[Illustration: "Look there, Doris--you see that path? Let's go on to
the moor a little."]
A Great Success
By
Mrs. Humphry Ward
Author of "Eltham House," "Delia Blanchflower," etc.
New York
Hearst's International Library Co.
1916
PART I
CHAPTER I
"Arthur,--what did you give the man?"
"Half a crown, my dear! Now don't make a fuss. I know exactly what
you're going to say!"
"_Half a crown!_" said Doris Meadows, in consternation. "The fare was
one and twopence. Of course he thought you mad. But I'll get it back!"
And she ran to the open window, crying "Hi!" to the driver of a
taxi-cab, who, having put down his fares, was just on the point of
starting from the door of the small semi-detached house in a South
Kensington street, which owned Arthur and Doris Meadows for its master
and mistress.
The driver turned at her call.
"Hi!--Stop! You've been over-paid!"
The man grinned all over, made her a low bow, and made off as fast as he
could.
Arthur Meadows, behind her, went into a fit of laughter, and as his
wife, discomfited, turned back into the room he threw a triumphant arm
around her.
"I had to give him half a crown, dear, or burst. Just look at these
letters--and you know what a post we had this morning! Now don't bother
about the taxi! What does it matter? Come and open the post."
Whereupon Doris Meadows felt herself forcibly drawn down to a seat on
the sofa beside her husband, who threw a bundle of letters upon his
wife's lap, and then turned eagerly to open others with which his own
hands were full.
"H'm!--Two more publishers' letters, asking for the book--don't they
wish they may get it! But I could have made a far better bargain if I'd
only waited a fortnight. Just my luck! One--two--four--autograph fiends!
The last--a lady, of course!--wants a page of the first lecture. Calm!
Invitations from the Scottish Athenaeum--the Newcastle Academy--the
Birmingham Literary Guild--the Glasgow Poetic Society--the 'British
Philosophers'--the Dublin Dilettanti!--Heavens!--how many more! None of
them offering cash, as far as I can see--only fame--pure and undefiled!
Hullo!--that's a compliment!--the Parnassians have put me on their
Council. And last year, I was told, I couldn't even get in as an
ordinary member. Dash their impudence!... This is really astounding!
What are yours, darling?"
And tumbling all his opened letters on the sofa, Arthur Meadows rose--in
sheer excitement--and confronted his wife, with a flushed countenance.
He was a tall, broadly built, loose-limbed fellow, with a fine shaggy
head, whereof various black locks were apt to fall forward over his
eyes, needing to be constantly thrown back by a picturesque action of
the hand. The features were large and regular, the complexion dark, the
eyes a pale blue, under bushy brows. The whole aspect of the man,
indeed, was not unworthy of the adjective "Olympian," already freely
applied to it by some of the enthusiastic women students attending his
now famous lectures. One girl artist learned in classical archaeology,
and a haunter of the British Museum, had made a charcoal study of a
well-known archaistic "Diespiter" of the Augustan period, on the same
sheet with a rapid sketch of Meadows when lecturing; a performance which
had been much handed about in the lecture-room, though always just
avoiding--strangely enough--the eyes of the lecturer.... The expression
of slumbrous power, the mingling of dream and energy in the Olympian
countenance, had been, in the opinion of the majority, extremely well
caught. Only Doris Meadows, the lecturer's wife, herself an artist, and
a much better one than the author of the drawing, had smiled a little
queerly on being allowed a sight of it.
However, she was no less excited by the batch of letters her husband had
allowed her to open than he by his. Her bundle included, so it appeared,
letters from several leading politicians: one, discussing in a most
animated and friendly tone the lecture of the week before, on "Lord
George Bentinck"; and two others dealing with the first lecture of the
series, the brilliant pen-portrait of Disraeli, which--partly owing to
feminine influence behind the scenes--had been given _verbatim_ and with
much preliminary trumpeting in two or three Tory newspapers, and had
produced a real sensation, of that mild sort which alone the British
public--that does not love lectures--is capable of receiving from the
report of one. Persons in the political world had relished its plain
speaking; dames and counsellors of the Primrose League had read the
praise with avidity, and skipped the criticism; while the mere men and
women of letters had appreciated a style crisp, unhackneyed, and alive.
The second lecture on "Lord George Bentinck" had been crowded, and the
crowd had included several Cabinet Ministers, and those great ladies of
the moment who gather like vultures to the feast on any similar
occasion. The third lecture, on "Palmerston and Lord John"--had been not
only crowded, but crowded out, and London was by now fully aware that it
possessed in Arthur Meadows a person capable of painting a series of La
Bruyère-like portraits of modern men, as vivid, biting, and
"topical"--_mutatis mutandis_--as the great French series were in their
day.
Applications for the coming lecture on "Lord Randolph" were arriving by
every post, and those to follow after--on men just dead, and others
still alive--would probably have to be given in a much larger hall than
that at present engaged, so certain was intelligent London that in going
to hear Arthur Meadows on the most admired--or the most
detested--personalities of the day, they at least ran no risk of
wishy-washy panegyric, or a dull caution. Meadows had proved himself
daring both in compliment and attack; nothing could be sharper than his
thrusts, or more Olympian than his homage. There were those indeed who
talked of "airs" and "mannerisms," but their faint voices were lost in
the general shouting.
"Wonderful!" said Doris, at last, looking up from the last of these
epistles. "I really didn't know, Arthur, you were such a great man."
Her eyes rested on him with a fond but rather puzzled expression.
"Well, of course, dear, you've always seen the seamy side of me," said
Meadows, with the slightest change of tone and a laugh. "Perhaps now
you'll believe me when I say that I'm not always lazy when I seem
so--that a man must have time to think, and smoke, and dawdle, if he's
to write anything decent, and can't always rush at the first job that
offers. When you thought I was idling--I wasn't! I was gathering up
impressions. Then came an attractive piece of work--one that suited
me--and I rose to it. There, you see!"
He threw back his Jovian head, with a look at his wife, half combative,
half merry.
