Jupiter Pluvius, or Mr. J. Pluvius, by which name Major Ames was
facetiously wont to allude to the weather, seemed amiably inclined to
co-operate with Mrs. Evans’ scheme, for the evening of her party
promised to be ideal for the purpose. The few days previous had been
very hot, and no particle of moisture lurked in the baked lawns, so that
her guests would be able to wander at will without risk of contracting
catarrh, or stains on such shoes as should prove to be white satin.
Moreover, by a special kindness of Providence, there was no moon, so
that the illumination of fairy-lights and Chinese lanterns would suffer
no dispiriting comparison with a more potent brightness. Over a large
portion of the lawn Mrs. Evans, at Major Ames’ suggestion (not having to
pay for these paraphernalia he was singularly fruitful in suggestions),
had caused a planked floor to be laid; here the opening procession and
quadrille and the subsequent dances would take place, while conveniently
adjacent was the mulberry-tree under shade of which were spread the more
material hospitalities. Tree and dancing-floor were copiously outlined
with lanterns, and straight rows of fairy-lights led to them from the
garden door of the house. Similarly outlined was the garden wall and the
hedge by the railway-cutting, while the band (piano, two strings and a
cornet of amazingly piercing quality) was to be concealed in the small
_cul-de-sac_ which led to the potting shed and garden roller. The
shrubbery was less vividly lit; here Hamlets and Rosalinds could stray
in sequestered couples, unharassed by too searching an illumination.
Major Ames had paid his last clandestine visit this afternoon, and had
expressed himself as perfectly pleased with the arrangements. Both Elsie
and the doctor had been there.
* * * * *
The party had been announced to begin at half-past ten, and it was
scarcely that hour when Mrs. Ames came downstairs from her bedroom where
she had so long been busy since the end of the early dinner. Her arms
were bare from finger-tip to her little round shoulders, over which were
clasped, with handsome cairngorm brooches, the straps of her long tunic.
But there was no effect of an excessive display of human flesh, since
her arms were very short, and in addition they were plentifully
bedecked. On one arm a metallic snake writhed from wrist to elbow, on
the other there was clasped above the elbow a plain circlet of some very
bright and shining metal. A net of blue beads altogether too magnificent
to be turquoises, was pinned over her unfaded hair, and from the front
of it there depended on her forehead a large pear-shaped pearl,
suggestive of the one which the extravagant queen subsequently dissolved
in vinegar. Any pearl, so scientists tell us, which is capable of
solution in vinegar must be a curious pearl; that which Mrs. Ames wore
in the middle of her forehead was curious also. Art had been specially
invoked, over and above the normal skin-food to-night, in the matter of
Mrs. Ames’ face, and a formal Egyptian eyebrow, as indicated in the
illustration to “Rameses” in the _Encyclopædia_, decorated in charcoal
the place where her own eyebrow once was. Below her eye a touch of the
same charcoal added brilliancy to the eye itself; several touches of
rouge contributed their appropriate splendour to her cheeks.
The long tunic which was held up over her shoulders by the cairngorm
brooches, reached to her knee. It was a little tight, perhaps, but when
you have only one Arab shawl, shot with copious gold thread, you have to
make it go as far as it can, and after all, it went to her knees. A
small fold of it was looped up, and fell over her yellow girdle, it was
parted at the sides below the hips, and disclosed a skirt made of two
Arab shawls shot with silver, which, stitched together, descended to her
ankle. She did not mean to dance anything except the opening quadrille.
Below this silver-streaked skirt appeared, as was natural, her pretty
plump little feet. On them she wore sandals which exhibited their
plumpness and prettiness and smallness to the fullest extent. A correct
strap lay between the great toe and the next, and the straps were
covered with silver paper. For years Riseborough had known how small
were her shoes; to-night Riseborough should see that those shoes had
been amply large enough for what they contained. Round her neck,
finally, were four rows of magnificent pearl beads; no wonder Cleopatra
thought nothing of dissolving one pearl, when its dissolution would
leave intact so populous a company of similar treasures.
As she came downstairs she heard a sudden noise in the drawing-room, as
if a heavy man had suddenly stumbled. It required no more ingenuity than
was normally hers to conjecture that Lyndhurst was already there, and
had tripped himself up in some novel accoutrement. And at that, a sudden
flush of excitement and anticipation invaded her, and she wondered what
he would be like. As regards herself she felt the profoundest confidence
in the success of her garniture. He could scarcely help being amazed,
delighted. And an emotion never keenly felt by her, but as such long
outworn, shook her and made her knees tremulous. She felt so young, so
daring. She wished that at this moment he would come out, for as she
descended the stairs he could not but see how small and soft were her
feet....
