CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dinner that night was a very grand affair. Fledge inspired awe by his majestic mien—Fledge liked duchesses—and Burton and William, the recently promoted, with their heads striped with grease and powder, looked to the enraptured eyes of the female servants their very best.
There were crimson roses in beautiful silver vases on the table, and in the centre stood a particularly hideous but very valuable silver ship—"given," as Tommy once gravely explained to a guest, "by somebody or other—a king, or an admiral, I think—to one of my ancestors, in the seventeenth century, who did something or other rather well."
Lady Kingsmead, under the Duchess' influence, was suffering from one of her attacks of thinking Tommy "quaint," so, by the old lady's suggestion, the boy was allowed to sit at the foot of his own table, pretending, as he had told his sister he should find it necessary to do, to be as young as his mother's guests.
The Duchess, greatly diverted by his demeanour, and reinforced on her other side by an amusing, sad dog of thirty, who wrote wicked novels, thoroughly enjoyed her dinner. There are so many reasons for enjoying one's dinner; some people do because they like to meet their fellow-creatures; some because they like being seen at certain houses; some because they have beauty to display or stories to tell; and some because they enjoy eating and drinking simply as eating and drinking. The Duchess, in that she enjoyed dining for all the reasons above cited, except that of bothering her ancient head about whose house she was seen at, was extremely pleased with her entertainment. She wagged her old head—white now, quite frankly, after many years of essays in difficult tints—whispered to her novelist, and made love to Tommy quite shamelessly.
"You look like an Eastern potentate, you are so silent and serious," she told him once. "Do I bore you so horribly, or is it Miss Letchworth?"
"I am not bored at all, Duchess," answered the boy simply; "I am thinking."
"And what are you thinking about?"
Tommy hesitated. Under her frivolous manner he knew the Duchess had a heart, and very human sympathies.
"I want to be a violinist," he said slowly, after a pause during which the Duchess, with a little shriek, rescued her salad, which William had pounced upon.
"A violinist!"
"Hush! Please don't tell."
"Of course I'll not tell, but——"
"Have you heard him play?"
"Joyselle? Of course I have."
"Well?" asked Tommy in quiet triumph. What more could anyone say?
The old woman smiled sweetly at him. She, too, had been young, and remembered. And there was in this little, plain boy a certain strain of blood that she loved; his grandmother had been a Yeoland.
"So you really love it that much, do you? It means hard work, Tommy."
"I know," nodded the boy gravely.
And his mother, seeing his gravity, feared that he was not being sufficiently quaint to amuse the old lady, and screamed down the table at him to tell the Duchess the story of the jibbing pony at the Irish race meeting. The story was not told.
On her right hand Lady Kingsmead had the local M.F.H., a dull man with his head full of hounds, as she expressed it. But on her left sat Joyselle, and as a guest he was certainly perfect. Lady Kingsmead in pale pink and pearls was good enough to look at, and feeling that she wished to be made love to, he made love to her, as was his duty. And he did it well, for he was an artist. He was not conspicuous, or over-impassioned, or over-adoring (very few women like unmixed adoration), but he was amusing, a trifle outrageous, admiring, and tactful. He was also amazingly handsome.
Down to her left Lady Kingsmead could see Carron being bored to death by the wife of the M.F.H., who, someone said, if he had his head full of hounds and foxes, certainly had hers full of coals and blankets. For the vicar was a bachelor, and poor Lady Brinsley hated hounds and foxes, and really loved helping the poor. And being of the simple-minded who talk to strangers out of the fulness of their hearts, she was telling him sadly of the shameful way in which the coal-dealer had cheated poor, dear Mr. Smith.
Mentally damning poor, dear Mr. Smith and his friend, as well as the whole race of coal-dealers, Carron watched Brigit as she talked to Théo and her other neighbour, Pat Yelverton, who watched her in quite evident surprise.
"May I be rude and make a personal remark?" he asked her presently. She smiled. "Yes." Yelverton hesitated, and then said slowly: "You have changed wonderfully since I last saw you, Lady Brigit."
"You mean that I am not so disagreeable?"
"I mean——"
"I know. And you are right, Mr. Yelverton. I was very horrid, and now I am—nicer—because I am very happy. It's a selfish reason, but I hope I can use it as—as a kind of means to a good end."
Yelverton held his breath. Was it possible that the mere fact of being engaged to a sweet-natured youth like Théo Joyselle could cause such a miracle as this before his eyes? What was the boy to change Brigit from a sullen, caustic woman into a charming, lovely young girl?
"I am very glad for you," he said presently, "and for him. I'm a sorry old stager, Lady Brigit, but it is good to see two young things like you and Joyselle find each other—in time."
As so often happens, his mood was answering hers, and she remembered some story she had heard long ago about him and some girl who had drowned herself.
"Thank you," she said very gently, and turned to Théo, for she had a manlike fear of intruding on people's secrets. But Yelverton was one of those unfortunate beings who, when they turn to their sentimental past, must turn not to the memory of one face, but to a kind of romantic mosaic of many faces that in time takes on the horrid semblance of a composite photograph. So it is to be feared that the sad little story of the girl who drowned herself because he who loved her, made casual and, so to speak, duty-love to a married woman, had not occurred to him, as Brigit in her new-found kindliness of supposition, took for granted.
It was a wonderful dinner to the girl; wonderful in the indulgence that had come over her regarding her convives, and in the interesting things she found it possible to glean from the snatches of talk she caught from time to time. Alert, bright-eyed, an unwonted smile ever hovering on her mouth, she listened, and young Joyselle watched her in a fearful ecstasy of joy.
He felt, in his innocent youth, so old, so wicked, so world-worn for this radiant angel who had given, herself to him. It was too good to be true, and he trembled at the thought. But after dinner, when he had at last been able to fly to the drawing-room, the Duchess had a beautiful word to say to him. "Mr. Joyselle," the old woman began abruptly, beckoning to him, "come here for a second, I want to congratulate you."
"Thank you, Duchess. I—I am indeed to be congratulated, for she is the most perfect——"
"Tà, tà, tà, I don't mean that at all! I mean I want to congratulate you on what you have been able to do for her in so short a time."
"I? To do for her?" He was honestly puzzled.
"Yes, you. Do you suppose she has always been what she is now? Not a bit of it. The last time I saw Brigit Mead—it was at Ascot—she was a very good-looking, of course—oh, unbelievably beautiful, if you prefer it, but an ill-tempered, black-faced young minx, who should have been put on bread and water for a month to correct her manner."
"Her manners!" shouted Théo, unable to believe his ears.
"No. Her manners were always all right, but her manner was atrocious. And you have made her most delightful, as well as ten times lovelier than I would have thought possible. There, now, you may go to her." And Théo wasted no time.
"Love is a strange thing, isn't it?" went on the old woman to her neighbour, without looking to see who he was, for it is a remark that may safely be addressed to anybody.
"It is a damnable thing," growled the afflicted Carron, for it was he who chanced, for his sins, to have paused just then under the pretence of lighting a cigarette.
"Exactly," assented the Duchess briskly. "It has led you an awful life, Gerald, hasn't it?"
"The absurdity of calling that boy's feelings for Brigit by the same word that must express——"
"Yours for her mother, eh? Go away, you immoral thing!"