Katharine Cromer

Front matter

a THE ISTHMIAN LIBRARY. EDITED by B. FLETCHER ROBINSON. Illustrated, post Svo, cloth gilt, $s. each volume. A Series of Volumes dealing with the whole range of Field Sports and Athletics. RUGBY FOOTBALL. THE COMPLETE CYCLIST. ROWING. BOXING. ICE SPORTS. FIGURE SKATING. Other volumes are in preparation, and will be duly announced. London: A. D. INNES & CO., 31 & 32, Bedford Street, Strand, W.C. BY HELEN CRAVEN LONDON A. D. INNES & CO. BEDFORD STREET CONTENTS. CHATTER PAGE I. Vanity of Vanities ... ... ... i II. Kitty's Exorcism ... ... ... 10 III. Jessondene is Let ... ... ... ... 20 IV. Our Neighbour's Misdemeanors ... 34 V. Our Neighbour himself ... ... ... 42 VI. Cromer Castle exercises the Rites of Hospitality ... ... ... 51 VII. Three Months Later ... ... ... 64 VIII. When Three in Hand are NOT worth One in the Bush... ... ... ... 82 IX.

" Ximantes would be flattered" ... ... 102 X. Mrs. Burton's Raid ... ... ... 120 XI. I poke my Nose where I was not meant to, and receive a Shock ... ... 136 XII. Over the Piano ... ... ... 158 XIII. Dicky's Finger in the Pie ... ... 172 XIV. Wein, Weib und Gesang ... ... 191 XV. Lady Norwich gives me her Opinion ... 214 XVI. The Castle stands Vacant ... ' ... 229 XVII. A Great Artist under the Microscope ... 243 XVIII. A Will in Time saves Difficulties ... 255 XIX. Worldly Wise and Romance Foolish ... 261 XX. How Ximantes came Back ... ... 273 XXI. Cast-iron Wills ... ... ... ... 297 XXII. Kitty coes over to the Enemy ...

Chapter I. Vanity Of Vanities

" AND so you are tired of your life ? " I sat back in my comfortable low armchair and surveyed, perhaps a little sceptically, the girl who stood by the fireplace. She leant on the little screen before the empty grate — it was summer — and answered with the most perfect simplicity — "Yes." I could not help smiling. I had known this girl all my life. I, as a " big " girl, had patronized her, a little toddler, in the square gardens of our childhood ; during my brief career as a young lady, she had adored me from the depths of the schoolroom. Now, however, the ten years between us had dwindled to a far smaller gulf than in those days. Katharine Cromer was a girl of twenty, far B superior in intellect, far keener in observation, far more acquainted with the seamy side of things, than I, Mary Crichton, after twelve years of petted, shielded life with the man who now and for ever must be to me the one man in the world.

But from the height of my dozen years of matrimony I smiled. And Kitty, who never lost the blink of an eyelash, saw and answered my smile before I even knew I was perpetrating it. " I don't want you to misunderstand me, Maisie ; and, above all, don't laugh. Great Heaven ! why do people always laugh when one states a perfectly sensible and serious fact ? " " Because, dearest Kitty, it sounds so funny to talk as if you were so world-worn at your age." " Not in the least — when you understand what I am really talking about." Kitty could always do as she chose with me ; her rather tart tone reduced me to gravity and submission at once. " Well, tell me all about it," I said. I was, and always had been, the recipient of all the con fidences she ever made. It was not her habit to be very "expansive," though candid and truthful to an unusual degree — brutally so, those who were not her friends said.

But she told me nearly VANITY OF VANITIES. 3 everything, and what she did not tell me, my native intelligence was just keen enough to guess at from my knowledge of her character. I admit that there was no corner in my heart that she had not penetrated ; but then, I am very confiding and, I suppose, shallow, and I am not Kitty Cromer. " I don't mean," said Kitty, in her slow, deliberate way, " that I am tired of life as it might be lived. I am not such an ass " (Kitty's English is nothing if not forcible) " as not to know that it is thoroughly worth living — under certain circumstances ; but of my own corner and routine in it I am utterly and thoroughly sick." " How old are you, Kitty ? " I asked, trying not to smile. She shook the screen impatiently, as if it were a rat. " For Heaven's sake, don't be a fool, Maisie !

