CHAPTER XVI
THE DINNER PARTY
Colonel Archdale with his hands behind him walked up and down his drawing-room in pleasant anticipation, with, it may be, a touch of the feeling which once animated an Eastern monarch over the great city that he had builded for the honor of his name. The Colonel had been like the monarch in one thing, that he had been born in wealth, not obliged to start at the very beginning of the race; he was like him in this also that he had made the very best of material opportunities; he had builded about himself, if not a great city, at least a great and profitable business, so that he had a reasonable expectation of leaving his son and his two surviving daughters—the latter still children—wealthier than his father had left him. The only drawback, and he had not yet found it a serious one, was that it was difficult to take as much money out of his profits as he would have liked to live upon, for his increasing business demanded always increasing capital. Also, he had done a great deal for Stephen, so that it required all his efforts to maintain the splendor in which he lived, outdoing his associates. All things considered, therefore, it was not so very strange that he should have resembled Nebuchadnezzar in the other respect of satisfaction in his own achievements. That day the cream of the society of Portsmouth and its neighborhood were to be at his house; most of them, without doubt, pleased to be invited. Peace and plenty were here. The war three thousand miles away, in which the brave young queen Maria Theresa was struggling for her inheritance, had just rolled a tidal wave across the Atlantic, and the news of the garrison taken from the English fort of Canso and carried prisoners to Louisburg had just reached Boston. This capture had been made before the Colonies had learned that war had been declared by France against Great Britain. Already there were signs of hostility among the Indians, and a movement of whole tribes toward Canada to join the French, whose old allies they were.
Still, so far, no heavy blow had been dealt, and this part of the coast had not even felt the shock of the wave. On the banks of the Piscataqua mirth and feasting might go on, at least for a time. The Colonel looked about him again at the fine pictures on the walls, at the rich furniture fantastically carved, at his pretty youngest daughter, a girl of twelve, as she sat at the spinnet going over some music that somebody might ask her to play; perhaps it would be Lady Dacre herself whom she had seen once and greatly admired. When a moment later Madam Archdale came into the room he looked at her face and figure, still handsome and graceful. Her flowing brocade was of a becoming color, and nothing richer, that he knew of, had been worn in the Colonies. He felt a faint anxiety, which Sir Temple would have set down as provincial, to see the attitude of the English guests, for he flattered himself that he could do the honors of a mansion better than Stephen whose perfect simplicity annoyed his father when it let slip opportunities to make a fine impression. With Stephen and Madam Archdale, who certainly did very well, the Colonel had no doubt that Sir Temple and Lady Dacre had taken everything they found as a matter of course, and had not looked for quite the sort of thing that they were accustomed to at home. But here he thought that they would be a little surprised, that it would be to them England over again, and for a few hours they would fancy themselves in some old mansion there. He felt that to hear them say this would make his cup of satisfaction brim over, and this in some unintentional way he expected to draw from them.
"It's very warm," said his wife panting a little, "and, after all, I need not have hurried; nobody has come yet, or will come this half-hour, I dare say."
"Stephen is always prompt," suggested the Colonel, pausing in his measured walk to glance down the road.
"Yes, but then there are the English people. To be sure, they fall into our ways as if they had been born here, and Lady Dacre is as easy as an old shoe."
"My dear," said her husband, "I hope that is not the phraseology you are going to indulge in before our guests." Madam Archdale laughed.
"It would not shock them half as much as it does you," she answered. "I heard Sir Temple say the very thing the other day, and you would think of it yourself if you had on a pair of new slippers, as I have." The Colonel waived discussion, and took up another part of her answer.
"You say they fall into our ways as if they had been born here," he began. "Doesn't it occur to you that they may find them perfectly natural?"
