KINGTHORPE SOCIETY.
On New Year's Eve Miss Wendover gave one of her famous dinner-parties;
famous because it was always said that her dinners were, on their scale,
better than anybody else's--yea, even that Dr. Rylance's, although that
gentleman spared no expense, and had been known to induce the French cook
from the Dolphin at Southampton to come over and prepare the feast for
him.
Miss Wendover's dinner was an excuse for the bringing forth of rich
stores of old china, old glass, and older silver--the accumulations of
aunts and uncles for past generations, and in some part of the lady
herself, who had the true spirit of a collector, that special gift which
the French connoisseur calls _le flair_. Ida and the lady of the house
worked diligently all the morning in papering and polishing these
treasures; and the dinner table, with its antique silver, Derby china,
heavy diamond-cut glass, and white and scarlet exotics, was a picture to
gladden the eyes of Aunt Betsy's guests.
The party consisted of Colonel and Mrs. Wendover, with their daughter
Bessie, admitted to this sacred function for the first time in her young
life, and duly impressed with the solemnity of the occasion; the Vicar
and his wife; the new curate, an Oxford M.A., and a sprig of a good old
family tree, altogether something very superior in the way of curates;
Mr. and Mrs. Hildrop Havenant, the great people of a neighbouring
settlement, with their eldest son, also an Oxonion; and Dr. and Miss
Rylance.
'Be sure you two girls look your best to-night,' said Miss Wendover, as
she sat before the fire with Bessie and Ida, enjoying the free and easy
luxury of a substantial afternoon tea, which would enable them all to be
gracefully indifferent to the more solid features of dinner, and duly on
the alert, to make conversation. 'We shall have three eligible men.'
'How do you make three, Aunt Betsy?' inquired her niece. 'Of course we
all know that young Hildrop Havenant is heir to nearly all the land
between Havenant and Romsey; but he is such a mass of affectation that I
can't imagine anybody wanting to marry him. And as for Mr. Jardine--'
'Is he a mass of affectation, too, Bess?' inquired Aunt Betsy with
intention, for Mr. Jardine, the curate, was supposed to have impressed
the damsel's fancy more deeply than she would care to own. 'He is an
Oxford man.'
'There is Oxford and Oxford,' said Bess. 'If all the Oxford men were like
young Havenant, the only course open to the rest of the world would be to
burn Oxford, just as Oxford burned the martyrs.'
'Well, we may count Mr. Jardine as an eligible, I suppose?'
'But that only makes two. Who is your third?' asked Bessie.
'Dr. Rylance.'
'Dr. Rylance an eligible?' cried Bessie, with girlhood's frank laughter
at the absurd idea of middle age coming into the market to bid for youth.
'Why, auntie, the man must be fifty.'
'Five-and-forty at most, and very young-looking for his age; very
polished, very well off. There are many girls who would be proud to win
such a husband,' said Miss Wendover, glancing at Ida in the firelight.
She wanted to test the girl's temper--to find out, were it possible,
whether this girl, whom she so inclined to love, tried in the fierce
furnace of poverty, had acquired mercenary instincts. She had heard from
Urania of that reckless speech about marrying for money, and she wanted
to know how much or how little that speech had implied.
Ida was silent. She had never told anyone of Dr. Rylance's offer. She
would have deemed it dishonourable to let anyone into the secret of his
humiliation--to let his little world know that he, so superior a person,
could offer himself and be rejected.
'What do you think now, Bess,' pursued Miss Wendover; 'would it not be
rather a nice thing if Dr. Rylance were to marry Ida? We all know how
much he admires her.'
'It would be a very horrid thing!' cried the impetuous Bess. 'I would
ever so much rather Ida married poor Brian, although they had to pig in
furnished lodgings for the first ten years of their life. Crabbed age and
youth cannot dwell together.'
'But Dr. Rylance is not crabbed, and he is not old.'
'Let him marry a lady of the same doubtful age, which seems old to me,
but young to you, and then no one will find fault with him,' said Bess,
savagely. 'I feel an inward and spiritual conviction that Ida is doomed
to marry Brian Walford. The poor fellow was so hopelessly in love with
her when he left this place, that, if she had not a stone inside her
instead of a heart, she would have accepted him; but _magno est amor et
praevalebit!_' concluded Bess, with a mighty effort; 'I'm sure I hope
that's right.'
