Chapter VII: The Social Board

"Where men of judgment creep and feel their way,
The positive pronounce without dismay;
Their want of light and intellect supplied
By sparks absurdity strikes out of pride:
Without the means of knowing right from wrong,
They always are decisive, clear, and strong."
COWPER.

DINNER at The Brow was in full swing before anybody held a match to the combustible elements there gathered. Miss Devereux had made fretfully sure of an explosion. She held a ladylike belief that if a gun is present, it is sure to go off, forgetting that even a loaded gun will lie quiescent until somebody pulls the trigger.

Cyril was at his best, handsome and conversational; and Lady Lucas' beaming countenance seemed to bespeak her forgiveness of the company into which she found herself plunged. After all, had not the Trevelyans ancestors—and were there not blue ingredients in the Trevelyan blood?

Mrs. Trevelyan, "Jem's mother" as she was called by many, was the model of a sweet elderly lady, and Evelyn was more like her old self than Jem had yet seen her. Jem himself looked fagged and out of spirits with the worries of the past month. Perhaps he felt a little disappointed at not having to take Evelyn in; at all events, Jean thought so, even while dutifully "not allowing herself" to think anything of the kind. He quite failed to get any manner of a rise out of Miss Moggridge, for the young baronet's entertainment; indeed, conversation flagged much between the two. The one being a man of action, the other a woman of theories, they were less likely to act match and match-box than Cyril had expected.

Miss Moggridge was a lady of independent though small means; not a "companion" in the ordinary sense of the word, since she received nothing from Evelyn but a home and the privilege of dancing attendance upon her. She had no home ties of her own, and she had fallen over head and ears in love with Evelyn, as one woman does sometimes fall in love with another. Miss Moggridge did not gush and fuss sentimentally over her love, as some women do in a like case—women of Sybella's calibre—but she was silently ready to give time and life to the object of her affections. Evelyn, touched by this intense though commonly dumb devotion, and feeling the need of permanent companionship, had somewhat hastily suggested living together—in other words, had offered to take Miss Moggridge into her ménage. The offer had been at once eagerly accepted.

But to have a devoted friend out of the house, and to be with that friend always in the house, are two different things. A friendship, which is only enhanced by the little partings and meetings and excitements of the one existence, will not always stand the pull of the other. The compact had not long been made before Evelyn began, after her wont, to regret it.

She was sincerely fond of Miss Moggridge; yet this fondness was a mild affair compared with the absorbing and jealous worship of the older lady. Miss Moggridge's dumbness of love lessened under the thawing influence of perpetual nearness; and the ardour of a devotion which could never leave its object alone became a weariness to that object. Evelyn loved freedom, even while she craved for more ties; and she found her freedom hampered.

Miss Moggridge was large in make, and superlatively plain. Her face, no less than her body, was large; the nose was crooked; the eyes were small; the teeth were discoloured; the complexion really was "liver-hued." She had not in looks a single redeeming point; and she was also somewhat gauche, somewhat excitable, somewhat opinionated, somewhat clever, and by fits and starts a great talker. Towards Evelyn she was monotonously mild and yielding on all questions of opinion: towards other people she was hardly less monotonously argumentative. All this had been a matter for amusement in the friend whom Evelyn saw for an hour or two at a time, but in her perpetual companion, she did not like it so well. She was equally teased by the inevitable agreement with herself, and by the inevitable disagreement with the rest of the world.

There were oppositions and inconsistencies in Miss Moggridge, as in most human beings. Theologically she prided herself on being Broad; and she showed her share of human contractedness by her unlimited abuse of those whom she counted "Narrow." The abuse was not couched in unladylike terms, but it was sufficiently severe; and to Evelyn such tirades always came as an attack upon her husband's memory. Of course, she never said so; and Miss Moggridge never guessed what Evelyn felt, or the tirades would have ceased in her hearing. As they did not cease, they helped to loosen the bond which attached the two ladies together.

Miss Moggridge was also an advocate for "female rights;" and on this topic she was apt to wax explosive, to the immense delight of young men, who, calm in the consciousness of their inborn superiority, could afford to smile. Miss Moggridge might not "see it," but so much the better fun. Evelyn, however, did not accept certain modern versions of female rights, and she had begun to grow tired of the declamations on this subject, once only entertaining.

Side by side with such characteristics were to be found in Miss Moggridge a large modicum of womanly tenderness when something or somebody called it out; a painful womanly consciousness of her own ugliness; and a vehement love of beauty. There is something pathetic in such a beauty-loving soul as hers, enshrined in so clumsy a casket. If, in any mysterious sense, the soul can be supposed to secrete the body, as a mollusc secretes it shell, one can only wonder how Miss Moggridge's poetic soul should have put forth so inadequate an expression of itself.

