On the lawn of the Red House, a little group was collected under the big
walnut tree. The sunlight fell through the leaves on the singing
tea-kettle and the cups and saucers, and made bright patches on the
figures and the faces assembled round the tea-table.
Hubert Temperley had again brought his friend Joseph Fleming, in the
forlorn hope, he said, of being able to give him something to eat and
drink. Ernest and Algitha and Fred were of the party. They had come down
from Saturday till Monday. Ernest was studying for the Bar. Fred had
entered a merchant's office in the city, and hated his work cordially.
Miss Du Prel was still at the Red House.
Lady Engleton had called by chance this afternoon, and Mrs. Walker, the
vicar's wife, with two of her countless daughters, had come by
invitation. Mrs. Walker was a middle-aged, careworn, rather prim-looking
woman. Lady Engleton was handsome. Bright auburn hair waved back in
picturesque fashion from a piquant face, and constituted more than half
her claim to beauty. The brown eyes were bright and vivacious. The mouth
was seldom quite shut. It scarcely seemed worth while, the loquacious
lady had confessed. She showed a delicate taste in dress. Shades of
brown and russet made a fine harmony with her auburn hair, and the ivory
white and fresh red of her skin.
She and Temperley always enjoyed a sprightly interchange of epigrams.
Lady Engleton had the qualities that Hubert had admired in Hadria before
their marriage, and she was entirely free from the other
characteristics that had exasperated him so desperately since that
hideous mistake that he had made. Lady Engleton had originality and
brilliancy, but she knew how to combine these qualities with perfect
obedience to the necessary conventions of life. She had the sparkle of
champagne, without the troublesome tendency of that delicate beverage to
break bounds, and brim over in iridescent, swelling, joyous foam, the
discreet edges of such goblets as custom might decree for the sunny
vintage. Lady Engleton sparkled, glowed, nipped even at times, was of
excellent dry quality, but she never frothed over. She always knew where
to stop; she had the genius of moderation. She stood to Hadria as a
correct rendering of a cherished idea stands to a faulty one. She made
Hubert acutely feel his misfortune, and shewed him his lost hope, his
shattered ideal.
"Is the picture finished?" he enquired, as he handed Lady Engleton her
tea.
"What, the view from your field? Not quite. I was working at it when
Claude Moreton and Mrs. Jordan and Marion arrived, and I have been
rather interrupted. That's the worst of visitors. One's little immortal
works do get put aside, poor things."
Lady Engleton broke into the light laugh that had become almost
mechanical with her.
"Your friends grudge the hours you spend in your studio," said
Temperley.
"Oh, they don't mind, so long as I give them as much time as they want,"
she said. "I have to apologise and compromise, don't you know, but, with
a little management, one can get on. Of course, society does ask a good
deal of attention, doesn't it? and one has to be so careful."
"Just a little tact and thought," said Temperley with a sigh.
Lady Engleton admired Algitha, who was standing with Ernest a little
apart from the group.
"She is like your wife, and yet there is a singular difference in the
expression."
Lady Engleton was too discreet to say that Mrs. Temperley lacked the
look of contentment and serenity that was so marked in her sister's
face.
"Algitha is a thoroughly sensible girl," said the brother-in-law.
"I hear you have not long returned from a visit to Mr. Fullerton's place
in Scotland, Mr. Temperley," observed the vicar's wife when her host
turned to address her.
"Yes," he said, "we have been there half the summer. The boys thoroughly
enjoyed the freedom and the novelty. The river, of course, was a source
of great joy to them, and of hideous anxiety to the rest of us."
"Of course, of course," assented Mrs. Walker. "Ah, there are the dear
little boys. Won't you come and give me a kiss, darling?"
"Darling" did what was required in a business-like manner, and stood by,
while the lady discovered in him a speaking likeness to his parents, to
his Aunt Algitha and his Uncle Fred, not to mention the portrait of his
great-grandfather, the Solicitor-General, that hung in the dining-room.
The child seemed thoroughly accustomed to be thought the living image of
various relations, and he waited indifferently till the list was ended.
"Do you know, we are half hoping that Professor Fortescue may be able to
come to us for a week or ten days?" said Lady Engleton. "We are so
looking forward to it."
