The Time Spirit: A Romantic Tale by J. C. Snaith - HTML preview

CHAPTER XIII
 EVERYTHING FOR THE BEST

I

JACK glanced at the watch on his wrist. By the mercy of Allah there were fifty minutes yet. A whole fifty minutes yet to stay in heaven. And then....

Suddenly hard set by thoughts which had no right to be there he looked up and away in the direction of Bridport House.

“There they go!” He gave the pavement artist a little prod.

“Who—goes—where?”

“Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie.”

True enough! Sublimely unconscious of two pairs of amused eyes upon them, Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie were passing slowly by. As usual at that hour they were riding their tall horses. And they became their tall horses so remarkably well that they might have belonged to the train of Artemis. In the saddle, at any rate, Cousin Blanche and Cousin Marjorie looked hard to beat.

“Now for your precious theory,” said the Tenderfoot with malice. “Here’s your chance to hunt for the positive.”

She fixed her eyes on the slowly-receding enemy. “Well, in the first place, my dear, those old-fashioned habits become them marvelously.”

“No use for that sort of kit myself,” growled the hostile critic.

“Then they are so much a part of their horses they might be female centaurs.”

“And about as amusing as female centaurs.”

“But we are hunting for the positive, aren’t we? We are trying ‘to affirm something,’ as Alf would say. Now those two and their horses are far grander works of art than anything that ever came out of Greece or Italy. It has taken millions of years to produce them and they are so perfect in their way that one wonders how they ever came to be produced at all.”

“You might say that of anything or anybody—if you come to think of it.”

“Of course. I agree. And so would Alf. And that’s why universal love and admiration are so proper and natural.”

“Wait till you are really up against ’em and then you’ll see.”

“The more I’m up against them—if I am to be up against them—the more I shall love and admire them, not for what they are perhaps, but for what they might be if only they’d take a little trouble over their parts in this wonderful Play, which I’m quite sure the Author meant to be so very much finer than we silly amateurs ever give it a chance of becoming.”

The sunshade began to scratch the gravel again, while Jack Dinneford sighed over its owner’s crude philosophy.

Presently he began to realize again that they were in a fool’s paradise. Surely they were taking a climb down too much for granted. Why should these hardshells give in so inexplicably? It was in the nature of things for a flaw to lurk under all this fair-seeming. Only fools would ever build on such a sublime pretense as Bridport House. Was it rational to expect its denizens to behave like ordinary sensible human people?

In order to sidetrack his fears he turned again to watch the labors of the pavement artist. The tip of a gifted sunshade was doing wonderful things with the gravel. It had just evolved a chef d’œuvre, which however was only apparent to the eye of faith.

“Who do you imagine that is?”

Imagination was certainly needed. It would not have been possible otherwise to see a resemblance to anything human.

“That is his lamp,” hovered the sunshade above this masterpiece. “That is his truncheon. Those are his boots. That is his overcoat. And there we have his helmet. And there,” the tip of the sunshade traced slowly, “the noble profile of the greatest dear in existence.”

At that he was bound to own that had the Park gravel been more sensitive, here would have been a living portrait of Sergeant Kelly of the X Division. And even if it was only visible to the eye of faith it was pretext enough for honest laughter.

“No one knows her hist’ry,
She is wrapt in myst’ry,”

he quoted softly.

It was quite true. Various zephyrs and divers little birds had whispered the romantic fact in their ears long ago. But what did it matter? It was but one plume more in the cap of the Magician, a mere detail in that pageant of which Mystery itself is the last expression.

There may have been wisdom in their laughter. At any rate it seemed to give them a kind of Dutch courage for the ordeal that was now so near. But a rather forced gayety did not long continue; it was soon merged in a further piece of news which Jack suddenly remembered.

“By the way,” he announced, “there’s more trouble at Bridport House. My cousins, I hear, are going to live with Aunt Charlotte.”

She was obliged to ask why, but he had to own that it was beyond his power to answer her question. All that he knew was that his cousins were “at serious outs” with their father, and that according to recent information they were on the point of leaving the paternal roof.

