When Aunt Sarah came down into the great hall at twenty minutes to nine
that evening she found it full of young men and women who had arrived
about an hour before, and whom she had kept waiting ten minutes for
their dinner. She did not apologize for her late appearance. That was
not her custom. She singled out a young man of the company and said,
"How do you do, Henry? I am pleased to see you at Castle Gide again. You
used to come here frequently in happier times."
"They were not happier times for me, Aunt Sarah," replied the young man,
rather nervously. "My chief recollection of them is that I was generally
sent to bed before dinner for getting into mischief."
"Ah!" said Aunt Sarah. "That is the way to treat mischievous boys. And
you don't bear malice."
"I am afraid I do," said the young man. "I was treated most unjustly."
"By whom, pray?" inquired Aunt Sarah, beginning to bridle.
"Very occasionally by Uncle Otterburn," said the young man. "Invariably
by you."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah. "That is a pretty way to talk!"
"He must say what he thinks, you know," said Lady Otterburn. "We are all
going to play at that as long as we are together. Anybody who is
convicted of an insincere speech is to pay half a crown to the hospital
fund. Here is the box. It contains a contribution from Edward, who told
Lady Griselda that she was not at all late when she came down five
minutes ago. Edward, take Aunt Sarah in to dinner. She has kept us
waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour."
"Have I got into a company of lunatics?" inquired Aunt Sarah, as she
took her nephew's arm.
[Illustration: "THERE WAS A REGULAR HUBBUB OF CONVERSATION ROUND THE
DINNER-TABLE."]
No member of the party with the exception of Aunt Sarah had reached
middle-age. Most of the men were contemporaries of Otterburn's, the
years of whose pilgrimage were thirty. Some of them were married and had
their wives with them, but the majority were unattached, and there were
several girls, some English and some American. Otterburn's grouse-moors
were the ostensible excuse for their finding themselves collected at
Castle Gide, but they were so well mixed that they would probably have
succeeded in enjoying themselves even if there had been no shooting to
occupy the days. There was a regular hubbub of conversation round the
dinner-table on this first evening, and loud peals of laughter, rising
above the din and clatter of twenty tongues all moving at once, seemed
to indicate that Lady Otterburn's game was adding to the gaiety of the
occasion.
"No," said a demure young lady, in answer to a request from her
neighbour. "I will not play accompaniments for you after dinner. It is
quite true, as you say, that I read music extraordinarily well. I have
always politely denied it before, but I know I do. Your singing,
however, is so distasteful to me that I am sorry I cannot oblige you."
"I have got a good voice," said her neighbour, "and I have studied
under the best masters."
"You have not profited by your studies," replied the lady; "and your
voice, so far from being good, is very thin and of no quality
whatsoever."
"I guess," said a fair American, surveying the company, "that we're a
good-looking crowd round this table. And, among all the women, I have a
conviction that I go up for the beauty prize. I have had to hug that
conviction in secret for a very long time, and now it's out."
Thus and thus was the House of Truth built up stone by stone, and Aunt
Sarah's position was pitiable. Hitherto she had made her mark in
whatever society she found herself by sheer insistence on her right to
be frankly and critically disagreeable. On any ordinary occasion she
would have had the whole tableful of young people prostrate under the
terror of her biting tongue, and not a whit would she have cared for
consequent unpopularity so long as she had made herself acknowledged as
the dominating spirit of the assembly. Now she was met and foiled by the
dexterous use of the very weapons which she had wielded so long and so
unmercifully, and no arrogant speech could she make but its sting was
removed by an equally outspoken reply.
Thus, to her right-hand neighbour, a young man with smooth black hair
and a preternaturally solemn face: "I don't know who you are, but by
your long upper lip I should judge you to be a Mortimer."
"My name and appearance are both undoubtedly Mortimer," he replied,
gravely. "My character, I am happy to say, is not."
"Perhaps you do not know," said Aunt Sarah, "that I am a Mortimer?"
[Illustration: "'I WILL NOT STAND THIS INSOLENT BEHAVIOUR ANY LONGER,'
SHE SAID."]
"I am perfectly aware of it," was the answer. "It would cost me half a
crown to congratulate you on the fact."
"And may I ask what fault you have to find with the family whose name
you have the honour of bearing?"
"They are insufferably cantankerous and domineering."
"Not all of them," interrupted Otterburn, anxious above all desire for
unsullied truth to avert the impending storm which was gathering around
him. "You must not take his criticisms as personal, Aunt Sarah."
"Pass the box this way," said the solemn young man. "Otterburn will
contribute another half-crown."
Before dinner was half-way through Aunt Sarah was in as black a rage as
had ever darkened even her Olympian brow. By the time the ladies left
the room she had delivered herself of as many insulting speeches as it
usually took her a day to achieve, and her average output was no small
one. But it was all to no purpose. Her most ambitious efforts, instead
of striking a chill of terror to the hearts of her listeners, were
warmly applauded, with an air of the utmost politeness, and from every
quarter she received as good as she gave. It took her some time to
realize that she was affording considerable amusement to her nephew's
guests, but when she did arrive at that state of knowledge she could
hardly command herself sufficiently to leave the room without doing
bodily hurt to someone.
"I will not stand this insolent behaviour any longer," she said to Lady
Otterburn when the door of the dining-room had been closed behind them.
"How dare you treat me in this way?"
"Why, bless me, Aunt Sarah," exclaimed Lady Otterburn, in well-feigned
surprise, "you said yourself that if everyone spoke the truth always, as
you pride yourself on doing, it would be a real lovely thing. We are all
speaking the truth under a penalty, and you are speaking it so well that
you haven't been fined once."
"Psshtschah!" is the nearest possible orthographic rendering of the
exclamation of contempt and disgust that forced itself from Aunt Sarah's
lips. "I have had enough of this insensate folly," she continued. "I
shall go straight to my room, and if I do not receive more respectful
treatment in this house, where I so long reigned as undisputed mistress,
I shall leave it to-morrow. Do you understand me?"
"I understand you very well," said Lady Otterburn. "And I will ask you
to try and understand me. The respect which you demanded as mistress of
this house is now due to me, and I look to receive it from my guests. If
you discover that it is not within your power to grant it I shall not
press you to prolong your visit."
Aunt Sarah again gave vent to the exclamation indicated above, and
sailed up the broad staircase to her own apartments with anger and
disgust marked on every line and curve of her figure.