There was a good deal of running into each other's rooms before dressing for dinner among the ladies at Montfitchet, that night. They had, they felt, to exchange views about the new bride! And the opinions were favorable, on the whole; unanimous, as to her beauty and magnetic attraction; divided, as to her character; but fiercely and venomously antagonistic in one mean, little heart.
Emily and Mary and Lady Betty Burns clustered together in the latter's room. "We think she is perfectly lovely, Betty," Emily said, "but we don't know her as yet. She is rather stiff, and frightens us just a little. Perhaps she is shy. What do you think?"
"She looks just like the heroines in some of the books that Mamma does not let me read and I am obliged to take up to bed with me. Don't you know, Mary—especially the one I lent you—deeply, mysteriously tragic. You remember the one who killed her husband and then went off with the Italian Count; and then with some one else. It was frightfully exciting."
"Good gracious! Betty," exclaimed Emily. "How dreadful! You don't think our sister-in-law looks like that?"
"I really don't know," said Lady Betty, who was nineteen and wrote lurid melodramas—to the waste of much paper and the despair of her mother. "I don't know. I made one of my heroines in my last play have just those passionate eyes—and she stabbed the villain in the second act!"
"Yes, but," said Mary, who felt she must defend Tristram's wife, "Zara isn't in a play and there is no villain, and—why, Betty, no one has tragedies in real life!"
Lady Betty tossed her flaxen head, while she announced a prophecy, with an air of deep wisdom which positively frightened the other two girls.
"You mark my words, both of you, Emily and Mary—they will have some tragedy before the year is out! And I shall put it all in my next play."
And with this fearful threat ringing in their ears Tristram's two sisters walked in a scared fashion to their room.
"Betty is wonderful, isn't she, darling?" Mary said. "But, Em, you don't think there is any truth in it, do you? Mother would be so horribly shocked if there was anything like one of Betty's plays in the family, wouldn't she? And Tristram would never allow it either!"
"Of course not, you goosie," answered Emily. "But Betty is right in one way—Zara has got a mysterious face, and—and, Mary—Tristram seemed somehow changed, I thought; rather sarcastic once or twice."
And then their maid came in and put a stop to their confidences.
"She is the most wonderful person I have ever met, Ethelrida," Lady Anningford was just then saying, as she and the hostess stopped at her door and let Lady Thornby and the young Countess of Melton go on.—"She is wickedly beautiful and attractive, and there is something odd about her, too, and it touches me; and I don't believe she is really wicked a bit. Her eyes are like storm clouds. I have heard her first husband was a brute. I can't think who told me but it came from some one at one of the Embassies."
"We don't know much about her, any of us," Lady Ethelrida said, "but Aunt Jane asked us all in the beginning to trust Tristram's judgment: he is awfully proud, you know. And besides, her uncle, Mr. Markrute, is so nice. But, Anne—" and Lady Ethelrida paused.
"Well, what, dear? Tristram is awfully in love with her, isn't he?" Lady Anningford asked.
"Yes," said Lady Ethelrida, "but, Anne, do you really think Tristram looks happy? I thought when he was not speaking his face seemed rather sad."
"The Crow came down in the train with them," Lady Anningford announced. "I'll hear the whole exact impression of them after dinner and tell you. The Crow is always right."
"She is so very attractive, I am sure, to every man who sees her, Anne. I hope Lord Elterton won't begin and make Tristram jealous. I wish I had not asked him. And then there is Laura—It was awful taste, I think, her insisting upon coming, don't you?—Anne, if she seems as if she were going to be horrid you will help me to protect Zara, won't you?—And now we really must dress."
In another room Mrs. Harcourt was chatting with her sister and Lady Highford.
"She is perfectly lovely, Laura," Miss Opie said. "Her hair must reach down to the ground and looks as if it would not come off, and her skin isn't even powdered—I examined it, on purpose, in a side light. And those eyes! Je-hoshaphat! as Jimmy Danvers says."
"Poor, darling Tristram!" Laura sighed sentimentally while she inwardly registered her intense dislike of "the Opie girl." "He looks melancholy enough—for a bridegroom; don't you think so, Kate?" and she lowered her eyes, with a glance of would-be meaning, as though she could say more, if she wished. "But no wonder, poor dear boy! He loathed the marriage; it was so fearfully sudden. I suppose the Markrute man had got him in his power."
"You don't say so!" Mrs. Harcourt gasped. She was a much simpler person than her sister. "Jimmy assured me that Lord Tancred was violently in love with her, and that was it."
