"Oh! I think so too," said the younger Miss Pirbright.
The Vicar felt that the heavens had fallen. He sat crumpled up in his chair, a shattered man. Lady Hammergallow sat down next to him without appearing to see him. She was breathing heavily, but her face was terribly calm. Everyone sat down. Was the Angel grossly ignorant or only grossly impertinent? The Angel was vaguely aware of some frightful offence, aware that in some mysterious way he had ceased to be the centre of the gathering. He saw reproachful despair in the Vicar"s eye.
He drifted slowly towards the window in the recess and sat down on the little octagonal Moorish stool by the side of Mrs Jehoram. And under the circ.u.mstances he appreciated at more than its proper value Mrs Jehoram"s kindly smile. He put down the violin in the window seat.
x.x.xV.
Mrs Jehoram and the Angel (apart)--Mr Wilmerdings playing.
"I have so longed for a quiet word with you," said Mrs Jehoram in a low tone. "To tell you how delightful I found your playing."
"I am glad it pleased you," said the Angel.
"Pleased is scarcely the word," said Mrs Jehoram. "I was moved--profoundly. These others did not understand.... I was glad you did not play with him."
The Angel looked at the mechanism called Wilmerdings, and felt glad too.
(The Angelic conception of duets is a kind of conversation upon violins.) But he said nothing.
"I worship music," said Mrs Jehoram. "I know nothing about it technically, but there is something in it--a longing, a wish...."
The Angel stared at her face. She met his eyes.
"You understand," she said. "I see you understand." He was certainly a very nice boy, sentimentally precocious perhaps, and with deliciously liquid eyes.
There was an interval of Chopin (Op. 40) played with immense precision.
Mrs Jehoram had a sweet face still, in shadow, with the light falling round her golden hair, and a curious theory flashed across the Angel"s mind. The perceptible powder only supported his view of something infinitely bright and lovable caught, tarnished, coa.r.s.ened, coated over.
"Do you," said the Angel in a low tone. "Are you ... separated from ...
_your_ world?"
"As you are?" whispered Mrs Jehoram.
"This is so--cold," said the Angel. "So harsh!" He meant the whole world.
"I feel it too," said Mrs Jehoram, referring to Siddermorton Home.
"There are those who cannot live without sympathy," she said after a sympathetic pause. "And times when one feels alone in the world.
Fighting a battle against it all. Laughing, flirting, hiding the pain of it...."
"And hoping," said the Angel with a wonderful glance.--"Yes."
Mrs Jehoram (who was an epicure of flirtations) felt the Angel was more than redeeming the promise of his appearance. (Indisputably he worshipped her.) "Do _you_ look for sympathy?" she said. "Or have you found it?"
"I think," said the Angel, very softly, leaning forward, "I think I have found it."
Interval of Chopin Op. 40. The very eldest Miss Papaver and Mrs Pirbright whispering. Lady Hammergallow (gla.s.ses up) looking down the saloon with an unfriendly expression at the Angel. Mrs Jehoram and the Angel exchanging deep and significant glances.
"Her name," said the Angel (Mrs Jehoram made a movement) "is Delia. She is...."
"Delia!" said Mrs Jehoram sharply, slowly realising a terrible misunderstanding. "A fanciful name.... Why!... No! Not that little housemaid at the Vicarage--?..."
The Polonaise terminated with a flourish. The Angel was quite surprised at the change in Mrs Jehoram"s expression.
"_I never_ did!" said Mrs Jehoram recovering. "To make me your confidant in an intrigue with a servant. Really Mr Angel it"s possible to be too original...."
Then suddenly their colloquy was interrupted.
x.x.xVI.
This section is (so far as my memory goes) the shortest in the book.
But the enormity of the offence necessitates the separation of this section from all other sections.
The Vicar, you must understand, had done his best to inculcate the recognised differentiae of a gentleman. "Never allow a lady to carry anything," said the Vicar. "Say, "permit me" and relieve her." "Always stand until every lady is seated." "Always rise and open a door for a lady...." and so forth. (All men who have elder sisters know that code.)
And the Angel (who had failed to relieve Lady Hammergallow of her teacup) danced forward with astonishing dexterity (leaving Mrs Jehoram in the window seat) and with an elegant "permit me" rescued the tea-tray from Lady Hammergallow"s pretty parlour-maid and vanished officiously in front of her. The Vicar rose to his feet with an inarticulate cry.
x.x.xVII.
"He"s drunk!" said Mr Rathbone-Slater, breaking a terrific silence.
"That"s the matter with _him_."
Mrs Jehoram laughed hysterically.
The Vicar stood up, motionless, staring. "Oh! I _forgot_ to explain servants to him!" said the Vicar to himself in a swift outbreak of remorse. "I thought he _did_ understand servants."
"Really, Mr Hilyer!" said Lady Hammergallow, evidently exercising enormous self-control and speaking in panting spasms. "Really, Mr Hilyer!--Your genius is _too_ terrible. I must, I really _must_, ask you to take him home."
So to the dialogue in the corridor of alarmed maid-servant and well-meaning (but shockingly _gauche_) Angel--appears the Vicar, his botryoidal little face crimson, gaunt despair in his eyes, and his necktie under his left ear.
"Come," he said--struggling with emotion. "Come away.... I.... I am disgraced for ever."
And the Angel stared for a second at him and obeyed--meekly, perceiving himself in the presence of unknown but evidently terrible forces.
And so began and ended the Angel"s social career.