"Brings the whole thing home to you—makes it ever so much more real, don't you know," said Mrs. Torrington.
"Poor James Lee!" sighed Mopsy.
"Poor Mrs. Lee!" ejaculated Dopsy.
"Did he die?" asked Miss St. Aubyn.
"Did she run away from him?" inquired her sister, the railroad pace at which the Baron fired off the verses having left all those among his hearers who did not know the text in a state of agreeable uncertainty.
So the night wore on, with more songs and duets from opera and opera-bouffe. No more of Beethoven's grand bursts of melody—now touched with the solemnity of religious feeling—now melting in human pathos—now light and airy, changeful and capricious as the skylark's song—a very fountain of joyous fancies. Mr. Tregonell had never appreciated Beethoven, being, indeed, as unmusical a soul as God ever created; but he thought it a more respectable thing that his wife should sit at her piano playing an order of music which only the privileged few could understand, than that she should delight the common herd by singing which savoured of music-hall and burlesque.
"Is she not absolutely delicious?" said Mrs. Torrington, beating time with her fan. "How proud I should be of myself if I could sing like that. How proud you must be of your wife—such verve—suchélan—so thoroughly in the spirit of the thing. That is the only kind of singing anybody really cares for now. One goes to the opera to hear them scream through 'Lohengrin'—or 'Tannhäuser'—and then one goes into society and talks about Wagner—but it is music like this one enjoys."
"Yes, it's rather jolly," said Leonard, staring moodily at his wife, in the act of singing a refrain, of Bé-bé-bé, which was supposed to represent the bleating of an innocent lamb.
"And the Baron's voice goes so admirably with Mrs. Tregonell's."
"Yes, his voice goes—admirably," said Leonard, sorely tempted to blaspheme.
"Weren't you charmed to find us all so gay and bright here—nothing to suggest the sad break-up you had last year. I felt so intensely sorry for you all—yet I was selfish enough to be glad I had left before it happened. Did they—don't think me morbid for asking—did they bring him home here?"
"Yes, they brought him home."
"And in which room did they put him? One always wants to know these things, though it can do one no good."
"In the Blue Room."
"The second from the end of the corridor, next but one to mine; that's rather awfully near. Do you believe in spiritual influences? Have you ever had a revelation? Good gracious! is it really so late? Everybody seems to be going."
"Let me get your candle," said Leonard, eagerly, making a dash for the hall. And so ended his first evening at home with that imbecile refrain—Bé-bé-bé, repeating itself in his ears.
When Mr. Tregonell came to the breakfast room next morning he found everybody alert with the stir and expectation of an agreeable day. The Trevena harriers were to meet for the first time this season, and everybody was full of that event. Christabel, Mrs. Torrington, and the St. Aubyn girls were breakfasting in their habits and hats: whips and gloves were lying about on chairs and side-tables—everybody was talking, and everybody seemed in a hurry. De Cazalet looked gorgeous in olive corduroy and Newmarket boots. Mr. St. Aubyn looked business-like in a well-worn red coat and mahogany tops, while the other men inclined to dark shooting jackets, buckskins, and Napoleons. Mr. FitzJesse, in a morning suit that savoured of the study rather than the hunting field, contemplated these Nimrods with an amused smile; but the Reverend St. Bernard beheld them not without pangs of envy. He, too, had been in Arcadia; he, too, had followed the hounds in his green Oxford days, before he joined that band of young Anglicans who he doubted not would by-and-by be as widely renowned as the heroes of the Tractarian movement.
"You are going to the meet?" inquired Leonard, as his wife handed him his coffee.
"Do you think I would take the trouble to put on my habit in order to ride from here to Trevena?" exclaimed Christabel. "I am going with the rest of them, of course. Emily St. Aubyn will show me the way."
"But you have never hunted."
"Because your dear mother was too nervous to allow me. But I have ridden over every inch of the ground. I know my horse, and my horse knows me. You needn't be afraid."
"Mrs. Tregonell is one of the finest horsewomen I ever saw," said de Cazalet. "It is a delight to ride by her side. Are not you coming with us?" he asked.
"Yes, I'll ride after you," said Leonard. "I forgot all about the harriers. Nobody told me they were to begin work this morning."
The horses were brought round to the porch, the ladies put on their gloves, and adjusted themselves in those skimpy lop-sided petticoats which have replaced the flowing drapery of the dark ages when a horsewoman's legs and boots were in somewise a mystery to the outside world.
Leonard went out to look at the horses. A strange horse would have interested him even on his death bed, while one ray of consciousness yet remained to recognize the degrees of equine strength and quality. He overhauled the mare which Major Bree had chosen for Christabel a month ago—a magnificent three-quarter bred hunter, full of power.
"Do you think she can carry me?" asked Christabel.
"She could carry a house. Yes; you ought to be safe upon her. Is that big black brute the Baron's horse?"
"Yes."
"I thought so—a coarse clumsy beast, all show," muttered Leonard; "like master, like man."
He turned away to examine Colonel Blathwayt's hunter, a good looking chestnut, and in that moment the Baron had taken up his ground by Christabel's mare, and was ready to lift her into the saddle. She went up as lightly as a shuttlecock from a battledore, scarcely touching the corduroy shoulder—but Leonard felt angry with the Baron for usurping a function which should have been left for the husband.
"Is Betsy Baker in condition?" he asked the head groom, as the party rode away, de Cazalet on Mrs. Tregonell's right hand.
"Splendid, sir. She only wants work."
"Get her ready as quick as you can. I'll take it out of her."
Mr. Tregonell kept his word. Wherever de Cazalet and Christabel rode that day, Christabel's husband went with them. The Baron was a bold, bad rider—reckless of himself, brutal to his horse. Christabel rode superbly, and was superbly mounted. Those hills which seemed murderous to the stranger, were as nothing to her, who had galloped up and down them on her Shetland pony, and had seldom ridden over better ground from the time when Major Bree first took her out with a leading rein. The day was long, and there was plenty of fast going—but these three were always in the front. Yet even the husband's immediate neighbourhood in no wise lessened the Baron's marked attention to the wife, and Leonard rode homeward at dusk sorely troubled in spirit. What did it mean? Could it be that she, whose conduct last year had seemed without reproach; who had borne herself with matronly dignity; with virginal purity towards the lover of her girlhood—the refined and accomplished Angus Hamleigh—could it be that she had allowed herself to be involved in a flirtation with such a tinsel dandy as this de Cazalet?
