Still She Wished for Company

by Margaret Irwin

  Chapter XIX

  Lucian found it necessary to go to London shortly after this. He departed in excellent spirits, and again thanking Juliana for her “good offices”—in what, she did not know. She felt weary and depressed after he had left. It was not merely because of his absence, but because of an extraordinary difficulty that she found in fixing her interest, and even her attention, on any object. It was difficult to understand, or rather to listen to what was said to her.

  Mamma reproved her for so often being “absent”; it was a word that filled her with unreasoning dismay. Was it mamma, or was it someone else, who had warned her she might go farther yet, so far she might never come back?

  “Indeed, mamma,” she said, “I do not wish to be absent. I desire above everything to remain where I am.”

  Mamma smiled indulgently at the odd remark, “Then, my love, surely you must hold your attention.”

  There was a great deal of talk to attend to, a great deal of talk. Talk about the mysterious death of Monsieur le Due, talk about Charlotte’s wedding, talk about Mr. Bolsover’s water party, which, it was decided, Juliana could still attend with decorum since there had been no public betrothal to the Frenchman.

  Juliana thought there had never been so much talk. Charlotte and Sophia rode over, and various selections of the Hilburys, Miss Hilburys, plain and pretty, with their rosy-cheeked school-boy brothers.

  Old Lady Bouverie and Miss Skeerness drove over, and talked a great deal of scandal—somebody had married her gardener and she was near on seventy—how richly old Lady Bouverie chuckled, wagging her monstrous feathers, her several pendulous chins wagging also beneath her beaky nose! It was an unfair advantage to be so fat. Miss Skeerness’ thin scream of laughter could never convey the same enjoyment, though it expressed an appetite as ravenous as that of a starving seagull for any floating scraps of scandal.

  General Steynes and Lord Haversham and his tall, stooping, sweet-faced daughter rode over and had nothing to say—they never had, but the Havershams looked so gentle and kindly it was a pleasure to see them.

  Slovenly Lady Catherine Grey drove over, out of powder at four in the afternoon. She was a shocking example, mamma said, and so rude, too, always gaping and yawning and declaring she was wearied to death, though she had nothing to occupy her, not even a taste for cards or gossip.

  Rich Mr. Bolsover and his friend Mr. Chalmers rode over— Mr. Bolsover very facetious and waggish; dapper Mr. Chalmers very gallant, flourishing his snuff-box and his lace handkerchief, ogling Juliana with his round, rolling blue eyes; but their company was not so agreeable as to prevent her taking a comfortable stroll by herself in the park—there is her own word for it in the journal.

  A host of others rode and drove over; in fact, now that the long-continued fine weather had made the roads so good there was a daily stream of visitors at Chidleigh, who stayed generally for two or three hours or more, and sat in the drawing-room or on the terrace or on the steps before the house, and talked and talked.

  And none of them and none of the family ever appeared to notice the repeated noise of knocking that Juliana heard so often as she sat with them in the drawing-room or on the terrace or on the steps before the house—a noise of knocking, sometimes low, sometimes loud above their talk, and then a noise louder still, a terrible noise of cracking, rending, tearing, and then a crash, as of a great tree falling.

  It came always from the direction of the drive. Juliana would turn her head to see what the others thought of it, but mamma smiled her proudly secure smile, old Lady Bouverie nodded and wagged her chins, or Sophia chattered, or Mr. Chalmers paid a compliment with his triumphant air as who should say, “Now, who can better that?” and none of them ever turned a head in the direction of the drive.

  And they had just ridden up the drive and none of them had said a word to show that they had seen or heard anything unusual.

  It was in those moments, when the noise of knocking was very loud, that she found it most difficult, and also most urgently necessary, to “hold her attention.” She must hold fast to it with all her might, for in those moments her head swam for an instant as though she were giddy, and her surroundings, even the faces and voices round her, seemed, just for that instant, to alter strangely. Yes, she must try hard to hold fast to something, she was not sure what—something that all the time was trying to escape and elude her.

  And Lucian did not come back. If only Lucian would come back.