"No, it does not at all. Think of it. Struggling against the savageness of man and nature must have roughened our manners a little, just as working on the ground roughens one's hands. It is healthy exercise; but, then, it tells, and we must expect that." She looked at her husband with such serenity as she spoke that he had no difficulty in remembering that she was the granddaughter of a Scottish earl and that he had been proud to give his children a lady for their mother. It seemed odd to him that both she and Stephen should have such an air of high birth, and yet be so indifferent to its prerogatives, so unambitious. "It is their good breeding;" she went on, "if you put them out into the wigwams they would make the Indians feel that eating with one's fingers was quite a thing to be enjoyed."
It was cruel; perhaps the speaker did not realize how cruel. But, then, she knew that the Colonel was thoroughly padded with vanity and that it must be a very skilful thrust, and a very vigorous one, that could wound him fatally.
"Faith," he began after a pause, "you have never been abroad, you have not observed as I have done, you—." He was gaining importance and impressiveness of tone as he went on; it was a pity that the sound of wheels and of horses' hoofs in the avenue interrupted what would have been one of his best presentations of the subject and have put him into an impregnable position. As it was, he had but to imagine himself there and forget his wife's opinion, which he did not find any difficulty in doing. The wheels were those of Colonel Pepperell's carriage; put together with English thoroughness, it had all the weight and unwieldiness of vehicles of that time. Lady Dacre, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Eveleigh descended from it; they had been spending the morning together. Sir Temple, Edmonson, Bulchester, and their host, on horseback, came galloping up as the carriage stopped. They had taken a longer and pleasanter road and had arrived on the moment. Sir Temple alighted with his face beaming with pleasure, for he had enjoyed the exercise. Lady Dacre had never looked better, and she had seen something more of provincial life and ways. He meant to travel over the world sometime; he liked to see new things. After dinner, when the guests were in the garden, he joined his wife for a moment, and told her what had amused him by the way. "We went by one of those little houses so numerous about here," he said, "and an old man was mending his fence. It needed it badly enough. Archdale, as he went by, nodded to him pleasantly and called out an encouragement of his improvements. The old man looked up hammer in hand, and I expected to see something like what I should have had, you know, from the tenants at Alderly. But, Flo, he was so occupied, staring at Edmonson, whom he looked at first, that I had no chance at all with him, and poor Archdale didn't get even a nod. He just dropped his hammer and stood there agape. I think Archdale was annoyed at the exhibition of ill manners, for he talked very little the rest of the way here. Edmonson was so amused he could scarcely help chuckling over it. He asked our host if the old man was one of his tenants, and if he had been long on the place, and Archdale said 'yes.' Then Edmonson chuckled all the more."
As Sir Temple said, Stephen Archdale had been moody during the remainder of the ride. The old butler's behavior, so at variance with his usual deference, disturbed him. It was evident that Edmonson had come upon the man like an apparition. But why? Stephen intuitively connected this in some way with the conversation between the father and the son which he had overheard that winter's day in the woods. Glancing at his companion, he saw that Edmonson was aware of the startling effect he had produced, and that the answer was in his face, which was jubilant. Indeed, he could hardly restrain himself. Wheeling about in his saddle as they rode, he broke out into a few notes of some rollicking song, asking Sir Temple if he remembered it. To him this effect that he had produced meant that the first stroke of the hour, his hour, had sounded; to Archdale it meant that some mystery was here, some catastrophe impending. He could readily connect calamity with Edmonson.
