The Dull Miss Archinard

Front matter

flew mopels for mt>cccjct>ffi Crown Zvo, price 6s. each DREAMERS OF THE GHETTO By I. ZANGWILL THE SCOURGESTICK By Mrs. CAMPBELL PRAED THE LONDONERS By ROBERT HICHENS THE WAR OF THE WORLDS By H. G. WELLS THE FOURTH NAPOLEON Bv CHARLES BENHAM THE TRIUMPH OF DEATH Bv GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO THE MINISTER OF STATE Bv J. A. STEUART CLEO THE MAGNIFICENT By Z Z THE BROOM OF THE WAR-GOD Bv H. N. BRAILSFORD THE LAKE OF WINE Bv BERNARD CAPES GOD'S FOUNDLING By A. J. DAWSON EZEKIEL'S SIN By J. A. PEARCE LONDON : WILLIAM HEINEMANN 3i Bedford Street, W.C. By Anne Douglas Sedgwick London William Heinemann All rights reserved TO MT GRANDMOTHER A. M. D. Prologue PETER ODD A

Chapter I

Peter Odd was fishing. He stood knee-deep in a placid bend of stream, whipping the water deftly, his eyes peacefully intent on the floating fly, his mind in the musing impersonal mood of fisher man reverie, no definite thought forming from the appreciative impressions of sunlit meadows, cool stretches of shade beneath old trees, gleaming curves of river. For a tired man, fishing is an occupation particularly soothing, and Peter Odd was tired, tired and sad. His pleasure was now, perhaps, more that of the lover of nature than of the true sportsman, the pastoral peace of the land scape with its blue distance of wooded hill, more to him than the expected flashing leap of a scarlet spotted beauty ; yet the attitude of receptive in tentness was pleasant in all its phases, no one weary thought could become dominant while the eyes rested on the water, or were raised to such loveliness of quiet English country.

So much of what he saw his own too ; the sense of proprietor ship is, under such circumstances, an intimately pleasant thing, and although, where Odd stood at a wide curve of water, a line of hedge and tall beech-trees sloping down to the river marked the confines of his property just here, the woods and meadows before him were all his — to the blue hills on the sky almost, the park behind him stretched widely about Allersley Manor, and to the left the river ran for a very respectable number of miles through woods and meadows as beautiful. The sense of proprietorship was still new enough to give a little thrill, for the old squire had died only two years before, and the sorrow of loss had only recently roused itself to the realisation of bequeathed responsibilities, to the realisation that energies so called forth may perhaps make of life a thing well worth living.

A life of quiet utility ; to feel one's self of some earthly use; what more could one ask? The duties of a landowner in our strenuous days may well fill a man's horizon, and Odd was well content that they should do so ; for the present at least ; and he did not look beyond the present. In his tweeds and waterproof knee-breeches and boots, a sun-burnt straw hat shading his thin brown face, his hand steady and dexterous, as brown and thin, he was a pleasing example of the English country-gentleman type. He was tall, with the flavour of easy strength and elegance that an athletic youth gives to the most awkwardly made man. His face was at once humorous and sad ; it is strange how a humorous character shows itself through the saddest set of feature. Odd's long, rather aquiline nose and Vandyke beard made a decidedly melancholy silhouette on the sunlit water, yet all the lines of the face told of a kindly contemplation of the world's pathetic follies ; the mouth was sternly cut yet very good-tempered, and its firm line held evident suggestions of quiet smiling.

Poor Peter Odd had himself committed a pathetic folly, and, as a result, smiles might be tinged with bitterness. A captured trout presently demanded concen trated attention. The vigorous fish required long playing until worn out, when he was deftly secured in the landing-net and despatched with merci ful promptitude; indeed, a little look of nervous distaste might have roused in an unsympathetic looker-on conjectures as to a rather weak strain — a foolish width of pity in Peter Odd's character. "A beauty," he mentally ejaculated. He sat down in the shade. It was hot; the long, thick grass invited a lolling rest. On the other side of the hedge was a rustic bathing-cabin, and from it Odd heard the laughing chatter of young voices. The adjoining property was a small one belonging to a Captain Archinard.

