"We shall have to ask the engaged couple to dinner," I said to Palestrina one morning a few days later. "And I suppose one or two more of the rest of The Family would like to be asked at the same time."
"I never know in what quantities one ought to ask the Jamiesons," said my sister, "nor how to make a proper selection. It seems invidious to suggest that Kate and Eliza and Margaret should come, and not Maud and Gracie; and yet what is one to do? The last time that you were away from home I wrote and said, 'Will a few of you come?' And Mrs. Jamieson, the Pirate Boy, and four sisters came."
"One feels sure," I replied, "that the Jamiesons thought that was quite a modest number to take advantage of your invitation. One knows that had they been inviting some girls from a boarding-school they would have included the entire number of pupils."
Palestrina protested that as the meal to which our friends were to come was dinner, it would be only reasonable to invite the same number of ladies and gentlemen; and to this I assented. She suggested asking the Darcey-Jacobs, whom we had not seen for a long time.
Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs is a woman who always affords one considerable inward amusement, being herself, I believe, more conspicuously devoid of humour than any one else I have ever met. Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs has never been known to see a joke. That she herself should appear to any one in a humorous light would, I know, appear an inconceivable contingency to her. She has a high Roman nose, and rather faded yellow hair, which was her principal claim to beauty when a girl. It is even now thick and long, and is always worn in a sort of majestic coronet on the top of her head. Her manner is somewhat formidable and emphatic, and the alarm which this engenders in timid or diffident persons is increased by the habit she has of accentuating many of her remarks by a playful but really somewhat severe rap over the knuckles of the person she is addressing, with her fan or lorgnettes. She dresses handsomely in expensive materials somewhat gaudy in colour, and she has an erect carriage, of which she is very proud. Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs has a good deal to say on the subject of the feeble-mindedness of the male sex, and when something has been proved impossible of attainment by them she always says, "A woman could have done it in five minutes."
At the time of her marriage, Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs (Miss Foljambe she was then) was a dowerless girl with two admirers, Major Jacobs and Mr. Morgan. Not being, it would seem, a young lady of very deep affections, her choice of a husband was decided entirely by the extent of the worldly prospects he could offer, and the Major, being the better match of the two, was accepted. But how cruel are the tricks that fate will sometimes play! Not long after her marriage Mr. Morgan not only inherited a large fortune, but shortly afterwards left this world for a better, and Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs is in the habit of remarking, with a good deal of feeling, "If I had only chosen the other I might have been a happy widow now!"
Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs lives in our quiet country neighbourhood during the greater part of the year, on the distinct understanding that she loathes every hour of it. When she goes abroad or to London she talks quite cheerfully of having had one breath of life. So fraught with happy successes are these pilgrimages in her brocaded satin gowns into the outer world that she often says that were she but free she might have the world at her feet to-morrow. And she has been known to refer to the Major, still in the tone of cheerful resignation and with her emphasizing tap of the fan, as "a dead weight round her neck."
The Major himself is a guileless person, whose very simplicity causes his wife more exquisite suffering than even a husband of keen, vindictive temper could inflict.
Does Mrs. Jacobs give a dinner-party, it is not unusual for the master of the house to remark in a congratulatory tone from his end of the table, "What has Mullens been doing to the silver, my dear? it looks unusually bright;" while his greeting to his friends as they arrive at his house, though distinctly cordial, often takes the form of a hearty "I had no idea that we were going to see you to-night." As Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs always sends some kind message from the Major in her notes of invitation, this of course is most disconcerting, both for her and for her guests. This year when they were in Italy a friend of ours in the same hotel overheard a lady ask the Major if he were related to the Darceys of Mugthorpe. "I really can't tell you," said the Major; "the Darcey was my wife's idea."
"Four Jamiesons," I said, "and the Darcey-Jacobs, and our two selves. Isn't it humiliating to think that we have invariably to invite the same two men to balance our numbers at a dinner-party? I can't help remarking that Anthony Crawshay and Ellicomb are present at every dinner-party in this neighbourhood, as surely as soup is on the table."
"We might ask Mrs. Fielden," said Palestrina; "she is sure to have some colonels with her. Besides, I love Mrs. Fielden, though people say she is a flirt. I think most men are in love with her; some propose to her, and some do not, but they all love her."
"Even when she refuses to marry them?"
"I have heard Mrs. Fielden say that an offer of marriage should be refused artistically," said Palestrina. "She says young girls hardly ever do it properly, and that they are brusque and brutal. I suppose she herself has some charming way of her own of refusing men which does not hurt their feelings. I believe," said Palestrina, "that she would marry Sir Anthony Crawshay if he could play Bridge."
"Anthony is an excellent fellow," I said.
Mr. Ellicomb is a young man of High Church principles and artistic tastes who has taken an old Tudor farmhouse in the neighbourhood, and has furnished it very well. He waxes eloquent on the monstrous inelegance of modern dress, and the decadence of Japanese art, and he says he would rather sit in the dark than burn gas in his house, and he dusts his own blue china himself. In his house it is a sign of art to divert anything from its proper use, and to use it for another purpose than that for which it was originally intended. Poor Ellicomb uses a cabbage-strainer as a fern-pot, a drain-tile for an umbrella-stand, his mother's old lace veils as antimacassars, bed-posts as palm-stands, a linen press as a book-case, and a brass spittoon for growing lilies. It is almost like playing at guessing riddles to go over his house with him, and to try and discover for what purpose some of his things were originally created. Their conversion to another use is, I am sure, a very high form of art.
"There are the Jamiesons," said my sister, as we sat in the hall ready to receive our guests.
