"Oh, Cordelia, I told you I would not have an American," said the Duke, reproachfully. "Think how jumpy they are, and I can't explain to her that I simply want her to stay at home and have lots of children and do the house up."
"Oh yes, you can. She is from the West, and a country-girl, and, I assure you, those Americans are quite accustomed to make a bargain. You can settle everything of that sort with the aunt."
"Mercifully, Margaret Tilchester is arriving to-morrow, too," sighed the Duke. "She has such admirable judgment. I shall be able to rely upon her."
"Ungrateful boy!" laughed Lady Grenellen. "After the trouble I have taken to get her, too. Now I am going to have a sleep before dinner. By-bye." And she sauntered off, accompanied by the beautiful young man.
Augustus stood biting the ends of his stubbly mustache.
No one had to bother about what the other people were doing here. The guests did not sit round waiting to be entertained; they all seemed perfectly at home, and did what they pleased.
The party was not large, but quite delightfully composed. I felt I should enjoy my evening. Before going down to dinner, Augustus came into my room. He hoped, he said, that I had some jewels on.
My appearance pleased him. He came up and kissed me. I could not speak to him, as McGreggor was in the room, and afterwards it seemed too late. Should I leave the affair in silence? Oh, if I had some one to advise me!—Lady Tilchester, perhaps. And yet how, so soon after my marriage, could I say to her: "My husband pays for another woman's clothes, and is, I suppose, her lover. But beyond the insult of the case, the disgust and contempt it fills me with, I am not hurt a bit, and am only thankful for anything that keeps him away from me." What would she think? Would she understand, because of Lord Tilchester and Babykins, or would it, being so soon, shock her? I wish I knew. Perhaps it is as my mother-in-law said, and I am not a flesh-and-blood woman.
Early next day—they had come by the Scotch mail—Lord and Lady
Tilchester arrived with Babykins.
Most of the men were out shooting but the Duke and the beautiful young man (his name is Lord Luffton), who had stayed behind to take care of us, they said.
Lady Grenellen appeared just before lunch.
"I have ordered a brougham to meet the one-thirty train, Berty," she said, "to bring my Americans up. They will be here in a minute. Come into the hall with me to receive them."
The Duke accompanied her reluctantly.
"It would be as well to know their name," he said, as he sauntered after her trailing skirts.
"Cadwallader—Miss Martina B. Cadwallader—that is the aunt, and Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet—that is the niece," said Lady Grenellen, stalking ahead.
The windows of the long gallery where we were all sitting looked onto the court-yard, and two flys passed the angle of the turret.
"Look at the luggage!" exclaimed Babykins, and we all went to the window.
There was, indeed, a wonderful collection—both flys laden with enormous, iron-bound trunks as big as hen-houses. A pair of smart French maids seemed buried beneath them.
The entire party of us burned with curiosity to see the owners, but long before they appeared we were conscious of their presence.
Two of the most highly pitched American voices I have ever heard were saying civil things to our host and Lady Grenellen. More highly pitched than Hephzibah's, and that is the highest, I thought, there could be in the world.
"She is awfully good-looking," whispered Babykins, who caught sight of them first as they came through the hall.
The aunt walked in front with Lady Grenellen, a tall woman with a keen, dark face of the red Indian type, with pure white hair, beautifully done, and a perfect dignity of carriage.
The heiress followed with the Duke. She is small and plump and feminine-looking, with the sweetest dimpled face and great brown eyes. Both were exquisitely dressed and carried little bags at their waists. Their manner had complete assurance, without a trace of self-consciousness.
Lady Grenellen had told us all their history. Not a possible drop of blood bluer than a navvy's could circulate in their veins, and yet their wrists were fine, their heads were small, and their general appearance was that of gentlewomen.
I seemed to see pictures and sounds of my earliest childhood as they spoke, I took to them at once.
Following the English custom, Lady Grenellen did not introduce them to any one but Babykins, who happened to step forward, and we all proceeded to lunch, which was laid at small, round tables.
The Duke wore an air of comic distress. His eyebrows were raised as though trying to understand a foreign language.
I sat with Lady Tilchester at another table, and we could not hear most of their conversation, only the sentences of the American ladies, and they sounded like some one talking down the telephone in one of the plays I saw in Paris. You only heard one side, not the answers back.
"Why, this is a real castle!" "You don't say!" "Yes, beheaded in the hall." "Miss Trumpet has all the statistics. She read them in the guide-book coming along." "I calculate she knows more about your family history, Dook, than you know yourself," etc., etc.
"What a pity they have voices like that!" exclaimed Lady Tilchester. "I know Berty will be put off, he is so ridiculously fastidious, and it is absolutely necessary that he should marry an heiress."
"The niece is young. Perhaps hers could be softened," I said. "She is so pretty, too."
Lady Tilchester looked at me suddenly. She had not listened to what I said.
"Oh, dear Mrs. Gurrage, you will help us to secure this girl? I ask you frankly, because, of course, the Duke is in love with you, and he naturally would not be impressed with Miss Trumpet."
I should have been angry if any one else had said this. But there is something so adorable about Lady Tilchester she can say anything.
"You are quite mistaken. I have only seen the Duke at your house," I said, smiling, "and a man cannot get in love on so short an acquaintance, can he?—besides, my being only just married."
"I suppose you have not an idea how beautiful you are, dear," she said, kindly. "Much as I like you, I almost wish you were not staying here now."
"I promise I will do my best to encourage the Duke to marry Miss Trumpet, if you wish it," I said, "I think he knows it is a necessity from what he said to me."
"Then I shall carry you up-stairs this afternoon out of harm's way," she said, with her exquisite smile. "Berty always gives me a dear little sitting-room next my room, and we can have a regular school-girls' chat over the fire."
