"I know you do," said Leah, dreading further sermons; "but I must get home to dress. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," echoed Lionel, hopelessly, and saw the car glide away into the fog between the lines of blurred lights. "Poor woman!" he thought, turning towards his lodgings. "How terribly sad her spiritual position is! I trust she will get home safely, seeing she is so worldly."
He need not have troubled. Lady Jim reached Curzon Street in safety, and in very good spirits. Did not a peacock's feather adorn one of the motor-car lamps?
Firmingham was the smallest of the Duke of Pentland's country seats, and so cosy, that he invariably held his Christmas revels there, in preference to dispensing Yule-tide hospitality in more splendid mansions. Situated in a woody and elevated part of Essex--that county presumed to be a fog-tormented puddle--the quaint Georgian house was ideal in itself, and in the repose and charm of its surroundings.
Ugly it probably was when erected, but time had mellowed its glaring walls of red brick, and nature had draped them with hangings of dark green ivy. The square, lofty house, with its freestone ornamentation, its many windows and gigantic porch, stood on a slight rise, a position which enhanced its noble proportions. On three sides, level with the ground floor, extended broad greystone terraces, with shallow steps leading downward to smooth lawns. These, stretching for a considerable distance, terminated in flower-beds, now devoid of blossom and colour. And lawns, house, and flower-gardens were girdled by pines and oaks, sycamore-trees and elms, with noble examples of the birch, the beech, and cedars, proud and tall. A wide, straight avenue ran for a quarter of a mile through grim firs to ornate iron gates swinging between massive stone pillars, surmounted by the ducal arms. And these same gates gave entrance to a spacious and wild park, as delightful as that "wood near Athens" where Oberon tricked Titania.
The charming country outside this sacred enclosure appealed to artists in search of the picturesque. Certainly, the landscape was domestic and tame, for here nature yielded to the controlling hand of man. But the pleasant walks, the deep lanes, the ancient villages, and the comfortable farmhouses, sprinkled thickly for miles, made, in conjunction, a pretty picture of rural peace and contentment. And the contentment was genuine, for no better or more considerate landlord than the Duke existed. He was popular in the neighbourhood, and his sway almost imperial--a true king of the castle.
Jim and his wife drove from the station in quite a Darby and Joan style, and, through fear of the Duke, rather than in compliment to the season, were prepared to enact the parts of man and wife to perfection. It was rather hard for Leah to say pretty things to Jim in public, and for Jim to hover anxiously round Leah as a lover-like husband; but the Duke expected such behaviour, and they were astute enough not to disappoint him. In his rough tweeds, with jovial looks and hearty words, Jim was quite the English squire of the story-book, and shook hands with some of his father's tenants who haunted the local station in quite the "all-men-are-brothers" style. Leah also dispensed smiles and nods to marvelling villagers, who stared open-mouthed at her beauty. But in the comfortable brougham, Jim folded his arms and lapsed into sulky silence, and Leah yawned and looked out of the window for want of something better to do. They were off the stage now, and could take their ease.
Very wintry looked the landscape through which they passed. The meadow-lands were deep in snow, and gaunt, leafless trees started like black spectres from the milky ground. Ponds and ditches wore masks of darkly-green ice, and the frozen road rang like iron under the hoofs of the horses. A yellowish sky, with the promise of almost immediate snow, lowered over the starving world, and, for lack of foliage, the landscape widened to the observing eye. A dull crimson in the west showed that the sun was sinking in foggy splendour. The shrill voices of children, singing music-hall songs instead of carols, saluted their ears.
"Quite like a Christmas card, isn't it, Jim?"
"If it wasn't for the music-hall songs," assented her husband, looking out of his window. "Wonder if there'll be skatin'."
"I daresay. I hope so. I love skating."
"'Cause you can show off."
"We have each our little vanities, Jim," said Lady Jim, whom hope made good-humoured. "There's the church--what a pretty old building, and how well the snow contrasts with the red roof and the ivy!"
"We have to go there on Christmas Day," gloomed Kaimes.
"We must show an example to the lower orders," explained Leah, in her British-matron tone. "Besides, Lionel preaches."
"How awful! Why has the Duke put him in the bill?"
"Mr. Dane, the vicar, is ill, and asked Lionel to fill the pulpit. The Duke has nothing to do with it."