"Jimmy always was a fool," Lady Highford said, and as they went on to their rooms Lily Opie whispered,
"Kate, Laura Highford is an odious cat, and I don't believe a word about Mr. Markrute and the getting Lord Tancred into his power. That is only to make a salve for herself. The Duke would never have Mr. Markrute here if there was anything fishy about him. Why, ducky, you know it is the only house left in England, almost, where they have only US!"
Tristram was ready for dinner in good time but he hesitated about knocking at his wife's door. If she did not let him know she was ready he would send Higgins to ask for her maid.
His eyes were shining with the pride he felt in her. She had indeed come up to the scratch. He had not believed it possible that she could have been so gracious, and he had not even guessed that she would condescend to speak so much. And all his old friends had been so awfully nice about her and honestly admiring; except Arthur Elterton—hehad admired rather too much!
And then this exaltation somewhat died down. It was after all but a very poor, outside show, when, in reality, he could not even knock at her door!
He wished now he had never let his pride hurl forth that ultimatum on the wedding night, because he would have to stick to it! He could not make the slightest advance, and it did not look as if she meant to do so. Tristram in an ordinary case when his deep feelings were not concerned would have known how to display a thousand little tricks for the allurement of a woman, would have known exactly how to cajole her, to give her a flower, and hesitate when he spoke her name—and a number of useful things—but he was too terribly in earnest to be anything but a real, natural man; that is, hurt from her coldness and diffident of himself, and iron-bound with pride.
And Zara at the other side of the door felt almost happy. It was the first evening in her life she had ever dressed without some heavy burden of care. Her self-protective, watchful instincts could rest for a while; these new relations were truly, not only seemingly, so kind. The only person she immediately and instinctively disliked was Lady Highford who had gushed and said one or two bitter-sweet things which she had not clearly nor literally understood, but which, she felt, were meant to be hostile.
And her husband, Tristram! It was plain to be seen every one loved him—from the old Duke, to the old setter by the fire. And how was it possible for them all to love a man, when—and then her thoughts unconsciously turned toif—he were capable of so base a thing as his marriage with her had been? Was it possible there could be any mistake? On the first opportunity she would question her uncle; and although she knew that gentleman would only tell her exactly as much as he wished her to know, that much would be the truth.
Dinner was to be at half-past eight. She ought to be punctual, she knew; but it was all so wonderful, and refined, and old-world, in her charming room, she felt inclined to dawdle and look around.
It was a room as big as her mother's had been, in the gloomy castle near Prague, but it was full of cozy touches—beyond the great gilt state bed, which she admired immensely—and with which she instinctively felt only the English—and only such English—know how to endow their apartments.
Then she roused herself. Shemustdress. Fortunately her hair did not take any time to twist up.
"Miladiis a dream!" Henriette exclaimed when at last she was ready. "Milorwill be proud!"
And he was.
She sent Henriette to knock at his door—his door in the passage—not the one between their rooms!—just on the stroke of half-past eight. He was at that moment going to send Higgins on a like errand! and his sense of humor at the grotesqueness of the situation made him laugh a bitter laugh.
The two servants as the messengers!—when he ought to have been in there himself, helping to fix on her jewels, and playing with her hair, and perhaps kissing exquisite bits of her shoulders when the maid was not looking, or fastening her dress!
Well, the whole thing was a ghastly farce that must be got through; he would take up politics, and be a wonderful landlord to the people at Wrayth; and somehow, he would get through with it, and no one should ever know, from him, of his awful mistake.
He hardly allowed himself to tell her she looked very beautiful as they walked along the great corridor. She was all in deep sapphire-blue gauze, with no jewels on at all but the Duke's splendid brooch.
That was exquisite of her, he appreciated that fine touch. Indeed, he appreciated everything about her—if she had known.
People were always more or less on time in this house, and after the silent hush of admiration caused by the bride's entrance they all began talking and laughing, and none but Lady Highford and another woman were late.
And as Zara walked along the white drawing-room, on the old Duke's arm, she felt that somehow she had got back to a familiar atmosphere, where she was at rest after long years of strife.
Lady Ethelrida had gone in with the bridegroom—to-night everything was done with strict etiquette—and on her left hand she had placed the bride's uncle. The new relations were to receive every honor, it seemed. And Francis Markrute, as he looked round the table, with the perfection of its taste, and saw how everything was going on beautifully, felt he had been justified in his schemes.
Lady Anningford sat beyond Tristram, and often these two talked, so Lady Ethelrida had plenty of time, without neglecting him, to converse with her other interesting guest.
"I am so glad you like our old home, Mr. Markrute," she said. "To-morrow I will show you a number of my favorite haunts. It seems sad, does it not, as so many people assert, that the times are trending to take all these dear, old things away from us, and divide them up?"
