WHICH FEATURES VARIOUS PERSONS WITH WHOM THE READER IS ALREADY ACQUAINTED
Some are born great, some attain greatness, and some have it thrust upon
them to the lively embarrassment of their humble and retiring little
souls. To his own notable surprise, General Frayling, on the morning
following his wife's Cinderella dance, awoke to find himself the centre
of interest in the life of the pretty pavilion situated in the grounds of
the Hôtel de la Plage. He owed this unaccustomed ascendency to physical
rather than moral or intellectual causes, being possessed of a
temperature, the complexion of the proverbial guinea, and violent pains
in his loins and his back.
These anxious symptoms developed--one cannot but feel rather unjustly--as
the consequence of his own politeness, his amenity of manner, and the
patient attentions he paid on the previous evening to one of his wife's
guests. He had sat altogether too long for personal comfort in a draughty
corner of the hotel garden, with Mrs. Callowgas. Affected by the poetic
influences of moon, stars, and sea, affected also conceivably by pagan
amorous influences, naughtily emanating from the neighbouring Venus
Temple--whose elegant tapering columns adorn the façade of the local
Mairie--Mrs. Callowgas became extensively reminiscent of her dear dead
Lord Bishop. Protracted anecdotes of visitations and confirmation tours,
excerpts from his sermons, speeches and charges, arch revelations of his
diurnal and nocturnal conversation and habits--the latter tedious to the
point of tears when not slightly immodest--poured from her widowed lips.
The good lady overflowed. She frankly babbled. General Frayling listened,
outwardly interested and civil, inwardly deploring that he had omitted
to put on a waistcoat back-lined with flannel--waxing momentarily more
conscious, also, that the iron--of the hard cold slats composing the seat
of his garden chair--if not entering into his soul, was actively entering
a less august and more material portion of his being through the slack of
his thin evening trousers. He endured both tedium and bodily suffering
with the fortitude of a saint and martyr; but next morning revealed him
victim of a violent chill demanding medical aid.
The native local practitioner was reported mono-lingual, and of small
scientific reputation; while our General though fluent in vituperative
Hindustani, and fairly articulate in Arabic, could lay no claim to
proficiency in the French language. Hence probable deadlock between
doctor and patient. Henrietta acted promptly, foreseeing danger of
jaundice or worse; and bade Marshall Wace telegraph to Cannes for an
English physician. As a nurse she was capable if somewhat
unsympathetic--illness and death being foreign to her personal programme.
She attended upon her small sick warrior assiduously; thereby earning the
admiration of the outsiders, and abject apologies for "being such a
confounded nuisance to you, my love," from himself. Her maid, a
Eurasian--by name Serafina Lousada, whom she had brought with her from
Bombay a couple of years earlier, prematurely-wrinkled of skin and
shrunken of figure, yet whose lustrous black eyes still held the embers
of licentious fires--would readily have shared her labours. But Henrietta
was at some trouble to eliminate Serafina from the sick-chamber, holding
her tendencies suspect as insidiously and quite superfluously
sentimental, where any male creature might be concerned.
Carteret and Sir Charles Verity, on the other hand, she encouraged with
the sweetest dignity imaginable, to take turns at the bedside--and to
look in upon her drawing-room, also, on their way back and forth thither.
A common object and that a philanthropic one, gives unimpeachable
occasions of intimacy. These Henrietta did not neglect, though touching
them with a disarming pensiveness of demeanour. The invalid was, "the
thing "--the thought of him wholly paramount with her. Her anxiety might
be lightened, perhaps, but by no means deleted, by the attentions of
these friends of former years.--A pretty enough play throughout, as the
two gentlemen silently noted, the one with kindly, the other with
sardonic, humour.
Her henchman, Marshall Wace, meanwhile, Henrietta kept on the run until
the triangular patch of colour, straining either prominent cheek-bone,
was more than ever accentuated. There was method, we may however take it,
in the direction of these apparently mad runnings, since they so
incessantly landed the runner in the _salon_ of the Grand Hotel crowning
the wooded headland. Damaris she refused to have with her. No--she
couldn't consent to any clouding of the darling child's bright spirit by
her private worries. Trouble, heaven knows, is bound to overtake each one
of us more than soon enough! She--Henrietta--could endure her allotted
portion of universal tribulation best in the absence of youthful
witnesses.