Nothing could have pleased me better. I would rather talk to this dear lady than any Duke in the world.
After lunch some introductions were gone through.
"Now I am proud to be presented to you," said the aunt to Lady Tilchester, with perfect composure. "We have heard a great deal of you in our country, and my niece, Miss Trumpet, has always had the greatest admiration for your photograph."
The niece, meanwhile, talked to me.
There is something so fresh and engaging about her that in a few moments one almost forgot her terrible voice.
"Why, it does seem strange," she said, "with the veneration we have in America for really old things, to hear the Duke" (she does not quite say Dook, like the aunt. It sounds more like Juke) "call this castle an old 'stone-heap.' I am just longing to see the place his ancestor was beheaded upon in May, 1485. The Duke hardly seems to know about it, but I have been led to expect, from the guide-book, that I should see the blood on the stones."
The beautiful young man, Lord Luffton, now engaged her in conversation, and as Lady Tilchester and I left the hall both he and the Duke were escorting Miss Trumpet to the dais—no doubt to turn up the carpet and search for the traditional blood upon the steps.
"They are the most wonderful nation," Lady Tilchester said, as she linked her arm in mine. "Here is a girl looking as well bred as any of us—more so than most of us—probably beautifully educated, and accomplished, too, and whose father began as a common navvy or miner out in the West. The mother is dead—she took in washing, Cordelia says—and yet she was the sister of Miss Martina B. Cadwallader! How on earth do they manage to look like this?"
"It is wonderful, certainly. It must be the climate," I hazarded.
"We cannot do it in England. Think of the terrible creature a girl with such parentage would be here. Picture her ankles and hands! And the self-consciousness, or the swagger, this situation would display!"
I thought of Mrs. Dodd and the Gurrage commercial relations generally.
"Yes, indeed," I said.
"They are so adaptable," she continued. "It does not seem to matter into what nation they marry, they seem to assimilate and fit into their places. When this little thing is a duchess, you will see she will fulfil the position to a tee. Berty will be very lucky if he secures her."
"I think Lord Luffton will be a much greater stumbling-block than I shall," I laughed. "Perhaps he likes the idea of fifty thousand a year, too."
"Oh, Cordelia will see about that. Babykins, who knows everything, tells me she has fallen wildly in love with Luffy. He has only arrived back from the war about a week. And she will not let any other woman interfere with her. I had heard another story about her in Scotland. They told me she was having an affair with some"—she stopped suddenly, no doubt remembering to whom she was talking—"foreigner." She ended the sentence with perfect tact.
The little sitting-room is in a turret and is octagon-shaped, a dainty, charming, old-world room that grandmamma might have lived in.
We drew two chairs up to the fire and sat down cosily.
How kind and gracious and altogether charming this woman can be! Again I can only compare her to the sun's rays, so warm and comfortable she makes one feel. There is a nobleness and a loftiness about her which causes even ordinary things she says to sound like fine sentiments. No wonder Mr. Budge adores her.
We spoke very little of people. She told me of her interests and all the schemes to benefit mankind she has in hand. At last she said:
"You have not been to Dane Mount yet, have you?"
"No. We are going there on Monday, after we leave here."
"It will interest you deeply, I am sure." And she looked into the fire. "Antony stayed with you, did he not?"
"Yes," I said, and my voice sounded strained, remembering that terrible visit.
She was silent for a few moments.
"I want you to be friends with me, dear," she said, so gently. "You are, perhaps, not always quite happy, and if ever I can do anything for you I want you to know I will."
"Oh, dear Lady Tilchester," I said, "you have been so kind and good to me already I shall never forget it. And I am a stranger, too, and yet you have troubled about me."
"I liked you from the first moment we met, at the Tilchester ball.
And Antony is so interested in you, and we are such dear old friends
I should always be prejudiced in favor of any one he thought worth
liking."
There were numbers of things I wished to ask her, but somehow my tongue felt tied. It was almost a relief when she turned the conversation.
Soon the daylight faded and the servants brought lamps.
"It is almost five," she said, at last "What a happy afternoon we have had! I know you ever so much better now, dear. Well, I suppose the time has come to put on tea-gowns and descend to see how affairs are progressing."
I rose.
"I am going to call you Ambrosine," she said, and she kissed me. "I am not given to sudden friendships, but there is something about your eyes that touches me. Oh, dear, I hope fate will not force you to commit some mid-summer madness, as I did, to regret to the end of your days!"
All the way to my room her words puzzled me. What could she mean?
XII
The scene was picturesque and pretty as I looked at it from the gallery that crosses the hall.
Tea was laid out on a large, low table, with plates and jam and cakes and muffins—a nice, comfortable, substantial meal. A fire of whole logs burned in the colossal, open chimney. The huge, heavily shaded lamps concentrated all the light beneath them, viewed from above.
And like a group of summer-flowers the women, in their light and fluffy tea-gowns, added the touch of grace to the heavy darkness of the old stone walls. I paused a while and watched them.
Lady Grenellen, gorgeous as a sultana, seemed to have collected all the cushions to enhance her comfort as she lay back in a low, deep sofa. Augustus sat beside her. From here one could not see his ugliness, and the dark claret color of his smoking-suit rather set off her gown. She had the most alluring expression upon her face, which just caught the light. His attitude was humble. The storm, for the present, was over between them.
Two other women, the heiress, Babykins, and Lord Tilchester, and several young men sat round the table like children eating their bread-and-jam.
The Duke and Miss Martina B. Cadwallader were examining the armor.
Some one was playing the piano softly. Merry laughter floated upward.
I doubt if any other country could produce such a scene. It would have
pleased grandmamma.
"Why, by the stars and stripes, there is a ghost in the gallery!" exclaimed Miss Corrisande K. Trumpet, pointing to me. The faint glimmer of my white velvet tea-gown must have caught her eyes as I moved away.