"It will be a very bad day for England when that time comes," the financier said. "If only the people could study evolution and the meaning of things there would not be any of this nonsensical class hatred. The immutable law is that no one long retains any position unless he, or she, is suitable for it. Nothing endures that is not harmonious. It is because England is now out of harmony, that this seething is going on. You and your race have been fitted for what you have held for hundreds of years; that is why you have stayed: and your influence, and such as you, have made England great."
"Then how do you account for the whole thing being now out of joint?" Lady Ethelrida asked. "As my father and I and, as far as I know, numbers of us have remained just the same, and have tried as well as we can to do our duty to every one."
"Have you ever studied the Laws of Lycurgus, Lady Ethelrida?" he asked. And she shook her sleek, fine head. "Well, they are worth glancing at, when you have time," he went on. "An immense value was placed upon discipline, and as long as it lasted in its iron simplicity the Spartans were the wonder of the then known world. But after their conquest of Athens, when luxury poured in and every general wanted something for himself and forgot the good of the state, then their discipline went to pieces, and, so—the whole thing. And that, applied in a modern way, is what is happening to England. All classes are forgetting their discipline, and, without fitting themselves for what they aspire to, they are trying to snatch from some other class. And the whole thing is rotten with mawkish sentimentality, and false prudery, and abeyance of common sense."
"Yes," said Lady Ethelrida, much interested.
"Lycurgus went to the root of things," the financier continued, "and made the people morally and physically healthy, and ruthlessly expunged the unfit—not like our modern nonsense, which encourages science to keep, among the prospective parents for the future generation, all the most diseased. Moral and physical balance and proportion were the ideas of the Spartans. They would not have even been allowed to compete in the games, if they were misshapen. And the analogy is, no one unfitted for a part ought to aspire to it, for the public good. Any one has a right to scream, if he does not obtain it when he is fitted for it."
"Yes, I see," said Lady Ethelrida. "Then what do you mean when you say every class is trying to snatch something from some other class? Do you mean from the class above it? Or what? Because unless we, for instance—technically speaking—snatched from the King from whom could we snatch?"
The financier smiled.
"I said purposely, 'some other class,' instead of 'some class above it,' for this reason: it is because a certain and ever-increasing number of your class, if I may say so, are snatching—not, indeed, from the King—but from all classesbeneath them, manners and morals, and absence of tenue, and absence of pride—things for which their class was not fitted. They had their own vices formerly, which only hurt each individual and not the order, as a stain will spoil the look of a bit of machinery but will not upset its working powers like a piece of grit. What they put into the machine now is grit. And the middle classes are snatching what they think is gentility, and ridiculous pretenses to birth and breeding; and the lower classes are snatching everything they can get from the pitiful fall of the other two, and shouting that all men are equal, when, if you come down to the practical thing, the foreman of some ironworks, say—where the opinions were purely socialistic, in the abstract—would give the last joined stoker a sound trouncing for aspirations in his actual work above his capabilities; because he would know that if the stoker were then made foreman the machinery could not work. The stokers of life should first fit themselves to be foremen before they shout."
Then, as Lady Ethelrida looked very grave, and Francis Markrute was really a whimsical person, and seldom talked so seriously to women, he went on, smiling,
"The only really perfect governments in the world are those of the Bees, and Ants, because they are both ruled with ruthless discipline and no sentiment, and every individual knows his place!"
"I read once, somewhere, that it has been discovered," said Lady Ethelrida gently—she never laid down the law—"that the reason why the wonderful Greeks came to an end was not really because their system of government was not a good one, but because the mosquitoes came and gave them malaria, and enervated them and made them feeble, and so they could not stand against the stronger peoples of the North. Perhaps," she went on, "England has got some moral malarial mosquitoes and the scientists have not yet discovered the proper means for their annihilation."
Here Tristram who overheard this interrupted:
"And it would not be difficult to give the noisome insects their English names, would it, Francis? Some of them are in the cabinet."
And the three laughed. But Lady Ethelrida wanted to hear something more from her left-hand neighbor, so she said,
"Then the inference to be drawn from what you have said is—we should aim at making conditions so that it is possible for every individual to have the chance to make himself practically—not theoretically—fit for anything his soul aspires to. Is that it?"
"Absolutely in a nutshell, dear lady," Francis Markrute said, and for a minute he looked into her eyes with such respectful, intense admiration that Lady Ethelrida looked away.
In the white drawing-room, afterwards, Lady Highford was particularly gushing to the new bride. She came with a group of other women to surround her, and was so playful and charming to all her friends! She must be allowed to sit next to Zara, because, she said, "Your husband and I are such very dear, old friends. And how lovely it is to think that now he will be able to reopen Wrayth! Dear Lady Tancred is so glad," she purred.
