CHAPTER XXIV

THE COUNTESS MAKES HERSELF FELT

There is a peculiar reptile whose stroke is said to deprive men of

motion. On the day after the great Mel had stalked the dinner-table of

Beckley Court, several of the guests were sensible of the effect of this

creature's mysterious touch, without knowing what it was that paralyzed

them. Drummond Forth had fully planned to go to Lymport. He had special

reasons for making investigations with regard to the great Mel. Harry,

who was fond of Drummond, offered to accompany him, and Laxley, for the

sake of a diversion, fell into the scheme. Mr. George Uplift was also to

be of the party, and promised them fun. But when the time came to start,

not one could be induced to move: Laxley was pressingly engaged by Rose:

Harry showed the rope the Countess held him by; Mr. George made a

singular face, and seriously advised Drummond to give up the project.

'Don't rub that woman the wrong way,' he said, in a private colloquy they

had. 'By Jingo, she's a Tartar. She was as a gal, and she isn't changed,

Lou Harrington. Fancy now: she knew me, and she faced me out, and made me

think her a stranger! Gad, I'm glad I didn't speak to the others. Lord's

sake, keep it quiet. Don't rouse that woman, now, if you want to keep a

whole skin.'

Drummond laughed at his extreme earnestness in cautioning him, and

appeared to enjoy his dread of the Countess. Mr. George would not tell

how he had been induced to change his mind. He repeated his advice with a

very emphatic shrug of the shoulder.

'You seem afraid of her,' said Drummond.

'I am. I ain't ashamed to confess it. She's a regular viper, my boy!'

said Mr. George. 'She and I once were pretty thick--least said soonest

mended, you know. I offended her. Wasn't quite up to her mark--a tailor's

daughter, you know. Gad, if she didn't set an Irish Dragoon Captain on

me!--I went about in danger of my life. The fellow began to twist his

damned black moustaches the moment he clapped eyes on me--bullied me

till, upon my soul, I was almost ready to fight him! Oh, she was a little

tripping Tartar of a bantam hen then. She's grown since she's been

countessed, and does it peacocky. Now, I give you fair warning, you know.

She's more than any man's match.'

'I dare say I shall think the same when she has beaten me,' quoth cynical

Drummond, and immediately went and gave orders for his horse to be

saddled, thinking that he would tread on the head of the viper.

But shortly before the hour of his departure, Mrs. Evremonde summoned him

to her, and showed him a slip of paper, on which was written, in an

uncouth small hand:

'Madam: a friend warns you that your husband is coming here. Deep

interest in your welfare is the cause of an anonymous communication. The

writer wishes only to warn you in time.'

Mrs. Evremonde told Drummond that she had received it from one of the

servants when leaving the breakfast-room. Beyond the fact that a man on

horseback had handed it to a little boy, who had delivered it over to the

footman, Drummond could learn nothing. Of course, all thought of the

journey to Lymport was abandoned. If but to excogitate a motive for the

origin of the document, Drummond was forced to remain; and now he had it,

and now he lost it again; and as he was wandering about in his maze, the

Countess met him with a 'Good morning, Mr., Forth. Have I impeded your

expedition by taking my friend Mr. Harry to cavalier me to-day?'

Drummond smilingly assured her that she had not in any way disarranged

his projects, and passed with so absorbed a brow that the Countess could

afford to turn her head and inspect him, without fear that he would

surprise her in the act. Knocking the pearly edge of her fan on her

teeth, she eyed him under her joined black lashes, and deliberately read

his thoughts in the mere shape of his back and shoulders. She read him

through and through, and was unconscious of the effective attitude she

stood in for the space of two full minutes, and even then it required one

of our unhappy sex to recall her. This was Harry Jocelyn.

'My friend,' she said to him, with a melancholy smile, 'my one friend

here!'

Harry went through the form of kissing her hand, which he had been

taught, and practised cunningly as the first step of the ladder.

'I say, you looked so handsome, standing as you did just now,' he

remarked; and she could see how far beneath her that effective attitude

had precipitated the youth.

'Ah!' she sighed, walking on, with the step of majesty in exile.

'What the deuce is the matter with everybody to-day?' cried Harry. 'I 'm

hanged if I can make it out. There's the Carrington, as you call her, I

met her with such a pair of eyes, and old George looking as if he'd been

licked, at her heels; and there's Drummond and his lady fair moping about

the lawn, and my mother positively getting excited--there's a miracle!

and Juley 's sharpening her nails for somebody, and if Ferdinand don't

look out, your brother 'll be walking off with Rosey--that 's my

opinion.'

'Indeed,' said the Countess. 'You really think so?'

'Well, they come it pretty strong together.'

'And what constitutes the "come it strong," Mr. Harry?'

