Scarlet and Hyssop Part 26

Mildred, however, did not think that things were quite so satisfactory.

At first the idea of Jack and Marie Darby-and-Joaning it together sent her into fits of laughter. But after a week or so the joke began to lose its point--or, to state it more accurately, the point became rather too sharp for her liking. Jack and she had settled that they were to see less of each other, and not give any ground for people to say behind their backs what was perfectly and absolutely true; but she had not bargained for this return to intimacy between husband and wife. Once she had approached Jack on the subject.

"You are very realistic," she had said, "and have a great respect for detail."

"To what are you referring?" he asked.

"Oh, don't be stupid! You are taking your part very seriously. You see nothing of me--that is all right; but is it necessary to bore yourself quite so much with Marie?"

"I don't bore myself," he had said.

"Bore her, then?"

"I try not to do that," said Jack with curdling equanimity. "But what are you driving at? Do you want me to mourn for you, to watch the shadow on your blind? That would be rather unconvincing to other people, would it not?"

"No; they would say I was tired of you."

Jack considered this.

"I don't want them to say anything about us at all," he answered, and again the sense of imperfect grip haunted the woman, and the sense of having been talking to a cook the man.

Nor was this the sum of Mildred's discomfort. She had amiably proposed not long ago to break with Marie, but now that the opportunity was ripe she felt herself simply unable to do so. There was a deficiency of force in her--moral or immoral, it matters not which--which was unable to stand up to the other. Also, she was dimly aware that people in general were watching her, looking at her rather as they had done when, now years ago, her hair had turned golden in a single night. But now the cause was not so tangible. Was it that she herself, not her hair only, was turning gray? Certainly she was conscious of a failure of power. It was in vain that she ate her many solid meals, or, as the whim took her, lived on varalettes and lean meat, vowing that this treatment made the whole difference to her; it was in vain she slept her solid six hours, drove a great deal in the fresh air, and kept her windows unwontedly open. People, the hundred diverting situations in which her friends daily found themselves, diverted her less, and she wondered whether the truth was, as fas.h.i.+on papers a.s.sured her, that the season was not very brilliant, or whether it was she who was losing the power to be amused.

The thought of old age, a veritable bogey to one who has always felt young, sat daily by her in the empty seat of the victoria, and flapped in the wind-stirred blind of her bedroom at dark hours.

After she had left Jack that afternoon she had driven for an hour in the Park. The day was very fine, and the roadway and the path beside the Ladies' Mile were both crowded. She sat up very straight, as her custom was, in her victoria, the anaemic Yorks.h.i.+re terrier by her side, and put up her veil so as both to see and be seen more distinctly. She was dressed, she knew, with extreme success, and it had been pleasant, at a block entering the Park, to see a gaunt female taking notes of the occupants of the carriages. Her own had by singular good luck paused exactly opposite this journalist, and she had out of the corner of her eye seen her examining and writing down with the facility of long practice the details of her costume: "Many smart people were in the Park, driving and walking last Thursday. Among others, I noticed Lady Brereton driving in her victoria, with her sweet little terrier by her side, extremely stylishly gowned. Her Sat.u.r.day-till-Monday parties are still the attraction, and no wonder. On this occasion Lady Brereton had a new 'creation,' which I must describe. The bodice was of yellow silk, faced with orange colour; her bonnet," etc.

After this the crowd claimed her attention. Indeed, as "Diana" would say next week, "all the smart world" was about. Silly Billy, as usual, was taking his daily airing previous to clearing out the company at the "Deuce of Spades" at Bridge, talking to a nameless female, who appeared to want a lot of attention. Mildred just caught his eye, and, full of tact as ever, immediately looked away. Further on was Arthur Naseby, with hands wildly gesticulating, shrilly declaiming something of a clearly screaming nature to Blanche Devereux and a small and select company. He was standing close to the rails, and cried, "Dear lady! how are you?" to her, and the select company smiled their sweetest at her.

