Rosalind Annarly was to be married just after Easter: the wedding,
which was to have taken place in the winter, was postponed until then
on account of a death in the Wharton family—not in the immediate family
circle, but since the deceased was the only daughter of the weighty
relative from whom Dick had expectations, it was thought advisable to
pay proper respect.
“Besides,” so Rosalind said, “I hate a wedding with one family in
mourning or half mourning. And, after all, April is a much better time
to get frocks than the winter, and a new house, and curtains, and
everything look nicer then.”
So she supported the postponement with equanimity. She was very
comfortable at home; her father’s favourite, and an acknowledged
beauty, which, in connection with her satisfactory engagement, gave her
some prestige and even more liberty to have what she liked than would
otherwise have fallen to her share. If Dick was more impatient for a
change of condition, and had no sartorial consolations to pass the
time, he could at least reflect that the postponement was his doing, or
rather his relatives’, and dictated by wisdom if not by feeling. But
in the spring there was a period put to the time of waiting; the date
for the wedding was fixed, and the business of preparation went forward
with enthusiasm.
Michael, naturally, was expected to be home for the wedding. He had
been home very little during the winter and spring; he had really no
time for it. The family at Hurstbury were sorry, of course; but, since
he had never been there much, they cannot be said to have missed him.
For the wedding, however, they expected him: there is a definite part
allotted to the bride’s brothers on such occasions; Michael would come
and fill it. Constance wrote and told him so.
“What a pity he isn’t as good-looking as Jack,” Rosalind said. Jack was
home now, and a really satisfactory brother the sisters found: tall,
good-looking, and sociable—a masculine edition of themselves.
“Michael is nothing like Jack,” Rosalind said, thinking of her bridal
procession; “it’s rather a pity.”
“I don’t think that matters,” Mabel said. “The sort of thing I should
have thought a pity would have been if he had not been able to keep Mr.
Barmister away.”
“Mabel!” Constance protested. “How can you say such a thing? I am sure
he had nothing to do with Mr. Barmister stopping away.”
But Mabel thought he had. “The Barmisters would expect him to look
after them,” she said. “They wouldn’t know anyone else here, and they’d
stick to him. I guess he felt two of them would be too much for him,
and so persuaded Nan to accept without her father.”
Constance did not think so. “At all events,” she said, “I am glad Nan
is coming; she is a good little thing and must have a dull time. I
should have been pleased if her father had come with her.”
Mabel was sceptical. “He might have been all right,” she said; “on
the other hand, he might have worn a three-foot gold watch-chain and
five diamond rings, and gone round valuing the wedding presents in the
hearing of the givers.”
“Mabel!” Constance said, shocked; but Rosalind laughed, though she
reminded her sister that Barmister was not a pawnbroker.
“No,” Mabel agreed, “he might have given you something good from among
the pledges, if he were.”
Rosalind laughed again, and the subject was dropped in favour of the
more interesting one of wedding presents—who had given them; who
was yet to give; who had shown themselves more generous than was to
be expected, and who less; not omitting the irritating question of
duplicates, and what was to be done with them.
“Three half-dozens of afternoon tea-knives!” Rosalind said with a
little grimace.
“You’ll have to exchange some,” was Mabel’s opinion; “though you won’t
get much for them: they are as thin as paper, and really no use to
anyone—except to give away. Shall you keep all the salt-cellars?”
Rosalind could not make up her mind, and Constance said she was rather
surprised Uncle Giles chose those articles for his present.
“He ought to have sent a cheque, and a big one,” Mabel said, more
outspokenly. “I dare say he would if he and father had not fallen out
over the Budget.”
Rosalind observed pathetically that she had nothing to do with the
Budget, and did not see why, since she knew nothing about it, Uncle
Giles should have been mean to her. After that she was called away to
speak to her sisters-in-law-elect, and left Constance and Mabel to
finish setting out the wedding presents without her.
“There certainly are rather many tea-knives,” Constance regretted, as
she arranged the cases on the dining-room table.
