Part 22 (1/2)
It was only after she was dressed for the evening that Grizel entered the dining-room to survey the completed table, while Parsons and Mary Edwards stood at attention by the sideboard. She wore a wonderful gown of a deep purple _crepe_, encrusted with heavy gold embroideries. A diamond aigrette sparkled on her head, but her beautiful white throat was bare of ornaments. She looked young and radiant and exquisite, and to both black-robed, white-ap.r.o.ned onlookers came a spasm of an old regret. The feminine in them revolted at the chasm between the cla.s.ses... ”Oh, to be a lady, and look like that!”
”Quite nice!” cried Grizel graciously. ”You've done the flowers beautifully, Parsons. Is this Edwards? How d'you do, Edwards! Sure you have everything you want? Enough spoons, and forks, and things like that? That's all right! Then we'll just go straight on, you know. No waiting between the courses.”
”Yes, ma'm. No, ma'm,” said Edwards firmly.
Parsons thought of the pandemonium now reigning in the kitchen, and remained discreetly dumb. Grizel gave another nod of approval and turned towards the door.
And then, at that very moment--_something happened_!
For the life of her during those first reeling seconds Grizel could not have told what it was. There was a creeping, crawling sound, coming from above, and mysteriously growing in force. Something was going to happen: in another second something _was_ happening! It was a dream, a nightmare, a hallucination. The clearly lighted room was suddenly filled with dust, with smoke, with floating particles of white. Down, down, they fell, thicker and thicker, in a solid, snow-like ma.s.s, covering the table, covering the carpet, scattering a powdery foam to right and to left. With more or less force certain particles fell on her own head, her own shoulders; she gasped for breath; felt on her tongue a strange dry taste and shuddered in disgust. Across a s.p.a.ce of whirling dust clouds Parsons's face and Mary Edwards's confronted her, white as two clowns. Grizel shrieked, and still shrieking fled into the hall.
Doors opened, voices called. At the end of the pa.s.sage appeared Cook's crimsoned face. Martin rushed down the staircase, followed by an exclaiming Marie, and all three stared petrified at the sight before them.
Parsons and Edwards had followed Grizel's lead, and were now flanking her on each side, pressing their hands to their hearts, and gasping for breath. All three were white from head to foot, and on the floor around them the carpet was whitened to match.
”For mercy's sake, Grizel, _what_ has happened?” cried Martin loudly.
Then, lifting his eyes, he glanced through the open door of the dining-room, and beheld...
Where had stretched a smooth expanse of white, there were now unsightly gaps showing glimpses of dust and timber: where the lines of the cornice had neatly bordered the room, was now a rough and jagged edge. The ceiling had fallen, gently, unostentatiously, without fuss or clamour, and deposited itself upon the floor!
At that moment the door bell rang.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
AMONG THE BULBS.
By noon next day all Chumley was ringing with the story of Grizel Beverley's first dinner party, for each feminine guest, anxious to have the privilege of telling the news, had hurried out of the house at the first possible moment, and betaken herself to the High Street.
”My dear! you never knew anything so awful.--I never enjoyed anything so much in my life,” said Miss Hunter, the doctor's sister, to her dearest friend, and, linking arms, proceeded to give a detailed account of the night's adventure. How being herself the first to arrive at the house, the door had opened to reveal the tableau of the dishevelled mistress and maids, standing at the end of the hall, like figures of snow, and through an open door a vista of the dining-room, with a table heaped high with plaster. A gruesome spectacle it had been; the gleam of gla.s.s and silver serving but to accentuate the general ruin.
For the first moment Mrs Beverley had gaped at her guests as if not realising the meaning of their presence; then suddenly she had begun to laugh, to peal with laughter, and to explain the nature of the sudden catastrophe. Then Miss Hunter and her brother had said that of course they would return home, and she had stamped her foot, and said--nothing of the kind! the dinner was cooked,--and pray, who was to eat the dinner? They were to stay; everyone was to stay; she would arrange everything in a twinkling! It would be first-rate fun.
And it _was_ fun! At a word from their mistress the maids disappeared to change their gowns, while Grizel herself picked her way carefully up the staircase. Then her French maid spread a sheet over the floor in the dressing-room, and Mrs Beverley stepped out of her dress. She looked about eighteen in her petticoat, and as slight as an elf, yet there wasn't a bone to be seen. ”So different from my gridiron chest!”
said Miss Hunter, with a sigh. And then? Well, then she rubbed the plaster off her hair, but it still looked all white and _poudree_, and stayed that way all evening,--so becoming! and the maid came in with another beautiful gown--green this time, and she was all fastened up and ready, almost as soon as the guests themselves. Then the fun began.
