“My! what a beautiful motor! Why, if it isn’t cunning! Silas and I got here just half an hour ago, and your servants brought us tea right away out on the lawn, and made us ever so much at home. But, as I’m for ever saying to everybody, ‘Catherine is just perfect, and everything she has is just perfect—her husband, her servants, her motor-car, and her crackers.’ You should have seen Silas tackle the crackers! Don’t I tell everybody so, Silas?”
When Theodosia was present there was never any fear of awkward silences—awkward speeches were the only possibilities; but she covered up every awkward speech so quickly with another that none of them mattered much. She was usually talking when somebody else was talking, and always when nobody else was.
“Don’t you tell everybody what, Theodosia?” inquired her husband.
“Why, that Catherine is just perfect. But Englishmen are so perfect, too, that I guess it’s right for perfect American girls to marry them. Why, your ball the other night! I thought I knew something about balls, but Catherine’s ahead of me there, though we’ve had some bright evenings in New York. I guess you’re proud of your wife, Lord Thurso, and I guess she’s proud of you.”
This was all very pleasant, and it was not only a salute-explosion of geniality on the part of Theodosia; she exploded all the time like a quick-firing gun. She was never sick or sorry, or tired or silent; she was always bright, and a contemplative mind might seriously wonder whether anything known to occur in this uncertain world would make her stop talking. She talked all the time that she was in a dentist’s chair, even though her speech was impeded by pads and gags and creosote; and she had once talked without intermission through a railway accident, not even stopping to scream. At intervals the voice of her husband said “Theodosia!” like a clock striking, but the ticking went on all the same.
“And if that isn’t the cunningest yew-hedge I ever saw,” she said, “with a door cut right through the middle of it as if it was a wall; and there’s the river just beyond with the boats, like people on the side-walk. Lord Thurso, can you see the river from where you are sitting? Silas, change places with Lord Thurso, because I want him to see the river through the door in the yew-hedge. My! look at that bug—what do you call it? Oh yes, butterfly—sitting right here on the arm of my chair! Isn’t it tame! The bugs in America aren’t half so tame as that: they hustle more; but I think it’s English not to hustle so much. You eat your tea without hustling, too, Lord Thurso. I call that the true British tranquillity, and I just adore it. Don’t I, Silas?”
Catherine, however, distinctly hustled over her tea, and got up. It was she who had asked Theodosia here, and she did not for a moment repent having done so; but she began to foresee that it would be necessary to provide Theodosia with relays of companions who should take her for a series of walks, and “rides” in the punt (as Theodosia would say), and other rides in motors, if she wanted to save her Saturday to Monday from utter shipwreck. She thanked Heaven Maud was coming, who handled loquacious people so serenely, and listened, or appeared to, to their impossible conversation with an interest that was quite marvellous. Clearly, also, it was by a direct dispensation of Providence that Alice Yardly was to be of this party, for Alice also asked for nothing more than to be allowed to talk without intermission. Theodosia talked of things she saw—the river, the road, the bug, the yew-hedge; her eyes supplied unfailing topics of conversation to her tongue. While Alice talked with the same incessantness of things you could not see—faith and healing, and false claims of mortal mind. Between them they would cover the whole ground. And both of them were perfectly happy sitting opposite anybody else who might talk simultaneously, as long as he asked no question which interrupted the flow of their volubility. Clearly, then, Providence intended that Alice and Theodosia should be paired, like blessed sirens, and keep up a perpetual flow of conversation to which nobody else need listen.
But at present Maud had not arrived, so she took Theodosia down to the river, and “punted her around,” as that lady’s phrase went. Catherine punted around, so she felt, as she had never punted before; she would have punted to Oxford, if necessary, to keep this appreciative lady away from the house till Maud or Alice Yardly arrived, either of whom were capable of tackling her. Protective instincts governed those unusual physical activities. She was responsible for the advent of Theodosia; she was therefore responsible for keeping Theodosia away from Thurso.
So it was not till seven had clanged from the church tower at Maidenhead that she turned the punt homewards, and found on arrival that everybody had come, and that everybody had gone to dress. She herself was a dresser of abnormal quickness, and found she had still nearly half an hour to spare after she had seen Theodosia safely to her room. So, instead of wasting it alone, she went to talk to Maud. The latter was betwixt and between, with a hovering maid, and a river of hair making Pactolus down her back. The highest geniality flowed on the other side.
“Dearest Catherine,” she said, “I know it was too awful of me, but, of course, you didn’t wait. Everything has been late to-day—at least, I have—and I was late for lunch, and things were amusing, and as I had told my maid to take my traps, and other people were going down to Taplow, I came down with them, and was dropped here. Isn’t the country looking too divine! Of course, Thurso came with you. We broke down—you never heard such a bang—and serve me right. Do stop and talk to me for five minutes, because I know you dress like summer lightning. How many maids surround you? Three, is it? What fun it was all last week! You do give your relations and connections a good time. Please wear your smartest to-night—jewels and all. It is so chic to be smart in the country and shabby in London. And it’s an old-established custom for you to smoke a cigarette while I am dressing, before it’s time for you to dress. There’s half an hour yet.”