The Mating of Lydia

fury, and blustered round the house as they stepped into it, but one of those steady, gray, and featureless downpours that Westmoreland and Cumbri

ge; heaven and earth met in one fusion of rain just beyond the neglected garden that filled the front court; while on three sides of the house, and penetratin

all and fleshless neck, a wisp of black velvet. The top of the head was rather flat, and the heavy dark hair, projecting stiffly on either side of the face, emphasized at once the sharpness of the little bony chin, the general sallowness of complex

ntly, since there was hammering going on. She supposed she must find out something about the kitchen and the servants. Anastasia had brought up her breakfast tha

Dixon was standing at the kitchen table with a pastry-board before her, making a meat pie.

k for us?" asked Mrs.

nerstood fro' Mus

o speak to you

gave me the orders a good while sen.

rest country town, s

lrose c

he baby requires," she

he speaker impassively

amed a patent food-some

aid Mrs. Dixon slowly, in reply; "but there's no

must send

on shook

er cart goin' in till

rs. Melrose, with sudden shrillness, looking a

se they all knew by now that she was a cipher-that she was not to count. Edmund had been giving all the orders-in his miserly cheese-paring w

been buying for years. Every now and then as she stooped to look at the labels pasted upon them, she caught names well known to her. Orbatell

rse between the two worlds, the English and the Italian, ordering his household and bringing up his children in Italian fashion, while he was earning his keep and theirs, not at all by the showy pictures in his studio which no one would buy, but as jackal in antichità, to the richer English and American tourists. He kept a greedy eye on the artistic possessions still remaining in the hands of impoverished native owners; he knew the exact moment of debt and difficulty in which to bring a foreign gold to bear; he was an adept in all the arts by which officials are bribed, and pictures are smuggled. And sometimes these accomplishments of his resulted in la

f art. The two made endless expeditions together to small provincial towns, to remote villas in the Apuan or Pisan Alps, to palazzi in Verona, or Lucca, or Siena. Melrose indeed had not been long in finding out that the little artist was both a poor judge and a bad agent. Netta's cheek always flamed when she thought of her father's b

nd standards of his equals; turned his back entirely on normal English society at home and abroad; and preferred, it seemed, to live with his inferiors, where his manners might be as casual, and his dress as careless as he pleased. The queer evenings and the queer people in their horrid little flat had really amused him. Then he had been ill, and mama had nursed him; and she, Netta, had taken him a pot of carnations while he was still laid up; and so on. She had been really prett

ence and try to put in claims upon him-claims which infuriated him? He was the most wilful and incalculable of men; caring n

well that she meant nothing at all to him. He would not beat her, or starve her, or even, perhaps, desert her. Such behaviour would disturb his existence as much as hers; and he did not mea

she had shown the night before, when she had tried to get out of the carriage. She turned, ran do

want to spe

as freeing what seemed to be an old clock from the elaborate swathings

, Netta, that

lp it!-it's

"D-n!" Melrose

earth do

ed at him

re lots of things to get for baby. And I must have something her

ily. "What has it to do with me? As for a carriage, I have no money to

ld get it second-hand for ten or twelve

him-sallow,

and drew the door to, behind him,

off the hedges? Can't you be content here like

ed and toss

eave your busine

do you

before you could hide it away. It was for ￡3,000-a dividend from s

's eyes she

my affairs!" he said violently.

ur wife!-for any comforts or pleasur

kly already. Her ch

eel. "Can't you sometimes thank your stars you're not st

strained

-she said, c

wh

peared like exasperation, then suddenly recaptured himself, smoothed his brow, and, returning to t

he wife of a rich English gentleman, and the gingerbread would once more be gilt. Alack! a few weeks in a poor London Lodging with no money to spend on the shops which tempted her woman's cupidity at every step; Edmund's final refusal, first laughing, then stubborn, to present her to "my devilish relations"; the complete indifference shown to her wishes as to the furnishings of the Tower; th

last seen it on a hot September evening. A blaze of light-delicious all-prevailing warmth-the moist bronzed faces of the men-the girls with the look of physical content that comes in hot countries

ary pony in the field-with the shafts of rain striking across it. Despair stirred in her-the physical no

was thrust in-the head

was a

rs. Melrose, haughtily, de

She held a bunch of dri

r them? I thowt mebbe y

ing seen the girl the night before, and Anastasia

g her in silence; then going into the hall, sh

up? It 'ud mebbe

ed at them

o they c

engarth. He thowt you might l

now and then on the thin-faced lady sitting on the sofa, her long fingers clasped round her knees, and her eye

