Part 49 (1/2)

Oftener an officious young Evans thrusts upon her the fact of having met him going in the accustomed direction; oftener still, the little Harboroughs innocently mention it as a thing of course; oftenest, her own heart divines it. And after all, what can be more natural than that at such a juncture his services should be needed and asked; than that he whose mouth has always been so full of the beauty and duty of living for others, should give them readily and freely? And again, what can be more natural or obvious than that his presence should be needed, should be indispensable in fact, in the endless discussions as to the choice of a play, interminable as the ever famous ones in 'Mansfield Park;' and that with him it should rest to adjust the jarring claims of the young Hartleys, of whom some pipe, some harp, and some do neither, but are none the less resolved to display themselves in one capacity or another before the ----s.h.i.+re public? And, later on, when the stage with its decorations arrives from London, what can be more natural than that those among the scenes which do not commend themselves to the actors'

liking should be painted afresh; and that again Freddy's unerring taste and illimitable good-nature should be called into play?

'You really are too good-natured, Mr. Ducane,' Mrs. Hartley reiterates; 'you let them impose upon you. You really ought to think of yourself sometimes; it does not do not to think of one's self sometimes; one has to be selfish now and again, in this world.' And Freddy, aloft on a ladder with a large brush in his hand, and smouches of paint on his charming face, smiles delightfully, and says he should be sorry to have to think that. And when he does make time for a visit to the Red House, he is so affectionate; brings with him such an atmosphere of enjoyment; is so full of interesting pieces of news about the progress of the preparations, of pleasant speeches as to the intense eagerness on the part of the whole Hartley family to make Prue's acquaintance, that for twenty-four hours after each of them her spirits maintain the level to which the fillip of his easy tendernesses has lifted them.

'It would be tiresome if it were to last for ever, I grant you,' she says to Peggy one day, with an a.s.sumption of placid indifference; 'but as it is a temporary thing--so very temporary--why, in less than a fortnight now it will be over, how silly I should be to care! In less than a fortnight' (her face growing suffused with a happy pink) 'we shall go back to our old ways; and the Hartleys will be off in their fine yacht round the world--and good luck go with them! I _like_ him to help them. I tell you I like it,' reiterating the a.s.sertion as if knowing it to be one not very easily to be believed; 'it would not have tallied at all with my idea of him if he had refused.'

And Peggy only rejoins despondently: 'Well, dear, if you are pleased, so am I.'

Not, indeed, that Margaret contents herself with this depressed acquiescence in her sister's eclipsed condition. She has on several occasions, and despite many gently conveyed hints on his part that she is not judicious in her choice of opportunities, endeavoured to tackle Mr. Ducane on the subject of his future, to obtain some definite answer from him as to the choice of a profession, etc. But her unsuccess has been uniform and unvaried. It is not that he has ever refused to discuss the question with her. Indeed, in looking back upon their conversation she is always puzzled to remember how it was that he had eluded her. She has generally ended by tracing his escape back to some exalted abstraction; some sentiment too delicate for the wear and tear of everyday life; some bubbling jest.

'You know, dear,' he says to her very kindly one day, when she has been pointing out to him, with some warmth, the entire frivolity of his present mode of life; 'you know, dear, that you and I are always a little at odds as to the true meaning of the word ”education.” I have always felt that the soul's education can be more furthered by what the world calls ”play,” than by what it has chosen to define specially as ”work.” There is no use in forcing one's spirit, dear Peggy. One is much more likely to learn the lines that one's true development ought to follow by sitting still and listening humbly to the voice of the Erd Geist.'

'And the voice of the Erd Geist tells you to paint drop-scenes for the Hartleys'?' replies Peggy witheringly; but her sarcasm furthers her cause as little as do her more serious reasonings.

At the end of the month that intervenes between the arrival of the Hartleys' invitation and the fulfilment of its promise, that cause is exactly where it was. By milady Peggy has been spared any further reference to the subject of her sister's engagement; nor, as far as is known to the girl, has Lady Roupell taken any step such as she had threatened for the separation of the lovers.

With a stab at her heart Peggy recognises the reason of this inaction.

The shrewd old woman sees how needless is her interference; and, being kind as well as shrewd, refrains from giving the last unnecessary shove to the tottering card-house of poor Prue's felicity.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

'At Charing Cross, hard by the way Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay, There is a house with stairs; And there did I see coming down Such folk as are not in our town; Forty at least in pairs.'

