jupiter pluvius, or mr. j. pluvius, by which name major ames was facetiously wont to allude to the weather, seemed amiably inclined to co-operate with mrs. evans’ scheme, for the evening of her party promised to be ideal for the purpose. the few days previous had been very hot, and no particle of moisture lurked in the baked lawns, so that her guests would be able to wander at will without risk of contracting catarrh, or stains on such shoes as should prove to be white satin. moreover, by a special kindness of providence, there was no moon, so that the illumination of fairy-lights and chinese lanterns would suffer no dispiriting comparison with a more potent brightness. over a large portion of the lawn mrs. evans, at major ames’ suggestion (not having to pay for these paraphernalia he was singularly fruitful in suggestions), had caused a planked floor to be laid; here the opening procession and quadrille and the subsequent dances would take place, while conveniently adjacent was the mulberry-tree under shade of which were spread the more material hospitalities. tree and dancing-floor were copiously outlined with lanterns, and straight rows of fairy-lights led to them from the garden door of the house. similarly outlined was the garden wall and the hedge by the railway-cutting, while the band (piano, two strings and a cornet of amazingly piercing quality) was to be concealed in the small cul-de-sac which led to the{150} potting shed and garden roller. the shrubbery was less vividly lit; here hamlets and rosalinds could stray in sequestered couples, unharassed by too searching an illumination. major ames had paid his last clandestine visit this afternoon, and had expressed himself as perfectly pleased with the arrangements. both elsie and the doctor had been there.
the party had been announced to begin at half-past ten, and it was scarcely that hour when mrs. ames came downstairs from her bedroom where she had so long been busy since the end of the early dinner. her arms were bare from finger-tip to her little round shoulders, over which were clasped, with handsome cairngorm brooches, the straps of her long tunic. but there was no effect of an excessive display of human flesh, since her arms were very short, and in addition they were plentifully bedecked. on one arm a metallic snake writhed from wrist to elbow, on the other there was clasped above the elbow a plain circlet of some very bright and shining metal. a net of blue beads altogether too magnificent to be turquoises, was pinned over her unfaded hair, and from the front of it there depended on her forehead a large pear-shaped pearl, suggestive of the one which the extravagant queen subsequently dissolved in vinegar. any pearl, so scientists tell us, which is capable of solution in vinegar must be a curious pearl; that which mrs. ames wore in the middle of her forehead was curious also. art had been specially invoked, over and above the normal skin-food to-night, in the matter of mrs. ames’ face, and a formal egyptian eyebrow, as indicated in the illustration to “rameses” in the encyclop?dia, decorated in charcoal the place where her own eye{151}brow once was. below her eye a touch of the same charcoal added brilliancy to the eye itself; several touches of rouge contributed their appropriate splendour to her cheeks.
the long tunic which was held up over her shoulders by the cairngorm brooches, reached to her knee. it was a little tight, perhaps, but when you have only one arab shawl, shot with copious gold thread, you have to make it go as far as it can, and after all, it went to her knees. a small fold of it was looped up, and fell over her yellow girdle, it was parted at the sides below the hips, and disclosed a skirt made of two arab shawls shot with silver, which, stitched together, descended to her ankle. she did not mean to dance anything except the opening quadrille. below this silver-streaked skirt appeared, as was natural, her pretty plump little feet. on them she wore sandals which exhibited their plumpness and prettiness and smallness to the fullest extent. a correct strap lay between the great toe and the next, and the straps were covered with silver paper. for years riseborough had known how small were her shoes; to-night riseborough should see that those shoes had been amply large enough for what they contained. round her neck, finally, were four rows of magnificent pearl beads; no wonder cleopatra thought nothing of dissolving one pearl, when its dissolution would leave intact so populous a company of similar treasures.
as she came downstairs she heard a sudden noise in the drawing-room, as if a heavy man had suddenly stumbled. it required no more ingenuity than was normally hers to conjecture that lyndhurst was already there, and had tripped himself up in some novel accoutrement. and at that, a sudden flush of excitement and anticipation invaded her, and she{152} wondered what he would be like. as regards herself she felt the profoundest confidence in the success of her garniture. he could scarcely help being amazed, delighted. and an emotion never keenly felt by her, but as such long outworn, shook her and made her knees tremulous. she felt so young, so daring. she wished that at this moment he would come out, for as she descended the stairs he could not but see how small and soft were her feet....
almost before her wish was formed, it was granted. a well-smothered oath succeeded the stumbling noise, and major ames, in white roman toga and tights came out into the hall. there was no vestige of venetian cloak about him; he was altogether different from what she had expected. a profuse wig covered his head, the toga completely masked what the exercise with the garden roller had not completely removed, and below, his big calves rose majestic over his classical laced shoes. if ever there was a mark antony with a military moustache, he was not in egypt nor in rome, but here; by a divine chance, without consultation, he had chosen for himself the character complementary to hers. he looked up and saw her, she looked down and saw him.
