Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman

by Stanley J Weyman

  But the position which under these unforeseen circumstances No. 13 might assume was hardly to be understood by the lay portion of the city. The Abbot’s Square and its doings were subjects of great interest to them, as to people well brought up they would be; but with a few exceptions, such as Sir Titus Wort, the brewer, and General Jones, C. B., and Dr. Tobin. These people gazed on that Olympus from afar. Possibly they called there and were called upon in return; but that was all. Their knowledge of the inner politics of the Square was not intimate.

  They knew that the Dean’s wife (Regina Jones) was a pleasant and pleasure-loving lady; but they had no idea that she was the leader of an organized party of pleasure, whose tenets were water-parties and lawn-tennis, who pinned their faith to the clerical quadrille (only square dances as yet), who supported the Præcentor, the author of that secular but charming song, “Love me to-day,” and who upheld theatricals, and threatened to patronize the City Theatre itself; a party who drove their opponents, headed by the Dean and Mrs. Vrater, and that grim clergyman the Archdeacon, to the verge of distraction; who were dubbed by the minor canons “the Epicureans,” and finally whose heart and soul, even as Mrs. Dean was their head and front, was to be discovered in Canon Vrater.

  The Canon deserves to be more particularly described. He was a man of handsome presence and mature age, pink-faced and white-haired, young for his years, and connected, though not so closely as Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby, with the nobility. Perfectly adapted to shine in society, he prided himself with good reason upon his polished manners, which united in a very just degree the most gracious suavity with the blandest dignity. They were so fine, indeed, as to be almost unfit for home use. He made it a rule never to differ from a woman, his wife (and antipodes) excepted, and seldom with a man. As he also invariably granted a request if the petitioner were well dressed and the matter in future, he was surely not to be blamed if his performances failed to keep pace with his promises. In fine, a most pleasant, agreeable gentleman, whom it was impossible to dislike to his face.

  Yet I think the Archdeacon, a “new man,” to whom the aristocratic Canon’s popularity was wormwood, did dislike him. Certainly the Dean did not; he was a liberal-minded man in the main, but he had some old-fashioned ideas, and a great sense of his own position and its proprieties, and so perforce he found himself arrayed against his wife’s party along with Mrs. Vrater and the Archdeacon.

  Such was the state of things in the Abbot’s Square when No. 13 received its new tenants. Now the Epicureans and now their opponents would gain some slight advantage. The vergers and beadles arrayed themselves upon one side or the other, and by the solemnity or levity of their carriage, the twinkle in the eye or the far-off, absent gaze, made known their views. The first lay clerk, a man qualified to talk with his enemies in the gate, gave monthly dances; the leading tenor assisted at scientific demonstrations.

  But of what weight were such adherents beside the new-comers at No. 13? Which party would they join? If appearances might be trusted there could be little doubt. Mr. Curzon-Bowlby was a tall, long-faced man, with a dark beard and moustache. His appearance was genteel, not to say aristocratic — but fatuous. He walked with an upright carriage and dressed correctly — indeed, with taste: beyond that, being a man of few words, he seemed a man of no character. His wife was unlike him in everything, save that she too dressed to perfection. A lively little blonde, blue-eyed and bewitching, with a lovely pink-and-white complexion, and a thick fringe of fair hair, she positively effervesced with life and innocent gayety. She sparkled and bubbled like champagne; she flitted to and fro all day long like a butterfly in the sunshine. She charmed the Dean: the Canon declared her perfection. And though she was hardly the person (minus the three letters before mentioned) to fascinate his wife, she disarmed even Mrs. Vrater. And yet, whether the little woman of the world had, with all her apparent impulsiveness, a great store of tact, or that she was slow to comprehend the position, and was puzzled at finding the Dean arrayed against his wife, and Mrs. Vrater opposed to the Canon, she certainly dallied with her choice. Upon being invited to attend the science classes at the residence, she faltered and hesitated, and rather pleaded for time than declined. Mrs. Vrater, excellent woman, was pleasantly surprised; and determining to try again, went home with a light heart and good courage.

