The morning delicacy to which Lady Austell was so subject was due to the
fact that when staying in other people’s houses she found she saw enough
of her hosts and fellow-guests if she denied herself the pleasure of
their company at breakfast. In all other respects, she was stronger than
most horses, and could go through programmes which would have prostrated
all but the most robust without any feeling of unpleasant fatigue,
provided only that the programmes interested or amused her or in any way
furthered her plans. But she really became tired the moment she was
bored, and since sitting at breakfast with ten or twelve cheerful
people, with the crude morning sunlight perhaps pouring in at a window
directly opposite her, bored her very much, she chose the wiser plan of
not joining in those public festivities. But with her excellent tact she
knew that at a house like Mrs. Osborne’s everybody was expected to come
down, to be in admirable spirits and to eat a great deal of solid food,
and so she explained to Mrs. Osborne that she never ate any breakfast.
Hence it was that about half-past nine next morning her maid carried
upstairs a tray groaning with coffee, hot milk, toast, just one poached
egg, and a delicious plate of fruit. Mrs. Osborne had given her a very
pleasant sitting room next her bedroom, furnished with Messrs.
Linkwater’s No. 1 white boudoir suite, for, like half the house, it had
been practically unfurnished; and Austell who had ascertained those
comfortable facts when he bade his mother good-night the evening before,
caused this particular groaning tray to be brought here also and paddled
in to join her in carpet slippers and a dressing gown.
“I call this a devilish comfortable house nowadays,” he observed, “which
is far more than could be said for it in our time. What a pity the
Osbornes and we can’t run it together. They would pay the bills, and we
could give tone. I wish it was possible to be comfortable, though poor.
But it isn’t. Everything comfortable costs so much. Now, darling mother,
let loose, and tell me what you think of it all. Really your--your
absence of breakfast looks quite delicious. They have given me chops and
beef and things. May I have a piece of your melon?”
Jim and his mother were rather fond of each other, but they seldom met
without having a quarrel, for while both were agreed in the general plan
of grabbing at whatever of this world’s goods could be appropriated,
each despised and, in private, exposed the methods of the other. He, so
his mother was afraid, was one of the very few people who was not afraid
of her, and she often wished he was. He had lit a cigarette after the
bath, and was standing in front of the fireplace, on the thick, white
sheepskin rug, smoking the end of it.
“Dear Jim,” she said, “do you think you had better smoke in here? Mrs.
Osborne may not like it.”
“Oh, she will think it is you,” said Jim calmly, “and so won’t dare to
say anything. She fears you: I can’t think why. Now do tell me how it
all strikes you. Can you bear it for three days? I can easily; I could
bear it for months and years. It is so comfortable. Now what did you and
Mrs. Osborne talk about at dinner? Mr. O. and I talked about the Royal
Family. Sir Thomas seems a nice man, doesn’t he?”
Lady Austell gave him a very generous share of her half melon; it looked
rather like a bribe. She was going to indulge in what Jim called humbug,
and hoped he would let it pass.
“I think, dear, as I said to Dora the other day,” she remarked, “that we
are far too apt to judge by the surface. We do not take enough account
of the real and sterling virtues--honesty, kindness, hospitality--”
Austell cracked his egg.
“I did not take enough account of the effect of hospitality last night,”
he remarked, “because I ate too much supper, and felt uncommonly queer
when I awoke this morning----”
“You always were rather greedy, my darling,” said Lady Austell softly,
scoring one.
“I know. I suppose I inherited it from my deli--I mean
cerebral-hæmorrhage grandfather. But I don’t drink.”
This brought them about level. Jim proceeded with a smart and telling
stroke.
“I refer my--my failures to my grandfather,” he said, “so whatever you
say about our hosts, dear mother, I shall consider that you are only
speaking of their previous generations. Their hospitality is unbounded,
their kindness prodigious, but I asked you how long you could stand it?
Or perhaps the--the polish, the culture, the breeding of our hosts
really does seem to you beyond question. Did you see the stuffed
crocodile-lizard in the hall? I will give you one for your birthday.”
“I think you are odiously ungrateful, Jim,” she said. “I have got them
to take Grote for seven years at a really unheard-of price, and all I
get in return is this.”
Jim opened his pale weak eyes very wide.
“What have I done?” he said. “I have only agreed with you about their
kindness, and asked your opinion about their breeding.”
“You are sarcastic and backbiting,” said his mother.
“Only as long as you talk such dreadful nonsense, darling mother,” he
said. “You don’t indulge in rhapsodies about the honesty of your
housemaid. Honesty in a housemaid is a far finer quality than in a
millionaire, because millionaires are not tempted to be dishonest,
whereas poor people like housemaids or you and me are. Really, I only
wanted to have a pleasant little chat about the Osbornes, only you will
make it serious, serious and insincere. Let’s be natural. I’ll begin.”
He took one of his mother’s crisp hot rolls, and buttered it heavily.
“I find Mr. and Mrs. O. quite delightful,” he said, “and should have
told you so long ago if you had only been frank. I do really. There
isn’t one particle of humbug about them, and they have the perfect ease
and naturalness of good breeding.”
Lady Austell tossed her head.
“That word again,” she said. “You seem to judge everybody by the
standard of a certain superficial veneer, which you call breeding.”
