Interference

Betty was considered quite an acquisition in the station (though, after its recent experience, the station was somewhat inclined to be coy in its reception of fascinating strangers). True, she neither sang nor acted, but she was pretty, young, and bright, played the hostess with surprising success, and rode well forward with the Bobbery Pack on her uncle’s well-known racing pony, “Leading Article.”

She received friendly advice about her health, and her ayah, and the necessary precautions to preserve her clothes, and her complexion, in the spirit in which it was meant, and was as popular as her cousin was the reverse.

Strange to say—or perhaps it was not very strange—she rarely saw George Holroyd save in the distance at polo or gymkhanas. In three months’ time they had not exchanged three sentences. He was as distant, and as formal, as if they had never met before, and she was secretly hurt to notice that he avoided her purposely. But he could not avoid her on that miserable occasion, when she came to a dinner, given in her honour, at his own house.

The guests were twelve in number, and included, besides the Redmonds, Captain La Touche, the Calverts, and Miss Gay, also the Judge and Mrs. Pope—the latter, an elderly lady, with a generous face and fine head, a woman good to know and look at, a woman to be relied on, and whose heart was so large that she could even spare a morsel for “poor queer Mrs. Holroyd.” The table was prettily decorated (by Betty), and there was no unfortunate mistake about the Chartreuse this time, but it was not a pleasant entertainment; the hostess was in a bad temper, the “plats” were abominable. Mr. Redmond was unusually “gritty”; to be frank, the Collector liked his dinner, he had had a long day at Cutcherry, and he was hungry, but this was dog’s food—“rateeb.”

Belle, with a touch of rouge on her cheeks and a feverish sparkle in her eyes, talked and laughed incessantly, with an occasional fierce aside to the servants, and a deadly thrust at her husband. She had strung up her nerves with a strong dose of sal-volatile, and her sallies spared no one.

Poor George! Was he happy with the wrong woman at the head of the table, and the right woman on his left hand?

“George,” screamed the former, “just look at that wretch, he is handing round port instead of claret. He has given Miss Gay port and soda water, but you don’t mind what they do, nor help me one bit; as long as you can smoke and shoot, you are satisfied!”

During this agreeable speech everyone commenced to talk with feverish animation, so as to drown Mrs. Holroyd’s shrill voice. When the port was carefully and properly handed round, she began again:

“Betty,” she exclaimed, “don’t you think George has become very quiet? I notice that you and he have hardly opened your lips; is he not silent to what he used to be?”

“Perhaps, like the parrot, he thinks the more,” growled Mr. Redmond, figuratively drawing his sword.

“Perhaps so, and like the parrot I shall have to give him a red chili to make him talk,” rejoined Belle smartly.

“He could not be in better hands,” retorted the Collector, “no one so capable as Mrs. Holroyd, of giving him something hot.”

Belle affected not to hear this pleasantry, and, turning to Captain La Touche, said abruptly:

“What is that French riddle you have just given Miss Gay?”

“Oh, a mere bagatelle. I will give you one for yourself if you care to guess it.”

“I delight in French riddles, you know I am half French!”

“Then listen to this,” counting on his plump white fingers.

“I give it up,” said Belle, after several ineffectual guesses, “although I am generally very good at them, and at all conundrums. It sounds rather odd. Is it quite proper?”

“Proper! My dear madam, the answer speaks for itself; the word is Mariage.”

“Yes, yes, I see, not at all bad,” she exclaimed condescendingly, but she did not demand another French riddle; there had been a disagreeable significance in Mr. Redmond’s expression, as he repeated “Mon tout c’est le diable lui-même.” “Talking of marriages,” she said, “I hear there is an end of Miss Lightwood’s engagement to Captain Holster of the Pink Inexpressibles. Mr. Proudfoot told me, you know the horrible way he talks. He said that the regiment had headed him off, and that she was not ‘classy’ enough, or up to the form of the corps.”

“Indeed, it is the first I have heard of it,” returned Captain La Touche with some animation.

“Yes, I see you are delighted! Your eyes twinkle at the news, you horrid selfish bachelor; if you had your way, no officer would marry.”

“Oh, come now, Mrs. Holroyd, you must not give me such a character.”

“But I must! I believe you think there ought to be a sort of committee on every girl before a comrade is allowed to propose to her. I wonder if you would have passed me? You don’t answer; then I shall take silence for consent?”

“Such a novel suggestion took my breath away, and deprived me for the moment of the power of speech. I am dumb, simply because the question is so utterly superfluous.”

Belle smiled and tittered, accepting this double-edged compliment entirely from Lord Chesterfield’s point of view, and then addressed herself to her other neighbour. She had already heard him, at an early period in the feast, saying to his servant, as he gave his plate an impatient push:

“Here! take this away; get me some dry toast,” and now he was turning and re-turning his pudding with a palpably scornful spoon! As she watched him she felt her heart grow hot within her.

“I am afraid you have no appetite,” she observed in her sharpest key. “I thought you were looking rather yellow and out of sorts.”

“Never felt better in my life, hungry as a hunter; but, my dear madam, what is this new dish? Did you make it yourself?”

