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The Bird of Paradise

Chapter XXVII. The Bird of Paradise at Bendemeer. Celebrities of the Sabine River

Chapter XXVII. The Bird of Paradise at Bendemeer. Celebrities of the Sabine River.

Next morning Marvel rose full of a vague feeling of penitence over her protracted absence from home counterminged with regrets that she had left behind the whirligig of pleasure-seekers to whom she had ministered in Edenhall. She dressed the little boy. Pearly was now proficient in dressing herself, and if anything she could not do was required she would run to her father or the servant. After her breakfast Marvel reconnoitred her external surroundings and the contiguous Paradise vineyard, in the name and history of which she seemed to take a peculiar and lively interest; watched the movements of the trolloping and slovenly housekeeper, turned up her nose and sniffed at the manipulations of the floor-cloths, dish-cloths and other accoutrements in the kitchen, and withdrew to the surgery to read through all the correspondence past and present—whatever she could find lying on the table or in the writing-desk. While thus employed little Pearly ran in from outside to the surgery with a large bunch of sweet-water grapes.

"Mumma," she cried, out of breath, "look what I dot: big man out Marvel followed her little girl, pulling her by the dress, to the dividing fence, over which leaned the massive and corpulent form of the old French vigneron, who with very redundant politeness beamed upon Marvel and said—"I did vas like to zee you Madame zee Dogder: my name is Chevalier Jules Léroche; I vas leef here Baradize; vill you come into Baradize and bring your little girl? It ees ver' hot oudzide."

Madame zee Dogder, however, smilingly refused to enter Paradise, and seemed to think Chevalier Jules Léroche was a fool and a trifle silly; page 199besides, as he stood with his coat off and his shirt sleeves tucked up and an old cabbage-tree hat on his head, he was not in accordance with the exquisite tastes of Marvel: in any case he was too old for a flirtation. She returned to the house, while the juvenile bird of Heaven, little Pearly, tripped on her light fantastic toes, like a fairy through the groves and realms of Paradise, in company with the kind-hearted old vigneron, and soon returned with an offering of all sorts of grapes in a basket.

Upon re-entering the house, Marvel was confronted by the blear-eyed old housekeeper dusting the furniture in the drawing-room, a very choicely equipped little room, upon whose furniture her husband had spent some nine hundred dollars. There was a beautiful figured dado around the walls, a lovely centre flower, on a ceiling worked in carton piérre, costly furniture, marble statuary, porcelaine enamels and bric-a-brac. To say nothing of the bibulous propensities of the old housekeeper, she was tormented with a diabolically leaky nose, which necessitated her constant attention, but did not, however, in the slightest degree impede—as was the case with the noisome-nosed auntie—the rapid flow of her garrulity. Handkerchiefs were rather small for the housekeeper with the leaky nose; but her apron served a double purpose: it was the mouhoir of the leaky nose, and it also did duty as a dish-cloth, and sometimes as a duster. She was a Papist and was in possession of a shroud which she had filched from a corpse and kept in store for herself. It was made of a brown material and had the letters I.H.S. on the bosom. She was fond of displaying it to her friends, saying "Won't I be a swell?" so she brought it out to Marvel and began—