'Hold of hands; you know,' the young gentleman indicated.

'Alas, then! must not we be more discreet?'

'Oh! but it's different. With young people one knows what that means.'

'Deus!' exclaimed the Countess, tossing her head weariedly, and Harry

perceived his slip, and down he went again.

What wonder that a youth in such training should consent to fetch and

carry, to listen and relate, to play the spy and know no more of his

office than that it gave him astonishing thrills of satisfaction, and now

and then a secret sweet reward?

The Countess had sealed Miss Carrington's mouth by one of her most

dexterous strokes. On leaving the dinner-table over-night, and seeing

that Caroline's attack would preclude their instant retreat, the gallant

Countess turned at bay. A word aside to Mr. George Uplift, and then the

Countess took a chair by Miss Carrington. She did all the conversation,

and supplied all the smiles to it, and when a lady has to do that she is

justified in striking, and striking hard, for to abandon the pretence of

sweetness is a gross insult from one woman to another.

The Countess then led circuitously, but with all the ease in the world,

to the story of a Portuguese lady, of a marvellous beauty, and who was

deeply enamoured of the Chevalier Miguel de Rasadio, and engaged to be

married to him: but, alas for her! in the insolence of her happiness she

wantonly made an enemy in the person of a most unoffending lady, and she

repented it. While sketching the admirable Chevalier, the Countess drew a

telling portrait of Mr. George Uplift, and gratified her humour and her

wrath at once by strong truth to nature in the description and animated

encomiums on the individual. The Portuguese lady, too, a little resembled

Miss Carrington, in spite of her marvellous beauty. And it was odd that

Miss Carrington should give a sudden start and a horrified glance at the

Countess just when the Countess was pathetically relating the proceeding

taken by the revengeful lady on the beautiful betrothed of the Chevalier

Miguel de Rasadio: which proceeding was nothing other than to bring to

the Chevalier's knowledge that his beauty had a defect concealed by her

apparel, and that the specks in his fruit were not one, or two, but, Oh!

And the dreadful sequel to the story the Countess could not tell:

preferring ingeniously to throw a tragic veil over it. Miss Carrington

went early to bed that night.

The courage that mounteth with occasion was eminently the attribute of

the Countess de Saldar. After that dreadful dinner she (since the

weaknesses of great generals should not be altogether ignored), did pray

for flight and total obscurity, but Caroline could not be left in her

hysteric state, and now that she really perceived that Evan was

progressing and on the point of sealing his chance, the devoted lady

resolved to hold her ground. Besides, there was the pic-nic. The Countess

had one dress she had not yet appeared in, and it was for the picnic she

kept it. That small motives are at the bottom of many illustrious actions

is a modern discovery; but I shall not adopt the modern principle of

magnifying the small motive till it overshadows my noble heroine. I

remember that the small motive is only to be seen by being borne into the

range of my vision by a powerful microscope; and if I do more than

see--if I carry on my reflections by the aid of the glass, I arrive at

conclusions that must be false. Men who dwarf human nature do this. The

gods are juster. The Countess, though she wished to remain for the

pic-nic, and felt warm in anticipation of the homage to her new dress,

was still a gallant general and a devoted sister, and if she said to

herself, 'Come what may, I will stay for that pic-nic, and they shall not

brow-beat me out of it,' it is that trifling pleasures are noisiest about

the heart of human nature: not that they govern us absolutely. There is

mob-rule in minds as in communities, but the Countess had her appetites

in excellent drill. This pic-nic surrendered, represented to her defeat

in all its ignominy. The largest longest-headed of schemes ask

occasionally for something substantial and immediate. So the Countess

stipulated with Providence for the pic-nic. It was a point to be passed:

'Thorough flood, thorough fire.'

In vain poor Andrew Cogglesby, to whom the dinner had been torture, and

who was beginning to see the position they stood in at Beckley, begged to

be allowed to take them away, or to go alone. The Countess laughed him

into submission. As a consequence of her audacious spirits she grew more

charming and more natural, and the humour that she possessed, but which,

like her other faculties, was usually subordinate to her plans, gave

spontaneous bursts throughout the day, and delighted her courtiers. Nor

did the men at all dislike the difference of her manner with them, and

with the ladies. I may observe that a woman who shows a marked depression

in the presence of her own sex will be thought very superior by ours;

that is, supposing she is clever and agreeable. Manhood distinguishes

what flatters it. A lady approaches. 'We must be proper,' says the

Countess, and her hearty laugh dies with suddenness and is succeeded by

the maturest gravity. And the Countess can look a profound merriment with

perfect sedateness when there appears to be an equivoque in company.

Finely secret are her glances, as if under every eye-lash there lurked

the shade of a meaning. What she meant was not so clear. All this was

going on, and Lady Jocelyn was simply amused, and sat as at a play.

