Читать книгу The Marriage of William Ashe - Mrs. Humphry Ward - Страница 9

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Ashe took his seat, dined, and saw the Prime Minister. These things took time, and it was not till past eleven that he presented himself in the hall of Madame d'Estrées' house in St. James's Place. Most of her guests were already gathered, but he mounted the stairs together with an old friend and an old acquaintance, Philip Darrell, one of the ablest writers of the moment, and Louis Harman, artist and man of fashion, the friend of duchesses and painter of portraits, a person much in request in many worlds.

"What a cachet they have, these houses!" said Harman, looking round him. "St. James's Place is the top!"

"Where else would you expect to find Madame d'Estrées?" asked Darrell, smiling.

"Yes—what taste she has! However, it was I really who advised her to take the house."

"Naturally," said Darrell.

Harman threw a dubious look at him, then stopped a moment, and with a complacent proprietary air straightened an engraving on the staircase wall.

"I suppose the dear lady has a hundred slaves of the lamp, as usual," said Ashe. "You advise her about her house—somebody else helps her to buy her wine—"

"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Harman, offended—"as if I couldn't do that!"

"Hullo!" said Darrell, as they neared the drawing-room door. "What a crowd there is!"

For as the butler announced them, the din of talk which burst through the door implied indeed a multitude—much at their ease.

They made their way in with difficulty, shaping their course towards that corner in the room where they knew they should find their hostess. Ashe was greeted on all sides with friendly words and congratulations, and a passage was opened for him to the famous "blue sofa" where Madame d'Estrées sat enthroned.

She looked up with animation, broke off her talk with two elderly diplomats who seemed to have taken possession of her, and beckoned Ashe to a seat beside her.

"So you're in? Was it a hard fight?"

"A hard fight? Oh no! One would have had to be a great fool not to get in."

"They say you spoke very well. I suppose you promised them everything they wanted—from the crown downward?"

"Yes—all the usual harmless things," said Ashe.

Madame d'Estrées laughed; then looked at him across the top of her fan.

"Well!—and what else?"

"You can't wait for your newspaper?" he said, smiling, after a moment's pause.

She shrugged her shoulders good-humoredly.

"Oh! I know—of course I know. Is it as good as you expected?"

"As good as—" The young man opened his mouth in wonder. "What right had I to expect anything?"

"How modest! All the same, they want you—and they're very glad to get you. But you can't save them."

"That's not generally expected of Under-Secretaries, is it?"

"A good deal's expected of you. I talked to Lord Parham about you last night."

William Ashe flushed a little.

"Did you? Very kind of you."

"Not at all. I didn't flatter you in the least. Nor did he. But they're going to give you your chance!"

She bent forward and lightly patted the sleeve of his coat with the fingers of a very delicate hand. In this sympathetic aspect, Madame d'Estrées was no doubt exceedingly attractive. There were, of course, many people who were not moved by it; to whom it was the conjuring of an arch pretender. But these were generally of the female sex. Men, at any rate, lent themselves to the illusion. Ashe, certainly, had always done so. And to-night the spell still worked; though as her action drew his particular attention to her face and expression, he was aware of slight changes in her which recalled his mother's words of the afternoon. The eyes were tired; at last he perceived in them some slight signs of years and harass. Up till now her dominating charm had been a kind of timeless softness and sensuousness, which breathed from her whole personality—from her fair skin and hair, her large, smiling eyes. She put, as it were, the question of age aside. It was difficult to think of her as a child; it had been impossible to imagine her as an old woman.

"Well, this is all very surprising," said Ashe, "considering that four months ago I did not matter an old shoe to anybody."

"That was your own fault. You took no trouble. And besides—there was your poor brother in the way."

Ashe's brow contracted.

"No, that he never was," he said, with energy. "Freddy was never in anybody's way—least of all in mine."

"You know what I mean," she said, hastily. "And you know what friends he and I were—poor Freddy! But, after all, the world's the world."