"What a dear little boy, ma'am! (at-chew); he is so much like my little boy, ma'am, (at-chew) that died that I would like to kiss him (kiss-you)." She wiped an ordinary sneeze away with the well-varnished sleeve of her sugar-bag dress and proceeded—"He ain't so big as my little boy was; but when I come to reckon up the age ray little boy was wunst—he was born on the twenty-sixed of Apraile, thutty-four, and he died of the hoop an' cough (at-chew—at-chew) on a Friday—I think yore little boy orter be younger than my little boy was that died on a Friday, and my dear little boy could give yore dear little boy full six munce. My little girl (at-chew—at-chew)—she was just like yore little girl, and when I count up her buthday. I think it must ha' bin the same day as yore littie girl's was; you would hardly ha' knowed her from my little girl, ma'am, and my little girl was always a grinnin' and a laughin' too; yore little girl's got eyes just like my little girl's was, and yore little girl's nose and mouth and 'air is just the same as my little girl's nose and mouth and 'air. Dash this nose of mine to be sure (at-chew—at-chew—at-chew). I hope I will give you satisfaction, ma'am, but there's a power of cleanin' up o' floors (at-chew—at-chew—at-chew) in this 'ere' ouse, ma'am—the patients drops in so permiskus-like — that there floor in the surgee, ma'am, I says to meself 'wot's the good of washing this 'ere floor; it'll only be smothered in blood in ten minits:' dash this nose; doctor—he don't care where the page 200blood goes. One day I had to wash some bandiges wot had been used, and with respecks to you, ma'am, I 'eaved me 'eart up very near, I ain't a bin used to this 'ere sort o' wuck, and it goes agin me grain, but one must do what one can for the best—heigh-ho—at-chew—at-chew—notwith-standin' that I 'ave a blind 'usband to support and four dead children, which comes very 'ard on a pore woman that 'as bin used to bein' a-waited on 'erself, and never knowed what it was to wuck for a livin' afore (heigho—oh! dear me! at-chew—at——chew)!"

Smiling an enigmatical smile, the disgusted bird of paradise queried where she brought the leaky nose from, and the old woman replied—"From Twicken'um, ma'am: you ain't a bin to Twicken'um I suppose?—it's in London; the thoughts of Twicken'um Ferry makes my 'eart bleed (kiss-you—kiss-you—kiss—you). My good man— he was wunst a pork-butcher there ma'am, and I 'ad a drawringroom and two servants o' me own there in Twicken'um—four shillins a week each—and two good wuckin' gairls they was, ma'am, at that. I get three dollars orf the doctor, and it's little enough. Gord knows, with a blind 'usband as can do nothin' but damn an' swear and doss his - self all the arternoon on the kitching sofey and drink and smoke 'and-chew and-chew and-chew.' But one thing your 'usband, ma'am, with respecks to you, don't go a'-pokin' of his nose and a-pryin' like my man into the kitching and as some of 'em does, and sometimes on a washin' day doctor he sends the groom for a glass of beer to keep me up like; I suppose he knows as 'ow I have a sinkin' comes over me 'eart, winch is all I gits and enjoys from Mond'y mornin' till Sa' (at-chew) Sat' (at-chew) Sat'd'y (at-chew—at-chew—at-chew) night to be sure, and I'm sorter not ongrateful for't."

"Does he very often go to town?" came the little question from the divine bird.

"Who, ma'am, my 'usband?" said the old woman from Twickenham; but Marvel meant Dr. Whitworth.

"Only twice since I've bin a wuckin for 'im (at-chew)— yest'y and wunst afore;" when Marvel inquired if the doctor drank any of the beer; "Lawk-a-daisy, ma'am! why bless yore 'eart there ain't more'n 'arf a pint, and it would come very 'ard (at-chew) on a pore woman with a blind 'usband if he did, to be sure."

Marvel next wanted to know what time the doctor went to bed.

"Any time, ma'am; sometimes, Lord love you, ma'am, he don't go to bed (at-chew) at all, and like I ain't ha 'alf sorry, for it saves me of a makin' of the bed."

The old woman held her nose with her apron and stared at Marvel as if she meant to say—"I ain't a goin' to put him away"—whereupon Marvel thinking she had discovered a mare's nest dropped the subject in order to disarm any suspicion the questioning and cross-questioning might arouse, and, saying she would dust the drawing-room mantelpiece herself, she took up a duster and packed the old woman off to scrape and scrub the kitchen page 201table, cupboards and floor, which she said were filthy. They were quite dirty enough to soil the plumage of the bird from New Guinea. If that old Martha Wax from Twickenham had said she had scrubbed the things before, which was a positive fact, or had contradicted in the slightest degree anything the punctilious Marvel said, it would have meant her instant and inexorable discharge. She would throw upon the old woman most preposterous duties, and summarily send her away if there was the slightest sign of mumbling or grumbling over them.

