VARIUM ET MUTABILE

Hughie continued during the next few weeks to study the character of the female sex as exemplified by his ward Miss Joan Gaymer, and some facts in natural history were brought to his notice which had not hitherto occurred to him.

In her relations with her male belongings a woman does not expect much. Certainly not justice, nor reason, nor common sense. That which she chiefly desires—so those who know inform us—is admiration, and, if possible, kindness, though the latter is not essential. The one thing she cannot brook is neglect. Attention of some kind she must have. Satisfy her soul with this, and she will remain all you desire her to remain,—toute femme,—something for lonely mankind to thank God for. Stint her, and there is a danger that she will drift into the ranks of that rather pathetic third sex, born of higher education and feminine superfluity, which to-day stands apart from its fellow-creatures and loudly proclaims its loathing for the masculinity of man and its contempt for the effeminacy of woman, but which seems so far only to have cast away the rapier of the one without being able to lift or handle the bludgeon of the other.

Not that Miss Joan Gaymer ran any such risk. She was indeed toute femme, and stood secure from the prospect of being cut off from her natural provender. Her chief danger was that of a surfeit. She possessed a more than usually healthy appetite for admiration, and there was never wanting a supply of persons—chiefly of her own sex, be it said—to proclaim the fact that in her case the line between appetite and gluttony was very finely drawn indeed. There was some truth, it is to be feared, in the accusation, for Joan was undoubtedly exhibiting symptoms at this time of a species of mental indigestion—what the French call tÊte montÉe and the Americans "swelled head"—induced by an undiluted diet of worship and homage. Appetite for this sort of thing grows with eating, and Joan, like her mother before her, was beginning to think too much of those who supplied her with the meat her soul loved and too little of those who did not. And as those who did not were chiefly those who had her welfare most nearly at heart, she was deprived for the time being of a good deal of the solid sustenance of real friendship.

She was a curious mixture of worldly wisdom and naÏvetÉ, and was frankly interested in herself. She was undisguisedly anxious to know what people thought of her, and made no attempt to conceal her pleasure when she found herself "a success." On the other hand, she presumed a great deal too much on the patience and loyalty of her following. She was always captious, frequently inconsiderate, and, like most young persons who have been respectably brought up, was desperately anxious to be considered rather wicked.

These facts the slow-moving brain of Hughie Marrable absorbed one by one, and he felt vaguely unhappy on the girl's account, though he could not find it in his heart to blame her. Joey, he felt, was merely making full use of her opportunities. Within her small kingdom, and for her brief term, she held authority as absolute as that, say, of a secretary of state, nor was she fettered by any pedantic scruples, such as might have hampered the official in question, about exercising the same; and Hughie, who was something of an autocrat himself, could not but admit that his ward was acting very much, mutatis mutandis, as he would have done under similar circumstances.

But as time went on and his sense of perspective adjusted itself, he began to discover signs that beneath all her airs and graces and foam and froth, the old Joey endured. She was a creature of impulse, and her vagaries were more frequently due to the influence of the moment than any desire to pose. She would disappoint a young man of a long-promised tÊte-À-tÊte on the river, to go and play at shop in a plantation with the under-keeper's children. She would shed tears over harrowing but unconvincing narratives of destitution at the back door. She was kind to plain girls,—which attractive girls sometimes are not,—and servants adored her, which is a good sign of anybody.

She was lavishly generous; indeed, it was never safe for her girl friends to express admiration, however discreet, for anything belonging to her, for she had an embarrassing habit of tearing off articles of attire or adornment and saying, "I'll give it to you!" with the eagerness and sincerity of a child.

And her code of honour was as strict as a schoolboy's—than which no more can be said. A secret was safe with her. She had once promptly and permanently renounced the friendship of a particular crony of her own, who boasted to her, giving names and details, of a proposal of marriage which she had recently refused.

In short, Miss Joan Gaymer strongly resembled the young lady who in times long past was a certain poetical gentleman's Only Joy. She was sometimes forward, sometimes coy,—sometimes, be it added, detestable,—but she never failed to please—or rather, to attract, which is better still.