What has that got to do with it ? It is how one spends the time, not the length of the time itself, that makes up one's life. I tell you, I have ex hausted every sensation that's possible to me." " My dear Kitty ! " I remonstrated feebly. " It is a fact. Why should I say so if it were not true ? You ought to know. I have been out ever since I was seventeen — this is my third season — and you know how much I have been about. I believe I have stayed in half the country houses in England, to say nothing of Scotland. I have been everywhere, and seen and done everything I can. I have been round my cage hundreds of times ; there is nothing new for me to do." " You should marry," said I. I have often read in novels of " volumes of scorn," but I have never seen any one who could look it as Kitty can.

Her face, especially her mouth, is extraordinarily expressive, and my remark called up an expression which would have annihilated most people. " How can I marry ? " she asked, with a calm that is awful. " I am sure there are dozens of men who would be only too thankful," I exclaimed hastily. I know of at least three who would lay their hearts at her feet, but Kitty will never have it that they " mean anything." "Why don't they mention it, then?" she in quired coolly. " Besides, do you think matrimony good enough ? " I ruffled up, for this I hold to be a subject on which I have experience enough and to spare, though Kitty disposes of my theories about single VANITY OE VANITIES. 5 blessedness ruthlessly by telling me I never was a girl. I married at the end of my first season ; how can I know anything about girls ?

" It's all very well for you to talk," she interrupted. " You married the only man you ever cared for, and you did it directly. There was no shilly-shally, or waiting and wondering whether he cared or whether he didn't. And he was a nice man, and you've always been very happy. But, after all, one doesn't need to be a Methuselah and a Solomon rolled into one to see that your experience is exceptional. And who am I that I should hope for the same ? " " You are pessimistic, Kitty." " I'm practical, that's all ; and I don't hope for good things because I know by experience it's no use." I cannot argue against Kitty ; I know all about the experience on which she founds her state ments so indisputably. Kitty and I are truer friends than if we were sisters, and God knows I would rather have died than that she should have given her dear heart to one who never knew the precious gift he received, and who was, to my way of thinking, totally incapable of appreciating it if he had.

"Then what do you want to do, Kitty? " " I don't know," said Kitty, naively. " Why don't you go back to the country ? " "You know mother will never do that till Goodwood week," she returned ; " and, after all, when one gets there, I don't know that one gains much, except the rest and peace." "You mustn't become a recluse, Kitty," I said fearfully. "Just what my mother says, who is always abusing me for not having married as Florrie did. I always point out that Florrie married when she was four and twenty, and that I am only just twenty, but my good mother's mind is not logical." "There is time enough yet," was my trite rejoinder. " I don't see why you and everybody else should look upon matrimony as the only possible course open to one," said Kitty. " My dear girl, you don't want to take to a career?"

I exclaimed, my correct, old-fashioned notions aghast. " No, I don't think so ; I am too lazy." I breathed again, not having a fin de siecle pre dilection for strong-minded women. VANITY OF VANITIES. 7 "Why don't you try a little flirtation?" I suggested, a new thought striking me. "I am tired of it," replied Kitty, without the smallest hesitation. "Oh, Kitty, you certainly have no mauvaise honte ! " " At one time it amused me," she went on com placently, " but now it has grown stale. I know all the tricks of the trade, and they bore me. Vanitas vanitatum, you know." " Oh, if you are going to be learned " " I am not learned." This imputation never fails to annoy her. " I will translate, if you like." " How kind ! Then it seems to me no one can do much to help you ? " " I am afraid not — least of all a flirtatious man."

" Or a learned one ? " " It depends on what he is learned in; " Oh ! " I ejaculated. " Kitty, have you fallen in love with a professor ? " " I have not fallen in love with anybody." "Then what subject do you allow Monsieur Kitty to be learned in ? " " I wouldn't have him for Monsieur Kitty. He might know a great deal about music if he liked." "Oh, so it's purely platonic friendship! My dear, you are very flu de siecle." " I think you are very boring ; you make such stupid, played-out remarks," was her candid retort. " I won't resent. Who is your musical divinity ? " " I haven't got one. It was only a suggestion." "Then music is not one of your vanities ? " " It is the only thing that exorcises the devil in »i me. " I should play and sing all day if I were in that case." " I do, when I have the chance."

" What are you doing to-morrow night ? " " What an abrupt transition to another subject ! Nothing except a ball." " You will see the connection of ideas directly. I asked Flora Somerby to come to my opera-box, and she has thrown me over. Shall you be affronted if I ask you to come instead ? " " You good girl ! of course I'm not affronted. What is the opera ? " " I don't know. We will look at the news paper. But I know the new man is singing— Ximantes." " I'm so glad ! I wanted to hear him. Have you ever heard him ? " VANITY OF VANITIES. 9 " No, he always manages to sing on nights when I have dinners or something." " I hear he has the voice of a bull ; and Florrie says he is a good actor too, which is sufficiently rare with tenors, or, for the matter of that, any opera-singers. There's that tiresome Vermonti !

