Lady Jane Thurston was a fine lady in due place and time; but on other
occasions she was a robust countrywoman, ready to walk as sturdily as
any man, or to undertake whatever athletic exercise was necessary. When
she had gone downstairs again, and been served with a cup of warm tea
(now those old cats were gone), she sent her carriage off that the
horses might be put under shelter, not to speak of the men, and walked
herself in the rain to the hotel, where the two young men were still
staying, Captain Scott being as yet unable to be moved. It was one of
those hotels which are so pretty in summer, all ivy and clematis, and
balconies full of flowers. But on a wet day in October it looked squalid
and damp, with its open doorway traversed by many muddy footsteps, and
the wreaths of the withered creepers hanging limp about the windows.
Lady Jane knew everybody about, and took in them all the interest which
a member of the highest class--quite free from any doubt about her
position--is able to take with so much more ease and naturalness than
any other. The difference between the Tredgolds, for instance, and Mrs.
Black of the hotel in comparison with herself was but slightly marked in
her mind. She was impartially kind to both. The difference between them
was but one of degree; she herself was of so different a species that
the gradations did not count. In consequence of this she was more
natural with the Blacks at the hotel than Katherine Tredgold, though in
her way a Lady Bountiful, and universal friend, could ever have been.
She was extremely interested to hear of Mrs. Black’s baby, which had
come most inopportunely, with a sick gentleman in the house, at least a
fortnight before it was expected, and went upstairs to see the mother
and administer a word or two of rebuke to the precipitate infant before
she proceeded on her own proper errand. “Silly little thing, to rush
into this rain sooner than it could help,” she said, “but mind you don’t
do the same, my dear woman. Never trouble your head about the sick
gentleman. Don’t stir till you have got up your strength.” And then she
marched along the passages to the room in which Algy and Charlie sat,
glum and tired to death, looking out at the dull sky and the raindrops
on the window. They had invented a sort of sport with those same
raindrops, watching them as they ran down and backing one against the
other. There had just been a close race, and Algy’s man had won to his
great delight, when Lady Jane’s sharp knock came to the door; so that
she went in to the sound of laughter pealing forth from the sick
gentleman in such a manner as to reassure any anxious visitor as to the
state of his lungs, at least.
“Well, you seem cheerful enough,” Lady Jane said.
“Making the best of it,” said Captain Scott.
“How do, Lady Jane? I say, Algy, there’s another starting. Beg pardon,
too excitin’ to stop. Ten to one on the little fellow. By George, looks
as if he knew it, don’t he now! Done this time, old man----”
“Never took it,” said Algy, with a kick directed at his friend. “Shut
up! It’s awfully kind of you coming to see a fellow--in such
weather--Lady Jane!”
“Yes,” she said composedly, placing herself in the easiest chair. “It
would be kind if I had come without a motive--but I don’t claim that
virtue. How are you, by the way? Better, I hope.”
“Awfully well--as fit as a----, but they won’t let me budge in this
weather. I’ve got a nurse that lords it over me, and the doctor, don’t
you know?--daren’t stir, not to save my life.”
“And occupying your leisure with elevating pastimes,” said Lady Jane.
“Don’t be hard on a man when he’s down--nothing to do,” said Sir
Charles. “Desert island sort of thing--Algy educating mouse, and that
sort of thing; hard lines upon me.”
“Does he know enough?” said Lady Jane with a polite air of inquiry. “I
am glad to find you both,” she added, “and not too busy evidently to
give me your attention. How did you manage, Algy, to catch such a bad
cold?”
“Pneumonia, by Jove,” the young man cried, inspired by so inadequate a
description.
“Well, pneumonia--so much the worse--and still more foolish for you who
have a weak chest. How did you manage to do it? I wonder if your mother
knows, and why is it I don’t find her here at your bedside?”
“I say, don’t tell her, Lady Jane; it’s bad enough being shut up here,
without making more fuss, and the whole thing spread all over the
place.”
“What is the whole thing?” said Lady Jane.
“Went out in a bit of a yacht,” said Sir Charles, “clear up a bet, that
was why we did it. Caught in a gale--my fault, not Algy’s--says he saw
it coming--I----”
“You were otherwise occupied, Charlie----”
“Shut up!” Sir Charles was the speaker this time, with a kick in the
direction of his companion in trouble.
“I am glad to see you’ve got some grace left,” said Lady Jane. “Not you,
Algy, you are beyond that--I know all about it, however. It was little
Stella Tredgold who ran away with you--or you with her.”
Algy burst into a loud laugh. Sir Charles on his part said nothing, but
pulled his long moustache.
“Which is it? And what were the rights of it? and was there any meaning
in it? or merely fun, as you call it in your idiotic way?”
“By Jove!” was all the remark the chief culprit made. Algy on his sofa
kicked up his feet and roared again.
