III.
When Aunt Sarah came down into the great hall at twenty minutes to nine that evening she found it full of young men and women who had arrived about an hour before, and whom she had kept waiting ten minutes for their dinner. She did not apologize for her late appearance. That was not her custom. She singled out a young man of the company and said, "How do you do, Henry? I am pleased to see you at Castle Gide again. You used to come here frequently in happier times."
"They were not happier times for me, Aunt Sarah," replied the young man, rather nervously. "My chief recollection of them is that I was generally sent to bed before dinner for getting into mischief."
"Ah!" said Aunt Sarah. "That is the way to treat mischievous boys. And you don't bear malice."
"I am afraid I do," said the young man. "I was treated most unjustly."
"By whom, pray?" inquired Aunt Sarah, beginning to bridle.
"Very occasionally by Uncle Otterburn," said the young man. "Invariably by you."
"Upon my word!" exclaimed Aunt Sarah. "That is a pretty way to talk!"
"He must say what he thinks, you know," said Lady Otterburn. "We are all going to play at that as long as we are together. Anybody who is convicted of an insincere speech is to pay half a crown to the hospital fund. Here is the box. It contains a contribution from Edward, who told Lady Griselda that she was not at all late when she came down five minutes ago. Edward, take Aunt Sarah in to dinner. She has kept us waiting for nearly a quarter of an hour."
"Have I got into a company of lunatics?" inquired Aunt Sarah, as she took her nephew's arm.
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"THERE WAS A REGULAR HUBBUB OF CONVERSATION ROUND THE DINNER-TABLE."
No member of the party with the exception of Aunt Sarah had reached middle-age. Most of the men were contemporaries of Otterburn's, the years of whose pilgrimage were thirty. Some of them were married and had their wives with them, but the majority were unattached, and there were several girls, some English and some American. Otterburn's grouse-moors were the ostensible excuse for their finding themselves collected at Castle Gide, but they were so well mixed that they would probably have succeeded in enjoying themselves even if there had been no shooting to occupy the days. There was a regular hubbub of conversation round the dinner-table on this first evening, and loud peals of laughter, rising above the din and clatter of twenty tongues all moving at once, seemed to indicate that Lady Otterburn's game was adding to the gaiety of the occasion.
"No," said a demure young lady, in answer to a request from her neighbour. "I will not play accompaniments for you after dinner. It is quite true, as you say, that I read music extraordinarily well. I have always politely denied it before, but I know I do. Your singing, however, is so distasteful to me that I am sorry I cannot oblige you."
"I have got a good voice," said her neighbour, "and I have studied under the best masters."
"You have not profited by your studies," replied the lady; "and your voice, so far from being good, is very thin and of no quality whatsoever."
"I guess," said a fair American, surveying the company, "that we're a good-looking crowd round this table. And, among all the women, I have a conviction that I go up for the beauty prize. I have had to hug that conviction in secret for a very long time, and now it's out."
Thus and thus was the House of Truth built up stone by stone, and Aunt Sarah's position was pitiable. Hitherto she had made her mark in whatever society she found herself by sheer insistence on her right to be frankly and critically disagreeable. On any ordinary occasion she would have had the whole tableful of young people prostrate under the terror of her biting tongue, and not a whit would she have cared for consequent unpopularity so long as she had made herself acknowledged as the dominating spirit of the assembly. Now she was met and foiled by the dexterous use of the very weapons which she had wielded so long and so unmercifully, and no arrogant speech could she make but its sting was removed by an equally outspoken reply.
Thus, to her right-hand neighbour, a young man with smooth black hair and a preternaturally solemn face: "I don't know who you are, but by your long upper lip I should judge you to be a Mortimer."
"My name and appearance are both undoubtedly Mortimer," he replied, gravely. "My character, I am happy to say, is not."
"Perhaps you do not know," said Aunt Sarah, "that I am a Mortimer?"
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"'I WILL NOT STAND THIS INSOLENT BEHAVIOUR ANY LONGER,' SHE SAID."
"I am perfectly aware of it," was the answer. "It would cost me half a crown to congratulate you on the fact."
"And may I ask what fault you have to find with the family whose name you have the honour of bearing?"
"They are insufferably cantankerous and domineering."
"Not all of them," interrupted Otterburn, anxious above all desire for unsullied truth to avert the impending storm which was gathering around him. "You must not take his criticisms as personal, Aunt Sarah."
"Pass the box this way," said the solemn young man. "Otterburn will contribute another half-crown."
Before dinner was half-way through Aunt Sarah was in as black a rage as had ever darkened even her Olympian brow. By the time the ladies left the room she had delivered herself of as many insulting speeches as it usually took her a day to achieve, and her average output was no small one. But it was all to no purpose. Her most ambitious efforts, instead of striking a chill of terror to the hearts of her listeners, were warmly applauded, with an air of the utmost politeness, and from every quarter she received as good as she gave. It took her some time to realize that she was affording considerable amusement to her nephew's guests, but when she did arrive at that state of knowledge she could hardly command herself sufficiently to leave the room without doing bodily hurt to someone.
"I will not stand this insolent behaviour any longer," she said to Lady Otterburn when the door of the dining-room had been closed behind them. "How dare you treat me in this way?"
"Why, bless me, Aunt Sarah," exclaimed Lady Otterburn, in well-feigned surprise, "you said yourself that if everyone spoke the truth always, as you pride yourself on doing, it would be a real lovely thing. We are all speaking the truth under a penalty, and you are speaking it so well that you haven't been fined once."
"Psshtschah!" is the nearest possible orthographic rendering of the exclamation of contempt and disgust that forced itself from Aunt Sarah's lips. "I have had enough of this insensate folly," she continued. "I shall go straight to my room, and if I do not receive more respectful treatment in this house, where I so long reigned as undisputed mistress, I shall leave it to-morrow. Do you understand me?"
"I understand you very well," said Lady Otterburn. "And I will ask you to try and understand me. The respect which you demanded as mistress of this house is now due to me, and I look to receive it from my guests. If you discover that it is not within your power to grant it I shall not press you to prolong your visit."
Aunt Sarah again gave vent to the exclamation indicated above, and sailed up the broad staircase to her own apartments with anger and disgust marked on every line and curve of her figure.