'I think it must be time for you to go home and dress, if you really wish
to look nice to-night,' said Ida, severely. 'You know you generally find
yourself without frilling, or something wrong, at the last moment.'
'Heavens!' exclaimed Bessie, starting up and upsetting the petted
Persian, which had been reposing in her lap, and which now skulked off
resentfully, with a swollen tail, to hide its indignation under a chair,
'you are as bad as an oracle. I have yards and yards of frilling to sew
on before I dress--my sleeves--my neck--my sweeper.'
'Shall I run over and sew the frills on for you?' asked Ida.
'You! when you are going to wear that lovely pink gown. You will want
hours to dress. No: Blanche must make herself useful for once in her
ridiculous life. _Au revoir_, auntie darling. Go, lovely rose'--to
Ida--'and make yourself still lovelier in order to captivate Dr.
Rylance.'
The dinner was over. It had passed without a hitch, and the gentlemen
were now enjoying their claret and conversation in a comfortable
semicircle in front of Miss Wendover's roomy hearth.
The conversation was for the most part strictly local, Colonel Wendover
and Mr. Hildrop Havenant leading, and the Vicar a good second; but now
and then there was a brief diversion from the parish to European
politics, when Dr. Rylance--who secretly abhorred parochial talk--dashed
to the fore and talked with an authority which it was hard for the others
to keep under. He spoke of the impending declaration of war--there is
generally some such thing--as if he had been at the War Office that
morning in confidential converse with the chief officials; but this was
more than Squire Havenant could endure, and he flatly contradicted the
physician on the strength of his morning's correspondence. Mr. Havenant
always talked of his letters as if they contained all the law and the
prophets. His correspondents were high in office, unimpeachable
authorities, men who had the ear of the House, or who pulled the strings
of the Government.
'I am told on the best authority that there will be no war,' he said,
swelling, or seeming to swell, as he spoke.
He was a large man, with a florid complexion and gray mutton-chop
whiskers.
Dr. Rylance shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly. It was the calm,
incredulous smile with which he encountered any rival medico who was bold
enough to question his treatment.
'That is not the opinion of the War Office,' he said quietly.
'But it is the opinion of men who dictate to the War Office,' replied Mr.
Havenant.
'We couldn't have a better place for the working men's club than old
Parker's cottage,' said the Vicar, addressing himself to Colonel
Wendover.
'If Russia advances a foot farther, there must be war in Beloochistan,'
said Dr. Rylance; 'and if England is blind to the exigencies of the
situation, I should like to know how you are going to get your troops
through the Bolan Pass.'
'A single line to Romsey would send up the value of land fifty per cent,'
said the Colonel, who cared much more about Hampshire than Hindostan,
although the best years of his life had been spent under Indian skies.
Hildrop Havenant pricked up his ears, and forgot all about the War
Office.
'If the railway company had the pluck they ought to get that Bill through
next Session,' he said, meaning a Bill for a loop between Winchester and
Romsey.
While the elder gentlemen prosed over their wine the two younger men had
found their way, first to the garden, for a cigar under the frosty moon,
then back to Miss Wendover's pretty drawing room, where Ida was playing
Schumann's 'Träumerei' at one end of the room with Bessie for her only
audience, while Miss Rylance, Miss Wendover, and the three matrons made
a stately group around and about the fire-place.
Urania was providing the greater part of the conversation. She had spent
a delightful fortnight in Cavendish Square at the end of November, and
had been everywhere and seen everything--winter exhibitions--new plays.
'I had no idea there could be so many nice people in town out of the
season,' she said with a grand air. 'But then my father knows all the
nicest people; he cultivates no Philistines.'
The Vicar's wife required to have this last remark explained to her. She
only knew the Philistines of Scripture, an unfortunate people who seem
always to have been in the wrong.
'And you saw some good pictures?' inquired Aunt Betsy.
'A few good ones and acres of daubs,' replied Urania. 'Why will so many
people paint? There are pictures which are an affliction to the eye--an
outrage upon common sense. Instead of a huge gallery lined from floor to
ceiling with commonplace, why cannot we have a Temple with a single
Watts, or Burne Jones, or Dante Bossetti, which one could go in and
worship quietly in a subdued light?'