“Even more teaspoons,” Mabel said; “though I should think we might
reckon them all in by now: there can’t be much more to come, so late as
this.”
The wedding itself was to-morrow. The house by this time was in
something of a flutter. For days past there had been a growing
excitement and tendency to disruption of ordinary life; now, almost
all pretence of routine had gone. People ran up and down stairs
constantly, friends and acquaintances looked in at all manner of
times, the dressmaker was interviewed in the drawing-room, meals were
unpunctual, the servants could be sent to the post at any hour, and
anyone could have a cup of tea whenever she wanted it. A wedding, like
spring-cleaning, brings maids and mistresses to the level of mere
women, and deranges the whole domestic organisation. Jack went to see
friends a good deal at that time, bestowing, however, a certain amount
of patronising interest on the presents between whiles. Mr. Annarly
retired as much as possible to the little room at the back. It had
of late been much littered with paper, and string, and milliners’
boxes, and parcels of things sent on approval, or ready to return
for alterations to shops and dressmakers. But they were gone now.
Constance, an orderly spirit, comparatively little affected by the
general excitement, had seen to that. It was she who had arranged that
the boxes and parcels should all find their way there, so keeping the
house clear, and things where they could be found, as long as possible.
It was she who saw that they were removed this morning, so as to be
ready for the furniture from the drawing-room, which was to be put
there.
The drawing-room was cleared of all superfluous chairs and small
tables; everything which could increase the difficulty of getting three
times as many people into it as it would naturally be expected to hold.
Mrs. Annarly went round the denuded room, while Rosalind, assisted by
her sisters-in-law-elect, was arranging flowers on a table, belonging
somewhere else, placed temporarily in the centre. Everyone in Hurstbury
had some flowers in bloom at this time, and everyone acquainted with
the Annarlys seemed to have sent some for the occasion: it looked as if
it would be impossible for the girls to deal with all the choice ones,
let alone the masses of daffodils, and primroses, and violets that were
piled about them. Fortunately, the recalcitrant Mary, who had returned
for a day or two to oblige her former mistress at the interesting time,
was clever with flowers—as she was with most other things. She took the
work over when the girls grew tired of it.
“I think things are nicely forward,” Mrs. Annarly said with
self-congratulation when later she sat down to tea at the
stranger-table, now cleared of flowers by the efficient Mary; “though I
can’t help rather wishing your dress were coming to-night, Rosalind. I
know it’s not customary, and of course we can depend on Madame Elaine;
but I do wish it were coming to-night, and that Michael was. Supposing
he is late to-morrow, or tries to come by some other train than we told
him? How awkward!”
Her daughters assured her there was no need for uneasiness on either
account, and as it was Constance who said it, giving excellent
reasons, she settled into satisfaction again. Everything really was
satisfactory, and every minute of time too fully occupied to admit of
unnecessary troubling over trifles; what with the arrival of belated
presents, notes to be written, and orders to be given, the remainder of
the day was more than taken up.
The next morning was fine, which, besides being pleasing to the bride,
was fortunate for Mr. Annarly, and, later on, for the wearers of
light dresses and thin shoes. Had it not been fine it is difficult
to see quite what Mr. Annarly would have done with himself for the
long morning; that is, after he had superintended the placing of the
champagne in the refreshment tent. As it was, he went into the garden
and devoted himself to tying up hyacinth flowers. He put a small mat
on the path, and knelt on it before the flowers—stooping did not suit
his figure—and tied them to neat new sticks; giving himself to the
work absorbedly, and as if the general success of the wedding would be
considerably marred if the hyacinth blooms were not all standing in a
military row. It is possible that he did, subconsciously, hold this
opinion while he was engaged in his task; at all events, he resented
it as a waste of time when the caterers’ men required his presence and
opinion on some matter in connection with the tent on the lawn.
