Mollified, he said: “Now, didn’t you begin it?”
“Evasion!” was the answer. “It would be such pleasure to you to see a proud woman weep! And if yesterday, persecuted as I am, with dreadful falsehoods abroad respecting me and mine, if yesterday I did seem cold to your great merits, is it generous of you to take this revenge?”
Harry began to scent the double meaning in her words. She gave him no time to grow cool over it. She leaned, half-abandoned, on his arm. Arts feminine and irresistible encompassed him. It was a fatal mistake of Juliana’s to enlist Harry Jocelyn against the Countess de Saldar. He engaged, still without any direct allusion to the real business, to move heaven and earth to undo all that he had done; and the Countess engaged to do—what? more than she intended to fulfil.
Ten minutes later the Countess was alone with Caroline.
“Tie yourself to the duke at the dinner,” she said, in the forcible phrase she could use when necessary. “Don’t let them scheme to separate you. Never mind looks—do it!”
Caroline, however, had her reasons for desiring to maintain appearances. The Countess dashed at her hesitation.
“There is a plot to humiliate us in the most abominable way. The whole family have sworn to make us blush publicly. Publicly blush! They have written to Mama to come, and speak out. Now will you attend to me, Caroline? You do not credit such atrocity? I know it to be true.”
“I never can believe that Rose would do such a thing,” said Caroline. “We can hardly have to endure more than has befallen us already.”
Her speech was pensive, as of one who had matter of her own to ponder over. A swift illumination burst in the Countess’s mind.
“No? Have you, dear, darling Carry? not that I intend that you should! but to-day the duke would be such ineffable support to us. May I deem you have not been too cruel to-day? You dear silly English creature, ‘Duck,’ I used to call you when I was your little Louy. All is not yet lost, but I will save you from the ignominy if I can. I will!—I will!”
Caroline denied nothing—confirmed nothing, just as the Countess had stated nothing. Yet they understood one another perfectly. Women have a subtler language than ours; the veil pertains to them morally as bodily, and they see clearer through it.
The Countess had no time to lose. Wrath was in her heart. She did not lend all her thoughts to self-defence.
Without phrasing a word, or absolutely shaping a thought in her head, she slanted across the sun to Mr. John Raikes, who had taken refreshment, and in obedience to his instinct, notwithstanding his enormous pretensions, had commenced a few preliminary antics.
“Dear Mr. Raikes!” she said, drawing him aside, “not before dinner!”
“I really can’t contain the exuberant flow!” returned that gentleman. “My animal spirits always get the better of me,” he added confidentially.
“Suppose you devote your animal spirits to my service for half an hour?”
“Yours, Countess, from the os frontis to the chine!” was the exuberant rejoinder.
The Countess made a wry mouth.
“Your curricle is in Beckley?”
“Behold!” cried Jack. “Two juveniles, not half so blest as I, do from the seat regard the festive scene o’er yon park-palings. They are there, even Franco and Fred. I’m afraid I promised to get them in at a later period of the day. Which sadly sore my conscience doth disturb! But what is to be done about the curricle, my Countess?”
“Mr. Raikes,” said the Countess, smiling on him fixedly, “you are amusing; but, in addressing me, you must be precise, and above all things accurate. I am not your Countess!”
Mr. Raikes bowed profoundly. “Oh, that I might say ‘my Queen!’”
The Countess replied: “A conviction of your lunacy would prevent my taking offence, though I might wish you enclosed and guarded.”
Without any further exclamations, Mr. Raikes acknowledged a superior.
“And, now, attend to me,” said the Countess. “Listen: You go yourself, or send your friends instantly to Fallowfield. Bring with you that girl and her child. Stop! there is such a person. Tell her she is to be spoken to about the prospects of the poor infant. I leave that to your inventive genius. Evan wishes her here. Bring her, and should you see the mad captain who behaves so oddly, favour him with a ride. He says he dreams his wife is here, and he will not reveal his name! Suppose it should be my own beloved husband! I am quite anxious ha! ha!”
“That fortunate man is a foreignere!” exclaimed Mr. Raikes.
“Anglicised!—anglicised!” said the Countess. “Will you do this? You know how interested I am in the man. If he is not my husband, some one ought to be!”
“Capital!” cried Jack, “Lord! how that would tell on the stage, ‘Some one ought to be!’”
“Away, and do my hest,” the Countess called to him with the faint peep of a theatrical manner.
It captivated Mr. John Raikes: “Yea, to the letter, though I perish for’t,” he pronounced, departing, and subsequently appending, “Nor yet the damnèd reason can perceive.”
The Countess saw him go up to the palings and hold a communication with his friends Franco and Fred. One took the whip, and after mutual flourishes, drove away from Mr. Raikes.
“Now!” mused the Countess, “if Captain Evremonde should come!” It would break up the pic-nic. Alas! the Countess had surrendered her humble hopes of a day’s pleasure. But if her mother came as well, what a diversion that would be! If her mother came before the Captain, his arrival would cover the retreat; if the Captain preceded her, she would not be noticed. Suppose her mother refrained from coming? In that case it was a pity, but the Jocelyns had brought it on themselves.
