There was silence a moment. After which Doris said, with a cold decision:
"You can"t imagine how absurd it seems to me that you should come and ask me to help Lady Dunstable with her son. There is n.o.body in the world less helpless than Lady Dunstable, and n.o.body who would be less grateful for being helped. I really cannot meddle with it."
She rose as she spoke, and Miss Wigram rose too.
"Couldn"t you--couldn"t you--" said the girl pleadingly--"just ask Mr.
Meadows to warn Lord Dunstable? I"m thinking of the villagers, and the farmers, and the schools--all the people we used to love. Father was there twenty years! To think of the dear place given over--some day--to that creature!"
Her charming eyes actually filled with tears. Doris was touched, but at the same time set on edge. This loyalty that people born and bred in the country feel to our English country system--what an absurd and unreal frame of mind! And when our country system produces Lady Dunstables!
"They have such a pull!"--she thought angrily--"such a hideously unfair pull, over other people! The way everybody rushes to help them when they get into a mess--to pick up the pieces--and sweep it all up! It"s irrational--it"s sickening! Let them look after themselves--and pay for their own misdeeds like the rest of us."
"I can"t interfere--I really can"t!" she said, straightening her slim shoulders. "It is not as though we were old friends of Lord and Lady Dunstable. Don"t you see how very awkward it would be? Let me advise you just to watch the thing a little, and then to apply to somebody in the Crosby Ledgers neighbourhood. You must have some friends or acquaintances there, who at any rate could do more than we could. And perhaps after all it"s a mare"s nest, and the young man doesn"t mean to marry her at all!"
The girl"s anxious eyes scanned Doris"s unyielding countenance; then with a sigh she gave up her attempt, and said "Good-bye." Doris went with her to the door.
"We shall meet to-morrow, shan"t we?" she said, feeling a vague compunction. "And I suppose this woman will be there again. You can keep an eye on her. Are you living alone--or are you with friends?"
"Oh, I"m in a boarding-house," said Miss Wigram, hastily. Then as though she recognised the new softness in Doris"s look, she added, "I"m quite comfortable there--and I"ve a great deal of work. Good night."
"All alone!--with that gentle face--and that terrible amount of conscience--hard lines!" thought Doris, as she reflected on her visitor.
"I felt a black imp beside her!"
All the same, the letter which Mrs. Meadows received by the following morning"s post was not at all calculated to melt the "black imp"
further. Arthur wrote in a great hurry to beg that she would not go on with their Welsh plans--for the moment.
Lady D---- has insisted on my going on a short yachting cruise with her and Miss Field, the week after next. She wants to show me the West Coast, and they have a small cottage in the Shetlands where we should stay a night or two and watch the sea-birds. It _may_ keep me away another week or fortnight, but you won"t mind, dear, will you?
I am getting famously rested, and really the house is very agreeable. In these surroundings Lady Dunstable is less of the _bas-bleu_, and more of the woman. You _must_ make up your mind to come another year! You would soon get over your prejudice and make friends with her. She looks after us all--she talks brilliantly--and I haven"t seen her rude to anybody since I arrived. There are some very nice people here, and altogether I am enjoying it. Don"t you work too hard--and don"t let the servants harry you. Post just going. Good night!
Another week or fortnight!--five weeks, or nearly, altogether. Doris was sorely wounded. She went to look at herself in the mirror over the chimney-piece. Was she not thin and haggard for want of rest and holiday? Would not the summer weather be all done by the time Arthur graciously condescended to come back to her? Were there not dark lines under her eyes, and was she not feeling a limp and wretched creature, unfit for any exertion? What was wrong with her? She hated her drawing--she hated everything. And there was Arthur, proposing to go yachting with Lady Dunstable!--while she might toil and moil--all alone--in this August London! The tears rushed into her eyes. Her pride only just saved her from a childish fit of crying.