Mrs. Jack Leroy spared neither age nor sex on the night of the Hunt Ball. Her husband, Hughie, and the Reverend Montague D'Arcy—all suffering from that peculiar feeling of languid depression which invariably attacks the male sex about 9.30 P.M. when dancing is in prospect—were hounded into pumps and white gloves, and packed into the omnibus, which, after a drive of seven miles, during which the gentlemen slept furtively and the tongues of Joan and her girl friends wagged unceasingly, deposited the entire party of twelve on the steps of the Town Hall at Midfield.

Their numbers had been completed by some overnight arrivals. The first two were Mr. and Mrs. Lance Gaymer. Joan's only brother had taken upon him the responsibility of matrimony at the early age of twenty-two, and the rather appalling young person who preceded him into the drawing-room, and greeted Joan as "Jowey," was the accessory to the fact. Why or where Lance had married her no one knew. He had sprung her one day, half proudly, half defiantly, upon a family circle at Manors which was for the moment too horror-struck to do anything but gape. Fortunately Uncle Jimmy was not present,—he had departed on his voyage by this time,—and it was left to Joan to welcome the latest addition to the house of Gaymer. This she did very sensibly and prettily, though she wept unrestrainedly upon the sympathetic bosom of Mildred Leroy afterwards.

For Lance's sake Mrs. Gaymer was accepted without demur. Whatever she was or had been,—whether she had manipulated a beer-engine or gesticulated in musical comedy,—there she was, and had to be assimilated. No questions were asked, but she was religiously invited to Manors at intervals, and Joan and Mrs. Leroy, when they went up to town in the season, paid occasional state calls upon Mrs. Lance at her residence in Maida Vale, where they drank tea in company with the alumnÆ of the variety stage and the jug-and-bottle department.

Lance himself was understood to be making a living out of journalism. He looked considerably more than twenty-three.

The third arrival was a Mr. Guy Haliburton, proposed for admission by Mr. Lance Gaymer, seconded by Mrs. Lance Gaymer. He was full of deference, and apologised with graceful humility for his presence. He felt himself a horrible intruder, he said, but he had been assured so earnestly by "old Lance" that Mrs. Leroy was in want of another dancing man, that he had ventured to accept his vicarious invitation and come to Manors. He was made welcome.

Mr. Haliburton, on further acquaintance, described himself as an actor, but Hughie, whose judgments of men—as opposed to women—were seldom wrong, put him down unhesitatingly as a gentleman who lived, actor or no, by his wits. He was a striking-looking personage of about thirty. He had curly black hair and dark eyes, with dangerous eyelashes. He was well dressed,—too well dressed for the country,—and one felt instinctively that he was a good card-player, and probably objected to cold baths and early rising.

The Manors party were greeted in the vestibule of the Town Hall by Lady Fludyer, self-appointed Mistress of the Revels. At present she more nearly resembled a well-nourished Niobe.

"My dear," she cried, falling limply upon Mrs. Leroy and kissing her feverishly, "what do you think has happened?"

"Band not come?" hazarded Mrs. Leroy.

"Worse! Not a man—not a subaltern—not a drummerboy can get away from Ipsleigh to-night!" (Ipsleigh was a neighbouring military depÔt, and a fountain-head of eligibility in a barren land.) "They have all been called out to some absurd inspection, or route-march, or manoeuvres, or something, at twenty-four hours' notice. And they were coming here in swarms! There won't be nearly enough men to go round now. Half the girls will be against the wall all night! Oh, my dear, when I get hold of the General—"

Lady Fludyer's voice rose to a shriek, and she plunged wailing into a dark doorway, like a train entering a tunnel.

Mrs. Leroy turned to her shrinking cavaliers, with satisfaction in her eye.

"It's as well I brought the lot of you," she said. "Now get to work. Jack, the first waltz with you, if you please."

The ball was soon in full swing, though it was only too plain that men were somewhat scarce. Hughie, much to his alarm, found his programme full in ten minutes, and presently, bitterly regretting the stokehold of the Orinoco, put forth into the fray with Mrs. Lance Gaymer, having decided to do his duty by that lady as soon as possible, and get it over. She addressed him as "dear boy," and waltzed in a manner which reminded him of the Covent Garden balls of his youth, thereby causing the highest and haughtiest of the county to inquire of their partners who she might be. The word soon passed round that she was the wife of young Gaymer. ("You remember, don't you? Rather an unfortunate marriage, and all that. Barmaid, or something. However, the family have decided to make the best of her. They'll have their hands full—eh?") Whereupon fair women elevated their discreetly powdered noses a little higher, while unregenerate men hurried up, like the Four Young Oysters, all eager for the treat, and furtively petitioned Lance Gaymer to introduce them to his wife.