Doris's forehead puckered a little.
"Well, thank Heaven that it _has_ turned out well!" she said, with a
deep breath. "Where we should have been if it hadn't I'm sure I don't
know! And, as it is--By the way, Arthur, have you got that packet ready
for New York?" Her tone was quick and anxious.
"What, the proofs of 'Dizzy'? Oh, goodness, that'll do any time. Don't
bother, Doris. I'm really rather done--and this post is--well, upon my
word, it's overwhelming!" And, gathering up the letters, he threw
himself with an air of fatigue into a long chair, his hands behind his
head. "Perhaps after tea and a cigarette I shall feel more fit."
"Arthur!--you know to-morrow is the last day for catching the New York
mail."
"Well, hang it, if I don't catch it, they must wait, that's all!" said
Meadows peevishly. "If they won't take it, somebody else will."
"They" represented the editor and publisher of a famous New York
magazine, who had agreed by cable to give a large sum for the "Dizzy"
lecture, provided it reached them by a certain date.
Doris twisted her lip.
"Arthur, _do_ think of the bills!"
"Darling, don't be a nuisance! If I succeed I shall make money. And if
this isn't a success I don't know what is." He pointed to the letters on
his lap, an impatient gesture which dislodged a certain number of them,
so that they came rustling to the floor.
"Hullo!--here's one you haven't opened. Another coronet! Gracious! I
believe it's the woman who asked us to dinner a fortnight ago, and we
couldn't go."
Meadows sat up with a jerk, all languor dispelled, and held out his hand
for the letter.
"Lady Dunstable! By George! I thought she'd ask us,--though you don't
deserve it, Doris, for you didn't take any trouble at all about her
first invitation--"
"We were _engaged_!" cried Doris, interrupting him, her eyebrows
mounting.
"We could have got out of it perfectly. But now, listen to this:
"Dear Mr. Meadows,--I hope your wife will excuse my writing to you
instead of to her, as you and I are already acquainted. Can I induce
you both to come to Crosby Ledgers for a week-end, on July 16? We
hope to have a pleasant party, a diplomat or two, the Home
Secretary, and General Hichen--perhaps some others. You would, I am
sure, admire our hill country, and I should like to show you some of
the precious autographs we have inherited.
"Yours sincerely,
"RACHEL DUNSTABLE.
"If your wife brings a maid, perhaps she will kindly let me know."
Doris laughed, and the amused scorn of her laugh annoyed her husband.
However, at that moment their small house-parlourmaid entered with the
tea-tray, and Doris rose to make a place for it. The parlourmaid put it
down with much unnecessary noise, and Doris, looking at her in alarm,
saw that her expression was sulky and her eyes red. When the girl had
departed, Mrs. Meadows said with resignation--
"There! that one will give me notice to-morrow!"
"Well, I'm sure you could easily get a better!" said her husband
sharply.
Doris shook her head.
"The fourth in six months!" she said, sighing. "And she really is a good
girl."
"I suppose, as usual, she complains of me!" The voice was that of an
injured man.
"Yes, dear, she does! They all do. You give them a lot of extra work
already, and all these things you have been buying lately--oh, Arthur,
if you _wouldn't_ buy things!--mean more work. You know that copper
coal-scuttle you sent in yesterday?"
"Well, isn't it a beauty?--a real Georgian piece!" cried Meadows,
indignantly.
"I dare say it is. But it has to be cleaned. When it arrived Jane came
to see me in this room, shut the door, and put her back against it
'There's another of them beastly copper coal-scuttles come!' You should
have seen her eyes blazing. 'And I should like to know, ma'am, who's
going to clean it--'cos I can't.' And I just had to promise her it might
go dirty."
"Lazy minx!" said Meadows, good-humouredly, with his mouth full of
tea-cake. "At last I have something good to look at in this room." He
turned his eyes caressingly towards the new coal-scuttle. "I suppose I
shall have to clean it myself!"
Doris laughed again--this time almost hysterically--but was checked by a
fresh entrance of Jane, who, with an air of defiance, deposited a heavy
parcel on a chair beside her mistress, and flounced out again.
"What is this?" said Doris in consternation. "_Books_? More books?
Heavens, Arthur, what have you been ordering now! I couldn't sleep last
night for thinking of the book-bills."
"You little goose! Of course, I must buy books! Aren't they my tools, my
stock-in-trade? Haven't these lectures justified the book-bills a dozen
times over?"
This time Arthur Meadows surveyed his wife in real irritation and
disgust.
"But, Arthur!--you could get them _all_ at the London Library--you know
you could!"
"And pray how much time do I waste in going backwards and forwards after
books? Any man of letters worth his salt wants a library of his
own--within reach of his hand."
"Yes, if he can pay for it!" said Doris, with plaintive emphasis, as she
ruefully turned over the costly volumes which the parcel contained.
"Don't fash yourself, my dear child! Why, what I'm getting for the Dizzy
lecture is alone nearly enough to pay all the book bills."
"It isn't! And just think of all the others! Well--never mind!"
Doris's protesting mood suddenly collapsed. She sat down on a stool
beside her husband, rested her elbow on his knee, and, chin in hand,
surveyed him with a softened countenance. Doris Meadows was not a
beauty; only pleasant-faced, with good eyes, and a strong, expressive
mouth. Her brown hair was perhaps her chief point, and she wore it
rippled and coiled so as to set off a shapely head and neck. It was
always a secret grievance with her that she had so little positive
beauty. And her husband had never flattered her on the subject. In the
early days of their marriage she had timidly asked him, after
one of their bridal dinner-parties in which she had worn her
wedding-dress--"Did I look nice to-night? Do you--do you ever think I
look pretty, Arthur?" And he had looked her over, with an odd change of
expression--careless affection passing into something critical and
cool:--"I'm never ashamed of you, Doris, in any company. Won't you be
satisfied with that?" She had been far from satisfied; the phrase had
burnt in her memory from then till now. But she knew Arthur had not
meant to hurt her, and she bore him no grudge. And, by now, she was too
well acquainted with the rubs and prose of life, too much occupied with
house-books, and rough servants, and the terror of an overdrawn account,
to have any time or thought to spare to her own looks. Fortunately she
had an instinctive love for neatness and delicacy; so that her little
figure, besides being agile and vigorous--capable of much dignity too on
occasion--was of a singular trimness and grace in all its simple
appointments. Her trousseau was long since exhausted, and she rarely had
a new dress. But slovenly she could not be.