'That is a horridly expensive way of seeing pictures,' said the Vicar's
wife; 'I hate paying a shilling for seeing a single picture. If it is
ever so good one feels one has had so little for one's money. Now at the
Academy there are always at least fifty pictures which delight me.'
'You must be very easy to please,' said Urania.
'I am,' replied the Vicar's wife, curtly, 'and that is one of the
blessings for which I am thankful to God. I hate your _nil admiraris_,'
added the lady, as if it were the name of a species.
After this Urania became suddenly interested in Schumann, and glided
across the room to see what the music meant.
'That is very sweet,' she murmured, sinking into a seat by Bessie;
'classical, of course?'
'Schumann,' answered Ida, briefly.
'I thought so. It has that delicious vagueness one only finds in German
music--a half-developed meaning--leaving wide horizons of melodious
uncertainty.'
This was a conversational style which Miss Rylance had cultivated since
her entrance into the small world of Kingthorpe, and the larger world of
Cavendish Square, as a grown-up young woman. She had seen a good deal of
a semi-artistic, quasi-literary circle, in which her father was the
medical oracle, attending actresses and singers without any more
substantial guerdon than free admittance to the best theatres on the best
nights; prescribing for newspaper-men and literary lions, who sang his
praises wherever they went.
Urania had fallen at once into all the tricks and manners of the new
school. She had taken to short waists and broad sashes, and a style of
drapery which accentuated the elegant slimness of her figure. She
affected out-of-the-way colours, and quaint combinations--pale pinks and
olive greens, tawny yellow and faded russet--and bought her gowns at a
Japanese warehouse, where limp lengths of flimsy cashmere were mixed in
artistic confusion with sixpenny teapots and paper umbrellas. In a word,
Miss Rylance had become a disciple of the peacock-feather school of art,
and affected to despise every other development of intellect, or beauty.
This was the first time that she and Ida had met since the latter's
return to Kingthorpe, except indeed for briefest greetings in the
churchyard after morning service. Ida had not yet upbraided her for the
trick of which she was the author and originator, but Urania was in no
wise grateful for this forbearance. She had acted with deliberate
maliciousness; and she wanted to know that her malice had given pain. The
whole thing was a failure if it had not hurt the girl who had been
audacious enough to outshine Miss Rylance, and to fascinate Miss
Rylance's father. Urania had no idea that the physician had offered
himself and his two houses to Ida Palliser, nay, had even pledged himself
to sacrifice his daughter at the shrine of his new love. She knew that he
admired Miss Palliser more than he had ever admired anyone else within
her knowledge, and this was more than enough to make Ida hateful.
Ida was particularly obnoxious this evening, in that pale pink cashmere
gown, with a falling collar of fine old Brussels point, a Christmas gift
from Mrs. Wendover. The gown might not be the highest development of the
Grosvenor Gallery school, but it was at once picturesque and becoming,
and Ida was looking her loveliest.
'Why have you never come to see me since your return?' inquired Urania,
with languid graciousness.
'I did not think you wanted me,' Ida answered, coolly.
'I am always glad to see my friends. I stop at home on Thursday
afternoons on purpose; but perhaps you have not quite forgiven Bess and
me for that little bit of fun we indulged in last September,' said
Urania.
'I have quite forgiven Bess her share of the joke,' answered Ida,
scanning Miss Rylance's smiling countenance with dark, scornful eyes,
'because I know she had no idea of giving me pain.'
'But won't you forgive me too? Are you going to leave me out in the
cold?'
'I don't think you care a straw whether I forgive or do not forgive you.
You wanted to wound me--to humiliate me--and you succeeded--to a certain
degree. But you see I have survived the humiliation. You did not hurt me
quite so much as you intended, perhaps.'
'What a too absurd view to take of the thing!' cried Urania, with an
injured air. 'An innocent practical joke, not involving harm of any kind;
a little girlish prank played on the spur of the moment. I thought you
were more sensible than to be offended--much less seriously angry--at any
such nonsense.'
Ida contemplated her enemy silently for a few moments, as her hands
wandered softly through one of those Kinder-scenen which she knew by
heart.