It does not require any occult power to sit indoors and to be able to distinguish the Jamiesons' carriage-wheels from those of the other arrivals, for the Jamiesons have, as usual, employed the "six-fifty" bus on its return journey from the station to set them down at our gate. It is quite a subject of interest with our neighbours to find themselves fellow-passengers with the young ladies, in their black skirts and their more dressy style of bodice concealed beneath tweed capes. And it generally gets about in Stowel circles before the evening is over, or certainly soon after the morning shopping has begun, that the Miss Jamiesons have been dining at such or such a house. Even the bus conductor has a sympathetic way of handing the young ladies into his conveyance when they are going out to dinner, and he fetches a wisp of straw and wipes down the step if the night is wet.
Mr. Ward piloted the independent Kate up the short carriage-drive with quite an affectionate air of solicitude, frequently inquiring of her if she did not feel her feet a little damp; and Kate answered cheerfully and kindly, feeling, no doubt, that this sort of fussing was one of the drawbacks of prospective matrimony, but that it was only right to accept the little attentions in the spirit in which they were made. The Pirate Boy, who followed with his sister Maud, begged her to take his arm in a burly fashion, and fell a little distance behind. The Pirate Boy thinks that it is etiquette to place himself at a distance from any engaged couple, even during the shortest walk. He does so even when he makes the untoward third in a party. On these occasions he falls behind and puts on an air of abstraction a little overdone. The Jacobs arrived next, and then Anthony Crawshay, who drove over in his high dog-cart, with its flashing lamps and glittering wheels—a very good light-running cart it is; Anthony and I used often to drive in it together—and Ellicomb arrived in a brougham, in which we have a shrewd suspicion that there is a foot-warmer.
Maud began to flirt with Mr. Ellicomb directly. I have never known her to be for long in the society of a gentleman without doing so, and her sisters are wont to say of Maud that she certainly has her opportunities, while the criticism of an unprejudiced observer might be that she certainly makes them. Mr. Ellicomb, it is believed, has written an article in one of the magazines on the reformation of men's clothing, and it is hoped he will become a member of the Reading Society. He ate very little at dinner, and talked in a low, cultured voice about Church matters the whole of the evening, and uttered some very decided views upon the subject of the celibacy of the clergy.
"I must say," said Major Jacobs, "that I also approve of celibacy in the Church, and I may say in the army and in the navy. If I had my life to live over again——"
"William!" said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs in an awful voice.
William was about to retreat precipitately from his position, but catching sight perhaps of a sympathetic eye turned upon him from that good comrade of his, Anthony Crawshay, he blundered on,—
"If Confession, now, became more general in the English Church," he said, "secrets confided to the clergy could hardly be kept inviolate. A clergyman's wife might almost—well, not to put too fine a point on it—wring from him by force the secret that had been committed to him."
"I hope so, indeed," said Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs.
"The Anglican Church," said Mr. Ellicomb, "recognizes that difficulty, and has met it in the persons of the Fathers of the Church."
Maud Jamieson raised soft eyes to his, and said that a woman might be a help and a comfort to a man.
Mr. Ellicomb seemed disposed to admit that it might be so. "I have been in retreat at Cowley for some weeks," he said, "and the cooking was certainly monstrous, and, would you believe it, they did not allow one to bring one's own servant with one." There is nothing monkish about Ellicomb, nor is his asceticism overdone.
"I have been reading a book on sects and heresies," said Mrs. Fielden, "and I find I belong to them all."
Mr. Ellicomb interposed eagerly by saying, "If I had to state my own convictions exactly, I should certainly say that I was a Manichæan, with just a touch of Sabellianism."
"I think," said Mrs. Fielden gravely, "that I am a Rosicrucian heretic."
Mr. Ellicomb was interested and delighted. "I know," he said, "that many people would think that I had not exactly stated my position. For instance, a lady to whom I described my symptoms the other day, told me at once that I was a Buddhist by nature and an Antinomian by education, and I felt that in part she was right."
Mrs. Darcey-Jacobs here interposed, and gave it as her opinion emphatically that man was a contemptible creature whatever his beliefs might be, and that he required a woman to look after him. "To look after him," she repeated, in a tone that said as plainly as possible, "to keep him in order," and she tapped Mr. Ellicomb sharply on the knuckles.
The Pirate Boy had some brave notions about what he called The Sex, and here plunged into a long description of how he had rescued a fair creature out of the hands of cut-throats out there, and he illustrated his action of saving the fair one by holding an imaginary six-shooter to Palestrina's head in a very alarming way. He talked of man as The Protector, and thrust his hand into his cummerbund—the action, I suppose, being intended to show that the six-shooter had been replaced—and glanced round the table with an air of defiance. "There is not a man," he remarked, "I don't care who he is, if he fail in respect to a woman when I am present, that shall not get a decanter hurled straight at his head—straight at his head. I have said it!" He laid his hand impetuously upon one of two heavy cut-glass bottles that had been placed in front of me, and one trembled for the safety of one's guests. "I remember," he said, "in one of those gambling-hells in the Far West, where there was about as unruly a set of fellows and cut-throats as ever I came across——" The rest of the story was so evidently culled from the last number of theStrand Magazinethat it hardly seemed rude of Palestrina to interrupt it by bowing to Mrs. Fielden, and suggesting that they should adjourn. Maud Jamieson drew my sister aside as they stood grouped round the fire-place in the hall drinking their coffee, and thanked her for introducing Mr. Ellicomb to her. "He is perfectly charming," she said. But Maud's sisters have confided to us that this is her invariable conclusion about the last man she has met, and it is intended as a sort of previndication of herself. Maud, it seems, intends to flirt with every one she sees, but if she pretends that her affections are really touched there can be no upbraidings on the part of The Family.
