Whatever might prove to be the conduct of others, it seemed clear next
morning that the weather meant to do all in its power to help Daisy to
have a happy time, and another hot and cloudless day succeeded. The
girls intended originally to lunch at one, since that gave a longer
afternoon; but at one, since nobody had appeared, it seemed wiser to put
off lunch till half-past, since that was the hour at which they lunched
in London. Eventually they sat down alone to a meal even more belated.
But at present nothing could touch or mar Daisy's happiness.
"It is much better that he shouldn't come," she said, with an air of
decision. "I daresay Aunt Alice wouldn't like it, though it couldn't
have been supposed to be my fault. Very likely his motor has broken
down; he told me it usually did."
She laughed quite naturally; there was no sting in his absence.
"In fact, he told me he usually sent it on ahead," she said, "and
started walking after it about half an hour later. In that way, by the
time he arrived his chauffeur had generally put it to rights again, and
he got in."
"Then he ought to be here in half an hour," remarked Gladys.
"Yes. Shall we have lunch kept cold for him? It would be hot by the time
he arrived if we didn't. Oh, Gladys, I believe you are laughing at me.
How horrid of you!"
"Not in the least. But I am rather glad he didn't come. I hate
concealing things from mother."
Daisy put her nose in the air.
"Oh, you needn't have worried. He would have been quite certain to have
told Aunt Alice himself."
"You didn't think of that yesterday," said Gladys.
"No. What disgusting salad! I believe it's made of turnip-tops. I'm very
glad he didn't come to lunch."
"Men are so greedy about their food," said Gladys. "I don't mind
what I eat."
"Evidently, since you can eat that. Oh, Gladys, I don't mean to be
cross, but when you say things on purpose to annoy me it would be such
bad manners in me not to appear to be annoyed. Do you think his motor
has broken down? Fancy him tramping down the Bath road on a day like
this! He hates walking unless he is going to kill something. He was
charged by a rhinoceros once. If you try to shoot them and miss, they
charge. How awfully tiresome of them! He killed it afterwards, though.
It was quite close. You never heard anything so exciting."
Gladys laughed.
"Oh, Daisy," she said, "you told me that before, and you said it was so
hard to know what to say if you didn't know a rhinoceros from a
hippopotamus. And now you find it too exciting."
"Well, what then?" said Daisy, with dignity. "I think one ought to take
an interest in all sorts of subjects. It is frightfully suburban only to
be interested in what happens in your own parish. Somebody said that the
world was his parish."
"I don't know what parish Grosvenor Square is in," said Gladys,
parenthetically.
Somehow Daisy, in this new mood, was far less formidable than the
glittering crystal which had been Daisy up till now. She seemed to have
rubbed shoulders with the world, instead of streaking the sky above it.
Her happiness, you would say, even in the moment of its birth, had
humbled and softened her. Gladys found she had not the slightest fear of
being snapped up. Several times during lunch Daisy had snapped, but she
had snapped innocuously. They had finished now, and she rose.
"I expect him in about an hour," said Daisy, rather magisterially. "Let
us finish the flowers. I love flowers in my bedroom, don't you? Do let
us put a dish of them in everybody's bedroom. It looks so welcoming.
Books, too; everybody likes a book or two in his room. It's so easy to
do little things like that, and people appreciate it enormously. There's
the whole of the afternoon before us; nobody will arrive till the five
o'clock train."
"But I thought you said you expected him----" began Gladys.
"Darling, pray don't criticize my last remark but three. Every remark
becomes obsolete as soon as another remark is made."
* * * * *
Daisy's last conjecture was correct, and it was not till after five,
when tea had been laid on the broad, creeper-covered verandah to the
east of the house, that any one appeared. Then, however, they appeared
in large numbers, for most of Lady Nottingham's guests had chosen the
train she recommended to travel by. Every one, in fact, arrived by it
with the exception of Jeannie Halton and Lord Lindfield.
"I knew Jeannie would miss it," Lady Nottingham said, "but as she was
equally certain she would not the thing had to be put to the proof.
Daisy darling, how are you? She insisted on being taken to the symphony
concert; at least, she didn't so much insist as Lord Lindfield insisted
on taking her. They were to meet us at Paddington, and in case--Jeannie
went so far as to provide for that contingency--in case they missed it,
he was to drive her down in his motor."
