The Grim House

Chapter One.

“Such Nice-Looking People.”

“Yes,” said my father, “there is no doubt about it; it is the best thing to do. So that is decided.”

The “yes” was no expression of agreement with any one but himself. It was simply the emphatic reiteration of the decision he had already arrived at.

He folded up the letter he had been reading, and replaced it carefully and methodically in its envelope, then glanced round the breakfast-table with the slightly defiant, slightly deprecating, yet nevertheless wholly good-tempered air which we all knew well —so well that not one of us would have dreamt of wasting time or energy by beating his or her wings against the bars of the dear man’s resolute determination.

Some faces fell a little, others expressed philosophic resignation, one or two, perhaps, a kind of subdued exhilaration; but no one said anything except mother, who replied quietly, as was her wont —

“Very well; I daresay you are right.”

Then ensued a little talk as to the details of the proposal, or rather decision, just announced, and five minutes later the family group had dispersed.

The one face on which something more than resignation had been distinctly legible was that of my youngest brother, Moore.

He was only fourteen, an age at which – for boy nature especially – it does not take much provocation to get up one’s spirits to some pitch of agreeable excitement and expectancy. He ran after me as I left the dining-room, and followed me down the long cold stone passage leading to what he and my other brothers and I myself considered our own quarters. Then, as he overtook me, he slipped his hand through my arm.

“Do you mind, Reggie?” he said in a tone of some deprecation of his own satisfaction. “I think you might be a little pleased – any way for my sake. It’s awfully jolly for me.”

“Then I will be pleased, really pleased, my poor old Othello,” I replied, heartily, I think. For Moore was our baby and pet, and we thought him irresistible. He was so pretty – everybody said that he, and not I, should have been the girl, if only one girl there was to be among us. He was fair-haired and fair-complexioned, yet not insipid looking, for his eyes were deeply blue, or at least appeared so, thanks to their bordering of dark eyelashes. “Irish eyes,” though in other respects Moore’s beauty was decidedly of the Saxon type. He had a right to his Irish eyes, as the rest of us to our Irish locks and browner skin. For Irish we were, really so as to ancestry, and in many particulars as to inherited character, though none of us, not even my parents since their childhood, had ever been in Ireland.

Moore’s face beamed, and lost its half-apologetic expression.

“Good old Reggie,” he said. “Then I’ll let myself be jolly right out, however Terry and Horry and Ger grumble at mother and you going away before the holidays are over,” and he showed signs of whooping or hurrahing or something of the kind, which I hastened to nip in the bud.

“You had better be quiet about it, however you feel,” I said warningly, “or father will begin to think you don’t need change and rest, and all that kind of thing, after all.”

“No, he won’t,” the boy replied confidently. “He never goes back once he’s settled a thing. You know he never does, Reggie. Sometimes,” and here certain reminiscences momentarily sobered his expression, “sometimes I wish he would – ”

“And,” I continued, “you’d better not let Terence and Gerald hear you talk of holidays. They don’t own to anything but vacations now.”

“That’s just because they’re not really grown-up,” said Moore shrewdly; “at least not out in the world. Look at Jocelyn now – he might give himself airs. But he always talks of his holidays when he comes home. He very seldom even calls it ‘leave,’ though he is – how old is he now, Rex? Twenty-five? Yes – eleven years older than I.”

“We’re all getting very old,” I said. “I shall be eighteen next spring. Can you believe it? And there’s only Horace between you and me. We shall all be grown-up before we know where we are, Moore.” And I sighed as I said it. I did not want to be grown-up or to come out. Life suited me very well indeed just as it was, especially since we had left off going abroad every winter, and part of the summer too, sometimes, for mother’s health. She had been so much stronger of late years, that we had been able to settle down in our own home, which I loved better than any place in the world, both for its own sake and because here I could enjoy to the full the society of my five brothers whenever “holidays” or vacations or leaves allowed them to be with us. So perhaps it is not to be wondered at that my father’s breakfast-table fiat was something of a disappointment to me, though to many girls of my age it would have been received with delight. For it was the announcement of his decision that we were to set out on our travels again, to spend the next few months at least, out of England, at some German baths in the first place, and later on at one of the usual winter resorts for invalids.

