The Translation of a Savage, Complete - Gilbert Parker
"Marion!" said Mrs. Armour severely; but Richard came round to her, and,
with his fresh, child-like humour, put his arm round her waist and added
"Marion, I'd be willing to bet--if I were in the habit of betting--my
shaky old pins here against a lock of your hair that you may present her
at any drawing-room--ours or Queen Victoria's--in two years, if we go at
it right; and it would serve Master Frank very well if we turned her out
something, after all."
To which Mrs. Armour responded almost eagerly: "I wish it were only
possible, Richard. And what you say is true, I suppose, that she is of
rank in her own country, whatever value that may have."
Richard saw his advantage. "Well, mother," he said, "a chieftainess is a
chieftainess, and I don't know but to announce her as such, and--"
"And be proud of it, as it were," put in Marion, "and pose her, and make
her a prize--a Pocahontas, wasn't it?--and go on pretending world without
end!" Marion's voice was still slightly grating, but there was in it too
a faint sound of hope. "Perhaps," she said to herself, "Richard is
right."
At this point the door opened and Lali entered, shown in by Colvin, her
newly-appointed maid, and followed by Mackenzie, and, as we said, dressed
still in her heathenish garments. She had a strong sense of dignity, for
she stood still and waited. Perhaps nothing could have impressed Marion
more. Had Lali been subservient simply, an entirely passive,
unintelligent creature, she would probably have tyrannised over her in a
soft, persistent fashion, and despised her generally. But Mrs. Armour and
Marion saw that this stranger might become very troublesome indeed, if
her temper were to have play. They were aware of capacities for passion
in those dark eyes, so musing yet so active in expression, which moved
swiftly from one object to another and then suddenly became resolute.
Both mother and daughter came forward, and held out their hands, wishing
her a pleasant good-morning, and were followed by Richard, and
immediately by General Armour, who had entered soon after her. She had
been keen enough to read (if a little vaguely) behind the scenes, and her
mind was wakening slowly to the peculiarity of the position she occupied.
The place awed her, and had broken her rest by perplexing her mind, and
she sat down to the breakfast-table with a strange hunted look in her
face. But opposite to her was a window opening to the ground, and beyond
it were the limes and beeches and a wide perfect sward and far away a
little lake, on which swans and wild fowl fluttered. Presently, as she
sat silent, eating little, her eyes lifted to the window. They flashed
instantly, her face lighted up with a weird kind of charm, and suddenly
she got to her feet with Indian exclamations on her lips, and, as if
unconscious of them all, went swiftly to the window and out of it, waving
her hands up and down once or twice to the trees and the sunlight.
"What did she say?" said Mrs. Armour, rising with the others.
"She said," replied Mackenzie, as she hurried towards the window, "that
they were her beautiful woods, and there were wild birds flying and
swimming in the water, as in her own country."
By this time all were at the window, Richard arriving last, and the
Indian girl turned on them, her body all quivering with excitement,
laughed a low, bird-like laugh, and then, clapping her hands above her
head, she swung round and ran like a deer towards the lake, shaking her
head back as an animal does when fleeing from his pursuers. She would
scarcely have been recognised as the same placid, speechless woman in a
blanket who sat with folded hands day after day on the Aphrodite.
The watchers turned and looked at each other in wonder. Truly, their task
of civilising a savage would not lack in interest. The old general was
better pleased, however, at this display of activity and excitement than
at yesterday's taciturnity. He loved spirit, even if it had to be
subdued, and he thought on the instant that he might possibly come to
look upon the fair savage as an actual and not a nominal daughter-in-law.
He had a keen appreciation of courage, and he thought he saw in her face,
as she turned upon them, a look of defiance or daring, and nothing could
have got at his nature quicker. If the case had not been so near to his
own hearthstone he would have chuckled. As it was, he said
good-humouredly that Mackenzie and Marion should go and bring her back.