  It was remarkably fine for the day of the water party; Charlotte and Sophia, who were to go with them and come back for the night, drove over in the phaeton, with their maids in the vis-à-vis, at least two hours before they were to start, and prinked and preened like peacocks in front of Juliana’s mirrors. Sophia’s new puce-coloured ribbons were voted charming with her rose du Barri gown, and Charlotte had a most dashing hat with a fall of white and scarlet feathers at the back. After considering them in every posture, as though they had never seen them in the glass before, the cousins had leisure to declare that Juliana’s silver-embroidered China silk was sweetly pretty, the most sweet, pretty thing in the world.

  They had to go and show their finery to Lady Chidleigh and the Dowager. But Grandmamma, disturbed in her devotions, made no further comment than a verse from the psalm she was reading : “Man is a thing of naught; his time passeth away like a shadow.” It was a discouraging reflection for the begining of a party.

  But Sophia giggled and Charlotte declared, outside the door, that Grandma was an old put, and was rebuked for her coarseness, and certainly the spirits of the party appeared in no whit dashed as they set off, with Aunt Emily as chaperon, in the coach, and George and Vesey on horse-back. They reached Mr. Bolsover’s house on the river at twelve o’clock. An awe-struck “Oh!” went up from the girls at the sight of the carved and gilded barge, monstrous, magnificent, under its scarlet awning, on the glittering sunlit river. Many people were already on board, walking slowly to and fro, their satins and jewels glowing with a fiery splendour in the hot red shadow of the awning.

  Juliana at once envisaged a hooped and powdered Cleopatra sailing down the Cydnus to meet Anthony, hundreds and hundreds of years ago, in just such a barge as this of Mr. Bolsover’s.

  All the guests had not yet arrived, and when at last they started the number on board was close on sixty. They moved down the river as far as Conway Place, belonging to General Steynes, where they landed to explore the grotto and subterraneous passage while dinner was prepared on board. And then after dinner they progressed as far as Lord Haversham’s place on the river, where they landed again, “this time,” says the journal, “in detached Partys” and roamed about the park, feeding the gazelles, while the sun set slowly in red and thunderous clouds, transforming the great, gaudy barge into something dream-like and unsubstantial floating on the river.

  While the servants were preparing a slight cold collation, the fiddlers struck up on a smooth lawn terrace by the water’s edge, and “the detached Partys” arriving here and there from among the trees at once began to dance country dances and minuets. Juliana danced with Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Fokes, and twice with Mr. Bolsover, and called with Augustus, the eldest of the Hilbury boys. She danced with the young gentleman who had formed a “detached Party” with her to feed the gazelles in the park, and she danced with him two, three, four, yes, five times. He was a charming youth whose dark, ardent eyes spoke his admiration boldly—too boldly, but that was tempered by his shy, almost deprecating smile. He wore the most elegant green and silver waistcoat and pale green coat, and he danced gracefully. He was a Mr. Pangrie, staying with General Steynes, and Juliana had never met him before. She wondered if she would ever meet him again.

  The cold collation had been spread on the grass in a deep, cool grove where the tall trees met overhead, and the green dusk ended suddenly in an open view of the river and clear, evening light. Juliana thought it just such a grove as must have sheltered the pastoral feasts of Colin and Phyllis, Strephon and Chloe.
Others must have had the same thought, for everyone began to be very merry about silly swains, fair nymphs and faithful shepherds, and tried to talk in character about their flocks and herds and broken hearts. Mr. Pangrie, who was very attentive, addressed her with his modest smile as Daphne or as Amaryllis, and besought her not to transform herself into a tree or fountain, as he handed her the chicken in aspic.

  The servants had retired, but the fiddlers continued to play at a little distance among the trees; tunes from the Italian opera, and old-fashioned airs to which some of the company sang as they felt inclined.

  They sat on the grass, the ladies on India shawls and scarves that they had brought to protect them from the damp; they looked like great bell-shaped flowers dropped here and there under the trees. The colour faded from their bright dresses as the twilight deepened in the grove; only the cold white statue of the naked Venus still showed sharp and clear above them on her pedestal.