Mother had flagged of late, or at least father thought so, and Moore, on the eve of public school life and always delicate, had not mended matters by catching whooping-cough at his preparatory school and having it badly. It would never do for him to start on his new career “below par,” said my father; better delay it for a few months than have him break down and be sent home again with everything interrupted; in which argument no doubt there was great common-sense.

“Yes,” I went on, “we shall all be grown-up in no time, and then dreadful things will happen. You and Horry will go off goodness knows where, and I shall be left alone. You are my last rose of summer, Moore. Not that I ever cared as much for Terence and Gerald as for you and Horace as companions. Terry has always been a bit of a prig, and Gerald too mad about soldiering, even though he doesn’t find it easy to pass his examinations. Horace and you are my special brothers, aren’t you, Othello?”

Moore squeezed my arm in token of affection. He was like a girl in many of his ways as well as in his looks – demonstrative and caressing, yet brave as a lion and essentially manly.

“You’ll have me for ages yet,” he said consolingly, “at least for holidays; and perhaps the dreadful things won’t all be on the side of us boys. You’ll be going and getting married, Reggie, once you’re grown-up. Oh, how I shall hate your husband!”

I could not help laughing at his vehemence.

“Wait till he exists to be hated,” I said. “You really needn’t trouble about him. Perhaps there will never be such a person. Anyway, girls don’t often marry as young as I am, so you can count upon me quite as securely as I can count upon you.”

How lightly we spoke!

“And we shall have a longer time together now, thanks to going to these baths and places, than since I first went to school, four years ago. So after all you should count it a compliment to yourself, Rex, that I am so pleased about it.”

Once my father decided upon anything, there was no danger of his letting the grass grow under his feet, or any one else’s, till it was accomplished. We were then in early autumn; there was no time to be lost if we were to benefit by the waters of Weissbad. So within a very few days of the morning which had brought the great doctor’s letter of advice, we found ourselves there – my parents, Moore, and myself, though father only stayed to see us comfortably installed, promising to return when the time came for our further move to winter quarters.

I have no intention of describing the quaint little watering-place. It had its own peculiarities, of course, as every place, no less than every individual, has, but in a general way it was like scores of others. And these general characteristics are now-a-days too familiar to be interesting – now-a-days, when an intimate acquaintance with Western Europe by no means gives one a right to rank as having travelled to any noticeable extent.

It was a nice little place, cheery and homely. We liked it better than we had expected, partly, no doubt, because we were specially favoured as to weather; partly, or greatly, perhaps I should say, because the beneficial effects of the place on my mother and brother became quickly and most satisfactorily visible.

But my peculiar interest in Weissbad, looking back upon it through a vista of many years as I now do, dates from a certain day, the precursor of a friendship which has taken rank as one of the great influences on my life.

It was mother who first drew our attention to certain newcomers into our little world for the time being. Any arrival was promptly noticed by that time, as many of the visitors had already left, and but for the unusually lovely weather, Weissbad would already have been almost deserted. I remember that day so well.

Moore and I had been a long walk – it was delightful to see how the boy’s strength was returning – and when we came in, we found mother seated as usual at the wide window of our cheerful little sitting-room overlooking the “square,” with its gardens in the centre, which was the great feature of the little town. She looked up brightly as we came in – not that that was in any way remarkable – when did mother not greet us brightly? – her face full of interest as if she had something pleasant to tell, which set at rest my fears that our long absence might have made her anxious.

“I have been amusing myself,” she said, “by watching some new arrivals at this hotel. I saw them first in the courtyard when I was coming in from my walk, and something about them struck me at once. They looked so much more interesting than the other people here.”

“Are they English?” I asked. “Certainly, the other English here still are the stupidest of the stupid. Not one young person among them.”

I sat down as I spoke, for I was feeling rather tired, and quite ready for a little gossip.

