Part 25 (1/2)
The pause had made the ladies so frigid and the men-servants so shy, the pretty housemaid so merry and the plain ones so solemn, that disaster threatened the gathering, when Mr. Wedmore and the cook made their opportune appearance.
Max, his cousins and young Hutchinson gave three cheers, in the midst of which demonstration the Rev. Lisle Lindsay endeavored to make his escape by the front door.
Unhappily, Mr. Wedmore, elated by his victory over the cook, espied him, and straightway forbade him to leave the house until after ”Sir Roger.”
In vain the curate protested; pleaded the privileges and exemptions of his sacred calling.
Mr. Wedmore was obdurate; and, to the disgust of everybody, including himself, the Rev. Lisle Lindsay found himself told off to dance with the pretty housemaid, being the only man in the room who was not anxious for the honor.
This mishap cast a gloom over the proceedings. The rest of the gentlemen found it hard to extract a word from the other maids, who all considered themselves slighted. And Mr. Wedmore had great difficulty in persuading the men-servants to come forward and take their places by the partners he chose for them. To get them to choose for themselves was out of the question, after one young gardener had availed himself of the invitation by darting across the floor and asking Miss Queenie, in a hoa.r.s.e voice and with many blushes, if she would dance with him.
Of course, this piece of daring made a sensation so great that to get another man follow the bold example was impossible.
In the end, Mrs. Wedmore found a partner in the coachman, who was a portly and solemn person, with no talents in the way of dancing or of conversation. Doreen danced with the butler, who, between nervousness and gloom, found it impossible to conceal his opinion that master was making a fool of himself; and the rest of the company being quite as ill matched, ”Sir Roger” was performed with little grace and less liveliness, while the Yule Log, after emitting a great deal of smoke, sputtered out into blackness, to everybody's relief.
The end of it was, however, a little better than the beginning. As the dancers warmed to their work, their latent enthusiasm for the exercise was awakened; and ”Sir Roger” was kept up until the fingers of the organist, who had been engaged to play for them on a piano placed in a corner of one of the pa.s.sages, ached with the cold and with the hard work.
When the dance was over and the party had broken up, Doreen, who had done her best to keep up the spirits of the rest, broke down. Max met her on her way to her room, and saw that the tears were very near her eyes.
”What's the matter now?” said he, crossly. ”You seemed all right downstairs. I thought you and Lindsay seemed to be getting on very well together.”
”Did you? Well, you were wrong,” said she, briefly, as she shut herself into the room.
CHAPTER XVI.
A MESSAGE FROM THE WHARF.
Christmas was over, and The Beeches had subsided into its normal state of prosperous tranquility. Max had had a fresh situation discovered for him, and he was now wasting his time on a stool in a merchant's office, as he had wasted it in other offices many times before. His father's chronic state of exasperation with his laziness was growing acute, and he had informed Max that unless he chose to stick to his work this time he would have to be s.h.i.+pped off to the Cape. No entreaties on the part of Mrs. Wedmore or the girls were of any avail against this fixed resolution on Mr. Wedmore's part, or against the inflexible laziness of Max himself. He detested office work, and he confessed that if he was not to be allowed to lead the country life he loved, he would prefer enlistment in the Cape Mounted Police to drudgery in a dark corner of a city office.
It was on a foggy evening in January that Max, for the first time in three weeks (an unprecedented interval), knocked at the door of Dudley Horne's chambers.
There was a long delay, and Max, after a second knock, was going to withdraw, in the belief that Dudley was not in, after all, when he heard slow steps within, and paused.
The door was opened a very little way, and Dudley looked out.
Max stared at him for a moment without speaking. For over his friend there had pa.s.sed some great change. Dudley had never been florid of complexion, but now he looked ghastly. His face had always been grave and strong rather than cheerful, but now the expression of his countenance was forbidding.
He looked at Max, glanced down the stairs, and nodded without a smile.
”h.e.l.lo!” said he, with the letter of familiarity, but without its spirit. ”Haven't seen anything of you for a century. Up in town again, eh?”
”Yes. Can't I come in?” said Max.
Dudley had come outside instead of inviting his friend in. At these words, however, he turned abruptly, and himself led the way into the little ante-chamber.
”Oh, yes, oh, yes, come in, of course. Come in.”
Max accepted the cool invitation in silence, shut the door behind him, and followed his friend into the sitting-room, where the table was laid for a solitary dinner.