Zara just looked at her politely. What a done-up ferret woman! she thought. She had met many of her tribe. At the rooms at Monte Carlo, and in another class and another race, they were the kind who played in the smallest stakes themselves, and often snatched the other people's money.
"I have never heard my husband speak of you," she said presently, when she had silently borne a good deal of vitriolic gush. "You have perhaps been out of England for some time?"
And Lady Anningford whispered to Ethelrida, "We need not worry to be ready to defend her, pet! She can hold her own!" So they moved on to the group of the girls.
But at the end of their conversation, though Zara had used her method of silence in a considerable degree and made it as difficult as she could for Lady Highford, still, that artist in petty spite had been able to leave behind her some rankling stings. She was a mistress of innuendo. So that when the men came in, and Tristram, from the sense of "not funking things" which was in him, deliberately found Laura and sat down upon a distant sofa with her, Zara suddenly felt some unpleasant feeling about her heart. She found that she desired to watch them, and that, in spite of what any one said to her, her attention wandered back to the distant sofa in some unconscious speculation and unrest.
And Laura was being exceedingly clever. She scented with the cunning of her species that Tristram was really unhappy, whether he was in love with his hatefully beautiful wife or not. Now was her chance; not by reproaches, but by sympathy, and, if possible, by planting some venom towards his wife in his heart.
"Tristram, dear boy, why did you not tell me? Did you not know I would have been delighted at anything—if it pleased you?" And she looked down, and sighed. "I always made it my pleasure to understand you, and to promote whatever seemed for your good."
And in his astonishment at this attitude Tristram forgot to recall the constant scenes and reproaches, and the paltry little selfishnesses of which he had been the victim during the year their—friendship—had lasted. He felt somehow soothed. Here was some one who was devoted to him, even if his wife were not!
"You are a dear, Laura," he said.
"And now you must tell me if you are really happy—Tristram." She lingered over his name. "She is so lovely—your wife—but looks very cold. And I know, dear" (another hesitation over the word), "I know you don't like women to be cold."
"We will not discuss my wife," he said. "Tell me what you have been doing, Laura. Let me see, when did I see you last—in June?"
And the venom came to boiling-point in Laura's adder gland. He could not even remember when he had said good-by to her! It was in July, after the Eton and Harrow match!
"Yes, in June," she said sadly, turning her eyes down. "And you might have told me, Tristram. It came as such a sudden shock. It made me seriously ill. You must have known, and were probably engaged—even then."
Tristram sat mute; for how could he announce the truth?
"Oh, don't let us talk of these things, Laura. Let us forget those old times and begin again—differently. You will be a dear friend to me always, I am sure. You always were—" and then he stopped abruptly. He felt this was too much lying! and he hated doing such things.
"Of course I will, dar—Tristram," Laura said, and appeared much moved.
And from where Zara was trying to talk to the Duke she saw the woman shiver and look down provokingly and her husband stretch his long limbs out; and a sudden, unknown sensation of blinding rage came over her, and she did not hear a syllable of the Duke's speech.
Meanwhile Lady Anningford had retired to a seat in a window with the Crow.
"Is it all right, Crow?" she asked, and one of his peculiarities was to understand her—as Lady Ethelrida understood the Duke—and and not ask "What?"
"Will be—some day—I expect—unless they get drowned in the current first."
"Isn't she mysterious, Crow? I am sure she has some tragic history. Have you heard anything?"
"Husband murdered by another man in a row at Monte Carlo."
"Over her?"
"I don't know for a fact, but I gather—not. You may be certain, Queen Anne, that when a woman is as quiet and haughty as Lady Tancred looks, and her manners are as cold and perfectly sure of herself as hers are, she has not done anything she is ashamed of, or regrets."
"Then what can be the cause of the coolness between them? Look at Tristram now! I think it is horrid of him—sitting like that talking to Laura, don't you?"
"A viper, Laura," growled the Crow. "She's trying to get him again in the rebound."
"I cannot imagine why women cannot leave other women's husbands alone. They are hateful creatures, most of them."
"Natural instinct of the chase," said Colonel Lowerby.
But Lady Anningford flashed.
"You are a cynic, Crow."
"And you will really show me your favorite haunts to-morrow, Lady Ethelrida?" Francis Markrute was saying to his hostess. He had contrived insidiously to detach her conversation from a group to himself, and drew her unconsciously towards a seat where they would be uninterrupted. "One judges so of people by their tastes in haunts."
Lady Ethelrida never spoke of herself as a rule. She was not in the habit of getting into those—abstract to begin with, and personal to go on with—thrilling conversations with men, which most of the modern young women delight in, and which were the peculiar joy of Lily Opie.
It was because for some unacknowledged reason the financier personally pleased her that she now drifted where he wished.