Kate Jamieson sat on the sofa, and twisted her engagement ring complacently round her finger. She thought that Mr. Ward had carried himself very well this evening. His quietness throughout the dinner compared favourably with the conversation of other guests. Kate said once to Palestrina: "He is a man that I shall feel the utmost confidence in taking about with me everywhere." And the remark conveyed the suggestion that Mr. Ward would always be an appendage to Kate Jamieson.
Anthony Crawshay is a very good fellow indeed. The most advanced and cultured young lady will never get him to talk about metaphysics in the crush of a ballroom, nor to concern himself about the inartistic shape of the clothes we wear nowadays. "If I didn't like them, I shouldn't wear them," says Anthony. He is a short, spare man, with a voice somewhat out of proportion to his size, and the best cross-country rider in the county. The habit he has of shouting all his remarks seems rather pleasantly in accordance with his honest nature. Anthony very seldom speaks of any one of whom he has not a good word to say; but if he does mention any one whom he dislikes, he does so in a very hearty manner, which is almost as good as many other people's praise. He is as obstinate, as straightforward, and as good a fellow as a country neighbour ought to be. "We have been hunting a May fox, by Gad, Hugo," said Anthony, and he began to tell me about the run—a thing I can hardly get any one to do nowadays.
The Pirate Boy, upon whom the word "horse" had a rousing effect, condemned the whole breed of English horses in one short speech. "I assure you," he said, getting up and sawing the air with his hand, "there are some of those wild mustangs out there which would knock spots out of any horses in your stables."
Thus challenged, Anthony, who was standing on the hearthrug, turned, and stooping towards me asked, in what he intended to be a whisper, who the young fellow was, and shouted abroad, "Rum chap that, very rum chap!"
By-and-by Maud Jamieson went to the piano and began to sing ballads to Mr. Ellicomb; and we have an inward conviction—Palestrina and I—that this evening's report to the Jamieson family will be that Mr. Ellicomb is "struck." Major Jacobs considers himself musical because he likes hearing the words of a song distinctly pronounced. He was charmed with Maud's singing, and Kate encouraged the girl in a little matronly way which she has lately assumed. She called forth Maud's best efforts by saying, "What was the pretty Irish song you sang the other night?" or "You haven't given us 'We'd better bide a wee' yet, dear." Maud responded with several ballads, and wished she had some of Lord Henry Somerset's songs with her, Mr. Ellicomb having expressed a fondness for them. An opportunity was thus given for suggesting a call at Belmont—Maud knows mamma will be delighted—she wished Kennie were better at that sort of thing; the invitation to come in some afternoon might perhaps have come more properly from a brother.
It was very gratifying to find that Mr. Ward, fortified by dinner, became more courageous than I have ever known him to be before. He tip-toed almost boldly across the room, and sitting down beside my sister began to make a series of deliberate remarks to her, mostly in the form of interrogation: "Do you care for Scotch songs?" "Have you ever been in Ireland?" "Do you know Wales at all?" And to these important questions Palestrina made suitable replies. "That ismostinteresting," I heard her say from time to time, using the formula of those who are bored to the extent of complete absence of mind.
Mrs. Fielden crossed the room suddenly with a shimmer of silken skirts. In spite of her frivolity she has a way of making herself necessary to every party to which she goes. There used to be an old saying long ago in Scotland that wherever The Macgregor sat was the head of the table. Mrs. Fielden is always the centre of every party, although she has a childish habit, which in another woman might be ascribed to shyness, of taking the least conspicuous seat in the room. Consequently, when she dispersed the little group that was standing or sitting about her, applauding everything she said, and came across the room in pink satin and roses and diamonds, and sat down beside my sofa, the action had something regal about it, as though she had left a throne and come to speak to me.
"I am going to teach you to play Bridge," she said.
"That is most kind of you."
"I am going to carry you off to Stanby next week to give you lessons," she went on.
I have a strong conviction that if Mrs. Fielden were to give a beggar a halfpenny he would probably stoop down and kiss the edge of her skirt, or do something equally unconventional and self-abasing. She might, as a great favour, give a courtier who had risked his life for her, her hand to kiss. When she smiles men become foolish about her.
"It is very kind of you to want us," I said.
"I want Bridge," said Mrs. Fielden, and, as usual when she is going to be provoking, she looked prettier than ever, and began to smile.
"Any one will do to make up a rubber, I suppose?" I said.
"Oh yes, any one," said Mrs. Fielden.
"Consequently, my sister and I need not feel particularly distinguished by being asked," I continued.
"I am so glad Palestrina is coming," said Mrs. Fielden, "because several men have written to tell me they are coming to stay, just when my sisters-in-law are leaving, and I suppose I oughtn't to entertain a houseful of men alone, ought I?"
Mrs. Fielden does exactly as she pleases upon all occasions, but this does not prevent her from pretending to have acute attacks of propriety sometimes.
"We will play Bridge and chaperon you with pleasure," I said.
"I thought of drowning myself yesterday," said Mrs. Fielden, "because it rained all day, and I had no one to amuse me, and then I thought I would ask you to come over and play Bridge instead. When I am bored I never can make up my mind whether I shall commit suicide, or go into a convent, or get married. Which do you advise?"
"I should advise you to marry," I said. "As far as I can gather, a great source of discord and danger in our neighbourhood would be removed if you did so."
Mrs. Fielden said with her eyes, "Hugo, you are very cross." But being the most good-natured woman in the world, and sharing that forbearance which most people extend to an invalid, she smiled instead.
"Why do you stay here when you are feeling so tired?" she said to me presently.
"Because," I replied, "my sister lies awake half the night and thinks I am going to die, if I show any signs of fatigue, or go to bed early. Besides, for us, you know, this is quite an exciting evening. We have thought about our dinner-party for days past."
"If you were nice," said Mrs. Fielden after a pause, "you would ask me to come into your library and smoke."
"Do you smoke?"