  But this was before the little lady learned that the clerical quadrille — the party of progress, as has been hinted, wisely ignored the existence of round dances — was the burning question of the time.

  “Good gracious! Mrs. Anson,” she cried, clapping her little hands, and her blue eyes wide with amazement over this discovery, “do you mean to say that none of your clergy dance? that they never dance at all?”

  The Dean’s wife shook her head, and shrugged her shoulders contemptuously. She was a little out of temper this afternoon. Why was she not the wife of a cavalry colonel?

  “Not even the Canon? Oh, I am sure Canon Vrater does. — Now, don’t you?”

  For the Canon, too, was in the little drawing-room. Small as the house was, our impoverished fashionables had not furnished all of it; but this room was a triumph of taste, in a quiet and inexpensive way. A man and a maid whom they brought to Gleicester with them made up the household. So there was an empty room or two.

  “No, Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby,” he said; “if I danced I should be tripping indeed, in Gleicester opinion.”

  “You don’t! well, I am surprised. Now confess, Canon, when did you dance last? So long ago that you have forgotten the steps? Years and years ago?” The old gentleman reddened, and fidgeted a little. “Canon, did you ever” — the little woman glanced roguishly round the room, and brought out the last word with a tragic accent positively fascinating, “did you ever — waltz?”

  “Well,” he answered guardedly, with an eye to his friend Mrs. Anson, who was mightily amused, “I have waltzed.”

  “Something like this, was it not?” She went to the piano and played a few bars of a dreamy, old-fashioned German dance; played it as it should be played. The Canon’s wholesome pink face grew pinker, and he began to sway a little as he sat.

  She turned swiftly round upon the music-stool. “Don’t you feel at times a desire to do something naughty, Canon — just because it is naughty?”

  He nodded.

  “And don’t you think,” continued the fair casuist, with a delicious air of wisdom, “that when it is not very naughty, only a little bad, you know, you should sometimes indulge yourself, as a sort of safety-valve?”

  He smiled, of course, a gentle dissent. But at the same time he muttered something which sounded like “desipere in loco.”

  “Mrs. Anson, you play a waltz, I know?”

  She acknowledged the impeachment with none of the Canon’s modesty.

  “You are so kind, I am sure you will oblige me for five minutes. The Canon is going to try his steps with me in the next room. How lucky it is empty, and quite a good floor, I declare. — Now, Canon Vrater, you are far too gallant to refuse?”

  He laughed, but Mrs. Anson entered thoroughly into the fun, took off her gloves, and sitting down at the piano played the same dreamy air. In vain the old gentleman pleasantly protested; he was swept away, so to speak, by the little woman’s vivacity. How it came about, whether there was some magic in the air, or in Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby’s eyes, the Canon was never able to make quite clear to himself, and far less to Mrs. Vrater, but in two minutes he was revolving round the room in stately measure, an expression of anxious enjoyment on his handsome old face as he carefully counted his steps, such as would have diverted the eye of the charmed bystander even from the arch mischief that rippled over his fair partner’s features. Had there been any bystander to witness the scene, that is.

  “Hem!”

  It was very loud and full of meaning, and came from the open window. The Canon’s arm fell from the lady’s waist as if she had suddenly turned into the spiky maiden of Nuremberg. Mrs. Dean stopped playing with equal suddenness, and an exc
lamation of annoyance. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby, thus deserted in the middle of the room, dropped the prettiest of “cheeses,” and broke into a merry peal of unaffected laughter. It was the Dean. Coming up the oyster-shell path, there was no choice for him but to witness the dénouement through the green-shuttered window. He was shocked; perhaps of the four he was the most embarrassed, though the Canon looked, for him, very foolish. But nothing could stand against Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby’s gayety. She laughed so long, so innocently, and with such pure enjoyment of the situation, that one by one they joined her. The Dean attempted to be a little sarcastic, but the laugh took all sting from his satire; and the Canon, when he had once recovered his presence of mind, and his breath, parried the raillery with his usual polished ease.

