THE dining-room at the Hall was gloomy but grand. The walls dark, save where they were relieved by scrolls of gilding and ornamental panels, in which were set some full-length portraits of doubtful merit, and more than doubtful antiquity. It was divided, like the drawing-room, by pillars, not of marble, though they assumed that virtue, leaving a darker strait at each end, intended, no doubt, to throw up the brilliancy of the larger central room, in which stood the dinner-table with all its lights. And this might have been the case had there been a large and brilliant party round the table, and abundance of light, with reflections of silver and crystal, as probably the builder of the house intended should be the case. But now the Swinfords, mother and son, alone at a round table of no great size, with a shaded lamp suspended over it, furnished little more than an oasis in the great desert of darkness. There was, indeed, a large fire blazing, against which Mrs. Swinford sat, shivering from time to time, notwithstanding the mild softness of the April night. And the table was adorned with a great bouquet of flowers, dazzling white azaleas, and the other brilliant children of the spring who come in such a triumph over the footsteps of winter. Mrs. Swinford was dressed, as she always was, elaborately, and like a picture, in dark velvet, just showing a little colour here and there where the light caught it—and a great deal of lace. She had a lace scarf fastened over her head, fantastically indeed, and scarcely enough to have been allowed by Mrs. Plowden to pass muster as a cap, but still softening the age of the face, and the tower of the abundant dark hair piled unnaturally upon her head. She might have been a dethroned and indignant queen. She, and the flowers, and Leo’s more youthful face, gave a centre to the dark solemnity around, through which the servants moved noiseless.
‘You have been in the village,’ he said; ‘I hear, making calls.’ But this was not till the lengthened and elaborate dinner—of which both ate fastidiously, with many criticisms and remarks little complimentary to a very ambitious and highly-paid cook—was done.
‘I am glad you take so much interest in my movements, Leo, as to know.’
‘Of course I know. I saw the carriage for one thing; and besides——’
‘You, I suppose, were paying visits, too?’
‘Not much,’ he said, with an embarrassed smile. ‘I saw little Miss Grey about some of our schemes; but you don’t give Miss Grey the light of your countenance.’
‘I have never noticed any but the principal people—who, in case of an election or any public matter, might be useful.’
‘I don’t see what an election would be to us.’
‘Nor I, Leo. But it is part of our hereditary policy to keep the matter open, should you or any one of the family be of a different opinion.’
‘My dear mother,’ he said, with a laugh, ‘don’t you think this hereditary policy is overdone a little? I am afraid I thought myself a person of much greater importance than I prove to be.’
‘I don’t admit it,’ she said; ‘but is that why you are taking so much trouble for the canaille?’
‘No,’ said the young man, growing red. ‘I take trouble for the canaille, as you call them—our poor neighbours, Miss Grey says—because I thought I was somehow responsible for them.’
‘Responsible!’
‘I should have been,’ he said firmly, ‘had I been their seigneur; which I suppose in my folly was something like what I thought: now that I know they are only our poor neighbours——’
‘Well: you think you may at least get the benefit in popularity,’ she said, with a laugh.
‘My dear mother, as we shall never think alike on these points, don’t you think we had better choose another subject?’
‘The subject of my calls?’ said Mrs. Swinford. ‘But how, Leo, about your own? You find a wonderful attraction in the village, I understand.’
‘You know, I think, pretty well what attraction I find in the village,’ he said coldly; ‘I have made no secret of my doings there.’
‘Perhaps not; but you have dwelt little upon a certain cottage. One knows how a man can be exceedingly frank in order to conceal.’
‘There is no certain cottage,’ he said, with indignation. ‘If you mean Lady William’s, I certainly go there with pleasure, and often, and will continue to do so. In such a matter I may surely be allowed to judge for myself.’
‘Why do you call her by that ridiculous name? It makes me laugh—if it didn’t make me furious!’
‘What has she done to you?’ said Leo. ‘I thought you were fond of her. It has always been represented so to me. What has she done, a woman not very powerful or prosperous certainly, not coming in your way, to make you hate her so?’
‘Not coming in my way!—But what do you know of my history or my feelings? She is already again coming in my way—with you.’
‘That is nonsense, mother. No, I know little of your history, perhaps, except what you have told me; and as you say, excessive frankness——’
‘You forget, I think, Leo, that you are speaking to your mother?’
‘I never wish to do so,’ he said. ‘Believe me, mother, there is nothing I desire so much as to make you feel my anxiety, my strong desire, to do what will please you——’
‘By bringing me to this miserable country, for example, in the middle of winter,’ she cried.
