CHAPTER VII

MRS. WILLIAM ORMISTON SACRIFICES A WINE-GLASS TO FATE

Mrs. St. Quentin's health became increasingly fragile that autumn; and

the weight of the sorrow which had fallen upon Brockhurst bowed her to

the earth. Her desire was to go to Lady Calmady, wrap her about with

tenderness and strengthen her in patience. But, though the spirit was

willing, the flesh was weak. Daily she assured Mademoiselle de

Mirancourt that she was better, that she would be able to start for

England in the course of the next week. Yet day after day, week after

week passed by, and still the two ladies lingered in the pretty

apartment of the rue de Rennes. Day by day, and week by week, moreover,

the elder lady grew more feeble, left her bed later in the morning,

sought it earlier at night, finally resigned the attempt to leave it at

all. The keepers of Lucia St. Quentin's house of life trembled,

desire--even of gentle ministries--began to fail, the sound of the

grinding was low. Yet neither she, nor her lifelong friend, nor her

doctor, nor the few intimate acquaintances who were still privileged to

visit her, admitted that she would never go forth on that journey to

England at all; but only on that quite other journey,--upon which

Richard Calmady had already set forth in the fulness of his

manhood,--and upon which, the manifold uncertainties of human existence

notwithstanding, we are, each one of us, so perfectly certain to set

forth at last. Silently they agreed with her to treat her increasing

weakness with delicate stoicism, to speak of it--if at all--merely as a

passing indisposition, so allowing no dreary, lamentable element to

obtrude itself. Sad Mrs. St. Quentin might be, bitterly sad at heart,

perplexed by the rather incomprehensible dealings of God with man. Yet,

to the end, she would remain charming, gently gay even, both out of

consideration for others and a fine self-respect, since she held it the

mark of a cowardly and ignoble nature to let anything squalid appear in

her attitude towards grief, old age, or death.

But Brockhurst she would never see again. The way was too great for

her. And so it came about that when Lady Calmady's child was born,

towards the end of the following March, no more staid and responsible

woman creature of her family was at hand to support her than that

lively, young lady, her brother, William Ormiston's wife.

Meanwhile, the parish of Sandyfield rejoiced. Thomas Caryll, the

rector, had caused the church bells to be rung immediately on receipt

of the good news; while he selected, as text for his Sunday morning

sermon, those words, usually reserved to another and somewhat greater

advent--"For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given." Good Mr.

Caryll was innocent of the remotest intention of profanity. But his

outlook was circumscribed, his desire to please abnormally large, and

his sense of relative values slight. While that Lady Calmady should

give birth to a son and heir was, after all, a matter of no small

moment--locally considered at all events.

Brockhurst House rejoiced also, yet it did so not without a measure of

trembling. For there had been twenty-four hours of acute anxiety

regarding Katherine Calmady. And even now, on the evening of the second

day, although Dr. Knott declared himself satisfied both as to her

condition and that of the baby, an air of mystery surrounded the large

state-bedroom,--where she lay, white and languid, slowly feeling her

way back to the ordinary conditions of existence,--and the nursery next

door. Mrs. Denny, who had taken possession by right divine of long and

devoted service, not only did not encourage, but positively repulsed

visitors. Her ladyship must not be disturbed. She, the nurse, the baby,

in turn, were sleeping. According to Denny the god of sleep reigned

supreme in those stately, white-paneled chambers, looking away, across

the valley and the long lines of the elm avenue, to the faint blue of

the chalk downs rising against the southern sky.

