THE STRIFE OF TONGUES
MR. BARCLAY held the happy position of chief bachelor in the polite
circles of Kaims. Although he had viewed with displeasure the advent of
a young and sporting banker and the pretensions of the doctor’s eldest
son, who had an agreeable tenor voice, his position remained unshaken.
Very young ladies might transfer their interest to these upstarts and
their like, but, with the matrons who ruled society, he was still the
backbone of every assembly, and its first male ornament. He was an
authority on all local questions, and there clung about him that
subdued but conscious gallantry acceptable to certain female minds.
It was a cold night when he gave his overcoat and muffler to the maid
in the hall of a house which stood a little back from the High Street.
A buzz of talk came to him through an open door, and, as he ascended
the stairs, the last notes of a flute had just died away. The wife of
the coastguard inspector was giving a party, at which tea,
conversation, and music were the attractions. The expression which had
been arranging itself on his face culminated as he entered the
drawing-room.
Mrs. Somerville, the inspector’s wife, formed the link in the chain
between town and county, and numbered both elements in her
acquaintance; her husband, who, disabled by a wound, had retired from
the active branch of his profession, being the only representative of
His Majesty’s service in the neighbourhood. Her parties, therefore,
were seen by Kaims through a certain halo caused by the presence,
outside the house, of a string of family chariots, and the absence,
inside it, of one of Captain Somerville’s legs.
The room was half full. A group of young ladies and two or three young
men were at the piano, and, near the drawn curtains of the window a
whist-table was set, at which four elderly people were seated in the
throes of their game.
The two Miss Robertsons occupied a sofa a little apart from the rest of
the company and Miss Hersey was talking to Captain Somerville, whose
infirmity forbade him to rise and welcome individual guests, while it
enabled him to consistently entertain the principal ones.
‘You are late, Mr. Barclay,’ said the hostess, as she held out her
hand. ‘We had been hoping for you to join the rubber which is going on,
but some of our friends were impatient, and so they have settled down
to it.’
‘I was detained, ma’am,’ said the lawyer. ‘I have been out to Whanland,
and nothing would content Speid but that I should stay and dine with
him.’
‘See what it is to be such a popular man!’ exclaimed the coastguard’s
lady, looking archly over her fan.
She was not above the acceptance of the little compliments with which
Barclay, who was socially ambitious, plied her.
‘You flatter me sadly, I fear, Mrs. Somerville; but that is your
kindness and not my merit.’
‘I have not yet seen Mr. Speid,’ said Mrs. Somerville, ‘but I hear he
is a very well-looking young man. Quite the dandy, with his foreign
bringing up.’
‘Yes, that is exactly what I tell him,’ replied Barclay. ‘A very
affable fellow, too. He and I are great friends. Indeed, he is always
plaguing me to go out to Whanland.’
That he had never gone there on any errand but business was a fact
which he did not reveal to his hostess.
‘So many stories are afloat respecting his--his antecedents,’ said the
lady, dropping her eyes, ‘one hardly knows what to believe. However,
there he is, master of his--of the Speid property. I think bygones
should be bygones, don’t you, Mr. Barclay?’
As she said this, she glanced towards a corner of the room in which
Lucilla Somerville, a homely virgin in white muslin and red arms, was
whispering with a girl friend.
Barclay knew as much as his hostess of Gilbert’s history, and very
little more, whatever his conjectures might be, but he relapsed
instantly from the man of the world into the omniscient family lawyer.
‘Ah!’ he exclaimed, raising two fingers; ‘forbidden ground with me,
madam--forbidden ground, I fear!’
‘Well, I will not be naughty, and want to know what I should not hear,’
said the lady. ‘I fear it is a sad world we live in, Mr. Barclay.’
‘It would be a much sadder one if there were no fair members of your
sex ready to make it pleasant for us,’ he replied, with a bow.
‘You are incorrigible!’ she exclaimed, as she turned away.
