"Ah! You forget I grow old," Katherine retorted, smiling; "so that for miracles the time is at once too long and too short."
CHAPTER V
TELLING HOW QUEEN MARY'S CRYSTAL BALL CAME TO FALL ON THE GALLERY FLOOR
This world is unquestionably a vastly stimulating and entertaining place if you take it aright—namely, if you recognise that it is the creation of a profound humorist, is designed for wholly practical and personal uses, and proceed to adapt your conduct to that knowledge in all light-heartedness and good faith. Thus, though in less trenchant phrase since she was still happily very young, meditated Madame de Vallorbes, while standing in the pensive October sunshine upon the wide flight of steps which leads down from the main entrance of Brockhurst House. Tall, stone pinnacles alternating with seated griffins—long of tail, fierce of beak and sharp of claw—fill in each of the many angles of the descending stone balustrade on either hand. Behind her, the florid, though rectangular, decoration of the house front ranged up, storey above storey, in arcade and pilaster, heavily mullioned window, carven plaque and string course, to pairs of matching pinnacles and griffins—these last rampant, supporting the Calmady shield and coat-of-arms—the quaint forms of which break the long line of the pierced, stone parapet in the centre of the façade, and rise above the rusty red of the low-pitched roofs, until the spires of the one and crested heads of the other are outlined against the sky. About her feet the pea-fowl stepped in mincing and self-conscious elegance—the cocks with rustlings of heavy trailing quills, the hens and half-grown chicks with squeakings and whifflings—subdued, conversational—accompanied by the dry tap of many bills picking up the glossy grains of Indian-corn which she let dribble slowly down upon the shallow steps from between her pretty fingers. She had huddled a soft sable tippet about her throat and shoulders. The skirt of her indigo-coloured, poplin dress, turning upon the step immediately above that on which she stood, showed some inches of rose-scarlet, silken frill lining the hem of it.
Helen de Vallorbes had a lively consciousness of her surroundings. She enjoyed every detail of them. Enjoyed the gentle, southwesterly wind which touched her face and stirred her bright hair, enjoyed the plaintive, autumn song of a robin perched on a rose-grown wall, enjoyed the impotent ferocity of the guardian griffins, enjoyed the small sounds made by the feeding pea-fowl, the modest quaker grays and the imperial splendours of their plumage. She enjoyed the turn of her own wrist, its gold chain-bracelet and the handsome lace falling away from and displaying it, as she held out the handfuls of corn. She enjoyed even that space of rose-scarlet declaring itself between the dull blue of her dress and the gray, weathered surface of the stone.
But all these formed only the accompaniment, the ground-tone, to more reasoned, more vital enjoyments. Before her, beyond the carriage sweep, lay the square lawn enclosed by red walls and by octagonal, pepper-pot summer-houses, whereon—unwillingly, yet in obedience to the wild justice of revenge—Roger Ormiston had shot the Clown, half-brother to Touchstone, race-horse of mournful memory. As a child Helen had heard that story. Now her somewhat light, blue-gray eyes, their beautiful lids raised wide for once, looked out curiously upon the space of dew-powdered turf; while the corners of her mouth—a mouth a trifle thin lipped, yet soft and dangerously sweet for kissing—turned upward in a reflective smile. She, too, knew what it was to be angry, to the point of revenge; had indeed come to Brockhurst not without purpose of that last tucked away in some naughty convolution of her active brain. But Brockhurst and its inhabitants had proved altogether more interesting than she had anticipated. This was the fourth day of her visit, and each day had proved more to her taste than the preceding one. So she concluded this matter of revenge might very well stand over for the moment, possibly stand over altogether. The present was too excellent, of its kind, to risk spoiling. Helen de Vallorbes valued the purple and fine linen of a high civilisation; nor did she disdain, within graceful limits, to fare sumptuously every day. She valued all that is beautiful and costly in art, of high merit and distinction in literature. Her taste was sure and just, if a little more disposed towards that which is sensuous than towards that which is spiritual. And in all its many forms she appreciated luxury, even entertaining a kindness for that necessary handmaid of luxury—waste. Appreciated these the more ardently, that, with birth-pangs at the beginning of each human life, death-pangs and the corruption of the inevitable grave at the close of each, all this lapping, meanwhile, of the doomed flesh in exaggerations of ease and splendour seemed to her among the very finest ironies of the great comedy of existence. It heightened, it accentuated the drama. And among the many good things of life, drama, come how and where and when it might, seemed to her supremely the best. She desired it as a lover his mistress. To detect it, to observe it, gave her the keenest pleasure. To take a leading part in and shape it to the turn of her own heart, her own purpose, her own wit was, so far, her ruling passion.
And of potential drama, of the raw material of it, as the days passed, she found increasingly generous store at Brockhurst. It invaded and held her imagination, as the initial conception of his poem will that of the poet, or of his picture that of the painter. She brooded over it, increasingly convinced that it might be a masterpiece. For the drama—as she apprehended it—contained not only elements of virility and strength, but an element, and that a persistent one, of the grotesque. This put the gilded dome to her silent, and perhaps slightly unscrupulous, satisfaction. How could it be otherwise, since the presence of the grotesque is, after all, the main justification of the theory on which her philosophy of life was based—namely, the belief that above all eloquence of human speech, behind all enthusiasm of human action or emotion, the ear which hears aright can always detect the echo of eternal laughter? And this grim echo did not affect the charming young lady to sadness as yet. Still less did it make her mad, as the mere suspicion of it has made so many, and those by no means unworthy or illiterate persons. For the laugh, so far, had appeared to be on her side, never at her expense—which makes a difference. And the chambers of her house of life were too crowded by health and agreeable sensations, mental activities and sparkling audacities, to have any one of them vacant for reception, more than momentary, of that thrice-blessed guest, pity.
And so it followed that, as she fed the mincing pea-fowl, Madame de Vallorbes' smile changed in character from reflection to impatience. A certain heat running through her, she set her pretty teeth and fell to pelting the pea-hens and chicks mischievously, breaking up all their aristocratic reserve and making them jump and squeak to some purpose. For this precious, this very masterpiece of a drama was not only here potentially, but actually. It was alive. She had felt it move under her hand—or under her heart, which was it?—yesterday evening. Again this morning, just now, she had noted signs of its vitality, wholly convincing to one skilled in such matters. Impatience, then, became very excusable.
"For my time is short and the action disengages itself so deplorably slowly!" she exclaimed. "Pah! you greedy, conceited birds, which do you hold dearest after all, the filling of your little stomachs, or the supporting of your little dignities? Be advised by a higher intelligence. Revenge yourselves on the grains that hit and sting you by gobbling them up. It is a venerable custom that of feasting upon one's enemies. And has been practised, in various forms, both by nations and individuals. There, I give you another chance of displaying wisdom—there—there!—La! la! what an absurd commotion! You little idiots, don't flutter. Agitation is a waste of energy, and advances nothing. I declare peace. I want to consider."