The Vanity Box/Chapter 1
The Vanity Box
CHAPTER I
"Please let Mrs. Forestier know that Sir Ian and Lady Hereward have come."
"Yes, my lady. She is in the rose-garden. I will tell her at once," said the butler, who had opened the door.
He rather expected that the visitors would propose going out of doors to find his mistress; for they had been away for a fortnight, and Lady Hereward was a great admirer of the rose-garden, which was now at the height of its June glory. But the weather that day was sullenly hot, with a still, perfumed heat like the heat of the tropics, and Lady Hereward was looking tired. Evidently, as there was no motor or carriage at the door, she and Sir Ian must have walked the two miles and a half from Friars' Moat to Riding Wood House, and though most of the way—taking the short cut—lay in forest shadow, this windless heat would be oppressive among crowding trees.
The butler moved toward the drawing-room door, but Lady Hereward stopped him. "We will sit here in the hall," she said. "It's delightfully cool." So speaking, she pushed down the long gray glove on her right arm, glancing at her bracelet watch. "We're very early," she went on. "We must have walked faster than we thought. We allowed ourselves too much time."
In pulling down her glove, Lady Hereward dropped something which fell noiselessly upon a polar-bear rug, and lay glittering, half buried in the silver-white fur. "My vanity box!" she exclaimed. "Stupid of me! I'm always dropping it."
The butler stooped rheumatically to pick up the little gold case, but the lady's husband was before him, and the old servant pottered away to call his mistress, thinking, as he had often thought before, how charmingly courteous Colonel Sir Ian Hereward invariably was to his wife. She liked and needed a good deal of attention, a good deal of waiting upon, as the observant Brewster was well aware; yet Sir Ian never failed, never seemed bored or impatient, as many husbands did after years of marriage. But then, if he were more devoted than ordinary husbands, her ladyship was more attractive than ordinary wives. Not that she was precisely beautiful, nor was she precisely young. Every one knew the distinguished officer's age—forty-one; and Lady Hereward was said to be some months older than Sir Ian, who was her distant cousin as well as her husband; but she did not look a day over thirty; and if she were not a beauty, she was interesting and unusual. "Like a proud sort of Madonna," the old man described her to himself as he went toward the rose-garden, to tell Mrs. Forestier that her luncheon guests had arrived, a little earlier than expected.
There was a portrait—one among many on the oak-panelled walls—which for some reason fascinated Sir Ian Hereward; and whenever he came to Riding Wood, he always stood in front of it, even if he had to find some excuse for doing so, looking up at the painted, unsmiling face with a curious, reluctant interest, as if he saw it for the first time.
It was not necessary to invent an excuse now, since he was alone with his wife, waiting for their hostess to appear; nevertheless he walked about the hall a little, before making his way to the portrait, picking up a book or two on the fat-legged Jacobean table in the middle of the flagged floor, and then moving on by slow degrees, pausing here and there to glance at some other portrait. This was not a deliberate plan carried out to cloak his real intention, unless from himself, for he had no idea that his wife knew or cared about his interest in the picture; yet he was always drawn to it, in spite of a certain desire to resist. He tried to persuade himself that he thought of that portrait as he thought of others in the hall at Riding Wood, merely as a fine piece of work by a great artist. It had been painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, and was a family treasure. Once a few years ago, it had gone away to an exhibition, having been lent by Mr. Forestier, since dead; and during the time of its absence Sir Ian had not visited Riding Wood.
When her husband began his wanderings round the hall, Lady Hereward seized the opportunity to open her vanity box, and look at herself in the tiny mirror inside. She knew perfectly well what Sir Ian's goal was, and that, having reached it, he would not be likely to move until he heard Mrs. Forestier's footsteps. She knew perfectly well, too, why he was drawn to the portrait, and the fascination it had for him annoyed her extremely; still, as she scorned to refer to the subject, the fact remained that he would look at the portrait, and she might as well avail herself of the three or four minutes during which his back was turned. Never for an hour did she forget that she was a year older than Ian, or cease to yearn for her lost youth, or abandon the struggle to keep its semblance. Never for a moment did she fall into the error of letting her husband or her friends guess that she was engaged in a struggle. Nobody dreamed how unremitting were the efforts this Madonna-faced lady made to retain the softness and smoothness and slimness which belonged to her past. To be sure, she was known to carry a vanity box, but nobody ever saw her peep into it, and her fondness for the little gold case was counted as one with her devotion to jewelry. This was her only selfish hobby, and though she allowed herself to wear but a few jewels at a time, she owned some for which she might have been envied by richer women.
