“Now look here, don’t you attempt to do anything,” he continued authoritatively; “leave all to Bates, the housekeeper. She’s got to run the establishment, that’s her job and what she’s paid for—she manages the servants, and engages and dismisses them, orders the meals, pays the tradespeople—so you have absolutely nothing to do but to sit tight, and make yourself agreeable.”
The guests duly arrived; arrangements for their reception were complete, the best state bedrooms were open, the choicest greenhouse flowers were brought into the house, the silver service was displayed, everything was perfectly done, there was no hitch.
Mrs. Fenchurch, brimming over with importance and curiosity, embraced her dearest Letty with well-assumed effusion. The Dowager Mrs. Blagdon merely gave her daughter-in-law a frozen kiss, and requested to be conducted to her room.
The company assembled that night in the white drawing-room, was composed of the ‘dull’ people, with reposeful manners, who knew one another more or less intimately; several were closely related, and the women called one another by their Christian names. There was no loud, hilarious laughing, no rouge, no cigarette cases; the Dowager Mrs. Blagdon was majestic in velvet and old lace, Mrs. Fenchurch wore a hideous green costume, Lady Gaythorne, a too well-known black brocade. The most conspicuous figure on the occasion was the hostess; by her husband’s commands she was magnificent, amazing, in one of Tartare’s most startling gowns; a vivid sulphur, shaded to orange, half veiled in silver gauze, and here and there deepened with black. It had the effect that Blagdon desired and made everyone in the room open their eyes. There was no question of its expense and execution—but it was theatrical. Yes, that was how the guests spoke of it, ‘theatrical!’—a robe more suitable to the emancipated wife in a big society play, a divorcée’s robe, in which to trail the stage, and storm and scoff, and vow and weep, than to a young girl-bride in her own drawing-room.
Letty wore, also, the splendid Blagdon diamonds, and these, that would have been proper enough with her wedding gown, added just the required touch of lawless extravagance to her appearance.
Beside the house-party, and a smart young Guardsman, there were three guests from the village: the Reverend Adrian Lumley, Frances his daughter and Lancelot his son. The Rector was a white-haired man of sixty, handsome, erect, and dignified. For years he had been an army chaplain in India, now he shepherded a country flock. He and Lord Gaythorne were old Harrovians, and had a good deal to say to one another; the Bishop and the Dowager Mrs. Blagdon, discussed a London Mission, and the M.F.H. a May fox.
The dinner was excellent, and went off with great decorum, but it was prodigiously dull. There was a little talk of golf, of a local engagement, the prospects of grouse, a recent by-election, and a threatened bazaar.
Mrs. Fenchurch glanced up and down the table with unconcealed pride. The guests were all the ‘best people,’ no small fry; the silver candelabra and cups were superb, the flowers exquisite, the ménu everything a ménu should be. Round about her, waited many silent and efficient servants, and there at the head of the table in gorgeous apparel, and blazing jewels, sat little Letty, her niece by marriage.
This dazzling vision established the lady more firmly than ever in the belief in her own infallibility; for this position, and all her other mercies, Letty had to thank her; and she drank off a glass of champagne to her own good health.
It struck young Lumley that the bride, for all her magnificence, did not appear to be in particularly radiant spirits—that from time to time she cast timid and deprecating glances towards the master of the house; her smiles were rare, and her face wore a curious blighted look, and had lost something of the round, fresh touch of happy youth.