“I know. One can’t help it. I grant you that lots of well-bred people
are rude and greedy, but there is a certain way of being rude and greedy
which is all right. I’m greedy, so was the cerebral grandpapa, only he
was a gentleman and so am I. I’m rude: I don’t get up when you come into
the room and open the door for you, and shut the window. Claude--brother
Claude--does all these things, and yet he’s a cad.”
“I consider Claude a perfect gentleman,” said Lady Austell with
finality.
“I know: that ‘perfect’ spoils it all,” said Jim meditatively. “Now Mr.
Osborne is a frank cad--that’s how I put it--and Claude a subtle one.
That’s why I can’t stand him.”
“I daresay you’ll do your best to live on him,” said Lady Austell.
“Certainly; though I shall probably succeed without doing my best. It
will be quite easy I expect.”
“And do you think that is a gentlemanly thing to do?” asked his mother,
“when behind his back you call him a subtle cad?”
“Oh, yes, quite; though no perfect gentleman would dream of doing it. I
think Claude has masses of good points: he simply bristles with them,
but he gives one such shocks. He goes on swimmingly for a time, and then
suddenly says that somebody is ‘noble looking,’ or that the carpet is
‘tasteful’ or ‘superior.’ Now Mr. Osborne doesn’t give one shocks; you
know what to expect, and you get it all the time.”
Lady Austell thought this over for a moment; though Austell was quite
unsatisfactory in almost all ways of life, it was impossible to regard
him as a fool, and he had the most amazing way of being right. Certainly
this view of the frank cad and the subtle cad had an air of intense
probability about it, but it was one of those things which his mother
habitually chose to ignore and if necessary deny the existence of.
“I hope you will not say any of those ridiculous things to Dora,” she
remarked.
“Ah; then it is just because they are not ridiculous that you wish me to
leave them unsaid. If they were ridiculous you would not mind----”
Jim waited a second to give his mother time to contradict this if she
felt disposed. Apparently she did not, and he interrupted her consenting
silence.
“I shall not say them to Dora, I promise you,” he said, “because, in
case they had not occurred to her, she might see the truth of them, and
it might put her off. That would damage my chances of living on him. It
would be very foolish of me. Besides, I have no quarrel with Dora--I
like Dora. But my saying these things to her is superfluous, I am
afraid. She sees them all perfectly, though to you they apparently seem
ridiculous. Or am I wrong, mother, and do you only pretend to think them
ridiculous?”
Lady Austell felt she could fight a little on this ground.
“They seem to me quite ridiculous in so far as they apply to Dora,” she
said. “She is deeply in love with him, dear child, and do you suppose
that she stops to consider whether he says ‘tasteful’ or not?”
Jim smiled with faint malice.
“No, she does not stop to consider whether he says it or not,” he
replied, “because it is perfectly clear that he does. But when he does,
she pauses. Not for long, but just for a second. She doesn’t exactly
wince, not a whole wince, at least, but just a little bit of one. You
can’t help it if you are not accustomed to it. If I was going to marry
Mrs. Osborne, I should wince a little now and then. I don’t in the least
wonder that she’s in love with him. I wish you would find me a girl, who
would marry me, as handsome and rich as Claude. The only thing is----”
Jim finished breakfast, and was going slowly round the room looking at
the furniture. He paused in front of a saddlebagged divan with his head
on one side.
“The only thing is that though she may get accustomed to ‘tasteful,’ she
may also get accustomed to his extraordinary good looks. Of course, then
there’s the money to fall back upon. I don’t think I should ever get
accustomed to so much. What is--is Uncle Alfred going to allow him on
his marriage?”
“Fifteen thousand a year, I believe,” said Lady Austell gently, as if
mentioning some departed friend.
Jim gave a little sigh in the same style. He had a dreadfully
inconvenient memory, and remembered that the original sum suggested was
twelve thousand, which his mother had thought decent but not creditable.
There was no doubt, so he framed the transaction to himself, that she
had “screwed this up” to fifteen. So he sighed appreciatively, and his
comment that followed was of the nature of a testimonial.
“When I marry I shall leave the question of settlements completely in
your hands, if you will allow me,” he said. “I think you are too clever
for anybody.”
It was not once or twice, but many times, that Lady Austell had told her
son the complete truth in answer to some question of his, and when she
had said “fifteen thousand, I believe,” it was only reasonable to expect
that the answer would be satisfactory. But Jim always remembered
something else, and his memory was terribly good. It was not that he
considered twelve thousand a poor sum: he only recalled to his mother’s
mind the fact that she had successfully suggested fifteen. And he had
not openly stated the fact: he had merely requested her kindly aid with
regard to his own marriage settlements, if there were ever to be any.
That should have been to her a completely gratifying request; as it was,
it left her with the sense of having been found out. The complete
correctness of this impression was shown by Austell’s next words.
“I think you have been fearfully brilliant about it,” he said, “and I am
sure you have made them all think that you considered fifteen thousand
far too much. Do tell me: didn’t you say that you thought it was a great
responsibility for so young a couple to be--to be stewards of so much
wealth? Lord, how I wish somebody would make me a steward. Come in.”
