At The Relton Arms Part 8

There was something exemplary about Norah which always made her do the thing that was expected of her at the right moment. She never had a headache when the boys wanted her to romp with them, she did not hurt the children's feelings by speaking French before them, she always wanted music when Helen was going to sing, and she did not obtrude her affection for the family hero in public. Perhaps this last evidence of good breeding had more weight with the Raleighs than anything else she did.

Shortly before the marriage there was a monster reception in the studio in the West End. All the lady pupils lined the walls, and examined critically the names on the wedding presents, and wondered enviously where Norah bought her hats, and manoeuvred anxiously for a few words with the musician. Mrs. Reginald Routh, in consideration of her being an invalid, sat in the most comfortable chair in the room, while Lady Raleigh, on the edge of an extremely straight-backed one, had to listen to her eulogies of Mr. Digby's music and Mr. Digby himself. The bride-elect as usual played her part excellently; she made her way through the toast-racks, and the plated spoons in pale-blue cases, and the pepper-pots, and the clocks with the musical devices, which were spread out on little tables all over the room; and she said a few gracious words to each lady pupil, in which she thanked her for her particular toast-rack or case of spoons, and hoped she would call after the marriage on the musician and herself in their flat in Victoria Street. And she ended her circuit of the room, as was, inevitable, beside the throne of Mrs. Reginald Routh, where she relieved Lady Raleigh for a time, and whence she was, from a quick survey of the att.i.tude of every one present, that there was little chance of being relieved herself at all.

"This is the happiest moment of my life," murmured Mrs. Reginald, with a tremor in her voice; "you will excuse my foolish tears, will you not? He has been like a dear brother, an elder brother, to me ever since I have known him, and it is natural that I should have the jealous feeling of a sister in seeing him belong to another. It is only at first, of course--dear me! what a terrible tyrant deep affection is, to be sure!

Don't mind me dear, I shall be better directly;" and she applied a lace handkerchief to a perfectly dry eye, and followed the pa.s.sage of the musician among the wedding presents with the other.

"Why, there is that forward person who used to throw herself at Mr.

Digby's head last season," she continued, recovering with rapidity, "Lady something or another,--came into the t.i.tle by a fluke, I believe.

Who is the handsome fellow she is flirting with now, eh? So that's Jack Raleigh, is it? Oh! I've heard about him. Not at all like his brother, is he?"

"He's very nice," said Norah, gently.

"Nice, is he? Then he doesn't know what he's got hold of in that young woman. I suppose she thinks as she can't get one, she'll have the other. Have you been introduced to her, my dear?"

"Yes--I have. That is, I--I stayed with her--for a night."

"I'm not surprised at that. She wants to know you after your marriage, my dear. That is where you will feel your inexperience, when these designing clever women come and play upon your ignorance in order to get at your husband. You will feel the want of some nice sensible married woman, not too old, who has been through it all, and can help you to see through them. I've no patience with these women who won't have husbands of their own, but must needs go running after other people's. Ah-h, Mr.

Digby, is it _really_ true that we are to hear the last movement of the trio this afternoon? How quite _too_ lovely!"

The musician cleverly introduced his father to her at this point, and hastened off to the piano; and Sir Marcus, who had not been enjoying himself at all in a circle whose interests were not his own, settled himself down to a denunciation of town life, which necessarily led him on to the allotment question; and Mrs. Reginald Routh for the first time in her life found she had met her match.

"You're feeling played out, aren't you?" Jack Raleigh was saying to his companion while the instruments were being tuned.

"Oh, no, only bored to death. I wonder which is the worst, to be married or musical? But both at once--poor Mr. Raleigh!"

Jack broke into a laugh, which was hardly warranted by the smallness of the joke; and as the first chord was struck on the piano simultaneously, Lady Joan's reputation was not improved among the disturbed audience by the circ.u.mstance. At any other time she would have enjoyed the shocked glances that were thrown in her direction; but this afternoon she was feeling too cross to be perverse, and she hardly waited for the end of the trio to take leave of the smiling host.

"So you're off already? I knew you were played out," said Jack, whose vocabulary, like his perception, was limited; "shall I let fly for a hansom?"

"Oh, no; didn't I tell you before that I had the carriage?" answered Lady Joan, impatiently, though she realized the futility of censuring an offender who was always blind to his offence. "And I can see myself out, thank you."

"But--you will let me come with you? It's beastly foggy out, and something might easily happen, don't you know. You said you hadn't brought the man along, and I'd sooner see you through, 'pon my honor I would. I won't bother, I won't really, don't you know, and you can fire me at the next block if I'm in the way. That's straight, isn't it?"

In spite of the American drawl, there was something familiar in the pleading tones of his voice that reminded her unpleasantly of an incident she had been trying to forget, and she would have curtly refused his offer had she not found the pale eyes of Mrs. Reginald Routh fixed inquiringly upon her.

"If you like, I shall be delighted," she said, with a sudden show of graciousness that both pleased and surprised him; "you will see if the brougham is there? Good-bye, Mrs. Routh; so glad to see you looking so well. I suppose I can't give you a lift? Auf Wiedersehen, Norah; shall expect you both to lunch to-morrow; don't forget. What detestable weather it is; I shall go and vegetate at Relton if this fog goes on. Is it there, Mr. Jack? Oh, thanks very much."