"It would be sheer lunacy," he said to himself. "Perhaps she is carrying on like this to annoy me—punishing me for——"
He rode home a little way behind those other two, full of vexation and bewilderment. Nothing had happened of which he could reasonably complain. He could scarcely kick this man out of his house because he inclined his head at a certain angle—because he dropped his voice to a lower key when he spoke to Christabel. Yet his very attitude in the saddle as he rode on ahead—his hand on his horse's flank, his figure turned towards Christabel—was a provocation.
Opera bouffe duets—recitations—acted charades—bouts rimés—all the catalogue of grown-up playfulness—began again after dinner; but this evening Leonard did not stay in the drawing-room. He felt that he could not trust himself. His disgust must needs explode into some rudeness of speech, if he remained to witness these vagaries.
"I like the society of barmaids, and I can tolerate the company of ladies," he said to his bosom friend, Jack; "but a mixture of the two is unendurable: so we'll have a good smoke and half-crown pool, shilling lives."
This was as much as to say, that Leonard and his other friends were about to render their half-crowns and shillings as tribute to Captain Vandeleur's superior play; that gentleman having made pool his profession since he left the army.
They played till midnight, in an atmosphere which grew thick with tobacco smoke before the night was done. They played till Jack Vandeleur's pockets were full of loose silver, and till the other men had come to the conclusion that pool was a slow game, with an element of childishness in it, at the best—no real skill, only a mere mechanical knack, acquired by incessant practice in fusty public rooms, reeking with alcohol.
"Show me a man who plays like that, and I'll show you a scamp," muttered little Monty in a friendly aside to Leonard, as Jack Vandeleur swept up the last pool.
"I know he's a scamp," answered Leonard, "but he's a pleasant scamp, and a capital fellow to travel with—never ill—never out of temper—always ready for the day's work, whatever it is, and always able to make the best of things. Why don't you marry one of his sisters?—they're both jolly good fellows."
"No coin," said Monty, shaking his neat little flaxen head. "I can just contrive to keep myself—'still to be neat, still to be drest.' What in mercy's name should I do with a wife who would want food and gowns, and stalls at the theatres? I have been thinking that if those St. Aubyn girls have money—on the nail, you know, not in the form of expectations from that painfully healthy father—I might think seriously of one of them. They are horridly rustic—smell of clover and beans, and would be likely to disgrace one in London society—but they are not hideous."
"I don't think there's much ready money in that quarter, Monty," answered Leonard. "St. Aubyn has a good deal of land."
"Land," screamed Monty. "I wouldn't touch it with a pair of tongs! The workhouses of the next century will be peopled by the offspring of the landed gentry. I shudder when I think of the country squire and his prospects."
"Hard lines," said Jack, who had made that remark two or three times before in the course of the evening.
They were sitting round the fire by this time—smoking and drinking mulled Burgundy, and the conversation had become general.
This night was as many other nights. Sometimes Mr. Tregonell tried to live through the evening in the drawing-room—enduring the society games—the Boulevard music—the recitations and tableaux and general frivolity—but he found these amusements hang upon his spirits like a nightmare. He watched his wife, but could discover nothing actually reprehensible in her conduct—nothing upon which he could take his stand as an outraged husband, and say "This shall not be." If the Baron's devotion to her was marked enough for every one to see, and if her acceptance of his attentions was gracious in the extreme, his devotion and her graciousness were no more than he had seen everywhere accepted as the small change of society, meaning nothing, tending towards nothing but gradual satiety; except in those few exceptional cases which ended in open scandal and took society by surprise. That which impressed Leonard was the utter change in his wife's character. It seemed as if her very nature were altered. Womanly tenderness, a gentle and subdued manner, had given place to a hard brilliancy. It was as if he had lost a pearl, and found a diamond in its place—one all softness and purity, the other all sparkle and light.
He was too proud to sue to her for any renewal of old confidences—to claim from her any of the duties of a wife. If she could live and be happy without him—and he knew but too surely that his presence, his affection, had never contributed to her happiness—he would let her see that he could live without her—that he was content to accept the position she had chosen—union which was no union—marriage that had ceased to be marriage—a chain drawn out to its furthest length, yet held so lightly that neither need feel the bondage.
Everybody at Mount Royal was loud in praise of Christabel. She was so brilliant, so versatile, she made her house so utterly charming. This was the verdict of her new friends—but her old friends were less enthusiastic. Major Bree came to the Manor House very seldom now, and frankly owned himself a fish out of water in Mrs. Tregonell's new circle.
"Everybody is so laboriously lively," he said; "there is an air of forced hilarity. I sigh for the house as it was in your mother's time, Leonard. 'A haunt of ancient peace.'"
"There's not much peace about it now, by Jove," said Leonard. "Why did you put it into my wife's head to ride to hounds?"
"I had nothing to do with it. She asked me to choose her a hunter, and I chose her something good and safe, that's all. But I don't think you ought to object to her hunting, Leonard, or to her doing anything else that may help to keep her in good spirits. She was in a very bad way all the winter."
"Do you mean that she was seriously ill? Their letters to me were so d——d short. I hardly know anything that went on while I was away."
"Yes. She was very ill—given over to melancholy. It was only natural that she should be affected by Angus Hamleigh's death, when you remember what they had been to each other before you came home. A woman may break an engagement of that kind, and may be very happy in her union with another man, but she can't forget her first lover, if it were only because heisthe first. It was an unlucky thing your bringing him to Mount Royal. One of your impulsive follies."
"Yes, one of my follies. So you say that Christabel was out of health and spirits all the winter."
"Yes, she would see no one—not even me—or the Rector. No one but the doctor ever crossed the threshold. But surely Miss Bridgeman has told you all about it. Miss Bridgeman was devoted to her."
"Miss Bridgeman is as close as the grave; and I am not going to demean myself by questioning her."
"Well, there is no need to be unhappy about the past. Christabel is herself again, thank God—brighter, prettier than ever. That Swiss tour with Miss Bridgeman and the boy did her worlds of good. I thought you made a mistake in leaving her at Mount Royal after that melancholy event. You should have taken her with you."
"Perhaps I ought to have done so," assented Leonard, thinking bitterly how very improbable it was that she would have consented to go with him.
He tried to make the best of his position, painful as it was. He blustered and hectored as of old—gave his days to field sports—his evenings for the most part to billiards and tobacco. He drank more than he had been accustomed to drink, sat up late of nights. His nerves were not benefited by these latter habits.
"Your hand is as shaky as an old woman's," exclaimed Jack, upon his opponent missing an easy cannon. "Why, you might have done that with a boot-jack. If you're not careful you'll be in for an attack of del. trem., and that will chaw you up in a very short time. A man of your stamina is the worst kind of subject for nervous diseases. We shall have you catching flies, and seeing imaginary snow-storms before long."
Leonard received this friendly warning with a scornful laugh.
