Part 14 (1/2)

A HOUSE-PARTY AT ROSELAWN.

I.

As is the habit of the year, June followed May, and in its turn gave way to the yellow hours of July. Lady Durwent, wearying of London and its triumphs, returned to Roselawn to share the solitary, rural reign of her husband.

As she drove in a sumptuous car through the village and into the wide confines of the estate she purred with contentment. Men doffed their caps, women curtsied, and the country-side mingled its smile with theirs. It was not unlike the return of a conqueror from a campaign abroad, and after the incognito forced by London on all but the most journalised d.u.c.h.esses, it was distinctly pleasant to be acknowledged by every one she pa.s.sed.

In this most amiable of moods she dined with her husband, and was so vivacious that, looking at her over his gla.s.s of port, he thought how little she had changed since, years before, she had first affected his subnormal pulse. Together they wandered over the lawns, and he showed the improvements wrought since her last visit. She gave the head-gardener the benefit of her unrestricted smile, and shed among all the retainers a bountiful largesse of good-humour.

Still noting the beauties of Roselawn, they discussed their children.

She learned that Malcolm was on leave from the --th Hussars, and was golfing in, and yachting off, Scotland with scions of the Scottish n.o.bility. The mention of d.i.c.k brought a pang to her heart, and a cloud that marred the serenity of her husband's brow. Lord Durwent regretted the necessity of his actions, but the boy had proved himself a 'waster'

and a 'rotter.' He had been given every chance, and had persistently disgraced the family name. If he would go to Canada or Australia, he could have money for the pa.s.sage; otherwise----

After that imperialistic p.r.o.nouncement, Lord Durwent turned to more congenial topics, and spoke of additions to the stables and improvements to the church. His wife answered mechanically, and it was many minutes before the heart-hunger for the blue-eyed d.i.c.k was lulled.

She said nothing, for the development of her sons' lives had long since pa.s.sed from her to a system, but in the seclusion of their country home the domestic tragedy made a deeper inroad on her feelings than it had done in London.

It was perhaps not unnatural that they barely spoke of Elise at all.

She was visiting a county family in the north, and would be home in a couple of days. As there was no immediate suitor on the horizon, what more was there to be said of the daughter of the house?

Next morning Lady Durwent was still amiable, but rather dull. The following day she was frankly bored. On Sunday, during the sermon, she planned a house-party; and so, in due course, invitations were issued, and accepted or regretfully declined. She possessed sufficient sense of the fitness of things to refrain from transplanting any of her _unusual_ varieties from their native soil, but asked only those persons whose family connections ensured a proper tone to the affair.

Perhaps it was just a kindly thought on her part to ask Austin Selwyn.

It may have been the desire of having an author to lend an exotic touch to the gathering. Or, being a woman, she may have wanted an American to see her at the head of the table in two widely different settings.

Perhaps it was all three motives.

II.

In preparation for the arrival of guests, 'a certain liveliness'

pervaded the tranquil atmosphere of Roselawn. The tennis-court was rolled and marked; fis.h.i.+ng-tackle was inspected and repaired; in view of the possibility of dancing, the piano was tuned; bridge deficiencies were made good at the local stationer's; and gardeners and gamekeepers hurried about their tasks, while flapping game-birds signalled to trembling trout that the enemy was mobilising for the yearly campaign.

Roselawn differed little from the hundreds of English country-houses, the seclusion and invulnerability of which have played so great a part in forming the English character. A lodge at the entrance to the estate supplied a medieval sense of challenge to the outside world, and the beautifully kept hedges at the side of the mile-long carriage-drive gave that feeling of retirement and emanc.i.p.ation from the world so much desired by tranquil minds.

It was the setting to produce a poet, or a race of Tories. Once within the embracing solitude of Roselawn, the discordant jangling of common people worrying about their long hours of work or the right to give their offspring a decent chance in the world became a distant murmur, no more unpleasant or menacing than the whang of a wasp outside the window.

Not that the inhabitants of Roselawn were any more callous or selfish than others of their cla.s.s, for the record of the Durwent family was by no means devoid of kindly and knightly deeds. Tenantry lying ill were always the recipients of studied thoughtfulness from the lord and lady of the place, and servants who had served both long and faithfully could look forward to a decent pension until death sent them to the great equality of the next world.

If one could trace the history of the Durwent family from the beginning, it would be seen that among the victims of a hereditary system there must be numbered many of the aristocracy themselves.

Caricaturists and satirists, who smear the many with the weaknesses of the few, would have us believe that the son of a lord is no better than the son of a fool; yet, if the vaults of some of the old families were to unfold their century-hugged secrets, it would be seen that, as Gray's country churchyard might hold some mute inglorious Milton, so might these vaults hold the ashes of many a splendid brain ruined by the genial absurdity of 'cla.s.s' wherein it had been placed. A boy with a t.i.tle suspended over his head like the sword of Damocles may enter life's arena armed with great aspirations and the power to bring a depth of human understanding to earth's problems, but what chance has he against the ring of antagonists who confront him? Flunkeyism, 'sw.a.n.k,' the timid wors.h.i.+p of the peerage, the leprosy of social hypocrisy, all sap his strength, as barnacles clinging to the keel of a s.h.i.+p lessen her speed with each recurring voyage.

It is not that the hereditary system injures directly; its crime lies in what it engenders--the pestilence of sn.o.bbery, which poisons nearly all who come into contact with it, t.i.tled and unt.i.tled, frocked and unfrocked, washed and unwashed. The very servants create a comic-opera set of rules for their below-stairs life, and the man who has butlered for a lord, even if the latter be the greatest fool of his day, looks with scorn upon the valet of some lesser fellow who, perchance, is forced to make a living by his brains.

III.

The house at Roselawn was large, and, with its ivy-covered exterior, presented a spectacle of considerable beauty. The front was in the form of a 'hollow square,' creating an imposing courtyard, and giving the windows of the library and the drawing-room ample opportunity for suns.h.i.+ne. From these windows there was a charming vista of well-kept lawns, margined with gardens possessed of a hundred tones of exquisite colour. At the back of the house the windows looked out on receding meadows that melted into the solidarity of woods.

The drawing-room (Lady Durwent tried to designate it 'the music-room,'