Mount Royal: A Novel. Volume 3 of 3

"I have always found man the more malignant animal," said FitzJesse. "At her worst a woman generally has a motive for the evil she does – some wrong to avenge – some petty slight to retaliate. A man stabs for the mere pleasure of stabbing. With him slander is one of the fine arts. Depend upon it your Crabtree is a more malevolent creature than Mrs. Candour – and the Candours would not kill reputations if the Crabtrees did not admire and applaud the slaughter. For my own part I believe that if there were no men in the world, women would be almost kind to each other."

The Baron did not enter into this discussion. He had no taste for any subject out of his own line, which was art and beauty. With character or morals he had nothing to do. He did not even pretend to listen to the discourse of the others, but amused himself with petting Leo, who sturdily repulsed his endearments. When he spoke it was to reply to Christabel's last remark.

"If you are fonder of roaming on the hills than of shooting, Mrs. Tregonell, why should we not organize a rambling party? It is not too late for a picnic. Let us hold ourselves ready for the first bright day – perhaps, after this deluge, we shall have fine weather to-morrow – and organize a pilgrimage to Tintagel, with all the freedom of pedestrians, who can choose their own company, and are not obliged to sit opposite the person they least care about in the imprisonment of a barouche or a wagonette. Walking picnics are the only picnics worth having. You are a good walker, I know, Mrs. Tregonell; and you, Mrs. Torrington, you can walk I have no doubt."

The widow smiled and nodded. "Oh, yes, I am good for half-a-dozen miles, or so," she said, wondering whether she possessed a pair of boots in which she could walk, most of her boots being made rather with a view to exhibition on a fender-stool or on the step of a carriage than to locomotion. "But I think as I am not quite so young as I was twenty years ago, I had better follow you in the pony-carriage."

"Pony-carriage, me no pony-carriages," exclaimed de Cazalet. "Ours is to be a walking picnic and nothing else. If you like to meet us as we come home you can do so – but none but pedestrians shall drink our champagne or eat our salad – that salad which I shall have the honour to make for you with my own hands, Mrs. Tregonell."

Jessie Bridgeman looked at Christabel to see if any painful memory – any thought of that other picnic at Tintagel when Angus Hamleigh was still a stranger, and the world seemed made for gladness and laughter, would disturb her smiling serenity. But there was no trace of mournful recollection in that bright beaming face which was turned in all graciousness towards the Baron, who sat caressing Leo's curls, while the boy wriggled his plump shoulders half out of his black velvet frock in palpable disgust at the caress.

"Oh! it will be too lovely – too utterly ouftish," exclaimed Dopsy, who had lately acquired this last flower of speech – a word which might be made to mean almost anything, from the motive power which impels a billiard cue to the money that pays the player's losses at pool – a word which is a substantive or adjective according to the speaker's pleasure.

"I suppose we shall be allowed to join you," said Mopsy, "we are splendid walkers."

"Of course – entry open to all weights and ages, with Mrs. Tregonell's permission."

"Let it be your picnic, Baron, since it is your idea," said Christabel; "my housekeeper shall take your orders about the luncheon, and we will all consider ourselves your guests."

"I shall expire if I am left out in the cold," said Mrs. Torrington. "You really must allow age the privilege of a pony-carriage. That delightful cob of Mrs. Tregonell's understands me perfectly."

"Well, on second thoughts, you shall have the carriage," said de Cazalet, graciously. "The provisions can't walk. It shall be your privilege to bring them. We will have no servants. Mr. Faddie, Mr. FitzJesse, and I will do all the fetching and carrying, cork-drawing and salad-making."

CHAPTER IX

"THOU SHOULDST COME LIKE A FURY CROWNED WITH SNAKES."

When the shooting party came home to afternoon tea, Dopsy and Mopsy were both full of the picnic. The sun was sinking in lurid splendour; there was every chance of a fine day to-morrow. De Cazalet had interviewed the housekeeper, and ordered luncheon. Mopsy went about among the men like a recruiting sergeant, telling them of the picnic, and begging them to join in that festivity.

"It will be wretched for Dopsy and I" – her grammar was weak, and she had a fixed idea that "I" was a genteeler pronoun than "me," – "if you don't all come," she said to Colonel Blathwayt. "Of course the Baron will devote himself exclusively to Mrs. Tregonell. FitzJesse will go in the pony-trap with Mrs. Torrington, and they'll have vivisected everybody they know before they get there. And I can't get on a little bit with Mr. Faddie, though he is awfully nice. I feel that if I were to let him talk to me an hour at a stretch I should be obliged to go and join some Protestant sisterhood and wear thick boots and too fearful bonnets for the rest of my days."

