CHAPTER XXIAt Lady Emily'sAdelaide Maud found herself possessed of quite a fervid longing. She wanted to see Mabel and Jean disport themselves with dignity at Lady Emily's. What had always remained difficult in Ridgetown seemed to become curiously possible at Lady Emily's, where indeed the highest in the land might be met. That she might make real friends of the two girls at last seemed to become a possibility. It was not merely the fact of Lady Emily's being a "complete dear" that constituted the difference. It was more the absence of the Ridgetown standards. There were never upstarts to be found at Lady Emily's. Her own character sifted her circle in an automatic manner. That which was vulgar or self-seeking had no response from her. Racy people found her dull, would-be smart persons quite inanimate. She could no more help being unresponsive to them than she could help being interested in others whom she respected. It was a distinguished circle which surrounded her, and those who never pierced it, never understood how easily it was formed, how inviolately kept. Occasionally Lady Emily's "tact" was upheld as the secret of her power."And I have absolutely no tact at all," she would moan. "I simply follow my impulses as a child would."It was the unerring correctness of her impulses which made Adelaide Maud believe that she would welcome the Leightons.Lady Emily had married a brother of Mr. Dudgeon's. Adelaide Maud's devotion to her father's memory put her uncle into the position of a kind of patron saint of her own existence. She sometimes thought that his character supplied a number of these impulses which made Lady Emily the dear she was. Lady Emily was the daughter of a Duke, and had none of the aspirations of a climber, her family having climbed so long ago, that any little beatings about a modern ladder seemed ridiculous. Her brother was the present duke of course, and "made laws in London," as Miss Grace used to describe it. This phantom of a duke, intermarried in a way into her family, had prevented Mrs. Dudgeon from knowing any of the Ridgetown people--intimately that is. Yet the duke never called, and Lady Emily wore her dull coat of reserve when in Mrs. Dudgeon's company. Lady Emily's heart went out, however, to the "golden-haired girls" who spent their seasons with her in London.She was perfectly sweet about the Leightons, and called at the girls' club in state. What an honour!The girls found their ideas tumbling. Lady Emily was much more "easy" than any one they had met.They prepared for the dinner quite light-heartedly.After all, it could only be a dream. London was a dream. London in the early winter with mellow air, only occasionally touched with frost, glittering lights in the evenings, and crowds of animated people. So different from the dew dripping avenues of streets at Ridgetown.They "skimmed" along in a hansom to Lady Emily's and thought they were the most dashing persons in London."But it's only a dream, remember," said Jean.They went in radiantly through wide portals. Footmen moved out of adjacent corners and bowed them on automatically.Mabel loved it, but Jean for a few agonizing seconds felt over-weighted.Then "it's only a dream!"They dreamed through a mile of corridor and ran into Adelaide Maud.The dream passed and they were chatting gaily at shilling seat gossip, and that sort of thing.Adelaide Maud made the maids skim about. They liked her, that was evident. Mabel and Jean were prinked up and complimented."You are ducks, you know," said Adelaide Maud.They proceeded to the drawing-room.Here the point was marked between the time when the girls had never known Mr. Dudgeon and the time when they did. Mabel never forgot that fine, spare figure, standing in a glitter of gilt panelled walls, of warm light from a fire and glimmering electric brackets, of pale colour from the rugs on the floor. He had the grey ascetic face of the scholarly man brought up in refinement, and his expression contained a great amount of placidity. He had dark, scrutinizing eyes, and a kind mouth, where lines of laughter came and went. Jean approached tremblingly, for now it suddenly dawned on her that she had never been informed why the husband of Lady Emily should only be plain "Mr. Dudgeon." Was this right, or had she not listened properly? Then Adelaide Maud said distinctly, "Mr. Dudgeon." Jean concluded that it was their puzzle, not hers, and shook hands with him radiantly. Mabel only thought that at last she had met one more man who might be compared to her father.They sat down on couches of curved legs and high backs, "the kind of couches that make one manage to look as magnificent as possible," as Jean described it. Mr. Dudgeon said Lady Emily was being indulged with a few moments' grace."It's the one thing we have always to do for Lady Emily," said he, "to give her a few minutes' grace." He began to talk to them in a quick, grave manner.Jean again informed herself, "It is a dream."One would have thought that Mr. Dudgeon was really interested in them both. And how could he be--he--the husband of the daughter of a duke! He asked all about how long they had known Adelaide Maud and so on.Mabel was not dreaming, however. She sat daintily on the high-backed couch and told Mr. Dudgeon about the Story Books.There they were, only ten minutes in the room, and Mr. Dudgeon, who had never seen Mabel or Jean before, was hearing all about the Story Books.And Adelaide Maud, who had begun to imagine she knew the Leightons, heard this great fable for the first time in her life."Uncle," she said, "uncle, isn't this sweet, isn't this fame?""It is," said he."Do you wonder that I don't go to the ball?" she asked. "And you've done this ever since you were children?" she asked. "Made fairies of us! And I'm 'Adelaide Maud,' am I? Who once called me Adelaide?" She looked puzzled. "Dear me, if only we had known. And not even Miss Grace to tell me!""Oh, we bound them over," said Mabel, "and no one else ever heard of it.""She doesn't tell you all," said wicked Jean. "She doesn't tell you that we sat behind you once at a concert, and Mabel saw, properly you know, how your blue dress was made.""Oh, Jean, Jean," said Mabel."Yes, and had hers made just like it," said Jean. She spread her hands a little."Rucked down the front, you remember.""Oh, I remember," laughed Adelaide Maud."And when you came to call--Mabel couldn't put on her prettiest gown, because it was just like yours.""Oh, Jean," cried Mabel.In the midst of some laughter came in Lady Emily."Well," she said in a gentle way, "you people are enjoying yourselves, aren't you?"Adelaide Maud knew then that the day was won for Mabel and Jean. Mr. Dudgeon was always a certain quality, but Lady Emily--well, she had seen Lady Emily when people called her "dull." It was wonderful with what grace Lady Emily adapted herself to the interests of two girls almost unknown to her. The effect might be gleaned from what Jean said afterwards."Lady Emily was so sweet, I never bothered about forks or anything. There was such a love of a footman! I believe he shoved things into my hands just when I ought to use them. It always worries me to remember--when I'm talking--just like the figures at lancers, you know, but here they did everything for one except eat."Lady Emily had on a beautiful diamond ornament at her throat, and another in her hair, and they scintillated in splendour. She wore a dress of white chiffon for the ball."You insist on dragging me there?" Mr. Dudgeon asked several times. Whenever a pause occurred in the conversation he said, "You insist on carrying me off to this ball, don't you?"Lady Emily also pretended that she had to go very much against her will. Mabel and Jean had never seen people set out to balls in this way before. They themselves had always their mad rush of dressing and their wild rush in the cloakroom for programmes, and a most enervating pause for partners and then the thing was done. But Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon tried to pan out the quiet part of the evening as far as it would pan out.Then came a trying time.In the drawing-room, quite late, very gorgeous people arrived. Jean was endeavouring to remember whether or not she took sugar with tea when the first of them came in. The spectacle made her seize three lumps one after another, to gain time, when as a fact she never took more than one. They fell in a very flat small cup of tea and splashed it slightly in various directions. She was always very pleased to remember that she didn't apologize to the footman.The gorgeous people seemed only to see Lady Emily and to talk to the electric light brackets. They said the ball was a bore.A rather magnificent and very stout personage settled himself near Mabel. He wore shining spectacles which magnified his eyes in a curious manner."Hey, what, what," he said to Mabel. "And you aren't a Dudgeon! Hey! Thought you were one. Quite a lot of 'em, you know. Always croppin' up. Golden hair, I remember. And yours is brownish. Ah, well. You're a friend, you say. Quite as good, quite as good. Not going to the ball. Consider yourself in luck. Not a manjack but says the same. Why they make it a ball, Heaven knows. Never dance, you know. Hey what! None of us able for it. Not so bad as levees though. There, imagine Slowbeetle in white calves. There he is, that old totterer. Yet he does it. Honour of his country, calls of etiquette and that sort of thing. You're young, missed a lot of this, eh! Well, it's mostly farce, y'know. We prance a lot. Not always amusin'. Relief to know Lady Emily. No prance about her. Hey, what!"Adelaide Maud approached."Ah, here we are. Thought you had dyed it. Golden as ever, my dear. Pleasant to see you again. Why aren't you and this lady goin'? We could stay. Instead of prancin', eh!"The ill humour of having to go to the ball was on all of them evidently. But this spectacled benignity fascinated Mabel. He again was a "complete dear.""I'm going to steal her," said Adelaide Maud, indicating Mabel, darkly; "you wait.""Hey, what! I'll report. Report to Lady Emily, y'know. Ye've taken my first partner. Hey, what! Piano? Ah, well. Not in my line, but I'm with you."He actually accompanied them to a