Mrs. Fitz Part 45

Eight o'clock is the hour at which we dine in the Crackanthorpe country. It is the established custom for regular followers of that distinguished pack to be extremely hungry at that hour. As the presentation timepiece chimed the hour from the drawing-room chimneypiece, there was a full muster of Mrs. Arbuthnot's dinner guests: the Vicar and his wife, looking rather pinched and formal, their invariable att.i.tude towards public life, yet the Vicar wearing a somewhat worldly pair of shoes of patent leather and equally worldly mauve socks and rather short trousers; Miss Laura Glendinning, our local Diana, who looked horse and talked horse and who would doubtless have eaten horse had it been in the menu; my charming little friend, the relict of Josiah P. Perkins of Brownville, Ma.s.s.; the n.o.ble Master enveloped in a sartorial masterpiece and a frown of perplexity; his _aide-de-camp_, Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther enveloped ditto, but leaning up not ungracefully against a corner of the chimneypiece with his hands in his pockets, not looking at anybody, not speaking to anybody, but with a covert gaze fixed upon the drawing-room door in quest of early information in regard to Ferdinand the Twelfth.

In the middle of the _salon_ the august Mrs. Catesby discussed the Minority Report with the Vicar of the parish and Prison Reform with the Chief Constable, whilst I, sharing the largest and most comfortable sofa with Mrs. Nevil Fitzwaren, had to answer a succession of sympathetic inquiries in regard to my arm.

"A mere scratch," everybody was a.s.sured. "Lucky it wasn't worse. Fact is, those taxis are rather dangerous."

The presentation timepiece chimed a quarter past eight. The proprietor of the Viennese circus and his faithful acolyte were yet to seek.

Romantic figures as they doubtless were--at least, there was the authority of the hostess that such was their nature--the manner in which they were obstructing the serious business of life was hard to condone.

Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins came up to our sofa. She gave a demure, down-looking glance at the lady seated by my side, who was decidedly _piano_, which of course was as it should be, and made the plaintive confession, "I am so hungry. I wouldn't mind the hind leg off that satinwood table."

"You have full permission to have it," said I.

"Oh, no," said Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, "it would spoil the suite. But hardly any breakfast, a sandwich at the Top Covert, in which there was hardly any hog, one cup of tea at the Vicarage, and you know what that is, and now--oh dear!----"

In these harrowing circ.u.mstances I conceived it to be my duty to find out what was toward. I yielded my place to Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, and as she collapsed into it, I heard her say, "I suppose if you once get a cinch on circuses you make a regular pile right soon?"

But as I made to go forth in search of Ferdinand the Twelfth, lo and behold! that monarch came in with his minister. He was wearing no orders, there was nothing to enhance or to distort his personality, but it struck me that his bearing had a simple majesty beyond that of any person I had ever seen.

"Make our apologies, milady," he said in a low voice, which was yet quite audible to most in the room, since upon his entrance the conversation had been suspended automatically. "That mad Dutchman is waving his torch over the powder keg, and we had forgotten the time."

And then, with the greatest simplicity and good-nature, he started to make a tour of the room, shaking each man by the hand heartily, saying "Very pleased to meet you, sir," and bowing to each lady in turn with smiling gravity. He then gave the hostess his arm.

At the table I had Mrs. Catesby on my right hand, Mrs. Josiah P.

Perkins on my left.

"What a lovely man!" said Charybdis on the left.

"I don't believe," said Scylla, "that he has any connection with a circus whatever."

"He is Mrs. Fitz's father, anyhow."

"What is his name?"

"Count Zhygny, but t.i.tles are cheap in Illyria."

"It is a n.o.ble head," said the Great Lady.

"Objective criticism is proverbially unsafe," I hazarded. "His daughter has a n.o.ble face."

"He is just bully." Charybdis was waxing enthusiastic. "Quite Bawston."

The Great Lady addressed herself in grim earnest to the serious business of life, and I am bound to say--although doubtless I am the wrong person to insist on the fact--that it was worthy of all the attention that was paid to it. We were twenty-five minutes late at the post, as Jodey had complained bitterly to his hostess, but the distinguished _chef_ lately in the service of a n.o.bleman had fairly excelled himself. Good-humour, nay, even cordiality, reigned all along the line.

"Are those pearls real?" said an imperious whisper from the right.

"I am not a judge of precious stones," I admitted, "although in the process of time I think I shall be."

"One can't believe they are real. If they are, they must be priceless.

What a wonderful head that man has! And who, pray, is the other?"

"Herr Brouss is his name. The circus-ring is his vocation."

"I once met a distinguished foreigner, a Baron Somebody, a great politician who looked exactly like that. It was at Spa or one of those foreign watering-places. By the way, Odo, what did the other man mean by 'the mad Dutchman is waving his torch over the powder keg'? I see in the paper this morning that relations are strained between Germany and Illyria.

"It is one of those cryptic phrases to which we have not the key."

"What a delicious _entree_! This is coals of fire with a vengeance. I hope you are not living beyond your means."

"Try the madeira--I see our excellent Vicar has discovered it. I am wondering, Mary, whether I could win a little support again in high places, as an out-and-out opponent of socialism in any shape or form."

"I will make no rash promises, Odo"--the Great Lady took a wary sip of the paternal vintage--"but I will speak to dear Evelyn if you wish, although you certainly don't deserve to be forgiven."

"I hope you will a.s.sure her that no one has a profounder veneration for a poor but deserving cla.s.s."

In spite of the fact that Fitz and his wife remained silent and preoccupied, the progress of the feast was marked by a temperate gaiety. The hostess was on the crest of the wave. She made no attempt to veil an almost indecent sense of triumph. Precisely why she should have harboured it I cannot say, but she betrayed all the outward and visible signs of that emotion. There was a light in her eye, there was a piquancy about her discourse, there was a deferential archness in her att.i.tude towards the high personages by whom she was surrounded, which communicated themselves to the whole table. In response to her sallies the reverberations of the royal laughter were loud and long.

"Toppin' good sort, ain't he?" said my relation by marriage in a moment of expansion to Miss Laura Glendinning.

"Who is a toppin' good sort?" said that literal Diana.

"Why, the King, of course."

"I have never met him," said Diana.

"Where, pray, did you meet him, Joseph?" was the severe inquiry of the Great Lady over the brim of her madeira.

"In the paddock at Newmarket," said the young fellow, making a brilliant recovery.

"Fathead!" said the n.o.ble Master in a whisper of indulgent languor.

"You nearly blewed it then."

The royal laughter continued to reverberate.

"I suppose he began life as a clown?" said the Great Lady.

"Nearly all these circus chaps do, don't they?" said Jodey, who nearly suffered misfortune in a too strenuous desire to preserve his gravity.

"Or as a bare-back rider," said I, taking up the parable.

"One would certainly say a clown," said the Great Lady. "Dear me, what manners!"

The port wine had appeared and had been duly dispensed. At this precise moment Ferdinand the Twelfth was giving the table-cloth a peremptory tap. He rose, gla.s.s in hand.

"Ladies and gentlemen, my good friends," said he. "I haf one toast to propose. We will drink, if you please, to the health of _le bon roi Edouard_. G.o.d bless him!"

Upon the Chief Constable's extremely prompt initiative the company did not hesitate to follow the Circus Proprietor's lead.

"The King! G.o.d bless him!"