“Oh, but,” said mother, “you won’t have to complain of that any more. Two, at least, are quite young, – sisters evidently, both very pretty, the younger one especially – she doesn’t look much older than you, Regina – an elderly father, and another man, about thirty I should say, the brother, or possibly the husband, of the elder girl. I had only a glimpse of them at first, but since then I have been watching them from the window. They have been strolling all over the place, peering in at all the little shops in the square, so delighted with the novelty of everything evidently, as if they had never been abroad before. The one that took my fancy so specially was the younger one. I never saw a sweeter face!”

“We must find out who they are,” I said; “but you know, mamma, I never care much about making friends with other girls; I understand boys so much better.”

“And they’re so much nicer,” added Moore; “girls are so – so affected and stuck-up, except, of course, Reggie.”

We laughed.

“What do you know about them?” I said. “Less even than I!”

“I know what the fellows at school say about their sisters. Of course they are very fond of them – lots of them, at least – and some of them are very jolly about games and things like that. But they do sit upon their brothers all the same. Lots do!”

“Perhaps it is not a very bad thing for the brothers sometimes,” said mother. “I often wish you had had a sister, Regina, or failing that, a few really nice girl friends. Even one would be a great advantage to you.”

I felt just a little nettled. Dear mother sometimes took up an idea too enthusiastically, and I did not in those days perhaps sufficiently appreciate the steady good judgment underlying her apparent impulsiveness.

“Oh, mamma,” I said, “things are all right as they are. I don’t want a sister, and I never have wanted one. And if we make friends with these people who have struck you so, please let it be in a general way. I don’t want any girl friend?”

“You are certainly very premature?” said mother, smiling. “Probably enough they are only here for a night on their way somewhere else; and even if they were staying here, it by no means follows that we should become acquainted at all, though I own to being unusually attracted by their faces and general look. There was something pretty about the whole group.”

Mother’s gentleness disarmed me, as it always did. I felt a little ashamed of myself. Nor was I, to tell the truth, devoid of curiosity as to these newcomers. It is almost laughable to find how, in a temporarily restricted life, such as one leads at a quiet watering-place, one’s dormant love of gossip and inquisitiveness about one’s neighbours assert themselves!

Yes, there they were! I “spotted” them at once, as Moore would have said, when we entered the long dining-room, where supper was served at separate tables to each little party, and in my heart I at once endorsed mother’s opinion. They were all so nice-looking and so happy. The elder of the two girls – for a girl she looked – I almost immediately decided must be the wife of the younger man; something indefinable in his attitude and tone towards her suggesting a husband rather than a brother. The father, an elderly man, with grey hair, and delicate, somewhat wasted features, whose expression told of much sorrow, past rather than present, was not the least attractive of the quartette; his face lighted up with a charming smile when he spoke to or glanced at his daughters, both of whom, as mother had said, were decidedly pretty.

No, that is not the word for the younger one; “lovely,” suits her far better, and before I had been five minutes in the same room with her, I more than endorsed mother’s opinion.

“She is perfectly sweet,” I thought to myself. “I wonder what her name is, and I wonder if we shall get to know them. I don’t know that I wish it; I am perfectly sure she would not care for me. I would just seem a sort of tomboy to her. She looks so dreadfully – just what she should look! Such dear little white hands!” and I glanced at my own brown fingers and thought of my sunburnt face, with, for almost the first time in my life, a touch of shame. After all, perhaps mamma was in the right in her advocacy of parasols and veils, and above all, gloves!

Then the sound of the voices which reached us from the newcomers’ table struck me with a sense of contrast, not altogether flattering to myself. The tones were so soft though clear, the slight laughter breaking out from time to time so gentle though gay, and entirely unaffected.

“Yes,” I replied in answer to mother’s – “Well, what do you think of them?” – as we were slowly making our way upstairs again to our own quarters, “Yes, you were quite right, mamma; they are most attractive-looking people, and the little one is the prettiest person I have ever seen. But I don’t want to get to know them! They wouldn’t care for us, at least not for me. Of course they would like you, and they would feel bound to be polite to me, which I should hate.”