"Wish I had," grumbled Jim. "I'd have the sermon cut out."
"You'd have the church turned into a music-hall, I daresay," retorted his wife, contemptuously. "But you must be as nice as you know how to Lionel. Remember, he promised to speak to the Duke."
"I'll keep awake during his sermon, but I shan't promise to do more, Leah. You're runnin' this show."
"Quite so, but I don't want you to spoil it. Lionel has great influence with the Duke."
"Frightens the old man to death with texts and Tophet, I expect," said Jim, crossly. "I know these parsons."
"I was not aware that your circle of friends included such respectable acquaintances."
"Oh, I can hold a candle to a certain person as well as you, Leah. Who do we meet at Firmingham?"
"The usual dull lot," said Lady Jim, with a yawn. "Frith and his stupid little wife, who seems to model herself on David Copperfield's Dora. Then Lady Canvey, with her new companion, is sure to be present."
"Fancy havin' that death's-head at a Christmas feast. Who else, Leah?"
"That little Russian doctor, Demetrius. We met him at the Embassy, if you remember. Not the Russian Embassy, but the French. He's out of favour with the Czar, and dare not leave England in case he should be sent to Siberia."
"He can practise for it here," said Jim, shivering, "Beastly cold, isn't it, Leah? What's Demetrius doin' here?"
"Looking after the Duke's health. He says he can cure his gout."
"I hope he will," muttered Kaimes, devoutly. "For if Frith comes along we shan't get a shillin'!"
"I'm half afraid we shan't get one now," sighed Lady Jim. "Here's the avenue. What a charming place!"
"I'd let it out on buildin' leases, if I had it," remarked the prosaic Jim, "an' cut the timber. Lot of money in those trees."
"Don't look into jewellers' windows, Jim. You're not rich enough to buy the stock."
"Rich! It was as much as I could do to scrape enough together for our tickets."
"Ah, well," said Leah, reassuringly, as the wheels scrunched the frozen snow before the great porch, "we needn't spend anything here, except half a crown for the plate."
"Catch me wastin' money in that way," snapped Kaimes, swinging himself out to help his wife to alight. "Halloa, here's old Colley, lookin' like a dean as usual;" and Jim, again assuming his hearty manner and jovial leer, shook hands with the butler, whom he had known since Etonian days.
The house-party was composed of hostile elements; consequently, every one was compelled to adopt a forced air of Christmas peace and good-will, which rather tried jumpy nerves. The Duke dug up fossilised cousins to participate in the festive season, and these did not suit with some fashionable folk, who for various reasons, as they put it, "had to be nice to the dear old Duke." Mr. Jaffray and his poetic sister of fifty, who quarrelled incessantly, hardly suited the tastes of Mrs. Penworthy, as a daughter of the horse-leech and intensely up-to-date. Nor did Graham, the Little England politician, enjoy the company of Lord Sargon, a Tory, and a believer in the divine right of the last legal descendant of the Stuarts. Also, the various young women and men, who were really nobodies, and fancied themselves somebodies, found the parts they were expected to take in an old-fashioned Christmas rather a bore.
"The season of peace and good-will," explained the Duke, after dinner, when this collection of smartness and do wellness embellished the great drawing-room. "We must all love one another."
The company assented conventionally, and every one smiled violently on every one, to the amusement of Lady Canvey. "If this was the Palace of Truth," she announced, "there would be trouble."
"But the mellowing influence of the time----"
"Just so, Duke. But some people are like certain pears, they won't mellow--they only become sleepy. And that reminds me," she added, looking round for Joan. "I'll go to bed soon."
"Not on Christmas Eve," urged the Duke, bending over her chair. "We intend to keep Yule-tide as our ancestors did--snap-dragon, the mummers, the Christmas-tree, the carol-singers, and the ghost-stories."
"Not one of them clever enough to tell a real ghost story," snapped Lady Canvey, cynically examining faces old and young, made up and natural.
"Oh, I know a lovely, lovely tale," said Miss Jaffray, who was gowned girlishly in white, trimmed oddly with ivy, and who looked like a ruin.
"That will last till to-morrow morning," chimed in her brother, seeing an opportunity of being nasty; "snap-dragon is more fun. Eh, Lady Frith--you used to enjoy that once."
