Lord George Temple sate moodily in the armchair of his study in his
little house in Mayfair chewing the end of a cigar and looking
disconsolately at a tray of whiskey and water and a plate of oval thin
Captain's biscuits on the table. He was a red-haired smooth-faced man
with rather a long upper lip, and a good-natured, somewhat whimsical
expression.
"It is a confounded shame!" he said to his wife, who, with an opera
cloak slipping from her pretty bare shoulders, was resting for a
moment before going upstairs to bed. "Graham gives his cook
twenty-five pounds a year--I heard her telling you so one day when she
was wanting a new one--and yet there wasn't a thing fit to eat on the
table----"
"Well, I don't know," put in Lady George, absently; "I think those
stuffed larks came from Mirobolants. I saw that style of decoration in
his place the other day, and I'm quite sure the iced soufflé was
Bombardi's; I know the shape."
"Exactly what I said!" continued the husband, "not a thing fit for a
gouty man to eat at the table, and yet a woman on twenty-five pounds
ought to be up to roast chicken and a rice pudding."
Blanche Temple looked at her spouse with the compassionate air of
tolerance which she invariably extended to his views.
"But you can't give your friends roast chicken and rice pudding; you
can't, indeed, nowadays. People wouldn't come."
"My dear girl," interrupted Lord George, obstinately, "there were four
men at the table who, like myself, partook of soup, fish, and cheese
straws. And one poor beggar didn't even have the soup." The thought
was apparently comforting, for he began more contentedly on a biscuit.
But his wife was now interested in the subject. Most things interested
her, either to affirmation or denial, for Paul Macleod's sister was a
very clever woman, if at the same time curiously conventional.
"Well! I don't know who eats the things, then," she said, aggrievedly.
"Why, the last time we had a dinner-party--I mean when the Woodwards
were here--I'm sure Paul ought to be infinitely obliged to me for the
trouble I take--the cook who came in used pounds on pounds of stock
meat, and quarts on quarts of cream; to say nothing of a whole bottle
of whiskey. 'You had better give it her, my lady,' said Jane, 'for
fear as the dinner might 'ave no appearance.'"
Among other unknown and despised talents which did not suit Lady
George's theory of her own rôle in life was a distinct turn for
mimicry. Her admirable impersonation of Jane, therefore, made her
husband burst out laughing; since by a whimsical perversion of affairs
he loved his wife dearly for the very qualities which she feigned not
to possess. For Blanche was essentially a theatrical woman, loving to
pose in all the relations of life, her present one being that of a
dutiful sister. On Paul's return from India she had not only hastened
to impress on him the absolute necessity for his marrying an heiress
if he wished to keep Gleneira in the family, but had also introduced
him to Alice Woodward, as a girl who would suit the part admirably.
For Lady George knew her brother's foibles thoroughly, and understood
that if he married for money, the bride must be a person who would
neither offend his refinement, nor require much display of affection;
since Paul would certainly never give himself away by pretending a
depth of sentiment he did not feel, and yet would not marry without
something of the sort. That she felt was the worst of him. _Au fond_
he was absolutely truthful to himself.
"Of course you could sell if you liked," she had said to him
skilfully, well knowing that the very thought was utterly repugnant;
"trade is always ready to buy a Highland property. The only
alternative is to marry a girl with money. I know one, pretty,
lady-like, refined; a girl of whom you would be very fond if she were
your wife. Her father is a speculator. Not quite so safe, of course,
as a solid business--buttons or tallow--though, by the way, he has
something to do with soap. Still, these Woodwards are quite
presentable, and _Monsieur le père_ has his wits about him. And then
you know there are always settlements, and deeds of gift, and those
sort of things which creditors make such a fuss about."
Her brother winced visibly. "I should prefer not to have a row with
anybody else's creditors," he said shortly. "_I_ shall have enough
apparently to do in keeping my own quiet. England is a terribly
expensive place to live in."
"London, you mean," retorted his sister, gaily. "You can always go
down to Gleneira and vegetate."
That had been at the beginning of the season, and now Paul had gone
down, not to vegetate, but to prepare the old place for the visit of
inspection; not without a certain resentful irritation at the
necessity for it. Though at the same time it put the affair on an
easier footing for the present.