Mother only smiled. She very often only smiled when I began what she called “working myself up” for no cause at all. But in her heart I think – indeed she owned to it afterwards – she was not a little pleased at the impression which she saw had already been made upon me.

“I daresay they’ll be gone by to-morrow; I hope they will,” said Moore consolingly. He was always so extraordinarily quick in perceiving any little thing that annoyed me. “I don’t see anything so wonderful about that girl,” he went on; “she is just a dressed-up sort of young lady. I am perfectly certain she can’t play cricket or ride a pony bare-back like you, Reggie.”

“I daresay not,” I said. “And I almost wish I couldn’t!” I added to myself rather ruefully.

But to-morrow came and they were not gone, nor apparently had they any intention of leaving, for we overheard them talking about excursions they were proposing to make in the neighbourhood, and the words “next week” occurred more than once.

I felt rather cross and dissatisfied that day, I remember. Perhaps I had over-walked myself – very probably so; and now and then I caught mamma’s eyes glancing at me with a somewhat perturbed expression.

“Are you not feeling well, Regina?” she said at last, when I had answered some little question rather snappishly, I fear.

“Of course I am quite well, mother, dear,” I replied; “I am only rather cross, and I don’t know why. I would rather you would scold me than seem anxious about me! Everybody has moods. I – well, yes, perhaps I was thinking a little about that girl. It must be nice to be so graceful and charming?”

“My poor, dear child,” said mother, “don’t distress yourself so needlessly! You know very well we would rather have our tomboy than any other girl in the world, though there is no reason why you should not be graceful and charming too, in your own way. You are very young still; you have plenty of time before you; but I do feel that it would be a great help to you, now especially, to have some girl friends.”

I was beginning to feel it too, and did not repulse the suggestion, as I might have done even twenty-four hours previously.

“But it can’t be helped,” I said; “girl companions haven’t come in my way. You know there are scarcely any young people at all in our neighbourhood at home.”

“I know,” said mother regretfully, “and with our having been away so much, I seem to have rather fallen out of touch with my own old friends, some of whom have daughters of about your age. I have been thinking a great deal about it lately.”

No more was said at the time, but I still felt far from anxious to make acquaintance with the new arrivals. The very thought of it overpowered me with shyness.

Strange to say, the acquaintance was brought about by the only one of us three who had seen nothing to admire in the pretty sisters.

I think it was on the third day after they had come, that Moore burst into our room one afternoon, his face rosy with excitement.

“Mother?” he said, “Reggie! I – I really couldn’t help it, but – I couldn’t be rude, you know! Those people that you’ve been talking about – the girl you think so pretty – well, they were sitting near me while I was having my afternoon coffee,” – Moore loved of all things to have his coffee out in the garden by himself at a little table – “and listening to the band, and I heard them talking about the excursion to Oberwald, where we went last week, you know, and they were all in a muddle about it. They wanted to walk part of the way, and they had a map that they couldn’t make out; and at last one of them – the youngish-looking man, turned to me and said, ‘If you have been here some time, perhaps you can explain this route to us,’ and of course I could, and I put them right in a minute. I told them the best way was to drive to that funny little inn where we had dinner, you remember, and then to walk the rest up to the view place, and get their carriage again when they came back; and they thanked me awfully, and – ” Here Moore paused at last, half out of breathlessness, half, I shrewdly suspected, because he felt a little shy of relating the sequel of his story. “They’re not bad sort of people,” he concluded somewhat lamely, “and I think the girl is rather pretty when you see her close to.”

“Rather pretty,” I repeated; “why, she’s perfectly lovely, my dear boy. But you haven’t finished. What more have you to tell? Did they invite you to be their guide?”

I spoke jestingly, but, to my surprise, I saw that my words had hit the mark, for Moore’s fair face, which was already flushed with excitement, grew still redder.