"Professor Fortescue is always a favourite," remarked Mrs. Walker. "It
is such a pity he does not return to the Priory, is it not?--a great
house like that standing empty. Of course it is very natural after the
dreadful event that happened there"--Mrs. Walker lowered her voice
discreetly--"but it seems a sin to leave the place untenanted."
Lady Engleton explained that there was some prospect of the house being
let at last to a friend and colleague of the Professor. Mrs. Walker
doubtless would remember Professor Theobald, who used to come and stay
at Craddock Place rather frequently some years ago, a big man with beard
and moustache, very learned and very amusing.
Mrs. Walker remembered him perfectly. Her husband had been so much
interested in his descriptions of a tour in Palestine, all through the
scenes of the New Testament. He was a great archæologist. Was he really
coming to the Priory? How very delightful. John would be so glad to hear
it.
"Oh, it is not settled yet, but the two Professors are coming to us some
time soon, I believe, and Professor Theobald will look over the house
and see if he thinks it would be too unmanageably big for himself and
his old mother and sister. I hope he will take the place. He would bring
a new and interesting element into the village. What do you think of it,
Mrs. Temperley?"
"Oh, I hope the learned and amusing Professor will come," she said. "The
worst of it is, from my point of view, that I shall have to give up my
practices there. Professor Fortescue allows me to wake the old piano
from its long slumbers in the drawing-room."
"Oh, of course. Marion Jordan was telling me that she was quite startled
the other day, in crossing the Priory garden, to hear music stealing out
of the apparently deserted house. She had heard the country people say
that the ghost of poor Mrs. Fortescue walks along the terrace in the
twilight, and Marion looked quite scared when she came in, for the music
seemed to come from the drawing-room, where its mistress used to play so
much after she was first married. I almost wonder you can sit alone
there in the dusk, considering the dreadful associations of the place."
"I am used to it now," Mrs. Temperley replied, "and it is so nice and
quiet in the empty house. One knows one can't be interrupted--unless by
ghosts."
"Well, that is certainly a blessing," cried Lady Engleton. "I think I
shall ask Professor Fortescue to allow me also to go to the Priory to
pursue my art in peace and quietness; a truly hyperborean state, beyond
the region of visitors!"
"There would be plenty of room for a dozen unsociable monomaniacs like
ourselves," said Mrs. Temperley.
"I imagine you are a God-send to poor Mrs. Williams, the caretaker,"
said Joseph Fleming. "She is my gamekeeper's sister, and I hear that she
finds the solitude in that vast house almost more than she can stand."
"Poor woman!" said Lady Engleton. "Well, Mr. Fleming, what are the
sporting prospects this autumn?"
He pulled himself together, and his face lighted up. On that subject he
could speak for hours.
Of Joseph Fleming his friends all said: The best fellow in the world. A
kinder heart had no man. He lived on his little property from year's end
to year's end, for the sole and single end of depriving the pheasants
and partridges which he bred upon the estate, of their existence. He was
a confirmed bachelor, living quietly, and taking the world as he found
it (seeing that there was a sufficiency of partridges in good seasons);
trusting that there was a God above who would not let the supply run
short, if one honestly tried to do one's duty and lived an upright life,
harming no man, and women only so much as was strictly honourable and
necessary. He spoke ill of no one. He was diffident of his own powers,
except about sport, wherein he knew himself princely, and cherished that
sort of respect for woman, thoroughly sincere, which assigns to her a
pedestal in a sheltered niche, and offers her homage on condition of her
staying where she is put, even though she starve there, solitary and
esteemed.
"Do tell me, Mr. Fleming, if you know, who is that very handsome woman
with the white hair?" said Lady Engleton. "She is talking to Mrs.
Walker. I seem to know the face."
"Oh, that is Miss Valeria Du Prel, the authoress of those books that
Mrs. Walker is so shocked at."
"Oh, of course; how stupid of me. I should like to have some
conversation with her."
"That's easily managed. I don't think she and Mrs. Walker quite
appreciate each other."
Lady Engleton laughed.
Mrs. Walker was anxiously watching her daughters, and endeavouring to
keep them at a distance from Miss Du Prel, who looked tragically bored.
Joseph Fleming found means to release her, and Lady Engleton's desire
was gratified. "I admire your books so much, Miss Du Prel, and I have so
often wished to see more of you; but you have been abroad for the last
two years, I hear."
