A Lame Dog's Diary

  CHAPTER IX.

  Mrs. Fielden's motor car is still a matter of absorbing interest to theinhabitants of Stowel. When it breaks down, as it frequently does,there is always a crowd round it immediately. Our friends andneighbours in the town have an ingenuous respect for anything thatcosts a great deal of money, and they are quite congratulatory to anyone who has been for a drive with Mrs. Fielden, and they talk about themotor and its owner, and who has seen it, and who has not, over theirafternoon tea.

  The motor car is a noisy, evil-smelling vehicle of somewhat rowdyappearance, which leaves a trail behind it as of a smoking lamp. Itdrew up at our door to-day, and kicked and snorted impatiently until wewere ready to get into it. The next moment, with a final angry snortand plunge, it started down the drive and whizzed through the villageand up the hill on the other side without pausing to take breath.

  "The worst of a motor car is," said Mrs. Fielden, "that one getsthrough everything so quickly. In London I get my shopping done inabout a quarter of an hour, and then I take a turn round Regent's Park,and I find I have put away about ten minutes, so I fly down toRichmond, and even then it is too early to go to tea anywhere. Talkingof tea--isn't everybody very hungry? I am really ravenous--and that isthe motor car's fault, too. Because one has learned to want one'smeals by the amount of business one has got through, and when one hasdone a whole afternoon's work in three-quarters of an hour, one isdying for tea, just as if it were five o'clock."

  "I have always been ravenous since I was in South Africa," said one ofMrs. Fielden's colonels, who had driven over in the motor car to takecare of her and to bring us back. "I don't know when I shall satisfythe pangs of hunger which I acquired on the veldt."

  "I think I shall call on Mr. Ellicomb," said Mrs. Fielden. "I believehe has excellent afternoon teas, and he is making me an enamel boxwhich I should like to see."

  Ellicomb said once or twice, as we sat in his picturesque house withits blue china and old brass work, that he only wished we had given himwarning that we were coming. We found him with an apron on, working athis enamels; and when he had displayed this work to us, he showed ushis bookbinding, and his fretwork-carving, and his type-writingmachine. Afterwards we had tea, which Ellicomb poured very deftly intohis blue cups, having first warmed the teapot and the cups, and flickedaway one or two imaginary specks of dirt from the plates with whatappeared to be a small lace-trimmed dinner-napkin.

  Mrs. Fielden began to admire his majolica ware, of which she knowsnothing whatever, and Ellicomb took her for a tour round his rooms, andasked her to guess the original uses of his drain-tiles and spittoonsand copper ham-pots. Afterwards we were taken into a very smallconservatory adjoining his house, where every plant was displayed to usin turn; and we were subsequently shown his coal-cellar and his larderand his ash-pit before we were allowed to return to the house.

  Ellicomb smiles more often than any other man I know, and he had onlyone epithet to apply to his house. "It's so cosy," he said. "Isn't itcosy?" "I do think it's a cosy little place."

  Mrs. Fielden was charmed with everything, and deprecated the idea thatshe might consider the little house very small after Stanby.

  "I always think," she said, "that I should much prefer to live in aplace like this, and then the people who come to see one really wouldpay one a little attention, instead of talking of nothing but thehouse."

  The Colonel laughed and apologized.

  "Oh, I know I'm not half good enough for Stanby," said Mrs. Fielden,smiling. "But I really can't help it! I was brought up in a housewith hot and cold water upstairs, and white paint, and I suppose Inever can really appreciate anything else."

  The dignity of Mrs. Fielden's surroundings has never affected her inthe very smallest degree, and I do not believe that the traditions ofthe house interest her in the very least. I am quite aware that sheasked me to write out the history of Lady Hylda, for instance, simplybecause it is part of her charm always to ask one to do something forher. It is the fashion to wait upon Mrs. Fielden's behests, and itwould appear almost an unkindness to her many men friends if she didnot give them some commission to do when they go up to town. Hermanner of thanking one for a service is almost as pretty as her mannerof asking for it, and I am really not surprised that she is the mostpopular woman in the country-side.

  Mr. Ellicomb said ecstatically that the dim twilight at Stanby was oneof the most impressive things he knew; and he added, with a shudder,that he always expected to see ghosts there.

  Mrs. Fielden does not believe in ghosts except on those occasions whenshe has some one very charming to defend her, and she spends herevenings in a cheerful white boudoir in the modern part of the house.