At this moment a voice rose from the neighbourhood of the piano, whence
the doctor’s son, who had discovered an accompanist among the young
ladies, sent forth the first note of one of a new selection of songs.
It was known to be a new one, and the company was silent.
‘Give me a glance, a witching glance,
This poor heart to illume,
Or else the rose that through the dance
Thy tresses did perfume.
Keep, cruel one, the ribbon blue
From thy light hand that flows;
Keep it--it binds my fond heart true;
But oh, give me the rose!’
‘How well it suits Mr. Turner’s voice,’ said Lucilla, as the singer
paused in the interval between the verses.
‘The words are lovely,’ said her friend--‘so full of feeling!’
‘The sighs that, drawn from mem’ry’s fount,
My aching bosom tear--
O bid them cease! nor, heartless, count
My gestures of despair.
Take all I have--the plaints, the tears
That hinder my repose,
The heart that’s faithful through the years;
But oh, give me the rose!’
A polite murmur ran through the room as Mr. Turner laid down his music.
‘I notice that our musical genius keeps his eyes fixed on one
particular spot as he sings,’ observed an old gentleman at the
whist-table, as he dealt the cards. ‘I wonder who the young puppy is
staring at.’
‘If you had noticed that I threw away my seven of clubs, it would have
been more to the purpose, and we might not have lost the trick,’
remarked the spinster who was his partner, acidly.
‘People have no right to ask one to play whist in a room where there is
such a noise going on,’ said the first speaker.
‘Did I hear you say _whist?_’ inquired the lady sarcastically.
Mr. Barclay passed on to the little group formed by his host and the
Misses Robertson.
‘How are you, Barclay?’ said the sailor, looking up from his chair, and
reflecting that, though the lawyer was more than a dozen years his
junior, and had double as many legs as himself, he would not care to
change places with him. He was a man of strong prejudices.
‘I have not had the pleasure of meeting you since our afternoon
together at Whanland,’ said Barclay, pausing before the sofa with a bow
which was as like Gilbert’s as he could make it.
‘We go out very little, sir,’ said Miss Hersey.
‘Speid will be a great acquisition,’ continued Barclay; ‘we all feel
the want of a few smart young fellows to wake us up, don’t we, Miss
Robertson?’
‘We like our cousin particularly,’ said Miss Hersey; ‘it has been a
great pleasure to welcome him back.’
Miss Caroline’s lips moved almost in unison with her sister’s, but she
said nothing and sat still, radiating an indiscriminate pleasure in her
surroundings. She enjoyed a party.
‘That must be another arrival even later than myself,’ remarked the
lawyer, as a vehicle was heard to draw up in the street outside. ‘I
understand that you expect Lady Eliza Lamont; if so, that is likely to
be her carriage.’
Mrs. Somerville began to grow visibly agitated as the front-door shut
and voices were audible on the staircase. In a few moments Lady Eliza
Lamont and Miss Raeburn were announced.
It was only a sense of duty which had brought Lady Eliza to Mrs.
Somerville’s party, and it would hardly have done so had not Robert
Fullarton represented to her that having three times refused an
invitation might lay her open to the charge of incivility. As she
entered, all eyes were turned in her direction; she was dressed in the
uncompromising purple gown which had served her faithfully on each
occasion during the last ten years that she had been obliged, with
ill-concealed impatience, to struggle into it. She held her fan as
though it had been a weapon of offence; on her neck was a beautifully
wrought amethyst necklace. Behind her came Cecilia in green and white,
with a bunch of snowdrops on her breast and her tortoiseshell comb in
her hair.
‘We had almost despaired of seeing your ladyship,’ said Mrs.
Somerville; ‘and you, too, dear Miss Raeburn. Pray come this way, Lady
Eliza. Where will you like to sit?’
‘I will take that seat by Captain Somerville,’ said the newcomer,
eyeing a small cane-bottomed chair which stood near the sofa, and
longing to be rid of her hostess.
