The Convert Part 10

Vida made a shrug of half-impatient, half-humorous a.s.sent. 'Leaves the Bishop's Palace and comes to London. He, too, wants "to live for the poor." Never for an instant one of them. Always the patron--the person something may be got out of--or, at all events, hoped from.'

She seemed to be about to leave the room, but as her sister answered with some feeling, 'No, no, they love and respect him!' Vida paused, and brought up by the fire that the sudden cold made comforting.

'George is a different man since he's found his vocation,' Mrs.

Fox-Moore insisted. 'You read it in his face.'

'Oh, if all you mean is that _he's_ happier, why not? He's able to look on himself as a benefactor. He's tasting the intoxication of the King among Beggars.'

'You are grossly unfair, Vida.'

'So he thinks when I challenge him: "What good, what earthly good, is all this unless an anodyne--for you--is good?"'

'It seems to me a very real good that George Nuneaton and his kind should go into the dark places and brighten hopeless lives with a little Christian kindness--sometimes with a little timely counsel.'

'Yes, yes,' said the voice by the fire; 'and a little good music--don't forget the good music.'

'An object-lesson in practical religion, isn't that something?'

'Practical! Good Heaven! A handful of complacent, expensively educated young people playing at reform. The poor wanting work, wanting decent housing--wanting _bread_--and offered a little cultivated companions.h.i.+p.'

'Vida, what have you been reading?'

'Reading? I've been visiting George at his Settlement. I've been intruding myself on the privacy of the poor once a week with you--and I'm done with it! Personally I don't get enough out of it to reconcile me to their getting so little.'

'You're burning,' observed the toneless voice from the head of the table.

'Yes, I believe I was a little hot,' Vida laughed as she drew her smoking skirt away from the fire. But she still stood close to the cheerful blaze, one foot on the fender, the green cloth skirt drawn up, leaving the more delicate fabric of her silk petticoat to meet the fiery ordeal. 'If it annoys you to hear me say that's my view of charity, why, don't make me talk about it;' but the face she turned for an instant over her shoulder was far gentler than her words. 'And don't in future'--she was again looking down into the fire, and she spoke slowly as one who delivers a reluctant ultimatum--'don't ask me to help, except with money. _That_ doesn't cost so much.'

'I am disappointed.' Nothing further, but the sound of a chair moved back, eloquent somehow of a discouragement deeper than words conveyed.

Vida turned swiftly, and, coming back to her sister, laid an arm about her shoulder.

'I'm a perfect monster! But you know, my dear, you rather goaded me into saying all this by looking such a martyr when I've tried to get out of going----'

'Very well, I won't ask you again.' But the toneless rejoinder was innocent of rancour. Janet Fox-Moore gave the impression of being too chilled, too drained of the generous life-forces, even for anger.

'Besides,' said Vida, hurriedly, 'I'd nearly forgotten; there's the final practising at eleven.'

'_I'd_ forgotten your charity concert was so near!' As Mrs. Fox-Moore gathered up her letters, she gave way for the first time to a wintry little smile.

'The concert's mine, I admit, but the charity's the bishop's. What absurd things we women fill up the holes in our lives with!' Vida said, as she followed her sister into the hall. 'Do you know the real reason I'm getting up this foolish concert?'

'Because you like singing, and do it so well that--yes, without your looks and the indescribable "rest," you'd be a success. I told you that, when I begged you to come and try London.'

'The reason I'm slaving over the concert--it isn't all musical enthusiasm. It amuses me to organize it. All the ticklish, difficult, "bothering" part of getting up a monster thing of this sort, reconciling malcontents, enlisting the great operatic stars and not losing the great social lights--it all interests me like a game. I'm afraid the truth is I like managing things.'

'Perhaps Mrs. Freddy's not so far wrong.'

'Does Mrs. Freddy accuse me of being a "managing woman," horrid thought?'

'She was talking about you in her enthusiastic way when she was here the other day. "Vida could administer a state," she said. Yes, _I_ laughed, too, but Mrs. Freddy shook her head quite seriously, and said, "To think of a being like Vida--not even a citizen."'

'I'm not a citizen?' exclaimed the lady, laughing down at her sister over the banisters. 'Does she think because I've lived abroad I've forfeited my rights of----'

'No, all she means is---- Oh, you know the bee she's got in her bonnet.

She means, as she'll tell you, that "you have no more voice in the affairs of England than if you were a Hottentot."'

'I can't say I've ever minded that. But it has an odd sound, hasn't it--to hear one isn't a citizen.'

'Mrs. Freddy forgets----'

'I know! I know what you're going to say,' said the other, light-heartedly. 'Mrs. Freddy forgets our unique enn.o.bling influence;'

and the tall young woman laughed as she ran up the last half of the long flight of stairs. At the top she halted a moment, and called down to Mrs. Fox-Moore, who was examining the cards left the day before, 'Speaking of our powerful influence over our men-folk--Mr. Freddy wasn't present, was he, when she aired her views?'

'No.'

'I thought not. Her influence over Mr. Freddy is maintained by the strictest silence on matters he isn't keen about.'