day," Thyrza ve

Mrs. Melrose sharply. "Doe

utious reply. "But there that's bet

e pleasant, and could not deny tha

father m

grand time here in September-at t' dippin'. Yo'd never ha' thowt t

e drive from the station last night," said Mrs. Melro

ace this is. But when it's a shearin', or a dippin', yo' unne

ll farmers

little muffled by the tin-tacks in the mouth, came from s

down from her perch, and to Netta'

the question was hardly framed before Thyrza reappeared

' given them

them with surprise

Tatham-w

he girl looked uncertainly at her companion-"Mr. T

g about her," said Netta decidedl

esday-from Duddon, wi' two lovely horses-my,

n and the Tathams. Visions of being received there, of meeting rich and aristocratic people, of taking her place at last in society, the place that belonged to her as Edmund's wife, in spite of his queer miserly ways, ran again lightly through a mind that often harboured such dreams before-in vain. Her brow cleared. She made Thyrza leave the curtains

eemed, was a widow, with an only boy, a lad of seven, who was the heir to D

there?" thought Mrs.

miles away, and the clergyman of Gimmers Wick and his wife. She was sure to come. But most pe

figure. It was the Melrose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with its fingers in its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose look was st

re a littl

ith an intensity of expression, rare in a child so young. Thyrza, kneeling on the floor, stared back-fascinated. She thought she had never seen anything so lovely. The child had her father's features, etherealized; and great eyes, like her mother, but far more subtly be

opened it again. Then the child, snatching it from her, sat down on the floor, and, before Netta c

y!" said Netta in

nto a gray calico pocket tied round h

she said apologetically to

nd sucked it, still flushed with

aid, childishly, to her

e small dark Florentine shops. The shared greediness promoted friendship; and by the time Mrs. Dixon put in a reproachful face with a loud-"Thyrza, what be you a

ever, very consoling i

elrose was left to fret

he could never endure i

Tatham" cast a fai

when she took him the cards. He admitted that the lady and he were cousins-the children of first cousins; and that he had once seen a good deal of her. He called her "an audacious

; and a November wind was busy stripping what leaves still remained from the woods by the stream and in the hollows of the mountain. Landscape and heavens were of an iron bracingness and bareness; and the beauty in them was not for eyes like Netta's. She

re so miserably poor. Netta felt that she-the mistress-had some security against losing her, in the mere length and cost of the journey. To go home now, before the end of her thre

l all be going then," she said to herself with an emph

tta's pulse fluttered. She ran into the house by a side door, and up to her room, where she smoothed her hair anxiously, and lightly powdered her face. There was no time to chang

Melrose,

here, Ma'am

acing up and-down before a strange lady, who sat in

e, Edmund," said Lad

mock of her no dou

voice, rich however through all its music in a rather for

rose, that you wi

e loneliness of the place and the damp of the climate. Melrose never once looked at his wife. He was paler than usual, with an eager combative aspect, quite new to Netta. He se

of her long cloak of dull blue cloth, with its garnishings of sable, matched her stately slenderness well; and the close-fitting cap over the coiled hair conveyed the same impression of something perfectly contrived and wholly successful. Netta

d "George" was to be military secretary in Dublin-and "Barbara" to the astonishment of everybody had consented to be made a Woman of the Bedchamber-"poor Queen!"-how Reginald Pratt had been handsomely turned out of the Middleswick seat, and was probably going to "rat" to an Opposition that promised more than the

wholly unknown to her. So Edmund had been in Rome-for two or three years-in the Embassy! That she had never known. He seemed also to have been an English member of Parliament for a time. In any case he had lived, apparently for years, like other men of his kind-shooting,

ly forgotten the thin sallow-faced wife, who sat with

topped abruptly-in

peremptorily, his hand on the ta

pe with he

found him

o find out. He's a

rose passionately. "Well,

hesitation she held out her hand to Melrose. "Suppose, Edmund, we bury the hatc

aggressor, venturing audaciously on ground which she knew to be hostile-from bravado?-or for

oked at he

advise you to

yes a moment, gravely

e wanted to marry my sister. I prevented it. She is marr

sententiously, straightening her small sh

ghed Lady Tatham. "And c

st

should like to

no carriage,

hire something," said

-bye, Lady Tatham. You are like all women-you t

going to do

or-and works of

nothing-for yo

nd. Don't. I would have gone farther from you,

ured. She shook

hurried into her carriage. She and Melrose touched hands ceremonious

l her, that she couldn't and wouldn't endure it, and that return to Italy she must and would, if she had to beg her way. It was cruel to shut her up in that awful house, to deny her the means of getting about, to

er with a violence and a brutality which presently cowed her. She ran shivering upstairs to Anastasia and the baby, bolted her door, and never reappeared till, twenty-four hours later, she crept down white and silent, to find a certain

t below its large western window, she looked out upon a confusion of hills near and far, drawn in hard white upon an inky sky. To the south the Helvellyn range stretched in bold-flung curves and bosses; in the far distance rose the sharper pea