But Mackenzie was already at that duty. Mrs. Armour had had the presence
of mind to send for Colvin; but presently, when the general spoke, she
thought it better that Marion should go, and counselled returning to
breakfast and not making the matter of too much importance. This they
did, Richard very reluctantly; while Marion, rather pleased than not at
the spirit shown by the strange girl, ran away over the grass towards the
lake, where Lali had now stopped. There was a little bridge at one point
where the lake narrowed, and Lali, evidently seeing it all at once, went
towards it, and ran up on it, standing poised above the water about the
middle of it. For an instant an unpleasant possibility came into Marion's
mind: suppose the excited girl intended suicide! She shivered as she
thought of it, and yet--! She put that horribly cruel and selfish thought
away from her with an indignant word at herself. She had passed
Mackenzie, and came first to the lake. Here she slackened, and waved her
hand playfully to the girl, so as not to frighten her; and then with a
forced laugh came up panting on the bridge, and was presently by Lali's
side. Lali eyed her a little furtively, but, seeing that Marion was much
inclined to be pleasant, she nodded to her, said some Indian words
hastily, and spread out her hands towards the water. As she did so,
Marion noticed again the beauty of those hands and the graceful character
of the gesture, so much so that she forgot the flat hair and the unstayed
body, and the rather broad feet, and the delicate duskiness, which had so
worked upon her in imagination and in fact the evening before. She put
her hand kindly on that long slim hand stretched out beside her, and,
because she knew not what else to speak, and because the tongue is very
perverse at times,--saying the opposite of what is expected,--she herself
blundered out, "How! How! Lali."
Perhaps Lali was as much surprised at the remark as Marion herself, and
certainly very much more delighted. The sound of those familiar words,
spoken by accident as they were, opened the way to a better
understanding, as nothing else could possibly have done. Marion was
annoyed with herself, and yet amused too. If her mind had been perfectly
assured regarding Captain Vidall, it is probable that then and there a
peculiar, a genial, comradeship would have been formed. As it was, Marion
found this little event more endurable than she expected. She also found
that Lali, when she laughed in pleasant acknowledgment of that How! had
remarkably white and regular teeth. Indeed, Marion Armour began to
discover some estimable points in the appearance of her savage
sister-in-law. Marion remarked to herself that Lali might be a rather
striking person, if she were dressed, as her mother said, in Christian
garments, could speak the English language well--and was somebody else's
sister-in-law.
At this point Mackenzie came breathlessly to the bridge, and called out a
little sharply to Lali, rebuking her. In this Mackenzie made a mistake;
for not only did Lali draw herself up with considerable dignity, but
Marion, noticing the masterful nature of the tone, instantly said:
"Mackenzie, you must remember that you are speaking to Mrs. Francis
Armour, and that her position in General Armour's house is the same as
mine. I hope it is not necessary to say anything more, Mackenzie."
Mackenzie flushed. She was a sensible woman, she knew that she had done
wrong, and she said very promptly: "I am very sorry, miss. I was
flustered, and I expect I haven't got used to speaking to--to Mrs. Armour
as I'll be sure to do in the future."
As she spoke, two or three deer came trotting out of the beeches down to
the lake side. If Lali was pleased and excited before, she was
overwhelmed now. Her breath came in quick little gasps; she laughed; she
tossed her hands; she seemed to become dizzy with delight; and presently,
as if this new link with, and reminder of, her past, had moved her as one
little expects a savage heart to be moved, two tears gathered in her
eyes, then slid down her cheek unheeded, and dried there in the sunlight,
as she still gazed at the deer. Marion, at first surprised, was now
touched, as she could not have thought it possible concerning this wild
creature, and her hand went out and caught Lali's gently. At this genuine
act of sympathy, instinctively felt by Lali, the stranger in a strange
land, husbanded and yet a widow, there came a flood of tears, and,
dropping on her knees, she leaned against the low railing of the bridge
and wept silently. So passionless was her grief it seemed the more
pathetic, and Marion dropped on her knees beside her, put her arm round
her shoulder, and said: "Poor girl! Poor girl!"
At that Lali caught her hand, and held it, repeating after her the words:
"Poor girl! Poor girl!"
She did not quite understand them, but she remembered that once just
before she parted from her husband at the Great Lakes he had said those
very words. If the fates had apparently given things into Frank Armour's
hands when he sacrificed this girl to his revenge, they were evidently
inclined to play a game which would eventually defeat his purpose, wicked
as it had been in effect if not in absolute motive. What the end of this
attempt to engraft the Indian girl upon the strictest convention of
English social life would have been had her introduction not been at
Greyhope, where faint likenesses to her past surrounded her, it is hard
to conjecture. But, from present appearances, it would seem that Richard
Armour was not wholly a false prophet; for the savage had shown herself
that morning to possess, in their crudeness, some striking qualities of
character. Given character, many things are possible, even to those who
are not of the elect.