Almost before her wish was formed, it was granted. A well-smothered oath
succeeded the stumbling noise, and Major Ames, in white Roman toga and
tights came out into the hall. There was no vestige of Venetian cloak
about him; he was altogether different from what she had expected. A
profuse wig covered his head, the toga completely masked what the
exercise with the garden roller had not completely removed, and below,
his big calves rose majestic over his classical laced shoes. If ever
there was a Mark Antony with a military moustache, he was not in Egypt
nor in Rome, but here; by a divine chance, without consultation, he had
chosen for himself the character complementary to hers. He looked up and
saw her, she looked down and saw him.
“Bless my soul,” he said. “Amy! Cleopatra!”
She gave him a happy little smile.
“Bless my soul,” she said. “Lyndhurst! Mark Antony!”
There was a long and an awful pause. It was quite clear to her that
something had occurred totally unexpected. She had wanted to be
unexpected, but there was something wrong about the quality of his
surprise. Then such manliness as there was in him came to his aid.
“Upon my word,” he said, “you have got yourself up splendidly, Amy.
Cleopatra now, pearls and all, and sandals! Why, you’ll take the shine
out of them all! Here we go, eh? Antony and Cleopatra! Who would have
thought of it! The cab’s round, dear. We had better be starting, if
we’re to take part in the procession. Not want a cloak or anything?
Antony and Cleopatra; God bless my soul!”
That was sufficient to allay the immediate embarrassment. True, he had
not been knocked over by this apparition of her in the way she had
meant, and the astonished pause, she was afraid, was not one of
surrendering admiration. And yet, perhaps, he was feeling shy, even as
she was; standing here in all this splendour of shining pantomime he
might well feel her to be as strange to him, as she felt him to be to
her. Moreover, she had not only to look Cleopatra, but to be Cleopatra,
to behave herself with the gaiety and youth which her appearance gave
him the right to expect. In the meantime he also had earned her
compliments, for no man who thinks it worth while to assume a fancy
dress has a soul so unhuman as to be unappreciative of applause.
She fell back a step or two to regard him comprehensively.
“My dear,” she said, “you are splendid; that toga suits you to
admiration. And your arms look so well coming out of the folds of it.
What great strong arms, Lyndhurst! You could pick up your little
Cleopatra and carry her back--back to Egypt so easily.”
Something of their irresponsibility which, as by a special Providence,
broods over the audacity of assuming strange guises, descended on her.
She could no more have made such a speech to him in her ordinary
morning-clothes, nor yet in the famous rose-coloured silk, than she
could have flown. But now her costume unloosed her tongue. And despite
the dreadful embarrassment that he knew would await him when they got to
the party, and a second Cleopatra welcomed them, this intoxication of
costume (liable, unfortunately, to manifest itself not only in _vin
gai_) mounted to his head also.
“_Ma reine!_” he said, feeling that French brought them somehow closer
to the appropriate Oriental atmosphere.
She held up her skirt with one hand, and gave him the other.
“We must be off, my Antony,” she said.
They got into the cab; a somewhat jaded-looking horse was lashed into a
slow and mournful trot, and they rattled away down the hard, dry road.
A queue of carriages was already waiting to disembark its cargoes when
they drew near the house, and leaning furtively and feverishly from the
window, Mrs. Ames saw a Hamlet or two and some Titanias swiftly and
shyly cross the pavement between two rows of the astonished proletariat.
Beside her in the cab her husband grunted and fidgeted; she guessed that
to him this entrance was of the nature of bathing on a cold day; however
invigorating might be the subsequent swim, the plunge was chilly. But
she little knew the true cause of his embarrassment and apprehension;
had his military career ever entailed (which it had not) the facing of
fire, it was probable, though his courage was of no conspicuous a kind,
that he would have met the guns with greater blitheness than he awaited
the moment that now inevitably faced him. Then came their turn; there
was a pause, and then their carriage door was flung open, and they
descended from the innocent vehicle that to him was as portentous as a
tumbril. In a moment Cleopatra would meet Cleopatra, and he could form
no idea how either Cleopatra would take it. The Cleopatra-hostess, as he
knew, was going to wear sandals also; snakes were to writhe up her long
white arms....
Mrs. Ames adjusted the pear-shaped pearl on her forehead.
“I think if we say half-past one it will be late enough, Lyndhurst,” she
said. “If we are not ready he can wait.”
It seemed to Lyndhurst that half-past one would probably be quite late
enough.
* * * * *
The assemblage of guests took place in the drawing-room which opened
into the garden; a waiter from the “Crown” inn, with a chin beard and
dressed in a sort of white surplice and carrying a lantern in his hand,
who might with equal reasonableness be supposed to be the Man in the
Moon out of the _Midsummer Night’s Dream_, or a grave-digger out of
_Hamlet_, said “Character names, please, ma’am,” and preceded them to
the door of this chamber. He bawled out “Cleopatra and Mark Antony.”
