Practical heart, p.6
Practical Heart, page 6
But it was her father who answered. “We don’t do much in the way of entertaining,” he said. “Since Mrs. G. passed on, we hardly have had a guest for dinner, have we, my dear?”
Miss Grouse persisted in saying nothing, but nodded solemnly. Gillian tried another approach: “You must spend a good deal of your time doing handiwork,” she suggested. “What is your especial interest—filigree, embroidery?”
Again she was thwarted by Mr. Grouse, for at this question his face darkened, and he smiled his evil smile threateningly. “It’s no matter of use asking her about that; Thomasina don’t believe in such ladylike shilly shallying, do you, miss?”
Miss Grouse shook her head grimly.
“But then, how do you pass your time?” Felicity inquired frankly. And all of the company looked up expectantly, for Miss Grouse parted her lips at last, and it seemed, finally, as is she were about to speak.
Miss Grouse focussed her gaze upon Gillian and spoke in a low, earnest tone, with rather a pleasant rasp to it. All she said, however, was, “I believe someone is trying to attract your attention, ma’am.”
Chapter V
Mrs. Trigg was standing in the doorway, waving her hands frantically and mouthing noiseless monosyllables. Miss Spencer rose immediately and more or less pushed her beyond earshot of the others.
“What is it?” she whispered harshly.
“The biscuits, Miss,” she hissed back, still shaping her words with exaggerated clarity. “They haven’t rose.”
“Well, is there nothing you can do?” asked Gillian, who knew next to nothing of cookery.
“Not a thing, Miss,” said Mrs. Trigg, and snickered.
Gillian suddenly suspected her of having deliberately sabotaged her own baking. “Then do not serve them,” she said shortly. “Is dinner to be ready soon?”
“Oh, it’s been ready and waiting these ten minutes and more,” Mrs. Trigg replied, feigning surprise at the question. “What I didn’t know was if you was ready for it.”
“Well, of course we are ready. What on earth are you—never mind,” she amended, suppressing the impatience she felt. “Have Trigg announce it and serve it directly, please.”
“Certainly, Miss,” came the obliging reply.
A few minutes later, Trigg stuck his head in the door to deliver the glad tidings to the company. Gillian led the way to the table, which was but a few steps from the settee, and jockeyed Miss Grouse—with great difficulty—into the chair next to the Viscount.
“Mutton!” exclaimed Mr. Grouse with evident delight, when Trigg had deposited a steaming rack of lamb on the table. “I always have liked my mutton.”
Miss Spencer saw Sherbourne wince involuntarily, but he rallied himself at once and said, “Then do, I beg, partake. I am so happy we chanced upon a thing you particularly enjoy.”
“Papa is very fussy in his eating,” Miss Grouse said suddenly. She said it quite blandly, with her agreeable rasp, but Gillian sensed below it a trace of bitterness.
“You must be at wit’s end to think what to serve him,” she suggested.
Miss Grouse smiled a fat, solemn little smile and nodded sadly.
“Oh, I’m not so niffy-naffy as she says,” Mr. Grouse assured them. Then he seemed to notice Felicity for the first time. “And what might you be thinking of, young lady, to make you smile so wistful?”
Felicity coloured up directly. “Nothing, sir,” she stammered, “or, rather, what a handsome stickpin that is, sir! I was just observing it.”
Valerian wondered with some amazement how he had bred a daughter who lied so poorly. Miss Spencer wondered what indeed Felicity had been thinking of. “Glad you like it, miss,” Mr. Grouse told Felicity, his teeth gleaming awfully in the candlelight. “Cost me a pretty penny, I can assure you. But what’s money, then?” he added, shrugging philosophically.
“What, indeed?” said Valerian, finding this a promising outlook in his creditor. “Money, I have often thought, is no more than a medium, a means of exchange, a sort of concrete language by which we convey to one another what we want, and what we have in excess. In itself, it is nothing—a form, an appearance, a hollow shell! A thing empty and base, of no beauty, no value of its own, and yet with the power to corrupt, with power—how shall I say it?—to destroy, to make men greedy, rob them of nobility, endanger their immortal souls! Lucre! Pelf! How often poets have cried out against it, as if it were a force and not a thing, inert and spiritless. It is we ourselves, sir,” he went on, rounding on Mr. Grouse, “we ourselves who determine its significance, who give it life, value, meaning. What, as you so wisely inquire, is money? A means of trying a man’s soul, by seeing how well he parts with it; a proof, a measure, of human generosity—that is all. Myself, I would have nothing to do with it, if only such a thing were possible.”
