Man and Wife, Wilkie Collins [best ebook reader android .TXT] 📗

had found a tenant, and was to be renovated immediately out of doors and in. The Owls shrieked as they flapped along the lanes in the darkness, And that night they struck at a mouse⁠—and missed him.

The next morning, the Owls⁠—fast asleep in charge of the Constitution⁠—were roused by voices of featherless beings all round them. They opened their eyes, under protest, and saw instruments of destruction attacking the creepers. Now in one direction, and now in another, those instruments let in on the summerhouse the horrid light of day. But the Owls were equal to the occasion. They ruffled their feathers, and cried, “No surrender!” The featherless beings plied their work cheerfully, and answered, “Reform!” The creepers were torn down this way and that. The horrid daylight poured in brighter and brighter. The Owls had barely time to pass a new resolution, namely, “That we do stand by the Constitution,” when a ray of the outer sunlight flashed into their eyes, and sent them flying headlong to the nearest shade. There they sat winking, while the summerhouse was cleared of the rank growth that had choked it up, while the rotten woodwork was renewed, while all the murky place was purified with air and light. And when the world saw it, and said, “Now we shall do!” the Owls shut their eyes in pious remembrance of the darkness, and answered, “My lords and gentlemen, the Constitution is destroyed!”

II The Guests

Who was responsible for the reform of the summerhouse? The new tenant at Windygates was responsible.

And who was the new tenant?

Come, and see.

In the spring of eighteen hundred and sixty-eight the summerhouse had been the dismal dwelling-place of a pair of owls. In the autumn of the same year the summerhouse was the lively gathering-place of a crowd of ladies and gentlemen, assembled at a lawn party⁠—the guests of the tenant who had taken Windygates.

The scene⁠—at the opening of the party⁠—was as pleasant to look at as light and beauty and movement could make it.

Inside the summerhouse the butterfly-brightness of the women in their summer dresses shone radiant out of the gloom shed round it by the dreary modern clothing of the men. Outside the summerhouse, seen through three arched openings, the cool green prospect of a lawn led away, in the distance, to flowerbeds and shrubberies, and, farther still, disclosed, through a break in the trees, a grand stone house which closed the view, with a fountain in front of it playing in the sun.

They were half of them laughing, they were all of them talking⁠—the comfortable hum of their voices was at its loudest; the cheery pealing of the laughter was soaring to its highest notes⁠—when one dominant voice, rising clear and shrill above all the rest, called imperatively for silence. The moment after, a young lady stepped into the vacant space in front of the summerhouse, and surveyed the throng of guests as a general in command surveys a regiment under review.

She was young, she was pretty, she was plump, she was fair. She was not the least embarrassed by her prominent position. She was dressed in the height of the fashion. A hat, like a cheese-plate, was tilted over her forehead. A balloon of light brown hair soared, fully inflated, from the crown of her head. A cataract of beads poured over her bosom. A pair of cockchafers in enamel (frightfully like the living originals) hung at her ears. Her scanty skirts shone splendid with the blue of heaven. Her ankles twinkled in striped stockings. Her shoes were of the sort called “Watteau.” And her heels were of the height at which men shudder, and ask themselves (in contemplating an otherwise lovable woman), “Can this charming person straighten her knees?”

The young lady thus presenting herself to the general view was Miss Blanche Lundie⁠—once the little rosy Blanche whom the Prologue has introduced to the reader. Age, at the present time, eighteen. Position, excellent. Money, certain. Temper, quick. Disposition, variable. In a word, a child of the modern time⁠—with the merits of the age we live in, and the failings of the age we live in⁠—and a substance of sincerity and truth and feeling underlying it all.

“Now then, good people,” cried Miss Blanche, “silence, if you please! We are going to choose sides at croquet. Business, business, business!”

Upon this, a second lady among the company assumed a position of prominence, and answered the young person who had just spoken with a look of mild reproof, and in a tone of benevolent protest.

The second lady was tall, and solid, and five-and-thirty. She presented to the general observation a cruel aquiline nose, an obstinate straight chin, magnificent dark hair and eyes, a serene splendor of fawn-colored apparel, and a lazy grace of movement which was attractive at first sight, but inexpressibly monotonous and wearisome on a longer acquaintance. This was Lady Lundie the Second, now the widow (after four months only of married life) of Sir Thomas Lundie, deceased. In other words, the stepmother of Blanche, and the enviable person who had taken the house and lands of Windygates.

“My dear,” said Lady Lundie, “words have their meanings⁠—even on a young lady’s lips. Do you call croquet, ‘business?’ ”

“You don’t call it pleasure, surely?” said a gravely ironical voice in the background of the summerhouse.

The ranks of the visitors parted before the last speaker, and disclosed to view, in the midst of that modern assembly, a gentleman of the bygone time.

The manner of this gentleman was distinguished by a pliant grace and courtesy unknown to the present generation. The attire of this gentleman was composed of a many-folded white cravat, a close-buttoned blue dress-coat, and nankeen trousers with gaiters to match, ridiculous to the present generation. The talk of this gentleman ran in an easy flow⁠—revealing an independent habit of mind, and exhibiting a carefully-polished capacity for satirical retort⁠—dreaded and disliked by the present generation. Personally, he was little and wiry and slim⁠—with a bright white