On entering the ballroom Joan Gaymer, serenely conscious of a perfectly-fitting new frock and her very best tinge of colour, took up her stand at her recognised "pitch" beside the end pillar on the left under the musicians' gallery, and proceeded to fill up the vacancies caused in her programme by the defection of the dancing warriors from Ipsleigh. Among the first applicants for the favour of a waltz was Mr. Guy Haliburton.

"All right—number two," said Joan.

Haliburton wrote it down, and asked for another.

"I'll see how you waltz first," said Miss Gaymer frankly. "Then—perhaps! I am rather particular."

The music had risen to her brain like wine, and she was in what her admirers would have called her most regal, and her detractors her most objectionable, mood. Mr. Haliburton, however, merely bowed reverentially, and made way for an avalanche of Binkses and Cherubs, with whom Joan, babbling at the top of her voice and enjoying every moment of her triumph, booked a list of fixtures that stretched away far into to-morrow morning.

The waltz with the fascinating Haliburton proved so satisfactory,—in point of fact, he was easily the best dancer in the room,—that Joan immediately granted him two more. It was characteristic of her that she declined to take the floor again until the unfortunate gentlemen at whose expense Haliburton was being honoured had been found, brought to her, and apprised of their fate. They protested feebly, but Joan swept them aside in a fashion with which they were only too familiar.

"Run way, chicks," she said maternally, "and get fresh partners. There are heaps of nice girls to spare to-night. Look at that little thing over there, with the blue eyes, and forget-me-nots in her hair. Get introduced to her—she's perfectly lovely. Worth six of me, any day. Trot!"

But the two young men, refusing to be comforted, growled sulkily and elbowed their way outside, to console each other for the fragility of petticoat promises, and fortify themselves against any further slings and arrows of outrageous Fortune of a similar nature, in the refreshment room.

Still, the girl to whom Joan had directed their attention was well worth notice. She stood near the door, a slim, graceful, and somehow rather appealing little figure. Her hair was the colour of ripe corn, her eyes, wide and wondering, were as blue as the forget-me-nots in her hair, and her lips, to quote King Solomon upon a very different type of female, were like a thread of scarlet. She wore a simple white frock, and carried in her hand the bouquet of the dÉbutante.

Joan swung past her in the embrace of the ever-faithful Binks.

"That child is a perfect dream," she said to herself, "but her mouth is trembling at the corners. I wonder if some man has forgotten to ask her to dance. I should think—"

At this point in her reflections she was whirled heavily into the orbit of a reversing couple, and the ensuing collision, together with the enjoyment of exacting a grovelling apology from the hapless Binks (who was in no way responsible for the accident), drove further cogitations on the subject of the girl with the forget-me-nots out of her head.

About midnight Joan slipped upstairs to what her last partner—a mechanically-minded young gentleman from Woolwich—described as the repairing shop, to make good the ravages effected by the Lancers as danced in high society in the present year of grace.

The music for the next waltz was just beginning when she returned to her pillar. No eager partner awaited her, which was unusual; and Joan glanced at her programme. She bit her lip.

"Number eight," she said to herself. "Joey, my child, he has scored you off—and you deserve it!"

This cryptic utterance had reference to Mr. Hugh Marrable, to whom it may be remembered this particular dance had been offered, much as a bone is thrown to a dog, on the lawn at Manors three days before.

Hughie's subsequent demeanour had piqued his ward's curiosity. He had made no further reference to number eight, neither had he made any attempt during this evening to come up and confirm the fixture. In fact, he had not asked Joan for a dance at all, with the consequence that Miss Gaymer, who, serenely confident that her guardian would come and eat humble pie at the last moment, had kept number eight free, now found herself occupying the rather unusual rÔle of wallflower. What was more, she knew she would be unable to pick up a partner, for every available man was being worked to the last ounce, and pretty girls still sat here and there about the room, chatting with chaperons and maintaining a brave appearance of enjoyment and insouciance.