"No," said Mrs. Fielden, "I don't."
"I'm glad you don't," I said.
"For years," said Mrs. Fielden, "I tried to think it was wrong, and then I quite enjoyed smoking; but there is a certain effort involved in trying to raise an innocent occupation to the level of a crime."
"It is a very unfeminine habit," I said; partly because I was in a contradictious mood, and partly because I wanted to snub Mrs. Fielden for being so beautiful and young and charming.
"The last man," said Mrs. Fielden gravely, "who made that remark died shortly afterwards."
She was gathering up my cushions and pillows as she spoke, and she turned to my sister as she crossed the hall, and said, "We are going to study philosophy in the library."
The library was lit by a single lamp, and the fire burned low in the grate; but the room was illumined suddenly by a pink dress and roses and diamonds, and Mrs. Fielden was arranging cushions, in the very skilful way she has, on my sofa by the fire. She handed me my cigarette-box and matches, and spread a rug over my leg. For some occult reason the rustling pink dress only whispered softly over the carpet now, like a woman's hushed voice in a sick-room, and Mrs. Fielden, by the simple act of drawing up a chair to the fire and sitting in it, took the head of the table again, and became the centre of the room.
"May I really smoke," I asked, "after being such a brute as to say you mustn't?"
"I look upon smoking as a purely feminine habit, like drinking tea, or having headaches, or anything of that sort," said Mrs. Fielden. "It was simply because it was so expensive that men took to it in the first place. Ethics should not be based upon accident, should it?"
I handed Mrs. Fielden my cigarette-box.
"If you are quite sure you disapprove, I will have one," she said.
From the hall came the sound of Maud's singing. Her voice is not of great compass, nor very strong, but it is clear and fresh, with a tuneful cadence in it.
"You spend nearly all your days here?" said Mrs. Fielden, looking round the room.
"Until the afternoon," I said; "and then Palestrina and I go for a little walk, and at tea-time I go to the hall sofa, and she asks people to come up and sit with me."
"I am glad you like books," said Mrs. Fielden.
"But really," I said, "the good folks in Stowel are all extraordinarily kind to me, and some of the Jamiesons are up nearly every day."
"I like the Jamiesons," said Mrs. Fielden; "they are so intelligent. Have you ever noticed that their watches all keep exact time, and that they tell you the hour to the very second? And they always know what day of the month it is, and when Easter falls, and how much stuff it takes to make a blouse."
"You wrong Eliza Jamieson," I said; "she studies philosophy."
"Oh," said Mrs. Fielden eagerly, "I forgot to tell you, I have begun to study philosophy. I began last week. Will you lend me some books, please? I want to be very wise and learned."
"Why?" I asked.
"I think," said Mrs. Fielden, "that it might be nice if people did not always call one frivolous; and that if I studied philosophy——"
"I shall not lend you any books," I said.
"That is rather disobliging of you."
"Because," I said, "our lives should always show a perfect equation. If you are a frivolous person you should behave frivolously."
"You meanasI am a frivolous person," said Mrs. Fielden.
"As you are a frivolous person," I repeated.
"And after all," said Mrs. Fielden with a contemplative air, "how silly philosophy is! I asked somebody the other day the meaning of a syllogism, and really I don't think I ever heard anything quite so foolish."
"It is quite beneath your notice," I said.
"I did think of asking you if I might come over sometimes and read these musty volumes of yours."
"You would probably find them as uninteresting as I am," I said.
Mrs. Fielden looked as if she thought that might be possible, and did not press the matter.
I dislike being disloyal to my books, for they are such good friends of mine. But a great wish came to me then to get up and do something, instead of for ever reading the doings and the thoughts of other people. I thought how much I should like to live again, and just for once sleep on the veldt with the stars overhead, or longed that I could get astride of a horse, and follow a burst of the hounds over the wet fields in England. And so thinking I turned on the sofa and said petulantly, "I wish Maud Jamieson would not sing that song."
"Oh, that we two were maying," she sang, in the song that tells of love and separation, and the longings and heartbreaks which it is much better not to speak about, and the things which we want and cannot have.
"I hate yearners," I said. "Why can't she sing something cheerful?"
Mrs. Fielden rose from her chair by the fire and crossed the hearthrug, and came and sat down on my sofa. She took my hand in hers and said: "Poor boy! is it very hard sometimes?"
"Of course," said Palestrina, as we went upstairs to bed after our guests had departed, "you are sure to feel tired. The little party has been too much for you, I'm afraid. It was very tiresome for you having to leave us all."
"I felt rather a crock after dinner," I said, "and I think the hall gets hot in the evening."
"I wish I could make you better," said Palestrina affectionately; "it is horrid for you being ill."
"Every one," I said, "makes far too much fuss about health. Why, ten officers of our regiment are buried in South Africa. I suppose half the pensioners in Chelsea Hospital have had wounds as bad as mine, and a cripple more or less in the world does not matter very much. Women are kind enough to pity me. They even confide their troubles to me sometimes, because I am a poor thing lying on a sofa. I am really quite happy hobbling about with you, Palestrina; and when I am older, I shall probably take an interest in the garden. There is a proper and philosophical attitude of mind in respect of these things."
"O Hugo," said Palestrina, "I always know you are not happy when you begin to be philosophical."
"Life is very easily explained without the assistance of philosophy when everything goes all right," I replied.