Afterwards, however, Paul had every intention of imparting sentiment
into the transaction, if it could be done; and he knew himself to have
a vast capacity for falling in love, after the approved romantic
fashion, with any pretty girl who was willing to let him make love to
her. So his sister, bewailing the pounds of stock meat and quarts of
cream expended on his behalf, yet felt that she had been successful;
but, then, she would hardly have recognised herself if she had not
been so, since in her own little world, which she carefully avoided
extending unwisely either upwards or downwards, Lady George Temple was
always cited as a success in all the rôles which she felt called upon
to play.
"I heard from Paul to-day, by the way," she said, as she gathered up
her gloves and fan. "He wants me to go and call on that Mrs. Vane. You
remember who I mean, of course?"
"No, I don't," replied Lord George, relapsing into moodiness over the
biscuits.
"You never do remember what I mean, dear! But she is the Colonel's
wife, who nursed Paul when he nearly died in India. Of course they do
it very often, I know, and it is more confusing than sending for a
woman whom you can pay and get rid of afterwards. Still, she really
did save his life--under Providence, of course--at least, Paul always
said so. Well, her husband, who, I believe, drank, or did something,
died two years ago, leaving her dreadfully off, so she went to live
with somebody--an uncle or an aunt, who, I fancy, must have left her
some money, for she has just taken a house somewhere in Chelsea. And
Paul, who hasn't seen her since those old days, has asked her to
Gleneira, and wants me to make her acquaintance first. Rather a bore,
for I wish to have a particularly pleasant party, and she will most
likely be an old frump."
"Scarcely, my dear, if she nursed your brother, and he survived,"
remarked Lord George, gravely.
His wife frowned. "How can you be so absurd, dear; she must be quite
old, for Paul wrote she was a perfect mother to him, and that is quite
six years ago."
Lord George's eyes twinkled again. "My dear Blanche, you and Paul have
exaggerated notions on the subject of a mother's----" He paused, at a
rattle on the door-handle, and looked apprehensively at his wife. The
next instant two charming little figures in frilled white nightgowns
burst into the room, and flinging themselves into their mother's arms
began to cover her with kisses. The daintiest little creatures, a boy
and a girl, with angelic faces and shrill, excited, happy, little
voices.
"Oh, you bad children!" cried Blanche, without a trace of vexation.
"So you wanted to see mother, did you? And now you have seen her, off
to bed with you before Nannie comes after you, there's dear ones!
Quick! or she will be coming."
"Quick, Adam! Quick, Evie!" echoed the happy voices excitedly, in a
rush to the open door, which ended in a sudden pull up, and a still
more excited cry. "Oh, mammy! Oh, daddy! here's Blazes comin' down the
stairs."
Lord George's face lost its apprehensiveness in resignation. Yet, as
he settled himself back in his chair, his long upper lip betrayed a
disposition to smile, for Blasius, his youngest son, was apt to amuse
him. A very different child this, short, squat, and red-haired, who,
after sundry thumpings and bumpings outside, suggestive of falls,
appeared, rubbing his eyes sleepily, at the door; then the broad,
good-natured face expanded into a grin. "_Bickys'!_" he said,
laconically, as he toddled across to the tray.
"Oh! what a welly greedy little boy, ain't he, Evie?" said Adam. "We
come to see our darlin' mummie, didn't we, duckums?" He was at her
side for a swift caress, and back again to stand expectantly beside
his sister, whose little dancing feet were keeping time to her nodding
golden head. As pretty a picture of light-hearted innocent enjoyment
as heart could desire, even at eleven o'clock at night!
"Give him a biscuit, do, and let him go," said Lady George, hurriedly.
"It won't hurt him, they are quite plain. Dada will give you a
biscuit, Blasius, and then you can go back to bed, like a dear, can't
you?"
Blasius' large, round, blue eyes assumed a look of vacuity as the
sentence proceeded; but as he stood sturdily on his little bare feet
beside his father both little chubby hands went out at once, and a
singularly full voice for so young a child gave out conglomerately:--
"Blathe's--'ll--take two, ta."
Lord George shot a glance at his wife and complied; while from the
door came a little whisper, intended to be one of horror. "Oh, Addie!
ain't he a welly greedy little boy?"
