The next day did not look at all promising as regards the weather, but
still the shooters, Tristram among them, started early for their sport.
And after the merriest breakfast at little tables in the great
dining-room the intending picnickers met in conclave to decide as to
what they should do.
"It is perfectly sure to rain," Jimmy Danvers said. "There is no use
attempting to go to Lynton Heights. Why don't we take the lunch to
Montfitchet Tower and eat it in the big hall? There we wouldn't get
wet."
"Quite right, Jimmy," agreed the Crow, who, with Lady Anningford, was to
chaperon the young folk. "I'm all for not getting wet, with my rheumatic
shoulder, and I hear you and Young Billy are a couple of firstclass
cooks."
"Then," interrupted Lady Betty enthusiastically, "we can cook our own
lunch! Oh, how delightful! We will make a fire in the big chimney. Uncle
Crow, you are a pet!"
"I will go and give orders for everything at once," Lady Ethelrida
agreed delightedly. "Jimmy, what a bright boy to have thought of the
plan!"
And by twelve o'clock all was arranged. Now, it had been settled the
night before that Mr. Markrute should shoot with the Duke and the rest
of the more serious men; but early in the morning that astute financier
had sent a note to His Grace's room, saying, if it were not putting out
the guns dreadfully, he would crave to be excused as he was expecting a
telegram of the gravest importance concerning the new Turkish loan,
which he would be obliged to answer by a special letter, and he was
uncertain at what time the wire would come. He was extremely sorry, but,
he added whimsically, the Duke must remember he was only a poor,
business-man!
At which His Grace had smiled, as he thought of his guest's vast
millions, in comparison to his own.
Thus it was that just before twelve o'clock when the young party were
ready to start for their picnic. Mr. Markrute, having written his letter
and despatched it by express to London, chanced upon Lady Ethelrida in a
place where he felt sure he should find her, and, expressing his
surprise that they were not already gone, he begged to be allowed to
come with them. He, too, was an excellent cook, he assured her, and
would be really of use. And they all laughingly started.
And if she could have seen the important letter concerning the new
Turkish loan, she would have found it contained a pressing reminder to
Bumpus to send down that night certain exquisitely bound books!
* * * * *
Above all, the young ladies had demanded they should have no servants at
their picnic--everything, even the fire, was to be made by themselves.
Jimmy was to drive the donkey-cart, with Lady Betty, to take all the
food. The only thing they permitted was that the pots and pans and the
wood for the fire might be sent on.
And they were all so gay and looked so charming and suitably clad, in
their rough, short, tweed frocks.
Zara, who walked demurely by Lord Elterton, had never seen anything of
the sort. She felt like a strange, little child at its first party.
Before he had started in the morning Tristram had sent her a note (he
could not stand the maid and valet as verbal messengers--it made him
laugh too bitterly), it was just a few lines:
"You asked me to tell you anything special about our customs, so this is
to say, just put on some thick, short, ordinary suit, and mind you have
a pair of thick boots."
And it was signed "Tancred"--not "Tristram."
She gave a little quiver as she read it, and then asked and found his
lordship had already gone down. She was to breakfast later with the
non-shooters. She would not see him, then, for the entire day. And that
odious woman with whom he was so friendly would have him all to herself!
These thoughts flashed into her mind before she was aware of it, and
then she crushed them out--furious with herself. For of what possible
matter could her husband's doings be to her? And yet, as she started,
she found herself hoping it would rain, so that the five ladies who
intended joining the guns in the farmhouse, for luncheon at two, would
be unable to go. For just as she had come into the saloon where some of
the party were writing letters that morning she had heard Lady Highford
say to Mrs. Harcourt, in her high voice, "Yes, indeed, we mean to finish
the discussion this afternoon after luncheon.--Dear Tristram! There is a
long wait at the Fulton beat; we shall have plenty of time alone." And
then she had turned round, and seemed confused at seeing her--Zara--and
gushed more than the night before.