The Tenderfoot, however, in professing a diplomatic ignorance of a matter to which he had indiscreetly referred, had only pulled up in the nick of time. He knew rather more than he said. “There’s a violent quarrel about Mrs. Sanderson,” was at the tip of his tongue, but happily he saw in time that such words in such circumstances would be pure folly. Nay, it was folly to have drifted into these perilous waters at all; and in the face of a suddenly awakened curiosity, he proceeded at once to steer the talk into a safer channel.

“We mustn’t build castles,” she sighed, and the
 light fringed her eyelids

After all, that was not very difficult. As they sat under the whispering leaves, gazing a little wistfully at the pomp of a summer’s day, heaven was so near that it hardly seemed rational to be giving a thought to those who dwelt in spheres less halcyon. The previous evening at six o’clock they had parted for ever in this very spot. But a swift turn of Fate’s shuttle had changed everything.

As now they tried to understand what had occurred, it was hard to keep from building castles. An absurd old planet might prove, after all, such a wonderful place. When you are four-and-twenty and in love, and the crooked path suddenly turns to the straight, and the future is seen through magic vistas just ahead, surprising things are apt to arise, take shape, acquire a hue, a meaning. The light that never was on sea or land is quite likely to be found south of the Marble Arch and north of Hyde Park Corner. They were on the threshold of a very wonderful world. What gifts were theirs! Health, youth, a high-hearted joy in existence, here were the keys of heaven. Life was what they chose to make it.

Poetry herself clothed them as with a garment. But not for a moment must they forget, even amid the dangerous joys of a rather wild reaction, that all might be illusion. Voices whispered from the leaves that as yet they were not out of the wood. Jack, it is true, was fain to believe that the latest act of Bridport House implied a very real change of heart. For all that, as the hour of Fate drew on, he could not stifle a miserable feeling of nervousness. And Mary, too, in spite of a proud surface gayety, felt faint within. The dream was far too good to be true.

“Of course it’s a climb down,” said Jack, whistling to keep up his courage. “Do you suppose Uncle Albert would have sent for us like this unless he meant to chuck up the sponge?”

“We mustn’t build castles,” she sighed, and the light fringed her eyelids.

“We’ll build ’em as high as the moon!”

She shook a whimsical head. And then the goad of youth drove her to a smile of perilous happiness. All sorts of subtle fears were lurking in that good, shrewd brain of hers. They were on the verge of chaos and Old Night—yet she had not the heart to rebuke him.

The dread hour of one-thirty was now so very near, that it was idle to disguise the fact that one at least of the two people on the Park chairs had grown extremely unhappy. Mary was quite sure that a horrible ordeal was going to prove too much for her. It was hardly less than madness to have yielded in the way she had. But qualms were useless, fears were vain. There was only one thing to do. She must set her teeth and go and face the music.

II

Punctual to the minute they were at the solemn portals of Bridport House. And then as a servant in a grotesque livery piloted them across an expanse of rather pretentious hall into a somber room, full of grandiose decoration and Victorian furniture, a grand fighting spirit suddenly rose in one whose need of it was sore. Mary was quaking in her shoes, yet the joy of battle came upon her in the queerest, most unexpected way. It was as if a magician had waved his wand and all the paltry emotions of the past hour were dispelled. Perhaps it was that deep down in her slept an Amazon. Or a clear conscience may have inspired her; at any rate she had no need to reproach herself just then. She could look the whole world in the face. Her attitude had been sensitively correct; if other people did not appreciate that simple fact, so much the worse for other people!

A long five minutes they waited in that large and dismal room, a slight flush of anxiety upon their faces, their hearts beating a little wildly, no doubt. In all that time not a word passed between them; the tension was almost more than they could bear. If Fate had kept till the last one final scurvy trick it would be too horrible! And then suddenly, in the midst of this grim thought, an old man came hobbling painfully in. Both were struck at once by the look of him. There was something in the bearing, in the manner, in the play of the rather exquisite face which spoke to them intimately. For a reason deeply obscure, which Jack and Mary were very far from comprehending, the welcome he gave her was quite touching. It was full of a simple kindness, spontaneous, unstudied, oddly caressing.

Jack, amazed not a little by the heart-on-the-sleeve attitude of this old barbarian, could only ascribe it to the desire of a finished man of the world to put the best possible face on an impossible matter. Yet, somehow, that cynical view did not seem to cover the facts of the case.