This jumble of characteristics in female form was now Evelyn's chosen companion. For how long? Perhaps for the rest of her life. Could anything ever separate them? Evelyn sometimes put this question to herself drearily; not that she did not love Miss Moggridge, but that she did not love to be bound.

"I must never marry again; that is certain," she said to herself, with a flickering smile. "So soon as I am tied to a person, I want to be free."

But would Miss Moggridge go, if Evelyn desired it? Could Evelyn ever have the heart to ask her to do so? There were days when Evelyn felt herself under a hopeless incubus. Companionship was all very well; but to be incessantly watched, followed, petted, advised, cared for, was a little too much—at her age, and after years of liberty. She panted under the oppression. Had Miss Moggridge suddenly vanished, Evelyn would have felt lonely; but none the less, this sensation that she could not, if she would, get rid of Miss Moggridge, fretted her.

To return to the dinner-party at Ripley Brow.

Miss Moggridge, like Sybella, was fond of lively colouring. The possession of a poetic soul did not imbue her with good taste in clothing her body. To gratify Evelyn, she had suppressed a startling cheese-hued costume, and wore nothing worse than sea-green. Lady Lucas was in black velvet; Mrs. Trevelyan and Evelyn were in black silk; Sybella alone was resplendent in sheeny mauve and snowy lace. Jean's white dress was the simplest imaginable; her only ornament being one large pearl-pin in her abundant hair; but Cyril again told himself that "he had never seen Jean so handsome." He did not this time make the observation aloud.

For a while Admiral Grice's gout and Sybella's assortment of mild ailments had full swing. Some at table were amused to overhear scraps of the dialogue, with its perpetual—

"I have had that—!" "I know so well what that is!" "I have gone through just the same!" "I assure you, I suffered from—" "My doctor advised me—" "I was recommended to take—" each seeming anxious to outvie the other in dolefulness of experience.

If one cannot hope to shine in any other respect, one may at least seek to excel in the matter of aches and pains.

Mr. and Mrs. Trevelyan were in a steady swing of talk; Giles Cuthbert in subdued and sleepy tones made himself agreeable to Evelyn; Cyril kept Lady Lucas going; and Jean, far from looking bored, enjoyed her companion—a pleasant and gentlemanly young fellow, when he could be kept clear of certain controversial subjects which were to him as a red rag to a bull.

Rub the first, not to be called an explosion, was on the score of weather—a fruitful subject at all times for discussion. Sybella had long ago taken the winds of the neighbourhood under her especial patronage. She knew all about them, always; and with a person who can never be in the wrong, it is perilous to suggest a mistake. There could be no surer road to Miss Devereux's displeasure, than to assert that a breeze was northerly when she counted it westerly.

Unwittingly Mr. Trevelyan made this blunder. He alluded to the fact of a "strong south-east wind" that day, not three minutes after Miss Devereux had enlarged to her Admiral on the pleasantness of a "nice soft south wind." Of course, he had not heard her; but, of course, she did not believe this.

Sybella reddened, and turned from her gouty Admiral, who had wisely listened without comment, to the offender.

"I assure you—" she interposed—"I assure you, the wind has been exactly south all day. I watched the clouds for ever so long; and they were coming precisely from the south. Some may be so easily mistaken, because of currents of air down here; but up there, you know, one cannot be wrong."

Miss Devereux was nothing if not scientific.

"And I know—The weathercock! Oh, I don't think one can always depend on weathercocks. Beside, the weathercock must have pointed south to-day. I know by my own feelings. Any east in the wind always affects me directly. I am so sensitive to an east wind. It has been direct south the whole day."

Mr. Trevelyan bowed slightly, and intimated that a gentleman might not contradict a lady.

"But anybody must know who has paid attention," persisted the lady, feeling the gentleman unconvinced. Miss Devereux not only counted herself always in the right; she could not be content unless others counted her the same; and this was rather difficult to bring about. "I assure you, if there had been the very least east in the wind, I could not have ventured out with my neuralgia. East winds are so dangerous. People who are strong, of course—But it was because the wind was south that I thought it so safe."

Mr. Trevelyan bowed again. He had a way of looking down upon Sybella, mentally as well as bodily, from his superior height, which she was conscious of, while unable to define it.

For the hundredth time, she wondered, "What dear Cyril could find to like in that disagreeable man?"

And her voice had an injured intonation as she continued—

"It is quite extraordinary how few people understand the direction of the wind."

