“It’s the sort of game that fellows write about in their memoirs,” murmured Teddy, almost awestruck; and the lucky winner gave an embarrassed laugh. It was almost incredible to him too.
Lady Churt pushed back her chair, nearly colliding with the attentive Robinson. She tried to laugh. “Well, I’ve learnt my lesson! Lost Seadown’s last copper, as well as my own. Not that he need mind; he’s won more than he lent me. But I’m completely ruined—down and out, as I believe you say in the States. I’m afraid you’re all too clever for me, and one of the young ladies had better take my place,” she added with a drawn smile.
“Oh, come, Idina, don’t lose heart!” exclaimed Lady Richard, deep in the game, and annoyed at the interruption.
“Heart, my dear? I assure you I’ve never minded parting with that organ. It’s losing the shillings and pence that I can’t afford.”
Miles Dawnly glanced across the table at Lizzy Elmsworth, who stood beside Hector Robinson, her keen eyes bent on the game. “Come, Miss Elmsworth, if Lady Churt is really deserting us, won’t you replace her?”
“Do, Lizzy,” cried Lady Richard; but Lizzy shook her head, declaring that she and her friends were completely ignorant of the game.
“What, even Virginia?” Conchita laughed. “There’s no excuse for her, at any rate, for her father is a celebrated poker-player. My respected parent always says he’d rather make Colonel St. George a handsome present than sit down at poker with him.”
Virginia coloured at the challenge, but Lizzy, always quicker at the uptake, intervened before she could answer.
“You seem to have forgotten, Conchita, that girls don’t play cards for money in America.”
Lady Churt turned suddenly toward Virginia St. George, who was standing behind her. “No. I understand the game you young ladies play has fewer risks, and requires only two players,” she said, fixing her vivid eyes on the girl’s bewildered face. Robinson, who had drawn back a few steps, was still watching her intently. He said to himself that he had never seen a woman so angry, and that certain small viperine heads darting forked tongues behind their glass cases at the Zoo would in future always remind him of Lady Churt.
For a moment Virginia’s bewilderment was shared by the others about the table; but Conchita, startled out of her absorption in the game, hastily assumed the air of one who is vainly struggling to repress a burst of ill-timed mirth. “How frightfully funny you are, Idina! I do wish you wouldn’t make me laugh so terribly in this hot weather!”
Lady Churt’s colour rose angrily. “I’m glad it amuses you to see your friends lose their money,” she said. “But unluckily I can’t afford to make the fun last much longer.”
“Oh, nonsense, darling! Of course your luck will turn. It’s been miraculous already. Lend her something to go on with, Seadown, do....”
“I’m afraid Seadown can’t go on either. I’m sorry to be a spoil-sport, but I must really carry him off. As he forgot to lunch with me today, it’s only fair that he should come back to town for dinner.”
Lord Seadown, who had relapsed into an unhappy silence, did not break it in response to this; but Lady Richard once more came to his rescue. “We love your chaff, Idina; and we hope the idea of your carrying off Seadown is only a part of it. You say he was engaged to lunch with you today; but isn’t there a mistake about dates? Seedy, in his family character as my brother-in-law, brought me down here for the weekend, and I’m afraid he’s got to wait and see me home on Monday. You wouldn’t suppose my husband would mind my travelling alone, would you, considering how much he does it himself—or professes to; but as a matter of fact he and my father-in-law, who disagree on so many subjects, are quite agreed that I’m not to have any adventures if they can help it. And so you see ... But sit down again, darling, do. Why should you hurry away? If you’ll only stop and dine you’ll have an army of heroes to see you back to town; and Seadown’s society at dinner.”
The effect of this was to make Lady Churt whiten with anger under her paint. She glanced sharply from Lady Richard to Lord Seadown.
“Yes, do, Idina,” the latter at length found voice to say.
Lady Churt threw back her brilliant head with another laugh. “Thanks a lot for your invitation, Conchita darling—and for yours too, Seadown. It’s really rather amusing to be asked to dine in one’s own house.... But today I’m afraid I can’t. I’ve got to carry you back to London with me, Seadown, whoever may have brought you here. The fact is”—she turned another of her challenging glances on Virginia St. George—“the fact is, it’s time your hostesses found out that you don’t go with the house; at least not when I’m not living in it. That ought to have been explained to them, perhaps—”
“Idina ...” Lord Seadown muttered in anguish.
