The Smile of the Stranger Page 7

  “Papa,” she said tentatively through the open carriage door. “I—I believe this must be Grandfather coming to greet you.”

  A tall old man was slowly descending the shallow steps, with the aid of a cane. She had time to observe his likeness to her father was very pronounced. He had the same classic regularity of feature, the same clear blue eyes. But his face lacked the gentleness and kindliness of her father’s: it seemed stern, set in austere and humorless lines. He wore a somewhat old-fashioned costume of black frock coat, knee breeches, silk stockings, and buckled shoes. He wore a wig, but his eyebrows were frosty white.

  Juliana walked forward to meet him and curtsied.

  “How do you do, sir?” she said. “I—I believe I cannot mistake? Are you not my grandfather?”

  He quickly withdrew his hands behind his back, looking at her without visible pleasure, and ejaculated a loud “Humph!” After a moment’s frowning survey of her, with his lips pressed together and jaw thrust forward, he remarked, “At all events, you don’t appear to favor that designing hussy. Don’t know who you do favor! Not anybody in my family. Well, don’t stand there mum, girl! Where’s your father?”

  “He—he has been sadly indisposed, sir,” Juliana said, greatly taken aback by this brusque greeting. Her heart sank; as on several occasions during the course of the journey, she passionately wished herself back in Florence. “He has been sleeping on the way hither, and I waited to rouse him until I was sure that—”

  A flash of some unrecognizable emotion lightened momentarily her grandfather’s bleak countenance. Juliana was not sure what it expressed. Pleasure at his son’s safe arrival? Concern? Regret? Next moment it had passed and, scowling as before, muttering, “Damned young fool to have left it so late,” he pulled back the carriage door, saying gruffly, “Well, Charles! Home at last—and not before it was time, eh?”

  “Why—Father—is that you?” Charles Elphinstone murmured faintly, and he endeavored to rise from the coach seat, pushing himself up with his thin hands.

  “Take care, Papa—let me help you!” exclaimed Juliana, moving swiftly forward. “He is grievously weak, sir,” she added in an undertone to Sir Horace.

  “Very well—very well,” replied the latter testily, extending his left arm. “I can help him, girl—I am not in my grave yet! Come along, my boy—lean on my shoulder—that’s it!”

  Swaying with weakness, Juliana’s father was assisted from the vehicle, the driver coming round to take his other arm. A little group of liveried footmen now appeared at the head of the steps and stood awaiting instructions.

  Charles Elphinstone took a deep breath and looked all around him, at the mellow brick house, the green grass, the leafless trees.

  “Very—very beautiful!” he said unsteadily. “Just the way—I remembered it—many and many a time—my dear father!” and he swayed forward out of his father’s grasp, and pitched onto his face on the steps, and lay still.

  Juliana gave one short cry—“Papa!”—and then stood, with her hands pressed to her breast, as they carried him carefully into the house, two footmen on each side.

  Sir Horace limped alongside the little cortege, furiously shouting instructions.

  “Put him in the morning room—lay him on the sofa! Fetch brandy—cordials—a hot brick—tell Mrs. Hurdle—send Will on Firefly for the surgeon—no, for Dr. Garrett. Damme, has no one any sense round here?”

  Numbly, Juliana followed the procession into a stiff, old-fashioned room, with furniture primly aligned against the walls, where her father was laid down upon a narrow couch, and his head was supported by a stiff bolster. Juliana went and stood by him, looking down into his face.

  Then she looked up at her grandfather.

  “He is dead,” she said quietly.

  The old man stared at her angrily, his face working.

  “Nonsense, gal! Stuff and nonsense! How can he be dead? I never heard such tomfoolery! A drop of cordial, and he’ll be as fit as fivepence.”