‘Oh, not there!’ cried the lady. ‘Lucilla, my dear, roll up the velvet
armchair. Pray, pray allow me, Lady Eliza! I cannot let you sit in
that uncomfortable seat--indeed I cannot!’
But her victim had installed herself.
‘I am not able to offer you this one,’ said Captain Somerville; ‘for I
am a fixture, unfortunately.’
‘Lady Eliza, let me beg you----’
‘Much obliged, ma’am; I am very comfortable here. Captain Somerville, I
am glad to find you, for I feared you were away,’ said Lady Eliza. She
had a liking for the sailor which had not extended itself to his wife.
‘I have been up the coast these last three weeks inspecting; my wife
insisted upon my getting home in time for to-night. I had not intended
to, but I obeyed her, you see.’
‘And why did you do that?’
‘God knows,’ said the sailor.
The sound of the piano checked their conversation, as a young lady with
a roving eye was, after much persuasion, beginning to play a selection
of operatic airs. To talk during music was not a habit of Lady Eliza’s,
so the two sat silent until the fantasia had ended in an explosion of
trills and a chorus of praise from the listeners.
‘Is that your daughter?’ she inquired; ‘I move so seldom from my place
that I know very few people here.’
‘Heaven forbid, ma’am! That’s my Lucy standing by the tea-table.’
‘You don’t admire that kind of music?’
‘If anyone had presumed to make such a noise on any ship of mine, I’d
have put ’em in irons,’ said Captain Somerville.
They both laughed, and Lady Eliza’s look rested on Cecilia, who had
been forced into the velvet chair, and sat listening to Barclay as he
stood before her making conversation. Her eyes softened.
‘What do you think of my girl?’ she said.
‘I have only seen one to match her,’ replied the old man, ‘and that was
when I was a midshipman on board the flagship nearly half a century
ago. It was at a banquet in a foreign port where the fleet was being
entertained. She was the wife of some French grandee. Her handkerchief
dropped on the floor, and when I picked it up she gave me a curtsey she
might have given the King, though I was a boy more fit to be birched at
school than to go to banquets. Another young devil, a year or two my
senior, said she had done it on purpose for the flag-lieutenant to pick
up instead of me; he valued himself on knowing the world.’
Lady Eliza’s eyes were bright with interest.
‘I taught him a little more of it behind the flag-lieutenant’s cabin
next morning, and got my leave ashore stopped for it; but it was a rare
good trouncing,’ added Captain Somerville, licking his lips.
‘I am sorry your leave was stopped,’ said his companion; ‘I would have
given you more if I had been in command.’
‘You can’t eat your cake and have it, ma’am--and I enjoyed my cake.’
‘I suppose you never saw her again,’ said she.
‘Never; but I heard of her--she was guillotined in the Revolution a
dozen years later. I shall never forget my feelings when I read it. She
made a brave business of it, I was told; but no one could look at her
and mistake about that.’
They sat silent for some time, and, Mrs. Somerville appropriating
Barclay, Cecilia had leisure to turn to Miss Hersey; both she and Lady
Eliza had a regard for the old ladies, though between them there was
little in common save good breeding. But that can be a strong bond.
‘Come, come; we cannot allow you to monopolize Miss Raeburn any more!’
exclaimed Mrs. Somerville, tapping the lawyer playfully on the arm. ‘We
need you at the tea-table; duty first and pleasure after, you know.’
‘If you will watch my destination, Mrs. Somerville, you will see that
it is purely duty which animates me,’ said Barclay, starting off with a
cup of tea in one hand and a plate of sweet biscuits in the other.
His hostess watched him as he offered the tea with much action to Miss
Caroline Robertson.
‘Fie, sir! fie!’ she exclaimed, as he returned; ‘that is too bad!’
‘For my part, I would shut up all members of your sex after forty,’
said he, rather recklessly.
‘Indeed?’ said Mrs. Somerville, struggling with her smile. She was
forty-seven.
