The Heavenly Twins Part 33

"Yes," she said.

There was a pause, during which she noticed a suspicion of powder on his face, and he felt dissatisfied because she didn't seem to be going to entertain him.

The band struck up a waltz.

"Do you dance?" he said, looking down from her face to her feet.

"Not in the afternoon," she answered.

The dance had begun, and a pair came whirling down toward them.

Evadne moved back to be out of the way, and Menteith, looking round for a partner, saw Mrs. Guthrie Brimston opposite smiling at him.

He went over to her.

"Well, what do you make of the bride?" she asked.

"Her conversation is not exactly animated," he answered, looking into Mrs.

Guthrie Brimston's face intently.

She was a round, flat-faced, high-hipped, high-shouldered woman, short in the body, and tight-laced; and she had a trick of wagging her skirts and perking at a man when talking to him.

She did so now, nodding and smiling in a way that made her speech piquant with the suggestion that she thought or knew a great deal more than she meant to say.

"You have made her acquaintance, I suppose?" Menteith added.

"Oh, yes," she answered. "Her husband is an old friend of ours, you know, so Bobbie thought we ought to call at once."

The tone in which she spoke suggested that she and "Bobbie" merely meant to tolerate Mrs. Colquhoun for her husband's sake. "Bobbie" was Major Guthrie Brimston, a very useful little man to his wife by way of reference. When she wanted to say a smart thing which might or might not be considered objectionable, according to the taste of the person she addressed--and she very often did--she always presented it as a quotation from him. "Bobbie thinks," she added now, "that if there were an Order of the Silent Sewing Machine, Mrs. Colquhoun would be sure to be a distinguished member of it."

A Royal personage whom Evadne had met at home recognized her at this moment, and shook hands with her with somewhat effusive cordiality, making a remark to which she responded quietly.

"She seems to be a pretty self-possessed young woman, too," Menteith observed. "Her composure is perfect."

"Ah!" Mrs. Guthrie Brimston e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "those stupid people have no nerves! Now, _I_ should shake all over in such a position!"

The band played the next few bars hard and fast, the dancers whirled like teetotums, then stopped with the final crash of the instruments, and separated, scattering the groups of onlookers, who re-arranged themselves into new combinations immediately. Mrs. Guthrie Brimston leaned against the bulwarks. Colonel Beston, of the Artillery, and Colonel Colquhoun joined her, also her Bobbie, and Menteith remained. The conversation was animated. Evadne, having moved, could now hear every word of it, and thought it extremely stupid. It was all what "he said" and "she said"; what they ought to have said, and what they really meant. Mrs. Guthrie Brimston made some cutting remarks. She talked to all the men at once, and they appeared to appreciate her sallies; but their own replies were vapid.

She seemed to be the only one of the party with any wit. Mrs. Beston joined her. She was a little dark woman with a patient anxious face, and eyes that wandered incessantly till she discovered her husband with Mrs.

Guthrie Brimston. Evadne surprised the glance--entreating, reproachful, loving, helpless--what was it? The look of a woman who finds it a relief to know the worst. Evadne's heart began to contract; the girlish gladness went out of her eyes.

Mrs. Beale and Edith arrived and joined her, and Menteith came and attached himself to them at once.

"You _have_ put on the blue frock," he said softly to Edith, looking down at her with animal eyes and a flush partly of gratified vanity on his face.

Edith smiled and blushed. She could not reason about him. Her wits had forsaken her.

"That's a case, I think," said Mrs. Guthrie Brimston. Several more men had joined her by this time, and they all looked across at Edith and Menteith.

Half the men on the island took their opinions, especially of the women, from Mrs. Guthrie Brimston. She was forever lowering her own s.e.x in their estimation, and they, with sheep-like docility, bowed to her dictates, and never dreamt of judging for themselves.

Mr. Price persuaded Mr. St. John to come and look on at the dance. They were leaning now against the bulwarks beside Mrs. Guthrie Brimston, who tried to absorb them into her circle, but found them heavy. Mr. Price despised her, and Mr. St. John was occupied with his own thoughts. He had pa.s.sed the night in painful reflection, and when he arose in the morning he was more than half convinced that Mr. Price had not exaggerated; but now, with the smiling surface of society under observation, and his senses both soothed and exhilarated by the animated scene and the lively music, he could not believe it. He had thought for the moment that the old American minister was a strong and disinterested philanthropist, but now he saw in him only the victim of a diseased imagination. The habit of seeing society through a haze of feeling as it should be was older than the American's entreaties that he should learn to know it as it is, and he deliberately chose to be unconvinced.

"The person is casting covetous eyes at the bishop's pretty ewe lamb,"

Colonel Beston observed to Mrs. Guthrie Brimston _sotto voce_.

A kind of bower had been made of the stern sheets by screening them off from the main deck with an awning, and from out of this a lady, a young widow, stepped just at this moment, followed by a young man. They had been out of sight together, innocently occupied leaning over, watching the fish darting about down in the depths of the transparent water. The moment they appeared, however, the men about Mrs. Guthrie Brimston exchanged glances of unmistakable significance, and the young widow, perceiving this, flushed crimson with indignation.

"Guilty conscience!" Major Guthrie Brimston remarked upon this, with a chuckle.

