by F. M. Mayor
Mary had told him she did not care for wine. He could not reconcile himself to such a gap in her taste; he felt if he ignored it it would turn to liking. It did. Seeing it pleased him, Mary drank two glasses. He thought taste in old Madeira unnecessary for many people – Mrs King, for instance.
At their backgammon he still further showed his good-will. ‘Never mind about throwing, my dear,’ said he. ‘Suppose you begin tonight.’
In spite of his learning and sarcastic tongue, there was a vein of childlikeness, simplicity, almost clumsiness in Canon Jocelyn. Mary missed all he meant to convey, but the excellent wine enlivened both him and her, and she was pleased.
14
Lady Meryton had been full of solicitude at Mr Herbert’s engagement for Mary’s sake. As the fairy godmother of the neighbourhood, it was her due to know all the gossip.
‘It’s a thousand pities; he would have suited Mary so exactly,’ said she to Claudia.
‘It’s a thousand pities for Kathy,’ said Claudia. ‘And it’s an absolute disaster to lose her in the hunting-field, for I presume she won’t go on hunting three times a week.’
Miss Hollings herself had no misgivings.
She announced her engagement to her brother’s wife, Lesbia, in the following letter:
My Dear Lesbia – Well, I’m booked, and it’s a parson. Don’t faint. He’s got a job near Aunt Edith’s. He says he saw me there last year, but he didn’t, for I should have spotted him in an instant. He’s awfully ugly, and he doesn’t know one end of a horse from the other; and he can’t shoot for nuts. He’s a Blue, all right, rowing. He’s appallingly brainy, but I don’t mind a bit. I like hearing him talk. You will think me an awful ass to have taken him, but I’m not. I can’t explain, you know I never can, anyhow you’d never understand; but he’s different from our men. You know they’re rather rotters in a way. Jim-jam says she quite understands, and thinks I’m jolly lucky, and so I am. You see I’m staying at Jim-jam’s.
KATHY.
He’s miles above me. I didn’t know there were any men like him.
‘My dear old thing.’ ran Lesbia’s answer,
of course I’m overjoyed if you are. Various poor unfortunates will be left lamenting, but that doesn’t matter. I didn’t faint, but I couldn’t help screaming with laughter!! Don’t be cross. I don’t think much of our men, but I think I prefer them to a parson. I suppose we shall all have to be awfully virtuous and sit twiddling our thumbs, and speak when we’re spoken to and not before. Quite seriously, my dear, I wonder if you are wise. I know you’ve been awfully restless lately and wanting to settle. It was so unlucky about the Caswell boy, but you’re still quite young. I really shouldn’t jump at just anything in a hurry. I feel as a good sister-in-law I ought to give you some matronly advice, but from your ecstatic letter I know it will be a pure waste of time! – Your devoted
LESBIA.
Kathy turned red with annoyance as she tore the letter up.
Nothing short of falling desperately in love would have made her unlock her heart to Lesbia. She never would unlock it again. Most of the congratulations she showed to Mr Herbert.
‘Of course they think you’re simply throwing yourself away,’ said he. ‘As you are.’
The answer satisfied even his lover’s nervous vanity.
Mr Herbert paid his promised call on the Rectory as soon as he came back. Of course he brought a photograph of Kathy. It could not do her entire justice, but her picture without her snubs was irresistible He was ecstatically proud, ecstatically pleased. His eyes danced, so did his mind. This gave him an irritating restlessness, unlike himself.
‘I want you to know Kathy so much,’ he said. He pressed Mary’s hand. To have the hand pressed in an overflow of enthusiasm for some one else is specially uncomplimentary. ‘You must be friends. I think of you as in some sort sisters, elder and younger, for she is such a child.’ His face glowed with delight.
When she could study the photograph quietly, Mary did some worshipping of her own; she would like to be not a sister, but a sort of middle-aged cousin. She and her father sent an edition of Jeremy Taylor* to Mr Herbert. She made a sketch of the prettiest spot in Lanchester as a private present to Kathy. After a short engagement Mr Herbert was married and brought home his bride.
Mary was one of the first to call.
She put on Dora’s hat, by this time hoary in her service, thought it too startling, and pulled it to pieces.
