“With so many grand confidences in the air I certainly had better take myself off,” said Hyacinth; and the Princess offered no opposition to his departure. She and Lady Aurora were evidently on the point of striking up a tremendous intimacy, and as he turned this idea over walking away it made him sad for strange vague reasons that he couldn’t have expressed.
XXXV
The Sunday following this occasion he spent almost entirely with the Muniments, with whom, since his return to his work, he had been able to have no long, fraternising talk of the kind that had marked their earlier relations. The present, however, was a happy day; it added its large measure to the esteem in which he now held the inscrutable Paul. The warm, bright, September weather enriched even the dinginess of Audley Court, and while in the morning Rosy’s brother and their visitor sat beside her sofa the trio amused themselves with discussing a dozen different plans for giving a festive turn to the day. There had been moments in the last six months when Hyacinth had the conviction he should never again be able to enter into such ideas as that, and these moments had been connected with the strange conversion taking place in his mental image of the man whose hardness—of course he was obliged to be hard—he had never expected to see turned upon a passionate admirer. At present, for the hour at least, the darkness had cleared away and Paul’s company become a sustaining, inspiring influence. He had never been kinder, jollier, safer, as it were; it had never appeared more desirable to hold fast to him and trust him. Less than ever would an observer have guessed at a good reason why the two young men might have winced as they looked at each other. Rosy naturally took part in the question debated between her companions—the question whether they should limit their excursion to a walk in Hyde Park; should embark at Lambeth Pier on the penny steamer which would convey them to Greenwich; or should start presently for Waterloo Station and go thence by train to Hampton Court. Miss Muniment had visited none of these scenes, but she contributed largely to the discussion, for which she seemed perfectly qualified; talked about the crowd on the steamer and the inconvenience arising from drunken persons on the return quite as if she had suffered from such drawbacks; reminded the others that the view from the hill at Greenwich was terribly smoky and at that season the fashionable world—half the attraction of course—altogether absent from Hyde Park; and expressed strong views in favour of Wolsey’s old palace, with whose history she appeared intimately acquainted. She threw herself into her brother’s holiday with eagerness and glee, and Hyacinth marvelled again at the stoicism of the hard, bright creature, polished, as it were, by pain, whose imagination appeared never to concern itself with her own privations, so that she could lie in her close little room the whole golden afternoon without bursting into sobs as she saw the western sunbeams slant upon the shabby, ugly, familiar paper of her wall and thought of the far-off fields and gardens she should never see. She talked immensely of the Princess, for whose beauty, grace and benevolence she could find no sufficient praise; declaring that of all the fair faces that had ever hung over her couch—and Rosy spoke as from immense opportunities for comparison—she had far the noblest and most refreshing. She seemed to make a kind of light in the room and to leave it behind after she had gone. Rosy could call up her image as she could hum a tune she had heard, and she expressed in her quaint, particular way how, as she lay there in the quiet hours, she repeated over to herself the beautiful air. The Princess might be anything, she might be royal or imperial, and Rosy was well aware how little she should complain of the dulness of a life in which such apparitions as that could pop in any day. She made a difference in the place—it gave it a regular finish for her to have come there; if it was good enough for a princess it was good enough for the likes of her, and she hoped she shouldn’t hear again of Paul’s wishing her to move out of a room with which she should have henceforth such delightful associations. The Princess had found her way to Audley Court and perhaps wouldn’t find it to another lodging, for they couldn’t expect her to follow them about London at their pleasure; and at any rate she had evidently been altogether struck with the little room, so that if they were quiet and canny who could say but the fancy would take her to send them a bit of carpet or a picture, or even a mirror with a gilt frame, to make it a bit more tasteful? Rosy’s transitions from pure enthusiasm to the imaginative calculation of benefits were performed with a serenity peculiar to herself. Her chatter had so much spirit and point that it always commanded attention, but to-day Hyacinth was less tolerant of it than usual, because so long as it lasted Muniment held his tongue, and what he had been anxious about was much more Paul’s impression of the Princess. Rosy made no remark to him on the monopoly he had so long enjoyed of this wonderful lady: she had always had the manner of an indulgent incredulity about Hyacinth’s social adventures, and he saw the hour might easily come when she would begin to talk of their grand acquaintance as if she herself had been the first to discover her. She had much to say, however, about the nature of the connexion Lady Aurora had formed with her, and she was mainly occupied with the glory she had drawn upon herself by bringing two such exalted persons together. She fancied them alluding, in the great world, to the occasion on which “we first met—at Miss Muniment’s, you know”; and she related how Lady Aurora, who had been in Audley Court the day before, had declared she owed her a debt she could never repay. The two ladies had liked each other more, almost, than they liked any one; and wasn’t it a rare picture to think of them moving hand in hand, like great twin lilies, through the bright upper air? Muniment inquired in rather a coarse, unsympathetic way what the mischief she ever wanted of her; which led Hyacinth to demand in return: “What do you mean? What does who want of whom?”
“What does the beauty of beauties want of our poor plain lady? She has a totally different stamp. I don’t know much about women, but I can see that.”
“Where do you see a different stamp? They both have the stamp of their rank!” cried Rosy.
“Who can ever tell what women want, at any time?” Hyacinth asked with the off-handedness of a man of the world.
“Well, my boy, if you don’t know any more than I you disappoint me! Perhaps if we wait long enough she’ll tell us some day herself.”
“Tell you what she wants of Lady Aurora?”
“I don’t mind about Lady Aurora so much; but what in the name of long journeys she wants with us!”
“Don’t you think you’re worth a long journey?” Rosy cried gaily. “If you weren’t my brother, which is handy for seeing you, and I weren’t confined to my sofa, I’d go from one end of England to the other to make your acquaintance! He’s in love with the Princess,” she went on to Hyacinth, “and he asks those senseless questions to cover it up. What does any one want of anything?”