‘Oh, very, my lady. We all got so scared.’
‘Scared?’ said Marian. ‘Scared?’
Dolly recollected herself and became very much confused.
‘The Idferdo!’ croaked Miss Barrington from the bed. ‘D’you bead that the descriptiod of the dabbed alarbed you, Kell?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ said Dolly, when she had identified the ‘dabbed.’
Being a truthful girl she blushed as she said it.
3
The Kind Companions
1.
Agatha would have called Hubert’s proposal of marriage a thoroughly British affair. Discarding all superficial eloquence, he told his tale of love in the baldest, most colloquial terms. Lois was profoundly impressed. This lapse from fluency was exactly calculated to convince her of his earnestness. The emotion must be strong indeed before which Hubert could be dumb. She searched about in her memory for the speech which she had prepared for the occasion.
‘I think,’ she said, ‘that my feelings towards you are all that you could wish.’
Her candour charmed him. He caught her to his heart with but a passing fear that she would find him deficient in originality. Then, invaded for a few moments by a genuine emotion of self-forgetfulness, he kissed her a second time with no misgivings at all. They were truly happy.
A strange noise, a pervading, humming throb, at length shook them out of their preoccupation. The whole air seemed full of it.
Lois exclaimed:
‘What can that be? Is it a threshing machine?’
They were in the library, a room which they habitually frequented since the epoch of the Dante paper. Moving to one of the windows they looked down into the avenue. John and the head gardener stood together gazing upward. Other gardeners were seen running in the distance; they also stared at the sky. Lois and Hubert threw up the sash and leaned far out of the window just in time to see the tail of an airship disappear over the house. It was the first Lois had seen and she nearly fell out of the window in her excitement. Hubert, after a second’s consideration, decided that he must be excited too. Earlier in his courtship it would have been more impressive to remain calm, but just now he had better fall in with his lady’s mood.
‘We can see it from the terrace,’ she cried, and flew down to the south side of the house.
Gerald and Agatha were discovered there, gaping intelligently, while Cynthia and Sir Thomas were seen advancing from the rose garden at a pace which, in any other couple, might have been a run. Lady Clewer and Miss Barrington hung out of a window on the first floor, and everyone enjoined everyone else to look at the airship. The elusive machine turned suddenly north, however, and disappeared behind some trees. A short discussion was held as to the best vantage point from which to see it again. Lois suggested James’s studio, which had a window looking that way. She ran indoors again, up the main staircase, down a long gallery, through a baize door into the kitchen wing, up more stairs, noisy and uncarpeted, through a corridor and up a narrow garret ladder into a spacious loft running the whole length of the wing. The company panted at her heels.
The loft was not entirely given over to James. The darker end of it was used as a box room, and old luggage, gay with the labels of continental hotels, was piled there. Here also was Cynthia’s bassinette, a high nursery-chair, bed-tables and other less sightly appliances for nursing the sick. Everything in fact which the household did not normally require. At the further end of the room, by the large window, many canvases were stacked, and a small table was covered with rags and brushes. There was an easel and a moulting arm-chair, condemned in the Lyndon nurseries. Here sat James, looking more peculiar than usual, in a strange chintz pinafore which his stepmother had forced him to assume while painting. He spoilt his clothes so. He was peacefully smoking a pipe, and at their incursion he rose and retreated as far as possible, eyeing them suspiciously.
‘May we come in, James?’ asked Lois, tapping the door after she had entered the room. ‘We want to see the airship.’
He looked in alarm at the furniture by the door and asked:
‘What airship?’
‘We don’t accuse you of having one here,’ said Cynthia, pushing her way in. ‘It happens to be outside in the sky. I don’t suppose you noticed it.’
‘No, I didn’t,’ he agreed, glancing out of the window.
‘My dear James,’ remonstrated Marian, as she toiled up the last of the garret stairs, ‘how unobservant you are! It’s making a tremendous noise.’
James paid no attention to this, but moved to the door and looked anxiously down the stairs demanding:
‘How many more people are going to come up?’