"No, I am not a ghost," I called, "and I am coming down to eat hot muffins." So I crossed and descended the turret stairs.
Lady Tilchester had not appeared yet.
I sat down at the table next "Billy." It was all so gay and friendly no one could feel depressed.
Viewed close, Miss Trumpet was, for her age, too splendidly attired. She looked prettier in her simple travelling-dress. But her spirits and her repartee left nothing to be desired. She kept us all amused, and, whether Lady Grenellen would eventually permit it or no, Lord Luffton seemed immensely épris with her now.
There was only one other girl at the table, Lady Agatha de Champion, and her slouching, stooping figure and fuzzled hair did not show to advantage beside the heiress's upright, rounded shape and well-brushed waves.
"Where have you been all the afternoon?" demanded the Duke, reproachfully, over my shoulder. "I searched everywhere down-stairs, and finally sent to your room, but your maid knew nothing of you."
"I have been sitting with Lady Tilchester in her sitting-room," I said, smiling.
"Here comes Margaret. She shall answer to me for kidnapping my guests like this." And he went forward to meet her.
"Do not scold me," said Lady Tilchester, as she returned with him. "I think Mrs. Gurrage will tell you we have spent a very pleasant afternoon."
"Indeed, yes," I said.
"And I mean to spend a pleasant evening," he whispered, low, to me. "As soon as you have eaten that horrid muffin I shall carry you off to see my pictures."
I looked at Lady Tilchester. What would she wish me to do?
"Impress upon him the necessity of being charming to the heiress. You were quite right. He has a serious rival," she whispered, and we walked off.
The Duke can be agreeable in his unattractive, lackadaisical way.
He is so full of information, not of the statistical kind like Miss
Trumpet, but the result of immense cultivation.
"What do you think of my heiress?" he said, at last, as we paused beneath a Tintoretto. I said everything suitable and encouraging I could think of.
"I am quite pleased with her," he allowed, "but I fear she will not be content with the rôle I had planned out for my Duchess. She is too individual. I feel it is I who would subside and attend to the nurseries and the spring cleaning. However, I mean to go through with it, although I am in a hideous position, because, you know, I am falling very deeply in love with you."
"How inconvenient for you!"' I said, smiling. "But please do not let that interfere with your prospects. You must attend to the subject of pleasing the heiress, as I see great signs of Lord Luffton cutting the ground from under your feet."
He stared at me incredulously.
"Luffy!" he said, aghast. "Oh, but Cordelia would take care of that.
He is her friend."
"Oh, how you amuse me, all of you," I said, laughing, "with your loves and your jealousies and your little arrangements! Every one two and two; every one with a 'friend.'"
"Anyway, we are not wearyingly faithful."
"No; but to a stranger you ought to issue a kind of guide-book—'Trespassers will be prosecuted' here, 'A change would be welcomed' there, etc."
"'Pon my word new editions would have to come out every three months, then. In the space of a year you would find a general shuffle had taken place."
"Shall you let your Duchess have a 'friend'?" I asked.
He mused a little.
"Could I have found my cow brewer's daughter, she would have been too virtuously middle class to have thought of such a thing. And if I take this American—well, the Americans are so new a nation they have still a moral sense. So I think I am pretty safe."
"Old nations are deficient in this quality, then?"
"Yes. Artificial things are more worn out, and they get back nearer to nature."
"But you would object to a 'friend'?"
"Considerably, until the succession was firmly secured. After that, I suppose, my Duchess might please herself. She probably would, too, without consulting me. You don't see the whole of your neighbors eating cake and remain content with your own monotonous bread-and-butter."
This appeared to be very true. He continued in a meditative way:
"Because a few what we call civilized nations have set up a standard of morality for themselves, that does not change the ways of human nature. What we call morality has no existence in the natural world."
"Why should the respectable middle-class brewer's daughter have so strong a sense of it, then?" I asked.
"Because propriety is their god from one generation to another. You can almost overcome nature with a god sometimes. Babykins has a theory that the food we eat makes a difference in the ways of our class, but I don't believe that. It is because we hunt and shoot and live lives of inclination, not compulsion, like the middle classes, and so we get back nearer to nature."
"You are a sophist, I fear," I said, smiling. "See, here is Miss Martina B. Cadwallader advancing upon us. Stern virtue is on every line of her face, anyway!"
"Pardon me, Dook," she said, "but the guide to Myrlton I purchased at the station gave me to understand I should find a second portrait of Queen Elizabeth in this gallery. I cannot see it. Would you be good enough to indicate the picture to me?"
"Oh, that was a duplicate," said the Duke, resignedly. "I sold it at Christie's last year. It brought me in ten thousand pounds—more than it was worth. I lived in comfort upon it for quite six months."
"You don't say!" said Martina B. Cadwallader.
Before the party said good-night, the meanest observer could have told that things were going at sixes and sevens, no one doing exactly what was expected of them.
Signs of disturbance showed as early as the few minutes before dinner.
Lord Luffton was openly seeking the society of the heiress, with no regard to the blandishments of Lady Grenellen. But by half-past eleven the clouds had spread all round.
Augustus, perhaps, looked the most upset. He had spent an evening on thorns of jealousy. First, snubbed sharply by the fair Cordelia; then, having to witness her ineffectual attempts to detach Lord Luffton from Miss Trumpet.
The Duke, while devoting himself to me, could not quite conceal his annoyance at the turn affairs were taking.
Miss Martina B. Cadwallader was plainly irritated with her niece for not attending to the business they had come for. Babykins was exerting her mosquito propensities and stinging every one all round. In fact, only the few casual guests, who did not count one way or another, seemed calm and undisturbed.