Jack, of course, was at home that day, and enjoyed it much more than
his father. For one reason, going to the City had not been a custom
so long established with him as to make him feel being at home on a
weekday, which was not a bank holiday, somewhat like finding oneself
at the breakfast-table in pyjamas. For another, he was not yet
sufficiently used to being the object of consideration to the womenkind
when at home to miss that attention now that they were otherwise
engaged and themselves the centre of everything. He enjoyed himself
thoroughly; he had quite got over the slight masculine superiority he
had thought proper to show toward the bustle of the last few days, and
was here, there, and everywhere with almost as much enthusiasm as any
of the servants. He hurried down to the telephone-office to inquire
about the bouquets; he went once to the church to see that the awning
was being fixed; and he carried a perfectly unimportant message to Dick
Wharton, and brought him back to answer it in person at a great pace.
Dick was still answering it in person to Rosalind when the dressmaker
and the dress arrived, and, though it wanted two hours and more before
the ceremony, Rosalind retired from the eye of man for the rite of
dressing.
The women of the household, from Mrs. Annarly to the cook, and
the brusque Mabel to the romantic young housemaid, appreciated the
occasion thoroughly. They did not, as the father and son did, resent
the unpunctual breakfast, they hardly noticed that it was unpunctual;
they preferred a light lunch on trays in their bedrooms, and had it:
Mr. Annarly did not, and was provided with a more proper meal in the
little room at the back, where a space was found by the invaluable
Mary for him and the lunch. The same capable young woman arranged a
substantial meal for Jack in the pantry—and enlivened it for him with
her company, looking to the buttons of Mr. Annarly’s gloves the while.
She looked to the fastenings of everyone’s gloves, and found everything
which was mislaid; she really was a treasure, as Mrs. Annarly said. She
dressed Mrs. Annarly that day; while the parlourmaid, who had taken her
place, dressed the bridesmaid sisters, and the dressmaker attended on
the bride and saw that the creation of her art was put on as it should
be—which must be almost as much satisfaction to a dressmaker as it is
to a poet to recite his own verses.
The wedding-dress was exquisite, everyone (every woman who saw it)
agreed about that. The trimming alone had cost more than Rosalind had
ever spent on a whole dress before—or would be able to again, unless
Dick came most unexpectedly and largely into money. There was a full
Court-train which Rosalind managed as if to the manner born, and which
well became her beauty and her height. It is true Uncle Giles said,
“Why not have given her a bead petticoat and a nose-ring while you’re
about it? She’s quite as likely to go to the Pacific Islands and want
that suit as to Court and want the other.” But then, he was annoyed
with the whole family just then, and as he did not make the remark to
Rosalind, it did not matter. She was entirely happy in the possession
of a dress which fulfilled her ideal and fully set off her beauty, the
central figure of the occasion, the chosen of the man she had chosen,
and about to be united to him.
Everything went precisely as it ought, nobody was late, nothing was
forgotten; when the Annarlys did things they usually did them rather
well, all their friends and acquaintances agreed about that. The
wedding was a case in point, and in every way satisfactory. There were
a great many people there; it was wonderful how many managed to get
into the house afterwards. Not all in one room at once, that would have
been impossible, but divided and with the overflow in the garden, it
was quite comfortable. They did not all know each other, but most of
them did, for they were mostly local people. The few strangers present
were relatives of the two families, unknown to each other and the rest
of the company.
Nan was in this position; she knew hardly anyone, and the few she
did know by sight, from chance meetings on her occasional visits to
Hurstbury, did not remember her. She made little impression on them
then, and was entirely inconspicuous now in spite of her expensive
dress. It was an expensive dress and an unbecoming. Her father had
told her to get herself something fine for the occasion, as good as
or better than anything the Annarlys would have, he had said, and
given her ample money to get it. She had obeyed him, though the sense
of rivalry with them, which at times gleamed jealously in him, was
entirely left out of her. The result of the purchase was not very
satisfactory; she really knew nothing of the fashions, and was,
moreover, a person for whom even a talented costumier could not have
done much. The fashionable dress and Paris hat she had been persuaded
to buy by expert saleswomen were not suited to her; her sense of
fitness, the single things approaching a dress instinct which she
possessed, rebelled at them even when she put them on.