Agatha, who never hurried, was achieving the taxing ascent under the escort of Hubert, John, Gerald and Sir Thomas Bragge. Their voices floated up beyond the well of the narrow stairs. Sir Thomas could be heard remarking sententiously:
‘The future of the world lies in the air, Lady Clewer.’
‘Yes, but …’ panted Agatha, ‘I don’t see how it can ever be really safe …’
‘From the military point of view, Agatha, safety isn’t always the first consideration. In the next big war …’
‘Oh, come, Blair! Isn’t that rather an exploded idea? Just consider! It would be almost impossible to use the things without endangering the lives and property of non-combatants….’
Agatha appeared in the doorway, a little flushed with so much unusual exertion, and began at once to apologise to James for their intrusion.
‘I do hope you weren’t working very hard and that we are not interrupting you,’ she said. ‘But there is this airship outside, which we want to see. Come and look at it.’
She caught his arm and drew him to the window where the others were already gathered. They stood watching the marvel until it disappeared behind the low, wooded hills on the horizon. Whereupon, without more ado, the majority of the group prepared to depart. But Agatha was determined that for once a modicum of civility should be paid to James. She asked him, with her most engaging smile, if he would not show them some of his pictures. She assured him that it would give them all great pleasure, ignoring tranquilly the furtive signals whereby Marian sought to prevent such a catastrophe. James looked surprised but not ill pleased. He took a canvas from the pile and set it on the easel in a good light.
The party viewed it in silent embarrassment and nobody ventured upon comment until Sir Thomas rushed into the breach.
‘Well, Mr Clewer, and what is this supposed to be?’ he inquired with uneasy geniality.
Cynthia tittered and James explained that it was a bit of country beyond Boar’s Hill.
‘I didn’t know you painted landscapes,’ said Agatha. ‘I … I rather like all those telegraph posts going up and down.’
‘Oh, but James,’ exclaimed the stepmother, ‘you have done nicer ones than that. Do show us one of your portraits.’
‘I will in a minute,’ said James. ‘You can’t have finished looking at this yet.’
They stared for a little longer at the mustard fields and ploughed furrows beyond Boar’s Hill. Lois glanced at Hubert in extreme anxiety. She had staked much upon his first view of James’s work, for she had hinted more than once that she thought it might have merit. Hubert’s face was perfectly expressionless, and her heart sank. At last they were permitted to see something else. James put up a picture of a man driving a traction engine, explaining:
‘That’s old Jellybelly.’
‘Old what?’ demanded Gerald, who was looking happier than he had done since he came to Lyndon.
‘He used to drive the traction engine when they were making the new road across the park,’ explained the artist. ‘His real name was Jellifew, but the men in his gang called him Jellybelly because of the shape of his stomach.’
John gave a shout of laughter.
‘Lord, yes, I remember him! This is uncommonly good, James! Best thing you ever did in your life.’
‘Do you think so?’ said James seriously. ‘Now
I don’t think it is, myself. But it’s one of the best I’ve done.’
‘But you ought to have seen this old man,’ said Agatha to the others. ‘He was like somebody out of a Russian novel. And with this head like Samuel Johnson. I’d forgotten how impressive he was.’
‘I don’t remember him,’ said Marian coldly.
‘A most striking portrait,’ murmured Gerald. ‘What do you make of it, Ervine? You know about these things, and I don’t.’
‘It’s … well observed …’ said Hubert after a pause.
‘The composition is rather unusual, don’t you think?’ queried Lois hopefully.
‘Possibly,’ rejoined Hubert, bland and enigmatic.
Marian, who found the whole subject of Jellybelly a little coarse, now determined that they must not disturb James any longer and swept them all from the room. She was more than annoyed with Agatha for exhibiting him in this way; it had been perfectly unnecessary and very embarrassing for everyone. James took himself much too seriously already, without any encouragement from his sister-in-law. She pursued Agatha and Gerald out on to the terrace in order to tell them so.
