"Did you, Mother?"
"I longed to take it off and put it away. But after a while I got used to it."
"I'm glad this isn't a wedding ring."
"Leslie says it is as good," said I.
"Ah well, yes! But still it is different--" She put the jewels round under her finger, and looked at the plain gold band--then she twisted it back quickly, saying:
"I'm glad it's not--not yet. I begin to feel a woman, little Mother--I feel grown up today."
My mother got up suddenly and went and kissed Lettie fervently.
"Let me kiss my girl good-bye," she said, and her voice was muffled with tears. Lettie clung to my mother, and sobbed a few quiet sobs, hidden in her bosom. Then she lifted her face, which was wet with tears, and kissed my mother, murmuring:
"No, Mother--no--o--!"
About three o'clock the carriage came with Leslie and Marie. Both Lettie and I were upstairs, and I heard Marie come tripping up to my sister.
"Oh, Lettie, he is in such a state of excitement, you never knew. He took me with him to buy it--let me see it on. I think it's awfully lovely. Here, let me help you to do your hair--all in those little rolls--it will look charming. You've really got beautiful hair--there's so much life in it--it's a pity to twist it into a coil as you do. I wish my hair were a bit longer--though really, it's all the better for this fashion--don't you like it?--it's 'so chic'--I think these little puffs are just fascinating--it is rather long for them--but it will look ravishing. Really, my eyes, and eyebrows, and eyelashes are my best features, don't you think?"
Marie, the delightful, charming little creature, twittered on. I went downstairs.
Leslie started when I entered the room, but seeing only me, he leaned forward again, resting his arms on his knees, looking in the fire.
"What the Dickens is she doing?" he asked.
"Dressing."
"Then we may keep on waiting. Isn't it a deuced nuisance, these people coming?"
"Well, we generally have a good time."
"Oh--it's all very well--we're not in the same boat, you and me."
"Fact," said I, laughing.
"By Jove, Cyril, you don't know what it is to be in love. I never thought--I couldn't ha' believed I should be like it. And the time when it isn't at the top of your blood, it's at the bottom:--'the Girl, the Girl'."
He stared into the fire.
"It seems pressing you, pressing you on. Never leaves you alone a moment."
Again he lapsed into reflection.
"Then, all at once, you remember how she kissed you, and all your blood jumps afire."
He mused again for a while--or rather, he seemed fiercely to con over his sensations.
"You know," he said, "I don't think she feels for me as I do for her."
"Would you want her to?" said I.
"I don't know. Perhaps not--but--still I don't think she feels--"
At this he lighted a cigarette to soothe his excited feelings, and there was silence for some time. Then the girls came down. We could hear their light chatter. Lettie entered the room. He jumped up and surveyed her. She was dressed in soft, creamy, silken stuff; her neck was quite bare; her hair was, as Marie promised, fascinating; she was laughing nervously. She grew warm, like a blossom in the sunshine, in the glow of his admiration. He went forward and kissed her.
"You are splendid!" he said.
She only laughed for answer. He drew her away to the great arm-chair, and made her sit in it beside him. She was indulgent and he radiant. He took her hand and looked at it, and at his ring which she wore.
"It looks all right!" he murmured.
"Anything would," she replied.
"What do you mean--sapphires and diamonds--for I don't know?"
"Nor do I. Blue for hope, because Speranza in 'Fairy Queen' had a blue gown--and diamonds for--the crystalline clearness of my nature."
"Its glitter and hardness, you mean.--You are a hard little mistress. But why hope?"
"Why?--No reason whatever, like most things. No, that's not right. Hope! Oh--blindfolded--hugging a silly harp with no strings. I wonder why she didn't drop her harp framework over the edge of the globe, and take the handkerchief off her eyes, and have a look round! But of course she was a woman--and a man's woman. Do you know I believe most women can sneak a look down their noses from underneath the handkerchief of hope they've tied over their eyes. They could take the whole muffler off--but they don't do it, the dears."
"I don't believe you know what you're talking about, and I'm sure I don't. Sapphires reminded me of your eyes--and isn't it 'Blue that kept the faith'? I remember something about it."
"Here," said she, pulling off the ring, "you ought to wear it yourself, Faithful One, to keep me in constant mind."