Odd had seen little of him ; his wife was under stood to be something of an invalid, and he had two girls — these their voices, no doubt. Odd took off his hat and mopped his forehead, looking at the little landing-wharf which he could just see beyond the hedge, and where one could moor boats or dive off into the deepness of the water. The latter form of aquatic exercise was probably about to take place, for Odd heard — "I can swim beautifully already, papa," in a confident young voice — a gay voice, quiet, and yet excited too by the prospect of a display of prowess. A tall, thin girl of about fourteen stepped out on to the landing. A bathing-dress is not as a rule a very graceful thing, yet this child, her skirt to her knee, a black silk sash knotted around her waist, with her slim white legs and charming feet, was as graceful as a young Amazon on a Grecian frieze.

A heavy mass of braids, coiled up to avoid a wet ting, crowned her small head. She was not pretty ; Odd saw that immediately, even while admiring the well-poised figure, its gallantly held little torso and light energy. Her profile showed a short nose and prominent chin, inharmoniously accentuated. She seemed really ugly when her sister joined her ; the sister was beautiful. Odd roused himself a little from his half recumbency to look at the sister ap preciatively. Her slimness was exaggerated to an extreme — an almost fluttering lightness; her long arms and legs seemed to flash their whiteness on the green ; she had an exquisite profile, and her soft black hair swept up into the same coronet of coils. Captain Archinard joined them as they stood side by side. "You had better race," he said, looking down into the water, and then away to the next band of shadow.

" Dive in, and race to that clump of aspens. This is a jolly bit for diving." "But, papa, we shall wet our hair fearfully," said the elder girl — the ugly one — for so Odd already ungallantly designated her. "We usually get in on this shallower side and swim off. We have never tried diving, for it takes so long to dry our hair. Taylor would not like it at all." "It is so deep, too," said the beauty in, rather a faltering voice — unfortunately faltering, for her father turned sharply on her. "Afraid, hey? You mustn't be a coward, Hilda." "I am not afraid," said the elder girl; "but I never tried it. What must I do ? Put my arms so, and jump head first ? " "There is nothing to do at all," said the Captain, with some acidity of tone. " Keep your mouth shut and strike out as you come up. You'll do it, Katherine, first try.

Hilda is in a funk, I see." " Poor Hilda!" Odd ejaculated mentally. She was evidently in a funk. Standing on the edge of the landing, one slim foot advanced in a tentative effort, she looked down shrinking into the water — very deeply black at this spot — and then, half entreat ingly, half helplessly, at her father. " Oh, papa, it is so deep ! " she repeated. The Captain's neatly made face showed signs of peevish irritation. "Well, deep or not, in you go. I must break you of that craven spirit. What are you afraid of? What could happen to you ? " " I — don't like water over my head — I might strike — on something." Tears were near the surface. What asses people made of themselves, thought Odd, with their silly shows of authority. The more the father insisted, the more frightened the child became ; couldn't the idiot see that ?

The tear-filled eyes and looks that showed a struggle between fear of her father's anger and fear of the deep, black pool, moved Odd to a sudden though half amused resentment, for the little girl was cer tainly somewhat of a coward. "Let me go in first, papa, and show her. Hilda, dear, it's nothing; being frightened will make it something though, so don't be frightened, and watch me." "Yes, go in first, Katherine; show her that I have a girl who isn't a coward — and how one of my daughters came to be a coward I don't understand. I am ashamed of you, Hilda." Hilda evidently only controlled her sobs by a violent effort; her caught-in under-lip, wide eyes, and heaving little chest affected Odd painfully. He frowned, sat up, put his hat on, and watched Miss Katherine with a lack of sympathy that was certainly unfair, for the plucky little person went through the performance most creditably, stretched out and up her thin pretty arms, curved forward her pretty body, and made the plunge with a lithe elegance that left her father gazing with complacent approval after the white flash of her feet.