Somebody had tapped at the door, and to tell the truth Lady Austell was
not very sorry to have an interruption, for she had actually used the
words that Jim had conjectured in a little talk with Mr. Osborne and his
brother in which settlements were very genteelly and distantly alluded
to. But there had been a distinct twinkle in Alfred’s eye at this point,
and she did not want more cross-examinations. The interruption,
therefore, was welcome.
Mrs. Osborne entered, looking hot and pleased. Jim at this moment was
looking at a large engraving of Landseer’s “Monarch of the Glen” (part
of the No. 1 white boudoir set) in an angle of the room parallel to the
door, and she did not at once see him.
“Good morning, Lady Austell,” she said. “I thought I would just step up
and see what you would fancy doing this beautiful day. There’s some of
the party going to motor over to Pevensey----”
Mrs. Osborne caught sight of Jim, and gave a faint scream.
“And I’m sure if I don’t beg your pardon, Lord Austell,” she said with
averted head, “for I never guessed you were here paying a morning visit
to your mamma in your bath wrapper. But I thought somebody said ‘Come
in,’ for I always tap at every door now, or clear my throat to give
warning, with so many lovers about, bless them.”
“Yes, I said ‘Come in,’” said Austell. “Mayn’t I come and talk to you
and my mother? I thought my dressing--bath wrapper was rather smart.”
It was rather, being of blue silk, new and unpaid for, and with Mrs.
Osborne’s permission he joined them. It had given her quite a turn for a
moment to find that she had intruded on an earl in his dressing gown,
but she rapidly recovered.
“Why, it’s beautiful,” she said, “and such a figure as Mr. O. is in his
old green padded wrapper as hardly comes to his knees! It was the
thought of that that gave me such a turn at finding a gentleman in his
dressing gown. But I’m sure I needn’t have minded. And what will you be
thinking of doing, Lord Austell? It’s Liberty Hall, as Mr. O. and I
always tell our guests, and the more they say what they like to do, the
better we’re pleased.”
Lady Austell had lit a cigarette just before Mrs. Osborne’s entrance,
and, still looking at her, with her usual bereaved, regretful smile, was
making efforts to pass it to Jim behind the shelter of the table. He
observed this, and with a stealthy movement took it from her, for though
they exposed each other in private, they were firm allies in the
presence of others.
“I’ve been having such a scolding from my mother,” he said, “for smoking
in here, but I told her you were far too good-natured to mind. Have I
done very wrong?”
Mrs. Osborne beamed.
“And me just saying that the more our guests pleased themselves the
better we were pleased!” she exclaimed. “Well, what is it to be, Lady
Austell? A drive to Pevensey, with Sir Thomas and Mrs. Percy, and I’m
sure there’ll be no difficulty about getting another gentleman when it’s
known as you are going, or a stroll or what-not, and a bit of lunch
quietly at home, and maybe a drive afterward. Give it a name, Lady
Austell, and it’s settled.”
Lady Austell turned one glance of gratitude at her son, and continued to
smile at her hostess.
“You are too kind,” she said, “but as I’ve just been telling Austell,
what I should really like to do best would be to spend the morning
quietly by myself, going over the dear old place again. And then may we
see how the afternoon turns out?”
This pathetic mention of the “dear old place,” though “dilapidated old
barrack” would have been a far more accurate description of Grote as it
was, made Mrs. Osborne feel quite apologetic. She spoke to her husband
about it afterwards. “I assure you, my dear,” she said, “to see her
sitting there with that sad smile it was quite touching, as if it ought
to have been she who asked me what I would fancy doing. Well, it’s one
up and another down in this world, and after all we’ve done something in
taking the place off their hands, and putting a stick or two of
furniture in it, and keeping the rain out. And the white boudoir suite,
it looks beautiful; I hadn’t seen it since they put it in.”
“Well, I’m sure the oftener Lady A. favours us with her visits, the more
we shall be pleased,” said Mr. Osborne. “And we give them a rattling
good rent for it, my dear, when all’s said and done. Why, there’s the
motor coming round now, and the clock striking twelve already. Sir
Thomas would like a glass of sherry, I’ll be bound, before his long
drive.”
“And I must see cook,” said Mrs. Osborne, “and half the morning gone
already. Have you any fancy for dinner, to-night, my dear?”
Mr. Osborne thought for a moment.
“No, peace and plenty, my dear,” he said, “such as we’ve always had,
Maria. I shall be in for lunch, too. Thank God, old Claude doesn’t want
any music to-night. We was hurried away from table last night, and I
think Sir Thomas felt he hadn’t done justice to my port: ’40, Maria, and
needs a lot of justice. But to-night he shall have his skin full.”
“Well, but Claude has said as how pleased Dora was with the music,” said
Mrs. Osborne, “and we’re going to have a second go this evening. You
can’t deny them their music, Mr. O.”
Mr. Osborne paused on his way to the door.