"But we at The Brow, being near the clouds, are always accurately informed," put in Cyril wickedly from the further end of the table.

"Suppose we agree to call it south, and settle the matter," suggested Evelyn's soft tones. "Things are very much to us as we believe them."

"There was once an old gentleman," drawled Cuthbert, "who could never go out in an east wind. Quite impossible, you know. It always gave him bronchitis. Invariably. But a kind friend one day tied the weathercock, with the vane pointing west, while the wind blew from the east. The old gentleman went out for his constitutional, rejoicing in the west wind; and—wonderful to say—he caught no cold."

Sybella was offended. "Of course, I understand," she said. "Of course; Mr. Cuthbert means it is all fancy. But—" and a hiatus.

"I beg your pardon. There are no such things as fancies in the present day. It is all neurotic," explained Giles, with fascinating mildness.

"My story was merely a little illustration of the interaction between mind and matter—perhaps one may say, of the mastery of mind over matter."

"I thought it was an old schoolmaster," Jean said, while Sybella was trying to understand. "And a school-boy's trick."

"My dear Jean, never put a story right, when the moral is as good one way as the other," murmured Evelyn.

Jean laughed; and before Miss Devereux could make up her mind about that mysterious word, "neurotic," the talk drifted in a fresh direction.

Rub the second was again between the hostess and her Rector. Mr. Trevelyan dropped among matters ecclesiastical in conversation with gentle Mrs. Trevelyan, who always liked to dig a little information out of a man, whether or no her feminine brain could entirely assimilate it. He made unfortunate mention of "The Father's;" and Miss Devereux—scarcely more apt to fall foul of east winds than to fall foul of "the Fathers," all the more because she knew so little about them—overheard the remark.

Sybella bristled up for action immediately; and Mr. Byng sent her a startled glance of sympathy up the length of the table; but being far distant, and being moreover a good deal charmed with his neighbour, Jean Trevelyan, he left actual fighting to Miss Devereux. She was equal to the occasion. Remedies for the Admiral's next attack of gout had to wait, while Sybella plunged into the fray—mauve silk and all, to the rescue of principle! Mr. Trevelyan found himself unexpectedly tackled, and put upon the defensive.

Miss Devereux was "quite sure the Fathers were not infallible. So very extraordinary that people should talk of them as they did! And only last Wednesday, Mr. Kennedy had pointed out in his sermon—Mr. Byng of course would remember—" with an appealing look—"had pointed out to them so carefully how all the Fathers contradicted each other about everything. So how could they possibly be infallible?"

Mr. Byng did remember, and he would have said more, but for a peculiar expression in Jean's eyes. He had never felt himself under exactly the same restraint.

"It is Mr. Kennedy who is infallible; not the Fathers," declared that dreadful Miss Moggridge, whipping unexpectedly into the discussion. "I don't know that they ever professed to be—did they, Mr. Trevelyan? But if Mr. Kennedy holds up his finger, and says, 'I think—' we are all to bow down to his decision."

Miss Devereux drew up her head, and opined that for anybody to say such things of such a man as Mr. Kennedy—

"Say such things! I only say he is a modern Pope! Infallible out-and-out. Much worse than to be an infallible company of old gentlemen!" said Miss Moggridge irreverently. "One would at least keep the others in check; but there's nobody to keep Mr. Kennedy in check. As for their contradicting one another, Mr. Kennedy contradicts himself every other minute. Infallible people always do—not only the Fathers."

A faint shadow of annoyance passed over Evelyn's face.

"Such a devotedly good man!" sighed Miss Devereux. "I am sure, if Mr. Kennedy—"

"But I don't see what his goodness has to do with the question," said Miss Moggridge, getting for the first time a little excited, and flipping a crumb over the table. "Popes generally are pretty good men, I believe—Protestants or otherwise. We're not in the Middle Ages now. I suppose the Fathers were good men too—but that didn't make them infallible, necessarily. Any more than Mr. Kennedy's goodness makes him infallible—or keeps him from being dull!"—sotto voce.

"There is, perhaps, a possibility," interposed Mr. Trevelyan, in a solemn and repressive voice, which somehow brought Miss Moggridge to a halt, "just a possibility, viewed even from the mere standpoint of common-sense, that the combined utterance of many good men may be likely to speak fuller and more sober truth than the single voice of one good man. Collective wisdom ought to contain more than individual wisdom. If I am in doubt on some theological point, I am naturally more disposed to turn to a consensus of thoughtful opinions, from the Fathers of the Church generally, than to appeal merely to one excellent man—however unexceptionable he may be as an individual."

