Scarlet and Hyssop: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"And what do you think you intend to do?" she asked.

"I think I intend to refuse him, but I am not sure."

And with such cold comfort her mother had to be content.

That evening Mrs. Brereton was dining at Lady Ardingly's, the woman whom she admired and respected more than any one in the world. She had been nobody quite knew who, but, anyhow, Russian and as poor as a church mouse; but she had got, and nobody quite knew how, a position which was in its way unique. She had married Lord Ardingly while quite a girl in the teeth of strenuous opposition, fighting her battle quite unaided, and, instead of his having to live her down, it had soon become quite clear that it would be his part to toil, faint yet pursuing, in her wake. All her life success had attended her, she always knew what she wanted and always got it, and whoever else rose and shone and passed, Lady Ardingly continued to burn with unbated luminance. To-day, so Mildred Brereton thought, Marie Alston was the star, but she quite realized that this particular star, like those of the music-halls, might some day set; but Lady Ardingly remained swung high in the social heavens, a permanent centrepiece. Marie was the fashion, it is true, but Lady Ardingly was much more than the fashion; that word was far too superficial to describe her.

She had been, no doubt, once of great personal beauty, but clearly it was not that which gave her the power she possessed, for it had passed years ago, and she was now something over sixty, with splashes of rouge dashed in an impressionist manner on to her face, not from any motive of vanity, but simply from long force of habit; a wig, no more to be mistaken for natural growth than a top-hat, was perched negligently on one side of her head, and to balance it, in the evening, a tiara perched on the other. Her neck was covered with jewels; her hands, which were somewhat lean and knuckly, were crammed with rings; and she dressed superbly. But all these things, like the rouge, were the result of habit; she had been accustomed to that sort of thing, and continued it, and certainly he would have been a bold man who tried to reason with her or alter her. Her husband, for instance, never attempted it. Finally, she was inordinately fond of gossip, card-playing, and other people's business, and was eminently good-natured provided that path did not cross her own. But she had so many private side-paths down which she was liable to wander, that one never knew for certain where she would come out next, or how she would act in any given set of circumstances. But as long as doing a kindness to another did not interfere with what she desired herself, she was always ready, even at the cost of trouble and personal exertion, to help her friends if they approached her in the proper spirit, which implied a good deal of abasement. She had been in her time a very considerable political intriguer, and, following her invariable rule of always getting whatever she wanted, she had built up her husband into the edifice of the Conservative Government. But the game—for it had never been more to her than that—had now ceased to amuse her, and she cared no longer how greatly her poor Ardingly floundered in the spacious halls of the Admiralty. This he seldom failed to do. She was, finally, the very antipodes of those women who, because generals and statesmen tell them things not generally known, consider themselves, in that they are at the centre of things, as wielding some vague political influence, and fly about telling all their friends what everybody has said. Lady Ardingly never flew about; she sat quite still and gave orders. Why people did as she told them they never quite knew; it arose, perhaps, from her habit of always being right.

Ardingly House was a vast and modern erection in Pall Mall. "So convenient for Ardingly," as his wife used to say in her slow foreign speech, "now that he is at the Admiralty. He can come home to lunch, and tell me all the blunders he has made since breakfast. And there is plenty of time for him to take two steps and make them all over again before dinner." Not long ago, at the time when Mrs. Maxwell was house-hunting, she had heard a vague rumour that there was a possibility of this mansion being in the market, and had had the temerity to call on Lady Ardingly to know if it was so. She heard her in silence, not helping her out at difficult points, and then remarked: "Yes, we are going to sell it, and live at Clapham Junction. So convenient a train service." This Mrs. Maxwell had rightly interpreted to be a denial of the rumour, and had quitted the subject with some precipitation. It was also characteristic of Lady Ardingly that she did not fly about town, making the place ring with the story. Here, perhaps, lay one of the secrets of her effectiveness: she never dissipated her energy.

It was to this lady that Mrs. Brereton decided to carry her doubts and perplexities. There was only a small dinner-party that night, and before the men left the dining-room she found herself sitting by her on a sofa. Lady Ardingly happened to be in an admirable temper, and the opportunity was golden.

"I have not seen you for very long, dear Mildred," said she. "Tell me your news. How is Jack Alston? Have you seen him lately?"

This kind of frankness even Mildred found a little embarrassing. Lady Ardingly, of course, knew everything about everybody, and never, except when there was something to be got by it, assumed ignorance.

"Jack Alston? Oh, yes, I constantly meet him, in the way one does meet in London," she said rather foolishly.