"It is really provoking," Lady Tilchester said to me. "What on earth did they ask Luffy here for? He is noted for this sort of thing, and, of course, posing as a war hero adds an extra lustre to his charms."
The only two people supremely unconscious of delinquencies were the causes of all the trouble—Lord Luffton and Miss Trumpet.
They had gone off to look at the pictures in the long gallery, and at twenty minutes to twelve were nowhere to be seen.
Lady Glenellen's eyes flashed ominously.
"Let us go to bed," she said. "Betty, why don't you have the lights turned out?"
Fortunately the aunt did not hear this remark. As her face showed, she was quite capable of a sharp reply to anything, and though, no doubt, annoyed with the niece, would certainly defend her.
"We had better go and look for them," said the Duke.
"Perhaps they have fallen down the oubliette," suggested Babykins.
"You don't tell me there is danger?" demanded Miss Martina B. Cadwallader, anxiously, "On this trip I am answerable to her poppa for Corrisande's safety."
We started, more or less in a body, towards the gallery, Lady Tilchester, with her usual tact, stopping to point out any notable picture or tapestry to the aunt on the way, so that the search should not look too pointed.
In the farthest corner, perched on a high window-seat—that must have required a knowledge of vaulting to reach—sat the guilty pair, dangling their feet. Anything more engaging than Miss Trumpet looked could not be imagined. The tiniest pink satin slippers peeped out of billows of exquisite dessous. Her little face seemed a mass of dimpling smiles. Not a trace of embarrassment appeared in her manner.
"I say, Duke," she called, "you have got a sweet place here. We have been watching for the monk to pass, but he has not come yet."
The Duke stepped forward to help her down.
"Don't you trouble," she said. "Why, we had a gymnasium at the convent. I can jump."
Lady Grenellen now appeared upon the scene. She looked like an angry cat. I turned, with Lady Tilchester, and left the rest of the party. What happened I do not know, but when they joined us all in the hall again the heiress was with the Duke, Lord Luffton walked alone, while Augustus, once more beaming, was close to Lady Grenellen's side. So it is an ill wind that blows no one any good.
Next day, after a delightful shooting-lunch and a brisk walk back, the heiress came to my room and talked to me.
She had apparently taken a great fancy to me, and we had had several conversations.
"I don't know why, but you give me the impression that you are a stranger, too, like Aunt Martina and me," she said. "You don't look at all like the rest of the Englishwomen. Why, your back is not nearly so long. I could almost take you for an American, you are so chic."
I laughed.
"Even Lady Tilchester, who is by far the nicest and grandest of them, does not look such an aristocrat as you do."
(Miss Trumpet pronounces it arrist-tocrat.)
"I assure you, I am a very ordinary person," I said. "But you are right, I am a stranger, too."
"Now I am glad to hear that," said Miss Trumpet, beginning to polish her nails with my polisher, which was lying on the dressing-table. "Because then I can talk to you. You know I have come here to sample the Duke. Poppa is so set on the idea of my being a duchess. But it seems to me, if you are going to buy a husband, you might as well buy the one you like best. Don't you think so?"
"I entirely agree with you," I said, feelingly. "You would probably be happier with the one you prefer, even if he were only a humble baron." And I smiled at her slyly.
"Now that is just what I wanted to ask you about. But if I took Lord Luffton, instead of the Duke, should I have to walk a long way behind at the Coronation next year?"
"I am afraid you would," I said.
She looked puzzled and undecided.
"That is worrying me," she said. "As for the men themselves—well, we don't think so much of them over in America as you do here. It is no wonder Englishmen are so full of assurance, the way they are treated. You would never find an American woman showing a man she was madly jealous of him, like Lady Grenellen did last night. Why, we keep them in their places across the Atlantic."
"So I have heard," I said.
"I have been accustomed to be run after all my life," she continued, "so it does not amount to anything, a man making love to me. But he is beautiful, isn't he?—Lord Luffton, I mean."
"Yes, though he has the reputation of great fickleness. The Duke would probably make a better husband," I said.
I felt I owed it to Lady Tilchester to do something towards advancing the cause.
"Oh, as for that, a man always makes a good enough husband if you have the control of the dollars, and poppa would see to that," said Miss Trumpet.
This seemed so true I had nothing to say.
"Now, I will tell you," she continued, examining her nails, which shone as bright as glass. "I have got a kind of soft feeling for that Baron, but I would like to be an English duchess. Now, which would you take, if you were me?"
"Oh, I could not possibly advise you," I said. "You must weigh the advantages, and your level head will be sure to choose for the best."
"The position of an English duchess is splendid, though, isn't it? An Italian duke came over last fall, and poppa thought of him for about a day. But there is the bother of a foreign language, and all their silly ways to learn, so I told poppa I would have an English one or marry an American. It does seem a pity I can't have both the Baron and the Duke!" and she laughed with girlish mirth.
I thought of my conversation the night before, and wondered.
* * * * *
That evening the Duke, also, made me confidences.
He was immensely taken with Miss Trumpet, he allowed, and could almost look upon the matter as a pleasure instead of a duty now.
"If you had shown the slightest sign that you would ever care for me, I should not have thought of her, though," he said. "You will be sorry, one day, that you are as cold as ice."
"Why should a person be accused of having no musical sense because one particular tune does not cause one rhapsodies?" I asked. "The one idea of a man seems to be, if a woman does not adore him personally, it is because she is as cold as ice. Surely that is illogical."
He looked at me very straightly for a moment.
"I believe you do care for some one," he said. "I shall watch and see."
"Very well," I laughed.
None of the people I have met since my marriage have seemed to think it possible that I should care for Augustus, or that my wedding-ring should be the slightest bar to my feelings or their advances.
