The Twelfth Hour Part 4

"F. G. Rivers! Of course not! Felicity will do all that sort of thing.

She has a talent for celebrities--like papa. But why on earth _mustn't_ I go to supper with just F. G. Rivers?"

"Oh, I don't know. You can if you like. _I_ don't care," said Woodville jealously.

"I thought he was a wonderfully clever novelist, tremendously successful and celebrated!"

"Yes, I know. That's what I meant," Woodville said.

"Aren't his books rather weird and uncanny ... and romantic,--all about local colour, and awfully cynical?"

"How well you know what to say about things! _Weird!_ Delightful! I dare say that's what Rivers would expect a nice girl to say of his books. He spends half his time being afraid people should think his work is lurid, and the rest in being simply terrified that people should think it's not. He's very clever really, and a delightful companion."

"Is he cynical?" she asked.

"He's so sceptical, that he believes in everything, but especially hard work, like table-turning, crystal-gazing, and Sandow's exercises.... I was at Oxford with him, you know," Frank added explanatorily.

"I see, it's an old affection. Anybody else I'm not to speak to?"

"Nonsense, Sylvia; I want you to be charming to every one, of course. I believe in that sort of thing. It's the right atmosphere for a party.

Don't think about _me_."

"How can I help it?"

Her grey eyes were reproachful.

Woodville looked into them, then abruptly looked away.

"What are you going to wear, Sylvia?"

"My white satin, I think. Do you like it? Or don't you?"

"No; it makes you look too much like a Gainsborough--or no, more like a Sargent--which is worse. I mean worse for me, of course."

"Oh, dear! why am I always _like_ something? Well, what am I to wear, Frank? I've just ordered a sort of fluffy grey chiffon--like a cloud."

"Wear that. You're always in the clouds, and I'm always looking up at them.... I hope it has a silver lining?"

"Perhaps it has. I don't know yet, it hasn't come home. Felicity's going to wear a sort of Watteau-ish dress, pink and white and blue, you know.

Of course, she won't wear any jewels--she never will. You see, Chetwode has such a lot of old ones in his family. She says she's afraid, if she did, the _Perfect Lady_ or _Home Chirps_ might say 'Lady Chetwode as usual appeared in the "Chetwode emeralds"'--or something idiotic of that sort."

"How like her! Then just wear your string of pearls."

"Mayn't I wear the little turquoise heart that you--didn't give me, the one I bought in the Brompton Road and gave it to myself from you, so that I could honestly say you hadn't?"

"Better not, Sylvia. It looks as if it came out of a cracker. And we don't need any symbols and things, do we?"

"Very well.... I'm afraid, Frank ... I shall have to go now."

Woodville looked hurt.

"What? Already! Then why did you waste the precious minutes alone in making epigrams about F. G. Rivers? He's such a good fellow too, I always got on with him at Oxford."

"Did I make epigrams? How funny! I didn't know I could."

She came a little nearer. Woodville said in a low voice, rather quickly--

"You looked really divine just now through the window, with the hyacinths in your hands--like the G.o.ddess of something or other--spring, I suppose.... When I look at you, I understand all the old poetry. _To Amaryllis_ and Herrick--and--you know."

"Dear Frank!... Am I to find an address?"

"You can't, dearest. There is no address. Besides, they've moved. And I found it myself ever so long ago."

She laughed.

"Oh, Frank!"

Woodville put his hand out and took hers.

"Oh, don't go just yet!" he said imploringly.

"Why, you told me to go away just now--or to the other side of the room!"

"Ah, but that was ages ago! Why, you haven't _been_ here two minutes!

You can't be in such a hurry.... Anyhow, come here a second."

She obeyed, and leant over his shoulder.... Then he said abruptly--

"Yes, you had better go."

Blus.h.i.+ng, she glided away at once, without another word.

Woodville remained at the desk, looking a little pale, and frowning. He had a theory that he was a very scrupulous man, with a high sense of honour. It was a worrying theory.

With a sigh he returned to the invitation cards.

CHAPTER IV

"AUNT WILLIAM"

Mrs. William Crofton, the widow of Sir James's brother, was, in her own way, quite a personage in London; at least, in the London that she knew.

We have already seen her in the photograph in Savile's possession taken some forty years ago (by Mayall and Son, at Brighton). She was now an elderly lady, and still occupied the large ugly house in South Audley Street, where the children remembered their Uncle Mary. Felicity, Sylvia, and Savile had chosen to reverse the order in which they were told to speak of their uncle and aunt. Felicity had pointed out that not only was Aunt William more like an uncle, but that by this ingenious device they dodged a kind of history lesson. The great object always was to counteract carefully any information conveyed to them during the time of their education. All historians and teachers alike were regarded as natural enemies from Pinnock to Plato. On the same principle, Savile would never eat _Reading_ biscuits, because he feared that some form of condensed study was being insidiously introduced into the system. Boys had to be on their guard against any treachery of that kind.

If there were a certain charm in the exterior of this old house--solid and aggressively respectable--its interior gave most visitors at first a nervous shock. Aunt William still firmly believed aestheticism to be fas.h.i.+onable, and a fad that should be discouraged. Through every varying whim of the mode she had stuck, with a praiseworthy persistence, to the wax flowers under gla.s.s, Indian chessmen, circular tables in the centre of the room, surrounded by large books, and the rep curtains (crimson, with green borders) of pre-artistic days. Often she held forth to wondering young people, for whom the 1880 fas.h.i.+ons were but an echo of ancient history, on the sad sinfulness of sunflowers and the fearful folly of j.a.panese fans. Had the poor lady been but a decade or two more old-fas.h.i.+oned she would have been considered quaint and up-to-date. (A narrow escape, had she only known it!)