"THOU SHOULDST COME LIKE A FURY CROWNED WITH SNAKES."
When the shooting party came home to afternoon tea, Dopsy and Mopsy were
both full of the picnic. The sun was sinking in lurid splendour; there
was every chance of a fine day to-morrow. De Cazalet had interviewed the
housekeeper, and ordered luncheon. Mopsy went about among the men like a
recruiting sergeant, telling them of the picnic, and begging them to
join in that festivity.
"It will be wretched for Dopsy and I"--her grammar was weak, and she had
a fixed idea that "I" was a genteeler pronoun than "me,"--"if you don't
all come," she said to Colonel Blathwayt. "Of course the Baron will
devote himself exclusively to Mrs. Tregonell. FitzJesse will go in the
pony-trap with Mrs. Torrington, and they'll have vivisected everybody
they know before they get there. And I can't get on a little bit with
Mr. Faddie, though he is awfully nice. I feel that if I were to let him
talk to me an hour at a stretch I should be obliged to go and join some
Protestant sisterhood and wear thick boots and too fearful bonnets for
the rest of my days."
"And what would society do without Mopsy Vandeleur?" asked the Colonel,
smiling at her. "I should enjoy a ramble with you above all things, but
a picnic is such a confoundedly infantine business. I always feel a
hundred years old when I attempt to be gay and frisky before dusk--feel
as if I had been dead and come back to life again, as some of the savage
tribes believe. However, if it will really please you, I'll give up the
birds to-morrow, and join your sports."
"How sweet of you," exclaimed Mopsy, with a thrilling look from under
her painted lashes. "The whole thing would be ghastly without you."
"What's the row?" asked Leonard, turning his head upon the cushion of
the easy chair in which he lolled at full length, to look up at the
speakers as they stood a little way behind him.
The master of Mount Royal was sitting by one fireplace, with a table and
tea-tray all to himself; while Mrs. Tregonell and her circle were
grouped about the hearth at the opposite end of the hall. Jack Vandeleur
and little Monty stood in front of the fire near their host, faithful
adherents to the friend who fed them; but all the rest of the party
clustered round Christabel.
Mopsy told Mr. Tregonell all about the intended picnic.
"It is to be the Baron's affair," she said, gaily. "He organized it, and
he is to play the host. There are to be no carriages--except the
pony-trap for Mrs. Torrington, who pinches her feet and her waist to a
degree that makes locomotion impossible. We are all to walk except her.
And I believe we are to have tea at the farm by St. Piran's well--a
simple farmhouse tea in some dear old whitewashed room with a huge
fireplace, hams and onions and things hanging from the rafters. Isn't it
a lovely idea?"
"Very," grumbled Leonard; "but I should say you could have your tea a
great deal more comfortably here, without being under an obligation to
the farm people."
"Oh, but we have our tea here every afternoon," said Mopsy. "Think of
the novelty of the thing."
"No doubt. And this picnic is the Baron's idea?"
"His and Mrs. Tregonell's, they planned it all between them. And they
are going to get up private theatricals for your birthday."
"How kind," growled Leonard, scowling at his teacup.
"Isn't it sweet of them? They are going to play 'Delicate Ground.' He is
to be Citizen Sangfroid and she Pauline--the husband and wife who
quarrel and pretend to separate and are desperately fond of each other
all the time, don't you know? It's a powder piece."
"A what?"
"A play in which the people wear powdered wigs and patches, and all that
kind of thing. How dense you are."
"I was born so, I believe. And in this powder piece Mrs. Tregonell and
Baron de Cazalet are to be husband and wife, and quarrel and make
friends again--eh?"
"Yes. The reconciliation is awfully fetching. But you are not jealous,
are you?"
"Jealous? Not the least bit."
"That's so nice of you; and you will come to our picnic, to-morrow?"
"I think not."
"Why not?"
"Because the woodcock season is a short one, and I want to make the best
use of my time."
"What a barbarian, to prefer any sport to our society," exclaimed Mopsy
coquettishly. "For my part, I hate the very name of woodcock."
"Why?" asked Leonard, looking at her keenly, with his dark, bright eyes;
eyes which had that hard, glassy brightness that has always a cruel
look.
"Because it reminds me of that dreadful day last year when poor Mr.
Hamleigh was killed. If he had not gone out woodcock shooting he would
not have been killed."
"No; a man's death generally hinges upon something," answered Leonard,
with a chilling sneer; "no effect without a cause. But I don't think
you need waste your lamentations upon Mr. Hamleigh; he did not treat
your sister particularly well."
Mopsy sighed, and was thoughtful for a moment or two. Captain Vandeleur
and Mr. Montagu had strolled off to change their clothes. The master of
the house and Miss Vandeleur were alone at their end of the old hall.
Ripples of silvery laughter, and the sound of mirthful voices came from
the group about the other fireplace, where the blaze of piled-up logs
went roaring up the wide windy chimney, making the most magical
changeful light in which beauty or its opposite can be seen.