"You are a dangerously attractive woman, you know—one's idea of what a lady ought to look like. And you move with a grace one never sees now. And your eyes—your eyes are the eyes of the Sphinx. I fancy, if I could make you care, I would forget all the world. I am glad you are going to-morrow."
"I understood you to say you were greatly attracted by Miss Trumpet,"
I said, demurely.
And so the evening passed.
"I think it is going all right," Lady Tilchester said to me as we walked up-stairs together. "They are making arrangements to meet in London, and Luffy has not been asked to join the theatre-party."
"No. He is going to lunch and to take them to skate," I said.
"Oh, the clever girl!" and she laughed. "But I expect she will decide to be a duchess, in the end."
"If you could tell her anything especially splendid about her position at the Coronation next year, should she accept the Duke, I am sure it would have an effect."
"Cordelia is behaving like a fool about it. She asked them here, and made all the arrangements, and now is absolutely uncivil to them."
"How flattered Lord Luffton ought to be!" I laughed.
"Yes, if it were any one else; but Cordelia has too many fancies. How glad one should be that one has other interests in life! Really, when I look round at most of my friends, I feel thankful. Perhaps, otherwise, I should have been as they are."
Augustus had greatly profited by Lord Luffton's defection. Whether it was to make the latter jealous, I do not know, but Lady Grenellen had been remarkably gracious to him all the evening.
I learned, casually, that she was to be the fourth at Dane Mount.
"We shall be such a little party," she said. "Only myself and you and your husband. I asked Antony to take me in, as it is on the road to Headbrook, where I go the next day, I thought he was having a large party, though."
I wished she was not going; there seemed something degrading about the arrangement.
I had not let myself think of this visit. And now it would be the day but one after to-morrow!
A strange restlessness and excitement took possession of me. I could not sleep.
It was a raw, foggy morning when we all left Myrlton. The Duke accompanied us to London, and we were a merry party in the train, in spite of eight of us playing bridge.
Augustus told me he had business in town, and would stay the night and over Sunday, arriving at Dane Mount by the four-o'clock train on Monday.
"If you leave home at three, in the motor," he said, "we shall get there exactly at the same time."
And so I returned to Ledstone alone.
XIII
The fog was white round the windows as I came down to my solitary breakfast on the 4th. My heart sank. What if it should be too thick for me to start? I could not bear to think of the disappointment that would be.
I forced myself to practise for an hour after breakfast. Then I wrote a long letter to the Marquis de Rochermont. Then I looked again at my watch and again at the fog. I should start at half-past two, to give plenty of time, as we should certainly have to go slowly.
At last, at last, luncheon came. I never felt less hungry, nor had the servants ever appeared so pompous and slow. It seemed as if it could never be half-past two.
However, it struck eventually, and the automobile came round to the door.
For the first five miles the fog was very thick. We had to creep along. Then it lifted a little, then fell again. But at half-past four we turned into the lodge-gates. I could see nothing in front of me. The trees seemed like gaunt ghosts, with the mist and the dying daylight. The drive across the park and up the long avenue was fraught with difficulty. Even when we arrived I could see nothing but the bright lights from the windows. But as the door was thrown open, I realised that Antony was standing there against the flood of brightness.
I seem always to be saying my heart beats, but there is no other way of describing the extraordinary and unusual physical sensation that happens to me when I meet this man.
"Welcome!" he said, as he helped me out of the automobile. "Welcome to Dane Mount!"
A broad corridor, full of trophies of the chase and armor and carved oak, leads to a splendid hall, high to the top of the house, with a great staircase and galleries running round. It is hung with tapestry and pictures, and full of old and beautiful furniture.
Three huge, rough-coated hounds lay on the lion-skin before the fire.
They rose, haughtily, to greet me.
"Ulfus, Belfus, and Bedevere, come and be introduced to a fair lady," said Antony. "You can be quite civil, she is of the family."
The dogs came forward.
"What darlings!" I said, patted them all. They received the caresses with dignity, and, without gush, made me understand they were glad to see me.
Then we said some banal things to each other—Antony and I—about the fog and the difficulty of getting here and the length of the drive.
I did not look at him much. I felt excited and awkward—and happy.
"I am not going to let you stay here a minute in those damp things," he said. "I shall give you into the hands of Mrs. Harrison, my housekeeper, to take you to your room. When you have got into a tea-gown, you will find me here again." And he rang the bell.
Grandmamma would have approved of Mrs. Harrison when she appeared. She is like the housekeepers one reads of in books—stately and plump, and clothed in black silk, with a fat, gold-and-cameo brooch fastening a neat cambric collar.
She conducted me up the staircase and into the most exquisite bedroom
I have ever dreamed of in my life.
It is white, and panelled, and full of really old and beautiful French furniture. Everything is in keeping, even to the locks on the doors and the bell-ropes. How grandmamma would have appreciated this! And the fineness of the linen, and the softness of the pillows and sofa-cushions! And everywhere great bowls of roses—my favorite flower. Roses in November!
"Oh, what a lovely room!" I exclaimed, as I went round and looked at everything.
"It is pretty, ma'am. It has only just been arranged," said Mrs. Harrison, much gratified. "Sir Antony bid me ask you to order anything you can possibly want."
Then she indicated which bell rang into my maid's room and which for the house-maids, and with a few more polite wishes for my comfort, and the information that the room prepared for Augustus was some way down the corridor, on the right, she left me in McGreggor's hands.
With great promptness the luggage had been carried up, so I was not long getting into a tea-gown.
Augustus and Lady Grenellen would have arrived by the time I got down to the hall again. They ought to have been here before me, but no doubt the train was late.
The soft crêpe de chine of my skirts made no frou-frou. Antony did not see me as I looked over the bend of the stairs descending; he was staring into the fire, an expression I have never seen before on his face.
