Peter and Jane Part 5

His boyishness, however, could hardly be repressed this morning; and, speaking to his fourteen-year-old son as though his age might be five or six summers, he clapped him on the back and bade him 'Never mind; we will go for a merry jaunt to the ruins instead, and have a regular big affair, and you shall boil a kettle, and we 'll have tea.--What do you say, mamma?' Mrs. Wrottesley replied with the enthusiasm that was expected of her, and the canon, with a 'here we are, and here we go'

sort of jollity, conducted her indoors to write notes of invitation to friends to join the picnic. The canon dictated the notes himself, and generally finished with a playful word or two suitable to each recipient; when he failed at first to hit off the perfectly happy phrase Mrs. Wrottesley had to write the note over again.

Foiled of his morning's occupation the canon walked up to Bowshott himself with Mrs. Ogilvie's card of invitation. Mrs. Ogilvie frankly and without a moment's hesitation refused to be one of the party; a picnic was in her eyes one of those barbarous, not to say indecorous things which she cla.s.sed with bathing in the open sea or trying on a hat in a shop. Why should one sit on the ground and eat indifferent food out of one's lap? Mrs. Ogilvie was too sorry, but it was impossible; she had friends coming, or letters to write, or something--at any rate she was quite sure she was engaged. Mrs.

Ogilvie's manner always became doubly polite and charming when she ignored the customary formalities of society or purposely travestied them. No one could infringe social conventions with more perfect good manners. Peter would go, of course, she said. Peter enjoyed eating luncheon in s.n.a.t.c.hes while he hopped about and waited on people; but Mrs. Ogilvie preferred her meals at home.

The canon was disappointed; he loved getting the right people together, and he knew that Mrs. Ogilvie's rare appearance in the neighbourhood always made her a centre of interest at a party. He protested playfully against her decision until a certain lifting of Mrs.

Ogilvie's eyebrows made his desire for her presence sound importunate, and put an end to his hospitable pleadings.

'A charming woman,' protested the canon to himself as he walked down the long avenue of Spanish chestnuts. 'A charming woman,' he repeated, for one part of Canon Wrottesley always felt snubbed when he had been talking to Mrs. Ogilvie, while the part of him called the man of the world recognized something in her which this country neighbourhood could not produce. His boyishness was quenched for a moment, but it revived at the sight of Peter riding up to the gates of the park. An invitation to the proposed merry-making was given to Peter, who was ever so much obliged, but thought Canon Wrottesley had forgotten that the 24th was the day of the races.

The Sedgwick Races, although perhaps not important from a sportsman's point of view, were attended by many visitors, and had been so long established and so generally approved by every one in the county that they had come to have a certain local status. They were patronized by clergy and laity alike, to whom the occasion was a sort of yearly picnic. The racecourse itself was not large, but its surroundings were in every way attractive. The short moorland gra.s.s made excellent going for the horses, and a wood of beech trees, quite close to the modest grand stand, had by right of prescription been tacitly a.s.signed to various county families who brought their lunches and teas there, and whose long trestle tables, numbered and allotted by the stewards of the course, were a favourite meeting-place for the whole neighbourhood.

Canon Wrottesley could hardly pardon himself for having forgotten the date of such a notable occasion, and, alluding to himself as a 'winged messenger,' he hastened to pay a number of morning calls such as he enjoyed, and to cancel his invitation for a picnic in favour of lunch or tea at the racecourse. Peter said that he was going to drive the coach over, and hoped that Canon Wrottesley would perch there when he felt so disposed, and that his mother, not being inclined to spend the whole day at Sedgwick, would join them at tea-time. Miss Abingdon and Jane were going to be kind enough to take her place and act as hostesses at lunch.

Canon Wrottesley felt that he could not do better than see Miss Abingdon in person and explain the change of plans, and he arrived, in his friendly way, just as she and some guests who were staying with her were going in to luncheon.