Suddenly that morning she missed a gold locket, set with about a teaspoonful of diamonds; she had put it in her jewelry case on the previous day, but after hunting high and low about the rooms, turning all her belongings out of her boxes and investigating every move the old woman had made that morning and on the evening after the time she had entered the house, the lost, stolen or strayed locket could not be found. It seemed to be as far off as ever. Whatever could have happened to the lost, stolen or strayed diamond locket was a mysterious conundrum to the bird of the sun: "Perhaps he took it," she muttered to herself in the bedroom, "and for all 1 know it may be on its way to that abominable woman in New Orleans."

"When will he be back?" she called out to the old woman sweating at the scraping of the table with the carving knife, and holey-stoning the floor with a brick. No answer, and Marvel advanced to the kitchen.

"Take six buckets of water to that floor," she screamed to the toiling Martha; "yon are not scrubbing it, you are only washing it; why don't you scrub it?—it looks as if it hadn't been scrubbed since the house was built: when will he be back?" but the old woman was malingering to be deaf. She sweated and struggled with the knife and the brick at what would have been a nice little bit of Sunday morning recreation for Dolly.

Ting-a-lingle-lingle tinkled the bell, and the old woman, wiping her nose with the drenched flour bag which she wore for the occasion, waddled with shambling, short, quick steps to the door. He entered and walked into the surgery; the bird followed and bearded the lion in his den.

"Have you seen ray locket?" she said, and he replied with another question, as to what locket it was; but not to be bluffed so easily as all that, she sneered and fleered and insinuated all the more, when little Pearly toddled into the surgery, with the stolen article hanging from a muff-chain around her neck, and in a most debonnaire fashion said—"Puppa, look at my pitty wash."

"Is that it?" said the doctor to Marvel: "where did you get that? it's like the jewelry advertised as missing."

She waited for a few minutes to see if a thunderbolt would come and strike little Pearly, but failing that, "You naughty girl," she said, smacking Pearly: "never you mind, Dr Whitworth where I got it; it was a present; you didn't buy it anyhow." It had been a gift from the white-headed boy, the Adonis of the music-halls—but Adonis didn't buy it either.

The habit of calling for the convoy of provisions had become so confirmed page 202in the blind husband of the leaky-nosed Martha from Twickenham that he could walk half a mile and strike the back door with the walking crook without making one single mistake on the road. The doctor himself turned his metaphorically blind eye to the little episodes, and the old housekeeper looked upon it as a presumptive right to remove the crusts, as she called them, and other perquisites out of the way. It never struck her that the advent of Mrs. Whitworth might jeopardise the little game. The visits of the blind man, however, had become so habitual that they began to arouse the suspicion always lurking in the brain of the Paradisal and celestial Marvel that either the old man could see well enough to pick up rags and bones, cabbage stalks and crusts, or that he was carting away wholesale the provender from the larders out of her road. She made a man-trap out of herself one evening as Bartimeus was wending his weary way home. It was blind-man's buff in earnest this time.

"What have you got there, Mister?" she said as he was leaving by the back gate, staggering under an awkward load in a flour-bag, and the bird of Paradise emerged from the stable.

"Only the crusts," said the blind man as innocent as the goddess of Innocence herself.

"Let me see," said Marvel pulling the sack off his back and the broadside of the blind man's back on top of it, as he fell supine with his heels in the air.

"Ha! I thought so,' warbled the bird: "boots and shoes, loaves of bread and cakes; brown paper parcel of sugar, brown paper parcel of sago, brown paper bag of rice, twenty-eight pound bag of flour, junks of bacon and cheese; spoons, cups and plates; two knives, a fork and a blacking-brush; two tins of Keilor's marmalade, note-paper, envelopes and stamps; a wine bottle of milk, six big ostrich feathers, and a bottle of brandy; kippered herrings and salmon, all mixed up with half-a-dollar's worth of potatoes, two large bottles of ink and innumerable pearl-coated pills." Martha had lost no time in weeding out Marvel' s wardrobe, and there was quite enough in the collection to bring forth the most glorious smile from Swan, Berry and White or any shop-walker in creation.

