'I hold the world but as the world A stage where every man must play a part.'
—Shakespeare.
It is four o'clock, and —— Street is wearing a very deserted appearance although it is July. The cab-drivers are more or less fast asleep in attitudes far from suggesting comfort, the sentries on guard at —— Palace look almost suffocated in their bearskins, and a comparative quiet is reigning over the great metropolis.
'Do you know, Helmdon,' says Jimmy Dalrymple. 'I'm nearly done;' these two are seated in the bow window of a well-known club.
'You don't mean it, what!' replies Helmdon, better known as Chubby.
'I do, all the same,' says Jimmy, testily, 'heat, money, everything, in fact!'
'That comes of racing, my good boy,' this from Chubby, in a sort of I-told-you-so tone.
'For Heaven's sake don't begin lecturing,' says Dalrymple, 'it doesn't suit you, and how in the name of fortune could the heat come from my racing. Chubby, you're an ass!' and really, J. Dalrymple of the Guards is not far wrong, for the said Chubby, otherwise Lord Helmdon does look rather foolish half leaning half sitting on the back of a chair, his hat well at the back of his head (why it remains there is a mystery), his reddish hair very dishevelled, his face on a broad grin while he watches with deep interest two dogs fighting in the street below.
Dalrymple receiving no answer to his complimentary speech, gives vent to a yawn, and sends for a brandy and soda.
'Eh what!' says Chubby, suddenly, and à propos of nothing; by this time the dogs have been separated. 'Didn't you speak just now?'
'Well, yes,' replies Dalrymple, 'I merely observed that you were an ass.'
'Thanks, awfully, but why did it strike you just now?' asks Lord Helmdon, sweetly.
'Don't know, I'm sure—'
'Ah! I thought so, but look here, why are you so down in the mouth, there's something up I'm sure,' and Chubby scrutinises his friend gravely.
'Nothing's up,' says Jimmy, 'but I've got into a confounded business with Harkness over that mare of his, that ought to have run in the Oaks, I've laid more than I've got, against her winning the Ledger, and I don't know what on earth to do—'
'Do nothing,' says Helmdon, 'it'll all shake down somehow, and the Ledger's weeks off—'
Jimmy grunts an assent, and then rising says, 'I'm off to tea at Brook Street and the Park afterwards.'
'You'll probably find me there,' replies Helmdon, settling himself comfortably for a nap. While Dalrymple walks out of the Club and turns in the direction of Brook Street. He has not gone far when he is overtaken by a man who greets him with: 'Where are you going to, my pretty maid?'
'I'm on my way to the Park,' replies Dalrymple, smiling, 'only I thought of stopping at your sister's on the way. Where are you bound for?'
'There too,' answers his companion, who, save for his drooping fair moustache would better deserve to be called a 'pretty maid.' 'Mabel has a small party on, and I promised to drop in, we may as well go together.'
Paul Ponsonby is decidedly handsome; tall, fair, of almost a feminine complexion, and with blue eyes of a very sad expression. He is a great favourite with the female sex and many a mother longs to have him for a son-in-law, remembering that he has plenty of money, and only three people between him and an earldom; but he has no intention of marrying, there being 'a just cause and impediment' why he should not.
But by this time our friends have reached their destination, and ascend the staircase to the strains of distant music.
'Mabel,' otherwise Mrs Seaton, is standing on the landing and greets them both eagerly.
'So glad you've come,' says she, 'but I didn't expect you, Mr Dalrymple, and now you're here you must make yourself useful, your mission in life at the present moment, Paul,' she adds, turning to her brother, 'is to go and amuse Philippa, poor child, I'm afraid she feels rather out of it, but I haven't time to attend to her now. She's near the window, the old Professor was talking to her a few minutes ago—'
'Very well,' says Paul, moving towards the well filled drawing-room; the music has ceased and everyone is talking at once. He pauses for a second in the doorway and glances round the room, bowing to two or three people, then making his way to the window holds out his hand to a girl who is looking decidedly ennuyée.
