XIII
"And is this really your first big party?" asked Hexam, wonderingly.
"The first! The first! And I am twenty-five! Just think of it! Of courseI have been to students' balls, and little parties in Rosewater. But afunction--never before."
"This is hardly a function--parties even in the big politicalcountry-houses are more or less informal."
"Informal! The jewels fairly blind my provincial eyes. And this is areal castle!"
"Oh yes, it is a castle," he said, laughing outright. "I suppose youhave read up its record?" he added, teasingly. "You industrious andcurious Americans know a lot more about us than we know aboutourselves."
"Of course I know the history of this castle. I haven't the least doubtyou know every word of it yourself. I have already learned that theEnglish are not nearly so vacant-minded as, in their curious pride, theywould have one believe."
She threw back her head, half-closing her eyes in the ecstasy of her newexperience. The dancing was in the picture-gallery, an immense room, inwhich there were many dark paintings of the old Italian and Spanishschools, besides the presentments of innumerable Arcots by the usualpopular masters of the Dutch and English. The ceiling was of stone andvaulted, but set thick with electric lights, blazing down from theirgreat height like the crystal stars of the tropics. It had seemed toIsabel that after entering the castle she had walked for ten minutesbefore reaching this room, where as brilliant a company was disportingitself as she was likely to look upon in England. The Duke of Arcot wasan energetic Conservative and a member of the present cabinet, but hissocial attentions were ever directed to the prominent and interesting ofwhatever party or creed. As he found a particular zest in beingsurrounded by smart, bright and pretty women, the parties at the castle,and at Arcot House in London, were seldom surpassed in either brilliancyor interest. And as his rent-roll was abnormal, there was no sign ofdilapidation within the gray walls and towers of the ancient castle, butmuch comfort and luxury against a background of countless treasuresaccumulated throughout the centuries. He had taken an immediate fancy toIsabel and promised to show her the lower rooms as soon as she tired ofdancing.
Hexam watched her with an amused indulgence that in no wise tempered hismounting admiration. She was radiant. Her blue eyes were shining andalmost black, her cheeks flooded with a delicate pink. She wore a gownof white tulle upon whose floating surface were a few dark-blue lilies.The masses of her black hair were piled on her head in the fashion ofher Californian grandmothers, and confined by a high Spanish comb ofgold and tortoise-shell. Her only other jewel was a long string of BajaCalifornia pearls that had glistened on warm white necks in many an oldCalifornia ballroom before ever an American had crossed the threshold ofArcot Castle. They had been given by Concha Argueello, when she assumedthe gray habit of the Third Order of the Franciscan nuns, to the wife ofher brother Santiago and so had come down to Isabel.
And to-night this descendant of that powerful clan, unimaginable in hermodern complexities to their simple minds, was receiving homage in theballroom of one of the greatest houses in Europe. For there was noquestion, even in the minds of the young married women, who carry allbefore them in English society, that the American girl had created afurore among the men. Isabel had confided to the duke, who had lunchedthat day at Capheaton, and to Hexam, her haunting fear of being awall-flower, and both had vowed that she should have no lack of partnersat her first English ball. But to Hexam's disgust, at least, theirsolicitude came to an untimely end, and he was able to secure but twowaltzes and a square dance. The duke had spoken for the cotillon, whichhe had no intention of dancing. He was a most estimable person, but henever ignored an opportunity to talk with a new and interesting woman.
Isabel could hardly have failed to be a belle that night, for her spiritwas pitched to a height of joy and triumph that charged her whole beingwith a powerful magnetism. Possibly with a presentiment that it was tobe an isolated experience, she abandoned herself recklessly to the meredelight of living, her will imperious for the fulness of one of thedearest of girlhood's ideals. She was one of those women, cast, as shewell knew, for tragic and dramatic contacts with life, but Nature incompensation had granted her a certain wildness of spirit that sprangspontaneously to meet the pleasure, trifling or great, of the merepresent; no matter for how long a period, or how hard, its wings hadbeen smitten.
