DINNER AND A LITTLE MUSIC.
Barbara was the first to reappear in the yellow drawing-room. She had
gone away, laughing carelessly; she came back shyly, with flushed cheeks
and downcast eyes. She had put on a dress which was reserved for
important occasions, and she was conscious of her splendour. She felt
the strings of amber beads that were wound loosely round her throat, and
that rose and fell with her quickened breathing. Nay, she was conscious
to the utmost end of the folds of black drapery, that followed her with
a soft sound, as of a summer sea, when she crossed the pavement of the
hall. For Barbara's dress was black, and its special adornment was some
handsome black lace that her grandmother had given her. Something of
lighter hue and texture might have better suited her age, but there was
no questioning the fact that the dignified richness of her gown was
admirably becoming to the girl. One hardly knew whether to call her
childish or stately, and the perplexity was delightful.
Her heart was beating fast, half in apprehension and half in defiance.
Over and over again while she waited she said to herself that she had
_not_ put on her best dress for Mr. Harding's sake, she had _not_. She
did not care what he thought of her. He might come and go, just as other
people might come and go. It did not matter to her. But his coming
seemed somehow to have brought all the Rothwells back to life, and to
have revealed the desolate pride of the old house. When she looked from
Reynold's face to Anthony's, she suddenly felt that she must put on her
best dress for their company. It was no matter of personal feeling, it
was an instinctive and imperative sense of what the circumstances
demanded. She had never been to such a dinner party in all her life.
The feeling did her credit, but it was difficult to express. Feelings
are often difficult to express, and a woman has an especial difficulty
in conveying the finer shades of meaning. There is an easy masculine way
of accounting for her every action by supposing it aimed at men in
general, or some man in particular; and thus all manner of delicate
fancies and distinctions, shaped clearly in a woman's mind, may pass
through the distorting medium to reach a man's apprehension as sheer
coquetry. The knowledge of this possibility is apt to give even
innocence an air of hesitating consciousness. Barbara was by no means
certain that her uncle would understand this honour paid, not to any
living young man, but to the traditions of Mitchelhurst Place, and her
blushes betrayed her shame at his probable misreading of her meaning.
And what would Mr. Harding himself think?
He came in with his languid, hesitating walk, looking very tall and
slender in his evening dress. He had telegraphed home for that dress
suit the day before. The fact that he was travelling for a week or two,
with no expectation of dining anywhere but in country inns, might
naturally have excused its absence, but the explanation would have been
an apology, and Harding could not apologise. He would have found it
easier to spend his last shilling. Perhaps, too, he had shared Barbara's
feeling as to the fitness of a touch of ceremony at Mitchelhurst.
At any rate he shared her shyness. He crossed the room with evident
constraint, and halted near the fire without a word. Barbara's shyness
was palpitating and aflame; his was leaden and chill. She did not know
what to make of his silence; she waited, and still he did not speak; she
looked up and felt sure that his downcast eyes had been obliquely fixed
on her.
"Uncle is last, you see," she said. "I knew he would be."
"I was afraid I might be," he replied. "A clock struck before I expected
it. I suppose my watch loses, but I hadn't found it out."
"Oh, I ought to have told you," she exclaimed penitently. "That is the
great clock in the hall, and it is always kept ten minutes fast. Uncle
likes it for a warning. So when it strikes, he says, 'That's the hall
clock; then there's plenty of time, plenty of time, I'll just finish
this.' And he goes on quite happily."
"I fancied somehow that Mr. Hayes was a very punctual man."
"Because he talks so much about it. I think he reminds other people for
fear they should remind him. When I first came he was always saying,
'Don't be late,' till I was quite frightened lest I should be. I
couldn't believe it when he said, 'Don't be late,' and then wasn't
ready."
"You are not so particular now?"
"Oh yes, I am," she answered very seriously. "It doesn't do to be late
if you are the housekeeper, you know."
