‘The sweetest and best of women, Mr. Restormel. And so pretty. Quite extraordinary, for she must be—what?—well over thirty, certainly, and yet she looks quite like a young girl still. Fair, you know, with a delightful complexion and lovely golden hair, and that kind of beautiful little figure which never alters. Yes, she must certainly be over thirty. She has got a son who can’t be less than fifteen. Jack, surely Jim Darnley is quite fifteen?’
Young Hoope-Arkwright glanced up from the photograph-book with which he was beguiling the time.
‘What, Jim Darnley? Oh yes, fifteen, at least.’
‘There you are. And his mother looks like his sister still. He is the dearest boy, Jim Darnley—the simplest, most unaffected creature. And, of course, he will be Duke of March and Brakelond one of these days, when his grandfather dies. They are sure to revive the title for him. But he might be just anybody, and his mother the same. I have always wondered why she does not make her husband take her own name. But no; she is such a really good woman that she thinks a wife ought always to stick to her husband’s name. That shows you what she is. And such a worker of all good kind works, indefatigable among the poor and the sick—for ever sending out soup and boots and blankets, you know. Her life is quite made up of kindnesses. They very, very seldom dine out, the Darnleys, in the country, so that you are lucky to meet them here like this to-night. Her husband is a very nice man too. I am sure you will like them both immensely. But of course she is the most interesting of the two.’
At this point the other guests began to arrive, and Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright was forced to abandon her dialogue with young Restormel. She introduced him rather perfunctorily to one or two of the new arrivals, taking pains to slur over his name until she should have the opportunity of explaining his identity quietly to them at dinner or afterwards; then she turned to her hospitable duties, and Jack Hoope-Arkwright carried off his friend into one of the windows, where they stood laughing and talking together while the guests gradually gathered. Then, after a few moments, Ivor Restormel and his host came back towards the hearth to look at some photograph or ornament that stood on the primitive oak table that stood close by, and thus it was that they were once more close at the hostess’s side when at last, in a significant pause, the butler re-entered. His appearance suggested an archbishop of sporting tendencies, and he evidently cultivated a nice sense of drama. His voice boomed sonorous as he announced:
‘Mr. and Lady Gundred Darnley.’
Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright moved forward a step or two.
Minute but majestic, the Lady Gundred Darnley proceeded up the room, panoplied in perfections, and giving exactly the proper amount of smiles, of exactly the proper kind, in exactly the proper way, to all the proper people. At her heels came Kingston, but nobody cared to look twice at him. Lady Gundred was the star of the evening; as she entered, she had the double consciousness of not only conferring great pleasure, but of conferring it in the handsomest and most ungrudging manner. For in the plenitude of her generosity she had decided that it was her duty not to fob off poor, kind Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright’s dinner with one of her second-best frocks; and now she reaped the reward of her efforts in the general gaze of delight that greeted her appearance in one of her smartest gowns, looking incredibly crisp and young in a beautifully-built harmony of pale blue and pale gold. The frock set the crown upon the favour of her coming. It was, indeed, very rarely that the Darnleys dined out in the neighbourhood of Brakelond, and therefore Gundred was the more ready to emphasize the approval that her coming was to bestow on Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright in the eyes of all the county. Dear woman, how good she had been about that bazaar! how loyally she had turned away her Liberal gardeners! She well deserved not only to be dined with, but to be dined with in one of one’s decent gowns. And then one might ask her to tea at Brakelond, and show her the pictures. Gundred showed herself sweet and kind in the highest degree, as Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright made her welcome. Her manner always had a tranquil friendliness and a grace so instinct with placidity that only the most discerning could have discerned her underlying pride, in her demeanour’s very negation of pride. Here and there, perhaps, an acute onlooker might guess that her gentleness was founded on an intense arrogance unsuspected even by its possessor, on a self-esteem so tremendous as to have passed beyond all hint of self-assertion into a Nirvana of apparent unself-consciousness. An ingenious friend in London, indeed, had once said that, though Gundred’s manner and signature unfailingly wore the proper style of ‘Gundred Darnley,’ yet that, reading between the lines, both of manner and signature, one could always see that it really ran, ‘Gundred March and Brakelond.’ However, her pride was far too cardinal a point of doctrine to be made the theme of declamation; Gundred never obtruded it, never lowered its dignity by insisting on it, never allowed it to make her offensive, except in minute and subtle ways. Now, as she pressed Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright’s hand and commended her kindness, the hostess felt that never had she met anyone so pleasant and cordial and delightfully unaffected.