"No, he hardly acted fairly to poor Dopsy: he led her on, don't you
know, and we both thought he meant to propose. It would have been such a
splendid match for her--and I could have stayed with them sometimes."
"Of course you could. Sometimes in your case would have meant all the
year round."
"And he was so fascinating, so handsome, ill as he looked, poor
darling," sighed Mopsy. "I know Dop hadn't one mercenary feeling about
him. It was a genuine case of spoons--she would have died for him."
"If he had wished it; but men have not yet gone in for collecting
corpses," sneered Leonard. "However poor the specimen of your sex may
be, they prefer the living subject--even the surgeons are all coming
round to that."
"Don't be nasty," protested Mopsy. "I only meant to say that Dopsy
really adored Angus Hamleigh for his own sake. I know how kindly you
felt upon the subject--and that you wanted it to be a match."
"Yes, I did my best," answered Leonard. "I brought him here, and gave
you both your chance."
"And Jack said that you spoke very sharply to Mr. Hamleigh that last
night."
"Yes, I gave him a piece of my mind. I told him that he had no right to
come into my house and play fast and loose with my friend's sister."
"How did he take it?"
"Pretty quietly."
"You did not quarrel with him?"
"No, it could hardly be called a quarrel. We were both too
reasonable--understood each other too thoroughly," answered Leonard, as
he got up and went off to his dressing-room, leaving Mopsy sorely
perplexed by an indescribable something in his tone and manner. Surely
there must be some fatal meaning in that dark evil smile, which changed
to so black a frown, and that deep sigh which seemed wrung from the very
heart of the man: a man whom Mopsy had hitherto believed to be somewhat
poorly furnished with that organ, taken in its poetical significance as
a thing that throbs with love and pity.
Alone in his dressing-room the lord of the Manor sat down in front of
the fire with his boots on the hob, to muse upon the incongruity of his
present position in his own house. A year ago he had ruled supreme,
sovereign master of the domestic circle, obeyed and ministered to in all
humility by a lovely and pure-minded wife. Now he was a cipher in his
own house, the husband of a woman who was almost as strange to him as if
he had seen her face for the first time on his return from South
America. This beautiful brilliant creature, who held him at arm's
length, defied him openly with looks and tones in which his guilty soul
recognized a terrible meaning--looks and tones which he dare not
challenge--this woman who lived only for pleasure, fine dress,
frivolity, who had given his house the free-and-easy air of a mess-room,
or a club--could this be indeed the woman he had loved in her girlhood,
the fair and simple-minded wife whom his mother had trained for him,
teaching her all good things, withholding all knowledge of evil.
"I'm not going to stand it much longer," he said to himself, with an
oath, as he kicked the logs about upon his fire, and then got up to
dress for the feast at which he always felt himself just the one guest
who was not wanted.
He had been at home three weeks--it seemed an age--an age of disillusion
and discontent--and he had not yet sought any explanation with
Christabel. Not yet had he dared to claim his right to be obeyed as a
husband, to be treated as a friend and adviser. With a strange
reluctance he put off the explanation from day to day, and in the
meanwhile the aspect of life at Mount Royal was growing daily less
agreeable to him. Could it be that this wife of his, whose purity and
faith he had tried by the hardest test--the test of daily companionship
with her first and only lover--was inclined to waver now--to play him
false for so shallow a coxcomb, so tawdry a fine gentleman as Oliver de
Cazalet. Not once, but many times within the past week he had asked
himself that question. Could it be? He had heard strange stories--had
known of queer cases of the falling away of good women from the path of
virtue. He had heard of sober matrons--mothers of fair children, wives
of many years--the Cornelias of their circle, staking home, husband,
children, honour, good name, and troops of friends against the wild
delirium of some new-born fancy, sudden, demoniac as the dance of death.
The women who go wrong are not always the most likely women. It is not
the trampled slave, the neglected and forlorn wife of a bad husband--but
the pearl and treasure of a happy circle who takes the fatal plunge into
the mire. The forlorn slave-wife stays in the dreary home and nurses
her children, battles with her husband's creditors, consoles herself
with church going and many prayers, fondly hoping for a future day in
which Tom will find out that she is fairer and dearer than any of his
false goddesses, and come home repentant to the domestic hearth: while
the good husband's idol, sated with legitimate worship, gives herself up
all at once to the intoxication of unholy incense, and topples off her
shrine. Leonard Tregonell knew that the world was full of such
psychological mysteries; and yet he could hardly bring himself to
believe that Christabel was of the stuff that makes false wives, or that
she could be won by such a third-rate Don Juan as the Baron de Cazalet.
The dinner was a little noisier and gayer than usual to-night. Every one
talked, laughed, told anecdotes, let off puns, more or less
atrocious--except the host, who sat in his place an image of gloom.