I should like to run a pin into her ! " " But her voice is divine." " Why doesn't she sing behind a screen, then ? I hope she isn't going to hurt my eyes to-morrow night. What is Ximantes? I mean in the way of nationality." "A Spaniard, I think. It sounds like a Spanish name, at any rate." " Probably it isn't his own. Well, I hope he will be there, and not be ill, or turn crusty at the last moment, and refuse to sing, as Kaliozki always does. That sort of thing irritates me most awfully ; doesn't it you ? " " It would be most disappointing. Then I shall call for you in my carriage to-morrow night. Mind you don't keep me waiting." " Mind you are in good time," retorted Kitty. " I hate to miss the overture ! " Our mutual rudeness is only a sign of good friendship, after all.

Chapter II

kitty's exorcism. I AM very, painfully, fond of luxury. I do not know what I should have done if I had married a poor man. As it is, that which I most value of all the good things Bertie showers on me is my opera box. I can neither play nor sing myself in a respectable manner, but music is one of my passions ; and, really, I think it is one of the chief bonds between me and Kitty, who has the voice of an angel and is musical to the tips of her fingers. We arrived rather late, of course, at the opera that night. Kitty had been having a violent argument with her maid about her dress, and when we got to Covent Garden a fairly full house was listening to the climax of the second act. During the entr'acte I discovered, by means of the programme and a book of the words, that the piece we were to hear was a composition of Can doce's, and treated of the rather eccentric and irrelevant proceedings of one Sintram.

Kitty told me he was one of the De la Motte Fouques heroes. I do not read German, so I was grateful to her for this elucidation, though inclined to fear that the respected author partook somewhat too freely of spiritous liquors, to judge by the vagaries of his characters. But that might have been the fault of the librettist. A fresh examination of the programme informed us that Ximantes was playing the title role, and that the part of heroine was sung by Kitty's aversion, Madame Vermonti. So when the curtain went up, we were prepared for the appearance of the great tenor, who was to have most of the third act to himself. The scenery of the third act represented the cliffs of the seashore, which were extensively grown over in those parts with high grass and rushes, and did not remind me of any cliffs I had ever seen.

This friendly shelter was, however, evidently intended for the elaborate hiding of a diminutive person, clad in the most unusual costume, and displaying a particularly villainous KA THARINE CROMER. 12 countenance. I was not a little taken aback to discover that he was the devil. On a high eminence, several feet above the ex traordinary character, stood Sintram, or Ximantes. Knowing and caring little about Sintram, I was chiefly interested in the fact that I saw and heard the great tenor for the first time. He looked gigantic, as men of average size do on the stage ; his breadth of chest might well be needed to accommodate such mighty lungs, and his great expressive hands spoke for him in true southern fashion. Everything about him was big, from the large diamond which blazed on his left little finger, to his great voice, which filled the vast opera-house as it had never been filled before.

I have heard sweeter singers than Ximantes — singers I would sooner have to sing me to sleep or to a peaceful death. But not one of them, not the softest and most melodious voices, had the soul moving power of his ; not one of them, like his, thrilled the blood to my heart, and made my pulses beat high with an undefinable excitement ; not one of them, like his, compelled my admiration, as of something abnormally mighty, like the admir ation one has for some giant mountain or for the Pyramids, or anything else the beauty of which lies in its colossal size. Critics in the newspapers complained of this unwonted power ; they asserted that Ximantes sacrificed sweetness to noise, his voice to his acting ; that he could not sing a soft delicate passage — expecting the sledge-hammer to do the work of the embroidery needle ! — that his vocalization generally was coarse and imperfect.

I am evidently not a competent musical authority, for I was completely captivated by the overawing splendour of his individuality, and basely revelled in a voice which could alternately fill every nook and corner of great Covent Garden with thundering sound, and, sinking to deepest pianissimo, still shook the quivering air and troubled the repose of the half-hushed echoes. At the entr'acte I glanced at Kitty. She had never taken her opera-glasses from the massive Sintram ; now she lowered them, remarking in her impulsive way — " Isn't he splendid — perfectly splendid ? I think he is an angel ! What a voice he's got, and how splendidly he acted the part where he wanted the horrid little devil to save the big bass man in the boat ! I wouldn't have been the devil for any thing, to have been hauled about like that I am glad I have heard him !