  Having admired all the majolica plates in the house, and havingcompletely bewildered her host by showing an interest in him and hispossessions one minute, and complete indifference the next, Mrs.Fielden fell into one of those little silences which are socharacteristic of her. Her silence is one of the most provoking thingsabout her. She has been witty and amusing the moment before, and thenrelapses into silence in the most natural manner possible, and her facetakes a certain wistful look, and a man wonders how he can comfort heror whether he has offended her.

  "I think we ought to go now," she said, coming out of this wistfulreverie like a child awaking from sleep. "Is every one ready?"

  We got into the motor car again, and sped onwards along the smoothwhite road. Every turn made a picture which I suppose an artist wouldlove to paint. There were red-roofed cottages smothered in orchards ofplum blossom, and simple palings set across gaps in the hedges, withgardens beyond filled with spring flowers. Now a labourer, gray-coatedand bent with age, passed by like a flash, as he tramped slowlyhomewards from his work; and some school children, loitering to pickprimroses under a hedge, dropped their slates and satchels in theditch, and called to each other to take care, while they clung togetherand shouted "Hurrah!" as we passed.

  The park gates of Stanby are lion guarded and of stone, and then a longcarriage-drive takes one up to the house. The park round the old graypile was starred with primroses, and ghost-like little lambs werecapering noiselessly in the fields. The scent of wallflowers was blownto us from a great brown ribbon of them round the walls of thelodgekeeper's house as we swung through the gates. The sheep in thepark, bleating to their young, drew away from the palings where theyhad been rubbing their woolly sides, and made off to the farther cornerof the field, and Mrs. Fielden's gray pony in the paddock tossed hisheels in a vindictive fashion at us from a distance of fifty yards ormore. And the motor car drew up with a jerk at the great doors of thehouse.

  Stanby is not quite so large now as it originally was, immense thoughthe house undoubtedly is, and only some ruins on the north side showwhere the chapel used to stand. A mound within the ruin's walls marksthe resting-place of Hylda--Hylda, whose history I wrote out at therequest of Mrs. Fielden, and sent to her; but I don't suppose she hasever read it.

  The evening of our arrival at Stanby it pleased Mrs. Fielden to put onan old-fashioned dress of stiffest brocade, which she had found in someold chest in the house. She wore a high comb of pearls in her darkhair, and she looked a very regal and beautiful figure in the greatdining-hall and drawing-rooms of her house. She did not play Bridge,as the others did, but sat on a carved high-backed chair near my sofa,and told me many of the old stories of the house, and asked me to writedown some of them for her.

  "I sent you the story of Hylda more than a week ago," I said, "and Idon't suppose you ever read it."

  "I did read it," said Mrs. Fielden gently, "and I liked it very much."

  She had put on an unapproachable mood with her beautiful stiff brocadegown, and the gentleness of her voice seemed to heighten rather than tolessen her royalty. The radiance and the holiday air, which are Mrs.Fielden's by divine right, were not dimmed to-night so much astransformed. There was a subtle aromatic scent of dried rose-leavesclinging to the old brocade dress, and about herself a sort
offragrance of old-world dignity and beauty. The pearl comb in her hairmade her look taller than usual.

  A deerhound got up from his place by the fire and came and laid hishead on her lap, and some footmen in old-fashioned bright blue liveriescame in to arrange the card-tables and hand round coffee. Everythingwas stately and magnificent in the house.

  "And you pretend," I said, "that you do nothing; yet probably the wholeordering of this house devolves upon you."

  "I am quite a domestic person sometimes," said Mrs. Fielden.

  "It is rather bewildering," I said, "to find that you are everything inturn."

  And the next morning she wore a short blue skirt, with a silver beltround her waist, and spent the morning punting on the lake with AnthonyCrawshay.

  "I hope I look after you all properly," she said at lunch-time, in acertain charming deprecating way she has of speaking sometimes. "Therereally are punts, and horses, and motor cars, and things, if you wantthem. Will you all order what you like?"

  Each man at the table then offered to take Mrs. Fielden for a ride, ora drive, or a row, and not one of them could be quite sure that she hadrefused to go with him.

  "I want to go for a turn in the garden and talk about books," she saidto me as we left the dining-room. And then I found that I was sittingin her boudoir having coffee with her, and that every one else wasexcluded from the room--how it was done I have not the slightestidea--and that by-and-by we left it by the open French windows, andwere strolling in the garden in the spring sunshine. The garden, withits high walls, is sheltered from every wind that blows, and there arewide garden-seats in it painted white, and every border was bright withearly spring flowers.