  Juliana shook her head. But the effort to convince him seemed too hard for her to undertake. Her throat was clogged; she could find no more words. Dimly, beyond her grandfather, she noticed a group of females: a plump lady, pink-faced, fashionably dressed, with a profusion of golden ringlets; and beyond her, staring eagerly past her shoulders, a pair of girls in striped dresses who, to Juliana’s clouded, bewildered vision, appeared indistinguishable; they swam together, they separated, they were the same person, but divided into different places…

  The lady let out a slight scream. “Charles! Oh, my poor dear brother—”

  “He is dead,” Juliana repeated hoarsely, and slid to the floor in a deep faint.

  * * *

  She came to in a dusk-filled room, hours or even days later, it seemed. A sense of terrible anxiety possessed her.

  “Papa?” she cried out confusedly. “Are you there? Do you wish to dictate? I am sure I could write—the balloon does not sway too badly—”

  “Ah, poor little dear,” a voice remarked. “She does not remember. And who’s to tell her? Eh, mercy me, what a journey she must have had of it, with him. Best she remain abed until after the funeral.”

  Funeral? Juliana’s mind came together, and she remembered.

  “Papa is dead—is he not?” she whispered.

  “Yes, my poor dearie—but try not to think about it,” answered the voice. “Just you drink this and lay down easy now. You’re a-going to be took care of, and there’s naught to worrit ye.”

  She looked up into a round pink face, set in a huge white frill of cap. A firm, plump arm lifted her into a reclining position, and a cup was held to her lips.

  “That’s the dandy,” said the voice encouragingly. “Just you drink old Hurdle’s posset—white wine whey wi’ a drop o’ summat extry in it—and that’ll settle ye comfor’ble fo’ a twelve hours’ sleep.”

  Drinking down the potion, Juliana remembered in a vague way that Mrs. Hurdle was her grandfather’s housekeeper. Her father had said, “Old Mrs. Hurdle will look after me…”

  Two tears forced their way out of her eyes and down her cheeks.

  “Nay, now!” said the voice reprovingly. “Niver waste yourself wi’ grieving, but put your trust in Him above as has fetched ye here, and holds all in His hand.”

  Juliana nodded weakly, as she felt herself laid back on the pillows.

  In a dim way, at some distance, she noticed once more the plump ringleted lady, and two pairs of staring eyes behind her.

  “How does she go on, Hurdle?”

  “Eh, poor little thing, my lady, she’s fair wore to a raveling. ’Tis early yet to know whether it be but the journey weariness, or whether she’ve brought one o’ they contiguous fevers from furrin parts.”

  “Gracious me, Hurdle! A fever? Do you think it possible?”

  “Who’s to say, my lady? Desperate mortial fevers they do have over yonder—mayhap ’twas one o’ them as fetched poor Master Charles to his end.”

  “Lud save me! If you really think that possible—! Girls, leave this room directly! Go and begin putting your things together—order Ringmer to pack your bags without delay. Hurdle, instruct Liphook to have my carriage in readiness to return to Weybridge; we shall leave at noon! I must go and inform Sir Horace immediately—we cannot stay here if my niece is suffering from a putrid fever!—Well, girls, what are you waiting for?”

  Two complaining voices cried, “Oh, but, Mama, may we not just look at her?”

  “And perhaps catch your death from her? Indeed you may not! Do as I bid you!”

  Juliana heard the rattle of curtain rings, the soft click of a door closing. She slept.

  The next few weeks passed, for Juliana, in a strange confused procession of dream-haunted nights and feverish, restless days. Sometimes she thought she was back in Florence, trying to run home to her father, who needed her badly.
But the streets were full of angry strangers, standing in her way, preventing her from passing. Sometimes the tall thin English lady was there, hungry-eyed, calling out in her loud harsh voice, like a bird’s shriek, “Where is he? Where have you hidden him? I shall find him yet—and then he will be sorry!”

  “No, you will not! You will never find him!” Juliana shouted, and woke herself.

  “Now, dearie, you’re having the nightmare again,” Mrs. Hurdle’s voice would say, and Juliana would find herself sipping a spoonful of medicine, sweet and stupefying.

