Mrs. Fitz Part 49

We were helpless nevertheless. To anything in the nature of persuasion he remained impervious. He could not be brought to see the nearness of the danger. It was like him never to heed the question of cost. He could never have ordered his life as he had done, had he not had the quality of projecting the whole of himself into the actual hour.

Those who had his welfare at heart were still taking counsel one of another in respect of what could be done to help him through this new crisis, when a mandate was received from Mrs. Catesby to dine at the Hermitage. Fitz was included in it, but it did not surprise us that he declined an invitation which less uncompromising persons were inclined to regard in the light of a command.

It was not that he bore malice. He was altogether beyond the pettiness of the minor emotions; it was as though his entire being, for good or for evil, had been raised to another dimension or a higher power. But as he said with his haggard face, "I don't feel up to it."

Lowlier mortals, more specifically Mrs. Arbuthnot and myself, accepted humbly and contritely. We felt that a certain piquancy would invest the gathering. Not that we knew exactly who had been bidden to attend it, but Mrs. Arbuthnot's feminine instinct--and what is so impeccable in such matters as these?--proclaimed this dinner party to be neither more nor less than the public signature of the articles of peace.

Accordingly we set out for the Hermitage, not however without a certain travail of the spirit, for poor Fitz would be left to a lonely cutlet which he would not eat. As a matter of fact, when we went forth he had not returned from London, where he had spent most of the day in consultation with his solicitors.

There a.s.sembled at the Hermitage, at which we arrived in very good time, nearly every identical member of the company we expected to meet.

Coverdale, Bra.s.set, Jodey, who still enjoyed the hospitality of our neighbour, the Vicar and his Lavinia, Laura Glendinning, Mrs. Josiah P.

Perkins. Also, as became one whose house provided a kind of _via media_ to that greater world of which the Castle was the embodiment, Mrs. Catesby's dinner table was graced by a younger son and a daughter-in-law of the ducal house.

Good humour reigned. It might even be said to amount in the course of the pleasant process of deglut.i.tion to a sort of friendly _badinage_.

An atmosphere of tolerance pervaded all things. If bygones were not actually bygones, they were in a fair way of so becoming. At least this particular section of the Crackanthorpe Hunt was on the high road to being once again a happy and united family.

The revelation of the "Stormy Petrel's" ident.i.ty had had a magic influence upon an immense aggregation of wounded feelings. It was now felt pretty generally that all might be forgiven without any grave sacrifice of personal dignity. It was conceded that great spirit had been shown on both sides, but in the special and peculiar circ.u.mstances a display of Christian magnanimity was called for.

Irene was morally and wickedly wrong--the phrase is Mrs. Catesby's own--in keeping the secret so well. Of course "the circus proprietor"

had deceived n.o.body: it was merely childish for Irene to suppose for one single moment that he would; and for her to attempt "a score" of that puerile character was positively infantile. But in the opinion of the a.s.sembled jury of matrons, plus Miss Laura Glendinning specially co-opted, it was felt very strongly that Irene had not quite played the game.

"Child," said the Great Lady, speaking _ex cathedra_, with a piece of bread in one hand and a piece of turbot on a fork in the other, "when I consider that I chose your husband's first governess, quite a refined person, of the sound, rather old-fashioned evangelical school, I feel that it was morally and wickedly wrong of you to withhold from me of _all_ people the ident.i.ty of the dear Princess."

"But Mary," said the light of my existence, toying demurely with her sherry, "I didn't know who she was myself until nearly a week after the fire."

The Great Lady bolted her bread and laid down her fork with an approximation to that which can only be described as majesty.

"Would you have me believe," she demanded, "that when you took her to your house on the night of the fire you really and sincerely believed that she was merely the wife of Nevil?"

"Yes, Mary," said the joy of my days, "I really and sincerely believed that she was the circus--I mean, that is, that she was just Mrs. Fitz."

General incredulity, in the course of which George Catesby inquired very politely of the Younger Son if he had enjoyed his day.

