Mrs. Guthrie Brimston suited him exactly. To use their own choice language, he would have given her away at any time, and she him; but that did not prevent them enjoying each other"s society thoroughly.
True to her determination to make things pleasant for Colonel Colquhoun if possible, and seeing that he found these people congenial, Evadne did her best to cultivate their acquaintance for his sake. Never successfully, however. A mere tolerance was as far as she got; but even that was intermittent; and the undercurrent of criticism which streamed through her mind in their presence could never be checked.
But she was slow to read character. Her impulse was always to believe in people, and to like them; and she had to acquire a knowledge of their faults painfully, bit by bit. But Colonel Colquhoun helped her here. He was an inveterate gossip, very much in the manner of Mrs. Guthrie Brimston herself, only that he was more refined when he talked to Evadne; and at breakfast, their one _tete-a-tete_ meal in the day, it was his habit to tell her such club stories as were sufficiently decent, and what "he said" and what "she said" of each other, upon which he would strike an average to arrive at the probable truth.
"Do you happen to know what is at the bottom of the feud between Mrs.
Guthrie Brimston and Mrs. Malcomson?" he asked her one morning at breakfast.
"Mrs. Guthrie Brimston"s defects of character obviously," said Evadne sententiously.
"Then you prefer Mrs. Malcomson?" he suggested. "Now, _I_ can"t get on with her a bit. She always appears to me so cold and censorious."
"Does she?" said Evadne thoughtfully. "But she is not really so at all.
She is judicial though, and sincere, which gives one a sense of security in her presence."
"But she is deadly dull," said Colonel Colquhoun.
"Oh, no!" Evadne exclaimed, smiling. "You mistake her entirely. She made me laugh immoderately only yesterday."
"I should like to see you laugh immoderately," said Colonel Colquhoun.
Major Guthrie Brimston surprised Evadne more, perhaps, than his wife did.
She began by overlooking the little man somehow without the least intending it, and as he seemed to himself to fill the horizon when in society and block out all view of anybody else, he could only believe that she did it on purpose.
He was by way of being an amateur actor, a low comedy man; but he was not sincere enough to personate any character, or be anything either on the stage or off it but his own small inartistic self; and no amount of bawling could make him an actor, though he bawled himself hoa.r.s.e as a rule, mistaking sound for the science of expression. Still, it was the fashion to consider him funny. People called him "Grigsby" and "Kickleberry Brown," and laughed when he twiddled his thumbs. He was forever buffooning, and if he sat on a high stool with his toes just touching the floor, his head on one side, a sad expression of countenance, and the tips of his fingers touching, he was supposed to be doing something amusing, and the effort would be rewarded with laughter, in which, however, Evadne could not join. These performances outraged her sense of the dignity of poor human nature, which it is easy enough to discount, but very difficult to maintain; and made her sorry for him.
His hands were another offence to her. They were fat and podgy, with short pointed fingers, indicative of animalism and ill-nature, the opposite of all that is refined and beautiful--truly of necessity an offence to her.
It was at first that she had overlooked him, but after a time, when she began to know him better, the little, fat, funny man magnetized her attention. She could not help gravely considering him wherever she met him, and wondering about him--wondering about them both in fact. She wondered, for one thing, why they were so fond of eating and drinking, her own taste in those matters being of the simplest description.
"I never deny myself anything," said Mrs. Guthrie Brimston. And she looked like it.
Evadne wondered also at their meanness, when she saw them saving money by borrowing the carriages of people whom she had heard them cla.s.s as "Nothing but shopkeepers, you know. We shouldn"t speak to them anywhere else." And whom they ridiculed habitually for the misp.r.o.nunciation of words, and for accents unmistakably provincial.
What could Evadne have in common with these flippant people--sc.u.m themselves, forever on the surface, incapable even of seeing beneath, their every idea and motive a falsification of something divine in life or thought? They did not even speak the same language. To their insidious slang she opposed a smooth current of perfect English, which seemed to reflect upon the inferior quality of their own expressions and led to mutual embarra.s.sment. Evadne meant every word she uttered, and was careful to choose the one which should best express her meaning. Mrs. Guthrie Brimston"s meanings, on the other hand, told best when half concealed.
Another difficulty was, too, that Evadne"s clear, decided speech had the effect of exposing innuendo and insincerity, and making both "bad form,"
which, socially speaking, is a much more terrible stigma to bear than an accusation of dishonesty, however well authenticated. And even their very manner of expressing legitimate mirth was not the same, for Mrs. Guthrie Brimston laughed aloud, while Evadne"s laugh was soundless.
Evadne suffered when she found herself being toadied by these people. She said nothing, however. They were Colonel Colquhoun"s friends, and she felt herself forced to be civil to them so long as he chose to bring them to the house. And they were besides an evil out of which good came to her quickly. For as soon as she understood their manners and their modes of thought, she felt her heart fill with earnest self-congratulation: "If these are the kind of people whom Colonel Colquhoun prefers," was her mental e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, "what an escape I have had! Thank Heaven, he is nothing to me."
CHAPTER VII.
Society in Malta during the sunny winter is very much like the society of a London season, only that it is more representative because there are fewer specimens of each cla.s.s, and those who do go out are like delegates charged with a concentrated extract of the peculiarities and prejudices of their own set. When Evadne arrived, at the beginning of the winter, the rest of the party had already a.s.sembled. There were naval people, military, commercial, landed gentry, clerical, royalty, and beer. The princ.i.p.al representative of this latter interest was a lady whom Mrs.
