Chapter VI: "not in My Set."

"And oh, for ane-and-twenty, Tam!
And hey, sweet ane-and-twenty, Tam!"
R. BURNS.

SYBELLA DEVEREUX, with a dinner-party hanging over her head, was a sight to see.

Dinner-parties at the Brow were not altogether unusual; and the servants knew what they were about; and Sybella was able to afford what she considered necessary, without reaching the end of her tether; but, none the less, she always lived through any amount of previous agonies, and invariably expected everything to go wrong.

Any dinner-party was bad enough; even if it were a concoction of her own devising, and after her own taste. Dear Lady Lucas, for example, as the central dish—if in these days one may talk, even symbolically, of "central dishes;" and that good Colonel Atherstone and his sister for side dishes; and the delightful new St. John's curate, Mr. Byng, whom report wrongfully declared to have been selected by Sybella herself for Mr. Kennedy; and of course dear Mr. Kennedy himself, not to mention that less desirable appendage, his wife—all these and any other members of the St. John's "set," as Evelyn had once incautiously termed them, to her husband's displeasure, Sybella was charmed to entertain. Any amount of previous agonies was worth enduring for such a consummation.

If, however, dinner-parties weighed upon Sybella's shoulders, when she had the devising of them, how much more would they weigh when their management was taken out of her hands, and when the traditions of her youth were liable to cruel outrage!

Cyril was not now only of age, but fully aware of the fact, and of all that it implied. He was his own master; and Sybella, his quondam guardian, could no longer exert authority over him; but this, she was slow to realise. His twenty-first birthday in August had been duly observed; and Sir Cyril had comported himself towards friends and neighbours, not only with what Sybella, called his "sweetly aristocratic" politeness, but also with the air unmistakable of master of the domain. Which of course he was! Ripley Brow belonged to Cyril—not to Sybella. Sybella's tenure of office was at an end; and if she remained at Ripley Brow, she remained by Cyril's permission. She had no grain of right to stay otherwise; and since she possessed her own independent income, sufficient to keep her in comfort, many doubted whether the permission would be long accorded. Sybella's worrying ways were pretty well known in the neighbourhood.

To Sybella herself, the idea had not so much as occurred that a change might be contemplated by her nephew. If Cyril were master—and that he meant to be master soon became evident—Sybella was mistress; and mistress she intended to remain. Ripley Brow had always been her home, therefore of course it always would be. No unusual style of argument, this, with more vigorous intellects than Sybella's.

Nay, for a while, Sybella had not even expected Cyril to exercise his rights as master. He was so young still; and she, for eleven years, had had the irresponsible control of everything; and any sudden alteration was most unlikely. Legally, she might not be any longer his guardian; but she was his aunt, and he was her nephew; and Sybella never believed in young people growing up; and she counted his moral indebtedness to herself as enormous in amount. Altogether there was no reason why everything might not go on exactly the same ad infinitum. A remote possibility did, no doubt, exist that Cyril might some day in the course of years desire to marry; but at present, he was too ridiculously young. Sybella did not intend to allow it.

She was unutterably taken by surprise—"struck on a heap," to use a familiar expression—when Cyril one day brought her a written list of names, and expressed his intention to have the said people invited to dinner on a certain evening.

Sybella read the names aloud, with intervening ejaculations.

"Lady Lucas, and the Trevelyans! Impossible, Cyril! I never ask them together. Lady Lucas does not approve of Mr. Trevelyan's Church views. Mr. James Trevelyan and his mother! No, I do not see the least need to begin having them! They are not at all in my set; and Colonel Atherstone says he is really a most dangerous young man! Evelyn and Miss Moggridge! That dreadful Miss Moggridge! One never knows what she will do next. I detest masculine women. Mr. Cuthbert! No, I don't like Mr. Cuthbert at all. He has such a sneering way of saying things. Mr. Byng—"

Sybella laid down the paper, and said it would not do. It was quite out of the question. She was willing to have a dinner-party, if Cyril liked—though really she was so tired with all that had to be done—she would have preferred to wait a few weeks—but at all events, it could not be that dinner-party. The people would not suit one another at all. It would be most unpleasant.

"You know, one has to be so very particular who one asks to meet who," she went on plaintively and ungrammatically. "Anything of clashing is so extremely disagreeable. And besides—"

"Well, perhaps they would not quite suit," admitted Cyril.

He sat down, facing Miss Devereux with a perverse smile, which ought to have warned her of quicksands near.

"I put in Lady Lucas and Mr. Byng solely for your sake, and if you don't mind we'll leave them out. The rest are all right. Ten isn't a bad number. Besides, we might get Dr. Ingram and his daughter, if two more are needed. He's always an acquisition."

"Dr. Ingram! Cousin of all the Trevelyans! Worse and worse!"