At the door he dismounted like one lost in thought, and with difficulty threw off his moodiness; while Edmonson sprang to the ground and ran lightly up the steps into the house, his eyes sparkling and his face aglow with a beauty that Elizabeth was beginning to analyze. Before half an hour his wit was being quoted over the room. Other arrivals followed this first. There was reason enough why Elizabeth should have dreaded this dinner, for the guests in the drawing-room now had nearly all of them been present at that wedding scene seven months before. She knew when Katie Archdale came in. It was almost at the last. She was leaning on her father's arm, her mother on his other. Both friends felt that every eye in the room would watch their meeting. There was an involuntary pause in the conversation; then it was taken up again here and there, languidly, to cover the attention that must not be marked. Katie had been into company very little since her attempted wedding; her presence was almost a new sensation. As usual, she behaved admirably. After greeting her aunt she slipped away from her father, and walked slowly forward, on the way speaking to those she passed. Her tones were mellowed a little by her suffering, but sweet and clear as ever, At last she came to Elizabeth. They had not been face to face since that December day in Mr. Archdale's library when Katie had turned away her head from Elizabeth's pleading. She did nothing of the kind now, she came forward with a chastened tenderness and said, "Elizabeth," and kissed her. It was Elizabeth, who the night before had been sobbing over Katie's hard lot and praying that happiness might come to her, and who was looking at her now with a heart full of contrition and admiration, who seemed to those watching to greet the girl coldly, to be indifferent to her beauty and her disappointment. Strangely enough, however, Stephen did not think so; he remembered the scene in the library, and it was possible that in the few times that he had met Elizabeth he had learned to understand her a little. He was quick of apprehension where his prejudices were not concerned, and he certainly had had no opportunity to be prejudiced against Elizabeth as one wanting to lay claim to him. And he knew better than any one else did how she hated the very thought of the yoke that might be laid upon her. His thoughts did not dwell upon her, however, for he saw that Katie was like her old affectionate self, that her unjust resentment had been only momentary; it would have been unnatural not to have felt so on that day, he reasoned. Now she was lovelier than ever, softened; by her suffering, the suffering he was sharing. He sighed, turned away, looking out of the window doggedly, turned back, and walked quickly up to her.
"How do you do?" he said, holding out his hand.
"How do you do, Stephen," she answered him, and laying her hand in his, looked into his face a moment, dropped her eyes and stood before him gravely, her color rising a little. A few trivial questions, a few remarks, a few answers simply given, and he bowed and moved away as her mother brought Edmonson up to her. He did not see her often now-a-days; there was suffering to them both in meeting, and although he was still her lover in name as well as in heart, it was always with a dread lest the wall should be built up between them, and love be stifled in duty. He was ashamed of himself for his jealous fears when he saw other men paying her attentions; he never used to have these, but then he was strong to woo her; he could defy his rivals in fair field, and, as it had proved, could win the day. But now he was maimed in purpose, perhaps his hope was lost, his conscience was not clear in the matter as before, and he felt that in some way he had lost influence. The strong will that had won Katie was not at present matched by the srong hand that had made her admiring. The sense of being obliged to wait upon other's movements galled him; he was impatient, restless, a man who could not find in himself the comfort he sought, but who watched for news from a source that he felt was as ready to bring him death as life.
Elizabeth heard his greeting of Katie, though she was speaking to some one else when he came forward. She could not tell how it was that in some way she felt through it to its meaning.
"Sir Temple," she said a moment afterward, "allow me to introduce Major Vaughan; he has been a friend of Colonel Pepperell's a long time, and though I cannot claim such an acquaintance, I do claim a share in the regard in which all his friends hold him."
"And he holds it one of the white days of his life on which he first met this fair lady," gallantly responded Vaughan sweeping around the bow which acknowledged the introduction so that it included the presenter. Elizabeth smiled her thanks. She knew that the speech was not meant in sarcasm, although that any one should call it a white day on which he first met her seemed so; it had been a very black day to Stephen Archdale, she remembered.
"Major Vaughan can tell you more about the political state of the country, and its prospects, than any one else," she went on, "except, perhaps, Colonel Pepperell. How is it, Major, does he keep peace with you?"
"No, Mistress Royal, he distances me as far as a race-horse does an old cob. The cob has its uses, though," he added with a feint of resignation to circumstances that he waited to hear denied. A flash of amusement shot over Elizabeth's face.
"When danger is scented from afar, when battles are to be fought, or hot work to be done, when spirit and daring are needed," she answered, "this 'old cob' that has been spoken of so disrespectfully will turn out a war-horse clothed with thunder, and swallowing the ground with fierceness and rage, if everybody else is not equally brave."
"You have hit the nail on the head," said Colonel Pepperell's voice behind her; "a good telling hit, too; that is Vaughan to the life. When this war that has just begun here grows hot we we shall hear from him."