“Nor I don’t want to,” he said, “though myself, I hate that scratching
sound. But last night, Mrs. O., I don’t mind telling you, what with
young--young Franklin lighting up before we’d got into the wine at all,
and Claude and he leaving the room to join the ladies, and I’m sure I
don’t wonder, the dining room was a sort of Clapham Junction. And you
telling me not to stop too long there and all. To-night give us time to
sit and think, and if Claude wants his concert, God bless the boy, let
him have it. But let it be made clear that those who want their wine and
a talk, sit and have it, and don’t feel they’re expected. It’s little I
drink myself, as well you know, but there’s Sir Thomas, who’s a fish for
his liquor, and little harm it seems to do him. I like my guests to have
what they want, Maria, and there’s no reason why some of us shouldn’t
stay quiet and pass the bottle, while others listen to them fiddles.
That’s the way we’ve got on, old lady, by giving everybody what they
want, and of the best quality. Well, let’s do so still. Those that care
to leave the table this evening, let them leave, but don’t let there be
any pressure on such as like to remain. Lord, if there’s Mrs. Per not
coming out already with all her fallals on! I must go and get Sir Thomas
his glass of sherry.”
Mr. Osborne was in every way the most hospitable of men, and he would
have felt it as a personal disgrace if (as never happened) any guest of
his had not all the wine he wanted, even as he would have felt it a
personal disgrace if any guest was not met at the station, or did not
have sufficient breakfast. But wine to his mind was something of quite a
different class to all other hospitalities, and was under his personal
control, so that if Sir Thomas liked his drop of sherry in the middle of
the morning, Mr. Osborne, if the sherry decanter, as proved to be the
case this morning, was empty, had personally to go down to the cellar,
followed by Thoresby with a taper, and fish out from the bin the bottle
he wanted. Moreover, as the motoring party had finished breakfast nearly
two hours ago, and would not get their lunch for nearly two hours after,
Mrs. Osborne had ordered a tray of the more sustaining sorts of
sandwiches, a cold ham, and a dish or two of fruit to be put ready in
the dining-room to fortify them for their drive; for when they did have
lunch it would only be a cold picnic kind of lunch which they carried
with them in a huge wicker basket like a coffin, which two of the
resplendent footmen were even now staggering under, and bearing out to
the motor. For the sake of good fellowship several of the party who were
not going on this prodigious expedition joined the travellers in this
collation, for, as Mr. Osborne said, with a large plate of ham in front
of him, “It made a bit of a break in the morning to have a mouthful of
sherry and a dry biscuit. Help yourself, Per, my boy, for you’re the
guard of this personally conducted tour, and you’ll need a bite of
something before you get your lunch.”
Jim Austell meantime had gone back to his room, from which he ejected
two flurried housemaids who were emptying things into each other, and
dressed in a leisurely manner. He found a letter or two on his dressing
table, and among them a note from Mr. Osborne’s secretary containing an
extremely satisfactory cheque for the first quarter’s rent of Grote, and
with great promptitude he despatched it to his bank. Then, coming
downstairs and out on to the terrace, he found Claude rather impatiently
waiting for the return of Dora, who had strayed off after breakfast with
May Thurston, and challenged him to a game of croquet, in which the two
were still engaged when the girls came back from their walk. They
refused to join, and May went into the house while Dora drew a chair to
the edge of the ground and watched. Jim, wallowing in the remembrance of
his cheque, had proposed a sovereign on the game and Claude had
accepted. The game, therefore, since money was concerned, was serious,
but Dora, not knowing this, was not. She had a great deal to say.
“I think Englishmen are perfect butchers,” she said. “The whole of the
long glade is simply one mass of the most heavenly young pheasants, who
ran to us in flocks to be fed. Then comes October, and when they run to
be fed you shoot them in the eye.”
“There you’re wrong, Dora,” said Jim, calmly taking aim, “you shoot at
running rabbits, but not----”
“Oh well, you know what I mean, and you call it sport. There, that
serves you right, Jim, now it’s Claude’s turn and he’s got you. Oh,
Claude, what a beautiful shot! Wasn’t it lucky it hit the wire first? If
it hadn’t it would have missed blue altogether.”
Claude did not reply: even though it was Dora who was talking, the fact
that at the present moment he was playing a game overrode all other
considerations. He would have much preferred to stop playing the game,
and talk to her instead, but since that was impossible he continued to
be entirely absorbed in what he was doing. The balls (after the
beautiful shot) were well placed for a break, but a little consideration
was necessary. Then a somewhat lengthy and faultless exhibition
followed. At the end he came and sat down on the grass by Dora.
“Not a bad break,” he said, “I shall have a cigarette.”
“What are we going to do after lunch?” asked she gently, as Jim walked
off to the far end of the ground.
“Just exactly whatever you like so long as we do it by ourselves. I
haven’t seen you all morning.”
“I know; it’s been beastly,” said she, “but May’s a dear, you know, and
she wanted to talk about Harry, and I rather wanted to talk about you,
so we both talked together, and I can’t remember a word she said.”
Claude was lying face downward on the grass, nursing his match, and Dora
was looking at the short hair on the back of his neck. Then quickly and
suddenly she looked up.
“Oh, Jim, you cheated,” she cried. “I saw you move that ball with your
foot. What a brute he is! He always cheats at croquet, and is always
found out. I don’t cheat: I only lose my temper. Claude, dear, keep an
eye on him. Or perhaps you cheat too, do you? Oh, what a heavenly day.
Do let’s go on the lake after you’ve finished your game. You shall row
and steer, and I shall encourage you.”
