A Great Success | Page 9

beyond. Sunset lay broad and rich over the wide stretches of grass, and on the splendid oaks lifting their dazzling leaf to the purest of skies. The roses in the garden sent up their scent, there was a plashing of water from an invisible fountain, and the deer beyond the fence wandered in and out of the broad bands of shadow drawn across the park. Doris's young feet fidgeted under her. She longed to be out exploring the woods and the lake. Why was she immured in this stupid room, to which Lady Dunstable had conducted her with a chill politeness which had said plainly enough "Here you are--and here you stay!--till dinner!"
"If I could only find a back-staircase," she thought, "I would soon be enjoying myself! Arthur, lucky wretch, said something about playing golf. No!--there he is!"
And sure enough, on the farthest edge of the lawn going towards the park, she saw two figures walking--Lady Dunstable and Arthur! "Deep in talk of course--having the best of times--while I am shut up here--half-past six!--on a glorious evening!" The reflection, however, was, on the whole, good-humoured. She did not feel, as yet, either jealous or tragic. Some day, she supposed, if it was to be her lot to visit country houses, she would get used to their ways. For Arthur, of course, it was useful--perhaps necessary--to be put through his paces by a woman like Lady Dunstable. "And he can hold his own. But for me? I contribute nothing. I don't belong to them--they don't want me--and what use have I for them?"
Her meditations, however, were here interrupted by a knock. On her saying "Come in"--the door opened cautiously to admit the face of the substantial lady, Miss Field, to whom Doris had been introduced at the tea-table.
"Are you resting?" said Miss Field, "or only 'interned'?"
"Oh, please come in!" cried Doris. "I never was less tired in my life."
Miss Field entered, and took the armchair that Doris offered her, fronting the open window and the summer scene. Her face would have suited the Muse of Mirth, if any Muse is ever forty years of age. The small, up-turned nose and full red lips were always smiling; so were the eyes; and the fair skin and still golden hair, the plump figure and gay dress of flower-sprigged muslin, were all in keeping with the part.
"You have never seen my cousin before?" she inquired.
"Lady Dunstable? Is she your cousin?"
Miss Field nodded. "My first cousin. And I spend a great part of the year here, helping in different ways. Rachel can't do without me now, so I'm able to keep her in order. Don't ever be shy with her! Don't ever let her think she frightens you!--those are the two indispensable rules here."
"I'm afraid I should break them," said Doris, slowly. "She does frighten me--horribly!"
"Ah, well, you didn't show it--that's the chief thing. You know she's a much more human creature than she seems."
"Is she?" Doris's eyes pursued the two distant figures in the park.
"You'd think, for instance, that Lord Dunstable was just a cipher? Not at all. He's the real authority here, and when he puts his foot down Rachel always gives in. But of course she's stood in the way of his career."
Doris shrank a little from these indiscretions. But she could not keep her curiosity out of her eyes, and Miss Field smilingly answered it.
"She's absorbed him so! You see he watches her all the time. She's like an endless play to him. He really doesn't care for anything else--he doesn't want anything else. Of course they're very rich. But he might have done something in politics, if she hadn't been so much more important than he. And then, naturally, she's made enemies--powerful enemies. Her friends come here of course--her old cronies--the people who can put up with her. They're devoted to her. And the young people--the very modern ones--who think nice manners 'early Victorian,' and like her rudeness for the sake of her cleverness. But the rest!--What do you think she did at one of these parties last year?"
Doris could not help wishing to know.
"She took a fancy to ask a girl near here--the daughter of a clergyman, a great friend of Lord Dunstable's, to come over for the Sunday. Lord Dunstable had talked of the girl, and Rachel's always on the look-out for cleverness; she hunts it like a hound! She met the young woman too somewhere, and got the impression--I can't say how--that she would 'go.' So on the Saturday morning she went over in her pony-carriage--broke in on the little Rectory like a hurricane--of course you know the people about here regard her as something semi-divine!--and told the girl she had come to take her back to Crosby Ledgers for the Sunday. So the poor child packed