"They'll pair off well enough," continued the reckless young baronet, oblivious of the reddening rims round Sybella's eyes. "What—you would rather keep the list as it is—not strike out Lady Lucas? You didn't read Admiral Grice's name?—Look—at the top. He'll take you in, of course; and I thought you would like that, to escape Mr. Trevelyan. He's a jolly old fellow, and there's nothing he likes better than discussing his gout, so you and he will get on famously. I must undertake Lady Lucas, and if only we stumble on everybody's relationships, it's smooth sailing for an hour. The old lady is sure to be serene, retailing her decent from Japhet. It will be almost a family dinner-party, and the talk is likely to become general. That's what—Eh?"

Sybella gasped incoherently.

"That's what I want. Aunt, mind you don't put an enormous block of greens on the table, so that nobody can see anybody. Just streak things about on the table-cloth somehow. Evelyn will give you a hint. Then I've bracketed Mr. Trevelyan with Mrs. Trevelyan, and Cuthbert with Evelyn. I suppose Jem Trevelyan really ought to have Evelyn, in virtue of his new dignities; but he is the last fellow to mind, and I want to see him get a rise out of Miss Moggridge. It's famous when she flips her bread into little bits, and whisks her table-napkin off her knees, in defence of women's rights. And Mr. Byng is left to Jean. He will chatter nineteen to the dozen, and Jean will look like a martyr. But—" hopefully—"if you wouldn't mind dropping out those two, it's easy enough to rearrange. I'll take Mrs. Trevelyan, and—"

"So very uncomfortable!" sobbed Sybella, feeling herself dethroned; and much as she disliked the troubles and responsibilities of office, she by no means disliked its dignities.

"Uncomfortable! I don't see why! Really I don't understand what you have to cry about. You can't surely expect me never to ask my friends to The Brow. That would be rather hard lines!"

Sybella wept lugubriously.

"Don't you see? I've waited till now, but people will expect a difference. I'm glad enough that you should have your cronies as often as you like—any number of them—why, I've thrown a couple in, purely on your account. Only I must have my turn."

"To ask Mr. Trevelyan to dinner! And after all these years! Never once since my dear aunt—! And with his views!" wailed Sybella.

"And I don't see how one's to ask him without his views!" murmured Cyril. Then aloud, "That's the very thing! I would have asked him to dinner hundreds of times, but I knew you wouldn't consent so long as you had the responsibility, you know. So I just had to wait . . . It's no good discussing his views with you, because you go by what Colonel Atherstone says, while I know the man himself. If you really knew Mr. Trevelyan, you couldn't help feeling differently . . . As for Jem Trevelyan, the more we can see of him, the better. He's a first-rate fellow—every way! . . . But I don't want to bother you—" in a tone of relenting which brought one gleam of hope to Sybella's breast. "If you dislike the thing so much, and would rather make some other arrangement for yourself for that evening, it is quite easy. Evelyn would come and head my table. There's no real difficulty."

"My table" settled the matter.

Sybella beat a retreat to her own room, but opposition ceased. The last shot had told. To abdicate in favour of Evelyn, for even one night, was no part of Sybella's policy.

Cyril had made up his mind to strike, once and for all, for liberty. A wiser woman than Sybella would have foreseen this, and by judicious yielding would have obviated the need for any such self-assertion on Cyril's part. Had she at once yielded the reins to him, he would probably have put them back into her hands. But striving to retain too much, she was in danger of losing everything.

Sybella, unfortunately, was not wise. She gave in because she had no choice; but for days she sulked; and Cyril's kind-mannered overtures, designed to show that he had no wish to give pain, met with a snappish response.

Little as Sybella knew it, she was slowly killing her last remnants of power over Cyril. A gentle and loving woman might have guided him with a rein of silk, might have done with him almost what she would. His affectionateness could have been worked upon to any extent. But unauthorised attempts at control roused all his latent powers of resistance; and ill-temper on her side deadened feeling on his. Nothing is so deadening to affection as the constant friction of an uncertain and irritable temper. Cyril had once been really fond of Miss Devereux; but through years, the fondness had been lessening under the chill of her uncontrolled egotism, and this autumn's struggles bid fair to put it out of existence altogether.

As the dinner-party drew near, Sybella had to put aside irritation so far as to prepare for it. She found that, if she did not exert herself, arrangements would be taken out of her hands. Thereupon she consented to listen, with an injured air, to what Cyril had to say, and she gave requisite orders.

One thing tending to smooth her ruffled feelings was Cyril's interest in the new dress with which he insisted on presenting her. She had plenty of dresses already; but no doubt he meant the gift for a peace-offering.

A difficulty arose. Cyril wanted Miss Devereux to have a handsome black silk or satin; and Sybella desired pale mauve, trimmed with white lace. Cyril suggested grey as a compromise; but Sybella held to the mauve. She had worn a delicate straw-coloured silk on Cyril's birthday, and Lady Lucas had congratulated her on her youthful looks. Lady Lucas was famed for saying smooth things, and to other people, it had seemed that the too light dress and too juvenile hat had brought out the deepening rumples in Sybella's cheeks, and had shown off the ridges in her throat. But these remarks had not reached Sybella.