Another Cleopatra, a “different conception of this part,” as the _Kent
Chronicle_ said in its next issue, a Cleopatra dim and white and
willowy, advanced to them. She looked vexed, but as she ran her eyes up
and down Mrs. Ames’ figure, like a practised pianist playing a chromatic
scale, her vexation seemed completely to clear.
“Dear Cousin Amy,” she said, “how perfectly lovely! I never
saw--Wilfred, make your bow to Cleopatra. And Antony! Oh, Major Ames!”
Again she made the chromatic scale, starting at the top, so to speak
(his face), with a long note, and dwelling there again when she returned
to it.
Other arrivals followed, and this particular Antony and Cleopatra
mingled with such guests as were already assembled. The greater part had
gathered, and Mrs. Ames’ habitual manner and bearing suited excellently
with her regal rôle. The Turner family, at any rate, who were standing a
little apart from the others, not being quite completely “in”
Riseborough society, and, feeling rather hot and feverish in the thick
brocaded stuffs suitable to Falstaff, Mistress Page and King Theseus,
felt neither more nor less uncomfortable when she made a few
complimentary remarks to them than they did when, with her fat
prayer-book in her hand, she spoke to them after church on Sunday.
Elsewhere young Morton, with a white face and a red nose, was the
traditional Apothecary, and Mrs. Taverner was so copiously apparalled as
Queen Catherine that she was looking forward very much indeed to the
moment when the procession should go forth into the greater coolness of
the night air. Then a stentorian announcement from the waiter at the
Crown made every one turn again to the door.
“Antony and Cleopatra ten years later,” he shouted.
There was a slight pause. Then entered Mr. and Mrs. Altham with
high-held hands clasped at finger-tips. They both stepped rather high,
she holding her skirt away from her feet, and both pointing their toes
as if performing a _pavanne_. This entry had been much rehearsed, and it
was arresting to the point of producing a sort of stupefaction.
Mrs. Evans ran her eye up and down the pair, and was apparently
satisfied.
“Dear Mrs. Altham,” she said, “how perfectly lovely! _And_ Mr. Altham.
But ten years later! You must not ask us to believe that.”
She turned to her husband and spoke quickly, with a look on her face
less amiable than she usually wore in public.
“Wilfred,” she said, “tell the band to begin the opening march at once
for the procession, in case there are any more----”
But he interrupted--
“Here’s another, Millie,” he said cheerfully. “Yes, we’d better begin.”
His speech was drowned by the voice of the brazen-lunged waiter.
“Cleopatra!” he shouted.
Mrs. Brooks entered with all the rows of seed-pearls.
* * * * *
Riseborough, if the census papers were consulted, might perhaps not
prove to have an abnormally large percentage of inhabitants who had
reached middle-age, but certainly in the festivities of its upper
circles, maturity held an overwhelming majority over youth. It was so
to-night, and of the half-hundred folk who thus masqueraded, there were
few who were not, numerically speaking, of thoroughly discreet years.
The diffused knowledge of this undoubtedly gave confidence to their
gaiety, for there was no unconscious standard of sterling youth by which
their slightly mature exhilaration could be judged and found deficient
in genuine and natural effervescence. Thus, despite the somewhat
untoward conjunction of four matronly Cleopatras, a spirit of
extraordinary gaiety soon possessed the entire party. Odious comparisons
might conceivably spring up mushroom-like to-morrow, and
(unmushroom-like) continue to wax and flourish through many days and
dinners, but to-night so large an environment of elderly people gave to
every one of those elderly people a pleasant sense of not suffering but
rather shining in comparison with the others. Even the Cleopatras
themselves were content; Mrs. Ames, for instance, saw how sensible it
was that Mrs. Altham should announce herself as a Cleopatra of ten years
later, while Mrs. Altham, observing Mrs. Ames, saw how supererogatory
her titular modesty had been, and wondered that Mrs. Ames cared to show
her feet like that, while Mrs. Brooks knew that everybody was mentally
contrasting her queenliness of height with Mrs. Ames’ paucity of inches,
and her abundance of beautiful hair with Mrs. Altham’s obvious wig.
