A PRETTY quarrel between a princess and a duchess gave rise to
circumstances in which the destiny of Jimmie was determined, or in
which, to speak with modern metaphor, the germ of his destiny found the
necessary conditions for development. Had it not been for this quarrel,
Jimmie would not have stayed at the Hardacres' house; and had he not
been their guest, the events hereafter to be recorded would not have
happened. Such concatenation is there in the scheme of human affairs.
The Duchess of Wiltshire was a mighty personage in the Hardacres' part
of the county. She made social laws and abrogated them. She gave and she
took away the brevet of county rank. She made and unmade marriages. To
fall under the ban of her displeasure was to be disgraced indeed. She
held a double sway in that the duke, her husband, had delegated to her
his authority in sublunary matters, he being a severe mathematician and
a dry astronomer, who looked at the world out of dull eyes, and regarded
it with indifference as a mass of indistinguishable atoms forming a
nebula, a sort of Milky Way, concerning which philosophic minds had from
time to time theorised. He lived icily remote from society; the duchess,
on the contrary, was warmly interested in its doings. In the county she
reigned absolute; but in London, recognising the fact that there
were other duchesses scattered about Mayfair and Belgravia, she was
high-minded enough to modify her claims to despotic government. She felt
it, however, her duty to decree that her last reception should mark the
end of the London season.
To this reception the Hardacres were always invited.
In previous years they had mounted the great staircase of Wiltshire
House, their names had been called out, the duchess had given them the
tips of her fingers, and the duke, tall, white-haired, ascetic, had let
them touch his hand with the air of a man absently watching ants crawl
over him; they had passed on, mixed with the crowd, and seen their
host and hostess no more. But this year, to Mrs. Hardacre's thrilling
delight, the duchess gave her quite a friendly squeeze, smiled her
entire approbation of Mrs. Hardacre's existence, and detained her for a
moment in conversation.
“Don't forget to come and have a little talk with me later. I have n't
seen you since dear Norma's engagement.”
To dear Norma she was equally urbane, called her a lucky girl, and
presented her as a bride-elect to the duke, who murmured a vague formula
of congratulation which he had remembered from early terrestrial days.
“I can't tell you how proud I am of you, Norma!” said Mrs. Hardacre,
with a lump in her throat, as they passed on. “The dear duchess! I
wonder if I am sufficiently grateful to Providence.”
Norma, although in her heart pleased by the manifestation of ducal
favour, could not let the opportunity for a taunt pass by.
“You can refer to it in your prayers, mother: 'O God, I thank Thee for
shedding Her Grace upon me.' Won't that do, father.”
“Eh, what?” asked Mr. Hardacre, very red in the face, trailing half a
pace behind his wife and daughter.
Norma repeated her form of Thanksgiving.
“Ha! ha! Devilish good! Tell that in the club,” he said in high
good-humour. His wife's glance suddenly withered him.
“I don't approve of blasphemy,” she said.
“Towards whom, mother dear?” asked Norma, suavely. “The Almighty or the
duchess?”
“Both,” said Mrs. Hardacre, with a snap.
Mr. Hardacre, seeing in the distance a man to whom he thought he could
sell a horse, escaped from the domestic wrangle. Mother and daughter
wandered through the crowd, greeted by friends, pausing here and there
to exchange a few words, until they came to the door of the music-room,
filled to overflowing, where an operatic singer held the assembly in
well-bred silence. At the door the crush was ten deep. On the outskirts
conversation hummed like an echo of the noise from the suite of rooms
behind. There they were joined by Morland. Mrs. Hardacre told him of the
duchess's graciousness. He grinned, taking the information with the air
of a man to whom the favour of duchesses bestowed upon his betrothed
is a tribute to his own excellence. He thought she would be pleased, he
said. They must get the old girl to come to the wedding. Mrs. Hardacre
was pained, but she granted young love indulgence for the profanity.
If they only could, she assented, the success of the ceremony would be
assured. Norma turned to Morland with a laugh.
“We shall be married with a vengeance, if it's sanctified by the
duchess. Do you think a parson is at all necessary?”
He joined in her mirth. She drew him aside.
“Well, what's the news?”