Dora passed over the fact of Jim’s cheating as she passed over the other
numerous topics of her conversation, things to be alluded to and left
behind, and Claude, sitting up again when he had got a light, made no
comment whatever to it. Jim continued to play calmly and correctly, and
at the end of his break came toward them, leaving an unpromising
position.
“You talk more rot in a short space of time than anyone I ever saw,” he
remarked. “What with shooting at running pheasants and saying I cheat,
you make my head whirl.”
“Oh, but you did, I saw you,” said Dora calmly. “Why not grant it?”
She paused a moment as Claude aimed, and then continued:
“Oh, Claude, what bad luck! Or did it hit it? I almost thought I saw it
tremble, and in a minute I shall be sure of it.”
“I thought it hit,” said Jim.
“No, I’m sure it didn’t,” said Claude. “Full inch between them.”
The game was over in a couple of turns after this, but Dora, finding it
hot on her grassy bank, had gone down to sit in the boat and wait for
Claude. At the conclusion of the game he produced a sovereign and handed
it to Jim.
“You gave me a good thrashing,” he said, “couldn’t get in but that
once.”
“Thanks. Yes, you had bad luck all through. I say.... You’re satisfied
that Dora was talking nonsense?”
“About what?”
“When she said I cheated. Of course I did nothing of the kind.”
“Why, of course I’m satisfied if you tell me so,” said Claude. “Are you
coming down to the lake?”
“Not I. Dora would hurl me overboard.”
Claude strolled away and Jim walked aimlessly about, taking shots across
the lawn with various balls. He knew perfectly well that he had cheated,
but it was the worst luck in the world that Dora had looked up that
moment. There had been a ball quite close to his, but as far off as if
it had been in a better world by reason of the fact that it was lying
neatly and inaccessibly behind the stump. He had just moved it with his
foot as he went by, without, so he told himself, more than half meaning
to. That was quite characteristic of him; he but rarely fully meant that
sort of thing; something external to himself seemed to suggest a paltry
little manœuvre of this kind, and he yielded to it in an absent-minded
sort of way, without any particular intention. Had the game, in fact,
gone on without attention being called to it, he would probably have
nearly forgotten about it by now.
But Claude’s remark, though innocent and even cordial (considering what
he himself privately knew), irritated him a good deal. He had said that
of course he was satisfied since Jim had told him so. That looked as if
he would not have been satisfied if he had not been told, an utterly
unjustifiable attitude, since he had never given Claude, so far as he
knew, the very smallest grounds for supposing that he himself was
capable of cheating at croquet or anything else. Perhaps in Sheffield it
was the right thing to cheat, and at the end of the game everyone who
had not cheated told his opponent so, who then kindly accepted his word.
Claude would find, however, that among the sort of people he now moved,
it wasn’t correct to cheat; in fact, it was distinctly advisable not to.
Indeed, in a very few minutes, Jim felt rather as if Claude had cheated,
and he was himself kind but a little troubled about it.
Then--he felt almost ashamed of himself for dwelling so long on so small
an incident--he looked at the matter afresh. He had cheated, and
pocketed a sovereign probably in consequence. That was a very small sum
of money to cheat for, but he distinctly wished that it had not
occurred. And then he threw down again the mallet he had taken up.
“Fact is, I’m a rotten chap,” he said to himself, and there was no
dissentient voice in his brain.
* * * * *
Claude meantime had gone down to the lake after Dora. If he had been
obliged to give his thoughts the definiteness of words, he would
certainly have said that he thought the whole thing rather odd, but
then, being of an extremely loyal, unsuspicious nature, he would have
endorsed his remark to Jim, that his word was quite sufficient, and have
turned his thoughts resolutely elsewhere. He did not want to think about
such very nasty little things as cheating at croquet, whether there was
a penny or a sovereign or nothing at all on the game, and he did not
wish to examine a certain doubt that lurked in the bottom of his mind as
to whether Dora had seen correctly or not. It was in the shade anyhow,
and he let it lie there. But if anyone had told him (or Jim either) that
the incident was a trifling and microscopic one, both would have been
quite right to deny that. It was true that a game only and a sovereign
were concerned, but the “directing” power no less important a personage
than Honour. It really makes a great difference in the daily journey
through life if that charioteer is at his post or not.
“Sorry for keeping you, darling,” he said to Dora, “but we had to finish
the game. It didn’t take long, did it? I got my head knocked off.”
Dora had already established herself, and he pushed out through the
shallow water, where the weeds trailed whispering fingers against the
bottom of the boat, to deeper water.
“How clever of you to screw it on again so quick,” said she. “Yes, it’s
quite straight. Oh, Claude, I’ve been thinking such a lot since I left
you. How funny it is how little tiny things, like Jim’s cheating just
now, suggest such a lot of other ones not at all tiny.”
Claude gave a little short uncomfortable laugh.
“I say, darling, do you know,” he said, “if I were you I shouldn’t say
that sort of thing even to me. He didn’t cheat: he told me so. So you
must have been mistaken, and it’s an awful pity to let things like that
ever be talked about. But let’s go on to the big things which it (though
it didn’t happen) suggested.”
Dora paid no attention whatever to these excellent moral reflections,
but merely waited with her mouth open till he had finished in order to
speak again.