It was the matter of a new dress which was now indeed running in her
mind. She took up Lady Dunstable's letter, and read it pensively through
again.
"You can accept for yourself, Arthur, of course," she said, looking up.
"But I can't possibly go."
Meadows protested loudly.
"You have no excuse at all!" he declared hotly. "Lady Dunstable has
given us a month's notice. You _can't_ get out of it. Do you want me to
be known as a man who accepts smart invitations without his wife? There
is no more caddish creature in the world."
Doris could not help smiling upon him. But her mouth was none the less
determined.
"I haven't got a single frock that's fit for Crosby Ledgers. And I'm not
going on tick for a new one!"
"I never heard anything so absurd! Shan't we have more money in a few
weeks than we've had for years?"
"I dare say. It's all wanted. Besides, I have my work to finish."
"My dear Doris!"
A slight red mounted in Doris's cheeks.
"Oh, you may be as scornful as you like! But ten pounds is ten pounds,
and I like keeping engagements."
The "work" in question meant illustrations for a children's book. Doris
had accepted the commission with eagerness, and had been going regularly
to the Campden Hill studio of an Academician--her mother's brother--who
was glad to supply her with some of the "properties" she wanted for her
drawings.
"I shall soon not allow you to do anything of the kind," said Meadows
with decision.
"On the contrary! I shall always take paid work when I can get it," was
the firm reply--"unless--"
"Unless what?"
"You know," she said quietly. Meadows was silent a moment, then reached
out for her hand, which she gave him. They had no children; and, as he
well knew, Doris pined for them. The look in her eyes when she nursed
her friends' babies had often hurt him. But after all, why despair? It
was only four years from their wedding day.
But he was not going to be beaten in the matter of Crosby Ledgers. They
had a long and heated discussion, at the end of which Doris surrendered.
"Very well! I shall have to spend a week in doing up my old black gown,
and it will be a botch at the end of it. But--_nothing--will induce
me_--to get a new one!"
She delivered this ultimatum with her hands behind her, a defeated, but
still resolute young person. Meadows, having won the main battle, left
the rest to Providence, and went off to his "den" to read all his
letters through once more--agreeable task!--and to write a note of
acceptance to the Home Secretary, who had asked him to luncheon. Doris
was not included in the invitation. "But anybody may ask a husband--or a
wife--to lunch, separately. That's understood. I shan't do it often,
however--that I can tell them!" And justified by this Spartan temper as
to the future, he wrote a charming note, accepting the delights of the
present, so full of epigram that the Cabinet Minister to whom it was
addressed had no sooner read it than he consigned it instanter to his
wife's collection of autographs.
Meanwhile Doris was occupied partly in soothing the injured feelings of
Jane, and partly in smoothing out and inspecting her one evening frock.
She decided that it would take her a week to "do it up," and that she
would do it herself. "A week wasted!" she thought--"and all for nothing.
What do we want with Lady Dunstable! She'll flatter Arthur, and make him
lazy. They all do! And I've no use for her at all. _Maid_ indeed! Does
she think nobody can exist without that appendage? How I should like to
make her live on four hundred a year, with a husband that will spend
seven!"
She stood, half amused, half frowning, beside the bed on which lay her
one evening frock. But the frown passed away, effaced by an expression
much softer and tenderer than anything she had allowed Arthur to see of
late. Of course she delighted in Arthur's success; she was proud,
indeed, through and through. Hadn't she always known that he had this
gift, this quick, vivacious power of narrative, this genius--for it was
something like it--for literary portraiture? And now at last the
stimulus had come--and the opportunity with it. Could she ever forget
the anxiety of the first lecture--the difficulty she had had in making
him finish it--his careless, unbusiness-like management of the whole
affair? But then had come the burst of praise and popularity; and
Arthur was a new man. No difficulty--or scarcely--in getting him to work
since then! Applause, so new and intoxicating, had lured him on, as she
had been wont to lure the black pony of her childhood with a handful of
sugar. Yes, her Arthur was a genius; she had always known it. And
something of a child too--lazy, wilful, and sensuous--that, too, she had
known for some time. And she loved him with all her heart.
"But I won't have him spoilt by those fine ladies!" she said to herself,
with frowning clear-sightedness. "They make a perfect fool of him. Now,
then, I'd better write to Lady Dunstable. Of course she ought to have
written to me!"
So she sat down and wrote:
Dear Lady Dunstable,--We have much pleasure in accepting your kind
invitation, and I will let you know our train later. I have no maid,
so--
But at this point Mrs. Meadows, struck by a sudden idea, threw down her
pen.
"Heavens!--suppose I took Jane? Somebody told me the other day that
nobody got any attention at Crosby Ledgers without a maid. And it might
bribe Jane into staying. I should feel a horrid snob--but it would be
rather fun--especially as Lady Dunstable will certainly be immensely
surprised. The fare would be only about five shillings--Jane would get
her food for two days at the Dunstables' expense--and I should have a
friend. I'll do it."
So, with her eyes dancing, Doris tore up her note, and began again:
Dear Lady Dunstable,--We have much pleasure in accepting your kind
invitation, and I will let you know our train later. As you kindly
permit me, I will bring a maid.
Yours sincerely,
DORIS MEADOWS.
* * * * *
The month which elapsed between Lady Dunstable's invitation and the
Crosby Ledgers party was spent by Doris first in "doing up" her frock,
and then in taking the bloom off it at various dinner-parties to which
they were already invited as the "celebrities" of the moment; in making
Arthur's wardrobe presentable; in watching over the tickets and receipts
of the weekly lectures; in collecting the press cuttings about them; in
finishing her illustrations; and in instructing the awe-struck Jane, now
perfectly amenable, in the mysteries that would be expected of her.