Guthrie Brimston called the Queen of Beersheba because of her splendid habiliments, and this is a fair specimen of Mrs. Guthrie Brimston"s wit.
Evadne was received in silence, as it were, for abroad the question is not generally "Who are you?" as at home, but "What are you like?" or "How much can you do for us?" and people were waiting till she showed her colours.
She never did show any decided colours of the usual kind, however. She was not "a beauty beyond doubt"--some people did not admire her in the least.
She was not "the same" or "nice" to everybody, for she had strong objections to certain people, and showed that she had; and she was not "by way of entertaining" at all, although she did "as much of that kind of thing" as other ladies of her station. But yet, with all these negatives, she made a distinct impression on the place as soon as she appeared. It sounds paradoxical, but she was celebrated at once for her silence and for what she had said. The weight of her occasional utterances told. And if it were fair to call Mrs. Guthrie Brimston counsel for the prosecution, Evadne might have been set up as counsel for the defence; for it so happened that when she did speak in those early days it was usually in defence of something or somebody--people, principles, absent friends, _or_ enemies; anything unfairly attacked. Generally, when she said anything cutting, it was so clearly incisive you hardly knew for a moment where you were injured. She did it like the executioner of that Eastern potentate who decapitated a criminal with such skill and with so sharp an instrument that the latter did not know when he was executed and went on talking, his head remaining _in situ_ until he sneezed. There was one old gentleman, Lord Groome, whom she had disposed of several times in that way without, however, being able to get rid of him quite, because his stupidity was a hardy perennial which came up again all the fresher and stronger for having been lopped. He was a degenerated, ridiculous-looking old object, a man with the most touching confidence in his tailor, which the latter invariably betrayed by never making him a garment that fitted him. He had begun by admiring Evadne, and had endeavoured to pay his senile court to her with fulsome flatteries in the manner approved of his kind--but he ended by being afraid of her.
His first collision with Evadne was on the subject of "those low Radicals," against whom he had been launching out in unmeasured terms.
"Why low, because Radical?" she asked. "I should have thought, among so many, that some must be honest men, and nothing honest can be low."
"I tell you, my dear lady," he replied, his temper tried by her words, but controlled by her appearance, "I tell you the Radicals are a low lot, the whole of them."
"Ah! Then I suppose you know them all," she said, looking at him thoughtfully.
The want of intelligence in the community at large was made painfully apparent by the stories of her peculiar opinions which were freely circulated and seldom suspected. The Queen of Beersheba declared that Evadne approved of the frightful cruelties which the people inflicted on the n.o.bles during the Reign of Terror, that she had heard her say so herself.
What Evadne did say was: "The revolutionary excesses were inevitable. They came at the swing of the pendulum which the n.o.bles themselves had set in motion; and if you consider the sufferings that had been inflicted on the people, and their long endurance of them, you will be more surprised to think that, they kept their reason so long than that they should have lost it at last. "Pour la populace ce n"est jamais par envie d"attaquer qu"elle se souleve, mais par impatience de souffrir.""
But the French Revolution is an abstract subject of impersonal interest compared with the Irish question at the present time; and the commotion which was caused by the misrepresentation of Evadne"s remarks about the Reign of Terror was insignificant compared with what followed when her feeling for Ireland had been misinterpreted. She gave out the text which called forth the second series of imbecilities daring a dinner party at her own house one night, her old friend, Lord Groome, supplying her with a peg upon which to hang her conclusions, by making an intemperate attack upon the Irish.
CHAPTER VIII.
Captain Belliot was not one of the guests at that dinner party of Evadne"s, but he happened to call on Mrs. Guthrie Brimston next day, and finding her alone, had tea with her _tete-a-tete_; and of course she entertained him with her own version of what had occurred the night before.
"The dinner itself was very good," she said. "All their dinners are, you know. But Mrs. Colquhoun was "--she raised her hands, and nodded her head-- "well, just _too_ awful!" she concluded.
"Indeed!" he observed, leaning back in his chair, crossing his legs, and settling himself for a treat generally. "You surprise me, because she has never struck me as being the kind of person who would set the Thames on fire in any way."
Mrs. Guthrie Brimston smiled enigmatically: "Do you admire her very much?"
she asked with the utmost suavity.
"Well," he answered warily, "she is rather peculiar in appearance, don"t you know."
Mrs. Guthrie Brimston drew her own conclusions, not from the words, but from the wariness, and proceeded: "It is not in appearance only that that she is peculiar, then. She astonished us all last night, I can a.s.sure you."
"How?" he asked, to fill up an artistic pause.
"By the things she said!" Mrs. Guthrie Brimston answered, with an affectation of reserve.
"Now you do surprise me!" Captain Belliot declared. "Because I cannot imagine her saying anything but "How do you do?" and "Good-bye," "Yes" and "No," "Indeed!" "Please," "Thank you," and "Do you think so?" On my honour, those words are all I have ever heard her utter, and I have met her as often as anybody on the island. Now, _I_ like a woman with something in her," he concluded, ogling Mrs. Guthrie Brimston.
"Well, then, she must have been hibernating, or something, when she first came out, for she has begun to talk now with a vengeance," Mrs. Guthrie Brimston answered smartly.
"But what has she been saying?" he asked, with great curiosity.
"I simply cannot tell you!" she answered pointedly.
"So bad as that?" he said, raising his eyebrows.