John Knott had driven over, for the second time that day, in the windy

March sunset. He fell in very readily with Mrs. Ormiston's suggestion

that he should remain to dinner. That young lady's spirits were

sensibly on the rise. It is true that she had wept copiously at

intervals while her sister-in-law's life appeared to be in

danger--keeping at the same time as far from the sick room as the ample

limits of Brockhurst House allowed, and wishing herself a thousand and

one times safe back in Paris, where her devoted and obedient husband

occupied a subordinate post at the English Embassy. But Mrs. Ormiston's

tears were as easily staunched as set flowing. And now, in her capacity

of hostess, with three gentlemen--or rather "two and a half, for you

can't," as she remarked, "count a brother-in-law for a whole one"--as

audience, she felt remarkably cheerful. She had been over to Newlands

during the afternoon, and insisted on Mary Cathcart returning with

her--Mrs. Ormiston was a Desmolyns. The Cathcarts are distantly

connected with that family. And, when the girl had protested that this

was hardly a suitable moment for a visit to Brockhurst, Charlotte

Ormiston had replied, with that hint of a brogue which gave her ready

speech its almost rollicking character:--

"But, my dear child, propriety demands it. I depart myself to-morrow.

And now that we're recovering our tone I daren't be left with such a

houseful of men on my hands any longer. While we were tearing our hair

over poor Kitty's possible demise, and agonising as to the uncertain

sex of the baby, it did not matter. But now even that dear creature,

Saint Julius, is beginning to pick up, and looks less as if his diet

was mouldy peas and his favourite plaything a cat-o'-nine-tails.

Scourge?--Yes, of course, but it's all the same in the application of

the instrument, you know. And then in your secret soul, Mary dear," she

added, not unkindly, "there's no denying it's far from obnoxious to you

to spend a trifle of time in the society of Roger."

Mrs. Ormiston carried her point. It may be stated, in passing, that

this sprightly, young matron was brilliantly pretty, though her facial

angle might be deemed too acute, leaving somewhat to be desired in the

matter of forehead and of chin. She was plump, graceful, and neat

waisted. Her skin was exquisitely white and fine, and a charming colour

flushed her cheeks under excitement. Her hair was always untidy, her

hairpins displaying abnormal activity in respect of escape and

independent action. Her eyes were round and very prominent, suggestive

of highly-polished, brown agates. She was not the least shy or averse

to attracting attention. She laughed much, and practised, as prelude to

her laughter, an impudently, coquettish, little stare. And finally, as

he sat on her right at dinner, her rattling talk and lightness of

calibre generally struck John Knott as rather cynically inadequate to

the demands made by her present position. Not that he underrated her

good nature or was insensible to her personal attractions. But the

doctor was in search of an able coadjutor just then, blessed with a

steady brain and a tongue skilled in tender diplomacies. For there were

trying things to be said and done, and he needed a woman of a fine

spirit to do and say them aright.

"Head like an eft," he said to himself, as course followed course, and,

while bandying compliments with her, he watched and listened. "As soon

set a harlequin to lead a forlorn hope. Well it's to be trusted her

husband's some use for her--that's more than I have anyhow, so the

sooner we see her off the premises the better. Suppose I shall have to

fall back on Ormiston. Bit of a rake, I expect, though in looks he is

so curiously like that beautiful, innocent, young thing upstairs.

Wonder how he'll take it? No mistake, it's a facer!"

Dr. Knott settled himself back squarely in his chair and pushed his

cheese-plate away from him, while his shaggy eyebrows drew together as

he fixed his eyes on the young man at the head of the table.

"A facer!" he repeated to himself. "Yes, the ancients knew what they

were about in these awkward matters. The modern conscience is

disastrously anaemic."

Although it looks on to the terrace, the dining-room at Brockhurst is

among the least cheerful of the living rooms. The tapestry with which

it is hung--representing French hunting scenes, each panel set in a

broad border pattern of birds, fruits and leaves, interspersed with

classic urns and medallions--is worked in neutral tints of brown, blue,

and gray. The chimneypiece, reaching the whole height of the wall, is

of liver-coloured marble. At the period in question, it was still the

fashion to dine at the modestly early hour of six; and, the spring

evenings being long, the curtains had been left undrawn, so that the

dying daylight without and the lamplight within contended rather

mournfully for mastery, while a wild, southeasterly wind, breaking in

gusts against the house front, sobbed at the casements and made a loose

pane, here and there, click and rattle.