'If I am mistaken in your motives it is I who have to apologize,' she
said, quietly. 'Perhaps I am inclined to make too much of what is really
nothing. But I detest all practical jokes, and I should have thought you
were the very last person to indulge in one, Miss Rylance. Sportiveness
is hardly in your line.'
'Nobody is always wise,' murmured Urania, with her disagreeable simper.
'Not even Miss Rylance?' questioned Ida, without looking up from the
keys.
'Please don't quarrel,' pleaded Bessie, piteously; 'such a bad use for
the last night of the year. It was more my fault than anyone else's,
though the suggestion did certainly come from Urania--but no harm has
come of it--nor good either, I am sorry to say--and I have repented
in sackcloth and ashes. Why should the dismal failure be raked up
to-night?'
'I should not have spoken of it if Miss Rylance had been silent,' said
Ida; and here, happily, the two young men came in, and made at once for
the group of girls by the piano, whereupon Urania had an opportunity of
parading her newest ideas, all second, third, or even fourth-hand, before
the young Oxonians. One young Oxonian was chillingly indifferent to the
later developments of modern thought, and had eyes for no one but Bessie,
whose childish face beamed with smiles as he talked to her, although his
homely theme was old Sam Jones's rheumatics, and the Providence which had
preserved Martha Morris's boy from instant death when he tumbled into the
fire. It was only parish talk, but Bessie felt as happy as if one of the
saints of old had condescended to converse with her--proud and pleased,
too, when Mr. Jardine told her how grateful old Jones was for her
occasional visits, and how her goodness to Mrs. Morris had made a deep
impression upon that personage, commonly reported to have 'a temper' and
to be altogether a difficult subject.
The conversation drifted not unnaturally from parochial to more personal
topics, and Mr. Jardine showed himself interested in Bessie's pursuits,
studies, and amusements.
'I hear so much of you from those two brothers of yours,' said the
Curate--'fine, frank fellows. They often join me in my walks.'
'I'm sure it is very good of you to have anything to say to them,'
replied Bessie, feeling, like other girls of eighteen, that there could
hardly be anything more despicable--from a Society point of view--than
her two brothers.' They are laboriously idle all through the holidays.'
'Well, I daresay they might work a little more, with ultimate advantage,'
said Mr. Jardine, smiling; 'but it is pleasant to see boys enjoy life so
thoroughly. They are fond of all open air amusements, and they are keen
observers, and I find that they think a good deal, which is a stage
towards work.'
'They are not utterly idiotic,' sighed Bessie; 'but they never read, and
they break things in a dreadful way. The legs of our chairs snap under
those two boys as if old oak were touchwood; and Blanche and Eva, who
ought to know better, devote all their energies to imitating them.'
The other gentlemen had come in by this time, and Dr. Rylance came
gliding across the room with his gentlemanly but somewhat catlike tread,
and planted himself behind Ida, bending down to question her about her
music, and letting her see that he admired her as much as ever, and had
even forgiven her for refusing him. But she rose as soon as she decently
could, and left the piano.
'Miss Rylance will sing, I hope,' she said, politely. Miss Wendover came
over to make the same request, and Urania sang the last fashionable
ballad, 'Blind Man's Holiday,' in a hard chilly voice which was as
unpleasant as a voice well could be without being actually out of tune.
After this Bessie sang 'Darby and Joan,' in a sweet contralto, but with a
doleful slowness which hung heavily upon the spirits of the company, and
a duly dismal effect having been produced, the young ladies were
cordially thanked for--leaving off.
A pair of whist-tables were now started for the elders, while the three
girls and the two Oxonians still clustered round the piano, and seemed to
find plenty to talk about till sweetly and suddenly upon the still night
air came the silver tones of the church bells.
Miss Wendover started up from the card-table with a solemn look, as the
curate opened a window and let in a flood of sound. A silent hush fell
upon everyone.
'The New Year is born,' said Aunt Betsy; 'may it spare us those we love,
and end as peacefully for us as the year that is just dead.'
And then they all shook hands with each other and parted.