But after a time they caught the attention and raised the admiration
of an unimportant spinster relative of the Whartons. At least, one
concludes it was the impression caused by the dress rather than the
wearer, which made her speak so diffidently. She wanted a piece of
the cake which was on the plate at Nan’s elbow, and asked her for it
with a bashful timidity new in Nan’s experience of the addresses of
her fellow-creatures. Nan passed the plate, and afterwards they talked
a little, Miss Wharton making the correct series of remarks on the
delights of the weather, the beauty of the bride, the charmingness
of Mrs. Annarly, the prettiness of the bridesmaids, and the general
attraction and worth of the bridegroom. Nan listened; she had spoken
to too few people that day to have heard all these before, and she
really did quite agree with them; it did all seem to her much what Miss
Wharton said: a pretty wedding, very nice, so suitable, exactly what
one would wish. The last, of course, must be interpreted—“wish to look
at”—so far as Nan was concerned; considered from any other points of
view it did not even enter her judgment. Had it done so, it would have
given rise to quite another opinion to the one with which she concurred.
The fingers of wedding-cake being finished, she and Miss Wharton went
to look at the wedding presents together. Nan had seen them already,
but Miss Wharton had not, and being, it seemed, incurably shy,
entreated Nan to come with her.
“It looks so odd going about alone and speaking to no one,” she said
naively, “do come with me, if you don’t mind. I quite thought my old
friend, Jenny Matthews, would be here; she told me she was coming, and
somebody told me she was here, but I haven’t seen her yet.”
As it happened, however, she met Miss Matthews in the dining-room, and,
after greeting her, entered into a duet of admiration of the presents
in which Nan was not asked to bear much share.
“What lovely spoons!” said one.
“Such an uncommon pattern!” the other.
“Oh, here are some more!” exclaimed the first. “The same, aren’t they?”
“No, not quite the same, even prettier——”
“Yes, really prettier.”
And so on, Nan behind them listening attentively till someone accosted
her.
It was Michael. “What time are you going?” he asked in the brief way of
one who, for a moment, speaks to an intimate.
She answered in the same way, mentioning a train. “Rosalind will be
gone by that,” she said. “But you won’t be able to leave then; they
will expect you to stop to dinner perhaps.”
“I think not,” he said. “I hardly think I need to do that.”
But she did. “It’s no use doing this sort of thing unless one does it
well,” she urged; “one isn’t doing it really, unless one does it whole,
and seems to like doing it.”
He gave way. “I suppose so,” he said, and turned away, two girls and
their mother claiming his attention.
As he turned, an automatic courtesy slipped over him as completely as a
domino. For the moment when he had spoken to Nan it had not been there;
for that moment, when they stood close together and thought of the same
thing, there had been a curious passing resemblance between them. They
were not alike, but they had something in common, both faces were
thinner than those around, the eyes of both more earnest and watchful;
in expression they were, for the moment when they spoke together,
curiously unlike other people and curiously like each other.
“What’s your name?”
The question was put abruptly to Nan by an elderly gentleman wearing
a short coat and a red tie. Mr. Giles Cordover, Mrs. Annarly’s only
brother, was an advanced Liberal in his political opinions and some
part of the creed, as he held it, would seem to have required him to
attend his niece’s wedding with these articles of attire, though he
would not have dreamed of going either to church or to the City so
dressed.
Nan looked up. “Nan Barmister,” she answered. She had no idea who her
interlocutor was, but she did not resent the abrupt inquiry.
“Barmister,” he repeated, and his eyes, which had gone from Michael to
her before he spoke, followed Michael now.
“You’re related, aren’t you?” he said, nodding in the direction.
“Cousins,” she said.
“He’s with you now, with your father or something? He took him on when
he was returned empty?”
She nodded. “Though that’s not why they returned him,” she said,
smiling a little.