"Mine are very simple, I fear, nothing for you to investigate," she said gently.
"So I should have thought—" and he again as he had done at dinner permitted himself to look into her eyes, and going on after an imperceptible pause he said softly, "simple, and pure, and sweet ...I always think of you, Lady Ethelrida, as the embodiment of sane things, balanced things—perfection." And his last word was almost a caress.
"I am most ordinary," she said; and she wondered why she was not angry with him, which she quite well could have been.
"It is only perfect balance in all things, if we but know it, which appeals to the sane eye," he went on, pulling himself up. "All weariness and satiety are caused in emotion; in pleasure in persons, places, or things; by the want of proportion in them somewhere which, like all simple things, is the hardest to find."
"Do you make theories about everything, Mr. Markrute?" she asked, and there was a smile in her eye.
"It is a wise thing to do sometimes; it keeps one from losing one's head."
Lady Ethelrida did not answer. She felt deliciously moved. She had often said to her friend, Anne Anningford, when they had been talking, that she did not like elderly men; she disliked to see their hair getting thin, and their chins getting fat, and their little habits and mannerisms growing pronounced. But here she found herself tremendously interested in one who, from all accounts, must be quite forty-five if not older, though it was true his brown colorless hair was excessively thick, and he was slight of build everywhere.
Now she felt she must turn the conversation to less personal things, so:
"Zara looks very lovely to-night," she said.
"Yes," replied the financier, with an air of detaching himself unwillingly from a thrilling topic, which was, indeed, what he felt. "Yes, and I hope some day they will be exceedingly happy."
"Why do you say some day?" Lady Ethelrida asked quickly. "I hoped they were happy now."
"Not very, I am afraid," he said. "But you remember our compact at dinner? They will be ideally so if they are left alone," and he glanced casually at Tristram and Laura.
Ethelrida looked, too, following his eyes.
"Yes," she said. "I wish I had not asked her—" and then she stopped abruptly, and grew a deep pink. She realized what the inference in her speech was, and if Mr. Markrute had never heard anything about the silly affair between her cousin and Lady Highford what would he think! What might she not have done!
"That won't matter," he said, with his fine smile. "It will be good for my niece. I meant something quite different."
But what he meant, he would not say.
And so the evening passed smoothly. The girls, and all the young men and the Crow, and Young Billy, and giddy, irresponsible people like that, had gathered at one end of the room; they were arranging some especial picnic for the morrow, as only some of them were going to shoot. And into their picnic plans they drew Zara, and barred Tristram out, with chaff.
"You are only an old, married man now, Tristram," they teased him with. "But Lady Tancred is young and comes with us!"
"And I will take care of her," announced Lord Elterton, looking sentimental—much to Tristram's disgust.
Ethelrida seemed to have collected a lot of rotters, he thought to himself, although it was the same party he had so enjoyed last year!
"Lady Thornby and Lady Melton and Lily Opie and her sister are going out to the shooters' lunch," Laura said sweetly. "As you are going to be deprived of your lovely wife, Tristram, I will come, too."
And so, finally good nights were said and the ladies retired to their rooms; and Zara could not think why she no longer found the atmosphere of hers peaceful and delightful, as she had done before she went down.
For the first time in her life she felt she hated a woman.
And Tristram, her husband, when he came up an hour or so later, wondered if she were asleep. Laura had been perfectly sweet, and he felt greatly soothed. Poor old Laura! He supposed she had really cared for him rather, and perhaps he had behaved casually, even though she had been impossible, in the past. But how had he ever even for five minutes fancied himself in love with her? Why, she looked quite old to-night! and he had never remarked before how thin and fluffed out her hair was. Women ought certainly to have beautifully thick hair.
And then all the pretenses of any healing of his aches fell from him, and he went and stood by the door that separated him from his loved one, and he stretched out his arms and said aloud, "Darling, if only you could understand how happy I would make you—if you would let me! But I can't even break down this hateful door as I want to, because of my vow."
And then for most of the rest of the night he tossed restlessly in his bed.
The next day did not look at all promising as regards the weather, but still the shooters, Tristram among them, started early for their sport. And after the merriest breakfast at little tables in the great dining-room the intending picnickers met in conclave to decide as to what they should do.
"It is perfectly sure to rain," Jimmy Danvers said. "There is no use attempting to go to Lynton Heights. Why don't we take the lunch to Montfitchet Tower and eat it in the big hall? There we wouldn't get wet."
"Quite right, Jimmy," agreed the Crow, who, with Lady Anningford, was to chaperon the young folk. "I'm all for not getting wet, with my rheumatic shoulder, and I hear you and Young Billy are a couple of firstclass cooks."