While, all the time, Mrs. Evans, whom the appearance of a fourth
Cleopatra had considerably upset for the moment, felt that at this rate
she could easily continue being Cleopatra for more years than “the ten
after,” so properly assumed by Mrs. Altham. In the same way Major Ames,
with his six feet of solid English bone and muscle, and his fifth decade
of years still but half-consumed, felt that Mr. Altham had but provided
a scale of comparison uncommonly flattering to himself. Simultaneously,
Mr. Altham, with a laurel-wreath round his head, reflected how
uncomfortable he would have felt if his laurel-wreath was anchored on no
sounder a foundation than a wig, and wondered if gardening (on the
principle that all flesh is grass) invariably resulted in so great a
growth of tissue. But all these pleasant self-communings were, indeed,
but a minor tributary to the real river of enjoyment that danced and
chattered through the starlit hours of this July night. Somehow the
whole assembly seemed to have shifted off themselves the natural and
inevitable burden of their years; they danced and mildly flirted, they
sat out in the dim shrubbery, and played on the sea-shore of life again,
finding the sand-castles had become real once more. Mrs. Ames, for
instance, had intended to dance nothing but the opening quadrille, but
before the second dance, which was a waltz, had come to a close, she had
accepted Mr. Altham’s offer, and was slowly capering round with him. A
little care was necessary in order not to put too unjust a strain on the
sandal straps, but she exercised this precaution, and was sorry, though
hot, when the dance came to an end. Then Major Ames, who had been
piloting Mrs. Altham, joined them at the moselle-cup table.
“‘Pon my word, Altham,” he said, “I don’t know what to say to you.
You’ve taken my Cleopatra, but then I’ve taken yours. Exchange no
robbery, hey?”
His wife tapped him on the arm with her palmette fan.
“Lyndhurst, go along with you!” she said, employing an expression, the
mental equivalent of which she did not know ever existed in her mind.
“I’ll go along,” he said. “But which is my Cleopatra?”
At the moment, Mrs. Evans approached.
“My two Cleopatras must excuse me,” said this amazing man. “I am engaged
for this next dance to the Cleopatra of us all. Ha! Ha!”
He offered his arm to Mrs. Evans, and they went out of the cave of the
mulberry-tree again.
The band had not yet struck up for the next dance, the majority of the
guests were flocking under the mulberry-tree at the conclusion of the
last, and for the moment they had the cool starlit dusk to themselves.
And then, all at once, the Major’s sense of boisterous enjoyment
deserted him; he felt embarrassed with a secret knowledge that he was
expected to say something in tune with this privacy. How that
expectation was conveyed he hardly knew; the slight pressure on his arm
seemed to announce it unmistakably. It reminded him that he was a man,
and yet with all that gaiety and gallantry that were so conspicuous a
feature in his behaviour to women in public, he felt awkward and ill at
ease. He embarked on a course of desperate and fulsome eulogy, longing
in his private soul for the band to begin.
“‘Pon my soul, you are an enchantress, Millie!” he said. “You come to
our staid, respectable old Riseborough, and before you have been here
six months you take us all into fairyland. Positively fairyland.
And--and I’ve never seen you looking so lovely as to-night.”
“Let us stroll all round the garden,” she said. “I want you to see it
all now it is lit up. And the shrubbery is pretty, too, with--with the
filter of starlight coming through the trees. Do tell me truthfully,
like a friend, is it going all right? Are they enjoying themselves?”
“Kicking up their heels like two-year-olds,” said Major Ames.
“How wicked of you to say that! But really I had one bad moment,
when--when the last Cleopatra came in.”
She paused a moment. Then in her clear, silky voice--
“Dear old things!” she said.
Now Mrs. Evans was not in any way a clever woman, but had she had the
brains and the wit of Cleopatra herself, she could not have spoken three
more consummately chosen words. All the cool, instinctive confidence of
a younger woman, and a pretty woman speaking of the more elderly and
plain was there; there, too, was the deliberate challenge of the
coquette. And Major Ames was quite helpless against the simplicity of
such art. Mere manners, the ordinary code of politeness, demanded that
he should agree with his hostess. Besides, though he was not in any way
in love with her, he could not resist the assumption that her words
implied, and, after all, she was a pretty woman, whom he had kissed, and
he was alone in the star-hung dusk with her.
“Poor dear Amy!” he said.
Millie Evans gave a soft little sigh, as of a contented child. He had
expressed with the most ruthless accuracy exactly what she wished him to
feel. Then, in the manner of a woman whose nature is warped throughout
by a slight but ingrained falsity, she spoke as if it was not she who
had prompted the three words which she had almost made him say.
“She is enjoying herself so,” she said. “I have never seen Cousin Amy
look so thoroughly pleased and contented. I thought she looked so
charming, too, and what dear, plump little feet she has. But, my dear,
it was rather a surprise when you and she were announced. It looked as
if this poor Cleopatra was going to be Antony-less! Dear me, what a
word.”
Here was a more direct appeal, and again Major Ames was powerless in her
soft clutch. Hers was not exactly an iron hand in a velvet glove, but a
hand made of fly-catching paper. She had taken her glove off now. And he
was beginning to stick to her.