This was the beginning of better things. Lali seemed to the Armours not
quite so impossible now. Had she been of the very common order of Indian
"pure and simple," the task had resolved itself into making a common
savage into a very common European. But, whatever Lali was, it was
abundantly evident that she must be reckoned with at all points, and that
she was more likely to become a very startling figure in the Armour
household than a mere encumbrance to be blushed for, whose eternal
absence were preferable to her company.
Years after that first morning Marion caught herself shuddering at the
thought that came to her when she saw Lali hovering on the bridge.
Whatever Marion's faults were, she had a fine dislike of anything that
seemed unfair. She had not ridden to hounds for nothing. She had at heart
the sportsman's instinct. It was upon this basis, indeed, that Richard
appealed to her in the first trying days of Lali's life among them. To
oppose your will to Marion on the basis of superior knowledge was only to
turn her into a rebel; and a very effective rebel she made; for she had a
pretty gift at the retort courteous, and she could take as much, and as
well, as she gave. She rebelled at first at assisting in Lali's
education, though by fits and starts she would teach her English words,
and help her to form long sentences, and was, on the whole, quite
patient. But Lali's real instructors were Mrs. Armour and Richard--, her
best, Richard.
The first few days she made but little progress, for everything was
strange to her, and things made her giddy--the servants, the formal
routine, the handsome furnishings, Marion's music, the great house, the
many precise personal duties set for her, to be got through at stated
times; and Mrs. Armour's rather grand manner. But there was the relief to
this, else the girl had pined terribly for her native woods and prairies;
this was the park, the deer, the lake, the hares, and birds. While she
sat saying over after Mrs. Armour words and phrases in English, or was
being shown how she must put on and wear the clothes which a dressmaker
from Regent Street had been brought to make, her eyes would wander
dreamily to the trees and the lake and the grass. They soon discovered
that she would pay no attention and was straightway difficult to teach if
she was not placed where she could look out on the park. They had no
choice, for though her resistance was never active it was nevertheless
effective.
Presently she got on very swiftly with Richard. For he, with instinct
worthy of a woman, turned their lessons upon her own country and Frank.
This cost him something, but it had its reward. There was no more
listlessness. Previously Frank's name had scarcely been spoken to her.
Mrs. Armour would have hours of hesitation and impotent regret before she
brought herself to speak of her son to his Indian wife. Marion tried to
do it a few times and failed; the general did it with rather a forced
voice and manner, because he saw that his wife was very tender upon the
point. But Richard, who never knew self-consciousness, spoke freely of
Frank when he spoke at all; and it was seeing Lali's eyes brighten and
her look earnestly fixed on him when he chanced to mention Frank's name,
that determined him on his new method of instruction. It had its dangers,
but he had calculated them all. The girl must be educated at all costs.
The sooner that occurred the sooner would she see her own position and
try to adapt herself to her responsibilities, and face the real state of
her husband's attitude towards her.
He succeeded admirably. Striving to tell him about her past life, and
ready to talk endlessly about her husband, of his prowess in the hunt, of
his strength and beauty, she also strove to find English words for the
purpose, and Richard supplied them with uncommon willingness. He humoured
her so far as to learn many Indian words and phrases, but he was chary of
his use of them, and tried hard to make her appreciative of her new life
and surroundings. He watched her waking slowly to an understanding of the
life, and of all that it involved. It gave him a kind of fear, too,
because she was sensitive, and there was the possible danger of her
growing disheartened or desperate, and doing some mad thing in the hour
that she wakened to the secret behind her marriage.
His apprehensions were not without cause. For slowly there came into
Lali's mind the element of comparison. She became conscious of it one day
when some neighbouring people called at Greyhope. Mrs. Armour, in her
sense of duty, which she had rigidly set before her, introduced Lali into
the drawing-room. The visitors veiled their curiosity and said some
pleasant casual things to the young wife, but she saw the half-curious,
half-furtive glances, she caught a sidelong glance and smile, and when
they were gone she took to looking at herself in a mirror, a thing she
could scarcely be persuaded to do before. She saw the difference between
her carriage and theirs, her manner of wearing her clothes and theirs,
her complexion and theirs. She exaggerated the difference. She brooded on
it. Now she sat downcast and timid, and hunted in face, as on the first
evening she came; now she appeared restless and excited.
