Arminell, a social romance/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX.
HOW IT WAS CONTRIVED.
Macduff did it. Macduff exerted himself over it, for Macduff was under a cloud, and endeavoured to disperse the cloud by the sunshine of amiability. Besides Macduff was a manager—would have made a superb station-master at Rugby, or President of the French Republic—any other office full of difficulty and conflicting elements would suit Macduff. He rose to the occasion.
The day for the garden-party was delightful, and the park looked its loveliest, except in early spring and late autumn, when the buds of some and the fresh green of other trees were in all shades, or when the first frosts had touched the foliage with every hue of gold and copper. These, indeed, were the times when the park and woods were in most radiant beauty; but, now, with a soft and luscious haze over the distance, and a brilliant sun streaming light above all, it was very beautiful.
The park and the house were abandoned to the sight-seers; but the garden, terrace, and avenue were reserved for the guests. The orange house, now empty, because the trees had been brought forth to adorn the terrace, was decorated and arranged for refreshments, or for a refuge in the event of rain.
A military band was in attendance, and four lawn-tennis courts marked out, with boys in picturesque uniforms stationed about them, to return the balls that passed beyond bounds.
At the lodge gate instructions had been given that the coachmen should deposit the guests at the garden gates—handsome, scroll iron gates under an arch of Anglo-Italian architecture, on the pediment of which were emblazoned the arms, supporters, and coronet of the Lamertons. This gate afforded admission to the garden-terrace, and completely shut off the more private part of the grounds from the park. But though the terrace was shut off from all intrusion, it was not so completely closed as to prevent those without from seeing into it. Between the gate and the house was a low wall, with a railing on it. The windows of the state drawing-room looked out on the terrace, and a glass door with a flight of stone steps descended from the entrance hall to the terrace. The house was of the age of Elizabeth; but one wing, that containing the state apartments, had been rebuilt or re-modelled in the reign of Queen Anne, so that it in no way harmonised with the rest of the house, though furnishing within a suite of noble and lofty apartments, cheerful, and a pleasing contrast to the somewhat sombre rooms, panelled with oak, or hung with tapestry in the older house. Orleigh was not one of those brick palaces that are found in the Midland and Eastern counties; but it was commodious, venerable, and charmingly situated.
The arrangements made by Macduff and sanctioned by my lady, worked harmoniously. To some of her guests the hostess mentioned the inconvenience to which she feared they would be subjected, and left them to tell the others about it, if they saw fit.
The day was so bright that there was no occasion to go indoors. Lord and Lady Lamerton stood at a short distance from the iron gates, ready to receive their guests, who, after a first greeting, walked forward and allowed their hosts to receive the next batch. They looked at the beds, the oranges, the view; and those who were enthusiastic about flowers found their way into the conservatories. Then the guests began to coagulate into knots and sets. The clergy herded together, and the sporting men graduated towards each other; only the army men sought out and made themselves agreeable to the ladies.
"Where is Arminell?" asked Lady Lamerton, in an interval between the reception of guests.
" 'Pon my soul, Julia, I do not know."
"She ought to be here—with us. She puts the obligations of common courtesy from her as undeserving of attention."
"I will send for her."
"No; best take no notice. She may appear presently. Here come the Cribbages."
"My dear Lady Lamerton," exclaimed the rector's wife, running up, and in a gushing manner extending her hand. "How bright and charming you look, in spite of all your worries. It is a marvel to me how you bear up under it all; and to think of the audacity of Jingles! the ingratitude, the presumption! So he is turned out of the house, neck and crop; and yet you look as fresh and smiling as if nothing had happened. How I do envy your placidity of temper."
Then, turning to Lord Lamerton, "Really, my lord, you are an angel of good-nature to allow the public admission to your beautiful grounds twice a week, and put yourself and your guests to annoyance to oblige them. I heard the particulars from Mrs. Macduff. Come, Robert"—this to her husband—"you must not detain our kind hosts. Don't you see that the Calwoodleighs are coming? By the way, dear Lady Lamerton, where is Miss Inglett? Shall I find her on the terrace? What dress is she wearing? There are so many persons here that I may miss her among the throng. Which dress is it? The heliotrope or the amber?"
She was drawn on by her husband, who saw that the Calwoodleighs were waiting to be received. "Come along, Selina," said the rector. "I see the archdeacon yonder."
"I'm not going to be hurried, Robert," answered Mrs. Cribbage. "I must have another word presently with my lord. You may leave me if you like. You are not wont to be civil to your wife. Besides, I know why you want to be off. It is very fine pretending you have something to say to the archdeacon; I know what is the attraction in that direction, his niece, Miss Lovat, whom some think pretty. But I don't. Go and prance about the archdeacon and her, if you like."