Have I ever mentioned that Palestrina is engaged to be married? If I have not done so, it is because it seems an obvious fact that all Palestrinas are engaged to be married. Herfiancé, who is called Thomas, is stationed with his regiment in Ireland. A few weeks ago he sent her, as a token of his affection, a yellow dog with long hair. Palestrina does not like dogs, but she is trying to love Down-Jock for Thomas's sake. She says his name is Jock. The dog is a curious creature, with a passion for hurling himself at those who wear clean flannel trousers or light skirts. Thomas says he is full of intelligence. He appears to be quite a young animal, but he can affect the airs of extreme old age, sleeping in a basket a great part of the day, or standing on the doorstep to bark at visitors in an asthmatical manner, as though he would say, "I am too old and too feeble to give chase, but while I am alive this house shall not lack a defender." At other times he is wildly juvenile, and rolls himself over and over in an exuberance of youthful fun. This is chiefly on Sundays, when (his best joke) he pretends he wants to come to church with us. Sunday is Down-Jock's happiest day in all the week. No Christian in the land loves it more than he does. He begins his religious exercises early in the morning by barking outside the doors of all those people who have determined to take an extra half-hour's rest, and he continues barking without ceasing until the sleeper awakes and gets out of bed to open the door for him. He bustles in and wags his tail cheerfully, saying as plainly as a dog can say it, "I am an early riser, you see—and a teetotaler," he adds, trotting across the room to the water-jug, and lapping full red tonguefuls of its contents. Then he stands in the middle of the room and barks at you; runs to the door and barks at it; barks at the servants as they go downstairs, promising—the little tell-tale!—that their lateness shall be reported in the proper quarter. Finally, he climbs on to the bed, and goes to sleep upon your feet.
During breakfast he is attentive to every one, and sits on the skirts of those ladies who most dislike dogs, and pulls them down uncomfortably from the waist. He watches every mouthful of food that is eaten, and grudges it to the eater; and his eyes are saying all the time, "How can you be so greedy?" After breakfast his most boisterous juvenile mood begins. He jumps on every one, or rolls himself over and over under every one's feet. He wags his tail, barks in a piercing manner—the bark of the gay young dog—and madly rushes after imaginary rats. All gloves and shoes become his playthings, and he frolics blithely with the hat-brush.
On weekdays he pleads old age as an excuse, and refuses to come anywhere with us; but on the Sabbath morning who so ready as Down-Jock to take his walks abroad? He flies after us to the gate, his long hair streaming in the wind, and his short legs racing like a clockwork dog.
Palestrina says: "Oh dear, what shall we do? Down-Jock! down, sir! Oh, he has spoilt my dress! Good doggie, mustn't go to church! Go home! go home! Oh, Jock, do get down!—Look, he is following us still, and the church door is always open; he is sure to come in in the middle of the service, and trot up to us in our pew. Do you think Thomas would mind if I were to look as if he didn't belong to us?"
Jock flies back with an old bone in his mouth and deposits it at Palestrina's feet, dares her to touch it, and makes flying snatches at her shoes when she kicks the treasure aside.
"I must take him back," says Palestrina. "It will make me late of course, but I must go and shut him up."
"He won't follow you," I say. "He is quite determined to go to church."
Palestrina lifts the heavy beast in her arms, and in an exuberance of joy Down-Jock makes a doormat of her dress, and rubs his paws affectionately against it and licks her hand.
Of course he escapes presently and runs after us; that is his best and most killing joke. Inwardly one feels he is in a state of hardly-suppressed laughter as he tears down the road again, barking with glee. And then he gets a sober fit, walks demurely in front of us in the narrow field-path, changes his mind suddenly about going to church, stops dead short, and trips us up; thinks after all he ought to go to the morning service as an example to the servants; toddles on again, and stops to say (with the air of extreme old age again assumed) that, after all, he is not up to the exertion, and would have to sit down at the Psalms, so perhaps it really would be better to stay quietly at home. Another stop. A rapid toilet performed by scratching his head with his hind-leg, "just in case I meet any one coming out of church whom I know;" and then Down-Jock meets a boy friend strolling off to the fields, and running up to him, says: "One must conform to conventionalities, but between you and me I never had the remotest intention of going to church."
Down-Jock, in his moments of most restless activity, always reminds me of a servant of ours who has occasional fits of the most intense energy. It begins quite early in the morning, when she gets up some hours before her usual time, and gives a sort of surprise party to the rest of the household. These parties take place two or three times a year, and we do not get over them for weeks afterwards. Every room in the house is visited in turn, and delinquencies of a twelvemonth are laid bare. During the morning cupboards are turned out in a magisterial sort of way, and dusty corners are triumphantly displayed. The most cherished rubbish is freely consigned to the waste-paper baskets, and collections of all sorts are contemptuously swept away. We hastily gather up books and precious oddments, and hurry off with them to my den, where we take refuge till the whirlwind is past. Curtains and tablecloths are shaken with a sort of vindictive energy at the back-door; all windows are flung open, and rugs are rolled up, making a sort of obstacle race in every passage and room. Down-Jock, who never recognizes a superior in any one, is the only member of the party who is not rendered an abject coward. He unrolls rugs, and runs away with dusters, and snaps at the heels of the housemaid in a way that provokes one's wonder at his temerity. My sister and I, having locked away our most cherished possessions, generally contrive to be out of the house as much as possible on one of these tempestuous days. And following the line of reasoning, not of the highest order, which suggests that if one cannot be happy one had better try and be good, Palestrina always visits her old women at the workhouse on these days.
"I wish," she said to me, "that you would walk into the village and meet me on my way home. I don't think anybody is coming up to see you this afternoon, and the house is so uncomfortable when Janet is in one of her whirlwind moods. Come as far as the corner, and go in and sit down at old Pettifer's if you get tired."
"Shadrach Pettifer tells me," I said, "that his affection for you is based on the fact that you are so like his poor old mother. Perhaps while I am waiting at his cottage he may give me further interesting facts about you."
