MRS. GRAHAM-SHUTE MANŒUVRES.
It was ten days later that Mrs. Graham-Shute arrived, according to her
promise, at Wyngham House.
Chris, much against her will, was stationed, by Mr. Bradfield’s special
request, to receive the visitors. Mrs. Abercarne tried to persuade
him that he himself ought to meet such distinguished guests, but
he laughed, and said “he couldn’t stand the old woman’s gush; if a
reception by Miss Christina wasn’t good enough for them, they might do
without one altogether, and be hanged to them.”
So Christina amused herself at the piano until Mrs. Graham-Shute was
announced. The girl came forward modestly to receive the new-comers,
who were talking loudly as they entered. At the first moment she
thought it was an affectation to put her out of countenance, but she
soon found out that the Graham-Shutes never did anything without making
four times as much noise over it as anybody else would have done.
Thus, Mrs. Graham-Shute came in with rustling skirts and jingling
bonnet ornaments, while Donald laughed in a deep bass voice, and
entered with a tread as heavy as a dragoon’s.
“My _dear_ John, where are you? It was quite too sweet of you to----”
Suddenly becoming aware that “dear John” was nowhere to be seen, and
that there was only a slender and remarkably pretty girl bowing and
smiling to her rather timidly, Mrs. Graham-Shute stopped short, drew
in her extended hand, and stared at Chris with a face which had in an
instant lost its air of expansive good humour.
Chris, who had been reassured by the good-natured expression which she
had at first seen on the visitor’s face, felt a chill come over her.
She was not afraid of this self-important lady, but she perceived at
once that there would be “unpleasantness” between her and “mamma.” With
the quickness of budding womanhood, she had taken in at a glance every
detail of the new-comer’s appearance, and had had time for a peep at
the young people behind.
And what she had seen was a woman of medium height, enormously stout,
with a large, many-chinned face, in which were a pair of eyes which ran
over her interlocutor for a few moments with frank curiosity, and then
grew dull, while her tongue still ran on, and her mind occupied itself
with some subject foreign to her words.
So that while her words to Chris were, “Dear me! So very sorry that
Mr. Bradfield was too busy to receive us himself! The poor dear man
really does work too hard with his collections, and his philanthropical
projects!” her thoughts were: “I wonder who on earth you are, and what
you’re doing here! And I hope, whoever you are, that we shall be able
to turn you out!”
Unfortunately, her thoughts spoke through her looks more eloquently
than her words. Between her suspicions of the real state of the case,
and the possibility that this young lady might be a relation of
Mr. Bradfield’s, the poor lady felt uncertain how to treat her, and
alternated between the most distant coldness and bursts of confidential
effusiveness. When, however, Chris said: “Would you like to go up
to your rooms? My mother thought you would like what we call the
lighthouse room at the end,” Mrs. Graham-Shute stared at her with
unmistakable hostility.
“Your mother is staying here with you, then?” she said shortly.
“My mother is the housekeeper,” answered Chris, with a blush.
Poor Mrs. Graham-Shute’s extensive person seemed to expand still
further under the influence of her just indignation. To be received by
this minx of a housekeeper’s daughter! A girl whose very existence, to
judge by her face and figure, was a danger and an insult to all Mr.
Bradfield’s relations who had any expectations from him. What was dear
John thinking about? She called her children much as a hen gathers her
chicks under her wings at approaching danger, and they bustled and
bounced out of the room.
Chris was mortified, but she had expected something of the sort, so she
conquered the feeling easily. She would not go up to her mother, who
was dressing for dinner, to delay her and worry her by a description
of the new arrivals. Mrs. Abercarne could take her own part whatever
happened, and there was no need to let her anticipate evil more than
she had already done.
In the meantime, Mrs. Graham-Shute had not dared to make any comment
on the situation until she was well past the study door. But upstairs,
meeting her husband, who had gone straight to the stables for a cigar
after his journey, she poured out her wrath in a ceaseless torrent.
Mr. Graham-Shute was a small, inoffensive man, and he looked smaller
and more inoffensive still when in the company of his wife. He was
the grandson of a man who had been a great poet, and there is no need
to say more about him than that he was a striking example of the fact
that genius is not hereditary. Being used to his wife’s harangues, he
listened indifferently to this one; and the only point in it which
excited him to any attention was her account of the good looks of the
interloper.