"Yes—we all grow on somebody's grave," said Ashe. Then, just as she became conscious that she had jarred upon him, and must find a new opening, he himself found it. "Tell me!" he said, bending forward with a sudden alertness—"who is that lady?"

He pointed out a little figure in white, sitting in the opening of the second drawing-room; a very young girl apparently, surrounded by a group of men.

"Ah!" said Madame d'Estrées—"I was coming to that—that's my girl Kitty—"

"Lady Kitty!" said Ashe, in amazement. "She's left school? I thought she was quite a little thing."

"She's eighteen. Isn't she a darling? Don't you think her very pretty?"

Ashe looked a moment.

"Extraordinarily bewitching!—unlike other people?" he said, turning to the mother.

Madame d'Estrées raised her eyebrows a little, in apparent amusement.

"I'm not going to describe Kitty. She's indescribable. Besides—you must find her out. Do go and talk to her. She's to be half with me, half with her aunt—Lady Grosville."

Ashe made some polite comment.

"Oh! don't let's be conventional!" said Madame d'Estrées, flirting her fan with a little air of weariness—"It's an odious arrangement. Lady Grosville and I, as you probably know, are not on terms. She says atrocious things of me—and I—" the fair head fell back a little, and the white shoulders rose, with the slightest air of languid disdain—"well, bear me witness that I don't retaliate! It's not worth while. But I know that Grosville House can help Kitty. So!—" Her gesture, half ironical, half resigned, completed the sentence.

"Does Lady Kitty like society?"

"Kitty likes anything that flatters or excites her."

"Then of course she likes society. Anybody as pretty as that—"

"Ah! how sweet of you!" said Madame d'Estrées, softly—"how sweet of you! I like you to think her pretty. I like you to say so."

Ashe felt and looked a trifle disconcerted, but his companion bent forward and added—"I don't know whether I want you to flirt with her! You must take care. Kitty's the most fantastic creature. Oh! my life now'll be very different. I find she takes all my thoughts and most of my time!"

There was something extravagant in the sweetness of the smile which emphasized the speech, and altogether, Madame d'Estrées, in this new maternal aspect, was not as agreeable as usual. Part of her charm perhaps had always lain in the fact that she had no domestic topics of her own, and so was endlessly ready for those of other people. Those, indeed, who came often to her house were accustomed to speak warmly of her "unselfishness"—by which they meant the easy patience with which she could listen, smile, and flatter.

Perhaps Ashe made this tacit demand upon her, no less than other people. At any rate, as she talked cooingly on about her daughter, he would have found her tiresome for once but for some arresting quality in that small, distant figure. As it was, he followed what she said with attention, and as soon as she had been recaptured by the impatient Italian Ambassador, he moved off, intending slowly to make his way to Lady Kitty. But he was caught in many congratulations by the road, and presently he saw that his friend Darrell was being introduced to her by the old habitué of the house, Colonel Warington, who generally divided with the hostess the "lead" of these social evenings.

Lady Kitty nodded carelessly to Mr. Darrell, and he sat down beside her.

"That's a cool hand for a girl of eighteen!" thought Ashe. "She has the airs of a princess—except for the chatter."

Chatter indeed! Wherever he moved, the sound of the light hurrying voice made itself persistently heard through the hum of male conversation.

Yet once, Ashe, looking round to see if Darrell could be dislodged, caught the chatterer silent, and found himself all at once invaded by a slight thrill, or shock.

What did the girl's expression mean?—what was she thinking of? She was looking intently at the crowded room, and it seemed to Ashe that Darrell's talk, though his lips moved quickly, was not reaching her at all. The dark brows were drawn together, and beneath them the eyes looked sorely out. The delicate lips were slightly, piteously open, and the whole girlish form in its young beauty appeared, as he watched, to shrink together. Suddenly the girl's look, so wide and searching, caught that of Ashe; and he moved impulsively forward.

"Present me, please, to Lady Kitty," he said, catching Warington's arm.

