddons shall recover with similar ease.”

Now father and daughter allowed themselves to share a smile, for they had often engaged in this discussion before.

“That is all very well, Anne,” said Mr. Calder at last, “and, as you know my feelings about the young Siddons, I shall not pretend that I am excessively distraught at your refusal. However, there is a graver matter of your sisters to consider. Your mothers says they shall die of misery before they die of spinsterhood, and it is not right that you should keep them from matrimony. I cannot help but sympathize with you all—with your sisters for wishing to marry, and with you for wishing
not
to; however, you cannot all be satsified. There must be some remedy.”

“Is it not a very antiquated custom to prevent the younger girls from being happy, only because I prefer to remain single?” inquired Anne. “I think you ought really to release them from it, for I am sure Mary and Gwen should be married within the year if you did.”

“Perhaps that is what we ought to do, after all,” replied her father with a sigh. “I have been in great hopes that you should marry, I shall not deny it: for I believe that of all four of you, you are the best equipped to be a wife. And yet I cannot urge you to do so only from a sense of duty, if it will make you miserable. And I have not yet met the man I should like to see you wedded to. I may simply be a foolish and fond old father, but I have ever been of the opinion that you ought to marry a special kind of man. It is a great sadness to me that none has made your acquaintance, for I flatter myself that if such a creature exists, he would be twice blessed to have you for a wife.”

Anne was flattered to hear these words, for her father was of a restrained turn of mind, and seldom expressed himself so freely to his children.

“I cannot say how deeply I feel your compliment, Sir,” she replied, “though it may be prejudiced by your affection for me. I hope indeed that it is, for I cannot share your confidence in my own abilities to make another being happy. I am only sure that I am equipped to make
myself
happy, and if, by my little scribblings, I may entertain some others for an hour or two, I shall be content. That is a subject I had wished to discuss with you in any case. I ought to tell you, Sir, that I have sent a manuscript to London, to a publisher, and that I have only just learned that they will print it.”

“Why! This is astonishing news, Anne!” exclaimed her father. “You are a secretive creature, to be sure! What, is it a book of poems? I know you are always scribbling, and I am sorry I have not paid you more attention.”

“It is only a little novel,” replied Anne, with a great deal more modesty than she felt.

“Only a novel! Well, well! I suppose it is a romance of some kind, eh? Dear me, I never thought I should have a novelist in the family!”

“It is not exactly a romance, Sir,” replied his daughter, beginning to feel uncomfortable, “although, in truth, it does contain some elements of romance, and a little intrigue. But you ought to read it yourself. I hope you will.”

“Why, you know I never read novels,” replied her father
with a twinkle, “but I shall make an exception for
you
. Well, well! What a surprise this is to be sure! I hope you have got some money for your efforts?”