CHAPTER XXI

'Engaged'

Lady Cannon sat in her ma.s.sive, florid clothes, that always seemed part of her ma.s.sive, florid furniture, and to have the same expression of violent, almost ominous conventionality, without the slightest touch of austerity to tone it down. Her throat and figure seemed made solely to show off dog-collars and long necklaces; her head seemed constructed specially for the wearing of a dark red royal fringe and other ornaments. Today she was in her most cheerful and condescending mood, in fact she was what is usually called in a good temper. It was a great satisfaction to her that Hyacinth was at last settled; and she decided to condone the rather wilful way in which the engagement had been finally arranged without reference to her. With the touch of somewhat sickly sentiment common to most hard women, she took great pleasure in a wedding (if it were only moderately a suitable one), and was prepared to be arch and sympathetic with the engaged couple whom she expected today to pay her a formal visit.

She was smiling to herself as she turned a bracelet on her left wrist, and wondered if she and Sir Charles need really run to a tiara, since after all they weren't Hyacinth's parents, and was wishing they could get off with giving her a certain piece of old lace that had been in the family for years, and could never be arranged to wear, when Sir Charles came in.

'Ah, Charles, that's right. I wish you to be here to welcome Hyacinth and her fiance. I'm expecting them directly.'

'I can't possibly be here,' he said. 'I have a most urgent appointment.

I've done all the right things. I've written to them, and gone to see Hyacinth, and we've asked them to dinner. No more is necessary. Of course, let them understand that I--I quite approve, and all that. And I really think that's quite enough.'

He spoke rather irritably.

'Really, Charles, how morose you've grown. One would think you disliked to see young people happy together. I always think it's such a pretty sight. Especially as it's a regular love match.'

'No doubt; no doubt. Charming! But I have an appointment; I must go at once.'

'With whom, may I ask?'

'With St Leonards,' he answered unblushingly.

'Oh! Oh well, of course, they'll understand you couldn't keep the Duke waiting. I'll mention it; I'll explain. I shall see a little more of Hyacinth just now, Charles. It'll be the right thing. An engaged girl ought to be chaperoned by a connection of the family--of some weight.

Not a person like that Miss Yeo. I shall arrange to drive out with Hyacinth and advise her about her trousseau, and....'

'Yes; do as you like, but spare me the details.'

Lady Cannon sighed.

'Ah, Charles, you have no romance. Doesn't the sight of these happy young people bring back the old days?'

The door shut. Lady Cannon was alone.

'He has no soul,' she said to herself, using a tiny powder-puff.

The young people, as they were now called, had had tea with her in her magnificent drawing-room. She had said and done everything that was obvious, kind, and tedious. She had held Hyacinth's hand, and shaken a forefinger at Cecil, and then she explained to them that it would be much more the right thing now for them to meet at her house, rather than at Hyacinth's--a recommendation which they accepted with complete (apparent) gravity, and in fact she seemed most anxious to take entire possession of them--to get the credit of them, as it were, as a social sensation.

'And now,' she said, 'what do you think I'm going to do? If you won't think me very rude' (threatening forefinger again), 'I'm going to leave you alone for a little while. I shan't be very long; but I have to write a letter, and so on, and when I come back I shall have on my bonnet, and I'll drive Hyacinth home.'

'It's most awfully kind of you, Auntie, but Cecil's going to drive me back.'

'No, no, no! I insist, I insist! This dear child has been almost like a daughter to me, you know,' pressing a lace-edged little handkerchief, scented with Ess Bouquet, to a dry little eye. 'You mustn't take her away all at once! Will you be very angry if I leave you?' and laughing in what she supposed to be an entirely charming manner, she glided, as though on castors, in her fringed, embroidered, brocaded dress from the room.

'Isn't she magnificent?' said Cecil.

'You know she has a reputation for being remarkable for sound sense,'

said Hyacinth.

'Well, she's shown it at last!'