“Oh? That your notion? Do you still hold to the family fancy that he’s
a genius?”
“Is that a fancy of the Annarlys?” Nan asked. “I didn’t know they still
held to it.”
Mr. Cordover’s face relaxed a little. “Well, no, perhaps they don’t,”
he admitted; “they’ve changed their tune of late, I will say that for
them. But you would seem to still hold to it—he’s going to set the
Thames on fire and make a fortune and all the rest?”
“I hardly think I should say that,” Nan said slowly. She had a habit
of speaking rather slowly; it came of her way of thinking before
she spoke, and meaning literally what she said, really giving her
considered judgment in small matters as well as great. The result was
unsatisfactory in ordinary social intercourse, where it was naturally
misunderstood; but to some people it gave a weight to her words which
made them worth answering: Mr. Cordover, apparently, was of these.
“You don’t think he’s going to make his fortune?” he said. “Only a
second-class genius after all?”
“I didn’t say that,” Nan reminded him.
“What then?”
“That I think it very likely he won’t make a fortune. I said that, and
I think it, though of course he may. But as to a genius—he is, you
know.”
Mr. Cordover did not know, but Nan spoke as if she did; not as if she
were giving an opinion, rather stating a simple fact. Mr. Cordover did
not contradict her; not because he was not contradictory, he was, very;
nor because he did not disagree with her, for he did. Perhaps because
he vaguely felt that though she would have given his opinion courteous
attention, it would have made no difference to her. It does make no
difference if, when you know that a Rembrandt is a Rembrandt, someone,
who has had no opportunity of studying the subject, says in casual
conversation that it is a Phil May. Mr. Cordover may not have grasped
this rather arrogant attitude, which Nan unconsciously held towards the
few subjects she understood, but he did not contradict her. He glanced
across at the person under discussion, who was now at the other side
of the table, listening with polite interest to what the mother was
telling him, while her two daughters stood behind, examining turquoise
hat-pins and silver butter-dishes.
Miss Wharton and her friend were just beyond Nan, and having been
absorbed in their chat had not noticed that anyone else had spoken
to her; now, recollecting her, they turned to her in enthusiastic
admiration of everything.
“Isn’t it an exquisite sideboard!” Miss Wharton exclaimed, standing
before a small modern copy of a Sheraton model, for which space had,
with difficulty, been made at the end of the room. “What a handsome
present! I do think they are lucky young people, don’t you? Don’t you
think it’s a sweet design?”
“Yes,” Nan answered; “I like it very much.”
“H’m!” Mr. Cordover said gruffly. “Gimcrack!”
“Not altogether, do you think?” she asked. “It’s a good copy and well
made on the whole; the drawers are not air-tight, certainly, but
perhaps one would hardly expect that.”
She spoke again with the unconscious assurance of one who knows; Mr.
Cordover observed it, and was a little surprised.
“Sort of notion of a sideboard a girl like Rosalind would have!” he
said.
“Perhaps so,” she agreed, “if she had a notion apart from the fashion.
Do you think she would have?” She put the question speculatively. “Of
course, there are some designs she could never choose. I don’t suppose
she would ever choose a massive one—solid Honduras mahogany, almost
purple, with drawers that slide noiselessly and fruit carved over the
top, beautiful pears you can put your finger under, and a pineapple in
the centre.”
Mr. Cordover snorted. “So,” he said, “my nieces have been making game
of me and my things, have they!”
“Of you?” Nan asked. “Of course not. I am sure they wouldn’t do
anything of the kind. They have not mentioned you to me that I know
of. I’m afraid I must say I don’t know who you are. If you think they
or someone told me that you have a sideboard like that, no one has;
though I naturally know you would be likely to have, if you could have
afforded it when you were furnishing, and were uninfluenced by other
people at the time.”
Mr. Cordover stared at her half sceptically. “How do you know?” he
asked.
“I’m not sure,” she answered, “unless it is because my father deals in
furniture and talks to me about it. I sometimes see people he deals
with, and get to know the sort of things which belong to different
sorts of persons. One gets to know that way.”