'How do you do, Mr Ponsonby,' she says in a clear sweet voice, 'I'm so glad you've come, don't you know the feeling of loneliness that comes over one in a crowd of unknown people, and I've been here all the afternoon feeling dreadfully cross, and have wished myself back again in Switzerland about twenty times. It's rather a bad beginning,' she adds, with a little laugh—
'Feeling cross, do you mean?' asks he, 'I often think it does one a great deal of good to be cross. I wish Mrs Grundy didn't come between us and the carpet, it would be so delightful to sprawl full length on it and roar; I remember I used to derive a great deal of comfort in it in the days of my youth.'
'I suppose that was a long time ago,' says she, mischievously—
'Yes, of course, almost centuries—but where's Teddy?'
'Gone out for a walk,' replied Philippa, 'isn't he a dear little boy?'
Paul Ponsonby laughs and says, 'I think him rather the enfant terrible, but I suppose women are naturally fond of children, even taken as a whole; it does not matter much what they are like taken singly.'
Some one has begun to sing and Philippa does not answer, but when the song is finished, she asks the name of an old lady who is sitting on the sofa at the farther end of the room.
'The one with the blue feather, that's Lady Dadford,' says Ponsonby, 'and that's her daughter standing by her, Lady Anne; she is very clever; but surely they're some sort of relation to you, I know the old lady comes here very often.'
'Well, child,' exclaims little Mrs Seaton, coming up and laying her hand on Philippa's shoulder; 'they have nearly all gone, thank goodness, I am afraid you have been very dull, eh?'
Philippa laughs, while Paul twirling his moustache says, 'You know I've been talking to Miss Seaton for the last half hour, as you told me to, next time I shall not obey you if this is all the thanks I get.'
Philippa looks up quickly, so this is why he has been talking to her. 'It was very good of you,' she says in a very polite tone, 'very kind, but you need not have troubled yourself so much, I am quite happy watching people.'
'My dear child, what an absurd creature you are,' exclaims her sister-in-law, 'but come with me now I want to introduce you to two or three people—'
'What did I say to annoy her,' thinks Paul, and then seizing the first opportunity he makes for the door, but his sister stops him on the threshold.
'Oh, Paul, do be a dear,' she says, 'and get some places for us for the play, I don't care what, only let it be somewhere proper, for Philippa's sake not mine, get them for to-morrow night, and come and dine here beforehand.'
'All right,' he answers, 'I shall probably look in during the morning. Ta ta.'
Mabel Seaton is a great favourite. She is not what one would call pretty, but she possesses a bright, cheery face, which is reflected in miniature in her son Teddy, who is as his uncle says rather the ' enfant terrible! ' but do not say so before his mother, or her wrath would be dire. Her husband George is really the only person who dares to interfere concerning the conduct of that small personage.
Philippa, who up till now has lived with an aunt in Switzerland, having reached the age of eighteen, has come over to England to be presented and enter into the vortex of London society. So it is to quite another world she has come, and she wonders if she will be happy. Life is such a strange thing, so many beginnings and so few endings.
But the theatre is hardly the place for melancholy meditations, and she is sitting in the stalls of the L——. Mabel on one side, Paul Ponsonby on the other; the latter has become deeply interested in Philippa, and wonders what sort of a woman she will become—a coquette, a flirt? He glances at her fair, childish face and sighs. The curtain goes up, but he does not see the scene before him; no, 'tis a woman's face he seems to see, a pale face, with large brown eyes that are fixed on him with a look of—pshaw! what had love to do with her. Time had been when love for that woman had filled his whole being, but there came a day when he tried to make himself hate her, and he did not succeed. Heigh ho!
'Mr Ponsonby,' Philippa is saying to him, 'do look at that dear little baby.'
With a start he comes back from the reverie into which he had sunk and answers at random 'Yes, she always acts perfectly—'
Philippa looks at him in astonishment, how could that child always act perfectly when it couldn't be more than three, but she says nothing and watches with interest the play. It is a sad piece of a woman wronged, the acting is splendid and more than once Miss Seaton feels a lump in her throat, but it is over at length and the curtain falls for the last time.
'Did you like it?' asks Ponsonby, helping her on with her cloak.
'Very much,' she replies, 'I have never been to an English theatre before, you know, but it was awfully sad.'
'Sadder if it had been the man wronged,' he says—
Philippa looks up with a laughing retort about each one for himself, but he seems so very grave that she refrains and wonders why he said that, but it is sometime before she finds out.