"Keep it on, keep it on. It holds you faster than that fair damsel tied to a tree in Millais's picture--I believe it's Millais."
She sat shaking with laughter.
"What a comparison! Who'll be the brave knight to rescue me--discreetly--from behind?"
"Ah," he answered, "it doesn't matter. You don't want rescuing, do you?"
"Not yet," she replied, teasing him.
They continued to talk half nonsense, making themselves eloquent by quick looks and gestures, and communion of warm closeness. The ironical tones went out of Lettie's voice, and they made love.
Marie drew me away into the dining-room, to leave them alone.
Marie is a charming little maid, whose appearance is neatness, whose face is confident little goodness. Her hair is dark, and lies low upon her neck in wavy coils. She does not affect the fashion in coiffure, and generally is a little behind the fashion in dress. Indeed she is a half-opened bud of a matron, conservative, full of proprieties, and of gentle indulgence. She now smiled at me with a warm delight in the romance upon which she had just shed her grace, but her demureness allowed nothing to be said. She glanced round the room, and out of the window, and observed:
"I always love Woodside, it is restful--there is something about it--oh--assuring--really--it comforts me--I've been reading Maxim Gorky."
"You shouldn't," said I.
"Dadda reads them--but I don't like them--I shall read no more. I like Woodside--it makes you feel--really at home--it soothes one like the old wood does. It seems right--life is proper here--not ulcery--"
"Just healthy living flesh," said I.
"No, I don't mean that, because one feels--oh, as if the world were old and good, not old and bad."
"Young, and undisciplined, and mad," said I.
"No--but here, you, and Lettie, and Leslie, and me--it is so nice for us, and it seems so natural and good. Woodside is so old, and so sweet and serene--it does reassure one."
"Yes," said I, "we just live, nothing abnormal, nothing cruel and extravagant--just natural--like doves in a dovecote."
"Oh!--doves!--they are so--so mushy."
"They are dear little birds, doves. You look like one yourself, with the black band round your neck. You a turtle-dove, and Lettie a wood-pigeon."
"Lettie is splendid, isn't she? What a swing she has--what a mastery! I wish I had her strength--she just marches straight through in the right way--I think she's fine."
I laughed to see her so enthusiastic in her admiration of my sister. Marie is such a gentle, serious little soul. She went to the window. I kissed her, and pulled two berries off the mistletoe. I made her a nest in the heavy curtains, and she sat there looking out on the snow.
"It is lovely," she said reflectively. "People must be ill when they write like Maxim Gorky."
"They live in town," said I.
"Yes--but then look at Hardy--life seems so terrible--it isn't, is it?"
"If you don't feel it, it isn't--if you don't see it. I don't see it for myself."
"It's lovely enough for heaven."
"Eskimo's heaven perhaps. And we're the angels, eh? And I'm an archangel."
"No, you're a vain, frivolous man. Is that--? What is that moving through the trees?"
/>
"Somebody coming," said I.
It was a big, burly fellow moving curiously through the bushes.
"Doesn't he walk funnily?" exclaimed Marie. He did. When he came near enough we saw he was straddled upon Indian snow-shoes. Marie peeped, and laughed, and peeped, and hid again in the curtains laughing. He was very red, and looked very hot, as he hauled the great meshes, shuffling over the snow; his body rolled most comically. I went to the door and admitted him, while Marie stood stroking her face with her hands to smooth away the traces of her laughter.
He grasped my hand in a very large and heavy glove, with which he then wiped his perspiring brow.
"Well, Beardsall, old man," he said, "and how's things? God, I'm not 'alf hot! Fine idea though--" He showed me his snow-shoes.
"Ripping! ain't they? I've come like an Indian brave--"
He rolled his "r's", and lengthened out his "ah's" tremendously--"brra-ave".
"Couldn't resist it though," he continued.
"Remember your party last year--Girls turned up? On the war-path, eh?" He pursed up his childish lips and rubbed his fat chin.
Having removed his coat, and the white wrap which protected his collar, not to mention the snowflakes, which Rebecca took almost as an insult to herself--he seated his fat, hot body on a chair, and proceeded to take off his gaiters and his boots. Then he donned his dancing-pumps, and I led him upstairs.
