Lady Penelope

“ She is enthusiastic and impulsive. Oh, these impulses of youth! How well I remember the delightful impulses of youth, when one feels as if one could fly with wings! Even now I get impulses. Poor Penelope! Ah, dear, I wish she would come. I have written again and again to ask her, but I'm afraid she will not."
And, indeed, no one at that moment knew where she was, unless, indeed, it was Timothy and Geordie Smith and Miss Mackarness and the pirate in goggles of the motor-car who carried her off.
Titania and Bob between them, at any rate, accomplished one thing. ”

“ And Penelope sighed. Suddenly her face lighted up.
"Ah!" she said, "I see why they said it to aunty. How very, very noble of them! I knew they were all splendid men; men of the highest character and attainments and possibilities. Will you have telegrams written out to all of them, saying, 'Your conduct is noble, and I am deeply grateful'?"
"Yes, my lady," replied the housekeeper, "and how will you sign it?"
"Sign it Penelope Brading," said Penelope. "And tell Smith to take his car as quickly as he can to Spilsborough, and send them from there." ”

“ Her first interview with her aunt, the Duchess of Goring, was positively so shocking to Titania, who was mid-Victorian, and never got over it, that the poor thing almost fainted when Penelope, a shining brat of three, damned her eyes with terrific vigour. Goring, who was that very curious and absurd survival of a thousand ages, known as a sportsman, roared with laughter. There was humanity in him. There was none in Titania, though there might have been if she had married any one but a duke. ”

“ Never, my dear, get married at a registrar's."
"It's better than the open shame of a cathedral and a bishop," said Penelope. "Being married is one's private business, and it's nothing but horrid savagery to have crowds there!"
"Bravo!" said Bradstock, and Titania turned on him.
"Did I not say all this was your fault, Augustin? You were no more fit to be her guardian than you are to be Archbishop of Canterbury. Am I a savage, Penelope? and did I not get married in a cathedral, a most beautiful cathedral, all Gothic and newly restored at a vast expense? ”

“ Lady Grace sighed.
“To tell you the truth, Penelope,” she said, “I almost wish that he were not quite so devotedly attached to his country.”
Penelope was silent. They had reached Lady Grace’s room now, and were standing together on the hearthrug in front of the fire.
“I am afraid he is like that,” Penelope said gently. “He seems to have none of the ordinary weaknesses of men. I, too, wish sometimes that he were a little different. One would like to think of him, for his own sake, as being happy some day. ”

“ A duchess has a great deal of influence if she only likes to use it, and the public is no more proof against her than the public offices are.
And Pen set her teeth together and ignored every one, and had very little to say to society. Her apparent passion was for motor-cars, and she went out in the sixty-horse Panhard almost every day. And every end of the week she disappeared, coming back on Monday or Tuesday.
"I could tell 'em something," said Geordie Smith, "couldn't I, old girl?"
The "old girl" he referred to was the machine he loved next best, at least, to Lady Penelope. ”

“ But just then Bob and the nurse came down with the infant, who, though evidently awed by the number of creatures he saw about him, behaved like a gentleman, and not in the least like an adopted child.
"I congratulate you, Pen," said Bradstock. "The mother must be a devilish pretty woman! Does she miss it much, Pen? Oh, Pen, what a queer, mad darling you are! I begin to see daylight."
But nobody else did. Penelope blushed and hugged the baby tenderly, while Bob danced around her in the wildest state of excitement.
"I say, Captain Goby, come and look at it! Mr. de Vere! I say, marquis! ”

“ Ethel cried and said:
"Oh, is it Captain Goby?"
Chloe laughed and laid traps for Penelope saying:
"Oh, by the way, I saw Lord Bramber just now."
Or it might be De Vere or Carew or Williams. But no one got a rise out of Penelope.
"I am entirely determined to give a lead to those who wish to be married without publicity. I shall found a society presently," said Penelope.
When Titania, whom nothing could discourage, went at her furiously, Bradstock smiled.
"If she has a daughter, some day we shall see the girl married in Westminster Abbey," said Bradstock. But even he was very curious. ”