“Oh, I’m not blaming anybody! It’s such a natural mistake. Lord Seadown comes down so continually when I’m here,” Lady Churt pursued, her eyes still on Virginia’s burning face, “that I suppose he simply forgot the house was let, and went on coming from the mere force of habit. I do hope, Miss St. George, his being here hasn’t inconvenienced you? Come along, Seadown, or we’ll miss our train; and please excuse yourself to these young ladies, who may think your visits were made on their account—mayn’t they?”
A startled silence followed. Even Conchita’s ready tongue seemed to fail her. She cast a look of interrogation at her brother-in-law, but his gaze remained obstinately on the ground, and the other young men had discreetly drawn back from the scene of action.
Virginia St. George stood a little way from her friends. Her head was high, her cheeks burning, her blue eyes dark with indignation. Mr. Robinson, intently following the scene, wondered whether it were possible for a young creature to look more proud and beautiful. But in another moment he found himself reversing his judgment; for Mr. Robinson was all for action, and suddenly, swiftly, the other beauty, Virginia’s friend and rival, had flung herself into the fray.
“Virginia! What are you waiting for? Don’t you see that Lord Seadown has no right to speak till you do? Why don’t you tell him at once that he has your permission to announce your engagement?” Lizzy Elmsworth cried with angry fervour.
Mr. Robinson hung upon this dialogue with the breathless absorption of an experienced play-goer discovering the gifts of an unknown actress. “By Jove—by Jove,” he murmured to himself. His talk with Mabel Elmsworth had made clear to him the rivalry he had already suspected between the two beauties, and he could measure the full significance of Lizzy’s action.
“By Jove—she knew she hadn’t much of a chance with Seadown, and quick as lightning she decided to back up the other girl against the common enemy.” His own admiration, which, like Seadown’s, had hitherto wavered between the two beauties, was transferred in a flash, and once for all, to Lizzy. “Gad, she looks like an avenging goddess—I can almost hear the arrow whizzing past! What a party-leader she’d make,” he thought; and added, with inward satisfaction: “Well, she won’t be thrown away on this poor nonentity, at all events.”
Virginia St. George still stood uncertain, her blue entreating eyes turned with a sort of terror on Lady Churt.
“Seadown!” the latter repeated with an angry smile.
The sound of his name seemed to rouse the tardy suitor. He lifted his head, and his gaze met Virginia’s and detected her tears. He flushed to his pale eyebrows.
“This is all a mistake, a complete mistake. I mean,” he stammered, turning to Virginia, “it’s just a joke of Lady Churt’s—who’s such an old friend of mine that I know she’ll want to be the first to congratulate me ... if you’ll only tell her that she may.”
He went up to Virginia, and took possession of her trembling hand. Virginia left it in his, but with her other hand she drew Lizzy Elmsworth to her.
“Oh, Lizzy,” she faltered.
Lizzy bestowed on her a kiss of congratulation, and drew back with a little laugh. Mr. Robinson, from his secret observatory, guessed exactly what was passing through her
mind. “She’s begun to realize that she’s thrown away her last hope of Seadown; and very likely she repents her rashness. But the defence of the clan before everything; and I daresay he wasn’t the only string to her bow.”
Lady Churt stood staring at the two girls with a hard bright intensity which, as the silence lengthened, made Mr. Robinson conscious of a slight shiver down his spine. At length she too broke into a laugh. “Really—” she said. “Really ...” She was obviously struggling for the appropriate word. She found it in another moment.
“Engaged? Engaged to Seadown? What a delightful surprise! Almost as great a one, I suspect, to Seadown as to Miss St. George herself. Or is it only another of your American jokes—just a way you’ve invented of keeping Seadown here over Sunday? Well, for my part you’re welcome either way....” She paused, and her quick ironic glance travelled from face to face. “But if it’s serious, you know—then of course I congratulate you, Seadown. And you too, Miss St. George.” She went up to Virginia, and looked her straight in the eyes. “I congratulate you, my dear, on your cleverness, on your good looks, on your success. But you must excuse me for saying that I know Seadown far too well to congratulate you on having caught him for a husband.”