And it was in the midst of a notably heavy gust, when dessert had been

served and the servants had left the room, that Captain Ormiston leaned

across the table and addressed his sister-in-law.

The young soldier had been somewhat gloomy and silent during dinner. He

was vaguely anxious about Lady Calmady. The news of Mrs. St. Quentin

was critical, and he cherished a very true affection for his

great-aunt. Had she not been his confidant ever since his first term at

Eton? Had she not, moreover, helped him on several occasions when

creditors displayed an incomprehensibly foolish pertinacity regarding

payment for goods supplied? He was burdened, too, by a prospective

sense of his own uncommon righteousness. For, during the past five

months, while he had been on leave at Brockhurst, assisting Katherine

to master the details of the very various business of the estate,

Ormiston had revised his position and decided on heroic measures of

reform. He would rid himself of debt, forswear expensive London habits,

and those many pleasant iniquities which every great city offers

liberally to such handsome, fine gentlemen as himself. He actually

proposed, just so soon as Katherine could conveniently spare him, to

decline from the splendid inactivity of the Guards, upon the hard work

of some line regiment under orders for foreign service. Ormiston was

quite affected by contemplation of his own good resolutions. He

appeared to himself in a really pathetic light. He would like to have

told Mary Cathcart all about it and have claimed her sympathy and

admiration. But then, she was just precisely the person he could not

tell, until the said resolutions had, in a degree at all events, passed

into accomplished fact! For--as not infrequently happens--it was not so

much a case of being off with the old love before being on with the

new; as being off with the intermediate loves, before being on with the

old one again. To announce his estimable future, was, by implication at

all events, to confess a not wholly estimable past. And so Roger

Ormiston, sitting that night at dinner beside the object of his best

and most honest affections, proved but poor company; and roused

himself, not without effort, to say to his sister-in-law:--

"It's about time to perform the ceremony of the evening, isn't it,

Ella, and drink that small boy's health?"

"By all manner of means. I'm all for the observance of ancient forms

and ceremonies. You can never be sure how much mayn't lie at the bottom

of them, and it's best to be on the safe side of the unseen powers.

You'll agree to that now, Mr. March, won't you?"--She took a grape skin

from between her neat teeth and flicked it out on to her plate.--"So,

for myself," she went on, "I curtsy nine times to the new moon, though

the repeated genuflexion is perniciously likely to give me the

backache; touch my hat in passing to the magpies; wish when I behold a

piebald; and bless my neighbour devoutly if he sneezes."

At the commencement of this harangue she met her brother-in-law's

rather depreciative scrutiny with her bold little stare--in his present

mood Ormiston found her vivacity tedious, though he was usually willing

enough to laugh at her extravagancies--then she whipped Julius in with

a side glance, and concluded with her round eyes set on Dr. Knott's

rough-hewn and weather-beaten countenance.

"I'm afraid you are disgracefully superstitious, Mrs. Ormiston," the

latter remarked.

She was a feather-headed chatterbox, he reflected; but her chatter

served to occupy the time. And the doctor was by no means anxious the

time should pass too rapidly. He felt slightly self-contemptuous; but

in good truth he would be glad to put away some few glasses of sound

port before administering the aforementioned facer to Captain Ormiston.

"Superstitious?" she returned. "Well I trust my superstition is not

chronic, but nicely intermittent like all the rest of my many virtues.

Charity begins at home, you know, and I would not like to keep any of

the poor, dear creatures on guard too long for fear of tiring them out.

But I give every one of them a turn, Dr. Knott, I assure you."

"And that's more than most of us do," he said, smiling rather savagely.

"The majority of my acquaintance have a handsome power of

self-restraint in the practice of virtue."

"And I'm the happy exception! Well, now that's an altogether pretty

speech," Mrs. Ormiston cried, laughing. "But to return to the matter in

hand, to this hero of a baby---- I dote on babies, Dr. Knott. I've one

of my own of six months old, and she's a charming child I assure you."