A faint gleam lighted Harding's face.
"Of course not; but I never was," he replied, in a respectful tone. "How
long is it since you came here?"
"I came with my mother to see uncle a great many years ago, but I only
came to live here last October. Uncle wanted somebody. He said it was
dull."
"I should think it was. Isn't it dull for you?"
"Sometimes," said Barbara. "It isn't at all like home. That's a little
house with a great many people in it--father and mother, and all my
brothers and sisters, and father's pupils. And this is a big house with
nobody in it."
"Till you came," said Reynold, hesitating over the little bow or glance
which should have pointed his words.
"Well, there's uncle," said Barbara with a smile, "he must count for
somebody. But _I_ feel exactly like nobody when I am going in and out of
all those empty rooms. You must see them to-morrow."
The clock on the chimney-piece struck, and she turned her head to look
at it. "_That's_ five minutes slow," she said.
"And the other was more than ten minutes fast."
"Yes, it gains. Do you know," said Barbara, "I always feel as if the
great clock were _the_ time, so when it fairly runs away into the
future and I have to stop it, to let the world come up with it again, it
seems to me almost as if I stopped my own life too."
"Some people would be uncommonly glad to do that," said Harding; "or
even to make time go backward for a while."
"Well, I don't mind for a quarter of an hour. But I don't want it to go
back, really. Not back to pinafores and the schoolroom," said Barbara
with a laugh, which in some curious fashion turned to a deepening flush.
The swift, impulsive blood was always coming and going at a thought, a
fancy, a mere nothing.
Harding smiled in his grim way. "I suppose it's just as well _not_ to
want time to run back," he said at last.
"Uncle might find himself punctual for once if it did. Oh, here he
comes!" The door opened as she spoke, and Mr. Hayes appeared on the
threshold with an inquiring face.
"Ah! you are down, Barbara! That's right. Dinner's ready, they tell me."
Reynold looked at Barbara, hesitated, and then offered his arm. Mr.
Hayes stood back and eyed them as they passed--the tall young man, pale,
dark-browed, scowling a little, and the girl at his side radiantly
conscious of her dignity. Even when they had gone by he was obliged to
wait a moment. The sweeping folds of Barbara's dress demanded space and
respect. His glance ran up them to her shoulders, to the amber beads
about her neck, to the loose coils of her dusky hair, and he followed
meekly with a whimsical smile.
They dined in the great dining-room, where a score of guests would have
seemed few. But they had a little table, with four candles on it, set
near a clear fire, and shut in by an overshadowing screen. "We are
driven out of this in the depth of winter," said Mr. Hayes. "It is too
cold--nothing seems to warm it, and it is such a terrible journey from
the drawing-room fire. But till the bitter weather comes I like it, and
I always come back as soon as the spring begins. We were here by March,
weren't we, Barbara?"
The girl smiled assent, and Harding had a passing fancy of the windy
skies of March glancing through the tall windows, the upper part of
which he saw from his place. But his eyes came back to Barbara, who was
watching the progress of their meal with an evident sense of
responsibility. The crowning grace of an accomplished housekeeper is to
hide all need of management, but this was the pretty anxiety of a
beginner. "Mary, the currant jelly," said Miss Strange in an intense
undertone, and glanced eloquently at Reynold's plate. She was so
absorbed that she started when her uncle spoke.
"Why do you wear those white things--asters, are they not? They don't
go well with your dress."
Barbara looked down at the two colourless blossoms which she had
fastened among the folds of her black lace. "No, I know they don't, but
I couldn't find anything better in the garden to-day."
"It wouldn't have mattered what it was," Mr. Hayes persisted, with his
head critically on one side. "Anything red or yellow--just a bit of
colour, you know."
"But that was exactly what I couldn't find. All the red and yellow
things in the garden are dead."
"Why not some of those scarlet hips you were gathering yesterday?" said
Reynold.
