The little party which Mrs. Hancock invited to receive officially the news of Edith's engagement were all "delighted to be able to accept," even though the notice was so short. Dinner-giving at Heathmoor, though during the summer croquet and lawn-tennis parties, with iced coffee and caviare sandwiches, were of almost daily occurrence—indeed, sometimes they clashed—was chiefly confined to Saturday evening, when no sense of early trains on the morrow made writing on the wall to check conviviality. Mrs. Hancock knew that quite well, though in her notes to her guests she had said, "if by any chance you happen to be disengaged on Tuesday," and would have been much surprised if any previous engagement had forced any one to be obliged to decline. Personally, she would have liked to get together a somewhat larger gathering, for Ellis said there was no doubt about a sufficiency of asparagus, but Lind invariably set his hatchet-like face against a party of more than eight, which he considered a sufficiently festive number. In the earlier years of Lind's iron rule Mrs. Hancock had sometimes invited a larger party, but on these occasions the service had been so slow, the wine so sparingly administered, and Lind's demeanour, if she remonstrated next morning, so frozen and fatalistic, so full of scarcely veiled threats about his not giving satisfaction, that by degrees he had schooled her into submission, and she was beginning to consider that eight was the pleasantest number of guests, and a quarter-to the most suitable hour, which also was Lind's choice. So on this occasion there were the engaged couple and herself, the clergyman, Mr. Martin, and his wife, an eminent and solid solicitor, Mr. Dobbs with Mrs. Dobbs, and Mr. Beaumont, one of the few men in Heathmoor who was not actively engaged all day in making money, partly accounted for by the fact that he had a great deal already, partly that he would have certainly lost it instead. Idle, however, he was not, for he was an entomologist of fanatical activity. He spent most summer evenings in spreading intoxicating mixtures of beer and sugar on tree-trunks to stupefy unwary lepidoptera, most of the night in visiting these banquets with a lantern, and taking into custody his inebriated guests, and the entire day in beating copses for caterpillars, in running over noonday heaths with a green butterfly net, and in killing and setting the trophies of his chase. For a year or two Mrs. Hancock had spread vague snares about him for Edith's sake, feigning an unfounded interest in the crawlings of caterpillars and the dormancy of chrysalides, but her hunting had been firmly and successfully thwarted by his gaunt sister, who devoted her untiring energy to the destruction of winged insects and the preservation of her brother's celibacy. She never went out into Heathmoor society, though she occasionally played hostess at singularly uncomfortable dinners at home. These entertainments were not very popular, since escaped caterpillars sometimes came to the party, a smell of camphor and insects pervaded the house, and Miss Beaumont began yawning punctually at ten o'clock, until the last guest had departed. Then she killed some more moths. But her brother was the nucleus of Heathmoor dinners, and hostesses starting with him built up agreeable gatherings round him, for, though Heathmoor was not one atom more snobbish than other settlements of the kind, it was idle to pretend that the nephew of an earl, brother of a viscountess, and member of the Royal Entomological Society was not a good basis on which to build a social evening. He had a charming tenor voice which he had not the slightest notion how to use; and Heathmoor considered that, had he chosen to go on the operatic stage, there would not have been so much talk about Caruso; while the interest with which he listened to long accounts of household difficulties with fiends in the shape of housemaids was certainly beyond all praise. At home he managed the whole affairs of the ménage from seeing the cook in the morning to giving his dog his supper in the evening, since his sister, when not occupied with his moths, was absorbed in Roman history.
Mr. Martin and his wife were the first to arrive, and, as usual, the vicar took up his place on the hearthrug with the air of temporary host. This, indeed, was his position at Mrs. Hancock's, for it was he whom she always left in charge of the men in the dining-room when the ladies left them to their wine, with instructions as to where the cigarettes were, and not to stop too long. It was his business also, at which he was adept, to be trumpeter in general of the honour and glory of his hostess, and refer to any late acquisition of hers in the way of motor-cars, palings, or rambler roses. In this position of host he naturally took precedence of everybody else, and his mot "Round collars are more than coronets" when conducting the leading lady to the dining-room in the teeth, you may say, of a baronet, dazzled Heathmoor for weeks whenever they thought of it. His wife, a plump little Dresden shepherdess, made much use of the ejaculation, "Only fancy!" and at her husband's naughtier sallies exclaimed, "Alfred, Alfred!" while she attempted to cover her face with a very small hand to hide her laughter. Soon they were joined by Mr. and Mrs. Dobbs, and shortly after by Mr. Beaumont, who looked, as was indeed the case, as if he had been running.
Mrs. Hancock's dinners were always admirable, and since Mrs. Williams kept a book of all her menus there was no risk of guests being regaled with dishes they had lately partaken of at the house. The conversation, if anything, was slightly less varied, since, apart from contemporaneous happenings that required comment, the main topics of interest were rather of the nature of hardy perennials. Mr. Beaumont's sister was always inquired after, and usually the opinion of his uncle with regard to the latest iniquity of the Radical government. Weather, gardens, croquet were questions that starred the conversational heavens with planet-like regularity, moving in their appointed orbits, and Mr. Dobbs filled such intervals as he could spare from the mastication of his dinner with its praise.
"Delicious glass of sherry, Mrs. Hancock," he said, very early in the proceedings. "You can't buy sherry like that now."
Mr. Martin's evening clothes were not cut so as to suggest his profession. He based his influence not on his clothes, but on his human sympathy with the joys and sorrows of his friends. "There is a time to mourn, to weep, to repent," he said once in a sermon; "but undoubtedly there is a time to be as jolly as a sand-boy." He did not approve of teetotalism; any one could be a teetotaller. You are more of an example by partaking of the good things of this world in due moderation. He drank half his glass of sherry.
"I always tell Mrs. Hancock that her wine would cause a Rechabite to recant," he observed gaily.
Mrs. Martin covered her face with her hand and gave a little spurt of laughter. This was an old joke, but social gaiety would speedily become a thing of the past if we never appeared to be amused at familiar witticisms.
"Alfred, Alfred!" she said. "How can you? Is not Alfred wicked?"
Conversation became general.
"And have you begun croquet yet this year, Mr. Holroyd?" asked Mrs. Dobbs. "I suppose you will carry off all the prizes again, as you always do. I wish you would make Mr. Dobbs take to it instead of spending all his time catching slugs in the garden. So much better for him."