“H’m!” Mr. Cordover said.
At that moment Constance, who had brought some solitary relative and
tactfully introduced her to Miss Wharton, approached her uncle with a
pleasant remark.
Mr. Cordover answered gruffly, and Nan withdrew a pace, instantly
reduced to speechless shyness by the presence of Constance.
“Oh, there you are!” Constance said, when she became aware of her. “I
was wondering where you had hidden yourself. I’m afraid we’ve neglected
you dreadfully, but we’re trusting to you to look after yourself. Do go
and have an ice; I’ve heard Mabel say they’re very good.”
Nan answered shyly, “Thank you,” and looked round, as if preparing to
obediently go or otherwise make her escape.
But Mr. Cordover’s bulky figure was in the way. “If she wants an ice,”
he said, “I’ll see she has one; you need not give yourself any further
trouble about her.”
“That young lady has about as much reality as a daddy-long-legs has
inside,” he announced, when Constance, rather curtly dismissed, had
gone on to other social duties. “She’s all shell, that’s what she is;
and her words are shells with nothing in them. She couldn’t even get
decently angry about anything—it’d take her hair out of curl.”
“Her hair curls naturally,” Nan protested, shy no longer. “I admire it
and her; she is always kind and pleasant.”
“You didn’t seem to have much to say to her,” Mr. Cordover retorted,
“though you don’t appear to mind setting me to rights.”
“I’m sorry,” Nan said, flushing, and then explained, “I don’t see
people very often, I mean socially, and I always feel, though they are
kind, they can’t really want to talk to me. I don’t know anything about
the things that interest them or that they talk about.”
“Oh?” Mr. Cordover said gruffly. “As I said before, that didn’t make
you bashful in giving your opinion to me.”
“It was about things I understand,” she pleaded.
“Oh?” he said again. “Michael Annarly and furniture, that’s what you
understand, is it?”
“Yes,” she said, laughing, “I think I do a little.”
“Well, I don’t pretend to understand either,” Mr. Cordover said, “but
I do understand I’m to get you an ice to satisfy my niece’s sense of
duty.”
“And my wish for one,” she told him, and they went to the refreshment
tent where he personally selected an ice of enormous size.
She was still eating it when those guests, desirous of the best view
of the departure of the bride, began to move towards the front of the
house.
Rosalind left early. The Annarlys did not make the mistake of
unduly retarding her departure, tiring their guests of each other’s
company, and wearing out their interest in the chief person and the
occasion. In good time the carriage, which was to take the pair to
the station, came round. The Annarlys privately thought it would have
been appropriate if Uncle Giles had offered to lend his car for that
purpose; it could easily have taken them to the station and been back
before he was ready to leave. But Uncle Giles did not offer it; he
did not think Dick Wharton justified in giving such a tip as he would
feel adequate to the occasion. And, so he said tartly to his sister,
“he did not see much sense in a girl starting off in a sort of party
dress and somebody else’s motor, when she was coming back to live in a
forty pound a year house, and clean her own silver, or, at all events
ought to clean it, if she didn’t.” In consequence of these opinions, it
was only a hired brougham, though a very nice one, with white horses
and a coachman in livery, which came to the door. Some time before it
came most of the guests were assembled in the hall, the front garden,
and about the steps. There was scarcely room for them all, some of
the younger ones were obliged to go almost to the roadway, where the
nursemaids and school children stood.
Rosalind looked radiantly happy when she came down, and very pretty
in a gigantic hat and a dress which Mary, who had helped put it
on, described as “very chic and just the thing for garden-parties
afterwards.” She kissed her mother at the foot of the stairs, the
hat getting somewhat in the way; embraced her father by the steps,
squeezing him a little when she saw a tear trickling down the side of
his nose.
“Dear old dad!” she said. “Don’t do that! You ought to be glad I’m so
happy.”
“I am, I am,” he said unsteadily, and squeezed back, her left hand,
leaving some crackling bank-notes in it.