"I don't doubt that for an instant, having the honour of knowing her

mother. Couldn't be otherwise than charming if she tried," the doctor

said, reaching out his hand again to the decanter.

Mrs. Ormiston treated him to her little stare, and then looked round

the table, putting up one plump, bare arm as she pushed in a couple of

hairpins.

"Ah! but she's a real jewel of a child," she said audaciously. "She's

the comfort of my social existence. For she doesn't resemble me in the

least, and therefore my reputation's everlastingly safe, thanks to her.

Why, before the calumniating thought has had time to arise in your

mind, one look in that child's face will dissipate it, she's so

entirely the image of her father."

There was a momentary silence, but for the sobbing of the gale and

rattling of the casements. Then Captain Ormiston broke into a rather

loud laugh. Even if they sail near the wind, you must stand by the

women of your family.

"Come, that will do, I think, Ella," he said. "You won't beat that

triumphant bull in a hurry."

"But, my dear boy, so she is. Even at her present tender age, she's the

living picture of your brother William."

"Oh! poor William," Roger said hastily.

He turned to Mary Cathcart. The girl had blushed up to the roots of her

crisp, black hair. She did not clearly understand the other woman's

speech, nor did she wish to do so. She was admirably pure-minded. But

like all truly pure-minded persons, she carried a touchstone that made

her recoil, directly and instinctively, from that which was of doubtful

quality. The twinkle in Dr. Knott's gray eyes, as he sipped his port,

still more the tone of Roger Ormiston's laugh, she did understand

somehow. And this last jarred upon her cruelly. It opened the

flood-gates of doubt which Mary--like so many another woman in respect

of the man she loves--had striven very valiantly to keep shut. All

manner of hints as to his indiscretions, all manner of half-told tales

as to his debts, his extravagance, which rumour had conveyed to her

unwilling ears, seemed suddenly to gather weight and probability,

viewed in the moral light--so to speak--of that laugh. Great loves

mature and deepen under the action of sorrow and the necessity to

forgive; yet it is a shrewdly bitter moment, when the heart of either

man or woman first admits that the god of its idolatry has, after all,

feet of but very common clay. Her head erect, her eyes moist, Mary

turned to Julius March and asked him of the welfare of a certain

labourer's family that had lately migrated from Newlands to Sandyfield.

But Ormiston's voice broke in upon the inquiries with a determination

to claim her attention.

"Miss Cathcart," he said, "forgive my interrupting you. I can tell you

more about the Spratleys than March can. They're all right. Iles has

taken the man on as carter at the home-farm, and given the eldest boy a

job with the woodmen. I told him to do what he could for them as you

said you were interested in them. And now, please, I want you to drink

my small nephew's health."

The girl pushed forward her wine-glass without speaking; and as he

filled it Ormiston added in a lower tone:--

"He, at all events, unlike some of his relations, is guiltless of

foolish words or foolish actions. I don't pretend to share Ella's

superstitions, but some people's good wishes are very well worth

having."

Unwillingly Mary Cathcart raised her eyes. Her head was still carried a

little high and her cheeks were still glowing. Her god might not be of

pure gold throughout--such gods rarely are unfortunately--yet she was

aware she still found him a very worshipful kind of deity.

"Very well worth having," he repeated. "And so I should like that poor

little chap to have your good wishes, Miss Cathcart. Wish him all

manner of nice things, for his mother's sake as well as his own.

There's been a pretty bad run of luck here lately, and it's time it

changed. Wish him better fortune than his forefathers. I'm not

superstitious, as I say, but Richard Calmady's death scared one a

little. Five minutes beforehand it seemed so utterly improbable. And

then one began to wonder if there could be any truth in the old legend.

And that was ugly, you know."

Dr. Knott glanced at the speaker sharply.--"Oh! that occurred to you,

did it?" he said.

"Bless me! why, it occurred to everybody," Ormiston answered

impatiently. "Some idiot raked the story up, and it was canvassed from

one end of the county to the other last autumn till it made me fairly

sick."

