LADY INNISFAIL made a confession to one of her guests--a certain Mrs.
Burgoyne--who was always delighted to play the _rôle_ of receiver of
confessions. The date at which Lady Innisfail’s confession was made was
three days after the arrival of Beatrice Avon at the Castle, and its
subject was her own over-eagerness to secure a strange face for the
entertainment of her guests.
“I thought that the romantic charm which would attach to that girl, who
seemed to float up to us out of the mist--leaving her wonderful eyes out
of the question altogether--would interest all my guests,” said she.
“And so it did, if I may speak for the guests,” said Mrs. Burgoyne.
“Yes, we were all delighted for nearly an entire day.”
“I am glad that my aims were not wholly frustrated,” said Lady
Innisfail. “But you see the condition we are all in at present.”
“I cannot deny it,” replied Mrs. Burgoyne, with a sigh. “My dear, a new
face is almost as fascinating as a new religion.”
“More so to some people--generally men,” said Lady Innisfail. “But who
could have imagined that a young thing like that--she has never been
presented, she tells me--should turn us all topsy turvy?”
“She has a good deal in her favour,” remarked Mrs. Burgoyne. “She is
fresh, her face is strange, she neither plays, sings, nor recites, and
she is a marvellously patient listener.”
“That last comes through being the daughter of a literary man,” said
Lady Innisfail. “The wives and daughters of poets and historians and
the like are compelled to be patient listeners. They are allowed to do
nothing else.”
“I dare say. Anyhow that girl has made the most of her time since she
came among us.”
“She has. The worst of it is that no one could call her a flirt.”
“I suppose not. But what do you call a girl who is attractive to all
men, and who makes all the men grumpy, except the one she is talking
to?”
“I call her a--a clever girl,” replied Lady Innisfail. “Don’t we all aim
at that sort of thing?”
“Perhaps we did--once,” said Mrs. Burgoyne, who was a year or two
younger than her hostess. “I should hope that our aims are different
now. We are too old, are we not?--you and I--for any man to insult us by
making love to us.”
“A woman is never too old to be insulted, thank God,” said Lady
Innisfail; and Mrs. Burgoyne’s laugh was not the laugh of a matron who
is shocked.
“All the same,” added Lady Innisfail, “our pleasant party threatens to
become a fiasco, simply because I was over-anxious to annex a new face.
I had set my heart upon bringing Harold Wynne and Helen Craven together;
but now they have become hopelessly good friends.”
“She is very kind to him.”
“Yes, that’s the worst of it; she is kind and he is indifferent--he
treats her as if she were his favourite sister.”
“Are matters so bad as that?”
“Quite. But when the other girl is listening to what another man is
saying to her, Harold Wynne’s face is a study. He is as clearly in
love with the other girl as anything can be. That, old reprobate--his
father--has his aims too--horrid old creature! Mr. Durdan has ceased to
study the Irish question with a deep-sea cast of hooks in his hand:
he spends some hours every morning devising plans for spending as many
minutes by the side of Beatrice. I do believe that my dear husband would
have fallen a victim too, if I did not keep dinning into his ears that
Beatrice is the loveliest creature of our acquaintance. I lured him on
to deny it, and now we quarrel about it every night.”
“I believe Lord Innisfail rather dislikes her,” said Mrs. Burgoyne.
“I’m convinced of it,” said Lady Innisfail. “But what annoys me most is
the attitude of Mr. Airey. He professed to be Harold’s friend as well as
Helen’s, and yet he insists on being so much with Beatrice that Harold
will certainly be led on to the love-making point--”
“If he has not passed it already,” suggested Mrs. Burgoyne.
“If he has not passed it already; for I need scarcely tell you, my dear
Phil, that a man does not make love to a girl for herself alone, but
simply because other men make love to her.”
“Of course.”
“So that it is only natural that Harold should want to make love to
Beatrice when he is led to believe that Edmund Airey wants to marry
her.”
“The young fool! Why could he not restrain his desire until Mr. Airey
has married her? But do you really think that Mr. Airey does want to
marry her?”
“I believe that Harold Wynne believes so--that is enough for the
present. Oh, no. You’ll not find me quite so anxious to annex a strange
face another time.”
From the report of this confidential duologue it may possibly be
perceived, first, that Lady Innisfail was a much better judge of the
motives and impulses of men than Miss Craven was; and, secondly, that
the presence of Beatrice at the Castle had produced a marked impression
upon the company beneath its roof.
It was on the evening of the day after the confidential duologue just
reported that there was an entertainment in the hall of the Castle.
It took the form of _tableaux_ arranged after well-known pictures, and
there was certainly no lack of actors and actresses for the figures.
Mary Queen of Scots was, of course, led to execution, and Marie
Antoinette, equally as a matter of course, appeared in her prison. Then
Miss Stafford did her best to realize the rapt young woman in Mr. Sant’s
“The Soul’s Awaking”--Miss Stafford was very wide awake indeed, some
scoffer suggested; and Miss Innisfail looked extremely pretty--a
hostess’s daughter invariably looks pretty--as “The Peacemaker” in Mr.
Marcus Stone’s picture.
Beatrice Avon took no part in the _tableaux_--the other girls had not
absolutely insisted on her appearing beside them on the stage that had
been fitted up; they had an+ informal council together, Miss Craven
being stage-manager, and they had come to the conclusion that they could
get along very nicely without her assistance.
Some of them said that Beatrice preferred flirting with the men. However
this may have been, the fact remained that Harold, when he had washed
the paint off his face--he had been the ill-tempered lover, Miss Craven
being the young woman with whom he was supposed to have quarrelled,
requiring the interposition of a sweet Peacemaker in the person of Miss
Innisfail--went round by a corridor to the back of the hall, and stood
for a few minutes behind a ‘portiere that took the place of a door at
one of the entrances. The hall was, of course, dimly lighted to make
the contrast with the stage the greater, so that he could not see the
features of the man who was sitting on the chair at the end of the row
nearest the _portiere_; but the applause that greeted a reproduction of
the picture of a monk shaving himself, having previously used no other
soap than was supplied by a particular maker, had scarcely died away
before Harold heard the voice of Edmund Airey say, in a low and earnest
tone, to someone who was seated beside him, “I do hope that before you
go away, you will let me know where you will next pitch your tent. I
don’t want to lose sight of you.”
“If you wish I shall let you know when I learn it from my father,” was
the reply that Harold heard, clearly spoken in the voice of Beatrice
Avon.
Harold went back into the billowy folds of the tapestry curtain, and
then into the corridor. The words that he had overheard had startled
him. Not merely were the words spoken by Edmund Airey the same as he
himself had employed a few days before to Beatrice, but her reply was
practically the same as the reply which she had made to him.
When the last of the figurantes had disappeared from the stage, and when
the buzz of congratulations was sounding through the hall, now fully
lighted, Harold was nowhere to be seen.
Only a few of the most earnest of the smokers were still in the hall
when, long past midnight, he appeared at the door leading to the outer
hall or porch. His shoes were muddy and his shirt front was pulpy, for
the night was a wet one.
He explained to his astonished friends that it was invariably the case
that putting paint and other auxiliaries to “making up” on his face,
brought on a headache, which he had learned by experience could only be
banished by a long walk in the open air.
Well, he had just had such a walk.
He did not expect that his explanation would carry any weight with it;
and the way he was looked at by his friends made him aware of the fact
that, in giving them credit for more sense than to believe him, he was
doing them no more than the merest justice.
No one who was present on his return placed the smallest amount
of credence in his story. What many of them did believe was of no
consequence.