Then Constance, who gracefully played the second part, picked up the
ends of the feather scarf, which had fallen from her sister’s neck,
and followed her towards the carriage. All the friends and relatives
followed so far as they could, closing round. There were kissing and
handshaking, handfuls of confetti and rose petals, laughing faces, good
wishes, a struggle to get through to the carriage.
They were away at last, the last good wishes shouted, the last flutter
of the scarf Rosalind waved from the window gone. The best man, who
had been busy to the last with travelling-coats and orders, suddenly
remembered that he was standing hatless in the middle of the road in
broad daylight; he pulled down his waistcoat, and wondered whether
it was his own hat or the bridegroom’s which he had crammed into
the hat-box among the luggage. The bridesmaids who had collected,
a laughing group, for the departure, turned about, putting into
inconspicuous places in breast or belt the drooping pieces of the
bride’s bouquet, for which they had gaily struggled a little while
back. The guests, shaking the confetti and rose leaves from their
clothing, with one accord made for Mrs. Annarly, all at once aware
that they were staid English people, and, for that or some other
reason, anxious to hasten away from the scene of their late momentary
abandonment.
“Good-bye, good-bye,” was heard on every side. “Such a charming
wedding——” “She looked perfectly sweet——” “Heartiest congratulations——”
and so on.
Constance, standing by her mother, helped her to answer the
complimentary remarks, and always remembered to say she was glad the
maker had been able to come, or sorry some relative had not, with
appropriateness. Which, like all graciousness, is worth something, in
spite of what Uncle Giles and similar people say to the contrary.
Mabel was in the front garden, she and Jack chattering with Muriel
and Godfrey Wharton and a few others about plans for the evening.
They paid little attention to the departing guests, merely responding
when definitely taken leave of by some persistent person. Nan did not
interrupt them for that purpose, although she was by; Uncle Giles,
however, was less considerate.
“Good-bye, niece and nephew,” he called in his rather grim way.
“Good-bye,” Mabel returned carelessly. He was a disagreeable person,
who had behaved disagreeably to them all for a year past, and she,
not only was not going to put herself out for him, but she was rather
pleased with the opportunity of showing her indifference.
Jack made half a step forward. “Good-bye, sir,” he said, a trifle
embarrassed. “Shall I call your—shall I see if your——”
“No, thank you,” his uncle replied, “I can do my own seeing.”
And he went away, carrying Nan with him.
“I have to pass the end of Tottenham Court Road,” he said to her. “I
can drop you there; it will be quicker for you than going by train.”
And he settled it without waiting for her acceptance or refusal,
putting her into the car almost as he spoke of it.
Michael saw her start, though the rest of the family, having no
interest in her, did not. He was near the doorway, giving attention
to the discovery of mislaid wraps, and escorting elderly ladies to
their carriages. He passed near his father once or twice and noticed
the round wet mark on his white waistcoat, where a tear had fallen.
Mr. Annarly was shaking hands with the departing guests; he did not
know above half of them even by sight, and it was easy to perceive
it now. He looked rather bewildered and melancholy; there were two
long lines running vertically down his full face, giving it an almost
comically depressed expression. He shook hands warmly with the people
he did know, and pressed the one or two of his old friends who were
there to stay a little and come and have a whisky and soda with him.
He glanced in the direction of the little room at the back as he said
it, as if he thought, rather wistfully as well as hospitably, of its
furniture-crowded seclusion.
But no one accepted his invitation, the old friends were carried away
by their wives or daughters—the last of them went.
Constance began taking off her long gloves; Mrs. Annarly thought of the
caterers’ men and orders to be given; Mr. Annarly stood looking down
the confetti-strewn path, the vertical lines deeper on his face, his
white waistcoat creased by the droop of his figure.
Michael touched his arm. “Can’t we get a whisky and soda, sir?” he
said. “I haven’t had time to get anything to eat since breakfast, and I
expect you haven’t had much either.”