Meanwhile Mrs. Meadows heard various accounts from artistic and literary
friends of the parties at Crosby Ledgers. These accounts were generally
prefaced by the laughing remark, "But anything _I_ can say is ancient
history. Lady Dunstable dropped us long ago!"
Anyway, it appeared that the mistress of Crosby Ledgers could be
charming, and could also be exactly the reverse. She was a creature of
whims and did precisely as she pleased. Everything she did apparently
was acceptable to Lord Dunstable, who admired her blindly. But in one
point at least she was a disappointed woman. Her son, an unsatisfactory
youth of two-and-twenty, was seldom to be seen under his parents' roof,
and it was rumoured that he had already given them a great deal of
trouble.
"The dreadful thing, my dear, is the _games_ they play!" said the wife
of a dramatist, whose one successful piece had been followed by years of
ill-fortune.
"_Games?_" said Doris. "Do you mean cards--for money?"
"Oh, dear no! Intellectual games. _Bouts-rimés;_ translations--Lady
Dunstable looks out the bits and some people think the
words--beforehand; paragraphs on a subject--in a particular
style--Pater's, or Ruskin's, or Carlyle's. Each person throws two slips
into a hat. On one you write the subject, on another the name of the
author whose style is to be imitated. Then you draw. Of course Lady
Dunstable carries off all the honours. But then everybody believes she
spends all the mornings preparing these things. She never comes down
till nearly lunch."
"This is really appalling!" said Doris, with round eyes. "I have
forgotten everything I ever knew."
As for her own impressions of the great lady, she had only seen her once
in the semi-darkness of the lecture-room, and could only remember a
long, sallow face, with striking black eyes and a pointed chin, a
general look of distinction and an air of one accustomed to the "chief
seat" at any board--whether the feasts of reason or those of a more
ordinary kind.
As the days went on, Doris, for all her sturdy self-reliance, began to
feel a little nervous inwardly. She had been quite well-educated, first
at a good High School, and then in the class-rooms of a provincial
University; and, as the clever daughter of a clever doctor in large
practice, she had always been in touch with the intellectual world,
especially on its scientific side. And for nearly two years before her
marriage she had been a student at the Slade School. But since her
imprudent love-match with a literary man had plunged her into the
practical work of a small household, run on a scanty and precarious
income, she had been obliged, one after another, to let the old
interests go. Except the drawing. That was good enough to bring her a
little money, as an illustrator, designer of Christmas cards, etc.; and
she filled most of her spare time with it.
But now she feverishly looked out some of her old books--Pater's
"Studies," a volume of Huxley's Essays, "Shelley" and "Keats" in the
"Men of Letters" series. She borrowed two or three of the political
biographies with which Arthur's shelves were crowded, having all the
while, however, the dispiriting conviction that Lady Dunstable had been
dandled on the knees of every English Prime Minister since her birth,
and had been the blood relation of all of them, except perhaps Mr. G.,
whose blood no doubt had not been blue enough to entitle him to the
privilege.
However, she must do her best. She kept these feelings and preparations
entirely secret from Arthur, and she saw the day of the visit dawn in a
mood of mingled expectation and revolt.
CHAPTER II
It was a perfect June evening: Doris was seated on one of the spreading
lawns of Crosby Ledgers,--a low Georgian house, much added to at various
times, and now a pleasant medley of pillared verandahs, tiled roofs,
cupolas, and dormer windows, apparently unpretending, but, as many
people knew, one of the most luxurious of English country houses.
Lady Dunstable, in a flowing dress of lilac crêpe and a large black hat,
had just given Mrs. Meadows a second cup of tea, and was clearly doing
her duty--and showing it--to a guest whose entertainment could not be
trusted to go of itself. The only other persons at the tea-table--the
Meadowses having arrived late--were an elderly man with long Dundreary
whiskers, in a Panama hat and a white waistcoat, and a lady of uncertain
age, plump, kind-eyed, and merry-mouthed, in whom Doris had at once
divined a possible harbour of refuge from the terrors of the situation.
Arthur was strolling up and down the lawn with the Home Secretary,
smoking and chatting--talking indeed nineteen to the dozen, and entirely
at his ease. A few other groups were scattered over the grass; while
girls in white dresses and young men in flannels were playing tennis in
the distance. A lake at the bottom of the sloping garden made light and
space in a landscape otherwise too heavily walled in by thick woodland.
White swans floated on the lake, and the June trees beyond were in their
freshest and proudest leaf. A church tower rose appropriately in a
corner of the park, and on the other side of the deer-fence beyond the
lake a herd of red deer were feeding. Doris could not help feeling as
though the whole scene had been lately painted for a new "high life"
play at the St. James's Theatre, and she half expected to see Sir George
Alexander walk out of the bushes.
"I suppose, Mrs. Meadows, you have been helping your husband with his
lectures?" said Lady Dunstable, a little languidly, as though the heat
oppressed her. She was making play with a cigarette and her half-shut
eyes were fixed on the "lion's" wife. The eyes fascinated Doris. Surely
they were artificially blackened, above and below? And the lips--had art
been delicately invoked, or was Nature alone responsible?
"I copy things for Arthur," said Doris. "Unfortunately, I can't type."
At the sound of the young and musical voice, the gentleman with the
Dundreary whiskers--Sir Luke Malford--who had seemed half asleep, turned
sharply to look at the speaker. Doris too was in a white dress, of the
simplest stuff and make; but it became her. So did the straw hat, with
its wreath of wild roses, which she had trimmed herself that morning.
There was not the slightest visible sign of tremor in the young woman;
and Sir Luke's inner mind applauded her.
"No fool!--and a lady," he thought. "Let's see what Rachel will make of
her."
"Then you don't help him in the writing?" said Lady Dunstable, still
with the same detached air. Doris laughed.