In a way that hardly belonged to a tyrant and an autocrat, the old man took one of the girl’s hands into the keeping of his poor enfeebled ones, and was still holding it when his sister and his eldest daughter came into the room. Both ladies were firm in the belief that this was the most disagreeable moment of their lives. Still it was their nature to meet things heroically, and they now proceeded to do so.

The picture their minds had already formed of this girl was not a pleasing one. But as far as Lady Wargrave was concerned it was shattered almost instantly. The likeness between father and daughter was amazing. She had, in quite a remarkable degree, the look of noblesse the world had always admired in him, with which, however, he had signally failed to endow the daughters of the first marriage. But there was far more than a superficial likeness to shatter preconceived ideas. Another, more virile strain was hers. The mettle of the pasture, the breath of the moorland, had given her a look of purpose and fire, even if the grace of the salon had yielded much of its own peculiar amenity. Whatever else she might be, the youngest daughter of the House of Dinneford was a personality of a rare but vivid kind.

As soon as the Duke realized that the ladies had entered the room, he gravely presented the girl, but with a touch of chivalry that she simply adored in him. The little note of homage melted in the oddest way the half-fierce constraint with which she turned instinctively to meet these enemies. Sarah bowed rather coldly, but Aunt Charlotte came forward at once with a proffered hand.

“My sister,” murmured his Grace. In his eyes was a certain humor and perhaps a spice of malice.

For a moment speech was impossible. The girl looked slowly from one to the other, and then suddenly it came upon her that these people were old and hard hit. She felt a curious revulsion of feeling. Their surrender was unconditional, and woman’s sixth sense told her what their thoughts must be. They must be suffering horribly. All at once the fight went out of her.

In a fashion rather odd, with almost the naïveté of a child, she turned aside in a deadly fight with tears, that she managed to screw back into her eyes.

It was left to Lady Wargrave to break a silence which threatened to become bitterly embarrassing: “Come over here and talk to me,” she said with a directness the girl was quick to obey.

Lady Wargrave led the way to a couple of empty chairs near a window, Mary following with a kind sick timidity she had never felt before, and a heart that beat convulsively. What could the old dragon have to say to her? Even now she half expected a talon.

The Dowager pointed to a chair, sat down grimly, and then said abruptly, “I hope you will be happy.”

There was something in the words that threw the girl into momentary confusion. The fact was a miracle had occurred and her bewilderment was seeking a reason for it. Only one explanation came to her, and it was that these great powers, rather than suffer Jack to depart, were ready to make the best of his fiancée. There was not much comfort in the theory, but no other was feasible. Place and power, it seemed, were caught in meshes of their own weaving. And yet bruised in pride as she was by a situation for which she was not to blame, the rather splendid bearing of these old hard-bitten warriors touched a chivalry far down. Deep called unto deep. At the unexpected words of the griffin, she had again to screw the tears back into her eyes. And then she said in a voice that seemed to be stifling her, “It’s not my fault. I didn’t know.... I didn’t want this.... If you will.... If you will help me I will do my best ... not ... to....”

The eyes of the Dowager searched her right through.

“No, you are not to blame,” she said judicially. “We are all going to help you,” and then in a voice which cracked in the middle she added, to her own surprise, “my dear.”

III

At luncheon the girl had the place of honor at the right hand of his Grace. It was a rather chastened assembly. The arrival of the cuckoo in the nest was a fitting climax to Muriel. Both episodes were felt to be buffets of a wholly undeserved severity; they might even be said to have shaken a sublime edifice to its base. Not for a moment had the collective wisdom of the Dinneford ladies connived at Muriel’s Breadth, nor had it in any way countenanced the absurd fellow Jack in his infatuation for a chorus girl.

Simple justice, however, compelled these stern critics to own that Bridport’s future duchess had come as a rather agreeable surprise. She differed so much from the person they had expected. They couldn’t deny that she was a personality. Moreover, there was a force, a distinction that might hope to mold and even harmonize with her place in the table of precedence. So good were her manners that the subtle air of the great world might one day be hers.

It amazed them to see the effect she had already had on their fastidious and difficult parent. He was talking to her of men and events and times past in a way he had not talked for years. He discoursed of the great ones of his youth, the singers and dancers of the ’Sixties when he was at the Embassy at Paris and ginger was hot in the mouth. Then by a process of gradation he went on to tell his old stories of Gladstone and Dizzy, to discuss books and politics and the pictures in the Uffizi, and to cap with tales of his own travels an occasional brief anecdote, wittily told, of her own tours in America and South Africa.

Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie could not help feeling hostile, yet it was clear that this remarkable girl had put an enchantment on their father. While he talked to her the table, the room, the people in it seemed to pass beyond his ken. Candor bred the thought that it was not to be wondered at, her way of listening was so delightful. The beautiful head—it hurt them to admit the fact yet there it was—bent towards him in a kind of loving reverence, changing each phrase of his into something rare and memorable by a receptivity whose only wish was to give pleasure to a poor old man struggling with a basin of arrowroot—that sight and the sense of a presence alive in every nerve, a voice of pure music, and a face incapable of evil: was it surprising that a spell was cast upon their sire? Take her as one would she was a real natural force—an original upon whom the fairies had lavished many gifts.

The family chieftain was renewing his youth, but only Charlotte understood why. In common with the rest of the world, Sarah, Blanche, and Marjorie were to be kept in ignorance of the truth—for the present at any rate. But already the Dinneford ladies had taken further counsel of the sage of Hill Street, and upon her advice all thought of secession from Bridport House had been given up. Reflection had convinced Lady Wargrave, now in possession of the light, that the true interests of the Family would be served by silence and submission. After all, Mrs. Sanderson was an old and valued retainer; her integrity was beyond question; her devotion and single-minded regard for their father’s welfare ought not to be forgotten!

Taking all the circumstances into account, it was in Aunt Charlotte’s opinion, a case for humble pie. And to do the ladies no injustice they were ready to consume it gracefully. Jack, after all, was quite a distant connection; and what was even more important in their sight, the girl herself was presentable. Their father, at any rate, made no secret of the fact that he found her sympathetic. Nay, he was even a little carried away by her. As the meal went on, his manner towards her almost verged upon affection; and at the end, in open defiance of his doctors, he went to the length of wishing her happiness in a glass of famous Madeira.

IV

At five minutes past three Mary and Jack awoke with a start from a dream fantasy, to find themselves breathing the ampler air of Park Lane. Even then they could not quite grasp the meaning of all that had happened. Unconditional surrender indeed, yet so sudden, so causeless, so mysterious. Why had this strange thing come to be?

But just now they were not in a mood to question the inscrutable wisdom of the good God. Behind the curtain of appearances the sun shone more bravely than ever, the dust of July lay a shade lighter on the trees across the road. No, there was really no need for Providence to give an account of itself at that moment; the nature of things called for no analysis.

“I’ve fallen in love with that old man.”

Even if Jack heard the words he was not in a position to offer comment upon them, for he was in the act of summoning a taxi from the lee of the Park railings.

“Where shall we go?”

“To the moon and back again?”

And why not! It is not very far to the moon if you get hold of the right kind of vehicle. But MX 54,906 proved on inspection hardly to be adapted for the purpose; at any rate Jack came to the conclusion after a mere glance at the tires that Hampton Court, via Richmond and Elysium, would meet the case equally well.

V

Meanwhile his Grace in his favorite chair in his favorite room, was doing his best to envisage “The Outlook for Democracy,” with the aid of the Quarterly Review. Of a sudden the clock on the chimneypiece chimed a quarter past three, and he laid down an article perfect alike in form, taste and scholarship, with the air of one who expects something to happen.

Something did happen. In almost the same moment, the housekeeper, Mrs. Sanderson, came into the room. She carried a tray containing a glass, a spoon, and a bottle.

His Grace shook his head. “I’ve had a glass of Madeira.”

“How could you be so unwise!” It was the gentle, half-smiling tone of a mother who reproves a very dear but willful child.

She measured the draught inflexibly and he drank it like a man. As he returned the glass to the tray he sighed a little, and then with a whimsical glance upwards he said slowly and softly, “She has her mother’s brains.”

As she looked down upon him, he saw the color darkening a strong and beautiful face. “And her father’s eyes.” The warmth of her voice almost stifled the words.

For nearly a minute there was so deep a silence that even the clock on the chimneypiece was lost in it. And then very slowly and gently, as one who thinks aloud, he said, “I am trying to remember those words of Milton.” He closed his eyes with a smile of perplexity. “Ah, yes, yes. I have them now:

“‘He for God only, she for God in him.’”

END