CHAPTER IV
THE MIDDLE COURSE
Although so many conflicting rumours were abroad as to the unparalleledaffront that had been offered to the Strawberry Leaf--some accounts hadit that "dear Evelyn" had been called "a cat" within the hearing of theMayor and other civic dignitaries of Middleham, while others werepleased to affirm that she had had her ears boxed before the eyes ofthe horrified reporter for the _Advertiser_--there was the implicitword of Brasset that he had been subjected not only to unchasteexpressions in a foreign tongue, but had actually been in receipt ofphysical violence in his honourable endeavour to uphold the dignity andthe discipline of the Crackanthorpe Hunt.
I hope and believe I am a lenient judge of the offences ofothers--fellow-occupants of our local bench delight to tell me so--buteven I was so imbued with the spirit of the meeting as to allow thatsome kind of official notice ought to be taken of the outrageousconduct of Mrs. Nevil Fitzwaren. From the first hour of her appearanceamong us, a short fifteen months ago, she had gathered the storm-cloudsof controversy about her. Almost as soon as she appeared out cubbingshe became the most discussed person in the shire. Her ways wereunmistakably foreign and "unconventional"; and certainly, in the saddleand out of it, her personality can only be described as a littleoverpowering.
In the beginning it may have been Fitz himself who contributed as muchas anything to the notoriety of his continental wife. Five yearsbefore, the only surviving son of a disreputable father had let thehouse of his ancestors in a state of gross disrepair, together with thepaternal acres, to a City magnate, and betook himself, Heaven aloneknew where. Wise people, however, were more than willing that thePresident of the Destinies should retain the sole and exclusivepossession of this information. Nobody had the least desire to knowwhere Fitz the Younger, unmistakable scion of a somewhat deplorabledynasty, was to be found, except, perhaps, a few London tradesmen, who,if wise men, would be sparing of their tears. They might have been hitso much harder than proved to be the case. Wherever Fitz had gone,those who knew most of him, and the stock from which he sprang,devoutly hoped that there he would stay.
For five years we knew him not. And then one fine September afternoonhe turned up at the Grange with a motor car and a French chauffeur anda foreign wife. It may not seem kind to say so, but in the interestsof this strange but ower-true tale, it is well to state clearly thathis return was highly disconcerting to all sections of the community.His name was still an offence in the ears of an obsequious and by nomeans over-censorious countryside. Rural England is astonishinglylenient "to Squoire and his relations," but Master Nevil had proved toostiff a proposition even for its forbearance.
Howbeit, Fitz had hardly been a week at his ancestral home with hisforeign wife and his motor car when there began to be signs of a risein Fitzwaren stock. It was bruited abroad that he was paying hisdebts, fulfilling long-neglected obligations, that he had given up thebowl, and that, in a word, he was doing his best to clear a prettyblack record. Indeed, the upward tendency of the Fitzwaren stock wasso well maintained, that it was decided by the Committee for theMaintenance of the Public Decency that the august Mrs. Catesby shouldcall on his wife and so pave the way for the _entente_. After all, theFitzwarens were the Fitzwarens, and our revered Vicar--the hardestriding parson in five counties--clinched the matter with the mostapposite quotation from Holy Writ in which he has ever indulged.
The august Mrs. Catesby bore the olive branch in the form of a coupleof pieces of pasteboard to the Grange in due course; Mrs. Arbuthnot,the Vicar's wife, Laura Glendinning, and the rank and file of thecustodians of the public decency followed suit; and such an atmosphereof the best type of Christian magnanimity prevailed, that it was quiteon the _tapis_ that "dear Evelyn" herself, the Perpetual President andPast Grand Mistress of this strenuous society, would shoot a card atthe Grange. To show that this is not the idle gossip of an empty tale,there is Mrs. Catesby's own declaration, made in Mrs. Arbuthnot's owndrawing-room in the presence of Laura Glendinning and the Vicar's wife,"that had Mrs. Fitz only been presented she was in a position to knowthat dear Evelyn would have called upon her."