But she did not get the satisfaction of perceiving the bride turn a
hair, though as Zara walked on to the end of the room she angrily found
herself wondering who was this woman, and what had she been to Tristram?
What was she _now_?
Lord Elterton had already fallen in love. He was a true _cavalier_
servant; he knew, like the financier, as a fine art, how to manipulate
the temperaments of most women. He prided himself upon it. Indeed, he
spent the greater part of his life doing nothing else. Exquisite
gentleness and sympathy was his method. There were such heaps of rough,
rude brutes about that one would always have a chance by being the
contrast; and husbands, he reasoned, were nearly always brutes--after a
while--in the opinion of their wives! He had hardly ever known this plan
to fail with the most devoted wife. So although Lady Tancred had only
been married a week he hoped to render her not quite indifferent to
himself in some way. He had seen at once that she and Tristram were not
on terms of passionate love, and there was something so piquant about
flirting with a bride! He divided women as a band into about four
divisions. The quite impossible, the recalcitrant, the timid, and the
bold. For the impossible he did not waste powder and shot. For the
recalcitrant he used insidious methods of tickling their fancies, as he
would tickle a trout. For the timid he was tender and protective; and
for the bold subtly indifferent: but always gentle and nice!
He was not sure yet in which of the four divisions he should have to
place his new attraction--probably the second--but he frankly admitted
he had never before had any experience with one of her type. Her strange
eyes thrilled him: he felt, when she turned the deep slate, melting
disks upon him, his heart went "down into his bloomin' boots," as Jimmy
Danvers would have described the sensation. So he began with extreme
gentleness and care.
"You have not been long in this country, Lady Tancred, have you? One can
see it--you are so exquisitely _chic_. And how perfectly you speak
English! Not the slightest accent. It is delicious. Did you learn it
when very young?"
"My father was an Englishman," said Zara, disarmed from her usual
chilling reserve by the sympathy in his voice. "I always spoke it until
I was thirteen, and since then, too. It is a nice, honest language, I
think."
"You speak numbers of others, probably?" Lord Elterton went on,
admiringly.
"Yes, about four or five. It is very easy when one is moving in the
countries, and certain languages are very much alike. Russian is the
most difficult."
"How clever you are!"
"No, I am not a bit. But I have had time to read a good deal--" and then
Zara stopped. It was so against her habit to give personal information
to any one like this.
Lord Elterton saw the little check, and went on another tack. "I have
been an idle fellow and am not at all learned," he said. "Tristram and I
were at Eton together in the same house, and we were both dunces; but he
did rather well at Oxford, and I went straight into the Guards."
Zara longed to ask about Tristram. She had not even heard before that he
had been to Oxford! And it struck her suddenly how ridiculous the whole
thing was. She had sold herself for a bargain; she had asked no
questions of any one; she had intended to despise the whole family and
remain entirely aloof; and now she found every one of her intentions
being gradually upset. But as yet she did not admit for a second to
herself that she was falling in love. It would be such a perfectly
impossible thing to do in any case, when now he was absolutely
indifferent to her and showed it in every way. It made the whole thing
all the more revolting--to have pretended he loved her on that first
night! Yes, with certain modifications of classes and races men were all
perfectly untrustworthy, if not brutes, and a woman, if she could relax
her vigilance, as regards the defense of her person and virtue, could
not afford to unbend a fraction as to her emotions!
And all the time she was thinking this out she was silent, and Lord
Elterton watched her, thrilled with the attraction of the unobtainable.
He saw plainly she had forgotten his very presence, and, though piqued,
he grew the more eager.
"I would love to know what you were thinking of," he said softly; and
then with great care he pulled a bramble aside so that it should not
touch her. They had turned into a lane beyond the kitchen garden and the
park.
Zara started. She had, indeed, been far away!
