II
"You look tired--I will take you up to your room. Vicky has so many onher hands."
The American rose slowly, but with a flash of gratitude in her eyes.
"I am tired, and I don't know a soul here. I almost wish Lady Victoriahad not asked me down, although I have wanted all my life to visit oneof the ancestral homes of England."
"Oh, you'll get over that, and used to us," said Miss Thangue, smiling."Your staircase is behind this door, and we can slip out withoutattracting attention. They are all gabbling over Jack's election."
She opened a door in a corner of the hall where the newly arrived guestswere gathered about Lady Victoria's tea-table, and led the way up a widedark and slippery stair. After the first landing the light was stronger,and the walls were, to an inch, covered with portraits and landscapes,the effect almost as careless as if the big open space were alumber-room.
"Are they _all_ old masters?" asked Miss Isabel Otis, politely, her eyesroving over the dark canvases.
"Oh no; the masters are down-stairs. I'll show them to you to-morrow.These are not bad, though."
"What a lot of ancestors to have!"
"Oh, you'll find them all over the house. These are not Gwynnes. Thishouse came to Lord Strathland through the female line. It will be Jack'seventually--one way or another; and Jack must be more like the Eltonsthan the Gwynnes--unless, indeed, he is like his American ancestors."She turned her soft non-committal eyes on the stranger. "You are histhirty-first cousin, are you not?"
"Not quite so remote. But why do you call him Jack? He is known to fameas Elton Gwynne."
"His name is John Elton Cecil Gwynne. We are given to the nickname thesedays--to the abbreviation in general."
They were walking down a corridor, and Miss Thangue was peering throughher lorgnette at the cards on the doors.
"I know you are on this side. I wrote your name myself. But exactlywhere--ah, here it is."
She opened the door of a square room with large roses on the whitewall-paper, and fine old mahogany furniture. The sofa and chairs andwindows were covered with a chintz in harmony with the walls. "It ischeerful, don't you think so?" asked Miss Thangue, drawing one of thestraight curtains aside. "Vicky had all the rooms done over, and I chosethe designs. She is quite intolerantly modern, and holds that whenwall-paper and chintz can save an old house from looking like asarcophagus, why not have them? That bell-cord connects with your maid'sroom--"
"I have no maid. I am not well off at all. I wonder Lady Victoriathought it worth while to ask me down."
"Dear me, how odd! May I sit with you a little while? I never before sawa poor American girl."
"I'll be only too grateful if you will stay with me as long as you can.I am not exactly poor. I have a ranch near Rosewater, some property andan old house in San Francisco. All that makes me comfortable, but nomore; and there are so many terribly rich American girls!"
"There are, indeed!" Miss Thangue sat forward with the frank curiosityof the Englishwoman when inspecting a foreign specimen. But hercuriosity was kindly, for she was still a girl at heart, interested inother girls. Miss Otis, looking at her blond, virginal face, took forgranted that she was under thirty, and owed her weight to a fondness forsweets and sauces.
"How can you travel in Europe if you are not rich?" demanded Flora. "Inever dare venture over except as the guest of some more fortunatefriend."
"Are _you_ poor?" asked Miss Otis, her eye arrested by the smart littleafternoon frock of lace and chiffon and crepe-de-chine.
"Oh, horribly. But then we all are, over here. If it were not for theJews and the Americans we'd have to make our own clothes. Thedressmakers never could afford to give us credit."
"They all looked very wealthy down-stairs."
"Smart, rather. This happens to be a set that knows how to dress. Manydon't. You know something of it yourself," she added, with a franksurvey of the girl's well-cut travelling-frock and small hat. "Lots ofAmericans don't, if you don't mind my saying so--for all theirreputation. I went to a dinner at an American Legation once and two ofyour countrywomen came with their hats on. They had brought letters tothe Minister, and he hadn't taken the precaution of looking them over.He was terribly mortified, poor thing."
She related the anecdote with philanthropic intention, but Miss Otis puther half-rejected doubts to flight by remarking, lightly:
"We don't do that even in Rosewater."
