Mrs. Molesworth - White Turrets

“Good eyes,” thought he to himself, “I hope I shall not need to talk to her much;” while Winifred, in a flutter of gratification, was saying to herself how very kind it was of Mrs Balderson to have given her to Mr Sunningdale, of all people, to take her in to dinner.

Lennox moved away with a little sigh, which Celia heard, though it was all but inaudible. The girl’s tender heart quivered for him, for she was far from endorsing her elder sister’s startling suggestion that Lennox did not really “care for her.”

“He is just devoted to her – quite devoted,” thought Celia. “How unlucky it seems! These things generally go that way, I suppose; at least, if what one reads in novels is true. I hope that I shall never care for any one, and that no one will care for me, for it would be sure to be only on one side or the other.”

She had no time to say anything consoling or sympathising to her cousin – indeed, what could she have said? – for he was already told off to his lady, the young Mrs Fancourt, whom Mr Balderson had alluded to; and Celia herself was soon appropriated by the husband of the pretty little woman in question, on whose arm she made her way down-stairs.

She had scarcely looked at him; she was thinking so much of Winifred and Lennox, that she was quite indifferent about her own fate, and Mr Fancourt, a good-natured man, whose rather limited ideas were entirely absorbed by admiration for his wife, soon gave her up as decidedly dull and heavy. Celia did not care – she had plenty to think of and plenty to amuse herself with; she was rather glad when her monosyllables resulted in Mr Fancourt’s directing his attentions to the woman on his other side. And one or two courses had been removed before a voice on her right hand startled her into realising that she had a neighbour in that quarter too.

“Miss Maryon, what are you thinking about so intently?” were the words she heard. “I have been watching you for quite five minutes – you are in a regular brown study.”

Celia started, then smiled, and, finally, as she became satisfied that Eric – for it was he – was not really shocked at her, could not repress a little laugh.

“I am so sorry,” she said. “Why didn’t you speak to me before? I didn’t even know you were there.”

“So I saw – at least, I hoped it was so – that there was no special motive in the resolute way in which you turned a cold shoulder upon me, and – ”

“No,” said Celia, laughing again, “my shoulders are not at all cold, thank you. This part of the room is delightfully out of any draught.”

“And,” continued Eric, “fixed your eyes upon the flowers in front of you, and let your thoughts wander to – No! that I can’t guess. I wonder where they were wandering to.”

“Not very far,” said Celia, smiling, and colouring a little. “I was very much entertained by watching all the people round the table, and perhaps I was thinking mostly of poor old Len.”

Eric looked across in young Maryon’s direction.

“Why do you say ‘ poor old Len’?” he inquired. “I think he’s quite happy. Mrs Fancourt seems to be drawing him out beautifully.”

Celia glanced at her companion doubtfully.

“Do you really think so?” she asked, “or are you saying it to – to draw me out?”

“I really think so, and I don’t need to draw you out,” he replied. “I know exactly what you mean about Lennox, and – you needn’t pity him. It will be all right.”

“Oh, I am afraid not,” said Celia. “I’m afraid it will never come right. I didn’t know you knew about it, but as you do – no,” and her voice dropped almost to a whisper, “Winifred will never care for him. I see it more and more, and now she is thinking all sorts of things – quite differently, you know.”

“Indeed,” said Eric, raising his eyebrows in inquiry, “do you mean – is there – some other more fortunate person in the field?”

“No, no, not that at all,” said Celia. “Winifred has much higher ideas than most girls. She wants to make a path for herself – to feel that she is doing something with her life – and she must be right. Why should girls be condemned to do and be nothing? A young man without a profession is always considered the greatest mistake. Why should women be forced into leading idle and useless lives?”

“They never should be,” said Eric, “I quite agree with you. But there are considerations: if a girl does marry, you will allow that she finds her work cut out for her – her vocation or profession, or whatever you like to call it. And I do not think any woman has a right to cast herself adrift from the chances of marrying, so to say; she should allow herself fair-play.”

Celia gave her head the tiniest of tosses. “Winifred does not want to marry, and she is old enough to judge,” she said. “I don’t deny – well, honestly, I should have been very happy if she had married Lennox, that is to say; if she could have cared for him. It would have pleased a good many people, and – did you ever hear the legend of White Turrets?” she went on, dropping her voice, and looking half-frightened at herself.

“No,” said Eric, with interest. “I’ve heard something about its being haunted, like nearly all very old houses, but I never heard of any legend.”

“Ah, well, there is one. It and the ghost are mixed up together,” said Celia, still in a slightly awe-struck tone. “It — she is supposed to be the spirit of an ancestress of ours, who was cruelly treated because she had no son. She had two or three daughters, and she died soon after the last was born, and she left a sort of a curse. No,” with a little shudder, “I don’t like to call it that. It was more like a – ”

“A prophecy,” suggested Eric.

“Yes,” said Celia, her face clearing, “it was more like that. It was to warn her descendants that the luck, so to say, should run in the female line, and that whenever a man was the owner of the place, the Maryons might – ”

“Look out for squalls,” Eric could not resist adding.

Celia glanced at him half indignantly.

“If you’re laughing at me,” she said, “I won’t tell it you.”

“I beg your pardon, I do really,” he said, penitently. “It was only that I did not like to see you looking so solemn about it.”

“I can’t help it,” said the girl, simply. “It always makes me a little frightened, though I know it’s silly. Winifred gets quite vexed if it is mentioned. She says it is contemptible nonsense. Louise believes it, but she is so good, it doesn’t frighten her. Still, for other reasons, we seldom allude to it. It has come so true, over and over again: I could tell you lots of things. Papa, you know, has had heaps of trouble. Poor papa, just think what a life of endurance his is! So you see if – if Winifred could have married Lennox (he is our second-cousin, you know), it would have done so well – keeping the old name, and she being the owner of the place.”

“I see,” said young Balderson.

“Or even if she could have been a more ordinary sort of girl, content to settle down at home,” Celia went on, “for – ” and here the frightened look came over her face again – “there’s more in the legend: the worst luck of all is to come if a woman of the family deserts her post. And once a rather flighty great-grand-aunt of ours did – she couldn’t live at home, because she thought it was a dull part of the country, and she came up to London, and travelled about to amuse herself, and all sorts of things happened.”

“Did burglars break in, or was the house burnt down, or – ?” began Eric, but Celia interrupted him.