"Wait a minute," said Marvel, "there's something else you can take home," as she bustled inside up the steps and bundled out Martha Wax, the 'ard wuckin' woman from Twickenham: "You can take that old thief away with you, or I'll send for the police in two minutes," she shouted triumphantly.

Twickenham patronised Billingsgate and clenched its fists in a furious rage. "You miserable little wretch," said Twickenham with her face in a state of great inflammation; "you'll starve yourself yet when you can see a poor old crittur (at-chew — at-chew) as wucks 'ard and her pore 'usband as can't see to do no wuck a starvin' for the sake of a few bits of crusts and things like that. We wasn't so mean in Twicken'um when we had servants of our own (at-chew—at-chew—at-chew): you might 'ave to be a servant yourself yet: you little beast, I page 203would like to tear the 'air out of yore blessed 'ead and shove my fist into your nasty hugly mouth, and for two pins I'd do it now, you (at-chew)—tripe (at-chew)—tripey chop thing (at-chew): you're no lady, you're more like one of these 'ere bloomin' hactresses."

The bird of the sun, scared at the threats of the old woman, flew away, leaving them to scrape up as much as they could in the dust and waddle away with the salvage, swearing at the little beast of Bendemeer.

The first month Marvel had spent in Bendemeer and its surroundings had been replete with excitement and pleasure. Cartes de visite fluttered in upon the tulipwood console table like the leaves of Vallombrosa. The little drawing-roam was crowded with visitors every day; the snowy mass of cards lying on the card-receiver was thawing on its surface and falling down from the top and the sides. So bounteous was the attention paid to the wife of the doctor, that she had scarcely a moment between lunch and dinner to spare. After the first rush of visitors she found it necessary to curtail her receptions to one afternoon a week. Thursday was the chosen day, but she subsequeutly thought it wise to restrict her days at home to the first and second Thursdays in the month. The doctor's groom, Frederick, in a dark bottle-green livery coat, tight-fitting knee-breeches, top boots, big silvery buttons like new half-crowns, and a tall black silk hat with a silvery band and cockade, drove the celestial Marvel, sitting beside the groom with an air of ostentatious condescension, with the pair of thoroughbred horses to return the multitude of visits; but, out of all who had done her the honour to pay their respects, she deemed it infra dignitatem paradiseidalem to return visits to more than one-tenth, this fractional quantity being of course the ones included in the refined circle of those who knew how to tilt their noses higher into the air than the ones whom she neglected.

The routine of Bendemeer was all nice and smooth, and she indeed seemed to regret, and once expressed her remorse—on the twenty-fourth of May, her birthday—at having left her husband and crippled his chances of success. The regrets were, however, very unsubstantial and ephemeral; after a month she began to grow restless and fidgetty again at intervals from lack of excitement and change. The following month brought a steadying-down of the social strain, and nothing occurred till a month after, when an accident to the village priest brought what seemed to be all the shining lights of the Roman Catholic clergy to see the lovely, renowned, paradisal, heliotropical, celestial and aerial bird of the rose-bowers of Bendemeer.

One Daniel Carter, who, during his twenty years residence in Sabinnia had sold bad beer at the Hallelujah Hotel, supplemented his profits by breaking in colts and fillies and horse-dealing generally. Like old Adam Quain, Daniel was seldom seen sober and never on any one single occasion perfectly sober by those who knew the Hallelujah Hotel or those that had not that honour. Crude, fool-hardy man as he was, he had perched himself on the top of the box-seat of the hearse during his late wife's funeral, and page 204called upon the undertaker beside him to "trot the old bitch along as fast as he could, and plant her out of his sight." After a bucketful of two-year-old Burgundy, Daniel roamed wild about the streets, taking himself round the town as it were after the manner of a tame ape, performing all sorts of antics. When Sabinnia was wrapped in slumber, he roared like a caged baboon at night because the gas lamps were extinguished before he reached his Hallelujah home. An angular raw-boned man was Daniel, with a fierce stained beard, something like a white horse's tail cut off very short. He offered His Reverence the village priest a trial with a young colt, which he had just broken in himself and wanted to sell. As the simple-minded priest acquiesced in the trial of the quiet and reliable buggy horse, he was whirled away at a dare-devil rate a mile or so out of town, and shot out of the flying ape's buggy like so much rubbish, to receive a concussion of the brain on the road. Eugene attended him at the presbytery after the accident, and his beloved brothers in holy orders from all points of the compass hurried to administer the last sacrament of the dead.