" Bravo ! First-rate ! There, Hilda, you see what can be done. Come on, little white feather." He spoke more kindly; the elder sister's prowess put him more in humour with his less creditable off spring. " Oh, papa ! " The child shrank on the edge of the platform — she would go bundling in, and hurt herself. "But, papa," and her voice held a sharp accent of distress, " where is Katherine ? " Indeed Katherine had not reappeared. Only a moment had passed, but a moment under water is long. Captain Archinard's eyes searched the surface of the river. " But she can swim ? " "Papa! papa! she is drowned, drowned I" Hilda's voice rose to a scream. With a wild look of resolve she sprang into the river just as Odd dashed in, knee-deep, and as Katherine's head ap peared at some distance down the current — an angry little head, half choked, and gasping.

Katherine swam and waded to the shore, falling on her knees upon the bank, while Odd dived into the hole — very bad hole, deep and weedy — after Hilda. He groped for the child among a tangle of roots, touched her hair, grasped her round the waist, and came to the surface with some difficulty, his strokes impeded by sinuous cord-like weeds. Captain Ar chinard was too much astonished by the whole matter to do more than exclaim, " Upon my word ! " as his younger daughter was deposited at his feet. " A nasty hole that. The weeds have probably grown since any one has dived." Odd spoke shortly, having lost his breath, and severely ; the child looked half drowned, and Kathe rine was still gasping. " Why, Mr. Odd ! Upon my word ! " — the Captain recognised his neighbour — " I don't know how to thank you."

The Captain had not recovered from his astonish ment, and repeated with some vehemence : " Upon my word!" " Well, papa, you nearly drowned me ! " Katherine was struggling between pride and anger. She would not let the tears come, but they were near the surface. " Those horrible snaky things got hold of me and I almost screamed, only I remembered that I mustn't open my mouth, and I thought I would never come to the top." The self-pitying retrospect brought the tears to her eyes, but she held up her head and looked and spoke her resentment, " I think you might have gone in first yourself. And Hilda ! Why didn't you wait until / came to the surface before you made her do it ? " Captain Archinard looked more vague under these reproaches than one would have expected after his exhibition of rather fretful autocracy.

" Made her ! " he repeated, seizing with a rather mean haste at the error ; " made her ? She went in herself! Like a rocket, after you. By Jove! she showed her blood after all." " Hilda ! you tried to save my life ! " Odd still held the younger girl on his arm, supporting her while she choked and panted, for she evidently hadjnot shown her sister's aplomb and had opened her mouth. Katherine took her into her arms and kissed her with a warmth quite dramatic. " Darling Hilda! And you were so frightened, too. I would have gone in after her," she added, looking up at Odd with a bright, quick glance ; " but there would have been nothing to my credit in that." "And I would have gone in after her, it goes without saying, Mr. Odd," said the Captain, when Katherine had led away to the bathing-cabin her still dazed sister, " but you seemed to drop from the clouds.

Really, you have put me under a great obligation." " Not at all. I have spent most of the day in the river. I merely went in a bit deeper to fish out that plucky little girl." " I've dived off that spot a hundred times. I'd no idea there were weeds. I've never known weeds to be there. I'll send down one of the men directly after lunch and have it seen to. Really I feel a sense of responsibility." The Captain went on with an air of added self-justification, " Though, of course, I'm not responsible. I couldn't have known about the weeds." Weeds or no weeds, Odd could not forgive him for the child's fright, though he replied good humouredly to the invitation to the house. " Mrs. Archinard would have called on Mrs. Odd before this, but my wife is an invalid — never leaves the house or grounds.

She sees a good deal of Miss Odd. I knew your father myself as well as one may know such a recluse ; spent some pleasant hours in his library — magnificent library you've got. Peculiarly satisfactory it must be, as you go in for that sort of thing. Won't you come in to tea this afternoon? And Mrs. Odd? Miss Odd? I was sorry to find them out when I called the other day. I haven't seen Mrs. Odd. I don't see her at church." " No ; we have hardly settled down to our duties yet, and my wife only got back from the Riviera a few weeks ago." " Well, I hope we shall keep you at Allersley now that your wanderjahre are over, and that you are married. I was wandering myself during your boyhood. My brother bought the place, you know ; liked the country here immensely. Poor old Jack ! Only lived ten years to enjoy it — and died a bachelor — luckily for me.