Happily Mrs. St. Aubyn was one of those stout, healthy, contented people
who enjoy their dinner, and only talk about as much as is required for
the assistance of digestion. She told prosy stories about her pigs and
poultry--which were altogether superior, intellectually and physically,
to other people's pigs and poultry--and only paused once or twice to
exclaim, "You are looking awfully tired, Mr. Tregonell. You must have
overdone it to-day. Don't you take curaçoa? I always do after ice
pudding. It's so comforting. Do you know at the last dinner I was at
before I came here the curaçoa was ginger brandy. Wasn't that horrid?
People ought not to do such things."
Leonard suggested in a bored voice that this might have been the
butler's mistake.
"I don't think so. I believe it was actual meanness--but I shall never
take liqueur at _that_ house again," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, in an injured
tone.
"Are you going to this picnic to-morrow?"
"I think not. I'm afraid the walk would be too much for me--and I am not
fond enough of Mrs. Torrington to enjoy two hours' _tête-à-tête_ in a
pony-carriage. My girls will go, of course. And I suppose you will be
there," added Mrs. St. Aubyn, with intention.
"No, Vandeleur, Monty, and I are going shooting."
"Well, if I were in your shoes and had such a pretty wife I should not
leave her to go picnicking about the world with such an attractive man
as the Baron."
Leonard gave an uneasy little laugh, meant to convey the idea of supreme
security.
"I'm not jealous of de Cazalet," he said. "Surely you don't call him an
attractive man."
"Dangerously attractive," replied Mrs. St. Aubyn, gazing at the distant
Baron, whose florid good looks were asserting themselves at the further
end of the table, on Christabel's left hand--she had Mr. St. Aubyn's
grey, contented face, glistening with dinner, on her right. "He is just
the kind of man I should have fallen in love with when I was your wife's
age."
"Really," exclaimed Leonard, incredulously. "But I suppose after you
married St. Aubyn, you left off falling in love."
"Of course. I did not put myself in the way of temptation. I should
never have encouraged such a man--handsome, accomplished,
unscrupulous--as Baron de Cazalet."
"I don't think his good looks or his unscrupulousness will make any
difference to my wife," said Leonard. "She knows how to take care of
herself."
"No doubt. But that does not release you from the duty of taking care.
You had better go to the picnic."
"My dear Mrs. St. Aubyn, if I were to go now, after what you have just
said to me, you might suppose I was jealous of de Cazalet; and that is
just the one supposition I could not stand," answered Leonard. "It would
take a dozen such fascinating men to shake my confidence in my wife: she
is not an acquaintance of yesterday, remember: I have known her all my
life."
Mrs. St. Aubyn sighed and shook her head. She was one of those stupid
well-meaning women whose mission in life is to make other people
uncomfortable--with the best intentions. She kept a steady look-out for
the approaching misfortunes of her friends. She was the first to tell an
anxious mother that her youngest boy was sickening for scarlet fever,
or that her eldest girl looked consumptive. She prophesied rheumatics
and bronchitis to incautious people who went out in wet weather--she
held it as a fixed belief that all her friends' houses were damp. It was
in vain that vexed householders protested against such a suspicion, and
held forth upon the superiority of their drainage, the felt under their
tiles, their air bricks, and ventilators. "My dear, your house is damp,"
she would reply conclusively. "What it would be if you had _not_ taken
those precautions I shudder to imagine--but I only know that I get the
shivers every time I sit in your drawing-room."
To-night she was somewhat offended with Mr. Tregonell that he refused to
take alarm at her friendly warning. She had made up her mind that it was
her duty to speak. She had told the girls so in the course of their
afternoon constitutional, a private family walk.
"If things get any worse I shall take you away," she said, as they
trudged along the lane in their waterproofs, caring very little for a
soft drizzling rain, which was supposed to be good for their
complexions.
"Don't, mother," said Emily. "Clara and I are having such a jolly time.
Mrs. Tregonell is straight enough, I'm sure. She does flirt outrageously
with the Baron, I admit; but an open flirtation of that kind seldom
means mischief; and Mr. Tregonell is such a heavy clod-hopping fellow:
his wife may be forgiven for flirting a little."
"Mrs. Tregonell flirts more than a little," replied Mrs. St. Aubyn. "All
I can say is, I don't like it, and I don't think it's a proper spectacle
for girls."
"Then you'd better send us back to the nursery, mother, or shut us up in
a convent," retorted the younger of the damsels. "If you don't want us
to see young married women flirt, you must keep us very close indeed."
"If you feel uneasy about your Cochin Chinas, mother, you can go home,
and leave us to follow with the pater," said Emily. "I've set my heart
upon stopping till after Mr. Tregonell's birthday, the 14th of November,
for the theatricals will be fine fun. They talk of "High Life below
Stairs" for us girls, after "Delicate Ground;" and I think we shall be
able to persuade Mrs. Tregonell to wind up with a dance. What is the use
of people having fine rooms if they don't know how to use them?"
"Mrs. Tregonell seems ready for anything," sighed the matron. "I never
saw such a change in any one. Do you remember how quiet she was the
summer before last, when we were here for a few days?"