Miss Devereux didn't see it, and in perturbed tones, she said so. "The Fathers, she knew, were full of error. Full of error!—" and she performed vehemently the "invisible soap and imperceptible water" operation with her two hands.

"Is anything human not more or less full of error?" Jem asked in a low voice.

Miss Devereux had no wish to listen to either Jem or Mr. Trevelyan. Instruction was the last thing she desired. She felt that she had the best of it; and so doubtless in a sense she had; for she was attacking what Mr. Trevelyan was not defending; and since she knew a great deal more about his views than he did himself, it was not of the slightest use for him to disclaim belief in the infallibility of the Fathers. Miss Devereux knew better. Let Mr. Trevelyan say what he would, she could still go on with her monotonous protest—"Full of error! Full of error!"

"May I ask which of the Fathers you studied last?" asked Mr. Trevelyan.

Sybella was horrified. Read the Fathers! How could he suppose that she would do anything so fraught with peril? Then she looked appealingly at Mr. Byng; but Mr. Byng was tongue-tied by the lurking disdain in Jean's greenish eyes—a disdain more unequivocally expressed in the corners of Mr. Trevelyan's mouth, as he sank into silence. Evelyn once more, with her skilful grace, broke up the discussion, and resolutely started other topics.

"Too bad," Miss Moggridge said to Jem, not referring to Evelyn, but to the change of subject. "I should have liked to see those two fight it out."

Jem moved his head negatively, smiling. "A waste of strength," he said. "Life is too short for skirmishes which cannot lead to victory."

Rub number three did not come till they were all in the drawing-room, the gentlemen having just joined the ladies. This time Cyril was the offender, not Mr. Trevelyan; and Lady Lucas was the offended, not Sybella.

Cyril had not altogether liked Jean's interest in her talk with the Curate at dinner. He had enjoyed the discussions and Miss Moggridge; but he had not enjoyed the sight of those two intent faces. It was all very well for Mr. Byng to admire Jean; but for Jean to be so wrapped up in a subdued dialogue, as not to hear when Cyril spoke to her, was by no means right. Jean belonged to him; whether or no he meant to have her for a permanent possession; and nobody else had a right to Jean.

He had not noticed before what a good-looking young fellow Mr. Byng really was; and the confidential tone in which the Curate expounded his ideas to his listener during dessert made Cyril wrathful. He was no given to wrathfulness about small things; but this could hardly be called a small thing.

Cyril had not recovered his equilibrium when he came into the drawing-room. Jean was standing on the rug, in her white dress, conspicuously tall and slight; the pale face, with its steadfast eyes, conspicuously free from self-consciousness. She was looking at a photograph; and straight as an arrow Mr. Byng went to her side. Cyril forthwith did the same. He was not going to stand that sort of thing.

Mr. Byng made some allusion to their past conversation, which Jean answered smilingly, turning a little towards him and from Cyril as she did so.

Thereupon Cyril forgot himself. If there was one subject more than another which he ought strenuously to have avoided, with Lady Lucas seated only a few yards off upon the nearest sofa, it was aught connected with family disagreeables. Whatever he might think of her mode of action, she as his guest had a right to his silence. But Cyril at that moment could only think of Jean; and in his eagerness to gain her attention, he rushed into the first remark which occurred to him.

"I say, Jean—" with subdued determination to have his own way, though with no outward sign of annoyance: "Jean!—"

Then, "I beg your pardon!" politely to Mr. Byng, and Mr. Byng retreated.

"Jean, you won't forget to take your father soon to call on my friends? You know—at the red house—"

"Captain and Mrs. Lucas! O yes," Jean answered. She too forgot about Lady Lucas. "I will remind my father. When do they come?"

"To-day. So the sooner you can go, the better."

"Hardly. It would be merciful to allow them a few days for settling in."

"Oh, no need. The house is furnished, and has been all put to rights. Only a little unpacking to do; and they are too good travellers to think anything of that. I shall go in to-morrow, and tell them to expect you."

Lady Lucas stood up and moved forward, while her black velvet skirts trailed imposingly. Her plump hands held a large feather fan.

"I think I can hardly be mistaken," she said, looking from Cyril to Jean. "One does not wish to overhear; but—" with a dignified smile—"my own name has a familiar sound, and you did not talk in whispers. Yet surely—it is impossible. That unhappy man cannot have obtained a footing in this house!"

Cyril felt rather like a naughty boy, and he had to brace himself with the recollection that of "this house," he was master. He went a little nearer to Lady Lucas, with his pretty air of courtesy—boyish still—leaving Jean on the rug. Except Admiral Grice and the older ladies, no one had yet sat down. Evelyn was talking with Jem and Mr. Trevelyan in the distant bow-window; and Mr. Byng had retired to Giles Cuthbert.