"Poor boy!" cried Mrs. Ormiston, "and what is this wonderful story that

so nauseates him, Dr. Knott?"

"I'm afraid I can't tell you," the doctor answered slowly. A nervous

movement on the part of Julius March had attracted his attention. "I

have never managed to get hold of the story as a whole, but I should

like to do so uncommonly."

Julius pushed back his chair, and groped hurriedly for the dinner

napkin which had slipped to the ground from his knees. The subject of

the conversation agitated him. The untidy, little chap-books, tied

together with the tag of rusty ribbon, had lain undisturbed in the

drawer of his library table ever since the--to him--very memorable

evening, when, kneeling before the image of the stricken Mother and the

dead Christ, he had found the man's heart under the priest's cassock

and awakened to newness of life. Much had happened since then; and

Julius had ranged himself, accepting, open-eyed, the sorrows and

alleviations of the fate he had created for himself. But to-night he

was tired. The mental and emotional strain of the last few days had

been considerable. Moreover, John Knott's presence always affected him.

The two men stood, indeed, at opposing poles of thought--the one

spiritual and ideal, the other material and realistic. And, though he

struggled against the influence, the doctor's rather brutal common

sense and large knowledge of physical causes, gained a painful

ascendency over his mind at close quarters. Knott, it must be owned,

was slightly merciless to his clerical acquaintances. He loved to bait

them, to impale them on the horns of some moral or theological dilemma.

And it was partly with this purpose of harrying and worrying, that he

continued now:--

"Yes, Mrs. Ormiston, I should like to hear the story just as much as

you would. And--it strikes me, if he pleased, Mr. March could tell it

to us. Suppose you ask him to!"

Promptly the young lady fell upon Julius, regardless of Ormiston's

hardly concealed displeasure.

"Oh! you bad man, what are you doing," she cried, "trying to conceal

thrilling family legends from the nearest relatives? Tell us all about

it, if you know, as Dr. Knott declares you do. I dote on terrifying

stories--don't you, Mary?--that send the cold shivers all down my back.

And if they deal with the history of my nearest and dearest, why,

there's an added charm to them. Now, Mr. March, we're all attention.

Stand and deliver, and make it all just as bad as you can."

"I am afraid I am not an effective _improvisatore_" he replied; "and

the subject, if you will pardon my saying so, seems to me too intimate

for mirth. A curse is supposed to rest on this place. The owners of

Brockhurst die young and by violent means."

"We know that already, and look to you to tell us something more, Mr.

March," Dr. Knott said dryly.

Julius was slightly nettled at the elder man's tone and manner. He

answered with an accentuation of his usual refinement of enunciation

and suavity of manner.

"There is a term to the curse, a saviour who, according to the old

prediction, has the power, should he also have the will, to remove it

altogether."

"Oh, really, is that so! And when does this saviour put in an

appearance?" the doctor asked again.

"That is not revealed."

Julius would very gladly have said nothing further. But Dr. Knott's

expression was curiously intent and compelling, as he sat fingering the

stem of his wine-glass. All the ideality of Julius's nature rose in

protest against the half-sneering rationalism he seemed to read in that

expression. Mrs. Ormiston, who had an hereditary racial appreciation of

anything approaching a fight, turned her round eyes first on one

speaker and then on the other provokingly, inciting them to more

declared hostilities, while she bit her lips in her effort to avoid

spoiling sport by untimely laughter or speech.

"But unhappily," Julius proceeded, yielding under protest to these

opposing forces, "the saviour comes in so questionable a shape, that I

fear, whenever the appointed time may be, his appearance will only be

welcomed by the discerning few."

"That's a pity," Dr. Knott said. He paused a minute, passed his hand

across his mouth. "Still, if we are to believe the Bible, and other

so-called, sacred histories, it's been the way of saviours from the

beginning to try the faith of ordinary mortals by presenting themselves

under rather queer disguises." He paused again, drawing in his wide

lips, moistening them with his tongue. "But since you evidently know

all about it, Mr. March, may I make bold to inquire in what special

form of fancy dress the saviour in question is reported as likely to

present himself?"