  “Just like Herr Welcker’s cordial…” she murmured. “Oh, I owe him some money! Eight golden guineas, to be sent to Brighton. I promised, I promised…”

  “Never worrit, dearie, we’ll see that ye keep your promise. Just you be a good girl now, and go to sleep for old Hurdle.”

  Sometimes they were in the coach crossing France and her father was dictating.

  “Wait, Papa, wait! I cannot write so fast! I have not all Charles’s speech written down yet! Oh, why did he have to make such long speeches?”

  In her dream, sometimes King Charles and her father were the same person. She would wake shrieking, “No—no! They are cutting Papa’s head off! Oh, stop them, stop them!”

  “Now, that’s enough of that, child!” Hurdle’s voice, firm and comforting. “’Tis naught but the nasty nightmare. Nobody’s head be a-going to be cut off in these parts.”

  At last the fever receded, and Juliana lay weak, aching in every limb, but whole and calm once more, able to take stock of her situation. She saw for the first time that she occupied a four-post bed, in a large pleasant chamber, with a fireplace oddly set in an angle of the wall, a few pieces of old-fashioned furniture, and two windows looking out at the tops of trees. She was in her grandfather’s house, and her father was dead. All her old life lay behind her, and ahead of her was a blank, an empty frightening void. Limp and docile, she allowed herself to be washed, combed, fed, taken up and laid down, but daily gained a little in strength.

  At last there came a day when she could pull herself up, to sit against her pillows.

  “Ay, that’s more like it!” said Mrs. Hurdle encouragingly, giving her a basin of gruel. “Now ye’re able to feed yourself, we’ll soon have ye as plim as a pippin! Swallow that down, my dearie!”

  Then, a week later, there came an evening when her grandfather climbed the stairs to visit her.

  He was wearing formal evening dress, and stood black as a pillar between Juliana and the fire. His face, she thought, was set in even more rigid lines of disapproval than when she had first laid eyes on him. He cleared his throat.

  “Well, child—how do you find yourself going on now, eh?”

  “Much better, sir, I thank you,” Juliana said faintly. “I am sorry to be such a trouble on your household for so long.” She tried to smile. “I am used to look after myself, and after my f-f-f…” Her voice failed, and she had to take a breath, but added, “I shall soon be about again, on my feet, and hope to make myself useful in some way.”

  “Useful? Humph! What could you do? Females cannot hope to be useful,” he said dryly, more to himself than to her, but then added, as if he meant to do his best to cheer her, “No, no, when you are better, and your cheeks have filled out a bit on Hurdle’s gruels—for at present you look like a little starved lapwing—you may post up to town, to your aunt Caroline, who will rig you out in fine feathers, and take you about to all the gaieties. She and those two noddlecocks of hers will soon cheer you up, I daresay.” He turned to the fire muttering to himself. It seemed to Juliana that he said, “And then doubtless you will catch a husband, and then you will be off my hands,” but she was not certain of this.

  “Sir,” she said, “I thank you—and my aunt Caroline—for the thought, but I do not wish to go up to town.”

  “Hey? What’s this? Not go up to town? You will do as you’re told, miss, and no disputing!”

  He wheeled round again, leaning on his cane, and Juliana saw the look that must often have struck dismay into the heart of her father as a boy—a blue, fierce flash of the pale eyes, a grim set of the jaw as he glared at her, thumping his stick on the boards for emphasis.

  “Sir,” she protested feebly, “I am still in mourning for my father—who was the best and dearest parent a daughter could hope to have. It is too soon to think of—of fine clothes and gaieties.”

  “Well—well,” he conceded, with a little less severity in his tone, “true, it is early days yet, I acknowledge, to be thinking about town fripperies. Hurdle says you must get your strength back yet awhile. Country food and country air. But what will you do with yourself in this old house? There’s naught here to amuse a wench. Only the garden and the forest. I’ve no time to entertain ye.”

  “Or inclination, either,” he muttered to himself.

  “Pray do not trouble yourself on that head, sir. I shall find plenty to occupy my days. Firstly, I must make myself some black clothes.”