So she danced, and talked far more than was her wont, surpassing herselfin every way, and no more interested in poor Hexam than in twentyothers. He took her in to supper, however, and after three hours ofdancing she was glad to rest and be sheltered by his determined bulk,planted squarely before her corner. She knew that she had a coronet veryclose to her footstool, and that this brilliant night might be but theprologue to a lifetime of the only society in the world worth while, butshe was not conscious of any desire beyond the brimming cup of themoment. Moreover, she had never so thoroughly enjoyed being a girl, andlove-making would have bored her grievously.
The duke claimed her, and after a desultory tour of the greatreception-rooms and an infinite number of little cabinets, containingsome of the most valuable of the Japanese and Indian treasures, he ledher to the library, a luxurious room conducive to rapid friendship.
With that amiable desire, peculiar to the kindly Englishman, to gratifythe ingenuous curiosity of the American, he produced a huge leathervolume containing the various patents of nobility that marked the upwardevolution of his house from a barony in some remote period of theworld's history to the present dukedom, and the royal letters that hadaccompanied them. It was something he never would have dreamed of doingfor a stranger of his own country, or of any state in Europe, but theEnglish humor Americans that please them much as they would engagingchildren; and Isabel's eyes sparkled with so lively an intelligence thatthe duke fancied she had literary intentions and might one day findsuch information useful. He even showed her his complicatedcoat-of-arms, which included a bend sinister, for he had royal blood inhis veins; and this slanting rod interested Isabel as deeply as the moatunder the window. She was even more interested in the duke's attitude;it was evident that he felt no more vanity in his royal descent thandeprecation of its irregular cause and enduring emblem. It was, and thatwas the end of it; but he had quite enough imagination to appreciate theeffect of so picturesque an incident in family history upon the mind ofthe young republican.
"The best we can do is to descend irrelevantly from Washington,Hamilton, or Jefferson," said Isabel. "Only we have not yet reached thestage where we dare to acknowledge it on our coat-of-arms. The illusionsof the American youth must be preserved. Even the fact that one of ourPresidents was a son of Aaron Burr is still to be read only in the greatvolume of unwritten history. My father was a sort of walking edition ofthat work."
"That is new to me!" The duke was quite famous as a student of history,and took a personal interest in America, having been over twice insearch of big game. He asked her many questions; but his interest in thegeneral subject was as nothing to the enthusiasm she aroused by a chanceallusion to the chicken-ranch. The duke was agricultural above allthings; he had a model estate bristling with scientific improvement. Hewas enchanted at Isabel's picture of her wire-enclosed "runs" and yardscontaining industrious chickens of all ages, engaged, howeverinnocently, in the pursuit of wealth. Isabel, when she chose, couldinvest any subject with glamour, and her account, delivered in tonesnotably accelerated, of the snow-white, red-crowned flocks, theiraristocratic little white mansions, the luxurious nurseries for the"chicks," and the astonishing and costly banquets with which they weredaily regaled, was so lively that the duke vowed he would raise Leghornsforthwith. He asked her so many practical questions, taking copiousnotes, and inevitably embracing California ranch life in its entirety,in his thirst for knowledge, that Isabel had no more dancing that night;but she made an enduring impression upon the eminently practical mind ofher host.
It was quite two hours after supper, and Isabel was beginning to reflectwith some humo
r upon the brevity of all illusions, when Hexam and MissThangue appeared simultaneously and announced that the Capheaton guestswere leaving. Hexam looked sulky and suspicious. Flora was smiling.
"For the first time--" she murmured.
Isabel and the duke laughed outright, and then shook hands warmly.
"When I go home we can correspond," she said to him, "and I will tellyou all the new kinks. We are always improving."
"The duke looked positively rejuvenated," said Hexam, spitefully, asthey walked down the corridor. "Have you discovered the elixir of lifein California, and promised him the prescription."
"No," said Isabel, demurely. "I have merely been initiating him into themysteries of raising Leghorns."
Hexam looked stupefied, but Miss Thangue burst into a merry peal oflaughter.
