The Marriage of William Ashe Part 9

"Well, anyhow, we're going to sample the garden to-morrow morning, aren't we?"

"I suppose so," said Kitty. Then, after a moment, she looked at her right-hand neighbor, the young politician to whom as yet she had scarcely vouchsafed a word.

"What's his name?" she asked, under her breath. Ashe repeated it.

"Perhaps I ought to talk to him?"

"Of course you ought," said Ashe, with smiling decision, and turning to the lady whom he had brought in he left her free.

When the ladies rose, Lady Grosville led the way to the large drawing-room, a room which, like the library, had some character, and a thin elegance of style, not, however, warmed and harmonized by the delightful presence of books. The walls, blue and white in color, were panelled in stucco relief. A few family portraits, stiff handlings of stiff people, were placed each in the exact centre of its respective panel. There were a few cases of china and a few polished tables. A crimson Brussels carpet, chosen by Lady Grosville for its "cheerfulness," covered the floor, and there was a large white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. A few hyacinths in pots, and the bright fire supplied the only gay and living notes--before the ladies arrived.

Still, for an English eye, the room had a certain cold charm, was moreover full of _history_. It hardly deserved at any rate the s.h.i.+ver with which Kitty Bristol looked round it.

But she had little time to dwell upon the room and its meanings, for Lady Grosville approached her with a manner which still showed signs of the catastrophe before dinner.

"Kitty, I think you don't know Miss Lyster yet--Mary Lyster--she wants to be introduced to you."

Mary advanced smiling; Kitty held out a limp hand, and they exchanged a few words standing in the centre of the floor, while the other guests found seats.

"What a charming contrast!" said Lady Edith Manley in Lady Grosville's ear. She nodded smiling towards the standing pair--struck by the fine straight lines of Mary's satin dress, the roundness of her fine figure, the oval of her head and face, and then by the little, vibrating, tempestuous creature beside her, so distinguished, in spite of the billowing flounces and ribbons, so direct and significant, amid all the elaboration.

"Kitty is ridiculously overdressed," said Lady Grosville. "I hope we shall soon change that. My girls are going to take her to their woman."

Lady Edith put up her eye-gla.s.s slowly and looked at the two Grosville girls; then back at Kitty.

Meanwhile a few perfunctory questions and answers were pa.s.sing between Miss Lyster and her companion. Mary's aspect as she talked was extremely amiable; one might have called it indulgent, perhaps even by an adjective that implied a yet further shade of delicate superiority.

Kitty met it by the same "grand manner" that Ashe had several times observed in her, a manner caught perhaps from some French model, and caricatured in the taking. Her eyes meanwhile took note of Mary's face and dress, and while she listened her small teeth tormented her under-lip, as though she restrained impatience. All at once in the midst of some information that Miss Lyster was lucidly giving, Kitty made an impetuous turn. She had caught some words on the farther side of the room; and she looked hard, eagerly, at the speaker.

"Who is that?" she inquired.

Mary Lyster, with a sharp sense of interruption, replied that she believed the lady in question was the Grosville's French governess. But in the very midst of her sentence Kitty deserted her, left her standing in the centre of the drawing-room, while the deserter fled across it, and sinking down beside the astonished mademoiselle took the Frenchwoman's hand by a.s.sault and held it in both her own.

"Vous parlez Francais?--vous etes Francaise? Ah! ca me fait tant de bien! Voyons! voyons!--causons un peu!"

And bending forward, she broke into a cataract of French, all the elements of her strange, small beauty rus.h.i.+ng, as it were, into flame and movement at the swift sound and cadence of the words, like a dancer kindled by music. The occasion was of the slightest; the Frenchwoman might well show a natural bewilderment. But into the slight occasion the girl threw an animation, a pa.s.sion, that glorified it. It was like the leap of a wild rain-stream on the mountains, that pours into the first channel which presents itself.

"What beautiful French!" said Lady Edith, softly, to Mary Lyster, who had found a seat beside her.

Mary Lyster smiled.

"She has been at school, of course, in a French convent." Somehow the tone implied that the explanation disposed of all merit in the performance.

"I am afraid these French convent schools are not at all what they should be," said Lady Grosville.

And rising to a pyramidal height, her ample moire dress swelling behind her, her gray head magnificently crowned by its lace cap and black velvet _bandeau_, she swept across the room to where the Dean's wife, Mrs. Winston, sat in fascinated silence observing Lady Kitty. The silence and the attention annoyed her hostess. The first thing to be done with girls of this type, it seemed to Lady Grosville, was to prove to them that they would _not_ be allowed to monopolize society.

There are natural monopolies, however, and they are not easy to deal with.

As soon as the gentlemen returned, Mr. Rankine, whom she had treated so badly at dinner, the young agent of the estate, the clergyman of the parish, the Austrian attache, the cabinet minister, and the Dean, all showed a strong inclination to that side of the room which seemed to be held in force by Lady Kitty. The Dean especially was not to be gainsaid.

He placed himself in the seat shyly vacated by the French governess, and crossed his thin, stockinged legs with the air of one who means to take his ease. There was even a certain curious resemblance between him and Kitty, as was noticed from a distance by Ashe. The Dean, who was very much a man of the world, and came of an historic family, was, in his masculine degree, planned on the same miniature scale and with the same fine finish as the girl of eighteen. And he carried his knee-breeches, his ap.r.o.n, and his exquisite white head with a natural charm and energy akin to hers--mellowed though it were by time, and dignified by office.

