ARAMINTA
ARAMINTA
BY
J. C. SNAITH
AUTHOR OF “WILLIAM JORDAN, JUNIOR,” “BROKE
OF COVENDEN,” ETC.
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
1909
COPYRIGHT, 1908, 1909, BY
THE FORUM PUBLISHING COMPANY
COPYRIGHT, 1909, BY
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY
NEW YORK
Published, February, 1909
Second Printing, March, 1909
Third Printing, May, 1909
Fourth Printing, July, 1909
Fifth Printing, August, 1909
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE OLD WOMAN OF HILL STREET 1
II. THE IDEA WHICH CAME TO HER 9
III. LORD CHERITON LOOKS IN 22
IV. ARRIVAL OF THE FIRST CAUSE OF ALL ROMANCE 38
V. THE INSTINCT OF MR. MARCHBANKS BETRAYS HIM 48
VI. UNWARRANTABLE BEHAVIOR OF TOBIAS 66
VII. A THROWBACK 80
VIII. “CAROLINE CREWKERNE’S GAINSBOROUGH” 98
IX. IN WHICH CHERITON DROPS HIS UMBRELLA 108
X. JIM LASCELLES MAKES HIS APPEARANCE 119
XI. MISS PERRY IS THE SOUL OF DISCRETION 140
XII. JIM LASCELLES TAKES A DECISIVE STEP 151
XIII. HIGH REVEL IS HELD IN HILL STREET 161
XIV. UNGENTLEMANLIKE BEHAVIOR OF JIM LASCELLES 171
XV. DIPLOMACY IS CALLED FOR 193
XVI. HYDE PARK 200
XVII. DEVELOPMENT OF THE FEMALE US 213
XVIII. FASHION COMES TO THE ACACIAS 226
XIX. A SOCIAL TRIUMPH 243
XX. MISS PERRY HAS HER PALM CROSSED WITH SILVER 256
XXI. HIGH DIPLOMACY 267
XXII. A CONVERSATION AT WARD’S 281
XXIII. MUFFIN MAKES HER APPEARANCE AT PEN-Y-GROS CASTLE 292
XXIV. EPISODE OF A FRENCH NOVEL AND A RED UMBRELLA 304
XXV. PARIS ON MOUNT IDA 322
XXVI. JIM LASCELLES ADDS HEROISM TO HIS OTHER FINE QUALITIES 334
XXVII. REVEL IS HELD AT PEN-Y-GROS CASTLE 348
XXVIII. A THUNDERBOLT 365
XXIX. JIM LASCELLES WRITES HIS NAME IN THE VISITORS’ BOOK 375
XXX. GOOD-BY 383
XXXI. DISINTEGRATION 392
XXXII. BARNE MOOR 402
XXXIII. EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST IN THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE
WORLDS 410
ARAMINTA
CHAPTER I
THE OLD WOMAN OF HILL STREET
An old lady who lived in Hill Street was making arrangements to enter
upon her seventy-fourth year.
It was a quarter to nine in the morning by the ormolu clock on the
chimney-piece; and the old lady, somewhat shriveled, very wide-awake,
and in the absence of her toupee from the position it was accustomed to
grace--at present it was in the center of the dressing-table--looking
remarkably like a macaw, was sitting up in bed. Cushions supported her
venerable form, and an Indian shawl, the gift of her Sovereign, covered
her aged shoulders.
There were people who did not hesitate to describe her as a very
worldly-minded, not to say very wicked, old lady. The former of these
epithets there is none to dispute; in regard to the latter, let our
silence honor the truth. It is far from our intention to asperse the
character of one who has always passed as a Christian; nor do we
ascribe to human frailty the sinister significance that some people do.
But as far as this old lady is concerned it is a point upon which we
have no bigotry.