Then, as her carriage pa.s.sed at a foot's pace, she again heard his voice--in a different key and much lower. She could not catch the words, but felt sure that he was saying something about her. Then followed Jim Spencer alone. To him she waved her hand and beckoned him to the vacant seat in her victoria. But he, with seeming obtuseness, appeared not to understand, and went on his way. Then came Lady Davies, driving in the opposite direction, who pa.s.sed without recognising her; soon after Kitty Paget, making violent love to her husband; and presently a tandem, which she recognised while yet some way off as Jack's. He was driving himself; a woman was seated by him. At the same moment the muscles of Mildred's face hauled up as by a crane all the paraphernalia of smiles, for the woman was her dear friend and Jack's wife. Immediately afterwards the smile had to be tied to the mast again, for close behind them was Lady Ardingly, "got up to kill," as Mildred angrily said to herself. She looked like a Turner landscape of the later period, with a lopsided sunset of auburn hair perched negligently on the top. Her mouth seemed to crack a little by way of recognition, and she pa.s.sed in a flash of winking lacquer.

But Marie driving with Jack! That penultimate meeting was the most surprising. Did he really think she--Mildred--or, indeed, Marie, was the sort of woman to stand a _menage a trois_, especially when one of the three was his wife? Then, like an earthquake wave laden with the dead slime of the stirred depths, the sense of her own impotence came over her. Only a fortnight ago she had airily told Jack that she was glad that concealment was at an end--that she would now break with Marie. But what if something else was at an end? What if her revolt at a _menage a trois_ was altogether ill-founded? Out of three people there were two mathematically possible arrangements _a deux_. In this case one would have to be left out.

She had put up her veil, and at this moment something line-like crossed the field of her left eye. She put up her hand, and found between her finger and thumb a long hair, golden, but gray near the root. One hair only, and they were all numbered! But this was not number one.... There were certain savage tribes that could only count up to eight. She rather envied them their blissful incapacity.

There came a sudden stop, and she found herself in a queue of carriages at the side of the road. Down the centre came the royal outriders, followed by the carriage. The King and one of the Princesses were seated in it. He took off his hat to some one in the carriage immediately in front of hers, then turned and spoke to his companion. Probably his oversight of her was quite unintentional. But something within her said, "What if--" For some weeks now she had been a little uneasy; she had felt that her case was under consideration. Perhaps her not being recognised was the formal declaration to her of her sentence.

Then, in a flash, she was herself again, back to the wall, fighting desperately for her position, which was equivalent to her life. She would show everybody if she was done with yet. A gray hair or two! What did that matter, when a woman like Lady Ardingly had no hairs at all, gray or any other colour, and all the world knew it? She had money--any amount of it--which was of more consequence than anything else; she had, what was almost better than wit, a quick and incisive tongue--an instrument, it is true, not to be used except on such occasions as when a man may draw his revolver, to defend himself at close quarters, but as valuable, when people knew you had it, as the revolver. She was selfish, ambitious, greedy of worse things than food, unscrupulous, ready to amuse, and easy to be amused. She had everything, in fact, which was needful to make up the kind of success which she desired, and which, in point of fact, she had hitherto enjoyed. Yet she had industriously and carefully been making a private little h.e.l.l for herself during this last hour simply because Marie went driving with her husband, and the King happened not to see her!

Like all wise people, though she would not admit it to any one else, she frankly admitted to herself that she had made a mistake--such a little one, too--when she had allowed Silly Billy to talk about Marie and Jim Spencer, and this mistake, she was aware, had ramified further than she had antic.i.p.ated. She ought never to have started it. She had not got enough beam, so to speak, to sail against Marie. Yet what a tempting prospect, if only she could have won! Marie really besmirched! How unspeakably convenient! But apparently this was not to be. She confessed that she had failed, and was genuinely sorry she had attempted it.

Things had been very happy and comfortable before, and she ought to have been content. She felt, indeed, rather like a person who cannot swim, who has capsized near the bank, but in the first moment of immersion does not know whether he is within his depth or not. In any case, a few floundering plunges towards land would settle the matter, and she would be safe again--not, indeed, on the other bank, which had looked so inviting, but where she was before, and very enjoyable it had been!