. Day after day the rain, which was snow on the heights, poured down. Derwentwater and Bassenthwaite rose

thought her "nobbut a silly sort of body," but would sometimes try to cook what pleased her, or let Anastasia use the kitchen fire for "gn

to heaven!-won't you come with us!"-and he had been known to spend five hours at a stretch on his knees wrestling for the salvation of a drunken friend, in the village of Threlkeld. But Netta baffled him. Sometimes he would come home from chapel, radiant, and would take her a bunch of holly for the table by way of getting into conversation with her. "It was fine to-day, Missis! The

rentine woman is always well acquainted, she complained to him of her loneliness and her husband's unkindness. But his north-country caution protected him from any sentimentalizing, however innocent. And before the end of the winter Netta detested him. Meanwhi

n another. And woe to Mrs. Dixon or Thyrza if they attempted any cleaning in one of his rooms! The collections were for himself only, and for the few dealers or experts to whom he chose to show them. And the more hugger-mugger they were, the less he should be pestered to let people in to see them. Occasionally he would rush up to London to attend what he called a "high puff sale"-or to an auction in one of the northern towns, and as he always boug

y documents in his own possession, purchased from a Florentine family the year before, enabled him to identify with great probability as the work of one of the rarest and mos

thousand guineas of it's worth a penny. And those

denied; Italy, freedom, the small pleasures she understood, and the salvation of her family, now in the direst poverty. There were moment

ll her mistress that she had received orders to

ich had blanched all colour from the hills, and there was ice on the edges of the streams. Thyrza was away in Carlisle, helping an aunt. There was no one in the house but Mrs. Dixon, and a d

eeks ahead, no less than the interminable weeks and months she had alread

him to the Continent. He, she understood, would stop in Paris. She and the child would push on to Florence, where she could stay th

would provide her with anything more. He was heavily in debt, and had no money to spend on railway tickets. And he entirely disapproved of her relations, especially of her father, who

ed. When she saw that her appeal was quite fruitless she went away,

the household expenses, and for the few shillings he supposed she would want as pocket money. He advised her to be out a great deal, an

ture there was no one left in the house but the deaf old woman. Netta and her maid preceeded to carry out a plan they had been long maturing.

ild and maid had quitted the house. They had apparently harnessed the cart and horse themselves, and had driven into Pengarth, taking a labourer with them to bring the cart home

at it was a picture of Netta, with the baby, taken apparently in Italy during the preceding summer. The Cumbrian woman, shrewdly observant like all her

husband, returned it to the dra

grief, not at all, as George Tyson soon assured himself, for the loss of his wife and child, but entirely for the theft of the priceless

into money, she had no further claim on him whatever, and he broke off all relations with her. Eighty pounds a year would be paid by his lawyers to a Florentine lawyer, whom he named, for his daughter's maintenance, so long as Netta left him unmolested. But he d

that he did not intend to take any police steps to recover the bronze or its value. Profiting by the paternal traditions, Netta had managed the sale of the Hermes in London, where, owing to Mel

ch gradually made him the talk and wonder of the countryside. The rooms occupied by Netta and her child were left just as he had found them when he returned after

endured without comment, like disagreeable facts of climate. In Dixon, his Methodist books, his Bible, and his weekly chapel maintained those forces of his character which were-and always continued to be-independent of Melrose; and Melrose knew his own interests well enough not to interfere with an obstinate man's religion. While Tyson, after five years, passed on triumphantly to a

e relationship. When, however, the lad was nearing the end of his Eton school days Duddon became once more the permanent home, summer and winter, of mother and son, and young Lord Tatham, curly-haired, good-humoured, and good-hearted, became thenceforward the favourite and princeling of the countryside. On the east and n

ment of his estates, and his mother soon realized that her son was not l

back to pasture; and a surplus population, that has found its way for generations to the factory towns, began now to turn toward the great Canadian spaces beyond the western sea.

ame the scene of another drama, whereof wh