"Lord, I skimmed here like a swallow!" he continued--and I looked at his corpulence.
"Never met a soul, though they've had a snow-plough down the road. I saw the marks of a cart up the drive, so I guessed the Tempests were here. So Lettie's put her nose in Tempest's nosebag--leaves nobody a chance, that--some women have rum taste--only they're like ravens, they go for the gilding--don't blame 'em--only it leaves nobody a chance. Madie Howitt's coming, I suppose?"
I ventured something about the snow.
"She'll come," he said, "if it's up to the neck. Her mother saw me go past."
He proceeded with his toilet. I told him that Leslie had sent the carriage for Alice and Madie. He slapped his fat legs, and exclaimed:
"Miss Gall--I smell sulphur! Beardsall, old boy, there's fun in the wind. Madie, and the coy little Tempest, and--" he hissed a line of a music-hall song through his teeth.
During all this he had straightened his cream and lavender waistcoat.
"Little pink of a girl worked it for me--a real juicy little peach--chipped somehow or other"--he had arranged his white bow--he had drawn forth two rings, one a great signet, the other gorgeous with diamonds, and had adjusted them on his fat white fingers; he had run his fingers delicately through his hair, which rippled backwards a trifle tawdrily--being fine and somewhat sapless; he had produced a box, containing a cream carnation with suitable greenery; he had flicked himself with a silk handkerchief, and had dusted his patent-leather shoes; lastly, he had pursed up his lips and surveyed himself with great satisfaction in the mirror. Then he was ready to be presented.
"Couldn't forget today, Lettie. Wouldn't have let old Pluto and all the bunch of 'em keep me away. I skimmed here like a 'Brra-ave' on my snow-shoes, like Hiawatha coming to Minnehaha."
"Ah--that was famine," said Marie softly.
"And this is a feast, a gorgeous feast, Miss Tempest," he said, bowing to Marie, who laughed.
"You have brought some music?" asked mother.
"Wish I was Orpheus," he said, uttering his words with exaggerated enunciation, a trick he had caught from his singing, I suppose.
"I see you're in full feather, Tempest. Is she kind as she is fair?"
"Who?"
Will pursed up his smooth sensuous face that looked as if it had never needed shaving. Lettie went out with Marie, hearing the bell ring.
"She's an houri!" exclaimed William. "Gad, I'm almost done for! She's a lotus-blossom!--But is that your ring she's wearing, Tempest?"
"Keep off," said Leslie.
"And don't be a fool," said I.
"Oh, 0-0-Oh!" drawled Will, "so we must look the other way! 'Le bel homme sans merci'!"
He sighed profoundly, and ran his fingers through his hair, keeping one eye on himself in the mirror as he did so. Then he adjusted his rings and went to the piano. At first he only splashed about brilliantly. Then he sorted the music, and took a volume of Tchaikovsky's songs. He began the long opening of one song, was unsatisfied, and found another, a serenade of Don Juan. Then at last he began to sing.
His voice is a beautiful tenor, softer, more mellow, less strong and brassy than Leslie's. Now it was raised that it might be heard upstairs. As the melting gush poured forth, the door opened. William softened his tones, and sang 'dolce', but he did not glance round.
"Rapture!--Choir of Angels," exclaimed Alice, clasping her hands and gazing up at the lintel of the door like a sainted virgin.
"Persephone--Europa--" murmured Madie, at her side, getting tangled in her mythology.
Alice pressed her clasped hands against her bosom in ecstasy as the notes rose higher.
"Hold me, Madie, or I shall rush to extinction in the arms of this siren." She clung to Madie. The song finished, and Will turned round.
"Take it calmly, Miss Gall," he said. "I hope you're not hit too badly."
"Oh--how can you say 'take it calmly'--how can the savage beast be calm!"
"I'm sorry for you," said Will.
"You are the cause of my trouble, dear boy," replied Alice. "I never thought you'd come," said Madie.
"Skimmed here like an Indian 'brra-ave'," said Will. "Like Hiawatha towards Minnehaha. I knew you were coming."
"You know," simpered Madie, "it gave me quite a flutter when I heard the piano. It is a year since I saw you. How did you get here?"
