After breakfast, Mrs. Nunn, pretending to saunter through the saloon
and morning rooms with Anne, introduced her naturally to a number of
young people, and finally left her with a group, returning to the
more congenial society of Lady Hunsdon and Lady Constance Mortlake.
Anne, although shy and nervous, listened with much interest to the
conversation of these young ladies so near her own age, while taking
little part in it. The long windows opened upon an orchard of
cocoanuts and bananas, grenadillas and shaddocks, oranges and
pineapples, but in spite of the cool refreshing air, many of the girls
were frankly lounging, as became the tropics, others were turning the
leaves of the _Journal des Modes_, dabbling in water colours,
pensively frowning at an embroidery frame. Of the three young men
present one was absorbed in the _Racing Calendar_, another was making
himself generally agreeable, offering to read aloud or hold wool, and
a third was flirting in a corner with the sparkling Miss Bargarny.
All acknowledged Mrs. Nunn's introductions with much propriety and
little cordiality, for Anne was far too alert and robust, and
uncompromising of eye, to suit their modish taste. Nevertheless they
asked her politely what she thought of Nevis, and seemed satisfied
with her purposely conventional replies. Then the conversation drifted
naturally to the light and dainty accomplishments for which all save
herself professed a fondness; from thence to literature, where
much languid admiration was expressed of Disraeli's "Venetia," a
"performance of real elegance," and the latest achievement of the
exciting Mr. G. P. R. James. Dickens wrote about people one really
never had heard of, but Bulwer, of course, was one of themselves and
the equal of Scott. In poetry the palm was tossed between Mrs. Hemans
and L. E. L. on the one hand and that delightful impossible American,
Mr. Willis, and Barry Cornwall on the other. Young Tennyson received a
few words of praise. When the talk naturally swung to Byam Warner Anne
eagerly attended. Had he made a deep personal impression upon any of
these essentially feminine hearts? But the criticism of his poems was
as languid, affected, and undiscriminating as that of other work they
had pretended to discuss. They admired him, oh vastly! He was amazing,
a genius of the first water, the legitimate successor of Byron and
Shelley, to say nothing of Keats; he might easily surpass them all in
a few years. In short they rehearsed all the stock phrases which the
critics had set in motion years ago and which had been drifting about
ever since for the use of those unequal to the exertion of making
their own opinions, or afraid of not thinking with the elect. Had
Warner been falsely appraised by the higher powers their phrases would
have been nourished as faithfully; and Anne, with a movement of
irrepressible impatience, rose, murmured an excuse, and joined her
aunt.
Lady Hunsdon was a short, thin, trimly made woman, with small, hard,
aquiline features, piercing eyes, and a mien of so much graciousness
that had she been a shade less well-bred she would have been
patronising. She looked younger than her years in spite of her little
cap and the sedateness of attire then common to women past their
youth. Lady Constance Mortlake had the high bust and stomach of
advanced years; her flabby cheeks were streaked with good living. Her
expression was shrewd and humorous, however, and her eyes were kinder
than her tongue. Mrs. Nunn rose with vast ceremony and presented her
niece to these two august dames, and as Anne courtesied, Lady Hunsdon
said, smiling, but with a penetrating glance at the newcomer:
"My son tells me that he has acquainted you with our little plan to
reform the poet----"
"Our?" interrupted Lady Constance. "None of mine. I sit and look
on--as at any other doubtful experiment. I have no faith in the powers
of a parcel of old women to rival the seductions of brandy and Canary,
Madeira and rum."
"Parcel of old women! I shall ask the prettiest of the girls to hear
him read his poems in my sitting-room."
"Even if their mammas dare not refuse you, I doubt if the girls brave
the wrath of their gallants, who would never countenance their meeting
such a reprobate as Byam Warner----"
"You forget the despotism of curiosity."
"Well, they might gratify that by meeting him once, but they will
sound the beaux first. What do you suppose they come here for? Much
they care for the beauty of the tropics and sulphur baths. The tropics
are wondrous fine for making idle young gentlemen come to the point,
and there isn't a girl in Bath House who isn't on the catch. Those
that have fortunes want more, and most of them have too many brothers
to think of marrying for love. Their genius for matrimony has made
half the fame of Nevis, for they make Bath House so agreeable a place
to run to from the fogs of London that more eligibles flock here every
year. There isn't a disinterested girl in Bath House unless it be Mary
Denbigh, who has two thousand a year, has been disappointed in love,
and is twenty-nine and six months." She turned sharply to Anne, and
demanded:
"Have you come here after a husband?"
"If you will ask my aunt I fancy she will reply in the affirmative,"
said Anne, mischievously.
Mrs. Nunn coloured, and the others looked somewhat taken aback.
"That was not a very lady-like speech," said Mrs. Nunn severely.
"Moreover," with great dignity, "I have found your society so
agreeable, my dear, that I hope to enjoy it for several years to
come."
Anne, quick in response, felt repentant and touched, but Lady
Constance remarked drily:
"Prepare yourself for the worst, my dear Emily. I'll wager you this
purse I'm netting that Miss Percy will have the first proposal of the
season. She may differ from the prevailing mode in young ladies, but
she was fashioned to be the mother of fine healthy children; and young
men, who are human and normal _au fond_, whatever their ridiculous
affectations, will not be long in responding, whether they know what
is the matter with them or not."