long alcove where a piano stood half shrouded in flowers. Here Adelaide Maud had withdrawn the little party of Jean, Mabel and herself, that they might look and play a little and enjoy themselves."Simpkins, more tea," she whispered. "We didn't have half enough."It was an admirable picnic. Mabel played "any old thing," as Adelaide Maud called it, ran on from one to another while they joked and talked and watched the "diplomatic circles" gathering force in the drawing-room. The spectacled gentleman sat himself down in complete enjoyment."D'ye know," he said to Jean in the same detached manner and without any kind of introduction, "no use at that kind of thing," indicating the piano, "but the girl can play. Fills me with content. Content's the word. Difficult to find nowadays. She doesn't strain. Not a bit. She smooths one down. A real talent. And a child! Hey, what, quite remarkable."Lady Emily came slowly in. Two people talked to her.The spectacled gentleman rose, and they listened to him."Don't interrupt, Lady Emily. She's got the floor, y'know. I've heard prima donnas. Here too. And they didn't smooth me down. Catch a note or two of this. It gives its effect, hey? Gets your ear. Hey, what--if we had her in the House there might be hope for the country, hey, what!"Lady Emily was pleased.She laid her hand on Mabel's shoulder."Are you liking this?""Oh, it's such a dream, and you are so lovely, Lady Emily, and it doesn't seem real. So it's very easy to play, you know.""I should make them stop talking, but they came for that, you know. And you are playing so well, it's too pretty an interlude. Helen didn't tell me that you could play like this.""And my new master makes me believe I can't play a note," said Mabel. "I shall tell him he is quite wrong, because you said so."Aunt Katharine's words came to her mind--playing at one end of the country no better than the other! Ah, well, it was newer, fresher, or something--taking it either way!Of course it came to an end. The girls slipped out with Adelaide Maud and found the long corridor with the white room containing their wraps and two attentive maids. They were covered up in their cloaks, and watched one or two leave before them, as they stood looking down on them from the staircase."Nobody will miss us," said Adelaide Maud. "They are 'going on,' you know."There was something rather sad in her voice."They all go on to something or somebody, even that dear old Earl Knuptford, he will pick you at the same place next year that he found you at to-night, and say, 'Hey, what,' and never think that both he and you have dropped twelve months out of your lives. It's different at Ridgetown, isn't it?""Yes, there's nothing to go on to at Ridgetown, is there?" said Jean grimly. "And nobody to forget or to say, 'Hey, what,' even if they had never met you before."Her world was full of shining diplomats and she had chatted with an earl.Adelaide Maud looked softly after them."Nothing to go on to at Ridgetown," she murmured. "And no one to forget."She smiled softly."Ah! well, it's nice that there's no one to forget."CHAPTER XXIIThe EngagementThe night at Lady Emily's was by no means a first step into a new and fashionable world. Mabel and Jean never doubted for a moment that they were anything but spectators of that brilliant gathering. Even Adelaide Maud was only a spectator. Lady Emily and her husband were different from the world in which they moved because they had hobbies and minor interests which they occasionally allowed to interfere with the usual routine. Mr. Dudgeon had been known to skip a state banquet for a book which he has just received. And Lady Emily would make such calls and give such invitations as resulted in that wonderful little dinner party. But as for any of her set being interested, why, there was no time for that. Place something in their way, like Mabel sitting on a couch, part of which Earl Knuptford desired to make use and one met a "belted Earl." He became interested and dropped sentences pell-mell on Mabel's astonished head. For days, Jean dreamed of large envelopes arriving--"The Earl and Countess of Knuptford request," etc.("You donkey, there's no countess," interjected Mabel.) The Earl would as soon have thought of inviting the lamp post which brought his motor to a full stop and his Lordship's gaze on it correspondingly. Bring these people to a pause in front of something, and they might delay themselves to interview it. But while one is not part of the machinery which takes them on, there is no chance of continuing the acquaintance.Adelaide Maud told them as much. It seemed to Mabel that Adelaide Maud wanted them to know that though she lived in this world, she was by no means of it. She enjoyed herself often quite as much in the shilling seats. Her view of things did not prevent Mabel and Jean from participating in benefits to be derived from the acquaintance of Lady Emily. There ensued a happy time when they had seats at the Opera, of which an autumn season was in full swing, of occasional concerts and drives, and once they went with Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon far into the country on a motor. For the rest, friends of their own looked them up, and they had hardly a moment unfilled with practising which was not devoted to going about and seeing the world of London. The Club improved with acquaintance, and it was wonderful how the very girls who annoyed Jean so much on her arrival became part of their very existence. "We are so dull," she would write home, "because Violet has gone off for the week end," or "We didn't go out because Ethel and Gertrude wanted us to have tea with them."Adelaide Maud left for home. That was the tragic note of their visit. Then Cousin Harry turned up with his sister and her husband and offered to run them over to Paris for Christmas. Here the cup overflowed. Paris!It was a new wrench for Mr. Leighton, who meant to get them home for Christmas and if possible keep them there. But he knew that a trip with Mrs. Boyne would be of another "seventh heaven" order, and once more he gave way."Can you hold the fort a little longer?" wrote Mabel to Elma.Elma held the fort.She held it, wondering often what would come of it all. She was in the position of a younger sister to one she did not love. Isobel chaperoned her everywhere. They had reached a calm stage where they took each other in quite a polite manner, but never were confidential at all. Mr. and Mrs. Leighton saw the politeness and were relieved. They saw further, and lamented Isobel's great friendship with the Merediths. It seemed to Mr. Leighton that although he would much rather leave the affair alone, that Isobel was in his care, that she was a handsome, magnificent girl, and that she ought not to be offered calmly as a sort of second sacrifice to the caprices of Robin. He spoke to her one evening very gently about it when they were alone."I thought I ought to tell you," said Mr. Leighton, "that in a tacit sort of manner, Mr. Meredith attached himself very closely to Mabel. She was so young that I did not interfere, as now I am very much afraid I ought to have done. It is a little difficult, you see, for your Aunt in particular, who is asked on every side, 'I had understood that Mabel was to marry Mr. Meredith.' I want you to know of course that Mabel never will marry him now. I should see to that myself, if she had not already told me that she had no desire to. He is not tied in any way, except, as I consider, in the matter of honour. I did not interfere before, but at present I am almost compelled to. I'm before everything your guardian, my dear. I should like you to find a man worthy of yourself."He had done it as kindly as he knew how.Isobel sat calmly gazing past him into the fire. There was no ruffling of her features. Only a faint suggestion of power against which it seemed luckless to fight."I knew a good deal of this, of course," she said."Oh." Mr. Leighton started slightly."Yes. But of course there is a similar tale of every man, and every girl--wherever they are boxed up in a place of this size. Somebody has to make love to somebody. I don't suppose Mr. Meredith thought of marriage."It seemed as though Mr. Leighton were the young, inexperienced person, and that Isobel was the one to impart knowledge."In justice to Mr. Meredith, I do not know in the slightest what he thought. That is where my case loses its point. I ought to have known. I certainly, of course, think that I ought to know now.""Oh," said Isobel. She rose very simply and looked as placid as a lake on a calm morning. "That is very simple. Mr. Meredith intends to marry me whenever I give him the opportunity."Mr. Leighton was thunderstruck. At the bottom of his mind, he was thankful now that "his girls" were away. Memories of the stumbling block which the existence of Robin's sister had before occasioned made him ask first, "Does Miss Meredith know?"He spoke in quite a calm manner. It frustrated Isobel for the moment, who had expected an outburst. She wavered slightly in her answer."I don't know," she said.Mr. Leighton moved impatiently."That is just it," he said. "This young man makes tentative arrangements and leaves out the important parties to it. Miss Meredith is quite capable of upsetting her brother's plans. Do you know it?"It seemed that Isobel did. It seemed that Miss Meredith was the one person who could ruffle her. From that day of negligently answering and partly snubbing her in the train, Isobel had showed a side of cool indifference to Miss Meredith."I want you to know, Uncle, that I shall not consider Miss Meredith in the slightest."Could this be a young girl?"Do you know what Mabel, what all of you did? You considered Miss Meredith. What were the consequences? She gave Mabel away with both hands. She wants her brother to marry Miss Dudgeon. He won't marry Miss Dudgeon. He will marry me."She rose slightly."And Miss Meredith won't have the slightest possible say in the matter."Mr. Leighton looked rather pale. He flicked quietly the ash from his cigar before answering her."It's a different way of dealing with people than I am accustomed to. Will you keep your decision open for a little yet?""I shall, till summer, when