Leo sprang to his feet, and began to pace about the room. ‘It is my country,’ he said. ‘If I have duties anywhere, they must be here. But I have never wished to bind you. Why, if you hate England so, should you stay here? We have always been together; but sooner than you should suffer, leave me, mother. I will bear my loneliness as best I can.’
‘Your loneliness! You would not be long lonely. You would find plenty to cheer you; whereas I am in a different position. Nay: come back with me. You have seen exactly how things are. If you want to be charitable, nothing is more easy. James Plowden, or if you prefer it, his sister,’ she paused, with a harsh laugh, ‘will do everything you want in that way. Come back to the life we know; come back to the surroundings you are accustomed to. You—you can’t, any more than I, be happy here. Where are your courses, your clubs, your theatres? There is nothing, nothing to amuse you. Leo, you know you would be more amused, you would be more happy, as well as I.’
‘But this,’ he said, ‘is my proper sphere.’
‘Grand seigneur again,’ she cried, with a laugh; ‘who takes up that view now? Your great-grandfather bought this estate; it is then four generations in the family. And you think that feudal! Ah! be kind to the canaille if you will; they will cheat you and hate you, but never mind. Leo, if you keep me here, and I am tempted beyond my powers, and do harm—harm, do you hear?—murder even—the guilt will not be on me, but you!’
‘Mother, do you think there is any use in scaring yourself by such big words? Murder! Whom will you kill, for example? You who faint if you prick yourself and the blood runs! I am not afraid of you.’
‘There are more ways of murder than one. I will take no life.’
‘No, I don’t suppose so,’ he said, with a laugh; ‘but if you think you will die of ennui, which, I allow, is a danger, my dear mother, your appartement is still open. I will make every arrangement. Pardon me if I feel it is my duty to live in my own house; but why should that affect you?’
‘If I said, Leo, that I could not live without you, that you are my only child——’
‘Mother,’ he said, ‘we both understand perfectly what that means. When I was a child you were very fond of me. I was part of your ensemble. You gave me everything I wanted. Now, it is not your fault nor mine that I am a man of thirty-five, not even in my first youth. If I am ever to be good for anything, I have no time to lose; but you have arrived at an age——’
‘Ah!’ she said, ‘I have arrived at an age when I am no longer good for anything, neither the pleasures nor the duties. It is fit that it should be you who say that to me.’
‘I say that you have arrived at an age when everything should be made easy to you, and pleasant, mother; and that you should live, without consideration of others, as suits you best.’
‘And you?’ she said with a smile; ‘as suits you best? Is not that what you mean?’
‘It was not what I meant; but perhaps it is true,’ he said.
Then there was a silence, during which Leo stood by the high mantelpiece, leaning upon it, looking down upon the bright blaze of the fire, yet furtively watching his mother’s face.
‘I know who has done all this,’ she said rapidly and very low, as if speaking to herself. ‘I know who has done it. It was a caprice—a fancy that would have lasted a moment; a trick of his father’s blood. But I know who has done it—who has stamped it in. I know—I know! for her own advantage as before: to put me under her foot as before. But let her take care, let her take care!’ she cried, suddenly raising her voice, ‘J’ai des griffes, moi!’
‘Mother, for heaven’s sake what do you mean? Who is to take care?’
‘A tigress, that’s what men call a woman in respect to her children, Leo. I said that a tigress has claws, that was all.’
‘There is no question, surely,’ he said, looking at her; at her soft lace, her warm velvet, her carefully-dressed hair, her air of luxury and delicacy, ‘of claws or anything of the kind here.’
She burst out into a laugh, and rose, turning her face to the fire.
‘No; at the worst of little pins to prick, little pins that don’t draw blood, as you say, but still make a wound. Now, Leo, though we quarrel, you will not refuse to give me your arm upstairs?’
The drawing-room was also illuminated by a blazing fire, and groups of candles placed about which made it very bright, unlike the gloom of the room below; bright, yet with all manner of soft shades and contrivances to temper the light. It was full of flowers and sweetness, full of luxury. Mrs. Swinford paused and looked round with a satirical smile. ‘Charming!’ she said; ‘and a little more or less feudal, grand seigneur, as we have been saying, with all that is novel and delightful added; but vacant, Leo. Were we in Paris, one would come, and then another and another, to talk, or chat round the fire; to bring the news, to discuss everything, spiritual, gay. These words have no meaning here.’
‘I fully feel it for you, mother. It is very dull; no one worth your trouble to talk to. I understand perfectly. But why not, then, fill the house?’