Victor Braithwaite, who had come with the party, joined in.
"I know that motor," he said. "It can do any journey the second time it
tries, but no journey the first time. He took me the other day from
Baker Street to South Audley Street, and it stuck in the middle of
Oxford Street."
Jim Crowfoot helped himself largely to strawberries, and turned to
Daisy. He was a slim, rather small young man, with a voice some two
sizes too large for him. He was supposed to be rather a good person to
have in the house, because he never stopped talking. Had it been
possible to cover him over with a piece of green baize, like a canary,
when one had had enough, he would have been even more desirable.
"I suppose that's what they mean by second thoughts being the best," he
said. "It isn't usually the case; at least, I find that if ever I think
right, it's always when I don't give the matter any consideration. I
came down here without considering that I promised to dine with Mrs.
Streatham this evening, and it was an excellent plan."
Mrs. Beaumont broke in. Her plan was always to be tremendously
appreciative of everybody for two sentences, in order to enhance the
effect of the nasty things she said of everybody the moment afterwards.
It set the nasty things off better.
"I think every one is too horrid about our dear kind Mrs. Streatham,"
she said. "She is the most hospitable woman I know, and you, for
instance, Jim, go and eat her cutlets and then laugh at her. She asked
me to dine with her next Friday, but I said I couldn't, as I remembered
I was already engaged. When I looked at my book I found it was with her
that I had already promised to dine. I like being asked twice; it shows
one is really wanted."
"Oh, we're all really wanted," said Jim. "But we don't always want
the people who want us. That is the tragedy. If you'll ask me to
dinner once, Mrs. Beaumont, I will transfer two of Mrs. Streatham's
invitations to you."
"There you are again! You are not kind. It would upset her table."
"Not at all. Her husband would dine downstairs, and her daughter would
dine upstairs. That is the advantage of having a family. You can always
make things balance."
"I have a family," said she, "and that is exactly why my bank-book won't
balance. But when I overdraw I always threaten to transfer my account.
Bankers will stand anything but that, won't they, Mr. Braithwaite? Let
us go and stroll. Dear Jim always talks so loud that I can't hear myself
think. And if I don't hear myself think I don't know what I shall say
next. Do tell me, was it on purpose, do you think, that Mrs. Halton and
Lord Lindfield missed their train? I may be quite wrong, but didn't you
think that Alice said it as if she had rather expected it?"
"Surely, she said she expected it."
"How interesting! What a heavenly garden! I only have just met Mrs.
Halton. Every one says she is too fascinating."
"She is perfectly charming," said he. "Is that the same thing?"
"Oh, not at all; you may be perfectly charming without being the least
fascinating. No man ever wants to marry a perfectly charming woman; they
only think it delightful when one of their friends does so."
Daisy had heard most of this as the two left the verandah and strolled
off down the garden, and the effect that it had on her was to make her
label Mrs. Beaumont as "horrid." She was quite aware that three-quarters
of the ordinary light conversation that went on between people who were
not friends but only acquaintances was not meant to be taken literally,
and that no one of any perception took it otherwise. Tribute to Aunt
Jeannie's charms had been paid on both sides; the woman had heard of her
as "too fascinating," Victor had found her charming. Daisy herself, from
her own point of view, could find no epithet too laudatory, and she
endorsed both the "fascinating" and the "charming." But she was just
conscious that she would have preferred that Victor should have called
her fascinating, and Mrs. Beaumont charming, rather than that it should
have been the other way about.
But it was not because Mrs. Beaumont called her fascinating that Daisy
labelled that unconscious lady as horrid; it was because she had made
the suggestion that Lord Lindfield and her aunt had missed the train on
purpose, in order, so it followed, that they should drive down together
in the motor whose second thoughts were so admirable. Daisy scorned the
insinuation altogether; she felt that she degraded herself by allowing
herself to think of it. But that had been clearly implied.
The group round the tea-table had dispersed, and she easily found
herself next Aunt Alice.
"Everything is in order, dear Aunt Alice," she said, "and Gladys has
worked so hard. But I don't think I should have come down yesterday if I
had known there was a symphony concert this afternoon. What did they
have?"