In the brougham, she leaned back and closed her eyes, and wished the fog did not make them smart, and that she had managed to evade her companion after all, in spite of the exquisite annoyance he had enabled her to inflict on Mrs. Reginald. But Jack guessed nothing of her thoughts, and plodded on with his own instead, which all related to her and to a certain desire that filled his mind at that moment; he could only think about one thing at a time.

"I say, you--you didn't rightly mean what you said just now, did you?"

he began slowly, as they stopped in the Circus in a dead block of omnibuses and traffic.

"What did I say? I've forgotten long ago. You promised not to bother,"

returned Lady Joan, shortly, which was not encouraging.

But Jack was not easily snubbed.

"You said that marriage was tommy rot, don't you know," he pursued steadily.

She opened her eyes wide and stared at him.

"I didn't say so. But it is. Why?"

"Oh, well, you know, because I don't think it is exactly. At least I mean I don't see why it should be, don't you know."

"Then perhaps it isn't. It doesn't matter, does it? Oh, why don't we go on?"

"I say, how jolly smart you are to-day," he said crossly, and dropped the drawl.

"Why? Because I don't wish to discuss the marriage question? I am so sick of it. If that is all you want, go and read Bjornson and all the others. Modern fiction is crammed with it, so is the modern drama. Your brother can lend you crowds of books about the marriage question--he won't want them for a year or two." She ended with a little hard laugh.

"You know I don't care a hang for the marriage question," he said sulkily.

"No more do I," she said cheerfully, "so we'll let it drop. I am so glad you are not modern. Do you know, the first night I saw you--"

"Yes?" he said eagerly, as she stopped. It is a sure sign of comradeship when two people begin comparing notes about their first meeting.

"Oh," she continued carelessly, "I only felt relieved that you had no views and no ideas, and didn't want a revolution like your brother, and never fell in love with people. It made you so nice to flirt with, that was all. Thank Heaven, we are going on again at last."

Jack only hated the policeman for letting them pa.s.s; the fog was lifting in Oxford Street, and they were rolling along quickly in the direction of Pont Street; there was no time to be lost.

"Do listen seriously for once," he suggested; "why shouldn't marriage between two fellows--"

"I thought we had agreed to let it drop," she interrupted impatiently.

"But it isn't the marriage question. It--it's marriage itself," he cried desperately, and then held his breath.

They had turned down Park Lane into the yellow darkness again, and the two in the brougham could not even see each other's features. Outside, the policemen were shouting directions; within the carriage, Lady Joan was leaning back far in her corner, and thinking swiftly. Was this to be the solution of all that had been puzzling her this afternoon? It was not often that Lady Joan was depressed; but when she was, a yellow fog was not more gloomy than her mood.

"Don't you see how I've loved you all the time? It's not my form to gas like Digby, and I suppose I'm a bally idiot, because the guvnor always says I am, and of course I haven't any oof; so it's all confounded cheek on my part, it is really, don't you know. But--you said you hated to be married, so why shouldn't we be engaged, just enough to stop people from talking, don't you know, so that we could belong, sort of; do you twig?

I'd give you my word of honor to go back to the States, and work like a n.i.g.g.e.r till--till you sent for me again. That wouldn't bother you, and it might be rather jolly, don't you know. And that's all there is to it."

She was still silent. If he had known that she was comparing his proposal with the one she had had in the summer, and calculating how much happiness and comfort she was likely to get out of his romantic attachment to her, his ideal of her might have received a shock. But for the sake of ideals some thoughts are allowed to go unread; and he only noticed that she moved a little out of her corner, and he at once drew nearer to her.

"I do love you, dear," he said tremulously, and ventured to lay his broad palm on hers; "don't you think--we might--"

One of the blind impulses came to him which were his making and his ruin. Lady Joan would have loathed him at that moment if he had done anything commonplace, or waited for her to take the initiative. But he put his arm round her waist so softly that she scarcely felt it.

"May I kiss you?" he whispered.

CHAPTER VIII.

Two years later, the musician and his wife went down to Relton for their Easter holiday. They stayed at the "Relton Arms," although they had a warm invitation to the Court instead; but Digby was unusually firm in his determination not to be the guest of Lady Joan, and Norah's objections that there was no nursery for the baby, and that people would "wonder," were for once overruled. She satisfied her sense of the fitness of things by telling Mrs. Reginald Routh and her set that there were early romantic a.s.sociations in connection with the little old country inn which induced her and her husband to go there again; and to people who spent their lives in straining after unconventional effects with a conventional reason for them in the background in case it was wanted, the explanation was quite sufficient. But the fact remained that the "Relton Arms" offered insufficient accommodation for a baby and a growing boy and a nurse, and there were jars in that holiday in consequence.

"This is what I like," exclaimed the musician, enthusiastically, at breakfast, the morning after their arrival: "fresh eggs and milk straight from the cow--the--the animal I mean, none of your cooked-up stuff such as we've been eating in Victoria Street. I can't think why you don't have it straight up from here, Norah, instead of--"