“A vol au vent of plantains, you dreadful bon vivant. Is it true that your first question every morning is, to ask how the wind is, to see if your club mutton may hang a day longer?”

“A base libel, an invention of the enemy,” he returned emphatically; and, so saying, he seized his glass, dashed a quantity of sherry into his plate, and hastily gulped down its contents. Then, as he caught the fiery eye of his hostess, he saw that she was working herself into a frame of mind that might be troublesome, and said with his blandest air:

“I notice that you have a pair of fine new pictures,” screwing his glass into his eye. “I have not seen them before.”

“Yes—I picked them up at an auction, and I am rather proud of my purchase, though George there,” with a withering glance at her husband, “says that the Alps by moonlight might be taken for some haystacks round a puddle, and that lovely sunset at sea, for a dish of eggs and bacon. Now tell me your opinion of them frankly; for I believe you do know something about art!”

“As well as I can judge from this distance, and, in fact, not being much of a judge at any distance, I should say that these pictures are oil paintings of some notoriety. And in fact, rather remarkable productions. I give you my word of honour I have not seen anything like them for a long time; you have secured something quite out of the common——”

“Ah, really,” looking steadfastly into his grave, impassive face. “Well then, since I have had your opinion, I shall promote them to the drawing-room in future. I shall promote myself there now.”

And presently she and her lady guests arose and departed. When the gentlemen rejoined the rest of the company, there was the usual after-dinner music. Belle opened the concert with a sparkling little ballad, and Betty played one of Scharwenker’s wild, weird Polish dances, that seemed to set every one thinking of their past. Miss Gay sang by special request “Forever and Forever.” As her rich and sympathetic voice rang through the room, with its too appropriate words, Betty bent her face over a book of photographs, and never once raised it. Her head ached, she was nervous and constrained, and despite her subsequent efforts to be gay and conversational, more than one remarked “that pretty Miss Redmond seemed pale and out of spirits.” She was most thankful when Mrs. Pope rose, and gave the signal for her own release. She had been figuratively on the rack all that miserable evening. The exposé of George’s wretched home wrung her very heart. If Belle had made him happy, if there had been no shame for her in her thoughts, no pity for him, it would have been different, oh! so very different. She would not—she was sure—have felt this dreadful tightness in her throat, and this insane impulse to burst out crying. The worn-looking, grave young man who escorted her down the hall, but did not offer to put on her cloak, could he be the same George Holroyd that used to take her and Cuckoo out schooling through the fields behind Bridgetstown, and make the keen wintry air ring with his cheery laugh?

“Well, George! How do you think it went off?” enquired Belle, when the last guest had taken a peg, a cheroot, and his departure, and she threw herself yawning into a chair.

George stood with his hands in his pockets, and looked intently at his boots, and made no reply.

“I think every one enjoyed themselves: it was quite a success. How do you think Betty was looking?”

“Oh, as usual,” without raising his eyes.

“Of course you don’t admire her, I know; she was pale to-night, but maybe that was her dress; pink does not suit Betty. Mrs. Pope has taken such a fancy to her.”

“Has she?”

“She is nearly as enthusiastic as Sally Dopping; she thinks Betty is so pretty, and interesting-looking! And what do you think the funny old woman says? She declares that Betty has a story in her eyes.”

“A what? A sty in her eye?”

“A story in her eyes! Isn’t it a preposterous idea? I asked her what she meant, and she nodded and smiled in that exaggerated way of hers and said: ‘I am sure I am right, ask her to tell it to you, my dear!’ It was on the tip of my tongue to say, that she had a story in her mouth, for you know as well as I do, that Betty never cared for anyone in her life in that way; a story in her eyes indeed!”

As Mr. Redmond and his niece walked home, with a lantern carried before them as a precaution against snakes, he said: “Thank goodness that’s over and we need not go again. Betty, is there any cold meat in the house?”

“Yes, cold corned beef, a nice hump.”

“Good! What a dinner! What courage Holroyd had to marry that woman; he ought to be decorated with a V. C. What a temper she has.”

“Yes, it’s rather hot certainly.”

“Hot is no name for it. Holroyd acts as a sort of fire-engine between her and the station. Poor chap! I often see his eyes fixed on her at dinners with a sort of desperate apprehension as to what she will say next! I wonder what possessed Holroyd to marry her. Do you know?”

No answer.

“She is not young, she has no money, her looks are going. She can talk, I grant you! It is a pity that such power of utterance is not united to more intelligence; in many ways she is an absolute fool.”

“Oh, no, Uncle Bernard, indeed she is not,” protested his companion. “She may not be what you would call intellectual, but she is very bright, she has plenty of sense.”

“If she has sense then heaven help those who have none. Well—well—she always rubs me up the wrong way. I don’t believe she has an ounce of brains, but you think differently, and we won’t fall out. We will never fall out, you and I, Bet! You are an amiable girl, and make allowances for everyone, and can be happy and at ease even with that woman in the next compound.”

But what, oh most learned yet ignorant Collector! what about the man in the next compound?