The Daughters of Danaus Part 19

"Hadria," said his sister, "I am going to call you by your pretty Christian name, and I want you to call me Henriette. I feel I have known you much longer than ten days, because Hubert has told me so much about you, and your music. You play charmingly. So much native talent. You want good training, of course; but you really might become a brilliant performer. Hubert is quite distressed that you should not enjoy more advantages. I should like so much if you could come and stay with us in town, and have some good lessons. Do think of it."

Hadria flushed. "Oh, thank you, I could not do that--I----"

"I understand you, dear Hadria," said Henriette, drawing her chair closer to the fire. "You know, Hubert can never keep anything of great importance from me." She looked arch.

Hadria muttered something that might have discouraged a less persistent spirit, but Miss Temperley paid no attention.

"Poor Hubert! I have had to be a ministering angel to him during these last months."

"Why do you open up this subject, Miss Temperley?"

"_Henriette_, if you please," cried that young woman, with the air of a playful potentate who has requested a favoured courtier to drop the ceremonious "Your Majesty" in private conversation.

"It was I who made him accept Mrs. Gordon's invitation. He very nearly refused it. He feared that it would be unpleasant for you. But I insisted on his coming. Why should he not? He would like so much to come here more often, but again he fears to displease you. He is not a Temperley for nothing. They are not of the race of fools who rush in where angels fear to tread."

"Are they not?" asked Hadria absently.

"We both see your difficulty," Miss Temperley went on. "Hubert would not so misunderstand you--the dear fellow is full of delicacy--and I should dearly love to hear him play to your accompaniment; he used to enjoy those practices so much. Would you think him intrusive if he brought his _'cello_ some afternoon?"

Hadria, not without an uneasy qualm, agreed to the suggestion, though by no means cordially.

Accordingly brother and sister arrived, one afternoon, for the practice.

Henriette took the leaders.h.i.+p, visibly employed tact and judgment, talked a great deal, and was surprisingly delicate, as beseemed a Temperley. Hadria found the occasion somewhat trying nevertheless, and Hubert stumbled, at first, in his playing. In a few minutes, however, both musicians became possessed by the music, and then all went well.

Henriette sat in an easy chair and listened critically. Now and then she would call out "bravo," or "admirable," and when the performance was over, she was warm in her congratulations.

Hadria was flushed with the effort and pleasure of the performance.

"I never heard Hubert's playing to such advantage," said his sister. "I seem to hear it for the first time. You really ought to practise together often." Another afternoon was appointed; Henriette left Hadria almost no choice.

After the next meeting, the constraint had a little worn off, and the temptation to continue the practising was very strong. Henriette's presence was rea.s.suring. And then Hubert seemed so reasonable, and had apparently put the past out of his mind altogether.

After the practice, brother and sister would linger a little in the drawing-room, chatting. Hubert appeared to advantage in his sister's society. She had a way of striking his best vein. Her own talent ran with his, appealed to it, and created the conditions for its display.

Her presence and inspiration seemed to produce, on his ability, a sort of c.u.mulative effect. Henriette set all the familiar machinery in motion; pressed the right b.u.t.ton, and her brother became brilliant.

A slight touch of diffidence in his manner softened the effect of his usual complacency. Hadria liked him better than she had liked him on his previous visit. His innate refinement appealed to her powerfully.

Moreover, he was cultivated and well-read, and his society was agreeable. Oh, why did this everlasting matrimonial idea come in and spoil everything? Why could not men and women have interests in common, without wis.h.i.+ng instantly to plunge into a condition of things which hampered and crippled them so miserably?

Hadria was disposed to underrate all defects, and to make the most of all virtues in Hubert, at the present moment. He had come at just the right time to make a favourable impression upon her; for the loneliness of her life had begun to leave its mark, and to render her extremely sensitive to influence.

She was an alien among the people of her circle; and she felt vaguely guilty in failing to share their ideas and ambitions. Their glances, their silences, conveyed a world of cold surprise and condemnation.

Hubert was tolerance itself compared with the majority of her a.s.sociates. She felt almost as if he had done her a personal kindness when he omitted to look astonished at her remarks, or to ignore them as "awkward."

Yet she felt uneasy about this renewal of the practices, and tried to avoid them as often as possible, though sorely against her inclination.

They were so great a relief and enjoyment. Her inexperience, and her carelessness of conventional standards, put her somewhat off her guard.

Hubert showed no signs of even remembering the interview of last year, that had been cut short by her father's entrance. Why should _she_ insist on keeping it in mind? It was foolish. Moreover she had been expressly given to understand, in a most pointed manner, that her conduct would not be misinterpreted if she allowed him to come occasionally.

From several remarks that Temperley made, she saw that he too regarded the ordinary domestic existence with distaste. It offended his fastidiousness. He was fastidious to his finger-tips. It amused Hadria to note the contrast between him and Mr. Gordon, who was a typical father of a family; limited in his interests to that circle; an amiable ruler of a tiny, somewhat absurd little world, pompous and important and inconceivably dull.

The _bourgeois_ side of this life was evidently displeasing to Hubert.

Good taste was his fetish. From his remarks about women, Hadria was led to observe how subtly critical he was with regard to feminine qualities, and wondered if his preference for herself ought to be regarded as a great compliment.