we mean to be married."There seemed to be no altering the fact that she was to be married."I should be so sorry if, while here with me--with all of us, you did not find a man worthy of you.""I won't change my mind," she said."And Robin?"He had returned to the old term."He didn't change his mind before. Miss Meredith did it for him. I am quite alive to the fact that if Miss Meredith hadn't interfered, and I hadn't come, he would now be engaged to Mabel."Mr. Leighton appeared dumbfoundered."Do you care very much for him?" he asked."Oh, yes." Isobel looked almost helplessly at him. "He isn't the man I dreamed of, but he is mine, you know. It has come to that."She sank on her knees beside him, her eyes blazing."Isn't it an indignity for me, as much as for Mabel, to take what she didn't want? You say she doesn't want him. At first--oh! I only desired to show my power. I always meant to marry a wealthier man. But it's no use. He is a waverer, don't I know it. I see him calculating whether I'm worth the racket. I see that--I! Isn't it deplorable! But I mean to make a man of him. He never has been one before. And I mean to marry him, Uncle."Mr. Leighton smoked and smoked at his cigar. He was beginning at last to fathom the nature that took what it wanted--with both hands."Isobel," he said gently, "let us drop all this question of Mabel. It isn't that which comes upper-most, now. It's the question of what you lose by marrying in this way. Don't you know that this dropping of Miss Meredith, this way of 'paying her out,' you know, well, it may give you Robin intact; but have you an idea what you may lose in the process? I don't admire the girl, but--she is his sister. I have never known"--he threw away his cigar--"I have never yet known of a happy, a really happy marriage, where the happiness of two was built on the discomfiture of others. Won't you reconsider the whole position of being down on Miss Meredith, and paying everybody out who was concerned in Robin's affairs before you knew him? Won't you try to make your wedding a happiness to every one--even to Miss Meredith?""Oh," said Isobel, "I don't know that the average bride thinks much of the happiness of relations. She has her trousseaux and the guests to be invited, and all that sort of thing." She turned over a book which was lying near. "I don't think I should have time for Miss Meredith," she said coldly.Mr. Leighton sat quite quietly."Will you be married here?" he asked.A gleam came to Isobel's eyes."That would be nice," she said. There was the feeling of an answer to an invitation in her voice."It's at your disposal," he said, "anything we can do for your happiness.""Is that to show that I do nothing for anybody else's?" Isobel was really grateful."Perhaps." He said it rather sadly."I might make an endeavour over Sarah," she said."You know, from the first, the day you came in the train, you told us you had ignored her, hadn't you? She nursed Robin through a long illness. Saw him grow up and all that kind of thing. Never spared herself in the matter of looking after him!""Well?" asked Isobel."Well," said Mr. Leighton, "it's rather pathetic, isn't it?"The day was won in a partial manner; for Isobel promised she would try to "ingratiate Sarah.""It's the wrong way of putting it, but it may make a beginning," said Mr. Leighton.He further insisted on seeing Robin. That was a bad half-hour for every one, but for no one so particularly as for Robin. He had evaded so many things with Mr. Leighton, and for once he found that gentler nature adamant.Nothing went quite so much against this gentler nature as having to arrange matters for Isobel. So Robin discovered. Yet already it made what Isobel called "a man of him." He was a man to be ruled, and Mabel had placed herself under his ruling. Here was the real mischief. Isobel would take him firmly in hand.The girls were greatly mystified, Elma horrified. They had orders to take the news of Isobel's engagement as though it might be an expected event, and certainly no sign was given that it was in the nature of a surprise. Jean could not understand Mabel when the news arrived. She laughed and sang and kissed Jean as though the world had suddenly become happy throughout."I thought you would have been cut up," said Jean disconsolately."Cut up! Why they are made for one another," cried Mabel. "Isobel, calm and firm, Robin, wavering and admiring, nothing could be better. But oh--oh--I want to see how Sarah takes it."They had a particular grind just then, for now they were getting into spring, and it would soon be time for making that triumphant passage home of which they had so often dreamed. They lived for that now, but none lived for it more devotedly than Elma.Isobel's engagement cut her further and further away from enjoying anything very much. She had always the feeling of cold critical eyes being on her. She often congratulated herself on having got over the stage where she used long words in quite their wrong sense. Isobel's proximity in these days would have been dreadful.Miss Grace also seemed downhearted. It had been a trying winter for her, yet no actual evidence of ill-health had asserted itself. She was concerned about Elma too, who seemed to be losing what the others were gaining by being away, that just development which comes from happy experience. Elma plodded and played, but her bright little soul only came out unfledged of fear at Miss Grace's.At last one day Miss Grace's face lit."My dear, your gift is composition."Nobody ever had thought of it before. Elma's expression lightened to a transforming radiance."Oh, I wonder if I ever could get lessons," she cried.They discovered a chance, through correspondence. So Elma held the fort, and tried to grapple single-handed with musical composition."If only I could compose an anthem before Mabel and Jean get home," she said one day."Heavens, Elma, you aren't going to die?" asked Betty.CHAPTER XXIIIHolding the FortMiss Meredith took the news of her brother's engagement in a dumb manner. An explosion of wrath would have helped every one. Robin might have appeared aggrieved, and had something of which to complain, and Isobel's immobility beside some one in a rage was always effective. Miss Meredith would not rage however. She had met a match for her own resourceful methods, and at bottom she feared the reserve of power which prompted Isobel. Under cover of a fine frown she accepted the situation as Isobel had said she would. What hopes were overthrown by the engagement, what schemes upturned, no one but Miss Meredith herself would ever have an inkling. She began to regret her manner of ejecting Mabel, especially since the London reports told of a Mabel many cuts above Ridgetown. Miss Dudgeon had opened their eyes. She had come back in armour, the old Ridgetown armour, and talked in the stiffest manner of Mabel and Lady Emily, as though all were of a piece. Miss Meredith ventured to say to her later on that she understood that Mabel was quite a success in "Society.""She always was, wasn't she?" asked Adelaide Maud very simply, as though she imagined society had really existed in Ridgetown.Miss Meredith was a trifle overcast."Oh yes, yes, of course," she said. "But Mabel, of course, Mabel----""Mabel would shine anywhere you mean. That is true. She possesses the gift of being always divinely natural."Adelaide Maud could play up better than any one. Miss Dudgeon ran on to congratulate Miss Meredith on her brother's engagement."Ah yes, such a charming girl," said Miss Meredith. "He is very fortunate. We both are, since it relates us to so delightful a family. We have always been such friends."There was a stiff pause. Adelaide Maud could never bring herself to fill in the pauses between social untruthfulnesses."She is very courageous, we think," ran on Miss Meredith. "Robin will not be able to give her very much of an establishment, you know. But that does not grieve her. She has a very even and contented disposition. I often tell Robin--quite a girl in a hundred! Not many would have consented so sweetly to an immediate marriage under the circumstances."Ah, then, this might explain to the public the defection of Mabel. Mabel had expected an "establishment." Miss Dudgeon began to see daylight."Oh, on the contrary," she said, rising, "we have always looked on Mr. Meredith as being so well off in respect of being able to get married. Didn't you tell me once--but then I have such a stupid memory!"Miss Meredith recognized where a great slip had taken place. These had been her words before, "Not many young men are in so easy a position for marrying!" And to Miss Dudgeon of all people she had just said the reverse.There is a pit formed by a bad memory wherein social untruths sometimes tumble in company. There they are inclined to raise a laugh at themselves, and occasionally make more honest people out of their perpetrators.Miss Meredith knew there was no use in any longer explaining Robin's position, or want of it, to so clear-headed a person as Miss Dudgeon. The best way was to retire as speedily as possible from so difficult a subject.Mrs. Leighton found the whole affair very trying. She never indulged in any social doctoring where her own opinions were concerned, and it was really painful for her to meet all the innuendoes cast at her by curious people."Oh, Mr. Leighton and I always think young people manage these things best themselves. They are so sensitive, you know, and quite apt to make mistakes if dictated to. A critical audience must be very trying. Yes, everybody thought Robin was engaged to Mabel--but he never was.""Well then," said Aunt Katharine, with her lips pursed up to sticking-point, "if they weren't engaged, they ought to have been. That's all I've got to say."It was not all she had got to say, as it turned out. She talked for quite a long time about the duties of children to their parents.Mrs. Leighton at last became really exasperated."You know, Katharine," she said, "if you are so down on these young people, I shall one day--I really shall, I shall tell them how you nearly ran away with James Shrimpton.""My dear," said Aunt Katharine. She was quite shocked. "I was a young unformed thing and father so overbearing----" She