“Pshaw!” he said.
That, again, had a perfectly satisfactory sound to her ears. The very
abruptness and bluffness of it pleased her more than any protestation
could have done. He was so direct, so shy, so manly.
She laughed softly.
“Hush, you mustn’t say those things,” she said. “Ah, there is the band
beginning, and it is our dance. But let us just walk through the
shrubbery before we go back. The dusk and quiet are such a relief after
the glare. Lyndhurst--ah, dear me. Cousin Lyndhurst I ought to say--you
really must not go home till my little dance is quite finished. You make
things go so well. Dear Wilfred is quite useless to me. Does he not look
an old darling as Timon of Athens? A sort of mixture between George the
Fourth in tights and a lion-tamer.”
Mrs. Evans was feeling more actively alive to-night than she had felt
for years. Her tongue, which was generally a rather halting adjutant to
her glances and little sinuous movements, was almost vivified to wit.
Certainly her description of her husband had acuteness and a sense of
the ludicrous to inspire it. Through the boughs of laburnums in the
shrubbery they could see him now, escorting the tallest and oldest
Cleopatra, who was Mrs. Brooks, to the end of the garden. Dimly, through
the curtain of intervening gloom, they saw the populous wooden floor
that had been laid down on the grass; Mrs. Ames--the dance was a
polka--was frankly pirouetting in the arms of a redoubtable Falstaff.
Mrs. Altham was wrestling with the Apothecary, and Elsie Evans, one of
the few young people present, was vainly trying to galvanize General
Fortescue, thinly disguised as Henry VII, into some semblance of
activity.
Mrs. Evans gave another sigh, a sigh of curious calibre.
“It all seems so distant,” she said. “All the lights and dancing are
less real than the shadows and the stillness.”
That was not quite extemporaneous; she had thought over something of the
sort. It had the effect of making Major Ames feel suddenly hot with an
anxious kind of heat. He was beginning to perceive the truth of that
which he had foppishly imagined in his own self-communings, namely, that
this “poor little lady” was very, very much attached to him. He had
often dwelt on the thought before with odious self-centred satisfaction;
now the thought was less satisfactory; it was disquieting and mildly
alarming. Like the fly on the fly-paper, with one leg already englued,
he put down a second to get leverage with which to free the first, and
found that it was adhering also.
Mrs. Evans spoke again.
“I took such pleasure in all the preparations,” she said. “You were so
much interested in it all. Tell me, Cousin Lyndhurst, that you are not
disappointed.”
It was hardly possible for him to do less than what he did. What he did
was little enough. He pressed the arm that lay in his rather close to
his white toga, and an unwonted romanticism of speech rose to his lips.
“You have enchanted me,” he said. “Me, us, all of us.”
She gave a little laugh; in the dusk it sounded no louder than a breeze
stirring.
“You needn’t have added that,” she said.
Where she stood a diaper of light and shadow played over her. A little
spray of laburnum between her face and the lights on the lawn outside,
swaying gently in a breeze that had gone astray in this calm night, cast
wavering shadows over her. Now her arms shone white under freckles of
shadow, now it was her face that was a moon to him. Or again, both
would be in shade and a diamond star on her bright yellow hair
concentrated all the light into itself. All the elusive mysterious charm
of her womanhood was there, made more real by the fantastic setting. He
was kindled to a greater warmth than he had yet known, but, all the
time, some dreadful creature in his semi-puritanical semi-immoral brain,
told him that this was all “devilish naughty.” He was as unused to such
scruples as he was unused to such temptations, and in some curious
fashion he felt as ashamed of the one as he felt afraid of the other. At
length he summed up the whole of these despicable conclusions.
“Will you give me just one kiss, Millie!” he said; “just one
cousin-kiss, before we go and dance?”
* * * * *
Such early worms next morning in Major Ames’ garden as had escaped the
early bird, must certainly have all been caught and laid out flat by the
garden roller, so swift and incessant were its journeyings. For though
the dawn had overspread the sky with the hueless tints of approaching
day when Antony and Cleopatra were charioteered home again by a
somnolent cabman; though Major Ames’ repose had been of the most
fragmentary kind, and though breakfast, in anticipation of late hours,
had been ordered the night before at an unusual half-past nine, he found
his bed an intolerable abode by seven o’clock, and had hoped to
expatriate somewhat disquieting thoughts from his mind by the
application of his limbs to severe bodily exertion.
He and his wife had been the last guests to leave; indeed, after the
others had gone they lingered a little, smoking a final cigarette. Even
Mrs. Ames had been persuaded to light one, but a convulsive paroxysm of
coughing, which made the pear-shaped pearl to quiver and shake like an
aspen-leaf, led her to throw it away, saying she enjoyed it very much.
