The Happy Warrior Part 3

He told her smiling: "Not with you, anyway, Nellie." Little attentions like these were rare, and he liked them. In his weak and amiable way he patted the hand that rested for a moment on his shoulder, and he explained. "You're quite right, of course, old girl. Of course I realise what it means to you and I ought to have shared it with you at once. I'm sorry--sorry, Nellie. Just like me. And about never making them your family. I know you're right there. But you don't really mean that--don't mean I've done it intentionally. You know--I've often told you--we were miles apart, my branch and theirs; you do see that, don't you, old girl? A different branch--another crowd altogether. I don't suppose you've ever even heard of the relations who stand the same to you as I stand to the Burdons. All the time we've been married, long before that even, I've never had anything to do with 'em." He smiled affectionately at her. "That's all right, isn't it?"

She was getting impatient that he ran on so. "Of course, of course,"

she said indifferently. "I never meant to say that." And then: "Oh, Maurice, but do--do--do think what I'm feeling." She entwined her fingers about his arms and looked caressingly up at him. "Have you thought what it means to us, Maurice?"

He liked that. He liked the "us" from her lips. His normal disposition returned to him; he smiled whimsically at her. "'Pon my soul, I haven't," he said; and added, smiling more, "it's a big order.

By Gad, it's a big order, Nellie."

She clapped her hands in her excitement and stood away from him, her eyes sparkling. "Maurice! Lord Burdon! Fancy!"

"It'll be a nuisance, I shouldn't wonder," he grimaced.

She laughed delightedly. "Oh, that's just like you to think that! A nuisance! Maurice! Think of it! Lady Burdon--me! It's a dream, isn't it?"

"It's a bit of a startler," he agreed, smiling tolerantly down upon her excitement.

She laughed aloud. "But fancy you a lord!" and she looked at him, holding him by both his arms and laughed again. "A startler! A nuisance! What a--what a _person_ you are, Maurice! Fancy you a lord!

You'll have to--you'll have to _buck up_, Maurice!"

He turned away for a moment, occupying himself in fumbling in a drawer.

When he turned again to her, his face had the tail of a grimace that she thought expressive of how repugnant to him was the mere thought of any change in his life. "Well, there's one thing," he said. "It won't be for long;" and he tapped his heart, that doctors had condemned.

She knew that was only his characteristic way of joking, but a flicker of irritation shadowed her face. She hated reference to what had often been a spoil-sport cry of "Wolf! Wolf!"

"Oh, that's absurd!" she cried. "That's nonsense; you know it is.

Those doctors! Make haste and dress and come down. Make haste! Make haste! I want to talk all about it. I want you to tell me--heaps of things: what will happen, how it will happen. Now, do make haste.

I'll run down now and see to Baby." She had danced away towards the door; now turned again, a laugh on her face. "Baby! What is he now, Maurice?"

"Still a baby, I expect you'll find, though I have been nearly an hour dressing."

For once she laughed delightedly at his mild absurdity; just now her world answered with a laugh wherever she touched a chord. "His t.i.tle, I mean. An honourable, isn't it--the son of a peer? The Honourable Rollo Letham! I must tell him!" She laughed again, moved lightly to the door and went humming down the stairs.

Mr. Letham waited till the sound had pa.s.sed. When the slam of a distant door announced the unlikelihood of her return, he dropped rather heavily into a chair and put his hand against the heart he had playfully tapped. "Confound!" said Mr. Letham, breathing hard.

"Conster-_nation_ and d.a.m.n the thing. Like a sword, that one. Like a twisting sword!"

For the new Lady Burdon had been wrong in estimating any humour in the grimace with which he had looked at her after turning away, while she told him he must _buck up_.

CHAPTER IV

A FORETASTE OF THE PEERAGE

I

A worrying morning foreshadowed--or might have foreshadowed--to Egbert Hunt the strain and distress of the afternoon whose effect upon him we have seen. Normally his master was closeted in the study with the three young men who read with him for University examinations; his mistress engaged first in her household duties, then in her customary run on her bicycle before lunch; shopping, taking some flowers to the cottage hospital, exchanging the magazines for which her circle subscribed. These occupations of master and mistress enabled Egbert to evade with nice calculation the tasks that fell to him. This morning the household, as he expressed it, was "all of a boilin' jump," whereby he was vastly incommoded, being much harried. The three young men thoughtfully denied themselves the intellectual delights of their usual labours with Mr. Letham. "Lucky dawgs," said Egbert bitterly, hiding in the bathroom and watching them from the window meet down the road, confer, laugh, and skim off on their bicycles; his mistress--writing letters, talking excitedly with her husband--did everything except settle to any particular task. The result was to keep Egbert ceaselessly upon "the 'op," and he resented it utterly.

II

With the afternoon the visitors; the satisfying at last of the excitement that had thrilled Miller's Field to the marrow since the newspapers were opened.

A little difficult, the good ladies thought it, to know exactly what to say.

Some, on greeting Mrs. Letham, boldly plumped: "My dear, I _do_ congratulate you!" At the other extreme of tact in grasping a novel situation, those who cleverly began, "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning Post'!" a wary opening that enabled one to model sentiments on the lead given in reply.

"My dear, I _do_ congratulate you!" "My dear, I saw it in the 'Morning Post'!" and "Ho, _do_ yer, thenk yer!" from bone-tired Egbert, mimicking as he closed the door behind the one; and "Ho, _did_ yer, boil yer!" closing it behind the other.

Between these forms, then, or with slight variations upon them, fell all the salutations but that of Mrs. Savile-Phillips who, arriving late, treading on Egbert's foot in her impressive halt on the threshold, called in her das.h.i.+ng way across the crowded drawing-room, "And where is Lady Burdon?"