"De Cazalet drinks more brandy in a day than I do in a week," he said.
"Ah, but look at his advantages—brought up in Jersey, where cognac is duty-free. None of us have had his fine training. Wonderful constitution he must have—hand as steady as a rock. You saw him this morning knock off a particular acorn from the oak in the stable yard with a bullet."
"Yes, the fellow can shoot; he's less of an impostor than I expected."
"Wonderful eye and hand. He must have spent years of his life in a shooting gallery. You're a dooced good shot, Tregonell; but, compared with him, you're not in it."
"That's very likely, though I have had to live by my gun in the Rockies. FitzJesse told me that in South America de Cazalet was known as a professed duellist."
"And you have only shot four-footed beasts—never gone for a fellow creature," answered Jack lightly.
If Leonard Tregonell was troubled and perplexed by the change in his wife's character, there was one other person at Mount Royal, Christabel's nearest and dearest friend, to whom that change was even a greater mystification. Jessie Bridgeman, who had been with her in the dark hours of her grief—who had seen her sunk in the apathy of despair—who had comforted and watched her, and sympathized and wept with her, looked on now in blank wonderment at a phase of character which was altogether enigmatical. She had been with Mrs. Tregonell at Zermatt, when de Cazalet had obtruded himself on their notice by his officious attentions during a pilgrimage to the Riffel, and she had been bewildered at Christabel's civility to a man of such obvious bad style. He had stayed at the same hotel with them for three or four days, and had given them as much of his society as he could without being absolutely intrusive, taking advantage of having met Christabel five seasons ago, at two or threequasiliterary assemblies; and at parting Christabel had invited him to Mount Royal. "Mr. Tregonell will be at home in the autumn," she said, "and if you should find yourself in Cornwall"—he had talked of exploring the West of England—"I know he would be glad to see you at Mount Royal."
When Jessie hinted at the unwisdom of an invitation to a man of whom they knew so little, Christabel answered carelessly that "Leonard liked to have his house full of lively people, and would no doubt be pleased with the Baron de Cazalet."
"You used to leave him to choose his own visitors."
"I know; but I mean to take a more active part in the arrangement of things in future. I am tired of being a cipher."
"Did you hear those people talking of the Baron attable d'hôteyesterday?"
"I heard a little—I was not particularly attentive."
"Then perhaps you did not hear that he is a thorough Bohemian—that he led a very wild life in South America, and was a notorious duellist."
"What can that matter to us, even if it is true?"
It seemed to Jessie that Christabel's whole nature underwent a change, and that the transformation dated from her acquaintance with this man. They were at the end of their tour at the time of this meeting, and they came straight through to Paris, where Mrs. Tregonell abandoned herself to frivolity—going to all the theatres—buying all the newest and lightest music, spending long mornings with milliners and dressmakers—squandering money upon fine clothes, which a year ago she would have scorned to wear. Hitherto her taste had tended to simplicity of attire—not without richness—for she was too much of an artist not to value the artistic effects of costly fabrics, the beauty of warm colouring. But she now pursued that Will o' the Wisp fashion from Worth to Pingat, and bought any number of gowns, some of which, to Miss Bridgeman's severe taste, seemed simply odious.
"Do you intend spending next season in May Fair, and do you expect to be asked to a good many fancy balls?" asked Jessie, as Mrs. Tregonell's maid exhibited the gowns in the spacious bedroom at the Bristol.
"Nonsense, Jessie. These are all dinner gowns. The infinite variety of modern fashion is its chief merit. The style of to-day embraces three centuries of the past, from Catherine de Médicis to Madame Récamier."
At one of the Boulevard theatres Mrs. Tregonell and Miss Bridgeman met Mr. FitzJesse, who was also returning from a summer holiday. He was Angus Hamleigh's friend, and had known Christabel during the happy days of her first London season. It seemed hardly strange that she should be glad to meet him, and that she should ask him to Mount Royal.
"And now I must have some women to meet these men," she said, when she and Jessie were at home again, and the travelled infant had gone back to his nursery, and had inquired why the hills he saw from his windows were no longer white, and why the sea was so much bigger than the lakes he had seen lately. "I mean to make the house as pleasant as possible for Leonard when he comes home."
She and Jessie were alone in the oak panelled parlour—the room with the alcove overlooking the hills and the sea. They were seated at a little table in this recess—Christabel's desk open before her—Jessie knitting.
"How gaily you speak. Have you——"
She was going to say, "Have you forgiven him for what was done at St. Nectan's Kieve?" but she checked herself when the words were on her lips. What if Leonard's crime was not forgiven, but forgotten? In that long dreary winter they had never spoken of the manner of Angus Hamleigh's death. Christabel's despair had been silent. Jessie had comforted her with vague words which never touched upon the cruel details of her grief. How if the mind had been affected by that long interval of sorrow, and the memory of Leonard's deed blotted out? Christabel's new delight in frivolous things—her sudden fancy for filling her house with lively people—might be the awakening of new life and vigour in a mind that had trembled on the confines of madness. Was it for her to recall bitter facts—to reopen the fountain of tears? She gave one little sigh for the untimely dead—and then addressed herself to the duty of pleasing Christabel, just as in days gone by her every effort had been devoted to making the elder Mrs. Tregonell happy.
"I suppose you had better ask Mrs. Fairfax Torrington," she suggested.
"Yes, Leonard and she are great chums. We must have Mrs. Torrington. And there are the St. Aubyns, nice lively girls and an inoffensive father and mother. I believe Leonard rather likes them. And then it will be a charity to have Dopsy and Mopsy."
"I thought you detested them."
"No, poor foolish things—I was once sorry for Dopsy." The tears rushed to her eyes. She rose suddenly from her chair, and went to the window.
"Then she has not forgotten," thought Jessie.
So it was that the autumn party was planned. Mr. Faddie was doing duty at the little church in the glen, and thus happened to be in the way of an invitation. Mr. Montagu was asked as a person of general usefulness. The St. Aubyn party brought horses, and men and maids, and contributed much to the liveliness of the establishment, so far as noise means gaiety. They were all assembled when Baron de Cazalet telegraphed from a yacht off the Lizard to ask if he might come, and, receiving a favourable reply, landed at Penzance, and posted over with his valet; his horse and gun cases were brought from London by another servant.
Leonard had been home nearly a fortnight, and had begun to accept this new mode of life without further wonder, and to fall into his old ways, and find some degree of pleasure in his old occupations—hunting, shooting.
The Vandeleur girls were draining the cup of pleasure to the dregs. Dopsy forgot her failure and grief of last year. One cannot waste all one's life in mourning for a lover who was never in love with one.
