VI
On the way to luncheon Mr. Woods came upon Adele Haggage and Hugh VanOrden, both of whom he knew, very much engrossed in one another, in anook under the stairway. To Billy it seemed just now quite proper thatevery one should be in love; wasn't it--after all--the most pleasantcondition in the world? So he greeted them with a semi-paternal smilethat caused Adele to flush a little.
For she was--let us say, interested--in Mr. Van Orden. That wastolerably well known. In fact, Margaret--prompted by Mrs. Haggage,it must be confessed--had invited him to Selwoode for the especialpurpose of entertaining Miss Adele Haggage; for he was a good match,and Mrs. Haggage, as an experienced chaperon, knew the value ofcountry houses. Very unexpectedly, however, the boy had developed adisconcerting tendency to fall in love with Margaret, who snubbed himpromptly and unmercifully. He had accordingly fallen back on Adele,and Mrs. Haggage had regained both her trust in Providence and hertemper.
In the breakfast-room, where luncheon was laid out, the Colonelgreeted Mr. Woods with the enthusiasm a sailor shipwrecked on a desertisland might conceivably display toward the boat-crew come to rescuehim. The Colonel liked Billy; and furthermore, the poor Colonel'sposition at Selwoode just now was not utterly unlike that of thesuppositious mariner; were I minded to venture into metaphor, I shouldpicture him as clinging desperately to the rock of an old fogeyismand surrounded by weltering seas of advanced thought. Colonel Hugoninhimself was not advanced in his ideas. Also, he had forceful opinionsas to the ultimate destination of those who were.
Then Billy was presented to the men of the party--Mr. Felix Kennastonand Mr. Petheridge Jukesbury. Mrs. Haggage he knew slightly; andKathleen Saumarez he had known very well indeed, some six yearspreviously, before she had ever heard of Miguel Saumarez, and whenBilly was still an undergraduate. She was a widow now, and notwell-to-do; and Mr. Woods's first thought on seeing her was that a manwas a fool to write verses, and that she looked like just the sort ofwoman to preserve them.
His second was that he had verged on imbecility when he fancied headmired that slender, dark-haired type. A woman's hair ought to be anenormous coronal of sunlight; a woman ought to have very large, candideyes of a colour between that of sapphires and that of the springheavens, only infinitely more beautiful than either; and allpetticoated persons differing from this description were manifestlyquite unworthy of any serious consideration.
So his eyes turned to Margaret, who had no eyes for him. She hadforgotten his existence, with an utterness that verged on ostentation;and if it had been any one else Billy would have surmised she was in atemper. But that angel in a temper!--nonsense! And, oh, what eyes shehad! and what lashes! and what hair!--and altogether, how adorable shewas, and what a wonder the admiring gods hadn't snatched her up toOlympus long ago!
Thus far Mr. Woods.
But if Miss Hugonin was somewhat taciturn, her counsellors in diversschemes for benefiting the universe were in opulent vein. Billy heardthem silently.
"I have spent the entire morning by the lake," Mr. Kennaston informedthe party at large, "in company with a mocking-bird who was practisinga new aria. It was a wonderful place; the trees were lisping verses tothemselves, and the sky overhead was like a robin's egg in colour,and a faint wind was making tucks and ruches and pleats all overthe water, quite as if the breezes had set up in business asmantua-makers. I fancy they thought they were working on a great sheetof blue silk, for it was very like that. And every once in a while afish would leap and leave a splurge of bubble and foam behind that youwould have sworn was an inserted lace medallion."
Mr. Kennaston, as you are doubtless aware, is the author of "TheKing's Quest" and other volumes of verse. He is a full-bodied youngman, with hair of no particular shade; and if his green eyes are alittle aged, his manner is very youthful. His voice in speaking iswonderfully pleasing, and he has a habit of cocking his head on oneside, in a bird-like fashion.
"Indeed," Mr. Petheridge Jukesbury observed, "it is very true that Godmade the country and man made the town. A little more wine, please."
Mr. Jukesbury is a prominent worker in the cause of philanthropyand temperance. He is ponderous and bland; and for the rest, he ispresident of the Society for the Suppression of Nicotine and theNude, vice-president of the Anti-Inebriation League, secretary of theIncorporated Brotherhood of Benevolence, and the bearer of diverssimilar honours.
"I am never really happy in the country," Mrs. Saumarez dissented; "itreminds me so constantly of our rural drama. I am always afraid thequartette may come on and sing something."
Kathleen Eppes Saumarez, as I hope you do not need to be told, isthe well-known lecturer before women's clubs, and the author of manysympathetic stories of Nature and animal life of the kind that havehad such a vogue of late. There was always an indefinable air ofpathos about her; as Hunston Wyke put it, one felt, somehow, that hermother had been of a domineering disposition, and that she took afterher father.