Gillian detected a look of more than moderate scepticism in Mr. Grouse’s expression, and thought it wise to turn the conversation. “More wine, Mr. Grouse?” she offered, reflecting that matters might improve were the gentleman to become a trifle bosky.
But Mr. Grouse thwarted her immediately. “No,” said he, “I don’t hold with much drinking. Not but what it’s excellent wine, I’m sure,” he added politely.
Still, Gillian found that her efforts were not quite in vain; the mention of wine gave the Viscount an opportunity to expatiate upon the values of the grape, a subject, she soon discovered, on which he had a lot to say. The thrust of these remarks carried the company all the way through to the sweets: a rather doughy tart that Mrs. Trigg had told Gillian was one of her special creations, and a mould of jelly. Miss Spencer observed to herself with satisfaction that the necessity of serving dinner in the drawing room had the very happy effect of eliminating that half-hour during which the ladies would normally have removed themselves from the table, a half-hour during which she guessed Mr. Grouse would have felt himself free to discuss the Viscount’s debt. Congratulating herself silently, she suggested to the party that they revert to their seats before the fire, and drink their coffee there.
No sooner had this recommendation been agreed to and carried out than the doorbell croaked—startling both guests into spilling their coffee—and Trigg entered the room bearing a card. He hesitated for a moment, looking from the viscount to Miss Spencer, and decided at last upon the latter. Miss Spencer read as she had once before, “Mr. Miles Lawrence, Esquire.”
“Oh dear,” she cried aloud, without at all meaning to. She cast an unhappy glance at Sherbourne and instructed Trigg, “You may send him in.”
Mr. Lawrence appeared a moment later. He was dressed in knee-breeches, silk stockings, and pumps. A chapeau-bras tucked neatly under one elegantly sleeved arm, he made a bow to the gentlemen and kissed Miss Grouse’s hand gallantly as they were presented to one another. “Pardon my raiment, I beg,” he said. “I’m off to dine with Metcalfe, and then to Almack’s—deadly dull, but I do try to appear there at least once in a season. I cannot pretend, alas, not to have known you were engaged for dinner,” he told Miss Spencer. “In fact, I knew the Grouses were expected, and that I should be intruding. However, I could not prevent myself from coming; I did desire so ardently to make their acquaintance.”
“Well, I hope you aren’t disappointed,” Mr. Grouse said gruffly, for he had no opinion of striped stockings and chapeaux-bras.
“Disappointed!” Miles repeated gaily. “On the contrary! I must confess especially, Miss Grouse, that it was what I heard of you which attracted me so irresistibly to The Haven this evening.”
Miss Grouse looked—as well she might—surprised. She said nothing.
“But am I to be denied even a word from your lips?” Mr. Lawrence cried. “Are all young ladies, then, become so cruel?”
“No, indeed,” said Gillian, unable to resist an urge to be ungracious. “It is merely that, unprepared as we were for your presence, we cannot think of a word to say.”
“Not even to offer me coffee?” asked Miles sadly. “You break my heart, madam.”
“A noble heart, that cracks for a cup of coffee,” Gillian murmured inaudibly. “Do you care to take some refreshment, sir?”
“I should like it extremely,” he responded, with a warm smile. He seated himself next to Miss Spencer and accepted the cup she poured. He knew perfectly well how greatly, and how justifiably, she resented his intrusion into the evening, and was enjoying himself enormously. He took her hand and kissed it. “This is more the kind General I know,” he said, under cover of some conversation among the others. “To share her rations with a common foot-soldier! Miss Spencer, I like you excessively.”
Gillian felt an acute discomfort. As before, she was disturbed by the rapid shifts in Mr. Lawrence’s tone: One moment his words were barbed, almost venomous; the next they seemed inarguably sincere. She withdrew her hand from his and smiled uncertainly. “You are kind to say so, sir.”
“I am kind all round, you know,” he pointed out.
“Are you?” she said, her temper flaring slightly. “Then what do you here, pray?”