"Poor child!" said a low voice in his ear.

Ashe turned and saw Louis Harman. The tone, however—allusive, intimate, patronizing—in which Harman had spoken, annoyed him, and he passed on without taking any notice.

"Lady Kitty," said Warington, "Mr. Ashe wishes to be presented to you. He is an old friend of your mother's. Congratulate him—he has just got into Parliament."

Lady Kitty drew herself up, and all trace of the look which Ashe had observed disappeared. She bowed, not carelessly as she had bowed to Darrell, but with a kind of exaggerated stateliness, not less girlish.

"I never congratulate anybody," she said, shaking her head, "till I know them."

Ashe opened his eyes a little.

"How long must I wait?" he said, smiling, as he drew a chair beside her.

"That depends. Are you difficult to know?" She looked up at him audaciously, and he on his side could not take his eyes from her, so singular was the small, sparkling face. The hair and skin were very fair, like her mother's, the eyes dark and full of fire, the neck most daintily white and slender, the figure undeveloped, the feet and hands extremely small. But what arrested him was, so to speak, the embodied contradiction of the personality—as between the wild intelligence of the eyes and the extreme youth, almost childishness, of the rest.

He asked her if she had ever known any one confess to being easy, to know.

"Well, I'm easy to know," she said, carelessly, leaning back; "but, then, I'm not worth knowing."

"Is one allowed to find out?"

"Oh yes—of course! Do you know—when you were over there, I willed that you should come and talk to me, and you came. Only," she sat up with animation, and began to tick off her sentences on her fingers—"Don't ask me how long I've been in town. Don't ask where I was in Paris. Don't inquire whether I like balls! You see, I warn you at once"—she looked up frankly—"that we mayn't lose time."

"Well, then, I don't see how I'm ever to find out," said Ashe, stoutly.

"Whether I'm worth knowing?" She considered, then bent forward eagerly. "Look here! I'll just tell you everything in a lump, and then that'll do—won't it? Listen. I'm just eighteen. I was sent to the Soeurs Blanches when I was thirteen—the year papa died. I didn't like papa—I'm very sorry, but I didn't! However, that's by-the-way. In all those years I have only seen maman once—she doesn't like children. But my aunt Grosville has some French relations—very, very 'comme il faut,' you understand—and I used to go and stay with them for the holidays. Tell me!—did you ever hunt in France?"

"Never," said Ashe, startled and amused by the sudden glance of enthusiasm that lit up the face and expressed itself in the clasped hands.

"Oh! it's such heaven," she said, lifting her shoulders with an extravagant gesture—"such heaven! First there are the old dresses—the men look such darlings!—and then the horns, and the old ways they have—si noble!—si distingué!—not like your stupid English hunting. And then the dogs! Ah! the dogs"—the shoulders went higher still; "do you know my cousin Henri actually gave me a puppy of the great breed—the breed, you know—the Dogs of St. Hubert. Or at least he would if maman would have let me bring it over. And she wouldn't! Just think of that! When there are thousands of people in France who'd give the eyes out of their head for one. I cried all one night—Allons!—faut pas y penser!"—she shook back the hair from her eyes with an impatient gesture. "My cousins have got a château, you know, in the Seine-et-Oise. They've promised to ask me next year—when the Grand-Duke Paul comes—if I'll promise to behave. You see, I'm not a bit like French girls—I had so many affairs!"

Her eyes flashed with laughter.

Ashe laughed too.

"Are you going to tell me about them also?"

She drew herself up.

"No! I play fair, always—ask anybody! Oh, I do want to go back to France so badly!" Once more she was all appeal and childishness. "Anyway, I won't stay in England! I have made up my mind to that!"

"How long has it taken?"

"A fortnight," she said, slowly—"just a fortnight."

"That hardly seems time enough—does it?" said Ashe. "Give us a little longer."