“bless my soul,” he said. “amy! cleopatra!”
she gave him a happy little smile.
“bless my soul,” she said. “lyndhurst! mark antony!”
there was a long and an awful pause. it was quite clear to her that something had occurred totally unexpected. she had wanted to be unexpected, but there was something wrong about the quality of his surprise. then such manliness as there was in him came to his aid.
“upon my word,” he said, “you have got yourself{153} up splendidly, amy. cleopatra now, pearls and all, and sandals! why, you’ll take the shine out of them all! here we go, eh? antony and cleopatra! who would have thought of it! the cab’s round, dear. we had better be starting, if we’re to take part in the procession. not want a cloak or anything? antony and cleopatra; god bless my soul!”
that was sufficient to allay the immediate embarrassment. true, he had not been knocked over by this apparition of her in the way she had meant, and the astonished pause, she was afraid, was not one of surrendering admiration. and yet, perhaps, he was feeling shy, even as she was; standing here in all this splendour of shining pantomime he might well feel her to be as strange to him, as she felt him to be to her. moreover, she had not only to look cleopatra, but to be cleopatra, to behave herself with the gaiety and youth which her appearance gave him the right to expect. in the meantime he also had earned her compliments, for no man who thinks it worth while to assume a fancy dress has a soul so unhuman as to be unappreciative of applause.
she fell back a step or two to regard him comprehensively.
“my dear,” she said, “you are splendid; that toga suits you to admiration. and your arms look so well coming out of the folds of it. what great strong arms, lyndhurst! you could pick up your little cleopatra and carry her back—back to egypt so easily.”
something of their irresponsibility which, as by a special providence, broods over the audacity of assuming strange guises, descended on her. she could no more have made such a speech to him in her ordinary morning-clothes, nor yet in the famous{154} rose-coloured silk, than she could have flown. but now her costume unloosed her tongue. and despite the dreadful embarrassment that he knew would await him when they got to the party, and a second cleopatra welcomed them, this intoxication of costume (liable, unfortunately, to manifest itself not only in vin gai) mounted to his head also.
“ma reine!” he said, feeling that french brought them somehow closer to the appropriate oriental atmosphere.
she held up her skirt with one hand, and gave him the other.
“we must be off, my antony,” she said.
they got into the cab; a somewhat jaded-looking horse was lashed into a slow and mournful trot, and they rattled away down the hard, dry road.
a queue of carriages was already waiting to disembark its cargoes when they drew near the house, and leaning furtively and feverishly from the window, mrs. ames saw a hamlet or two and some titanias swiftly and shyly cross the pavement between two rows of the astonished proletariat. beside her in the cab her husband grunted and fidgeted; she guessed that to him this entrance was of the nature of bathing on a cold day; however invigorating might be the subsequent swim, the plunge was chilly. but she little knew the true cause of his embarrassment and apprehension; had his military career ever entailed (which it had not) the facing of fire, it was probable, though his courage was of no conspicuous a kind, that he would have met the guns with greater blitheness than he awaited the moment that now inevitably faced him. then came their turn; there was a pause, and then their carriage door was flung open, and they descended from the innocent vehicle{155} that to him was as portentous as a tumbril. in a moment cleopatra would meet cleopatra, and he could form no idea how either cleopatra would take it. the cleopatra-hostess, as he knew, was going to wear sandals also; snakes were to writhe up her long white arms....
mrs. ames adjusted the pear-shaped pearl on her forehead.
“i think if we say half-past one it will be late enough, lyndhurst,” she said. “if we are not ready he can wait.”
it seemed to lyndhurst that half-past one would probably be quite late enough.
the assemblage of guests took place in the drawing-room which opened into the garden; a waiter from the “crown” inn, with a chin beard and dressed in a sort of white surplice and carrying a lantern in his hand, who might with equal reasonableness be supposed to be the man in the moon out of the midsummer night’s dream, or a grave-digger out of hamlet, said “character names, please, ma’am,” and preceded them to the door of this chamber. he bawled out “cleopatra and mark antony.”
another cleopatra, a “different conception of this part,” as the kent chronicle said in its next issue, a cleopatra dim and white and willowy, advanced to them. she looked vexed, but as she ran her eyes up and down mrs. ames’ figure, like a practised pianist playing a chromatic scale, her vexation seemed completely to clear.