"Never enjoyed a day so much," said the Younger Son, with immense conviction, "since we turned up that old customer without a brush in Dipwell Gorse five years ago to-morrow come eleven-fifteen g.m."

"Eleven-twenty, my lad," chirruped the n.o.ble Master. "Your memory is failin'."

"Irene," said the uncompromising voice from the end of the table, "I cannot and will not allow myself to believe that you were not in the secret before the fire."

"Tell it to the Marines, Irene," said Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins.

"Wonder what she will ask us to believe next," said Miss Laura Glendinning.

"What indeed!" said the Vicar's wife.

"It isn't human nature," affirmed Lady Frederick.

"Very well, then," said the star of my destiny, with an ominous sparkle of a china-blue eye, "you can ask Odo."

"Odo!" I give up the attempt to reproduce the cataclysm of scorn which overwhelmed the table. "Odo is quite as bad as you are, if not worse.

He knew from the first. He knew when the Illryian Amba.s.sador came in person to the Coach and Horses and fetched her in his car; he knew when she chaffed dear Evelyn so delightfully that night at the Savoy."

"What if he did?" said the undefeated Mrs. Arbuthnot. "He didn't tell me. Did you now, Odo?"

With statesmanlike mien I a.s.sured the company that Mrs. Fitz's ident.i.ty was not disclosed to our household despot until some days after her arrival at Dympsfield House.

"I am obliged to believe you, Odo," said Mrs. Catesby. "But mind I only do so on principle."

Somehow this cryptic statement seemed to minister to the mirth of the table. It was increased when the Younger Son, who evidently had been waiting his opportunity, came into the conversation.

"Odo Arbuthnot, M.P.," said he, "I expect when d.i.c.k sees what you have done to his wall he'll sue you. Anyhow I should."

The approval which greeted this sally made it clear that the incident had become historical.

"By royal command," said I; "and what chance do you suppose has a mere private member against the despotic will of the father of his people?"

"A gross outrage. An act of vandalism. Postlewaite says----"

"Postlewaite's an a.s.s."

"Whatever Postlewaite is, it don't excuse you. He says you were all talking the rankest Socialism, and he was quite within his rights not to give you the book."

"I repeat, Frederick, that Postlewaite is an a.s.s. If the Postlewaites of the earth think for one moment that the Victors of Rodova will turn the other cheek to the retort discourteous, the sooner they learn otherwise the better it will be for them and those whom they serve."

"Hear, hear, and cheers," said my gallant little friend, Mrs. Josiah P.

Perkins, in spite of the fact that the Great Lady had fixed her with her invincible north eye.

"Ferdinand Rex one doesn't mind so much," proceeded Frederick, "and the Princess is all right of course, and von Schalk is a bit of a Bismarck, they say; but when you come to foot the bill with Odo Arbuthnot, M.P.--well, as Postlewaite says, it is nothing less than an act of vandalism. The M.P. fairly cooked my goose, I must say."

The M.P. was very bad form, everybody agreed, with the honourable and gallant exception of _la belle Americaine_.

"Might be a labour member! I don't know what d.i.c.k'll say when he sees it."

"Two alternatives present themselves to my mind," said I, impenitently.

"Postlewaite can either clear off the whole thing before he returns, or else append a magic 'C' in brackets after the offending symbols."

"You ain't ent.i.tled to a 'C' in brackets. You grow a worse Radical every day of your life and everybody is agreed that it is time you came out in your true colours."

"Hear, hear," from the table.

"I've half a mind to oppose you myself at the next election as a convinced Tariff Reformer, Anti-Socialist, Fair Play for Everybody, and official representative of a poor but deserving cla.s.s."

"We shall all be glad to sign your nomination paper," affirmed George Catesby.

"Well, Lord Frederick," said my intrepid Mrs. Josiah, "I will just bet you a box of gloves anyway that you don't get in."

"And I'll bet you another," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.