But we've missed one another, haven't we ? Neighbours too. I have seen Mrs. Odd — at a dance in London, Lady Bartlebury's, I remember; and I remember that she was the prettiest girl in the room. Miss Castleton — the beautiful Alicia Castleton." Miss Castleton's fame had indeed been so wide that the title was quite public property, and the Captain's reminiscent tone of admiration most natural and allowable. Odd accepted the invitation to tea, waded back round the hedge, gathered up his basket and rod, and made his way up through the park to Allersley Manor.

Chapter II

Mrs. Odd and Miss Odd, Peter's eldest and un married sister, were having an only halfveiled altercation when Odd, after putting on dry clothes, came into the morning-room just before lunch. Miss Odd sat by the open French window cutting the leaves of a review. There were several more reviews on the table beside her, and with her eye glasses and fine, severe profile, she gave one the impression of a woman who would pass her morn ings over reviews and disagree with most of them for reasons not frivolous. Mrs. Odd lay back in an easy-chair. She was very remarkable looking. The adjective is usually employed in a sense rather derogatory to beauty pure and simple, yet Mrs. Odd's dominant charac teristic was beauty, pure and simple ; beauty trium phantly certain of remark, and remarkable in the sense that no one could fail to notice her, as when one had noticed her it was impossible not to find her beautiful.

It was not a loveliness that admitted of discussion. In desperate rebellion against an almost tame conformity, a rash person might assert that to him her type did not appeal ; but the type was resplendent. Perhaps too resplendent ; in this extreme lay the only hope of escape from con formity. The long figure in the uniform-like com monplace of blue serge and shirt-waist was almost too uncommonplace in elegance of outline ; the white hand too slender, too pink as to finger-tips and polished as to nails ; the delicate scarlet splendour of her mouth, the big wine-coloured eyes, too dazzling. Mrs. Odd's red-brown hair was a glory, a bur nished, well-coiffed, well-brushed glory; it rippled, coiled, and curved about her head. Her profile was bewildering — lazily, sweetly petulant. "Is this the face ?

" a man might murmur on first seeing Alicia. Odd had so murmured when she had flashed upon his vision over a year ago. He was still young and literary, and, as he was swept out of himself, had still had time for a vague grasp at self-expression. Mrs. Odd was speaking as he entered the room. " I don't really see, Mary, what duty has got to do with it." Without turning her head, she turned her eyes on Odd : " How wet your hair is, Peter ! " Mary Odd looked up from the review she was cutting rather grimly, and her cold face was irradi ated with a sudden smile. " Well, Peter," she said quietly. " I fished a little girl out of the river," said Odd, taking a seat near Alicia, and smiling responsively at his sister. "Captain Archinard's little girl." He told the story. "An interesting contrast of physical and moral courage."

" I have seen the children. They are noticeable children. They always ride to hounds." Hunting had been Miss Odd's favourite diversion during her father's lifetime. " But the pretty one, as I remember, has not the pluck of her sister — physical, as you say, Peter, no doubt." " What sort of a person is Mrs. Archinard ? " "Very pretty, very lazy, very selfish. She is an American, and was rich, I believe. Captain Archinard left the army when he married her, and immediately spent her money. Luckily for him poor Mr. Archinard died — Jack Archinard ; you re member him, Peter ? A nice man. I go to see Mrs. Archinard now and then. I don't care for her." "You don't care much for any one, Mary," said Mrs. Odd, smiling. " Your remarks on your Aller sley neighbours are very pungent and very true, no doubt.

People are so rarely perfect, and you only tolerate perfection." " Yet I have many friends, Alicia." " Not near Allersley ? " "Yes; I think I count Mrs. Hartley-Fox, Mrs. Maynard, Lady Mainwaring, and Miss Hibbard among my friends." " Mrs. Maynard is the old lady with the caps, isn't she? What big caps she does wear! Lady Mainwaring I remember in London, trying to marry off her eighth daughter. You told me, I recollect, that she was an inveterate matchmaker." "She has no selfish eagerness, if that is what you understood me to mean." " But she does interfere a great deal with the course of events, when events are marriageable young men, doesn't she ? " " Does she ? " "Well, you said she was a matchmaker, Mary. There was no disloyalty in saying so, for it is known by every one who knows Lady Mainwaring."