"And what would society do without Mopsy Vandeleur?" asked the Colonel, smiling at her. "I should enjoy a ramble with you above all things, but a picnic is such a confoundedly infantine business. I always feel a hundred years old when I attempt to be gay and frisky before dusk – feel as if I had been dead and come back to life again, as some of the savage tribes believe. However, if it will really please you, I'll give up the birds to-morrow, and join your sports."

"How sweet of you," exclaimed Mopsy, with a thrilling look from under her painted lashes. "The whole thing would be ghastly without you."

"What's the row?" asked Leonard, turning his head upon the cushion of the easy chair in which he lolled at full length, to look up at the speakers as they stood a little way behind him.

The master of Mount Royal was sitting by one fireplace, with a table and tea-tray all to himself; while Mrs. Tregonell and her circle were grouped about the hearth at the opposite end of the hall. Jack Vandeleur and little Monty stood in front of the fire near their host, faithful adherents to the friend who fed them; but all the rest of the party clustered round Christabel.

Mopsy told Mr. Tregonell all about the intended picnic.

"It is to be the Baron's affair," she said, gaily. "He organized it, and he is to play the host. There are to be no carriages – except the pony-trap for Mrs. Torrington, who pinches her feet and her waist to a degree that makes locomotion impossible. We are all to walk except her. And I believe we are to have tea at the farm by St. Piran's well – a simple farmhouse tea in some dear old whitewashed room with a huge fireplace, hams and onions and things hanging from the rafters. Isn't it a lovely idea?"

"Very," grumbled Leonard; "but I should say you could have your tea a great deal more comfortably here, without being under an obligation to the farm people."

"Oh, but we have our tea here every afternoon," said Mopsy. "Think of the novelty of the thing."

"No doubt. And this picnic is the Baron's idea?"

"His and Mrs. Tregonell's, they planned it all between them. And they are going to get up private theatricals for your birthday."

"How kind," growled Leonard, scowling at his teacup.

"Isn't it sweet of them? They are going to play 'Delicate Ground.' He is to be Citizen Sangfroid and she Pauline – the husband and wife who quarrel and pretend to separate and are desperately fond of each other all the time, don't you know? It's a powder piece."

"A what?"

"A play in which the people wear powdered wigs and patches, and all that kind of thing. How dense you are."

"I was born so, I believe. And in this powder piece Mrs. Tregonell and Baron de Cazalet are to be husband and wife, and quarrel and make friends again – eh?"

"Yes. The reconciliation is awfully fetching. But you are not jealous, are you?"

"Jealous? Not the least bit."

"That's so nice of you; and you will come to our picnic, to-morrow?"

"I think not."

"Why not?"

"Because the woodcock season is a short one, and I want to make the best use of my time."

"What a barbarian, to prefer any sport to our society," exclaimed Mopsy coquettishly. "For my part, I hate the very name of woodcock."

"Why?" asked Leonard, looking at her keenly, with his dark, bright eyes; eyes which had that hard, glassy brightness that has always a cruel look.

"Because it reminds me of that dreadful day last year when poor Mr. Hamleigh was killed. If he had not gone out woodcock shooting he would not have been killed."

"No; a man's death generally hinges upon something," answered Leonard, with a chilling sneer; "no effect without a cause. But I don't think you need waste your lamentations upon Mr. Hamleigh; he did not treat your sister particularly well."

Mopsy sighed, and was thoughtful for a moment or two. Captain Vandeleur and Mr. Montagu had strolled off to change their clothes. The master of the house and Miss Vandeleur were alone at their end of the old hall. Ripples of silvery laughter, and the sound of mirthful voices came from the group about the other fireplace, where the blaze of piled-up logs went roaring up the wide windy chimney, making the most magical changeful light in which beauty or its opposite can be seen.

"No, he hardly acted fairly to poor Dopsy: he led her on, don't you know, and we both thought he meant to propose. It would have been such a splendid match for her – and I could have stayed with them sometimes."

"Of course you could. Sometimes in your case would have meant all the year round."

"And he was so fascinating, so handsome, ill as he looked, poor darling," sighed Mopsy. "I know Dop hadn't one mercenary feeling about him. It was a genuine case of spoons – she would have died for him."

"If he had wished it; but men have not yet gone in for collecting corpses," sneered Leonard. "However poor the specimen of your sex may be, they prefer the living subject – even the surgeons are all coming round to that."

"Don't be nasty," protested Mopsy. "I only meant to say that Dopsy really adored Angus Hamleigh for his own sake. I know how kindly you felt upon the subject – and that you wanted it to be a match."

"Yes, I did my best," answered Leonard. "I brought him here, and gave you both your chance."

"And Jack said that you spoke very sharply to Mr. Hamleigh that last night."

"Yes, I gave him a piece of my mind. I told him that he had no right to come into my house and play fast and loose with my friend's sister."