"I met Captain Lucas abroad," Cyril observed.

"But your aunt—Miss Devereux—"

"My aunt saw him once. Not oftener. They are friends of mine," said Cyril bravely, as a sudden thought came to him of Emmeline—courageous little Emmeline, with so much in life to render her sad.

"Miss Devereux will not call," Lady Lucas stated. She had ceased smiling, and no longer looked gracious.

"Perhaps not." Cyril's manner became more resolute. "I am sorry this has come up," he said frankly. "It is not the time or place—and I forgot. But since it has, I ought to explain. I met the Lucases abroad; and I assure you, I found them most kind—as pleasant as could be. I like them immensely—yes—him!" in reply to a monosyllable. "I mean—one is so sorry for him, and he does fight so hard not to be overcome. I don't really think it's a case when everybody ought to stand aloof. I don't—really, Lady Lucas."

"You will, I suppose, permit 'everybody' to judge for themselves," said Lady Lucas. "I quite understand that Sir Cyril Devereux is perfectly independent in these matters; and time alone can teach experience. It is, of course, useless for me to assort that my unhappy nephew is unfit to associate with gentlemen. That is only an old lady's opinion—though it is held by some who are not old ladies."

"I am very sorry," apologised Cyril. "But if you were to see him now—"

"We shall, I think, do little good by discussing the question. Only I must beg you to remember one thing, Sir Cyril—that I do not meet or acknowledge Captain Lucas or his wife. And, excuse me—in your position you ought to be careful. You do not know what you may be drawn into."

Sir Cyril made a little gesture of comprehension, not of assent, and Lady Lucas swept her trailing skirts away. Sybella was on a more distant sofa, and thither the lady retreated. A murmured conference between the two began.

"You have been quite wrong, my dear," Lady Lucas said softly. "Sir Cyril ought to have been put into some regular profession—the Army, or anything—for a few years. I told you so long ago. He will get into mischief from the sheer lack of something to do."

Then an interruption came. Jean still stood upon the rug; and Cyril remained where Lady Lucas had left him, lost in thought. Emmeline's dark sunny little face was before his mind's eye.

"I will call—of course, I will call. What rubbish!" he said to himself.

A curious croaking sound drew the attention of all—a sound as of something giving way.

"Jean!" her father called in an agitated shout from the bow-window. "Back, Jean!!" He was too far to do more than shout, as he saw the great mirror over the mantelpiece seem to detach itself, and for an appreciable fraction of a second lean forward. Jean, with her instinct of obedience, born of long habit, sprang back, not hesitating for even the fraction of a second; while Cyril, hearing both the loud crack and the warning cry, as instinctively started forward. The huge mirror crashed heavily down; one sharp edge tearing a wide rent down Jean's white skirt, and bringing her to her knees; the other striking Cyril prostrate.

Sybella's shrieks almost drowned the loud crash of shattered glass: Sybella herself keeping at a safe distance. The gentlemen made a simultaneous rush forward; and Jean spoke calmly: "I am not hurt. Please see to Cyril. Never mind me."

Five pairs of hands lifting the massive frame released both; and Jean sprang to her feet. She had been pinned down by the weight pressing on her skirt, but was entirely uninjured.

Mr. Trevelyan held her fast, his hands visibly shaking, and his face grey. "My child! You are sure! Nothing wrong?" he said hoarsely.

Jean had never seen him so overcome.

"Nothing—not a scratch. See—only my dress!" she said reassuringly. "But—"

His lips touched her forehead, with a murmured—

"Thank God!"

And she hardly caught the words following, "I thought it was all up with my Jean."

Then he leant against the back of a tall arm-chair, a glazed look coming over his eyes, and Jean knew that he had difficulty in holding himself upright. Before she could speak, however, he had rallied, though not without a supreme effort of will.

"Merely a passing sensation—a touch of dizziness," he said cheerfully, in response to her glance. "Not worth attention. Come—" and he walked across the room, Jean following closely to the couch where Cyril had just been laid, white to the lips with pain.

Evelyn knelt to support his head, and Sybella hovered round about, in a state of incoherent though talkative distraction.

Cyril looked up at Mr. Trevelyan. "Jem has gone for Dr. Ingram," he said, bringing the words slowly. "I don't think it will be very much . . . The frame caught my shoulder . . . Don't touch, please—" with a shrinking gesture. "I'm only—so glad it wasn't Jean!"

Jean, to her own indignant surprise, actually burst into tears.