  "I call this my Grove of Academe," said Mrs. Fielden.

  "Why?"

  "Because I think it has a nice classical sound; and it is here I comewith my friends and discuss metaphysics."

  "It seems to me you have a great many friends," I said.

  "I was thinking," said Mrs. Fielden thoughtfully, "of adding another totheir number."

  "I have a constitutional dislike to worshipping in crowded temples," Isaid.

  Mrs. Fielden became silent.

  It would be forging a sword against themselves did men allow women toknow what a powerful weapon silence is. A soft answer turneth awaywrath, but a woman's silence makes a man's heart cry out: "My dear, didI hurt you? Forgive me!"

  At the end of five minutes or so of silence Mrs. Fielden turned towardsme and smiled, and the garden seemed to be filled with her. There wasno room for anything else but herself and that bewildering smile shegave me.

  "How is the diary getting on?" she said.

  "The diary," I answered, "continues to record our godly, righteous, andsober life----"

  "Oh," said Mrs. Fielden quickly, "don't you think it is possible to betoo good sometimes? That is really what I wanted to say to you--Ibrought you into the garden to ask you that."

  "It is an interesting suggestion," I remarked, "and I think we ought togive it to Eliza Jamieson for one of her discussions."

  "I do not wish to discuss it with Eliza Jamieson," said Mrs. Fielden,"but with you. You know there really is a great danger in becoming toogood; for although I do not think that you would grow wings, or hearpassing bells, or anything of that sort, still you might become alittle dull, might you not?"

  "I don't think it would be possible to become duller than I am," Ireplied. "You have more than once told me that I am not amusing. Solong as my sister is not aware of the fact, I do not in the least mindadmitting that I find every day most horribly tedious. I suppose Ishall get accustomed to it in time, but I don't enjoy being an invalid."

  "You have watched the Jamiesons making flannel petticoats for thepoor," went on Mrs. Fielden, "and you have had the Curate to tea, andyou have been to the Taylors' party, and if it does not kill you, I amsure you will become like people in those books which one gives asprizes to choir-boys."

  "One so often mistakes monotony for virtue," I said. "I believe I wasbeginning to think that there was almost a merit in getting accustomedto a sofa and a crutch."

  "Oh, but it is a sin!" exclaimed Mrs. Fielden. "It is a sin to getaccustomed to anything that is disagreeable. But that is what comes ofstudying philosophy!"

  "I suppose reasoning is always bad," I said humbly.

  "Yes," said Mrs. Fielden; "and it is so unnatural, too."

  "I heard a man say the other day," I said, "that solitude is alwayssententious. And he pointed out that foreigners, who are never alone,base their ethics upon conduct; but that English people, who simply donot understand the life of the boulevards and cafes and familyaffection, sit apart in the solitude of their garrets or studies, anddecide that the right or the wrong of a thing consists in what theythink about it."

  Then I recollected that this garden was the Grove of Academe, and thatit was here that Mrs. Fielden discussed metaphysics with all herfriends. "What cure do you propose?" I said shortly.

  "Why not go to London for a little while and enjoy yourselves?" saidMrs. Fielden. "Put off the conventionalities of Stowel, as the MissTraceys do, and do something amusing and gay."

  "Did you ever hear of the man in the Bastille," I said, "who had beenin prison so long that when he was offered his freedom he elected toremain where he was?"

  "But you must break out of the Bastille long before it comes to that!"said Mrs. Fielden. "Couldn't you do something exciting? I am surenothing else will restore your moral tone."

  "How is it to be done?" I asked. "We must recognize the limitations ofour environment."

  "You are going to be philosophical," said Mrs. Fielden; "you are goingto quote Protagoras, or Pythagoras, or Plato, which will not convinceme in the least. Philosophy tries to make people believe that thingsare exactly the reverse of what they are. I don't think that altersthe sum total of things very much. Because, by the time that you haveproved that all agreeable things are disagreeable, and all unpleasantthings are pleasant, you are in exactly the same position as you werebefore. I dare say it fills up people's time to turn everything upsidedown and stand everything on its head, but it is not amusing."

  "What do you want me to do?" I asked.

  "Couldn't you enjoy yourselves a little?" said Mrs. Fielden, putting onher wistful voice.

