A DINNER AT HOME.
When Mrs Osborne and Marie came down to dinner they seemed to be
excellent friends. Mrs Osborne did and said everything she could think
of to put Marie at ease and make her feel at home.
The mother had one of those sedate, orderly intellects which cannot be
comfortable in the presence of any breach in the ordinary rules of
conventional life. She would not have been at all content if she had
an assurance George would never marry. George's father and grandfather
had married, and why should not George? It was true there had been
bachelors on both sides of the family; but she did not approve of
bachelors. At first she had not liked the thought of George marrying a
person whom he had met casually at an hotel in London. She could not
endure hotels herself, and put up at them as seldom as possible. But
her Uncle Frederick had married an Austrian lady whom he first met at
an hotel in the Alps somewhere, and the marriage had turned out
excellently. Besides, much as she had disliked the notion of her son
marrying an alien, the girl had not been two minutes in the room
before she had conceived a liking for her.
Of course she was beautiful, and that was a great deal. Then her hands
and ears were good, and she walked well enough to wear a coronet. No
girl in or about Stratford was so beautiful as Marie. It was not in
women the great difference existed, but in men. The vast majority of
girls made good wives; and if there is unhappiness in many households,
the fault in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred is on the man's side.
But there could be no doubt of this simple, straightforward girl
making a good wife. Though she had not yet known her a day, she felt
as much reliance on her as on one of her own daughters.
And then here was this lover of Kate's. What could she think of him?
Appearances were certainly against him. He was about as plain-looking
a man as she had ever seen. But he had no presumption. Indeed, he
could not presume much on his good looks! But he was candid. Manly and
handsome or fine men did not always make the best husbands; and George
liked him; and when a girl had a careful, sensible brother like George
there was no one better qualified to decide the merits of a sister's
lover than such a brother. He would settle in the neighbourhood, and
that was no small consideration. If George and Kate were comfortably
settled close to Stratford they would be quite a large family. It was
rather hard to think of parting from two children at once; but in the
usual order they would marry some day; and she could not dream of
standing in the way of their happiness or prosperity; and the next
best thing to their staying at home would be that they should live
near the parent house.
Marie had never known such peaceful happiness before. It had been a
great joy to her when she first admitted to herself she loved George
Osborne. From that moment, until the cloud came over him, she had
lived in a world of delightful dreams, of wonderful and beautiful
sensations. His advent had revealed to her the sanctuary of her own
heart. She had known she was physically beautiful--men and women had
told her so. But she had never known the loveliness of her nature
until then. She had appreciated her physical beauty, but had never
boasted of it to herself. But when she found out she loved George, and
that because of that love she was prepared to make any sacrifice for
him, she delighted in telling herself what an unselfish heart she had.
She said, 'I would do anything George asked me. I would go anywhere he
asked me. I am not selfish or vain. How I loathe girls who make slaves
of men; who make their lovers fetch and carry for them, as though
anyone could not fetch and carry while it was possible to love only
one!
'Why should foolish girls think it a privilege to tyrannise over those
who love them? I could never think of tyrannising over George. Fancy
my tyrannising over George! Fancy my trying to make him do anything
that would lower his dignity in the eyes of other men! I! I would die
first. I am not so foolish or so wicked as to play with the man I
love; and I am glad to think my George has not fallen in love with a
woman whose pretty face and figure are all she has worth his
consideration. If I were plain I should be more worthy of George's
admiration than if I were the greatest beauty in England and had a
less unselfish heart.'
Those hours in London had been for Marie full of large and liberal
thoughts. That moment in the train, when she saw the cloud drift away,
had been one of intense relief, followed by strong, vague
thankfulness. But at this dinner the feeling was one of deep,
unanalysed, unthinking pleasure. Here was George looking his own kind,
quiet, contented self again. Now and then he said a word to her; now
and then she found his constant, frank eyes fixed upon her with their
old expression of chivalric admiration and loyal devotion. Here was
his mother, gracious and affectionate, and going out of her way to
make Marie see that the future wife of George was approved of and
highly welcomed. Here was gentle Kate, demurely happy, and looking now
and then with a warning glance at Nevill when he burst forth with his
usual audacity.
All went well and pleasantly. At the beginning Nevill adopted a wise
precaution--he said nothing of himself. He kept chiefly to the Red
Man.
He once knew a red man named Tomahawk Effendi. Tomahawk Effendi was a
man over six feet in height, and as red as a new brick house.
'You remember Tomahawk Effendi, Osborne?'
'It was before I went to London,' said George.
Kate glanced at Nevill.
'I did not know there were any Red Indians in London just now,' said
Mrs Osborne.
'Only a few in the outskirts. They have been almost all shot down by
this time.'
'My goodness, Mr Nevill, what do you mean? I have seen nothing about
the massacre of Indians in London.'
'It was not what you might consider a massacre--'
'But you said shot.'
