First and foremost, Ancoats had been to no public school. It was not the custom of the family; and Mrs. Allison could not be induced to break the tradition. There was accordingly a succession of tutors, whose Church-principles at least were sound. And Ancoats showed himself for a time an impressionable, mystical boy, entirely in sympathy with his mother. His confirmation was a great family emotion, and when he was seventeen Mrs. Allison had difficulty in making him take food enough in Lent to keep him in health. Maxwell was beginning to wonder where it would end, when the lad was sent to Cambridge, and the transformation scene that might always perhaps have been expected, began.
He had been two years at Trinity when he went to pay the Maxwells a visit at the Court. Maxwell could hardly believe his eyes or ears. The boy who at nineteen was an authority on church music and ancient "uses,"
by twenty-one talked and thought of nothing in heaven or earth but the stage and French _bric-a-brac._ His conversation swarmed with the names of actors, singers, and dancers; but they were names that meant nothing except to the initiated. They were the small people of the small theatres; and Ancoats was a Triton among them, not at all, so he carefully informed his kindred, because of his wealth and t.i.tle, but because he too was an artist, and could sing, revel, write, and dance with the best of them.
For some time Maxwell was able to console Mrs. Allison with the historical reflection that more than one son of the Oxford Movement had found in a pa.s.sion for the stage a ready means of annoying the English Puritan. When it came, however, to the young man"s producing risky plays of his own composing at extremely costly _matinees_, there was nothing for it but to interfere. Maxwell at last persuaded him to give up the farce of Cambridge and go abroad. But Ancoats would only go with a man of his own sort; and their time was mostly spent in Paris, where Ancoats divided his hard-spent existence between the furious pursuit of Louis Quinze _bibelots_ and the patronage of two or three minor theatres. To be the king of a first night, raining applause and bouquets from his stage-box, seemed to give him infinite content; but his vanity was hardly less flattered by the compliments say of M. Tournonville, the well-known dealer on the Quai Voltaire, who would bow himself before the young Englishman with the admiring cry, "Mon Dieu! milord, que vous etes fin connoisseur!" while the dealer"s a.s.sistant grinned among the shadows of the back-shop.
At last, at twenty-four, he must needs return to England for his coming of age under his grandfather"s will and the taking over of his estate.
Under the sobering influence of these events, his cla.s.s and his mother seemed for a time to recover him. He refurnished a certain number of rooms at Castle Luton, and made a special marvel of his own room, which was hung thick with Boucher, Greuze, and Watteau engravings, littered with miniatures and trinkets, and enc.u.mbered here and there with portfolios of drawings which he was not anxious to unlock in his mother"s presence.
Moreover, he was again affectionate to his mother, and occasionally even went to church with her. The instincts of the English aristocrat reappeared amid the accomplishments of the _pet.i.t-maitre,_ and poor Mrs.
Allison"s spirits revived. Then the golden-haired Lady Madeleine was asked to stay at Castle Luton. When she came Ancoats devoted himself with extraordinary docility. He drew her, made songs for her, and devised French charades to act with her; he even went so far as to compare her with enthusiasm to the latest and most wonderful "Salome" just exhibited in the Salon by the latest and most wonderful of the impressionists. But Lady Madeleine fortunately had not seen the picture.
Then suddenly, one morning, Ancoats went up to town without notice and remained there. After a while his mother pursued him thither; but Ancoats was restless at sight of her, and she was not long in London, though long enough to show the Maxwells and others that her heart was anxiously set upon Lady Madeleine as a daughter-in-law.
This then--taken together with the stories now besprinkling the newspapers--was the situation. Naturally, Ancoats"s affairs, as he himself was irritably aware, were now, in one way or another, occupying the secret thoughts or the private conversations of most of his mother"s guests.
For instance--
"Are you nice?" said Betty Leven, suddenly, to young Lord Naseby, in the middle of Sunday morning. "Are you in a charitable, charming, humble, and trusting frame of mind? Because, if not, I shall go away--I have had too much of Lady Kent!"