"Then," interrupted Lady Betty enthusiastically, "we can cook our own lunch! Oh, how delightful! We will make a fire in the big chimney. Uncle Crow, you are a pet!"
"I will go and give orders for everything at once," Lady Ethelrida agreed delightedly. "Jimmy, what a bright boy to have thought of the plan!"
And by twelve o'clock all was arranged. Now, it had been settled the night before that Mr. Markrute should shoot with the Duke and the rest of the more serious men; but early in the morning that astute financier had sent a note to His Grace's room, saying, if it were not putting out the guns dreadfully, he would crave to be excused as he was expecting a telegram of the gravest importance concerning the new Turkish loan, which he would be obliged to answer by a special letter, and he was uncertain at what time the wire would come. He was extremely sorry, but, he added whimsically, the Duke must remember he was only a poor, business-man!
At which His Grace had smiled, as he thought of his guest's vast millions, in comparison to his own.
Thus it was that just before twelve o'clock when the young party were ready to start for their picnic. Mr. Markrute, having written his letter and despatched it by express to London, chanced upon Lady Ethelrida in a place where he felt sure he should find her, and, expressing his surprise that they were not already gone, he begged to be allowed to come with them. He, too, was an excellent cook, he assured her, and would be really of use. And they all laughingly started.
And if she could have seen the important letter concerning the new Turkish loan, she would have found it contained a pressing reminder to Bumpus to send down that night certain exquisitely bound books!
Above all, the young ladies had demanded they should have no servants at their picnic—everything, even the fire, was to be made by themselves. Jimmy was to drive the donkey-cart, with Lady Betty, to take all the food. The only thing they permitted was that the pots and pans and the wood for the fire might be sent on.
And they were all so gay and looked so charming and suitably clad, in their rough, short, tweed frocks.
Zara, who walked demurely by Lord Elterton, had never seen anything of the sort. She felt like a strange, little child at its first party.
Before he had started in the morning Tristram had sent her a note (he could not stand the maid and valet as verbal messengers—it made him laugh too bitterly), it was just a few lines:
"You asked me to tell you anything special about our customs, so this is to say, just put on some thick, short, ordinary suit, and mind you have a pair of thick boots."
"You asked me to tell you anything special about our customs, so this is to say, just put on some thick, short, ordinary suit, and mind you have a pair of thick boots."
And it was signed "Tancred"—not "Tristram."
She gave a little quiver as she read it, and then asked and found his lordship had already gone down. She was to breakfast later with the non-shooters. She would not see him, then, for the entire day. And that odious woman with whom he was so friendly would have him all to herself!
These thoughts flashed into her mind before she was aware of it, and then she crushed them out—furious with herself. For of what possible matter could her husband's doings be to her? And yet, as she started, she found herself hoping it would rain, so that the five ladies who intended joining the guns in the farmhouse, for luncheon at two, would be unable to go. For just as she had come into the saloon where some of the party were writing letters that morning she had heard Lady Highford say to Mrs. Harcourt, in her high voice, "Yes, indeed, we mean to finish the discussion this afternoon after luncheon.—Dear Tristram! There is a long wait at the Fulton beat; we shall have plenty of time alone." And then she had turned round, and seemed confused at seeing her—Zara—and gushed more than the night before.
But she did not get the satisfaction of perceiving the bride turn a hair, though as Zara walked on to the end of the room she angrily found herself wondering who was this woman, and what had she been to Tristram? What was shenow?
Lord Elterton had already fallen in love. He was a truecavalierservant; he knew, like the financier, as a fine art, how to manipulate the temperaments of most women. He prided himself upon it. Indeed, he spent the greater part of his life doing nothing else. Exquisite gentleness and sympathy was his method. There were such heaps of rough, rude brutes about that one would always have a chance by being the contrast; and husbands, he reasoned, were nearly always brutes—after a while—in the opinion of their wives! He had hardly ever known this plan to fail with the most devoted wife. So although Lady Tancred had only been married a week he hoped to render her not quite indifferent to himself in some way. He had seen at once that she and Tristram were not on terms of passionate love, and there was something so piquant about flirting with a bride! He divided women as a band into about four divisions. The quite impossible, the recalcitrant, the timid, and the bold. For the impossible he did not waste powder and shot. For the recalcitrant he used insidious methods of tickling their fancies, as he would tickle a trout. For the timid he was tender and protective; and for the bold subtly indifferent: but always gentle and nice!
He was not sure yet in which of the four divisions he should have to place his new attraction—probably the second—but he frankly admitted he had never before had any experience with one of her type. Her strange eyes thrilled him: he felt, when she turned the deep slate, melting disks upon him, his heart went "down into his bloomin' boots," as Jimmy Danvers would have described the sensation. So he began with extreme gentleness and care.