"I do so now--dear snap-dragon," said the Marchioness, who was sentimental and adored her tall lean husband; "but the Christmas-tree--oh, that is too sweet. Bunny and I met for the first time under a Christmas-tree, and he fell in love with me. Didn't you, Bunny?"
It was rather hard on Lord Frith that he should be addressed by this most inappropriate name. He was as stiff as a Spaniard, sad in his looks, and spoke little. Although eminently well-bred, and clever in a political way, he was not a genial personage. In this he differed from his father, for the Duke was stout and kindly looking, beaming with good-humour, and quite the style of host who would have figured in Sir Roger de Coverley's time. Report said that he had been much too gay in his youth, and that the late Duchess had put up with a great deal. Lady Canvey could have related stories about the Duke likely to be much more entertaining than the proposed ghost-tales. But she was fond of her host, who, like herself, was a link with the remote past, and never told stories out of school. When she and the Duke got together, they wagged their old heads over dead and done-with scandals, and lamented these days of vulgar and blatant sin. But whatever their pasts may have been, they were an ideal couple in the way of venerable looks and sweet old age. Quite a Philemon and Baucis of modern times.
Meantime, "Bunny" scowled on his frivolous little wife, and then gave her a sentimental smile. He was always torn between love and propriety, for Lady Frith, imitating Dora, as Lady Jim averred, said the most exasperating things in a sweet treble. He used to lecture her in private and explain what she should say; but these corrections always ended in tears on the part of the child-wife, and in complete surrender on the part of her doting husband. Lady Frith certainly could play her part in society excellently well on occasions, and was more shrewd than would have been guessed from her baby face and infantile manners. But she wanted to be original, and therefore plagiarised from Dickens' novel. This assumption of an imaginary character she called "possessing a personality."
Mrs. Penworthy was old wine in a new bottle: that is, she looked twenty-five, and acted like an experienced coquette of double the age. Married to a modern Job, called Freddy, whose meekness was proverbial, she led him about like a pet lamb and taught him a few parlor tricks, so that people might say, "What an attached couple;" which they did, tongue in cheek. A sweet look from Mrs. Penworthy warmed Freddy's heart for four and twenty hours, even though the cost of the merest glance sometimes ran into double figures. In his hours of leisure, which were few, he frequently told her that she was an angel; but the expression did not sound so agreeable on Freddy's lips, as on those of the half dozen nice boys who constituted her court.
She went everywhere and knew everyone, and did the things she ought not to have done, with discretion. Freddy thought her a playful kitten, quite blind to the fact that she had grown rapidly into a cat. But with smiling looks and sheathed claws, and Freddy's diamonds on her neck, she was a very pretty cat, and blinked sleepily at those who admired her, so long as Freddy gave her a silken cushion to rest on and plenty of cream to drink. Moreover, she only scratched those who could not scratch back.
"I really think it's awful fun," said Mrs. Penworthy to her court--"all this sort of thing, you know--holly and snow and----"
"And mistletoe," suggested one of the nice boys.
"Now if you talk like that, Algy, you shan't be spoken to for a week."
"A look is enough for me," whispered the adoring Algy.
"Naughty! What would Freddy say?"
Lady Canvey's sharp ears overheard the banter. "Were I Freddy I know what I'd say," she murmured grimly; then aloud, to spoil sport, "Is your husband here, Mrs. Penworthy?"
"Freddy? Oh, dear me, no. He's gone to Paris, or Peru, or--I forget exactly where--but it's something beginning with a 'P.' Dear Freddy," she laid an entirely useless fan on her lips, pensively, "he works so very, very hard."
"And quite right too," said Lady Canvey, bluntly, "seeing what a devoted wife he has."
"Ah, you don't know how Freddy tries me, dear Lady Canvey. Iamdevoted--that I am. But, you see, I took Freddy for better or worse."
"Oh no," corrected the old woman, tartly; "you took the better, and Freddy took the worse."