'She seems to have stepped out of a book of French memoirs,' said her

ladyship. 'La vie galante et devote--voila la Comtesse.'

In contradistinction to the other ladies, she did not detest the Countess

because she could not like her.

'Where 's the harm in her?' she asked. 'She doesn't damage the men, that

I can see. And a person you can laugh at and with, is inexhaustible.'

'And how long is she to stay here?' Mrs. Shorne inquired. Mrs. Melville

remarking: 'Her visit appears to be inexhaustible.'

'I suppose she'll stay till the Election business is over,' said Lady

Jocelyn.

The Countess had just driven with Melville to Fallow field in Caroline's

black lace shawl.

'Upwards of four weeks longer!' Mrs. Melville interjected.

Lady Jocelyn chuckled.

Miss Carrington was present. She had been formerly sharp in her

condemnation of the Countess--her affectedness, her euphuism, and her

vulgarity. Now she did not say a word, though she might have done it with

impunity.

'I suppose, Emily, you see what Rose is about?' said Mrs. Melville. 'I

should not have thought it adviseable to have that young man here,

myself. I think I let you know that.'

'One young man's as good as another,' responded her ladyship. 'I 've my

doubts of the one that's much better. I fancy Rose is as good a judge by

this time as you or I.'

Mrs. Melville made an effort or two to open Lady Jocelyn's eyes, and then

relapsed into the confident serenity inspired by evil prognostications.

'But there really does seem some infatuation about these people!'

exclaimed Mrs. Shorne, turning to Miss Current. 'Can you understand it?

The Duke, my dear! Things seem to be going on in the house, that

really--and so openly.'

'That's one virtue,' said Miss Current, with her imperturbable metallic

voice, and face like a cold clear northern sky. 'Things done in secret

throw on the outsiders the onus of raising a scandal.'

'You don't believe, then?' suggested Mrs. Shorne.

Miss Current replied: 'I always wait for a thing to happen first.'

'But haven't you seen, my dear?'

'I never see anything, my dear.'

'Then you must be blind, my dear.'

'On the contrary, that 's how I keep my sight, my dear.'

'I don't understand you,' said Mrs. Shorne.

'It's a part of the science of optics, and requires study,' said Miss

Current.

Neither with the worldly nor the unworldly woman could the ladies do

anything. But they were soon to have their triumph.

A delicious morning had followed the lovely night. The stream flowed

under Evan's eyes, like something in a lower sphere, now. His passion

took him up, as if a genie had lifted him into mid-air, and showed him

the world on a palm of a hand; and yet, as he dressed by the window,

little chinks in the garden wall, and nectarines under their shiny

leaves, and the white walks of the garden, were stamped on his hot brain

accurately and lastingly. Ruth upon the lips of Rose: that voice of

living constancy made music to him everywhere. 'Thy God shall be my God.'

He had heard it all through the night. He had not yet broken the tender

charm sufficiently to think that he must tell her the sacrifice she would

have to make. When partly he did, the first excuse he clutched at was,

that he had not even kissed her on the forehead. Surely he had been

splendidly chivalrous? Just as surely he would have brought on himself

the scorn of the chivalrous or of the commonly balanced if he had been

otherwise. The grandeur of this or of any of his proceedings, then, was

forfeited, as it must needs be when we are in the false position: we can

have no glory though martyred. The youth felt it, even to the seeing of

why it was; and he resolved, in justice to the dear girl, that he would

break loose from his fetters, as we call our weakness. Behold, Rose met

him descending the stairs, and, taking his hand, sang, unabashed, by the

tell-tale colour coming over her face, a stave of a little Portuguese air

that they had both been fond of in Portugal; and he, listening to it, and

looking in her eyes, saw that his feelings in--the old time had been

hers. Instantly the old time gave him its breath, the present drew back.

Rose, now that she had given her heart out, had no idea of concealment.

She would have denied nothing to her aunts: she was ready to confide it

to her mother. Was she not proud of the man she loved? When Evan's hand

touched hers she retained it, and smiled up at him frankly, as it were to

make him glad in her gladness. If before others his eyes brought the

blood to her cheeks, she would perhaps drop her eye-lids an instant, and

then glance quickly level again to reassure him. And who would have

thought that this boisterous, boyish creature had such depths of eye!

Cold, did they call her? Let others think her cold. The tender knowledge

of her--the throbbing secret they held in common sang at his heart. Rose

made no confidante, but she attempted no mystery. Evan should have risen

to the height of the noble girl. But the dearer and sweeter her bearing

became, the more conscious he was of the dead weight he was dragging: in

truth her behaviour stamped his false position to hard print the more he

admired her for it, and he had shrinkings from the feminine part it

imposed on him to play.