While Sir Ian gazed at the portrait, his wife glanced hastily at her own reflection in three inches by two of mirror. Her long oval face was white, and there were shadows under the light blue eyes. Her thin but beautifully cut lips were pale and dry, and the brown hair, softly folding down on either side of the pure forehead, almost covering the ears, lacked lustre. Lady Hereward felt disappointed in herself, although the wide gray hat, which dress and gloves matched, was becoming in shape. She took a tiny powder-puff out of the gold vanity box, and gave a pearly effect to her pallor; then, a touch of pink salve (not vulgar red) outlined the delicate curve of the lips; and last of all, the dove-wing folds of hair were pulled a little more over the ears, which were not as pretty or well made as everything else about Lady Hereward.
"You two dears! how good of you to come, and how glad I am to see you both!" cried Mrs. Forestier's voice at the door.
She was a small, dark woman of large enthusiasms, rather gushing, and perhaps even somewhat insincere—at least Sir Ian thought her so; but he had loved her dead husband dearly, therefore he had a kindly if somewhat contemptuous toleration for her, and an almost romantic affection for Riding Wood.
Mrs. Forestier, bright black eyes shining, dimples twinkling, almost ran to greet Lady Hereward, both plump hands outstretched. The two women presented a strong contrast to one another as they kissed: Lady Hereward tall, slim, dignified and gracious; Mrs. Forestier short, round, energetic, with a rich, peachy bloom of complexion.
"I am lucky to get you at such short notice," she went on.
"We're always delighted to come here, you know," said Lady Hereward, "and we haven't been back from Paris long enough to have made any engagements."
Mrs. Forestier released her friend, and moved a few steps toward Sir Ian.
"Only to think of my keeping you waiting!" she reproached herself.
"It wasn't more than five minutes, and Ian loves mooning about among the portraits," said Lady Hereward.
"Don't you think, Milly, that the Sir Joshua by the staircase reminds one a tiny bit of Terry Ricardo, as she used to be? Heaven knows what she's like now." And Mrs. Forestier glanced at the picture which had been occupying Sir Ian's attention.
Millicent Hereward studied the portrait from a distance for a moment before answering, as if she had never noticed any resemblance, and needed to think the question over.
"Perhaps it does, a tiny bit, now you speak of it; though of course Teresina Ricardo couldn't touch Lady Catherine for beauty," she replied at last.
"Perhaps Sir Joshua's idea of Lady Catherine," amended Mrs, Forestier. "If he could have had Teresina for a model, very likely he would have made her even handsomer than Lady Catherine. What do you think, Sir Ian? You used to know Terry in India."
"She was more fascinating than handsome, as I remember her," he answered with just a perceptible stiffening of his thin, brown soldier-face.
"I mean, what do you think about the portrait reminding one of her?"
"There is something like in the expression of the mouth—or the shape of the eyes."
"Or both," added Mrs. Forestier, "and I suppose it's not so very remarkable, since there are a few drops of the same blood in Terry's veins. I hadn't realized the resemblance, till the other day, though I sometimes said to myself: Who is that portrait like? But then I don't suppose I'd thought twice of Terry Ricardo in five years till a week ago—since you and Milly ran over to Paris."
"What made you think of her then?" asked Lady Hereward, turning her favourite ring on her finger.
"Why, she's in England—arrived yesterday, and has come to visit the Norman Ricardos. Maud Ricardo was here about a week ago, and told me they were expecting their cousin Terry."
"Oh!" said Lady Hereward.
Sir Ian said nothing.
Mrs. Forestier flashed one of her bright glances from the wife to the husband.
"Luncheon is served, madam," announced the old butler.