Mrs. Penworthy, not being ready with an answer, murmured something about "jealous old thing," and moved away with her court to where Lord Sargon was holding forth on his pet craze. "If only our ancient kings were back," he said, but not too loud, as the Duke might have disapproved of the disloyalty, "Christmas would be Christmas. In the good old times of the blessed martyr Charles----"
"The bad old times," contradicted Mr. Graham; "it was then that our beloved country began to annex places which are useless. Let us give up everything beyond the Channel, and attend to our own country. Then, indeed, Christmas will be Christmas."
"And the parish pump will pour forth beer," said Mr. Jaffray, referring to the badge of the Little Englander.
"Ah, the conduits ran wine in those sweet old days," sighed his sister, in her poetic vein.
"And people never washed," said a truculent old gentleman given to sanitation. "What I say is, let every house have a bath-room."
"I say, Jim, is this going to last for ever?" asked Leah, considerably bored by these intellectual fireworks.
"A week, anyhow," replied Jim, who was feeling happy after a large dinner; "but if you will come to the Zoo, Leah, you mustn't find fault with th' animals."
"They are scarcely so interesting."
"Oh! Animals don't talk, I 'spose you mean."
"You do," retorted Lady Jim, calmly. "There's Demetrius!" and she left her husband in the clutches of Mrs. Penworthy, with a whispered caution. "Don't let her go too far, Jim. This week we're the respectable middle-class pair, who live in slate-roofed houses."
Jim did not quite understand, but he vaguely guessed that he was to keep Mrs. Penworthy at a distance. For some minutes he did this, but she soon overcame his scruples, and begged him to take her to the picture gallery. The discreet court did not follow.
Constantine Demetrius was a small, dark, neat man with an ivory complexion, black hair, a waxed moustache, and a stereotyped smile. He was dressed perfectly in a foreign fashion, and placed his small feet together when he made his bow to Lady Jim. His English was much better than his morals, and perhaps this was why Lady Jim beckoned him to her side. Demetrius was one of her most ardent admirers, and she had a vague idea of making use of him. At present she did not see how to utilise his services, but if ever she required a thoroughly unscrupulous man, she knew that she would need him. Besides, he was really a clever doctor, and when Lady Jim was ill, she felt it would hasten the cure to think she was being attended to for nothing.
"What do you think of all this?" she asked him, when they were snugly bestowed in a cosy corner.
"It is very English," said the Russian, with a shrug.
"That means very dull!"
Demetrius clicked his heels together and made a bow from the middle of his body. "At present I cannot say so," said he, gallantly.
"And you wouldn't, if you thought so!"
"Madam, the truth to a ravishing woman----"
"Is like sunshine to a coal-miner: we get it so rarely. By the way, how is Mademoiselle Aksakoff?"
"She is well."
"And as pretty as ever?"
"I see nothing of beauty but what is before me."
"All the same, you will leave me and marry Mademoiselle Aksakoff."
Demetrius looked at Lady Jim with such fire in his dark eyes that she felt slightly uncomfortable in spite of her courageous nature. It was easy to play with the hearts of phlegmatic Englishmen, but to amuse herself with this fiery Slav was like trifling with a tiger. Nevertheless, Lady Jim, with a view to future contingencies, allured him with sweet looks, and tantalised him with half-granted favours. Katinka Aksakoff, the daughter of a Russian official attached to the Embassy, loved Demetrius even to the extent of helping him to escape the lures of the secret police, which would have drawn him to the Continent,en routefor Siberia. Therefore she hated Lady Jim, because that astute diplomatist kept Demetrius dangling at her skirts in the bonds of a never-to-be-requited love, on the chance that some day she might require him. And the Russian knew that Leah Kaimes was a woman who wanted all for nothing, but, if possible, he intended to make his own bargain with her. Lady Jim was clever, but Demetrius thought he could entangle her.
"Monsieur Demetrius," she said after a pause, during which the fire died out of the Russian's eyes, "if you wanted money----"
"I would get it," said he, determinedly.
"But if you saw no way of getting it?"
"I would make the way."
"You can't make bricks without straw."
"Clever people can," replied Demetrius, dryly.
Lady Jim looked down at her rings.
"Are you clever?" she asked.
"To benefit some people I might be," he said in a low voice.