The first day after the accident one priest called to see the doctor; the day after, the one that came the first day brought two others; the two brought four others; the four brought eight; the eight brought sixteen, and within six days, all seated in the little drawingroom of Bendemeer, among the Chippendale and Louis Quinze art furniture like thirty-one crows, while the dying lamb lay unconscious in the presbytery, they inclined their ears to the music of Marvel on the Mignon, and drank the whisky which her husband brought in on a tray. Particularly amiable gentlemen they persuasion, showed a great inclination to unbutton their otherwise straitlaced dignity, and make themselves in all way highly interesting and agreeable For several days while the life of the patient lingered in the balance, like Mahomet mid-air between the nickel world and heaven, the crows came every afternoon, drinking down the whisky and sunning their souls in the Paradisal music and radiance.

One priest in particular was a profound historical scholar, and with him the doctor's early career at university college enabled him to discourse mythical, metaphysical and classical lore, while the heavenly music of the paradisal angel wafted itself through the exalted souls and thrilled the emotional bosoms of the others. Not only in science and history was Father O'Leary a polished scholar: he could criticise a racehorse and run off its pedigree as glibly as Brosie could that of a fox-terrier or a greyhound, of which specific order in creation Father O'Leary was the happy possessor of several fine specimens, all called by some highly appropriate name, signifying the design of the Great Father of us all that they were meant to kill something, and yet selected from the poetical language of ould Ireland, such as, Killalee, Killaoe, killarney and Kildare, So highly enjoyable was the company of the priests that on that account all felt a hidden sorrow when the fog lifted from the concussed brain, and on leaving they one and all page 205expressed themselves to that effect. A special invitation came from the scholarly priest of the horse-racing proclivities to visit his mansion near the race-course when the doctor went next to the city, where he promised to introduce him to all the jockeys and trainers of the day. The doctor, however, had once been a racing man himself, and replied that he had at one time been the owner of the marvellous Moss Rose, when the invitation was passed on to the bird of Paradise, who promised to call upon His Reverence, if not the jockeys and trainers, on the first opportunity she had of going to town. After the horse-loving priest had given the doctor several good tips for the cup, the archidiaconal congress ended and they all departed en masse to their folds among whom they issued an encyclical to the effect that their sojourn at Bendemeer comprised the happiest days in their lives.

There was apparently nothing to ruffle the sweet temper of Marvel; no ground upon which her jealous and acrimonious nature could build an airy castle of suspicion, and considering the light foundation upon which she could raise an imposing tower of Babel this was saying a very great deal. There was nothing to disturb the brooding complacence which she seemed to be engendering within herself towards her husband ever since the little episode of the pinafores and aprons had recoiled on her own foolish temper. Day after day the reign of calm and content in the flowery home at Bendemeer became more and more firmly established. The new servant whom she had obtained from Daisy Hill, a few miles out of the town, appeared to meet her desires in every little matter, although of all mistresses she was the strictest and most exacting. The groom seldom came across her path since the burden of her calls had been removed from the collars of the horses; he was, too, of a very hard-working and retiring disposition. Marvel indeed seemed to be self-convinced that she had unjustly fallen out with the doctor quite enough for a life-time.