"I wore bugles for him all last winter, and if I had been able to buy a new black gown I would have kept in mourning for six mouths," she told her sister apologetically, as if ashamed of her good spirits, "but I can't help enjoying myself in such a house as this. Is not Mrs. Tregonell changed for the better?"
"Everything's changed for the better," assented Mopsy. "If we had only horses and could hunt, like those stuck up St. Aubyn girls, life would be perfect."
"They ride well, I suppose," said Dopsy, "but they are dreadfullyarriérées. They haven't an æsthetic idea. When I told them we had thoughts of belonging to the Browning Society, that eldest one asked me if it was like the Birkbeck, and if we should be able to buy a house rent-free by monthly instalments. And the youngest said that sunflowers were only fit for cottage gardens."
"And the narrow-minded mother declared she could see no beauty in single dahlias," added Dopsy, with ineffable disgust.
The day was hopelessly wet, and the visitors at Mount Royal were spending the morning in that somewhat straggling manner common to people who are in somebody else's house—impressed with a feeling that it is useless to settle oneself even to the interesting labour of art needlework when one is not by one's own fireside. The sportsmen were all out; but de Cazalet, the Rev. St. Bernard, and Mr. FitzJesse preferred the shelter of a well-warmed Jacobean mansion to the wild sweep of the wind across the moor, or the dash of the billows.
"I have had plenty of wild life on the shores of the Pacific," said de Cazalet, luxuriating in a large sage green plush arm chair, one of the anachronisms of the grave old library. "At home I revel in civilization—I cannot have too much of warmth and comfort—velvetty nests like this to lounge in, downy cushions to lean against, hot-house flowers, and French cookery. Delicious to hear the rain beating against the glass, and the wind howling in the chimney. Put another log on, Faddie, like the best of fellows."
The Reverend St. Bernard, not much appreciating this familiarity, daintily picked a log from the big brazen basket and dropped it in a gingerly manner upon the hearth, carefully dusting his fingers afterwards with a cambric handkerchief which sent forth odours of Maréchale.
Mr. FitzJesse was sitting at a distant table, with a large despatch box and a pile of open letters before him, writing at railway speed, in order to be in time for the one o'clock post.
"He is making up his paper," said de Cazalet, lazily contemplating the worker's bowed shoulders. "I wonder if he is saying anything about us."
"I am happy to say that he does not often discuss church matters," said Mr. Faddie. "He shows his good sense by a careful avoidance of opinion upon our difficulties and our differences."
"Perhaps he doesn't think them worth discussing—of no more consequence than the shades of difference between tweedledum and tweedledee," yawned de Cazalet, whereupon Mr. Faddie gave him a look of contemptuous anger, and left the room.
Mr. FitzJesse went away soon afterwards with his batch of letters for the post-bag in the hall, and the Baron was left alone, in listless contemplation of the fire. He had been in the drawing-room, but had found that apartment uninteresting by reason of Mrs. Tregonell's absence. He did not care to sit and watch the two Miss St. Aubyns playing chess—nor to hear Mrs. Fairfax Torrington dribbling out stray paragraphs from the "society journals" for the benefit of nobody in particular—nor to listen to Mrs. St. Aubyn's disquisitions upon the merits of Alderney cows, with which Jessie Bridgeman made believe to be interested, while deep in the intricacies of a crewel-work daffodil. For him the spacious pink and white panelled room without one particular person was more desolate than the wild expanse of the Pampas, with its low undulations, growing rougher towards the base of the mountains. He had come to the library—an apartment chiefly used by the men—to bask in the light of the fire, and to brood upon agreeable thoughts. The meditations of a man who has a very high opinion of his own merits are generally pleasant, and just now Oliver de Cazalet's ideas about himself were unusually exalted, for had he not obviously made the conquest of one of the most charming women he had ever met.
"A pity she has a husband," he thought. "It would have suited me remarkably well to drop into such a luxurious nest as this. The boy is not three years old—by the time he came of age—well—I should have lived my life, I suppose, and could afford to subside into comfortable obscurity," sighed de Cazalet, conscious of his forty years. "The husband looks uncommonly tough; but even Hercules was mortal. One never knows how or when a man of that stamp may go off the hooks."
These pleasing reflections were disturbed by the entrance of Mopsy, who, after prowling all over the house in quest of masculine society, came yawning into the library in search of anything readable in the way of a newspaper—a readable paper with Mopsy meaning theatres, fashions, or scandal.
She gave a little start at sight of de Cazalet, whose stalwart form and florid good looks were by no means obnoxious to her taste. If he had not been so evidently devoted to Mrs. Tregonell, Mopsy would have perchance essayed his subjugation; but, remembering Dopsy's bitter experience of last year, the sadder and wiser Miss Vandeleur had made up her mind not to "go for" any marriageable man in too distinct a manner. She would play that fluking game which she most affected at billiards—sending her ball spinning all over the table with the hope that some successful result must come of a vigorous stroke.
She fluttered about the room, then stopped in a Fra Angelico pose over a table strewed with papers.
"Baron, have you seen theQueen?" she asked presently.
"Often. I had the honour of making my bow to her last April. She is one of the dearest women I know, and she was good enough to feel interested in my somewhat romantic career."
"How nice! But I mean theQueennewspaper. I am dying to know if it reallyiscoming in. Now it has been seen in Paris, I'm afraid it's inevitable."
"May I ask whatitis?"
"Perhaps I oughtn't to mention it—crinoline. There is a talk about something called a crinolette."
"And Crinolette, I suppose, is own sister to Crinoline?"
"I'm afraid so—don't you hate them? I do; I love the early Italian style—clinging cashmeres, soft flowing draperies."
"And accentuated angles—well, yes. If one has to ride in a hansom or a single brougham with a woman the hoop and powder style is rather a burthen. But women are such lovely beings—they are adorable in any costume. Madame Tallien with bare feet, and no petticoats to speak of—Pompadour in patches and wide-spreading brocade—Margaret of Orleans in a peaked head dress and puffed sleeves—Mary Stuart in a black velvet coif, and a ruff—each and all adorable—on a pretty woman."
"On a pretty woman—yes. The pretty women set the fashions and the ugly women have to wear them—that's the difficulty."
"Ah, me," sighed the Baron, "did any one ever see an ugly woman? There are so many degrees of beauty that it takes a long time to get from Venus to her opposite. A smile—a sparkle—a kindly look—a fresh complexion—a neat bonnet—vivacious conversation—such trifles will pass for beauty with a man who worships the sex. For him every flower in the garden of womanhood, from the imperial rose to the lowly buttercup, has its own peculiar charm."
"And yet I should have thought you were awfully fastidious," said Mopsy, trifling with the newspapers, "and that nothing short of absolute perfection would please you."