"Ah, dear lady," Mr. Kennaston cried, playfully, "you, like many ofus, have become an alien to Nature in your quest of a mere EarthlyParadox. Epigrams are all very well, but I fancy there is morehappiness to be derived from a single impulse from a vernal wood thanfrom a whole problem-play of smart sayings. So few of us arenatural," Mr. Kennaston complained, with a dulcet sigh; "we are toosophisticated. Our very speech lacks the tang of outdoor life.Why should we not love Nature--the great mother, who is, I grant you,the necessity of various useful inventions, in her angry moods, butwho, in her kindly moments--" He paused, with a wry face. "I beg yourpardon," said he, "but I believe I've caught rheumatism lying by thatconfounded pond."
Mrs. Saumarez rallied the poet, with a pale smile. "That comes ofcommuning with Nature," she reminded him; "and it serves you rightly,for natural communications corrupt good epigrams. I prefer Naturewith wide margins and uncut leaves," she spoke, in her best platformmanner. "Art should be an expurgated edition of Nature, with allthe unpleasant parts left out. And I am sure," Mrs. Saumarez added,handsomely, and clinching her argument, "that Mr. Kennaston gives usmuch better sunsets in his poems than I have ever seen in the west."
He acknowledged this with a bow.
"Not sherry--claret, if you please," said Mr. Jukesbury. "Art shouldbe an expurgated edition of Nature," he repeated, with a suavechuckle. "Do you know, I consider that admirably put, Mrs.Saumarez--admirably, upon my word. Ah, if our latter-day writers wouldonly take that saying to heart! We do not need to be told of the viceand corruption prevalent, I am sorry to say, among the very bestpeople; what we really need is continually to be reminded of the factthat pure hearts and homes and happy faces are to be found to-dayalike in the palatial residences of the wealthy and in the humblerhomes of those less abundantly favoured by Fortune, and yet dwellingtogether in harmony and Christian resignation and--er--comparativelymoderate circumstances."
"Surely," Mrs. Saumarez protested, "art has nothing to do withmorality. Art is a process. You see a thing in a certain way; you makeyour reader see it in the same way--or try to. If you succeed, theresult is art. If you fail, it may be the book of the year."
"Enduring immortality and--ah--the patronage of the reading public,"Mr. Jukesbury placidly insisted, "will be awarded, in the end, onlyto those who dwell upon the true, the beautiful, and the--er--respectable. Art must cheer; it must be optimistic andedifying and--ah--suitable for young persons; it must have an uplift,a leaven of righteousness, a--er--a sort of moral baking-powder. Itmust utterly eschew the--ah--unpleasant and repugnant details of life.It is, if I may so express myself, not at home in the menage a troisor--er--the representation of the nude. Yes, another glass of claret,if you please."
"I quite agree with you," said Mrs. Haggage, in her deep voice. SarahEllen Haggage is, of course, the well-known author of "Child-Labour inthe South," and "The Down-Trodden Afro-American," and other notablecontributions to literature. She is, also, the "Madame President" bothof the Society for the Betterment of Civic Government and Sewerage,and of the Ladies' League for the Edifi
cation of the Impecunious.
"And I am glad to see," Mrs. Haggage presently went on, "that theliterature of the day is so largely beginning to chronicle the sayingsand doings of the labouring classes. The virtues of the humble must beadmitted in spite of their dissolute and unhygienic tendencies. Yes,"Mrs. Haggage added, meditatively, "our literature is undoubtedlyacquiring a more elevated tone; at last we are shaking off thescintillant and unwholesome influence of the French."
"Ah, the French!" sighed Mr. Kennaston; "a people who think depravitythe soul of wit! Their art is mere artfulness. They care nothing forNature."
"No," Mrs. Haggage assented; "they prefer nastiness. _All_ Frenchbooks are immoral. I ran across one the other day that was simplyhideously indecent--unfit for a modest woman to read. And I can assureyou that none of its author's other books are any better. I purchasedthe entire set at once and read them carefully, in order to make surethat I was perfectly justified in warning my working-girls' classesagainst them. I wish to misjudge no man--not even a member of a nationnotoriously devoted to absinthe and illicit relations."
She breathed heavily, and looked at Mr. Woods as if, somehow, hewas responsible. Then she gave the name of the book to PetheridgeJukesbury. He wished to have it placed on the _Index Expurgatorius_ ofthe Brotherhood of Benevolence, he said.
"Dear, dear," Felix Kennaston sighed, as Mr. Jukesbury made a note ofit; "you are all so practical. You perceive an evil and proceed atonce, in your common-sense way, to crush it, to stamp it out. Now,I can merely lament certain unfortunate tendencies of the age; I amquite unable to contend against them. Do you know," Mr. Kennestoncontinued gaily, as he trifled with a bunch of grapes, "I feelhorribly out-of-place among you? Here is Mrs. Saumarez creating anepidemic of useful and improving knowledge throughout the country, bymeans of her charming lectures. Here is Mrs. Haggage, the mainspring,if I may say so, of any number of educational and philanthropicalarm clocks which will some day rouse the sleeping public from itslethargy. And here is my friend Jukesbury, whose eloquent pleas for ahigher life have turned so many workmen from gin and improvidence, andwhich in a printed form are disseminated even in such remote regionsas Africa, where I am told they have produced the most satisfactoryresults upon the unsophisticated but polygamous monarchs of thatcontinent. And here, above all, is Miss Hugonin, utilising the vastpower of money--which I am credibly informed is a very good thing tohave, though I cannot pretend to speak from experience--and castingwhole bakeryfuls of bread upon the waters of charity. And here amI, the idle singer of an empty day--a mere drone in this hive ofphilanthropic bees! Dear, dear," said Mr. Kennaston, enviously, "whata thing it is to be practical!" And he laughed toward Margaret, in hiswhimsical way.
