Portia - Margaret Wolfe Hungerford (top 100 books of all time checklist txt) 📗

come straight from the Ark), having turned some handle that compels the galvanized beasts to come to a standstill, descends, with slow and fearful steps, to the ground.

He has thrown the reins to another old man who is sitting on the box beside him, and who, though only ten years his junior, is always referred to by him as "the boy." Letting down a miraculous amount of steps, he gives his arm to a dilapidated old woman, who, with much dignity, and more difficulty, essays to reach the gravel.

"Some day or other, when out driving," says Dicky Browne, meditatively, "those three old people will go to sleep, and those animated skeletons will carry them to the land where they would _not_ be."

Then a step is heard outside, and they all run back to their seats and sink into them, and succeed in looking exactly as if they had never quitted them for the past three hours, as the door opens and the man announces Miss Gaunt.

"Remember the puddings," says Dicky Browne, in a careful aside, as Dulce rises to receive her first guest.

She is tall--and gaunt as her name. She is old, but strong-minded. She affects women's rights, and all that sort of thing, and makes herself excessively troublesome at times. Women, in her opinion, are long-suffering, down-trodden angels; all men are brutes! Meetings got up for the purpose of making men and women detest each other are generously encouraged by her. It is useless to explain her further, as she has little to do with the story, and, of course, you have all met her once (I hope not twice) in your lifetimes.

Dulce goes up to greet her with her usual gracious smile. Then she is gently reminded that she once met Julia Beaufort before, and then she is introduced to Portia. To the men she says little, regarding them probably as beings beneath notice, all, that is, excepting Dicky Browne, who insists on conversing with her, and treating her with the most liberal cordiality, whether she likes it or not.

Dexterously he leads up the conversation, until culinary matters are brought into question, when Miss Gaunt says in her slow, crushing fashion:

"How do you like that last woman I sent you? Satisfactory, eh?"

"Cook, do you mean?" asks Dulce, to gain time.

"Yes--cook," says the old lady, uncompromisingly. "She was"--severely--"in my opinion, one of the best cooks I ever met."

"Yes, of course, I dare say. We just think her cooking a little monotonous," says poor Dulce, feeling as if she is a culprit fresh brought to the bar of justice.

"Monotonous!" says Miss Gaunt, in an affronted tone, giving her bonnet an indignant touch that plants it carefully over her left ear. "I don't think I understand. A monotonous cook! In my day there were bad cooks, and good cooks, and indifferent cooks, but monotonous cooks--never! Am I to believe by your accusation that she repeats herself?"

"Like history; exactly so. Very neat, indeed," says Mr. Browne, approvingly.

"Well, in the matter of puddings, she does--rather," says Dulce, somewhat fearfully.

"Ah! In point of fact, she doesn't suit you," says Miss Gaunt, fixing Dulce with a stony glare.

"There you are wrong," puts in Mr. Browne, regardless of the fact that she has treated all his other overtures with open contempt, "that is exactly what she does. Don't take a false impression of the case. She _suets_ us tremendously! Doesn't she, Dulce?"

Here Miss Blount, I regret to say, laughs out loud, so does Sir Mark, to everybody's horror. Mr. Browne alone maintains a dignified silence. What Miss Gaunt might or might not have said on this occasion must now forever remain unknown, as Sir Christopher enters at this moment, and shortly after him Mr. Boer.

"Was Florence unable to come? I hope she is quite well," says Dulce, with conventional concern.

"Quite, thank you. But she feared the air."

"The heir?" says Julia Beaufort, inquiringly, turning to Dicky, who is now unhappily quite close to her. Julia, who never listens to anything, has just mastered the fact that Florence Boer is under discussion, and has heard the word "air" mentioned in connection with her.

"Yes. Didn't you hear of it?" says Dicky Browne, confidentially.

"No," says Julia, also, confidentially.

"Why, it is common talk now," says Dicky, as if surprised at her ignorance on a subject so well known to the rest of the community.

"Never heard a word of it," says Julia. "Was it in the papers!"

"N--o. Hardly, I think," says Dicky.

Even as he ceases speaking, three words, emanating from Mr. Boer's ecclesiastical lips, attract Julia's attention. They are as follows: "sun and air!" He, poor man, has just been telling Dulce that his wife (who is slightly hypochondriacal) is very susceptible to the influences of both light and wind. Julia misunderstands. Misled by Dicky's wilfully false insinuation about Florence, whose incessant grievance it is that no baby has come to bless her fireside, she turns to the unfortunate curate and says blandly.

"Dear Mr. Boer, _so_ glad! I never knew of it until this very instant, when I heard you telling Dulce of your sweet little son and heir. I congratulate you. Of course"--coquettishly--"you are very proud of it. Having had three dear babies of my own I can quite rejoice with you and Mrs. Boer."

Deadly silence follows this outburst. Mr. Boer blushes a dingy red. The others relapse into an awed calm; all is confusion.

Portia is the first to recover herself.

