The Rosary

CHAPTER I

EN­TER THE DUCHESS.

The peace­ful still­ness of an En­glish sum­mer af­ter­noon brood­ed over the park and gar­dens at Over­dene. A hush of mov­ing sun­light and length­en­ing shad­ows lay up­on the lawn, and a promise of re­fresh­ing cool­ness made the shade of the great cedar tree a place to be de­sired.

The old stone house, sol­id, sub­stan­tial, and un­adorned, sug­gest­ed un­lim­it­ed spa­cious­ness and com­fort with­in; and was re­deemed from pos­itive ug­li­ness with­out, by the fine ivy, mag­no­lia trees, and wis­taria, of many years’ growth, climb­ing its plain face, and now cov­er­ing it with a man­tle of soft green, large white blooms, and a cas­cade of pur­ple blos­som.

A ter­race ran the full length of the house, bound­ed at one end by a large con­ser­va­to­ry, at the oth­er by an aviary. Wide stone steps, at in­ter­vals, led down from the ter­race on to the soft springy turf of the lawn. Be­yond–the wide park; clumps of old trees, haunt­ed by shy brown deer; and, through the trees, fit­ful gleams of the riv­er, a nar­row sil­ver rib­bon, wind­ing grace­ful­ly in and out be­tween long grass, but­ter­cups, and cow-​daisies.

The sun-​di­al point­ed to four o’clock.

The birds were hav­ing their hour of si­lence. Not a trill sound­ed from among the soft­ly mov­ing leaves, not a chirp, not a twit­ter. The still­ness seemed al­most op­pres­sive. The one bril­liant spot of colour in the land­scape was a large scar­let macaw, asleep on his stand un­der the cedar.

At last came the sound of an open­ing door. A quaint old fig­ure stepped out on to the ter­race, walked its en­tire length to the right, and dis­ap­peared in­to the rose-​gar­den. The Duchess of Mel­drum had gone to cut her ros­es.

She wore an an­cient straw hat, of the ear­ly-​Vic­to­ri­an shape known as “mush­room,” tied with black rib­bons be­neath her port­ly chin; a loose brown hol­land coat; a very short tweed skirt, and En­ga­dine “gouties.” She had on some very old gaunt­let gloves, and car­ried a wood­en bas­ket and a huge pair of scis­sors.

A wag had once re­marked that if you met her Grace of Mel­drum re­turn­ing from gar­den­ing or feed­ing her poul­try, and were in a char­ita­ble frame of mind, you would very like­ly give her six­pence. But, af­ter you had thus drawn her at­ten­tion to your­self and she looked at you, Sir Wal­ter Raleigh’s cloak would not be in it! Your one pos­si­ble course would be to col­lapse in­to the mud, and let the ducal “gouties” tram­ple on you. This the duchess would do with gus­to; then ac­cept your apolo­gies with good na­ture; and keep your six­pence, to show when she told the sto­ry.

The duchess lived alone; that is to say, she had no de­sire for the per­pet­ual com­pan­ion­ship of any of her own kith and kin, nor for the con­stant smiles and flat­tery of a paid com­pan­ion. Her pale daugh­ter, whom she had sys­tem­at­ical­ly snubbed, had mar­ried; her hand­some son, whom she had adored and spoiled, had pre­ma­ture­ly died, be­fore the death, a few years since, of Thomas, fifth Duke of Mel­drum. He had come to a sud­den and, as the duchess of­ten re­marked, very suit­able end; for, on his six­ty-​sec­ond birth­day, clad in all the splen­dours of his hunt­ing scar­let, top hat, and buff cor­duroy breech­es, the mare he was mer­ci­less­ly putting at an im­pos­si­ble fence sud­den­ly re­fused, and Thomas, Duke of Mel­drum, shot in­to a field of turnips; pitched up­on his head, and spoke no more.

This sud­den ces­sa­tion of his noisy and fiery life meant a com­plete trans­for­ma­tion in the en­tourage of the duchess. Hith­er­to she had had to tol­er­ate the boon com­pan­ions, con­ge­nial to him­self, with whom he chose to fill the house; or to in­vite those of her own friends to whom she could ex­plain Thomas, and who suf­fered Thomas glad­ly, out of friend­ship for her, and en­joy­ment of love­ly Over­dene. But even then the duchess had no plea­sure in her par­ties; for, quaint rough di­amond though she her­self might ap­pear, the bluest of blue blood ran in her veins; and, though her man­ner had the off-​hand abrupt­ness and dis­re­gard of oth­er peo­ple’s feel­ings not un­fre­quent­ly found in old ladies of high rank, she was at heart a true gen­tle­wom­an, and could al­ways be trust­ed to say and do the right thing in mo­ments of im­por­tance: The late duke’s lan­guage had been sul­phurous and his man­ners Geor­gian; and when he had been laid in the un­wont­ed qui­et of his an­ces­tral vault–“so un­like him, poor dear,” as the duchess re­marked, “that it is quite a com­fort to know he is not re­al­ly there”–her Grace looked around her, and be­gan to re­alise the beau­ties and pos­si­bil­ities of Over­dene.