The dance at The Knoll was a success, and Ida danced with the best men in
the room, and was as much courted and admired as if she had been the
greatest heiress in that part of Hampshire. Urania Rylance went simpering
about the room telling everybody, in the kindest way, who Miss Palliser
was, and how she had been an ill-used drudge at a suburban finishing
school, before that dear good Miss Wendover took her as a useful
companion; but even that crushing phrase, 'useful companion,' did not
degrade Ida in the eyes of her admirers.
'Palliser's a good name,' said one youth. 'There's a Sir Vernon
Palliser--knew him and his brother at Cambridge--members of the Alpine
Club--great athletes. Any relation?'
'Very distant, I should think, from what I know of Miss Palliser's
circumstances;' answered Miss Rylance, with an incredulous sneer.
But Urania failed in making youth and beauty contemptible, and was fain
to admit to herself that Ida Palliser was the belle of the room. Dr.
Rylance, who had not been invited, but who looked so well and so young
that no one could be angry with him for coming, hung upon Miss Palliser's
steps, and tortured her with his politeness.
For Ida the festivity was not all happiness. She would have been
happier at the Homestead, sitting by the fire reading aloud to Miss
Wendover--happier almost anywhere--for she had not only to endure a kind
of gentlemanly persecution from Dr. Rylance, but she was tormented by an
ever-present dread of Brian Walford's appearance. Bessie had sent him a
telegram only that morning, imploring him, as a personal favour, to be
present at her ball, vowing that she would be deeply offended with him if
he did not come; and more than once in the course of the evening Bessie
had told Ida that there was still time, there was a train now just due at
Winchester, and that might have brought him. Ida breathed more freely
after midnight, when it was obviously too late for any one else to
arrive.
'It is your fault,' said Bessie, pettishly. 'If you had not treated him
very unkindly at Mauleverer he would be here to-night. He never failed me
before.'
Ida reddened, and then grew very pale.
'I see,' she said, 'you think I deprive you of your cousin's society. I
will ask Miss Wendover to let me go back to France.'
'No, no, no, you inhuman creature! how can you talk like that? You know
that I love you ever so much better than Brian, though he is my own kith
and kin. I would not lose you for worlds. I don't care a straw about his
coming, for my own sake. Only I should so like you to marry him, and be
one of us. Oh, here's that odious Dr. Rylance stealing after you. Aunt
Betsy is quite right--the man would like to marry you--but you won't
accept him, will you, darling?--not even to have your own house in
Cavendish Square, a victoria and brougham, and all those blessings we
hear so much about from Urania. Remember, you would have her for a
stepdaughter into the bargain.'
'Be assured, dear Bess, I shall never be Urania's stepmother. And now,
darling, put all thoughts of matrimony out of your head; for me, at
least.'
That brief flash of Christmas and New Year's gaiety was soon over. The
Knoll resumed its wonted domestic calm. Dr. Rylance went back to
Cavendish Square, and only emerged occasionally from the London vortex to
spend a peaceful day or two at Kingthorpe. His daughter was not installed
as mistress of his town house, as she had fondly hoped would be the case.
She was permitted to spend an occasional week, sometimes stretched to ten
days or a fortnight, in Cavendish Square; but the cook-housekeeper and
the clever German servant, half valet half butler, still reigned supreme
in that well-ordered establishment; and Urania felt that she had no more
authority than a visitor. She dared not find fault with servants who
had lived ten years in her father's service, and who suited him
perfectly--even had there been any legitimate reason for fault-finding,
which there was not.
Dr. Rylance having got on so comfortably during the last twelve years of
his life without a mistress for his town house, was disinclined to
surrender his freedom to a daughter who had more than once ventured to
question his actions, to hint that he was not all-wise. He considered it
a duty to introduce his daughter into the pleasant circles where he was
petted and made much of; and he fondly hoped she would speedily find a
husband sufficiently eligible to be allowed the privilege of taking her
off her father's hands. But in the meanwhile, Urania in London was
somewhat of a bore; and Dr. Rylance was never more cheerful than when
driving her to Waterloo Station.
Miss Rylance's life, therefore, during this period alternated between
rural seclusion and London gaiety. She came back to the pastoral phase of
her existence with the feelings and demeanour of a martyr; and her only
consolation was found in those calm airs of superiority which seemed
justified by her intimate acquaintance with society, and her free use of
a kind of jargon which she called modern thought.