“dear cousin amy,” she said, “how perfectly lovely! i never saw—wilfred, make your bow to cleopatra. and antony! oh, major ames!”
again she made the chromatic scale, starting at{156} the top, so to speak (his face), with a long note, and dwelling there again when she returned to it.
other arrivals followed, and this particular antony and cleopatra mingled with such guests as were already assembled. the greater part had gathered, and mrs. ames’ habitual manner and bearing suited excellently with her regal r?le. the turner family, at any rate, who were standing a little apart from the others, not being quite completely “in” riseborough society, and, feeling rather hot and feverish in the thick brocaded stuffs suitable to falstaff, mistress page and king theseus, felt neither more nor less uncomfortable when she made a few complimentary remarks to them than they did when, with her fat prayer-book in her hand, she spoke to them after church on sunday. elsewhere young morton, with a white face and a red nose, was the traditional apothecary, and mrs. taverner was so copiously apparalled as queen catherine that she was looking forward very much indeed to the moment when the procession should go forth into the greater coolness of the night air. then a stentorian announcement from the waiter at the crown made every one turn again to the door.
“antony and cleopatra ten years later,” he shouted.
there was a slight pause. then entered mr. and mrs. altham with high-held hands clasped at finger-tips. they both stepped rather high, she holding her skirt away from her feet, and both pointing their toes as if performing a pavanne. this entry had been much rehearsed, and it was arresting to the point of producing a sort of stupefaction.
mrs. evans ran her eye up and down the pair, and was apparently satisfied.
“dear mrs. altham,” she said, “how perfectly{157} lovely! and mr. altham. but ten years later! you must not ask us to believe that.”
she turned to her husband and spoke quickly, with a look on her face less amiable than she usually wore in public.
“wilfred,” she said, “tell the band to begin the opening march at once for the procession, in case there are any more——”
but he interrupted—
“here’s another, millie,” he said cheerfully. “yes, we’d better begin.”
his speech was drowned by the voice of the brazen-lunged waiter.
“cleopatra!” he shouted.
mrs. brooks entered with all the rows of seed-pearls.
riseborough, if the census papers were consulted, might perhaps not prove to have an abnormally large percentage of inhabitants who had reached middle-age, but certainly in the festivities of its upper circles, maturity held an overwhelming majority over youth. it was so to-night, and of the half-hundred folk who thus masqueraded, there were few who were not, numerically speaking, of thoroughly discreet years. the diffused knowledge of this undoubtedly gave confidence to their gaiety, for there was no unconscious standard of sterling youth by which their slightly mature exhilaration could be judged and found deficient in genuine and natural effervescence. thus, despite the somewhat untoward conjunction of four matronly cleopatras, a spirit of extraordinary gaiety soon possessed the entire party. odious comparisons might conceivably spring up mushroom-like to-morrow, and (unmushroom-like) continue to wax and flourish through many days and dinners, but{158} to-night so large an environment of elderly people gave to every one of those elderly people a pleasant sense of not suffering but rather shining in comparison with the others. even the cleopatras themselves were content; mrs. ames, for instance, saw how sensible it was that mrs. altham should announce herself as a cleopatra of ten years later, while mrs. altham, observing mrs. ames, saw how supererogatory her titular modesty had been, and wondered that mrs. ames cared to show her feet like that, while mrs. brooks knew that everybody was mentally contrasting her queenliness of height with mrs. ames’ paucity of inches, and her abundance of beautiful hair with mrs. altham’s obvious wig. while, all the time, mrs. evans, whom the appearance of a fourth cleopatra had considerably upset for the moment, felt that at this rate she could easily continue being cleopatra for more years than “the ten after,” so properly assumed by mrs. altham. in the same way major ames, with his six feet of solid english bone and muscle, and his fifth decade of years still but half-consumed, felt that mr. altham had but provided a scale of comparison uncommonly flattering to himself. simultaneously, mr. altham, with a laurel-wreath round his head, reflected how uncomfortable he would have felt if his laurel-wreath was anchored on no sounder a foundation than a wig, and wondered if gardening (on the principle that all flesh is grass) invariably resulted in so great a growth of tissue. but all these pleasant self-communings were, indeed, but a minor tributary to the real river of enjoyment that danced and chattered through the starlit hours of this july night. somehow the whole assembly seemed to have shifted off themselves the natural and inevitable burden of their years;{159} they danced and mildly flirted, they sat out in the dim shrubbery, and played on the sea-shore of life again, finding the sand-castles had become real once more. mrs. ames, for instance, had intended to dance nothing but the opening quadrille, but before the second dance, which was a waltz, had come to a close, she had accepted mr. altham’s offer, and was slowly capering round with him. a little care was necessary in order not to put too unjust a strain on the sandal straps, but she exercised this precaution, and was sorry, though hot, when the dance came to an end. then major ames, who had been piloting mrs. altham, joined them at the moselle-cup table.