He accounted, loverwise, for his day.. At last he said:
“I looked in upon Jimmie Padgate this morning. I wanted him to go to
Christie's and buy a picture or two for me--for us, I ought to say,”
he added, with a little bow. “He knows more about 'em than I do. He's a
happy beggar, you know,” he exclaimed, after a short pause.
“What makes you say so?”
“His perfect conviction that everything is for the best in the best of
all possible worlds. There he was sitting at lunch over the black scrag
end of a boiled mutton bone and a rind of some astonishing-looking
yellow cheese--absolutely happy. And he waved his hand towards it as if
it had been a feast of Lucullus and asked me to share it.”
“Did you?” asked Norma.
“I had n't time,” said Morland. “I was fearfully busy to-day.”
Norma did not reply. She looked over the heads of the crowd in front
of her towards the music-room whence came the full notes of the singer.
Then she said to him with a little shiver:
“I am glad you are a rich man, Morland.”
“So am I. Otherwise I should not have got you.”
“That's true enough,” she said. “I pretend to scoff at all this, but I
could n't live without it.”
“It has its points,” he assented, turning and regarding the brilliant
scene.
Norma turned with him. She was glad it was her birthright and her
marriage-right. The vast state ballroom, lit as with full daylight by
rows of electric lamps cunningly hidden behind the cornices and
the ground-glass panels of the ceiling, stately with its Corinthian
pilasters and classic frieze, its walls adorned with priceless pictures,
notably four full-length cavaliers of Vandyck, smiling down in their
high-bred way upon this assembly of their descendants, its atmosphere
glittering with jewels, radiant with colour, contained all the
magnificence, all the aristocracy, all the ambitions, all the ideals
that she had been trained to worship, to set before her as the lodestars
of her life's destiny. Here and there from amid the indistinguishable
mass of diamonds, the white flesh of women's shoulders, the black and
white chequer and brilliant uniforms of men, flashed out the familiar
features of some possessor of an historic name, some woman of
world-famed beauty, some great personage whose name was on the lips of
Europe. There, by the wall, lonely for the moment, stood the Chinese
Ambassador, in loose maroon silk, and horse-tail plumed cap, his yellow,
wizened face rendered more sardonic by the thin drooping grey moustache
and thin grey imperial, looking through horn spectacles, expressionless,
impassive, inhumanly indifferent, at one of the most splendid scenes a
despised civilisation could set before him. There, in the centre of a
group of envious and unembarrassed ladies, an Indian potentate blazed in
diamonds and emeralds, and rolled his dusky eyes on charms which (most
oddly to his Oriental conceptions) belonged to other men. Here a Turk's
red fez, a Knight of the Garter's broad blue sash, an ambassador's
sparkle of stars and orders; and there the sweet, fresh rosebud beauty
of a girl caught for a moment and lost in the moving press. And there,
at the end of the vast, living hall, a dimly seen haggard woman, with
a diamond tiara on her grey hair, surrounded by a little court of the
elect, sat Her Serene Highness, the Princess of Herren-Rothbeck, sister
to a reigning monarch, and bosom friend, despite the pretty quarrel, of
Her Grace the Duchess of Wiltshire.
The song in the music-room coming to an end, the audience for the most
part rose and pressed into the ballroom. The Hardacres and Morland were
driven forward. There was a long period of desultory conversation with
acquaintances. Morland, proud in the possession of Norma's beauty,
remained dutifully attendant, and received congratulations with almost
blushing gratification. Mrs. Hardacre, preoccupied by anticipation of
her promised talk with the duchess, kept casting distracted glances at
the door whereby the great lady would enter. The appearance from a group
of neighbouring people of a pleasant young fellow with a fair moustache
and very thin fair hair, who greeted her cordially, brought her back
to the affairs of the moment. This was the Honourable Charlie Sandys,
a distant relative of the duchess, and her Grand Vizier, Master of the
Horse, Groom of the Chambers, and general right-hand man. He was two and
twenty, and had all the amazing wisdom of that ingenuous age. Morland
shook hands with him, but being tapped on the arm by the fan of a
friendly dowager, left him to converse alone with Mrs. Hardacre and
Norma. The youth indicated Morland's retiring figure by a jerk of the
head.
“Parliament--Cosford division.”
“We hope so,” said Mrs. Hardacre.
“Must get in. Radical for her constituency would make duchess buy her
coffin. The end of the world for her. She has a great idea of King.