Henriette congratulated her on having been admired by the fastidious Hubert.

"Let us hope it speaks well for me," Hadria replied with a cynical smile, "but I have so often noticed that men who are very difficult to please, choose for the domestic hearth the most dreary and unattractive woman of their acquaintance! I sometimes doubt if men ever do marry the women they most admire."

"They do, when they can win them," said Henriette.

CHAPTER XIV.

During Henriette's visit, one of the meetings of the Preposterous Society fell due, and she expressed a strong wish to be present. She also craved the privilege of choosing the subject of discussion.

Finally, she received a formal request from the members to give the lecture herself. She was full of enthusiasm about the Society (such an educating influence!), and prepared her paper with great care. There had been a tendency among the circle, to politely disagree with Henriette.

Her ideas respecting various burning topics were at variance with the trend of opinion at Dunaghee, and Miss Temperley was expected to take this opportunity of enlightening the family. The family was equally resolved not to be enlightened.

"I have chosen for my subject to-night," said the lecturer, "one that is beginning to occupy public attention very largely: I mean the sphere of woman in society."

The audience, among whom Hubert had been admitted at his sister's earnest request, drew themselves together, and a little murmur of battle ran along the line. Henriette's figure, in her well-fitting Parisian gown, looked singularly out of place in the garret, with the crazy old candle-holder beside her, the yellow flame of the candle flinging fantastic shadows on the vaulted roof, preposterously distorting her neat form, as if in wicked mockery. The moonlight streamed in, as usual on the nights chosen by the Society for their meetings.

Henriette's paper was neatly expressed, and its sentiments were admirable. She maintained a perfect balance between the bigotry of the past and the violence of the present. Her phrases seemed to rock, like a pair of scales, from excess to excess, on either side. She came to rest in the exact middle. This led to the Johnsonian structure, or, as Hadria afterwards said, to the style of a _Times_ leading article: "While we remember on the one hand, we must not forget on the other----"

At the end of the lecture, the audience found themselves invited to sympathize cautiously and circ.u.mspectly with the advancement of women, but led, at the same time, to conclude that good taste and good feeling forbade any really nice woman from moving a little finger to attain, or to help others to attain, the smallest fraction more of freedom, or an inch more of spiritual territory, than was now enjoyed by her s.e.x. When, at some future time, wider privileges should have been conquered by the exertions of someone else, then the really nice woman could saunter in and enjoy the booty. But till then, let her leave boisterous agitation to others, and endear herself to all around her by her patience and her loving self-sacrifice.

"That pays better for the present," Hadria was heard to mutter to an adjacent member.

The lecturer, in her concluding remarks, gave a smile of ineffable sweetness, sadly marred, however, by the grotesque effect of the flickering shadows that were cast on her face by the candle. After all, _duty_ not _right_ was the really important matter, and the lecturer thought that it would be better if one heard the former word rather oftener in connection with the woman's question, and the latter word rather more seldom. Then, with new sweetness, and in a tone not to be described, she went on to speak of the natural responsibilities and joys of her s.e.x, drawing a moving, if somewhat familiar picture of those avocations, than which she was sure there could be nothing higher or holier.

For some not easily explained cause, the construction of this sentence gave it a peculiar unctuous force: "than which," as Fred afterwards remarked, "would have bowled over any but the most hardened sinner."

For weeks after this memorable lecture, if any very lofty alt.i.tude had to be ascended in conversational excursions, the aspirant invariably smiled with ineffable tenderness and lightly scaled the height, murmuring "than which" to a vanquished audience.

The lecture was followed by a discussion that rather took the stiffness out of Miss Temperley's phrases. The whole party was roused. Algitha had to whisper a remonstrance to the boys, for their solemn questions were becoming too preposterous. The lecture was discussed with much warmth.

There was a tendency to adopt the form "than which" with some frequency.

Bursts of laughter startled a company of rats in the wainscoting, and there was a lively scamper behind the walls. No obvious opposition was offered. Miss Temperley's views were examined with gravity, and indeed in a manner almost pompous. But by the end of that trying process, they had a sadly bedraggled and plucked appearance, much to their parent's bewilderment. She endeavoured to explain further, and was met by guilelessly intelligent questions, which had the effect of depriving the luckless objects of their solitary remaining feather. The members of the society continued to pine for information, and Miss Temperley endeavoured to provide it, till late into the night. The discussion finally drifted on to dangerous ground. Algitha declared that she considered that no man had any just right to ask a woman to pledge herself to love him and live with him for the rest of her life. How _could_ she? Hubert suggested that the woman made the same claim on the man.

"Which is equally absurd," said Algitha. "Just as if any two people, when they are beginning to form their characters, could possibly be sure of their sentiments for the rest of their days. They have no business to marry at such an age. They are bound to alter."

"But they must regard it as their duty not to alter with regard to one another," said Henriette.

"Quite so; just as they ought to regard it as their duty among other things, not to grow old," suggested Fred.

"Then, Algitha, do you mean that they may fall in love elsewhere?"

Ernest inquired.

"They very likely _will_ do so, if they make such an absurd start,"

Algitha declared.