Scarlet and Hyssop Part 14

"She agrees with me," he said. "In one thing, anyhow, she agrees with me--we both love you."

In spite of herself Maud gave him a round of internal applause. She was still so indifferent that she could easily judge him, as if he had been an actor on a stage. Outwardly, with the tongue she could say nothing, and stood, having walked on a pace or two, with her back to him. His voice made her turn round.

"Maud, Maud!" he said. "Maud, they were crying and calling."

"Ah!" she said, with a sudden interest, "you learned that."

He shook his head.

"I read it three months ago," he said. "It has stuck in my memory.

Because everything cries 'Maud, Maud!' to me."

The blush and the averted eye were hers. Quite unconsciously she began to know what Lady Ardingly had meant--what Kitty had meant.

"I am sorry," she said. "I ought never to have come here with you. I thought I should laugh at you merely. I do not laugh; I would sooner cry."

"Thank you for that," said he. "I understand that you do not accept my devotion. What I do not understand is whether you definitely refuse it.

Do you refuse it?"

"Do not press me to answer you," she said.

"You postpone your answer!"

"Please."

Meantime dusk had begun to fall, the sounds of rejoicing c.o.c.kneys came more faintly from the river, the glow in the western sky faded into saffron, and overhead the vault of velvet blue grew infinitely more infinite. Birds chuckled and scurried through the bushes, bats extended angled wings for the preliminary trials of their nameless ghoulish errands, a nightingale bubbled suddenly, and a large yellow star swung into sight over the dim edge of the earth. But the lawn itself, save for a fine carpet of dew, that was spread without hands on the close-napped turf, reflected none of the evening influences. Servants hurried noiselessly about lighting the lamps that hung in the trees, and soon the tents where dinner was laid began to s.h.i.+mmer with white linen and gleam with silver. Jack was back from his golf, and Mrs. Brereton from an extremely short walk (for she had been recommended plenty of exercise), a few people had left to dine in town, but more people arrived from town to dine here, and Andrew Brereton, having succeeded in wresting four s.h.i.+llings and sixpence from the reluctant Mr. Maxwell, felt that he had earned his dinner. And as night became deeper, the animation of the party grew louder and their laughter more frequent; the moon and the stars everlastingly set in heaven were to them but the whitewash of the ceiling of the rooms where they dined, the trees and infinite soft s.p.a.ces of the dusk but the paper on the walls of their restaurant, the miracle of the dewy lawn a carpet for unheeding feet.

Wine and food concerned them perhaps most, but in a place hardly inferior must have been put the charms of screaming and scandalous conversation. Dinner, in fact, was a great success. By midnight all the guests for the day who were not staying over the Sunday had left, and the stables, which had been a packed ma.s.s of broughams, victorias, dogcarts, motor-cars, and bicycles, were once more empty; and Lady Ardingly, whose rubber had most unjustifiably been interrupted by Mrs.

Brereton's adieus to her guests, picked up her hand again with some acidity.

"Now, perhaps, we shall get on with our Bridge," she said. "I have declared no trumps. n.o.body doubles! That is a very masterly inactivity on our adversaries' part."

The four consisted of the two Breretons, Lady Ardingly, and Jack Alston; at another table were four more, who, however, abandoned their game at about half-past one, again interrupting Lady Ardingly with their superfluous good-nights, for she was having a very good night indeed.

Marie and Maud Brereton had long ago gone to bed, but the other four still played on, in silence for the most part. Occasionally the dummy rose, and refreshed his inner self with something from a side-table, and from time to time the note of a cigarette would sound crisply, as it were, on the soft air of the night. At last a strange change began to pa.s.s over the sky, from which the moon had now long set, hardly visible there at first, but making the faces of the players look suddenly white and wan. Then the miracle grew; the dark blue of the sky brightened into dove colour, the stars grew pale, and a little wind stirred in the trees.

"You played that abominably, dear Mildred," said Lady Ardingly. "We should have saved it if you had had any sense. What does that make?"

She pulled her cloak round her neck as Jack added it up.

"The night is growing a little chilly," she said.

Mildred, who had been following the figures, looked up.

"The night?" she said. "Why what is happening? It is day, is it not?"

"Very likely," said Lady Ardingly. "How much is it, Jack? Never mind, tell me to-morrow. I will pay you to-morrow?"