Mr Herbert was out. Kathy was in the garden talking to three smart people. These were her sister-in-law, Lesbia Hollings, who showed her teeth too much; a friend, Miss Bassett, plain, but very smart; and Captain Wyndham, an elegant officer.
The girls were wearing their oldest clothes, ‘simply in rags.’ The rags had a wonderful air, and would have cut Mary’s hat, even when it came fresh from Dora’s hands. Not that any of the girls gave outside appearance more than its due. Within their circle each respected some weather-beaten old lady, stamping about her garden in ploughman’s boots with a hat put on anyhow, the companion of so many years that it seemed as much part of her as her chin. The faultlessly smart Lesbia had, in addition, an aunt who wore a dilapidated gold wig and crude muslins the reverse of fresh. It would never have struck Lesbia, though she laughed at her, to think her less entirely one of themselves, raised far above the charmingly dressed office girls, or the stockbrokers’ wives with Paris frocks. She put them in a bunch together, unless the stockbrokers’ wives had unusually rich husbands. Once one was in the circle nothing much mattered, certainly not clothes. As for Mary, she could not yet be placed. The time has gone by when the clergy, as a matter of course, were accepted and pressed to the hard but faithful bosom of the county. Until Lesbia and Miss Bassett had seen Canon Jocelyn they could not tell whether he might not be ‘a nice little man,’ or even ‘quite a nice little man.’ If so, the utmost praise Mary must expect would be ‘really rather a dear thing.’
But she was not a dear thing yet, only a tiresome caller whom nobody wanted. This was perhaps made clearer (not much) than Kathy intended in her cool ‘Oh, how d’you do?’ She did not introduce Mary to the others. She asked her if she had gone to the otter hunt on Wednesday. Mary said she had not.
‘It was topping,’ said Mrs Herbert in her ringing voice. She continued discussing details of the chase with Jim-jam, Miss Bassett, and Cocky, Captain Wyndham.
‘Are you keen on otter hunting?’ asked Lesbia.
‘I think it’s detestably cruel’ – this was her true opinion, but she did not dare to express it.
‘I don’t hunt,’ she answered. Unable to think of anything else to say, she added, ‘Do you?’
‘I should rather think so,’ said Lesbia, showing her teeth still more. The conversation dropped as far as Mary was concerned, for Lesbia turned to Captain Wyndham and said, ‘Do you remember that run near Lynne?’
Mary did not get a chance again for some minutes, when a puppy, just past the pretty fat stage, came straddling towards them.
‘Oh, here’s Bimbo,’ cried Mrs Herbert, ‘Come along, my infant. He’s only been here four days, and he’s homesick, he says. He likes you,’ turning to Mary. She was grateful to Bimbo. He was a nice puppy, but she sycophantically petted him more than she wanted, as a means of finding favour. They seemed to have settled to a fairly steady conversation about the train service apropos of his arrival at Cayley, when he made a pounce on Mrs Herbert’s bag, which had fallen to the ground, and began gravely tearing it up.
‘Drop that, you scamp. That’s your mummy’s. He’s a thorough sportsman. You should have seen the way he went for a mouse; didn’t we, old man? though we didn’t succeed in catching him.’
Rescuing the purse cut the thread. Whenever there seemed a chance of its being resumed, even in a direction in which Mary would have found it hard to follow, such as the special points the Kennel Club required in otter hounds at their shows, Bimbo did something, which either demanded correction or admiration, and all was again confusio
n.
‘What’s wrong with his paw?’ inquired Jim-jam, who had hitherto said nothing. ‘Come here, my friend, let’s have a look at it. Kathy, look; quiet, old chap, I’m not going to hurt you; that claw’s growing in. You ought to have it cut. Get me some scissors and I’ll do it.’
The operation was performed with address and gentleness by Jim-jam, Cocky and Kathy assisting with professional interest. Some desultory talk between Lesbia and Mary about the surrounding country, which Lesbia seemed determined to consider ugly – in spite of smiles Mary thought she liked to contradict – bridged the gulf till the operation was over. Then there was another active duty; Mrs Herbert, Captain Wyndham, and Miss Bassett all liked active duties better than conversation.
‘Cocky, Taffy pulls so. He all but ran away with me yesterday.’