I shall come to hear him whenever I can." " I am so glad you like it. I quite agree ! Ximantes is magnificent." " I expect he is a tall man, even off the stage. Did you notice, Maisie, that he has quite blue eyes ? " "No," I answered, laughing, "I cannot say I noticed the colour of his eyes." " They look so funny with that black hair and brown face, I should have thought they would strike you," said Kitty, apologetically. " Do you suppose he browns his face, or is it natural ? " Before I could answer, there was a knock at our box door and two men came in. The first we were both pleased to see, as he was Lord Stam borough, Kitty's elder brother, a nice, good natured man, though not a person of striking intellectual attainments. But I, for one, consider very clever people oppressive bores, as a general rule.

I hope I had enough control over my face and manner to give the other man as civil a greeting as that I bestowed on Lord Stamborough. But even if I did allow my dislike to become visible, the deficiency was made up for by the well-meant but foolish delight exhibited by Bertie. No one could better appreciate my husband's many excellencies than I do, but I am fully alive to his one glaring defect. He has no more discrimination than the proverbial bat, and insists on thinking all manner of people charming who, I daily assure him, are quite the reverse. The best of men are so vain, and think their judgment so infallible, it is of no use to point out to them that they are mistaken. So I had to bear Bertie's unnecessary effusion to Lord Talbot of the Fens as best I could. Kitty has wonderful self-command.

To see her perfectly expressionless face, and the calm slow way in which she turned from her brother and held out her hand to Lord Talbot, no one could have guessed that he was more to her than the others, or even as much. Only I, who know her so well, saw the keen, watchful glance she cast in his direction as soon as he looked away, and knew her faculties were absorbed by the wonder whether he would sit down near her or near me. So I plunged into conversation with Lord Stamborough, leaving his companion no alternative. Kitty and Lord Talbot never meet without bursting into a fiery argument, and across my trivial remarks to Lord Stamborough I caught echoes of a warm dispute as to the merits of Ximantes. Kitty was upholding the great tenor with all the vigour at her command, whilst Lord Talbot, whose sole capacity for music consists in making a loud unpleasant noise he calls singing a song, disagreed unconditionally.

They were left disagreeing when the curtain rose. I never could see what merit Kitty's eagle eye detected in Lord Talbot. As a matter of personal taste, I consider him the silliest and most un interesting young man I know, with an opinion of his own talents and virtues, which renders him most objectionable. He is not bad-looking in an inane pink-and-white style, and I believe he takes a moderate interest in sport, handles a gun with a certain amount of efficiency, and has been known to gallop a few yards across an easy country. (To hear him talk, you would fancy he was the finest shot and hardest rider in the three kingdoms.) He never forgets his importance in the matrimonial market as one of the coveted eldest sons, and "jabbering idiot" is the only epithet I find it possible to apply to him.

I have frequently expressed myself quite as forcibly to Kitty on the subject, and she takes my remarks calmly. I suppose love soars above the casual remarks of observers. To be sure, if any one assured me that Bertie was a jabbering idiot, I should regard him as beneath contempt, but then that is quite different. I should be quite ashamed even to name my dear and excellent husband in the hour with Lord Talbot, whose want of sense and brains is proved by the fact that he does not care for Kitty, that he does not even know that Kitty loves him, and would only consider it his rightful due if he did. I want to be a true friend to Kitty, and if it gives her pleasure to see a senseless gaby like Lord Talbot, she shall meet him in my house whenever she likes. I am not responsible for the con sequences, and she would not thank me for setting myself up as a dea ex machina.

But I bitterly regret the attraction he has for her, an attraction which I utterly fail to see the force of, but which, I am sorry to say, does undeniably exist. The opera rolled on, and we had many another opportunity of admiring the genius of Ximantes. Lord Talbot's opposition views about the singer more than ever convince me that Ximantes is a genius, for what Lord Talbot says must of necessity be wrong. I heard afterwards that the great tenor had surpassed himself that night, and he certainly enthralled the occupants of one box at least. c Kitty indulged me with a tirade on his merits between the acts, but as I knew this was more than half inspired by her satisfaction at having seen Lord Talbot, I felt it to be of less importance than if that gentleman had not visited our box. On leaving the opera-house, whilst we were standing in the hall, with Bertie plunging in and out of the glass doors in search of our carriage, I was clutched by an inordinately bejewelled lady in a marvellous opera-cloak, who ejaculated, in the unmistakable tones which hail from the other side of the herring pond — " O-oh, Mrs. Crichton, I am perfectly delighted to see you !