"I don't know what Arthur would say if I proposed it. He never lets
anybody go near him when he's writing."
"I see; like all geniuses, he's dangerous on the loose." Was Lady
Dunstable's smile just touched with sarcasm? "Well!--has the success of
the lectures surprised you?"
Doris pondered.
"No," she said at last, "not really. I always thought Arthur had it in
him."
"But you hardly expected such a run--such an excitement!"
"I don't know," said Doris, coolly. "I think I did--sometimes. The
question is how long it will last."
She looked, smiling, at her interrogator.
The gentleman with the whiskers stooped across the table.
"Oh, nothing lasts in this world. But that of course is what makes a
good time so good."
Doris turned towards him--demurring--for the sake of conversation. "I
never could understand how Cinderella enjoyed the ball."
"For thinking of the clock?" laughed Sir Luke. "No, no!--you can't mean
that. It's the expectation of the clock that doubles the pleasure. Of
course you agree, Rachel!"--he turned to her--"else why did you read me
that very doleful poem yesterday, on this very theme?--that it's only
the certainty of death that makes life agreeable? By the way, George
Eliot had said it before!"
"The poem was by a friend of mine," said Lady Dunstable, coldly. "I read
it to you to see how it sounded. But I thought it poor stuff."
"How unkind of you! The man who wrote it says he lives upon your
friendship."
"That, perhaps, is why he's so thin."
Sir Luke laughed again.
"To be sure, I saw the poor man--after you had talked to him the other
night--going to Dunstable to be consoled. Poor George! he's always
healing the wounds you make."
"Of course. That's why I married him. George says all the civil things.
That sets me free to do the rude ones."
"Rachel!" The exclamation came from the plump lady opposite, who was
smiling broadly, and showing some very white teeth. A signal passed from
her eyes to those of Doris, as though to say "Don't be alarmed!"
But Doris was not at all alarmed. She was eagerly watching Lady
Dunstable, as one watches for the mannerisms of some well-known
performer. Sir Luke perceived it, and immediately began to show off his
hostess by one of the sparring matches that were apparently frequent
between them. They fell to discussing a party of guests--landowners from
a neighbouring estate--who seemed to have paid a visit to Crosby Ledgers
the day before. Lady Dunstable had not enjoyed them, and her tongue on
the subject was sharpness itself, restrained by none of the ordinary
compunctions. "Is this how she talks about all her guests--on Monday
morning?" thought Doris, with quickened pulse as the biting sentences
flew about.
... "Mr. Worthing? Why did he marry her? Oh, because he wanted a stuffed
goose to sit by the fire while he went out and amused himself.... Why
did she marry him? Ah, that's more difficult to answer. Is one obliged
to credit Mrs. Worthing with any reasons--on any subject? However, I
like Mr. Worthing--he's what men ought to be."
"And that is--?" Doris ventured to put in.
"Just--men," said Lady Dunstable, shortly.
Sir Luke laughed over his cigarette.
"That you may fool them? Well, Rachel, all the same, you would die of
Worthing's company in a month."
"I shouldn't die," said Lady Dunstable, quietly. "I should murder."
"Hullo, what's my wife talking about?" said a bluff and friendly voice.
Doris looked up to see a handsome man with grizzled hair approaching.
"Mrs. Meadows? How do you do? What a beautiful evening you've brought!
Your husband and I have been having a jolly talk. My word!--he's a
clever chap. Let me congratulate you on the lectures. Biggest success
known in recent days!"
Doris beamed upon her host, well pleased, and he settled down beside
her, doing his kind best to entertain her. In him, all those protective
feelings towards a stranger, in which his wife appeared to be
conspicuously lacking, were to be discerned on first acquaintance. Doris
was practically sure that his inner mind was thinking--"Poor little
thing!--knows nobody here. Rachel's been scaring her. Must look after
her!"
And look after her he did. He was by no means an amusing companion.
Lazy, gentle, and ineffective, Doris quickly perceived that he was
entirely eclipsed by his wife, who, now that she was relieved of Mrs.
Meadows, was soon surrounded by a congenial company--the Home Secretary,
one or two other politicians, the old General, a literary Dean, Lord
Staines, a great racing man, Arthur Meadows, and one or two more. The
talk became almost entirely political--with a dash of literature. Doris
saw at once that Lady Dunstable was the centre of it, and she was not
long in guessing that it was for this kind of talk that people came to
Crosby Ledgers. Lady Dunstable, it seemed, was capable of talking like a
man with men, and like a man of affairs with the men of affairs. Her
political knowledge was astonishing; so, evidently, was her background
of family and tradition, interwoven throughout with English political
history. English statesmen had not only dandled her, they had taught
her, walked with her, written to her, and--no doubt--flirted with her.
Doris, as she listened to her, disliked her heartily, and at the same
time could not help being thrilled by so much knowledge, so much contact
with history in the making, and by such a masterful way, in a woman,
with the great ones of the earth. "What a worm she must think me!"
thought Doris--"what a worm she _does_ think me--and the likes of me!"
At the same time, the spectator must needs admit there was something
else in Lady Dunstable's talk than mere intelligence or mere
mannishness. There was undoubtedly something of "the good fellow," and,
through all her hard hitting, a curious absence--in conversation--of the
personal egotism she was quite ready to show in all the trifles of life.
On the present occasion her main object clearly was to bring out Arthur
Meadows--the new captive of her bow and spear; to find out what was in
him; to see if he was worthy of her inner circle. Throwing all
compliment aside, she attacked him hotly on certain statements--certain
estimates--in his lectures. Her knowledge was personal; the knowledge of
one whose father had sat in Dizzy's latest Cabinet, while, through the
endless cousinship of the English landed families, she was as much
related to the Whig as to the Tory leaders of the past. She talked
familiarly of "Uncle This" or "Cousin That," who had been apparently the
idols of her nursery before they had become the heroes of England; and
Meadows had much ado to defend himself against her store of anecdote and
reminiscence. "Unfair!" thought Doris, breathlessly watching the contest
of wits. "Oh, if she weren't a woman, Arthur could easily beat her!"
