Marriage a la mode Part 14

"They both did--to me. They have quite different ways from us, and they make one feel it. They have family prayers--we don't. They have ascetic ideas about bringing up children--I haven't. Elsie would think it self-indulgent and abominable to stay in bed to breakfast--I don't. The fact is, all her interests and ideals are quite different from mine, and I am rather tired of being made to feel inferior."

"Daphne! what rubbish! I'm certain Elsie French never had such an idea in her head. She's awfully soft and nice; I never saw a bit of conceit in her."

"She's soft outside and steel inside. Well, never mind! we don't get on.

She's the old America, I'm the new," said Daphne, half frowning, half laughing; "and I'm as good as she."

"You're a very good-looking woman, anyway," said Roger, admiring the vision of her among the warm browns and shining whites of her wrap.

"Much better-looking than when I married you." He slipped an arm under the cloak and gave her small waist a squeeze.

Daphne turned her eyes upon him. In their black depths his touch had roused a pa.s.sion which was by no means all tenderness. There was in it something threatening, something intensely and inordinately possessive.

"That means that you didn't think me good-looking at all, as compared with--Chloe?" she said insistently.

"Really, Daphne!"--Roger withdrew his arm with a rather angry laugh--"the way you twist what one says! I declare I won't make you any more pretty speeches for an age."

Daphne scarcely replied; but there dawned on her face the smile--melting, provocative, intent--which is the natural weapon of such a temperament. With a quick movement she nestled to her husband's side, and Roger was soon appeased.

The visit which followed always counted in Roger Barnes's memory as the first act of the tragedy, the first onset of the evil that engulfed him.

They found the old d.u.c.h.ess, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius, alone. The d.u.c.h.ess had been the penniless daughter of an Irish clergyman, married _en secondes noces_ for her somewhat queer and stimulating personality, by an epicurean duke, who, after having provided the family with a sufficient store of dull children by an aristocratic mother, thought himself at liberty, in his declining years, to please himself. He had left her the dower-house--small but delicately Jacobean--and she was now nearly as old as the Duke had been when he married her. She was largely made, shapeless, and untidy. Her mannish face and head were tied up in a kind of lace coif; she had long since abandoned all thought of a waist; and her strong chin rested on an ample bosom.

As soon as Mrs. Barnes was seated near her hostess, Lelius--who had an intimate acquaintance, through their pictures, with half the great people of Europe--began to observe the d.u.c.h.ess's impressions. Amused curiosity, first. Evidently Daphne represented to her one of the queer, crude types that modern society is always throwing up on the sh.o.r.es of life--like strange beasts from deep-sea soundings.

An American heiress, half Spanish--South-American Spanish--with no doubt a dash of Indian; no manners, as Europe understands them; unlimited money, and absurd pretensions--so Chloe said--in the matter of art; a mixture of the pedant and the _parvenue_; where on earth had young Barnes picked her up! It was in some such way, no doubt--so Lelius guessed--that the d.u.c.h.ess's thoughts were running.

Meanwhile Mrs. Barnes was treated with all possible civility. The d.u.c.h.ess inquired into the plans for rebuilding Heston; talked of her own recollections of the place, and its owners; hoped that Mrs. Barnes was pleased with the neighbourhood; and finally asked the stock question, "And how do you like England?"

Daphne looked at her coolly. "Moderately!" she said, with a smile, the colour rising in her cheek as she became aware, without looking at them, that Roger and Mrs. Fairmile had adjourned to the farther end of the large room, leaving her to the d.u.c.h.ess and Lelius.

The small eyes above the d.u.c.h.ess's prominent nose sparkled. "Only moderately?" The speaker's tone expressed that she had been for once taken by surprise. "I'm extremely sorry we don't please you, Mrs.

Barnes."

"You see, my expectations were so high."

"Is it the country, or the climate, or the people, that won't do?"

inquired the d.u.c.h.ess, amused.

"I suppose it would be civil to say the climate," replied Daphne, laughing.

Whereupon the d.u.c.h.ess saw that her visitor had made up her mind not to be overawed. The great lady summoned Dr. Lelius to her aid, and she, the German, and Daphne, kept up a sparring conversation, in which Mrs.

Barnes, driven on by a secret wrath, showed herself rather noisier than Englishwomen generally are. She was a little impertinent, the d.u.c.h.ess thought, decidedly aggressive, and not witty enough to carry it off.