Miss Abingdon occasionally reminded herself that she had not met the vicar until long after his marriage, and she still more frequently a.s.sured herself that her feeling for him was one of pure admiration untouched by sentiment such as would have been foolish at her age, and at any age would have been wrong. But there were times like the present--when the canon came in, unasked, in a friendly way, and hung up his clerical hat in the hall--which, without going so far as to give the matter a personal bearing, made it easy for Miss Abingdon to understand why women married. She ordered another place to be laid, and asked him to say grace almost with a feeling of proprietorship; and she ordered up the particular brand of claret which the canon had more than once a.s.sured her would be all the better for being drunk.

Jane came in presently from her morning ride, handsome and charming in a dark habit and a bowler hat; and Toffy appeared looking white and thin, and protesting that he was perfectly well; and Kitty Sherard came in late, as usual, and hoped that something had been kept hot for her.

Kitty Sherard was a decorative young woman, with a face like one of Greuze's pictures and a pa.s.sion for wearing rose-colour. Her father was that rather famous personage, Lord Sherard, one of the last of the dandies, and probably one of the few men in England in the present day who had fought a duel. He was still thought irresistible by women, and perhaps the only sincere love of his life was that for his daughter Kitty, to whom he told his most _risque_ stories, and whom he found better company than any one else in the world.

Miss Sherard was in a wilful mood this morning--a mood which, let it be said at once, was one to which she was often subject, but it had been more than usually apparent in her for the last few days. She began by hoping, in the politest way, after she had sat about five minutes at the luncheon-table, that Miss Abingdon did not mind the window being opened, although it was a well-known fact that Miss Abingdon held the old-fashioned theory that only the furniture should enjoy fresh air, and that windows should be opened when rooms were unoccupied. So many people rose to do Miss Sherard's bidding that Miss Abingdon, of course, found it quite hopeless to try to a.s.sert herself. Kitty, further, had a ridiculous way of eating, which Miss Abingdon could not approve. She ate mere morsels of everything and talked the whole time, very often with the air of a gourmet; and she would lay down her knife and fork, after a meal such as a healthy blackbird might have enjoyed, as though she had finished some aldermanic feast. She accepted a gla.s.s of Miss Abingdon's very special claret and never even touched it; and later, in one of the pauses of her elaborate trifling at luncheon, she told a funny story which made every one laugh, and caused even Canon Wrottesley to attempt to conceal the fact that he saw the point of the story.

The worst of it was that Toffy encouraged her in everything she said and did. These two had met in London this year, and had stayed at the same house for Ascot, and it must be admitted by a faithful historian that in her own particular wilful and provoking way Kitty had flirted outrageously with Toffy. To-day she offered to cut up his food for him because his right hand was still in a sling; and when Miss Abingdon suggested, with deliberate emphasis in her voice, that a footman should do it for him, Kitty pretended that the wounded man could not possibly feed himself, and gave him pineapple to eat on the end of her fork.

When she sat in the veranda drinking coffee after lunch, she showed Canon Wrottesley how to blow wedding-rings with the smoke of her own favourite cigarettes; and she talked to him as though his early youth might have been spent in a racing stable, and with the air of one expert to another.

'I hear,' said Canon Wrottesley, when Miss Sherard had begun to play a left-handed game of croquet with the crippled young man, 'that Sir Nigel is going to ride at the Sedgwick Races. I was a fearless horseman myself at one time, so I cannot quarrel with him for his decision, but I only hope that his hand will be healed by the 24th.'

'He has a good mount,' said Peter, 'and I don't think it is much good trying to persuade Toffy not to ride.'

'Kitty Sherard says she has laid the whole of her fortune on him,' said Jane, 'so let 's hope that will bring him luck.'

'I believe,' said the canon, in a manner distinctly beatific towards the subject of his remarks, 'that I enjoy that little race-meeting at Sedgwick as much as anything in the year. We must all have our little outings once in a way.'

There is no doubt that the canon took his little outings, as often as he could get them, with a healthy, boyish pleasure.