"Where _is_ Rosewater? What a jolly name!"
"It is in northern California, not far from Lady Victoria's ranch andwhat is left of ours. I have spent most of my life in or near it--myfather was a lawyer."
"Do tell me about yourself!" Like most amiable spinsters, she was asinterested in the suggestive stranger as in a new novel. She sank with asigh of comfort into the depths of the chair. "May I smoke? Are youshocked?"
Then she colored apprehensively, fearing that her doubt might beconstrued as an insult to Rosewater.
But Miss Otis met it with her first smile. "Oh no," she replied. "Willyou give me one? Mine are in my trunk and they haven't brought it up."She took a cigarette from the gayly tendered case and smoked for a fewmoments in silence.
"I don't know why you should be interested in my history," she said atlast in her slow cold voice, so strikingly devoid of the nationalanimation. "It has been far too uneventful. I have an adopted sister,six years older than myself, who married twelve years ago. Her husbandis an artist in San Francisco, rather a genius, so they are always poor.My mother died when I was little. After my sister married I took care ofmy father until I was twenty-one, when he died--four years ago. Thereare very good schools in Rosewater, particularly the High School. Myfather also taught me languages. He had a very fine library. But I donot believe this interests you. Doubtless you want to know something ofthe life with which Lady Victoria is so remotely connected."
"I am far more interested in you. Tell me whichever you like first. How_are_ you related, by-the-way?"
"Father used to draw our family tree whenever he had bronchitis inwinter. One of the most famous of the Spanish Californians was Don JoseArgueello. We are descended from one of his sons, who had a ranch of ahundred thousand acres in the south. When the Americans came, longafter, they robbed the Californians shamefully, but fortunately the sonof the Argueello that owned the ranch at the time married an Americangirl whose father bought up the mortgages. He left the property to hisonly grandchild, a girl, who married my great-grandfather, James Otis--anorthern rancher, born in Boston, and descended from old Sam Adams. Hehad two children, a boy and a girl, who inherited the northern andsouthern ranches in equal shares. The girl came over to England to visitan aunt who lived here, was presented at court, and straightway marrieda lord."
"Then you are second cousin to Vicky and third to Jack. I had no ideathe relationship was so close."
"It has seemed very remote to me ever since I laid eyes on Lady Victoriadown-stairs. Father made me promise, just before he died, that if ever Ivisited Europe I would look her up. Somehow I hadn't thought of herexcept as Elton Gwynne's mother, so I wrote to her without a qualm. ButI see that she is an individual."
"Rather! How self-contained our great London is, after all! Vicky hasbeen a beauty for over thirty years--to be sure her fame was at itsheight before you were old enough to be interested in such things. But Ishould have thought your father--"
"He must have known all about her. It comes back to me that he was veryproud of the connection for more than family reasons, but it made noimpression on me at the time."
"Proud?"
"Yes, he was rather a snob. He was very clever, but he fell out ofthings, and being able to dwell on his English and Spanish connectionsmeant a good deal to him. I can recite the family history backwards."
"But if he was clever, why on earth did he live in Rosewater? Surely hecould have practised in San Francisco?"
"He drank. When a man drinks he doesn't care much where he lives. Myfather had fads but no ambition."
"Great heaven!" exclaimed Miss Thangue, aghast at this tonelessfrankness. "You must have been glad to be rid of him!"
"I was fond of him, but his death was a great relief. He was a hardsteady secret drinker. I nursed him through several attacks of deliriumtremens, and was always in fear that he would get out and disgrace us.Sometimes he did, although when I saw the worst coming I generallymanaged to get him over to the ranch. Of course it tied me down. Irarely even visited my sister. My father hated San Francisco. He hadpractised there in his youth, promised great things, had plenty ofmoney. The time came--" She shrugged her shoulders, although without theslightest change of expression. "I never lived my own life until hedied, but I have lived it ever since."
"And the first thing you did with your liberty was to come to Europe,"said Miss Thangue, with a sympathetic smile.
