Lady Carmichael had lingered in the homely old house till afternoon tea, had lingered over her tea, telling her cousins all they wanted to know about smart society in London, that one central spot of bright white light in the dull, grey mass of a busy, commonplace world, of which she knew so much, and of which they knew so little. Janet and Sophia professed to be above caring for these things, except from a purely philosophical point of view, as they cared for ants, bees, and wasps; but they listened eagerly all the same, with occasional expressions of wonder that human beings could be so trivial.
“Five hundred pounds spent in flowers at Lady Drumlock’s ball!” cried Sophy, “and to think that in a few more million years the sun may be as cold as the north pole, and what trace will there be then of all this butterfly world?”
“Did the Mountains cut a tremendous dash this season?” asked Janet, frivolously curious about their immediate neighbours, county people who went to London for the season. “Of course you know she had thirty thousand pounds left her by an uncle quite lately. And she is so utterly without brains that I dare say she will spend it all in entertainments.”
“Oh, they did entertain a good deal, and they did their best, poor things, and people went to them,” Juanita answered, with a deprecating air; “but still I should hardly like to say that they are in society. In the first place, she has never succeeded in getting the Prince at any of her dances; and in the next place, her parties have a cloud of provincial dulness upon them, against which it is in vain to struggle. He can never forget his constituents and his duty to his borough, and that kind of thing does not answer if one wants to give really nice parties. I’m afraid her legacy won’t do her much good, poor soul, unless she gets some clever person to show her how to spend it. There is a kind of society instinct, don’t you know, and she is without it. I believe the people who give good parties are born, not made—like poets and orators.”
Sir Godfrey looked down at her, smiling at her juvenile arrogance, which, to his mind, was more bewitching than another woman’s humility.
“We mean to show them the way next year, if we take a house in town,” he said.
“But we are not going to have a house in town,” answered Juanita, quickly. “Why, Godfrey, you know I have done with all that kind of frivolity. We can go to Victoria Street in May, and stay with our people there long enough to see all the pictures and hear some good music, and just rub shoulders with the friends we like at half a dozen parties, and then we will go back to our nest at the Priory. Do you think that I am like Lady Mountain, and want to waste my life upon the society struggle, when I have you?”
It was after five o’clock when they left Dorchester. It was more than half-past seven when they drew near Cheriton, and the sun was setting behind the irregular line of hills towards Studland. They approached the Manor by one of the most picturesque lanes in the district, a lane sunk between high banks, rugged and rocky, and with here and there a massive trunk of beech or oak jutting out above the roadway, while the gnarled and twisted roots spread over the rough, shelving ground, and seemed to hold up the meadow-land upon the higher level; a dark, secret-looking lane it must have seemed on a moonless night, sunk so deeply between those earth walls, and overshadowed by those gigantic trunks and interlacing branches; but in this mellow evening light it was a place in which to linger. There was a right of way through Cheriton Chase, and this sunk lane was the favourite approach. A broad carriage drive crossed the Chase and park, skirted the great elm avenue that led to the house, and swept round by a wide semi-circle to the great iron gates which opened on the high-road from Wareham.
The steep gable ends of an old English cottage rose amidst the trees, on the upper ground just outside the gate at the end of the lane. It was a veritable old English cottage, and had been standing at that corner of the park-like meadow for more than two hundred years, and had known but little change during those two centuries. It was a good deal larger than the generality of lodges, and it differed from other lodges insomuch as it stood outside the gate instead of inside, and on a higher level than the road; but it was a lodge all the same, and the duty of the person who lived in it was to open the gate of Cheriton Chase to all comers, provided they came in such vehicles as were privileged to enjoy the right of way. There was a line drawn somewhere; perhaps at coal waggons or tradesmen’s carts; but for the generality of vehicles the carriage road across Cheriton Chase was free.
A rosy-faced girl of about fourteen came tripping down the stone steps built into the bank as the carriage approached, and was curtseying at the open gate in time for Sir Godfrey to drive through without slackening the pace. He gave her a friendly nod as he passed.