On the day of the races, for reasons no doubt known to himself but hidden from the rest of the world, the vicar masqueraded in the character of a patriarch. His characters were frequently inconsistent with his circ.u.mstances; often his boyishness would obtrude itself quite unexpectedly at board meetings or on the parish council, while at other times the mantle of the seer or prophet descended upon him on the most inauspicious occasions. Had Mrs. Wrottesley spoken her mind, which she never did, she might have thrown light upon the subject, but she was not a convincing woman at the best of times. All her life she had kept inviolate the woman's secret whether or not her husband was a disappointment to her. No one knew from his wife if the little G.o.d of a somewhat small and feminine community had feet of clay or no.

Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which formed a pleasant place of encampment for tea-parties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile absently at the picnic-baskets, and appear wrapped in thought when addressed; he might have been mentally preparing his next Sunday's sermon. Miss Abingdon thought that he was doing so and respected him for it; she even tried to attune her mind to his, and endeavoured to see vanity of vanities in this informal gathering of friends.

'We do not think enough of serious things,' she said.

The inhabitants of Sedgwick put on sporting airs and curiously cut overcoats on two days in each year. The weather for the occasion is nearly always cloudless, and the townsfolk have begun to think that either they are very clever in arranging the date of their local function, or that the clerk of the weather is deeply interested in Sedgwick Races.

On this particular day the sun flickered as usual through the clean leaves and boughs of the beech wood, doing its best to lend an air of picturesqueness to lobster salads and aspics, and shone brilliantly on servants, with their coats off, unpacking hampers at rows of long tables, and on people busily engaged in the inartistic business of eating.

In the paddock there was an unusual number of horses being led round and round in a ring, and some well-known bookies--not often seen at the little provincial meeting--were present with their raucous cries and their money-bags.

Kitty Sherard carried a pair of field-gla.s.ses on a long strap, and consulted from time to time a little gold-bound pocket-book in which she added up figures with a business-like air. She believed in Ormiston, which Sir Nigel Christopherson was riding, and she had something on Lamplighter as well. She knew every bookmaker on the course by sight, and had as much knowledge of the field as any one in the ring. And she looked exactly like some very beautiful child, and carried a parasol of rose-coloured chiffon beneath which her complexion and eyes appeared to great advantage. She smiled whether winning or losing, and ate a tiny luncheon with an epicurean air.

At four o'clock in the afternoon it is an accepted custom at Sedgwick Races for every one to have tea before the last event, and then horses are put to in coaches and carriages, and those who have attended the meeting whether for business or pleasure drive back to their own homes, or go slowly downhill in a long string to the little railway station where, for two days at least in the year, the local station-master is a person of importance.

Mrs. Ogilvie arrived at the racecourse, as she had promised to do, about tea-time. She hardly ever cared to watch the races; but she stood amongst her friends for a while in the pleasant shade of the wood, and looked on at the little gathering with that air of detached and hardly concealed weariness which she always felt on such occasions.

She congratulated Peter, who had won a rather closely finished race earlier in the day; but her voice betrayed little interest in the event, and an onlooker might have been surprised at the almost distant way in which she spoke to him. She was sumptuously dressed, as usual, and wore her clothes with extravagant carelessness. She found herself at tea-time sitting next Canon Wrottesley, whose patriarchal mood seemed to her unnecessarily affected, and she requested him to ask Miss Sherard to come and speak to her. 'Kitty amuses me,' she said, with one of her characteristic shrugs, 'and most people are so dull, are they not?'

Canon Wrottesley felt that mixed sensation which a.s.sociation with Mrs.

Ogilvie always gave him--a feeling of resentment combined with a desire to please. He rather hastily let the mantle of the seer drop from him, and said, 'I wish our little party were not so much dispersed. Mr.

Lawrence from Frisby brought two charming friends with him, and they much hoped to have been here to meet you. Falconer is their name--Sir John and Lady Falconer. He has just been made Minister at Buenos Ayres, as I dare say you know, and he told me they once had the pleasure of meeting you in Spain, years and years ago.'

'I never remember people whom I have met years and years ago,' said Mrs. Ogilvie. Her near-sighted eyes, with their trick of contracting slightly when she looked fixedly at anything, narrowed as she spoke, and the heavy lids closed lazily upon them.