Lady Engleton, after asking the authoress to explain exactly what she
meant by her last book, enquired if she had the latest news of Professor
Fortescue. Lady Engleton had heard, with regret, that he had been
greatly worried about that troublesome nephew whom he had educated and
sent to Oxford.
"The young fellow had been behaving very badly," Miss Du Prel said.
"Ungrateful creature," cried Lady Engleton. "Running into debt I
suppose."
Miss Du Prel feared that the Professor was suffering in health. He had
been working very hard.
"Oh, yes; what was that about some method of killing animals
instantaneously to avoid the horrors of the slaughter-house? Professor
Theobald has been saying what a pity it is that a man so able should
waste his time over these fads. It would never bring him fame or profit,
only ridicule. Every man had his little weakness, but this idea of
saving pain to animals, Professor Theobald said, was becoming a sort of
mania with poor Fortescue, and one feared that it might injure his
career. He was greatly looked up to in the scientific world, but this
sort of thing of course----
"Though it is nice of him in a way," added Lady Engleton.
"His weaknesses are nobler than most people's virtues," said Miss Du
Prel.
"Then you number this among his weaknesses?"
Algitha, who had joined the group, put this question.
"I would rather see him working in the cause of humanity," Miss Du Prel
answered.
Ernest surprised everyone by suggesting that possibly humanity was well
served, in the long run, by reminding it of the responsibility that goes
with power, and by giving it an object lesson in the decent treatment of
those who can't defend themselves.
"You must have sat at the Professor's feet," cried Miss Du Prel, raising
her eyebrows.
"I have," said Ernest, with a little gesture of pride.
Lady Engleton shook her head. "I fear he flies too high for ordinary
mortals," she said; "and I doubt if even he can be quite consistent at
that altitude."
"Better perhaps fly fairly high, and come down now and again to rest, if
one must, than grovel consistently and always," observed Ernest.
Lady Engleton gave a little scream. "Mrs. Temperley, come to the rescue.
Your brother is calling us names. He says we grovel consistently and
always."
Ernest laughed, and protested. Lady Engleton pretended to be mortally
offended. Mrs. Temperley was sorry she could give no redress. She had
suffered from Ernest's painful frankness from her youth upwards.
The conversation grew discursive. Lady Engleton enjoyed the pastime of
lightly touching the edges of what she called "advanced" thought. She
sought the society of people like the two Professors and Miss Du Prel in
order to hear what dreadful and delightful things they really would say.
She read all the new books, and went to the courageous plays that Mrs.
Walker wouldn't mention.
"Your last book, _Caterina_, is a mine of suggestion, Miss Du Prel," she
said. "It raises one most interesting point that has puzzled me
greatly. I don't know if you have all read the book? The heroine finds
herself differing in her view of life from everyone round her. She is
married, but she has made no secret of her scorn for the old ideals, and
has announced that she has no intention of being bound by them."
Mrs. Temperley glanced uneasily at Miss Du Prel.
"Accordingly she does even as she had said," continued Lady Engleton.
"She will not brook that interference with her liberty which marriage
among us old-fashioned people generally implies. She refuses to submit
to the attempt that is of course made (in spite of a pre-nuptial
understanding) to bring her under the yoke, and so off she goes and
lives independently, leaving husband and relatives lamenting."
The vicar's wife said she thought she must be going home. Her husband
would be expecting her.
"Oh, won't you wait a little, Mrs. Walker? Your daughters would perhaps
like a game of tennis with my brothers presently."
Mrs. Walker yielded uneasily.
"But before _Caterina_ takes the law into her own hands, in this way,"
Lady Engleton continued, "she is troubled with doubts. She sometimes
wonders whether she ought not, after all, to respect the popular
standards (notwithstanding the compact), instead of disturbing everybody
by clinging to her own. Now was it strength of character or obstinate
egotism that induced her to stick to her original colours, come what
might? That is the question which the book has stated but left
unanswered."
Miss Du Prel said that the book showed, if it showed anything, that one
must be true to one's own standard, and not attempt to respect an ideal
in practice that one despises in theory. We are bound, she asserted, to
produce that which is most individual within us; to be ourselves, and
not a poor imitation of someone else; to dare even apparent wrong-doing,
rather than submit to live a life of devotion to that which we cannot
believe.