At first she con­tent­ed her­self with gar­den­ing, mak­ing an aviary, and sur­round­ing her­self with all sorts of queer birds and beasts; up­on whom she lav­ished the af­fec­tion which, of late years, had known no hu­man out­let.

But af­ter a while her nat­ural in­cli­na­tion to hos­pi­tal­ity, her hu­mor­ous en­joy­ment of oth­er peo­ple’s foibles, and a quaint de­light in parad­ing her own, led to con­stant suc­ces­sion of house-​par­ties at Over­dene, which soon be­came known as a Lib­er­ty Hall of var­ied de­lights where you al­ways met the peo­ple you most want­ed to meet, found ev­ery fa­cil­ity for en­joy­ing your favourite pas­time, were fed and housed in per­fect style, and spent some of the most ide­al days of your sum­mer, or cheery days of your win­ter, nev­er dull, nev­er bored, free to come and go as you pleased, and ev­ery­thing sea­soned ev­ery­body with the de­light­ful “sauce pi­quante” of nev­er be­ing quite sure what the duchess would do or say next.

She men­tal­ly ar­ranged her par­ties un­der three heads–“freak par­ties,” “mere peo­ple par­ties,” and “best par­ties.” A “best par­ty” was in progress on the love­ly June day when the duchess, hav­ing en­joyed an un­usu­al­ly long sies­ta, donned what she called her “gar­den togs” and sal­lied forth to cut ros­es.

As she tramped along the ter­race and passed through the lit­tle iron gate lead­ing to the rose-​gar­den, Tom­my, the scar­let macaw, opened one eye and watched her; gave a loud kiss as she reached the gate and dis­ap­peared from view, then laughed to him­self and went to sleep again.

Of all the many pets, Tom­my was prime favourite. He rep­re­sent­ed the duchess’s one con­ces­sion to mor­bid sen­ti­ment. Af­ter the demise of the duke she had found it so de­press­ing to be in­vari­ably ad­dressed with suave def­er­ence by ev­ery male voice she heard. If the but­ler could have snort­ed, or the rec­tor have rapped out an un­com­pli­men­ta­ry ad­jec­tive, the duchess would have felt cheered. As it was, a fixed and set­tled melan­choly lay up­on her spir­it un­til she saw in a deal­er’s list an ad­ver­tise­ment of a prize macaw, war­rant­ed a grand talk­er, with a vo­cab­ulary of over five hun­dred words.

The duchess went im­me­di­ate­ly to town, paid a vis­it to the deal­er, heard a few of the macaw’s words and the tone in which he said them, bought him on the spot, and took him down to Over­dene. The first evening he sat cross­ly on the perch of his grand new stand, de­clin­ing to say a sin­gle one of his five hun­dred words, though the duchess spent her evening in the hall, sit­ting in ev­ery pos­si­ble place; first close to him; then, away in a dis­tant cor­ner; in an arm-​chair placed be­hind a screen; read­ing, with her back turned, feign­ing not to no­tice him; fac­ing him with con­cen­trat­ed at­ten­tion. Tom­my mere­ly clicked his tongue at her ev­ery time she emerged from a hid­ing-​place; or, if the rather wor­ried but­ler or ner­vous un­der- foot­man passed hur­ried­ly through the hall, sent show­ers of kiss­es af­ter them, and then went in­to fits of ven­tril­oquial laugh­ter. The duchess, in de­spair, even tried re­mind­ing him in a whis­per of the re­marks he had made in the shop; but Tom­my on­ly winked at her and put his claw over his beak. Still, she en­joyed his flushed and scar­let ap­pear­ance, and re­tired to rest hope­ful and in no wise re­gret­ting her bar­gain.

The next morn­ing it be­came in­stant­ly ev­ident to the house-​maid who swept the hall, the foot­man who sort­ed the let­ters, and the but­ler who sound­ed the break­fast gong, that a good night’s rest had re­stored to Tom­my the full use of his vo­cab­ulary. And when the duchess came sail­ing down the stairs, ten min­utes af­ter the gong had sound­ed, and Tom­my, flap­ping his wings an­gri­ly, shrieked at her: “Now then, old girl! Come on!” she went to break­fast in a more cheer­ful mood than she had known for months past.