It is a rare thing in American country society to find a family by whom, even on their ordinary everyday domestic occasions, the stiff and starchy forms of a British nobleman's house and table are regularly observed as by force of habit or second nature with unremitting punctiliousness. The Sabine River had the very distinguished honour of being an exception to the rule, inasmuch as within one mile of the township, frowning from a lofty hill over three square miles of ground stood the Elizabethan castle of "Rotojingolong," occupied by and being the freehold property of a British colonel of the line. There, with my lady and seven grown children, for years had been sequestered William, tenth Earl of Kincaird. He had won his spurs on the field of the Afghan war, and for two years had turned the sword into the ploughshare. A few croakers there were among the tobacco-planting population—chiefly those who had never been requested to honour his halls with their company—who maintained a stand-off scorn and derision of the whole family of the Earl of Kincaird, from the ancient Earl himself down to his youngest child. These asseverated that all the active service which the Earl had ever seen was summed page 206up in the declaration that he had once shot his nose off when out after parrots on the Rocky mountains. However, the courtesans who had enjoyed the high privilege of sitting at the lord's table vehemently sounded the loud bugle for the ancestral family, and sturdily maintained that he verily had sought glory at the cannon's mouth; that he was for ten years a colonel in command of a Sikh-Sepoys two hundred strong, marching them daily up and down hill to the sound of the trumpet and the drum; that when they were up, and when they were down they were down; and that when they were only half-way up they were neither up nor down; that in every way the noble two hundred were constituted equally as well as the famous regiment of the brave old Duke of York, whose prowess is recorded in the history of the world as second on the tented and bloody field to that of Don Quixote the Great atone. The medals won by William, tenth Earl of Kincaird, stopped short only of the Victoria Cross, no action for the exploded nose having been heard with a view to that decoration.

Migrating from the land of chutney, spice, and mango jellies, he leased and feohed for four hundred and ninety-nine years the magnificent property near the Sabine Siver, which, nevertheless, stitt retained its vernacular and euphonious name of "Rotojingolong." Now most of his time was devoted to the horticultural uses of the garden-rake and dutch-hoe on the winding paths and the flower-flecked beds, where he was invariably to be found as long as the king of day was describing his circle over William's ancestral head. In many respects the old warrior appeared to have infringed on his dotage: he furthermore suffered at the time from an uncontrollable and ceaseless movement of his limbs and the muscles of his face called Paralysis agitans, which never forsook him as long as he kept awake in the violet-seented garden. Sitting for hours as he did every day contemplating the beauty of the unfolding inflorescence of an ox-eyed daisy or a gilliflower, and as it were goading on its tardy growth by the perpetual movements of his arms, his head and his legs, all the while he would remain as cool as when he had been in the habit of charging the Russian front in the van of the dour Sepoys.

The sons, of which there were five, not being handicapped with a maudlin superabundance of ambition, were generally considered to be highly adapted—after a thorough education at the agricultural colleges of Edinburgh—for the laborious cultivation of maize, and at the ploughing matches in the Sabine River district they once went very near being awarded an honourable mention for a fanciful figure of eight. His two daughters, Lady Harriet and Lady Henrietta, both unspeakably buxom and buoyant, spent most of their time reading French novels or paying calls on the aristocracy of New Orleans, while the energy of my Lady the Countess was consumed in a boundless profusion of money and beneficence for the relief of the waifs and strays of the city and the poor of the Sabine district.

Whatever idiosyncracies the members of the family individually pos-page 207sessed, they were severally well-trained in all the forms and fashions of high life, and they took precious care not to allow the revolution in the life of the colonel of the Sikh-Sepoy guards to interfere in the slightest degree with the regular observance of their rigid English ceremonies and ordeals in the outskirts of the American pine-forests. When the ploughing, harrowing, winnowing, or mustering of cattle was over for the day, the toiling Arcadians would be warned by the ponderous dinner-gong that it was the correct time for them to disrobe and array themselves in their swallow-tail coats and waistcoats showing' wastes of embroidered shirt-front like pillow-slips, not forgetting a spruce sprig of hawthorn or holly for a boutonnière. By lightning changes from force of ingrained habit they transformed themselves from bucolics into fin de siécle courtiers or grand flaneurs of the ball-room. Every evening they were dressed to receive or meet any grandee in creation, irrespective of the usual fact that there was nobody to meet but their own father and mother and sisters at the lordly dinner.