"Oh! Those!" exclaimed Barbara, looking hurriedly away from the scratch
on the cheek nearest her, and then discovering that she had fixed her
eyes on his wounded hand. "Do you think they would have done? Well, yes,
I dare say they might."
"I should think they would have done beautifully, but you know best.
Perhaps you did not care for them? You threw them away?" He was smiling
with a touch of malice, as if he had actually seen Barbara in her room,
gazing regretfully at a little brown pitcher which was full of autumn
leaves and clusters of red rose-fruit.
"Of course they would have done," said Mr. Hayes.
"Yes, perhaps they might. I must bear them in mind another time. Uncle,
Mr. Harding's plate is empty." And Barbara went on with her dinner,
feeling angry and aggrieved. "He might have let me think I had spared
his feelings by giving them up," she said to herself. "It would have
been kinder. And I should like to know what I was to do. If I had worn
them he would have looked at me to remind me. I can't think what made
uncle talk about the stupid things."
During the rest of the meal conversation was somewhat fitful. The three,
in their sheltered, firelit nook, sat through pauses, in which it almost
seemed as if it would be only necessary to rise softly and glance round
the end of the screen to surprise some ghostly company gathered silently
at the long table. The wind made a cheerless noise outside, seeking
admission to the great hollow house, and died away in the hopelessness
of vain endeavour. At last Miss Strange prepared to leave the gentlemen
to their wine, but she lingered for a moment, darkly glowing against the
background of sombre brown and tarnished gold, to bid her uncle remember
that coffee would be ready in the drawing-room when they liked to come
for it.
Mr. Hayes pushed the decanter to his guest. "Where is John Rothwell
now?" he asked.
"I don't know," said Harding, listlessly. He was peeling a rough-coated
pear, and he watched the long, unbroken strip gliding downward in
lengthening curves. "Somewhere on the Continent--in one of those places
where people go to live shabbily."
Mr. Hayes filled the pause with an inquiring "Yes?" and his bright eyes
dilated.
"Yes," the other repeated. "Didn't you say he took some pictures away
with him? They must be all gone long ago--pawned or sold. How would you
raise money on family portraits? It would look rather queer going to the
pawnbroker's with an ancestor under your arm."
"But there was his mother's portrait. He would not----"
"Hm!" said Harding, cutting up his pear. "Well, perhaps not. Perhaps he
had to leave in a hurry some time or other. A miniature would have been
more convenient."
"But this is very sad," said Mr. Hayes. He spoke in an abstract and
impersonal manner.
Harding assented, also in a general way.
"Very sad," the other repeated. Then, quickening to special
recollection--"And your uncle was always such a proud man. I never knew
a prouder man than John Rothwell five-and-twenty years ago. And to think
that he should come to this!"
He leaned back in his chair and slowly sipped his wine, while he tried
to reconcile old memories with this new description. The wine was very
good, and Mr. Hayes seemed to enjoy it. Reynold Harding rested his elbow
on the table, and looked at the fire with a moody frown.
"Some pride can't be carried about, I suppose," he said at last. "It's
as bad as a whole gallery of family portraits--worse, for you cannot
raise money on it."
Mr. Hayes nodded. "I see. Rooted in the Mitchelhurst soil, you think?
Very possibly." He looked round, as far as the screens permitted. "And
so, when this went, all went. But how very sad!"
The young man did not take the trouble to express his agreement a second
time.
"And your other uncle," said Mr. Hayes briskly, after a pause. "How is
he?"
"My other uncle?"
"Yes, your uncle on your father's side--Mr. Harding."
"Oh, he is very well--getting to be an old man now."
"But as prosperous as ever?"
"More so," said Harding in his rough voice. "His money gathers and grows
like a snowball. But he is beginning to think about enjoying it--he is
evidently growing old. He says it is time for him to have a holiday. He
never took one for some wonderful time--eighteen years I think it was;
but he has not worked quite so hard of late."