  So Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby’s freak ended in no more serious result than her own conversion into the staunchest of Epicureans, a very goddess of pleasure; and in familiarizing the Dean’s mind with the idea of the Terpischorean innovation, until the proposition of a dance at the Deanery — yes, at the Deanery itself — was mooted to his decanal ears. Of course he rejected it, but still he survived the shock, and the project had been brought within the range of practical politics. Its novelty faded from his mind, and its impropriety ceased to strike him. He had never told Mrs. Vrater of her husband’s afternoon waltz, and this reticence divided them. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby exerted all her wiles; she gave him no peace. The plan was mooted again and again; he wavered, remonstrated, argued, and finally (thanks chiefly to No. 13), in a moment of good-natured weakness, when the fear of Mrs. Vrater was not before his eyes, succumbed. Be sure his wife and her allies left him no locos pœnitentice. Never was triumph greater. Within the week the minor canons had their invitations stuck in their mirrors, and rejoiced in their liberty. And Mrs. Vrater made a certain call upon Mrs. Anson, of which the reader knows.

  But Mrs. Dean’s pleasure was not unclouded. There were spots upon the sun. The Dean was not always so tractable, and the Deanery house was not large, and the garden positively small. True, a gateway and a descent of two or three steps led from the latter into the picturesque cloisters, which had lately been cleaned and repaired, and the sight of this suggested a brilliant idea to flighty Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby. She lost no time in communicating it to Mrs. Anson, who received it at first with some doubt. Her friend, however, painted it in such pleasant hues, and set it in so many brilliant lights, that later she too became enamored of the project, and boldly proceeded to carry it into execution.

  The Dean stumbled upon this magnificent plan; in so many words, stumbled upon it, in a rather unfortunate way. He was taking his wonted morning stroll in the garden two or three days before the 24th, the date fixed for the now famous dance. His thoughts were not upon it at the moment: it was a bright sunny day, and the balmy life-inspiring air had expelled the regret which it must be confessed was the Dean’s normal frame of mind as to his ill-considered acquiescence. He was not thinking of what the Bishop would say, or what the city would say, or, worst of all, what Mrs. Vrater had said. He turned a corner of the summerhouse a few yards from the steps which we have mentioned as leading to the cloisters, and as he did so with the free gait of a man walking in his own garden — bump! — he brought his right knee violently against the edge of some object, a packing-case, a half-opened packing-case which was lying there, where, so far as the Dean could see, it had no earthly business. The packing-case edge was sharp, the blow a forcible one. For a moment the Dean hopped about, moaning to himself and embracing his shin. The spring air lost all its virtue on the instant, and his regret for his moral weakness returned with added and local poignancy. For he had not a doubt that the offending box had something to do with the 24th. As he tenderly rubbed his leg he regarded the box with no friendly eyes. To schoolboys and policemen, and the tag-rag and bobtail, a sharp blow on the shin may not be much; but stout and dignified clerics above the rank of a ritualistic vicar are, to say the least of it, not accustomed to the thing at all.

  “What the — ahem — what in heaven’s name may this be?” he exclaimed with irritation. Resentment adding vigor to his curiosity, he gingerly removed the covering from the case, which appeared to be full of parti-colored paper globes of all shapes and sizes. They were symmetrically arranged; they might have been tiny fire-balloons. But the Dean’s mind reverted to infernal machines, the smart of his shin suggesting his line of thought. He put on his glasses in some trepidation, and looking more closely made out the objects to be — Chinese lanterns.

  The sound of a hasty step upon the gravel made him turn. It was Mrs. Anson, looking a little perturbed — by her hurry, perhaps. Her husband lifted one of the lanterns from the case with the end of his stick, and contemplated it with a good deal of contempt.

  “My dear,” he said, “what in the name of goodness are these foolish things for?”

  “Well, you know the house is not very large,” she began, “and the supper will occupy the dining-room and breakfast-room — it would be a pity to cramp the supper, my dear, when we have such beautiful plate, and so few chances of showing it — and conservatory we have none so — —”

  “Yes, yes, my dear, true,” broke in the Dean impatiently; “but what of these? what of these?” He raised the poor lantern anew.

