A Great Success Part 3

Doris, as she listened to her, disliked her heartily, and at the same time could not help being thrilled by so much knowledge, so much contact with history in the making, and by such a masterful way, in a woman, with the great ones of the earth. "What a worm she must think me!"

thought Doris--"what a worm she _does_ think me--and the likes of me!"

At the same time, the spectator must needs admit there was something else in Lady Dunstable's talk than mere intelligence or mere mannishness. There was undoubtedly something of "the good fellow," and, through all her hard hitting, a curious absence--in conversation--of the personal egotism she was quite ready to show in all the trifles of life.

On the present occasion her main object clearly was to bring out Arthur Meadows--the new captive of her bow and spear; to find out what was in him; to see if he was worthy of her inner circle. Throwing all compliment aside, she attacked him hotly on certain statements--certain estimates--in his lectures. Her knowledge was personal; the knowledge of one whose father had sat in Dizzy's latest Cabinet, while, through the endless cousinship of the English landed families, she was as much related to the Whig as to the Tory leaders of the past. She talked familiarly of "Uncle This" or "Cousin That," who had been apparently the idols of her nursery before they had become the heroes of England; and Meadows had much ado to defend himself against her store of anecdote and reminiscence. "Unfair!" thought Doris, breathlessly watching the contest of wits. "Oh, if she weren't a woman, Arthur could easily beat her!"

But she was a woman, and not at all unwilling, when hard pressed, to take advantage of that fact.

All the same, Meadows was stirred to most unwonted efforts. He proved to be an antagonist worth her steel; and Doris's heart swelled with secret pride as she saw how all the other voices died down, how more and more people came up to listen, even the young men and maidens,--throwing themselves on the gra.s.s, around the two disputants. Finally Lady Dunstable carried off the honours. Had she not seen Lord Beaconsfield twice during the fatal week of his last general election, when England turned against him, when his great rival triumphed, and all was lost?

Had he not talked to her, as great men will talk to the young and charming women whose flatteries soften their defeats; so that, from the wings, she had seen almost the last of that well-graced actor, caught his last gestures and some of his last words?

"Brava, brava!" said Meadows, when the story ceased, although it had been intended to upset one of his own most brilliant generalisations; and a sound of clapping hands went round the circle. Lady Dunstable, a little flushed and panting, smiled and was silent. Meadows, meanwhile, was thinking--"How often has she told that tale? She has it by heart.

Every touch in it has been sharpened a dozen times. All the same--a wonderful performance!"

Lord Dunstable, meanwhile, sat absolutely silent, his hat on the back of his head, his attention fixed on his wife. As the group broke up, and the chairs were pushed back, he said in Doris's ear--"Isn't she an awfully clever woman, my wife?"

Before Doris could answer, she heard Lady Dunstable carelessly--but none the less peremptorily--inviting her women guests to see their rooms.

Doris walked by her hostess's side towards the house. Every trace of animation and charm had now vanished from that lady's manner. She was as languid and monosyllabic as before, and Doris could only feel once again that while her clever husband was an eagerly welcomed guest, she herself could only expect to reckon as his appendage--a piece of family luggage.

Lady Dunstable threw open the door of a s.p.a.cious bedroom. "No doubt you will wish to rest till dinner," she said, severely. "And of course your maid will ask for what she wants." At the word "maid," did Doris dream it, or was there a satiric gleam in the hard black eyes? "Pretender," it seemed to say--and Doris's conscience admitted the charge.

And indeed the door had no sooner closed on Lady Dunstable before an agitated knock announced Jane--in tears.

She stood opposite her mistress in desperation.

"Please, ma'am--I'll have to have an evening dress--or I can't go in to supper!"

"What on earth do you mean?" said Doris, staring at her.

"Every maid in this 'ouse, ma'am, 'as got to dress for supper. The maids go in the 'ousekeeper's room, an' they've all on 'em got dresses V-shaped, or cut square, or something. This black dress, ma'am, won't do at all. So I can't have no supper. I couldn't dream, ma'am, of goin' in different to the others!"

"You silly creature!" said Doris, springing up. "Look here--I'll lend you my spare blouse. You can turn it in at the neck, and wear my white scarf. You'll be as smart as any of them!"

And half laughing, half compa.s.sionate, she pulled her blouse out of the box, adjusted the white scarf to it herself, and sent the bewildered Jane about her business, after having shown her first how to unpack her mistress's modest belongings, and strictly charged her to return half an hour before dinner. "Of course I shall dress myself,--but you may as well have a lesson."

The girl went, and Doris was left stormily wondering why she had been such a fool as to bring her. Then her sense of humour conquered, and her brow cleared. She went to the open window and stood looking over the park beyond. Sunset lay broad and rich over the wide stretches of gra.s.s, and on the splendid oaks lifting their dazzling leaf to the purest of skies. The roses in the garden sent up their scent, there was a plashing of water from an invisible fountain, and the deer beyond the fence wandered in and out of the broad bands of shadow drawn across the park.

Doris's young feet fidgeted under her. She longed to be out exploring the woods and the lake. Why was she immured in this stupid room, to which Lady Dunstable had conducted her with a chill politeness which had said plainly enough "Here you are--and here you stay!--till dinner!"

"If I could only find a back-staircase," she thought, "I would soon be enjoying myself! Arthur, lucky wretch, said something about playing golf. No!--there he is!"

