Doctor Cupid: A Novel
is not judicious in her choice of opportunities, endeavoured to tackle
Mr. Ducane on the subject of his future, to obtain some definite answer
from him as to the choice of a profession, etc. But her unsuccess has
been uniform and unvaried. It is not that he has ever refused to discuss
the question with her. Indeed, in looking back upon their conversation
she is always puzzled to remember how it was that he had eluded her. She
has generally ended by tracing his escape back to some exalted
abstraction; some sentiment too delicate for the wear and tear of
everyday life; some bubbling jest.
'You know, dear,' he says to her very kindly one day, when she has been
pointing out to him, with some warmth, the entire frivolity of his
present mode of life; 'you know, dear, that you and I are always a
little at odds as to the true meaning of the word "education." I have
always felt that the soul's education can be more furthered by what the
world calls "play," than by what it has chosen to define specially as
"work." There is no use in forcing one's spirit, dear Peggy. One is much
more likely to learn the lines that one's true development ought to
follow by sitting still and listening humbly to the voice of the Erd
Geist.'
'And the voice of the Erd Geist tells you to paint drop-scenes for the
Hartleys'?' replies Peggy witheringly; but her sarcasm furthers her
cause as little as do her more serious reasonings.
At the end of the month that intervenes between the arrival of the
Hartleys' invitation and the fulfilment of its promise, that cause is
exactly where it was. By milady Peggy has been spared any further
reference to the subject of her sister's engagement; nor, as far as is
known to the girl, has Lady Roupell taken any step such as she had
threatened for the separation of the lovers.
With a stab at her heart Peggy recognises the reason of this inaction.
The shrewd old woman sees how needless is her interference; and, being
kind as well as shrewd, refrains from giving the last unnecessary shove
to the tottering card-house of poor Prue's felicity.
CHAPTER XXXIII
'At Charing Cross, hard by the way
Where we, thou know'st, do sell our hay,
There is a house with stairs;
And there did I see coming down
Such folk as are not in our town;
Forty at least in pairs.'
On the night of the 15th of September a great many more than forty pairs
of feet were passing up and down the stairs of that magnificent specimen
of Jackson's domestic architecture, the Hartleys' new palace in
----shire. Amateur theatricals are, strange as it may appear, since
going to see them is almost invariably the triumph of hope over
experience, always an attractive bait to hold out to a country
neighbourhood. Apart from the pleasure of thinking how much better than
do the actors, one could have played their parts one's self; and that
opposite and more good-natured, if not quite so acute pleasure, of
wondering with Miss Snevellici's patroness, 'How they ever learnt to act
as they do, laughing in one piece, and crying in the next, and so
natural in both,' there is, in the present case, an element of curiosity
which adds an additional poignancy to the expectation of enjoyment usual
in such cases.
It is the Hartley _coup d'essai_ in hospitality in the county, and there
is a widespread interest manifested as to how they will do it. Almost as
widespread is the comfortable conviction that they will do it well.
An old-established squire who has been seated on his modest acres for a
couple of hundred years may venture to invite his friends to dance on a
sticky floor to the sound of a piano, and to wash away their fatigue in
libations of 50-shilling champagne; but the millionaire, who has only
within the last year set an uncertain foot upon the land, is not likely
to try any such experiments upon the county's patience. It is, then,
with a confident hope of Gunter and Coote and Tinney that the occupants
of most of the carriages step out on the red cloth--a hope that the
first glimpse of the banks of orchids that line the entrance-hall goes
far to make a certainty.
From the minds of the occupants of one carriage, to whose turn, after
long waiting in the endless string, it at length comes to set free its
load, Gunter, Coote and Tinney, and orchids are equally distant.
Milady's head is still running on her Patience, which, by the aid of a
carriage-lamp and a pack of tiny cards, she has been playing contentedly
during the whole of the long ten miles. The little portion of Peggy's
heart that is not filled with an aching compassion and anxiety for her
sister is pierced by the fear of the extreme likelihood, in so
promiscuous a gathering of three-fourths of the county, of her finding
herself face to face with the one woman whom she would compass sea and
land to avoid, and with the man whom that woman habitually carries in
her train.
And Prue?
'I think he is sure to be at the door to receive us, do not you?' she
has whispered to her sister, under cover of milady's absorption in her
solitary game, while they are still waiting in the string; 'not that I
shall be so silly as to attach any importance to it if he is not; but
after a whole week!' stifling a sigh. 'Oh dear!' letting down the glass
and craning her neck impatiently out, 'shall we never get there? I see
carriage-lamps for half a mile ahead of us still!'
A whole week! It is true. For a whole week the Red House has been
favoured with no glimpse of Mr. Ducane. How should it, indeed, since he
has been compelled by the exigencies of his situation to take up his
abode entirely at the scene of his labours? Of what use to waste upon
the long ride there and back time so precious in a last week? the time
of one upon whose inexhaustible stock of ability and good-nature every
one thinks him or herself entitled to draw.