Then Gundred raised her eyes and looked round her to see who else might be in the room. She saw Sir Nigel, saw the Lemmingtons, saw the Archdeacon and his wife; she was glad that Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright had chosen such unexceptionable people to be witnesses of Brakelond’s condescension. Then her gaze moved on. The next moment she saw somebody whom instantly, inexplicably, she disliked as she had never before disliked anyone at first sight. Cool and gracious, Gundred was the last person in the world to feel unusual emotions; but now, as she looked at a tall dark young man—a boy of about twenty, he seemed, remarkably beautiful and attractive—her soul started proudly away in a flurry of instinctive repulsion. He was unpleasant, that good-looking youth, altogether unpleasant and odious. She had no notion why this feeling swept so completely across her mood; it took entire possession of her. Quickly she averted her eyes, and glanced round the uneventful circle of the other guests. They, for their part, quite unsuspicious of Lady Gundred’s sudden outburst of dislike, were concentrating their admiration on the calm grace of her manner, so exquisitely civilized and concise. Passions must always be very far from that serene pleasantness of demeanour. And meanwhile Gundred was busy thinking how displeasing that young man was, while with soft smiles she responded to Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright’s compliments. But suddenly the hostess became conscious of someone at her side. She turned towards the handsome dark boy, and before Gundred could see what was to happen, had brought him forward. ‘Let me introduce you to Lady Gundred Darnley,’ she said. The young man made a motion as if to put out his hand. Gundred instantly responded by taking that cruel revenge which is always in a woman’s power on such occasions. She ignored the hand, gave a glacial little smile and a glacial little bow. The young man seemed slightly astonished at this chill, and his eyes met hers for a moment. They were splendid eyes, those of his—cool, deep, grey, kindly. They glanced with wonder into the ice of Gundred’s stare, and in that moment she felt his gaze intolerable, saw things that she mysteriously hated and dreaded in those grey depths. For once in her life Gundred’s composure was faintly ruffled. She dropped her glance, and faintly blushed with annoyance. This is what one got by being generous and dining with presumptuous people like the Hoope-Arkwrights. Under her calm, imperturbably smiling exterior Gundred was gravely annoyed. She moved backwards, away from this unwelcome introduction. Her movement produced a change in the arrangement of the crowd. Kingston stepped forward, and came into sight of the tall, slender figure with which his wife had seemed to be talking. Already he had had a strong conviction that he knew the back; now that he saw the face, he recognised the wayfarer whom he had passed on his road that afternoon. And once again, tyrannous, overwhelming, came the certainty of old acquaintance. Before, however, he could start a conversation, dinner was announced, and Mrs. Hoope-Arkwright began to marshal her guests in procession. Gundred hailed the release with joy, and passed out with gentle majesty at the head of the cortège.
What, then, was her indignation when, having settled herself at her host’s right, delicately removed her gloves, unfolded her napkin, untied the little bundle of pastry faggots that lay before her knotted up with blue ribbon, she turned towards her other neighbour, and discovered that he was no other than the strange, beautiful young man for whom she had conceived so unusually sudden a dislike. She hated strong emotions, and very rarely indulged them, but this one was beyond her control—a matter of instinct. In the first flash of revelation, she felt convinced that this beautiful boy was a corrupter of youth, a contemner of religion, everything that was bad and horrible; she plumed herself immediately on the nice discernment that enabled a Christian woman to divine such things, and made a virtue of the hostility she harboured. Talk to such a creature she would not. She turned quickly upon her host, and initiated the usual introductory conversation on the beauty of the table decorations.