"I came on snow-shoes," said he. "Real Indian--came from Canada--they're just ripping."
"Oh--Aw-w do go and put them on and show us--do!--do perform for us, Billy dear!" cried Alice.
"Out in the cold and driving sleet--no fear," said he, and he turned to talk to Madie. Alice sat chatting with Mother. Soon Tom Smith came, and took a seat next to Marie; and sat quietly looking over his spectacles with his sharp brown eyes, full of scorn for William, full of misgiving for Leslie and Lettie.
Shortly after, George and Emily came in. They were rather nervous. When they had changed their clogs, and Emily had taken off her brown-paper leggings, and he his leather ones, they were not anxious to go into the drawing-room. I was surprised--and so was Emily--to see that he had put on dancing shoes.
Emily, ruddy from the cold air, was wearing a wine-coloured dress, which suited her luxurious beauty. George's clothes were well made--it was a point on which he was particular, being somewhat self-conscious. He wore a jacket and a dark bow. The other men were in evening dress.
We took them into the drawing-room, where the lamp was not lighted, and the glow of the fire was becoming evident in the dusk. We had taken up the carpet--the floor was all polished--and some of the furniture was taken away--so that the room looked large and ample.
There was general hand-shaking, and the newcomers were seated near the fire. First Mother talked to them--then the candles were lighted at the piano, and Will played to us. He is an exquisite pianist, full of refinement and poetry. It is astonishing, and it is a fact. Mother went out to attend to the tea, and after a while, Lettie crossed over to Emily and George, and, drawing up a low chair, sat down to talk to them. Leslie stood in the window bay, looking out on the lawn where the snow grew bluer and bluer and the sky almost purple.
Lettie put her hands on Emily's lap, and said softly, "Look--do you like it?"
"What! Engaged?" exclaimed Emily.
"I am of age, you see," said Lettie.
"It is a beauty, isn't it? Let me try it on, will you? Yes, I've never had a ring. There, it won't go over my knuckle-end--I thought not. Aren't my hands red?--it's the cold--yes, it's too small for me. I do like it."
George sat watching the play of the four hands in his sister's lap,
two hands moving so white and fascinating in the twilight, the other two rather red, with rather large bones, looking so nervous, almost hysterical. The ring played between the four hands, giving an occasional flash from the twilight or candlelight.
"You must congratulate me," she said, in a very low voice, and two of us knew she spoke to him.
"Ah, yes," said Emily, "I do."
"And you?" she said, turning to him, who was silent. "What do you want me to say?" he asked.
"Say what you like."
"Some time, when I've thought about it."
"Cold dinners!" laughed Lettie, awaking Alice's old sarcasm at his slowness.
"What?" he exclaimed, looking up suddenly at her taunt. She knew she was playing false; she put the ring on her finger and went across the room to Leslie, laying her arm over his shoulder, and leaning her head against him, murmuring softly to him. He, poor fellow, was delighted with her, for she did not display her fondness often.
We went in to tea. The yellow shaded lamp shone softly over the table, where Christmas roses spread wide open among some dark-coloured leaves; where the china and silver and the coloured dishes shone delightfully. We were all very gay and bright; who could be otherwise, seated round a well-laid table, with young company, and the snow outside? George felt awkward when he noticed his hands over the table, but for the rest, we enjoyed ourselves exceedingly.
The conversation veered inevitably to marriage.
"But what have you to say about it, Mr Smith?" asked little Marie.
"Nothing yet," replied he in his peculiar grating voice. "My marriage is in the unanalysed solution of the future--when I've done the analysis I'll tell you."
"But what do you think about it--?"
"Do you remember, Lettie," said Will Bancroft, "that little red-haired girl who was in our year at college? She has just married old Craven out of Physic's department."
"I wish her joy of it!" said Lettie; "Wasn't she an old flame of yours?"
"Among the rest," he replied, smiling. "Don't you remember you were one of them; you had your day."
"What a joke that was!" exclaimed Lettie. "We used to go in the arboretum at dinner-time. You lasted half one autumn. Do you remember when we gave a concert, you and I, and Frank Wishaw, in the small lecture theatre?"