As a matter of fact, one of Mildred's depressed conjectures had been quite correct, and had she known what was being said a mile or so behind her, she would not have found it so easy, perhaps, to brace herself up to make her efforts.

"Busily employed," said Arthur Naseby shrilly, "in taking the plug out of the bottom of her own boat. She exhibits a marvellous dexterity in doing it. What is the use of trying to start a scandal which n.o.body will believe? It was so stale, too. You and I certainly had done our level best to believe it long before, Lady Devereux. That Sunday down at Windsor--don't you remember?"

"Yes, I tried for a week, with both hands and my eyes shut," said Blanche.

"And I tried with my eyes open," said Arthur; "so we have given ourselves every chance. It, too, had every chance. It was launched without a hitch, and the colours waved madly on the winds of heaven.

Silly Billy, the 'Deuce of Spades,' the overhearing of it by Jack! All brilliant accessories! But the piece was d.a.m.ned from the first!"

"It really is too shocking!" said Mrs. Leighton, with her mouth underneath her left ear. "Such a mistake on dear Mildred's part!

Gracious powers below! did you see?" she said, pointing with her parasol at Jack and Marie in the tandem. "Yes, too heavenly, is it not?" she screamed at them. "Mildred has just pa.s.sed, like Solomon in all his glory, with the Yorks.h.i.+re terrier. And there are the lilies of the field," she continued, looking after Marie. "Poor dear Solomon!"

"There is a decided flavour of the best French farces in the air,"

remarked Arthur. "Enter, also, Madame la Marquise."

Lady Ardingly said something violent to her coachman, who drew up with a jerk.

"Ah, my dears!" she said with extreme graciousness. "How are you all?

Why do none of you drive with poor Mildred? I have just pa.s.sed her all alone. I am alone, too--am I not?--but I am used to it."

"Do let me come and drive with you, Lady Ardingly!" cried Arthur.

"And leave these enchanting ladies?" said she. "They would say all sorts of horrible things, and not come to my parties any more, nor tell me the news! What has been happening?"

"Jack and Marie have just pa.s.sed in the tandem!" said Arthur.

"Indeed! And Black Care was going in the other direction, not sitting behind them. So much better! Ah, here are the outriders! I am not fit to be seen."

She put up an immense mauve-coloured parasol to shut herself out, and the others rose, as the carriage pa.s.sed in a whirl of dust.

"And what else?" she continued.

"Well, it is supposed that Black Care has annexed Jim Spencer."

"Ah, you have heard that, too? She has a genius for annexation. Your Government would have saved a world of trouble if they had sent her out to the Transvaal years ago. That is very nice, and we shall all live peaceably again now. Marie and Jack in the tandem, and dear Mildred provided for! Good-bye, my dears; I must get home. I am playing a little Bridge this afternoon. You are all coming to my party to-night, are you not? That is so kind of you! Drive on. What a dolt!" she said to the coachman.

"There is only one Lady Ardingly," said Arthur in a reverent tone; "and I am her devoted admirer. How does she do it?"

Mrs. Leighton considered a moment.

"I would get a wig, and call my coachman fool, and ask everybody for news, in a minute, if it would do any good," she said; "but it wouldn't.

People would consider me slightly cracked, and I'm sure I shouldn't wonder."

Blanche got up with a sigh.

"She takes the taste out of everybody else," she said. "I shall go home and practise doing it before a gla.s.s;" and she waved to her footman.

Arthur Naseby rose also.

"I believe she is running this whole show," he said. "She never contradicted us once. But what is she playing at?"

But since collectively they could not have mustered one-third of Lady Ardingly's brains, it was no wonder that none of them could suggest an answer.

But as he handed Blanche into her carriage, Arthur summed up the situation.

"The fact is that it takes four or five of us to understand one-half of what she says," he remarked.