‘If you don’t mind my saying so,’ she began, ‘I really do think it’s a pity to take too much notice of James’s pictures. You must know, with all your experience, Mr Blair, how difficult these cases are. They are so liable to get a tremendous opinion of themselves.’
‘What cases?’ asked Gerald in surprise. ‘Is there anything the matter with him?’
Marian raised her eyebrows as though she had expected more perception from a London specialist.
‘Well … he’s queer,’ she said, pursing her lips.
‘How do you mean? Neurotic? He doesn’t look it.’
‘Not neurotic. Not that. No!’ Marian shook her head sadly. ‘But we’ve always had a great deal of trouble with poor James. Mentally, you know, he has never been quite like other people.’
‘Really? Well, that mightn’t be altogether a disadvantage. I don’t think I should expect the man who painted those pictures to have a mind quite like other people. But hasn’t he been off, studying in Paris, like any other lad?’
‘Oh, yes. He was in Paris. But not alone. He was very carefully looked after, poor boy. It was necessary. He can’t really look after himself. He made no friends of his own age, for instance, as any other young man would have done.’
‘He had very little chance,’ said Agatha.
‘My dear Agatha! He could have made friends perfectly well if he had wished. What was there to stop him?’
‘Everything, I should have thought. His peculiar position. The supervision under which he lived. His own eccentric manner….’
‘There you are,’ said Marian triumphantly. ‘That’s what I said. It was his own fault that he did not make friends. His queer ways put them off, and no wonder.’
‘He looks extraordinary,’ observed Gerald thoughtfully. ‘But that doesn’t prove him to be without ability at his own job. Many men of very exceptional powers have been rather strange looking.’
‘I’m afraid,’ sighed Marian, ‘that long experience has taught me not to hope too much. It isn’t exceptional ability that ails poor James.’
She hastened off to dictate letters to Miss Barrington.
‘Who says that fellow is mentally deficient?’ inquired Gerald testily.
‘Oh, nobody of any consequence,’ replied his cousin. ‘No doctor has, of that I am convinced. It was an established family legend when I first met him, and it probably has as much truth as most family legends. He certainly was very much more peculiar when he was younger. What do you think of him, Gerald?’
‘I like him. Really very much. There’s no sort of temperamental humbug about him, is there?’
‘There isn’t, certainly.’
‘A little direct at times, perhaps. But it’s a good fault. You like him, don’t you?’
‘I do,’ she confessed. ‘I find him a very restful companion. But I cannot understand how he comes to be John’s brother.’
Gerald said nothing to this, an issue which disappointed her. Irritably aware of his unspoken disapproval she was always seeking to entrap him into some criticism of her house or her husband which could be challenged and resented. But he would not give her an opening. Only from his silences did she guess his hostility to Lyndon and its proprietor. She had in consequence no chance of telling him that he was impertinent, a thing which she was longing to do.
Their estrangement had grieved her sharply and she was truly anxious to punish him for all the disquiet he was causing her. She had never supposed that four years could bring no changes. She was steeled against the shock of hearing that he loved another, although she would hardly have been surprised to discover that he still loved herself. But for this mute, melancholy condemnation she had not been prepared. At one moment he would treat her with all the old friendliness; on the next he would harden and draw away. She was most desirous of an open dispute in which she could tax him with intolerance. Such an encounter would relieve them both. She would demand whether he expected her to remain seventeen all her life. She would force him to blame John, to blame Lyndon, for the changes which he thus condemned. Then she would hurl at him all the dignified wrath of a loyal wife. She began to compose some very scathing sentences as they paced side by side towards the Dutch garden.
Sheltered amid its clipped hedges another pair of kind companions wandered in close conversation.
‘A queer chap, your younger brother, what?’ quoth Sir Thomas. ‘I understand from your mother that he’s a little….’
He tapped his forehead and Cynthia laughed. She made no attempt to deny the inference.
‘Well, now,’ he continued. ‘Those pictures, y’know! A bit thick! What?’
‘Lois admires them like anything.’