But though he has been unable to present himself in person to his
betrothed, he has had time to scribble her a tiny pencil-note, just a
word--but then how little can the value of a letter be measured by its
length!--praying her to keep a place for him by her side at the
theatricals.
'If my Prue refuses, it will be all over with my pleasure,' he ends
simply.
The carriage, after many tantalising halts opposite dark laurels, draws
up finally before a blaze of electric light, a crowd of powdered
footmen, an arching of palm-boughs; and milady steps deliberately out in
her fur boots and her diamond 'fender,' followed by her two _protegees_.
Freddy is not at the door to receive them; and the moment that she has
discovered this fact, Prue sees the irrationality of the hope that had
led her ever to expect that he would be. He is naturally not in the
cloak-room, where milady seems, to the girl's passionate impatience, to
loiter unconscionably long, tugging at the strings of her _sortie de
bal_, which have got into a knot, and talking to the numerous friends
she meets there. To do her justice, it is not any care for her toilette
that detains her. She would quite as soon have the famous tiara--her
'fender,' as she always calls it--which the county has admired for fifty
years, on crooked as straight. The county expects to see it on great
occasions, and so she puts it on; but if Mrs. Mason were to dispose it
behind before, the circumstance would disturb but very slightly her
lady's equanimity. Mr. Ducane is not, as far as can be made out by a
first glance, in the magnificent music-room, to-night arranged as a
theatre, and at whose door Mrs. Hartley stands, smiling and splendid, to
receive her guests. But though Prue's eye has as yet to fast from the
sight of her betrothed, her ear at least is gladdened by his praises.
'Oh, Lady Roupell, I do not know how we ever can thank Mr. Ducane
enough!' she hears Mrs. Hartley exclaim. 'My girls say they do not know
what they should have done without him--so kind, so clever, and
unselfish is not the word!'
Milady grunts.
'No, I do not think it is,' she says, half _sotto voce_, as she passes
on.
At the first look, the room, superb as are its proportions, seems
already full; but a closer inspection reveals at the upper end several
still vacant rows of arm-chairs, reserved by the host and hostess for
those among their guests whom they most delight to honour. To this
favoured category belongs milady, and she is presently installed with
her two young friends by a _semillant_ papa Hartley, in the very middle
of the front rank. For the present, nothing can be easier than for Prue
to keep the chair at her side vacant. She has already anxiously and
surreptitiously spread her white frock over it. Each of earth's glories
has probably its attendant disadvantages; a warm and consoling doctrine
for those to whose share not much of life's gilding falls; nor is a seat
in the front row of synagogue or playhouse any exception to this rule.
It has the inevitable drawback, that except by an uncomfortable
contortion of the neck-muscles, it is impossible for its occupants to
see what is going on in the body of the room; and the view of
foot-lights and a drop-scene is one that after a while is apt to pall.
Prue's head is continually turning over her shoulder, as, from the body
of the long hall, all blazing with pink-shaded electric lamps, comes the
noise of gowns rustling, of steps and voices, as people settle into
their seats. At first she had had no cause for uneasiness. The people,
as they tide in, conscious of no particular claim to chief places, pack
themselves, with laughs and greetings to acquaintances, into the
unreserved seats. But presently Mr. Hartley is seen convoying a party of
ladies and men to the top of the room with the same evidences of
deferential tenderness as he had shown to milady; and no sooner are they
disposed of, according to their merits, than he reappears with the same
smile, and a new batch. This continues to happen until the human tide,
like its prototype in its inexorable march over swallowed sands and
drunk rocks, has advanced, despite the piteous protest in Prue's eyes,
to within three chairs of her. Yes, including that one so imperfectly
veiled by the poor child's skirt, there are only three vacant seats
remaining.
'Oh, I wish he would come! Oh, I wish he would come!' she repeats, with
something that grows ever nearer and nearer to a sob in her voice. 'Oh,
Peggy, do you think he will not come after all? You are longer-sighted
than I am; do look if you can see him anywhere! Oh, I wish he would
come! I shall not be able to keep this chair for him much longer, and
then----'
Her words are prophetic. Scarcely are they out of her mouth before the
vision of the radiant host is again seen nearing them, with a fresh
freight--a freight that rustles and jingles and chatters louder than any
of the previous ones.
'Oh yes, do put me in a good place!' a high and apparently extravagantly
cheerful voice is heard exclaiming; 'I always like the best places if I
can get them--do not you? and I mean to applaud more loudly than
anybody. I have been engaged by Freddy Ducane as a claque; and I assure
you I mean to keep my word.'
Although she has been expecting it--although she has told herself that
to hear it is among the most probable of the evening's chances, yet, at
the sound of that clear thin voice, Peggy turns extremely cold. It has
come then. In a second she will certainly be called upon to hear another
voice. Let her then brace herself to bear it decently. Her hands clasp
themselves involuntarily, and she draws in her breath; but she cannot
lift her eyes. She sits looking straight before her, waiting. But
instead of the tones that with such sick dread she is expecting, she
hears only milady's voice--milady's voice not in its suavest key.