"Absolute perfection is generally a bore. I have met famous beauties who had no more attraction than if they had been famous statues."
"Yes; I know there is a cold kind of beauty—but there are women who are as fascinating as they are lovely. Our hostess, for instance—don't you think her utterly sweet?"
"She is very lovely. Do come and sit by the fire. It is such a creepy morning. I'll hunt for any newspapers you like presently; but in the meanwhile let us chat. I was getting horribly tired of my own thoughts when you came in."
Mopsy simpered, and sat down in the easy chair opposite the Baron's. She began to think that this delightful person admired her more than she had hitherto supposed. His desire for her company looked promising. What if, after all, she, who had striven so much less eagerly than poor Dopsy strove last year, should be on the high road to a conquest. Here was the handsomest man she had ever met, a man with title and money, courting her society in a house full of people.
"Yes, she is altogether charming," said the Baron lazily, as if he were talking merely for the sake of conversation. "Very sweet, as you say, but not quite my style—there is a something—an intangible something wanting. She haschic—she hassavoir-faire; but she has not—no, she has not that electrical wit which—which I have admired in others less conventionally beautiful."
The Baron's half-veiled smile, a smile glancing from under lowered eyelids, hinted that this vital spark which was wanting in Christabel might be found in Mopsy.
The damsel blushed, and looked down, conscious of eyelashes artistically treated.
"I don't think Mrs. Tregonell has been quite happy in her married life," said Mopsy. "My brother and Mr. Tregonell are very old friends, don't you know; like brothers, in fact; and Mr. Tregonell tells Jack everything. I know his cousin didn't want to marry him—she was engaged to somebody else, don't you know, and that engagement was broken off, but he had set his heart upon marrying her—and his mother had set her heart upon the match—and between them they talked her into it. She never really wanted to marry him—Leonard has owned that to Jack in his savage moods. But I ought not to run on so—I am doing very wrong"—said Mopsy, hastily.
"You may say anything you please to me. I am like the grave. I never give up a secret," said the Baron, who had settled himself comfortably in his chair, assured that Mopsy, once set going, would tell him all she could tell.
"No, I don't believe—from what Jack says he says in his tempers—I don't believe she ever liked him," pursued Mopsy. "And she was desperately in love with the other one. But she gave him up at her aunt's instigation, because of some early intrigue of his—which was absurd, as she would have known, poor thing, if she had not been brought up in this out-of-the-way corner of the world."
"The other one. Who was the other one?" asked the Baron.
"The man who was shot at St. Nectan's Kieve last year. You must have heard the story."
"Yes; Mr. St. Aubyn told me about it. And this Mr. Hamleigh had been engaged to Mrs. Tregonell? Odd that he should be staying in this house!"
"Wasn't it? One of those odd things that Leonard Tregonell is fond of doing. He was always eccentric."
"And during this visit was there anything—the best of women are mortal—was there anything in the way of a flirtation going on between Mrs. Tregonell and her former sweetheart?"
"Not a shadow of impropriety," answered Mopsy heartily. "She behaved perfectly. I knew the story from my brother, and couldn't help watching them—there was nothing underhand—not the faintest indication of a secret understanding between them."
"And Mr. Tregonell was not jealous?"
"I cannot say; but I am sure he had no cause."
"I suppose Mrs. Tregonell was deeply affected by Mr. Hamleigh's death?"
"I hardly know. She seemed wonderfully calm; but as we left almost immediately after the accident I had not much opportunity of judging."
"A sad business. A lovely woman married to a man she does not care for—and really if I were not a visitor under his roof I should be tempted to say that in my opinion no woman in her senses could care for Mr. Tregonell. But I suppose after all practical considerations had something to do with the match. Tregonell is lord of half-a-dozen manors—and the lady hadn't a sixpence. Was that it?"
"Not at all. Mrs. Tregonell has money in her own right. She was the only child of an Indian judge, and her mother was co-heiress with the late Mrs. Tregonell, who was a Miss Champernowne—I believe she has at least fifteen hundred a year, upon which a single woman might live very comfortably, don't you know," concluded Miss Vandeleur with a grand air.
"No doubt," said the Baron. "And the fortune was settled on herself, I conclude?"
"Every shilling. Mr. Tregonell's mother insisted upon that. No doubt she felt it her duty to protect her niece's interest. Mr. Tregonell has complained to Jack of his wife being so independent. It lessens his hold upon her, don't you see."
"Naturally. She is not under any obligation to him for her milliner's bills."
"No. And her bills must be awfully heavy this year. I never saw such a change in any one. Last autumn she dressed so simply. A tailor-gown in the morning—black velvet or satin in the evening. And now there is no end to the variety of her gowns. It makes one feel awfully shabby."
"Such artistic toilets as yours can never be shabby," said the Baron. "In looking at a picture by Greuze one does not think how much a yard the pale indefinite drapery cost, one only sees the grace and beauty of the draping."
"True; taste will go a long way," assented Mopsy, who had been trying for the last ten years to make taste—that is to say a careful study of the west-end shop-windows—do duty for cash.
"Then you find Mrs. Tregonell changed since your last visit?" inquired de Cazalet, bent upon learning all he could.
"Remarkably. She is so much livelier—she seems so much more anxious to please. It is a change altogether for the better. She seems gayer—brighter—happier."
"Yes," thought the Baron, "she is in love. Only one magician works such wonders, and he is the oldest of the gods—the motive power of the universe."
The gong sounded, and they went off to lunch. At the foot of the stairs they met Christabel bringing down her boy. She was not so devoted to him as she had been last year, but there were occasions—like this wet morning, for instance—when she gave herself up to his society.
"Leo is going to eat his dinner with us," she said, smiling at the Baron, "if you will not think him a nuisance."
"On the contrary, I shall be charmed to improve his acquaintance. I hope he will let me sit next him."
"Thant," lisped Leo decisively. "Don't like oo."
"Oh, Leo, how rude."
"Don't reprove him," said the Baron. "It is a comfort to be reminded that for the first three or four years of our lives we all tell the truth. But I mean you to like me, Leo, all the same."
"I hate 'oo," said Leo, frankly—he always expressed himself in strong Saxon English—"but 'oo love my mamma."
This, in a shrill childish treble, was awkward for the rest of the party. Mrs. Fairfax Torrington gave an arch glance at Mr. FitzJesse. Dopsy reddened, and exploded in a little spluttering laugh behind her napkin. Christabel looked divinely unconscious, smiling down at her boy, whose chair had been placed at the corner of the table close to his mother.
"It is a poet's privilege to worship the beautiful, Leo," said the Baron, with a self-satisfied smirk. "The old troubadour's right of allegiance to the loveliest—as old as chivalry."