And sure enough, on the farthest edge of the lawn going towards the park, she saw two figures walking--Lady Dunstable and Arthur! "Deep in talk of course--having the best of times--while I am shut up here--half-past six!--on a glorious evening!" The reflection, however, was, on the whole, good-humoured. She did not feel, as yet, either jealous or tragic. Some day, she supposed, if it was to be her lot to visit country houses, she would get used to their ways. For Arthur, of course, it was useful--perhaps necessary--to be put through his paces by a woman like Lady Dunstable. "And he can hold his own. But for me? I contribute nothing. I don't belong to them--they don't want me--and what use have I for them?"

Her meditations, however, were here interrupted by a knock. On her saying "Come in"--the door opened cautiously to admit the face of the substantial lady, Miss Field, to whom Doris had been introduced at the tea-table.

"Are you resting?" said Miss Field, "or only 'interned'?"

"Oh, please come in!" cried Doris. "I never was less tired in my life."

Miss Field entered, and took the armchair that Doris offered her, fronting the open window and the summer scene. Her face would have suited the Muse of Mirth, if any Muse is ever forty years of age. The small, up-turned nose and full red lips were always smiling; so were the eyes; and the fair skin and still golden hair, the plump figure and gay dress of flower-sprigged muslin, were all in keeping with the part.

"You have never seen my cousin before?" she inquired.

"Lady Dunstable? Is she your cousin?"

Miss Field nodded. "My first cousin. And I spend a great part of the year here, helping in different ways. Rachel can't do without me now, so I'm able to keep her in order. Don't ever be shy with her! Don't ever let her think she frightens you!--those are the two indispensable rules here."

"I'm afraid I should break them," said Doris, slowly. "She does frighten me--horribly!"

"Ah, well, you didn't show it--that's the chief thing. You know she's a much more human creature than she seems."

"Is she?" Doris's eyes pursued the two distant figures in the park.

"You'd think, for instance, that Lord Dunstable was just a cipher? Not at all. He's the real authority here, and when he puts his foot down Rachel always gives in. But of course she's stood in the way of his career."

Doris shrank a little from these indiscretions. But she could not keep her curiosity out of her eyes, and Miss Field smilingly answered it.

"She's absorbed him so! You see he watches her all the time. She's like an endless play to him. He really doesn't care for anything else--he doesn't want anything else. Of course they're very rich. But he might have done something in politics, if she hadn't been so much more important than he. And then, naturally, she's made enemies--powerful enemies. Her friends come here of course--her old cronies--the people who can put up with her. They're devoted to her. And the young people--the very modern ones--who think nice manners 'early Victorian,'

and like her rudeness for the sake of her cleverness. But the rest!--What do you think she did at one of these parties last year?"

Doris could not help wishing to know.

"She took a fancy to ask a girl near here--the daughter of a clergyman, a great friend of Lord Dunstable's, to come over for the Sunday. Lord Dunstable had talked of the girl, and Rachel's always on the look-out for cleverness; she hunts it like a hound! She met the young woman too somewhere, and got the impression--I can't say how--that she would 'go.'

So on the Sat.u.r.day morning she went over in her pony-carriage--broke in on the little Rectory like a hurricane--of course you know the people about here regard her as something semi-divine!--and told the girl she had come to take her back to Crosby Ledgers for the Sunday. So the poor child packed up, all in a flutter, and they set off together in the pony-carriage--six miles. And by the time they had gone four Rachel had discovered she had made a mistake--that the girl wasn't clever, and would add nothing to the party. So she quietly told her that she was afraid, after all, the party wouldn't suit her. And then she turned the pony's head, and drove her straight home again!"

"Oh!" cried Doris, her cheeks red, her eyes aflame.

"Brutal, wasn't it?" said the other. "All the same, there are fine things in Rachel. And in one point she's the most vulnerable of women!"

"Her son?" Doris ventured.

Miss Field shrugged her shoulders.

"He doesn't drink--he doesn't gamble--he doesn't spend money--he doesn't run away with other people's wives. He's just nothing!--just incurably empty and idle. He comes here very little. His mother terrifies him. And since he was twenty-one he has a little money of his own. He hangs about in studios and theatres. His mother doesn't know any of his friends.

What she suffers--poor Rachel! She'd have given everything in the world for a brilliant son. But you can't wonder. She's like some strong plant that takes all the nourishment out of the ground, so that the plants near it starve. She can't help it. She doesn't mean to be a vampire!"

Doris hardly knew what to say. Somehow she wished the vampire were not walking with Arthur! That, however, was not a sentiment easily communicable; and she was just turning it into something else when Miss Field said--abruptly, like someone coming to the real point--

"Does your husband like her?"

"Why yes, of course!" stammered Doris. "She's been awfully kind to us about the lectures, and--he loves arguing with her."

"She loves arguing with _him_!" 'said Miss Field triumphantly. "She lives just for such half-hours as that she gave us on the lawn after tea--and all owing to him--he was so inspiring, so stimulating. Oh, you'll see, she'll take you up tremendously--if you want to be taken up!"

The smiling blue eyes looked gaily into Doris's puzzled countenance.

Evidently the speaker was much amused by the Meadowses' situation--more amused than her sense of politeness allowed her to explain. Doris was conscious of a vague resentment.

"I'm afraid I don't see what Lady Dunstable will get out of me," she said, drily.

Miss Field raised her eyebrows.