Shadey is an old man with a bent back and curious bright eyes that gleam under a heavy thatch of eyebrow. His wife is the very thinnest old woman that I have ever seen; her cheeks have fallen in and are so very wrinkled that they always remind me of a toy balloon that a child has pricked with a pin. She is always ill and never complaining. Any expression of sympathy seems foreign to her comprehension, and the "Poor thing!" or "I am so sorry," so eagerly accepted by more fortunate folk, is received by her with a certain air of independence. Last winter Mrs. Pettifer was dangerously ill with internal gout, but expressions of condolence were always met with the rather curious reply, "Well, you see, sir, we must have something to bring us to our end." There is a whole world of philosophy in this.
To-day the old couple spent the time while I waited for Palestrina in their cottage in describing to me the last days in the life of their tortoise, an old friend, and an animal of evidently strange and unusual qualities. Towards the close of its life it was, on the testimony of the Pettifers, taken with screaming fits, and, it even had to be held down "when the high-strikes was wuss." Later it used to run round and round as never was. And at last Shadey determined to release it from this earthly tabernacle. He asked his friend Bridgeman, Anthony Crawshay's head-keeper, to come round some evening and administer poison to the unfortunate beast, and the effect of the dose was as strange as it was unexpected. The poison was the first thing for weeks that poor Toots the tortoise had seemed to enjoy. It seemed, to quote again from the testimony of those most intimately acquainted with the animal, to "put new life into Toots," and the more poison that was administered the livelier did he become, "until he was that gay it seemed as if he would ha' laughed at yer!" Finally, I understood that when poison sufficient to kill two cart-horses had been given, the afflicted animal yielded to treatment, and its shell now adorns the kitchen dresser.
We returned home to find the house smelling of furniture polish, and permeated with a certain cold primness which succeeds a tidying-up, and which can only be dispelled by a glowing fire. One by one things were brought back to the hall, and we felt like snails creeping out in the evening after a day of rain. Banished property strewed the tables again, and Palestrina opened the piano and spread it with music. It was an act of defiance, but comfortable nevertheless, to collect the cushions which had been dotted primly about in clean muslin covers, and to pile them all on to the sofa before the fire. But Down-Jock, who always goes one better than any one else, contributed still more completely to the systematized disorganization of the house. He gaily wiped his muddy feet on clean paint, and tore blithely round after imaginary rats wherever order reigned. Finally, in an exuberance of joy, he made a hearty supper of Palestrina's manuscript book of music, and barked with glee.
And yet some people say that dogs are not intelligent!
The Uncle, Sir John, is coming to stay at the Taylors', and the town is in something of a flutter over this event. It was hoped that the Taylors would give a tea-party in honour of their guest, but there is a shrewd notion abroad that no one will be allowed to see very much of him except at a distance. The Taylors had hoped that there would be some occasion during his visit on which The Uncle might speak in public, and Mr. Taylor has tried, half jestingly, to induce his brother townsfolk to arrange what he calls "something in the political line" while the august relative is staying with him. I think we owe it to the fact that the political meeting was found to be an impossibility that we were asked to tea at the Taylors'.
Invitations, instead of taking the form of a friendly note, after the pattern of Stowel invitations in general, were conveyed on one of Mrs. Taylor's visiting cards, with "At home, Thursday the 17th, four to seven," upon it. "A little abrupt," ladies of Stowel were inclined to think, but of course the Taylors are people of some importance in the place. No one quite knew how to answer the invitation, and a good many friendly little visits were paid on the afternoon on which it arrived, and the mysterious card was produced from a bag or purse, with the smiling apology, "I am sure fashions change so quickly that one hardly knows how to keep up with them." And then ideas were exchanged as to the reply suitable to such a form of invitation. Miss Tracey said that she always thought that an invitation was accepted in as nearly as possible the same manner in which it was given, and she announced that she and her sister meant to return one of their own visiting-cards to Mrs. Taylor, with the day and the hour named upon it, and "With pleasure" written underneath. This was considered suitable, for the most part; but those who still had doubts upon the subject made elaborate efforts to meet Mrs. Taylor during the morning's shopping, and to say to her in a friendly way, "We are coming, of course, on Thursday. Will you excuse our writing a note, at this busy time?"
The Miss Blinds always send their thanks for a "polite invitation" in the old style, but on this occasion Miss Lydia was obliged to offer regrets as well as thanks, as she had not been very well lately. She, I suppose, was the only person in Stowel who did not accept Mrs. Taylor's invitation. Two parties are, of course, never given on the same day, and it would be considered eccentric to prefer staying at home to going out.
"I am sorry Miss Lydia cannot come," said Mr. Taylor, when the notes of acceptance were being opened at breakfast-time; "after all, it is not every day that people have a chance of meeting so distinguished a man as the General."
"Miss Lydia was never intrusive," said Mrs. Taylor.
Mrs. Lovekin was one of those who avoided the difficulty raised by Mrs. Taylor's unusual form of invitation by meeting her accidentally in the baker's shop, where an assortment of cakes was being ordered for the tea-party, and signifying her intention of coming to tea. "No need to write, I suppose," said Mrs. Lovekin lightly, "as I have met you?" Both Mrs. Taylor and the baker's wife thought it would have been in better taste if Mrs. Lovekin had then withdrawn, instead of remaining in the shop and hearing what was ordered.
Mrs. Taylor had made up her mind at an early stage in the proceedings that she would be very firm indeed about the matter of dispensing tea herself in her own house. She would appropriate one teapot, and her daughter should have the other, and not even to shake hands with a late-arriving guest would they run the risk of letting this badge of office fall into the hands of the co-hostess.
"And if," said Mrs. Taylor, "I find that she is appropriating The Uncle too much, I shall not hesitate to remove him, on the plea of introducing him to some other and more important guests."