Anne blushed at this plain speaking, and Mrs. Nunn bridled. "I wish
you would remember that young girls----"
"You told me yourself that she was two-and-twenty. She ought to have
three babies by this time. It is a shocking age for an unmarried
female. You have not made up your mind to be an old maid, I suppose?"
she queried, pushing up her spectacles and dropping her netting. "If
so, I'll turn matchmaker myself. I should succeed far better than
Emily Nunn, for I have married off five nieces of my own. Now don't
say that you have. You look as if it were on the tip of your tongue.
All girls say it when there is no man in sight. I shall hate you if
you are not as little commonplace as you look."
Anne shrugged her shoulders and said nothing, while Lady Hunsdon
remarked with her peremptory smile (this was one of a well known set):
"We have wandered far from the subject of Mr. Warner. Not so far
either, for my son tells me, Miss Percy, that you have kindly
consented to meet him--to help us, in fact. I hope you have no
objections to bring forward, Emily. I am very much set upon this
matter of reclaiming the poet. And as I can see that Miss Percy has
independence of character, and as I feel sure that she has not come to
Nevis on the catch, she can be of the greatest possible assistance to
me. What Constance says of the other young ladies is only too true.
They will pretend to comply, but gracefully evade any responsibility.
I can count upon none of them except Mary Denbigh, and she is rather
_passée_, poor thing."
"_Passée?_" cried Lady Constance. "At thirty? What do you expect? She
looks like an elegiac figure weeping on a tombstone. I can't stand the
sight of her. And it's all kept up to make herself interesting. Edwin
Hay has been dead eleven years----"
"Never mind poor Mary. We all know she is your pet abomination----"
"She gives me a cramp in my spleen."
"Well, to return to Mr. Warner. Will you all meet him when I ask him
to my sitting-room up-stairs? Will you spread the news of his coming
among the other guests? Hint that he has reformed? Excite in them a
desire to meet the great man?"
She did not speak in a tone of appeal, and there was a mounting fire
in her eye.
Lady Constance shrugged her shoulders. "You mean that you will cut
us if we don't. I never quarrel in the tropics. Besides, I have
buried too many of my old friends! I don't approve, but I shall be
interested, and my morals are as pure and solid as my new teeth. If
you can marry him to Mary Denbigh and leave her on the island----"
"And you, Emily?"
None had had more experience in yielding gracefully to social tyrants
than Mrs. Nunn. She thought Maria Hunsdon mad to take up with a
drunken poet, and could only be thankful that her charge was a
sensible, commonplace girl with no romantic notions in her head. "I
never think in the tropics, my dear Maria, and now that you are here
to think for me, and provide a little variety, so much the better.
What is your programme?"
"To ask him first for tea in my sitting-room, then for dinner; then
to organise picnics, and take him with us on excursions. I shall
frequently pick him up when I drive--in short before a fortnight has
passed he will be a respectable member of society, and accepted as a
matter of course."
"And what if he gets drunk?"
"That is what I purpose he shall not do. As soon as I know him well
enough I shall talk to him like a mother."
"Better let Miss Percy talk to him like a sister. Well, regulate the
universe to suit yourself. I hope you will not forget to order Nevis
to have no earthquakes this winter, particularly while we are cooking
our gouty old limbs in the hot springs. By the way, whom have you
decreed James shall marry?"
"I should not think of interfering in such a matter." Lady Hunsdon
spoke with her usual bland emphasis, but darted a keen glance at Anne.
It was not disapproving, for Miss Percy's descent was long, she liked
the splendid vitality of the girl, and Hunsdon had riches of his own.
But, far cleverer than Mrs. Nunn, she suspected depths which might
have little in common with her son, and a will which might make a
mother-in-law hate her. Lady Hunsdon loved peace, and wondered that
anyone should question her rigid rules for enforcing it. But of Anne
as a valuable coadjutor in the present instance there could be no
doubt, and, to do her justice, she anticipated no danger in the
meeting of a fine girl, full of eager interest in life, and the
demoralised being her son so pathetically described. She was quite
sincere in her desire to lift the gifted young man from his moral
quagmire, but this new opportunity to exercise her power, almost
moribund since her party was no longer in Opposition, was a stronger
motive still.
When Anne was alone in her room she sat down and stared through the
half-closed jalousies until the luncheon bell rang at two o'clock,
forgetting to change her frock. But she could make little of the
ferment in her mind, except that her mental companion, that arbitrary
creation she had called Byam Warner, was gone forever. Even did she
return to her northern home and dwell alone, his image would never
return. She could not even now recall the lineaments of that immortal
lover. The life of the imagination was past. Realities multiplied; no
doubt she was converging swiftly upon one so hideous as to make her
wish she had never been born. Any day she might be formally introduced
over a dish of tea to a degraded, broken creature whom all the world
despised as a man, and who she would be forced to remind herself was
the author of the poems of Byam Warner. Byron, at least, had never
been a common drunkard. Picturesque in even his dissipations, he had
been a superb romantic figure to the last. But this man! She could
hear the struggle and rattle of romance as it died within her. Oh,
that she had never seen Nevis, that her father had lived, that she
could have gone on----! Then a peremptory thought asserted itself. The
time was come for her to live. To dream for twenty-two years was
enough. She must take up her part in life, grasp its realities, help
others if she could. She could not love this poor outcast, but were
she offered a share in his redemption she should embrace the
circumstance as a sacred duty.
In time, perhaps, she might even marry. That dreadful old woman was
right, no doubt, it was her manifest destiny. Certainly she should
like to have children and a fine establishment of her own. Lord
Hunsdon was unacceptable, but doubtless a prepossessing suitor would
arrive before long, and when he did she would marry him gladly and
live rationally and dream no more. And when she reached this decision
she wept, and could not go down to luncheon; but she did not retire
from the mental step she had taken.