The sight of Sibylla standing at the gate of their little garden brought his thoughts back to her. He remembered that she had promised to sit up--an irrational proceeding, as her inability to give good ground for it had clearly proved; and it was nearly twelve--a very late hour for Milldean--so well had Grantley"s talk beguiled the time. Sibylla herself seemed to feel the need of excuse, for as soon as she caught sight of her brother she cried out to him:
"I simply couldn"t go to bed! I"ve had such a day, Jeremy, and my head"s all full of it. And on the top of it came what poor Mumples told us; and--and you can guess how that chimed in with what I must be thinking."
He had come up to her, and she put her hand in his.
"Dear old Jeremy, what friends we"ve been! We have loved one another, haven"t we? Don"t stop loving me. You don"t say much, and you pretend to be rather scornful--just like a boy; and you try to make out that it"s all rather a small and ordinary affair----"
"Isn"t it?"
"Oh, I daresay! But to me? Dear, you know what it is to me! I don"t want you to say much; I don"t mind your pretending. But just now, in the dark, when we"re all alone, when n.o.body can possibly hear--and I swear I won"t tell a single soul--kiss me and tell me your heart"s with me, because we"ve been true friends and comrades, haven"t we?"
It was dark and n.o.body was there. Jeremy kissed her and mumbled some awkward words. They were enough.
"Now I"m quite happy. It was just that I wanted to hear it from you too."
Jeremy was glad, but he felt himself compromised. When they went in, his first concern was to banish emotion and relieve the tension. Mrs.
Mumple"s workbox gave a direction to his impulse. If a young man be inclined, as some are, to a.s.sume a cynical and worldly att.i.tude, he will do it most before women, and, of all women, most before those who know him best and have known him from his tender age, since to them above all it is most important to mark the change which has occurred. So Jeremy not only allowed himself to forget that small voice, and, turning back to Mrs. Mumple"s story, once more to expose it to an interpretation of the worldly and cynical order, but he went even further. The view which Grantley had suggested to him, which had never crossed his mind till it was put before him by another, the disillusioned view, he represented now not as Grantley"s, but as his own. He threw it out as an idea which naturally presented itself to a man of the world, giving the impression that it had been in his mind all along, even while Mrs. Mumple was speaking. And now he asked Sibylla, not perhaps altogether to believe in it, but to think it possible, almost probable, and certainly very diverting.
Sibylla heard him through in silence, her eyes fixed on him in a regard grave at first, becoming, as he went on, almost frightened.
"Do ideas like that come into men"s minds?" she asked at the end. She did not suspect that the idea had not been her brother"s own in the beginning. "I think it"s a horrible idea."
"Oh, you"re so high-falutin!" he laughed, glad, perhaps, to have shocked her a little.
She came up to him and touched his arm imploringly.
"Forget it," she urged. "Never think about it again. Oh, remember how much, how terribly she loves him! Don"t have such ideas." She drew back a little. "I think--I think it"s almost--devilish: I mean, to imagine that, to suspect that, without any reason. Yes--devilish!"
That hit Jeremy; it was more than he wanted.
"Devilish! You call it devilish? Why, it was----" He had been about to lay the idea to its true father-mind; but he did not. He looked at his sister again. "Well, I"m sorry," he grumbled. "It only struck me as rather funny."
Sibylla"s wrath vanished.
"It"s just because you know nothing about it that you could think such a thing, poor boy!" said she.
It became clearer still that Grantley must not be brought in, because the only explanation which mitigated Jeremy"s offence could not help Grantley. Jeremy was loyal here, whatever he may have been to Mrs.
Mumple. He kept Grantley out of it. But--devilish! What vehement language for the girl to use!
CHAPTER IV
INITIATION
Mrs. Raymore was giving a little dinner at her house in Buckingham Gate in honour of Grantley Imason and his wife. They had made their honeymoon a short one, and were now in Sloane Street for a month before settling at Milldean for the autumn. The gathering was of Grantley"s friends, one of the sets with whom he had spent much of his time in bachelor days.
The men were old-time friends; as they had married, the wives had become his acquaintances too--in some cases (as in Mrs. Raymore"s) more than mere acquaintances. They had all been interested in him, and consequently were curious about his wife--critical, no doubt, but prepared to be friendly and to take her into the set, if she would come.
Mrs. Raymore, as she sat at the head of her table, with Grantley by her and Sibylla on Raymore"s right hand at the other end, was thinking that they, in their turn, might reasonably interest the young bride--might set her thinking, and encourage or discourage her according to the conclusions she came to about them. She and Raymore would bear scrutiny well as things went. There was a very steady and affectionate friendship between them; they lived comfortably together, and had brought up their children--a boy and a girl--successfully and without friction.
