Some of the people sat down to cards; some to music; some talked. It was the usual routine at these soirées, Mrs. Knox condescended to inform me—and, what more, she added, could be wished for? Conversation, music, and cards—they were the three best diversions of life, she said, not that she herself much cared for music.
Poor Lady Jenkins did not join actively in any one of the three: she for the most part dozed in her chair. When any one spoke to her, she would wake up and say Yes or No; but that was all. Captain Collinson stood in a corner, talking to Mina behind a sheet of music. He appeared to be going over the bars with her, and to be as long doing it as if a whole opera were scored there.
At nine o’clock the supper-room was thrown open, and Captain Collinson handed in Lady Jenkins. Heavy suppers were not the mode at Lefford; neither, as a rule, did the guests sit down, except a few of the elder ones; but the table was covered with dainties. Sandwiches, meats in jelly, rissoles, lobster salad, and similar things that could be eaten with a fork, were supplied in abundance, with sweets and jellies.
“I hope you’ll be able to make a supper, my dear,” said Lady Jenkins to me in her comfortable way—for supper seemed to wake her up. “You see, if one person began to give a grand sitting-down supper, others would think themselves obliged to do it, and every one can’t afford that. So we all confine ourselves to this.”
“And I like this best,” I said.
“Do you, my dear? I’m glad of that. Dan, is that you? Mind you make a good supper too.”
We both made a famous one. At least, I can answer for myself. And, at half-past ten, Dan and I departed together.
“How very good-natured Lady Jenkins seems to be!” I remarked.
“She is good-nature itself, and always was,” Dan warmly answered. “She has never been a bit different from what you see her to-night—kind to us all. You should have known her though in her best days, before she grew ill. I never saw any one so altered.”
“What is it that’s the matter with her?”