“Then you are not pleased to see me, after all,” he replied, his intonation mocking that of a man who is crestfallen.
“How should I be pleased?” she whispered sharply.
“How should you not be pleased” answered he, “when I came particularly to see you?”
“I thought it was Miss Grouse you came to see,” she reminded him.
“She is a spectacle, is not she?” he said, as though agreeing with an observation Gillian had made.
“Shame!” she replied, hating herself for such missishness. “Miss Grouse is, I believe, a very sweet girl, much disadvantaged by her circumstances.”
“Disadvantaged? By the look of her jewels, I should no! have chosen such a word.”
“You know very well what I mean,” Miss Spencer said.
Mr. Lawrence regarded her in mild surprise. “What? Crying craven? When I had been so looking forward to a sharp rejoinder!”
“It seems you are destined to disappointment this evening.”
Miles looked comforted as she delivered this retort. “That is much better,” he said encouragingly. “I think I shall soon be quite expert at the gentle art of annoying you, Miss Spencer.”
“Art?” she repeated, annoyed indeed at the pique he had succeeded in arousing in her. “I should rather have said sport, dear sir. And one which ranks in refinement with bear-baiting and cock-fighting, in my opinion.”
“But our good Miss Spencer is not a bear,” he observed gently, taking her hand again.
She removed it immediately. “On the contrary,” she exclaimed, in automatic perversity.
“But you are not,” he repeated, looking disarmingly into her eyes. “I must be off soon,” he added, as she said nothing.
To her extreme displeasure, she felt a little twinge of disappointment: a sudden, tiny falling deep inside herself. “I beg you will not let me keep you,” she said dispiritedly.
“No, I shall not,” he agreed. He turned to the others, asked Mr. Grouse a question or two, and coaxed Miss Grouse into telling him her Christian name. Then he rose and excused himself, favouring Miss Spencer with no more than a cheerful nod, and was gone indeed. Miss Spencer turned to her guests with energy.
“I have been absent from London such a long time,” she informed them, “I had forgot how very noisy and bustling it is. It seems almost to have become more so in the past few years, or perhaps it is merely my imagination?”
This and other harmless topics were discussed at length, until at last—and long, long after Miss Spencer had decided they should—the Grouses rose to depart. Valerian breathed an audible sigh as the front door closed upon them.
“Well, my children,” he remarked listlessly, “such are the various estates of man. You have seen tonight evidence of a life, a culture, a breeding, from which I had hoped fondly to shield you forever.” Here he shuddered, apparently without exaggeration.
“I thought Miss Grouse was nice,” Felicity said shyly.
Her sister cast her a look of loathing. “You think anything is nice which does not bite you,” she said.
“I think…” Felicity began slowly, “I think lions are nice, and yet they might bite me.”
“Father, tell Felicity how stupid she is being,” Cordelia appealed to the Viscount.
“Is she being stupid?” he inquired, for he had missed their interchange altogether.
“Oh!” cried Cordelia, in the tone of one who is pushed to the very brink of endurance. She stood up suddenly and moved to the door, muttering a garbled Good-night.
“Was I being stupid?” Felicity asked of Miss Spencer. “I thought I was being clever!”
“You were being—yourself, my dear, which is all you need be. I should not refine too much upon what Cordelia says tonight; she seems to be out of charity with us all.”
“Do you know, I thought that!” Felicity exclaimed, much struck to find her observations confirmed by someone else. “What can have happened to make her so, do you suppose?”
“Best not to ask, I suspect,” advised Gillian. “My Lord, do you think we might contrive to take the girls somewhere tomorrow evening? They have seen so little of London.”
“Certainly,” answered Valerian, to whom the prospect of an outing was never disagreeable. “Where, for example?”
“I thought perhaps Vauxhall,” said Miss Spencer.
“Vauxhall! The very thing! Is tomorrow evening the sort of evening when one might go to Vauxhall?”
“I see no reason why not,” said Gillian.
“Then Vauxhall it will be! Will you like that?” he asked Felicity, who, never having been there, had absolutely no way of knowing.
“I shall love it!”
“Good enough,” Miss Spencer pronounced. “Let us go upstairs and tell Cordelia; perhaps she will feel better.”