"Well, he deserves a little pleasure now."
"I don't know about that. If a man makes himself a slave to
money-getting I don't see that he deserves any pleasure. He deserves his
money."
The old gentleman laughed. "Let the poor fellow amuse himself a
little--if he can. The question is whether he can, after a life of hard
work. What is his idea of pleasure?"
"Yachting. He discovered quite lately that he wasn't sea-sick; he hadn't
leisure to find it out before. So he took to yachting. He can enjoy his
dinner as well on board a boat as anywhere else, he can talk about his
yacht, and he can spend any amount of money."
"You haven't any sympathy with his hobby?"
"I? I've no money to spend, and I _am_ sea-sick."
"You are? I remember now," said Mr. Hayes, thoughtfully, "that your
grandfather and John Rothwell had a great dislike to the water."
"Ah? It's a family peculiarity? A proud distinction?" Harding laughed
quietly, looking away. He was accustomed to laugh at himself and by
himself. "It's something to be able to invoke the Rothwell ancestry to
give dignity to one's qualms," he said.
Mr. Hayes smiled a little unwillingly. He did not really require respect
for the Rothwell sea-sickness, but it hardly pleased him that the young
fellow should scoff at his ancestry, just when it had gained him
admission to Mitchelhurst Place. "Bad taste," he said to himself, and he
returned abruptly to the money-making uncle. "I suppose Mr. Harding has
a son to come after him?"
"Yes, there's one son," Reynold replied, with a contemptuous intonation.
"And does he take to the business?"
"I don't know much about that. I fancy he wants to begin at the yachting
end, anyhow."
"Only one son." Mr. Hayes glanced at young Harding as if a question were
on his lips; but the other's face did not invite it, and the subject
dropped. There was a pause, and then the elder man began to talk of some
Roman remains which had been discovered five miles from Mitchelhurst.
Reynold crossed his long legs, balanced himself idly, and listened with
dreary acquiescence.
It was some time before the Roman remains were disposed of and they
rejoined Barbara. They startled her out of her uncle's big easy-chair,
where she was half-lying, half-sitting, with all her black draperies
about her, too much absorbed in a novel to hear their approach.
Harding, on the threshold, caught a glimpse of the nestling attitude,
the parted lips, the hand that propped her head, before Miss Strange was
on her feet and ready for her company.
Mr. Hayes, stirring his coffee, demanded music. He liked it a little for
its own sake, but more just then because it would take his companion off
his hands. He was tired of entertaining this silent young man, who
stood, cup in hand, on the rug, frowning at the portraits of his
forefathers, and he sent Barbara to the piano with the certainty that
Harding would follow her. As soon as he saw them safely at the other end
of the room he dropped with a sigh of relief into the chair which she
had quitted, and took up his book.
The girl, meanwhile, turned over her music and questioned Reynold. He
did not sing?--did not play? No; and he understood very little, but he
liked to listen. He turned the pages for her, once or twice too fast,
generally much too slowly, never at the right moment. Then Barbara began
to play something which she knew by heart, and he stood a little aside,
with his moody face softening, and his downward-glancing eyes following
her fingers over the keys, as if she were weaving the strands of some
delicate tissue. When she stopped, rested one hand on the music-stool on
which she sat, and turned from the piano to hear what her uncle wished
for next, he saw, as she leaned backward, the pure curve of her averted
cheek, and the black lace and amber beads about her softly-rounded
throat.
"Oh, I know that by heart, too!" she exclaimed.
He took up a sheet of music from the piano, and gazed vaguely at it
while she struck the first notes. He read the title without heeding it,
and then saw pencilled above it in a bold, but somewhat studied, hand,
"ADRIAN SCARLETT."
For a moment the name held his glance; and when he laid the paper down
he looked furtively over his shoulder. He knew that it was an absurd
fancy, but he felt as if some one had come into the room and was
standing behind Barbara.