“Pretty girl, is she?” said he, with interest, when his better half
took breath for a moment. “I must make haste and dress and run down and
have a look at her!”
The poor lady was hardly more fortunate with her children. Lilith was
rather pretty, Rose was rather plain; the former had dark eyes and a
loud voice, and the latter had light eyes and no voice at all. They
both thought that mamma was making a great fuss about a small matter,
and Lilith told her so.
Unable to get any sympathy from this quarter, Mrs. Graham-Shute tried
her son. Donald, who was the apple of his mother’s eye, had been
coarsely and aptly described by Mr. Bradfield before his arrival as a
rough young cub. He was a great, loud-voiced, awkward hobbledehoy, who
had remained at this stage much longer than he would otherwise have
done through the injudicious management of his mother. He couldn’t be
made to see things from his mother’s point of view at all. Chris was
an “awfully pretty girl,” and looked like an “awfully jolly one.” In
consequence of her presence he looked forward to having a very much
pleasanter time at Wyngham House than he had ever had there before.
“I shouldn’t worry myself about it, mother. In fact, I don’t know what
you are worrying about,” he said, when she paused for breath. “The
girl’s a lady, and----”
“Why, you idiot! don’t you see that’s the danger?” gasped his mother.
“She’s a lady, and she’s young and good-looking. And if she gets him
to marry her, there’ll be an end of any hope of his doing anything for
you, or for any of us!”
“Gets him to marry her!” roared Donald, indignantly. “Why, the old fool
might think himself precious lucky if he were to get her to marry him!
Why, she’s one of the most charming----”
“Sh--sh!” said his mother, pinching his arm in her terror lest he
should be overheard. “For goodness’ sake hold your tongue. I’ve no
doubt these people have their spies about, and if we’re not very civil
to them, they’ll persuade cousin John to be rude to us, or something
dreadful.”
“You needn’t fear that I shall be anything but civil to that girl,”
said Donald, as if conscious that his civility was rather a precious
thing.
And Mrs. Graham-Shute left her son with a sigh of self-pity at
obtaining so little sympathy from her “own people.”
She was an inventive woman, however, where her own little schemes were
concerned, and an idea had come into her head. If it should prove, as
she feared, that there was any danger of “dear John’s” being enslaved
by the housekeeper’s pretty daughter, why should she not put “a
drag” across the scent in the shape of her son? He was handsome and
fascinating beyond all men, and was twenty-five years younger than John
Bradfield. He was already attracted by the girl, who could not fail to
be flattered by his admiration, whatever her designs might be upon the
master of the house. If Donald would have the sense to make love to her
without exciting the jealous suspicions of his cousin, he might draw
off the girl’s attention, and give his mother time to “look round” in
the interests of herself and her family.
In the meantime, she made up her mind to “be civil.”
This proved a more difficult task than she had expected. At dinner she
found Mrs. Abercarne installed in the place of the mistress of the
house. She saw “dear John,” who had welcomed her without effusiveness,
casting sheep’s eyes in the direction of Miss Abercarne. As she
expressed it afterwards to her husband, who was delighted with Chris:
“You couldn’t move for Abercarnes. It was ‘Mrs Abercarne, will you do
this?’ and ‘Miss Abercarne can tell you that,’ from morning till night!”
On the whole, dinner was a calamitous function. Mr. Graham-Shute,
who was neither a busybody nor a schemer, but simply an easy-going
gentleman, without any great measure of tact, made, in spite of frowns
of warning from his wife, more than one awkward remark. In the first
place, he asked John Bradfield, across the table, whether he still kept
his private lunatic on the establishment.
“Because if you do, you know, my dear fellow,” he went on, “I sha’n’t
be able to sleep a wink.”
Mr. Bradfield answered, very shortly:
“I don’t see what that can have to do with your sleeping!”
“Don’t you? Why, John, your memory’s going. Have you forgotten the row
he kicked up last time we were here, and how we all thought he would
bring his door down? And the man who looks after him, or, at least,
who did then, man named Stelfox, said he always went on like that when
there were visitors in the house. I declare I shouldn’t have dared to
come to-day if I thought you’d got him still!”
