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Page 7
Miss Batchelor saw. She saw Sir Peter Morley contending with the rector
for the honor of handing Mrs. Nevill Tyson her tea. They were joined by
Stanistreet. Yes, Stanistreet. The rector seemed to have drawn the line
nowhere that day. There was no mistaking the tall figure, alert and
vigorous, the lean dark face, a little eager, a little hard. And that
very clever woman Miss Batchelor sat hungry and thirsty--very hungry and
very thirsty--and Tyson stood behind her stroking his mustache. He was
not looking at her now, nor thinking of her. He was contemplating that
adorable piece of folly, his wife.
CHAPTER III
MR. AND MRS. NEVILL TYSON AT HOME
Perhaps it was well that Mrs. Nevill Tyson took things so lightly,
otherwise she might have been somewhat oppressed by her surroundings at
Thorneytoft. That hideous old barrack stared with all the uncompromising
truculence of bare white stone on nature that smiled agreeably round it
in lawn and underwood. Old Tyson had bought the house as it stood from an
impecunious nobleman, supplying its deficiencies according to his own
very respectable fancy. The result was a little startling. Worm-eaten oak
was flanked by mahogany veneer, brocade and tapestry were eked out with
horse-hair and green rep, gules and azure from the stained-glass lozenge
lattices were reflected in a hundred twinkling, dangling lusters; and you
came upon lions rampant in a wilderness of wax-flowers. What with antique
heraldry and utilitarian furniture, you would have said there was no
place there for anything so frivolously pretty as Mrs. Nevill Tyson;
unless, indeed, her figure served to give the finishing touch to the
ridiculous medley.
The sight of Thorneytoft would have taken the heart out of Mrs. Wilcox if
anything could. Mrs. Wilcox herself looked remarkably crisp and fresh and
cheerful in her widow's dress. Tyson rather liked Mrs. Wilcox than
otherwise (perhaps because she was a little afraid of him and showed it);
he noticed with relief that his mother-in-law was beginning to look
almost like a lady, and he attributed this pleasing effect to the fact
that she was now unable to commit any of her former atrocities of color.
He respected her, too, for wearing her weeds with an air of genial
worldliness. There was something about Mrs. Wilcox that evaded the touch
of sorrow; but from certain things--food, clothes, furniture--she seemed
to catch, as it were, the sense of tears, suggestions of the human
tragedy. She was peculiarly sensitive to interiors, and a drawing-room
"without any of the little refinements and luxuries, you know--not so
much as a flower-pot or a basket-table"--weighed heavily on her happy
soul. Needless to say she had never dreamed that Nevill would let the
house remain in its present state; her intellect could never have grasped
so melancholy a possibility, and the fact was somewhat unsettling to her
faith in Nevill Tyson. "Isn't it--for a young bride, you know--just a
little--a little _triste_?" And being more than a little afraid of her
son-in-law, she waved her hands to give an inoffensive vagueness to her
idea. Tyson said he didn't care to spend money on a place like
Thorneytoft; he didn't know how long he would stay in it; he never stayed
anywhere long; he was a pilgrim and a stranger, a sort of cosmopolitan
Cain, and he might go abroad again, or he might take a flat in town for
the season. And at the mention of a flat in town all Mrs. Wilcox's
beautiful beliefs came back to her unimpaired. A flat in town, and a
house in the country that you can afford to look down upon--what more
could you desire?
Mrs. Nevill Tyson did not take the furniture very seriously. For quite
three days after her arrival she was content to sit in that very
respectable drawing-room, waiting for the callers who never came. She
could not have taken the callers very seriously either (what _did_ Mrs.
Nevill Tyson take seriously, I should like to know?), or else, surely she
would have had some little regard for appearances; she would never have
risked being caught at four o'clock in the afternoon sitting on Tyson's
knee, doing all sorts of absurd things to his face. First, she stroked
his hair straight down over his forehead, which had a singularly
brutalizing effect, so that she was obliged to push it back again and
make it all neat with one of the little tortoise-shell combs that kept
her own curls in order. Then she lifted up his mustache till the lip
curled in a dreadful mechanical smile, showing a slightly crooked,
slightly prominent tooth.
"Oh, what an ugly tooth!" said Mrs. Nevill Tyson; and she let the lip
fall again like a curtain. "How could I marry a man with a tooth like
that! Do you know, poor papa used to say you were just like
Phorc--Phorc--something with a fork in it."
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