"And, therefore, my friends are not, and need not be, perfect." During this little conversation, Odd sat with the unhappy, helpless look men wear when their womenkind are engaged in such contests. " I am awfully hungry. Isn't it almost lunch time ? " he said, as they paused. Mrs. Odd looked at her watch. " It only wants five minutes." Odd walked to the window and looked out at the sweep of lawn, with its lime-trees and copper beeches. The flower-beds were in all their glory. " How well the mignonette is getting on, Mary ! " he said, looking down at the fragrant greenness that came to the window. Alicia got up and joined her husband, putting her arm through his. "Let us take a turn in the garden, Peter," she smiled at him; and although he understood with the fatal clearness that one year of life with Alicia had given him, that the walk was only proposed as a slight to Mary, he felt the old pleasure in her beauty — a rather sickly, pallid pleasure — and an inner qualm was dispersed by the realisation that he and Mary understood one another so well that there need be no fear of hurting her.

After one year of married life, he and Mary knew the nearness of the sympathy that allows itself no words. There seemed to Odd a perverse pathos in Alicia's lonely complacency — a pathos emphasised by her indifferent unconsciousness. "Mary is so disagreeable to-day," said Alicia, as they walked slowly across the lawn. " She has such a strong sense of her own worth and of other people's worthlessness." Odd made no reply. He never said a harsh word to his wife. He had chosen to marry her. The man who would wreak his own disillusion on the woman he had made his wife must, thought Odd, be a sorry wretch. He met the revealment of Alicia's shallow selfishness with humorous gentleness. She had been shallow and selfish when he had married her, and he had not found it out — had not cared to find it out.

He contemplated these characteristics now with philosophic, even scientific charity. She was born so. "It will be dull enough here, at all events," Alicia went on, pressing her slim patent-leather shoe into the turf with lazy emphasis as she walked, for Alicia was not bad-tempered, and took things easily ; " but if Mary is going to be disagreeable " " You know, Alicia, that Mary has always lived here. It is in a truer sense her home than mine, B but she would go directly if either you or she found it disagreeable. Had you not assented so cordially she would never have stayed." " Don't imply extravagant things, Peter. Who thinks of her going ? " "She would — if you made it disagreeable." " I ? I do nothing. Surely Mary won't want to go because she scolds me." " Come, Ally, surely you don't get scolded — more than is good for you."

Odd smiled down at her. Her burnished head was on a level with his eyes. " Like everybody else, you are not perfection, and, as Mary is somewhat of a disciplinarian, you ought to take her lectures in a humble spirit, and be thankful. I do. Mary is so much nearer perfection than I am." " I am afraid I shall be bored here, Peter." Alicia left the subject of Mary for a still more intimate grievance. "The art of not being bored requires patience, not to say genius. It can be learned though. And there are worse things than being bored." " I think I could bear anything better." "What would you like, Ally?" Odd's voice held a certain hopefulness. " I'll do anything I can, you know. I believe in a woman's individuality and all that. Does your life down here crush your individuality, Alicia ? " Again Odd smiled down at her, conscious of an inward bitterness.

"Joke away, Peter. You know how much I care for all that woman business — rights and move ments and individualities and all that ; a silly claim ing of more duties that do no good when they're done. I amvan absolutely banal person, Peter; my mind to me isn't a kingdom. I like outside things. I like gaiety, change, diversion. I don't like days one after the other — like sheep — and I don't like sheep ! " They had passed through the shrubbery, and before them were meadows dotted with the harm less animals that had suggested Mrs. Odd's simile. "Well, we won't look at the sheep. I own that they savour strongly of bucolic immutability. You've had plenty of London for the past year, Ally, and Nice and Monte Carlo. The sheep are really the change." " You had better go in for a seat in Parliament, Peter."