"I'm not going to let Hughie see me propping a wall this dance," said Joan to herself with decision. "He would think I had been keeping it for him. What shall I do? Go back to the cloakroom? No; it is always full of girls without partners pretending they've just dropped in to get sewn up. I'll go to the Mayor's parlour and sit there. It's never used at these dances."

Making a mental entry on the debit side of her missing partner's ledger, Miss Gaymer retired unostentatiously from the ballroom, and turned down an unlighted passage, which was blocked by a heavy screen marked "Private," and encumbered with rolls of carpet and superfluous furniture.

The darkened passage was comfortably cool and peaceful after the blaze and turmoil of the field of action, and apparently had not been discovered by couples in search of seclusion. Joan was approaching the end, where she knew the door of the Mayor's parlour was situated, when she became aware of a certain subdued sound quite near her. It was a sound well calculated to catch the ear of one so tender-hearted as herself. Some one was sobbing, very wretchedly, in the darkness within a few feet of her.

Joan stopped short, a little frightened, and peered about her. Her eyes were growing accustomed to the gloom, and presently she beheld a glimmer of white almost at her knee. The glimmer outlined itself into the form of a filmy ball-dress.

Joan tackled the situation with her usual promptitude.

"I say," she said, "what's the matter? Let me help you."

The sobbing ceased, and the white figure sat up with a start.

"If you don't mind," continued Joan, "I'm going to turn up this electric light."

There was a click, and the rays of a single and rather dusty incandescent lamp illuminated the scene, and with it the slender figure, seated forlornly on a roll of red carpet, of the little lady of the forget-me-nots.

Her face was flushed with sudden shame, for her shoulders were still heaving, and her cheeks glistened with tears, the which she dabbed confusedly with a totally inadequate scrap of pocket handkerchief.

Joan, regardless of her new frock, was down upon the dusty roll of carpet in a moment. She put her arm round the girl.

"My dear," she said authoritatively, "what is it? Tell me."

The girl told her. It was a simple story, and not altogether a novel one, but it contained the elements of tragedy for all that.

This was her coming-out ball. She pointed to her discarded bouquet lying on the grimy floor. Her father had put it into her hand, and hung a little enamel pendant round her neck, and given her a kiss,—she told her story with all a child's fidelity to detail,—and had despatched her in her brother's charge, with admonitions not to break too many hearts, on the long fourteen-mile drive to Midfield,—a period occupied in ecstatic anticipations of the event to which she had been looking forward ever since she had put her hair up.

Her brother, on their arrival, had booked one dance with her,—subsequently cancelled with many apologies on the ground that he had just met a girl whom he simply must dance with,—and introduced her to two young men whose programmes were already full; after which he had plunged into the crowd, comfortably conscious that his duty had been done, leaving his sister to stand, smiling bravely, with tingling feet and her heart in her throat, from half-past nine until a quarter-past twelve. The music was pulsing in her ears, youth and laughter were swinging easily past her—even brushing her skirt; and she was utterly and absolutely alone. She was just eighteen; she was the prettiest girl (with the possible exception of Joan Gaymer) in the room; it was her first ball—and not a man had asked her to dance. A small matter, perhaps, compared with some, but men have blown out their brains for less.

Long before she had sobbed out all her pitiful little narrative her head was on Joan's shoulder, and that mercurial young person, oblivious of everything save the fact that here was a sister in distress, was handling the situation as if she were twenty years her companion's senior instead of two.

"I stood it for nearly three hours," said the girl apologetically, "and then I—I came here."

"Well, my dear," said Joan with decision, "you aren't going to stay here any longer. You are coming straight back to the ballroom with me."

"I can't," replied the girl,—"I couldn't bear it!"

"You are coming back to the ballroom with me," repeated Miss Gaymer firmly. "There are sixteen dances to go yet, and you are going to dance the soles of your slippers through, my child!"

"You are awfully kind," said the girl wistfully, "but you won't be able to find me a partner now."

"I can find you sixteen," said Joan.

The child turned wondering eyes on her, and asked a question.

"Me? Oh, I shall have a rest: I want one," replied Miss Gaymer, splendide mendax. "In fact, it will be a charity on your part to take them. They're all stupid, and they can't dance."

