Mr. James Polydore May, as I have already ventured to suggest, was nothing if not respectable. He was a J.P. This,—in English suburban places at least,—is the hall-mark of an unimpeachable rectitude. Another sign of his good standing and general uprightness was, that at stated seasons he always went for a change of air. We all know that the person who remains in one place the whole year round is beyond the pale and cannot be received in the best society. Mr. May had a handsome house and grounds in the close vicinity of Richmond, within easy distance of town, but when the London “season” ended, he and Mrs. May invariably discovered their home to be “stuffy,” and sighed for more expansive breathing and purer oxygen than Richmond could supply. They had frequently taken a shooting or fishing in Scotland, but that was in the days when there were still matrimonial hopes for Diana, and when marriageable men could be invited, not only to handle rod and gun, but to inspect their “one ewe-lamb,” which they were over-anxious to sell to the highest bidder. These happy dreams were at an end. It was no longer worth while to lay in extensive supplies of whisky and cigars by way of impetus to timid or hesitating Benedicts, when they came back from a “day on the moors,” tired, sleepy and stupid enough to drift into proposals of marriage almost unconsciously. Mr. May seldom invited young men to stay with him now, for the very reason that he could not get them; they found him a “bore,”—his wife dull, and his daughter an “old maid,”—a term of depreciation still freely used by the golden youth of the day, despite the modern and more civil term of “lady bachelor.” So he drew in the horns of his past ambition, and consoled himself with the society of two or three portly men of his own age and habits,—men who played golf and billiards, and who, if they could do nothing else, smoked continuously. And for the necessary “change of air,” the seaside offered itself as a means of health without too excessive an expenditure, and instead of “chasing the wild deer and following the roe,” a simple hammock chair on the sandy beach, and a golf course within easy walking distance provided sufficient relaxation. Not that Mr. May was in any sense parsimonious; he did not take a cottage by the sea, or cheap lodgings,—on the contrary, he was always prepared to “do the thing handsomely,” and to select what the house-agents call an “ideal” residence.
At the particular time I am writing of, he had just settled down for the summer in a very special “ideal” on the coast of Devon. It was a house which had formerly belonged to an artist, but the artist had recently died, and his handsome and not inconsolable widow stated that she found it dull. She was glad to let it for two or three months, in order to “get away” with that restless alacrity which distinguishes so many people who find anything better than their own homes, and Mr. and Mrs. Polydore May, though, as they said, it certainly was “a little quiet after London,” were glad to have it, at quite a moderate rental for the charming place it really was. The gardens were exquisitely laid out and carefully kept; the smooth velvety lawns ran down almost to the sea, where a little white gate opened out from the green of the grass to the gold of the sand,—the rooms were tastefully furnished, and Diana, when she first saw the place, going some days in advance of her father and mother, as was her wont, in order to make things ready and comfortable for them, thought how happy she could be if only such a house and garden were hers to enjoy, independently of others. For a week before her respected and respectable parents came, in the intervals of unpacking, and arranging matters so that the domestic “staff” could assume their ordinary duties with smoothness and regularity, she wandered about alone, exploring the beauties of her surroundings, her thin, flat figure striking a curious note of sadness and solitude, as she sometimes stood in the garden among a wealth of flowers, looking out to the tender dove-grey line of the horizon across the sea. The servants peeping at her from kitchen and pantry windows, made their own comments.
“Poor dear!” said the cook, thoughtfully—“she do wear thin!”
“Ah, it’s a sad look-out for ’er!” sighed the upper housemaid, who was engaged to a pork-butcher with an alarmingly red face, whom one would have thought any self-respecting young woman would have died rather than wedded. “To be all alone in the world like that, unpertected, as she will be when her pa and ma have gone!”
“Well, they won’t go in a hurry!” put in the butler, who was an observing man—“Leastways, Mr. May won’t; he’ll ’old on to life like a cat to a mouse—he will! He’s that hearty!—why, he thinks he’s about thirty instead of sixty. The missis, now,—if she goes on eating as she do,—she’ll drop off sudden like a burstin’ bean,—but he!—Ah! I shouldn’t wonder if he outlasted us all!”
“Lor, Mr. Jonson!” exclaimed the upper housemaid—“How you do talk!—and you such a young man too!”
Jonson smiled, inwardly flattered. He was well over forty, but like his master wished to be considered a kind of youth, fit for dancing, tennis and other such gamesome occupations.
“Miss Diana,” he now continued, with a judicial air—“has lost her chances. It’s a pity!—for no one won’t marry her now. There’s too many young gels about,—no man wants the old ’uns. She’ll have to take up a ‘mission’ or something to get noticed at all.”
Here a quiet-looking woman named Grace Laurie interposed. She was the ladies’ maid, and she was held in great respect, for she was engaged to marry (at some uncertain and distant date) an Australian farmer with considerable means.
“Miss Diana is very clever—” she said—“She could do almost anything she cared to. She’s got a great deal more in her than people think. And”—here Grace hesitated—“she’s prettily made, too, though she’s over thin,—when she comes from her bath with all her hair hanging down, she looks sweet!” A gurgle of half hesitating, half incredulous laughter greeted this remark.