"You have not been long in this country, Lady Tancred, have you? One can see it—you are so exquisitelychic. And how perfectly you speak English! Not the slightest accent. It is delicious. Did you learn it when very young?"
"My father was an Englishman," said Zara, disarmed from her usual chilling reserve by the sympathy in his voice. "I always spoke it until I was thirteen, and since then, too. It is a nice, honest language, I think."
"You speak numbers of others, probably?" Lord Elterton went on, admiringly.
"Yes, about four or five. It is very easy when one is moving in the countries, and certain languages are very much alike. Russian is the most difficult."
"How clever you are!"
"No, I am not a bit. But I have had time to read a good deal—" and then Zara stopped. It was so against her habit to give personal information to any one like this.
Lord Elterton saw the little check, and went on another tack. "I have been an idle fellow and am not at all learned," he said. "Tristram and I were at Eton together in the same house, and we were both dunces; but he did rather well at Oxford, and I went straight into the Guards."
Zara longed to ask about Tristram. She had not even heard before that he had been to Oxford! And it struck her suddenly how ridiculous the whole thing was. She had sold herself for a bargain; she had asked no questions of any one; she had intended to despise the whole family and remain entirely aloof; and now she found every one of her intentions being gradually upset. But as yet she did not admit for a second to herself that she was falling in love. It would be such a perfectly impossible thing to do in any case, when now he was absolutely indifferent to her and showed it in every way. It made the whole thing all the more revolting—to have pretended he loved her on that first night! Yes, with certain modifications of classes and races men were all perfectly untrustworthy, if not brutes, and a woman, if she could relax her vigilance, as regards the defense of her person and virtue, could not afford to unbend a fraction as to her emotions!
And all the time she was thinking this out she was silent, and Lord Elterton watched her, thrilled with the attraction of the unobtainable. He saw plainly she had forgotten his very presence, and, though piqued, he grew the more eager.
"I would love to know what you were thinking of," he said softly; and then with great care he pulled a bramble aside so that it should not touch her. They had turned into a lane beyond the kitchen garden and the park.
Zara started. She had, indeed, been far away!
"I was thinking—" she said, and then she paused for a suitable lie but none came, so she grew confused, and stopped, and hesitated, and then she blurted out, "I was thinking was it possible there could ever be any one whom one could believe?"
Lord Elterton looked at her. What a strange woman!
"Yes," he said simply, "you can believe me when I tell you I have never been so attracted by any one in my life."
"Oh! for that!" she answered contemptuously."Mon Dieu!how often I have heard of that!"
This was not what he had expected. There was no empty boast about the speech, as there would have been if Laura Highford had uttered it—she was fond of demonstrating her conquests and power in words. There was only a weariness as of something banal and tiring. He must be more careful.
"Yes, I quite understand," he said sympathetically. "You must be bored with the love of men."
"I have never seen any love of men. Do men know love?" she asked, not with any bitterness—only as a question of fact. What had Tristram been about? Lord Elterton thought. Here he had been married to this divine creature for a whole week, and she was plainly asking the question from her heart. And Tristram was no fool in a general way, he knew. There was some mystery here, but whatever it was there was the more chance for him! So he went on very tactfully, trying insidiously to soothe her, so that at last when they had arrived Zara had enjoyed her walk.
Montfitchet Tower was all that remained of the old castle destroyed by Cromwell's Ironsides. It was just one large, square room, a sort of great hall. It had stood roofless for many years and then been covered in by the old Duke's father, and contained a splendid stone chimney piece of colossal proportions. It had also been floored, and had the raised place still, where the family had eaten "above the salt." The rest of the old castle was a complete ruin, and at the Restoration the new one had been rebuilt about a mile further up the park.
Lady Ethelrida had collected several pieces of rough oak furniture to put into this great room which in height reached three stories up, and the supports of the mantelpieces of the upper floors could be seen on the blackened stone walls. It was here she gave her school treats and tenants' summer dances, because there was a great stretch of green, turfy lawn beyond, down to the river, where they could play their games.
And on a wet day it was an ideal picnic place.
A bright wood fire was already blazing on top of the ashes that for many years had never been cleared out, and a big jack swung in front of it—for appearance sake! What fun every one seemed to be having, Zara thought, as from an oak bench she watched them all busy as bees over their preparations for the repast. She had helped to make a salad, and now sat with the Crow, and surveyed the rest.
Jimmy Danvers had turned up his sleeves and was thoroughly in earnest over his part; and he and Young Billy had gathered some brown bracken, and put it sprouting from a ham, to represent, they said, the peacock. For, they explained, a banquet in a baronial hall had to have a peacock, as well as a boar's head, and an ox roasted whole!