She stared straight before her, and noted that Lionel was chatting with Miss Tallentire. As yet the curate had not spoken with the Duke, so that was a quarter yet to be tried. Nevertheless, Lady Jim had a shrewd idea, in spite of the comedy being played by herself and Jim, and of Lionel's pleading, that the Duke would be adamant. It behoved her to have another string to her bow, and this she could find in Demetrius. But she did not know yet to what use she could put him. It was impossible to ask him to sway the Duke, strong as his influence was with that gouty nobleman. Lady Jim had a good deal of what she called pride, and did not intend to let Demetrius know her true position, if she could help it.
Before she could say anything, and really she did not know what to say, the Duke gave the signal for the commencement of the Christmas festivities. These were strong in intention, but weak in execution. The company burnt their fingers over snap-dragon, capered in Sir Roger de Coverley, tempted the Fates with roasting chestnuts, and finally adjourned to a large hall, where glittered a splendid Christmas-tree.
Then danced in the mummers, villagers all, tricked out as Robin Hood and Maid Marian, as the Terrible Turk, Santa Claus, St. George and the Dragon--a most meek beast--and with hordes of merry, laughing children. The Christmas-tree dropped its costly, many-coloured fruits into expectant laps, and a chorus of praise hymned the munificence of the gratified Duke. Even Lady Jim thanked him for the dainty gold-net purse which she received, and if she did peep in slyly to see whether it was lined with a cheque or a bank-note, that was only out of compliment to her father-in-law's known generosity.
"Santa Claus has not got a banking account," she murmured to her husband.
Jim, who was scowling at his gift,--a set of sleeve-links enamelled with the four vices--women, cards, drink, and racing,--growled.
"He's got a dashed lot of impertinence. As if I'd wear these things!"
"No," said Leah, tickled by the implied rebuke, "it doesn't do to wear your heart on your sleeve--links": a witticism which was entirely lost on Jim. He was one of the many obtuse swine who trampled on Leah's pearls.
What with eating and drinking, and professing seasonable sentiments which certainly did not come from the heart, everyone became bored and bilious and fractious. Leah surveyed the yawning revellers with a feeling that Christmas, old style, was a failure.
"You can't arrange an orgy," was her comment to Lady Canvey, "it must come by chance, to be successful."
"I don't think Pentland intended anything so disreputable," retorted the old dame, "consequently you are disappointed."
"Bored," Lady Jim assured her. "I suppose it's eating plum pudding which always makes me dull."
"But not good-natured."
"My digestion has its limits. Good night, godmother; I suppose it's time for you to be taken to pieces," and having stricken Lady Canvey dumb with rage, she slipped away to bed, wondering what would happen before next Christmas.
"Something must be done," she thought, wearily climbing the stairs. "If Lionel fails with the Duke, Demetrius might----"
Might what? She did not know. But she really did feel that something might be done with Demetrius.
A congregation drawn to the Church of All Angels, by various inducements, filled it to overflowing the next morning. Some came because it was Christmas Day, others to hear Lionel Kaimes preach; many desired to see the ducal party, and one or two presented themselves in God's house to thank Him for the gift of His Son, sent to save a dying world. Knowing the Duke's old age impeccability, nearly all his guests were present and filled three large pews, to the wondering awe of the villagers and their wives. These last, especially, were distracted by the splendour of the ladies' dresses, and the variety of the new fashions. Many laudable imitations of those marvellous frocks were visible in country lane and village street before Easter.
Lady Jim and her husband discreetly sat in the body of the church, some distance from the pulpit, as Leah did not wish to come under the curate's eye. She thought he was quite capable of preaching at her, in which case a natural resentment would have led to a quarrel, prejudicial to the exercise of Lionel's good offices with the Duke. Moreover, Leah, occupied with her own thoughts, did not want to be distracted by a sermon of religious platitudes. She stood up and sat down mechanically, looking too flamboyant to be in harmony with the simplicity of the building. Tucked into the opening of her "Incroyable" coat, claret-coloured and with strikingly large buttons, she wore a cup-shaped nosegay of white and pink orchids. Her hat was large, with many feathers of the new Titian red, and resembled nothing in nature. She did not wear jewellery, but the vivid colours of her dress made up for the absence of gems. There was something tropical about Leah, and in that chill grey church she glowed like a gorgeous flower, all splendour and perfume and radiant vitality. Her exuberant beauty and colour attracted even the attention of Jim. He bent forward, when the prayer for the King's Majesty was being said:
"I believe you're enjoyin' it," muttered Jim, resentfully.