Going to take him up _con amore_. And when she does take anybody up--
well--”
His wave of the hand signified the tremendous consequences.
“She does n't merely uproot _him_,” said Norma, whose mind now and
then worked with disconcerting swiftness, “but she takes up also the
half-acre where he is planted.”
“Just so,” replied the youth. “Not only him, but his manservant and
maidservant, his ox and his ass and everything that is his. Funny woman,
you know--one of the best, of course, but quaint. Thinks the Member for
Cosford is ordained by Providence to represent her in Parliament.”
He rattled on, highly pleased with himself. Norma cast a malicious
glance at her mother, who perceptibly winced. They were shining in the
duchess's eyes in a light borrowed from Morland. They were taken up with
the ox and the ass and the remainder of Morland's live-stock. That was
the reason, then, of the exceptional marks of favour bestowed on them by
Her Grace. Mrs. Hardacre kept the muscles of her lips at the smile, but
her steely eyes grew hard. Norma, on the contrary, was enjoying herself.
Charlie Sandys was unconscious of the little comedy.
“I am glad to see the princess here to-night,” said Mrs. Hardacre, by
way of turning the conversation.
The youth made practically the same reply as he had made at least a
dozen times to the same remark during the course of the evening. He
was an injudicious Groom of the Chambers, being vain of the privileges
attached to his post.
“There has been an awful row, you know,” he said confidentially, looking
round to see that he was not overheard. “They have scarcely made it up
yet.”
“Do tell us about it, Mr. Sandys,” said Norma, smiling upon him.
“It's rather a joke. Let us get out of the way and I'll tell you.”
He piloted them through the crush into a corridor, and found them a
vacant seat by some palms.
“It's all about pictures,” he resumed. “Princess wants to have her
portrait painted in London. Why she should n't have it made in Germany I
don't know. Anyhow she comes to duchess for advice. Duchess has taken
up Foljambe, you know--chap that has painted about twenty miles of women
full length--”
“We saw the dear duchess at his Private View,” Mrs. Hardacre
interjected.
“Yes. She runs him for all she's worth. Told the princess there was
only one man possible for her portrait, and that was Foljambe.
Princess--she's as hard as nails, you know--inquires his price, knocks
him down half. He agrees. Everything is arranged. Princess to sit
for the portrait when she stays with duchess at Chiltern Towers in
September--”
“Oh, we are going to have the princess down with us?” Mrs. Hardacre grew
more alert.
“Yes. Couldn't find time to sit now--going next week to
Herren-Rothbeck--coming back in September. Well, it was all settled
nicely--you know the duchess's way. On Friday, however, she takes the
princess to see Foljambe's show--for the first time. Just like her.
The princess looks round, drops her lorgnon, cries out, 'Lieber Gott
in Himmel! The man baints as if he was bainting on de bavement!' and
utterly refuses to have anything to do with him. I tell you there were
ructions!”
He embraced a knee and leant back, laughing boyishly at the memory of
the battle royal between the high-born dames.
“Then who is going to paint the portrait?” asked Norma.
“That's what I am supposed to find out,” replied the youth. “But I can't
get a man to do it cheap enough. One can't go to a swell R. A. and ask
him to paint a portrait of a princess for eighteen pence.”
Norma had an inspiration.
“Can I recommend a friend of mine?”
“Would he do it?”,
“I think so--if I asked him.”
“By Jove, who is he?” asked the youth, pulling down his shirtcuff for
the purpose of making memoranda.
“Mr. James Padgate, 10 Friary Grove, N. W. He is Mr. King's most
intimate friend.”
“He can paint all right, can't he?” asked the youth.
“Beautifully,” replied Norma. “Friary, not Priory,” she corrected,
watching him make the note. She felt the uncommon satisfaction of having
performed a virtuous act; one almost of penance for her cruelty to
him on Sunday week, the memory of which had teased a not over-sensitive
conscience. The scrag end of boiled mutton and the rind of cheese had
also affected her, stirred her pity for the poor optimist, although in
a revulsion of feeling she had shivered at his lot. She had closed her
eyes for a second, and some impish wizardry of the brain had conjured
up a picture of herself sitting down to such a meal, with Jimmie at the
other side of the table. It was horrible. She had turned to fill
her soul with the solid magnificence about her. The pity for Jimmie
lingered, however, as a soothing sensation, and she welcomed the
opportunity of playing Lady Bountiful. She glanced with some malice from
the annotated cuff to her mother's face, expecting to see the glitter
of disapproval in her eyes. To her astonishment, Mrs. Hardacre wore an
expression of pleased abstraction.