It was in church on Sunday that we were first allowed to see The Uncle, and this is only following the usual custom in Stowel. Church on Sunday is, as it were, the public life of the town. After a death it is customary to wait until the family has appeared in church to pay visits of condolence—not so much to avoid intrusiveness in the first hour of grief as from a feeling that perhaps the crape mourning will not have arrived. In the same way, if any one moves into a new house—a very unusual proceeding—we are made aware that the carpets are all down, and the drawing-room curtains are hung, when the new arrivals are seen in their pew on Sunday. This, also, is accepted as a token that calling may now begin. Mrs. Taylor said afterwards, in describing that first Sunday when The Uncle appeared in Stowel Church, that her heart beat so painfully at the door that she thought she would have been obliged to turn back. It was a triumphal progress that the party of four made up the centre aisle to their pew, but the inward excitement of the Taylors rendered a natural deportment difficult. Neither Mrs. Taylor nor her daughter joined in the hymns or the responses that Sunday morning. It is doubtful whether they heard a word of the service.
Sir John is a very military-looking person, with white whiskers and a bald pink head. He sat between Mrs. and Miss Taylor, who supplied him with hymn and prayer books in as natural a manner as they found it possible to assume; and Mr. Taylor sat at the end of the pew with a genial expression on his face, and a look of tempered pride, due no doubt to the fact that the General was "one of my wife's people," and not a blood relation of his own.
It was a disappointment to Mr. Taylor that his own sister, Mrs. Macdonald—widow of a Scotch gentleman, whom the Taylors always talk of as "The Laird"—was not able to come to this family gathering. But Mrs. Macdonald pleaded spring-cleaning as an insuperable objection to leaving home at present.
As Miss Taylor, Mrs. Macdonald used to be one of Stowel's central figures, for she was a lady of considerable means and an indefatigable housekeeper; and Mr. Macdonald was considered to have done well when he took her as his bride to the North.
The Sunday on which the Taylors appeared in church with The Uncle was curiously hot for the time of year. It was very stuffy in church, and Miss Lydia had a slight fainting attack, and had to leave before the service was over. Following the accepted custom in Stowel, my sister called the next day to ask how she did. But indisposition, usually a matter of solemn pleasure with us, was overshadowed and shorn of its interest by the presence of The Uncle amongst us. Even the Vicar looked keenly at him from the pulpit before his sermon began, but no one except Mrs. Lovekin was forward enough to address the august party as they left the church. Mrs. Lovekin, who always affirmed that she saw no difference in rank, was the very first person in Stowel to shake hands with The Uncle. She overtook the Taylors before they had even reached the gate of the churchyard, and was perforce introduced to their relative, "who," Mrs. Taylor said afterwards, "was almost more cordial than she could have wished him to be; but of course his manners were always perfect." What annoyed every one a little in the days that followed was that Mrs. Lovekin constantly referred to the General as if he had been an old friend; whereas of course it was well known in what an intrusive way her precedence had been gained. During the week, however, we all had an opportunity of seeing Sir John, for he was marched in triumph up and down the village street regularly twice a day. Miss Taylor even condescended to subterfuge in the matter. For having taken The Uncle as far as the baker's at the end of the town, with a view to continuing the walk into the country at The Uncle's request, she pretended to have forgotten something at the draper's, and marched him down the street again, in the proud knowledge that all eyes, whether from pedestrians or from the interior of shops and houses in the High Street, were turned upon her. The tobacconist from whom The Uncle bought some tobacco gave Miss Taylor quite a sympathetic look as he said, "Allow me to send it for you, Sir John." And Miss Taylor said, "Do allow him to send it, uncle! I am sure that you ought not to carry parcels for yourself."
On Thursday, when we went to the party, we saw at once that the Taylors meant to make no snobbish distinction between their guests, but that each and every one of them was to be introduced to The Uncle.
"I am no good at this sort of thing, Mary," The Uncle said before the party began, "and I think I will walk over and see Willie Jacobs, and spend the afternoon with him." Mrs. Taylor turned pale at the suggestion. "It will ruin it!" she said. "I shall feel as if I had been acting on false pretences." And though the General remained, as he was requested to do, he showed a most irritating tendency to slip away, and sometimes he was not to be found at the most critical moments. Mrs. Taylor stationed him close to herself in the drawing-room where she received her guests. But at the very moment when she turned round to effect an introduction between him and some particular friend, it was discovered that the General had slipped off to the smoking-room or the tea-room, or was wandering aimlessly about the garden, looking at the flower-beds.
Altogether, that most successful afternoon (and the Taylors really did feel that it had been a success from the very highest point of view) had still some drawbacks to it, which they regret, and always will regret. For instance, when Miss Taylor had been dispatched into what the Taylors call the "grounds" to see "what The Uncle is doing" (playfully), "and tell him to come and make himself agreeable," she had hardly departed to fulfil her mother's request when Mrs. Lovekin bore down upon the teapot, poured out several of the most distinguished cups of tea, and handed round macaroons as though they were her own. Last of all, as the party was breaking up, and Mrs. Lovekin's vicarious hospitality was therefore at an end, she was actually heard inviting The Uncle to come and call upon her. Even the Miss Blinds, on being told of the incident, admitted that this behaviour on Mrs. Lovekin's part could not be called anything but forward. Miss Lydia could only say, in a sort of sweet distress, "Perhaps she did not mean it;" but Miss Blind shook her head vigorously, and said, "Bad butter, bad butter, bad butter!"
Margaret Jamieson had, of course, been helping to prepare the party, for Margaret Jamieson always helps wherever there is anything to be done. And Eliza, we thought, made a deep impression upon The Uncle by her knowledge of literature, and the perfectly easy and natural way in which, without a moment's preparation, she alluded to the "atomic theory."