I stopped. Presently he looked up.
"How silently you came, Comtesse! I did not hear you."
"You were thinking deeply. Upon what grave matters of state?"
"None at all. Do you know Lady Grenellen and your husband have not arrived? The brougham has with difficulty returned from the station after waiting until the train was in, and there was no sign of them."
A joy, unbidden and instantly suppressed, pervaded me as he spoke.
"Perhaps they missed the train and will catch the next," I hazarded.
"The fog in London is quite exceptional, the guard said. I have given orders for the coachman to return and try for the next train. It gets in at 6:42. After that there is one at 7, and the last one is at 10:18. But they will probably telegraph."
"It makes me laugh," I said.
"Come and have tea. We shall not bother our heads about them. They are, fortunately, well able to take care of themselves."
Antony led the way to the library, where the tea was laid out.
I never have sat in such a comfortable sofa or felt more cosily at home. Everything pleased me. All is in perfect taste.
Antony talked to me gayly as he gave me some tea. It was as if he wanted to remove the least feeling of awkwardness this unusual situation might possibly cause me to feel.
Ulfus, Belfus, and Bedevere had followed us, and now lay, like three grim guardians, upon the tiger-skin hearth-rug.
"How is your arm?" I asked.
"Oh, that is all right. I had the shot taken out and it has quite healed up. Wonderful escape we had that day!" And he laughed.
"And you were so good about it! Augustus said he would have shot back if Mr. Dodd had hit him."
"Mrs. Dodd would have made a nice target. One does not often come across a person like that. Are all your guests at Ledstone of the same sort as those I met?"
"No. Some of them are worse," I replied, gravely, smiling at him. "Next time you shall come to an earlier party. You would enjoy that." And I laughed, thinking of the first batch of relations we had entertained.
"I will come whenever you ask me," he said, quite simply.
"No. You know I would never ask you again, if I could help it. Oh, you were so kind, but it—" I stopped. I did not know how to say what I meant. I had better not have said so much.
"I don't want you to have that feeling. It amuses me to come, Comtesse, only you feed one too well. Do you remember how I drank everything I could get hold of, to please you?"
"You were ridiculous!" And I laughed.
"I thought I was heroic." Then, in another voice: "I think you must have that boudoir altered a little, you know, before long. I can't say I found your sofa comfortable."
"Not like this." And I lay back luxuriously.
"I generally choose things with a reason, if I can."
"That sounds like one of grandmamma's speeches." Then I stupidly blushed, remembering, apropos of what she had said, almost the same thing. It was when she accepted Mrs. Gurrage's invitation to the ball, where she calculated I should meet Antony. That was before she had the fainting-fit. I stared into the fire. What would have happened by now, if she could have carried out that plan—the "suitable and happy" arrangement of my future!
"Comtesse, why do you stop suddenly and blush, and then stare into the fire? Your grandmother was not, I am sure, in the habit of saying such startling things as to cause you such emotions."
I looked up at him. I suppose my eyes were troubled, for he said, so gently:
"Dear little girl, I won't tease you. Tell me, have you read any more books on philosophy lately?"
I drank the last sip of my tea, and held out my cup. It was nice tea.
"No, I have not had time to read anything. There, you can take my cup. You have such pretty things here. Everything is suitable, and it gives me pleasure. I don't feel philosophical; I feel genuine human enjoyment."
"That is good to know. Well, we won't be philosophical, then, we will be humanly happy," and he sat down beside me.
I took up, idly, a little book that was lying on a table near, because my silly heart had begun to beat again, like Lydia Languish or any vaporish young lady in an early romance. I looked at the title and Antony looked at me. I read it over without taking in the sense, and then the name arrested my attention.
"A Digit of the Moon," I said, "What a queer title!"
"What long eyelashes you have, Comtesse!" said Antony, apropos of nothing. "They make a great shadow on your cheek, and they have no business to be so dark, with your light, mud-colored hair."
"How rude, to call my hair mud-colored!" I said, indignantly, "I always thought it blond cendré."
"So it is, and it shines like burnished metal. But you are a vain little thing, I expect, and I did not wish to encourage you."
His voice was full of a caress. I did not dare to look into his queer cat's eyes.
"You have black eyelashes yourself, and as I am of the family, why may
I not have them too?" I said, pouting.
"Of course you can have them or anything else you wish, to oblige you. But I should rather like to know how long your hair is when you let it down. You look as if you had a great quantity there, but probably it is not all your own." And he smiled provokingly.
"If I was not afraid of the servants coming in I would undo it to show you," I replied, with great indignation and a sadden feeling that I, too, could tease. "I never heard anything so insulting!"
"My servants are well trained. It is not six o'clock yet. They won't come in until half-past six, unless I ring. You have plenty of time."
A spirit of coquetterie came over me for the first time in my life. I took out the two great tortoise-shell pins that held it up, and let my hair tumble down around me. It falls in heavy waves nearly to my knees.
"That is perfectly beautiful!" said Antony, almost reverently. "I apologize. It is your own."
I got up and shook it out and stood before him. It hung all round me like a cloak. Oh, I was in a wicked mood, and I do not defend my conduct.
"Comtesse," he said, and his eyes swam, "fiendish little temptress, put up that hair. And come, I will tell you about A Digit of the Moon."
I pretended to feel greatly snubbed, and in a minute had twisted it to my head again.
"It is a queer title," I said.
Antony talked a little faster than usual. It seemed as if he was breathing rather quickly.
"I shall give you this book. It only came out last year. I think it is one of the most delightful things that ever was written. You must read it carefully." And he put it into my hand. "The description, in the beginning, of the ingredients which God used to create woman is quite exquisite. Listen, I will read it to you." And he took the book again.