“Oh, but he did, he did,” she cried. “I saw him with both eyes. We never
could play together because he always cheated and I always lost my
temper. How funny of him not to confess.”
Claude did not reply for the moment: it was all rather uncomfortable.
“Well, now for the big things,” he said.
“Oh, bother the big things,” said Dora. “I know you think I am wrong,
and I’m not. I’m never wrong. I’m perfectly certain.”
She stopped suddenly and leaned over the side of the boat, dabbling her
hand in the water. She saw some unuttered trouble in Claude’s face, and
a rather dreadful conjecture occurred to her.
“Claude, you weren’t playing for money, were you?” she asked in a low
voice.
He made up his mind in a moment and acted with promptitude.
“Good gracious, no,” he said. “What will you be suggesting next?”
But Dora was still grave.
“Oh, I am glad,” she said, with relief. “And do let’s talk about
something else. I daresay I was quite wrong about Jim moving that ball.
Oh, I know I wasn’t,” she cried. “It was only a game, you see, and there
was nothing on it, and oh, poor Jim, you see he always used to cheat. It
was just the same at billiards; if the balls were touching he used to go
on before he really looked to see if they were. And that leads on to the
big things.”
He had stopped rowing, and with the impetus which the boat had acquired
in those vigorous strokes he made to get clear of the weeds, they were
drifting toward the little island in the centre of the lake, where the
swans made their nests. It was rimmed about with soft-branched willows
that trailed yielding boughs toward the water, and the boat glided in
under their drooping fingers, and ran on to a soft sandy promontory,
where it beached its bows, while the enfolding willow gave shade.
“Yes, the big things,” said Dora. “It’s just this, darling. You’ve got
heaps of attractions, but I’m not sure that one of your nicest things
isn’t that you are so safe. It is such fun being able to trust a person
quite completely and entirely and know one was right in doing so. I
don’t believe you ever scheme or make plans. Mother does, and Jim does,
and people get so keen on their plan that other things get rather out of
focus. They go--oh, it’s like hounds when they are really running well:
they don’t look at the scenery, you know. They put their dear noses down
and follow, follow. And it’s all because of money--no, not the hounds,
don’t be so foolish--but it is an advantage not to want to bother about
money. I _do_ like to know that I needn’t bother any more at all, and
that if I want to take a cab I can. Somebody--Pierre Loti, I think--said
it must be exquisite to be poor. Well, it isn’t. It’s far more exquisite
to be rich. Of course I had great fun about trimming a hat for twopence,
and making it look as if it came from May’s shop--Biondonetti, isn’t it,
but really I should much prefer to order hats direct. Wouldn’t you?”
Claude happened to be hatless, but he passed his hand over his head
instead, as if to recapture the sensation of ordering hats. “I suppose I
order mine,” he said. “I’m sure I never made one. I shouldn’t know how
to set about it.”
“No, darling, you don’t wear two feathers--and--nothing else. A hat of
two feathers is fearfully smart.”
“Are these the big things you proposed to talk about?” asked Claude.
“No, as if hats mattered. Oh, Claude, you’re moulting. A short black
hair! And there’s another sticking out. May I pull?”
He bent his head a little down: she pulled, and he screamed. The hair
remained where it was.
“And is that a big thing?” asked he again.
“No, donkey; darling donkey. You will interrupt so about hats. As if
anybody cared where you got your hats, and you haven’t got one. How did
you lead the conversation round to hats? Let’s see, it was Austell
first, and then ... then, oh, yes, I said you were safe. And now I think
I’ll go on. You may sit down here, if you like. There’s room for us
both. Let’s be common, as May said about--about people like us, the
other day. I would change hats with you, if you had one. As it is----”
Dora pulled the thick black curls.
“Oh, I wish you had a wig,” she said, “and nobody knew but me. I
shouldn’t mind, and everybody would say what beautiful hair you had, and
I should know it wasn’t real, and shouldn’t tell. It would be such fun.
Then some day you would annoy me, and I should tell everybody it was
only a wig. Claude, when I am old and wrinkly and quite, quite ugly, do
you suppose you will care the least little bit any more for me? Oh,
dear, I felt so extraordinarily gay all the morning, and now I’ve gone
sad all in a minute! Oh, do comfort me! There is such a lot of
gray-business in life, unless one dies quite young, which it would
immensely annoy me to do. I wonder how we shall stand the gray-business,
you and I, when we see each other getting older and more wrinkled and
stiffer, stiffer not only in limb, and that is bad enough, but stiffer
in mind, which is infinitely worse. No, don’t look at me like that, but
sit up and be sensible. It has got to be faced.”
Unconsciously, or at the most half consciously, she was sounding him;
she knew quite well that there were beautiful things to be said and said
truly about what she had called the gray-business of life, and she
wondered, longing that it might be so, whether there was within him that
divine alchemy which could see how the gray could be changed into gold.