"No—I—I hate you!" said Lady Kitty, with a strange drop in her voice. Her little fingers began to drum on the table near her, and to Ashe's intense astonishment he saw her eyes fill with tears.

Suddenly a movement towards the other room set in around them. Madame d'Estrées could be heard giving directions. A space was made in the large drawing-room—a little table appeared in it, and a footman placed thereon a glass of water.

Lady Kitty looked up.

"Oh, that detestable man!" she said, drawing back. "No—I can't, I can't bear it. Come with me!" and beckoning to Ashe she fled with precipitation into the farther part of the inner drawing-room, out of her mother's sight. Ashe followed her, and she dropped panting and elate into a chair.

Meanwhile the outer room gathered to hear the recitation of some vers de société, fondly believed by their author to be of a very pretty and Praedian make. They certainly amused the company, who laughed and clapped as each neat personality emerged. Lady Kitty passed the time either in a running commentary on the reciter, which occasionally convulsed her companion, or else in holding her small hands over her ears.

When it was over, she drew a long breath.

"How maman can! Oh! how bête you English are to applaud such a man! You have only one poet, haven't you—one living poet? Ah! I shouldn't have laughed if it had been he!"

"I suppose you mean Geoffrey Cliffe?" said Ashe, amused. "Nobody abroad seems ever to have heard of any one else."

"Well, of course, I just long to know him! Every one says he is so dangerous!—he makes all the women fall in love with him. That's delicious! He shouldn't make me! Do you know him?"

"I knew him at Eton. We were 'swished' together," said Ashe.

She inquired what the phrase might mean, and when informed, flushed hotly, denouncing the English school system as quite unfit for gentlemen and men of honor. Her French cousins would sooner die than suffer such a thing. Then in the midst of her tirade she suddenly paused, and fixing Ashe with her brilliant eyes, she asked him a surprising question, in a changed and steady voice:

"Is Lady Tranmore not well?"

Ashe was fairly startled.

"Thank you, I left her quite well. Have you—"

"Did maman ask her to come to-night?"

It was Ashe's turn to redden.

"I don't know. But—we are in mourning, you see, for my brother."

Her face changed and softened instantly.

"Are you? I'm so sorry. I—I always say something stupid. Then—Lady Tranmore used to come to maman's parties—before—"

She had grown quite pale; it seemed to him that her hand shook. Ashe felt an extraordinary pang of pity and concern.

"It's I, you see, to whom your mother has been kind," he said, gently. "We're an independent family; we each make our own friends."

"No—" she said, drawing a deep breath. "No, it's not that. Look at that room."

Following her slight gesture, Ashe looked. It was an old, low-ceiled room, panelled in white and gold, showing here and there an Italian picture—saint, or holy family, agreeable school-work—from which might be inferred the tastes if not the expertise of Madame d'Estrées' first husband, Lord Blackwater. The floor was held by a plentiful collection of seats, neither too easy nor too stiff; arranged by one who understood to perfection the physical conditions at least which should surround the "great art" of conversation. At this moment every seat was full. A sea of black coats overflowed on the farther side, into the staircase landing, where through the open door several standing groups could be seen; and in the inner room, where they sat, there was but little space between its margin and themselves. It was a remarkable sight; and in his past visits to the house Ashe had often said to himself that the elements of which it was made up were still more remarkable. Ministers and Opposition; ambassadors, travellers, journalists; the men of fashion and the men of reform; here a French republican official, and beyond him, perhaps, a man whose ancestors were already of the most ancient noblesse in Saint-Simon's day; artists, great and small, men of letters good and indifferent; all these had been among the guests of Madame d'Estrées, brought to the house, each of them, for some quality's sake, some power of keeping up the social game.

But now, as he looked at the room, not to please himself but to obey Lady Kitty, Ashe became aware of a new impression. The crowd was no less, numerically, than he had seen it in the early winter; but it seemed to him less distinguished, made up of coarser and commoner items. He caught the face of a shady financier long since banished from Lady Tranmore's parties; beyond him a red-faced colonel, conspicuous alike for doubtful money-matters and matrimonial trouble; and in a farther corner the sallow profile of a writer whose books were apt to rouse even the man of the world to a healthy and contemptuous disgust. Surely these persons had never been there of old; he could not remember one of them.