She held out a gloved hand rattling with bracelets, just touched Virginia’s shrinking fingers, and stalked past Lord Seadown without seeming to see him.
“Conchita, darling, how cleverly you’ve staged the whole business. We must really repeat it the next time there are tableaux vivants at Stafford House.” Her eyes took a rapid survey of the young men. “And now I must be off. Mr. Dawnly, will you see me to my fly?”
Mr. Robinson turned from the group with a faint smile as Miles Dawnly advanced to accompany Lady Churt. “What a tit-bit for Dawnly to carry back to town!” he thought. “Poor woman ... She’ll have another try for Seadown, of course—but the game’s up, and she probably knows it. I thought she’d have kept her head better. But what fools the cleverest of them can be....” He had the excited sense of having assisted at a self-revelation such as the polite world seldom offers. Every accent of Lady Churt’s stinging voice, every lift of her black eyebrows and tremor of her red lips, seemed to bare her before him in her avidity, her disorder, her social arrogance, and her spiritual poverty. The sight curiously re-adjusted Mr. Robinson’s sense of values, and his admiration for Lizzy Elmsworth grew with his pity for her routed opponent.
XVIII.
Under the fixed smile of the Folyat Raphael, the Duchess of Tintagel sat at breakfast opposite two of her many daughters, the Ladies Almina Folyat and Gwendolen de Lurey.
When the Duke was present he reserved to himself the right to glance through the morning paper between his cup of tea and his devilled kidneys; but in his absence his mother exercised the privilege, and had the Morning Post placed before her as one of her jealously guarded rights.
She always went straight to the Court Circular, and thence (guided by her mother’s heart) to the Fashionable Marriages; and now, after a brief glance at the latter, she threw the journal down with a sudden exclamation.
“Oh, Mamma, what is it?” both daughters cried in alarm. Lady Almina thought wistfully: “Probably somebody else she had hopes of for Ermie or me is engaged,” and Lady Gwendolen de Lurey, who had five children, and an invalid husband with a heavily mortgaged estate, reflected, as she always did when she heard of a projected marriage in high life, that when her own engagement had been announced everyone took it for granted that Colonel de Lurey would inherit within the year the immense fortune of a paralyzed uncle—who after all was still alive. “So there’s no use planning in advance,” Lady Gwendolen concluded wearily, glancing at the clock to make sure it was not yet time to take her second girl to the dentist (the children always had to draw lots for the annual visit to the dentist, as it was too expensive to take more than one a year).
“What is it, Mamma?” the daughters repeated apprehensively.
The Duchess laid down the newspaper, and looked first at one and then at the other. “It is—it is—that I sometimes wonder what we bring you all up for!”
“Mamma!”
“Yes; the time, and the worry, and the money—”
“But what in the world has happened, Mamma?”
“What has happened? Only that Seadown is going to marry an American! That a—what’s the name?—a Miss Virginia St. George of New York is going to be premiere Marchioness of England!” She pushed the paper aside, and looked up indignantly at the imbecile smile of the Raphael Madonna. “And nobody cares,” she ended bitterly, as though including that insipid masterpiece in her reproach.
Lady Almina and Lady Gwendolen repeated with astonishment: “Seadown?”
“Yes; your cousin Seadown—who used to be at Longlands so often that at one time I had hoped ...”
Lady Almina flushed at the hint, which she took as a personal reproach, and her married sister, seeing her distress, intervened: “Oh, but, Mamma, you know perfectly well that for years Seadown has been Idina Churt’s property, and nobody has had a chance against her.”
The Duchess gave her dry laugh. “Nobody? It seems this girl had only to lift a finger—”
“I daresay, Mamma, they use means in the States that a well-bred English girl wouldn’t stoop to.”
The Duchess stirred her tea angrily. “I wish I knew what they are!” she declared, unconsciously echoing the words of an American President when his most successful general was accused of intemperance.