Charlie Naseby laughed. He was sitting reading in the shade at the edge of one of the Castle Luton lawns. For some time past he had been watching Betty Leven and Lady Kent, as they talked under a cedar-tree some little distance from him. Lady Kent conversed with her whole bellicose person--her cap, her chin, her nose, her spreading and impressive shoulders. And from her gestures young Naseby guessed that she had been talking to Betty Leven rather more in character than usual.
He felt a certain curiosity about the _tete-a-tete._ So that when Betty left her companion and came tripping over the lawn to the house, the young man lifted his face and gave her a smiling nod, as though to invite her to come and visit him on the way. Betty came, and then as she stood in front of him delivered the home question already reported.
"Am I nice?" repeated young Naseby. "Far from it. I have not been to church, and I have been reading a French novel of which I do not even propose to tell you the name."
And he promptly slipped his volume into his pocket.
"Which is worst?" said Betty, pensively: "to break the fourth Commandment or the ninth? Lady Kent, of course, has been trampling on them both. But the ninth is her particular victim. She calls it "getting to the roots of things.""
"Whose roots has she been delving at this morning?" said Naseby.
Betty looked behind her, saw that Lady Kent had gone into the house, and let herself drop into the corner of Naseby"s bench with a sigh of fatigue.
"One feels as though one were a sort of house-dog tussling with a burglar. I have been keeping her off all my friends" secrets by main force; so she had to fall back on George Tressady, and tell me ugly tales of his mamma."
"George Tressady! Why on earth should she do him an ill turn? I don"t believe she ever saw him before."
Betty pressed her lips. She and Charlie Naseby had been friends since they wore round pinafores and sat on high nursery chairs side by side.
"One needn"t go to the roots of things," she said, severely, "but one should have eyes in one"s head. Has it ever occurred to you that Ancoats has taken a special fancy to Sir George--that he sat talking to him last night till all hours, and that he has been walking about with him the whole of this morning, instead of walking about--well! with somebody else--as he was meant to do? Why do men behave in this ridiculous manner?
Women, of course. But _men!_ It"s like a trout that won"t let itself be landed. And what"s the good? It"s only prolonging the agony."
"Not at all," said Naseby, laughing. "There"s always the chance of slipping the hook." Then his lively face became suddenly serious. "But it"s time, I think," he added, almost with vehemence, "that Lady Kent stopped trying to land Ancoats. In the first place, it"s no good. He won"t be landed against his will. In the next--well, I only know," he broke off, "that if I had a sister in love with Ancoats at the present moment, I"d carry her off to the North Pole rather than let her be talked about with him!"
Betty opened her eyes.
"Then there _is_ something in the stories!" she cried. "Of course, Frank told me there was nothing. And the Maxwells have not said a word. And _now_ I understand why Lady Kent has been dinning it into my ears--I could only be thankful Mrs. Allison was safe at church--that Ancoats should marry early. "Oh! my dear, it"s always been the only hope for them!"" Betty mimicked Lady Kent"s deep voice and important manner: ""Why, there was the grandfather--_his_ wife had a time!--I could tell you things about _him_!--oh! and her too.--And even Henry Allison!--" There, of course, I stopped her."
"Old ghoul!" said Naseby, in disgust. "So she knows. And yet--good Heavens! where does that charming girl come from?"
He knocked the end off his cigarette, and returned it to his mouth with a rather unsteady hand.
"Knows?--knows what?" said Betty. There was a pink flush, perhaps of alarm, on her pretty cheek, but her eyes said plainly that if there were risks she must run them.
Naseby hesitated. The natural reticence of one young man about another held him back--and he was Ancoats"s friend. But he liked Lady Madeleine, and her mother"s ugly manoeuvres in the sight of G.o.ds and men filled him with a restless ill-temper.