That was the hour in which the Fitzwaren stock touched its zenith.Thenceforward there was a fall in price. Nevertheless, it was agreedthat Fitz was a reformed character. A glass of beer for luncheon, aglass of wine for dinner, and a maximum of three whiskies and sodas_per diem_; handsome indemnity paid to the daughter of the landlord ofthe Fitzwaren Arms; propitiation galore to persons of all degrees andshades of opinion; appearance with the ducal party at the Cockfostershoot; regular attendance at church every Sunday forenoon. Fitz madethe pace so hot that the wise declared it could not possibly last.They were wrong, however, as the wise are occasionally. Fitz had morestaying power than friends and neighbours were prepared to concede tothe son of his father. But in spite of all this, once the slump set init continued steadily.
Those who had known Fitz before the reformation were not slow tobelieve that it was no strength of the inner nature that had renderedhim a vessel of grace. It was excessively creditable, of course, tothe black sheep of the fold, but the whole merit of the reclamationbelonged not to the prodigal, but to the nondescript lady from thecontinent who had not been presented at Court. The depth of Fitz'sinfatuation for that unconventional creature was really grotesque.
To the merely masculine intelligence it would have seemed that aninfluence so beneficent over one so besmirched as poor Fitz must havecounted to that lady for righteousness on the high court scale. Butthe Committee for the Maintenance of the Public Decency came to quiteanother conclusion. The mere male cannot do better than give _inextenso_ the Committee's report upon the matter, and for the text ofthis judicial pearl our thanks are due to the august Mrs. Catesby. "Ifshe had been Anybody," that great and good woman announced, "one wouldhave felt it only right to encourage Nevil Fitzwaren in hispraise-worthy effort, but as dear Evelyn has been informed, onunimpeachable authority, that she used to ride bareback in a circus inVienna, it is quite clear that the wretched fellow is in the toils ofan infatuation."
After this finding by the Committee, holders of Fitzwaren stockunloaded quickly. Yet there were some of these speculators who wereloth to take that course. Fitz, the harum-scarum, with his nailstrimmed, was a less picturesque figure than the provincial Don Juan;but there were those who were not slow to aver that the fair_equestrienne_ he had had the audacity to import from Vienna was quitethe most romantic figure that had ever hunted with the CrackanthorpeHounds.
Doubtless she had been born in a stable and reared upon mares' milk,but to behold her mounted upon the strain of the Godolphin Arabian, ina tall hat, military gauntlets and a scarlet coat was a spectacle thatfew beholders were able to forget. In the opinion of the Committee,there can be no doubt whatever that it hastened the end of the Dowager.The old lady drove to the meet at the Cross Roads, behind her fat oldponies and her fat old coachman John Timmins, in the full enjoyment ofall her faculties, with a shrewd wit, an easy conscience and a goodappetite, took one glance at Mrs. Nevil Fitzwaren, told John Timmins ina hoarse whisper to go home immediately, had a stroke before shearrived, and passed away without regaining consciousness, in thepresence of her spiritual, her medical, and her legal advisers.
In the inflamed state of the public mind, it was necessary that personsof moderate views should be wary. I had seen Mrs. Fitz out hunting,and in this place I am open to confess that I was sealed of the tribeof her admirers. Not from the athletic standpoint merely, but from theaesthetic one. Quite a young woman, with superb black eyes and a forestof raven hair, a skin of lustrous olive, a nose and chin ofextraordinary decision and character; a more imperiously challengingpersonality I cannot remember to have seen. Professional Viennese_equestriennes_ are doubtless a race apart. They may be accustomed toexact a homage from their world which in ours is reserved more or lessfor the "dear Evelyns" and their compeers. But the gaze of thishaughty queen of the sawdust, when she condescended to exert it, wa
sthe most direct and arresting thing that ever exacted tribute from theEnglish male or fluttered the devecotes of the scandalised Englishfemale. Her "what-pray-are-you-doing-on-the-earth?" air was so vitalthat it sent a thrill through the veins. Small wonder was it that thehapless Fitz had struggled so gamely to pull himself together. She wasa woman to make a man or mar him. As Fitz was marred already, thesphere of her activities were limited accordingly.
