Set in Silver Part 31

XXVI

MRS. SENTER TO HER SISTER, MRS. BURDEN

_Empire Hotel, Bath_, _August Without End, Amen!_

My Dear Sis: Talk about a land where it is always afternoon!

Seems to me it will never stop being August. I'm dead sick of motoring in present company, and so furious with Sir Lionel that the only revenge I can think of is to marry him. Would that I could say, "Vengeance is mine"; but it's still a bird in the bush, I regret to say, while in my hand is nothing save the salt which I'm trying to sprinkle on its tail.

Curious feeling one has on a motor tour. I have the sensation of being detached from my own past (good thing that, for _some_ ladies of our acquaintance!) like a hook that's come out of its eye. The hook, however, is quite ready to fit into any new eye that happens to be handy, or dig out any eye that happens to be in the way. And that brings me back to Mademoiselle Lethbridge. It really can't be good for one's liver to dislike anyone as much as I have grown to dislike that girl; but unfortunately I can't afford to despise her. She is clever; almost too clever, for cherished, protected, schoolgirl nineteen. Would that I could find a screw loose in her history! Wouldn't I make it rattle? I thought I had got hold of one, through the Tyndals, but Sir Lionel wouldn't listen to the rattling, wouldn't let it rattle for an instant.

It is only the change of climate and English food that prevents his manners from being (as no doubt they were in Eastern climes) those of a Bashaw; and if he were one's husband he couldn't be more disagreeable than he is at times.

Not that he means to be disagreeable. If he did, one would know how to take him--or not to take him. But it is his polite indifference to which I object. I'm not used to it in men. It's like a brick wall you're dying to kick against, only it's no use. I don't take all the trouble I do with my hair and complexion not to be looked at, I a.s.sure you. Why, my waist might just as well be two inches bigger for all he notices! It is too trying. And then, to see the way he looks at that girl, who doesn't know enough about physical economy to make powder stick on her nose when it rains!

It does me good to talk to you like this. d.i.c.k isn't sympathetic, because he happens to be in love with the young female, and though he occasionally abuses her himself, on the spur of a snub, he won't let me do it.

Don't think, however, that I give up hope. By no means. I have heaps of tricks up my sleeve, small and fas.h.i.+onable as it is, and lots of strings to my bow. But I just wish one was a "bowstring" and round a girl's neck. I'd give a tiny, tiny pull. In fact, I _did_ give one yesterday--one which I've been wanting to give ever since I received your letter. But actually, till yesterday, I never got a chance. I "made" several, but they always went to bits, like a child's house of cards. Poor me! That is part of the creature's cleverness. I think she knew by instinct that I had something nasty to say, and she kept dodging about, preventing me from laying hands (I won't say claws) on her.

d.i.c.k, too, she has kept in the same position, waiting for an opportunity to pounce. Indeed, she has handled us both surprisingly well, considering her age and bringing up. I have a certain respect for her.

But one often respects people one dislikes, doesn't one? At least, really nice, amusing people of my type do.

Exactly what d.i.c.k wants to do with his white mouse when he has pounced on it I have no means of knowing, for since a slight misunderstanding, not to say row, which we had on the night of his return from Scotland and you, a certain reserve has fallen between us, like a stage curtain.

He is on the stage side; I am in the position of audience. But I was never in doubt for a moment as to what would follow _my_ pounce, provided the mouse didn't prove too strong for me--and I don't think it has. My pretty little ladylike bite must have left a mark on the velvet fur.

I dare say I have excited your curiosity by referring to a "row" with d.i.c.k, and lest you neglect my interests in the rest of the letter, to brood upon his, I'd better pander at once to your maternal anxiety.

He wouldn't have confessed to me anything you had told him about Miss Lethbridge's antecedents, for the very good reason that he hangs onto her with the grip of a bulldog on a marrow-bone; but as I was armed with your letter (I found it waiting for me at Bideford) containing full information, he saw it was no use to keep anything back.

If I had had the letter a little earlier I might not have racked my valuable brain as violently as I did to give him a chance alone with Ellaline. I arranged for him to find her deserted at King Arthur's Castle, like Mariana in her moated grange; but on reading what you had to say, I admit I had qualms as to the wisdom of my policy where d.i.c.k's future was concerned. However, even then I trusted to myself to save him if it came to the worst; and it might have been valuable for my future if things had happened "according to schedule"--just because Sir Lionel _is_ such a Bashaw. He would never again have felt the same to the girl if she had schemed to be left behind in order to meet d.i.c.k. However--I can control most men, and many women, but I can't control trains; and it was through their missing connections that d.i.c.k missed rescuing his ladylove. As it has turned out, no harm has been done to him. I wish I could be as sure of myself; for Sir Lionel, I fancy, hasn't been quite as nice since. He can't guess what I had to do with the affair; but--I suppose even men have instinct, inferior to ours though it be.

d.i.c.k came to my room at Bideford, and was cross because things had gone wrong; I was cross because he was cross (I hate injustice in anyone but myself), and then he was crosser because I told him it would never do for him to marry the girl, knowing what we now know. He said he would have her, and hang everybody else, especially Sir Lionel; I argued that hanging people would do no good; and he then said that it would be all right anyhow about the _dot_, as he knew a way of getting something decent out of Sir Lionel for her. What he knew he firmly refused to divulge, and when I asked if he'd told you, he replied that he jolly well hadn't. Also he accused me of "stinginess," in not wanting "Pendragon to part," and wis.h.i.+ng to keep the "whole hog" for myself; his delicate way of expressing my desire to retain the means of purchasing tiaras, etc., suitable to my rank, in case I should become the future Lady Pendragon.