“Please don’t think,” said Lady Jane, “that I am going to pick my words
to please you. I never do it, and especially not to a couple of boys
whom I have known since ever they were born, and before that. What do
you mean by it, if it is you, Charlie Somers? I suppose, by Algy’s
laugh, that he is not the chief offender this time. You know as well as
I do that you’re not a man to take little girls about. I suppose you
must have sense enough to know that, whatever good opinion you may have
of yourself. Stella Tredgold may be a little fool, but she’s a girl I
have taken up, and I don’t mean to let her be compromised. A girl that
knew anything would have known better than to mix up her name with
yours. Now what is the meaning of it? You will just be so good as to
inform me.”
“Why, Cousin Jane, it was all the little thing herself.”
“Shut up!” said Sir Charles again, with another kick at Algy’s foot.
“Well!” said Lady Jane, very magisterially. No judge upon the bench
could look more alarming than she. It is true that her short skirts, her
strong walking shoes, her very severest hat and stiff feather that would
bear the rain, were not so impressive as flowing wigs and robes. She had
not any of the awe-inspiring trappings of the Law; but she was law all
the same, the law of society, which tolerates a great many things, and
is not very nice about motives nor forbidding as to details, but yet
draws the line--if capriciously--sometimes, yet very definitely, between
what can and what cannot be done.
“Well,” came at length hesitatingly through the culprit’s big moustache.
“Don’t know, really--have got anything to say--no meaning at all. Bet to
clear up--him and me; then sudden thought--just ten minutes--try the
sails. No harm in that, Lady Jane,” he said, more briskly, recovering
courage, “afterwards gale came on; no responsibility,” he cried,
throwing up his hands.
“Fact it was she that was the keenest. I shan’t shut up,” cried Algy;
“up to anything, that little thing is. Never minded a bit till it got
very bad, and then gave in, but never said a word. No fault of anybody,
that is the truth. But turned out badly--for me----”
“And worse for her,” said Lady Jane--“that is, without me; all the old
cats will be down upon the girl” (which was not true, the reader
knows). “She is a pretty girl, Charlie.”
Sir Charles, though he was so experienced a person, coloured faintly and
gave a nod of his head.
“Stunner, by Jove!” said Algy, “though I like the little plain one
better,” he added in a parenthesis.
“And a very rich girl, Sir Charles,” Lady Jane said.
This time a faint “O--Oh” came from under the big moustache.
“A _very_ rich girl. The father is an old curmudgeon, but he is made of
money, and he adores his little girl. I believe he would buy a title for
her high and think it cheap.”
“Oh, I say!” exclaimed Sir Charles, with a colour more pronounced upon
his cheek.
“Yours is not anything very great in that way,” said the remorseless
person on the bench, “but still it’s what he would call a title, you
know; and I haven’t the least doubt he would come down very handsomely.
Old Tredgold knows very well what he is about.”
“Unexpected,” said Sir Charles, “sort of serious jaw like this. Put it
off, if you don’t mind, till another time.”
“No time like the present,” said Lady Jane. “Your father was a great
friend of mine, Charlie Somers. He once proposed to me--very much left
to himself on that occasion, you will say--but still it’s true. So I
might have been your mother, don’t you see. I know your age, therefore,
to a day. You are a good bit past thirty, and you have been up to
nothing but mischief all your life.”
“Oh, I say now!” exclaimed Sir Charles again.
“Well, now here is a chance for you. Perhaps I began without thinking,
but now I’m in great earnest. Here is really a chance for you. Stella’s
not so nice as her sister, as Algy there (I did not expect it of him)
has the sense to see: but she’s much more in your way. She is just your
kind, a reckless little hot-headed--all for pleasure and never a thought
of to-morrow. But that sort of thing is not so risky when you have a
good fortune behind you, well tied down. Now, Charlie, listen to me.
Here is a capital chance for you; a man at your age, if he is ever going
to do anything, should stop playing the fool. These boys even will soon
begin to think you an old fellow. Oh, you needn’t cry out! I know
generations of them, and I understand their ways. A man should stop
taking his fling before he gets to thirty-five. Why, Algy there would
tell you that, if he had the spirit to speak up.”
“I’m out of it,” said Algy. “Say whatever you like, it has nothing to do
with me.”
“You see,” said Lady Jane, with a little flourish of her hand, “the boy
doesn’t contradict me; he daren’t contradict me, for it’s truth. Now, as
I say, here’s a chance for you. Abundance of money, and a very pretty
girl, whom you like.” She made a pause here to emphasise her words.
“Whom--you--like. Oh, I know very well what I’m saying. I am going to
ask her over to Steephill and you can come too if you please; and if you
don’t take advantage of your opportunities, Sir Charles, why you have
less sense than even I have given you credit for, and that is a great
deal to say.”
“Rather public, don’t you think, for this sort of thing? Go in and win,
before admiring audience. Don’t relish exhibition. Prefer own way.”
This Sir Charles said, standing at the window, gazing out, apparently
insensible even of the raindrops, and turning his back upon his adviser.
