XLI THE PRINCESS PINCHES

As the carriage crossed the moor in the twilight, Ordham saw that not only was the vast front of the castle illuminated, but that the village at the base of the fell was also brilliant. He was not surprised that his humble friends should light their windows in honour of his bride; but when he was close enough to observe that the village was en fête, that there were three arches in the main street composed almost wholly of lanterns, and that a torch flared on the roof of every cottage, he began to feel disquiet, and gave no heed to Mabel’s expressions of delight; and when a dozen lusty young men made a sudden rush out upon the moor, and, unharnessing the horses, dragged the carriage into the village as far as the green, where all the rest of the inhabitants were assembled, the children in white, with nosegays, he wished that he had not come; for this demonstration was not merely a compliment to himself, it was an insult to his brother.

The ancient stone village, built when “Ordham” was prefixed by “de,” and the Normans were defiling the Saxon well, squat and black under the rude illuminations, was a sight picturesque enough to gratify the heart of the most exacting American bride; and Mabel, who had been admitted to the secret, bowed graciously and won the hearts of the villagers immediately. She wore a very light grey costume and a big grey hat covered with feathers, and looked, particularly in the surroundings, exactly like a fairy princess.

The carriage halted. For some moments the cheering was deafening. Then there was a sudden expectant hush, and Ordham, who had been smiling into the faces of his old playmates, turned white and muttered to his radiant bride: “My God, they expect a speech!”

Mabel, who was not accustomed to strong language, looked shocked, but recovered herself instantly. “You must, darling,” she whispered hurriedly. “They always do.”

“They?—Oh, yes, the new lord when he comes home for the first time, or with his bride, but I am not—Bridg!—Great heaven, what a position!”

“But you must!” Mabel gave him a pinch, which so astonished him that he was on his feet before he knew it and thanking them as awkwardly as possible for their delightful kindness. Then he managed to articulate something of his pleasure in bringing his wife to the home of his childhood, and sat down amidst shouts of approval, knowing that no man had ever made a worse speech, but still able to congratulate himself that he had said nothing in poor taste, nor anything that his brother, who had consistently been ignored by the tenantry, could find offensive. He was still so much in love that, although the pinch had filled him with a sudden unaccountable anger, when they were alone in the dark avenue rising to the castle, he kissed Mabel and remarked that if he had been able to make a speech at all upon such a trying occasion, she might thank herself, not his inadequate intelligence.

“You will always do the right thing,” replied Mabel, complacently, “only you do need a lot of stirring up,”—a remark that would have created considerable amusement among the Ordhams could they have overheard it.

The courtyard was illuminated not only by the windows but by torches and coloured lanterns. All the servants of the castle stood at the foot of the staircase, and on that imposing feature itself were contributions from Grosvenor Square in the Ordham livery. Ordham noticed with fleeting astonishment that the liveries of his brother’s servants also were new. He went through this ordeal more gracefully, but was glad to find himself alone with Hines in his old suite. Mabel had been conducted to the adjoining suite by Mrs. Felt, who remarked, possibly for Ordham’s benefit, that it was most unusual kind of his lordship to allow those London decorators to do it over, and that they had done wonders in so short a time. But Ordham, who was hungry and agitated, did not follow his bride into the renovated suite, but calling after her that he would meet her in the octagonal drawing-room, sought solace in his bath and a cigarette.

Half an hour later he strolled over to the other side of the palace and through the splendid suites of rooms, now as brilliantly alight as when his mother had given her great political house parties, but looking, in their emptiness, dim and Italian and old, with their high, darkly frescoed ceilings, their panelled walls set with religious paintings, a few of which were originals, the rest admirable replicas of the Italian masters, their tapestries, and infrequent but superb pieces of old Italian furniture, carved and gilded, upholstered with Venetian brocades,—all so carefully chosen by William Morris. The mantels were carved with large terminal figures and coats of arms; the fireplace in the octagonal drawing-room was of stone upheld by male and female figures and carved above with grinning masques. The cabinets, chests, and chairs of this room were the most elaborately carved in the palace; and on the walls, between the carved dado and the painted frieze, was a tapestry of white velveteen printed with brown acanthus leaves and powdered as with gold dust, designed by Morris. The hangings seemed to shed forth the rich and beautiful colours of the Renaissance textile fabrics; and the silks, brocades, and embroideries of this immense but sumptuous room, the silken carpet with Persian design, might have been discovered by the great decorator marvellously preserved instead of almost as marvellously made in his looms. The furniture, light, delicate, graceful, and a mass of intricate carving, had really served the grandees of the Renaissance, who, mayhap, had no such appreciation of its wonders as moderns have to-day. Even tradition did not whisper of the original furnishing of Ordham, for Cromwell’s men had left not a stick; but no doubt it was early and extremely rude Gothic, not to be compared in either comfort, elegance, or appropriateness with this interior, as Italian as the palace, or “castle” itself. The paintings and silver alone had been buried in time, and so escaped the vandals; nor had they vented their righteous wrath upon the mantels and panellings of the royalist who was distinguishing himself abominably in the army of Charles Stuart.

It was all very beautiful, very romantic, and had it been his, Ordham would have been the proudest young bridegroom in England; but he still felt in a false position, was oppressed by a sense of unreality mingled with anger that he should be compelled to experience such emotions. Commonly he excluded Bridgminster from his mind, for his last interview with his brother was a memory he would have been glad to obliterate; but to-night, when he had been forced to play at “make-believe,” he was filled with resentment once more, and in no mood to regret the news subtly conveyed to him that Bridg was “in a bad way.” “How fine you do look, sir,” one of the men in the village had said to him. “His lordship, now, was that grey when he left you might say he had death writ in his face, and he sat like an old man and never so much as looked at one of us when he drove through the village—to make room for you, sir!”