‘You ought to get his mouth softer. What kind of a bit do you give him?’
‘That’s it. I don’t think the one he’s got now’s much good, though Perch says it is. Perch is rather a fool.’
‘Let’s have a look at it, and we might see what one can do.’
‘Righto. Come along, Jim-jam. You’ll come, won’t you?’ indifferently to Mary.
They were quite happy surrounding Taffy, with whom they were at once on the same excellent terms as with Bimbo. It was considered ample entertainment for a stranger to stand and look on.
Then they came back and roamed a little in the garden. Kathy struck up, ‘Keep off the grass like a good little boy.’
This was an inane and rather indecent song. During the chorus she gave a push against Cocky, and he gave a push back. They did not sing more than a verse and a half, but their resounding voices – Mary bitterly reflected restraint did not appear to be one of Mrs Herbert’s qualities – must have reached not only the kitchen, but the cottages next door. Bimbo thought it a delightful song, and scampered and yapped like a mad thing. Her half-hour of call being now complete, Mary could say goodbye, and present the little sketch which she had brought with her.
‘Oh, must you really? That for me? How awfully sweet of you! I must undo it on the spot. Look, Lesbia, I call that most awfully clever.’
Just then Mr Herbert came out to them. Kathy hastened towards him and pulled him forward, keeping her hand on his arm longer than was necessary.
‘Crab,’ she cried. ‘This is Miss Bassett, alias Jim-jam; this is Miss – I’m so sorry, I didn’t hear what Dennis said your name was.’
‘Miss Jocelyn, and I don’t want an introduction,’ said Mr Herbert, smiling at Mary.
‘Now you are not to spoil my A1 introduction,’ interrupted Kathy. ‘This is Captain Wyndham, alias Cocky, and this is the Right Reverend Robert William Herbert, Archbishop of Lanchester, called Crab on account of shortness in the temper.’
During this speech Mr Herbert beamed upon his wife in such delight that Mary described it afterwards to herself as maudlin. He and Kathy showed plainly that they were in that stage of love when nobody else counted.
‘You two are cousins,’ said Mr Herbert, looking at Mary and Kathy. ‘Haven’t you discovered it?’
‘Oh, are you Mary Jocelyn?’ said Kathy. ‘I’ve often heard the Merytons speak of you. They declared I met you there last September. Didn’t you stay years and years ago at the Court? They had an awful white slug of a thing, Joe, do you remember? and you couldn’t ride it for nuts.’
Mary’s ‘awfully clever’ sketch, prettily tinted and wavering, not clever at all, was shown to Mr Herbert. The great interest seemed to be that in that scene they had had some very special interview. Mary cut his delight short and his thanks and messages to her father, and said goodbye.
‘So that was the Jocelyn person Aunt Edith’s always worrying about,’ said Mrs Herbert, leaning against her husband. ‘I thought she was a kind of church worker; she looked it.’
In his infatuation he did not resent her way of speaking.
Mary tried to be fair, but her jealousy was beyond all bounds. Possibly Mrs Herbert had been shy. Possibly she might be something more than beautiful, rough, rude, brainless, vulgar. This was Mr Herbert’s serious permanent choice. She had been an amusement, a very small incident. ‘But I am superior,’ she thought.
Mrs Herbert was a little shy, and too happy to notice anything. She came also from a set that must not be bothered to care if any one outside it is happy or not.
Mary determined that she would, as a revenge, ask the Herberts to lunch, and be as polite to Mrs Herbert as she possibly could. Her father often tried to wriggle out of people to lunch. This time she forced him to yield, and to consent to the invitation of Sir Charles and Lady Meryton as well. Sir Charles was a dull, jovial, old country gentleman, whose jokes crushed Canon Jocelyn by their heaviness.
‘Mary Jocelyn asks us to lunch next Tuesday, Charles,’ said Lady Meryton. ‘You’ll come, won’t you, dearest?’
‘When I’m asked like that I always know I have to go,’ said Sir Charles. ‘But happily I really can’t Tuesday. There’s a special sub-committee of the County Council, and they say the Labour people are going to make themselves unpleasant, so I must be there. And I can’t say I’m sorry. Old Jocelyn’s such a schoolmaster I always feel I ought to recite my Latin verbs to him. I know he has the best brains of any one about, but that doesn’t make me love him more.’