On the night of the 15th of September a great many more than forty pairs of feet were pa.s.sing up and down the stairs of that magnificent specimen of Jackson's domestic architecture, the Hartleys' new palace in ----s.h.i.+re. Amateur theatricals are, strange as it may appear, since going to see them is almost invariably the triumph of hope over experience, always an attractive bait to hold out to a country neighbourhood. Apart from the pleasure of thinking how much better than do the actors, one could have played their parts one's self; and that opposite and more good-natured, if not quite so acute pleasure, of wondering with Miss Snevellici's patroness, 'How they ever learnt to act as they do, laughing in one piece, and crying in the next, and so natural in both,' there is, in the present case, an element of curiosity which adds an additional poignancy to the expectation of enjoyment usual in such cases.

It is the Hartley _coup d'essai_ in hospitality in the county, and there is a widespread interest manifested as to how they will do it. Almost as widespread is the comfortable conviction that they will do it well.

An old-established squire who has been seated on his modest acres for a couple of hundred years may venture to invite his friends to dance on a sticky floor to the sound of a piano, and to wash away their fatigue in libations of 50-s.h.i.+lling champagne; but the millionaire, who has only within the last year set an uncertain foot upon the land, is not likely to try any such experiments upon the county's patience. It is, then, with a confident hope of Gunter and Coote and Tinney that the occupants of most of the carriages step out on the red cloth--a hope that the first glimpse of the banks of orchids that line the entrance-hall goes far to make a certainty.

From the minds of the occupants of one carriage, to whose turn, after long waiting in the endless string, it at length comes to set free its load, Gunter, Coote and Tinney, and orchids are equally distant.

Milady's head is still running on her Patience, which, by the aid of a carriage-lamp and a pack of tiny cards, she has been playing contentedly during the whole of the long ten miles. The little portion of Peggy's heart that is not filled with an aching compa.s.sion and anxiety for her sister is pierced by the fear of the extreme likelihood, in so promiscuous a gathering of three-fourths of the county, of her finding herself face to face with the one woman whom she would compa.s.s sea and land to avoid, and with the man whom that woman habitually carries in her train.

And Prue?

'I think he is sure to be at the door to receive us, do not you?' she has whispered to her sister, under cover of milady's absorption in her solitary game, while they are still waiting in the string; 'not that I shall be so silly as to attach any importance to it if he is not; but after a whole week!' stifling a sigh. 'Oh dear!' letting down the gla.s.s and craning her neck impatiently out, 'shall we never get there? I see carriage-lamps for half a mile ahead of us still!'

A whole week! It is true. For a whole week the Red House has been favoured with no glimpse of Mr. Ducane. How should it, indeed, since he has been compelled by the exigencies of his situation to take up his abode entirely at the scene of his labours? Of what use to waste upon the long ride there and back time so precious in a last week? the time of one upon whose inexhaustible stock of ability and good-nature every one thinks him or herself ent.i.tled to draw.

But though he has been unable to present himself in person to his betrothed, he has had time to scribble her a tiny pencil-note, just a word--but then how little can the value of a letter be measured by its length!--praying her to keep a place for him by her side at the theatricals.

'If my Prue refuses, it will be all over with my pleasure,' he ends simply.

The carriage, after many tantalising halts opposite dark laurels, draws up finally before a blaze of electric light, a crowd of powdered footmen, an arching of palm-boughs; and milady steps deliberately out in her fur boots and her diamond 'fender,' followed by her two _protegees_.

Freddy is not at the door to receive them; and the moment that she has discovered this fact, Prue sees the irrationality of the hope that had led her ever to expect that he would be. He is naturally not in the cloak-room, where milady seems, to the girl's pa.s.sionate impatience, to loiter unconscionably long, tugging at the strings of her _sortie de bal_, which have got into a knot, and talking to the numerous friends she meets there. To do her justice, it is not any care for her toilette that detains her. She would quite as soon have the famous tiara--her 'fender,' as she always calls it--which the county has admired for fifty years, on crooked as straight. The county expects to see it on great occasions, and so she puts it on; but if Mrs. Mason were to dispose it behind before, the circ.u.mstance would disturb but very slightly her lady's equanimity. Mr. Ducane is not, as far as can be made out by a first glance, in the magnificent music-room, to-night arranged as a theatre, and at whose door Mrs. Hartley stands, smiling and splendid, to receive her guests. But though Prue's eye has as yet to fast from the sight of her betrothed, her ear at least is gladdened by his praises.

'Oh, Lady Roupell, I do not know how we ever can thank Mr. Ducane enough!' she hears Mrs. Hartley exclaim. 'My girls say they do not know what they should have done without him--so kind, so clever, and unselfish is not the word!'

Milady grunts.