But he was young and in love, and turned expectantly toward the door at the end of the long suite through which his bride must enter. After all, why should he not be proud to bring this pampered American to his ancestral castle? And if it were not his now, it would be one of these days, so why waste emotions upon an interval possibly brief? He shrugged his shoulders and dismissed them.

There was an almost imperceptible rustling of distant skirts on marble floors, and Mabel floated down the long vista while he stood and gazed upon her in expectation of new raptures. But to his surprise he experienced a shock of disappointment. Mabel was enchantingly dressed as ever. Her white train followed her like a cloud, and her slender neck was almost hidden under ropes of pearls; a little wreath of diamonds rested in the yellow fluff of her hair. But she looked unaccountably small, out of place, insignificant, in these dim, stately, historical rooms. The white and gold spaces of Grosvenor Square, light, French, extravagant, gay, not too large, and with ceilings artfully lowered, might have been designed to frame her ethereal loveliness, and the idea crossed Ordham’s mind that perchance they had.

But no misgivings beset Mabel, and as her husband suddenly advanced to meet her, she cried out, “Isn’t this too lovely, Jackie?” (This fond nickname was, so far, her only indiscretion in his adoring regard.) “I feel like an ancient Lady Ordham come to life; and as for this immense castle, or palace, or whatever you call it,—isn’t it exactly like those old things in Italy?—I had to send for a footman to pilot me. I never was so happy in all my life.”

“You should be,” said Ordham, gallantly. “Your capacity for conferring happiness passes belief.”

Dinner was announced, and to his surprise they were conducted to the banqueting hall instead of to the dining room.

“This is my first order,” said Mabel, smiling playfully, as they entered the vast room, whose panels were set with bygone Ordhams, and whose ceiling, frescoed on wood, panelled and gilded, was in the most elaborate Italian style. Ordham was amused at his wife’s childishness, but nothing averse, for the dining room might have revived hideous memories he chose to forget. In this superb hall there were no memories for him but of great dinners to the county, hunt breakfasts, house parties numbering many Englishmen already passed into history. Now it must always be associated with his first dinner, in the company of his bride, in this splendid castle of his race.

Mabel, who seemed excited to the point of exhilaration, chattered incessantly.

“Oh, Jackie! Jackie!” she cried, as the servants finally left the room, “how simply wonderful this castle must be when it is full of guests. Your mother says she has had more than a hundred people here at once. If you won’t stay here, we must return some fall and have a regular traditional house party—royalties and all the rest of it. It would be exactly like living in one of Scott’s novels, and as the castle is Renaissance instead of Elizabethan, we could have a fancy dress ball and make believe we were in Italy.”

“The Renaissance reached England before Elizabeth,” replied Ordham, diplomatically. “It is too good of you to feel that you will not have tired of Italy before we can return here.”

“Oh, I love Italy, although I have malaria in Rome, and there are so many beggars, and my governess made me look at so many pictures. I am sure I can’t see what good those miles and miles of tramping through dark stuffy galleries full of madonnas and saints did me, for I only remember about three pictures in all Italy. I remember my headaches much better.”

“If you had a guide-book mind, there would be no room in it for anything else.” Ordham was very indulgent to this bride of nineteen short years who so often shot him a glance of sweet appeal, or prettily begged him not to be severe if he discovered that she did not know as much as he did. “How could a girl just out of school compete with quite the cleverest young man on earth?” He had already begun to wonder how he could have expected her to know anything, and still oftener how any woman could look such unutterable wisdom out of an apparently empty skull. That bony structure, which included a high intellectual brow, width between the eyes, and a fine decided nose, was merely the shell inherited from a long line of able Americans who had made history, political and financial. It was a perfect and a very roomy shell. He had also begun to ask himself how long it would take to furnish it, and if the process would be as interesting as he had fancied. But what mystified him more than all was that during those weeks of his courtship, conscious and unconscious, he should have believed her to be serious, studious, remote, vastly above her sex and age in all respects. Of course, he reflected, he was in love all the time—no doubt—and blind from the moment her beauty and grace had dazzled him in that incomparable setting. He knew now that Mabel had not progressed in her literary drudgeries beyond Scott and Macaulay, and had by no means exhausted those prolific authors; indeed, she openly yearned for abridged editions.

But that she possessed the shrewdness and adaptability of her sex and race was indisputable. Her brain was active if empty, and he had observed that during the long hour of the wedding reception she had talked with ease and volubility to every one, while sacrificing nothing of her girlish dignity. That she possessed grace, tact, the social talent, and was brilliantly, if superficially, accomplished, went far toward reconciling the future diplomatist to her complete indifference to Balzac, Flaubert, Meredith, Maupassant, Ibsen, and Turgénev. He chided himself for his unreasonableness in having deliberately created an ideal, and expected a girl just out of the school-room to fulfil it. And they had been married only a week. At least, if she had chattered almost incessantly, she knew when to drop a subject before it drove him mad, and she had suggested almost every phase of femininity. She had embroidered a bit one rainy morning when they could not roam in the woods; she had ridden horseback with him, played tennis and croquet, and sketched him in twenty different attitudes. Of her accomplishments and variety there could be no doubt. Nor of her young fascination. As they rose at the end of the dinner, although he involuntarily noticed again that the room dwarfed her, he also reminded himself that her cheek was like the traditional rose leaf, her pink mouth and even little teeth were worthy of a sonnet, and that she was altogether exquisite and desirable.