"He comes as a child of the house," Julius answered, with dignity. "A

child who in person--if I understand the wording of the prophecy

aright--is half angel, half monster."

John Knott opened his mouth as though to give passage to some very

forcible exclamation. Thought better of it and brought his jaws

together with a kind of grind. His heavy figure seemed to hunch itself

up as in the recoil from a blow.

"Curious," he said quietly. Yet Julius, looking at him, could have

fancied that his weather-beaten face went a trifle pale.

But Mrs. Ormiston, in the interests of a possible fight, had contained

herself just as long as was possible. Now she clapped her hands, and

broke into a little scream of laughter.

"That's just the most magnificently romantic thing I ever heard," she

cried. "Come now, this requires further investigation. What's our baby

like, Dr. Knott? I've seen nothing but an indistinguishable mass of

shawls and flannels. Have we, by chance, got an angelic monstrosity

up-stairs without being aware of it?"

"Charlotte!" Roger Ormiston called out sternly. The young man looked

positively dangerous. "This conversation has gone quite far enough. I

agree with March, it may all be stuff and nonsense, not worth a second

thought, still it isn't a thing to joke about."

"Very well, dear boy, be soothed then," she returned, making a little

grimace and putting her head on one side coquettishly. "I'll be as

solemn as nine owls. But you must excuse a momentary excitement. It's

all news to me, you know. I'd no notion Katherine had married into such

a remarkable family. I'm bound to learn a little more. Do you believe

it's possible at all, Dr. Knott, now tell me?"

"The fulfilment of prophecy is rather a wide and burning question to

embark on," he said. "With Captain Ormiston's leave, I think we'd

better go back to the point we started from and drink the little

gentleman's health. I have my patient to see again, and it is getting

rather late."

The lady addressed, laughed, held up her glass, and stared round the

table with a fine air of bravado, looking remarkably pretty.

"Fire away, Roger, dear fellow," she said. "We're loaded, and ready."

Thus admonished, Ormiston raised his glass too. But his temper was not

of the sweetest, just then; he spoke forcedly.

"Here's to the boy," he said; "good luck, and good health, and," he

added hastily, "please God he'll be a comfort to his mother."

"Amen," Julius said softly.

Dr. Knott contemplated the contents of his glass, for a moment, whether

critically or absently it would have been difficult to decide. But all

the harshness had gone out of his face, and his loose lips worked into

a smile pathetic in quality.

"To the baby.--And I venture to add a clause to your invocation of that

heartless jade, Dame Fortune. May he never lack good courage and good

friends. He will need both."

Julius March set down his wine untasted. He had received a very

disagreeable impression.

"Come, come, it appears to me, we are paying these honours in a most

lugubrious spirit," Mrs. Ormiston broke in. "I wish the baby a long

life and a merry one, in defiance of all prophecies and traditions

belonging to his paternal ancestry. Go on, Mr. March, you're shamefully

neglecting your duty. No heel taps."

She threw back her head showing the whole of her white throat, drained

her glass and then flung it over her shoulder. It fell on the black,

polished boards, beyond the edge of the carpet, shivered into a hundred

pieces, that lay glittering, like scattered diamonds in the lamplight.

For the day had died altogether. Fleets of dark, straggling cloud

chased each other across spaces of pallid sky, against the earthward

edge of which dusky tree-tops strained and writhed in the force of the

tearing gale.

Ella Ormiston rose laughing from her place at table.

"That's the correct form," she said, "it ensures the fulfilment of the

wish. You ought all to have cast away your glasses regardless of

expense. Come, Mary, we will remove ourselves. Mind and bid me good-bye

before you go, Dr. Knott, and report on Lady Calmady. It's probably the

last time you'll have the felicity of seeing me. I'm off at cockcrow

to-morrow morning."