The magnificent income of the Earl of Kincaird, with the addition of a liberal pension allowed by a grateful country for distinguished services in time of peace, was further supplemented by fees charged for the grazing of horses in a small two-acre paddock. The only good grass was reserved for their own sheep and cattle, while the small paddock was often seen to be so crowded that when Eugene found his mare Rosie there munching the post-and-rail fence in a scarcity of grass such as was found on the surface of the Earl's billiard table, he thought the enclosure was a sale-yard, and promptly took her away from Rotojingolong. The unmerited ridicule of the smaller section of the Sabinites did not detract one atom from the glory and renown of the nobleman's family. It was the acme of privilege to be invited to dinner at the castle of Rotojingolong. Such was the lucky privilege of Marvel.

When the doctor had first gone to the Sabine district, Lady Kincaird had undoubtedly called and left cards, upon two of which was written, like the writing on the wall, "Kincaird." He was, however, out at the time, and Marvel, who little thought of being so highly honoured, was in the razzle - dazzle of merriment at Edenhall. Since her return to her husband all she had seen of the nobility was the record of the visit in the shape of the cards left, which Marvel kept studiously on the top of the pile—name-up-with-care—in the card-receiver. The very name was a name to conjure with, and an earnest of something sumptuous. The butler of the castle had curtly informed the discomfited Marvel, when she called to return the deposit of the precious pasteboard, that it was not his lady's day at home.

Great was her delight and surprise when, a few weeks after her rencontre with the butler, she received an invitation written by my lady herself by the morning post, requesting the honour of Dr. Whitworth and his wife's company to dinner on the following Friday week. It just gave Marvel time to order a new dress from the costumière—a dolly dress of blue satin page 208fussed over with blue tulle and blue well-off-the-shoulder velvet bows, with an immense quantity of filmy lace-like cobwebs on a blue ceiling. She also had time to polish up a few pieces which she fully expected to find in the music canterbury at Rotojingolong.

On the miserable evening stated in the lettre d'invitation, while the slanting rain monotonously pattered on the iron roof, Frederick was called out with the bottle-green livery coat, tight pants, top-boots, silk hat, silvery band and cockade and surrounded by a tight-fitting Melton great-coat, making him look like a huge pork sausage, together with the thoroughbred pair, in order to assimilate the style of the celestial bird as closely as possible to that of the Earl. There was no loophole of escape, so the doctor accompanied his wife, and they both set out with Frederick for Rotojingolong. The scrolled oak door swung open on what seemed to be a ringing of all the bells in the castle, and the simultaneous barking of all the Rotojingolong pack of harriers and fox-hounds, and the portentous butler escorted the bird of Paradise to the ladies' dressing-room, while the doctor stood gaping at the picture of Quatre Bras, hanging on the passage wall, looking as though he were going to be crucified. Presently, however, removing his coat and withdrawing his gloves, he marched boldly into the drawingroom where he had ample time to ruminate and await the reception of his host. The first entrée lady was the smiling Marvel, attended by one of the honourable young ladies: his wife seemed to be the first to receive and welcome him. With them he discussed the meteorological conditions of the night for quite a quarter of an hour, when the loud tocsin of the dinner-gong resounded through the halls, echoing in the rooms as my lady appeared on the quivering paralysed arm of the earl. Marvel was introduced by her husband, who had known the family outside before. The earl offered his arm to her and with as much ostentation as her agitated nerves would suffer her to display she was marshalled by Kincaird the warrior into the dining-room, while my lady offered her elbow to the doctor and piloted him in the same direction. At their heels came Lady Harriet and Lady Henrietta, discussing French novels, and a quintette of the genteel young viscounts of the plough. Viands, rarest of which was the venison of the deer—supposed to be at any rate, though none could gainsay that it might have been a sacrificed nanny-goat—reminded the guests of Bolton Abbey. Rare wines scintillated in tall, slender, Venetian decanters amongst the fine linear network of clippings of exquisite maidenhair finding its mazy ways along the white tablecloth among what seemed to be specimens of every flower in the viscount's garden, giving the table the appearance of an elaborate floral rainbow-bazaar. Still, no vulgarity was shown as often is the case when enormous bouquets are piled so high that the guests, as at Madame's, could not see across the table. My lord was evidently a great connoisseur of foliage and flowers. He completely bored and bewildered the Paradisal bird, who sat in a state of chronic martyrdom on his right at the top of the table, while he described the minute anatomy of every tiny bud and curling fern-frond, and gave page 209every member of the copious, choicely-arranged group on the table its proper botanical name. Overhearing the verbose descriptions of the nobleman and noticing the uneasiness of his wife, Eugene could not help thinking to himself of one sweet face which he knew so well; of one who at that time was writhing with a broken heart in the throes of starvation and abysmal gloom: of one who could have brought to bear upon the pedantic colonel all the lore of the flowers of the earth, and expatiated upon the exact Linnæan scientific characteristics of every floral gem on his table in terms that would have put his assertiveness to shame—the girl fashioned in the semblance of Diana and undergoing a training in the bitter school of poverty learning the lesson of despair, whose sweet sad eyes seemed to take an interest in everything that breathed and every flower that grew.