But the girl shook her head.

"You're a dear to suggest it," she said, "but it wouldn't do. Think how angry they would be, having booked a dance with Miss Gaymer, and only getting—"

"Do you know me?" asked Joan in surprise.

"Everybody knows you," said the girl.

Joan flushed rosily. It was a compliment after her own heart.

"I say, what's your name?" she asked.

"Sylvia Tarrant."

Joan nodded. "I know now," she said. "You live near Gainford."

The Tarrants were new-comers. Sylvia's father was a retired sailor and a widower, and had but lately settled in the district, which would account for his daughter's want of acquaintance.

"Yes," said Sylvia. "But really, I could not take your partners. They'd be furious at getting me instead of you."

Miss Gaymer turned and scrutinised the face and figure beside her.

"All you want, my child," she said, "is a start. After to-night you'll never be left alone for two seconds at any ball you care to go to. In fact, I don't see how I shall ever be able to get any partners at all," she added plaintively.

At this idea the girl laughed and looked happier, which was just exactly what Joan meant her to do. Her spirit was returning.

Joan rose briskly.

"Now, Sylvia," she said, "I'm going to leave you for two minutes, because I want to find a man to send round and tell all my partners that you've agreed to take them on. Then I'll come back and get you started. Just put yourself straight. There's a loose end of hair here: I'll roll it up. There! Your eyes are getting better every minute. Give your skirt a shake out, and have a look at yourself in that mirror, and you'll be simply perfect. So long!"

"There's somebody coming," said Sylvia, turning from her toilet and looking over her shoulder.

A masculine form filled the passage. It was Hughie, who, deprived of a partner through Joan's absence,—the result of standing on his dignity in the matter of number eight,—was prowling about in search of a quiet spot where he might indulge in the luxury of a pipe.

Joan, who had forgotten all about number eight, received him with unfeigned pleasure, and hurried him back whence he came. On the way she breathlessly explained the situation to him.

"Hughie, that poor child has come here not knowing a soul, and has stood against the wall for three hours. There isn't a partner to be had for love or money at this hour, so she must just have mine. Take my programme—wait a minute, I'll fill in some of these initials—and go round to all the men whose names are on it, and tell them I'm very sorry but I've got a headache and can't dance any more to-night, but they're to come to me at once at my pillar and be introduced to a substitute I've provided for them."

"Do you think they'll exactly—jump at the idea of a substitute?" suggested Hughie mildly.

"Their business," said Miss Gaymer with a sudden return to her usual manner, "is to do what I tell them! Run, Hughie. Don't say a word about the poor kid not having been able to get partners, will you? Say she came late—anything! You understand?"

Hughie nodded.

"I understand," he said. "She came late, and you have a headache. Those are the two essential facts of the case—eh?"

"Yes. Hurry!" said Joan, giving her guardian a push.

"Joey," said Hughie, "you're a brick!"

Half an hour later the members of the Midfield Hunt Ball were electrified to behold Miss Joan Gaymer sitting between two comatose and famished chaperons, watching the dancers with indulgent eye, and generally presenting the appearance of one whose time for these follies is overpast.

Then heads began to turn in another direction. People were asking one another who the little thing with the forget-me-nots might be, who danced like a fairy, and appeared to have made a "corner" in all Miss Gaymer's usual admirers. Had her appearance anything to do with Miss Gaymer's retirement? A case of pique—eh? Heads wagged sagely, and eyebrows were elevated. Poor Joan! Like all the great ones of the earth, she had her detractors.

Sylvia herself was lost in the clouds by this time. When not engaged in obeying Joan's mandate to dance the soles of her slippers through, she was granting interviews to obsequious young men, who surged round in respectful platoons and hoped that, though disappointed on this occasion, they might have the pleasure at the County Bachelors' on Thursday fortnight.

Never was there such a triumph. The girl, radiant and fluttering, smiled and blushed and wrote down hopeless hieroglyphics on the back of her programme, while Miss Joan Gaymer, the deposed, the eclipsed, sat contentedly by and realised to the full the truth of her own dictum that all Sylvia Tarrant wanted was a start.