"And from you, too," volunteered Sir Temple, who a few minutes before had been talking with the speaker.
"I hope I shall not be backward in the service of my king and my country," said Pepperell. "And all these men that are thinking merely of pleasure to-day I have no doubt will soon be deep in deadly work; for the war is coming upon us, we shall have to meet it."
As Elizabeth listened, she looked from one to another of the men about her, and her eyes fell at last upon Archdale. War was coming, and he would be sure to go to meet it; perhaps this would solve his difficulties for him and take him from the burden he hated, since perhaps it could, not be taken from him. Yet, it would be a hard way for a man so young,—with so much of life in him. The feeling that some one was watching her made her turn her eyes suddenly to the left whence the disturbing force had come. They met those of Edmonson, brighter than ever, and fixed upon her, as if he were reading her thoughts. Perhaps he had been, for he stood quite near and Colonel Pepperell's words had been loud enough to be heard by several. She moved her head, resenting the surveillance. What right had he to say to her in any manner, "I know what your trouble is." His further thought she did not arrive at. Stephen crossed the room and came up to the speaker. Edmonson resumed his conversation with Katie.
"Yes," said Stephen, "war has come. When are we to pay back the Canso affairs, and how? Our forts are not to be taken like that while we sit tamely down and bear it; the sooner we act the better. Where shall we strike? Who is to tell us? We must have a General. There are soldiers enough."
Major Vaughan's eyes flashed, and he turned his feet one way and the other in a restlessness that would not find vent for itself in speech. Elizabeth looked at him with a smile at finding her prediction so instantly verified. But she, too, was silent.
"Mistress Royal," said a voice at her side, and in the unevenness of the tones more marked than usual she recognized Bulchester before she turned. "Will you introduce me to Mistress Katie Archdale?" he went on in a breathless undertone that only she could catch.
"She is the most beautiful creature I ever dreamed of—I mean—yes, I do mean that. I mean, too, that she shall be Lady Bulchester." He ended with a resolution which made Elizabeth turn pale.
"Oh, no!" she gasped; then silently drew him a little apart. "You must not dream of such a thing for a moment," she said. "Don't you know she is the same as married to her cousin?"
"No, I do not," he answered—"nor do you; you are possibly Mistress Archdale, yourself. Is the young man to be dog in the manger? Let him take care of himself. Do you forget that all is fair in love and war?"
An inimitable scorn swept over her face.
"No, I do not know any such thing when your opponent has his hands tied—for the time. But I am insulting Katie by pleading with you. She is true."
"You will introduce me?" he urged.
"No," answered Elizabeth, and moved away from him. Bulchester turning about also, found Lady Dacre almost at his elbow. He brought himself face to face with her and informed her of Elizabeth's refusal. Lady Dacre looked at him attentively; he had never appeared to her so manly as when he was boldly declaring his predilection.
"Of course she would not introduce you if you said all this to her. How could she? As for me, I am hands off; it is none of my business anyway," she said. "But, if you will pardon a word of warning at the outset from an unprejudiced observer—what makes you expect to win, over Stephen Archdale's head? He is a strong rival and first in the field."
"That's not everything to some women, the being first in the field, I mean," he answered, this time suppressing his repetition of his friend's belief that Archdale was no longer in the field.
"True."
"And do you think," he went on in a passionate undertone, "that I am fit for nothing but Edmonson's fag? I tell you Edmonson—" he stopped abruptly.
"What about him?" she asked, fixing her eyes upon him. But already Bulchester had drawn back.
"I have nothing to say about him," he answered, "only that there is no need of my walking always so close to him as to be thrown into the shade."
"No, there is not," she said, and glanced at the subject of their conversation, who stood talking to Katie in the most absorbed way. Lady Dacre comprehended the reason of Bulchester's present bitterness. But neither imagined that it was the conversation, and not the talker, that was interesting Edmonson. The girl was telling him bits of family history which he professed with truth to find fascinating. He was watching her, listening, smiling with his brightest look, speaking a word or two occasionally to draw forth more information, and Katie, sure that she was telling nothing too personal, went on, growing more animated by her subject in seeing the absorption of her companion, which in her heart she did not doubt came irom his desire to keep her talking to him. Bulchester stopped a moment and drew nearer to his companion.
