The Tysons | Page 9

Tyson followed the hounds; yet for the life of him he could not tell whether she was really very infantile or only very deep. You see she was Tyson's wife. It must be said she gave him every opportunity for clearing his ideas on the subject, and if he did not know, other people might be allowed to make mistakes. And when he came to stay at Thorneytoft for weeks at a time, familiarity with the little creature's moods only complicated the problem.
It was about the middle of February, and Stanistreet had been down for a fortnight's hunting, when, in the morning of his last day, Tyson announced his intention of going up to town with him to-morrow. He might be away for three weeks or a month altogether; it depended upon whether he enjoyed himself sufficiently.
Stanistreet, who was looking at Mrs. Nevill Tyson at the time, saw the smile and the color die out of her face; her beauty seemed to suffer a shade, a momentary eclipse. She began to drink tea (they were at breakfast) with an air of abstraction too precipitate to be quite convincing.
"Moll," said Tyson, "if you're going to this meet, you'd better run upstairs and put your things on."
"I don't want to go to any meets."
"Why not?"
"Because--I--I don't like to see other women riding."
"Bless her little heart!" (Tyson was particularly affectionate this morning) "she's never had a bridle in her ridiculous hands, and she talks about 'other women riding.'"
"Because I want to ride, and you won't let me, and I'm jealous."
"Well, if you mayn't ride with me, you may drive with Stanistreet."
"I may drive Captain Stanistreet?"
"Certainly not; Captain Stanistreet may drive you."
"We'll see about that," said Mrs. Nevill Tyson as she left the room.
She soon reappeared, enchantingly pretty again in her laces and furs.
It was a glorious morning, the first thin white frost after a long thaw. The meet was in front of the Cross-Roads Inn, about a mile out of Drayton Parva. It was neutral ground, where Farmer Ashby could hold his own with Sir Peter any day, and speech was unfettered. Somebody remarked that Mrs. Nevill Tyson looked uncommonly happy in the dog-cart; while Tyson spoke to nobody and nobody spoke to him. Poor devil! he hadn't at all a pretty look on that queer bleached face of his. And all the time he kept twisting his horse's head round in a melancholy sort of way, and backing into things and out of them, fit to make you swear.
She must have noticed something. They were trotting along, Stanistreet driving, by a road that ran side by side with the fields scoured by the hunt, and Tyson could always be seen going recklessly and alone. He could ride, he could ride! His worst enemy never doubted that.
"It's very odd," said she, "but the people here don't seem to like Nevill one bit. I suppose they've never seen anything quite like him before."
"I very much doubt if they have."
"I think they're afraid of him. Mother is, I know; she blinks when she talks to him."
"Does she blink when she talks to me?"
"Of course not--you're different."
"I am not her son-in-law, certainly."
"Do you know, though he's so much older than me--I simply shudder when I think he's thirty-seven--and so awfully clever, and so bad-tempered, I'm not in the least afraid of him. And he really has a shocking bad temper."
"I know it of old."
"So many nice people have bad tempers. I think it's the least horrid fault you can have; because it comes on you when you're not thinking, and it isn't your fault at all."
"No; it is generally some one else's."
"I don't think much of people's passions myself. He might have something far worse than that."
"Most undoubtedly. He might have atrocious taste in dress, or a tendency to drink."
"Don't be silly. Did you know him when he was young? I don't mean to say he isn't young--thirty-seven's young enough for anybody--I mean when he was young like me?"
"I can't say. I doubt if he was ever young--like you. But I knew him when he was a boy."
"So you understand him?"
"Oh, pretty well. Not always, perhaps. He's a difficult subject."
"Anyhow, you like him? Don't you?"
Stanistreet gave a curious hard laugh.
"Oh yes--I like him."
"That's all right. And really, I don't wonder that people can't make him out. He's the strangest animal I ever met in my life. I haven't made him out yet. I think I shall give him up."
"Give him up, by all means. Isn't that what people generally do when they can't understand each other?"
Mrs. Nevill Tyson made no answer. She was trying to think, and thinking came hard to Mrs. Nevill Tyson.
"I suppose he's had a past. But of course it doesn't do to go poking and probing into a man's past--"
Stanistreet lifted his