"I was thinking--" she said, and then she paused for a suitable lie but
none came, so she grew confused, and stopped, and hesitated, and then
she blurted out, "I was thinking was it possible there could ever be any
one whom one could believe?"
Lord Elterton looked at her. What a strange woman!
"Yes," he said simply, "you can believe me when I tell you I have never
been so attracted by any one in my life."
"Oh! for that!" she answered contemptuously. _"Mon Dieu!_ how often I
have heard of that!"
This was not what he had expected. There was no empty boast about the
speech, as there would have been if Laura Highford had uttered it--she
was fond of demonstrating her conquests and power in words. There was
only a weariness as of something banal and tiring. He must be more
careful.
"Yes, I quite understand," he said sympathetically. "You must be bored
with the love of men."
"I have never seen any love of men. Do men know love?" she asked, not
with any bitterness--only as a question of fact. What had Tristram been
about? Lord Elterton thought. Here he had been married to this divine
creature for a whole week, and she was plainly asking the question from
her heart. And Tristram was no fool in a general way, he knew. There was
some mystery here, but whatever it was there was the more chance for
him! So he went on very tactfully, trying insidiously to soothe her, so
that at last when they had arrived Zara had enjoyed her walk.
Montfitchet Tower was all that remained of the old castle destroyed by
Cromwell's Ironsides. It was just one large, square room, a sort of
great hall. It had stood roofless for many years and then been covered
in by the old Duke's father, and contained a splendid stone chimney
piece of colossal proportions. It had also been floored, and had the
raised place still, where the family had eaten "above the salt." The
rest of the old castle was a complete ruin, and at the Restoration the
new one had been rebuilt about a mile further up the park.
Lady Ethelrida had collected several pieces of rough oak furniture to
put into this great room which in height reached three stories up, and
the supports of the mantelpieces of the upper floors could be seen on
the blackened stone walls. It was here she gave her school treats and
tenants' summer dances, because there was a great stretch of green,
turfy lawn beyond, down to the river, where they could play their games.
And on a wet day it was an ideal picnic place.
A bright wood fire was already blazing on top of the ashes that for many
years had never been cleared out, and a big jack swung in front of
it--for appearance sake! What fun every one seemed to be having, Zara
thought, as from an oak bench she watched them all busy as bees over
their preparations for the repast. She had helped to make a salad, and
now sat with the Crow, and surveyed the rest.
Jimmy Danvers had turned up his sleeves and was thoroughly in earnest
over his part; and he and Young Billy had gathered some brown bracken,
and put it sprouting from a ham, to represent, they said, the peacock.
For, they explained, a banquet in a baronial hall had to have a peacock,
as well as a boar's head, and an ox roasted whole!
And suddenly Zara thought of her last picnic, with Mimo and Mirko in the
Neville Street attic, when the poor little one had worn the paper cap,
and had taken such pleasure in the new rosy cups. And the Crow who was
watching her closely, wondered why this gay scene should make the lovely
bride look so pitifully sad. "How _Maman_ would have loved all this!"
she was thinking, "with her gay, tender soul, and her delight in
make-believe and joyous picnics." And her father--he had known all these
sorts of people; they were his own class, and yet he had come to live in
the great, gloomy castle, out of his own land, and expected his
exquisite, young wife to stay there alone, most of the time. The hideous
cruelty of men!
And there was her Uncle Francis, in quite a new character!--helping Lady
Ethelrida to lay the table, as happily as a boy. Would she herself ever
be happy, she wondered, ever have a time free from some agonizing strain
or care? And then, from sorrow her expression changed to one of strange
slumberous resentment at fate.
"Queen Anne," said the Crow, as they sat down to luncheon, "there is
some tragedy hanging over that young woman. She has been suffering like
the devil for at least ten minutes, and forgot I was even beside her and
pretending to talk. You and Lady Ethelrida have two not altogether
unkind hearts. Can't you find out what it is, and comfort her?"