Mrs. Molesworth - The Grim House

I felt my face grow red with eagerness. Mother watching me, naturally attributed my excitement solely to pleasure at the invitation.

I thought you would be delighted, she said, full of sympathy as usual. “I have purposely not spoken of it to you before till it was quite settled. There was a little uncertainty about Isabel’s plans, as her sisters had talked of taking her away to pay some visits, but in the end this has been given up. So it is all right. You will start about this day week with Maple. It is rather a long journey, but Mr Wynyard has let me know all the trains. You will get there by daylight.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t mind how late I travelled with Maple,” I said, for my maid had been with us since my childhood; though indeed, to tell the truth, my love of adventure would have found a good deal of attraction in the idea of travelling quite alone.

And the next few days passed quickly and pleasantly, mother sharing to the full my own happy expectations.

It was a long journey, for the Wynyards’ home was as decidedly in the North as ours was in the South. But I enjoyed it, especially when we got into a part of the world that was quite new to me. For though I had travelled so much, there had been no great variety in our movements, which had always been southwards. My own country was but little known to me.

The evening was drawing in when we reached our last stopping-place, the nearest station to Millflowers, by name Scart Bridge. And here a pleasant surprise awaited me, for on the platform stood Isabel herself, all smiles and welcome – “prettier than ever,” I thought to myself as I kissed her.

“How nice of you to have come yourself,” I said, “for it is a long drive, isn’t it?”

“Not so very long, after all,” she replied. “I always enjoy meeting people so much – it is not like seeing them off. You have had a long journey, though,” she went on. “Aren’t you very tired?”

“Not a bit,” I replied. “It has all been so new to me. I have never been in this sort of country before.”

By this time we were seated in the waggonette, which Isabel informed me she had assured her father I should much prefer to a close carriage.

“It is really not cold now,” Isabel went on. “The evenings are getting quite long. And it is so nice, on coming to a new place, to know something of your surroundings at once, don’t you think? In a brougham one sees nothing.”

I looked about me with the greatest interest. It was the “North Country” unmistakably. Wild and hilly, bare to some extent, though here and there we caught sight of short stretches of forest land, for during a great part of the drive to Millflowers the view was very extensive. But the aspect of things in general was not cold or repellent, even to my southern eyes, for I saw the country to advantage in the clear sweet light of a mild spring evening.

“I think it is delicious,” I said enthusiastically. And as after a time we came to a great stretch of moorland, I grew even more enthusiastic. “Oh how charming!” I exclaimed. “It seems so beautifully free and open – the air is so exquisitely fresh and scented – yes, is it not scented, Isabel?”

“ I always fancy it is,” she replied, “though it is too early in the year yet for the scent – the gorse! O Regina! you should see it when the gorse and heather are out!”

“Yes,” I agreed. “It must be lovely. But do tell me,” I went on, for my thoughts in those days were very erratic, “shall we pass the Grim House on our way? And O Isabel! do tell me what has happened there! You alluded to something in your letter.”

A slight, the very slightest touch on my foot, and a glance at my friend’s face checked me. I remembered that we were not alone, for Maple was in the waggonette with us, and I felt ashamed of my stupid indiscretion.

“You mean Grimsthorpe?” said Isabel quietly. “No, we do not pass that way. Not that there is much to see if we did; it is a very ugly house, though an old one. Indeed the houses about here are rarely picturesque, though I think ours is pretty inside, and so is the vicarage. There are no other at all large houses near us. Millflowers, you know, is a very tiny village. Did I ever tell you what some people believe to be the origin of the name?” she added with a smile. But I could see that my questions had made her a little uncomfortable and that she was anxious to change the conversation.

“No,” I replied, feeling rather small. “I have wondered about it once or twice. It is an odd name.”

“There is a legend,” Isabel said, “that long, long ago some French refugees settled in this out-of-the-way part of the world, and set to work to distil ‘scented waters’ from the sweet-smelling plants and flowers – there is any quantity of thyme about here – they found, and that to their production they gave the name of ‘Millefleurs’ – a name still used for a well-known scent, of course. At that time there were only two or three cottages where our village now is, and the story goes that these poor French people’s secret gave its name to the place, getting corrupted into ‘Millflowers.’”

“How curious! I wonder if it is true,” I said.

Isabel seemed dubious as to this.

“Papa says it sounds rather as if the story had been made up to suit the name,” she said.

“Then is your own house not very old?” I inquired.

“Not very – about eighty or a hundred years old,” she replied. “It was originally just a sort of shooting-box – for our family has owned land about here for longer than that – and then my great-uncle took it into his head to enlarge it and make it his home. Grimsthorpe House is older; it was originally a large farmhouse – indeed it is not, to look at, much better than that now, though the grounds are extensive.”

We had crossed the moor by this time, and the rest of the way was along a more sheltered road bordered with trees, and here and there a glimpse of cultivated fields, altogether a different kind of landscape, more like what I was accustomed to at my own home, and a few minutes more brought us to the entrance of the Manor-house as the Wynyards’ place was now called.

As we passed through the lodge-gates, Isabel leant towards me and whispered —

“The Grim House is half-a-mile farther on, on the edge of another part of the moor.”

Her father was standing at the front door to receive us. His welcome was most cordial and courtly, but I felt even more strongly than before that it would be very difficult for me to be at ease with him; and so I said, in other words, to Isabel when we were alone in the room she had taken me up to. A charming room it was, with windows on two sides, from one of which a peep of the moorland, with rising ground in the distance, was to be had, as Isabel pointed out to me.

“Yes,” I said, as I threw myself into a tempting arm-chair, “it is all delightful; only, Isabel, I do wish I didn’t feel so shy of your father!”

Isabel laughed.

“I can’t understand it,” she said. “I mean, I can’t understand your feeling shy of him. He is so exceedingly kind and gentle. At the same time – ” she hesitated.

“What?” I asked quickly.

“I could understand,” she replied, “feeling afraid of him if one had done anything wrong – more afraid than if he were severe. When I was a small child and got into scrapes, as all children do sometimes, his look of almost perplexed distress made me feel worse, far worse, than if he had scolded me in a commonplace way.”

“O Isabel!” I exclaimed, “you are making me feel far more frightened than before! I must be awfully careful while I’m here not to shock Mr Wynyard in any way. But I am so thoughtless and forgetful; and that reminds me how stupid it was of me to allude to the Grim House mystery before Maple.”