If Mrs. Armour was not exactly sympathetic with her, she was quiet and
forbearing, and General Armour, like Richard, tried to draw her out--but
not on the same subjects. He dwelt upon what she did; the walks she took
in the park, those hours in the afternoon when, with Mackenzie or Colvin,
she vanished into the beeches, making friends with the birds and deer and
swans. But most of all she loved to go to the stables. She was, however,
asked not to go unless Richard or General Armour was with her. She loved
horses, and these were a wonder to her. She had never known any but the
wild, ungroomed Indian pony, on which she had ridden in every fashion and
over every kind of country. Mrs. Armour sent for a riding-master, and had
riding-costumes made for her. It was intended that she should ride every
day as soon as she seemed sufficiently presentable. This did not appear
so very far off, for she improved daily in appearance. Her hair was
growing finer, and was made up in the modest prevailing fashion; her
skin, no longer exposed to an inclement climate, and subject to the
utmost care, was smoother and fairer; her feet, encased in fine,
well-made boots, looked much smaller; her waist was shaped to fashion,
and she was very straight and lissom. So many things she did jarred on
her relatives, that they were not fully aware of the great improvement in
her appearance. Even Richard admitted her trying at times.
Marion went up to town to stay with Mrs. Townley, and there had to face a
good deal of curiosity. People looked at her sometimes as if it was she
and not Lali that was an Indian. But she carried things off bravely
enough, and answered those kind inquiries, which one's friends make when
we are in embarrassing situations, with answers so calm and pleasant that
people did not know what to think.
"Yes," she said, in reply to Lady Balwood, "her sister-in-law might be in
town later in the year, perhaps before the season was over: she could not
tell. She was tired after her long voyage, and she preferred the quiet of
Greyhope; she was fond of riding and country-life; but still she would
come to town for a time." And so on.
"Ah, dear me, how charming! And doesn't she resent her husband's
absence--during the honeymoon? or did the honeymoon occur before she came
over to England?" And Lady Balwood tried to say it all playfully, and
certainly said it something loudly. She had daughters.
But Marion was perfectly prepared. Her face did not change expression.
"Yes, they had had their honeymoon on the prairies; Frank was so
fascinated with the life and the people. He had not come home at once,
because he was making she did not know how great a fortune over there in
investments, and so Mrs. Armour came on before him, and, of course, as
soon as he could get away from his business, he would follow his wife."
And though Marion smiled, her heart was very hot, and she could have
slain Lady Balwood in her tracks. Lady Balwood then nodded a little
patronisingly, and babbled that "she hoped so much to see Mrs. Francis
Armour. She must be so very interesting, the papers said so much about
her."
Now, while this conversation was going on, some one stood not far behind
Marion, who seemed much interested in her and what she said. But Marion
did not see this person. She was startled presently, however, to hear a
strong voice say softly over her shoulder: "What a charming woman Lady
Balwood is! And so ingenuous!"
She was grateful, tremulous, proud. Why had he--Captain Vidall--kept out
of the way all these weeks, just when she needed him most, just when he
should have played the part of a man? Then she was feeling twinges at the
heart, too. She had seen Lady Agnes Martling that afternoon, and had
noticed how the news had worn on her. She felt how much better it had
been had Frank come quietly home and married her, instead of doing the
wild, scandalous thing that was making so many heart-burnings. A few
minutes ago she had longed for a chance to say something delicately acid
to Lady Haldwell, once Julia Sherwood, who was there. Now there was a
chance to give her bitter spirit tongue. She was glad--she dared not
think how glad--to hear that voice again; but she was angry too, and he
should suffer for it--the more so because she recognised in the tone, and
afterwards in his face, that he was still absorbingly interested in her.
There was a little burst of thanksgiving in her heart, and then she
prepared a very notable commination service in her mind.