"And now Blasius will go to bed like a good boy, with his good little
brother and sister," remarked Lady George, with forced optimism. "Adam
and----" Her voice failed before a soft thud as Blasius sat down
solidly, and stuck his little bare feet beyond his little white
nightgown.
"Mummie can go, Blazeth'll stay with dada--ta."
Those two at the door stood bolt upright, with sidelong looks of pious
horror at each other--
"Oh, Evie! \
> Ain't he a weally naughty little boy?"
"Oh, Addle! /
"Blasius _must_ go to bed," began his mother, quite firmly,
"or--or--mummie will be very much grieved. Her little boy wouldn't
like to grieve his mummie, would he?"
Lord George, who had looked hopeful at the decision of tone, sank back
in his chair and twiddled his thumbs.
"You had better ring for nurse at once, Blanche. It always comes to
that in the end, and the child will get cold."
His wife frowned. Her theories had been so successful with Adam and
Eve that the necessity for reverting to the _vi et armis_ with this
baby was grievous. She sate down beside him on the floor, and began in
mellifluous tones.
"Listen, Blasius. Mummie wants her little Blasius to do something to
please her; she wants him to do something very much----" She got no
further, being gagged by a little soft hand and a very hard biscuit
together.
"Blazeth's not a deedy 'ickle boy. Blazeth'll give poor 'ickle mummie
hith bicky, and be a dood 'ickle boy. Then daddy'll gif him anofer."
Little chortles of intense enjoyment came from those angelic faces at
the door.
"Go to bed, children; off with you at once," said their father,
quickly, whereupon an obedient patter of bare feet fled up the stairs
with an accompanying cackle of high, eager voices, busy over the pros
and cons of Blasius versus authority.
"Do you think she'll assuade him, Evie? I don't." "I think he ought to
be smacked, I do." "I'd let him cry, it don't hurt a child to cry.
Nanna's mother says it's good for the lungs." "And Blazes likes to
cry, he does." "I say, Addie! how long will it be afore Duckum's
mummie has to ring the bell?"
The last wonder being faintly audible from the landing above, settled
the business downstairs. Lord George rose and took the law into his
own hands.
"Oh, George!" cried his wife, reproachfully, "how can you expect to
train up children in the way they should go if you are so impatient?
If once I could have got Blasius to understand what was really
required of him----"
Here the advent of a big, stalwart figure in a wrapper, bearing a
white shawl, brought such sudden comprehension to the stalwart little
one, that the room for one brief moment resounded with yells. The next
found the door closed upon them, and Lady George looked disconsolately
at her husband, as she listened to the retreating struggles of her
youngest born.
"I cannot think what makes him so different from the others," she
said, gloomily.
"My dear," replied her husband, consolingly, "Cain came after Adam and
Eve; perhaps the next will be Abel. Besides, Blasius was a risky name.
I told you so at the time."
"Saint Blasius was a very worthy man," retorted his spouse, hotly,
"and, considering that you and the boy were both born on his day, I
must say I think it quite natural that I should call my child George
Blasius--or, let me see, was it Blasius George?"
"It is a matter of no importance, my dear," replied her husband,
drily. He did not remind his wife, nor did she choose to remember that
at the time she had been playing the ultra ritualistic rôle. To tell
the truth, she did not care to be brought face to face with her past
impersonations, unless the fancy seized her to revert to them; when,
at a moment's notice, she could resume the character as if she had
never ceased to play it.
So, the next day, with a view to making a suitable impression on
Paul's widow, as she chose to call Mrs. Vane, she put on her most
dowdy garments, and actually went in an omnibus down the King's-road.
Thus far her environment suited her foregone conclusions, but, as she
stood in the wide stretch down by the river, the brilliant sunshine
streaming upon a very bright knocker and a very white door, a certain
feeling of distrust crept over her. Nor was the darkened room into
which she was ushered reassuring. The parquet floors were almost bare,
the windows beneath the striped Venetian awnings were set wide open to
a balcony wreathed with blossoming creepers, and hung with cages of
singing birds. A scent of flowers was in the air, a coolness, an
emptiness, and yet the first impression was one of ease and comfort.
Not the room, this, of an old frump. And this was not an old frump
rising from a cushioned lounge and coming forward like a white shadow
in the half light.