"Ah! you are one of the Reading Society young ladies that I heard about," said he. "Sorry I couldn't do more for you in the way of books, but that's not in my line at all, you know. I was educated at a Grammar School, and I never had the advantages that you young people have nowadays." (Mrs. Taylor thought this statement unnecessary, but reflected that great men often make allusions of this sort.) "However, if I ever can be of any use to you—getting you an order for reading at the British Museum, or anything of that sort—I hope you will let me know."
For one brief day the Jamiesons were inclined to tease Eliza about having made a conquest, but the Taylors would not have any nonsense of that sort for a moment. It made Mrs. Taylor quite nervous to think of such a thing, and she remarked that that was the worst of having distinguished people to stop with one; there was always somebody running after them. Eliza Jamieson, we noticed, was treated with marked coldness by the Taylors for some time afterwards, and Miss Taylor recollected darkly that it was Eliza's suggestion, in the first instance, that The Uncle should be consulted on the choice of books for the Reading Society. "She may," said Miss Taylor, "have had an eye on him from the first."
A purely visionary affair of this sort, however, could not be considered satisfactory or exciting, even by the Jamiesons; and the Taylors' suspicions and anxieties were put on one side for the time being—ousted from their place, as it were—by the very distinct and exciting rumours which have reached us about Maud. Maud has been staying with friends at Hampstead, and has written home in a certain veiled way which is very provoking, but which, nevertheless, gives the impression that another man has come to the point, and has proposed to Maud Jamieson. Maud seems out of spirits, and has written to say that she is returning; and this makes the sisters think that she must have accepted her present suitor, and is coming home to shed a few natural tears. Eliza, who walked over to tell us the news, voiced The Family's opinion when she said: "We have quite made up our minds that if Maud has said 'Yes,' she is to stick to it this time. She is always in a panic directly she has accepted any one, but we know that it would be the same whoever it was: and doubtless, unless we are firm, she will treat this admirer just as she treated Mr. Reddy and Albert Gore and the others. Mamma says that she will not have Maud coerced, and I am sure no one wants to coerce her; but why should she always get to a certain point, and then begin to have doubts? It is so unbusiness-like."
The very next day Maud Jamieson came to tea. She looked well dressed, as usual, and had some pretty spring finery about her—yellow mimosa wreathing a broad hat, and some yellow ribbons about her tasteful dress—but her pretty face looked very white, and she fidgeted nervously for half an hour, and then told me I was so sympathetic she would like to ask me something.
"I dare say," she said, "that you have heard something about Mr. Evans from The Family?"
I admitted that I had, and then there was a very long pause.
"How is one to know," said Maud, "when it is the real thing?"
Another pause. I wished with all my heart that I could have been more helpful to this young lady in such evident distress of mind; but the intricacies of Maud's thoughts are most difficult to follow, and I thought it better to wait until she had given me her entire confidence.
"Little things," said Maud, "might annoy one so much if one had always to live with a man. For instance, I do not think I could ever truly love a man who sniffs."
"Our friend Mrs. Fielden says," I remarked, "that a man generally proposes when he has a cold in his head. But I pointed out to her that these statistics do her no credit."
"Mr. Evans doesn't sniff," said Maud. "I was only citing that as an example of what one might find very trying in a companion for life."
I assented, and could only suggest hopefully the usual Jamieson remedy that such a defect might be cured after marriage.
"But men are so obstinate about some things," said Maud. "For instance, suppose a man were well off and of really excellent character, do you think it would matter much if he wore a white watered-silk waistcoat in the evening? Would it, for instance, appear an insuperable objection to most minds?"
I replied that doubtless it was a serious fault, but that I did not consider it an incurable one; and I further remarked, with what I hoped showed a broad and liberal way of looking at things, that all men had their idiosyncrasies. Maud admitted this, and seemed cheered by the reflection; but she pushed the matter further, and said she would like to know what sort of a man I should presume any one to be who wore a white watered-silk waistcoat.
"If you care for Mr. Evans—" I began, and regretted that one's articulate expression is sometimes behindhand in the matter of conveying the comprehensiveness of the inner working of one's mind——
"I am afraid I care for some one else," said Maud, bursting into tears.
"Let me see you home," I said, unable to think of any but this very doubtful method of consolation; still, it seemed unkind to let her go home alone when she had been crying.
On the threshold of the Jamiesons' house several of The Family were waiting for us, and they drew me into the drawing-room, while by tacit consent it seemed to be understood that Maud should not join in the conclave, but should go straight upstairs and take off her hat.
"Have you persuaded her?" said Eliza.
"I hope you have put a little common sense into her," said Kate.
James was admitted to family discussions now, and here remarked that he believed that all girls were happier married.
"Though, of course," said Mettie, "it is a great risk."
"Did she tell you," asked Gracie, "that she cares for some one else?"
I admitted that Maud had said something of the sort. And her family exclaimed triumphantly that this was always Maud's plea for releasing herself from an engagement as soon as that engagement had been made.
Mrs. Jamieson remarked that she would not like any of the girls to feel that they were not welcome at home, and all her affectionate daughters kissed her in turn, or patted her hand, and said that they knew that such a thought as wanting to get rid of one of them would never enter her head.
Mrs. Jamieson here left the room to seek her banished daughter and to administer comfort, and the members of The Family conclave said that they hoped that Mrs. Jamieson did not think that they had been unkind.
"If it had not happened so often!" sighed Eliza. "However, as we do not know Mr. Evans, he can't ask to come down and stay with us, as Mr. Reddy did, so as to have an opportunity of pressing his suit."
"He cried so much one afternoon," said Kate, turning in an explanatory sort of way to Mr. Ward, "that I really thought I should have to send for mamma." James looked sympathetic, and Gracie added: "We all really felt quite relieved when he got engaged to some one else three weeks afterwards, and we hear that they are most happy, and have got a dear little baby."