class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">IV

THE RAKE'S PROGRESS

PART I

CHAPTER I

MISS SUSANNAH CHRESSHAM OBSERVES

"You ask me about Rose—what can I say? Alas, that my talents should not be equal to your curiosity! My letters at best are feeble productions, and when I have a deliberate request to answer I swear my pen refuses its duty. 'Tell me about Rose,' you say. 'Our one meeting, two years ago, remains in my mind.' And you would know more of the most charming person you ever met—so I finish the sentence for you!

"And rightly, I am sure. But, again, what can I say? I know too much, and not enough.

"I have chosen a wet day to write to you and the afternoon hours when my duties are done, so that nothing interferes between us but my faltering pen. Aunt Agatha sits in the next room making knots. You see how I avoid the subject! And now how I valiantly strive faithfully to answer you.

"You say you have heard 'whispers and more than whispers in London.' You imply about Rose, and I cannot pretend not to understand.

"I, too, have been made aware (in what extraordinary fashion, more subtle than words, is scandal communicated!) of various rumours. Remember that I have not seen Rose since I was last in town, six months ago, and then only amid the distractions of a gay season. Laughter passed between us, little else. You will recall the charming laughter of Rose. My prayer is that its gaiety may never be quenched, as—ah!—I fear it may be. I must repeat—(here give me credit for a pause of earnest thought)—that I know nothing.

"If youth, beauty, race, talents, a fine name, the most winning manners, the sweetest temper, the lightest spirits are to be ruined by the common lures of the world, if ordinary vices are to tarnish a character so bright——

"But—no, I will not think it, nor must you. Remember Rose as all nobility, virtue, and discretion, the sweetest gentleman in England.

"Marius comes home to-night. His letters read full of a sparkling pleasure in the incidents of the tour. I fear he has not spared money; I dread the moment when he must be made aware how perilously near the limit of our fortunes we all live. Hideous subject! Even to you I shrink from putting the word on paper, but I anticipate that this lack of money will mean trouble for both Rose and Marius. The Lyndwoods were ever thriftless. I remember my sweet mother losing £300 at faro; the silk dress she wore, unpaid for, and my father having to sell the silver plate to pay her page and her carriage. I recall other scenes, but all taken with a smile on my mother's part—like Rose!

"Aunt Agatha says (as you must have heard her) that my mother's death alone saved my father from ruin, which seems to me a dreadful thing. Reflecting on it, I think of these two cousins of mine. Imagine Rose or Marius without money—impossible, is it not? Yet I know of mortgages, of encumbered estates.

"Still, I must not play the pedant; I am not the monitor of the Lyndwoods nor any wiser than they. And Marius comes home to-night. We had hoped Rose would be here to meet him; but, no. He comes to-morrow, full of eagerness, his note reads, to see us all again. Yet I fear they will both find Lyndwood dull, and it will be but a while before their poor cousin is waving them farewell again.

"I must tell you (perceive that this epistle alters with the current of my thoughts) that Marius visited Genoa and saw the Lyndwood property, which is of but little value, he writes, since the whole town has fallen into neglect and decay.

"I notice that Aunt Agatha is rising, and I must follow her to see that Marius's chamber is ready and the table set with flowers. So au revoir, my friend, and remember I await your letters with impatience.—Ever your faithful

"Susannah Chressham.

"Lyndwood Holt,
Lyndwood in the County of Kent,
June 17, 1748."

The clear and gentle evening sunlight fell through the long open windows on the bright hair and face of the writer as she rose, slowly folding her letter. Mellow shadows rested in the spacious beautiful chamber; smooth dark walls, painted ceiling and polished floor, rich sombre paintings of fruit made a glowing background for the rounded figure of Miss Chressham as she stood looking thoughtfully at the exquisite vista of parkland that spread beyond the stone terrace on to which the windows gave.

Where the distant golden green elms quivered in the steady breeze a few faint white clouds rested in the pale blue sky; the glade formed by the nearer trees was crossed with bars of sunshine where slow sheep moved.

Along the terrace grew late spring flowers—tulips, striped, purple, and red; hyacinths, deep blue, and soft clusters of fragrant stocks. A swallow flew by, a great sound of birds came from the trees about the house. Miss Chressham turned from the window to open folding doors that revealed an inner room.

"Aunt Agatha," she said.

A lady emerged from the gloom of the other chamber. She held a number of knotted skeins of coloured silk.

"I thought I heard you moving," smiled Miss Chressham, "so I finished my letter and am now at your service." Her smile deepened prettily. "How charming it will be to see Marius again," she added.

Lady Lyndwood smoothed her silks out with delicate fingers.

"I wish Rose could have been here," she answered.

Miss Chressham was ready.

"Marius has been so uncertain as to the date of his arrival, and Rose wrote he was under an engagement for to-night that he could not contrive to avoid. He is coming to-morrow."

The elder lady replied with a certain languid impatience attractively in keeping with her slender dignified grace.

"Ah, my dear, I hope he will come to-morrow; not only because of Marius—for other reasons! And now you had better call for candles."

Miss Chressham pulled the bell.

"For other reasons?" she repeated.

Lady Lyndwood's answer came wearily through the twilight.

"The estate, you know," she complained. "I vow it worries me. Since Mr. Langham left us we have had no steward. I wrote to Rose he must come and see after it; he is aware from Mr. Langham when he gave up his accounts that the value of the land is decreasing, or whatever the term may be."

"And what does Rose say?"

"Rose laughed, of course, and Mr. Langham——"

"Oh—he," cried the girl impatiently, "I know that he sold Brenton Farm at half its value, and the crops, too, always!"

"Perhaps so," Lady Lyndwood laughed vaguely, "but one must have someone. Rose should come himself and put a person he can trust into the place, for really I cannot be worried."

"We understand so little about it," said Miss Chressham sadly, "and Rose tells us nothing."

"My dear!" the Countess protested. "Rose has managed his own affairs since he was eighteen. His fortune is his own concern, and it would be mightily ill-bred of him to trouble the ladies of his family with the buying and selling of horses and dogs."

The servant entered