“’pon my word, altham,” he said, “i don’t know what to say to you. you’ve taken my cleopatra, but then i’ve taken yours. exchange no robbery, hey?”
his wife tapped him on the arm with her palmette fan.
“lyndhurst, go along with you!” she said, employing an expression, the mental equivalent of which she did not know ever existed in her mind.
“i’ll go along,” he said. “but which is my cleopatra?”
at the moment, mrs. evans approached.
“my two cleopatras must excuse me,” said this amazing man. “i am engaged for this next dance to the cleopatra of us all. ha! ha!”
he offered his arm to mrs. evans, and they went out of the cave of the mulberry-tree again.
the band had not yet struck up for the next dance, the majority of the guests were flocking under the mulberry-tree at the conclusion of the last, and for the moment they had the cool starlit dusk to themselves. and then, all at once, the major’s sense of boisterous enjoyment deserted him; he felt embar{160}rassed with a secret knowledge that he was expected to say something in tune with this privacy. how that expectation was conveyed he hardly knew; the slight pressure on his arm seemed to announce it unmistakably. it reminded him that he was a man, and yet with all that gaiety and gallantry that were so conspicuous a feature in his behaviour to women in public, he felt awkward and ill at ease. he embarked on a course of desperate and fulsome eulogy, longing in his private soul for the band to begin.
“’pon my soul, you are an enchantress, millie!” he said. “you come to our staid, respectable old riseborough, and before you have been here six months you take us all into fairyland. positively fairyland. and—and i’ve never seen you looking so lovely as to-night.”
“let us stroll all round the garden,” she said. “i want you to see it all now it is lit up. and the shrubbery is pretty, too, with—with the filter of starlight coming through the trees. do tell me truthfully, like a friend, is it going all right? are they enjoying themselves?”
“kicking up their heels like two-year-olds,” said major ames.
“how wicked of you to say that! but really i had one bad moment, when—when the last cleopatra came in.”
she paused a moment. then in her clear, silky voice—
“dear old things!” she said.
now mrs. evans was not in any way a clever woman, but had she had the brains and the wit of cleopatra herself, she could not have spoken three more consummately chosen words. all the cool, instinctive confidence of a younger woman, and a{161} pretty woman speaking of the more elderly and plain was there; there, too, was the deliberate challenge of the coquette. and major ames was quite helpless against the simplicity of such art. mere manners, the ordinary code of politeness, demanded that he should agree with his hostess. besides, though he was not in any way in love with her, he could not resist the assumption that her words implied, and, after all, she was a pretty woman, whom he had kissed, and he was alone in the star-hung dusk with her.
“poor dear amy!” he said.
millie evans gave a soft little sigh, as of a contented child. he had expressed with the most ruthless accuracy exactly what she wished him to feel. then, in the manner of a woman whose nature is warped throughout by a slight but ingrained falsity, she spoke as if it was not she who had prompted the three words which she had almost made him say.
“she is enjoying herself so,” she said. “i have never seen cousin amy look so thoroughly pleased and contented. i thought she looked so charming, too, and what dear, plump little feet she has. but, my dear, it was rather a surprise when you and she were announced. it looked as if this poor cleopatra was going to be antony-less! dear me, what a word.”
here was a more direct appeal, and again major ames was powerless in her soft clutch. hers was not exactly an iron hand in a velvet glove, but a hand made of fly-catching paper. she had taken her glove off now. and he was beginning to stick to her.