  “Well, we thought it would be nice to — to light the cloisters with these lanterns, and so form a conservatory of a kind. Now that the cloisters are cleaned and restored they will look so pretty, and the people can walk there between the dances. I thought it would be an excellent arrangement, and — and save us pulling your study about.”

  There was an awful pause. The lantern, held at arm’s length on the ferrule of the Dean’s stick, shook like an aspen leaf.

  “You thought — it would be nice — to light the cloisters — with Chinese lanterns! The cloisters of Gleicester Cathedral, Mrs. Anson! Good heavens!”

  No mere words can express the tone of amazed disapprobation, of horror, disgust, and wrath combined, in which the Dean, whose face was purple with the same emotions, spoke these words. He dashed the lantern to the ground, and set one foot upon it in a manner not unworthy of St. George — the Chinese lantern being a natural symbol of the dragon.

  “It would be rank sacrilege; sacrilege, Mrs. Anson. Never let me hear of it again. I am shocked that you should have proposed such a thing; and I see now what I feared before, that I was very wrong in giving my consent to a frivolity unbecoming our position. You cannot touch pitch and not be defiled. But I never dreamt it would come to this. Let me hear no more of it, I beg.”

  The Dean, as he walked away after these decisive words, felt very sore — and not only about the knee, to do him justice. He repeated over and over again to himself the proverb about touching pitch. Until the last few days, no one had cherished his position more highly. And now his very wife was so far demoralized as to have suggested things dreadful to him and subversive of it. He had given way to the Canon and that little witch at No. 13, and this was the first result. What a peck of troubles, he said to himself, this wretched dance was bringing upon him! He was sick of it, sick to death of it, he told himself. So sick, indeed, that when he was out of his wife’s hearing he groaned aloud with a great sense of self-pity, and almost brought himself in his disgust to believe that Mrs. Vrater would have been a more fit and sympathetic helpmeet for him.

  And Mrs. Dean was bitterly disappointed. She had set her heart upon the cloisters scheme, and in most things she had been wont to enjoy her own way. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby had depicted it in such gorgeous hues, and portrayed so movingly the guests’ admiration and surprise — and envy. Oaklea Castle, the seat of the Marquis of Gleicester, with its spacious and costly conservatories and fineries, could present no more picturesque or charming scene than would be afforded by the many-arched cloisters brilliantly lighted and decorated, and filled with handsome dresses and pretty faces still aglow with the music’s enthusiasm. Mrs. Anson had pictured it all. But she was a wise woman, and a comparatively old married woman, and she
recognized that the matter was not one for argument. Not even to the Canon, her ally, did she confide her chagrin, being after her husband’s outburst a little dubious of the light in which the project might present itself to him.

  Only into Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby’s bosom did she pour her sorrow without reserve. That lady made a delicious moue after her fashion on hearing of the Dean’s indignation, but she seemed almost as disappointed as Mrs. Anson herself. “And he actually forbade you, dear?” she asked, with her blue eyes full of pity and wondering surprise.

  “Well, he told me never to let him hear of it again.”

  “Oh!” answered the little woman thoughtfully, and was silent for a time. When she recovered herself she changed the subject, and soon coaxed and petted her friend into a good humor.

  Still this was a large spot on the sun of Mrs. Anson’s triumph. And yet another, a mere speck indeed in comparison, and very endurable, appeared at the last moment, the very day before the 24th. The Dean was summoned to London; was summoned so privately, so peremptorily, and so importantly, that the thought of what might come of the journey (there was a new bishopric in act of being formed) almost reconciled his wife to his absence; and this the more when she had effectually disposed of his suggestion that the party should be indefinitely postponed. The Dean was not persistent in pushing his proposal; the harm, he felt, was already done. And besides, being himself away, he would now be freed from some personal embarrassment. It must go on; if he went up it would signify little. So he started for London very cheerfully, all Gleicester knowing of his errand, and the porters at the station spying a phantom apron at his girdle.