was so hurt she could go no further."Exactly," said Mrs. Leighton. "And my girls are young unformed things, and their father is not overbearing."Aunt Katharine grunted."Ah well, you keep their confidence. That's true. I don't know a more united family. But this marriage of Isobel's does not say much for your management."That was it--"management." Mrs. Leighton groaned slightly to herself. She never would be a manager, she felt sure. She offered a passive front to fate, and her influence stopped there. As for manoeuvring fate by holding the reins a trifle and pressing backward or forward, she had not the inclination at any time to interfere in such a way at all. She leaned on what Emerson had said about things "gravitating." She believed that things gravitated in the right direction, so long as one endeavoured to remain pure and noble, in the wrong one so long as one was overbearing and selfish. She had absolutely no fear as to how things would gravitate for Mabel after that night when she talked about Robin and went off to succour Jean.She placidly returned to her crochet, and to the complainings of Aunt Katharine.Cuthbert came down that evening, and Isobel, Elma, Betty and he went off to be grown-ups at a children's party at the Turbervilles. The party progressed into rather a "larky" dance, where there were as many grown-ups as children. All the first friends of the Leightons were there, including, of course, the Merediths. Cuthbert took in Isobel in rather a frigid manner. He endeavoured not to consider Meredith a cad, but his feelings in that direction were overweighted for the evening. He danced with the children, and "was no use for anybody else," as May Turberville put it. But then Cuthbert was so "ghastly clever and all that sort of thing," that he could not be put on the level of other people at all.Cuthbert had got his summer lectureship. He told Elma, and then Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, and then Betty, and Isobel could not imagine what spark of mischief had lit their spirits to the point of revelry as they ambled along in their slow four-wheeler. Elma had only one despair in her mind. Neither Miss Grace nor Miss Annie were well. Miss Annie particularly seemed out of gear, so much so and so definitely, that for the first time for nearly thirty years Miss Grace spoke of having in Dr. Merryweather.Cuthbert asked lots of questions."I don't know," Elma generally answered. "She just lies and sickens. As though she didn't care."She raised her hand to her head at the time."Dr. Smith says it's the spring weather which everybody feels specially trying this year."Cuthbert grunted.George Maclean came to Elma for the first dance. He seemed in very good spirits. Elma found herself wondering if it were about Mabel. Well, one would see. Mabel had always been tied in a kind of a way, and now she was free! Mr. Maclean anyhow was the best, above all the best. Even Mr. Symington! When she thought of him, her mind always ran off to wondering what now might happen to Mr. Symington.She had a long, rollicking waltz with Mr. Maclean. They rollicked, because children were on the floor and steering seemed out of fashion. Yet he carried her round in a gentle way, because Elma, with her desire to be the best of dancers, invariably got knocked out with a robust partner. He carried her round in the most gentle way until the music stopped with the bang, bang of an energetic amateur. Elma found the floor suddenly hit her on the cheek in what seemed to her a most impossible manner."Now what could make it do that?" she asked Mr. Maclean. He was bending over her with rather a white face.Cuthbert came up."Why didn't you tell Maclean that you were giddy?" he said. "He would have held you up.""But I wasn't giddy," said Elma. "I'm not giddy now."She was standing, but the floor again seemed at a slant."Steady," said Cuthbert. "You're as giddy as the giddiest. Don't pretend. Take her off to get cool, Maclean.""Cool!" Elma's fingers seemed icy. But there was a comforting, light-headed glow in her cheeks which reassured her.Every one said how well she was looking, and that kept her from wondering whether she was really going to be ill. George Maclean tried to get her to drink tea, but for the first time in her life she found herself possessed of a passion for lemonade."You will really think that I am one of the children," she said, "because I am simply devoured with a longing for iced lemonade.""Well, you shall have iced lemonade, and as much as you want," said George Maclean. "How I could let you fall, I can't think." There was a most ludicrous look of concern on his face."I shall grab all my prospective partners for this evening at least," said Elma. "You can't think how treacherous that floor is."She did not dance nearly so much as she wanted to. George Maclean and Lance and Cuthbert, these three, at least, made her sit out when she wanted to be "skipping."Isobel looked her up on hearing that she had fallen. Cuthbert said, "She doesn't look well, you know.""Why, Elma--Elma is never ill," said Isobel. "Look at her colour too!"Towards the end of the evening, they began to forget about it, and Elma danced almost as usual. Three times she saw the floor rock, but held on. What her partners thought of her when she clung to a strong arm, she did not stop to think. It was "talking to Miss Annie in her stuffy room" that had started it, she remembered.She was in an exalted frame of mind about other things. The world was turning golden. Cuthbert was coming home, Mabel and Jean would soon be with them, Adelaide Maud was already on the spot. And Isobel would be gone in the summer.Robin Meredith came to ask her for a dance. He seemed subdued, and had a rather nervous manner of inviting her. So that it seemed easy for her to be sedate and beg him to excuse her because she had turned giddy. Anything! she could stand anything on that evening except dance with Robin Meredith. Her training in many old ways came back to her, however."I shall sit out, if you don't mind," she said. "Isn't it silly to have a headache when all this fun is going on?" She found herself being quite friendly and natural with him. The children were having a great romp in front of them."Have you a headache?" he asked rather kindly.Oh yes, she had a headache. Now she knew. It seemed to have been going on for years. She began to talk about May Turberville's embroidery, and how Lance had sewn a pincushion in order to outrival her. When May had run on to sewing daffodils on her gowns, Lance threatened to embroider sunflowers on his waistcoats. Had he seen Lance's pictures? Well, Lance was really awfully clever, particularly in drawing figures. Mr. Leighton wanted him to say he would be an artist, but Lance said he couldn't stand the clothes he would have to wear. Mr. Leighton said that wearing a velveteen coat didn't mean nowadays that one was an artist, and Lance said that it was the only way of drawing the attention of the public. He said that one always required some kind of a showman to call out "Walk up, gentlemen, this way to the priceless treasures," and that a velveteen coat did all that for an artist. Lance said he would rather be on the Stock Exchange, where he could do his own shouting. She said that frankly, with all the knowledge she had of Lance and his manner of giving people away, she should never think of entrusting him with her money to invest. She said it in a very high voice, since she observed just at that minute that Lance stood behind her chair."Well, you are a little cat, Elma," he said disdainfully. "Here am I organizing a party in order to let people know that some day I shall be on the Stock Exchange, and here are you influencing the gully public against me.""I object to the term 'gully,'" said Robin in a laboured but sporting manner."Well--gulled if you like it better," said Lance. "Only that effect doesn't come on till I'm done with you. You are to go and dance lancers, Meredith, while I take your place with this slanderer." It was Lance's way of asking for the next dance.Elma gave a great sigh of relief after Robin had gone."He never heard me say so much in his life before," said she. "He must have been awfully surprised.""How you can say a word to the fellow--but there, nobody understands you Leightons. You ought to have poisoned him. Or perhaps Mabel is only a little flirt."He wisped a thread of the gauze of her fan.Elma smiled at him. She was always sure of Lance."I say, Elma, what are we to do with Mother Mabel when she comes back? Does she mind this business, or are we allowed to refer to it in a jovial way?""Jovial, I think," said Elma. "I believe Mabs is awfully relieved."She bent over and whispered to Lance."I should myself you know if I had just got rid of Robin."Lance laughed immoderately."He's a rum chap," he said, "but he's met a good match in Isobel. Great Scott, look at the stride on her. She could take Robin up and twist him into macaroni if she wanted to. I'm sorry for him.""What are you going to do for Sarah?" he asked abruptly."Sarah?" asked Elma with her eyes wide."Yes, you'll have to marry the girl or something. It's hard nuts on her. Why don't you get Symington back and let him make up the quartette?""Mr. Symington?""Yes. It would be most appropriate, wouldn't it? Robin and Isobel, and Symington and Sarah. It's quite a neat arrangement. You've provided one husband, why not the other." Several demons of mischief danced in Lance's eye."Oh, Lance, don't say that," said Elma; "it's so horrid, and--and common.""Oh, it's common, is it," said Lance, "common. And I'm going to be your stockbroker one day, and you talk to me like this.""Look here, Lance, I'd trust you with all my worldly wealth on the Stock Exchange, but I won't let you joke about Mr. Symington.""Whew," said Lance, and he looked gently and amiably into the eyes of Elma."When you look good like that, I know you are exceedingly naughty. What is it this time, Lance?""Nothing, Elma, except----""Except----""That I have found out all I wanted to know about Symington, thank you.""You are just a common, low little gossip, Lance," said Elma with great severity. "Will you please get me a nice cool glass of iced lemonade."
