With the approach of Christmas Mr Musgrave's quiet home took on the air
of an over-populated city. A strange woman in a nurse's uniform swelled
the party in the kitchen when she was not in the nursery with the two
youngest members of Mrs Sommers' family. She was a young, nice-looking
woman, and her presence, though welcomed by the other servants, was
bitterly resented by Eliza. In Mrs Sommers' nurse Eliza beheld a
rival, though where rivalry came in in a field that admitted no
competition it were difficult to say.
When Eliza had condescended to fill the position of housemaid in a
bachelor establishment she had not allowed for this objectionable
practice of family gathering. Clearly Mr Musgrave should spend
Christmas in his sister's home and not introduce an entire family into
his house to the inconvenience of his servants. It was very
inconsiderate.
Martha only laughed when Eliza aired her grievance. She liked family
gatherings. As well cook for a dozen as for one, she declared. The
same amount of trouble with a little extra labour went to the
preparation of the larger meals. And Martha loved to have Miss Belle in
the house, and Miss Belle's children. Miss Belle's husband was there
also, and a responsible-looking person who, with an anglicised
pronunciation, described himself as a valet. Eliza did not object so
strongly to this addition, his manners being irreproachable and the tone
of his conversation gentlemanly. Also he saved her trouble by carrying
the hot water upstairs and performing many small duties that were not a
part of his regular office. He sized Eliza up very quickly, and behaved
towards her with such exemplary chivalry that he speedily won her
susceptible heart, so that Eliza, with some reluctance, half
relinquished the idea that she was destined to become eventually Mrs
John Musgrave, in order to entertain the possibility of being selected
by Fate as the wife of the gentlemanly valet. The valet, backed with
the comfortable safeguard of a wife at home, did nothing to discourage
the assumption. Men have not without reason won the distinction of
being considered deceivers of the fair sex.
The arrival of the Sommers, and the contemporaneous arrival of a
house-party at the Hall, resulted in a succession of entertainments such
as Moresby had not previously known. Mrs Chadwick conceived the idea
of getting up theatricals and a series of tableaux, in which the Moresby
residents were invited to take part. She also got a kinema operator
down and invited the entire village to view the films.
The kinema party was fixed for Boxing Night; the tableaux were to follow
a dinner to be given on Christmas Eve. The villagers were not bidden to
the Christmas Eve party, but the ringers were invited to go up to the
Hall after ringing the chime and regale themselves on hot punch.
Moresby on the whole was pleasantly excited. Things were being done in
the good old style, even to the distribution of blankets and coals and
other comforts acceptable to the season, though received with a certain
grudging mistrust which would appear to be the recognised spirit in
which to accept charity. There is an etiquette even in the manner of
accepting patronage; the recipient feels it incumbent on him to be
patronising to the giver of alms in order to retain a proper sense of
independence. Let no one who gives blind himself to the fact that he is
receiving as well as distributing favours.
John Musgrave gave regularly at Christmas, and handsomely, to his poorer
neighbours; Miss Simpson also gave; but, since she demanded gratitude,
and Mr Musgrave demanded nothing, regarding his charity in the light of
a duty which his more fortunate circumstances imposed, he received a
more generous meed of thanks, and a less grudging acceptance of his
gifts. Mr Musgrave's bounty received his personal supervision, and was
packed and ultimately delivered by his chauffeur, with Mr Musgrave's
compliments and the season's greetings; Miss Simpson was her own
almoner, and dispensed with her gifts a little timely homily on the
virtues of frugality and sobriety, and the need for a humble and
grateful heart. But humility--at best an objectionable virtue--has gone
out of fashion, and gratitude is a plant which is not usually fostered
with the care it deserves. The poor of Moresby accepted Miss Simpson's
gifts--they were glad enough to accept anything--but they ridiculed her
homilies behind her back.
"I always believe in a word in season," she informed the vicar.
"So do I," he returned. "Only it is so difficult to recognise the
season."
Miss Simpson attended the Hall parties, not because she enjoyed them,
but she could not keep away. She made unkind remarks about the
Chadwicks and their doings. She was, though she would not have admitted
it, jealous. She resented the coming of these people; their careless
patronage of the village, which their immense wealth made so easy that
it could scarcely be counted to them as a kindness; their untiring
social efforts to bring Moresby and Rushleigh into contact, and to
gather all sorts and conditions of men and women beneath their
hospitable roof. The Chadwicks were altogether too democratic. But
above and beyond everything else, the bright, gay personality of saucy
Peggy Annersley proved the canker in the rose of her happiness. She
suspected Peggy Annersley of having designs on Mr Musgrave, which was
unjust. Peggy had designs on no one at that period in her career.
John Musgrave, despite the pressure that was brought to bear to shake
his resolution, refused to take part in the theatricals or to pose in
the groups for the living pictures. Mrs Chadwick asked him; Belle
attempted persuasion; and Peggy coaxed unsuccessfully. Mr Musgrave was
embarrassed at the mere suggestion of dressing in character and
posturing before the footlights of the newly-erected stage for the
edification of Moresby and the amusement of Mrs Chadwick's guests. He
was embarrassed, too, at being compelled to repeatedly refuse his
persistent tormentors.