Mrs. Walker suggested to her daughters that they might go and have a
look at the rose-garden, but the daughters preferred to listen to the
conversation.
"In real life," said the practical Algitha, "_Caterina_ would not have
been able to follow her idea so simply. Supposing she had had children
and complicated circumstances, what could she have done?"
Miss Du Prel thought that a compromise might have been made.
"A compromise by which she could act according to two opposite
standards?"
Valeria was impatient of difficulties. It was not necessary that a woman
should leave her home in order to be true to her conscience. It was the
best method in _Caterina's_ case, but not in all.
Miss Du Prel did not explain very clearly what she meant. Women made too
much of difficulties, she thought. Somehow people _had_ managed to
overcome obstacles. Look at--and then followed a list of shining
examples.
"I believe you would blame a modern woman who imitated them," said Mrs.
Temperley. "These women have the inestimable advantage of being dead."
"Ah, yes," Lady Engleton agreed, with a laugh, "we women may be anything
we like--in the last century."
"The tides of a hundred years or so sweeping over one's audacious deed,
soften the raw edges. Then it is tolerated in the landscape; indeed, it
grows mossy and picturesque." Mrs. Temperley made this comparison.
"And then think how useful it becomes to prove that a daring deed _can_
be done, given only the necessary stuff in brain and heart."
Mrs. Walker looked at Algitha in dismay.
"One can throw it in the teeth of one's contemporaries," added Algitha,
"if they fail to produce a dramatic climax of the same kind."
"Only," said Mrs. Temperley, "if they _do_ venture upon their own
dreadful deed--the deed demanded by their particular modern
predicament--then we all shriek vigorously."
"Oh, we shriek less than we used to," said Lady Engleton. "It is quite a
relief to be able to retain one's respectability on easier terms."
"In such a case as Miss Du Prel depicts? I doubt it. _Caterina_, in real
life, would have a lively story to tell. How selfish we should think
her! How we should point to the festoons of bleeding hearts that she had
wounded--a dripping cordon round the deserted home! No; I believe Miss
Du Prel herself would be horrified at her own _Caterina_ if she came
upon her unexpectedly in somebody's drawing-room."
There was a laugh.
"Of course, a great deal is to be said for the popular way of looking at
the matter," Lady Engleton observed. "This fascinating heroine must have
caused a great deal of real sorrow, or at least she _would_ have caused
it, were it not that her creator had considerably removed all relatives,
except a devoted couple of unorthodox parents, who are charmed at her
decision to scandalize society, and wonder why she doesn't do it sooner.
Parents like that don't grow on every bush."
Mrs. Walker glanced nervously at her astonished girls.
Lady Engleton pointed out that had _Caterina_ been situated in a more
ordinary manner, she would have certainly broken her parents' hearts and
embittered their last years, to say nothing of the husband and perhaps
the children, who would have suffered for want of a mother's care.
"But why should the husband suffer?" asked Algitha. "_Caterina's_
husband cordially detested her."
"It is customary to regard the occasion as one proper for suffering,"
said Mrs. Temperley, "and every well-regulated husband would suffer
accordingly."
"Clearly," assented Lady Engleton. "When the world congratulates us we
rejoice, when it condoles with us we weep."
"That at least, would not affect the children," said Algitha. "I don't
see why of necessity _they_ should suffer."
"Their share of the woe would be least of all, I think," Mrs. Temperley
observed. "What ogre is going to ill-treat them? And since few of us
know how to bring up so much as an earth-worm reasonably, I can't see
that it matters so very much which particular woman looks after the
children. Any average fool would do."
Mrs. Walker was stiffening in every limb.
"The children would have the usual chances of their class; neither more
nor less, as it seems to me, for lack of a maternal burnt-offering."
Mrs. Walker rose, gathered her daughters about her, and came forward to
say good-bye. She was sure her husband would be annoyed if she did not
return. She retired with nervous precipitation.
"Really you will depopulate this village, Mrs. Temperley," cried Lady
Engleton with a laugh; "it is quite dangerous to bring up a family
within your reach. There will be a general exodus. I must be going
myself, or I shan't have an orthodox sentiment left."