"H-sh-s-s-s!" breathed Leah, devoutly, and knelt in a saintly attitude which was far from expressing her real feelings. For the moment she did not pray herself, or think of the prayer that was being offered. Her thoughts were busy with bills and duns and Jim's defects, and the chances that Demetrius might prove useful. And when she did murmur a prayer, it was one of those which are rarely answered, or, if answered, turn to the confusion of the suppliant. Plenty of money, no trouble, much enjoyment, and the destruction of her enemies, were the elements which composed this remarkable petition. Lady Jim was not very clear as to whom she was asking, but she had a vague feeling, which she mistook for religion, that there might be Some One who could give her what she required. Moreover, it was just as well to be on the safe side. Yet, even as she tried the experiment, the earthly superstition asserted itself, and she carefully fingered a peacock's feather inside her muff. This serving of God and a fetish may seem ridiculous in a woman of Leah's capacity. Nevertheless, she devoutly believed that if the unseen Deity did not help her, the seen Baal would. And after all, was there not a cat of Heine's acquaintance, who made genuflections before a pink-ribboned flageolet? But cats, as the poet remarks, are so superstitious. And Leah the pantheress was of the feline tribe.
Having made herself safe with the Unknown, Lady Jim joined in the ensuing hymn bravely. She thought the words dreary and the tune barbarous, but the fervour of her deep contralto voice reached the Duke's ears, and he gave her an approving glance; so that was something gained. Leah would have gone through the whole collection of Ancient and Modern to learn the precise meaning of that look, but she was satisfied with guessing, and sat down cheerfully to be bored with the sermon. It occurred to her that the prayer had been heard, and would probably be granted. But whether by the peacock's feather, or the Deity of whom Lionel now began to speak, she could not determine.
"And His name shall be called Wonderful"--this was the curate's text, and he discoursed on it in a simple and impressive way. Speaking of the birth of Christ, of His teaching and plan of salvation, of His self-denying life and unwearying kindness, the young man's grave and tender periods shamed the most inattentive into thoughtfulness. Lionel was not a born orator, but he was very much in earnest, and preached with an emphasis which carried undeniable conviction. Mrs. Penworthy felt suddenly virtuous, and resolved to repeat as much of the sermon as she could remember to Freddy, so that he might not grumble so much over what the silly thing called "her extravagance." Even Lady Canvey wagged her aged head, and thought that she might help a few deserving paupers, if their needs could be supplied in moderation. Leah herself was impressed, to the extent of hoping that the Duke would see that it behoved him to fill the empty pockets of a deserving and pretty daughter-in-law. Jim would have approved of this sentiment, but all the time he was fast asleep, and woke up cross when she pinched him to rise for the Doxology.
Beyond a stray sentence here and there, Leah had not paid much attention: she had heard it all before, though some of the sentiments were new, and, as she thought, ridiculous. When the preacher was fairly started she relapsed into her own thoughts. These being unpleasant, she permitted her hard eyes to wander round the church. After a wondering gaze at the extraordinary fashions of the women, and a patronising examination of the decorations, she caught sight of a face belonging to a young man on the other side of the aisle. He was so like Jim that she involuntarily turned to see if her husband still slumbered placidly by her side. The double was dressed in grey tweeds and looked almost like a gentleman. He stooped a trifle, in spite of his square shoulders and stalwart figure, and every now and then coughed painfully. Apparently he was ill with some pulmonary complaint, which the freezing atmosphere of the church accentuated. Leah wondered at the resemblance, and thought of certain traditionary stories concerning the youthful days of the Duke. But after a second glance she decided that perhaps there was nothing in it. Jim was of a pink-and-white, bovine, commonplace type, and there were hundreds like him in manners and morals and looks. Moreover, she was so weary of seeing Jim's inane face over the breakfast-cups that she did not care to gaze at the imitation. Nevertheless, being a woman with the orthodox share of Eve's curiosity, she resolved to ask questions about this consumptive double. Mrs. Arthur, the Firmingham housekeeper, could doubtless tell some story, as she knew much more about the Duke than had ever appeared, even in the most scurrilous society paper. And Lady Jim knew how to make her talk.