"I did so hope you would be Lancelot to my Guinevere," Peggy said
reproachfully. "And I wanted you to be Tristram and Othello to my
Isolde and Desdemona. They are all lovely impersonations, and the
costumes are gorgeous. You'd make a heavenly gladiator, too."
"I should not be at home in these parts," he said gravely.
"But," urged Peggy, "it's so simple. I'll rehearse you. You'd find it
awfully amusing."
"I do not think so," he replied.
"Then will you be Bill Sykes, with Diogenes and a revolver?--and I'll be
Nancy. You would only have to murder me. If you don't like the lover
parts you'd enjoy that."
There was a gleam in the grey eyes that John Musgrave was unable to
account for; he saw nothing funny in such a sordid scene.
"I do not like that idea any better," he said. Then he made a sudden
appeal to her generosity, his air slightly apologetic, almost, it
occurred to Peggy, humble. "Please leave me out of it," he begged.
"I'm a very prosy person. These things are better suited to the younger
generation. Many men will enjoy filling these parts with you; I shall
enjoy looking on."
Peggy gave in. She had not expected Mr Musgrave to agree to her
proposes; she had, indeed, been guilty of teasing him. But she
endeavoured with some success to make him believe in her acute
disappointment, so that when he left her it was with a sense of his own
ungraciousness, and a desire to make amends in any way possible for
having been disobliging, if not actually discourteous, to a young lady
who was, he could not but admit, both amiable and charming. The
difficulty was how to make amends. After considering the matter
seriously and developing and rejecting many ideas, he decided that he
would be forced to remain indebted until the opportunity presented
itself for discharging the obligation. He really felt extremely and
quite unnecessarily grateful to Miss Annersley. There was, on the face
of it, no obligation to discharge. Mr Musgrave was advancing a little
way along the road of complexities that go to the making of human
emotions. He had begun by feeling an interest in this young woman.
Interest is a comprehensive term embodying many sentiments and capable
of unforeseen developments. Peggy was undoubtedly a dangerously pretty
person to become an object of interest to a middle-aged bachelor.
If Mr Musgrave thought Peggy pretty--and he did consider her pretty--on
ordinary occasions, he found her amazingly lovely tricked out in stage
attire, when, at the conclusion of the Christmas Eve dinner, he repaired
with the other guests to the temporary theatre and viewed a succession
of brilliantly arranged tableaux which, despite the fact that they were
exceedingly well done and perfectly staged, he mentally pronounced a
stupid form of entertainment for intelligent adults. Mummery of any
kind appealed to him as undignified. Never in all his forty years had
he felt the slightest temptation to play the fool; it always surprised
him to see other people doing it. And this histrionic grouping was but
playing the fool in serious fashion; it was a game of vanity better
suited to children. But the pictures were pretty. He admitted that.
Most of the guests appeared to enjoy them.
"I am afraid you are bored with this," his host said, approaching him
during an interval in the performance, having observed with the turning
up of the lights Mr Musgrave's serious expression. "Come along to the
billiard-room and have a smoke."
"I am not bored," John Musgrave answered, as he left his seat and
accompanied Will Chadwick with a willingness which seemed to discredit
his assertion. "I was interested, and--and surprised."
"Surprised," suggested Mr Chadwick, "that people can find amusement in
this sort of thing? Very little amuses most of us. I've seen quite
brainy fellows absorbed in watching flies pitch on a lump of sugar.
Their interest was sporting, and had a financial basis, certainly. In
this instance it is the pleasure of the senses that is appealed to. I
enjoy watching pretty women posturing myself."
"I have no doubt it is artistic," returned John Musgrave reflectively.
It passed through his mind that a pretty woman appeals to the senses
quite as effectively in the natural poses of everyday life, but he did
not voice his thoughts. The suggestion of women posturing for the
enjoyment of the other sex jarred his fastidiousness. John Musgrave
held women reverently in his thoughts, or, rather, he held his ideal of
womanhood in reverence; he knew very little about women in reality.
There was a fair sprinkling of men in the billiard-room when they
entered, who had repaired thither for their refreshment during the
interval. They were smoking and drinking and criticising, with a
freedom which occurred to Mr Musgrave as not in the best of taste, some
of the scenes that had been staged and the persons who had taken part in
them. John Musgrave found himself standing near a couple of young men
from Rushleigh whom he knew very well by sight, though he was not
acquainted with them. One of them was engaged in watching two men
playing a hundred up; the other was eagerly talking to his inattentive
companion about Peggy Annersley, whose posturing had apparently pleased
his appreciative eye.
"She's the gardener," he was saying, and Mr Musgrave frowned with
annoyance when he realised who it was the youth was discussing with such
avidity. "A lady gardener--a real lady, you know."
His friend, if he heard, showed no interest; his attention was centred
in the balls. The youth jerked his arm.
"She is," he insisted, "a real lady. I know it for a fact."
"All right, my dear chap," the other returned, unmoved. "I know quite a
nice girl who sells shrimps."
Mr Musgrave felt his anger rising, though why he should feel angry he
did not understand. It hurt him that Peggy Annersley's name--the young
cub spoke of her as Peggy--should be bandied about in this fashion. It
hurt him more that Peggy should be satisfied to dress up and posture for
the delectation of these youths. When the rest of the men left the
billiard-room he remained behind alone.