Scarlet and Hyssop: A Novel

by E. F. Benson

"Yes, it's quite too beautiful," said Miss Martin; "but I know I'll miss. Oh, it's not my turn, is it? Where are they gone?"

"They" at this moment—a Guardsman of the most pronounced type and a middle-aged woman of the most un-middle-aged type—being weary with this faultless exhibition, had retired to a seat at the far end of the garden, and were talking very low and laughing very loud. They were recalled with difficulty, still lingering on the way, and the unpromising situation was carefully explained to them by the palpitating man in a voice in which the endeavour not to appear jubilant was rather too marked. It being the lady's turn, she chipped her ball sideways at about right angles to the required direction, and, without even affecting to look where it had gone, dropped her mallet in the middle of the lawn, and instantly retired with her Guardsman again.

Elsewhere other groups were forming and dispersing. In the new wooden shelter Lady Ardingly had taken up her permanent position at the Bridge-table, and, while others cut in and out, kept her seat with tree-like composure, and played rubber after rubber with a success which appeared monotonous to her adversaries. Anthony Maxwell occasionally took a hand at her table, and in the intervals chased Maud Brereton from terrace to terrace with a hunter's pertinacity, conscious of the approving eye both of his mother and of Maud's. The fathers of them both would no doubt have viewed his employment with equal approbation, had they not been deeply engaged in a secluded corner in trying to rook each other at piquet, each, however, finding to his indescribable dismay that he had caught a Tartar. Like many very rich men, they played for very low stakes, and exhibited an inordinate greed for half-crowns, and even smaller coins.

Jack Alston and his wife had been among the guests who came down from the Saturday till Monday, but he had gone over for the day, rather to Mildred's disgust, to a neighbouring golf-links, and would not be back till dinner. Marie, however, had been, so Mildred considered, at her very best all the afternoon, conferring, as she in some mysterious manner had always the power to do, an air of distinction and success to the party. Wherever she was there was a crowd; wherever she was there was more constant laughter, more animated conversation. She had the gift, rare and inimitable, of making people play up. Dull folk aroused themselves when she talked to them, brilliant people coruscated, for there went from her, an unconscious but pervading emanation, some air of freshness and vitality, which acted like a breath of wind in a close atmosphere, reviving and bracing. At present she was talking to Lady Devereux and Arthur Naseby, who wore a straw hat which was strangely unsuitable to him and appeared stouter than ever, in the comparative privacy of the lower lawn.

"Ah yes," she was saying, "that is just the fault with us all now. We think we can be amused merely by having people to amuse us. It is not so; being amused depends almost entirely on one's self. Some days nothing amuses one; on others one is amused by the other sort of nothing."

"It's always the other sort of nothing with me," said Arthur Naseby. "And what I like really best of all is the pantomime. You find in the pantomime exactly what you take there. I take there an invincible gaiety. That is why I find it there."

"That's what I mean," said Marie. "It is the case with everything. I love the pantomime, like you. Everything takes place without the slightest reason. It is so like life; and, like the clowns, we belabour each other with bladders and throw mud at butter belonging to other people. But the audience—the part of it like Mr. Naseby and me—are enormously amused."

"You are horribly unjust, Marie," said Lady Devereux in her sleepy, drawling voice. "We never belabour you. You are a privileged person; you go flying over hedges and ditches, while if I, for instance, as much as look over a hedge, I am supposed to be there for no good purpose. Is it the consciousness of innocence that gives you such license! One can acquire almost anything by practice. I think I shall set about that."

Marie laughed.

"I would, dear. Be innocent for an hour a day, to begin with, and increase it by degrees."