  "As we are in the Grove of Academe, let me point out that the pursuitof pleasure for its own sake was one of the corrupt forms of a decadentepicureanism," I said sternly.

  "I am quite sure it was," said Mrs. Fielden, smiling; "but we weretalking about your visit to London, were we not?"

  And so I knew that the thing was settled, and I thought it very oddthat Palestrina and I had not thought of the plan before.

  "As it is getting cold," said Mrs. Fielden, "I am going to be aperipatetic philosopher," and she rose from the seat where we weresitting and gave me her hand to help me up, for I am still awkward withmy crutch, and then let me lean on her arm as we walked up and down thebroad gravel pathway.

  "Don't you think," she began, "that it is a great waste of opportunitynot to be wild and wicked sometimes, when one is very good?"

  "I am afraid I do not quite follow you."

  "What I mean is, what is the good of filling up years of curates andTaylors and flannel petticoats, unless you are going to kick them allover some day, and have a good time. You see, if you and Palestrinawere not so good you would always have to pretend to be tremendouslycircumspect. But it seems such waste of goodness not to be badsometimes."

  "Your argument being," I said, "that an honest man may sometimes steala horse?"

  "Yes, that is what I mean," said Mrs. Fielden delightedly.

  "A dangerous doctrine, and one----"

  "Not Plato, please," said Mrs. Fielden.

  ... It ended in our taking a flat in London for some weeks. It was asmall dwelling, with an over-dressed little drawing-room, and a reddining-room, and a roomy cupboard for a smoking-room.

  "Remember, Palestrina," I said t
o my sister when we settled down, "thatwe are under strict orders to live a very rapid and go-ahead life whilewe are in London. Can you suggest anything very rowdy that a crippledman with a crutch and a tendency to chills and malaria might undertake?"

  "We might give a supper-party," said Palestrina brilliantly, "and havelong-stemmed champagne-glasses, and perhaps cook something in achafing-dish. I was reading a novel the other day in which the badcharacters did this. I made a note of it at the time, meaning to askyou why it should be fast to cook things in a chafing-dish or to havelong-stemmed champagne-glasses?"

  When the evening came Mrs. Fielden dined with us, and she andPalestrina employed themselves after dinner in rehearsing how theyshould behave. My sister said in her low, gurgling voice: "I think Ishall sit on the sofa with my arms spread out on the cushions on eitherside of me, and I shall thump them sometimes, as the adventuress in aplay does."

  "Or you might be singing at the piano," said Mrs. Fielden, "and thenwhen the door opens you could toss the music aside and sail across theroom, and give your left hand to whoever comes in first, and say, 'Whata bore! you have come!' or something rude of that sort."

  Mrs. Fielden's spirit of fun inspired my quiet sister to-night, and thetwo women, began masquerading in a way that was sufficiently amusing toa sick man lying on a sofa.

  "Or you might continue playing the piano," Mrs. Fielden went on, "afterany one has been announced. I notice that that is very often done,especially in books written by the hero himself in the first person.'She did not leave the piano as I entered, but continued playingsoftly, her white hands gliding dreamily over the keys.'"

  "I shall do my best," Palestrina answered; "and I thought of callingall our guests by their Christian names, if only I could recollect whatthey are."

  "Nicknames would be better," said Mrs. Fielden. "We ought to havefound out, I think, something about this matter before the night of theparty."

  "What shall we do till they arrive?" said Palestrina.

  "We must read newspapers and periodicals," Mrs. Fielden replied, "andthen fling them down on the carpet. There is something about seeingnewspapers on a carpet which is certainly untidy, but has a distinctlyBacchanalian touch about it."

  "I wish I had a red tea-gown," sighed my sister.

  "Or a white one trimmed with some costly furs," said Mrs. Fielden."Almost any tea-gown would do."

  "One thing I will have!" she exclaimed, starting in an energetic mannerto her feet. "I'll turn all the lamps low, and cover them withpink-paper shades. Where is the crinkly paper and some ribbon?"

  After that we sat in a rose twilight so dim that we couldn't even readthe evening newspaper.

  "I don't think they need have come quite so early," I said, as thefirst ring was heard at the door-bell.

  Mrs. Fielden had insisted upon it that one actress at least should beasked. "What is a supper-party without an actress?" she had said. AndMrs. Travers at present acting in Mr. Pinero's new play, was the firstto arrive.