Mr. St. John had witnessed the incident and overheard the remark, and the import of both forced itself upon his attention, Mr. Price's words recurred to him: "You are right," he remarked. "They are gross of nature, these people. The animal in them predominates--at present. But the spiritual, the immortal part, is there too. It must be. It has not been cultivated, and therefore it is undeveloped. We should direct our whole energies to the cultivation of it. It is a serious subject for thought and prayer."

Mr. Price twitched his nose, and studied the physiognomies about him: "I doubt myself if the spiritual nature has been as generally diffused as you seem to imagine," he remarked in his crisp, dry way. "But if the germ of it is anywhere it is in the women. Help them out of their difficulties, and you will help the world at large. Now, there is one"--indicating Evadne, who was sitting in the same place still, quietly observant.

"I was looking at her," Mr. St. John broke in. "She seems to me to be one of those sensitive creatures, affected by sun and wind and rain, and all atmospheric influences, to their joy or sorrow, who will suffer a martyrdom in secret with beautiful womanly endurance."

"And be very much to blame for it!" Mr. Price interrupted. "That is your idea of her character? Now mine is different. I should say that she is a being so nicely balanced, so human, that either senses or intellect might be tipped up by the fraction of an ounce. Which is right, surely; since the senses are, instrumental in sustaining nature, while the intellect helps it to perfection. And as to her beautiful womanly endurance"--he shrugged his shoulders, and turned the palms of his hands upward--"I don't know, of course; but I am no judge of character if she does not prove to be one of the new women, who are just appearing among us, with a higher ideal of duty than any which men have constructed for women. I expect she will be ready to resent as an insult every attempt to impose unnecessary suffering either upon herself or her s.e.x at large."

"Well, I hope she will not become a contentious woman," Mr. St. John said.

"The way in which women are putting themselves forward just now on any subject which happens to attract their attention is quite deplorable, I think; and pus.h.i.+ng themselves into the professions, too, and entering into rivalry with men generally; you must confess that all that is unwomanly."

"It seems to me to depend entirely upon how it is done," Mr. Price answered judicially. "And I deny the rivalry. All that women ask is to be allowed to earn their bread honestly; but there is no doubt that the majority of men would rather see them on the streets." The old gentleman stopped, and compressed his lips into a sort of smile. "I can see," he said, "that you are dissenting from every word I say; but I am not disheartened. I feel sure that the scales will fall from your eyes some day, and then you will look back, and see clearly for yourself the way in which all moral progress has been checked for ages by the criminal repression of women."

"Repression of women!" exclaimed Captain Belliot, who caught the words just as the band stopped--"Good Lord! I beg your pardon, St. John--but it's a subject I feel very strongly upon. It's impossible to tell what the devil women will be at next. Why, I went into a hotel in Devonport for a brandy and soda just before I sailed, and I happened to remark to a fellow that was with me that something was 'a d.a.m.ned nuisance'; and the barmaid leant over the counter: 'A s.h.i.+lling, sir,' she said, with the coolest cheek in the world. 'What for?' I demanded. 'A fine, sir, for swearing,'

she answered, with the most perfect a.s.surance. 'Now, look here, young woman,' I said, 'you just shut up, for I'm not going to stand any of your d.a.m.ned nonsense.' 'Two s.h.i.+llings, sir,' she said, in just the same tone. I wanted to argue the question, but she wouldn't say a word more. She just sent for the proprietor, and he said it was his wife's orders. She wouldn't have any female in her service insulted by bad language, and that fellow, the proprietor, actually supported his wife. What do you think of that for petticoat government? He made me pay up too, by Jove! I was obliged to do it to save a row. Now, what do you think of that for a sign of the times?"

Mr. Price twitched his nose, and looked at Mr. St. John.

"Some signs of the times are hopeful, certainly," the latter said enigmatically.

"What! talking seriously in these our hours of ease?" Mrs. Guthrie Brimston broke in. "What is it all about?"

"I was just about to remark that I like a woman to _be_ a woman,"

Captain Belliot rejoined, ogling the lady, and with the general air of being sure that she at least could have no higher ambition than to attain to his ideal. "These bold creatures who put themselves forward, as so many of them do nowadays, are highly antipathetic to me; and if you saw them!

the most awful old harridans--with voices!--'Shrieking sisterhood' doesn't half come up to it!"

Mrs. Malcomson pa.s.sed at that moment.

"Should you call _her_ an old harridan?" Mr. St. John asked, smiling involuntarily.

"No," the naval man was obliged to confess; "she's deuced handsome; but she presumes on her good looks, and doesn't trouble herself to be agreeable. I took her in to dinner the other night, and could hardly get a word out of her--not that she can't talk, mind you; she just wouldn't--to pique my interest, you know. You may take your oath that was it. There's no being up to women. But she'll find herself stranded, if she doesn't take care. _I_ shan't bother myself to pay her any more attention; and I'm a bad prophet if the other men in the place go out of their way to be civil to her much longer either. Besides," he said to Mr. Price, lowering his voice, but not enough to prevent Mr. St. John hearing--"her husband's jealous!" He turned up his eyes--"Game's not worth--you know!"

Again Mr. Price looked at Mr. St. John. The band struck up; another waltz began; scarcely anything else had been danced.

"Oh, this eternal one, two, three!" Mr. Price e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed; "how it wearies the mind! Society has sacrificed its most varied, wholesome, and graceful recreation--dancing--to this monotonous one, two, three!"

He pa.s.sed on, leaving Mr. St. John to his reflections.

Captain Belliot bent before Mrs. Guthrie Brimston; "Our dance, I think,"

he said, offering her his arm.