'How you can manage to exist here all the year round without going out of
your mind is more than I can understand,' she told Bessie.
'Well, I know Kingthorpe is dull,' replied Bess, meekly, 'but it's a dear
old hole, and I never find the days too long, especially when those
odious boys are at home.'
'But really now, Bessie, don't you think it is time you should leave off
playing with boys, and begin wearing gloves?' sneered Urania.
'I did wear gloves at Bournemouth, religiously--mousquetaires, up to my
elbows; never went out without them. No, Ranie, I am never dull at old
Kingthorpe; and then there is always a hope of Bournemouth.'
'Bournemouth is worse than this!' exclaimed Urania. 'There is nothing so
laboriously dismal as a semi-fashionable watering-place.'
Talk as she might, Miss Rylance could not sour Bessie's happy disposition
with the vinegar of discontent. Hers was a sweet, joyous soul; and just
now, had she dared to speak the truth, she would have said that this
pastoral village of Kingthorpe, this cluster of fine old houses and
comfortable cottages, grouped around an ancient parish church, was to her
the central point of the universe, to leave which would be as Eve's
banishment from Eden. The pure and tender heart had found its shrine, and
laid down its offering of reverent devotion. Mr. Jardine had said nothing
as yet, but he had sedulously cultivated Bessie Wendover's society, and
had made himself eminently agreeable to her parents, who could find no
fault with a man who was at once a scholar and a gentleman, and who had
an income which made him comfortably independent of immediate preferment.
He was enthusiastic, and he could afford to give his enthusiasm full
scope. Kingthorpe suited him admirably. It was a parish rich in sweet
associations. The present Vicar was a good, easy-going man, a High
Churchman of the old school rather than the new, yet able to sympathize
with men of more advanced opinions and fiercer energies.
Thus it was that while Miss Rylance found her bower at Kingthorpe a place
of dullness and discontent, Bessie rose every morning to a new day of joy
and gladness, which began, oh! so sweetly, in the early morning service,
in which John Jardine's deep musical voice gave new force and meaning to
the daily lessons, new melody to the Psalms. Ida was always present at
this morning service, and the two girls used to walk home together
through the dewy fields, sometimes one, sometimes the other going out of
her way to accompany her friend. Bessie poured all her innocent secrets
into Ida's ear, expatiating with sweet girlish folly upon every look and
tone of Mr. Jardine's, asking Ida again and again if she thought that he
cared, ever so little, for her.
'You never tell me any of your secrets, Ida,' she said, reproachfully,
after one of these lengthy discussions. 'I am always prosing about my
affairs, until I must seem a lump of egotism. Why don't you make me
listen sometimes? I should be deeply interested in any dream of yours, if
it were ever so wild.'
'My darling, I have no dreams, wild or tame,' said Ida. She could not say
that she had no secret, having that one dreadful secret hanging over her
and overshadowing her life.
'And have you never been in love?'
'Never. I once thought--almost thought--that I was in love. It was like
drifting away in a frail, dancing little boat over an unknown sea--all
very well while the sun shone and the boat went gaily--suddenly the boat
fell to pieces, and I found myself in the cold, cruel water.'
'Horrid!' cried Bess, with a shudder. 'That could not have been real
love.'
'No, dear, it was a will-o'-the-wisp, not the true light.'
'And you have got over it?'
'Quite. I am perfectly happy in the life I lead now.'
This was the truth. There are these calm pauses in most lives--blessed
intervals of bliss without passion--a period in which heart and mind are
both at rest, and yet growing and becoming nobler and purer in the time
of repose, just as the body grows during sleep.
And thus Ida's life, full and useful, glided on, and the days went by
only too swiftly; for it was never out of her mind that these days of
tranquil happiness were numbered, that she was bound in honour to leave
Kingthorpe before Brian Walford could feel the oppression of banishment
from his kindred. At present Brian Walford was living in Paris, with an
old college friend, both these youths being supposed to be studying the
French language and literature, with a view to making themselves more
valuable at the English bar. He had given up his chambers in the Temple,
as too expensive for a man living from hand to mouth. He was understood
to be contributing to the English magazines, and to be getting his living
decently, which was better than languishing under the cognizance of the
Lamb and Flag, with no immediate prospect of briefs.