After all, she was only just over fifty; and what is fifty compared with—say, with eighty? Sybella felt young still; and she probably would feel the same, if she should live to be ninety; not because she kept youth's elasticity, which does occasionally last into old age, but because she was a creature of one-sided development, and part of her brain had never fully emerged from the semi-infantine stage. Hence her tendency to gush.

Cyril, at twenty-one, naturally looked upon fifty as somewhat advanced; and, theories of age apart, he was keen enough to see that "Aunt Sybella" looked far better in middle-aged grey or black than in pale straw: or in mauve as delicate as the blue of "love-in-a-mist." However, not wishing to give fresh offence, he bought the coveted hazy hue; and Sybella, in consultations with her dressmaker, became almost reconciled to the thought of "that dreadful dinner-party."

All the invitations were accepted, including Jem's. He knew that he would meet Evelyn, and might probably have to take her in to dinner. What then? All "that" was over—a thing of the past. Evelyn Villiers was merely a pleasant acquaintance to him now, and a rather frequent member of his congregation. She seemed to be gradually sliding away from St. John's, and slipping into the Parish Church. Mr. James Trevelyan "helped her," she said quietly, and her husband had liked him. But Jem knew well that they could never be anything further, one to the other.

He did not even think that he wished for anything further in their intercourse. Once, undoubtedly, he had wished it. Whether he had ever been genuinely in love with her, he was not now quite sure. She had been to him as a "bright particular" distant star; as an ethereal unearthly being; as a lovely dream; as "an angel," in short. So he had once told Jean, and it was true. But Jem was older now, and Evelyn was not exactly an angel.

They had exchanged calls. Evelyn had found Mrs. Trevelyan out, and Jem and his mother had found Evelyn in. She had been rubbed the wrong way by a prolonged call, and a lengthy dissertation on the evils of the age, from Colonel Atherstone. Evelyn always bore with him for her husband's sake; but he left her used up and flat, even petulant in a gentle fashion. She vented her petulance once or twice on the unoffending Miss Moggridge; and though Miss Moggridge always seemed to enjoy whatever Evelyn did, the faintest sign of ill-temper in his "angel" was a shock to Jem. He did not expect women in general to be entirely above all human weakness; he was not so unreasonable. But Evelyn was different!

Her violet eyes had their old pathetic unrest; only, perhaps, such unrest is more pathetic at twenty-five than at twenty-nine, especially when the twenty-nine looks like thirty-five; and then craving for something unattainable had grown into what was more like discontent. Nothing can ever be less attractive than discontent.

Moreover, Jem was in a measure preoccupied. He had a great deal of work, worry, and responsibility, all pressing on him. So though he had come to Dutton with some secret dread lest the old pain might revive, it had as yet shown no symptoms of such a resuscitation.

In his East-End Parish, Jem had been judging by that somewhat doubtful test, success—the right man in the right place. He had exactly suited his work, and his work had exactly suited him.

Perhaps that was why he could not be suffered to remain there indefinitely. Friction is often a necessity for the polishing of character.

Jem was likely to have friction enough in Sutton.

His first sermon, after reading himself in, had been preached some three or four weeks back; and Dutton was in a turmoil of talk for days afterwards to make out "what he was." A goodly array of Dutton people had crowded in from other Churches to hear that sermon; not with the smallest intention of being taught by it, but merely to judge therefrom the mental and spiritual standing of the new Rector. Was he able? Was he interesting? Was he dull? Was he High? Was he Evangelical? Was he Broad? Would he think this? Would he say that? Would he do the other? Some asked the more pertinent question, Was he a good man?—But this, translated, too often meant only, Does he hold my opinions?

So they all sat and listened, and each held up as a test the little measuring tape of his own particular views, to see if the Rector's views fitted accurately thereto, in length, and breadth, and thickness.

Certain of the St. John's congregation were present among others; not, of course, from any bad habit of wandering, but solely for the good of their neighbours. If Jem were an undesirable Rector, the sooner folks were warned off from him, the better!

Colonel Atherstone watched solemnly for the "dangerous doctrines," which he had resolved beforehand were sure to come; and Lady Lucas nodded sleepily in a conspicuous corner, content to have pitched upon a party catch-word, with the quoting of which she might thenceforward label him; and Miss Devereux endeavoured perplexedly to wade after thoughts beyond her depth, which were therefore "erroneous."

Others present, like-spirited, though not of St. John's, heard no less critically. Miss Moggridge found him "not Broad enough;" and somebody else found him "not High enough;" at the very moment that Miss Atherstone was settling her bonnet-strings, and privately dubbing him "a concealed Jesuit."

Few among the herd of critics had leisure to notice the childlike trust, the earnest purpose, the burning love to God and man, which swept along the preacher himself, and filled the Church with an overflow of the Spirit of Christ.

For all they wanted to know was: "Which party?" And this they could not find out.

Jem, while an ardent Churchman, was no party-man. He had the strength to accept Divine Truth wherever he found it, even in the face of its especial patronage by any party.

Naturally, this made his position not an easy one in a place cut up into cliques and parties, social and religious.