The Country House
CHAPTER V

MRS. PENDYCE'S DANCE

Mrs. Pendyce believed in the practice of assembling county society for the purpose of inducing it to dance, a hardy enterprise in a county where the souls, and incidentally the feet, of the inhabitants were shaped for more solid pursuits. Men were her chief difficulty, for in spite of really national discouragement, it was rare to find a girl who was not “fond of dancing.”

“Ah, dancing; I did so love it! Oh, poor Cecil Tharp!” And with a queer little smile she pointed to a strapping red-faced youth dancing with her daughter. “He nearly trips Bee up every minute, and he hugs her so, as if he were afraid of falling on his head. Oh, dear, what a bump! It's lucky she's so nice and solid. I like to see the dear boy. Here come George and Helen Bellew. Poor George is not quite up to her form, but he's better than most of them. Doesn't she look lovely this evening?”

Lady Malden raised her glasses to her eyes by the aid of a tortoise-shell handle.

“Yes, but she's one of those women you never can look at without seeing that she has a—a—body. She's too-too—d'you see what I mean? It's almost—almost like a Frenchwoman!”

Mrs. Bellew had passed so close that the skirt of her seagreen dress brushed their feet with a swish, and a scent as of a flower-bed was wafted from it. Mrs. Pendyce wrinkled her nose.

“Much nicer. Her figure's so delicious,” she said.

Lady Malden pondered.

“She's a dangerous woman. James quite agrees with me.”

Mrs. Pendyce raised her eyebrows; there was a touch of scorn in that gentle gesture.

“She's a very distant cousin of mine,” she said. “Her father was quite a wonderful man. It's an old Devonshire family. The Cheritons of Bovey are mentioned in Twisdom. I like young people to enjoy themselves.”

A smile illumined softly the fine wrinkles round her eyes. Beneath her lavender satin bodice, with strips of black velvet banding it at intervals, her heart was beating faster than usual. She was thinking of a night in her youth, when her old playfellow, young Trefane of the Blues, danced with her nearly all the evening, and of how at her window she saw the sun rise, and gently wept because she was married to Horace Pendyce.

“I always feel sorry for a woman who can dance as she does. I should have liked to have got some men from town, but Horace will only have the county people. It's not fair to the girls. It isn't so much their dancing, as their conversation—all about the first meet, and yesterday's cubbing, and to-morrow's covert-shooting, and their fox-terriers (though I'm awfully fond of the dear dogs), and then that new golf course. Really, it's quite distressing to me at times.” Again Mrs. Pendyce looked out into the room with her patient smile, and two little lines of wrinkles formed across her forehead between the regular arching of her eyebrows that were still dark-brown. “They don't seem able to be gay. I feel they don't really care about it. They're only just waiting till to-morrow morning, so that they can go out and kill something. Even Bee's like that!”

Mrs. Pendyce was not exaggerating. The guests at Worsted Skeynes on the night of the Rutlandshire Handicap were nearly all county people, from the Hon. Gertrude Winlow, revolving like a faintly coloured statue, to young Tharp, with his clean face and his fair bullety head, who danced as though he were riding at a bullfinch. In a niche old Lord Quarryman, the Master of the Gaddesdon, could be discerned in conversation with Sir James Malden and the Reverend Hussell Barter.

Mrs. Pendyce said:

“Your husband and Lord Quarryman are talking of poachers; I can tell that by the look of their hands. I can't help sympathising a little with poachers.”

Lady Malden dropped her eyeglasses.

“James takes a very just view of them,” she said. “It's such an insidious offence. The more insidious the offence the more important it is to check it. It seems hard to punish people for stealing bread or turnips, though one must, of course; but I've no sympathy with poachers. So many of them do it for sheer love of sport!”

Mrs. Pendyce answered:

“That's Captain Maydew dancing with her now. He is a good dancer. Don't their steps fit? Don't they look happy? I do like people to enjoy themselves! There is such a dreadful lot of unnecessary sadness and suffering in the world. I think it's really all because people won't make allowances for each other.”

Lady Malden looked at her sideways, pursing her lips; but Mrs. Pendyce, by race a Totteridge, continued to smile. She had been born unconscious of her neighbours' scrutinies.

“Helen Bellew,” she said, “was such a lovely girl. Her grandfather was my mother's cousin. What does that make her? Anyway, my cousin, Gregory Vigil, is her first cousin once removed—the Hampshire Vigils. Do you know him?”

Lady Malden answered:

“Gregory Vigil? The man with a lot of greyish hair? I've had to do with him in the S.R.W.C.”

But Mrs. Pendyce was dancing mentally.

“Such a good fellow! What is that—the——?”

Lady Malden gave her a sharp look.

“Society for the Rescue of Women and Children, of course. Surely you know about that?”

Mrs. Pendyce continued to smile.

“Ah, yes, that is nice! What a beautiful figure she has! It's so refreshing. I envy a woman with a figure like that; it looks as if it would never grow old. 'Society for the Regeneration of Women'. Gregory's so good about that sort of thing. But he never seems quite successful, have you noticed? There was a woman he was very interested in this spring. I think she drank.”

“They all do,” said Lady Malden; “it's the curse of the day.”

Mrs. Pendyce wrinkled her forehead.

“Most of the Totteridges,” she said, “were great drinkers. They ruined their constitutions. Do you know Jaspar Bellew?”

“No.”

“It's such a pity he drinks. He came to dinner here once, and I'm afraid he must have come intoxicated. He took me in; his little eyes quite burned me up. He drove his dog cart into a ditch on the way home. That sort of thing gets about so. It's such a pity. He's quite interesting. Horace can't stand him.”

The music of the waltz had ceased. Lady Malden put her glasses to her eyes. From close beside them George and Mrs. Bellew passed by. They moved on out of hearing, but the breeze of her fan had touched the arching hair on Lady Malden's forehead, the down on her upper lip.

“Why isn't she with her husband?” she asked abruptly.

Mrs. Pendyce lifted her brows.

“Do you concern yourself to ask that which a well-bred woman leaves unanswered?” she seemed to say, and a flush coloured her cheeks.

Lady Malden winced, but, as though it were forced through her mouth by some explosion in her soul, she said:

“You have only to look and see how dangerous she is!”

The colour in Mrs. Pendyce's cheeks deepened to a blush like a girl's.

“Every man,” she said, “is in love with Helen Bellew. She's so tremendously alive. My cousin Gregory has been in love with her for years, though he is her guardian or trustee, or whatever they call them now. It's quite romantic. If I were a man I should be in love with her myself.” The flush vanished and left her cheeks to their true colour, that of a faded rose.

Once more she was listening to the voice of young Trefane, “Ah, Margery, I love you!”—to her own half whispered answer, “Poor boy!” Once more she was looking back through that forest of her life where she had wandered so long, and where every tree was Horace Pendyce.

“What a pity one can't always be young!” she said.

Through the conservatory door, wide open to the lawn, a full moon flooded the country with pale gold light, and in that light the branches of the cedar-trees seemed printed black on the grey-blue paper of the sky; all was cold, still witchery out there, and not very far away an owl was hooting.

The Reverend Husell Barter, about to enter the conservatory for a breath of air, was arrested by the sight of a couple half-hidden by a bushy plant; side by side they were looking at the moonlight, and he knew them for Mrs. Bellew and George Pendyce. Before he could either enter or retire, he saw George seize her in his arms. She seemed to bend her head back, then bring her face to his. The moonlight fell on it, and on the full, white curve of her neck. The Rector of Worsted Skeynes saw, too, that her eyes were closed, her lips parted.

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