This meeting had been deftly arranged by Mrs. Townley, with the help of
Edward Lambert, who now held her fingers with a kind of vanity of
possession whenever he bade her good-bye or met her. Captain Vidall had,
in fact, been out of the country, had only been back a week, and had only
heard of Frank Armour's mesalliance from Lambert at an At Home
forty-eight hours before. Mrs. Townley guessed what was really at the
bottom of Marion's occasional bitterness, and, piecing together many
little things dropped casually by her friend, had come to the conclusion
that the happiness of two people was at stake.
When Marion shook hands with Captain Vidall she had herself exceedingly
well under control. She looked at him in slight surprise, and casually
remarked that they had not chanced to meet lately in the run of
small-and-earlies. She appeared to be unconscious that he had been out of
the country, and also that she had been till very recently indeed at
Greyhope. He hastened to assure her that he had been away, and to lay
siege to this unexpected barrier. He knew all about Frank's affair, and,
though it troubled him, he did not see why it should make any difference
in his regard for Frank's sister. Fastidious as he was in all things, he
was fastidiously deferential. Not an exquisite, he had all that vanity as
to appearance so usual with the military man; himself of the most perfect
temper and sweetness of manner and conduct, the unusual disturbed him.
Not possessed of a vivid imagination, he could scarcely conjure up this
Indian bride at Greyhope.
But face to face with Marion Armour he saw what troubled his mind, and he
determined he would not meet her irony with irony, her assumed
indifference with indifference. He had learned one of the most important
lessons of life--never to quarrel with a woman. Whoever has so far erred
has been foolish indeed. It is the worst of policy, to say nothing of its
being the worst of art; and life should never be without art. It is
absurd to be perfectly natural; anything, anybody can be that. Well,
Captain Hume Vidall was something of an artist, more, however, in
principle than by temperament. He refused to recognise the rather
malicious adroitness with which Marion turned his remarks again upon
himself, twisted out of all semblance. He was very patient. He inquired
quietly, and as if honestly interested, about Frank, and said--because he
thought it safest as well as most reasonable--that, naturally, they must
have been surprised at his marrying a native; but he himself had seen
some such marriages turn out very well--in Japan, India, the South Sea
Islands, and Canada. He assumed that Marion's sister-in-law was
beautiful, and then disarmed Marion by saying that he thought of going
down to Greyhope immediately, to call on General Armour and Mrs. Armour,
and wondered if she was going back before the end of the season.
Quick as Marion was, this was said so quietly that she did not quite see
the drift of it. She had intended staying in London to the end of the
season, not because she enjoyed it, but because she was determined to
face Frank's marriage at every quarter, and have it over, once for all,
so far as herself was concerned. But now, taken slightly aback, she said,
almost without thinking, that she would probably go back soon--she was
not quite sure; but certainly her father and mother would be glad to see
Captain Vidall at any time.
Then, without any apparent relevancy, he asked her if Mrs. Frank Armour
still wore her Indian costume. In any one else the question had seemed
impertinent; in him it had a touch of confidence, of the privilege of
close friendship. Then he said, with a meditative look and a very calm,
retrospective voice, that he was once very much in love with a native
girl in India, and might have become permanently devoted to her, were it
not for the accident of his being ordered back to England summarily.
This was a piece of news which cut two ways. In the first place it
lessened the extraordinary character of Frank's marriage, and it roused
in her an immediate curiosity--which a woman always feels in the past
"affairs" of her lover, or possible lover. Vidall did not take pains to
impress her with the fact that the matter occurred when he was almost a
boy; and it was when her earnest inquisition had drawn from him, bit by
bit, the circumstances of the case, and she had forgotten many parts of
her commination service and to preserve an effective neutrality in tone,
that she became aware he was speaking ancient history. Then it was too
late to draw back.
They had threaded their way through the crowd into the conservatory,
where they were quite alone, and there, with only a little pyramid of
hydrangeas between them, which she could not help but notice chimed well
with the colour of her dress, he dropped his voice a little lower, and
then suddenly said, his eyes hard on her: "I want your permission to go
to Greyhope."
The tone drew her eyes hastily to his, and, seeing, she dropped them
again. Vidall had a strong will, and, what is of more consequence, a
peculiarly attractive voice. It had a vibration which made some of his
words organ-like in sound. She felt the influence of it. She said a
little faintly, her fingers toying with a hydrangea: "I am afraid I do
not understand. There is no reason why you should not go to Greyhope
without my permission."