Raymore--a tall man with a reddish face and deliberate of speech--was always patient and reasonable. He had never been very impa.s.sioned; there had not been much to lose of what is most easily lost. He might have had a few more intellectual tastes, perhaps, and a keener interest in things outside his business; but she had her own friends, and on the whole there was little to complain of.
Then came the Fanshaws--John and Christine. He was on the Stock Exchange; she, a dainty pretty woman, given up to society and to being very well dressed, but pleasant, kind, and clever in a light sort of way. They liked to entertain a good deal, and got through a lot of money. When Fanshaw was making plenty, and Christine had plenty to spend, things went smoothly enough. In bad times there was trouble, each thinking that retrenchment could best be practised by the other and in regard to the expenses to which the other was addicted: it was, for instance, the stables against the dressmaker then. The happiness of the household depended largely on the state of the markets--a thing which it might interest Mrs. Grantley Imason to hear.
Next came the Selfords--Richard and Janet. He was a rather small frail man, of private means, a dabbler in art. She was artistic too, or would have told you so, and fond of exotic dogs, which she imported from far-off places, and which usually died soon. They were a gushing pair, both towards one another and towards the outside world; almost aggressively affectionate in public. "Trying to humbug everybody," Tom Courtland used to say; but that was too sweeping a view. Their excessive amiability was the result of their frequent quarrels--or rather tiffs, since quarrel is perhaps an over-vigorous word. They were always either concealing the existence of a tiff or making one up, reconciling themselves with a good deal of display. Everybody knew this, thanks in part to their sharp-eyed sharp-tongued daughter Anna, a girl of sixteen, who knew all about the tiffs and could always be got to talk about them.
The last pair were the Courtlands themselves. All the set was rather afraid of Lady Harriet. She was a tall, handsome, fair woman, still young; she patronised them rather, but was generally affable and agreeable when nothing occurred to upset her. Tom Courtland grew more depressed, heavy, and dreary every day. A crisis was expected--but Lady Harriet"s small-talk did not suffer. Mrs. Raymore thought that the less Grantley"s wife saw or knew of that household the better.
The party was completed by Suzette Bligh, a girl pretty in a faded sort of way, not quite so young as she tried to look, and in Mrs. Raymore"s opinion, quite likely not to marry at all; and finally by young Blake, Walter Dudley Blake, a favourite of hers and of many other people"s, known as a climber of mountains and a shooter of rare game in his energetic days; suspected of enjoying life somewhat to excess and with riotous revelry in his seasons of leisure; impetuous, chivalrous, impulsive, and notably good-looking. Mrs. Raymore had put him on Sibylla"s right--in case her husband should not prove amusing to the honoured guest.
On the whole, she thought, they ought not to frighten Sibylla much.
There was one terrible example--the Courtlands; but when it comes to throwing things about, the case is admittedly abnormal. For the rest they seemed, to the student of matrimony, fair average samples of a bulk of fair average merit. Perhaps there might have been an ideal union--just to counter-balance the Courtlands at the other extreme. If such were desirable, let it be hoped that the Imasons themselves would supply it. In regard to one point, she decided, the company was really above the average--and that the most important point. There had been rumours once about Christine Fanshaw--indeed they were still heard sometimes; but scandal had never a.s.sailed any other woman there. In these days that was something, thought Mrs. Raymore.
Grantley turned from Christine Fanshaw to his hostess.
"You"re very silent. What are you thinking about?" he asked.
"Sibylla"s really beautiful, and in a rather unusual way. You might pa.s.s her over once; but if you did look once, you"d be sure to look always."
"Another woman"s looks have kept your attention all this time?"
"Your wife"s," she reminded him with an affectionately friendly glance.
"And I was wondering what she thought of us all, what we all look like in those pondering thoughtful questioning eyes of hers."
"Her eyes do ask questions, don"t they?" laughed Grantley.
"Many, many, and must have answers, I should think. And don"t they expect good answers?"
"Oh, she"s not really at all alarming!"
"You can make the eyes say something different, I daresay?"
He laughed again very contentedly. Mrs. Raymore"s admiration pleased him, since she was not very easy herself to please. He was glad she approved of Sibylla, though as a rule his own opinion was enough for him.
"Well, they aren"t always questioning. That would be fatiguing in a wife--really as bad as continually discussing the Arian heresy, as old Johnson says. But I daresay," he lowered his voice, "Lady Harriet would excite a query or two."
"You"ve told me nothing about Sibylla. I shall have to find it all out for myself."
"That"s the only knowledge worth having; and I"m only learning myself still, you know."
"Really, that"s an unusually just frame of mind for a husband. I"ve high hopes of you, Grantley."
"Good! Because you know me uncommonly well."
She thought a moment.
"No, not so very well," she said. "You"re hard to know."
He took that as a compliment; probably most people would, since it seems to hint at something rare and out of the common; inaccessibility has an aristocratic flavour.