She was at her tea table, closely surrounded, prettily coloured by excitement, animated, at her best, tastefully gowned in a becoming dove-grey that fortuitously had arrived from the dressmaker that morning and mingled (she felt) a tribute to her new dignity with a touch of half-mourning for the boy her relations.h.i.+p to whom death with a hot finger had touched to life. Thus Mrs. Letham--new Lady Burdon--took the eye and took it well. This was the moment of her triumph; and that is a moment that is fairy wand to knock asunder the shackles of the heavier years, restoring youth; to warm and make generous the heart; to light the eye and lift the spirit. Hers, hers that moment! She the commanding and captivating figure in that a.s.sembly!

Her spirit was equal with her presence. Physically queening it among her friends, psychically she was aloft and afloat in the exaltation that her bearing advertised. Each new congratulation as it came was a va.s.sal hand put out to touch the sceptre she chose to extend. The prattle of voices was a delectable hymn raised to her praise in her new dignity. She was mentally enthroned, queen of a kingdom all her own; and as she visualised its fair places she had a sense of herself, Cinderella-like, shedding drab garments from her shoulders, appearing most wonderfully arrayed; shaking from her skirts the dull past, with eager hands greeting a future splendidly coloured, singing to her with siren note, created for her foot and her pleasure.

Consider her state. The better to consider it, consider that something of these sensations is the lot of every woman when, on her marriage eve, a girl, sleepless she lies through that night, imaging the womanhood that waits her beyond the darkness. It is the threshold of life for woman, this night before the vow, and has no counterpart in all a man's days from boyhood to grave. How should it? The s.e.xes are as widely sundered in habit, thought, custom, as two separate and most alien races. Love has conducted every plighted woman to this threshold and has so delectably engaged her attention on the road that she has reckoned little of the new world towards which she is speeding. Now, on her marriage eve, she is at night and alone: her eager feet upon the immediate moment beyond whose pa.s.sage lies the unexplored. Love for this s.p.a.ce takes rest. To-morrow he will lead her blindfolded into the new country; to-night, poised upon the crest to which blindfolded he has led her, she stands and looks across the prospect, shading her eyes, atremble with ecstasy at the huge adventure. Mighty courage she has--a frail figure, barriers closing up behind her to shut forever the easy paths of maidenhood; hill and valley stretching limitless before, where lie lurking heaven knows what ravening monsters. But she is the born explorer, predestined for this frightful plunge into the unknown, heedless of its dangers, intoxicated by its s.p.a.ciousness, amazingly confident in Love's power and devotion to keep her in the pleasant places. And Love--he the reckless treaty-monger between the alien races--is p.r.o.ne, unhappily, to lead her a dozen entangling steps down the crest, and there to leave her in the smiling hills suddenly become wilderness, in the little valleys suddenly become abyss.

Mrs. Letham had enjoyed that intoxicating moment upon the crest.

Something of its sensations were hers again now; but she found their thrill a far more delectable affair. Again she was upon the crest whence an alluring prospect stretched; but now she looked with eyes not filmed by ignorance; now could have seen desert places, pitfalls, if such had been, but saw that there were none. Or so she thought.

Already, in the congratulations she was receiving, she was tasting the first sweets, plucking the first fruits with which she saw the groves behung. For the first time she found herself and her fortunes the centre of a crowded drawing-room's conversation. For the first time she enjoyed the thrill of eager attention at her command when she chose to raise her voice. It was good, good. It was sufficient to her for the moment. But her exalted mind ran calculating ahead of it, even while she rejoiced in it. She had her little Rollo brought in to her, and kept him on her knee, and stroked his hair; and once and twice and many times went into dreams of all that now awaited him; and with an effort had to recall herself to the attentions of her guests.

As evening stole out from the trees, in shadows across the lawn and in dusk against the windows, like some stealthy stranger peering in, her party began to separate. A few closer friends cl.u.s.tered about her, and the conversation became more particular. Yes, it would mean leaving Miller's Field--_dear_ Miller's Field; and leaving them, but never, never forgetting them. Elated, triumphant, and therefore generous, emotional, she almost believed that indeed she would be sorry to lose these friends.

As one warmed with wine has a largeness of spirit that swamps his proper self in its generous delusions, so she, warmed with triumph, was genuine enough in all her protestations. With real affection she handed over kindly Mrs. Archer, the doctor's wife, who stayed last, to the good offices of Egbert Hunt, and in a happy, happy glow of elation returned to her drawing-room. This was the beginning of it!

This the beginning of it! She drew a long breath, smiling to herself, her hands pressed together; through the gla.s.s doors giving on to the lawn she espied her husband, and smiling she went quickly across and opened them.

III

Mr. Letham was coming in from work in the garden. He had a watering-can in one hand, with the other he trailed a rake. He was in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, and his face was damp with his exertions around the flower-beds. "Hullo! All gone?" he asked.

The warmth of her spirit caused her to extend her hands to him with a sudden, affectionate gesture:

"All, yes. Maurice, you were an old wretch! You might have come in."

"Simply couldn't, old girl. I had a squint through the window, and fled and hid behind a bush. Thousands of you; it looked awful!"

She laughed: "Miserable coward! I was hoping you would."

"Were you, though?" he said eagerly. "I'd have come like a shot if I'd known."

That made her laugh again: he was always the lover. "Well, come and have a talk now to make up," she told him. "Out here in the garden.

It's frightfully hot in this room."

His face beamed. He put down the implements he was carrying, wiped a hand on his waistcoat and slipped his fingers beneath her arm. "That's a stunning dress," he said.

She gathered up the trailing skirt and glanced down at it, well pleased. "It is rather nice, isn't it?"