Lady Gwendolen, who had exhausted her ammunition, again glanced at the clock. “I’m afraid, Mamma, I must ask you to excuse me if I hurry off with Clare to the dentist. It’s half past nine—and in this house I’m always sure Ushant keeps the clocks on time.”
The Duchess looked at her with unseeing eyes. “Oh, Ushant—!” she exclaimed. “If either of you can tell me where Ushant is—or why he’s not in London, when the House has not risen—I shall be much obliged to you!”
Lady Gwendolen had slipped away under cover of this outburst, and the Duchess’s unmarried daughter was left alone to weather the storm. She thought: “I don’t much mind, if only Mamma lets me alone about Seadown.”
Lady Almina Folyat’s secret desire was to enter an Anglican Sisterhood, and, next to the grievance of her not marrying, she knew none would be so intolerable to her mother as her joining one of these High Church masquerades, as the evangelical Duchess would have called it. “If you want to dress yourself up, why don’t you go to a fancy-ball?” the Duchess had parried her daughter’s first approach to the subject; and since then Lady Almina had trembled, and bided her time in silence. She had always thought, she could not tell why, that perhaps when Ushant married he might take her side—or at any rate set her the example of throwing off their mother’s tyranny.
“Seadown marrying an American! I pity poor Selina Brightlingsea; but she has never known how to manage her children.” The Duchess folded the Morning Post and gathered up her correspondence. Her morning duties lay before her, stretching out in a long monotonous perspective to the moment when all Ushant’s clocks should simultaneously strike the luncheon hour. She felt a sudden discouragement when she thought of it—she to whom the duties of her station had for over thirty years been what its pleasures would have been to other women. Well—it was a joy, even now, to do it all for Ushant, neglectful and ungrateful as he had lately been, and she meant to go on with the task unflinchingly till the day when she could put the heavy burden into the hands of his wife. And what a burden it seemed to her that morning!
She reviewed it all, as though it lay outlined before her on some vast chart: the treasures, the possessions, the heirlooms: the pictures, the jewels—Raphaels, Correggios, Ruysdaels, Vandykes, and Hobbemas, the Naxos marble, the Folyat rubies, the tiaras, the legendary Ushant diamond, the plate, the great gold service for royal dinners, the priceless porcelain, the gigantic ranges of hot-houses at Longlands; and then the poor, the charities, the immense distribution of coal and blankets, comm
ittee-meetings, bazaar-openings, foundation-layings; and last, but not least onerous, the recurring Court duties, inevitable as the turn of the seasons. She had been Mistress of the Robes, and would be so again; and her daughter-in-law, of course, could be no less. The Duchess smiled suddenly at the thought of what Seadown’s prospects might have been if he had been a future duke, not merely a future marquess, and obliged to initiate his American wife into the official duties of her station! “It will be bad enough for his poor mother as it is—but fancy having to prepare a Miss St. George of New York for her duties as Mistress of the Robes. But no—the Queen would never consent. The Prime Minister would have to be warned.... But what nonsense I’m inventing!” thought the Duchess, pushing back her chair, and ringing to tell the butler that she would see the groom-of-the-chambers that morning before the housekeeper.
“No message from the Duke, I suppose?” she asked, as the butler backed toward the threshold.
“Well, Your Grace, I was about to mention to Your Grace that His Grace’s valet has just received a telegram instructing him to take down a couple of portmanteaux to Tintagel, where His Grace is remaining for the present.”
The door closed, and the Duchess sat looking ahead of her blindly. She had not noticed that her second daughter had also disappeared, but now a sudden sense of being alone—quite alone and unwanted—overwhelmed her, and her little piercing black eyes grew dim.
“I hope,” she murmured to herself, “this marriage will be a warning to Ushant.” But this hope had no power to dispel her sense of having to carry her immense burden alone.
When the Duke finally joined his mother at Longlands, he had surprisingly little to say about his long stay at Tintagel. There had been a good many matters to go into with Blair; and he had thought it better to remain till they were settled. So much he said, and no more; but his mere presence gradually gave the Duchess the comfortable feeling of slipping back with him into the old routine.
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