Lady Falconer, meanwhile, had arrived at the tea-table and greeted Mrs.

Ogilvie with evident pleasure. 'I am afraid you will hardly remember me, as it is a very long time since we met,' she said; 'but my husband and I always remember how good you were to me when I was ill at Juarez.'

Mrs. Ogilvie rose and shook hands with a cordiality that was charmingly expressed. Her eyes were no longer half-closed, and her colour never varied. 'You were ill, were you not?' she said, in a manner that was a little vague but polite and sympathetic.

'Yes,' said Sir John, 'and you let your maid come and nurse her. My wife always said she would have died if it had not been for you.'

'The climate was abominable,' said Mrs. Ogilvie; 'every one felt ill there. Why does one go to these out-of-the-way places?'

'It is very absurd,' said Lady Falconer, in a friendly way, 'to be surprised at people growing up; yet I can hardly realize that Captain Ogilvie, whom we met to-day, is the little boy who was with you at Juarez. How time flies!'

'It more often crawls, I think,' said Mrs. Ogilvie, smiling, with her mouth a little twisted to one side. And then she rose to go because she never stayed long at any party, and not even the fact that Nigel Christopherson was going to ride in the last race altered her decision.

At parting she was too glad to have met Lady Falconer, trusted that if ever she cared to see a collection of tiresome pictures she would come to Bowshott, and hoped that if the gardens would be of any interest to her she would drive over some afternoon when it was not too hot, and have tea with her--any afternoon would do. Had Mrs. Ogilvie been giving an invitation to tea in a barn it is probable that her manner would have been as distant, as casual, and as superb as when she suggested, with a queer sort of diffidence, that people might care to see the famous galleries and gardens of her magnificent house.

'How very interesting,' said Canon Wrottesley to Lady Falconer when the carriage had driven away, 'your meeting like this!' The vicar's acquaintance was not extensive, and that people should re-encounter each other or have mutual friends always struck him in the light of a strange coincidence.

'She has not altered much,' said Sir John Falconer, 'and yet it must be many years since we met: I suppose she never was good-looking. Somehow one seems unaware of it when one is speaking to her.'

'I could do nothing but look at her dress,' said Lady Falconer good-naturedly. 'How is it that everything she wears seems to be in such perfect taste?'

'Mrs. Ogilvie is a rich woman,' said Canon Wrottesley, enjoying a proprietary way of talking of his neighbour, 'and she is able to gratify her love of beautiful raiment. I do not understand these things myself,' he went on, with a masculine air, 'but the ladies tell me that her dresses are all that they should be.'

'I don't know what we should have done without her at Juarez,' said Lady Falconer, in her peculiarly kind manner. 'Sir John and I were on our honeymoon, and, like many other newly married people, we wanted to be alone.'

'Dudley, the artist, told us about Juarez, I remember,' interpolated Sir John, 'otherwise I do not suppose we should ever have heard of the place. Dudley had been sketching there.'

'I had not a maid with me,' went on Lady Falconer, in her pleasant voice, 'and Mrs. Ogilvie in the kindest way allowed a Spanish woman she had with her to do everything for me.'

'Mrs. Ogilvie is always devoted to everything Spanish,' said Mrs.

Wrottesley. 'Her mother was Spanish, and I dare say you know she made her home in Spain for six years after the eldest boy's death.'

'I did not even know that she had lost a son,' said Lady Falconer.

'How very sad!'

The crowds of gaily-dressed people about them, the shouts of the bookmakers, and the pleasant sense of being on an enjoyable picnic contrasted oddly with any reference to such banished topics as death and sorrow.

'I consider that Mrs. Ogilvie is one of the most reserved women I ever met,' said the canon, proceeding to give an epitome of a character which he thought he--and perhaps only he--understood. 'She is impulsive yet cautious, clever yet light-minded; for a woman her intelligence is quite above the ordinary run, and yet she is often hopelessly difficult to convince.' He leaned forward on the table looking handsome and dignified, and his clean-shaven face had an appearance more clever than was quite justified by his attainments.