"Isabel!" she exclaimed. "I begin to suspect you are a minx!"
And Isabel laughed, too, in sheer excess of animal spirits and gratifiedvanity. She had excellent cause to remember the ebullition, for it wassome time before she laughed again.
The duchess, with her light sweet smile, her old-fashionedBook-of-Beauty style, a certain affectation of shabbiness in herblack-and-silver gown, looked a more indispensable part of the picturethan any of her guests, as she stood in the middle of the greatdrawing-room with a group of her more intimate friends. Among them wasLady Victoria, more normal of mood this evening, sufficiently gracious,superbly indifferent, although she had held her court as usual.
She tapped Isabel lightly on the cheek with her fan. "You were quite therage," she said. "I never should have forgiven you if you had not been."And Isabel had not the slightest doubt of her sincerity.
The duchess, in the immensity of her castle, did not pretend to keep aneye on any one, and would have been the last to suspect that Miss Otishad inspired her husband with a sudden passion for chickens. She shookhands approvingly with the young American and asked her to come overinformally to luncheon on the morrow.
"Is your head turning?" asked Miss Thangue, as they drove home. "Youmust reap the results of your success; it would be a pity not to. Aftera few weeks here with Vicky you must go on a round of visits and thenhave a season in London."
"It would be glorious!" exclaimed Isabel, in whom problems weremoribund. "I certainly believe I shall."
She was in the second of the carriages to reach Capheaton, and Gwynne,who was still standing on the steps, helped her down, and asked herpleasantly if she had enjoyed herself.
"I had such a good time I know I sha'n't sleep a wink for twenty-fourhours. I believe I'll go to the library and get a book of yours I beganon Sunday--only--" She hesitated. A talk with this enigmatical cousinwould be a proper climax to the triumphs of the night. She raised hereyes, full of flattering appeal. "There are one or two points I did notquite understand--I have hesitated to go on--"
He too was wakeful, and rose to the bait promptly. "Suppose you give mean hour by the empty hearth. Will you? Well, go on ahead and I'll followin a moment--after I see that the men have all they want in thesmoking-room."
In the depths of the most independent woman's soul is a lingering taintof servility to the lordly male, and in Isabel it warmed into subtlelife under the flattering response of this illustrious specimen. Shefairly sailed towards the library, wondering if any of the famousold-time California belles, Concha Argueello, Chonita Iturbe y Moncada,with their caballeros flinging gold and silver at their feet, NinaRandolph and Chonita Hathaway and Helena Belmont, with their pugnacious"courts," had ever felt as exultant as she. That last moment, as shestepped lightly over the threshold of the library, was a sort of climaxto the intoxication of youth.
And then she stopped short, stifling a cry of terror. The library,except for the wandering moonshine, was unlit, but a ray fell directlyacross a shadowy figure in the depths of a chair, half-way down theroom. It was a relaxed figure, the head fallen on the chest; the armswere hanging limply over the sides of the chair, the hands ghastly inthe moonlight. At the rustle of skirts the figure slowly raised itshead, and the eyes of a man, haunted rather than haunting, looked out ofa drawn and livid face. But the movement was not followed by speech, andIsabel stood, stiff with horror, convinced that she was in the presenceof the Capheaton ghost. Of course, like all old manor-houses, it hadone, and she was too imaginative not to accept with her nerves if notwith her intelligence this ugly proof of a restless domain beyond thegrave. But her petrifaction was mercifully brief. There was a quick stepbehind her, and then an exclamation of horror as Gwynne shot past andcaught the lugubrious visitant by the shoulder.
"Good God, Zeal!" he cried, and his voice shook. "What is it, old man?You look--you look--"
The man in the chair rose slowly and drew a long breath, which seemed toinfuse him with life again.
"I probably look much as I feel," he said, grimly. "I'm about to go on ajourney, and if you can give me a few minutes--"
He paused and looked with cold politeness at Isabel. She waited for nofurther formalities, but shaken with the sure foreboding of calamity,turned and fled the room.