CHAPTER XXI
At Lady Emily's
Adelaide Maud found herself possessed of quite a fervid longing. She wanted to see Mabel and Jean disport themselves with dignity at Lady Emily's. What had always remained difficult in Ridgetown seemed to become curiously possible at Lady Emily's, where indeed the highest in the land might be met. That she might make real friends of the two girls at last seemed to become a possibility. It was not merely the fact of Lady Emily's being a "complete dear" that constituted the difference. It was more the absence of the Ridgetown standards. There were never upstarts to be found at Lady Emily's. Her own character sifted her circle in an automatic manner. That which was vulgar or self-seeking had no response from her. Racy people found her dull, would-be smart persons quite inanimate. She could no more help being unresponsive to them than she could help being interested in others whom she respected. It was a distinguished circle which surrounded her, and those who never pierced it, never understood how easily it was formed, how inviolately kept. Occasionally Lady Emily's "tact" was upheld as the secret of her power.
"And I have absolutely no tact at all," she would moan. "I simply follow my impulses as a child would."
It was the unerring correctness of her impulses which made Adelaide Maud believe that she would welcome the Leightons.
Lady Emily had married a brother of Mr. Dudgeon's. Adelaide Maud's devotion to her father's memory put her uncle into the position of a kind of patron saint of her own existence. She sometimes thought that his character supplied a number of these impulses which made Lady Emily the dear she was. Lady Emily was the daughter of a Duke, and had none of the aspirations of a climber, her family having climbed so long ago, that any little beatings about a modern ladder seemed ridiculous. Her brother was the present duke of course, and "made laws in London," as Miss Grace used to describe it. This phantom of a duke, intermarried in a way into her family, had prevented Mrs. Dudgeon from knowing any of the Ridgetown people--intimately that is. Yet the duke never called, and Lady Emily wore her dull coat of reserve when in Mrs. Dudgeon's company. Lady Emily's heart went out, however, to the "golden-haired girls" who spent their seasons with her in London.
She was perfectly sweet about the Leightons, and called at the girls' club in state. What an honour!
The girls found their ideas tumbling. Lady Emily was much more "easy" than any one they had met.
They prepared for the dinner quite light-heartedly.
After all, it could only be a dream. London was a dream. London in the early winter with mellow air, only occasionally touched with frost, glittering lights in the evenings, and crowds of animated people. So different from the dew dripping avenues of streets at Ridgetown.
They "skimmed" along in a hansom to Lady Emily's and thought they were the most dashing persons in London.
"But it's only a dream, remember," said Jean.
They went in radiantly through wide portals. Footmen moved out of adjacent corners and bowed them on automatically.
Mabel loved it, but Jean for a few agonizing seconds felt over-weighted.
Then "it's only a dream!"
They dreamed through a mile of corridor and ran into Adelaide Maud.
The dream passed and they were chatting gaily at shilling seat gossip, and that sort of thing.
Adelaide Maud made the maids skim about. They liked her, that was evident. Mabel and Jean were prinked up and complimented.
"You are ducks, you know," said Adelaide Maud.
They proceeded to the drawing-room.
Here the point was marked between the time when the girls had never known Mr. Dudgeon and the time when they did. Mabel never forgot that fine, spare figure, standing in a glitter of gilt panelled walls, of warm light from a fire and glimmering electric brackets, of pale colour from the rugs on the floor. He had the grey ascetic face of the scholarly man brought up in refinement, and his expression contained a great amount of placidity. He had dark, scrutinizing eyes, and a kind mouth, where lines of laughter came and went. Jean approached tremblingly, for now it suddenly dawned on her that she had never been informed why the husband of Lady Emily should only be plain "Mr. Dudgeon." Was this right, or had she not listened properly? Then Adelaide Maud said distinctly, "Mr. Dudgeon." Jean concluded that it was their puzzle, not hers, and shook hands with him radiantly. Mabel only thought that at last she had met one more man who might be compared to her father.
They sat down on couches of curved legs and high backs, "the kind of couches that make one manage to look as magnificent as possible," as Jean described it. Mr. Dudgeon said Lady Emily was being indulged with a few moments' grace.
"It's the one thing we have always to do for Lady Emily," said he, "to give her a few minutes' grace." He began to talk to them in a quick, grave manner.
Jean again informed herself, "It is a dream."
One would have thought that Mr. Dudgeon was really interested in them both. And how could he be--he--the husband of the daughter of a duke! He asked all about how long they had known Adelaide Maud and so on.
Mabel was not dreaming, however. She sat daintily on the high-backed couch and told Mr. Dudgeon about the Story Books.
There they were, only ten minutes in the room, and Mr. Dudgeon, who had never seen Mabel or Jean before, was hearing all about the Story Books.
And Adelaide Maud, who had begun to imagine she knew the Leightons, heard this great fable for the first time in her life.
"Uncle," she said, "uncle, isn't this sweet, isn't this fame?"
"It is," said he.
"Do you wonder that I don't go to the ball?" she asked. "And you've done this ever since you were children?" she asked. "Made fairies of us! And I'm 'Adelaide Maud,' am I? Who once called me Adelaide?" She looked puzzled. "Dear me, if only we had known. And not even Miss Grace to tell me!"
"Oh, we bound them over," said Mabel, "and no one else ever heard of it."
"She doesn't tell you all," said wicked Jean. "She doesn't tell you that we sat behind you once at a concert, and Mabel saw, properly you know, how your blue dress was made."
"Oh, Jean, Jean," said Mabel.
"Yes, and had hers made just like it," said Jean. She spread her hands a little.
"Rucked down the front, you remember."
"Oh, I remember," laughed Adelaide Maud.
"And when you came to call--Mabel couldn't put on her prettiest gown, because it was just like yours."
"Oh, Jean," cried Mabel.
In the midst of some laughter came in Lady Emily.
"Well," she said in a gentle way, "you people are enjoying yourselves, aren't you?"
Adelaide Maud knew then that the day was won for Mabel and Jean. Mr. Dudgeon was always a certain quality, but Lady Emily--well, she had seen Lady Emily when people called her "dull." It was wonderful with what grace Lady Emily adapted herself to the interests of two girls almost unknown to her. The effect might be gleaned from what Jean said afterwards.
"Lady Emily was so sweet, I never bothered about forks or anything. There was such a love of a footman! I believe he shoved things into my hands just when I ought to use them. It always worries me to remember--when I'm talking--just like the figures at lancers, you know, but here they did everything for one except eat."
Lady Emily had on a beautiful diamond ornament at her throat, and another in her hair, and they scintillated in splendour. She wore a dress of white chiffon for the ball.
"You insist on dragging me there?" Mr. Dudgeon asked several times. Whenever a pause occurred in the conversation he said, "You insist on carrying me off to this ball, don't you?"
Lady Emily also pretended that she had to go very much against her will. Mabel and Jean had never seen people set out to balls in this way before. They themselves had always their mad rush of dressing and their wild rush in the cloakroom for programmes, and a most enervating pause for partners and then the thing was done. But Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon tried to pan out the quiet part of the evening as far as it would pan out.
Then came a trying time.
In the drawing-room, quite late, very gorgeous people arrived. Jean was endeavouring to remember whether or not she took sugar with tea when the first of them came in. The spectacle made her seize three lumps one after another, to gain time, when as a fact she never took more than one. They fell in a very flat small cup of tea and splashed it slightly in various directions. She was always very pleased to remember that she didn't apologize to the footman.
The gorgeous people seemed only to see Lady Emily and to talk to the electric light brackets. They said the ball was a bore.
A rather magnificent and very stout personage settled himself near Mabel. He wore shining spectacles which magnified his eyes in a curious manner.
"Hey, what, what," he said to Mabel. "And you aren't a Dudgeon! Hey! Thought you were one. Quite a lot of 'em, you know. Always croppin' up. Golden hair, I remember. And yours is brownish. Ah, well. You're a friend, you say. Quite as good, quite as good. Not going to the ball. Consider yourself in luck. Not a manjack but says the same. Why they make it a ball, Heaven knows. Never dance, you know. Hey what! None of us able for it. Not so bad as levees though. There, imagine Slowbeetle in white calves. There he is, that old totterer. Yet he does it. Honour of his country, calls of etiquette and that sort of thing. You're young, missed a lot of this, eh! Well, it's mostly farce, y'know. We prance a lot. Not always amusin'. Relief to know Lady Emily. No prance about her. Hey, what!"
Adelaide Maud approached.
"Ah, here we are. Thought you had dyed it. Golden as ever, my dear. Pleasant to see you again. Why aren't you and this lady goin'? We could stay. Instead of prancin', eh!"
The ill humour of having to go to the ball was on all of them evidently. But this spectacled benignity fascinated Mabel. He again was a "complete dear."
"I'm going to steal her," said Adelaide Maud, indicating Mabel, darkly; "you wait."
"Hey, what! I'll report. Report to Lady Emily, y'know. Ye've taken my first partner. Hey, what! Piano? Ah, well. Not in my line, but I'm with you."
He actually accompanied them to a long alcove where a piano stood half shrouded in flowers. Here Adelaide Maud had withdrawn the little party of Jean, Mabel and herself, that they might look and play a little and enjoy themselves.
