WITH THE DESSERT
Joan Frobisher, having lost her mother when still a child, had been called upon by her father to take that mother's place in social functions, to entertain visitors, to occupy the head of the table at dinners, and act generally as hostess. She was consequently able to discharge her duties with easy confidence. Possessed of good feeling and the tact that springs out of it, she had united in her every requisite that goes to make up a perfect hostess. She was skilful in starting topics upon which she knew that her guests could talk, in maintaining conversation in flow, and by delicate intervention to draw every member of the circle into it.
But on the occasion of the evening after the opening hunt, when the party sat down and her father was still absent, the burden of her task was felt by her as oppressive and irksome; it was with an effort that she discharged even the ordinary formalities.
The obligation under which she lay of apologizing for the lack of the presence of the host, and explaining it, was in itself embarrassing and a damper to conviviality. But in addition there was much that occupied her mind, and there were cares that distracted it. She could not shake off the painful impression produced on her by her father's treatment of Mr. Beaudessart. Not only was his behaviour unjust towards him, but it was humiliating to herself. The mortification was the more poignant because she could not but perceive that it was Mr. Beaudessart and his father who were the injured parties, and that her father, her sister, and herself were occupying a position to which they had attained solely through 'the caprice of a masterful and resentful old tyrant.
She recalled the smile that had played about the ,young man's lips when she had spoken such bold words about the Frobishers maintaining themselves in Pendabury against all attempts that might be made to dislodge them. He was aware at the time how empty the boast was. She coloured at the recollection that she had made it.
But if thoughts associated with this passage in the day's proceedings were painful, those that concerned the telegram were disquieting. The initials J. F. probably did serve to indicate her uncle, James Frobisher, as her sister had surmised. She knew that he was interested in a gold mine in the Transvaal.
She had not made her uncle's acquaintance till recently—a year ago—as he had been all his time in South Africa, Australia, Brazil, and California. He had been a wanderer, picking up a good deal of information in his wanderings, but shedding a good deal of the finer qualities of an Englishman at the same time.
He was full of schemes for making money, but none of these schemes as yet had enriched himself; the reason being, as he insisted, that you must have gold to make gold—as you must sow grain to reap a wheaten harvest. As he had been unprovided with capital he had seen others spring into the position of millionaires, and been himself incapable of following them.
He had obtained unbounded influence over her father, whom he had dazzled with his speculative projects.
Certainly Uncle James had been an entertaining man for a while, but wearisome to listen to for long, especially to such as had no money to embark in foreign ventures. Joan had not been able to feel confidence in his integrity. He was too fluent, flexible, and flashy, to inspire trust. There was an apparent lack in him of an indefinable something, and that a something like principle, and there was a shiftiness that implied an absence of strict views as to right and wrong.
Joan had behaved towards her uncle with gracious courtesy, even with friendliness, but without being able to draw to him with affection. On the other band, Sibyll had treated him with positive rudeness. She disliked her uncle because his conversation was about means of making money, speculation in railways, mines, factories, brandy distilleries, hotels; and Sibyll abhorred what she called "shop-talk."
Joan was disturbed over the telegraphic message, which was curt but significant. She shivered internally with the dread lest her uncle should have been engaged in some equivocal proceedings connected with what he termed the floating of his Willjoens Gold Reef Company, and that this had come to light and had forced him to levant.
She had no real foundation for such a surmise other than the words of the telegram, but she had no trust in her uncle's probity. She feared lest her father might have become entangled in the schemes of his brother.
Joan was proud as she was upright, and the surmise was enough to make her sick at heart; under a placid exterior she was forced to hide the troubles and fears that were distracting her.
The dining-room at Pendabury was a very stately apartment. It was long, lofty, and of a suitable width. The walls were panelled with old deal in immensely wide slabs, so perfectly seasoned and nicely united as to give the impression of each panel being composed of one single slice from a gigantic pine. The panels were enclosed within a moulded framework, and a rich cornice, or entablature, broken by the mitring above pilasters at intervals, divided the walls into sections; this was happily worked in with the rich plaster decoration of the ceiling. The woodwork was painted dark, and against this background the pictures showed to advantage.
The furniture was of mahogany, upholstered with velvet, of a comparatively modern character, and though rich and solid, was not in keeping with the Queen Anne style of the room.
The curtains were drawn; a large fire of logs, backed up with coke, was blazing and glowing on the hearth. The table sparkled with silver and glass and candles, and was rich with colour from the Alamander and Tacsonia blossoms, and wreaths of Smilax that decorated the cloth. The whole afforded a look of comfort, elegance, and wealth such as is seen nowhere so well as in England.
The rector sat on Joan's right hand. He was an amiable, elderly man, with grey hair and whiskers that were white; a man such as an Established Church can alone produce, and produce to an almost unlimited extent; well-bred, well-educated, harmless in life, and best described by a series of negatives. In an Established Church, patrons, whether public or private, whether crown or mitre, chancellor or squire, seek to promote only such men as are colourless in opinion and deficient of independence of character, who they may be sure will give no offence in anything, that the ministry be not blamed, and that they will, in this one quality, sum up all their characteristics.
Mr. Barker, rector of the parish, was a keen angler, an enthusiastic bee-keeper, and a conscientious parish priest.