"When he looks like that," he said in her ear, "he is—he is,—dangerous." He straightened himself directly and walked on. Sir Temple spoke to Lady Dacre, and again Bulchester was left. But it might have been Madam Archdale who took pity upon him, for at last he obtained his introduction.
Why did Katie turn so readily from Edmonson to welcome the new-comer? Was it coquetry? Did she know intuitively that the eyes of the latter held more true worship for her than the other's tones? Edmonson's eyes gleamed for a moment, and his face darkened. He looked at Bulchester from head to foot, reading him with contempt. Then with a bow that had a spice of mockery in it, as if he were amused at the rival whom he appeared not to dare to compete with, he resigned his place, and going up to Elizabeth, offered her his arm and moved away with her.
"Fate will be very kind to Stephen Archdale," he said as soon as they were out of hearing, "should it substitute you for that young lady, kinder to him than to you, since he was man enough to want her."
"You don't like Katie?" cried Elizabeth, ignoring the subject she shrank from. "You are the first person I ever heard of who did not."
"Pardon me. I did not say that I did not like her. I was making a comparison. She is an exceedingly pretty little puppet, and she goes through all her little tricks, if I may call them so without disparagement, with a delightful docility. After the clockwork is wound up, it doesn't hitch, or stop, until it runs down. But there is nothing unexpected about her; in five minutes you get to know her like a book."
"A book you have not read," cried Elizabeth with spirit.
Edmonson laughed. "Nobody would venture to predict your next acts or words," he said; "he would be a bold man that tried."
"No," she answered with sadness in her gravity. "I never know them myself. I have none of that poise which it is worth such a struggle to gain. That is the reason why—." She stopped, perhaps through consciousness that the conversation was getting toward egotism; perhaps because she did not want to give confidence where it was better that she should not.
"That is why you are so irresistible," Edmonson longed to finish; he even framed his lips for the words, but a glance at Elizabeth checked them. He wondered why, as he felt that a few months ago he would have spoken them unhesitatingly. It could not be because she was possibly Archdale's wife, for to believe her not that would please her better than anything else. Therefore, though he feared it, and had referred to it, he would have been glad to have denied it at the next moment. He would even have been glad to believe that he was restrained wholly by a question of how she would view this speech in the light of the possibility. But he knew it was something more. He had seen the change in Elizabeth, and in smothered wrath had perceived that this growth which made her every day more interesting seemed to be in some way withdrawing her from him. He struggled against allowing this dim feeling to become a perception. For she might be free; then she should become his wife: she might be already bound; in that case,—again the terrible shadow darkened his face for an instant. Then he recollected himself, and his eyes, seeking a visible object, rested on her face a little sad with its dwelling upon her unfinished sentence which would have spoken of her mistakes. A flash of perception revealed the truth to him; he saw the gulf that yawned between his nature and hers, and, almost cursing her for being so above him, there came to him a strange longing to feel some touch upon him which would give his face the calmness that under its pathos he read upon hers. It was no determination to struggle to a higher plane, no desire for it, but only the old cry for some one to be sent to cool the tip of his tongue because the flame tormented him. It was not, however, an appreciable lapse of time before he again felt his feet upon the floor and thrilled under the light touch upon his arm. The insight was over, the whirl was over; he was one of the guests talking to his host's probable daughter-in-law. He went on with his subject. "At least you have not changed your nature," he said with courteous freedom. "You are royal still in defence of your friends. I shall not attack them again."
"You would better not," she answered more than half in earnest.
"And Katie is—."
"Yes, I know," he said. And she felt so keenly that he did know all about it that she readily drew away from him when Archdale came up with some one to speak to her. Stephen saw the movement; Edmonson felt it. "Proud as Lucifer," thought the latter, "will not own where it galls her. She is the kind to hate him if she is bound to him in this way."