He had danced with Mrs. Evans three or four times; three or four times
they had sat in the cool darkness of the shrubbery, and he had said to
her several things which at the moment it seemed imperative to say, but
which he did not really mean. But as the evening went on he had meant
them more; she had a helpless, childlike charm about her that began to
stir his senses. And yet below that childlike confiding manner he was
dimly aware that there was an eager woman’s soul that sought him. Her
charm was a weapon; a very efficient will wielded it. All the same, he
reflected as the honest dews of toil poured from his forehead this
morning in the hot early sunlight, he had not said very much ... he had
said that Riseborough was a different place since she--or had he said
“they”? had come there; that her eyes looked black in the starlight,
that--honestly, he could not remember anything more intimate than this.
But that which had made his bed intolerable was the sense that the
situation had not terminated last night, that his boat, so to speak, had
not been drawn up safely ashore, but was still in the midst of
accelerating waters. And yet it was in his own power to draw the boat
ashore at any moment; he had but to take a decisive stroke to land, to
step out and beach it, to return--surely it was not difficult--to his
normal thoughts and activities. For years his garden, his club, his
domestic concerns, his daily paper, had provided him with a sufficiency
of pursuits; he had but to step back into their safe if monotonous
circle, and look upon these disturbances as episodic. But already he had
ceased to think of Mrs. Evans as “dear little woman” or “poor little
woman”; somehow it seemed as if she had got her finger--to use a prosaic
metaphor--into his works. She was prodding about among the internal
wheels and springs of his mechanism. Yet that was stating his case too
strongly; it was that of contingency that he was afraid. But with the
curious irresponsibility of a rather selfish and unimaginative man, the
fact that he had allowed himself to prod about in her internal mechanism
represented itself to him as an unimportant and negligible detail. It
was only when she began prodding about in him, producing, as it were,
extraordinary little whirrings and racings of wheels that had long gone
slow and steady, that he began to think that anything significant was
occurring. But, after all, there was nothing like a pull at the garden
roller for giving a fellow an appetite for breakfast and for squashing
worms and unprofitable reflections.
Though half-past nine had seemed “late enough for anybody,” as Mrs. Ames
had said the evening before, it was not till nearly ten that she put an
extra spoonful of tea into her silver teapot, for she felt that she
needed a more than usually fortifying beverage, to nullify her
disinclination for the day’s routine. The sight of her Cleopatra costume
also, laid upon the sofa in her bedroom, and shone upon by a cheerful
and uncompromising summer sun, had awakened in her mind a certain
discontent, a certain sense of disappointment, of age, of grievance. The
gilt paper had moulted off one of the sandal-straps, a spilt dropping of
strawberry-ice made a disfiguring spot on the tunic of Arab shawl, and
she herself felt vaguely ungilded and disfigured.
The cigarette, too--she had so often said in the most liberal manner
that she did not think it wicked of women to smoke, but only horrid.
Certainly she did not feel wicked this morning, but as certainly she
felt disposed to consider anybody else horrid, and--and possibly wicked.
Decidedly a cup of strong tea was indicated.
Major Ames had gone upstairs again to have his bath, and to dress after
his exercise in the garden, and came down a few minutes later, smelling
of soap, with a jovial boisterousness of demeanour that smelt of
unreality.
“Good-morning, my dear Amy,” he said. “And how do you feel after the
party? I’ve been up a couple of hours; nothing like a spell of exercise
to buck one up after late hours.”
“Will you have your tea now, Lyndhurst?” she asked.
“Have it now, or wait till I get it, eh? I’ll have it now. Delicious! I
always say that nobody makes tea like you.”
Now boisterous spirits at breakfast were not usual with Major Ames, and,
as has been said, his wife easily detected a false air about them. Her
vague sense of disappointment and grievance began to take more solid
outlines.
“It is delightful to see you in such good spirits, Lyndhurst,” she
observed, with a faint undertone of acidity. “Sitting up late does not
usually agree with you.”
There was enough here to provoke repartee. Also his superficial
boisterousness was rapidly disappearing before his wife’s acidity, like
stains at the touch of ammonia.
“It does not, in this instance, seem to have agreed with you, my dear,”
he said. “I hope you have not got a headache. It was unwise of you to
stop so late. However, no doubt we shall feel better after breakfast.
Shall I give you some bacon? Or will you try something that appears to
be fish?”
“A little kedjeree, please,” said Mrs. Ames, pointedly ignoring this
innuendo on her cook.
“Kedjeree, is it? Well, well, live and learn.”
“If you have any complaint to make about Jephson,” said she, “pray do
so.”
“No, not at all. One does not expect a _cordon bleu_. But I dare say
Mrs. Evans pays no more for her cook than we do, and look at the supper
last night.”