‘I meant sixty, ma’am--sixty, of course,’ gasped Barclay, with
incredible maladroitness.
‘That would be very sad for some of our friends,’ she observed,
recovering stoutly from the double blow and looking with great presence
of mind at Lady Eliza. ‘How old would you take her ladyship to be, for
instance?’
Barclay happened to know that Lady Eliza would, if she lived, keep her
fifty-third birthday in a few months; it was a fact of which some
previous legal business had made him aware.
‘I should place her at forty-eight,’ he replied, ‘though, of course, if
she understood the art of dress as you do, she might look nearly as
young as yourself.’
‘Go away; you are too foolish, Barclay! Mr. Turner, we are talking of
age: at what age do gentlemen learn wisdom?’
‘Never, very often,’ replied Turner, who, in spite of his tenor voice,
had a sour nature.
Barclay gave him a vicious glance; he did not admire him at the best of
times, and the interruption annoyed him. He turned away.
‘I trust you have been attended to, Miss Robertson,’ said the hostess.
She despaired of separating her husband and Lady Eliza, and approached
Miss Hersey, whose intimate connection with the county made her
presence and that of her sister desirable adjuncts to a party. The old
lady made room for her on the sofa.
‘Yes, many, many thanks to you; we have enjoyed our evening. Caroline,
Mrs. Somerville is asking if we have all we need. We have been very
much diverted.’
Miss Caroline smiled; she had not quite caught the drift of her
sister’s words, but she felt sure that everything was very pleasant.
Mrs. Somerville did not know whether the vague rumours about Gilbert’s
parentage which had been always prevalent, and which had sprung up
afresh with his return, had ever reached the old ladies’ ears. Their
age and the retirement in which they lived had isolated them for a long
time, but she reflected that they had once taken part in the life
surrounding them and could hardly have remained in complete ignorance.
She longed to ask questions.
‘Mr. Barclay seems a great favourite at Whanland,’ she began.
‘He was there when we went to welcome my cousin,’ replied Miss Hersey;
‘he is his man of business.’
‘He is most agreeable--quite the society man too. I do not wonder that
Mr. Speid likes to see him; it is a dull life for a young gentleman to
lead alone in the house--such a sad house, too, what with his poor
mother’s death there and all the unfortunate talk there was. But I have
never given any credit to it, Miss Robertson, and I am sure you will
say I was right. I am not one of those who believe everything they
hear.’
The old lady made no reply, staring at the speaker; then her face began
to assume an expression which Mrs. Somerville, who did not know her
very well, had never seen on it, and the surprise which this caused her
had the effect of scattering her wits.
‘I despise gossip, as you know,’ she stammered; ‘indeed, I always
said--I always say--if there’s anything unkind, do not bring it to _me;_
and I said--what does it matter to _me?_ I said--his poor mother is dead
and buried, and if there _is_ anything discreditable----’
Miss Hersey rose from the sofa, and turned to her sister.
‘Come, Caroline, it is time we went home. Ma’am,’ she said, curtseying
as deeply as her age would permit to the astonished Mrs. Somerville,
‘we have outstayed your good manners. I have the honour to wish you a
good-evening.’
The Misses Robertson’s house stood barely a hundred yards from that of
Captain Somerville, so Miss Hersey had decided that the coach which was
usually hired when they went abroad was unnecessary; the maidservant
who was to have presented herself to escort them home had not arrived
when they put on their cloaks, so they went out alone into the moonlit
street.
‘What was that she was saying, Hersey?’ inquired Miss Caroline, as she
clung to her sister’s arm, rather bewildered by her situation, but
accepting it simply.
‘Mrs. Somerville is no gentlewoman, sister. She was bold enough to
bring up some ill talk to which I have never been willing to listen.’
‘That was very wrong--very wrong,’ said Miss Caroline.
Miss Hersey was murmuring to herself.
‘Discreditable?’ she was saying--‘discreditable? The impertinence!’