Charlie Sandys pocketed his gold pencil and retired. He was a young man
with the weight of many affairs on his shoulders.
“That's a capital idea of yours, Norma,” said Mrs. Hardacre.
“I'm glad you think so,” replied Norma, wonderingly.
“I do. It was most happy. We'll do all we can to help Morland's friend.
A most interesting man. And if the princess gives him the commission,
we can ask him down to Heddon to stay with us while he is painting the
picture.”
Norma was puzzled. Hitherto her mother had turned up the nose of
distaste against Mr. Padgate and all his works. Whence this sudden
change? Not from sweet charitableness, that was certain. Hardly from
desire to please Morland. Various solutions ran in her head. Did an
overweening ambition prompt her mother to start forth a rival to the
duchess, as a snapper up of unconsidered painters? Scarcely possible.
Defiance of the duchess? That way madness could only lie; and she was
renowned for the subtle caution of her social enterprises. The little
problem of motive interested her keenly. At last the light flashed upon
her, and she looked at Mrs. Hardacre almost with admiration.
“What a wonderful brain you have, mother!” she cried, half mockingly,
half in earnest. “Fancy your having schemed out all that in three
minutes.”
Enjoyment of this display of worldcraft was still in her eyes when
she came across Morland a little later; but she only told him of her
recommendation of Jimmie to paint the princess's portrait. He professed
delight. How had she come to think of it?
“I think I must have caught the disease of altruism from Mr. Padgate,”
she said. Then following up an idle train of thought:
“I suppose you often put work--portraits and things--in his way?”
“I can't say that I do.”
“Why not? You know hundreds of wealthy people.”
“Jimmie is not a man to be patronised,” said Morland, sententiously,
“and really, you know, I can't go about touting for commissions for
him.”
“Of course not,” said Norma; “he is far too insignificant a person to
trouble one's head about.”
Morland looked pained.
“I don't like to hear you talk in that way about Jimmie,” he said
reproachfully.
The little scornful curl appeared on her lip.
“Don't you?” was all she vouchsafed to say. Unreasonably irritated,
she turned aside and caught a passing _attache_ of the French Embassy.
Morland, dismissed, sauntered off, and Norma went down to supper
with the young Frenchman, who entertained her for half an hour with a
technical description of his motor-car. And the trouble, he said, to
keep it in order. It needed all the delicate cares of a baby. It was as
variable as a woman.
“I know,” said Norma, stifling a yawn. “_La donna e automobile_.”
On the drive home in the hired brougham, whose obvious hiredom caused
Norma such chafing of spirit, Mrs. Hardacre glowed with triumph, and
while her husband dozed dejectedly opposite, she narrated her good
fortunes. She had had her little chat with the duchess. They had
spoken of Mr. Padgate, Charlie Sandys having run to show her his cuff
immediately. The duchess looked favourably on the proposal. A friend
of Mr. King's was a recommendation in itself. But the princess, she
asseverated with ducal disregard of metaphor, had her own ideas of art
and would not buy a pig in a poke. They must inspect Mr. Padgate's work
before there was any question of commission. She would send Charlie
Sandys to them to-morrow to talk over the necessary arrangements.
“I told her,” said Mrs. Hardacre, “that Mr. Padgate was coming to pay us
a visit in any case in September, and suggested that he could drive over
to Chiltern Towers every morning while the princess was honouring him
with sittings, and paint the picture there. And she quite jumped at the
idea.”
“No doubt,” said Norma, drily.
But her dryness had no withering effect on her mother's exuberance. The
hard woman saw the goal of a life's ambition within easy reach, and for
the exultant moment softened humanly. She chattered like a school-girl.
“And she took me up to the princess,” she said, “and presented me
as her nearest country neighbour. Was n't that nice of her? And the
princess is such a sweet woman.”
“Dear, dear!” said Norma. “How wicked people are! Every one says she is
the most vinegarish old cat in Christendom.”