The party at table was small, and the table had accordingly not been enlarged.
Colonel Wood had led in Mrs. Barker, but Sibyll sat on his left side, and the colonel paid a good deal more attention to her than he did to his partner. He was one of those old gentlemen whose sole idea of conversation with a young woman is banter, the paying of little compliments, the making of little jokes, the talking of little nonsenses, the production of abundant chaff, and the never letting drop one grain of good sense. He was not an unintelligent man by any means, but in the society of young ladies, which was the society he particularly affected, he aimed at laborious silliness.
Joan saw what was going on between the colonel and Sibyll, to the neglect of the old lady—a gentle, charming person, limited in her range of ideas and sympathies, but purely refined and kindly.
It vexed Joan, and she took occasion repeatedly to make a remark to and draw a few sentences from Mrs. Barker, so as not to allow her to feel that she was being neglected.
"In no summer that I have known since I have been here," droned the rector, "has the fern-web been so abundant; I went out one morning through the brakes of filix mas, and I believe I was able to detach a beetle from every third leaf. You know, of course, that the coccabundi is none other than the fern-web."
On the side opposite to the colonel, Sibyll, and Mrs. Barker, sat young Prendergast and Miss Foljamb. They seemed to be ill-matched. The young man was fidgeting under his chair with a pet dog that belonged to Sibyll, and which was allowed to go where it liked. He had feebly attempted conversation with the young lady, but she belonged to the intellectual order, and promptly snubbed him.
"You have had no experience with the Röntgen ray?" she asked, fixing him with a hard eye.
"N—no—is it anything a chap can eat?"
"Oh, Miss Foljamb," said Joan, "what a privilege—if you know how to use the X ray. I shall have to enlist your services. Poor Goody Brash has swallowed a paper of pins—as Mrs. Barker can tell you, and we have been in such a way about her. We do not know how to work the X ray, even if we get the apparatus, so as to find whereabouts in her system the pins have distributed themselves. Mr. Prendergast, do tell me how Towzer is. Has the stick of brimstone in his drinking-bowl done him good?" Then she turned her head. "Now, my dear rector—what are the characteristics of the coccabundi?"
Spots of colour burnt in Joan's cheek. She was consumed by an internal fever, and in addition to her own cares, she was fretted at Sibyll's conduct and want of consideration for Mrs. Barker.
The dessert was laid, and Joan was sensible of relief at the thought that in ten minutes the ladies would retire, when Matthews, the butler, came to her side, and said in a low tone, "I beg your pardon, miss, but you are wanted immediately in the hall."
"Will it not do presently? We shall all then be leaving."
"No, miss, it is—it is most particular."
The tone of his voice startled her; she looked up, and saw that the man was not only grave, but was a prey to great agitation.
Instantly rising to her feet, she apologised to Mrs. Barker.
"Prithee excuse me—I am summoned from you— for a moment."
"We may as well all rise," said Mrs. Barker.
"Oh no!— no! I shall be back presently. It may be nothing, but Matthews urges me to go. I ask your pardon, gentlemen, for my momentary withdrawal. Some business that requires my immediate attention calls me away." She left the room, and was in the hall. Then the butler shut the door of communication between it and the dining-room.
Joan saw the groom awaiting her. He touched his forehead. The great hall was but partially lighted with one large coloured lamp, and she could not see the man's face distinctly.
"You have something to say to me, Thomas?"
"Beg pardon, miss," said he; "it's Fashion never could abide the smell or sight of a donkey. There's no vice in him, none at all, but he is terrible nervous."
"But what is the matter?"
The groom again saluted.
"You see, miss, there's a bit of a moon, and the miller's old donkey—it's grey, miss, perhaps you know, and I daresay the heavy dew have brought out the smell rank like, and with the winter coat on him thick. And that there stoopid donkey—nothen else would do, but he must stand in the paddock lookin' out into the road over the gate. The squire, miss, he came trottin' 'ome from Lichfield upon Fashion, and comes round a corner right on that there donkey, lookin', miss, and smellin' orful. And whether it were the looks of him in the moon, or the smell of him in the winter coat and all damp, I can't say, miss; maybe it were both!"
"Well?"
"And up like a squirrel goes Fashion, or rather, fust he jumped sideways across the road, and then up the bank, where he never could hold on, miss, and away he rolls with master, and down he comes into the road; or else whether, when he swerved, master fell off, and afore Fashion went runnin' up the bank"—
"My father!" Joan's heart stood still.
"Well, miss, I'm afraid it's terrible bad. They've took him into the miller's house. But there really is no vice in Fashion—it's all nerves—there never was so timid an 'oss."
The butler, who had been standing with his back to the dining-room door, with the handle in his hand, now came forward, and said—
"Miss, I fear the case is serious—very serious—could hardly be worse."
Joan gasped. For a moment she stood as one stunned, with her hand to her heart. Then she rallied, and walked to the dining-room, the door of which Matthews opened for her.
She stood in the entrance, white as a sheet, her eyes lustrous, yet fixed with horror.
"Mrs. Barker, oh!—and rector—all, please to leave us. There has been an accident. My father; my poor father"—She did not finish the sentence; her fortitude gave way, and she burst into tears.
But there was no need for her to say more. All understood what was implied but left unsaid.