Later in the evening the watchful eye of Hughie Marrable detected the fact that Joan had disappeared from amid the concourse of matrons, and he speculated as to where she might be. He himself was enjoying a brief period of freedom, his partner for the moment having pleaded urgent private repairs and vanished to the regions above, and the idea had struck him that Joan might be going supperless.

A brief scrutiny informed him that she was neither in the ballroom nor the supper-room. Then an inspiration seized him. Waiting for a comparatively quiet moment, he paid a hasty visit to the latter apartment, and having levied a contribution upon the side-table, slipped furtively round the big screen and down the dark passage.

His instincts had not failed him. Miss Joan Gaymer was sitting peacefully upon the roll of red carpet. Her head was lying back against the wall, and the rays of the dusty electric light glinted upon her coppery hair. Her eyes were closed, but she opened them at Hughie's approach, blinking like a sleepy Dryad.

"Hallo, Hughie!" she observed. "You nearly won a pair of gloves that time. Long evening, this!"

Hughie began to deposit articles on the floor.

"Supper," he observed briefly.

He laid out a plate of mayonnaise, another of trifle, a bottle about half-full of champagne, and a tumbler.

"Hughie," said Joan, "you're the only real friend I have in the world! I was nearly crying for something to eat. That, and seeing other people dance and not me. Hughie, it was simply awful! I had no idea: if I had sat there much longer I should have burst into tears. I'd forgotten, too, that by giving away all my partners I was giving away my supper. If I'd remembered I would have kept just one—a little one. But never mind, now: the plague is stayed. I owe you one for this. How did you manage to carry all those things?"

"Large hands," said Hughie. "Half a minute!"

He produced from his tail-pocket two forks, a napkin, and a bottle of soda-water.

"I remembered you liked your drink diluted," he said, pouring out both bottles at once. "I noticed it at dinner, the other night."

"Hughie, you're a dear!" said Joan impulsively.

"Say when!" remarked Hughie unsteadily.

It was five o'clock in the morning. The band had played "Whisper and I shall hear," followed by "John Peel," followed by "God save the King," followed by "John Peel," once more, followed by "God save the King" again, and the musicians were now putting away their instruments with an air of finality which intimated that in their humble opinion the Midfield Hunt Ball had had its money's worth.

The Manors party, all twelve of them, were being scientifically packed into an omnibus constructed to seat ten uncomfortably, and Joan was waiting her turn in the portico. At this moment Sylvia Tarrant, followed by a slightly sheepish brother, came down the steps. Her cheeks were excessively pink and her eyes blazed.

She saw Joan, and stopped.

"I was afraid I was going to miss you," she said. "Good-night!"

"Good-night!" said Joan.

The little girl—she was a head shorter than Joan—placed her hands upon her new friend's shoulders, and stood on tiptoe.

"I should like to kiss you," she said shyly.

"Oh, my dear!" said Joan, quite flustered. "Of course—if you like. There!"

She was unusually silent all the way home, and when they reached Manors said good-night to Mrs. Leroy and flitted upstairs to her room. The rest of the party dispersed ten minutes later, and Hughie was left alone with his host and hostess.

"I have never known that child have a headache before," said Mrs. Leroy rather anxiously, as Hughie lighted her candle. "I hope there's nothing wrong."

"She's as right as rain," said Hughie. "She gave up all her partners—every man Jack of them—I mean—I'm sorry! I don't think she meant me to tell—"

"You may as well finish now," said Mrs. Leroy composedly.

Hughie did so. Mrs. Leroy nodded.

"It was like her," she said softly, "especially telling you to keep quiet about it. A good many women might have given up their dances, but very few could have resisted the temptation to make capital out of their generosity. Never tell me again, miserable creature," she continued, turning suddenly upon her comatose spouse, "that a woman is incapable of doing a good turn to another woman!"

"Cert'nly, m'dear," replied Captain Leroy, making a desperate effort to close his mouth and open his eyes.

"But of course," broke in Hughie unexpectedly, "there are precious few women like Joey."

Then he bit his lip, and turned a dusky red.

Mrs. Leroy, being a woman, took no outward notice, but her husband, who was a plain creature, turned and regarded his guest with undisguised interest.

"What ho!" he remarked, wagging his sleepy head.

"Good-night, old man!" said Hughie hurriedly.