‘For what end? There is not even shooting to tempt them at this time of the year. Nothing to amuse. It is not the time. In the autumn, perhaps, if I survive it so long——’
‘Then there is London,’ said Leo; ‘it is not exactly a village, though I believe it is a happy slang to call it so. Let us go there.’
‘London!’ Mrs. Swinford contracted her brows. ‘I have forgotten all my friends, or they have forgotten me. I don’t go to Court——’
‘Why not, mother?’
She looked at him with a gleam of fury in her eyes, and a sort of wild laugh, which was the most unlike mirth of anything Leo had ever heard. ‘Perhaps,’ she said, ‘Emily Plowden would present me once again—whitewashed, after all these years.’
‘What do you mean by whitewashed, mother?’ There was something then in the look with which he faced her, insisting with a flush on his face, and a look of determination for which she was not prepared.
‘What do I mean by whitewashed? I mean’—— she paused a little, looking at him with a malicious devil in her eye, as if undecided what she should say. But his look subdued her, though it was a strange thing for any look of Leo to do. It was a look of alarm yet dismay, excited and almost fierce, yet struck with sudden fear. Her eyes sank before his.
‘I don’t know why you should look at me so. I mean that I am forgotten—as well may be, in all these years.’
She had placed herself in the deep chair covered with brocade, which had been carefully placed for her at the exact angle from the fire and the lights which she liked. The table beside it was covered with the evening papers; the French papers, arrived by the evening post; one or two yellow novels, an English book, and all the little paraphernalia which ladies of her period affect. She sat there, lying back in her luxurious chair, looking at her son with defiance in her eyes; defiance, and yet a certain uneasiness underneath. And he looked at her, uneasily too, with a doubt, yet no wish to question her further. She broke this silence by a sudden shrill burst of laughter, clapping her delicate hands together.
‘Could one give a greater pleasure to one’s protégée of old?—to the little girl of whom one has made a lady? A lady of rank, if you please, according to all the clowns. Emily shall take me; she shall patronise me; she shall be my condescending superior. Mrs. Swinford, on her return to England, by Lady William—bah! the jest is too good.’
Her laugh rang out shrill into the silent space about them. Leo, for his part, stood before her as grave as a judge. ‘I don’t see anything so wonderful about it,’ he said.
‘What, not that Emily! Emily, the country girl, not so good as your governess, not much better than my maid! Your governess? Why, for the moment, that was Artémise.’
‘Mother, I must warn you that you are speaking of a lady for whom not only I, but every one here has the most exalted esteem.’
‘Ah!’ she cried, still laughing, ‘so Artémise tells me. The most exalted! She has thrown dust in everybody’s eyes.’
‘And your Artémise—I give you warning I doubt that woman.’
‘Ah! perhaps you will forbid her the house.’
‘You know very well that the house is free to all you please to see here. For myself I shall certainly let her know that her presence is not agreeable to me.’
‘Well, Leo,’ said his mother, ‘that will do for a token between us. When you turn my friend, my near relation, the only creature whom I care for here, to the door—I shall understand that I have notice to quit, and that you want no more with me.’
‘What folly!’ he cried, ‘when you know I would as soon try to interfere with the constitution of the earth as to lift a finger against any of your friends.’
‘Or consort with any of my enemies, Leo.’
‘Certainly, no, if I knew who they were; but I know of none here at least.’
She laughed again; then, turning to her table, took up the Figaro which lay there. ‘Enough, enough,’ she said. ‘Enough, Leo; a quarrel is a fearful joy; but one wearies even of that at the last.’
Leo stood for a time in the same attitude, while she opened her paper and began to read. Then he made a turn or two round the room, stopping here and there to look at a picture, though he neither saw nor cared what it was. Finally, when this wandering had lasted for, perhaps, five minutes without any sign on the part of his mother, he went quietly out of the room and downstairs.
She did not move a finger until the sound of his steps had died away; then she put down the paper, and listened for the closing of his door. It came at last with a dull echo going through the silent house. That sound brought many memories to the mind of the lady left alone in the great room, which would have held a crowd. She remembered the times without number when his father had retired so, and gave vent to a low laugh of scorn. And then she remembered other things, and her face grew grave. The paper fell rustling at her feet. She cast a look round her upon the room with its flowers, its lights, its cosy atmosphere, which was a triumph of skill and care, just so warm, and no more. The comfort and the luxury were perfect; there was nothing that could be done to increase the beauty, the ease, the grace, and completeness of all about her; and there she sat like a queen—alone.