Short Fiction · Trooping with Crows (3/5) (1/2)

II

Among Crows

As Lettice anticipated, she had little or no difficulty in persuading her father that at least one season in London was an absolute necessity in every girl’s life.

“You know, dear,” she exclaimed, when “talking the matter over” with him, “I feel quite ashamed when I have to tell people I have never seen the parks nor been to the Opera, nor, what is worst of all, kissed the Queen’s hand. It is really quite too dreadful. And Marian Goodlake, when she came over from Aberystwyth on her wedding tour, said ‘I had grown to look quite rustic.’ And Aunt Rosamond, every time she comes, tells me I am ‘so unsophisticated.’ And you know, papa, that means a great deal. Don’t you remember you called Betsy Williams ‘unsophisticated’ the other day when she went up to London to receive the twenty pound legacy that had been left to her, and she took the lawyer’s cheque to Drummond’s and told one of the clerks that she ‘didn’t want to inconvenience him by taking so much money at once, but she’d have a little at a time as it suited him?’ And some day, papa, I shall be doing something like that, and then you’ll be ashamed of me and be very, very sorry that you didn’t let me go to London with Aunt Rosamond.”

Lettice paused for breath. Papa smiled.

“I suppose, pussy, it must be,” he said. “I knew some day you’d have to go, but I didn’t think ‘some day’ was so near at hand. In fact, you seemed to me still a child in short petticoats till the other day I was startled out of my belief by Dr. Herron⁠—”

“There is that dreadful Brownie after the squirrels again,” interrupted Lettice, and, utterly regardless of Aunt Judith’s neuralgia, she flung back the drawing-room window and started in full pursuit of the dog.

Mr. Tremarten quietly got up and closed it after her.

“Who is this Dr. Herron that we see and hear so much of?” asked Aunt Rosamond as Lettice disappeared among the shrubs and brushwood.

“He is the son of that Colonel Herron who died in Burma some ten years ago,” replied Mr. Tremarten. “His uncle, Sir Wilfrid Herron, of Herron Court, in Northampton, is the head of the family, and in due course the title and estates must descend to our friend the doctor here. Sir Wilfrid, however, has never shown the least kindness towards his brother’s children⁠—their mother jilted him in early life, I believe. Colonel Herron somehow managed to run through whatever fortune he and his wife had, and our Dr. John prefers working at a profession he has always liked, to support himself and sister, instead of hanging about doing nothing and waiting for dead men’s shoes. An eccentric individual, no doubt, he seems to you, Rosamond,” he added after a pause.

“Not half so eccentric an individual as you seem to me, Owen,” retorted the sister. “The want of common sense you have shown in the bringing up of that daughter of yours is to me marvellous. Not content with burying her for the first eighteen years of her life in absolutely conventual seclusion, with birds, and dogs, and horses as her sole companions, you throw her into the society of an attractive⁠—yes, certainly attractive⁠—but most ineligible bachelor, and what do you expect will come of it, let me ask you?”

Owen winced a little at this allusion to the secluded life he had chosen to lead ever since the death of his young wife within a year of their marriage. However, he replied calmly enough⁠—

“Something has come of it already, Rosamond, at least as far as the doctor is concerned, for about a month since he applied to me for permission to make Lettice an offer of marriage, and I told him he had my best wishes for his success.”

Aunt Rosamond flushed crimson with anger.

“Now, Judith, did you ever hear of such a piece of folly?” she exclaimed, turning to her sister. “Owen, do you really know what you are doing? Have you so low an opinion of your daughter’s attractions and her position in society that you think a country doctor, living absolutely from hand to mouth, a suitable husband for her? Don’t talk to me about his prospects,” she added, as she saw her brother about to speak; “I know people who know Sir Wilfrid well, and he is as likely as not to live for another twenty years. Do, I beg of you, let the girl have a chance; at any rate, don’t tie her down to a husband before she knows her own mind and what better things life has to offer her.”

Aunt Rosamond is in a high state of fermentation now. Her lips compress as she finishes speaking, her aquiline nose rises higher and higher, and one foot commences beating a rapid tattoo on the footstool.

Aunt Judith, who has an immense belief in her sister’s superior wisdom, and an intense love for her, interposed now.

“Owen,” she exclaimed, in her usual high-pitched, sharp tones, “I am quite sure Rosamond will be ill if you continue to excite her in this way.”

“I really don’t see anything to excite her in the subject we are discussing,” replied Owen in mild astonishment. “I have not the slightest wish to hurry my little girl into a marriage of any sort, and I am quite willing she should spend a year, or two if you wish it, with you both in London, and see as many men as you please. Honestly speaking, if I must have a son-in-law I prefer John Herron to any man I have ever known, but I’m not at all sure that Lettice’s mind is made up one way or another.”