“pshaw!” he said.
that, again, had a perfectly satisfactory sound to her ears. the very abruptness and bluffness of it pleased her more than any protestation could have done. he was so direct, so shy, so manly.{162}
she laughed softly.
“hush, you mustn’t say those things,” she said. “ah, there is the band beginning, and it is our dance. but let us just walk through the shrubbery before we go back. the dusk and quiet are such a relief after the glare. lyndhurst—ah, dear me. cousin lyndhurst i ought to say—you really must not go home till my little dance is quite finished. you make things go so well. dear wilfred is quite useless to me. does he not look an old darling as timon of athens? a sort of mixture between george the fourth in tights and a lion-tamer.”
mrs. evans was feeling more actively alive to-night than she had felt for years. her tongue, which was generally a rather halting adjutant to her glances and little sinuous movements, was almost vivified to wit. certainly her description of her husband had acuteness and a sense of the ludicrous to inspire it. through the boughs of laburnums in the shrubbery they could see him now, escorting the tallest and oldest cleopatra, who was mrs. brooks, to the end of the garden. dimly, through the curtain of intervening gloom, they saw the populous wooden floor that had been laid down on the grass; mrs. ames—the dance was a polka—was frankly pirouetting in the arms of a redoubtable falstaff. mrs. altham was wrestling with the apothecary, and elsie evans, one of the few young people present, was vainly trying to galvanize general fortescue, thinly disguised as henry vii, into some semblance of activity.
mrs. evans gave another sigh, a sigh of curious calibre.
“it all seems so distant,” she said. “all the lights and dancing are less real than the shadows and the stillness.{163}”
that was not quite extemporaneous; she had thought over something of the sort. it had the effect of making major ames feel suddenly hot with an anxious kind of heat. he was beginning to perceive the truth of that which he had foppishly imagined in his own self-communings, namely, that this “poor little lady” was very, very much attached to him. he had often dwelt on the thought before with odious self-centred satisfaction; now the thought was less satisfactory; it was disquieting and mildly alarming. like the fly on the fly-paper, with one leg already englued, he put down a second to get leverage with which to free the first, and found that it was adhering also.
mrs. evans spoke again.
“i took such pleasure in all the preparations,” she said. “you were so much interested in it all. tell me, cousin lyndhurst, that you are not disappointed.”
it was hardly possible for him to do less than what he did. what he did was little enough. he pressed the arm that lay in his rather close to his white toga, and an unwonted romanticism of speech rose to his lips.
“you have enchanted me,” he said. “me, us, all of us.”
she gave a little laugh; in the dusk it sounded no louder than a breeze stirring.
“you needn’t have added that,” she said.
where she stood a diaper of light and shadow played over her. a little spray of laburnum between her face and the lights on the lawn outside, swaying gently in a breeze that had gone astray in this calm night, cast wavering shadows over her. now her arms shone white under freckles of shadow, now it was her face that was a moon to him. or again,{164} both would be in shade and a diamond star on her bright yellow hair concentrated all the light into itself. all the elusive mysterious charm of her womanhood was there, made more real by the fantastic setting. he was kindled to a greater warmth than he had yet known, but, all the time, some dreadful creature in his semi-puritanical semi-immoral brain, told him that this was all “devilish naughty.” he was as unused to such scruples as he was unused to such temptations, and in some curious fashion he felt as ashamed of the one as he felt afraid of the other. at length he summed up the whole of these despicable conclusions.
“will you give me just one kiss, millie!” he said; “just one cousin-kiss, before we go and dance?”
such early worms next morning in major ames’ garden as had escaped the early bird, must certainly have all been caught and laid out flat by the garden roller, so swift and incessant were its journeyings. for though the dawn had overspread the sky with the hueless tints of approaching day when antony and cleopatra were charioteered home again by a somnolent cabman; though major ames’ repose had been of the most fragmentary kind, and though breakfast, in anticipation of late hours, had been ordered the night before at an unusual half-past nine, he found his bed an intolerable abode by seven o’clock, and had hoped to expatriate somewhat disquieting thoughts from his mind by the application of his limbs to severe bodily exertion.