Miss Hugonin had been strangely silent; but she returned Mr.Kennaston's smile, and began to take part in the conversation.
"You're only an ignorant child," she rebuked him, "and a very naughtychild, too, to make fun of us in this fashion."
"Yes," Mr. Kennaston assented, "I am wilfully ignorant. The worldadores ignorance; and where ignorance is kissed it is folly to bewise. To-morrow I shall read you a chapter from my 'Defense ofIgnorance,' which my confiding publisher is going to bring out in theautumn."
So the table-talk went on, and now Margaret bore a part therein.
* * * * *
However, I do not think we need record it further.
Mr. Woods listened in a sort of a daze. Adele Haggage and Hugh VanOrden were conversing in low tones at one end of the table; theColonel was eating his luncheon, silently and with a certain air ofresignation; and so Billy Woods was left alone to attend and marvel.
The ideas they advanced seemed to him, for the most part, sensible.What puzzled him was the uniform gravity which they accordedequally--as it appeared to him--to the discussion of the most pompousplatitudes and of the most arrant nonsense. They were always serious;and the general tone of infallibility, Billy thought, could bewarranted only by a vast fund of inexperience.
But, in the main, they advocated theories he had alwaysheld--excellent theories, he considered. And he was seized with anunreasonable desire to repudiate every one of them.
For it seemed to him that every one of them was aimed at Margaret'sapproval. It did not matter to whom a remark was ostensiblyaddressed--always at its conclusion the speaker glanced more orless openly toward Miss Hugonin. She was the audience to which theyzealously played, thought Billy; and he wondered.
I think I have said that, owing to the smallness of the house-party,luncheon was served in the breakfast-room. The dining-room at Selwoodeis very rarely used, because Margaret declares its size makes a mealthere equivalent to eating out-of-doors.
And I must confess that the breakfast-room is far cosier. The room, inthe first place, is of reasonable dimensions; it is hung with Flemishtapestries from designs by Van Eyck representing the Four Seasons, butthe walls and ceiling are panelled in oak, and over the mantel carvedin bas-relief the inevitable Eagle is displayed.
The mantel stood behind Margaret's chair; and over her golden head,half-protectingly, half-threateningly, with his wings outstretched tothe uttermost, the Eagle brooded as he had once brooded over FrederickR. Woods. The old man sat contentedly beneath that symbol of whathe had achieved in life. He had started (as the phrase runs) fromnothing; he had made himself a power. To him, the Eagle meant thatcrude, incalculable power of wealth he gloried in. And to Billy Woods,the Eagle meant identically the same thing, and--I am sorry to say--hebegan to suspect that the Eagle was really the audience to whom MissHugonin's friends so zealously played.
Perhaps the misanthropy of Mr. Woods was not wholly unconnected withthe fact that Margaret never looked at him. _She'd_ show him!--thefortune-hunter!
So her eyes never strayed toward him; and her attention never lefthim. At the end of luncheon she could have enumerated for you everymorsel he had eaten, every glare he had directed toward Kennaston,every beseeching look he had turned to her. Of course, he had takensherry--dry sherry. Hadn't he told her four years ago--it was thefirst day she had ever worn the white organdie dotted with purplesprigs, and they sat by the lake so late that afternoon that FrederickR. Woods finally sent for them to come to dinner--hadn't he told herthen that only women and children cared for sweet wines? Of course hehad--the villain!
"Billy Woods"]
Billy, too, had his emotions. To hear that paragon, that queen amongwomen, descant of work done in the slums and of the mysteries ofsweat-shops; to hear her state off-hand that there were seventeenhundred and fifty thousand children between the ages of ten andfifteen years employed in the mines and factories of the UnitedStates; to hear her discourse of foreign missions as glibly as thoughshe had been born and nurtured in Zambesi Land: all these thingsfilled him with an odd sense of alienation. He wasn't worthy of her,and that was a fact. He was only a dumb idiot, and half the words thatwere falling thick and fast from philanthropic lips about him might aswell have been hailstones, for all the benefit he was deriving fromthem. He couldn't understand half she said.
In consequence, he very cordially detested the people whocould--especially that grimacing ass, Kennaston.
Altogether, neither Mr. Woods nor Miss Hugonin got much comfort fromtheir luncheon.