“ They objected to publicity, especially for other people, and for a young woman to become a public character was something worse than immorality. Nothing but Penelope's entire singleness of character and her humourous want of humour enabled her to meet and overcome them. And even she felt at times that flight was the only thing left. She sent to her solicitor for a list of all the houses and mansions and castles that she owned, and she took her motor-car and her pet chauffeur, and, having borrowed Bob from his grandmother, she set off on a tour. ”

“ Pen is Pen, and there's an end of it."
"I wish there was," cried the duchess. "But she rails against marriage. And she's only twenty-one. Dear, dear me!"
"She pays too much attention to you married women," said Bradstock. "How's the duke, by the way?"
As the duke was engaged in running two theatres at the same time, not wholly in the interests of art or finance, Bradstock might have asked after his health at some other juncture. Titania ignored him.
"She rails against marriage," lamented Titania.
"I don't," said Penelope.
"You do," said her aunt. ”

“ I'll go home, Bradstock."
And Bradstock took her there.
"You've done it, Titania," he said, as they drove. "She's as obstinate and as violent as a passive resister. You've put her bristles up, and Pen never goes back from what she says."
"You are very like a man, Augustin," sobbed the duchess.
"She's more like a woman than I'm like a man," growled Bradstock.
He had never risen to eminence, and only once to his feet in the Upper House, and sometimes this rankled.
"Yes, I mean it, I mean it," said Penelope.
"And I wanted to be your bridesmaid," sobbed Ethel. ”

“ He's a thorough outsider."
"Women don't understand the word, my dear chap. How are you getting on in the House? And have you been motoring with Plant?"
"Yes," said Bramber; "we killed three fowls and a dog yesterday. And Plant was fined ten pounds a week ago. He said he would wire to Lady Penelope to know if that was business expenses. I believe he wants to break my neck."
"I shouldn't be surprised," said Bradstock. "Has he gone out alone to-day, do you think? I suppose you know Penelope is doing a lot of it now?"
"The devil she is!" said Bramber. "I think I'll go and look up Plant." ”

“ I no longer abhor the poor, foolish men who are so much in love with her. I see plainly (for I, too, am naturally a democrat of the proper kind) that they have fine qualities. I have marked my sense of this in a way which appears to amuse Lord Bradstock for some reason that I do not follow,—but then, I never could follow Augustin, poor fellow,—by asking them all down here. I dare say they think Penelope will come, for they have all accepted. ”

“ But of course he will pay no attention, and in time will die like the rest. It's no use advising men to be sensible. I've given it up. Ah, here at last is Lord Bradstock."
Titania flowed on wonderfully; she flowed exactly like the twisting piece of glass in a mechanical clock which mimics a jet of water. She turned round and never advanced. But Augustin, Lord Bradstock, was as calm as a mill-pond, as a mere in the mountains. He was tall and thin and ruddy and white-haired at fifty. He had been twice a widower.
"Why at last, Titania?" he yawned, as he stood with Penelope's hand in his. ”

“ I entreat you to go through them and dismiss those of whom we can't approve, I and Lord Bradstock."
"Don't drag me in," said Bradstock. "They are all very good fellows; I approve of them all."
"Tut, tut," said Titania, "is this the way you help, Augustin? You are a hindrance. I believe it is entirely owing to you that Penelope has these strange and alarming ideas. Yes, my dear, I'm afraid it is. He is not the kind of man who should have been your guardian. I ought to have been consulted. I knew a bishop who would have been admirable, most admirable. ”

“ The walking world appears abnormal to an institute for cripples; good going is an absurdity, and as for running— The truth is that Penelope, by some unimaginable freak of fortune, had been born quite sound and sane, barring her one lack, that of humour. The providential death of her parents at an early age saved her from a deal of teaching. Bradstock saved her from a great deal more, and she saw to the rest. It pleased Augustin, Lord Bradstock, to play with gunpowder, in spite of what he said about dynamite. ”

“ Remember what I said," said the marchioness, darkly. "No really good girl could act as she does. She will marry a groom!"
She went around saying so in revenge for Penelope's want of politeness. The journalists took Timothy Bunting's photograph, and Miss Weekes was proud till she heard the dreadful rumour. Timothy beat a man on a paper, and Bob was delighted. Titania took to her bed, and said the end of the world was at hand. Bradstock laughed till he cried, and cut the marchioness in the park. ”