He looked again, more closely. Was it fancy, or was the gathering itself aware of the change which had passed over it? As a whole, it was certainly noisier than of old; the shouting and laughter were incessant. But within the general uproar certain groups had separated from other groups, and were talking with a studied quiet. Most of the habitué's were still there; but they held themselves apart from their neighbors. Were the old intimacy and solidarity beginning to break up?—and with them the peculiar charm of these "evenings," a charm which had so far defied a social boycott that had been active from the first?

He glanced back uncertainly at Lady Kitty, and she looked at him.

"Why are there no ladies?" she said, abruptly.

He collected his thoughts.

"It—it has always been a men's gathering. Perhaps for some men here—I'm sorry there are such barbarians, Lady Kitty!—that makes the charm of it. Look at that old fellow there! He is a most famous old boy. Everybody invites him—but he never stirs out of his den but to come here. My mother can't get him—though she has tried often."

And he pointed to a dishevelled, gray-haired gentleman, short in stature, round in figure, something, in short, like an animated egg, who was addressing a group not far off.

Lady Kitty's face showed a variety of expressions.

"Are there many parties like this in London? Are the ladies asked, and don't come? I—I don't—understand!"

Ashe looked at her kindly.

"There is no other hostess in London as clever as your mother," he declared, and then tried to change the subject; but she paid no heed.

"The other day, at Aunt Grosville's," she said, slowly, "I asked if my two cousins might come to-night, and they looked at me as though I were mad! Oh, do talk to me!" She came impulsively nearer, and Ashe noticed that Darrell, standing against the doorway of communication, looked round at them in amusement. "I liked your face—the very first moment when I saw you across the room. Do you know—you're—you're very handsome!" She drew back, her eyes fixed gravely, intently upon him.

For the first time Ashe was conscious of annoyance.

"I hope you won't mind my saying so"—his tone was a little short—"but in this country we don't say those things. They're not—quite polite."

"Aren't they?" Her eyebrows arched themselves and her lips fell in penitence. "I always called my French cousin, Henri la Fresnay, beau! I am sure he liked it!" The accent was almost plaintive.

Ashe's natural impulse was to say that if so the French cousin must be an ass. But all in a moment he found himself seized with a desire to take her little hands in his own and press them—she looked such a child, so exquisite, and so forlorn. And he did in fact bend forward confidentially, forgetting Darrell.

"I want you to come and see my mother?" he said, smiling at her. "Ask Lady Grosville to bring you."

"May I? But—" She searched his face, eager still to pour out the impulsive, uncontrolled confidences that were in her mind. But his expression stopped her, and she gave a little, resentful sigh.

"Yes—I'll come. We—you and I—are a little bit cousins too—aren't we? We talked about you at the Grosvilles."

"Was our 'great-great' the same person?" he said, laughing. "Hope it was a decent 'great-great.' Some of mine aren't much to boast of. Well, at any rate, let's be cousins—whether we are or no, shall we?"

She assented, her whole face lighting up.

"And we're going to meet—the week after next!" she said, triumphantly, "in the country."

"Are we?—at Grosville Park. That's delightful."

"And then I'll ask your advice—I'll make you tell me—a hundred things! That's a bargain—mind!"

"Kitty! Come and help me with tea—there's a darling!"

Lady Kitty turned. A path had opened through the crowd, and Madame d'Estrées, much escorted, a vision of diamonds and pale-pink satin, appeared, leading the way to the supper-room, and the light "refection," accompanied by much champagne, which always closed these evenings.