he and his wife had been the last guests to leave; indeed, after the others had gone they lingered a little, smoking a final cigarette. even mrs. ames had been persuaded to light one, but a convulsive{165} paroxysm of coughing, which made the pear-shaped pearl to quiver and shake like an aspen-leaf, led her to throw it away, saying she enjoyed it very much. he had danced with mrs. evans three or four times; three or four times they had sat in the cool darkness of the shrubbery, and he had said to her several things which at the moment it seemed imperative to say, but which he did not really mean. but as the evening went on he had meant them more; she had a helpless, childlike charm about her that began to stir his senses. and yet below that childlike confiding manner he was dimly aware that there was an eager woman’s soul that sought him. her charm was a weapon; a very efficient will wielded it. all the same, he reflected as the honest dews of toil poured from his forehead this morning in the hot early sunlight, he had not said very much ... he had said that riseborough was a different place since she—or had he said “they”? had come there; that her eyes looked black in the starlight, that—honestly, he could not remember anything more intimate than this. but that which had made his bed intolerable was the sense that the situation had not terminated last night, that his boat, so to speak, had not been drawn up safely ashore, but was still in the midst of accelerating waters. and yet it was in his own power to draw the boat ashore at any moment; he had but to take a decisive stroke to land, to step out and beach it, to return—surely it was not difficult—to his normal thoughts and activities. for years his garden, his club, his domestic concerns, his daily paper, had provided him with a sufficiency of pursuits; he had but to step back into their safe if monotonous circle, and look upon these disturbances as episodic. but already he had ceased to think of{166} mrs. evans as “dear little woman” or “poor little woman”; somehow it seemed as if she had got her finger—to use a prosaic metaphor—into his works. she was prodding about among the internal wheels and springs of his mechanism. yet that was stating his case too strongly; it was that of contingency that he was afraid. but with the curious irresponsibility of a rather selfish and unimaginative man, the fact that he had allowed himself to prod about in her internal mechanism represented itself to him as an unimportant and negligible detail. it was only when she began prodding about in him, producing, as it were, extraordinary little whirrings and racings of wheels that had long gone slow and steady, that he began to think that anything significant was occurring. but, after all, there was nothing like a pull at the garden roller for giving a fellow an appetite for breakfast and for squashing worms and unprofitable reflections.
though half-past nine had seemed “late enough for anybody,” as mrs. ames had said the evening before, it was not till nearly ten that she put an extra spoonful of tea into her silver teapot, for she felt that she needed a more than usually fortifying beverage, to nullify her disinclination for the day’s routine. the sight of her cleopatra costume also, laid upon the sofa in her bedroom, and shone upon by a cheerful and uncompromising summer sun, had awakened in her mind a certain discontent, a certain sense of disappointment, of age, of grievance. the gilt paper had moulted off one of the sandal-straps, a spilt dropping of strawberry-ice made a disfiguring spot on the tunic of arab shawl, and she herself felt vaguely ungilded and disfigured.
the cigarette, too—she had so often said in the{167} most liberal manner that she did not think it wicked of women to smoke, but only horrid. certainly she did not feel wicked this morning, but as certainly she felt disposed to consider anybody else horrid, and—and possibly wicked. decidedly a cup of strong tea was indicated.
major ames had gone upstairs again to have his bath, and to dress after his exercise in the garden, and came down a few minutes later, smelling of soap, with a jovial boisterousness of demeanour that smelt of unreality.
“good-morning, my dear amy,” he said. “and how do you feel after the party? i’ve been up a couple of hours; nothing like a spell of exercise to buck one up after late hours.”
“will you have your tea now, lyndhurst?” she asked.
“have it now, or wait till i get it, eh? i’ll have it now. delicious! i always say that nobody makes tea like you.”
now boisterous spirits at breakfast were not usual with major ames, and, as has been said, his wife easily detected a false air about them. her vague sense of disappointment and grievance began to take more solid outlines.
“it is delightful to see you in such good spirits, lyndhurst,” she observed, with a faint undertone of acidity. “sitting up late does not usually agree with you.”
there was enough here to provoke repartee. also his superficial boisterousness was rapidly disappearing before his wife’s acidity, like stains at the touch of ammonia.
“it does not, in this instance, seem to have agreed with you, my dear,” he said. “i hope you have{168} not got a headache. it was unwise of you to stop so late. however, no doubt we shall feel better after breakfast. shall i give you some bacon? or will you try something that appears to be fish?”
“a little kedjeree, please,” said mrs. ames, pointedly ignoring this innuendo on her cook.
“kedjeree, is it? well, well, live and learn.”
“if you have any complaint to make about jephson,” said she, “pray do so.”
“no, not at all. one does not expect a cordon bleu. but i dare say mrs. evans pays no more for her cook than we do, and look at the supper last night.”