Thus it was all settled eventually according to Aunt Rosamond’s wishes, and, with many injunctions to papa not to be dull while she was away, and to the doctor and the doctor’s sister, Mary Herron, to come up every day to the house to “keep papa cheerful,” Lettice started for London and plunged headlong into the gaieties and dissipation which opened before her dazzled eyes.

“Everything is lovely here,” she wrote to her father about two months after her arrival in London, after she had been to her first drawing-room, danced at a royal duchess’s ball, and been by common consent pronounced the débutante of the season. “It is quite too delicious, and it you would only leave your pictures and books for a few weeks and come here to go out with me I should have nothing in the world to wish for. Everyone is so nice, and I do nothing but enjoy myself from morning till night. I get a glorious canter in the parks every morning. Then there are pictures to be seen or shopping to be done (such wonderful shops too, papa). Always two or three nice people come in to lunch. Then there are calls innumerable to be made afterwards; then a dinner, to be followed by two, or sometimes three, dances. And that is where my troubles begin. Aunt Rosamond will insist on dragging me home by midnight. Isn’t it too bad of her? Just when everything is at the very best, and I have thoroughly entered into the fun of the thing, she puts on that funny frown of hers and looks at the door, and then I know that unless I throw up all the rest of my partners and smile sweetly and say, ‘I’m quite ready, Aunt Rosamond,’ I shall be well scolded all the way home, and Aunt Judy will chime in every other minute with ‘It’s quite true, Rosamond. Lettice, how can you persist in exciting and worrying your aunt in this way?’ and poor little me shrinks into the corner of the carriage and doesn’t dare open her mouth.”

Then followed a long list of inquiries about the dumb pets and favourites, among which Brownie and the lame barndoor fowl reigned supreme, and a wonder whether Dr. Herron came in for his nightly game of chess, and whether Mary ever played to papa some of those dear old fugues in the twilight. Finally came a short postscript:⁠—

“Among other nice people I have met frequently a Captain Ivie McCormack and his sister Lilla (Elizabeth really). He (Captain Ivie that is) says he was at Rugby with Dr. Herron, and remembers him perfectly. Also there is a most irreproachable earl, a great agriculturist, a splendid cattle-breeder, and an enthusiast on all matters connected with trades-unions and strikes. Can you guess whom I mean?”

This postscript was read out in the pleasant twilight evening at “The Eyrie” in a pause after a hard-fought game of chess between Mr. Tremarten and Dr. Herron, and with Mary Herron, tall, sedate, and womanly, seated in Lettice’s place at the organ.

“You see my little girl says nothing about coming home just yet, doctor,” said Mr. Tremarten, folding up his letter.

The doctor was knitting his brows furiously. “Ivie McCormack⁠—Ivie McCormack,” he was saying half to himself, “yes, I remember him perfectly also, and unless he has altered immensely since I knew him, he’s not a fit person for your daughter or any woman living to associate with.”

On that selfsame evening, but a little further on towards midnight, or rather day-dawn, the personages under discussion⁠—Captain Ivie McCormack and his sister Lilla⁠—were seated in a daintily-furnished boudoir in their house in Mayfair, a few doors from the quiet old family mansion of the Misses Tremarten. There is a soft reading-lamp on a side table which suffices to light the somewhat small room, itself a bijou in delicate rose pink and turquoise blue. Miss Lilla and her brother have just returned from a reception “small and early,” at which they have encountered Lettice and her aunts, and have retired to the lady’s sanctum sanctorum to discuss the events of the evening, which seem somehow to be of unusual interest and importance to them.

Miss McCormack has thrown off her swansdown opera-cloak, and is leaning back in a low chair fanning herself with some Indian feather fan. She is a large woman, well-made, dark-complexioned, with prominent features, and in style and dress affects the Oriental. In age she may be about thirty years, but under the soft light of the lamp looks considerably younger. Her brother⁠—“Captain Ivie” as he was generally called by his more intimate friends⁠—is his sister’s junior by about a year or two, and strongly resembles her in face and figure⁠—resembles with a difference, for whereas in Lilla’s face strong determination and will were marked in every line and feature, there was in the brother’s⁠—whether real or assumed it would be difficult to say⁠—a look of languor or weariness which effectually prevented real feeling of any sort finding expression in his handsome features. He has, in addition to the above-mentioned advantages, just a soupçon of aristocratic drawl in his speech, a slow, dignified way of moving about a room, an interested, deferential manner of listening to ladies’ conversation, very captivating and fascinating, more especially to quite young girls. However, it must not be supposed but what at times this fascinating manner is laid on one side, especially when the speaker happens to be a sister and there is no one at hand to note the captain’s ill-temper. Two or three times while Miss McCormack has been talking he has jumped up from his chair and sat down again, but as she has kept steadily on with her discourse, utterly ignoring his irritability and impatience, he contents himself with walking rapidly to and fro in the small space allowed by the innumerable tables and chairs in the tiny sitting-room.