"And as disreputable," said FitzJesse. "If I had been one of the knights of old, and had found a troubadour sneaking about my premises, that troubadour's head should have been through his guitar before he knew where he was—or he should have discovered that my idea of a common chord was a halter. But in our present age of ultra-refinement the social troubadour is a gentleman, and the worship of beauty one of the higher forms of culture."
The Baron looked at the journalist suspiciously. Bold as he was of speech and bearing, he never ventured to cross swords with Mr. FitzJesse. He was too much afraid of seeing an article upon his Jersey antecedents or his married life in leaded type in theSling.
Happily, Mr. Tregonell was not at luncheon upon this particular occasion. He had gone out shooting with Jack Vandeleur and little Monty. It was supposed to be a great year for woodcock, and the Squire and his friends had been after the birds in every direction, except St. Nectan's Kieve. He had refused to go there, although it was a tradition that the place was a favourite resort of the birds.
"Why don't you shoot, Mrs. Tregonell?" asked Mrs. Torrington; "it is just the one thing that makes life worth living in a country like this, where there is no great scope for hunting."
"I should like roaming about the hills, but I could never bring myself to hit a bird," answered Christabel. "I am too fond of the feathered race. I don't know why or what it is, but there is something in a bird which appeals intensely to one's pity. I have been more sorry than I can say for a dying sparrow; and I can never teach myself to remember that birds are such wretchedly cruel and unprincipled creatures in their dealings with one another that they really deserve very little compassion from man."
"Except that man has the responsibility of knowing better," said Mr. FitzJesse. "That infernal cruelty of the animal creation is one of the problems that must perplex the gentle optimist who sums up his religion in a phrase of Pope's, and avows that whatever is, is right. Who, looking at the meek meditative countenance of a Jersey cow, those large stag-like eyes—Juno's eyes—would believe that Mrs. Cow is capable of trampling a sick sister to death—nay, would look upon the operation as a matter of course—a thing to be done for the good of society."
"Is there not a little moral trampling done by stag-eyed creatures of a higher grade?" asked Mrs. Torrington. "Let a woman once fall down in the mud, and there are plenty of her own sex ready to grind her into the mire. Cows have a coarser, more practical way of treating their fallen sisters, but the principle is the same, don't you know."
"I have always found man the more malignant animal," said FitzJesse. "At her worst a woman generally has a motive for the evil she does—some wrong to avenge—some petty slight to retaliate. A man stabs for the mere pleasure of stabbing. With him slander is one of the fine arts. Depend upon it your Crabtree is a more malevolent creature than Mrs. Candour—and the Candours would not kill reputations if the Crabtrees did not admire and applaud the slaughter. For my own part I believe that if there were no men in the world, women would be almost kind to each other."
The Baron did not enter into this discussion. He had no taste for any subject out of his own line, which was art and beauty. With character or morals he had nothing to do. He did not even pretend to listen to the discourse of the others, but amused himself with petting Leo, who sturdily repulsed his endearments. When he spoke it was to reply to Christabel's last remark.
"If you are fonder of roaming on the hills than of shooting, Mrs. Tregonell, why should we not organize a rambling party? It is not too late for a picnic. Let us hold ourselves ready for the first bright day—perhaps, after this deluge, we shall have fine weather to-morrow—and organize a pilgrimage to Tintagel, with all the freedom of pedestrians, who can choose their own company, and are not obliged to sit opposite the person they least care about in the imprisonment of a barouche or a wagonette. Walking picnics are the only picnics worth having. You are a good walker, I know, Mrs. Tregonell; and you, Mrs. Torrington, you can walk I have no doubt."
The widow smiled and nodded. "Oh, yes, I am good for half-a-dozen miles, or so," she said, wondering whether she possessed a pair of boots in which she could walk, most of her boots being made rather with a view to exhibition on a fender-stool or on the step of a carriage than to locomotion. "But I think as I am not quite so young as I was twenty years ago, I had better follow you in the pony-carriage."
"Pony-carriage, me no pony-carriages," exclaimed de Cazalet. "Ours is to be a walking picnic and nothing else. If you like to meet us as we come home you can do so—but none but pedestrians shall drink our champagne or eat our salad—that salad which I shall have the honour to make for you with my own hands, Mrs. Tregonell."
Jessie Bridgeman looked at Christabel to see if any painful memory—any thought of that other picnic at Tintagel when Angus Hamleigh was still a stranger, and the world seemed made for gladness and laughter, would disturb her smiling serenity. But there was no trace of mournful recollection in that bright beaming face which was turned in all graciousness towards the Baron, who sat caressing Leo's curls, while the boy wriggled his plump shoulders half out of his black velvet frock in palpable disgust at the caress.
"Oh! it will be too lovely—too utterly ouftish," exclaimed Dopsy, who had lately acquired this last flower of speech—a word which might be made to mean almost anything, from the motive power which impels a billiard cue to the money that pays the player's losses at pool—a word which is a substantive or adjective according to the speaker's pleasure.
"I suppose we shall be allowed to join you," said Mopsy, "we are splendid walkers."
"Of course—entry open to all weights and ages, with Mrs. Tregonell's permission."
"Let it be your picnic, Baron, since it is your idea," said Christabel; "my housekeeper shall take your orders about the luncheon, and we will all consider ourselves your guests."
"I shall expire if I am left out in the cold," said Mrs. Torrington. "You really must allow age the privilege of a pony-carriage. That delightful cob of Mrs. Tregonell's understands me perfectly."
"Well, on second thoughts, you shall have the carriage," said de Cazalet, graciously. "The provisions can't walk. It shall be your privilege to bring them. We will have no servants. Mr. Faddie, Mr. FitzJesse, and I will do all the fetching and carrying, cork-drawing and salad-making."
When the shooting party came home to afternoon tea, Dopsy and Mopsy were both full of the picnic. The sun was sinking in lurid splendour; there was every chance of a fine day to-morrow. De Cazalet had interviewed the housekeeper, and ordered luncheon. Mopsy went about among the men like a recruiting sergeant, telling them of the picnic, and begging them to join in that festivity.
"It will be wretched for Dopsy and I"—her grammar was weak, and she had a fixed idea that "I" was a genteeler pronoun than "me,"—"if you don't all come," she said to Colonel Blathwayt. "Of course the Baron will devote himself exclusively to Mrs. Tregonell. FitzJesse will go in the pony-trap with Mrs. Torrington, and they'll have vivisected everybody they know before they get there. And I can't get on a little bit with Mr. Faddie, though he is awfully nice. I feel that if I were to let him talk to me an hour at a stretch I should be obliged to go and join some Protestant sisterhood and wear thick boots and too fearful bonnets for the rest of my days."