He began eagerly to talk to her of Paris. His father had been amba.s.sador for a time under Louis Philippe, and he had boyish memories of the great house in the Faubourg St. Honore, and of the Orleanist ministers and men of letters. And lo! Kitty met him at once, in a glow and sparkle that enchanted the old man. Moreover, it appeared that this much-beflounced young lady could talk; that she had heard of the famous names and the great affairs to which the Dean made allusion; that she possessed indeed a native and surprising interest in matter of the sort; and a manner, above all, with the old, alternately soft and daring, calculated, as Lady Grosville would no doubt have put it, merely to make fools of them.

In her cousins' house, it seemed, she had talked with old people, survivors of the Orleanist and Bourbon regimes--even of the Empire; had sat at their feet, a small, excited hero-wors.h.i.+pper; and had then rushed blindly into the memoirs and books that concerned them. So, in this French world the child had found time for other things than hunting, and the flattery of her cousin Henri? Ashe was supposed to be devoting himself to the Dean's wife; but both he and she listened most of the time to the sallies and the laughter of the circle where Kitty presided.

"My dear young lady," cried the delighted Dean, "I never find anybody who can talk of these things--it is really astonis.h.i.+ng. Ah, _now_, we English know nothing of France--nor they of us. Why, I was a mere school-boy then, and I had a pa.s.sion for their society, and their books--for their _plays_--dare I confess it?"--he lowered his voice and glanced at his hostess--"their plays, above all!"

Kitty clapped her hands. The Dean looked at her, and ran on:

"My mother shared it. When I came over for my Eton holidays, she and I lived at the Theatre-Francais. Ah, those were days! _I_ remember Mademoiselle Mars in 'Hernani.'"

Kitty bounded in her seat. Whereupon it appeared that just before she left Paris she had been taken by a friend to see the reigning idol of the Comedie-Francaise, the young and astonis.h.i.+ng actress, Sarah Bernhardt, as Dona Sol. And there began straightway an excited duet between her and the Dean; a comparison of old and new, a rivalry of heroines, a hot and critical debate that presently silenced all other conversation in the room, and brought Lord Grosville to stand gaping and astounded behind the Dean, reflecting no doubt that this was not precisely the Dean of the Diocesan Conference.

The old man indeed forgot his age, the girl her youth; they met as equals, on poetic ground, till suddenly Kitty, springing up, and to prove her point, began an imitation of Sarah in the great love-scene of the last act, before arresting fate, in the person of Don Ruy, breaks in upon the rapture of the lovers. She absolutely forgot the Grosville drawing-room, the staring Grosville girls, the other faces, astonished or severe, neutral or friendly. Out rolled the tide of tragic verse, fine poetry, and high pa.s.sion; and though it be not very much to say, it must at least be said that never had such recitation, in such French, been heard before within the walls of Grosville Park. Nor had the lips of any English girl ever dealt there with a poetic diction so unchastened and unashamed. Lady Grosville might well feel as though the solid frame of things were melting and cracking round her.

Kitty ceased. She fell back upon her chair, smitten with a sudden perception.

"You made me!" she said, reproachfully, to the Dean.

The Dean said another "Brava!" and gave another clap. Then, becoming aware of Lord Grosville's open mouth and eye, he sat up, caught his wife's expression, and came back to prose and the present.

"My dear young lady," he began, "you have the most extraordinary talent--" when Lady Grosville advanced upon him. Standing before him, she majestically signalled to her husband across his small person.

"William, kindly order Mrs. Wilson's carriage."

Lord Grosville awoke from his stupor with a jerk, and did as he was told. Mrs. Wilson, the agent's timid wife, who was not at all aware that she had asked for her carriage, rose obediently. Then the mistress of the house turned to Lady Kitty.

"You recite very well, Kitty," she said, with cold and stately emphasis, "but another time I will ask you to confine yourself to Racine and Corneille. In England we have to be very careful about French writers.

There are, however, if I remember right, some fine pa.s.sages in 'Athalie.'"

Kitty said nothing. The Austrian attache who had been following the little incident with the liveliest interest, retired to a close inspection of the china. But the Dean, whose temper was of the quick and chivalrous kind, was roused.

"She recites wonderfully! And Victor Hugo is a cla.s.sic, please, my lady--just as much as the rest of them. Ah, well, no doubt, no doubt, there might be things more suitable." And the old man came wavering down to earth, as the enthusiasm which Kitty had breathed into him escaped, like the gas from a balloon. "But, do you know, Lady Kitty "--he struck into a new subject with eagerness, partly to cover the girl, partly to silence Lady Grosville--"you reminded me all the time so remarkably--in your voice--certain inflections--of your sister--your step-sister, isn't it?--Lady Alice? You know, of course, she is close to you to-day--just the other side the park--with the Sowerbys?"

The Dean's wife sprang to her feet in despair. In general it was to her a matter for fond complacency that her husband had no memory for gossip, and was in such matters as innocent and as dangerous as a child. But this was too much. At the same moment Ashe came quickly forward.

"My sister?" said Kitty. "My sister?"

She spoke low and uncertainly, her eyes fixed upon the Dean.

He looked at her with a sudden odd sense of something unusual, then went on, still floundering:

"We met her at St. Pancras on our way down. If I had only known we were to have had the pleasure of meeting you--Do you know, I think she is looking decidedly better?"

His kindly expression as he rose expected a word of sisterly a.s.sent.

Meanwhile even Lady Grosville was paralyzed, and the words with which she had meant to interpose failed on her lips.