“Why didn’t you ask me, then?” said John Bradfield, drily. “I didn’t
want to have you here against your will.”
“Really, William,” broke in Mrs. Graham-Shute, in an agony, “I don’t
know how you can be so absurd. How can it matter to you who is in one
part of a large house like this, when you are far away in the other?”
“Oh! of course, it’s all right as long as he’s safely locked up,” said
her husband, as he helped himself to an olive, with more attention to
that than to the discussion in hand. “But at my time of life a man
prefers to die a natural death, and not to run the chance of being
tomahawked in his bed.”
Luckily the young people took this as a joke, and laughed; so that
difficulty was got over. But when they had got as far as the sweets,
the doomed man began again:
“By-the-bye, Bradfield,” he asked casually, as he tried to make up his
mind between orange-jelly and ice-pudding, “what’s become of those two
fellows who were out in the bush with you?”
“Don’t know what two fellows you mean,” answered Mr. Bradfield, in a
tone which would have warned off any person less obtuse. “I met a good
many fellows when I was out there.”
By this time Mr. Graham-Shute had caught his wife’s eye, seen her
frowns, watched her agonised attempts to kick his foot under the table;
but he was as quietly obstinate in his way as she was loudly determined
in hers, so he glared at her across the flowers, and persisted in his
ill-advised remarks.
“Oh! come, you must know. Two fellows who went out with you, or
whom you met soon after you got out there, and chummed up with.
Marrable--yes, Alfred Marrable was the name of the one, and----” Here
he paused, trying to recollect the second name. “I can’t remember the
name of the other. What’s become of them? What’s become of Marrable?”
Mrs. Graham-Shute could hardly have been trusted alone with her husband
with a weapon in her hand at that moment. For she saw that the rich
cousin from whom so much was expected was looking as much displeased
as only a sallow-faced and black-haired man can look. If William were
going on like this, they might just as well settle at John-o’-Groat’s
as at Wyngham. John Bradfield no longer pretended, however, to have
forgotten the existence of his old chums.
“Dead, I believe, both of them,” he answered, curtly. “Did no good,
either of them.”
“And what was the name of the other man?”
“Don’t remember.”
William looked at him incredulously, though he could not go so far as
to contradict him.
His wife rushed in to the rescue.
“And what are we going to do to pass the time away between this and
Friday?” she asked, with a great assumption of buoyancy and good
spirits. “We ought to try to ‘get up’ something, ought we not?”
This question almost restored John Bradfield’s good humour. It was
so characteristic of his cousin Maude. She was always “getting up”
something, always at short notice, and always badly. It was her custom
to forget some one or other of the necessary preparations, and to
leave the work to be done in the hands of others. But she liked the
excitement, the glory of being the prime mover of everything, however
small, the feeling that she was making herself talked about; above all,
she liked the “fuss.”
Lilith and Rose looked at each other. Their eyes said, “So like mamma!”
“All right, Maude,” said her cousin, with restored gold humour. “What
shall it be? A sack race? Or distribution of buns to the oldest
inhabitants? It’s all the same to you, I suppose?”
It was her turn to look offended. She raised her head so far that her
cousin could scarcely see more than the chins as she answered, in
stately tones:
“Oh! of course, if I’m only to be laughed at, I withdraw the
suggestion. But I thought, as we are in a beautiful house like this,
where there is plenty of room and plenty of people to do everything, it
seems a pity not to take advantage of it, and----”
“And get a line in the local paper,” added her husband.
There was a laugh at this, subdued on the part of her daughters,
boisterously loud from Donald, who had been enjoying his cousin’s
champagne immensely, and bestowing more and more of his attention on
the unresponsive Chris.
They all knew that her project, if she could yet be said to have
anything so definite, was not nipped in the bud, but would spring up to
its full growth at a not remote period. For the moment, however, Mrs.
Graham-Shute said no more about it, but rather disdainfully gave to
Mrs. Abercarne the signal for the ladies to retire, instead of waiting
for that lady to give it to her.