"And what would society do without Mopsy Vandeleur?" asked the Colonel, smiling at her. "I should enjoy a ramble with you above all things, but a picnic is such a confoundedly infantine business. I always feel a hundred years old when I attempt to be gay and frisky before dusk—feel as if I had been dead and come back to life again, as some of the savage tribes believe. However, if it will really please you, I'll give up the birds to-morrow, and join your sports."
"How sweet of you," exclaimed Mopsy, with a thrilling look from under her painted lashes. "The whole thing would be ghastly without you."
"What's the row?" asked Leonard, turning his head upon the cushion of the easy chair in which he lolled at full length, to look up at the speakers as they stood a little way behind him.
The master of Mount Royal was sitting by one fireplace, with a table and tea-tray all to himself; while Mrs. Tregonell and her circle were grouped about the hearth at the opposite end of the hall. Jack Vandeleur and little Monty stood in front of the fire near their host, faithful adherents to the friend who fed them; but all the rest of the party clustered round Christabel.
Mopsy told Mr. Tregonell all about the intended picnic.
"It is to be the Baron's affair," she said, gaily. "He organized it, and he is to play the host. There are to be no carriages—except the pony-trap for Mrs. Torrington, who pinches her feet and her waist to a degree that makes locomotion impossible. We are all to walk except her. And I believe we are to have tea at the farm by St. Piran's well—a simple farmhouse tea in some dear old whitewashed room with a huge fireplace, hams and onions and things hanging from the rafters. Isn't it a lovely idea?"
"Very," grumbled Leonard; "but I should say you could have your tea a great deal more comfortably here, without being under an obligation to the farm people."
"Oh, but we have our tea here every afternoon," said Mopsy. "Think of the novelty of the thing."
"No doubt. And this picnic is the Baron's idea?"
"His and Mrs. Tregonell's, they planned it all between them. And they are going to get up private theatricals for your birthday."
"How kind," growled Leonard, scowling at his teacup.
"Isn't it sweet of them? They are going to play 'Delicate Ground.' He is to be Citizen Sangfroid and she Pauline—the husband and wife who quarrel and pretend to separate and are desperately fond of each other all the time, don't you know? It's a powder piece."
"A what?"
"A play in which the people wear powdered wigs and patches, and all that kind of thing. How dense you are."
"I was born so, I believe. And in this powder piece Mrs. Tregonell and Baron de Cazalet are to be husband and wife, and quarrel and make friends again—eh?"
"Yes. The reconciliation is awfully fetching. But you are not jealous, are you?"
"Jealous? Not the least bit."
"That's so nice of you; and you will come to our picnic, to-morrow?"
"I think not."
"Why not?"
"Because the woodcock season is a short one, and I want to make the best use of my time."
"What a barbarian, to prefer any sport to our society," exclaimed Mopsy coquettishly. "For my part, I hate the very name of woodcock."
"Why?" asked Leonard, looking at her keenly, with his dark, bright eyes; eyes which had that hard, glassy brightness that has always a cruel look.
"Because it reminds me of that dreadful day last year when poor Mr. Hamleigh was killed. If he had not gone out woodcock shooting he would not have been killed."
"No; a man's death generally hinges upon something," answered Leonard, with a chilling sneer; "no effect without a cause. But I don't think you need waste your lamentations upon Mr. Hamleigh; he did not treat your sister particularly well."
Mopsy sighed, and was thoughtful for a moment or two. Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu had strolled off to change their clothes. The master of the house and Miss Vandeleur were alone at their end of the old hall. Ripples of silvery laughter, and the sound of mirthful voices came from the group about the other fireplace, where the blaze of piled-up logs went roaring up the wide windy chimney, making the most magical changeful light in which beauty or its opposite can be seen.
"No, he hardly acted fairly to poor Dopsy: he led her on, don't you know, and we both thought he meant to propose. It would have been such a splendid match for her—and I could have stayed with them sometimes."
"Of course you could. Sometimes in your case would have meant all the year round."
"And he was so fascinating, so handsome, ill as he looked, poor darling," sighed Mopsy. "I know Dop hadn't one mercenary feeling about him. It was a genuine case of spoons—she would have died for him."
"If he had wished it; but men have not yet gone in for collecting corpses," sneered Leonard. "However poor the specimen of your sex may be, they prefer the living subject—even the surgeons are all coming round to that."
"Don't be nasty," protested Mopsy. "I only meant to say that Dopsy really adored Angus Hamleigh for his own sake. I know how kindly you felt upon the subject—and that you wanted it to be a match."
"Yes, I did my best," answered Leonard. "I brought him here, and gave you both your chance."
"And Jack said that you spoke very sharply to Mr. Hamleigh that last night."
"Yes, I gave him a piece of my mind. I told him that he had no right to come into my house and play fast and loose with my friend's sister."
"How did he take it?"
"Pretty quietly."
"You did not quarrel with him?"
"No, it could hardly be called a quarrel. We were both too reasonable—understood each other too thoroughly," answered Leonard, as he got up and went off to his dressing-room, leaving Mopsy sorely perplexed by an indescribable something in his tone and manner. Surely there must be some fatal meaning in that dark evil smile, which changed to so black a frown, and that deep sigh which seemed wrung from the very heart of the man: a man whom Mopsy had hitherto believed to be somewhat poorly furnished with that organ, taken in its poetical significance as a thing that throbs with love and pity.
Alone in his dressing-room the lord of the Manor sat down in front of the fire with his boots on the hob, to muse upon the incongruity of his present position in his own house. A year ago he had ruled supreme, sovereign master of the domestic circle, obeyed and ministered to in all humility by a lovely and pure-minded wife. Now he was a cipher in his own house, the husband of a woman who was almost as strange to him as if he had seen her face for the first time on his return from South America. This beautiful brilliant creature, who held him at arm's length, defied him openly with looks and tones in which his guilty soul recognized a terrible meaning—looks and tones which he dare not challenge—this woman who lived only for pleasure, fine dress, frivolity, who had given his house the free-and-easy air of a mess-room, or a club—could this be indeed the woman he had loved in her girlhood, the fair and simple-minded wife whom his mother had trained for him, teaching her all good things, withholding all knowledge of evil.
"I'm not going to stand it much longer," he said to himself, with an oath, as he kicked the logs about upon his fire, and then got up to dress for the feast at which he always felt himself just the one guest who was not wanted.