But let Marshall carry Damaris news daily--twice daily, if needs be. Let
him read with her, sing to her; so that she, charming child, should miss
her poor Henrietta, and their happy meetings at the little pavilion, the
less. Especially let him seek the young girl, and strive to entertain
her, when Sir Charles and Colonel Carteret were engaged on their good
Samaritan visits to General Frayling.
"This break in our cherished intercourse," Henrietta wrote, in one of
those many Wace-borne bulletins, "grieves me more than I can express.
Permit Marshall to do all in his power to make up for this hospital
incarceration of mine. Poor dear fellow, it is such a boon to him. I
really crave to procure him any pleasure I can--above all the pleasure of
being with you, which he values so very highly. All his best qualities
show in this time of trial. He is only too faithful and wears himself to
positive fiddle-strings in my service and that of the General. I send him
to you, darling child, for a little change and recreation--relaxation
from the strain of my husband's illness. Marshall is so sympathetic and
feels for others so deeply. His is indeed a rare nature; but one which
does not, alas! always quite do itself justice. I attribute this to an
unfortunate upbringing rather than to any real fault in himself. So be
good to him, Damaris. In being good to him--as I have said all along--you
are being good to your fondly loving and, just now, sorely tried
Henrietta Frayling."
All which sounded a note designed to find an echo in Damaris' generous
heart. Which it did--this the more readily because, still penitent for
her recent trifle of wild-oats sowing, our beloved maiden was
particularly emulous of good works, the missionary spirit all agog in
her. She was out to comfort, to sympathize and to sustain. Hence she
doubly welcomed that high-coloured hybrid, Wace--actor, cleric, vocalist
in one. Guilelessly she indulged and mothered him, overlooking his
egoism, his touchiness and peevishness, his occasional defects of
breeding and of taste. She permitted him, moreover, to talk without
restraint upon his favourite subject--that of himself. To retail the
despairs of an ailing and unhappy childhood; the thwarted aspirations of
a romantic and sensitive boyhood; the doubts and disappointments of a
young manhood conspicuously rich in promise, had the fates and his fellow
creatures but shown themselves more intelligently sensible of his merits
and his needs.
For this was the burden of his recurrent lament. Throughout life he had
been misunderstood.
"But you, Miss Verity, do understand me," he almost passionately
declared, waving white effeminate hands. "Ah! a pure influence such
as yours"--
Here, rather to Damaris' thankfulness, words appeared to fail him. He
moved to the piano and exhaled his remaining emotion in song.
Affairs had reached the above point about ten days after Henrietta's
party and Damaris' midnight walk with Colonel Carteret by the shore of
the sounding sea. General Frayling, though mending, was still possessed
of a golden complexion and a temperature slightly above the normal, while
his dutiful wife, still self-immured, was in close attendance, when an
event occurred which occasioned her considerable speculation and
perplexity.
It came about thus. At her request Marshall Wace walked up to the
station early that morning, to secure the English papers on their arrival
by the mail train from Paris. After a quite unnecessarily long interval,
in Henrietta's opinion, he returned with an irritable expression and
flustered manner. Such, at least, was the impression she received on his
joining her in the wide airy corridor outside the General's sick-chamber.
"I thought you were never coming back," she greeted him. "What has
detained you?"
"The Paris train was late," he returned. "And--wait an instant, Cousin
Henrietta. I want to speak to you. Yes, I am hot and tired, and I am put
out--I don't deny it."
"Why?" Henrietta asked him indifferently.
Her own temper was not at its brightest and best. The office of
ministering angel had begun most woefully to pall on her. What if this
illness betokened a break up of health on the part of General Frayling?
Bath chairs, hot bottles, air-cushions, pap-like meals and such kindred
unlovelinesses loomed large ahead! That was the worst of marrying an old,
or anyhow an oldish, man. You never could tell how soon the natural order
of things might be reversed, and you obliged to wait hand and foot on
him, instead of his waiting hand and foot on you. Henrietta felt fretful.
Her looking-glass presented a depressing reflection of fine lines and
sharpened features. If she should wilt under this prolonged obligation of
nursing, her years openly advertise their number, and she grow faded,
_passée_, a woman who visibly has outlived her prime? She could have
shaken the insufficiently dying General in his bed! Yes, insufficiently
dying--for, in heaven's name, let him make up his mind and that
speedily--get well and make himself useful, or veritably and finally
depart before, for the preservation of her good looks, it was too late.