“i thought the quails were peculiarly tasteless,” said mrs. ames; “and if you are to be grand and have pêches à la melba, i should prefer to offer my guests real peaches and proper ice-cream, instead of tinned peaches and custard. i say nothing about the champagne, because i scarcely tasted it.”
“well then, my dear, i’m sure you are quite right not to criticize it. all i can say is that i never want to eat a better supper.”
suddenly mrs. ames became aware that another piece of solid outline had appeared round her vague discontent and reaction.
“no doubt you think that all millie’s arrangements are perfect in every way,” she observed.
“i don’t know what you mean by that,” said he, rather hotly; “but i do know that when a woman has been putting herself to all that trouble and expense to entertain her friends, her friends would show a nicer spirit if they refrained from carping and depreciating her.”
“no amount of appreciation would make tinned{169} peaches fresh, or turn custard into ice-cream,” said mrs. ames, laying down the fork with which she had dallied with the kedjeree, which indeed was but a sordid sort of creation. “it is foolish to pretend that a thing is perfect when it is not. nor do i consider her manners as a hostess by any means perfect. she looked as cross as two sticks when poor mrs. brooks appeared. i suppose she thought that nobody had a right to be cleopatra besides herself. to be sure poor mrs. brooks looked very silly, but if everybody who looked silly last night should have stayed away, there would not have been much dancing done.”
she took several more sips of the strong tea, while he unfolded and appeared engrossed in the morning paper, and under their stimulating influence saw suddenly and distinctly how ill-advised was her attack. she had yielded to temporary ill-temper, which is always a mistake. it was true that in her mind she was feeling that lyndhurst last night had spent far too much with his hostess; in a word, she felt jealous. it was, therefore, abominably stupid, from a merely worldly point of view, to criticize and belittle millie to him. if there was absolutely no ground for her jealousy—which at present was but a humble little green bud—such an attack was uncalled for; if there was ground it was most foolish, at this stage, at any rate, to give him the least cause for suspecting that it existed. but she was wise enough now, not to hasten to repair her mistake, but to repair it slowly and deliberately, as if no repair was going on at all.
“but i must say the garden looked charming,” she said after a pause. “did she tell you, lyndhurst, whether it was she or her husband who saw to the{170} lighting? the scheme was so comprehensive; it took in the whole of the lawn; there was nothing patchy about it. i suspect dr. evans planned it; it looked somehow more like a man’s work.”
a look of furtive guilt passed over the major’s face; luckily it was concealed by the daily mail.
“no; evans told me himself that he had nothing to do with it,” he said. “it was pretty, i thought; very pretty.”
“if the nights continue hot,” said she, “it would be nice to have the garden illuminated one night, if dear millie did not think we were appropriating her ideas. i do not think she would; she is above that sort of thing. well, dear, i must go and order dinner. have you any wishes?”
clearly it was wiser, from the major’s point of view, to accept this bouquet of olive branches. after all, amy was far too sensible to imagine that there could be anything to rouse the conjugal watch-dog. nor was there; hastily he told himself that. a cousinly kiss, which at the moment he would willingly have foregone.
certainly last night he had been a little super-stimulated. there was the irresponsibility of fancy dress, there was the knowledge that millie was not insensitive to him; there was the sense of his own big, shapely legs in tights, there was dancing and lanterns, and all had been potent intoxicants to riseborough, which for so long had practised teetotalism with regard to such excitements. amy herself had been so far carried away by this effervescence of gaiety as to smoke a cigarette, and heaven knew how far removed from her ordinary code of conduct was such an adventure. generously, he had for{171}borne to brandish that cigarette as a weapon against her during this acrimonious episode at breakfast, and he had no conscious intention of hanging it, like damocles’ sword over her head, in case she pursued her critical and carping course against millie. but whatever he had said last night, she had done that. without meaning to make use of his knowledge, he knew it was in his power to do so. what would not mrs. altham, for instance, give to be informed by an eye-witness that mrs. ames had blown—it was no more than that—on the abhorred weed? so, conscious of a position that he could make offensive at will, he accepted the olive branch, and suggested a cold curry for lunch.
breakfast at mrs. altham’s reflected less complicated conditions of mind. both she and her husband were extremely pleased with themselves, and in a state of passion with regard to everybody else. since their attitude was typical of the view that riseborough generally took of last night’s festivity, it may be given compendiously in a rhetorical flight of mrs. altham’s, with which her husband was in complete accord.
in palliation, it may be mentioned that they had both partaken of large quantities of food at an unusual hour. it is through the body that the entry is made by the subtle gateways of the soul, and vitriolic comments in the morning are often the precise equivalent of unusual indulgence the night before.