‘Does she now? Really! Well!’
‘But then she’s clever, you know. I’m afraid I’m not clever like that.’
The golden eyelashes flickered over the dark eyes. It was quite obvious that Cynthia had no particular wish to be clever.
‘Quite right too,’ approved Sir Thomas. ‘Personally I’ve no use for clever women. Bluestockings! No reflection intended upon little Miss Lois, though. But what’s a woman want brains for?’
‘They don’t need them like men do.’
‘That’s right. They don’t. What I always say is, let the women leave the brain work to the men. What, after all, are brains for? To make money, ain’t they? Well, and that’s a man’s job. What’s a woman’s job, you’ll say? Why, to spend it! No need of brains to do that, eh, Miss Cynthia?’
‘Rather not,’ agreed the maiden earnestly.
‘That’s what a man needs,’ continued Sir Thomas with unction. ‘A wife who can enjoy spending what he’s made. It gives him something to work for. It’s a lonely game, you know. Piling up cash and no one to spend it on. Yes! Very lonely! A little girl like you would never guess how lonely an old chap like me can feel.’
He looked almost pathetic as he said this, for he was really coming to believe that business successes are an empty triumph for a single man.
‘It’s very harrowing,’ said Cynthia thoughtfully.
If her dark eyes held a hint of derision, he could not know it, for she kept them modestly upon the ground.
‘If I had a wife now, that’s what I’d want,’ said he. ‘A girl who could turn herself out properly. Who’d make every other woman look green. But a lady, mind you! A girl who could hold her own in any society. I’d be proud to foot her bills, I tell you. But then, I don’t suppose any nice girl would look at me. Not an old chap like me.’
‘Are you old?’
This was evidently a surprise to Cynthia and Sir Thomas beamed.
‘Well, not so very old when you come to think of it. But old, I daresay, compared to the young fellows you’re accustomed to.’
‘I’m not out,’ said Cynthia primly. ‘I don’t know any young men except James and John.’
&nb
sp; ‘Really? Now is that so? I could hardly have believed it.’
Sir Thomas was thinking how very accomplished she was if this were true. He could have sworn that hers was no prentice hand in the tender game.
‘Of course I’m not out. My hair isn’t up.’
She shook the shining, honey-coloured mane upon her white neck. They paused in their walk and Sir Thomas delicately picked up a silky tress between a stubby red thumb and forefinger.
‘I see that,’ he said. ‘No, I knew you weren’t out. But don’t tell me you haven’t got a fancy boy for all that.’
‘Oh, no. Think of Mother!’
He thought of Marian. She was indeed an indefatigable duenna. It might really be that this damsel was as flawless as she seemed. Her complacence was all the more gratifying to him on account of a recent rebuff which he had received from another quarter. This wound seemed to smart less as he fingered Cynthia’s yellow hair.
‘Well,’ he suggested, ‘I suppose you’ll soon come out? Be presented and all that? You’re just longing for it, eh?’
‘I’m not quite sure,’ said Cynthia doubtfully. ‘I don’t want to come out if it means going about with Mother. Lois has been out four years and I don’t think she gets much fun. She has no freedom.’
‘A girl gets a better time once she’s married,’ he observed.
‘Yes. I suppose so.’
‘Little girl …’ he began, and paused, at a loss.
He had slipped an arm round her shoulders and she permitted the embrace with an indifference admirably calculated to encourage him. He was on the point of further demonstrations when Agatha and Gerald came round the corner of the hedge. Sir Thomas removed his arm. As he met the cool, speculative gaze of Lady Clewer the slow purple mounted to his bald brow. The two couples passed each other with brief civilities. Sir Thomas, once out of sight and hearing, hinted that Blair and his cousin seemed to be very fond of each other’s company. Cynthia assented, and he was about to say that he wouldn’t be in Sir John’s shoes. But he desisted. It wouldn’t do for his companion to think that he sympathized with jealous husbands. A very little might still be sufficient to scare her.
Ladies of Lyndon Page 11