"How good of you to come!"
Lady George, dazzled as she was by the change from the sunlight
outside to the darkness within, yet saw enough to make her gasp. Lo!
this little bit of a woman with syren written all over her from the
tip of her dainty Parisian shoe to the crown of her fair, curly head,
was Paul's widow. His mother, forsooth! A pretty mother, indeed!
Having got so far as this, Blanche, being, amongst other things,
somewhat of an artist, felt bound to admit that Violet Vane was very
pretty indeed; so pretty that it was a pleasure to watch the piquant
face, full of a quaint sort of humour and freshness, grow clear of the
shadows. In this half light she looked younger, no doubt, than she
really was; still, even in the garish day, Lady George felt
instinctively that her charm would remain. In fact, she was not at
all, no! not in the least, a suitable companion for Paul, when so much
depended on his being reasonable.
"I haven't seen your brother for years," came the sweet but rather
thin voice. "It is so good of him to remember me. So more than good of
him to ask me down to Gleneira that I mean to go, if only to ensure
the kindness being credited to him. I wonder if he is much changed?"
There was a certain challenge in the speech which Lady George was
quick enough to recognise, and, as she recognised it, wondered if her
own astonishment had been too palpable, as that in itself would be a
mistake, so she replied deftly:
"He is not changed in one thing--his gratitude to you. And I am
grateful also, for Paul is very dear to me. The dearest fellow in the
world, is he not?"
It was a statement to which, in the language of poker, Mrs. Vane could
hardly go one better, and therefore it left her, as it were, to an
under-study of devotion.
"He used to be very nice when I knew him; but, then, sick people are
always nice; they are so much at one's mercy," said the little lady,
airily. They were, in their way, admirable types of their kind, these
two women; both artificial, yet with an artificiality which sprang
from the head in the one case, from the heart in the other; for Mrs.
Vane saw through herself, and Lady George did not.
"So that is Paul's sister," said the former to herself as, on the way
back to her lounge, after escorting her visitor in friendliest fashion
to the stairs, she paused to take up a photograph case lying on the
table. It contained Paul's portrait as he had been before the time
when she had watched his fair head tossing restlessly on the pillow in
that hot Indian room which nothing would cool. The memory of those
dreary days and nights came back to her in a rush, making her,
paradoxically, look years older, worn, haggard, and anxious. She
seemed to be back in them; to hear the gathering cry of the jackals
prowling past the open door, to see the flicker of the oil night-light
gleam on the splintered ice, turning it for a brief second to
diamonds, as she prepared it for the burning forehead above those
bright, yet glazed eyes; and, more than all, she seemed to feel the
old passionate protest against the possibility of his passing for ever
out of her life joined to the fierce determination to save him to the
uttermost. From what? from herself, perhaps. For Mrs. Vane had
performed the most unselfish act of her life when she had laughed and
scoffed at the devotion and gratitude of her patient. She had had
many, she said, and they had always felt like that during some period
of their convalescence. There was nothing for these sequelæ of jungle
fever like three months' leave to the bears in Kashmir; and, if he
liked, he might bring her home one of those little silk carpets for
her sitting-room as a fee; she would prefer a carpet to anything else.
And so Paul had come back with his unromantic offering, cured, as she
had prophesied, of his feverishness, but not of his friendliness. That
had lasted, despite a separation of years. And something else had
lasted also, to judge by the look on Mrs. Vane's face as she stood
with Paul's photograph in her hand.
Lady George Temple took a cab home, and tried to regain a sense of
lost importance by having the children down to tea. Paul had kept this
thing secret from her; he had allowed her for years to speak kindly,
effusively of the woman who had saved his life as if she were an old
frump, when she was really--Blanche, being a person of sense, felt
forced to acknowledge the truth--one of the most charming little
creatures imaginable, with just that half-sympathetic, half-bantering
manner which was so taking. And Paul, having done this, her own rôle
of devoted sisterhood suffered thereby; so she fell back upon her
motherhood.
Thus, when her husband returned, he found the room littered with
Kindergarten toys, while Adam was threading beads by the
multiplication table, and Eve was busily engaged in marking the course
of the River Congo in red back-stitching on a remarkably black
continent of Africa, which was afterwards to do duty as a
kettleholder. Blasius, meanwhile, having been so far beguiled into the
Zeit-Geist as to consent to build a puff-puff out of some real
terra-cotta bricks and columns which were intended for an
architectural object lesson.