Jack rattled his pencil-case between his teeth.

"Thirty pounds exactly, Lady Ardingly," he said.

They rose and walked across the lawn towards the house, Jack sauntering a little behind, his hands in his pockets, smiling to himself. Mildred dropped behind with him, the other two walking on a few paces ahead.

"The most odious hour in the twenty-four!" said Lady Ardingly, looking ghastly in the dawn.

"Very trying," said Andrew.

"But we have spent the night very well," said the other, as they parted at the foot of the stairs. "A charming Sunday, Mr. Brereton. You and Mildred are great benefactors!"

And she hurried upstairs, conscious that she was looking awful, and, in that hour of low vitality which comes with the dawn, not wis.h.i.+ng to appear thus before anybody, however insignificant.

CHAPTER VIII

It was about a fortnight after this Sunday at Richmond that the list of Birthday honours came out, and it was a surprise to n.o.body that Mr.

Brereton's name appeared as the recipient of a peerage. For respectability and cash are things that in themselves confer such n.o.bility on their fortunate possessor that it is only right and proper to stamp him with a coronet like writing-paper. Respectability no doubt has been, and will again be, dispensed with, but cash cannot be replaced except by exceptional achievements of some kind, of which Andrew was hopelessly incapable. And as it would clearly be absurd to bar a man from his birth from the possibility of attaining to the ranks of hereditary legislators, custom, slowly broadening down, has brought it about that since achievement in great deeds is within the reach but of the few, plenty of good gold, bestowed on plenty of good or party inst.i.tutions, paves the way, so to speak, to what has been called by politicians who wrangle hotly in another place "the upper snows."

Marie Alston, who had known of the impending honours some days before, was talking it over with Jim Spencer.

"I don't say I like the principle," she was saying; "but, things being as they are, I think it a most suitable thing. Oh, my dear Jim, you know me sufficiently well to know that I think such a system all wrong from top to bottom. But, after all, it is in a piece with the rest.

Plutocracy, not the King nor the Houses of Parliament, rules us, and naturally plutocracy says, 'I will have all that is within reach.' Why not? And peerages are certainly within reach. Of course the list is rather p.r.o.nounced. Mr. Maxwell, I see, has been made a Baronet. But, after all, who else is there? Can you think of any eminent men whom one would wish to see peers? I can't. And there are few people richer than the Maxwells, I believe. It is no use screaming."

Jim shrugged his shoulders.

"At that rate, I could be made a peer," he said.

"Are you rich enough? How nice for you! And _vice versa_, perhaps, Jack should be made a commoner. No doubt that reform will follow next. At least, perhaps Jack shouldn't because he really has the makings of an eminent man, but half the House of Peers, anyhow, should be made commoners. No doubt they would be if it were not for the innate sn.o.bbishness of the average Englishman. The average Englishman knows quite well that there is nothing whatever remarkable or admirable about quant.i.ties of peers except their peerages; yet, because they are peers, he loves and reverences them, and reserves them compartments, and incidentally takes toll off them as well."

Jim Spencer raised his eyebrows.

"Of course you are right," he said, "but you say these things, and don't take them seriously. You used to be serious, Marie."

"Ah, you do me an injustice," she said quickly. "I am just as serious as ever I was, but I realize that it is no use being serious in public.

People have no time to spare from their amus.e.m.e.nts nowadays for anything serious. But in private I am serious. I was serious in private to-day, for instance."

"Well, be serious now, and tell me what you were serious about."

"Oh, nothing. I beg your pardon, this is not in public. Indeed, it was something--something big, as it seems to me. I am not sure that I shall tell you about it."

They were both silent a moment--he unwilling to ask a question on a subject where she hesitated, she weighing in her mind whether or not she should tell him. At last she spoke.

"It is about Maud Brereton," she said, "She came to me yesterday, calm as a summer sea, to ask my advice as to whether she should marry Anthony Maxwell, just as I might ask your advice as to whether I should have a picture framed in gold or white. I did not ask her any questions as to whether she loved him, because I believe that there are many girls who have no idea what that means, and I think Maud is one of them."

Jim got up and began to walk up and down the room. He heard Marie with his ear speaking of Maud, but his inward ear translated, so it seemed to him, all she said of Maud into things she was saying about herself.