And suddenly Zara thought of her last picnic, with Mimo and Mirko in the Neville Street attic, when the poor little one had worn the paper cap, and had taken such pleasure in the new rosy cups. And the Crow who was watching her closely, wondered why this gay scene should make the lovely bride look so pitifully sad. "HowMamanwould have loved all this!" she was thinking, "with her gay, tender soul, and her delight in make-believe and joyous picnics." And her father—he had known all these sorts of people; they were his own class, and yet he had come to live in the great, gloomy castle, out of his own land, and expected his exquisite, young wife to stay there alone, most of the time. The hideous cruelty of men!
And there was her Uncle Francis, in quite a new character!—helping Lady Ethelrida to lay the table, as happily as a boy. Would she herself ever be happy, she wondered, ever have a time free from some agonizing strain or care? And then, from sorrow her expression changed to one of strange slumberous resentment at fate.
"Queen Anne," said the Crow, as they sat down to luncheon, "there is some tragedy hanging over that young woman. She has been suffering like the devil for at least ten minutes, and forgot I was even beside her and pretending to talk. You and Lady Ethelrida have two not altogether unkind hearts. Can't you find out what it is, and comfort her?"
After luncheon, which had been carried through with all the proper ceremonies of the olden time according to Jimmy Danvers and Young Billy's interpretation of them, it came on to pour with rain; so these masters of the revels said that now the medieval dances should begin, and accordingly they turned on the gramophone that stood in the corner to amuse the children at the school treats. And Mary and her admirer, Lord Henry Burns, and Emily and a Captain Hume, and Lady Betty and Jimmy Danvers, gayly took the floor, while Young Billy offered himself to the bride, as he said he as the representative of the Lord of the Castle had a right to the loveliest lady; and, with his young, stolid self-confidence, he pushed Lord Elterton aside.
Zara had not danced for a very long time—four years at least—and she had not an idea of the two-steps and barn-dances and other sorts of whirling capers that they invented; but she did her best, and gradually something of the excitement of the gay young spirits spread to her, and she forgot her sorrows and began to enjoy herself.
"You don't ever dance, I suppose, Mr. Markrute?" Lady Ethelrida asked, as she stopped, with the gallant old Crow, flushed and smiling by the daïs, where the financier and Lady Anningford sat. "If you ever do, I, as the Lady of the Castle, ask you to 'tread a measure' with me!"
"No one could resist such, an invitation," he answered, and put his arm around her for a valse.
"I do love dancing," she said, as they went along very well. She was so surprised that this "grave and reverend signor," as she called him, should be able to valse!
"So do I," said Francis Markrute—"under certain circumstances. This is one of them." And then he suddenly held her rather tight, and laughed. "Think of it all!" he went on. "Here we are, in thick boots and country clothes capering about like savages round their fire, and, for all sorts of reasons, we all love it!"
"It is just the delicious exercise with me," said Lady Ethelrida.
"And it has nothing at all to do with that reason with me," returned her partner.
And Lady Ethelrida quivered with some sort of pleasure and did not ask him what his reason was. She thought she knew, and her eyes sparkled. They were the same height, and he saw her look; and as they went on, he whispered:
"I have brought you down the book we spoke of, you know, and you will take it from me, won't you? Just as a remembrance of this day and how you made me young for an hour!"
They stopped by one of the benches at the side and sat down, and Lady Ethelrida answered softly,
"Yes, if—you wish me to—"
Lord Elterton had now dislodged Young Billy and was waltzing with Zara himself: his whole bearing was one of intense devotion, and she was actually laughing and looking up in his face, still affected by the general hilarity, when the door of the wooden porch that had been built on as an entrance opened noiselessly, and some of the shooters peeped into the room. It had been too impossibly wet to go on, and they had sent the ladies back in the motors and had come across the park on their way home, and, hearing the sound of music, had glanced in. Tristram was in front of the intruders and just chanced to catch his bride's look at her partner, before either of them saw they were observed.
He felt frightfully jealous. He had never before seen her so smiling, to begin with, and never at all at himself. He longed to kick Arthur Elterton! Confounded impertinence!—And what tommyrot—dancing like this, in the afternoon with boots on! And when they all stopped and greeted the shooters, and crowded round the fire, he said, in a tone of rasping sarcasm—in reply to Jimmy Danvers' announcement that they were back in the real life of a castle in the Middle Ages:
"Any one can see that! You have even got My Lady's fool. Look at Arthur—with mud on his boots—jumping about!"
And Lord Elterton felt very flattered. He knew his old friend was jealous, and if he were jealous then the charming, cold lady must have been unbelievingly nice to him, and that meant he was getting on!
"You are jealous because your lovely bride prefers me, Young Lochinvar," and he laughed as he quoted: