""Mamma!..." Georgiana protested, and dropped her eyes.
""In my young days," Lady Lapith went on, "I should have been laughed out of countenance if I"d said a thing like that. But then in my young days souls weren"t as fashionable as they are now and we didn"t think death was at all poetical. It was just unpleasant."
""Mamma!..." Emmeline and Caroline implored in unison.
""In my young days--" Lady Lapith was launched into her subject; nothing, it seemed, could stop her now. "In my young days, if you didn"t eat, people told you you needed a dose of rhubarb. Nowadays..."
"There was a cry; Georgiana had swooned sideways on to Lord Timpany"s shoulder. It was a desperate expedient; but it was successful. Lady Lapith was stopped.
"The days pa.s.sed in an uneventful round of pleasures. Of all the gay party George alone was unhappy. Lord Timpany was paying his court to Georgiana, and it was clear that he was not unfavourably received.
George looked on, and his soul was a h.e.l.l of jealousy and despair. The boisterous company of the young men became intolerable to him; he shrank from them, seeking gloom and solitude. One morning, having broken away from them on some vague pretext, he returned to the house alone. The young men were bathing in the pool below; their cries and laughter floated up to him, making the quiet house seem lonelier and more silent.
The lovely sisters and their mamma still kept their chambers; they did not customarily make their appearance till luncheon, so that the male guests had the morning to themselves. George sat down in the hall and abandoned himself to thought.
"At any moment she might die; at any moment she might become Lady Timpany. It was terrible, terrible. If she died, then he would die too; he would go to seek her beyond the grave. If she became Lady Timpany...ah, then! The solution of the problem would not be so simple.
If she became Lady Timpany: it was a horrible thought. But then suppose she were in love with Timpany--though it seemed incredible that anyone could be in love with Timpany--suppose her life depended on Timpany, suppose she couldn"t live without him? He was fumbling his way along this clueless labyrinth of suppositions when the clock struck twelve. On the last stroke, like an automaton released by the turning clockwork, a little maid, holding a large covered tray, popped out of the door that led from the kitchen regions into the hall. From his deep arm-chair George watched her (himself, it was evident, un.o.bserved) with an idle curiosity. She pattered across the room and came to a halt in front of what seemed a blank expense of panelling. She reached out her hand and, to George"s extreme astonishment, a little door swung open, revealing the foot of a winding staircase. Turning sideways in order to get her tray through the narrow opening, the little maid darted in with a rapid crab-like motion. The door closed behind her with a click. A minute later it opened again and the maid, without her tray, hurried back across the hall and disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. George tried to recompose his thoughts, but an invincible curiosity drew his mind towards the hidden door, the staircase, the little maid. It was in vain he told himself that the matter was none of his business, that to explore the secrets of that surprising door, that mysterious staircase within, would be a piece of unforgivable rudeness and indiscretion.
It was in vain; for five minutes he struggled heroically with his curiosity, but at the end of that time he found himself standing in front of the innocent sheet of panelling through which the little maid had disappeared. A glance sufficed to show him the position of the secret door--secret, he perceived, only to those who looked with a careless eye. It was just an ordinary door let in flush with the panelling. No latch nor handle betrayed its position, but an un.o.btrusive catch sunk in the wood invited the thumb. George was astonished that he had not noticed it before; now he had seen it, it was so obvious, almost as obvious as the cupboard door in the library with its lines of imitation shelves and its dummy books. He pulled back the catch and peeped inside. The staircase, of which the degrees were made not of stone but of blocks of ancient oak, wound up and out of sight.
A slit-like window admitted the daylight; he was at the foot of the central tower, and the little window looked out over the terrace; they were still shouting and splashing in the pool below.
"George closed the door and went back to his seat. But his curiosity was not satisfied. Indeed, this partial satisfaction had but whetted its appet.i.te. Where did the staircase lead? What was the errand of the little maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating--no business of his. He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past twelve sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George rose, crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs. He pa.s.sed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came to another. He paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, as though he were affronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed onward and upward. One turn more, then half a turn, and a door confronted him. He halted before it, listened; he could hear no sound. Putting his eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of white sunlit wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and stepped across the threshold. There he halted, petrified by what he saw, mutely gaping.
"In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--"it is now Priscilla"s boudoir," Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood a small circular table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,--all the shining apparatus of an elegant meal--were mirrored in its polished depths. The carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed to its heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of a cold plum-pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret jostled one another for a place on this festive board. And round the table sat the three sisters, the three lovely Lapiths--eating!
"At George"s sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door, and now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George fixed and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door, gazed at him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and forefinger of her right hand she was holding a drumstick of the dismembered chicken; her little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from the rest of her hand.
Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never reached its destination; it remained, suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The other two sisters had turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still grasped her knife and fork; Emmeline"s fingers were round the stem of her claret gla.s.s.
For what seemed a very long time, George and the three sisters stared at one another in silence. They were a group of statues. Then suddenly there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken bone, Caroline"s knife and fork clattered on her plate. The movement propagated itself, grew more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet, uttering a cry. The wave of panic reached George; he turned and, mumbling something unintelligible as he went, rushed out of the room and down the winding stairs. He came to a standstill in the hall, and there, all by himself in the quiet house, he began to laugh.
"At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than usual. Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of calves"-foot jelly. "I feel a little stronger to-day," she said to Lord Timpany, when he congratulated her on this increase of appet.i.te; "a little more material," she added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught George"s eye; a blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily away.
"In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment alone.
"You won"t tell anyone, George? Promise you won"t tell anyone," she implored. "It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS unspiritual, isn"t it? Say you won"t tell anyone."
""I will," said George brutally. "I"ll tell everyone, unless..."
""It"s blackmail."
""I don"t care, said George. "I"ll give you twenty-four hours to decide."
"Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn"t so bad.
They were married at the New Year.
"My poor grandfather!" Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book and put away his pince-nez. "Whenever I read in the papers about oppressed nationalities, I think of him." He relighted his cigar. "It was a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no representative inst.i.tutions."
Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor"s whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible.
Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up.
"What?" she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to consciousness; "what?"
Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded rea.s.suringly.
"It"s about a ham," she said.
"What"s about a ham?"
"What Henry has been reading." She closed the red notebook lying on her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. "I"m going to bed," she announced, and got up.
"So am I," said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise from her arm-chair.
The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the curtains hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an Astral Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath.
"The air"s like wool," he declared.
"It will get cooler after midnight," said Henry Wimbush, and cautiously added, "perhaps."
"I shan"t sleep, I know."
Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. "You must make an effort," she said. "When I can"t sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, "I will sleep, I am asleep!" And pop! off I go. That"s the power of thought."
"But does it work on stuffy nights?" Ivor inquired. "I simply cannot sleep on a stuffy night."
"Nor can I," said Mary, "except out of doors."
"Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!" In the end they decided to sleep on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern. There was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get a mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars, under the gibbous moon, a.s.suredly they would sleep. The mattresses were hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights across the dividing gulf.
On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with its expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be aware that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the owls screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all the geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The stars and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one meteorite had streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-eyed and alert, for the next. Time pa.s.sed; the moon climbed higher and higher in the sky. Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came out.
She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to sleep? she wondered. And as though in answer to her mental question, from behind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the roof a white form noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the moonlight, was recognisably Ivor"s. Spreading his arms to right and left, like a tight-rope dancer, he began to walk forward along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary looked on speechlessly; perhaps he was walking in his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now! If she spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more, but sank back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what seemed an immensely long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and a whispered "d.a.m.n!" And suddenly Ivor"s head and shoulders appeared above the parapet. One leg followed, then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended to wake up with a start.
"Oh!" she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I couldn"t sleep," he explained, "so I came along to see if you couldn"t. One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don"t you find it so?"
It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peac.o.c.k, flying heavily up from below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary started broad awake.
"Catch him!" cried Ivor, jumping up. "We"ll have a feather." The frightened peac.o.c.k ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress, curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish he launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, with a recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his feather, a long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He handed it to his companion.
"An angel"s feather," he said.
Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple pyjamas clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she looked like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear--but a Teddy bear with an angel"s head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell of gold. An angel"s face, the feather of an angel"s wing...Somehow the whole atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic.
"It"s extraordinary to think of s.e.xual selection," she said at last, looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather.
"Extraordinary!" Ivor echoed. "I select you, you select me. What luck!"
He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward. The first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn.
Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming couple.
The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely symbolic; but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not symbolical. Profound and beautiful truth!
"I must be getting back to my tower," said Ivor at last.
"Already?"