She laughed.

He took a stroll round the room. It was so high, so enormous, with so much satin on the walls, so many looking-gla.s.ses, so much white paint, so many cabinets full of Dresden china, that it recalled, by the very extremity of the contrast of its bright hideousness, that other ugly, dismal little room, also filled with false G.o.ds, of a cheap and very different kind, in which he had had so much poignant happiness.

'Hyacinth,' he said, rather quaintly, 'do you know what I'm doing? I want to kiss you, and I'm looking for a part of the room in which it wouldn't be blasphemous!'

'You can't find one, Cecil. I couldn't--here. And her leaving us alone makes it all the more impossible.'

The girl was seated on a stiff, blue silk settee, padded and b.u.t.toned, and made in a peculiar form in which three people can sit, turning their backs to one another. She leant her sweet face on her hand, her elbow on the peculiar kind of mammoth pincushion that at once combined and separated the three seats. (It had been known formerly as a 'lounge'--a peculiarly unsuitable name, as it was practically impossible not to sit in it bolt upright.)

Cecil stood opposite and looked down at her.

Happiness, and the hope of happiness, had given her beauty a different character. There was something touching, troubling about her. It seemed to him that she had everything: beauty, profane and spiritual; deep blue eyes, in which he could read devotion; womanly tenderness, and a flower-like complexion; a perfect figure, and a beautiful soul. He could be proud of her before the world, and he could delight in her in private. She appealed, he thought, to everything in a man--his vanity, his intellect, and his senses. The better he knew her, the more exquisite qualities he found in her. She was sweet, clever, good, and she vibrated to his every look. She was sensitive, and pa.s.sionate. She was adorable. He was too fortunate! Then why did he think of a pale, tired, laughing face, with the hair dragged off the forehead, and j.a.panese eyes?... What folly! It was a recurring obsession.

'Cecil, what are you thinking about?'

'Of you.'

'Do you love me? Will you always love me? Are you happy?'

He made no answer, but kissed the questions from her lips, and from his own heart.

So Lady Cannon, after rattling the handle of the door, came in in her bonnet, and found them, as she had expected. Then she sent Cecil away and drove Hyacinth home, talking without ceasing during the drive of bridesmaids, choral services, bishops, travelling-bags, tea-gowns, and pretty little houses in Mayfair.

Hyacinth did not hear a single word she said, so, as Lady Cannon answered all her own questions in the affirmative, and warmly agreed with all her own remarks, she quite enjoyed herself, and decided that Hyacinth had immensely improved, and that Ella was to come back for the wedding.

CHAPTER XXII

The Strange Behaviour of Anne

It was a spring-like, warm-looking, deceptive day, with a bright sun and a cold east wind.

Anne sat, a queer-looking figure, in an unnecessary mackintosh and a golf-cap, on a bench in a large open s.p.a.ce in Hyde Park, looking absently at some shabby sheep. She had come here to be alone, to think.

Soon she would be alone as much as she liked--much more. She had appeared quite sympathetically cheerful, almost jaunty, since her friend's engagement. She could not bear anyone to know her real feelings. Hyacinth had been most sweet, warmly affectionate to her; Cecil delightful. They had asked her to go and stay with them. Lady Cannon had graciously said, 'I suppose you will be looking out for another situation now, Miss Yeo?' and others had supposed she would go back to her father's Rectory, for a time, at any rate.

Today the wedding had been definitely fixed, and she had come out to give way to the bitterness of her solitude.

She realised that she had not the slightest affection for anyone in the world except Hyacinth, and that no-one had any for her, on anything like the same scale.

Anne was a curious creature. Her own family had always been absolutely indifferent to her, and from her earliest youth she had hated and despised all men that she had known. Sir Charles Cannon was the only human being for whom she felt a little sympathy, instinctively knowing that under all his amiable congratulations he disliked Hyacinth's marriage almost as much as she did, and in the same way.