CHAPTER V

Seeing Ulland House for the first time on a fine afternoon in early May against the jubilant green of its woodland hillside, the beholder, a little dazzled in that first instant by the warmth of colour burning in the ancient brick, might adapt the old dean's line and call the coral-tinted structure rambling down the hillside, 'A rose-red dwelling half as old as Time.'

Its original architecture had been modified by the generations as they pa.s.sed. One lord of Ulland had expressed his fancy on the eastern facade in gable and sculptured gargoyle; another his fear or his defiance in the squat and st.u.r.dy tower with its cautious slits in lieu of windows.

Yet another Ulland had brought home from eighteenth-century Italy a love of colonnades and terraced gardens; and one still later had cut down to the level of the sward the high ground-floor windows, so that where before had been two doors or three, were now a dozen giving egress to the gardens.

The legend so often encountered in the history of old English houses was not neglected here--that it had been a Crusader of this family who had himself brought home from the Holy Land the Lebanon cedar that spread wide its level branches on the west, cutting the sunset into even bars.

Tradition also said it was a counsellor of Elizabeth who had set the dial on the lawn. Even the latest lord had found a way to leave his impress upon the time. He introduced 'Clock golf' at Ulland. From the upper windows on the south and west the roving eye was caught by the great staring face of this new timepiece on the turf--its Roman numerals showing keen and white upon the vivid green. On the other side of the cedar, that incorrigible Hedonist, the crumbling dial, told you in Latin that he only marked the s.h.i.+ning hours. But the brand new clock on the lawn bore neither watchword nor device--seemed even to have dropped its hands as though in modesty withheld from pointing to hours so little worthy of record.

Two or three men, on this fine Sat.u.r.day, had come down from London for the week-end to disport themselves on the Ulland links, half a mile beyond the park. After a couple of raw days, the afternoon had turned out quite unseasonably warm, and though the golfers had come back earlier than usual, not because of the heat but because one of their number had a train to catch, they agreed it was distinctly reviving to find tea served out of doors.

Already Lady John was in her place on the pillared colonnade, behind the urn. Already, too, one of her pair of pretty nieces was at hand to play the skilful lieutenant. Hermione Heriot, tactful, charming, twenty-five, was equally ready to hand bread and b.u.t.ter, or, sitting quietly, to perform the greater service--that of presenting the fresh-coloured, discreetly-smiling vision called 'the typical English girl.' Miss Heriot fulfilled to a nicety the requirements of those who are sensibly rea.s.sured by the spectacle of careful conventionality allied to feminine charm--a pleasant conversability that may be trusted to soothe and counted on never to startle. Hermione would almost as soon have stood on her head in Piccadilly as have said anything original, though to her private consternation such perilous stuff had been known to harbour an uneasy instant in her bosom. She carried such inconvenient cargo as carefully hidden as a conspirator would a bomb under his cloak. It had grown to be as necessary to her to agree with the views and fas.h.i.+ons of the majority as it was disquieting to her to see these contravened, or even for a single hour ignored. From the crown of her carefully dressed head to the tips of her pointed toes she was engaged in testifying her a.s.sent to the prevailing note. Despite all this to recommend her, she was not Lady John's favourite niece. No doubt about Jean Dunbarton holding that honour; and, to Hermione's credit, her own love for her cousin enabled her to accept the situation with a creditable equability.

Jean Dunbarton was due now at any moment, she having already sent over her luggage with her maid the short two miles from the Bishop's Palace, where the girl had dined and slept the night before.

The rest of the Ulland House party were arriving by the next train. As Miss Levering was understood to be one of those expected it will be seen that a justified faith in the excellence of the Ulland links had not made Lady John unmindful of the wisdom of including among 'the week-enders' a nice a.s.sortment of pretty women for the amus.e.m.e.nt of her golfers in the off hours.

Of this other young lady swinging her golf club as she came across the lawn with the men--sole petticoat among them--it could not be pretended that any hostess, let alone one so worldly-wise as Lady John Ulland, would look to have the above-hinted high and delicate office performed by so upright and downright--not to say so bony--a young woman, with face so like a horse, and the stride of a grenadier. Under her short leather-bound skirt the great brown-booted feet seemed shamelessly to court attention--as it were out of malice to catch your eye, while deliberately they trampled on the tenderest traditions clinging still about the Weaker s.e.x.

Lady John held in her hand the top of the jade and silver tea-caddy.

Hermione, as well as her aunt, knew that this top held four teaspoonsful of tea. Lady John filled it once, filled it twice, and turned the contents out each time into the gaping pot. Then, absent-mindedly, she paused, eyeing the approaching party,--that genial silver-haired despot, her husband, walking with Lord Borrodaile, the gawky girl between them, except when she paused to practise a drive. The fourth person, a short, compactly knit man, was lounging along several paces behind, but every now and then energetically shouting out his share in the conversation.

The ground of Lady John's interest in the group seemed to consist in a half-mechanical counting of noses. Her eyes came back to the tea-table and she made a third addition to the jade and silver measure.

'We shall be only six for the first brew,' prompted the girl at her side.

'Paul Filey is mooning somewhere about the garden.'