His voice is the most refined and the tones are deep. One cannot say what quality there is in some voices and pronunciation that makes them so attractive. If Antony were an ugly man he still would be alluring with such a voice as his. I listened intently until the last word.
"It is, indeed, a beautiful description," I said.
"You probably are all those things, Comtesse, except, perhaps, the 'chattering of the monkeys.' You don't speak much."
"And do you feel like 'man'?"
"That I cannot do with you, or without you? Yes, especially the latter part of the sentence."
I got up from the sofa and looked about the room. It seemed as if we were getting on dangerous ground.
"How comfortable men make their habitations! And I like the smell," I said, sniffing. "The pine-logs, I suppose."
"And the cedar panelling, perhaps, scents the place a little when it gets hot."
"You have thousands of books here." And I looked round at the high shelves between the long windows. "And what a nice piano! How happy you must be!"
"I should have been—and am sometimes, still," he said. "The Duke had a good room, too, at Myrlton."
I sat down on the sofa again. Antony had risen and leaned against the mantel-piece. He was idly pulling the ears of Bedevere, who, sitting there, reached up into his hand. I never could have imagined dogs so big as are these three.
"Of course you went to Myrlton. I had forgotten. The Duke made love to you, I suppose?"
"Why should you suppose?"
"Because I saw signs of it at Harley. Don't you remember how I carried you off to the woods while he fetched your umbrella?"
I laughed.
"Well, did he make love to you?"
"Why should you think any man would make love to me? It is ridiculous. You seem to forget I have only been married five months. Even in a well-bred world, where they have gone back to nature, they don't begin as soon as that, do they?"
"You are prevaricating. He did make love to you, then?"
"Lady Grenellen had brought an heiress there for him, and he was busy with her."
"And you made it as difficult for him as possible to do his duty. How heartless of you, Comtesse! I would not have believed it of you."
His voice was more mocking than I had ever heard it.
"I did nothing of the kind."
"He is an agreeable fellow, Berty."
"Full of information."
"Superficial."
"Possibly."
Then our eyes met.
"Comtesse, we are not here to talk about the Duke of Myrlshire in these our few minutes of grace. The 6.42 train will soon be in." And he sat down again beside me.
"What shall we talk about, then?" I asked, trying to keep my head. A maddening sensation of excitement made my voice sound strained. "First, I want to tell you how beautiful I find my room. If you had known my taste, and had it done to please me, you could not have found anything I should like so much."
"I did know your taste, and I had it done to please you. It is for you. No one else shall ever sleep there," he said, simply, and looked deep into my eyes.
I had nothing to say.
"I like to know there is a room for you in my house. I want everything in it to be exactly as you desire. When you have time to look, I think you will find some agreeable books, and your old friends La Rochefoucauld, etc. But if there is a thing you want changed, it would give me pleasure to change it."
I was stupefied. I could not speak.
"Over the mantel-piece is the little pastel by La Tour I told you I bought last year."
"Oh! it is good of you!" I managed to say.
"I have at least the satisfaction of knowing that I please myself too if it gives you pleasure. I want you to feel there is one corner in the world where you are really at home with the things that are sympathetic to you, so that whenever you will come over like this it will give you a feeling of repose."
"Oh! it is dear of you!"
"You said the other day," he continued, "that I, at all events, was never serious, and I told you I would tell you that when you came here to Dane Mount. Well, I tell you now—I am serious in this—that if there is anything in the world I can do to make you happy I will do it."
"It makes me happy to know you understand—that there is some one of my kin. Oh! I have been very lonely since grandmamma died!"
He looked at me long, and we neither of us spoke.
"It was a very cruel turn of fate that we did not meet this time last year," he said at last.
"Yes."
"Comtesse, I want to make your life happier. I want to introduce you to several nice women I know. I shall have a big party next month. Will you come and stay again? Then you will gradually get a pleasant society round you, and you need not trouble about the Dodds and the Springers—no, Springle was their name, wasn't it?"
"Yes. It is so kind of you, all this thought for me. Oh, Sir Antony, I have nothing to say!" I faltered.
He frowned.
"Do not call me Sir Antony, child. It hurts me. You must not forget we are cousins. You are Ambrosine to me, or my dearest little Comtesse."
The clock struck half-past six. The servants entered the room to take the tea-things away, and while they were there a footman brought in three telegrams, one for me and two for my host.
Mine was from Augustus, and ran:
"Hope you have arrived safely. Hear fog bad in country too. Impossible to get to Liverpool Street yet. Awfully worried at your being alone there. Shall come by last train."
Antony handed the two others to me. One was from Lady Grenellen, the other from Augustus, both expressing their annoyance and regret. The telegrams were all sent off at the same hour from Piccadilly, so apparently they were together, my husband and his friend.
"It is comic," I said, "this situation! Augustus and Lady Grenellen fog-bound in London, and you and I here, it is the fault of none of us."
"I like a fog," said Antony, with his old, whimsical smile, all trace of seriousness departed. "A good, useful thing, a fog. Hope it won't lift in a hurry."
"Now come and show me the ancestors," I said.
He led the way to the drawing-room—a great room, all painted white, too, and in each faded green-brocade panel hangs a picture. The electric lights are so arranged that each was perfectly illuminated.
They were all interesting to me, especially the portraits of our common ancestors.
"That must be your grandfather's father," said Antony, pointing to a portly gentleman, with lightly powdered hair and a blue riding-coat, painted at the end of the eighteenth century. "It was his eldest son, who had no sons, and left the place to his daughter, who married Sir Geoffrey Thornhirst."
"But where is your great-great-grandmother that you told me about, and rather insinuated she was as nice as my Ambrosine Eustasie de Calincourt?"
"There she is, in the place of honor. She was painted by Gainsborough, after she married. What do you think of her?"
"Oh! she is lovely," I said, "and she has your cat's eyes."