‘But, Charles, you like Mary.’
‘I don’t remember much about Mary, but if you say I like her, I’m sure I do.’
‘No, Papa dear,’ said Claudia, ‘that doesn’t in the least follow. Mamma likes everybody, and she has a devouring and particular passion for bores, of which Mary Jocelyn is one. Poor darling Mamma going to lunch at such a forsaken spot as Dedmayne. You shouldn’t be such a saint, Mamma. It’s very silly of you, for when you die you’ll go to quite a different place from Papa and me, and you won’t like that, for you can’t possibly get on without us.’
When the day came Mary ransacked the house for bits of old silver, of which there were so many that they lay year after year forgotten in the pantry cupboards. She wore more of the old family rings than she approved. She was certain Cook knew what it meant from her lavishness in the menu.
Lunch passed off well. Lady Meryton, Canon Jocelyn, and Mr Herbert talked a good deal; Kathy looked beautiful; Mary saw that every one had what they wanted. She did not say much to Mr Herbert. To try to make his wife jealous by displaying their old friendship was not her idea; but she and Lady Meryton helped Kathy when she was floundering in the mire of Canon Jocelyn’s civility. She was preserved from blurting out anything which would have outraged him, so that Canon Jocelyn said afterwards, ‘I think Herbert has chosen an unusually charming young lady.’ Mr Herbert himself was in that state of bewildered bliss that he was utterly unaware of any danger. During every possible interval he and Kathy were gazing at one another. Occasionally Kathy appealed to him. ‘I’m sure I don’t know. I daresay Crab does, because he knows everything.’ Whereon Crab would break off everything instantly to come to Kathy’s aid.
All Mary’s preparations were thrown away on the bride. Old silver and old rings were as common as blackberries to Kathy; she would never have seen the difference between them and anything else. Art in all departments, small and great, meant nothing to her. But just now her mind was almost entirely occupied with Mr Herbert; the small residuum was reserved for enjoyment of the good things at lunch. The Jocelyns made no impression on her either way.
Lady Meryton stayed a little while after the Herberts had gone. She, with invariable kindness, complimented Mary on the lunch. ‘And that lovely old muffineer. I shall certainly come and steal it some time or other. Isn’t it a joy to see people so absolutely happy as those two? I wish she was just a few years older and he a few years younger, but sometimes those unequal marriages are the happiest of all. Little Kathy has been so lonely, I cannot tell you the comfort it is to have her in the keeping of a good man who loves her as Mr Herbert does, and whom she loves with her whole heart.’
Wh
en the excitement was past, Mary reflected that she had fallen into what a Russian calls the slave habit, trying to impress people by outside appearance.
Mary met the Herberts from time to time at the small entertainments with which the bride was welcomed by the neighbourhood. She did not have much talk with either of them, but Kathy gave her friendly smiles, and a smile from Kathy was so pleasant that Mary could not help reconsidering the severity of her criticisms.
15
Mr Herbert’s infatuation for his wife lasted a year. There was a reaction after the infatuation. He found much exasperating which had hitherto appeared attractive. Kathy went on being in love with him. Under her flighty exterior she was steady, constant, and affectionate.
She had lost her parents early. She and her brother – there were only the pair of them – had been brought up by relatives who had two or three houses, and left the children in the country to servants and governesses. Kathy did not get on well with governesses; they had little influence over her. She liked the nurses, grooms, and ladies’-maids, people born on the estate, their families connected with hers for several generations; she had much more in common with them than with the governess layer of society. From them she learnt to be rather rough and coarse, for she knew them well without the gracious, official manner.
He had fallen in love with her beauty in the old-fashioned way. He supposed her face was the mirror of her mind. She was undeveloped, in many ways an ordinary country and county girl, fond of sport, amusements, and men to flirt with; she also liked, in a less degree, clothes and bridge.
His appearance had not attracted her, that is to say, she did not think him handsome. His face was finely moulded, and he had expressive and beautiful eyes. The type was too ascetic for her. She admired a more ruddy, athletic sort; but she loved his smile, and would give an answering smile to herself when she thought of it.