  The laughing voices had hushed a little, and those who sang, sang more softly. “Indeed,” wrote Juliana afterwards in her journal, striving to fasten on what she could of that strange, happy day,’ ‘the whole of this appear’d like the Scene in a Play.” It was the nearest way she could find to express her sense of its fugitive and magic charm. She would not have been surprised if, when next she had looked up, those beautiful figures round her had vanished.

  Even the figure of Mr. Pangrie in his pale-coloured satins, reclining at her feet, his dark eyes fixed so ardently upon her, his voice dropping lower and lower until he told her in no more than a whisper that Venus, towering tall and slim and white behind her, was no longer goddess of this grove, now that Juliana sat there enshrined in the rarest beauty that had ever charmed him.

  Yes, she would not have been surprised if when she looked up, he had vanished. And words that she never remembered to have heard before stole into her dreaming thoughts—

  “But beauty vanishes, beauty passes,

  However rare—rare it be.”

  And like an echo to it came the memory of Grandmamma’s harsh voice : “his time passeth away like a shadow.”

  He may have felt something of her remote mood, for he put out a hand and touched hers, as though to recall her, and then, as she did not draw it away, he bent his head and kissed it, and then the small wrist and elbow, with shy yet passionate ardour.

  But to her, sitting so still in the dim shadow, his kiss felt as light and cool as the touch of moonlight, and, had she not looked at him, she would not have known that he had pressed his lips on her hand and arm. And, because she was no longer looking at him, she did not know that he had ceased and was now looking at her in a sudden chilled dismay.

  She knew nothing but the dread that had seized her lest he and all this gay and gallant company might indeed glide away and leave her there, alone and cold in the darkening grove.

  The “Fête Champêtre” was over, the company went on board for their homeward voyage, the fiddles struck up dance music with renewed gaiety and vigour, and all danced on deck while they moved slowly, very slowly, up the river.

  That absurd fanciful dread dropped completely from Juliana’s memories of this part of the expedition, for she describes in the journal how

  “We danc’d 12 Couple for ten miles with the utmost Spunk till 12 o’Clock at Night, and for the 2 last Hours We had no more Light than that of a very little Moon—so that we could hardly discern One from Another.”

  She danced and laughed as merrily as the merriest of them, and Mr. Pangrie, recovered from the inexplicable chill that had struck like a sudden, icy fear of death on his glowing fancies in the grove, now thought that his new charmer was the most human as well as the most lovely of nymphs. For he knew, when he spoke with himself and not with her, that she was a nymph and not a goddess.

  The barge moved slowly, very slowly, up the river, its awning down, all its gilding pale in the darkness, while the shadowy figures danced on deck by the light of the very little moon.

  As they passed Conway Place, Juliana seized Sophia’s hand and ran with her to the side of the barge to see the fountain that was still playing on one of the lawns. But it was in the shadow, and only a few flying drops could be discerned where they fell outwards and caught a faint gleam of moonlight. So quiet was the night that in spite of the hum of voices behind them, they could hear their tiny, tinkling splash as they fell in the stone basin.

  “Why do you laugh?” asked Sophia.

  “Oh, I was thinking how infinitely odd this party would look to anyone who might be standing on that bank at this hour, a hundred years—over a hundred years hence.”

  “What a monstrous queer fancy! Is it possible the world may go on for over a hundred years after us? But if it does, I do not see why we should look strange. They will probably be just like us.”

  Sophia’s tone was a shade petulant. She did not want the world to continue, dancing and talking and laughing, for over a hundred years after she was dead and forgotten. Forgotten? Was it possible? By everyone? Even by her handsome, dull, agreeable, tiresome, devoted cousin, Vesey Clare? But Vesey would be forgotten, too, and everyone she knew. Brrr! She dismissed the tedious subject with a shrug as Mr. Pangrie joined them. What a conquest Juliana had made of him! Certainly she looked as lovely as an angel to-night, thought Sophia, trying hard to repress an inward sigh of jealousy. Well, there was always Vesey. And she had a vast deal more spirit—she had heard that Mr. Bolsover had called her a spirited creature. And who would care if she or Juliana were the greater beauty, a hundred years—over a hundred years hence?