But she was a woman, and not at all unwilling, when hard pressed, to
take advantage of that fact.
All the same, Meadows was stirred to most unwonted efforts. He proved to
be an antagonist worth her steel; and Doris's heart swelled with secret
pride as she saw how all the other voices died down, how more and more
people came up to listen, even the young men and maidens,--throwing
themselves on the grass, around the two disputants. Finally Lady
Dunstable carried off the honours. Had she not seen Lord Beaconsfield
twice during the fatal week of his last general election, when England
turned against him, when his great rival triumphed, and all was lost?
Had he not talked to her, as great men will talk to the young and
charming women whose flatteries soften their defeats; so that, from the
wings, she had seen almost the last of that well-graced actor, caught
his last gestures and some of his last words?
"Brava, brava!" said Meadows, when the story ceased, although it had
been intended to upset one of his own most brilliant generalisations;
and a sound of clapping hands went round the circle. Lady Dunstable, a
little flushed and panting, smiled and was silent. Meadows, meanwhile,
was thinking--"How often has she told that tale? She has it by heart.
Every touch in it has been sharpened a dozen times. All the same--a
wonderful performance!"
Lord Dunstable, meanwhile, sat absolutely silent, his hat on the back
of his head, his attention fixed on his wife. As the group broke up, and
the chairs were pushed back, he said in Doris's ear--"Isn't she an
awfully clever woman, my wife?"
Before Doris could answer, she heard Lady Dunstable carelessly--but none
the less peremptorily--inviting her women guests to see their rooms.
Doris walked by her hostess's side towards the house. Every trace of
animation and charm had now vanished from that lady's manner. She was as
languid and monosyllabic as before, and Doris could only feel once again
that while her clever husband was an eagerly welcomed guest, she herself
could only expect to reckon as his appendage--a piece of family luggage.
Lady Dunstable threw open the door of a spacious bedroom. "No doubt you
will wish to rest till dinner," she said, severely. "And of course your
maid will ask for what she wants." At the word "maid," did Doris dream
it, or was there a satiric gleam in the hard black eyes? "Pretender," it
seemed to say--and Doris's conscience admitted the charge.
And indeed the door had no sooner closed on Lady Dunstable before an
agitated knock announced Jane--in tears.
She stood opposite her mistress in desperation.
"Please, ma'am--I'll have to have an evening dress--or I can't go in to
supper!"
"What on earth do you mean?" said Doris, staring at her.
"Every maid in this 'ouse, ma'am, 'as got to dress for supper. The maids
go in the 'ousekeeper's room, an' they've all on 'em got dresses
V-shaped, or cut square, or something. This black dress, ma'am, won't do
at all. So I can't have no supper. I couldn't dream, ma'am, of goin' in
different to the others!"
"You silly creature!" said Doris, springing up. "Look here--I'll lend
you my spare blouse. You can turn it in at the neck, and wear my white
scarf. You'll be as smart as any of them!"
And half laughing, half compassionate, she pulled her blouse out of the
box, adjusted the white scarf to it herself, and sent the bewildered
Jane about her business, after having shown her first how to unpack her
mistress's modest belongings, and strictly charged her to return half an
hour before dinner. "Of course I shall dress myself,--but you may as
well have a lesson."
The girl went, and Doris was left stormily wondering why she had been
such a fool as to bring her. Then her sense of humour conquered, and her
brow cleared. She went to the open window and stood looking over the
park beyond. Sunset lay broad and rich over the wide stretches of grass,
and on the splendid oaks lifting their dazzling leaf to the purest of
skies. The roses in the garden sent up their scent, there was a plashing
of water from an invisible fountain, and the deer beyond the fence
wandered in and out of the broad bands of shadow drawn across the park.
Doris's young feet fidgeted under her. She longed to be out exploring
the woods and the lake. Why was she immured in this stupid room, to
which Lady Dunstable had conducted her with a chill politeness which had
said plainly enough "Here you are--and here you stay!--till dinner!"
"If I could only find a back-staircase," she thought, "I would soon be
enjoying myself! Arthur, lucky wretch, said something about playing
golf. No!--there he is!"
And sure enough, on the farthest edge of the lawn going towards the
park, she saw two figures walking--Lady Dunstable and Arthur! "Deep in
talk of course--having the best of times--while I am shut up
here--half-past six!--on a glorious evening!" The reflection, however,
was, on the whole, good-humoured. She did not feel, as yet, either
jealous or tragic. Some day, she supposed, if it was to be her lot to
visit country houses, she would get used to their ways. For Arthur, of
course, it was useful--perhaps necessary--to be put through his paces by
a woman like Lady Dunstable. "And he can hold his own. But for me? I
contribute nothing. I don't belong to them--they don't want me--and what
use have I for them?"
Her meditations, however, were here interrupted by a knock. On her
saying "Come in"--the door opened cautiously to admit the face of the
substantial lady, Miss Field, to whom Doris had been introduced at the
tea-table.
"Are you resting?" said Miss Field, "or only 'interned'?"
"Oh, please come in!" cried Doris. "I never was less tired in my life."
Miss Field entered, and took the armchair that Doris offered her,
fronting the open window and the summer scene. Her face would have
suited the Muse of Mirth, if any Muse is ever forty years of age. The
small, up-turned nose and full red lips were always smiling; so were the
eyes; and the fair skin and still golden hair, the plump figure and gay
dress of flower-sprigged muslin, were all in keeping with the part.
"You have never seen my cousin before?" she inquired.
"Lady Dunstable? Is she your cousin?"
Miss Field nodded. "My first cousin. And I spend a great part of the
year here, helping in different ways. Rachel can't do without me now, so
I'm able to keep her in order. Don't ever be shy with her! Don't ever
let her think she frightens you!--those are the two indispensable rules
here."
"I'm afraid I should break them," said Doris, slowly. "She does
frighten me--horribly!"