Never had she felt his physical charm so potent as now, when he sat up
obedient to her orders and leaned forward toward her, with a look, a
little puzzled, a little baffled in his eyes. Almost she was tempted to
say to him, “Oh, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters beside this
exquisite day and you, you, as I know you already,” but some very
deep-lying vein of curiosity wholly feminine, and very largely loving,
made her not interrupt her own question, but wait, with just a touch of
anxiety, for his reply. She and Claude, she felt, would have some day to
be far more intimately known by each other than they were now. Of him
she knew little but his personal beauty, though she felt sure that, as
she had said to May, he was good, and as she had said to him, that he
was safe. And of her she guessed that he knew no more; that he loved her
she had no doubt, but she felt that she had shown him as yet but little
beyond that which all the world saw, her quick and eager attitude toward
life, the iridescent moods of her effervescent nature. There was
something that sat below these, her real self. She wanted Claude to know
that, even as she wanted to know his real self.
This was all vague to her though real, instinctive rather than
describable, and flashed but momentarily through her mind as she waited
for his reply. But that reply came at once: Claude seemed to find no
difficulty about the facing of the gray-business.
“There’s no cause to worry,” he said. “Just look at Dad and the mater!
Isn’t he in love with her still? And I expect what you call the
gray-business for a woman cannot begin while her husband loves her. I
don’t suppose either of them ever gave a look, so to say, at anybody
else. Think of the way he proposed her health last night! Not much
gray-business about that! Why it was as if she was his best girl still,
and that he’d just come a-courting her, instead of their having been
married over thirty years. And she is his best girl still, just as you
will ever be mine. And as for her, why he’s her man still. How’s that
for the gray-business?”
Dora felt one dreadful moment’s inclination to laugh. She had asked for
a sign that he could turn the gray into gold, and for reply she got the
assurance that she might put her mind at rest with the thought of what
Mr. and Mrs. Osborne were to each other! She knew that for that moment
she only saw the ludicrous side of it, and that a very real and solid
truth was firm below it, but somehow it was not what she wanted. She
wanted ... she hardly knew what, but something of the spirit of romance
that triumphantly refuses to acquiesce in the literal facts of life, and
see all things through the many-coloured blaze of its own light. She
wanted the gray-business laughed at, she wanted the assurance that she
could never grow old, given with a lover’s superb conviction, to be
received with the unquestioning credulity of a child. No doubt it ought
to have been very comforting to think that the years would leave with
them the very warm and comfortable affection which the father and mother
had for each other, and she ought to be glad that Claude felt so sure of
that. But, to her mind, there was about as much romance in it as in a
suet pudding.
He saw the eagerness die from her face, and the shadow of her
disappointment cross it.
“And what is it now, dear?” he asked.
Dora tossed her head back, a trick she had caught from him.
“It isn’t anything now,” she said, “it all concerns years that are
centuries away. I think it was foolish of me to ask at all.”
“I don’t think it was in the least,” said he. “You said it had to be
faced, and I think I’ve given it a facer, at least the example of the
governor and the mater has. Besides, there are other things that will
colour up the gray-matter, children, we hope, sons going to school and
daughters growing up.”
Again Dora knew that he spoke with excellent sense, but again she felt
that it was not sense she wanted, so much as lovers’ nonsense, which is
more essentially real than any sense. She wanted something airy,
romantic, golden.... And then she looked at him again, and her wants
faded from her. He brought her himself. She gave a little sigh and
raised herself till her face was on a level with his.
“O Claude, I should be a donkey, if I was not content,” she said.
“Lord, there’d be a pair of us then, if I wasn’t,” said he.
* * * * *
Sunday succeeded and breakfast in consequence was put an hour earlier so
that any servant in the house could go to church. Mr. Osborne himself,
though the day was already of scorching heat, came down in a black
frock-coat suit of broadcloth, and his wife rustled in black satin. It
was clearly expected that all their guests would go also, for at
half-past ten a stream of vehicles drove to the door past the window of
the smoking-room.
“Got to start early,” said he, “so that the men may put up the cattle
and come too, but there’s no call for you gentlemen to put out your
cigars. The ladies won’t mind a whiff of tobacco in the open air, Sir
Thomas, and the church is but a step outside the Park gates, so that you
can sit and finish there. There are the ladies assembling. Time to go:
never keep the fair sex waiting, hey? or else the most indulgent of them
will turn a cold shoulder.”
The church, as Mr. Osborne had said, was but a stone’s throw beyond the
Park gates, and as they all arrived at twenty minutes to eleven there
was time, before the groaning of the organ summoned them in, to have a
turn under the trees and finish the cigars that had barely been begun.
It had been so taken for granted that everybody was coming to church
that out of all the party there was only one absentee, namely, Austell,
to whose room Mr. Osborne had sent with inquiries if he was ready, and
the suggestion to send back the motor for him if he was not. But he
certainly was not ready and the motor had not gone back for him, since
he had said that he was not very well. Otherwise the whole of the party
were there, and by degrees strayed into church. Mrs. Osborne had gone
there at once from the carriage with Lady Austell, in order to escape
from the heat, and they were already seated in the big square family
pew which belonged to the house, when the others began to come in. Sir
Thomas and Mr. Osborne were the last, because they had been discussing
the recent rise in the price of tin up till the last moment. They
entered, indeed, so shortly before the procession of four choir boys,
two men and the vicar, that Mr. Osborne had barely time to sit down by
his wife in the place she always kept for him next her in church, after
standing up and putting his face in his hat, before he had to stand up
again. Sir Thomas sat next Lady Austell. The two looked rather like a
codfish in conjunction with a withered lily.