"You say the Maxwells have told you nothing?" he said at last. "But all the same I am pretty certain that Maxwell is here for nothing else. What on earth should he be doing in this _galere_ just now! Look at him and Fontenoy! They"ve been pacing that lime-walk for a good hour. No one ever saw such a spectacle before. Of course something"s up!"
Betty followed his eyes, and caught the figures of the two men between the trunks as they moved through the light and shadow of the lime-walk--Fontenoy"s ma.s.sive head sunk in his shoulders, his hands clasped behind his back; Maxwell"s taller and alerter form beside him.
Fontenoy had, in fact, arrived that morning from town, just too late to accompany Mrs. Allison and her flock to church; and Maxwell and he had been together since the moment when Ancoats, having brought his guest into the garden, had gone off himself on a walk with Tressady.
"Ancoats and Tressady came back past here," Naseby went on. "Ancoats stood still, with his hands on his sides, and looked at those two. His expression was not amiable. "Something hatching," he said to Tressady.
I suppose Ancoats got his sneer from his actor-friends--none of us could do it without practice. "Shall we go and pull the chief out of that?" But they didn"t go. Ancoats turned sulky, and went into the house by himself."
"I"m glad I don"t have to keep that youth straight," said Betty, devoutly. "Perhaps I don"t care enough about him to try. But his mother"s a darling saint!--and if he breaks her heart he ought to be hung."
"She knows nothing--I believe--" said Naseby, quickly.
"Strange!" cried Betty. "I wonder if it pays to be a saint. I shall know everything about _my_ boy when he"s that age."
"Oh! will you?" said Naseby, looking at her with a mocking eye.
"Yes, sir, I shall. Your secrets are not so difficult to know, if one _wants_ to know them. Heaven forbid, however, that I should want to know anything about any of you till Bertie is grown up! Now, please tell me everything. Who is the lady?"
"Heaven forbid I should tell you!" said Naseby, drily.
"Don"t trifle any more," said Betty, laying a remonstrating hand on his arm; "they will be home from church directly."
"Well, I won"t tell you any names," said Naseby, reluctantly. "Of course, it"s an actress--a very small one. And, of course, she"s a bad lot--and pretty."
"Why, there"s no of course about it--about either of them!" said Betty, with more indignation than grammar. She also had dramatic friends, and was sensitive on the point.
Naseby protested that if he must argue the ethics of the stage before he told his tale, the tale would remain untold. Then Betty, subdued, fell into an att.i.tude of meek listening, hands on lap. The tale when told indeed proved to be a very ordinary affair, marked out perhaps a trifle from the ruck by the facts that there was another pretender in the field with whom Ancoats had already had one scene in public, and would probably have more; that Ancoats being Ancoats, something mad and conspicuous was to be expected, which would bring the matter inevitably to his mother"s ears; and that Mrs. Allison was Mrs. Allison.
"Can he marry her?" said Betty, quickly.
"Thank Heaven! no. There is a husband somewhere in Chili. So that it doesn"t seem to be a question of driving Mrs. Allison out of Castle Luton. But--well, between ourselves, it would be a pity to give Ancoats so fine a chance of going to the bad, as he"ll get, if this young woman lays hold of him. He mightn"t recover it."
Betty sat silent a moment. All her gaiety had pa.s.sed away. There was a fierceness in her blue eyes.
"And that"s what we bring them up for!" she exclaimed at last--"that they may do all these ugly, stale, stupid things over again. Oh! I"m not thinking so much, of the morals!"--she turned to Naseby with a defiant look. "I am thinking of the hateful cruelty and unkindness!"
"To his mother?" said Naseby. He shrugged his shoulders.
Betty allowed herself an outburst. Her little hand trembled on her knee.
Naseby did not reply. Not that he disagreed; far from it. Under his young and careless manner he was already a person of settled character, cherishing a number of strong convictions. But since it had become the fashion to talk as frankly of a matter of this kind to your married-women friends as to anybody else, he thought that the women should take it with more equanimity.