If sheer worldliness of mind is akin to wickedness, the old woman who
lived in Hill Street must have come perilously near to that state. Her
views upon all matters relating to this world were extremely robust,
and years and experience had confirmed her in them. In regard to the
next world she seldom expressed an opinion. In this she was doubtless
wise. Sitting very upright in her bed, with those glittering eyes and
hawklike features the unmistakable mistress of all they surveyed, she
was enough to strike the boldest heart with awe. Not that temerity was
the long suit of Miss Burden, a gentlewoman of a certain age whose sole
mission in life it was to do her good-will and pleasure in return for
board and residence, and forty pounds per annum paid quarterly.
Duly fortified with a slice of dry toast and a cup of very strong tea,
the old lady said in such a clear and incisive tone that she must have
studied the art of elocution in the days of her youth--
“Burden, cover my head.”
The gentlewoman obeyed the command with delicacy and with dexterity.
Yet it must not be thought that the elaborate mechanism which adorned
the venerable poll fourteen hours out of the twenty-four was taken from
the center of the dressing-table. It was not. Various ceremonies had to
be performed before the moment arrived for its reception. In its place
a temporary, but none the less marvelous, erection of fine needlework
and point lace was produced by Miss Burden, and arranged like a
veritable canopy about the brow of Minerva.
“Admit Marchbanks,” said the voice from the bed.
The door opened and that personage was ushered in. Mr. Marchbanks
merits a description quite as much as his mistress. Yet how to do
justice to him, that is the problem. The poise of his bearing, his
urbane reserve, his patrician demeanor were those of an ambassador.
His whole being was enveloped in an air of high diplomacy. His most
trivial action seemed to raise the ghost of Lord John Russell. Like his
venerable mistress, he was a Whig to the core. He had been born, he had
been bred, and by the grace of God he was determined to die in that
tradition.
Under the left arm of Mr. Marchbanks was the _Morning Post_, which
organ of opinion had been warmed by his own hands. In his right hand
he bore a small silver dish. Upon it was a little pile of rather
important-looking correspondence.
With the courtly grace of a bygone age, Mr. Marchbanks bowed to the
occupant of the four-poster--old ladies who live in Hill Street do
not put their faith in new furniture--and his venerable mistress was
pleased to say--
“Good morning, Marchbanks.”
“Good morning, my lady,” said Mr. Marchbanks very gravely; and then
said he with a benevolence that would have made a considerable fortune
in Harley Street: “I trust your ladyship has slept well.”
“As well as one can expect at my age,” said the occupant of the
four-poster.
No, Mr. Marchbanks did not offer his venerable mistress many happy
returns of her birthday. And to those of our readers who aspire to
serve old ladies who live in Hill Street--and let us not be judged
immodest if we express the belief that many who are inspired with this
excellent ambition will be found among them--a word of warning may not
be out of place. Let us urge these neophytes not to take the practice
of Mr. Marchbanks for their guide. His eminence was the fruit of years.
Remember he had been tipped by the Duke of Wellington. He had pulled
down the coat collar of Lord Palmerston on more than one occasion;
while as for Lord Granville, he knew him as well as he knew his own
father.
“How is Ponto this morning?” inquired the occupant of the four-poster.
“In excellent spirits, my lady.”
“And his appetite?”
“He has eaten a chicken, my lady, with excellent relish.”
“Humph,” said the occupant of the four-poster, “that dog eats as much
as a Christian.”
In the opinion of Mr. Marchbanks Ponto ate more, but he did not say
so. He was content merely to bow and withdraw with simple yet ample
dignity. The old lady read her letters and glanced at the Court
Circular, the Parliamentary Report, and the Money Market. She then
announced her intention of getting up. Over the divers things incident
to this complex process it is doubtless well to draw the veil. Let it
suffice that an hour and a half later she reached her morning-room,
a veritable dragon in black silk and a brown wig, leaning on an ebony
walking-stick.
The normal condition of her temper was severe, “Acidulated to the verge
of the morose,” said those who had particular cause to respect it. A
considerable, not to say representative body they were. On this wet
morning of the early spring, this seventy-third annual commemoration of
the most pregnant fact of her experience, her temper was so positively
formidable that it smote the officers of her household with a feeling
akin to dismay.