The pew was four-sided, the fourth side opening into the body of the
church through the easternmost of the arches of the south aisle. In the
centre of it was a very beautiful alabaster monument to the first earl
and his wife, while the window was of exquisite early German glass to
the memory of the second. Elsewhere in numbers round the walls were
other smaller tablets, some bearing medallions, others merely catalogues
of the cardinal virtues with which the deceased were blessed, but the
whole place was historical, established. And here this morning sat Mr.
Osborne and his family and friends, among whom were Lady Austell and her
daughter, who was going to join together the two families. She sat just
opposite Claude, and of them all, he alone to the most observant eye was
ambiguous. He might as well, so far as appearance went, have been of the
Austells as of the Osbornes.
Dora, it was to be feared, was not very attentive, and her face wore
that peculiarly rapt look, which, as May Thurston had once told her, was
a certain indication that she was not thinking about what was going on.
As far as the service of the church went that was true; she was
completely occupied with the occupants of the pew. The sermon was in
progress and her mother sat with eyes mournfully fixed on the
Elizabethan monument in the centre, just as if the first earl had been
her husband, while next her Sir Thomas had his eyes fixed on nothing at
all, for they were tightly closed. His wife, next to him, and round the
corner, made futile little attempts to rouse him to consciousness again,
by pretending to put her parasol in a more convenient place, so that it
should incidentally hit his foot. This, eventually, she succeeded in
doing, and he opened one eye and rolled it drowsily and reproachfully at
Lady Austell, as if she had interrupted some celestial reverie. Then he
closed it again.
Claude, as Dora felt, had observed this, and was looking at her, so she
passed over him, for fear of catching his eye, and went on to Uncle
Alfred, who sat next him. He was closely wrapped up in a shawl that went
over his shoulders, and a certain stealthy movement of his lower jaw
caused her to suspect that he was eating some sort of lozenge. Then came
Mrs. Osborne: Dora could hear her rather tight satin bodice creak to her
breathing. She had the Bible in which she had verified the text open in
her lap, and she was listening intently to the sermon, which was clearly
to her mind, for her plump, pleasant face was smiling, and her eyes
fixed on the preacher were a little dim: her smile was clearly one of
those smiles of very simple happiness which are allied to tenderness and
tears. And then Dora focussed her ear and heard what was being said:
“So this earthly love of ours,” said the preacher, “is of the same
immortal quality. Years do not dim it; it seems but to grow stronger and
brighter as the mere purely physical part of it----”
And then Dora’s eye was focussed again by a movement on the part of Mrs.
Osborne, and her ear lost the rest of the sentence. Mrs. Osborne gave a
great sigh and her dress a great creak, and simultaneously she took away
the hand that was supporting the Bible in which she had verified the
text, so that it slid off the short and steeply inclined plane between
her body and her knee, and fell face downward on the floor. She did not
heed this: she laid her hand, making kaleidoscopic colours in her rings
as she moved it, on the hand of her husband, who sat next her.
He, too, had been following the sermon with evident pleasure, and it was
hard to say to which of them the movement came first. For within the
same fraction of a second his hand also let fall the silk hat which he
had already gathered up in anticipation of the conclusion, and in the
same instant of time it was seeking hers. His head turned also to her,
as hers to him, and a whispered word passed between them. Then they
smiled, each to the other, and the second whisper was audible right
across the monument of Francis, first earl, to Dora, where she sat
opposite to them.
“Maria, my dear,” whispered Mr. Osborne, “if that isn’t nice!”
Then Mrs. Osborne’s belated consciousness awoke; she withdrew her hand
and picked up her Bible.
Mr. Osborne’s instinct in taking up his hat had been quite correct; the
doxology followed, and a hymn was given out. He and his wife, so it was
clear to Dora, had no consciousness except for each other and the hymn.
She was the first to find it in her hymn-book, while he still fumbled
with his glasses, and when they all stood up he shared the book with her
and put down his own.
Then the organ indicated the first lines of the tune, and again the two
smiled at each other, for it was a favourite, as it had been sung at the
service for the dedication of the church in Sheffield. They both
remembered that, but that did not wholly account for their pleasure: it
had been a favourite long before.
Mrs. Osborne sang what is commonly called “second.” That is to say, she
made sounds about a third below the air. Mr. Osborne sang bass: that is
to say, he sang the air an octave or thereabouts below the treble. They
both sang very loudly; so also did Percy, so also did Mrs. Per, who sang
a real alto.
And then without reason Dora’s eyes grew suddenly dim. In the last verse
Mrs. Osborne closed the large gilt-edged hymn-book with tunes, and
looked at her husband. He moistened his lips as the last verse began,
and coughed once. Then Mrs. Osborne’s rings again caught the light as
she sought her husband’s hand. And she started _fortissimo_, a shade
before anybody else:
“And so through all the length of days--”
Mr. Osborne did not sing: his fat fingers closed on his wife’s rings,
and he listened to her. He would not have listened then to Melba. He
would not have been so completely absorbed if the seraphim had sung to
him.
And then finally Dora looked at Claude. She thought she understood a
little more. But she only saw a little more.