'I meant killed by London gin. "Pay the shot" means pay the score; and
pay the score means pay for the drink. They are, in ethics,
convertible terms, like _meum_ and _tuum_.'
'And are there really Red Indians in London?'
'In the suburbs only. There is a large tribe of them in Lordship Lane
at present. Owing to the intense susceptibility of the United States
Embassy, these aboriginal Red Indians have been compelled by the
Government to pass themselves off as gipsies; but they are no more
gipsies than I am a Caucasian. You remember, Osborne, the other day,
on the occasion of that demonstration in Hyde Park in favour of
abolishing the laws now regulating fishing on the Newfoundland banks?
You remember one of those so-called gipsies spoke. He wound up by
saying he had a home on the other side of the water as well as on
this, "And by that right we will defend it?" cried the warrior,
throwing down his tomahawk and raising the war-cry of his nation. You
remember it surely, Osborne? It created quite a sensation at the time.
You recollect it?'
'I have some recollection of the words.'
'It was a splendid speech. I am sure Miss Alice Osborne would have
been delighted very much with it.'
'But,' said Alice, putting down her dessert-fork, 'you were going to
tell us something about a man with a horrible name. Is this the man
with the horrible name, or is this the horrible man without the name?'
'This is the horrible man _without_ the name.'
'And who was the man with the name?'
'You mean Clooney O'Keefe, the famous bush-ranger; the man I shot--'
'The man you shot, Mr Nevill!'
'The man I shot _with_, Mrs Osborne. I was about to say _with_. I
paused merely to recall his features. He wore a goatee beard and a
plug-hat. But the most extraordinary thing about Clooney O'Keefe, the
outlawed murderer and robber--'
'With whom you shot, Mr Nevill?' cried Mrs Osborne.
'Accidentally, of course, Mrs Osborne, as one might be shooting at
Wimbledon or Inverness-shire in company with the greatest ruffian
unhung. The curious thing about Clooney O'Keefe was that, although he
was half his time out in the bush, he always wore a blue tight-fitting
frock-coat, a flower in his button-hole, and a pair of six-chambered
revolvers in his back coat-pockets. He said no gentleman could think
of wearing a belt. He had a melancholy end. It created a sensation in
the colony.'
'How did he die?' asked Mrs Osborne, with a faint smile.
'One day, while he was resting after robbing a stoutish man, he put
his gun on the ground and walked a little way from it, to see if the
man whom he had robbed and bound was satisfied, or preferred to be
shot rather than run the risk of not being found by anyone before
he died of starvation. The man elected to live. Poor Clooney turned
round to go back for his rifle, when he saw, to his horror, that a
full-grown kangaroo had taken up the loaded weapon, and was pointing
it at him, poor Clooney. The creature had, no doubt, seen Clooney
cover the traveller with the rifle. The piece might go off at any
moment. Clooney drew out one of his revolvers and fired. The bullet
struck the trigger of the gun; it went off, and Clooney fell. They put
up a monument to the kangaroo, and were very near lynching the
traveller when they found him, for being, in a manner, the cause of
Clooney's death. These colonial people are a queer lot.'
Mrs Osborne rose, and, as he held the door for her, she said, with a
smile in passing, 'I am afraid Mr Nevill has been entertaining us with
nothing better than travellers' tales.'
'I hope with nothing worse,' he said, bowing low. When the door had
been closed he went over to George, and said, 'I am delighted to see
you back in your old form again, Osborne. You look as though the heart
bowed down with weight of woe had gone in for dumb-bells and come
straight in the back again. I hope all is now right between you and
Marie?'
'I think so. I have reason to think so.'
'I am delighted. What an awful fool you were to knock your mind into a
cocked hat over questions you must take as settled by other men! Did I
make a fool of myself--I mean an extra fool of myself--at dinner?'
'No; on the contrary, you got on very well.'
'You don't think I annoyed or displeased your mother?'
'Not in the least. At first she could not make you out. Then she
decided you were treating Alice as a very young girl, and inventing
stories for her amusement.'
'Oh, was that it?' said Nevill. 'I'm delighted. Because, you know,
Osborne, it would never do for your mother to know the truth about me
until after Kate and I are married.'
'Don't talk nonsense, Nevill.'
'Perhaps you think I am now inventing travellers' tales to please a
child. Were you very little better than a child when you were peddling
over your doubts and fears? Why didn't you do as I did? Why didn't you
admit that better men and better informed men believed what you
hesitated to adopt--men, too, who had given the attention of a
lifetime to the subject? Who's that singing? It isn't Kate; her voice
is a soprano. It can't be your younger sister; she's very fair, and
fair women never have contralto voices. What a magnificent voice it
is! What song is that?'
'It is Marie,' said George,' and she is singing the "Miserere nobis."'
'It is very fine. To think you were a doubter a day or two ago!'
'I am one still.'