And the two women left the room, Felicity asking as she went, “Do you think Cordelia feels ill, Gillian?”
The remainder of the evening passed without event. A light supper, grudgingly prepared by Mrs. Trigg, was consumed almost in silence, and the night was given over to thought and sleep.
The morning, however, brought callers as unwelcome—to Gillian—as they were unlooked for.
“You look quite hagged, My dear,” Lady Vaughn informed Gillian as she seated herself rigidly upon the velvet settee. “Does not she look hagged, Winsted?” she demanded.
“Quite hagged,” he agreed obediently.
“I am feeling very well,” said Gillian, a touch of obstinacy in her tone.
“How one is feeling and how looking, My dear, are often entirely without connection. I know that I Myself have frequently been in My very best looks when all the while I was in Low Spirits. Not that I am frequently in Low Spirits, you understand. My point is simply that, no matter how well one feels, one must strive to appear in good health. Do you understand, Miss Spencer?”
“I believe so,” said Gillian, from between tightly clenched teeth. “Shall I go and tell the girls you are here? They will be delighted, I know.”
“By all means, go and tell them,” Lady Vaughn said cordially. “I have been looking forward to seeing them again.”
“Mother is often a favourite with young ladies,” Winsted put in. “They enjoy her conversation, you know, and appreciate her sound advice.”
“Do they?” said Miss Spencer, pausing as she reached the door and wishing he had not spoken just as she had been about to escape.
“O yes,” he assured her, as though the question had not been rhetorical. “I recall a Miss Trawline—she made her come-out last season, you know—positively doated on Mother. They were inseparable! From the very moment they found themselves in the same room, they gravitated towards one another almost irresistibly. I once mentioned the matter to her—in conversation, you know—and she said…what was it she said? O yes, she said, ‘Your mother is a lady of extraordinary strength—almost overpowering!’ ”
Very likely she meant to say “overbearing,” thought Gillian to herself, fretting at the doorway while Lord Vaughn bore on.
“And it is not only Miss Trawline. O no! Any number of young ladies have been drawn to Mother, and it is not difficult to guess why.”
“Not at all,” Gillian interrupted, as he paused for breath. “Do excuse me, pray, for a moment.” She found the girls upstairs, sketching pictures of ears and noses, and using one another as models. “The Vaughns are here,” she informed them. “I am afraid you will have to come down.”
To her astonishment, Cordelia leapt from her chair with an eager, involuntary smile. “Do you mean both the Vaughns?” she demanded. “Not just Lady Vaughn?”
“Dear me, no,” said Gillian, puzzled. “Lord Vaughn has been inflicting himself upon me these ten minutes and more.”
“Ten minutes!” cried Cordelia, rushing to look at her reflection in the mirror. “My father is not at home, is he?” she asked suddenly.
“No, he is not,” replied Miss Spencer, wondering why it mattered.
“Then, why are we waiting? The Vaughns will think us rude beyond everything.”
“I hardly think their opinions need weigh with us,” Gillian said, but by the time she finished her sentence Cordelia was halfway down the stairs and out of earshot. They found her a moment later, making a very ingratiating curtsy to Lady Vaughn and inquiring how she did.
“Very well, thank you, Cordelia. O, and little Felicia, is it not?” she went on as Felicity and Miss Spencer came in.
“Felicity, ma’am,” said she, dropping a small curtsy.
“Felicity?” Lady Vaughn repeated. “No, that is wrong, quite wrong. The proper name is Felicia. I am sure it must be Felicia, My dear.”
The younger Miss Collins said nothing, but cast a glance of confused despair at Miss Spencer.
“We must allow Felicity to be an expert at least in the matter of her name,” she suggested as gently as she could.
“Actually,” Lord Vaughn remarked, “it is astonishing to what extent many people are ignorant of their own names. Now you take a rustic, a blacksmith for instance, who has been called, all his life, Jack. Is it possible to convince this man that his proper name is John? It is not, I assure you, Miss Spencer; it is utterly impossible to persuade him of any such thing. Or, consider the case of a country girl, accustomed since birth to call herself Betty. Does she know, do you suppose, that her full name is Elizabeth? More likely than not, she does not know. I assure you, Miss Spencer, it is utterly confounding. Half the Bettys in the country, I dareswear, do not know that their name is Elizabeth!”