"Simpkins, more tea," she whispered. "We didn't have half enough."
It was an admirable picnic. Mabel played "any old thing," as Adelaide Maud called it, ran on from one to another while they joked and talked and watched the "diplomatic circles" gathering force in the drawing-room. The spectacled gentleman sat himself down in complete enjoyment.
"D'ye know," he said to Jean in the same detached manner and without any kind of introduction, "no use at that kind of thing," indicating the piano, "but the girl can play. Fills me with content. Content's the word. Difficult to find nowadays. She doesn't strain. Not a bit. She smooths one down. A real talent. And a child! Hey, what, quite remarkable."
Lady Emily came slowly in. Two people talked to her.
The spectacled gentleman rose, and they listened to him.
"Don't interrupt, Lady Emily. She's got the floor, y'know. I've heard prima donnas. Here too. And they didn't smooth me down. Catch a note or two of this. It gives its effect, hey? Gets your ear. Hey, what--if we had her in the House there might be hope for the country, hey, what!"
Lady Emily was pleased.
She laid her hand on Mabel's shoulder.
"Are you liking this?"
"Oh, it's such a dream, and you are so lovely, Lady Emily, and it doesn't seem real. So it's very easy to play, you know."
"I should make them stop talking, but they came for that, you know. And you are playing so well, it's too pretty an interlude. Helen didn't tell me that you could play like this."
"And my new master makes me believe I can't play a note," said Mabel. "I shall tell him he is quite wrong, because you said so."
Aunt Katharine's words came to her mind--playing at one end of the country no better than the other! Ah, well, it was newer, fresher, or something--taking it either way!
Of course it came to an end. The girls slipped out with Adelaide Maud and found the long corridor with the white room containing their wraps and two attentive maids. They were covered up in their cloaks, and watched one or two leave before them, as they stood looking down on them from the staircase.
"Nobody will miss us," said Adelaide Maud. "They are 'going on,' you know."
There was something rather sad in her voice.
"They all go on to something or somebody, even that dear old Earl Knuptford, he will pick you at the same place next year that he found you at to-night, and say, 'Hey, what,' and never think that both he and you have dropped twelve months out of your lives. It's different at Ridgetown, isn't it?"
"Yes, there's nothing to go on to at Ridgetown, is there?" said Jean grimly. "And nobody to forget or to say, 'Hey, what,' even if they had never met you before."
Her world was full of shining diplomats and she had chatted with an earl.
Adelaide Maud looked softly after them.
"Nothing to go on to at Ridgetown," she murmured. "And no one to forget."
She smiled softly.
"Ah! well, it's nice that there's no one to forget."
CHAPTER XXII
The Engagement
The night at Lady Emily's was by no means a first step into a new and fashionable world. Mabel and Jean never doubted for a moment that they were anything but spectators of that brilliant gathering. Even Adelaide Maud was only a spectator. Lady Emily and her husband were different from the world in which they moved because they had hobbies and minor interests which they occasionally allowed to interfere with the usual routine. Mr. Dudgeon had been known to skip a state banquet for a book which he has just received. And Lady Emily would make such calls and give such invitations as resulted in that wonderful little dinner party. But as for any of her set being interested, why, there was no time for that. Place something in their way, like Mabel sitting on a couch, part of which Earl Knuptford desired to make use and one met a "belted Earl." He became interested and dropped sentences pell-mell on Mabel's astonished head. For days, Jean dreamed of large envelopes arriving--"The Earl and Countess of Knuptford request," etc.
("You donkey, there's no countess," interjected Mabel.) The Earl would as soon have thought of inviting the lamp post which brought his motor to a full stop and his Lordship's gaze on it correspondingly. Bring these people to a pause in front of something, and they might delay themselves to interview it. But while one is not part of the machinery which takes them on, there is no chance of continuing the acquaintance.
Adelaide Maud told them as much. It seemed to Mabel that Adelaide Maud wanted them to know that though she lived in this world, she was by no means of it. She enjoyed herself often quite as much in the shilling seats. Her view of things did not prevent Mabel and Jean from participating in benefits to be derived from the acquaintance of Lady Emily. There ensued a happy time when they had seats at the Opera, of which an autumn season was in full swing, of occasional concerts and drives, and once they went with Lady Emily and Mr. Dudgeon far into the country on a motor. For the rest, friends of their own looked them up, and they had hardly a moment unfilled with practising which was not devoted to going about and seeing the world of London. The Club improved with acquaintance, and it was wonderful how the very girls who annoyed Jean so much on her arrival became part of their very existence. "We are so dull," she would write home, "because Violet has gone off for the week end," or "We didn't go out because Ethel and Gertrude wanted us to have tea with them."
Adelaide Maud left for home. That was the tragic note of their visit. Then Cousin Harry turned up with his sister and her husband and offered to run them over to Paris for Christmas. Here the cup overflowed. Paris!
It was a new wrench for Mr. Leighton, who meant to get them home for Christmas and if possible keep them there. But he knew that a trip with Mrs. Boyne would be of another "seventh heaven" order, and once more he gave way.
"Can you hold the fort a little longer?" wrote Mabel to Elma.
Elma held the fort.
She held it, wondering often what would come of it all. She was in the position of a younger sister to one she did not love. Isobel chaperoned her everywhere. They had reached a calm stage where they took each other in quite a polite manner, but never were confidential at all. Mr. and Mrs. Leighton saw the politeness and were relieved. They saw further, and lamented Isobel's great friendship with the Merediths. It seemed to Mr. Leighton that although he would much rather leave the affair alone, that Isobel was in his care, that she was a handsome, magnificent girl, and that she ought not to be offered calmly as a sort of second sacrifice to the caprices of Robin. He spoke to her one evening very gently about it when they were alone.
"I thought I ought to tell you," said Mr. Leighton, "that in a tacit sort of manner, Mr. Meredith attached himself very closely to Mabel. She was so young that I did not interfere, as now I am very much afraid I ought to have done. It is a little difficult, you see, for your Aunt in particular, who is asked on every side, 'I had understood that Mabel was to marry Mr. Meredith.' I want you to know of course that Mabel never will marry him now. I should see to that myself, if she had not already told me that she had no desire to. He is not tied in any way, except, as I consider, in the matter of honour. I did not interfere before, but at present I am almost compelled to. I'm before everything your guardian, my dear. I should like you to find a man worthy of yourself."
He had done it as kindly as he knew how.
Isobel sat calmly gazing past him into the fire. There was no ruffling of her features. Only a faint suggestion of power against which it seemed luckless to fight.
"I knew a good deal of this, of course," she said.
"Oh." Mr. Leighton started slightly.
"Yes. But of course there is a similar tale of every man, and every girl--wherever they are boxed up in a place of this size. Somebody has to make love to somebody. I don't suppose Mr. Meredith thought of marriage."
It seemed as though Mr. Leighton were the young, inexperienced person, and that Isobel was the one to impart knowledge.
"In justice to Mr. Meredith, I do not know in the slightest what he thought. That is where my case loses its point. I ought to have known. I certainly, of course, think that I ought to know now."
"Oh," said Isobel. She rose very simply and looked as placid as a lake on a calm morning. "That is very simple. Mr. Meredith intends to marry me whenever I give him the opportunity."
Mr. Leighton was thunderstruck. At the bottom of his mind, he was thankful now that "his girls" were away. Memories of the stumbling block which the existence of Robin's sister had before occasioned made him ask first, "Does Miss Meredith know?"
He spoke in quite a calm manner. It frustrated Isobel for the moment, who had expected an outburst. She wavered slightly in her answer.
"I don't know," she said.
Mr. Leighton moved impatiently.
"That is just it," he said. "This young man makes tentative arrangements and leaves out the important parties to it. Miss Meredith is quite capable of upsetting her brother's plans. Do you know it?"
It seemed that Isobel did. It seemed that Miss Meredith was the one person who could ruffle her. From that day of negligently answering and partly snubbing her in the train, Isobel had showed a side of cool indifference to Miss Meredith.
"I want you to know, Uncle, that I shall not consider Miss Meredith in the slightest."
Could this be a young girl?
"Do you know what Mabel, what all of you did? You considered Miss Meredith. What were the consequences? She gave Mabel away with both hands. She wants her brother to marry Miss Dudgeon. He won't marry Miss Dudgeon. He will marry me."
She rose slightly.
"And Miss Meredith won't have the slightest possible say in the matter."
Mr. Leighton looked rather pale. He flicked quietly the ash from his cigar before answering her.
"It's a different way of dealing with people than I am accustomed to. Will you keep your decision open for a little yet?"
"I shall, till summer, when we mean to be married."
There seemed to be no altering the fact that she was to be married.
"I should be so sorry if, while here with me--with all of us, you did not find a man worthy of you."
"I won't change my mind," she said.