“Well, take your own way. I don’t mind what way you take, so long as you
take my advice, which is given in your very best interests, I can tell
you. Isn’t the regiment ordered out to India, Algy?” she said, turning
quickly upon the other. “And what do you mean to do?”
“Go, of course,” he said--“the very thing for me, they say. And I’m not
going to shirk either; see some sport probably out there.”
“And Charlie?” said Lady Jane. There was no apparent connection between
her previous argument and this question, yet the very distinct staccato
manner in which she said these words called the attention.
Sir Charles, still standing by the window with his back to Lady Jane,
once more muttered, “By Jove!” under his breath, or under his moustache,
which came to the same thing.
“Oh, Charlie! He’ll exchange, I suppose, and get out of it; too great a
swell for India, he is. And how could he live out of reach of Pall
Mall?”
“Well, I hope you’ll soon be able to move, my dear boy; if the weather
keeps mild and the rain goes off you had better come up to Steephill for
a few days to get up your strength.”
“Thanks, awf’lly,” said Captain Scott. “I will with pleasure; and Cousin
Jane, if that little prim one should be there----”
“She shan’t, not for you, my young man, you have other things to think
of. As for Charlie, I shall say no more to him; he can come too if he
likes, but not unless he likes. Send me a line to let me know.”
Sir Charles accompanied the visitor solemnly downstairs, but without
saying anything until they reached the door, where to his surprise no
carriage was waiting.
“Don’t mean to say you walked--day like this?” he cried.
“No; but the horses and the men are more used to take care of
themselves; they are to meet me at the Rectory. I am going there about
this ridiculous bazaar. You can walk with me, if you like,” she said.
He seized a cap from the stand and lounged out after her into the rain.
“I say--don’t you know?” he said, but paused there and added no more.
“Get it out,” said Lady Jane.
After a while, as he walked along by her side, his hands deep in his
pockets, the rain soaking pleasantly into his thick tweed coat, he
resumed: “Unexpected serious sort of jaw that, before little beggar like
Algy--laughs at everything.”
“There was no chance of speaking to you alone,” said Lady Jane almost
apologetically.
“Suppose not. Don’t say see my way to it. Don’t deny, though--reason in
it.”
“And inclination, eh? not much of one without the other, if I am any
judge.”
“First-rate judge, by Jove!” Sir Charles said.
And he added no more. But when he took leave of Lady Jane at the Rectory
he took a long walk by himself in the rain, skirting the gardens of the
Cliff and getting out upon the downs beyond, where the steady downfall
penetrated into him, soaking the tweed in a kind of affectionate natural
way as of a material prepared for the purpose. He strolled along with
his hands in his pockets and the cap over his eyes as if it had been a
summer day, liking it all the better for the wetness and the big masses
of the clouds and the leaden monotone of the sea. It was all so dismal
that it gave him a certain pleasure; he seemed all the more free to
think of his own concerns, to consider the new panorama opened before
him, which perhaps, however, was not so new as Lady Jane supposed. She
had forced open the door and made him look in, giving all the details;
but he had been quite conscious that it had been there before, within
his reach, awaiting his inspection. There were a great many inducements,
no doubt, to make that fantastic prospect real if he could. He did not
want to go to India, though indeed it would have been very good for him
in view of his sadly reduced finances and considerably affected credit
in both senses of that word. He had not much credit at headquarters,
that he knew; he was not what people called a good officer. No doubt he
would have been brave enough had there been fighting to do, and he was
not disliked by his men; his character of a “careless beggar” being
quite as much for good as for evil among those partial observers; but
his credit in higher regions was not great. Credit in the other sense of
the word was a little failing too, tradesmen having a wonderful _flair_
as to a man’s resources and the rising and falling of his account at his
bankers. It would do him much good to go to India and devote himself to
his profession; but then he did not want to go. Was it last of all or
first of all that another motive came in, little Stella herself to wit,
though she broke down so much in her attempts to imitate Lottie Seton’s
ways, and was not amusing at all in that point of view? Stella had
perhaps behaved better on that impromptu yachting trip than she was
herself aware. Certainly she was far more guilty in the beginning of it
than she herself allowed. But when the night was dark and the storm
high, she had--what had she done? Behaved very well and made the men
admire her pluck, or behaved very badly and frightened them--I cannot
tell; anyhow, she had been very natural, she had done and said only what
it came into her head to say and to do, without any affectation or
thought of effect; and the sight of the little girl, very silly and yet
so entirely herself, scolding them, upbraiding them, though she was
indeed the most to blame, yet bearing her punishment not so badly after
all and not without sympathy for them, had somehow penetrated Charles
Somers’ very hardened heart. She was a nice little girl--she was a very
pretty little girl--she was a creature one would not tire of even if she
was not amusing like Lottie Seton. If a man was to have anything more to
do with her, it was to be hoped she never would be amusing like Lottie
Seton. He paced along the downs he never knew how long, pondering these
questions; but he was not a man very good at thinking. In the end he
came to no more than a very much strengthened conviction that Stella
Tredgold was a very pretty little girl.