"Oh, George!" began his wife, pausing with a lump of sugar in the
tongs over his cup, "Paul's widow is dreadful; I don't know what I
shall do with her."
"Hand her over to me--I can generally manage to get on with people,"
he said, watching the tongs greedily; for the question of sugar in his
tea was the cause of much dispute between him and his wife. A slow
smile came to her face as she replaced the lump.
"No! my dear; it wouldn't be good for you," she said, coming back to
the present, and then she frowned. "I cannot think what induced Paul
to ask her just when so much depends on the Woodwards feeling
themselves to be _the_ guests _par excellence_," she continued, after
a brief but picturesque description of the offender. "And this woman
is sure to sing, and play, and dance, and act. I saw it in her face."
"Jolly sort of person to have in a country house, I should say,"
remarked her husband, secretly impressed.
"I knew _you_ would say that, George," put in his wife, resignedly.
"Yes! she is just the sort of woman men love to dangle round."
"Then ask someone to dangle. That will leave the coast clear for Paul
and Miss Woodward."
Lady George raised her eyebrows scornfully. "As if that would do any
good! That sort of woman always insists on having the best men, and
Paul looks that in most society; besides I don't feel called upon to
pave the way to an heiress for anyone else but my brother. That is
what it would come to. No! I cannot conceive why Paul should make
things so--so much more difficult for himself."
"Natural depravity, my dear," suggested her husband, helping himself
on the sly to sugar. "There is such a thing--Hullo! what's that?"
That was the sudden discovery on Blazes' part that an Ionic column,
when used as an engine funnel, would, if hit violently with a good,
squat Norman one, break off in the middle; a discovery which was
followed by an outburst of that craze for destruction which healthy
children display on the least provocation.
"He--he is not a 'Kindergarten' child," remarked his mother,
plaintively, when after a time the upstairs bell had once more been
rung and the offender carried off shrieking amid awed whispers of
intense enjoyment, about "welly welly naughty little boys" from Adam
and Eve.
"No, my dear, he isn't," assented Lord George, cheerfully. "Some of us
are made that way; his uncle, for instance; but he isn't a fool, and
he knows which side his bread is buttered; a fact which has a
marvellous effect in keeping a man straight."
"My dear George! what a terrible thing to say. It is a reversion to
that fear of punishment----"
"My dear! I should like a second cup of tea, and this time I think you
might let me have a small lump of sugar--quite a small one."
That evening Blanche wrote a long letter to her brother, which gave
her some trouble to compose. In it she lavished endless praises on
dear Mrs. Vane, who, to judge from her _looks_, must have had great
_trouble_, and fully deserved dear, kind Paul's grateful remembrance
of past services; which, by the way, she seemed to have extended to
many other fortunate invalids. Altogether a most delightful woman, of
_varied experiences_ if a trifle _manierée_; "though this," she added,
"my dear Paul, is, I fear, a common fault with women who have been
made much of _by many men_."
As it so happened he read this remark at a small picnic party where
Marjory, the only lady present, was dispensing tea to Will Cameron,
himself, the Reverend James Gillespie, Father Macdonald, Mr. Wilson,
and Donald Post, who had been waylaid on the road just above the
little creek on the loch, where they had lit their fire, to say
nothing of the minister's man holding the Manse dogcart until its
occupants should choose to tear themselves away from temptation and
proceed on their journey.
"_Quid datur a Divis felice optatius hora?_" quoted the minister
gallantly, as he set aside the girl's offer of another cup and rose to
go, while little Father Macdonald, following his example, quoted a
verse from Tasso to show that the memory of a pleasant hour might give
even greater pleasure than the hour itself. Paul Macleod, watching
them, and fully alive to the adoring look on the Reverend James's
face, continuing, as it were the kindly affection of Will's, gave a
short laugh as he tore up his letter and threw it into the embers of
the dying fire.
Marjory looked at him inquiringly.
"Only something that seems singularly out of place with my present
surroundings," he said in quick response; "but the world has a knack
of seeming very far away when one is in Gleneira."