"And Robin?"
He had returned to the old term.
"He didn't change his mind before. Miss Meredith did it for him. I am quite alive to the fact that if Miss Meredith hadn't interfered, and I hadn't come, he would now be engaged to Mabel."
Mr. Leighton appeared dumbfoundered.
"Do you care very much for him?" he asked.
"Oh, yes." Isobel looked almost helplessly at him. "He isn't the man I dreamed of, but he is mine, you know. It has come to that."
She sank on her knees beside him, her eyes blazing.
"Isn't it an indignity for me, as much as for Mabel, to take what she didn't want? You say she doesn't want him. At first--oh! I only desired to show my power. I always meant to marry a wealthier man. But it's no use. He is a waverer, don't I know it. I see him calculating whether I'm worth the racket. I see that--I! Isn't it deplorable! But I mean to make a man of him. He never has been one before. And I mean to marry him, Uncle."
Mr. Leighton smoked and smoked at his cigar. He was beginning at last to fathom the nature that took what it wanted--with both hands.
"Isobel," he said gently, "let us drop all this question of Mabel. It isn't that which comes upper-most, now. It's the question of what you lose by marrying in this way. Don't you know that this dropping of Miss Meredith, this way of 'paying her out,' you know, well, it may give you Robin intact; but have you an idea what you may lose in the process? I don't admire the girl, but--she is his sister. I have never known"--he threw away his cigar--"I have never yet known of a happy, a really happy marriage, where the happiness of two was built on the discomfiture of others. Won't you reconsider the whole position of being down on Miss Meredith, and paying everybody out who was concerned in Robin's affairs before you knew him? Won't you try to make your wedding a happiness to every one--even to Miss Meredith?"
"Oh," said Isobel, "I don't know that the average bride thinks much of the happiness of relations. She has her trousseaux and the guests to be invited, and all that sort of thing." She turned over a book which was lying near. "I don't think I should have time for Miss Meredith," she said coldly.
Mr. Leighton sat quite quietly.
"Will you be married here?" he asked.
A gleam came to Isobel's eyes.
"That would be nice," she said. There was the feeling of an answer to an invitation in her voice.
"It's at your disposal," he said, "anything we can do for your happiness."
"Is that to show that I do nothing for anybody else's?" Isobel was really grateful.
"Perhaps." He said it rather sadly.
"I might make an endeavour over Sarah," she said.
"You know, from the first, the day you came in the train, you told us you had ignored her, hadn't you? She nursed Robin through a long illness. Saw him grow up and all that kind of thing. Never spared herself in the matter of looking after him!"
"Well?" asked Isobel.
"Well," said Mr. Leighton, "it's rather pathetic, isn't it?"
The day was won in a partial manner; for Isobel promised she would try to "ingratiate Sarah."
"It's the wrong way of putting it, but it may make a beginning," said Mr. Leighton.
He further insisted on seeing Robin. That was a bad half-hour for every one, but for no one so particularly as for Robin. He had evaded so many things with Mr. Leighton, and for once he found that gentler nature adamant.
Nothing went quite so much against this gentler nature as having to arrange matters for Isobel. So Robin discovered. Yet already it made what Isobel called "a man of him." He was a man to be ruled, and Mabel had placed herself under his ruling. Here was the real mischief. Isobel would take him firmly in hand.
The girls were greatly mystified, Elma horrified. They had orders to take the news of Isobel's engagement as though it might be an expected event, and certainly no sign was given that it was in the nature of a surprise. Jean could not understand Mabel when the news arrived. She laughed and sang and kissed Jean as though the world had suddenly become happy throughout.
"I thought you would have been cut up," said Jean disconsolately.
"Cut up! Why they are made for one another," cried Mabel. "Isobel, calm and firm, Robin, wavering and admiring, nothing could be better. But oh--oh--I want to see how Sarah takes it."
They had a particular grind just then, for now they were getting into spring, and it would soon be time for making that triumphant passage home of which they had so often dreamed. They lived for that now, but none lived for it more devotedly than Elma.
Isobel's engagement cut her further and further away from enjoying anything very much. She had always the feeling of cold critical eyes being on her. She often congratulated herself on having got over the stage where she used long words in quite their wrong sense. Isobel's proximity in these days would have been dreadful.
Miss Grace also seemed downhearted. It had been a trying winter for her, yet no actual evidence of ill-health had asserted itself. She was concerned about Elma too, who seemed to be losing what the others were gaining by being away, that just development which comes from happy experience. Elma plodded and played, but her bright little soul only came out unfledged of fear at Miss Grace's.
At last one day Miss Grace's face lit.
"My dear, your gift is composition."
Nobody ever had thought of it before. Elma's expression lightened to a transforming radiance.
"Oh, I wonder if I ever could get lessons," she cried.
They discovered a chance, through correspondence. So Elma held the fort, and tried to grapple single-handed with musical composition.
"If only I could compose an anthem before Mabel and Jean get home," she said one day.
"Heavens, Elma, you aren't going to die?" asked Betty.
CHAPTER XXIII
Holding the Fort
Miss Meredith took the news of her brother's engagement in a dumb manner. An explosion of wrath would have helped every one. Robin might have appeared aggrieved, and had something of which to complain, and Isobel's immobility beside some one in a rage was always effective. Miss Meredith would not rage however. She had met a match for her own resourceful methods, and at bottom she feared the reserve of power which prompted Isobel. Under cover of a fine frown she accepted the situation as Isobel had said she would. What hopes were overthrown by the engagement, what schemes upturned, no one but Miss Meredith herself would ever have an inkling. She began to regret her manner of ejecting Mabel, especially since the London reports told of a Mabel many cuts above Ridgetown. Miss Dudgeon had opened their eyes. She had come back in armour, the old Ridgetown armour, and talked in the stiffest manner of Mabel and Lady Emily, as though all were of a piece. Miss Meredith ventured to say to her later on that she understood that Mabel was quite a success in "Society."
"She always was, wasn't she?" asked Adelaide Maud very simply, as though she imagined society had really existed in Ridgetown.
Miss Meredith was a trifle overcast.
"Oh yes, yes, of course," she said. "But Mabel, of course, Mabel----"
"Mabel would shine anywhere you mean. That is true. She possesses the gift of being always divinely natural."
Adelaide Maud could play up better than any one. Miss Dudgeon ran on to congratulate Miss Meredith on her brother's engagement.
"Ah yes, such a charming girl," said Miss Meredith. "He is very fortunate. We both are, since it relates us to so delightful a family. We have always been such friends."
There was a stiff pause. Adelaide Maud could never bring herself to fill in the pauses between social untruthfulnesses.
"She is very courageous, we think," ran on Miss Meredith. "Robin will not be able to give her very much of an establishment, you know. But that does not grieve her. She has a very even and contented disposition. I often tell Robin--quite a girl in a hundred! Not many would have consented so sweetly to an immediate marriage under the circumstances."
Ah, then, this might explain to the public the defection of Mabel. Mabel had expected an "establishment." Miss Dudgeon began to see daylight.
"Oh, on the contrary," she said, rising, "we have always looked on Mr. Meredith as being so well off in respect of being able to get married. Didn't you tell me once--but then I have such a stupid memory!"
Miss Meredith recognized where a great slip had taken place. These had been her words before, "Not many young men are in so easy a position for marrying!" And to Miss Dudgeon of all people she had just said the reverse.
There is a pit formed by a bad memory wherein social untruths sometimes tumble in company. There they are inclined to raise a laugh at themselves, and occasionally make more honest people out of their perpetrators.
Miss Meredith knew there was no use in any longer explaining Robin's position, or want of it, to so clear-headed a person as Miss Dudgeon. The best way was to retire as speedily as possible from so difficult a subject.
Mrs. Leighton found the whole affair very trying. She never indulged in any social doctoring where her own opinions were concerned, and it was really painful for her to meet all the innuendoes cast at her by curious people.
"Oh, Mr. Leighton and I always think young people manage these things best themselves. They are so sensitive, you know, and quite apt to make mistakes if dictated to. A critical audience must be very trying. Yes, everybody thought Robin was engaged to Mabel--but he never was."
"Well then," said Aunt Katharine, with her lips pursed up to sticking-point, "if they weren't engaged, they ought to have been. That's all I've got to say."
It was not all she had got to say, as it turned out. She talked for quite a long time about the duties of children to their parents.
Mrs. Leighton at last became really exasperated.
"You know, Katharine," she said, "if you are so down on these young people, I shall one day--I really shall, I shall tell them how you nearly ran away with James Shrimpton."
"My dear," said Aunt Katharine. She was quite shocked. "I was a young unformed thing and father so overbearing----" She was so hurt she could go no further.
"Exactly," said Mrs. Leighton. "And my girls are young unformed things, and their father is not overbearing."