"Of course. My father and uncle had got rid of most of their propertylong before they died; there isn't an acre left of our share in thesouthern estate. But my uncle died six years ago and willed me all thatremained of the northern, as well as some land in the poorer quarter ofSan Francisco. I could not touch the principal during the lifetime of myfather, but we lived on the ranch and I managed it and was entitled, bythe terms of the will, to what I could make it yield. When I was finallymistress of my fortunes I left it in charge of an old servant, soldenough to pay off the mortgage on a property in San Francisco Iinherited from my mother, and came to Europe with a personally conductedtour."
Miss Thangue shuddered. The phrase unrolled a vista of commonness andattrition. Miss Otis continued, calmly: "That is the way I should feelnow. But it was my only chance then; or rather I had seen enough ofbusiness to avoid making mistakes when I could. In that way I learnedthe ropes. After we had been rushed about for six weeks and I could nothave told you whether the Pitti Palace was in Italy or France, and thecelebrated frescos were one vast pink smudge, the party returned and Iwandered on by myself. I spent a winter in Paris, and months inBrittany, Austria, Italy, Spain--Munich." It was here that her eventones left their register for a second. "I studied the languages, theliteratures, the peoples, music, pictures. In Munich"--this time Flora'salert ear detected no vibration--"and also in Rome, I saw something ofsociety. It was a life full of freedom, and I shall never cease to begrateful for it, but I must go home soon and look after my affairs. Ileft England to the last, like the best things of the banquet. I hopeLady Victoria--I shall never be able to call her Cousin Victoria, as Iremember father did--will be nice to me. I have seen a good deal oflife, but have never had a real _girl's_ time, and I should love it.Besides, I have a lot of new frocks."
"I am sure Vicky will be nice to you. If she isn't, I'll find some onethat will be. You might marry Jack if you had money enough. We are dyingto get him married--and a California cousin--it would be too romantic.And you would hold your own anywhere!"
But Miss Otis expanded a fine nostril. "I have no desire to marry. Ifeel as if I had had enough of men to last until I am forty--what withthose I have buried, and others I have known at home and in Europe--tosay nothing of the executors of my uncle's will, who did not approve ofmy coming abroad alone and delayed the settlement of the estate as longas possible. And now I have had too much liberty! Besides, I have seen'Jack's' picture--two years ago, in a magazine. I will confess I hadsome romantic notions about him: imagined him very dashing, bold,handsome; insolent, if you like--the traditional young aristocrat,glorified by genius. He looks like Uncle Hiram."
"Is that who Jack looks like? We never could make out. No, Jack is notmuch to look at, except when he wakes up--I have seen him quitetransfigured on the platform. But he is as insolent as you could wish,and has a superb confidence in himself that his enemies call by the mostoffensive names. But he is a dear, in spite of all, and I quite adorehim."
"Perhaps; but life, myself, so many mysteries and problems, upon whichI have barely turned a dark lantern as yet, interest me far more thanany man could, unless he were superlative. I have had my disillusions."
She lit another cigarette, and for a few moments looked silently out ofthe window at the darkening woods beyond the lawn. Flora Thangueregarded her with a swelling interest. It was a type of which she had noknowledge, evidently not a common type even in the hypothetical land ofthe free; she had visited New York and Newport and known many Americans.True, she had never met the provincial type before, but she doubted ifRosewater had produced a crop of Isabel Otises. What was at the sourceof that cold-blooded frankness, so different from the English fashion ofalternately speaking out and knowing nothing? Was she merely anegoist--it ran in the family--or did it conceal much that she had nointention of revealing? Her very beauty was of a type rarely seen in theAmerica of to-day, prevalent as it may have been a hundred years ago:she looked like a feminine edition of the first group of Americanstatesmen--although black Spanish hair was pulled carelessly over thehigh forehead, a heavy coil encircling the head in a long upward sweep,and the half-dreaming, half-penetrating regard of the light-blue eyeswas softened by a heavy growth of lash. The eyebrows were low and thick,the upper lip was sensitive, quivering sometimes as she talked, but thelower was firm and full. It was the brow, the profile, the strength ofcharacter expressed, the general seriousness of the fine face and head,that made her look like a reversion to the type that gave birth to anation. But Miss Thangue had seen too much of the world to judge any oneby his inherited shell. She had observed many Americans with fine headsand bulging brows concealing practically nothing, insignificant Germanheads whose intellects had terrified her, the romantic Spanish eyes ofthe most unromantic people in Europe, English pride and an icy mask ofbreeding guarding from the casual eye the most lawless and ribaldinstincts. Therefore had she no intention of taking this new specimen ontrust, much as she liked her, and she speculated upon her possibilitiesin the friendly silence that had fallen between them. Life is composedof individuals and their choruses, and Flora, humorously admitting thefact, was far more interested in others than in herself.