"Brahms, I think," said Lady Nottingham, vaguely. "There is Brahms,
isn't there? Neither Jeannie nor Lord Lindfield quite knew. They went to
see."
"But when did they settle to go and see?" asked Daisy.
"Last night, I think. Oh, yes, at the Opera last night.--Yes, Mr.
Crowfoot, of course you may have another cup. Sugar?--He came to my
box--Lord Lindfield, I mean--and was so delighted to meet your Aunt
Jeannie again.--Yes, I put in one lump, Mr. Crowfoot. Is that right?"
Lady Nottingham certainly succeeded admirably in the lightness of touch
she gave to the little speech. She knew, as well as if Daisy had told
her in so many words, the sort of feeling that had dictated Daisy's
rather catechism-questions about the manner of Jeannie and Lindfield
settling to go to the concert, and what there was at the concert. But
the lightness of touch was not easy; she knew quite well, and did not
fail to remember, that a few days ago only she had advised Daisy to have
her answer ready when (not "if") Lord Lindfield proposed to her. He had
certainly not done so, but Daisy had evidently not expected him to go to
a concert with her aunt and miss his train and drive down with her. She
had no reason to suppose that anything that could be called jealousy was
as yet existent in Daisy's mind. She only, perhaps, wanted to know
exactly what had happened.
Jim Crowfoot had only paused like a bird on the wing, pouncing on
morsels of things to eat, and having got his second cup of tea he flew
off again instantly to Mrs. Majendie, whom he was regaling with a shrill
soliloquy. Thus for a moment Daisy and Aunt Alice were alone at the
tea-table.
Daisy dropped into a chair at Lady Nottingham's side.
"I am so glad he likes Aunt Jeannie," she said in her best and quickest
style, "and that she likes him. I suppose they do like each other, since
they go to a concert together and miss a train together. You never miss
trains with people you don't like, do you, Aunt Alice? I was rather
afraid, do you know, that Aunt Jeannie wouldn't like him. I am so glad I
was wrong. And they knew each other before, did they?"
Lady Nottingham paused a moment. She never devoted, as has been said,
more of her brain than was necessary to deal with the subject in hand,
but it appeared to her that a good deal of brain was required here.
Daisy, poor undiplomatic Daisy, had tried so hard in this rapid,
quick-witted little speech to say all the things she knew she ought to
feel, and which, as a matter of fact, she did not feel. Superficially,
it was no doubt delightful that Aunt Jeannie should like Tom Lindfield;
it was delightful also that he should like her. The speech was all quite
correct, quite sincere as far as it went, but if one took it further it
was all quite insincere. She said all that the surface felt in order to
conceal what she really felt.
And the light reply again was not easy to Lady Nottingham. She had
considered Jeannie's plan in all its bearings, and neither then nor now
could she think of a better plan. But already Daisy was watching; she
said it was so nice that the two should be friends. She meant it, as far
as it went, but no further. She would have to learn to mean it less and
less; she would have to dislike and then to hate the idea of their being
friends, if Jeannie's plan was to succeed. She would also have to hate
one, anyhow, if not both, of the two whom she liked so much. The curtain
had gone up on a tragic little farce. It was in order to avoid a
tragedy, however, that the farce had been planned. It was in order to
save Daisy that she was being sacrificed now.
Lady Nottingham took up Daisy's last question.
"Oh, yes, they have known each other for years," she said, helping
the plan forward. "They met quite like old friends. I was completely
out of it last night. We were just us three in the box, and I was
the 'shadowy third.'"
Daisy stamped, figuratively speaking, on what was in her mind, and
compelled her loyalty to triumph.
"I don't wonder at everybody simply loving Aunt Jeannie," she said.
"We all do, don't we? But I don't love Lord Lindfield's motor. I do
hope they will be in time for dinner. Otherwise the table is
absolutely upset, and I shall have to settle it all over again.
Isn't it rather inconsiderate of them, Aunt Alice? I think they
ought to have caught their train, whether it was Brahms or not."
But the loyalty was an effort. Lady Nottingham felt that, and applauded
the effort.
"Poor Daisy!" she said, speaking in these two words her unspoken
thought. "It is too bad of them to give you more trouble."
"Oh, I don't mind just arranging the table again," said Daisy, quickly.