CHAPTER II
The new-made Darnleys, James and his sister, were triumphantly ushered into the upper world by Lady Adela, whose father’s rise, whose mother’s persistence, had won at last a reluctant toleration from her betters. Accustomed from her birth to live on terms of acquaintance with more or less interesting or conspicuous people, Lady Adela had developed something of that native air and ease which James Dadd had never been able to acquire in all his long exile from his own social hemisphere. Nor did James Dadd, transformed into James Darnley, ever succeed in fitting himself perfectly to his altered conditions. His wife, besides loving him devotedly, if placidly, did all she could to acclimatize him; she made him buy a vast new house on the Yorkshire moors; she filled it with people, she made her husband play the squire; but to the last this man of many descents remained less adaptable, less congenial to his new environment than many a versatile Hebrew whom twenty years of unlimited wealth transform into what is nowadays considered a very tolerable imitation of an English gentleman—especially as seen on the stage. Among people who talked of money and diseases with a freedom that struck him as indecent, James Darnley, brought up to think both topics unmentionable, remained timid and uncomfortable to the end of his days, and when at last a combination of dyspepsia and a Primrose League banquet caused him to retire from a world in which he had always been a stranger, even Lady Adela felt that he was somehow set free from a long bondage. Gentle in her grief as in all her other emotions, she resigned herself to becoming crapes, and found new pleasure in the guardianship of her son Kingston, now turned eleven.
But if James Darnley, first of his line, died a failure, far otherwise was it with his sister. In her the blood of great-great-great-grandmother Messiter must have seethed and boiled with concentrated virulence, for she took to her new life with a zeal that left nothing to be desired, and soon dropped behind her all trace and all memory of Darnley-on-Downe. Her manners, from the first, were forward and easy; her ambition was to be considered a woman of fashion, and she carried to its accomplishment a temperament entirely devoid of bashfulness or indecision. Mr. Mimburn, her wealthy stockbroker husband, soon shrank into mere cheque-signing obscurity beside the flaming figure of his wife. Her remarks were quoted, her gowns described; she became at last, in those far-off days, a precursor of that modern type of woman who is perfectly virtuous, except in dress, manners, and mind. Nothing would have horrified her more than illicit proposals, except the accusation of being shocked by them; nothing have more appalled her than an attack on her virtue, except the suspicion that she had any.
Her gossip always made a point of flirting round impropriety, and she was at pains to damn her own flawless character by arch implications. She had cultivated French, and now was a walking chronicle of the demi-monde, as well as a living picture of its most prominent inhabitants. A passport to her friendship was the possession of a past, and she hastened to attribute amorous adventures to all her dearest friends on any foundation or none. The foundation did not matter; the point was that the suggestion glorified them in her eyes; part of her admiration for Lady Adela arose from the fact that she suspected that saintly woman of having ‘consoled herself’ during the lifetime of the late James Darnley. Mrs. Mimburn’s knowledge of her sister-in-law’s untried and incorruptible virtue was never allowed to interfere with this romantic possibility; in the face of all probability, in the face of all evidence, she must imagine some such episode in any career that touched her own, or else immediately cease to take any interest in it. So far had she travelled from the mental chastity that ruled in Darnley-on-Downe.
So, between mother and aunt, the young Kingston Darnley journeyed through boyhood to maturity. Lady Adela was an ideal parent, and discharged her maternal duties with a gentle ease that made her son’s progress altogether pleasant. She was one of the cushion-women whose numbers nowadays are yearly diminishing. Without initiative, without any clearness of mind, she had the placid receptivity that often accompanies such a temperament. The lack of colour in her own character made it harmonious and restful as a background to more vivid personalities. Therefore, without effort or desire on her part, she attracted confidence. She was good to lean on; she listened well—though often without hearing, and always without understanding. But her sweet acquiescence gave everyone the idea of being fully comprehended, and her incapacity for independent action added to her value as a recipient of confidences. She could be trusted to say little and do less; and the large majority who, in making confession, only desire a sympathetic listener, felt that Lady Adela was an altogether soft and comfortable personality to repose against. What more could be required? The faithful adviser frequently gives much less, and is, as a rule, much less valued than the imperturbable Lady Adelas of life. Kingston Darnley was universally held to be highly fortunate in his mother, and, by the time he came of age, as he had neither married an actress nor gone to ruin on the turf, her skill in managing him was considered marvellous, and even beyond what might reasonably have been expected.
‘I assure you, La-la, considering what young men are nowadays, I do think you have done wonders,’ said Mrs. Mimburn, who had called to congratulate her sister-in-law on the latest triumph achieved by her diplomacy.
‘Kingston is the dearest child,’ acknowledged Lady Adela, deprecating undue flattery of her own genius. ‘One only needs to guide him. He is all obedience. I have never attempted to drive him, Minnie.’
Mrs. Mimburn tossed her head. Her name was always a sore point. She had suffered heavily in the matter at the hands of her parents, who had christened her Minna Adelaide, after her great-aunts of formidable memory, the Misses Adelaide and Minna Dadd. Understanding that such names were a grievous handicap to any runner in the race of fashion, and desirous, too, of obliterating all traces of Darnley-on-Downe, Mrs. Mimburn did the best she could to remedy the disaster by resolutely calling herself ‘Minne-Adélaïde.’ This Gallicism Lady Adela could never bring herself to remember, and embittered the life of her sister-in-law by calling her Min or Minnie when in a good temper, or plain Minna on the very rare occasions when she happened to be in not so good a one.
‘Well,’ tartly replied Mrs. Mimburn, with another toss of her plumed head, ‘I think you have been wise, La-la. But you need not be too sure of Kingston. There isn’t any reason to believe, La-la, that even your son is not made of flesh and blood. Such stories one hears! And a mother is the last person a boy could think of confiding in. Depend upon it, you don’t know everything. Boys don’t let their mothers marry them off at Kingston’s age unless there is a reason for it. Dear me! of course not; everyone loves a little bit of freedom,’ concluded Mrs. Mimburn, filling her voice with the suggestion of a wicked past.
Lady Adela had the happy knack of never hearing anything that displeased her. The process of years had brought her a sweet serenity that nothing could ruffle. Whatever happened Lady Adela smiled.