Like most men of moderate views, at heart I own to being a bit of acoward. At any rate it would have taken wild horses to drag theadmission from me that I was an out-and-out admirer of the "StormyPetrel," as with rare felicity the Vicar of the parish had christenedher. For by this time our little republic was cloven in twain. Therewere the Mrs. Fitzites, her humble admirers and willing slaves, whosesex you will easily guess; and there were the Anti-Mrs.-Fitzites,ruthless adversaries who had sworn to have her blood, or failing that,since Atalanta was an amazon indeed, to make the place so hot for herthat, in the words of my friend Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, "she would haveto quit."
How to dislodge her, that was the problem for the ladies of theCrackanthorpe Hunt. It was in the quest of a solution that theillustrious Mrs. Catesby had honoured us with a morning call.
"Odo Arbuthnot," said that notable woman, "it is my intention to speakplainly. Mrs. Fitz must leave the neighbourhood. We look to you, as amarried man, a father of a family and a county member, to devise ameans for her removal."
"Issue a writ," said I. "That seems the most straightforward course.If our assaulted and battered friend, Brasset, will swear aninformation, I shall be glad to sign the warrant."
"Do you think she could be taken to prison?" said Mrs. Arbuthnot,hopefully.
"Don't attempt to beg the question." The Great Lady was not to bediverted from the scent. "Be more manly. We expect public spirit fromyou. Certainly this business is extremely disagreeable, but it doesnot excuse your pusillanimity. To my mind, your attitude all along hassuggested that you are trying to run with the hare and to hunt with thehounds."
This was a terrible home-thrust for a confirmed lover of the middlecourse. I hope I am not wholly lacking in spirit, but such a chargewas not easy to rebut. While I assumed a statesmanlike port, if onlyto gain a little time in which to cover my exposed position, myrelation by marriage, with a daring which was certainly remarkable inone who is not by nature a thruster, took up the cudgels yet again.
"If I were you, Odo," said he, "I should let 'em do their own dirtywork."
I felt Mary Catesby's glance flash past me like the lightning of heaven.
"Dirty work, Joseph? I demand an explanation."
"I call it dirty," said that gladiator. "I like things straightforrardmyself. If you think a cove is askin' for trouble hand it out to himpersonally. Don't set on others."
Before the woman of impregnable virtue to whom this gem of morality wasaddressed, could visit the Bayard at the breakfast table according tohis merit, we found ourselves suddenly precipitated into the realms ofdrama.
For this was the moment in which I became aware that Parkins washovering about my chair and that a sensational announcement was on hislips.
"Mr. Fitzwaren desires to see you, sir, on most urgent business."
The effect was electrical. Mary Catesby suspended her indictment witha gesture like Boadicea's, queenly but ferocious. Brasset's pinkperplexity approximated to a shade of green; the eyes of the Madam werelike moons--in the circumstances a little poetic license is surely tobe pardoned--while as for the demeanour of the narrator of thisower-true tale, I can answer for it that it was one of totaldiscomfiture.
"Mr. Fitzwaren here?" were my first incredulous words.
"I have shown him into the library, sir," said Parkins, solemnly.
"You cannot see him, Odo," said the despot of our household. "He mustnot come here."
"Important business, Parkins?" said I.
"Most _urgent_ business, sir."
"Highly mysterious!" Mrs. Catesby was pleased to affirm.
Highly mysterious the coming of Nevil Fitzwaren certainly was. Amoment's reflection convinced me of the need of appeasing the generalcuriosity. I took my way to the library with many speculations risingin my mind. Nothing was further from my expectation than to beconsulted by Nevil Fitzwaren on urgent business.