REACTION
The week which followed the royal departure was a season of reaction at
Dympsfield House. The tension of our recent life had been well-nigh
unendurable. But now the die was cast, the problem solved; we could
live and move and enjoy our being according to our wont.
To be sure the unhappy Fitz was still our anxiety. He and his small
daughter were still under our roof, and would so remain until the house
of his fathers had been rebuilt or until such time as he should choose
some other asylum for his shattered life.
It is not too much to say that Fitz, with all his quiddity, had become
dear to us. The tragic wreck of his life had called forth all that
latent nobility which I at any rate, as his oldest friend, had always
known to be there. His submission to the fate which he had himself
invoked had seemed to soften the grosser elements that were in his
clay. He had now only his small elf of four to live for. In that
vivid atom of mortality were reproduced many of the characteristics of
the ill-starred "circus rider from Vienna."
During the first few days a kind of stupor lay upon Fitz. He hardly
seemed able to realise what had happened. He went out hunting and
actively superintended the rebuilding of the Grange, almost as if
nothing had occurred to him. But, all too soon, this merciful veil was
withdrawn from his mind. He became consumed by restlessness. He could
not sleep nor eat his food; he could not settle to any sort of
occupation; nothing seemed able to engage his interest; his mind lost
its stability, and slowly but surely his will began to lose that
reawakened power that it had seemed to be the special function of his
marriage to sustain and promote.
By the time the first week had passed we began to have forebodings.
Already signs were not wanting that the demons of a sinister
inheritance were silently marshalling themselves in order that they
might swoop down upon him. One afternoon I found him asleep on a sofa
drunk.
As Coverdale was well acquainted with his temperament and all the most
salient facts in its history, and as, moreover, he was a man for whose
natural soundness of judgment I had the greatest respect, I was moved
to take him into my confidence.
"He must get away from England," said Coverdale, "for a time at any
rate. And he must go soon."
This was an opinion with which I agreed. It happened that Coverdale
knew a man who was about to start on a journey across Equatorial Africa
and who proposed to form a hunting camp and indulge in some big game
shooting by the way. Such a scheme appeared so eminently suited to
Fitz's immediate needs that I hailed it gladly.
Alas! when I discussed this project with him he declined wholly to
entertain it; moreover he declined with all that odd decision which was
one of his chief characteristics.
"No," he said. "I must stay here and see to the building of the house,
and I must look after Marie."
It was in vain that I launched my arguments. The scheme did not appeal
to him and there, as far as he was concerned, was the end to the matter.
"I must look after Marie," he said. "We are getting her to do sums.
Her mother could never do a sum to save her life."
Argument was vain. Such a nature was incapable of accepting a
suggestion from an outside source; the mainspring of all its actions
lay within.
The total failure of the attempt to get him to respond to so hopeful an
alternative vexed me sorely. At the time it seemed to promise the only
means of saving him from the danger which already had him in its toils.
He grew more and more restless; his distaste for food grew more
pronounced, and in an appallingly short time it became clear to us that
whatever there remained to be done for him must be done at once.
We were helpless nevertheless. To anything in the nature of persuasion
he remained impervious. He could not be brought to see the nearness of
the danger. It was like him never to heed the question of cost. He
could never have ordered his life as he had done, had he not had the
quality of projecting the whole of himself into the actual hour.
Those who had his welfare at heart were still taking counsel one of
another in respect of what could be done to help him through this new
crisis, when a mandate was received from Mrs. Catesby to dine at the
Hermitage. Fitz was included in it, but it did not surprise us that he
declined an invitation which less uncompromising persons were inclined
to regard in the light of a command.
It was not that he bore malice. He was altogether beyond the pettiness
of the minor emotions; it was as though his entire being, for good or
for evil, had been raised to another dimension or a higher power. But
as he said with his haggard face, "I don't feel up to it."
Lowlier mortals, more specifically Mrs. Arbuthnot and myself, accepted
humbly and contritely. We felt that a certain piquancy would invest
the gathering. Not that we knew exactly who had been bidden to attend
it, but Mrs. Arbuthnot's feminine instinct--and what is so impeccable
in such matters as these?--proclaimed this dinner party to be neither
more nor less than the public signature of the articles of peace.
Accordingly we set out for the Hermitage, not however without a certain
travail of the spirit, for poor Fitz would be left to a lonely cutlet
which he would not eat. As a matter of fact, when we went forth he had
not returned from London, where he had spent most of the day in
consultation with his solicitors.
There assembled at the Hermitage, at which we arrived in very good
time, nearly every identical member of the company we expected to meet.
Coverdale, Brasset, Jodey, who still enjoyed the hospitality of our
neighbour, the Vicar and his Lavinia, Laura Glendinning, Mrs. Josiah P.
Perkins. Also, as became one whose house provided a kind of _via
media_ to that greater world of which the Castle was the embodiment,
Mrs. Catesby's dinner table was graced by a younger son and a
daughter-in-law of the ducal house.
Good humour reigned. It might even be said to amount in the course of
the pleasant process of deglutition to a sort of friendly _badinage_.
An atmosphere of tolerance pervaded all things. If bygones were not
actually bygones, they were in a fair way of so becoming. At least
this particular section of the Crackanthorpe Hunt was on the high road
to being once again a happy and united family.
The revelation of the "Stormy Petrel's" identity had had a magic
influence upon an immense aggregation of wounded feelings. It was now
felt pretty generally that all might be forgiven without any grave
sacrifice of personal dignity. It was conceded that great spirit had
been shown on both sides, but in the special and peculiar circumstances
a display of Christian magnanimity was called for.