"I met Sir Charles Verity at the station," Wace went on. "He was coming
out of the first class _salle d'attente_. He stopped and spoke to me,
enquired for cousin Fred; but his manner was peculiar, autocratic to a
degree. He made me feel in the way, feel that he was annoyed at my being
there and wanted to get rid of me."
"Imagination, my dear Marshall. In all probability he wasn't thinking
about you one way or the other, but merely about his own affairs, his
own--as Carteret reports--remarkably clever book.--But why, I wonder, was
he at the station so early?"
Henrietta stood turning the folded newspaper about and idly scanning the
head-lines, while the wind, entering by the open casements at the end of
the corridor, lifted and fluttered the light blue gauze scarf she wore
round her shoulders over her white frilled morning gown.
"He didn't tell me," the large, soft, very hot young man said. "You may
call it imagination, Cousin Henrietta; but I can't. I am positive his
manner was intentional. He meant to snub me, by intimating of how slight
account I am in his estimation. It was exceedingly galling. I do not want
to employ a vulgar expression--but he looked down his nose at me as if I
was beneath contempt. You know that insolent, arrogant way of his?"
"Oh, la-la!" Henrietta cried. "Don't be so childish!"--Though she did in
point of fact know the said way perfectly well and admired it. Once upon
a time hadn't Sir Charles, indeed, rather superbly practised it in
her--Henrietta's--defence?
She sighed; while her temper took a nasty turn towards her yellow-faced,
apologetic little General, waiting patiently for sight of the English
newspapers, under the veil of mosquito netting in his little bed. Even in
his roaring forties--had his forties ever roared though?--she doubted
it--not to save his life could he ever have looked down his nose at an
offending fellow-man like that.--Ah! Charles Verity--Charles Verity!--Her
heart misgave her that she had been too precipitate in this third
marriage. If she had waited?--
"Of course, with my wretchedly short sight, I may have been mistaken,"
Wace continued, pointedly ignoring her interruption, "but I am almost
convinced I recognized Colonel Carteret and Miss Verity--Damaris--through
the open door, on the other side of the _salle d'attente,_ in the crowd
on the platform about to take their places in the train from Cannes,
which had just come in."
Henrietta ceased to scan the head-lines or deplore her matrimonial
precipitation.
"Carteret and Damaris alone and together?" she exclaimed with
raised eyebrows.
"Yes, and it occurred to me that I there touched upon the explanation, in
part at least, of Sir Charles Verity's offensive manner. He had been to
see them off and was, for some reason, unwilling that we--you and I,
cousin Henrietta--should know of their journey."
Even in private life, at the very head-waters and source of her intrigues
and her scheming, Henrietta cleverly maintained an effect of secrecy. She
showed herself an adept in the fine art of outflanking incautious
intruders. Never did she wholly reveal herself or her purposes; but
reserved for her own use convenient run-holes, down which she could
escape from even the most intimate of her co-adjutors and employees. If
masterly in advance, she showed even more masterly in retreat; and that
too often at the expense of her fellow intriguers. Without scruple she
deserted them, when personal safety or personal reputation suggested the
wisdom of so doing. Though herself perplexed and suspicious, she now
rounded on Wace, taking a high tone with him.
"But why, my dear Marshall, why?" she enquired, "should Sir Charles
object to our--as you put it--_knowing_? That seems to me an entirely
gratuitous assumption on your part. In all probability Mary Ellice and
the boys were on the platform too, only you didn't happen to catch sight
of them. And, in any case, our friends at the Grand Hotel are not
accountable to us for their comings and goings. They are free agents, and
it does really strike me as just a little gossipy to keep such a very
sharp eye upon their movements.--Don't be furious with me"--
Henrietta permitted herself to reach up and pat the young man on the
shoulder, playfully, restrainingly. An extraordinarily familiar
proceeding on her part, marking the strength of her determination to
avoid any approach to a quarrel, since she openly denounced and detested
all those demonstrations, as between friends and relations, which come
under the generic title of "pawing."
"No, pray don't be furious with me," she repeated. "I quite appreciate
how sensitive you naturally must be upon the subject of Damaris."