The Calwoodleighs having gone forward, Mrs. Cribbage returned to her hosts, and said to Lord Lamerton:
"How good and kind it was of you, my lord, to put in an appearance at poor Archelaus Tubb's funeral. I have no doubt the family were flattered by the extraordinary attention, and to be sure, what nasty, spiteful things have been said about your share in his death. Now, Robert, I will go with you and engage Miss Lovat whilst you talk to the archdeacon."
The arrival of the guests had in the meantime caused great satisfaction to the sight-seers, who had discussed and severely criticised the equipages.
The meeting at Patience Kite's cottage had been reported in the papers, the speech by Welsh given as he chose that it should be read, that of Saltren omitted altogether. Moreover, the county papers had announced the throwing open of the grounds on Saturday, and as this was a day of early closing, a good many townsfolk, mostly shopmen and shopgirls, took advantage of the occasion to come to Orleigh, and see the place where that notorious Lord Lamerton lived.
They clustered about the garden gates, passing their comments on the arrivals, mostly disparaging, and expressed at times loud enough to be heard by those discussed.
One or two parties arrived in hired conveyances. "Them's too poor to keep a carriage," was the observation with which they were saluted. The rector and Mrs. Cribbage came on foot. "These can't afford a cab. Curate and his old house-keeper, won't they eat!"
By far the most stylish and astonishing was the equipage of Sir Bosanquet Gammon, the new high sheriff. Sir Bosanquet was a north-country man who had made a large fortune as a civil engineer. He was never able altogether to shake off his native dialect and to speak as an educated English gentleman. This was the more singular, as he asserted that the family was originally De Gammon, and had Plantagenet blood in it. His coat-of-arms on carriage and yacht was a patchwork of quarterings. That Plantagenet blood and fifty heiresses should not by their fused gentility have prevented Gammon from talking with a north-country twang was something to shake the foundations of Anthropology.
Sir Bosanquet Gammon, being high sheriff, thought it incumbent on him to make a display, so he drove to Orleigh in a carriage with hammercloth, and powdered coachman and flunkeys.
Giraldus Cambrensis, in his "Topography of Ireland," says that in Meath, near Foure, are three lakes, each occupied by a special kind of fish, and he adds that, although these lakes are connected, the fish of each lake keep to themselves, and should they venture into the lake inhabited by the finny tribe of another species, they would be so like fish out of water, that they would die, unless indeed they precipitately retreated to their former habitation.
It also seemed at Orleigh this day that fish of three sorts were swimming about in three several ponds without association and amalgamation. Within the iron gates and rails were the red-fleshed salmon, by themselves, with interests in common, a common mode of speech, a common code of manner, and a common culture. Without the railings, yet within the park, were the common-place fish that understood and appreciated jokes which would have been insipid or vulgar to those within the railings, also with a common dialect, a peculiar twang and intonation of voice, and a common style of thought and cultural tone.
Further away, outside the park gates and enclosure were fish of another quality altogether, the homely trout—the village rustics, the miners out of work—also with their peculiar modes of thought, their dialect, their prejudices, and their quality of humour, distinct from the rest and special to themselves.
How would one of the town fish have felt, had he been admitted within the gates? How one of the rustics, if associated with the shop-folk? Each would have been uneasy, gasping, and glad to get back from such uncongenial society into his proper pond once more.
When the last of the guests had arrived, Lord and Lady Lamerton left their reception post, and mixed with the company. The lookers-on outside the railings did not at once disperse. A policeman and a couple of keepers were on guard. The gates were closed, but the people insisted on peering through the bars and between the rails at the well-dressed gentle class within, and others scrambled up on the dwarf wall to obtain a better view, and were ordered down by the policeman only to reascend to the vantage point when his back was turned.
"I ain't doing nothing," remonstrated one of those required to descend; "a cat may look at a king, and I want to see Lord Lamerton."
"Come down at once."
"But I came here o' purpose."
"You can see the park and the pictures."
"Oh, blow the park and pictures. I didn't pay two-and-eight return to see them. I came here to see his lordship. So, Mr. Bobby, take him my card and compliments. I'm in the Bespoke Department at Messrs. Skewes."
"You cannot see him. Come down at once."
"But I must and will see the nobleman who has been so wicked, and has caused such wretchedness, who has tore down widows' houses, and crushed the 'eads of orphans."
Then another man offered a cigar to one of the keepers.
"Look here, old man," he said. "Point his lordship out to me. I want to have a squint at him—a regular Judge Jeffries he is."
"Talk of Bulgarian atrocities," said another. "They're a song to these at Orleigh. Down with the House of Lords, says I, and let us have the enfranchisement of the soil."