  "I wonder if you know any of our friends who are coming to-night?" saidPalestrina. "We expect Squash Bosanquet and Dickie Fenwick."Palestrina then broke down, because we had no idea if these two men hadever answered to these names in their lives. Also she blushed, whichspoilt it all, and Mrs. Fielden began to smile.

  Mrs. Travers came to the party in a very simple black evening gown, andBosanquet and Charles Fenwick came almost immediately afterwards.Anthony Crawshay was amongst the friends whom we had invited, because,Palestrina said, as we did not seem to know many fast people, we hadbetter have some one who was sporting. There was an artist whom weconsidered Bohemian because he wore his hair long, but he disappointedus by coming in goloshes.

  Altogether we were eight at supper. There was an attractive menu, andthe long-stemmed champagne-glasses were felt to be a distinct challengeto quiet behaviour.

  Palestrina thought that if she were going to be really fast she hadbetter talk about divorce, and I heard her ask Anthony in a diffidentwhisper if he had read any divorce cases lately. Anthony lookedstartled, and in his loud voice exclaimed, "Egad! I hope _you_haven't!" Palestrina coloured with confusion, and I frowned heavily ather, which made it worse.

  Mrs. Travers seemed to have taken it into her head that Palestrina wasphilanthropic, and she talked a great deal about factory girls, andBosanquet talked about methylated ether. What it was that provoked hisremarks on this subject I cannot now recall, nor why he discussed itwithout intermission almost throughout the entire evening, but I have adistinct recollection of hearing him dinning out the phrase "methylatedether."

  It was, I think, the dullest party that even Palestrina and I have evergiven, and I blame Mrs. Fielden for this. Mrs. Fielden refused to bethe centre of the room. She became an onlooker at the party which shehad planned, and she smiled affectionately at us both, and watched, Ithink, to see how the party would go off.

  The long-stemmed champagne-glasses were hardly used. Several peoplesaid to me jocosely, "How is South Africa?" and to this I could thinkof no more suitable reply than, "It's all right." We longed for eventhe Pirate Boy to make a little disturbance. Palestrina whispered tome that she thought I might throw a piece of bread at some one, or dosomething. But the action she suggested seemed to me to be in toodaring contrast to the general tone of the evening; and really, as Imurmured back to her, there seemed to be very little point in throwingmy bread at a guest who had done me no harm.

  "I wish," she said to me when we returned to the drawing-room, "that Iknew some daring little French songs. In books the girl always singsdaring little French songs, and afterwards every one begins to bevulgar and delightful, like those people in 'The Christian.' I thinkI'll light a cigarette." She did so, and choked a little, and thenwondered if Thomas would like her to smoke, and threw the cigaretteinto the fire. The Bohemian, who had travelled considerably, asked fora map, and told us of his last year's journeyings, tracing out theroute of them for us on the map with a pin.

  And Mrs. Fielden was smiling all the time.

  "I suppose," I said to my sister when the last guest had departed, andwe sat together in the pink light of the drawing-room before going tobed--"I suppose we carry about with us an atmosphere of slowness whichit is impossible to penetrate. You are engaged to Thomas, and I am aninvalid----"

  "But in books," said Palestrina wistfully, "men talk about all sorts ofthings to girls whether they happen to be engaged or not, and they askthem to go to see galleries with them next day, or squeeze their hands.Of course, I should hate it if they did so, but still one ratherexpected it. To-night," she said regretfully, "no one talked to me ofanything but Thomas."

  "Charles Fenwick," I said, "who used to be considered amusing, hasbecome simply idiotic since he married. He gave me an exact account ofhis little boy's sayings; he copied the way he asked for sugar, likethe chirruping of a bird. You won't believe me, I know, but he put outhis lips and chirped."

  "I remember being positively warned against him," said Palestrina,"when I used to go to dances in London." She sighed, and added, "Doyou think Mrs. Fielden enjoyed it?"

  "I think Mrs. Fielden was distinctly amused," I replied.

  "Do you think," said Palestrina, still in a disappointed tone, "thatthe men would have been more--more larky if we had been alone? Mrs.Fielden always looks so beautiful and dresses so well that I think sheimpresses people too much, and they are all trying to talk to herinstead of making a row."

  "I think we may as well go to bed," I said.

  Palestrina rose slowly, and went towards the bell to ring for my man tohelp me. She lingered for a moment by my chair. "Yet books say thatmen require so much keeping in order," she said sadly. "I wish peoplewould not write about what does not occur."