But in the end resentment came to her aid, together with an angry and redoubled curiosity as to what might be happening to Lady Dunstable"s precious son while Lady Dunstable was thus absorbed in robbing other women of their husbands. Doris hurried her small household affairs, that she might get off early to the studio; and as she put on her hat, her fancy drew vindictive pictures of the scene which any day might realise--the scene at Franick Castle, when Lady Dunstable, unsuspecting, should open the letter which announced to her the advent of her daughter-in-law, Elena, _nee_ Flink--or should gather the same unlovely fact from a casual newspaper paragraph. As for interfering between her and her rich deserts, Doris vowed to herself she would not lift a finger. That incredibly forgiving young woman, Miss Wigram, might do as she pleased. But when a mother pursues her own selfish ends so as to make her only son dislike and shun her, let her take what comes. It was in the mood of an Erinnys that Doris made her way northwards to Campden Hill, and n.o.body perceiving the slight erect figure in the corner of the omnibus could possibly have guessed at the storm within.
The August day was hot and lifeless. Heat mist lay over the park, and over the gardens on the slopes of Campden Hill. Doris could hardly drag her weary feet along, as she walked from where the omnibus had set her down to her uncle"s studio. But it was soon evident that within the studio itself there was animation enough. From the long pa.s.sage approaching it Doris heard someone shouting--declaiming--what appeared to be verse. Madame, of course, reciting her own poems--poor Uncle Charles! Doris stopped outside the door, which was slightly open, to listen, and heard these astonishing lines--delivered very slowly and pompously, in a thick, strained voice:
"My heart is adamant! The tear-drops drip and drip-- Force their slow path, and tear their desperate way.
The vulture Pain sits close, to snip--and snip--and snip My sad, sweet life to ruin--well-a-day!
I am deceived--a bleating lamb bereft!--who goes Baa-baaing to the moon o"er lonely lands.
Through all my shivering veins a tender fervour flows; I cry to Love--"Reach out, my Lord, thy hands!
And save me from these ugly beasts who ramp and rage Around me all day long--beasts fell and sore-- Envy, and Hate, and Calumny!--do thou a.s.suage Their impious mouths, O splendid Love, and floor Their hideous tactics, and their noisome spleen, Withering to dust the awful "Might-Have-Been!"""
"Goodness! "Howls the Sublime" indeed!" thought Doris, gurgling with laughter in the pa.s.sage. As soon as she had steadied her face she opened the studio door, and perceived Lady Dunstable"s prospective daughter-in-law standing in the middle of the studio, head thrown back and hands outstretched, invoking the Cyprian. The shriek of the first lines had died away in a stage whisper; the reciter was glaring fiercely into vacancy.
Doris"s merry eyes devoured the scene. On the chair from which the model had risen she had deposited yet another hat, so large, so audacious and beplumed that it seemed to have a positive personality, a positive swagger of its own, and to be winking roguishly at the audience.
Meanwhile Madame"s muslin dress of the day before had been exchanged for something more appropriate to the warmth of her poetry--a tawdry flame-coloured satin, in which her "too, too solid" frame was tightly sheathed. Her coal-black hair, tragically wild, looked as though no comb had been near it for a month, and the gloves drawn half-way up the bare arms hardly remembered they had ever been white.
A slovenly, dishevelled, vulgar woman, reciting bombastic nonsense! And yet!--a touch of Southern magnificence, even of Southern grace, amid the c.o.c.kney squalor and finery. Doris coolly recognised it, as she stood, herself invisible, behind her uncle"s large easel. Thence she perceived also the other persons in the studio:--Bentley sitting in front of the poetess, hiding his eyes with one hand, and nervously tapping the arm of his chair with the other; to the right of him--seen sideways--the lanky form, flushed face, and open mouth of young Dunstable; and in the far distance, Miss Wigram.