At this point in the conversation our family relations were somewhat strained, but before they reached snapping point, with my accustomed tact (partly learned from you) I smoothed my nephew down, regardless of my own injured feelings. Nothing could be better for me than that he should be engaged to Miss Lethbridge, though, of course, nothing could be worse for us all than that he should marry her. Trust me, I say again, as I have said before, to prevent that. I a.s.sure you, I can easily do it. Meanwhile, I encourage d.i.c.k to believe that he has softened my hard heart; and though he doesn't believe in me absolutely, or tell me all the workings of his mind, I'm certain you need have no anxiety about your son and heir.

Now to my own affairs, which, after d.i.c.k's future and your neuralgia, I flatter myself are dear to you.

You've often remarked that I'm nothing if not dramatic, and perhaps when I tell you what I did yesterday you will think I've proved it for the hundredth--or is it the thousandth?--time.

We left Wells (which depressed me as all cathedral towns do, because everybody, and even every building, seems so unco guid) to run through the Cheddar ravine, which, I fancy, though I don't know and care less, is among the Mendip Hills. I woke up with a headache, not having slept on account of a million church clocks and bells which were deadly busy all night, and I felt I should be no better until I'd had it out with the enemy.

Sir Lionel, as you know, can be a pleasant companion when he chooses, and he's so good-looking in his soldier way that I can't help admiring him when I'm not hating him, but it is a strain on the nerves, headache or no headache, sitting next a man and trying every minute to make him like you better than he does the woman he wants to be with, who is sitting behind him. It means that you must be amusing and witty and interested in everything he says. But how can you be witty when the only thing you want to say is "devil and d.a.m.n," of which he would violently disapprove from a lady's lips (or pen)? And how can you be interested in all he says when he discourses about mouldy old saints, and legends, and history, and things over and done with long ago, like that? What do I care if St. Dunstan--of whom I heard too much at Glas...o...b..ry--saved King Edmund, hunting in the Mendips, from falling over Cheddar Cliff, horse and man? Why, I don't even know who Edmund was, or when he happened.

Celtic relics, found in caves, are less than nothing to me, and Roman coins are a mere aggravation when one is bothered how to get current coin of the realm. Botany bores me, too, though I have been studying it, together with many other dull things which, unfortunately for me, Sir Lionel likes.

Well, we went up the Mendip Hills by way of an obscure little village called Priddy, which seemed important to Sir L. because they found some lead pigs in a mine there marked Imp. Vespasia.n.u.s, and a few old Roman dice, and brooches like safety-pins. It would be much more to the point if he would take an interest in what _I_ wear, rather than concentrating his attention on the way b. c. Roman miners or soldiers contrived to fasten their rags together. It would console one for invariably losing one's pins and hatpins when one wants them most, if one could think future generations would grow emotional over them. Yet, on the whole, I should prefer it done by a certain man in my own generation.

The moment we got away from Priddy, where a lot of starfish roads come together, my spirits rose. The country began to look theatrical, which was a pleasant change after Wells, and all my native dramaticness began to surge in me. I felt on my mettle; and when Sir Lionel talked about visiting the Cheddar Caverns I said to myself: "My name isn't Gwen Senter if I don't get hold of the girl in a cave, and tell her a thing or two." It can't be easy to escape from people in caves, I thought; and so it proved. But I haven't come to that, yet.

I really enjoyed the Cheddar Ravine. It is the sort of scenery that appeals to me. Hills rose, wild and rocky, shutting in our road, and brigands would have been appropriate, as in some mountain pa.s.s of Spain.

There were sheer gray cliffs like castles and burnt-out churches, and watch-towers.

Said Sir Lionel: "Here we come, straight from one of the finest cathedrals made by man, to see what Nature can do in the way of ecclesiastical architecture; facades here as fine as any west front, and vaguely rich with decoration." I purred, of course, agreeing, and pointing out graceful spires, empty niches for saints, tombs for cardinals, and statues of kings and bishops with crowned and mitred heads, babbling on thus with hurried intelligence, lest Ellaline should jump in ahead.