Conspicuous on the table stood a large table-centre in a quasi-rustic style, with no very definite symmetrical shape, but giving quite a novel effect: the cut crystal flower-containers being fitted into a frame-work of fire-gilt brass, simulating stalks and ivy leaves, while the containers represented blossoms. Some of the decanters in plain or reeded glass were more than two feet high and consisted of musical trios, comprising a golden-strung lyre pouring from either side, a violin and a mandolin: others were the shape of double eagles or quaint ducks; while the wineglasses also seemed to follow the elongation of the decanters, some of them being fitted into stalks about twelve inches high. Liqueur and café noir trays assumed quite a Bacchanalian rotundity and became veritable tiny barrels. In liquors and delicacies the guests were confronted with an embarras du choix. It was a feast of Sardanapalian luxury. Long entrée dishes seemed to be so deliciously suited to their uses that their long narrow shapes allowed them to slip between the guests without obliging them to turn sideways, as the ordinary square or oval dish necessitates. As if the sight of all the pretty things was not enough, the viscount and my lady were most importunate in their lavish generosities, and in spite of the botany they seemed to be straining every nerve to make Marvel feel just as if she were at home and all the rare novelties belonged to the sweet bird of Bendemeer.

Lady Kincaird found plenty of materiel and tales to unfold before the doctor on the ruling passion of her beneficent ministrations towards the relief and comfort of the fatherless and motherless children. My lady there and then appointed him medical officer to her baby society, while the honourable young lords and the honourable young ladies chatted among themselves.

The sumptuous dinner concluded, they all returned as they had entered back to the drawingroom, where Lady Henrietta, in a bien decolletée white and green brocade, trimmed with lace and silver embroidery, and wearing some magnificent diamonds, stood in all her buxom glory, while her softly swelling bosom rose and fell in rhythm to the cadences of the song of "Robin Adair," accompanied by Marvel, quite at home on the grand page 210Collard and Collard. Lady Harriet sang a song expressive of her desire to be a butterfly or a bird, and one of the young Arcadian nabobs produced something about a gun.

Marvel was in her element at the piano. When asked to play something, she threw Lady Henrietta and all-comers into the shade, completely eclipsing them all. Nervous as she was she made the chords of the grand Collard and Collard ring again and resound through those lofty acoustic halls with the masterly execution of a Kowalski. Nobody could help but admire the precision with which every half-note was played, and as amongst others she produced the inexpressibly grand symphonies of Beethoven, and the enchanting variations of Serenatas and the Myosotis, Eugene felt quite a rush of glowing pride of his wife, and he recalled the happy days when he had heard that Myosotis before. After a game of loo—not sing-tai loo as played by the jaunty Ambrose, for sing-tai loo was played with dice—the party broke up for the night; not as might have occurred in lowlier houses with the parting glass of a vulgar doch an-dhurris, but with a quiet and ceremonious "good-night" in plain, humble and earnest language. Eugene drove home his elated wife, who seemed to have reached the summit of her social ambition, and who seemed to have gained a love for her husband that seemed as deep as the sleeping sea and as constant as the fixed stars of the universe.