"Ah, well, you didn't show it--that's the chief thing. You know she's a
much more human creature than she seems."
"Is she?" Doris's eyes pursued the two distant figures in the park.
"You'd think, for instance, that Lord Dunstable was just a cipher? Not
at all. He's the real authority here, and when he puts his foot down
Rachel always gives in. But of course she's stood in the way of his
career."
Doris shrank a little from these indiscretions. But she could not keep
her curiosity out of her eyes, and Miss Field smilingly answered it.
"She's absorbed him so! You see he watches her all the time. She's like
an endless play to him. He really doesn't care for anything else--he
doesn't want anything else. Of course they're very rich. But he might
have done something in politics, if she hadn't been so much more
important than he. And then, naturally, she's made enemies--powerful
enemies. Her friends come here of course--her old cronies--the people
who can put up with her. They're devoted to her. And the young
people--the very modern ones--who think nice manners 'early Victorian,'
and like her rudeness for the sake of her cleverness. But the
rest!--What do you think she did at one of these parties last year?"
Doris could not help wishing to know.
"She took a fancy to ask a girl near here--the daughter of a clergyman,
a great friend of Lord Dunstable's, to come over for the Sunday. Lord
Dunstable had talked of the girl, and Rachel's always on the look-out
for cleverness; she hunts it like a hound! She met the young woman too
somewhere, and got the impression--I can't say how--that she would 'go.'
So on the Saturday morning she went over in her pony-carriage--broke in
on the little Rectory like a hurricane--of course you know the people
about here regard her as something semi-divine!--and told the girl she
had come to take her back to Crosby Ledgers for the Sunday. So the poor
child packed up, all in a flutter, and they set off together in the
pony-carriage--six miles. And by the time they had gone four Rachel had
discovered she had made a mistake--that the girl wasn't clever, and
would add nothing to the party. So she quietly told her that she was
afraid, after all, the party wouldn't suit her. And then she turned the
pony's head, and drove her straight home again!"
"Oh!" cried Doris, her cheeks red, her eyes aflame.
"Brutal, wasn't it?" said the other. "All the same, there are fine
things in Rachel. And in one point she's the most vulnerable of women!"
"Her son?" Doris ventured.
Miss Field shrugged her shoulders.
"He doesn't drink--he doesn't gamble--he doesn't spend money--he doesn't
run away with other people's wives. He's just nothing!--just incurably
empty and idle. He comes here very little. His mother terrifies him. And
since he was twenty-one he has a little money of his own. He hangs about
in studios and theatres. His mother doesn't know any of his friends.
What she suffers--poor Rachel! She'd have given everything in the world
for a brilliant son. But you can't wonder. She's like some strong plant
that takes all the nourishment out of the ground, so that the plants
near it starve. She can't help it. She doesn't mean to be a vampire!"
Doris hardly knew what to say. Somehow she wished the vampire were not
walking with Arthur! That, however, was not a sentiment easily
communicable; and she was just turning it into something else when Miss
Field said--abruptly, like someone coming to the real point--
"Does your husband like her?"
"Why yes, of course!" stammered Doris. "She's been awfully kind to us
about the lectures, and--he loves arguing with her."
"She loves arguing with _him_!" 'said Miss Field triumphantly. "She
lives just for such half-hours as that she gave us on the lawn after
tea--and all owing to him--he was so inspiring, so stimulating. Oh,
you'll see, she'll take you up tremendously--if you want to be taken
up!"
The smiling blue eyes looked gaily into Doris's puzzled countenance.
Evidently the speaker was much amused by the Meadowses' situation--more
amused than her sense of politeness allowed her to explain. Doris was
conscious of a vague resentment.
"I'm afraid I don't see what Lady Dunstable will get out of me," she
said, drily.
Miss Field raised her eyebrows.
"Are you going then to let him come here alone? She'll be always asking
you! Oh, you needn't be afraid--" and this most candid of cousins
laughed aloud. "Rachel isn't a flirt--except of the intellectual kind.
But she takes possession--she sticks like a limpet."
There was a pause. Then Miss Field added:
"You mustn't think it odd that I say these things about Rachel. I have
to explain her to people. She's not like anybody else."
Doris did not quite see the necessity, but she kept the reflection to
herself, and Miss Field passed lightly to the other guests--Sir Luke, a
tame cat of the house, who quarrelled with Lady Dunstable once a month,
vowed he would never come near her again, and always reappeared; the
Dean, who in return for a general submission, was allowed to scold her
occasionally for her soul's health; the politicians whom she could not
do without, who were therefore handled more gingerly than the rest; the
military and naval men who loved Dunstable and put up with his wife for
his sake; and the young people--nephews and nieces and cousins--who
liked an unconventional hostess without any foolish notions of
chaperonage, and always enjoyed themselves famously at Crosby Ledgers.
"Now then," said Miss Field, rising at last, "I think you have the
_carte du pays_--and there they are, coming back." She pointed to
Meadows and Lady Dunstable, crossing the lawn. "Whatever you do, hold
your own. If you don't want to play games, don't play them. If you want
to go to church to-morrow, go to church. Lady Dunstable of course is a
heathen. And now perhaps, you might _really_ rest."
"Such a jolly walk!" said Meadows, entering his wife's room flushed
with exercise and pleasure. "The place is divine, and really Lady
Dunstable is uncommonly good talk. Hope you haven't been dull, dear?"
Doris replied, laughing, that Miss Field had taken pity on what would
otherwise have been solitary confinement, and that now it was time to
dress. Meadows kissed her absently, and, with his head evidently still
full of his walk, went to his dressing-room. When he reappeared, it was
to find Doris attired in a little black gown, with which he was already
too familiar. She saw at once the dissatisfaction in his face.
"I can't help it!" she said, with emphasis. "I did my best with it,
Arthur, but I'm not a genius at dressmaking. Never mind. Nobody will
take any notice of me."
He quite crossly rebuked her. She really must spend more on her dress.
It was unseemly--absurd. She looked as nice as anybody when she was
properly got up.