It's the kind of place--this weird alley of colourful rock--where you feel things must happen, and I determined they _should_ happen; a hidden place you are surprised at being able to enter, as if the door had been shut by enchantment a few million years, and then forcibly opened for modern motorists. I used this idea on Sir Lionel, in a form too elaborate to waste on a sister, and made a distinct hit. But Ellaline got in a little deadly work at the first cave. She began talking fairy talk with Sir Lionel, and that not being my style, I had to let her have her head.

Fancy _my_ pretending to be a child who, having lost itself, suddenly sees a hole in a rock, crawls in for shelter from beasts of the forest, and finds that by accident it has stumbled on the entrance to fairyland!

But Miss Lethbridge had quite a fairy game with Sir Lionel, who, she played, was his ancestor King Arthur, carried to this strange place by the four queens who rowed his body across the lake. "You can be one of the queens, if you like," she graciously said to me. "And dear Mrs.

Norton another?" I suggested. That turned the budding drama into farce, as I meant it should.

It was a weird cave, and would have served excellently for my purpose; but when I heard there was another to follow--as servants say of the next course for dinner--I thought it would be an anti-climax to use this one. Besides, there were a good many people in it. There were tricky illuminations to show off the best formations, one of which was King Solomon's Temple, King S. sitting with folded arms at the entrance, his knees up as if he had a pain; but being only a pink stalagmite, he couldn't be expected to behave.

Having done justice to Gough's Cavern, we returned to the car, and skimmed along the splendid, rock-walled road to the next cave, which, it appears, is a deadly rival of the first. One advertises visits of Martel, the explorer; the other boasts the approval of royalty. I'm sure they would love to have a notice up: "By appointment to the King," as if they were tailors. But what could a king do with a cave nowadays? At one time, it might have been handy to hide in, but those days and those kings are changed. I believe, by the way, Britons did hide in one or two of the Cheddar Caverns, when the Saxons were uncomfortably interested in their whereabouts, and there are bones, but I'm glad to say we didn't see them. I hate to be reminded of what I'm built on, and can't bear to look in the gla.s.s after seeing a skull, with or without cross-bones.

In this second cave, when Mrs. Norton was putting an appropriate prehistoric question I'd coached her up to ask her brother, I linked a friendly arm in Ellaline's, and bore her off under convoy.

"What a sweet, illuminated stalact.i.te curtain!" said I, rapturously.

"Doesn't it look like translucent coral, and wouldn't you like to have a dress exactly that colour?"

Thus I managed to keep her with me, and fall behind the others, glaring at d.i.c.k so meaningly as to frighten him away when he showed signs of lingering.

My scene thus effectively set, and the two leading characters on the stage together, I lost no time in beginning to recite my lines. It was in a dark sort of rock-parlour, with some kind of an illuminated witches' kitchen or devil's cauldron to look at, and give us an excuse to pause--all very effective.

"Miss Lethbridge," I said, "I have rather a disagreeable duty to perform."

"When people tell you they have a duty to perform, it goes without saying that it's disagreeable," she replied, with a flippancy on which I consider I have the patent.

"Have I a black on my nose, or is my dress undone at the back?"

"There is a black," said I, "but it's not on your nose."

"On my character, perhaps?" she insinuated.

"Not exactly," said I. "But it will be on my conscience if I don't get it off. You see, you ought to know. If you don't know, you're handicapped, and it isn't fair that a girl like you should be handicapped. I've been trying for days to screw up my courage to speak.

In this queer place, I feel suddenly as if I could. Shall we talk here, while we have the chance?"

"You talk, please," said she. "I will do the rest." (Pert thing.) However, I took her at her word, and did what I had to do, with neatness and dispatch, as an executioner should. But the odd part was, that when I had chopped off her head with the axe you sharpened for me and posted from Scotland, registered and expressed, she hardly seemed to know it was off. She did look a little pale, though that might have been the effect of the strange light, but she thanked me pleasantly for telling her the truth, and said she quite appreciated my motive.

"I was prompted entirely by my interest in you, and because of my nephew's friends.h.i.+p," I said.

"Oh, yes," said she, in a voice like cream. "What else _could_ it be?"

"It could be nothing else," I replied emphatically. "I'm sure I hated distressing you, but it was that good might come. I do hope it hasn't upset you too much?"

"No, not too much," said she. "But it has made me horribly--hungry!"

Really, that did stagger me! I must confess I can't tell what to make of the girl. Anyhow, she _knows_, which is the princ.i.p.al thing, and no matter how remarkable an actress she may be for her age, she must care.

It wouldn't be human not to care for such a story about her own mother and father. Yet she took it so impersonally! I can't get over that. And she actually ate a good luncheon! I wonder she could swallow. But, of course, I'd put everything as politely as I could put such things, because I didn't want her to scream or faint. Well, I needn't have worried!

We had lunch at an inn near c.o.x's Cavern, with two cascades in the back garden, which is shut in by quite a private and special gorge of its own. I watched the girl as much as I dared, but she looked about as usual so far as I could make out. The only noticeable effect of our conversation was that she seemed somewhat suppressed, sat silent and thoughtful, and attempted no sallies.