“You know, Ivie,” Miss McCormack concluded her long harangue with saying, “you know perfectly well I shall never pay another sixpence of your debts. I have all but beggared myself to clear you so far already, and I am perfectly certain if it hadn’t been for your disreputable ways I shouldn’t be a spinster at the present moment. Your only chance, I tell you, is to fascinate some girl (with money, of course) in her first season, and stick to her in spite of everyone and everything. You’d better make the most of your handsome face while it lasts, for I tell you plainly you are beginning to look horribly old and careworn” (here the captain glanced somewhat nervously at his own reflection in a mirror opposite), “and every season you and your ways become better known. My own belief is that you’ll end with selling out, and will finish your days as a billiard-marker in some low tavern⁠—” She breaks off suddenly. “Do sit down, Ivie; you annoy me so tramping up and down in that style. Remember you are not in barracks. We must talk matters over, and what way is there out of the difficulty if you set your mind so obstinately against matrimony?”

The captain throws himself into a low chair and flings one long arm over the gilt back.

“What way?” he mutters. “By Jove! I’d just as soon be bullied by a wife as a sister.”

“Don’t be rude, Ivie,” Lilla rejoins. “You ought to be grateful to me for taking so much trouble. I don’t know another sister who would stand what I’ve stood for you. You never had any brains to spare, you know” (here the captain impatiently kicks over a footstool at his feet), “and if I don’t put you in the way of getting a rich wife, of course you’ll end in some disreputable manner. Now there’s Lettice Tremarten⁠—”

Now the captain jumps to his feet.

“Look here, Lilla,” he says, “let’s understand each other. Once for all, let me tell you, whatever traps and snares I set for my own interest and yours, I’m not quite villain enough to put them just in the way of that sweet little innocent girl. We’ll drop that, please.”

Lilla merely raises her arched eyebrows and goes steadily on⁠—

“Oh, are you really hit at last, Ivie? I wasn’t aware⁠—that will make things go all the better. As I was saying, there’s Lettice Tremarten. Not bad-looking.”

“Not bad-looking!” growls the captain. “Why, she’s heavenly!”

Lilla resumes⁠—

“I’m not a man, Ivie, to rave over a milk-and-water girl of eighteen. I repeat, she’s not bad-looking, although she has been brought up in a very absurd manner in a sweetly-simple style absolutely ridiculous in these days. However, perhaps her bringing up may turn out to be rather an advantage to you than otherwise, as she will find it all the more difficult to realise the nature and extent of your sins against society.”

“For heaven’s sake, Lilla, don’t wind about in that way!” ejaculates the captain. “Come to the point at once and be done with it, and let my sins alone.”

“If you intend to be rude, Ivie, you had better leave the room. I really have no interest in the matter beyond getting you off my hands. The first heiress you succeed in catching I shall hail as an angel of deliverance, and shall be kind and attentive to in the extreme. Why you should fly into one of your tempers whenever Miss Tremarten’s name is mentioned is a mystery to me. Those old-maid aunts of hers have no one else to leave their money to. Her father, judging from his tastes and habits, cannot be a poor man. Altogether, I should say she must eventually come into some twenty-five or thirty thousand a year. If you can manage the affair yourself by all means do so; but you know, as a rule, you make a mess of nearly everything you put your fingers into.”

Captain Ivie draws a long breath.

“Lilla, what a fool you are not to let a man smoke in your room! A puff would stand for a whole volley.”

“Thanks,” says Lilla sweetly, “I don’t admire the habit. I was saying, if you think you can manage this little affair by yourself by all means do so, but it you want my assistance I am quite willing to take the unpleasant part off your hands.”

“If they allowed petticoats in Parliament, by Jove! you’d make yourself a name,” mutters the captain.

Lilla takes no heed.

“You have so far done the pleasant part to perfection, with your looks of intense admiration and the rapt attention you have paid to her silly schoolgirlish talk. I believe the girl is in love with you without knowing it. I caught her once or twice this evening looking at you in a very spoony manner. All you have to do is to keep up your wonderful fascination, and⁠—” Here she hesitates a little.

“And⁠—and⁠—” repeats the captain, now awakened to real interest by his sister’s last sentences.

“And leave the rest to me,” finishes Lilla with a short laugh. “Good night, Ivie, I’m too tired to say another word.”