"'She is your ancestress, too, but she is not like you. Do you see the dog in the picture?"
"Yes. Why, it is just the portrait of one of your three knights!"
"Have you never heard the tradition, then?"
"No."
"As long as Dane Mount possesses that breed of dogs fortune is to favor the owner; but if they die out I can't tell you what calamities are not to overtake him. It has been going for hundreds of years."
"Then Ulfus, Belfus, and Bedevere are the descendants of that dog in the picture?"
"Yes."
"No wonder they give themselves such airs."
"Do you hear that, boys?" said Antony, turning to the three, who had again followed us. "My Comtesse says you give yourselves airs. Come and die for her to show her your real sentiments."
The three great fellows advanced in their dignified way, casting adoring glances at their master.
"Now die, all of you!"
They sneezed and curled up their lips, and made the usual grimaces of dogs when they are moved and self-conscious, but they all three lay flat down at my feet.
"I am flattered," I said, "and I have not even a biscuit to give you."
"We are not so sordid as that at Dane Mount. We do not die for biscuits, but because we love the lady," said Antony.
I bent down and kissed Ulfus, who was nearest to me.
"Now I am going to show you some Thornhirst pictures and some older Athelstans that are in the hall and the dining-room, and a portrait of my mother that I have in my own smoking-room."
Antony made the most interesting guide. There was something amusing and to the point about all his comments. I soon knew the different characteristics of each member of the family. One or two, especially of the Thornhirsts, are wonderfully like him—the same level, dark eyebrows and firm mouths.
"This is my sanctum," he said, at last, opening a door down a corridor, and we went into a large room with a lower ceiling than the rest of the apartments I had been into. It is panelled with cedar-wood also and sparely hung with old prints. A delicious smell of burning pine-logs again greeted me. The thick, silk curtains were drawn. The lamps were softly shaded. An old dog of the same family as the three knights basked before the fire. It was all cosey and homelike.
"Oh! this is a nice room, too!" I exclaimed.
"I spend a good deal of time here. One grows to like one's rooms."
His mother's portrait hangs over the fireplace, a charming face, whose beauty is not even disguised by the hideous fashions of 1870, when it was painted.
"She died when I was in Russia," said Antony.
My eyes fell on the mantel-piece. The narrow ledge held three photographs, one of a man, one of Lady Tilchester, and the centre one—an amateur production, evidently—of a little girl with bare feet, putting one fat toe into a stream, her hat hanging down her back, and her face bent down looking at the water.
"What a dear little picture," I said. "Who is that?"
"Oh, that is the Tilchester child, Muriel Harley," he said, carelessly. "We snap-shotted her paddling in the burn in Scotland a year or two ago. Come, it is dressing-time. I must send you up-stairs." And then, as we left the room, "You look so comfortable in that tea-gown! Don't bother to change," he said.
"Why deprive me of displaying to you the splendors I brought over on purpose?" I said, gayly, as I ran up the broad steps.
XIV
I do not think there can be a more agreeable form of entertainment than a tête-à-tête dinner, provided your companion is sympathetic. Anyway, to me this will always be one of the golden hours in my life to look back upon.
Never had Antony been so attractive. Every sentence was well expressed, and only when one came to think of them afterwards, did one discover their subtle flattery.
By the time the servants had finally left the room I felt like a purring cat whose fur has been all stroked the right way—at peace with the world.
The dinner had been exquisite, but I was too excited to feel hungry.
"Comtesse," said Antony, looking at the clock, "there is one good hour before the arrivals by the last train can possibly get here. Shall we spend it in the library or the drawing-room?" He did not suggest his own sitting-room.
"The library. It is more cosey."
As he held the door open for me, there was an expression in his face which again caused me the ridiculous sensation I have spoken of so often. I suddenly realized that life at some moments is worth living. Perhaps grandmamma and the Marquis were right after all, and these glimpses of paradise are the compensations.
"Will you play to me, Comtesse?" Antony said when we got to the library and he opened the piano. "I shall be selfish and sit in a comfortable chair and listen to you."
I am not a great musician, but grandmamma always said my playing gave her pleasure. The music makes me feel—so, perhaps, that is why it makes others feel, too.
I played on, it seemed to me, a long time. Then, after some tender bits of Greig, running from one to another, I suddenly stopped. The music had been talking too much to me. It said, over and over again: "Ambrosine, you love this man. He is beginning to absorb the whole of your life." And, again: "Life is short. This happiness will be over in a few moments. Live while you may."
"Why do you stop, Comtesse?" asked Antony, in a moved voice.
"I—do not know."
He rose and came and leaned on the piano, I felt—oh! I had never been so agitated in my life. At all costs he must not say anything to me, nothing that I should have to stop, nothing to break this beautiful dream—
"Oh! do you not hear the sound of carriage-wheels?" I exclaimed, in a half voice.
It broke the spell.
Antony walked to the window. He pulled the curtains aside and opened a shutter to look upon the night.
"It is the thickest fog I ever remember," he said. "I doubt if the brougham, which put up at the station, could get back here, even if they have come by the last train."
"Oh! of course they have come!" I said, unsteadily.
He did not answer, but carefully closed the shutter again and drew the
curtains. I went to the fireplace and began caressing one of the dogs.
My hands were cold as ice. Antony lost a little of his sang-froid.
He picked up a paper-knife and put it down again.
It seemed to me my heart was thumping so loudly that he must hear it where he stood.
We both listened intently. Neither of us spoke. Eleven o'clock struck.
The butler entered the room.
"Bilsworth has managed to get here on one of the horses, Sir Antony, and he says the last train is in, and no one arrived by it."
"Very well," said Antony, calmly. "You can shut up for the night."
And the butler went out, softly closing the door behind him.