"It is all primogeniture does it," said a third, "there never ought to be no first borns."
In the innermost pond, meanwhile, the guests were swimming about and consorting. Mrs. Cribbage bore down on Lady Lamerton.
"Do tell me, dear Lady Lamerton, where is Miss Arminell; I have been searching for her everywhere. Don't tell me she is ill. Though, perhaps, she has had occasion to feel upset. She really must be somewhere, but I am so short-sighted I have not been able to find her. Perhaps she is in a new dress, with which I am not acquainted."
"We are going to send her to town; her aunt, Lady Hermione Woodhead, has been so kind as to invite her, as we remain at Orleigh for the time, and do not think of being in town during the season. It would be a pity for Arminell not to see the Academy this year, and hear the Italian opera, and see some of our friends. So when Lady Hermione offered it, we accepted gladly."
"Very gladly, I am sure," said Mrs. Cribbage with a knowing twinkle in her eye. "But where is she now?"
"I cannot say, I have not looked for her; I have been intent on receiving our friends. Here is Lady Gammon. I must be civil to her."
"How propitious the weather is," said the high sheriffess, "and how gratified you must be, my lady, to see so many individuals about you in the plentitude of enjoyment."
There are persons, they belong to a certain social class, who always use a long word from the Latin when a short Anglo-Saxon one would do.
"What a superabundance of ministers, all, I perceive, of the Established Church; but really, considering the high sheriff was to be here, they might have come in hats, instead of what is vulgarly called wide-awakes. Do you know, my lady, what it is that I really want of you? Can you guess what the favour is that I am going to ask of you? No—I am sure you cannot. Sir Bosanquet and I had a discussion together at breakfast relative to the polarisation of light, and I said to Sir Bosanquet—" (within parenthesis be it noted that before the civil engineer was knighted, his wife always called him hub or hubby)—"I said to Sir Bosanquet, 'my dear, we will refer the matter to her ladyship who is a very learned lady, and she shall decide.'"
"I!" answered Lady Lamerton, "I really do not know. It has—that is—I believe it has—but really I have only the vaguest idea concerning it; it has to do with the breaking up of a ray into its prismatic colours."
"I knew it has to do with prismatic colours, and had nothing to do with polar bears. Polar bears are white."
"Thomson," said Lady Lamerton aside to a footman, "be so good as to send me Miss Inglett's maid—to me here, on the terrace."
A few minutes later the lady's-maid came to where my lady was standing; she held a salver with a three-cornered sealed note on it.
"Please, my lady, Thomson said your ladyship——"
"Yes," interrupted Lady Lamerton, "what have you got there?"
"A note, my lady, Miss Inglett left on her dressing-table for his lordship, before she went."
"Went!"
"Started, my lady, for town to Lady Hermione Woodhead's. She said, my lady, she would write for me when I was required."
Lady Lamerton took the note. It was addressed to her husband, but she hastily opened it. It contained these few lines only—
"Dear Papa,
"You said it would be best for you and for my step-mother, and for myself, if I went away for some time from Orleigh. I have gone—but not to Aunt Hermione. You can, of course, guess who accompanies me, one whom I trust ere long you will acknowledge as a son. I will write in a day or two.
"Yours ever,
"Arminell."Lady Lamerton did not lose her presence of mind.
"That will do," she said to the maid, and went in quest of her husband. She showed him the letter and said in a low tone, "No time is to be lost; go instantly, go yourself to Chillacot, and see if she be there. If not you can learn where he is. No one else can go. I will keep the company amused and occupied. Slip out by the gate at the end of the avenue and go over the down, no one will observe you."
Lord Lamerton nodded, and departed without a word. Presently up came Mrs. Cribbage again, "I cannot find Miss Inglett anywhere," she said.
"No, Mrs. Cribbage," answered Lady Lamerton. "How are you likely to when she is gone to town? Did not I tell you that we had accepted Lady Hermione's kind invitation?"
"But I did not understand she was gone. I thought she was going."
"Surely you misunderstood me, Mrs. Cribbage; here comes Sir Bosanquet."
"There now," exclaimed Lady Gammon, sailing up with a flutter of silk, and a waving of lace fringe to her parasol. "There, I said so, Sir Bosanquet, polarisation of light has nothing to do with polar bears. I bought Plantagenet a box of the prismatical colours because they are warranted to contain no deleterious matter in them, should the dear child take to"—there was no Latinised word that would suit, or that she knew—"to suck 'em."
"Oh Lady Gammon," said the hostess, "I am so vexed that I cannot introduce to you my step-daughter, but she has been invited to her aunt's, Lady Hermione Woodhead, and there is a Richter concert to-night—selections from Parzifal, which she ought not to miss."