"Dear Dulce, may we have our tea?" she says, sweetly, pointing to the table in the distance, where the man, five minutes ago, had placed the pretty Sevres cups and saucers.

By this time Julia has awakened to the fact that she has committed herself in some way unknown to her; has, in fact, taken a false step not now to be retrieved.

"What lovely cups!" she says, therefore, very hurriedly, to Dulce, pointing to the Sevres on the distant table, with a view to covering her confusion; "so chaste--so unique. I adore old china. I myself am something of a connoisseur. Whenever I have a spare penny," with an affected little laugh, "I go about collecting it."

"I wish she would collect herself," says Dicky Browne, in a careful aside; "I'm sure it is quite awful the way she has just behaved to poor Boer. Putting him in such an awkward position, you know. He looks just as if he had been found guilty of some social misdemeanor. Look at him, Dulce, he isn't going to have a fit, is he?"

"I hope not," says Dulce, with a furtive glance at the discomfited Boer, "but what could have induced Julia to make that unlucky speech? Dicky, you horrid boy, I believe you could tell the truth about it if you would."

"I object to your insinuation," says Mr. Browne, "and I object also to being called a boy. Though, after all"--reflectively--"I don't see why I should. The difference between the boy and man is so slight that nobody need create a feud about it. A boy has apples, toffy, twine and penknives in his pocket--a young man has a pipe instead. It is really of no consequence, and perhaps the pipe is the cleanest. I give in, therefore, and I am _not_ offended."

"But still, you have not answered me," says the astute Dulce. "Did you incite Julia to make that unpleasant speech?"

"I'd scorn to answer such a question," says Mr. Browne, loftily. "What a likely thing, indeed. If I had incited her she would have made a great deal more of her opportunity. 'Success,' says James, 'is passionate effort.' I made no effort, but--"

"Nonsense," says Dulce. "She made a most disgraceful lot of _her_ effort, at all events, and I do believe you were the instigator."

"'You wrong me every way, you wrong me, Brutus,'" quotes Mr. Browne, reproachfully. "However, let that pass. Tea is ready, I think. Pour it out, and be merciful."

Thus adjured, Miss Blount pours it out. She looks so utterly sweet in her soft leaf-green tea gown as she does it, that Mr. Gower, in spite of her unkindness of an hour agone, feels sufficient courage to advance and offer himself a candidate for unlimited cups of tea.

He is quite three minutes at her elbow before she deigns to notice him. Then she turns; and letting her eyes rest on him as though she is for the first time made aware of his proximity, though in truth she has known of it for the past sixty seconds, she says, calmly--

"Bread and butter, or cake, Mr. Gower?" quite as innocently as if she is ignorant (which she is not) of his desire to be near her.

"Neither, thank you," says Stephen, gravely. "It was not that brought me to--"

"But, please, do have some cake," says Miss Blount, lifting her eyes to his, and making him a present of a sweet and most unexpected smile. As she says this, she holds out to him on a plate a pretty little bit of plum cake, which she evidently expects him to devour with relish. It is evident, too, that she presents it to him as a peace-offering, and as a sign that all animosity is at an end between them.

"No, thank you," says Mr. Gower, decidedly, but gratefully, and with a very tender smile, meant as a return for hers.

"Oh, but you must, indeed!" declares she, in a friendly fashion, with a decisive shake of the head and uplifted brows.

Now, Mr. Gower, poor soul, hates cake.

"Thanks, awfully," he says, in a deprecating tone, "I know it's nice, very nice, but--er--the fact is I can't bear cake. It--it's horrid, I think."

"Not this one," says Dulce remorselessly--"you have never eaten a cake like this. Let me let you into a little secret; I am very fond of cooking, and I made this cake _all myself_, with my own hands, every bit of it! There! Now, you really must eat it, you know, or I shall think you are slighting my attempts at housewifery."

"Oh! if you really made it _yourself_," says the doomed young man, in a resigned tone, trying to light his rejected countenance with an artificial smile, "that makes such a difference, you know. I shall quite enjoy it now. But--er"--glancing doubtfully at her small white hands, "did you really make it yourself?"

"Should I say it, if not sure?" reproachfully; "I even mixed it all up, _so_," with a pantomimic motion of her fingers, that suggests the idea of tearing handfuls of hair out of somebody's head. "I put in the raisins and currants and everything myself, while cook looked on. And she says I shall be quite a grand cook myself presently if--if I keep to it; she says, too, I have quite the right turn in my wrists for making cakes."

"Is this the cook you don't like?" asks he, gloomily, while sadly consuming the cake she has pressed upon him. He is eating it slowly and with care; there is, indeed, no exuberant enjoyment in his manner, no touch of refined delight as he partakes of the delicacy manufactured by his dainty hostess.

"Yes," says Miss Blount, in a somewhat changed tone. "But what do _you_ know of her?"

"I think she's a humbug," says Gower, growing more moody every instant.

"Then you mean, of course, that she didn't mean one word she said to me, and that--that in effect, I can't make cakes?" says Dulce, opening her