"You have given me encouragement, cousin Henrietta"--this resentfully.
"And why not? Don't be disingenuous, my dear Marshall. I have given you
something much more solid than mere encouragement, namely active help,
opportunity. In the right direction, to the right person, I have
repeatedly praised you. But the prize, in this case, is to him who has
address and perseverance to win it. You possess signal advantages through
your artistic tastes, your music, your reciting. But I have never
disguised from you--now honestly, have I?--there were obstacles and even
prejudices to be overcome."
"Sir Charles despises me."
"But his daughter gives ample proof that she does not. And--you don't
propose to marry Sir Charles, do you?"
Henrietta laughed a trifle shrilly. The tone of that laugh pierced her
hearer's armour of egoism. He stared at her in interrogative
surprise--observing which she hastened to retreat down a run-hole.
"Ah!" she cried, "it is really a little too bad to tease you, Marshall.
But one can't but be tempted to do so at moments. You take everything so
terribly _au grand sérieux_, my young friend."
"You mean to convey that I am ponderous?"
"Well--perhaps--just a shade," she archly agreed. "And of ponderosity you
must make an effort to cure yourself.--Mind, though a fault, I consider
it one on the right side--in the connection, that is, which we have just
now been discussing. When a girl has as much intelligence as--we needn't
name names, need we?--she resents perpetual chaff and piffle. They bore
her--seem to her a flagrant waste of time. Her mind tends to scorn
delights and live laborious days--a tendency which rectifies itself
later as a rule. All the same in avoiding frivolity, one must not rush to
the other extreme and be heavy in hand. A happy mien in this as in all
things, my dear Marshall."
"I cannot so far degrade myself as to be an opportunist," he returned
sententiously.
"Yet the opportunist arrives; and to arrive is the main thing, after
all--at least I imagine so.--Now I really cannot stay here any longer
giving you priceless advice; but must take the General his
newspapers.--By the way, did Sir Charles say anything about coming to see
him this afternoon?"
As she asked the question Henrietta ran her eye down over the
announcements in the Court Circular. Marshall replied in the negative.
She made no comment, hardly appearing to notice his answer. But, as
she stepped lightly and delicately away down the airy corridor to the
door of the sick-room, over her blue gauze draped shoulder she flung
back at him--
"This confinement to the house is getting quite on my nerves. I must
really allow myself a little holiday.--Take a drive to-morrow if Frederic
is no worse. I will call at the Grand Hotel, I think, and see darling
Damaris, just for a few minutes, myself."
Information which went far to restore her hearer's equanimity. His
affairs, as he recognized, were in actively astute safe-keeping.
Marshall Wace spent the rest of the morning in the drawing-room of the
villa, at the piano, composing a by no means despicable setting of
Shelley's two marvellous stanzas, which commence:
"Rarely, rarely comest thou,
Spirit of Delight!
Wherefore hast thou left me now
Many a day and night?"
The rich baritone voice, vibrant with apparent passion, swept out
through the open windows, across the glittering garden. Miss Maud
Callowgas, walking along that portion of the esplanade immediately in
front of the hotel, paused in the grilling sunshine to listen. Heaven
upon earth seemed to open before her pale, white-lashed eyes. If she
could only ascertain what fortune she might eventually count on
possessing--but Mama was so dreadfully close about everything to do with
money! The Harchester bishopric was a fat one, worth from ten to fifteen
thousand a year. That she knew from the odious, impudent questions asked
about it by some horrible nonconformist member, in the House of Commons,
just after her father's death. Surely Mama must have saved a
considerable amount out of so princely an income? She had always kept
down expenses at the Palace. The servants left so often because they
declared they had not enough to eat.
Then through the open window of the villa embowered in roses, there amid
the palms and pines--and in a falling cadence too:
"How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?"
But Maud Callowgas needed no winning, being very effectually won already,
so it was superfluous thus movingly to ask the question. The mid-day sun
striking through her black-and-white parasol made her feel dizzy and
faint.--If only she could learn the amount of her fortune, she could let
Mrs. Frayling learn the amount of it too--just casually, in the course of
conversation, and then--Everyone said Mrs. Frayling was doing her best to
"place" her cousin-by-marriage, to secure him a well-endowed wife.