" Longings for a political salon, Ally ? I have hardly time for my scribbling and landlording as it is." " A salon ! Nothing would bore me so much as being clever and keeping it up. No, I like seeing people and being seen, and dancing and all that. I am absolutely banal, as I tell you." " Well, you shall have London next year. We'll go up for the season." "You took me for what I was, Peter," Mrs. Odd remarked as they retraced their steps towards the house. " I have never pretended, have I ? You knew that I was a society beauty and that only. I am a very shallow person, I suppose, Peter ; I certainly can't pretend to have depths — even to give Mary satisfaction. It would be too uncomfortable. Why did you fall in love with me, Peter? It wasn't en caractere a bit, you know." " Oh yes, it was, Ally.

I fell in love with you because you were beautiful. Why did you fall in love with me ? " The mockery with which Alicia's smile was tinged deepened into a good-humoured laugh at her own expense. " Well, Peter, I don't think any one before made me feel that they thought me so beautiful. I am vain, you know. Your enthusiasm was awfully flattering. I am very sorry you idealised me, Peter. I am sure you idealised me. Shall we go in ? Lunch must be ready, and you must be hungrier than ever."

Chapter III At

four that afternoon Odd, his wife, and Mary started for the Archinards' house. Mary had offered to join her brother; the prospect of the walk together was very pleasant. She could not object when Alicia, at the last moment, announced her intention of going too. " I have never been to see her. I should like the walk, and Mary will approve of the fulfilment of my duty towards my neighbour." Mary's prospects were decidedly nipped in the bud, as Alicia perhaps intended that they should be ; but Alicia's avowed motive was so praiseworthy that Mary allowed herself only an inner discontent, and, what with her good-humoured demeanour, Odd's placid chat of crops and tenantry, and Alicia's acquiescent beauty, the trio seemed to enjoy the mile of beechwood and country road and the short sweep of prettily wooded drive that led to Allersley Priory, a square stone house covered with vines of magnolia and wisteria, and incorporating in its walls, according to tradition, portions of the old Priory which once occupied the site.

From the back of the house sloped a wide expanse of lawn and shrubberies, and past it ran the river that half a mile farther on flowed out of Captain Archinard's little property into Odd's. The drawing-room was on the ground floor, and its windows opened on this view. Mrs. Archinard and the Captain were talking to young Lord Allan Hope, eldest son of Lord Main waring. Mrs. Archinard's invalidism was evidently not altogether fictitious. She had a look of at once extreme fragility and fading beauty. One knew at the first glance that she was a woman to have cushions behind her and her back to the light. There was no character in the delicate head, unless one can call a passive determination to do or feel nothing that required energy, character. The two little girls came in while Odd talked to their father.

They were dressed alike in white muslins. Katherine's gown reached her ankles ; Hilda's was still at the mijambe stage. Their long hair fell about their faces in childlike fashion. Katherine's was brown and strongly rippled ; Hilda's softly, duskily, almost bluely black ; it grew in charming curves and eddies about her forehead, and framed her little face and long slim neck in straightly falling lines. Katherine gave Odd her hand with a little air that reminded him of a Velasquez Infanta holding out a flower. " You were splendid this morning, Mr. Odd. That hole was no joke, and Hilda swallowed lots of water as it was. She might easily have been drowned." Katherine was certainly not pretty, but her deeply set black eyes had a dominant directness. She held her head up, and her smile was charming — a little girl's smile, yet touched with the conscious power of a clever woman.

Odd felt that the child was clever, and that the woman would be cleverer. He felt, too, that the black eyes were lit with just a spice of fun as they looked into his as though she knew that he knew, and they both knew to gether, that Hilda had not been in much danger, and that his ducking had been only conventionally " splendid." " Hilda wants to thank you herself, don't you, Hilda ? She had such a horrid time altogether ; you were a sort of Perseus to her, and papa the sea monster ! " Then Katherine, having, as it were, introduced and paved the way for her sister, went back across the room again, and stood by young Allan Hope while he talked to the beautiful Mrs. Odd. Hilda seemed really in no need of an introduc tion. She was not shy, though she evidently had not her sister's ready mastery of what to say, and how to say it.