A number of bridge tables were produced, spread with white cloths, and arranged round the drawing-room, while an oak bench from the hall did duty as sideboard. It was like a dinner in a restaurant,--much better fun than sitting round an ordinary table, and everyone was so amused and excited that the evening went with a roar. When the dessert stage was reached, two of the men volunteered for rescue service, shed their coats in the hall, and extricated the most promising dishes, the contents of which, having been carefully cleansed, were welcomed with loud cheers by the rest of the party. ”I never,” concluded Miss Hunter gleefully, ”was so rowdy in my life!”
”Fancy having enough spoons and forks to go round a second time!” was the Chumley maiden's practical comment. After a moment's pause, she asked eagerly: ”And was Captain Peignton very attentive to Teresa?”
”He was not sitting at the same table.” Miss Hunter, paused in her turn, and added in a reflective voice: ”I don't remember seeing him speak to her the whole evening.”
In truth Dane was not a demonstrative lover. The fact was patent to Teresa herself, and in the depths of her heart she acknowledged a lack.
Her own nature was not demonstrative; with her own family her manner was indifferent almost to callousness, but with Dane she felt capable of a great tenderness. She wished that he would be more tender to her; that when they were alone together his manner of affectionate raillery would change to something deeper. She wished above all things that he would speak of his love. Mary's questionings on the night of her sister's betrothal had had something to do with awakening this longing, for when Teresa came to think over what had pa.s.sed, it seemed as if most of the protestations had been made by herself. He had asked if _she_ cared, had kissed her and vowed to be true, but neither then or at any subsequent meeting had he lost his head, and said all the dear, mad, exaggerated sweetnesses which were the language of lovers. Teresa had never before had a lover, but something in her blood, an instinct stronger than theory, told her that such exaggerations were not the creations of fiction, but that they existed in very truth, and to both speaker and hearer should appear the most precious of truths. It was in her heart to lavish such protestations on Dane; to tell him of the days when she had longed to touch his lean, brown hands, to lean her head against the rough frieze of his coat, to tell him how she had loved him, how she had longed for him, how she had prayed to be made good for his sake. If she had given way to the impulse, Dane's heart would have opened in its turn, since there are few men callous enough to remain unaffected by the love of a girl who is young, and fresh, and agreeable to the eye; but Teresa's strong sense of propriety forbade her to offer more than she received, and she sternly repressed the impulse to be ”silly.” The engaged couple met often, since in a town of the size of Chumley every gathering brings together the same people, but _tete-a-tetes_ were less frequent. When Dane spent an evening at the Cottage, Teresa wondered if she were bold and unmaidenly because she longed to carry off her lover to the snuggery on the second floor, and felt exasperated when he sat contentedly in the drawing-room chatting with Mrs Mallison and Mary, and even volunteering to play a game with the Major. On Sunday afternoons, when they were left alone as a matter of course, he would kiss her and stroke her hair, and say pretty things about her complexion, and the pretty blue dress, but invariably, infallibly he would relapse into the old quizzical, irresponsible mood, treating her as if she were an amusing child, rather than a woman and his promised wife. Teresa's attempts to give a serious turn to the conversation were ponderous enough to add to Dane's amus.e.m.e.nt, and he would laugh still more, and even mimic her to her face.
Another subject that troubled Teresa was that her lover made no allusions to the date of their marriage. At least once a day Mrs Mallison would enquire curiously, ”And has the Captain said anything about the date?” and it was humiliating to reply continually in the negative.
Lovers in books were always urgent in this respect; the lovers she had known in real life had been no less impetuous, and in Dane's case there seemed no reason for delay. He was old enough; he had enough money-- then why should they wait? Teresa could not bring herself to introduce such a topic, but she did tentatively mention the honeymoon one day, asking Dane where he would take her. For a moment he looked startled, but at the hint of a foreign tour he brightened, and they spent a delightful hour, discussing routes, and rival places of interest.
Teresa had never yet crossed the Channel, and Dane as a world-traveller felt a prospective pleasure in the thought of introducing her to fresh scenes. To him it seemed pitiful to think of a human creature having spent twenty-four years in Chumley, with no change but an occasional month in seaside lodgings. He displayed frank pity for such a fate, but Teresa exhibited no pity for herself. She was very fond of Chumley; she was fond of the Chumley people; it was nice to travel now and then for a few weeks at a time, but she preferred a settled life. Dane realised with amus.e.m.e.nt that Rome itself would be judged from a Chumley standpoint.
The Squire was highly amused at the story of Grizel's first dinner party, and pointed many morals thereon for his wife's benefit. Almost it seemed that he blamed her because his own dining-room ceiling had never descended, and opened the way for such an unconventional evening.