Various causes had contributed to the state of the barometer. For one
thing that impertinent fellow Cheriton had issued his annual persiflage
upon the subject of her birthday. It fell, it appeared, upon the first
of April; a stroke of irony, in Cheriton’s opinion, for which she had
never quite been able to forgive her Creator. Then, again, if you
came to think of it, what had existence to offer an old woman who had
so long outlived her youth; who had neither kith nor kin of her own;
who bored her friends; who rendered her dependents miserable; who
was unable to take exercise; who distrusted doctors and despised the
clergy: a praiser of past times who considered the present age all that
it ought not to be?
Why should this old lady be in a good humor on her seventy-third
birthday? She was a nuisance to everybody, including herself. She was
a vain and selfish old woman, as all the world knew. Yet even she had
her points. Everybody has to have points of some kind, else they would
never be allowed to persist--particularly to their seventy-fourth year.
For one thing she was good to her pug. Upon that extraordinarily
repulsive and overfed animal she lavished a great deal of affection.
Yet mark the ingratitude of the canine race. How did that misshapen,
dumb, soulless, pampered beast, whose figurehead was like a gargoyle,
and whose eyes were so swollen with baked meats that they could
scarcely revolve, requite the constant care and caresses of his
mistress? Why, by getting fat. There could be no doubt about it that
Ponto was getting fat.
Almost the first thing the old woman did upon what was destined to
prove one of the most memorable days of a long and not particularly
useful life, was to issue an edict. It was to the effect that John, the
second footman, was to exercise Ponto for an hour every morning in Hyde
Park. The manner in which John, who himself consumed more than was good
for a human being, received the edict is no concern of ours.
It was about a quarter to two--at least it was getting near
luncheon-time--that the rare event happened from which springs the
germ of this history. How it came to pass will never be known. It
is a problem to baffle the most learned doctors and the most expert
psychologists. For at about a quarter to two, just as Miss Burden
had returned from a visit to the circulating library, the occurrence
happened. The old lady of Hill Street was visited by an Idea. To be
sure it did not reveal itself immediately in that crude and startling
guise. It had its processes to go through, like a cosmos or a tadpole,
or any other natural phenomenon that burgeons into entity. The
evolutions by which it attained to its fullness were in this wise.
“Where have you been, Burden?” said the old lady, fixing a cold eye
upon the abashed blue-backed volume under the arm of her gentlewoman.
“I have been changing a novel at Mudie’s,” said Miss Burden.
“The usual rubbish, I suppose,” said the old woman, giving a grim turn
to her countenance, which rendered that frontispiece an admirable
composite of a hawk and a hanging judge.
“Lord Cheriton said it was the best novel he had read for years,” said
Miss Burden with the gentle air of one who reveres authority.
“Humph,” said the old lady. “Whatever Cheriton is, he has taste at
least. Give it to me.”
Miss Burden handed the blue-backed volume to her mistress. The old lady
opened it warily, lest she should come too abruptly upon a fine moral
sentiment.
“Man uses good English,” she said suspiciously. “Reminds one of the man
Disraeli before he made a fool of himself in politics.”
The next thing that Miss Burden was aware of was that the old lady was
fast asleep.
When Mr. Marchbanks came a few minutes later to announce that luncheon
was ready, his mistress, with the blue-backed volume in her lap, was
snoring lustily. An anxious consultation followed. Her ladyship had
not missed her luncheon for seventy-three years.
The far-seeing wisdom of Miss Burden--doubtless due in some measure to
her pure taste in English fiction--was allowed to prevail. The state
of the old woman’s temper could not possibly be worse than it had been
that morning if the sun was to remain faithful to the firmament. If she
slept undisturbed it might conceivably be better.
Miss Burden was justified of her wisdom. The old lady missed her
luncheon for the first time in seventy-three years. Ideas come to us
fasting; and that is the only explanation there is to offer of how her
Idea came to be born.