Then--a surprising thing! The awkward pause following the recitation was suddenly broken by a loud and uncontrollable laugh. Doris, startled, turned to look at young Dunstable. For it was he who had laughed. Madame also shook off her stage trance to look--a thunderous frown upon her handsome face. The young man laughed on--laughed hysterically--burying his face in his hands. Madame Vavasour--all att.i.tudes thrown aside--ran up to him in a fury.
"Why are you laughing? You insult me!--you have done it before. And now before strangers--it is too much! I insist that you explain!"
She stood over him, her eyes blazing. The youth, still convulsed, did his best to quiet the paroxysm which had seized him, and at last said, gasping:
"I was--I was thinking--of your reciting that at Crosby Ledgers--to my mother--and--and what she would say."
Even under her rouge it could be seen that the poetess turned a grey white.
"And pray--what would she say?"
The question was delivered with apparent calm. But Madame"s eyes were dangerous. Doris stepped forward. Her uncle stayed her with a gesture.
He himself rose, but Madame fiercely waved him aside. Miss Wigram, in the distance, had also moved forward--and paused.
"What would she say?" demanded Madame, again--at the sword"s point.
"I--I don"t know--" said young Dunstable, helplessly, still shaking.
"I--I think--she"d laugh."
And he went off again, hysterically, trying in vain to stop the fit.
Madame bit her lip. Then came a torrent of Italian--evidently a torrent of abuse; and then she lifted a gloved hand and struck the young man violently on the cheek.
"Take that!--you insolent--you--you barbarian! You are my _fiance_,--my promised husband--and you mock at me; you will encourage your stuck-up mother to mock at me--I know you will! But I tell you--"
The speaker, however, had stopped abruptly, and instead of saying anything more she fell back panting, her eyes on the young man. For Herbert Dunstable had risen. At the blow, an amazing change had pa.s.sed over his weak countenance and weedy frame. He put his hand to his forehead a moment, as though trying to collect his thoughts, and then he turned--quietly--to look for his hat and stick.
"Where are you going, Herbert?" stammered Madame. "I--I was carried away--I forgot myself!"
"I think not," said the young man, who was extremely pale. "This is not the first time. I bid you good morning, Madame--and good-bye!"
He stood looking at the now frightened woman, with a strange, surprised look, like one just emerging from a semi-conscious state; and in that moment, as Doris seemed to perceive, the traditions of his birth and breeding had returned upon him; something instinctive and inherited had reappeared; and the gentlemanly, easy-going father, who yet, as Doris remembered, when matters were serious "always got his way," was there--strangely there--in the degenerate son.
"Where are you going?" repeated Madame, eyeing him. "You promised to give me lunch."
"I regret--I have an engagement. Mr. Bentley--when the sitting is over--will you kindly see--Miss Flink--into a taxi? I thank you very much for allowing me to come and watch your work. I trust the picture will be a success. Good-bye!"
He held out his hand to Bentley, and bowed to Doris. Madame made a rush at him. But Bentley held her back. He seized her arms, indeed, quietly but irresistibly, while the young man made his retreat. Then, with a shriek, Madame fell back on her chair, pretending to faint, and Bentley, in no hurry, went to her a.s.sistance, while Doris slipped out after young Dunstable. She overtook him on the door-step.
"Mr. Dunstable, may I speak to you?"
He turned in astonishment, showing a grim pallor which touched her pity.
"I know your mother and father," said Doris hurriedly; "at least my husband and I were staying at Crosby Ledges some weeks ago, and my husband is now in Scotland with your people. His name is Arthur Meadows.
I am Mrs. Meadows. I--I don"t know whether I could help you. You seem"--her smile flashed out--"to be in a horrid mess!"
The young man looked in perplexity at the small, trim lady before him, as though realising her existence for the first time. Her honest eyes were bent upon him with the same expression she had often worn when Arthur had come to her with some confession of folly--the expression which belongs to the maternal side of women, and is at once mocking and sweet. It said--"Of course you are a great fool!--most men are. But that"s the _raison d"etre_ of women! Suppose we go into the business!"