"Well, don't buy any more copper coal-scuttles!" she said slyly, as she
straightened his tie, and dropped a kiss on his chin. "Then we'll see."
They went down to dinner, and on the staircase Meadows turned to say to
his wife in a lowered voice:
"Lady Dunstable wants me to go to them in Scotland--for two or three
weeks. I dare say I could do some work."
"Oh, does she?" said Doris.
* * * * *
What perversity drove Lady Dunstable during the evening and the Sunday
that followed to match every attention that was lavished on Arthur
Meadows by some slight to his wife, will never be known. But the fact
was patent. Throughout the diversions or occupations of the forty-eight
hours' visit, Mrs. Meadows was either ignored, snubbed, or
contradicted. Only Arthur Meadows, indeed, measuring himself with
delight, for the first time, against some of the keenest brains in the
country, failed to see it. His blindness allowed Lady Dunstable to run a
somewhat dangerous course, unchecked. She risked alienating a man whom
she particularly wished to attract; she excited a passion of antagonism
in Doris's generally equable breast, and was quite aware of it.
Notwithstanding, she followed her whim; and by the Sunday evening there
existed between the great lady and her guest a state of veiled war, in
which the strokes were by no means always to the advantage of Lady
Dunstable.
Doris, for instance, with other guests, expressed a wish to attend
morning service on Sunday at a famous cathedral some three miles away.
Lady Dunstable immediately announced that everybody who wished to go to
church would go to the village church within the park, for which alone
carriages would be provided. Then Doris and Sir Luke combined, and
walked to the cathedral, three miles there and three miles back--to the
huge delight of the other and more docile guests. Sunday evening, again,
was devastated by what were called "games" at Crosby Ledgers. "Gad, if I
wouldn't sooner go in for the Indian Civil again!" said Sir Luke. Doris,
with the most ingratiating manner, but quite firmly, begged to be
excused. Lady Dunstable bit her lip, and presently, _à propos de
bottes_, launched some observations on the need of co-operation in
society. It was shirking--refusing to take a hand, to do one's
best--false shame, indeed!--that ruined English society and English
talk. Let everybody take a lesson from the French! After which the lists
were opened, so to speak, and Lady Dunstable, Meadows, the Dean, and
about half the young people produced elegant pieces of translation,
astounding copies of impromptu verse, essays in all the leading styles
of the day, and riddles by the score. The Home Secretary, who had been
lassoed by his hostess, escaped towards the middle of the ordeal, and
wandered sadly into a further room where Doris sat chatting with Lord
Dunstable. He was carrying various slips of paper in his hand, and asked
her distractedly if she could throw any light on the question--"Why is
Lord Salisbury like a poker?"
"I can't think of anything to say," he said helplessly, "except 'because
they are both upright.' And here's another--'Why is the Pope like a
thermometer?' I did see some light on that!" His countenance cheered a
little. "Would this do? 'Because both are higher in Italy than in
England.' Not very good!--but I must think of something."
Doris put her wits to his. Between them they polished the riddle; but by
the time it was done the Home Secretary had begun to find Meadows's
little wife, whose existence he had not noticed hitherto, more agreeable
than Lady Dunstable's table with its racked countenances, and its too
ample supply of pencils and paper. A deadly crime! When Lady Dunstable,
on the stroke of midnight, swept through the rooms to gather her guests
for bed, she cast a withering glance on Doris and her companion.
"So you despised our little amusements?" she said, as she handed Mrs.
Meadows her candle.
"I wasn't worthy of them," smiled Doris, in reply.
* * * * *
"Well, I call that a delightful visit!" said Meadows as the train next
morning pulled out of the Crosby Ledgers station for London. "I feel
freshened up all over."
Doris looked at him with rather mocking eyes, but said nothing. She
fully recognised, however, that Arthur would have been an ungrateful
wretch if he had not enjoyed it. Lady Dunstable had been, so to speak,
at his feet, and all her little court had taken their cue from her. He
had been flattered, drawn out, and shown off to his heart's content, and
had been most naturally and humanly happy. "And I," thought Doris with
sudden repentance, "was just a spiky, horrid little toad! What was wrong
with me?" She was still searching, when Meadows said reproachfully:
"I thought, darling, you might have taken a little more trouble to make
friends with Lady Dunstable. However, that'll be all right. I told her,
of course, we should be delighted to go to Scotland."
"Arthur!" cried Doris, aghast. "Three weeks! I couldn't, Arthur! Don't
ask me!"
"And, pray, why?" he angrily inquired.
"Because--oh, Arthur, don't you understand? She is a man's woman. She
took a particular dislike to me, and I just had to be stubborn and
thorny to get on at all. I'm awfully sorry--but I _couldn't_ stay with
her, and I'm certain you wouldn't be happy either."
"I should be perfectly happy," said Meadows, with vehemence. "And so
would you, if you weren't so critical and censorious. Anyway"--his
Jove-like mouth shut firmly--"I have promised."
"You couldn't promise for me!" cried Doris, holding her head very high.
"Then you'll have to let me go without you?"
"Which, of course, was what you swore not to do!" she said, provokingly.
"I thought my wife was a reasonable woman! Lady Dunstable rouses all my
powers; she gives me ideas which may be most valuable. It is to the
interest of both of us that I should keep up my friendship with her."
"Then keep it up," said Doris, her cheeks aflame. "But you won't want
me to help you, Arthur."
He cried out that it was only pride and conceit that made her behave so.
In her heart of hearts, Doris mostly agreed with him. But she wouldn't
confess it, and it was presently understood between them that Meadows
would duly accept the Dunstables' invitation for August, and that Doris
would stay behind.
After which, Doris looked steadily out of the window for the rest of the
journey, and could not at all conceal from herself that she had never
felt more miserable in her life. The only person in the trio who
returned to the Kensington house entirely happy was Jane, who spent the
greater part of the day in describing to Martha, the cook-general, the
glories of Crosby Ledgers, and her own genteel appearance in Mrs.
Meadows's blouse.
PART II