“Not exactly,” he said; “but I saw they’d have liked to ask me, so I said if it would be any good I wouldn’t mind going with them – it’s to-morrow they want to go – and – and – that I daresayed my sister would come too.”

“Moore!” I exclaimed, aghast. And “My dear boy!” said mother.

Our exclamations put Moore on the defensive.

“Well,” he said, rather indignantly, “I don’t see that there’s any harm in it. You’ve been awfully wanting to know them – ”

“I’m sure I haven’t,” I interrupted.

“Well, any way, you were awfully down on me because I didn’t think the girl was the most beautiful person in the world. And I don’t think she is stuck-up, after all I’m sure you’d like her very much, and they seemed quite pleased when I said you’d come too – quite jolly about it. I told them mother couldn’t walk so far, and that we had come here because she’d been ill.”

“Indeed! and what did you not tell them?” I said, in an icy tone. But my heart misgave me as soon as I had uttered the words – Moore looked so thoroughly unhappy. Mother, as usual, interposed to smooth things down.

“After all, there is no harm done,” she said. “I see no objection to Moore’s going with them, and we can easily make some little excuse for you, Regina, if it is necessary. To begin with, there would not be room for so many in the carriage.”

“Oh, yes, there would,” said Moore, dejectedly. “They’re going to have a much bigger one, which holds five inside and one on the box – or even two – by the driver. And the girl looked so pleased when I said you’d come. I shall feel as ashamed as anything if you don’t; I know that, Reggie.”

I had not the heart to tell him it was his own fault, and mother just said to him that he might trust her to put it all right. So in a minute or two he brightened up again, and it seemed as if the matter were at an end.

It was not so, however. When a thing is to be, it often seems as if even the most trivial events conspire to lead up to it. So it was in this case.

At supper that evening Moore turned his chair, so that he – or at least his face – should not be visible by his new acquaintances. I was sorry for him; he was feeling rather “small” and mortified, I could see, and I wished I had not snubbed his boyish officiousness so unmercifully. I had almost arrived at the point of hoping that some occasion would offer itself for endorsing his friendly overtures, when my glance fell on an envelope lying – hitherto unnoticed – by my plate, and I realised by a flash of inspiration that here in my hands was the very opportunity I had been thinking of.

It was a letter addressed to —

“James Wynyard, Esq., Hotel Augusta, Weissbad, etc, etc.”

I felt certain it was for one of the two men at the neighbouring table, and almost certain, though I had no grounds for being so, that it was for the elder, the father of the two young women. And even if I were mistaken, its having been deposited on our table gave an excellent excuse for speaking to them. Letters, as a rule, came in the morning – English letters, that is to say – but there was a second post late in the evening, and anything it brought was laid on the supper-tables. I touched mother’s arm and showed her the address, saying in a low voice, “Shall I ask if it is for them?” when to my surprise she started. “Wynyard?” she said, “James Wynyard! Why, that was the name of Maud Prideaux’s husband. How curious if – if it should be – ”

She glanced up. Her face was aglow with excitement, as had been Moore’s. But before she finished her sentence, I saw a look of new expectancy in her eyes, and turning in the same direction, I caught sight of “the father,” as we called him, coming towards us, a letter in his hand also, and a look of inquiry and surprise in his face.

“I think,” he was beginning, as he reached our table. But mother cut him short.

“Yes,” she exclaimed, “you are Mr Wynyard, and I – you must remember me? – I am your Maud’s old friend – Geraldine Terence – now Geraldine Fitzmaurice.”

Chapter Two.

An Embryo Novelist

So it was. A minute or two’s conversation sufficed to establish for each the other’s identity, and to gather up the loosened threads of former acquaintanceship. Worse than loosened indeed, for mother’s face grew sad when Mr Wynyard told her of the death of her old friend, Maud, his wife, which had occurred several years previously.

“I had no idea of it,” she said. “We were so much abroad for some years that many changes may have taken place without my hearing of them. And curiously enough, I have been thinking of her – of your wife, Mr Wynyard, quite specially of late.”