“I thought the quails were peculiarly tasteless,” said Mrs. Ames; “and
if you are to be grand and have _pêches à la Melba_, I should prefer to
offer my guests real peaches and proper ice-cream, instead of tinned
peaches and custard. I say nothing about the champagne, because I
scarcely tasted it.”
“Well then, my dear, I’m sure you are quite right not to criticize it.
All I can say is that I never want to eat a better supper.”
Suddenly Mrs. Ames became aware that another piece of solid outline had
appeared round her vague discontent and reaction.
“No doubt you think that all Millie’s arrangements are perfect in every
way,” she observed.
“I don’t know what you mean by that,” said he, rather hotly; “but I do
know that when a woman has been putting herself to all that trouble and
expense to entertain her friends, her friends would show a nicer spirit
if they refrained from carping and depreciating her.”
“No amount of appreciation would make tinned peaches fresh, or turn
custard into ice-cream,” said Mrs. Ames, laying down the fork with which
she had dallied with the kedjeree, which indeed was but a sordid sort of
creation. “It is foolish to pretend that a thing is perfect when it is
not. Nor do I consider her manners as a hostess by any means perfect.
She looked as cross as two sticks when poor Mrs. Brooks appeared. I
suppose she thought that nobody had a right to be Cleopatra besides
herself. To be sure poor Mrs. Brooks looked very silly, but if everybody
who looked silly last night should have stayed away, there would not
have been much dancing done.”
She took several more sips of the strong tea, while he unfolded and
appeared engrossed in the morning paper, and under their stimulating
influence saw suddenly and distinctly how ill-advised was her attack.
She had yielded to temporary ill-temper, which is always a mistake. It
was true that in her mind she was feeling that Lyndhurst last night had
spent far too much with his hostess; in a word, she felt jealous. It
was, therefore, abominably stupid, from a merely worldly point of view,
to criticize and belittle Millie to him. If there was absolutely no
ground for her jealousy--which at present was but a humble little green
bud--such an attack was uncalled for; if there was ground it was most
foolish, at this stage, at any rate, to give him the least cause for
suspecting that it existed. But she was wise enough now, not to hasten
to repair her mistake, but to repair it slowly and deliberately, as if
no repair was going on at all.
“But I must say the garden looked charming,” she said after a pause.
“Did she tell you, Lyndhurst, whether it was she or her husband who saw
to the lighting? The scheme was so comprehensive; it took in the whole
of the lawn; there was nothing patchy about it. I suspect Dr. Evans
planned it; it looked somehow more like a man’s work.”
A look of furtive guilt passed over the Major’s face; luckily it was
concealed by the _Daily Mail_.
“No; Evans told me himself that he had nothing to do with it,” he said.
“It was pretty, I thought; very pretty.”
“If the nights continue hot,” said she, “it would be nice to have the
garden illuminated one night, if dear Millie did not think we were
appropriating her ideas. I do not think she would; she is above that
sort of thing. Well, dear, I must go and order dinner. Have you any
wishes?”
Clearly it was wiser, from the Major’s point of view, to accept this
bouquet of olive branches. After all, Amy was far too sensible to
imagine that there could be anything to rouse the conjugal watch-dog.
Nor was there; hastily he told himself that. A cousinly kiss, which at
the moment he would willingly have foregone.
Certainly last night he had been a little super-stimulated. There was
the irresponsibility of fancy dress, there was the knowledge that Millie
was not insensitive to him; there was the sense of his own big, shapely
legs in tights, there was dancing and lanterns, and all had been potent
intoxicants to Riseborough, which for so long had practised teetotalism
with regard to such excitements. Amy herself had been so far carried
away by this effervescence of gaiety as to smoke a cigarette, and Heaven
knew how far removed from her ordinary code of conduct was such an
adventure. Generously, he had forborne to brandish that cigarette as a
weapon against her during this acrimonious episode at breakfast, and he
had no conscious intention of hanging it, like Damocles’ sword over her
head, in case she pursued her critical and carping course against
Millie. But whatever he had said last night, she had done that. Without
meaning to make use of his knowledge, he knew it was in his power to do
so. What would not Mrs. Altham, for instance, give to be informed by an
eye-witness that Mrs. Ames had blown--it was no more than that--on the
abhorred weed? So, conscious of a position that he could make offensive
at will, he accepted the olive branch, and suggested a cold curry for
lunch.
* * * * *
Breakfast at Mrs. Altham’s reflected less complicated conditions of
mind. Both she and her husband were extremely pleased with themselves,
and in a state of passion with regard to everybody else. Since their
attitude was typical of the view that Riseborough generally took of last
night’s festivity, it may be given compendiously in a rhetorical flight
of Mrs. Altham’s, with which her husband was in complete accord.