He had been at home three weeks—it seemed an age—an age of disillusion and discontent—and he had not yet sought any explanation with Christabel. Not yet had he dared to claim his right to be obeyed as a husband, to be treated as a friend and adviser. With a strange reluctance he put off the explanation from day to day, and in the meanwhile the aspect of life at Mount Royal was growing daily less agreeable to him. Could it be that this wife of his, whose purity and faith he had tried by the hardest test—the test of daily companionship with her first and only lover—was inclined to waver now—to play him false for so shallow a coxcomb, so tawdry a fine gentleman as Oliver de Cazalet. Not once, but many times within the past week he had asked himself that question. Could it be? He had heard strange stories—had known of queer cases of the falling away of good women from the path of virtue. He had heard of sober matrons—mothers of fair children, wives of many years—the Cornelias of their circle, staking home, husband, children, honour, good name, and troops of friends against the wild delirium of some new-born fancy, sudden, demoniac as the dance of death. The women who go wrong are not always the most likely women. It is not the trampled slave, the neglected and forlorn wife of a bad husband—but the pearl and treasure of a happy circle who takes the fatal plunge into the mire. The forlorn slave-wife stays in the dreary home and nurses her children, battles with her husband's creditors, consoles herself with church going and many prayers, fondly hoping for a future day in which Tom will find out that she is fairer and dearer than any of his false goddesses, and come home repentant to the domestic hearth: while the good husband's idol, sated with legitimate worship, gives herself up all at once to the intoxication of unholy incense, and topples off her shrine. Leonard Tregonell knew that the world was full of such psychological mysteries; and yet he could hardly bring himself to believe that Christabel was of the stuff that makes false wives, or that she could be won by such a third-rate Don Juan as the Baron de Cazalet.
The dinner was a little noisier and gayer than usual to-night. Every one talked, laughed, told anecdotes, let off puns, more or less atrocious—except the host, who sat in his place an image of gloom. Happily Mrs. St. Aubyn was one of those stout, healthy, contented people who enjoy their dinner, and only talk about as much as is required for the assistance of digestion. She told prosy stories about her pigs and poultry—which were altogether superior, intellectually and physically, to other people's pigs and poultry—and only paused once or twice to exclaim, "You are looking awfully tired, Mr. Tregonell. You must have overdone it to-day. Don't you take curaçoa? I always do after ice pudding. It's so comforting. Do you know at the last dinner I was at before I came here the curaçoa was ginger brandy. Wasn't that horrid? People ought not to do such things."
Leonard suggested in a bored voice that this might have been the butler's mistake.
"I don't think so. I believe it was actual meanness—but I shall never take liqueur atthathouse again," said Mrs. St. Aubyn, in an injured tone.
"Are you going to this picnic to-morrow?"
"I think not. I'm afraid the walk would be too much for me—and I am not fond enough of Mrs. Torrington to enjoy two hours'tête-à-têtein a pony-carriage. My girls will go, of course. And I suppose you will be there," added Mrs. St. Aubyn, with intention.
"No, Vandeleur, Monty, and I are going shooting."
"Well, if I were in your shoes and had such a pretty wife I should not leave her to go picnicking about the world with such an attractive man as the Baron."
Leonard gave an uneasy little laugh, meant to convey the idea of supreme security.
"I'm not jealous of de Cazalet," he said. "Surely you don't call him an attractive man."
"Dangerously attractive," replied Mrs. St. Aubyn, gazing at the distant Baron, whose florid good looks were asserting themselves at the further end of the table, on Christabel's left hand—she had Mr. St. Aubyn's grey, contented face, glistening with dinner, on her right. "He is just the kind of man I should have fallen in love with when I was your wife's age."
"Really," exclaimed Leonard, incredulously. "But I suppose after you married St. Aubyn, you left off falling in love."
"Of course. I did not put myself in the way of temptation. I should never have encouraged such a man—handsome, accomplished, unscrupulous—as Baron de Cazalet."
"I don't think his good looks or his unscrupulousness will make any difference to my wife," said Leonard. "She knows how to take care of herself."
"No doubt. But that does not release you from the duty of taking care. You had better go to the picnic."
"My dear Mrs. St. Aubyn, if I were to go now, after what you have just said to me, you might suppose I was jealous of de Cazalet; and that is just the one supposition I could not stand," answered Leonard. "It would take a dozen such fascinating men to shake my confidence in my wife: she is not an acquaintance of yesterday, remember: I have known her all my life."
Mrs. St. Aubyn sighed and shook her head. She was one of those stupid well-meaning women whose mission in life is to make other people uncomfortable—with the best intentions. She kept a steady look-out for the approaching misfortunes of her friends. She was the first to tell an anxious mother that her youngest boy was sickening for scarlet fever, or that her eldest girl looked consumptive. She prophesied rheumatics and bronchitis to incautious people who went out in wet weather—she held it as a fixed belief that all her friends' houses were damp. It was in vain that vexed householders protested against such a suspicion, and held forth upon the superiority of their drainage, the felt under their tiles, their air bricks, and ventilators. "My dear, your house is damp," she would reply conclusively. "What it would be if you hadnottaken those precautions I shudder to imagine—but I only know that I get the shivers every time I sit in your drawing-room."
To-night she was somewhat offended with Mr. Tregonell that he refused to take alarm at her friendly warning. She had made up her mind that it was her duty to speak. She had told the girls so in the course of their afternoon constitutional, a private family walk.
"If things get any worse I shall take you away," she said, as they trudged along the lane in their waterproofs, caring very little for a soft drizzling rain, which was supposed to be good for their complexions.
"Don't, mother," said Emily. "Clara and I are having such a jolly time. Mrs. Tregonell is straight enough, I'm sure. She does flirt outrageously with the Baron, I admit; but an open flirtation of that kind seldom means mischief; and Mr. Tregonell is such a heavy clod-hopping fellow: his wife may be forgiven for flirting a little."
"Mrs. Tregonell flirts more than a little," replied Mrs. St. Aubyn. "All I can say is, I don't like it, and I don't think it's a proper spectacle for girls."
"Then you'd better send us back to the nursery, mother, or shut us up in a convent," retorted the younger of the damsels. "If you don't want us to see young married women flirt, you must keep us very close indeed."
"If you feel uneasy about your Cochin Chinas, mother, you can go home, and leave us to follow with the pater," said Emily. "I've set my heart upon stopping till after Mr. Tregonell's birthday, the 14th of November, for the theatricals will be fine fun. They talk of "High Life below Stairs" for us girls, after "Delicate Ground;" and I think we shall be able to persuade Mrs. Tregonell to wind up with a dance. What is the use of people having fine rooms if they don't know how to use them?"
"Mrs. Tregonell seems ready for anything," sighed the matron. "I never saw such a change in any one. Do you remember how quiet she was the summer before last, when we were here for a few days?"