Irene was morally and wickedly wrong--the phrase is Mrs. Catesby's
own--in keeping the secret so well. Of course "the circus proprietor"
had deceived nobody: it was merely childish for Irene to suppose for
one single moment that he would; and for her to attempt "a score" of
that puerile character was positively infantile. But in the opinion of
the assembled jury of matrons, plus Miss Laura Glendinning specially
co-opted, it was felt very strongly that Irene had not quite played the
game.
"Child," said the Great Lady, speaking _ex cathedra_, with a piece of
bread in one hand and a piece of turbot on a fork in the other, "when I
consider that I chose your husband's first governess, quite a refined
person, of the sound, rather old-fashioned evangelical school, I feel
that it was morally and wickedly wrong of you to withhold from me of
_all_ people the identity of the dear Princess."
"But Mary," said the light of my existence, toying demurely with her
sherry, "I didn't know who she was myself until nearly a week after the
fire."
The Great Lady bolted her bread and laid down her fork with an
approximation to that which can only be described as majesty.
"Would you have me believe," she demanded, "that when you took her to
your house on the night of the fire you really and sincerely believed
that she was merely the wife of Nevil?"
"Yes, Mary," said the joy of my days, "I really and sincerely believed
that she was the circus--I mean, that is, that she was just Mrs. Fitz."
General incredulity, in the course of which George Catesby inquired
very politely of the Younger Son if he had enjoyed his day.
"Never enjoyed a day so much," said the Younger Son, with immense
conviction, "since we turned up that old customer without a brush in
Dipwell Gorse five years ago to-morrow come eleven-fifteen g.m."
"Eleven-twenty, my lad," chirruped the noble Master. "Your memory is
failin'."
"Irene," said the uncompromising voice from the end of the table, "I
cannot and will not allow myself to believe that you were not in the
secret before the fire."
"Tell it to the Marines, Irene," said Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins.
"Wonder what she will ask us to believe next," said Miss Laura
Glendinning.
"What indeed!" said the Vicar's wife.
"It isn't human nature," affirmed Lady Frederick.
"Very well, then," said the star of my destiny, with an ominous sparkle
of a china-blue eye, "you can ask Odo."
"Odo!" I give up the attempt to reproduce the cataclysm of scorn which
overwhelmed the table. "Odo is quite as bad as you are, if not worse.
He knew from the first. He knew when the Illryian Ambassador came in
person to the Coach and Horses and fetched her in his car; he knew when
she chaffed dear Evelyn so delightfully that night at the Savoy."
"What if he did?" said the undefeated Mrs. Arbuthnot. "He didn't tell
me. Did you now, Odo?"
With statesmanlike mien I assured the company that Mrs. Fitz's identity
was not disclosed to our household despot until some days after her
arrival at Dympsfield House.
"I am obliged to believe you, Odo," said Mrs. Catesby. "But mind I
only do so on principle."
Somehow this cryptic statement seemed to minister to the mirth of the
table. It was increased when the Younger Son, who evidently had been
waiting his opportunity, came into the conversation.
"Odo Arbuthnot, M.P.," said he, "I expect when Dick sees what you have
done to his wall he'll sue you. Anyhow I should."
The approval which greeted this sally made it clear that the incident
had become historical.
"By royal command," said I; "and what chance do you suppose has a mere
private member against the despotic will of the father of his people?"
"A gross outrage. An act of vandalism. Postlewaite says----"
"Postlewaite's an ass."
"Whatever Postlewaite is, it don't excuse you. He says you were all
talking the rankest Socialism, and he was quite within his rights not
to give you the book."
"I repeat, Frederick, that Postlewaite is an ass. If the Postlewaites
of the earth think for one moment that the Victors of Rodova will turn
the other cheek to the retort discourteous, the sooner they learn
otherwise the better it will be for them and those whom they serve."
"Hear, hear, and cheers," said my gallant little friend, Mrs. Josiah P.
Perkins, in spite of the fact that the Great Lady had fixed her with
her invincible north eye.
"Ferdinand Rex one doesn't mind so much," proceeded Frederick, "and the
Princess is all right of course, and von Schalk is a bit of a Bismarck,
they say; but when you come to foot the bill with Odo Arbuthnot,
M.P.--well, as Postlewaite says, it is nothing less than an act of
vandalism. The M.P. fairly cooked my goose, I must say."
The M.P. was very bad form, everybody agreed, with the honourable and
gallant exception of _la belle Americaine_.
"Might be a labour member! I don't know what Dick'll say when he sees
it."
"Two alternatives present themselves to my mind," said I, impenitently.
"Postlewaite can either clear off the whole thing before he returns, or
else append a magic 'C' in brackets after the offending symbols."
"You ain't entitled to a 'C' in brackets. You grow a worse Radical
every day of your life and everybody is agreed that it is time you came
out in your true colours."
"Hear, hear," from the table.
"I've half a mind to oppose you myself at the next election as a
convinced Tariff Reformer, Anti-Socialist, Fair Play for Everybody, and
official representative of a poor but deserving class."
"We shall all be glad to sign your nomination paper," affirmed George
Catesby.
"Well, Lord Frederick," said my intrepid Mrs. Josiah, "I will just bet
you a box of gloves anyway that you don't get in."
"And I'll bet you another," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"He's not such a fool as to try," said the noble Master.
"Frederick," said the Great Lady, "stick to your muttons. You have
plenty to do to raise breed and quality. Why not try a cross between
the Welsh and the Southdown? At least I am convinced that in these
days the House of Commons offers no career for a gentleman."
"I've a great mind to cut in and have a shot anyway," said the scion of
the ducal house, with a mild confusion of metaphor. "I don't see why
these Radical fellers----"
Whatever the speech was in its integrity, it was destined never to be
completed. For at this precise moment the door was flung open in a
dramatic manner, and a haggard man, wearing an overcoat and carrying
his hat in his hand, broke in upon Mrs. Catesby's dinner party.