Only in the dense silky masses of her black hair and the almost stolidabsence of gesture did the American betray her Spanish ancestry; but howmuch of the Spaniard, subtle, patient, vengeful, treacherous, mighty inpassive resistance and cunning, lay behind those deep fearless blue eyesof her New England ancestors? Or was she not Spanish at all, but merelya higher type of American--or wholly herself? Would Jack, susceptibleand passionate, a worshipper of beauty down among the roots of hisabnormal cleverness and egoism, fall in love with her? And what then?The girl, with her strong stern profile against the shadows, her lowbrooding brows, might wield a power far more dangerous than that of theaverage fascinating woman, if her will marshalled the rest of herfaculties and drove them in a straight line; although the luminous skinas polished as ivory, the low full curves and slow graceful movements ofher figure added a potency that Flora, always an amused observer of men,would have been the last to ignore. Victoria, high-bred, fastidious,mocking, yet unmistakably passionate and possibly insurgent, was ofthat mint of woman about whom men had gone mad since the world began.But this girl, who might be as cold as the moon, or not, looked, in anycase, capable of clasping a man's throat with her strong little hand,and gently turning his head from east to west. At this point MissThangue rose impatiently and rang a bell. Jack's career was almost atthe flood. No woman could submerge his intellect and stupendousinterests for more than a moment.
"Order lights and have your trunks brought up," she said. "I will sendone of the housemaids to help you dress. My room is over on the otherside of the house--go through that door opposite, and down a corridoruntil you come to another long hall and staircase like the one on thisside. You will find my name on the door. Knock at about a quarter-pasteight and I will go down with you. Vicky may be in an angelic humor andshe may not. It depends mainly upon whether Jack condescends to turn up.I suppose you know all about him; it would hardly do for you to face himand his mother if you didn't. He has travelled quite exhaustively in thecolonies and given us some of the
most informing literature on thatsubject that we have. He was out in Africa when the Boer War broke out,and once before in India, when there was fighting, volunteered bothtimes and did brilliant service. He has no end of medals with clasps.Then he suddenly went in for politics and announced himself anuncompromising Liberal. It nearly killed his grandfather--LordStrathland--for Jack is the one person on earth that he loves as much ashimself; and it has alienated many of his relatives on both sides--whichgave him one more chance to win against terrific odds; he enjoys thatsort of thing. He had been in but two years when there was a generalelection, and he has only just got back--he contested three divisionsbefore he won his seat this time, and he had almost as hard a fightbefore. Vicky, who hates the Gwynnes, with the exception of Lord Zeal,the heir, besides believing in Jack as you would in Solomon, hassteadily upheld him; and she is a powerful ally--not only one of themost distinguished of the political women, but still turns heads whenshe chooses, and her game is generally in the cabinet preserves, when itis not in the diplomatic. I must run. Put on your most fetching gown.Julia Kaye, a detestable little parvenu, is here. Jack is in love withher and she has chosen another. It will be a cousinly duty to consolehim. Then you can turn him over to some one else. Ta, ta!" Her lastwords floated back from the depths of the corridor; a clock was strikingand she had pattered off hastily.