Who's your friend ? " — with no per ceptible modulation. As I mumbled Kitty's name, the lady began again, taking a long breath to load up for another outburst. " I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Lady Katharine. And wasn't it a purfectly bootiful opera? and hasn't Ximantes a downright exquisite voice ? He's stopping right in my ho-tel on Piccadilly ; I see him somewheres nearly all the time. It makes me tired to think I haven't yet got interdooced to him ! But they tell me he won't sing at a moosical, so I cann't see the use of assking him. And he's as quiet ! Isn't that sonny, now, when he makes such a dreadful noise here ? See here, Mrs. Crichton, will you come and see me soon ? Come to lunch, bring your friend." " 'Who's your friend ? ' " mimicked Kitty, as the voluble lady's remarks were cut short by an onslaught of her footman, whilst yells of " Mrs. Duncan's carriage stops the way ! " filled the air.

Chapter III

jessondene is let. After her greeting to me at the opera, I felt it my duty to go and call upon that trying woman, Mrs. Duncan. Her manners get on my nerves, and her voice goes through my head, but she always insists on knowing me whenever we meet, and she is perfectly unscrupulous as to what she says and does if one offends her ; so, as I have not the courage to take this latter course, I must bow my head, and, feeling mean all the time, follow in the string of people who go to court the lady of dollars. I hoped I had timed my call so as to find her out, but as my victoria drove up to the door of the hotel in Piccadilly, which she frequents, there was the horrible woman on the steps. She greeted me tempestuously, and I could do no less than respond to her greetings with an appearance of cordiality, and follow her up the big stairs of the hotel to her suite of rooms.

I am rather sorry for her, all the same ; she does seem so to crave to be liked, and to make such efforts after popularity ! It is not her fault that she is so noisy and vulgar, and it seems so hard to visit on people's heads the misfortunes of their circumstances. What she was originally, no one knows, unless it is some not over refined inhabitants of some by no means distinguished part of California, and they are merciful enough not to come forward and reveal their knowledge. No other American that I am acquainted with knows, or wishes to know, Mrs. Duncan, and in consequence the virulence of her views upon " Easterners " is only to be equalled by the bland unconsciousness on their side of such a " very common person." The consequence is, that she does not honour America with her presence, but remains in lands where no subtle distinctions between one American and another are made.

And for this, too, I feel sorry for her, because it must be trying to have to abandon your country because you are too vulgar to be supported among the society on which you have set your unrefined heart. I am making this apology because I feel so mean for disliking a really well intentioned person like Mrs. Duncan, who has never done me any harm, and also because she tried me very much that same afternoon. She began by catechizing me on my costume — never a subject which interests me for more than five minutes at a time. Then she gave me a minute description of all the dresses she had bought this spring in " Parrus " (and they seemed to be legion), and of all the dresses all her friends had bought, and of the superiority of her dresses over her friend's dresses, and so on for at least half an hour without pause for rest or refreshment As I began to wriggle in my chair, as an intimation that I must be going, she burst forth anew with a string of scandalous stories, which she must have invented on the spur of the moment, about Lady Solent.

This is Kitty's sister, who has married into a family which turns up its nose at Mrs. Dun can to an extent accounting for her dislike. She proceeded to ask if it were true that Kitty wished to go to Girton, that she was " dead in love " with what Mrs. Duncan was pleased to call " Talbot," and that the Duke of Leicestershire's son had proposed to her five times, and was even now hesitating between the dagger and the bowl on account of her determined refusals. I negatived all this decidedly, not to say fiercely, laying the soothing unction to my soul that I was serving the cause of friendship, and that for the fraction which was true, the rest was all false. But by this time I was boiling with indignation at the way Kitty's name was taken in vain, and longing to get away and pour out my fury to Bertie, or anybody else who would have the patience to listen to me.

But Mrs. Duncan insisted on my remaining to tea, and dragged me down to the coffee-room for that purpose. " It interests me some, this coffee-room," she re marked as we sat down at one of the many little tables. " I like to look round at all the folks stopping in this ho-tel ; and there are some re-mark able folks. There's Morrison the poet, and the Dook of Exmoor, and the composer Candoce " (whom she was pleased to pronounce Ca.ndose), " and Ximantes the opera singer. There's none of them here to-night," she added, with an injured and dissatisfied glance round, which changed to a look of satisfaction as she espied one of her lions in the doorway, "except here's Ximantes coming in right now." For the first time a remark of Mrs. Duncan's really interested me. I was quite excited at the thought of seeing the great tenor in private life, both for his own sake, and because he interested Kitty.