“well, i’m sure if i had known,” said mrs. altham, “i should not have taken the trouble i did. of course, everybody said ‘how lovely your dress is,{172}’ simply to make one say the same to them. and i never want to hear the word cleopatra again, henry, so pray don’t repeat it. fancy mrs. ames appearing as cleopatra, and us taking the trouble to say we were antony and cleopatra ten years later! twenty years before would have been more the date if we had known. perhaps i am wrong, but when a woman arrives at mrs. ames’ time of life, whether she dyes her hair or not, she is wiser to keep her feet concealed, not to mention what she must have looked like in the face of half the tradesmen of riseborough who were lining the pavements when she stepped out of her cab. i thought i heard a great roar of laughter as we were driving up the high street; i should not wonder if it was the noise of them all laughing as she got out of her carriage. of course, it was all very prettily done, as far as poor mrs. evans was concerned, but i wonder that dr. evans likes her to spend money like that, for, however unsuitable the supper was, i feel sure it was very expensive, for it was all truffles and aspic. there must have been a sirloin of beef in the cup of soup i took between two of the dances, and strong soup like that at dead of night fills one up dreadfully. and mrs. brooks appearing as another cleopatra, after all i had said about hermione! well, i’m sure if she chooses to make a silly of herself like that, it is nobody’s concern but hers. she looked like nothing so much as a great white mare with the staggers. if you are going up to the club, henry, i should not wonder if i came out with you. it seems to me a very stuffy morning, and a little fresh air would do me good. as for the big german ruby in your cap, i don’t believe a soul noticed it.{173} they were all looking at mrs. evans’ long white arms. poor thing, she is probably very an?mic; i never saw such pallor. i saw little of her the whole evening. she seemed to be popping in and out of the shrubbery like a rabbit all the time with major ames. i should not wonder if mrs. ames was giving him a good talking-to at this moment.”
then, like all the rest of riseborough, and unlike the scorpion, there was a blessing instead of a sting in her tail.
“but certainly it was all very pretty,” she said; “though it all seemed very strange at the time. i can hardly believe this morning that we were all dressed up like that, hopping about out of doors. fancy dress balls are very interesting; you see so much of human nature, and though i looked the procession up and down, henry, i saw nobody so well dressed as you. but i suppose there is a lot of jealousy everywhere. and anyhow, mrs. evans has quite ousted mrs. ames now. nobody will talk about anything but last night for the next fortnight, and i’m sure that when mrs. ames had the conjurer who turned the omelette into the watch, we had all forgotten about it three days afterwards. and after all, mrs. evans is a very pleasant and hospitable woman, and i wouldn’t have missed that party for anything. if you hear anything at the club about her wanting to sell her chinese lanterns and fairy-lights second-hand, henry, or if you find any reason to believe that she had hired them out for the night from the mercantile stores, you might ask the price, and if it is reasonable get a couple of dozen. if the weather continues as hot as this we might illuminate the garden when we give our august dinner-party.{174} at least, i suppose mrs. evans does not consider that she has a monopoly of lighting up gardens!”
henry found himself quite in accord with the spirit of this address.
“i will remember, my dear,” he said; “if i hear anything said at the club. i shall go up there soon, for i should not be surprised if most of the members spent their morning there. i think i will have another cup of tea.”
“you have had two already,” said his wife.
he was feeling a little irritable.
“then this will make three,” he observed.
mrs. evans, finally, had breakfast in her room. when she came downstairs, she found that her husband had already left the house on his visits, which was a relief. she felt that if she had seen his cheerful smiling face this morning, she would almost have hated it.
she ordered dinner, and then went out into the garden. workmen were already there, removing the dancing-floor, and her gardener was collecting the fairy-lights in trays, and carrying them indoors. here and there were charred, burnt places on the grass, and below the mulberry-tree the débris of supper had not yet been removed. but the shrubbery, as last night, was sequestered and cool, and she sat for an hour there on the garden bench overlooking the lawn. little flakes of golden sunlight filtered down through the foliage, and a laburnum, delicate-sprayed, oscillated in the light breeze. she scarcely knew whether she was happy or not, and she gave no thought to that. but she felt more consciously alive than ever before.