“ This 'ere Miss Mackarness was 'ousekeeper at Upwell Castle, and I'm a Dutchman if any one of us 'as ever 'eard of Moat 'Ouse. She's goin' to do it, as she said, goin' to be married and keep it dark. Women is wonderful strange and, so to speak, dreadful. I thot I knew 'Arriet Weekes through and through, and she turned out to be a serpent with false teeth, ready to sell Lady Penelope to the Times. ”

“ I don't think much of bishops if they're all like him, though he did stop Plant and Rivaulx fighting with swords in the cathedral."
"Fighting? with swords? Oh, what—" said Penelope.
"To be sure, I forgot you very likely didn't know. I'll tell you by and by. Bradstock's at Spilsborough. Where's my drink, Pen? I say, did you hear of Mr. Bunting at Oxford? That was fun. He threw De Vere out of the window, and knocked Carteret Williams down with Liddell and Scott." ”

“ She wrote to her husband repeatedly, begging him to return to her; but he, being in extreme and wretched doubt, moreover, knowing nothing of her ill-health, and never suspecting that the rumours had reached her also, deemed absence best, and postponed his return awhile, giving various good reasons for his delay.
At length, however, when the Lady Penelope had given birth to a still-born child, her mother, the Countess, addressed a letter to Sir William, requesting him to come back to her if he wished to see her alive ”

“ Penelope answered. “He has never shown any signs of caring for any woman. Remember, though, that he would want you to live in Japan.”
“I’d live in Thibet if he asked me to,” Lady Grace declared, raising her handkerchief to her eyes, “but he never will. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t understand. I am very foolish, Penelope.”
Penelope kissed her gently.
“Dear,” she said, “you are not the only foolish woman in the world.”...
Conversation amongst the younger members of the house-party at Devenham Castle was a little disjointed that evening. ”

“ She acknowledged she had been a brute to Miss Mackarness, and gave her a position as housekeeper in one of her own houses, that she never visited, with permission to receive the shillings some visitors paid to see a mansion like a sarcophagus, with one treasure of a Turner in it.
The trouble was that Penelope was natural. She had not been trained to become so; she grew so. There is no more painful and laborious a process than to learn to be natural in later life. But to grow like it! ”

“ Mr. Plant will do you good, and will teach you to drive a motor!"
She had never been so beautiful. She showed at her best when her interest in humanity made her courageous and brutal. The colour in her cheeks was splendid; her eyes were as earnest as the sea. If Bramber choked, he submitted, though he blasphemed awfully when he got alone.
"Go at once," said Penelope.
She paired off Carteret Williams with Jimmy Carew, A.R.A. Williams knew as much about art as a hog does of harmony. ”

“ But Timothy Bunting shook his head.
"Their sportin' tips ain't a patch on many of the penny papers, my lady. But don't you forget what I says of Miss Weekes. She's a serpent in your boodore a-coiling everywhere, and speaking to newspaper men outside the harea like an 'ousemaid. Not but that I knows an 'ousemaid far above such dirty work, my lady."
A little encouragement might have led him to say more about the housemaid who would not condescend to talk with journalists. But Penelope gave him an address, verbally. ”

“ Penelope remonstrated with her. Bob was urgent and impatient.
"We may be caught any minute," he said. "Pen, let her come on in a cart."
"If you prefer it," said Penelope.
"My lady, I much prefer it," said the housekeeper.
Bob let the car go, and Geordie, coming on behind, pulled up to interview Miss Mackarness.
"Sooner than go in one a mile farther," she said, firmly, "I would lie down and die."
"That's silly, ma'am," said Geordie.
"I would rather live silly than die wise," replied Miss Mackarness. "I may be used to much and past surprises, but I can't stomach these cars." ”

“ They know that the play begins at a quarter to nine.”
“It isn’t like Dicky Vanderpole in the least,” Penelope said. “Since he began to tread the devious paths of diplomacy, he has brought exactness in the small things of life down to a fine art.”
“He isn’t half so much fun as he used to be,” Lady Grace declared.
“Fun!” Penelope exclaimed. “Sometimes I think that I never knew a more trying person.”
“I have never known the Prince unpunctual,” the Duchess murmured. “I consider him absolutely the best-mannered young man I know.”
Lady Grace smiled, and glanced at Penelope. ”