The girl rose, as did her companion also. Madame d'Estrées threw a quick, half-satirical glance at Ashe, but he had eyes only for Lady Kitty, and her transformation at the touch of her mother's voice. She followed Madame d'Estrées with a singular and conscious dignity, her white skirts sweeping, her delicately fine head thrown back on her thin neck and shoulders. The black crowd closed about her; and Ashe's eyes pursued the slender figure till it disappeared.

Extreme youth—innocence—protest—pain—was it with these touching and pleading impressions, after all, that his first talk with Kitty Bristol had left him? Yet what a little étourdie! How lacking in the reserves, the natural instincts and shrinkings of the well-bred English girl!

Darrell and Ashe walked home together, through a windy night which was bringing out April scents even from the London grass and lilac-bushes.

"Well," said Darrell, as they stepped into the Green Park, "so you're safely in. Congratulate you, old fellow. Anything else?"

"Yes. They've offered me Hickson's place. More fools they, don't you think?"

"Good! Upon my word, Bill, you've got your foot in the stirrup now! Hope you'll continue to be civil to poor devils like me."

The speaker looked up smiling, but neither the tone nor the smile was really cordial. Ashe felt the embarrassment that he had once or twice felt before in telling Darrell news of good fortune. There seemed to be something in Darrell that resented it—under an outer show of felicitation.

However, they went on talking of the political moment and its prospects, and of Ashe's personal affairs. As to the last, Darrell questioned, and Ashe somewhat reluctantly replied. It appeared that his allowance was to be largely raised, that his paralyzed father, in fact, was anxious to put him in possession of a substantial share in the income of the estates, that one of the country-houses was to be made over to him, and so on.

"Which means, of course, that they want you to marry," said Darrell. "Well, you've only to throw the handkerchief."

They were passing a lamp as he spoke, and the light shone on his long, pale face—a face of discontent—with its large sunken eyes and hollow cheeks.

Ashe treated the remark as "rot," and endeavored to get away from his own affairs by discussing the party they had just left.

"How does she get all those people together? It's astonishing!"

"Well, I always liked Madame d'Estrées well enough," said Darrell, "but, upon my word, she has done a beastly mean thing in bringing that girl over."

"You mean?"—Ashe hesitated—"that her own position is too doubtful?"

"Doubtful, my dear fellow!" Darrell laughed unpleasantly. "I never really understood what it all meant till the other night when old Lady Grosville took and told me—more at any rate than I knew before. The Grosvilles are on the war-path, and they regard the coming of this poor child as the last straw."

"Why?" said Ashe.

Darrell gave a shrug. "Well, you know the story of Madame d'Estrées' step-daughter—old Blackwater's daughter?"

"Ah! by his first marriage? I knew it was something about the step-daughter," said Ashe, vaguely.

Darrell began to repeat his conversation with Lady Grosville. The tale threatened presently to become a black one indeed; and at last Ashe stood still in the broad walk crossing the Green Park.

"Look here," he said, resolutely, "don't tell me any more. I don't want to hear any more."

"Why?" asked Darrell, in amazement.

"Because"—Ashe hesitated a moment. "Well, I don't want it to be made impossible for me to go to Madame d'Estrées' again. Besides, we've just eaten her salt."

"You're a good friend!" said Darrell, not without something of a sneer.

Ashe was ruffled by the tone, but tried not to show it. He merely insisted that he knew Lady Grosville to be a bit of an old cat; that of course there was something up; but it seemed a shame for those at least who accepted Madame d'Estrées' hospitality to believe the worst. There was a curious mixture of carelessness and delicacy in his remarks, very characteristic of the man. It appeared as though he was at once too indolent to go into the matter, and too chivalrous to talk about it.

Darrell presently maintained a rather angry silence. No man likes to be checked in his story, especially when the check implies something like a snub from his best friend. Suddenly, memory brought before him the little picture of Ashe and Lady Kitty together—he bending over her, in his large, handsome geniality, and she looking up. Darrell felt a twinge of jealousy—then disgust. Really, men like Ashe had the world too easily their own way. That they should pose, besides, was too much.