Aunt Katharine grunted.
"Ah well, you keep their confidence. That's true. I don't know a more united family. But this marriage of Isobel's does not say much for your management."
That was it--"management." Mrs. Leighton groaned slightly to herself. She never would be a manager, she felt sure. She offered a passive front to fate, and her influence stopped there. As for manoeuvring fate by holding the reins a trifle and pressing backward or forward, she had not the inclination at any time to interfere in such a way at all. She leaned on what Emerson had said about things "gravitating." She believed that things gravitated in the right direction, so long as one endeavoured to remain pure and noble, in the wrong one so long as one was overbearing and selfish. She had absolutely no fear as to how things would gravitate for Mabel after that night when she talked about Robin and went off to succour Jean.
She placidly returned to her crochet, and to the complainings of Aunt Katharine.
Cuthbert came down that evening, and Isobel, Elma, Betty and he went off to be grown-ups at a children's party at the Turbervilles. The party progressed into rather a "larky" dance, where there were as many grown-ups as children. All the first friends of the Leightons were there, including, of course, the Merediths. Cuthbert took in Isobel in rather a frigid manner. He endeavoured not to consider Meredith a cad, but his feelings in that direction were overweighted for the evening. He danced with the children, and "was no use for anybody else," as May Turberville put it. But then Cuthbert was so "ghastly clever and all that sort of thing," that he could not be put on the level of other people at all.
Cuthbert had got his summer lectureship. He told Elma, and then Mr. and Mrs. Leighton, and then Betty, and Isobel could not imagine what spark of mischief had lit their spirits to the point of revelry as they ambled along in their slow four-wheeler. Elma had only one despair in her mind. Neither Miss Grace nor Miss Annie were well. Miss Annie particularly seemed out of gear, so much so and so definitely, that for the first time for nearly thirty years Miss Grace spoke of having in Dr. Merryweather.
Cuthbert asked lots of questions.
"I don't know," Elma generally answered. "She just lies and sickens. As though she didn't care."
She raised her hand to her head at the time.
"Dr. Smith says it's the spring weather which everybody feels specially trying this year."
Cuthbert grunted.
George Maclean came to Elma for the first dance. He seemed in very good spirits. Elma found herself wondering if it were about Mabel. Well, one would see. Mabel had always been tied in a kind of a way, and now she was free! Mr. Maclean anyhow was the best, above all the best. Even Mr. Symington! When she thought of him, her mind always ran off to wondering what now might happen to Mr. Symington.
She had a long, rollicking waltz with Mr. Maclean. They rollicked, because children were on the floor and steering seemed out of fashion. Yet he carried her round in a gentle way, because Elma, with her desire to be the best of dancers, invariably got knocked out with a robust partner. He carried her round in the most gentle way until the music stopped with the bang, bang of an energetic amateur. Elma found the floor suddenly hit her on the cheek in what seemed to her a most impossible manner.
"Now what could make it do that?" she asked Mr. Maclean. He was bending over her with rather a white face.
Cuthbert came up.
"Why didn't you tell Maclean that you were giddy?" he said. "He would have held you up."
"But I wasn't giddy," said Elma. "I'm not giddy now."
She was standing, but the floor again seemed at a slant.
"Steady," said Cuthbert. "You're as giddy as the giddiest. Don't pretend. Take her off to get cool, Maclean."
"Cool!" Elma's fingers seemed icy. But there was a comforting, light-headed glow in her cheeks which reassured her.
Every one said how well she was looking, and that kept her from wondering whether she was really going to be ill. George Maclean tried to get her to drink tea, but for the first time in her life she found herself possessed of a passion for lemonade.
"You will really think that I am one of the children," she said, "because I am simply devoured with a longing for iced lemonade."
"Well, you shall have iced lemonade, and as much as you want," said George Maclean. "How I could let you fall, I can't think." There was a most ludicrous look of concern on his face.
"I shall grab all my prospective partners for this evening at least," said Elma. "You can't think how treacherous that floor is."
She did not dance nearly so much as she wanted to. George Maclean and Lance and Cuthbert, these three, at least, made her sit out when she wanted to be "skipping."
Isobel looked her up on hearing that she had fallen. Cuthbert said, "She doesn't look well, you know."
"Why, Elma--Elma is never ill," said Isobel. "Look at her colour too!"
Towards the end of the evening, they began to forget about it, and Elma danced almost as usual. Three times she saw the floor rock, but held on. What her partners thought of her when she clung to a strong arm, she did not stop to think. It was "talking to Miss Annie in her stuffy room" that had started it, she remembered.
She was in an exalted frame of mind about other things. The world was turning golden. Cuthbert was coming home, Mabel and Jean would soon be with them, Adelaide Maud was already on the spot. And Isobel would be gone in the summer.
Robin Meredith came to ask her for a dance. He seemed subdued, and had a rather nervous manner of inviting her. So that it seemed easy for her to be sedate and beg him to excuse her because she had turned giddy. Anything! she could stand anything on that evening except dance with Robin Meredith. Her training in many old ways came back to her, however.
"I shall sit out, if you don't mind," she said. "Isn't it silly to have a headache when all this fun is going on?" She found herself being quite friendly and natural with him. The children were having a great romp in front of them.
"Have you a headache?" he asked rather kindly.
Oh yes, she had a headache. Now she knew. It seemed to have been going on for years. She began to talk about May Turberville's embroidery, and how Lance had sewn a pincushion in order to outrival her. When May had run on to sewing daffodils on her gowns, Lance threatened to embroider sunflowers on his waistcoats. Had he seen Lance's pictures? Well, Lance was really awfully clever, particularly in drawing figures. Mr. Leighton wanted him to say he would be an artist, but Lance said he couldn't stand the clothes he would have to wear. Mr. Leighton said that wearing a velveteen coat didn't mean nowadays that one was an artist, and Lance said that it was the only way of drawing the attention of the public. He said that one always required some kind of a showman to call out "Walk up, gentlemen, this way to the priceless treasures," and that a velveteen coat did all that for an artist. Lance said he would rather be on the Stock Exchange, where he could do his own shouting. She said that frankly, with all the knowledge she had of Lance and his manner of giving people away, she should never think of entrusting him with her money to invest. She said it in a very high voice, since she observed just at that minute that Lance stood behind her chair.
"Well, you are a little cat, Elma," he said disdainfully. "Here am I organizing a party in order to let people know that some day I shall be on the Stock Exchange, and here are you influencing the gully public against me."
"I object to the term 'gully,'" said Robin in a laboured but sporting manner.
"Well--gulled if you like it better," said Lance. "Only that effect doesn't come on till I'm done with you. You are to go and dance lancers, Meredith, while I take your place with this slanderer." It was Lance's way of asking for the next dance.
Elma gave a great sigh of relief after Robin had gone.
"He never heard me say so much in his life before," said she. "He must have been awfully surprised."
"How you can say a word to the fellow--but there, nobody understands you Leightons. You ought to have poisoned him. Or perhaps Mabel is only a little flirt."
He wisped a thread of the gauze of her fan.
Elma smiled at him. She was always sure of Lance.
"I say, Elma, what are we to do with Mother Mabel when she comes back? Does she mind this business, or are we allowed to refer to it in a jovial way?"
"Jovial, I think," said Elma. "I believe Mabs is awfully relieved."
She bent over and whispered to Lance.
"I should myself you know if I had just got rid of Robin."
Lance laughed immoderately.
"He's a rum chap," he said, "but he's met a good match in Isobel. Great Scott, look at the stride on her. She could take Robin up and twist him into macaroni if she wanted to. I'm sorry for him."
"What are you going to do for Sarah?" he asked abruptly.
"Sarah?" asked Elma with her eyes wide.
"Yes, you'll have to marry the girl or something. It's hard nuts on her. Why don't you get Symington back and let him make up the quartette?"
"Mr. Symington?"
"Yes. It would be most appropriate, wouldn't it? Robin and Isobel, and Symington and Sarah. It's quite a neat arrangement. You've provided one husband, why not the other." Several demons of mischief danced in Lance's eye.
"Oh, Lance, don't say that," said Elma; "it's so horrid, and--and common."
"Oh, it's common, is it," said Lance, "common. And I'm going to be your stockbroker one day, and you talk to me like this."
"Look here, Lance, I'd trust you with all my worldly wealth on the Stock Exchange, but I won't let you joke about Mr. Symington."
"Whew," said Lance, and he looked gently and amiably into the eyes of Elma.
"When you look good like that, I know you are exceedingly naughty. What is it this time, Lance?"
"Nothing, Elma, except----"
"Except----"
"That I have found out all I wanted to know about Symington, thank you."
"You are just a common, low little gossip, Lance," said Elma with great severity. "Will you please get me a nice cool glass of iced lemonade."