Meanwhile, Daphne had instantly perceived that Mrs. Fairmile and Roger had disappeared into the conservatory; and though she talked incessantly through their absence, she felt each minute of it. When they came back for tea, she imagined that Roger looked embarra.s.sed, while Mrs. Fairmile was all gaiety, chatting to her companion, her face raised to his, in the manner of one joyously renewing an old intimacy. As they slowly advanced up the long room, Daphne felt it almost intolerable to watch them, and her pulses began to race. _Why_ had she never been told of this thing? That was what rankled; and the Southern wildness in her blood sent visions of the past and terrors of the future hurrying through her brain, even while she went on talking fast and recklessly to the d.u.c.h.ess.

At tea-time conversation turned on the various beautiful things which the room contained--its Nattiers, its Gobelins, its two _dessus de portes_ by Boucher, and its two cabinets, of which one had belonged to Beaumarchais and the other to the _Appartement du Dauphin_ at Versailles.

Daphne restrained herself for a time, asked questions, and affected no special knowledge. Then, at a pause, she lifted a careless hand, inquiring whether "the Fragonard sketch" opposite were not the pendant of one--she named it--at Berlin.

"Ah-h-h!" said Mrs. Fairmile, with a smiling shake of the head, "how clever of you! But that's not a Fragonard. I wish it were. It's an unknown. Dr. Lelius has given him a name."

And she and Lelius fell into a discussion of the drawing, that soon left Daphne behind. Native taste of the finest, mingled with the training of a lifetime, the intimate knowledge of collections of one who had lived among them from her childhood--these things had long since given Chloe Fairmile a kind of European reputation. Daphne stumbled after her, consumed with angry envy, the _precieuse_ in her resenting the easy mastery of Mrs. Fairmile, and the wife in her offended by the strange beauty, the soft audacities of a woman who had once, it seemed, held Roger captive, and would, of course, like to hold him captive again.

She burned in some way to a.s.sert herself, the imperious will chafing at the slender barrier of self-control. And some malicious G.o.d did, in fact, send an opportunity.

After tea, when Roger, in spite of efforts to confine himself to the d.u.c.h.ess, had been once more drawn into the orbit of Mrs. Fairmile, as she sat fingering a cigarette between the two men, and gossiping of people and politics, the butler entered, and whispered a message to the d.u.c.h.ess.

The mistress of the house laughed. "Chloe! who do you think has called?

Old Marcus, of South Audley Street. He's been at Brendon House--buying up their Romneys, I should think. And as he was pa.s.sing here, he wished to show me something. Shall we have him in?"

"By all means! The last time he was here he offered you four thousand pounds for the blue Nattier," said Chloe, with a smile, pointing to the picture.

The d.u.c.h.ess gave orders; and an elderly man, with long black hair, swarthy complexion, fine eyes, and a peaked forehead, was admitted, and greeted by her, Mrs. Fairmile, and Dr. Lelius as an old acquaintance. He sat down beside them, was given tea, and presented to Mr. and Mrs.

Barnes. Daphne, who knew the famous dealer by sight and reputation perfectly well, was piqued that he did not recognize her. Yet she well remembered having given him an important commission not more than a year before her marriage.

As soon as a cup of tea had been dispatched, Marcus came to the business. He drew a small leather case out of the bag he had brought into the room with him; and the case, being opened, disclosed a small but marvellous piece of Sevres.

"There!" he said, pointing triumphantly to a piece on the d.u.c.h.ess's chimney-piece. "Your Grace asked me--oh! ten years ago--and again last year--to find you the pair of that. Now--you have it!"

He put the two together, and the effect was great. The d.u.c.h.ess looked at it with greed--the greed of the connoisseur. But she shook her head.

"Marcus, I have no money."

"Oh!" He protested, smiling and shrugging his shoulders.

"And I know you want a brigand's price for it."

"Oh, nothing--nothing at all."

The d.u.c.h.ess took it up, and regretfully turned it round and round.

"A thousand, Marcus?" she said, looking up.

He laughed, and would not reply.

"That means more, Marcus: how do you imagine that an old woman like me, with only just enough for bread and b.u.t.ter, can waste her money on Sevres?" He grinned. She put it down resolutely. "No! I've got a consumptive nephew with a consumptive family. He ought to have been hung for marrying, but I've got to send them all to Davos this winter. No, I can't, Marcus; I can't--I'm too poor." But her eyes caressed the shining thing.

Daphne bent forward. "If the d.u.c.h.ess has _really_ made up her mind, Mr.

Marcus, I will take it. It would just suit me!"

Marcus started on his chair. "_Pardon, Madame!_" he said, turning hastily to look at the slender lady in white, of whom he had as yet taken no notice.

"We have the motor. We can take it with us," said Daphne, stretching out her hand for it triumphantly.

"Madame," said Marcus, in some agitation, "I have not the honour. The price----"

"The price doesn't matter," said Daphne, smiling. "You know me quite well, Mr. Marcus. Do you remember selling a Louis Seize cabinet to Miss Floyd?"