In palliation, it may be mentioned that they had both partaken of large
quantities of food at an unusual hour. It is through the body that the
entry is made by the subtle gateways of the soul, and vitriolic comments
in the morning are often the precise equivalent of unusual indulgence
the night before.
“Well, I’m sure if I had known,” said Mrs. Altham, “I should not have
taken the trouble I did. Of course, everybody said ‘How lovely your
dress is,’ simply to make one say the same to them. And I never want to
hear the word Cleopatra again, Henry, so pray don’t repeat it. Fancy
Mrs. Ames appearing as Cleopatra, and us taking the trouble to say we
were Antony and Cleopatra ten years later! Twenty years before would
have been more the date if we had known. Perhaps I am wrong, but when a
woman arrives at Mrs. Ames’ time of life, whether she dyes her hair or
not, she is wiser to keep her feet concealed, not to mention what she
must have looked like in the face of half the tradesmen of Riseborough
who were lining the pavements when she stepped out of her cab. I thought
I heard a great roar of laughter as we were driving up the High Street;
I should not wonder if it was the noise of them all laughing as she got
out of her carriage. Of course, it was all very prettily done, as far as
poor Mrs. Evans was concerned, but I wonder that Dr. Evans likes her to
spend money like that, for, however unsuitable the supper was, I feel
sure it was very expensive, for it was all truffles and aspic. There
must have been a sirloin of beef in the cup of soup I took between two
of the dances, and strong soup like that at dead of night fills one up
dreadfully. And Mrs. Brooks appearing as another Cleopatra, after all I
had said about Hermione! Well, I’m sure if she chooses to make a silly
of herself like that, it is nobody’s concern but hers. She looked like
nothing so much as a great white mare with the staggers. If you are
going up to the club, Henry, I should not wonder if I came out with you.
It seems to me a very stuffy morning, and a little fresh air would do me
good. As for the big German ruby in your cap, I don’t believe a soul
noticed it. They were all looking at Mrs. Evans’ long white arms. Poor
thing, she is probably very anæmic; I never saw such pallor. I saw
little of her the whole evening. She seemed to be popping in and out of
the shrubbery like a rabbit all the time with Major Ames. I should not
wonder if Mrs. Ames was giving him a good talking-to at this moment.”
Then, like all the rest of Riseborough, and unlike the scorpion, there
was a blessing instead of a sting in her tail.
“But certainly it was all very pretty,” she said; “though it all seemed
very strange at the time. I can hardly believe this morning that we were
all dressed up like that, hopping about out of doors. Fancy dress balls
are very interesting; you see so much of human nature, and though I
looked the procession up and down, Henry, I saw nobody so well dressed
as you. But I suppose there is a lot of jealousy everywhere. And anyhow,
Mrs. Evans has quite ousted Mrs. Ames now. Nobody will talk about
anything but last night for the next fortnight, and I’m sure that when
Mrs. Ames had the conjurer who turned the omelette into the watch, we
had all forgotten about it three days afterwards. And after all, Mrs.
Evans is a very pleasant and hospitable woman, and I wouldn’t have
missed that party for anything. If you hear anything at the club about
her wanting to sell her Chinese lanterns and fairy-lights second-hand,
Henry, or if you find any reason to believe that she had hired them out
for the night from the Mercantile Stores, you might ask the price, and
if it is reasonable get a couple of dozen. If the weather continues as
hot as this we might illuminate the garden when we give our August
dinner-party. At least, I suppose Mrs. Evans does not consider that she
has a monopoly of lighting up gardens!”
Henry found himself quite in accord with the spirit of this address.
“I will remember, my dear,” he said; “if I hear anything said at the
club. I shall go up there soon, for I should not be surprised if most of
the members spent their morning there. I think I will have another cup
of tea.”
“You have had two already,” said his wife.
He was feeling a little irritable.
“Then this will make three,” he observed.
* * * * *
Mrs. Evans, finally, had breakfast in her room. When she came
downstairs, she found that her husband had already left the house on his
visits, which was a relief. She felt that if she had seen his cheerful
smiling face this morning, she would almost have hated it.
She ordered dinner, and then went out into the garden. Workmen were
already there, removing the dancing-floor, and her gardener was
collecting the fairy-lights in trays, and carrying them indoors. Here
and there were charred, burnt places on the grass, and below the
mulberry-tree the _débris_ of supper had not yet been removed. But the
shrubbery, as last night, was sequestered and cool, and she sat for an
hour there on the garden bench overlooking the lawn. Little flakes of
golden sunlight filtered down through the foliage, and a laburnum,
delicate-sprayed, oscillated in the light breeze. She scarcely knew
whether she was happy or not, and she gave no thought to that. But she
felt more consciously alive than ever before.