  Juliana moved back to the dance on Mr. Pangrie’s arm. Their pale and shining shapes were clearly discernible in the minuet among the darker forms, whose rich colours had deepened and grown indistinguishable in the summer night. And Juliana (as though she were outside her own body, as she had once dreamed in the library arm-chair) found herself watching from a little distance—it might have been from the river shore—two silvery ghosts that moved among a group of shadows, touched hands, bowed, curtseyed, advanced, withdrew, to the rhythm of a music that she could no longer hear.

  It lasted but a moment. The next, the sweet and piercing strains of the fiddles were ringing in her ears; she was there, dancing among the group and nowhere else; Mr. Pangrie had taken her hand to hold aloft as they made their three paces to the side, and certainly it was no ghost nor shadow that held it in that warm and living, that very close, firm grasp.

  They did not arrive home at Chidleigh till after one o’clock. The three girls yawned and chattered over the cake and wine that was brought them, while Aunt Emily unavailingly tried to hurry them to bed. Sophia rallied Juliana on her fresh conquest, and suggested a host of others, young men, old men, and palpable absurdities, that her incomparable, invincible coz might add to her train. She could be a really tiresome tease, and meanwhile Charlotte, talking louder and louder to drown her sister’s persistent, restless chirping, bragged how she would get Mr. Ramshall to buy a place on the river, and they would have a regatta and bet vast sums on the boats.

  At last the cousins embraced each other good-night and retired to their rooms. Immediately after doing so, Sophia stepped suddenly out of hers and flung her arms round Juliana’s neck as she stood in the darkness of the corridor.

  “You looked as beautiful as an angel to-night—everyone was saying so, and Mr. Pangrie could not look at any other of his partners,” she said in a determined whisper as if in obedience to some firm resolve.

  “Oh, my Sophia!” exclaimed Juliana in a rush of glad gratitude—for the welcome information, certainly, but more, far more, that her own dear Sophia was the same to her as she had always been and would always be. And how unkind she had been to her in her thoughts of her and Lucian! She murmured shamefacedly, “There is no one worthy of you— no one.“It was true, she was sure it was, of the dear, generous, warmhearted girl.

  They embraced again tenderly. Juliana stood in the doorway and watched her cousin go back into the lighted room and
seat herself at the dressing table and take off her earrings, leaning back in her chair with a long, contented sigh. Sophia’s new maid, a tall, trolloping girl, awkward but pleasant, came forward and threw a wrapper round her shoulders and began to take down her hair.

  “Betsy—my slippers,” said Sophia. The girl was stupid not to have thought of that first, but she would learn. Betsy kneeled down and took off the satin and gold-braided shoes and put on a pair of velvet slippers into which Sophia snuggled her small feet with a cat-like purr of satisfaction. Betsy, kneeling with the discarded shoes in her hands, her honest face filled with admiration for the pretty things, might have been a Doubtévote worshipping the relics of a saint. But a slight frown gathered on the saint’s fair brow, she glanced about her in annoyance.

  “Betsy—my comfit box.”

  Betsy rushed to find the carved silver comfit box, and Sophia was all satisfaction again as she offered it to Juliana and popped a comfit into her own mouth and one into Betsy’s.

  Juliana remained by the door while the maid took her place again behind her young mistress’s chair. Behind them was the great bed, hung with blue, forming a background like the curtains in a playhouse. The candles, in their tall, flowered china candlesticks, shone full on Sophia’s sleepily smiling face. How pretty she looked, thought Juliana, as her curls fell about her shoulders, a white and misty cloud arising from the disturbed powder.

  Sophia took off her rings and dropped them slowly, one after the other, with a faint tinkling sound, on to the polished table. They lay there in little pools of light cast by their own reflections. An army of china pots of unguents and pomades and powders stood scattered about the table—what a quantity she had brought for this one night!

  It was foolish to linger thus in the shadow of the doorway watching every detail of the familiar room as though she were never to see it again.