  “No need for that,” he said. “Your aunt Caroline will attend to it—Hurdle gave her your measurements before she went off. Totty-headed woman, with her silly notions about foreign fever—but at least it got rid of her and her two nincompoops five days before the end of their visit! And now Hurdle tells me she’s sent down a whole bale of furbelows from some warehouse.”

  “That was very kind in my aunt,” Juliana said, somewhat surprised. Kindness had not been the chief impression she had carried away from her two brief glimpses of her aunt Caroline; she had not seemed the kind of person prepared to be so obliging. But most probably the General had given orders for her action. Vaguely wondering who had paid for the clothes, Juliana was reminded of something else.

  “Oh, sir, there is a man to whom I owe money. He—he very kindly lent eight guineas to my father and myself when—when we were destitute on arrival in England. I have his name and his direction at Brighton, if—”

  “Silence, child!” said her grandfather, very pale about the lips. “I do not, at any time, wish to hear any details about your father’s last months of life—or about your life in Italy—or that disastrously ill-considered journey. Any details whatsoever! I do not wish to hear! Had matters been managed otherwise—had he had the sense to come sooner—he—he might perhaps still be with us. It does not bear thinking of! You will oblige me by never again referring to it. You arrived here, sick, starving, indigent—he, dying—can you expect that I should wish to be reminded of that?”

  “No, Grandfather,” said Juliana, trembling, “but it is not—we were not—”

  “Silence, child! Such shame and wretchedness must be forgotten—thought no more of—utterly buried. Do not speak of it again!”

  “No, sir—but the debt—”

  “You may speak to Clegg, my steward, about it,” he said, turning on his heel. “I will see that he is instructed to present himself when you are able to rise from your bed. He will undertake to discharge the debt.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Juliana said, but her grandfather was already out of earshot. And, on the whole, as she lay in bed, turning over the strange, dreamlike details of that last journey in her mind—already they seemed to have receded into a past which lay separated from her by great misty gulfs of distance—she began to believe that it was just as well if her grandfather preferred not to know what had happened. So strict and straitlaced as he appeared to be, Juliana could not believe that he would approve of their wild mode of transport—of Herr Welcker, or his balloon—still less of his consignment of tapestries and pots de chambre. If Sir Horace chose to imagine that they had come over in a smugglers’ vessel with a cargo of run brandy, let him continue to do so!

  I will ask Clegg to send off the money to Herr Welcker, Juliana thought to herself. He need not put any address in, or say where it comes from; Herr Welcker will guess that soon enough. And, fortunately, he never learned our real name. In any case,
it is in the highest degree improbable that I shall ever come across him again.

  So thinking, she rolled over, and went peacefully to sleep.

  Five

  About a week after this conversation with her grandfather, Juliana was pronounced well enough to get up in the afternoon for a short spell, and to leave the chamber that she had occupied for so long.

  Abigail, one of the maids, a young, round-eyed country girl, helped her dress in some of the clothes that Lady Lambourn had sent down. These, though they were, of course, all in the severest unrelieved black, were far superior in style and material to any that Juliana had ever possessed before: she tried on a silk dress, high-waisted, with a double ruffle running down the front of the skirt, a V-necked bodice with a fichu round the shoulders, and sleeves tight to the arm, ending in a frill round the wrist. It was, however, a very indifferent fit; either Mrs. Hurdle’s measurements had been inaccurate, or Lady Lambourn had paid very little heed to them; knowing Mrs. Hurdle by now, Juliana was inclined to the latter conclusion. However, calling for a needle and thread, she was able, in the course of an hour’s stitching, and much to Abigail’s astonishment, to remedy the worst of the deficiencies.

  “You are so thin, miss,” said Abigail, hooking the dress over her petticoat at the end of this time. “Mrs. Hurdle says you must eat bread and honey at every meal. There! Now let me just curl your hair into ringlets, and you will look quite the thing. ’Tis too bad there’s no gentlemen to see ye.”