Under Two Skies (10 page)

A sweetly pretty and highly accomplished young girl, little Miss Anstruther, came to know too much to dream of taking any man's word on this point. She
was reputed to have refused more offers than a good girl ought to get; for what in the very beginning conferred a certain distinction upon her, made her notorious at a regrettably early stage of her career. The finger of feminine disapproval pointed at her, presently, in an unmistakable way; and this is said—by women—to be a very bad sign. Men may not think so. Intensely particular ladies, in the pride of their complete respectability, tried to impress upon very young men in whom they were interested that Miss Anstruther was not at all a nice girl. But this had a disappointing effect upon the boys. And Miss Anstruther by no means confined herself to rejecting mere boys.

The moths that singed themselves at this flame were of every variety. They would have made a rare collection under glass, with pins through them; Miss Anstruther herself would have inspected them thus with the liveliest interest. Her detractors also could have enjoyed themselves at such an exhibition; but the more generous spirits among them, those who had been young and attractive too long ago to pretend to be either still, might have found there some slight excuse for Miss Anstruther. Of course, it was no excuse at all, but it was notable that almost every moth had some salient good point—something to “account for it” on
her
side, to some extent—say a twentieth part of the extent to which she had gone. There was a great deal of assorted merit
scattered among those moths. Looks, intellect, a nice voice, an operatic moustache, an aptitude for the in-formal recitation of engaging verses, were a purely random selection from their several strong points; but even these, picked out and fitted together, would have furnished forth a dazzling being: whom Miss Anstruther would have rejected as firmly and as finally as she had already rejected his integral parts.

For there was no pleasing the girl. Apparently she did not mean to be pleased—in that way. She had neither wishes nor intentions, it became evident, beyond immediate flirtation of the most wilful description. To many honest minds hers seemed actually depraved.

Her accomplishment was singing. She sang divinely. Also she had plenty of money; but the money alone was not at the bottom of many declarations; her voice was the more infatuating element of the two; and her “way” did more damage than either. She was not, indeed, aware what a way she had with her. It was a way of seeming desperately smitten, and a little unhappy about it; which is quite sufficient to make a man of tender years or acute conscientiousness “speak” on the spot. Thus many a proposal was as unexpected on her part as it was unpremeditated on his. He made a sudden fool of himself—heard some surprisingly sensible things from her frivolous lips—decided, upon reflection and inquiry, that these were her formula—
and got over the whole thing in the most masterly fashion. This is where Miss Anstruther was so much more wholesome than the flirt who doesn't think she flirts: Miss Anstruther never rankled.

She had no mother to check her notorious propensity in its infancy, and no brother to bully her out of it in the end. Her father, a public character of considerable distinction, was queer enough to see no fault in her; but he was a busy man. She had, however, a kinsman, Lord Nunthorp, who used to talk to her like a brother on the subject of her behaviour, only a little less heavily than brothers use. Lord Nunthorp knew what he was talking about. He had once played at being in love with her himself. But that was in the days when his moustache looked as though he had forgotten to wash it off, and before Miss Anstruther came out. There had been no nonsense between them for years. They were the best and most intimate of friends.

“Another!” he would say, gazing gravely upon her as the most fascinating curiosity in the world, when she happened to be telling him about the very latest “Let's see—
how
many's that?”

There came a day when she told Lord Nunthorp she had lost count; and she really had. The day was at the fag-end of one season; he had been lunching at the Anstruthers' and Miss Anstruther had been singing to him.

“I'm afraid I can't assist you,” said he, with amused concern. “I only remember the first eleven, so to speak. First man in was your rector's son in the country, young Miller, who was sent out to Australia on the spot. He
was
the first, wasn't he? Yes, I thought that was the order; and by Jove, Midge, how fond you were of that boy!”

“I was,” said Miss Anstruther, glancing out of the window with a wistful look in her pretty eyes; but her kinsman said to himself that he remembered that wistful look—it went cheap.

“The next man in,” affirmed Lord Nunthorp, who was an immense cricketer, “was
me
!”

“I like that!” said Miss Anstruther, taking her eyes from the window with rather a jerk, and smiling brightly. “You've left out Cousin Dick!”

“So I have; I beg Dick's pardon. It was very egotistical of me, but pardonable, for of course Dick never stood so high in the serene favour as I did. I came after Dick then, first wicket down, and since then—well, you say yourself that you've lost tally, but you must have bowled out a pretty numerous team by this time. My dear Midge,” said Nunthorp, with a sudden access of paternal gravity, “don't you think it about time that somebody came in and carried his bat?”

“Don't talk nonsense!” said Miss Anstruther briskly. She added, almost miserably: “I wish to goodness they
wouldn't ask me! If only they wouldn't propose I should be all right. Why do they want to go and propose? It spoils everything.”

Her tone and look were quite injured. She was more indignant than Lord Nunthorp had ever seen her—except once—for the girl was of a most serene disposition. He looked at her kindly, and as admiringly as ever, though rather with the eye of a connoisseur; and he found she had still the most lovely, imperfect, uncommon, and fragrant little face he had ever seen in his life. He said candidly—

“I really don't blame them, and I don't see how you can. If you are to blame anybody, I'm afraid it must be yourself. You must give them some encouragement, Midge, or I don't think they'd all come to the point as they do. I never saw such sportsmen as they are! They walk in and walk out again one after the other, and they seem to like it—”

“I wish they did!” Miss Anstruther exclaimed devoutly. “I only wish they'd show me that they liked it; I should have a better time then. They wouldn't keep making me miserable with their idiotic farewell letters. That's what they
all
do. Either they write and call me everything—rudely, politely, sarcastically, all ways—or they say their hearts are broken, and they haven't the faintest intention of getting over it—in fact, they wouldn't get over it if they could. That's enough
to make any person feel low, even if you know from experience what to expect. At one time I didn't dare to look in the paper for fear of seeing their suicides; but I've only seen their weddings. They all seem to get over it pretty easily; and that doesn't make you think much better of yourself, you know. Of course I'm inconsistent!”

“Of course you are,” said Lord Nunthorp cordially. “I approve of you for it. I'd rather see you an old maid, Midge, than going through life in a groove. Consistency's a narrow groove for narrow minds! I can do better than this about consistency, Midge; I'm hot and strong on the subject; but you're not listening.”

“Ah! cried Miss Anstruther, who had not listened to a word, “they're driving me crazy, between them! There's Mr. Willimott, you know, who writes. Of course he had no business to speak to me. There were a hundred things against him at the time—even if I'd cared for him—though he's getting more successful now. Well, I do believe he's put me into every story he's written since it happened! I crop up in some magazine or other every month!”

“‘Into work the poet kneads them,'” murmured Lord Nunthorp, who was not a professional cricketer. “Well, you needn't bother yourself about
him
. You've made the fellow. He now draws a heroine better than
most men. It's a pity you don't take to writing, Midge, you'd draw your heroes better than women do as a rule; for don't you see that you must know more about us than we know about ourselves?”

“They wouldn't be much of heroes!” laughed the girl. “But I heartily wish I
did
write. Wouldn't I show up some people, that's all! It would give me something to do, too; it would keep me out of mischief, and really I'm sick of men and their ridiculous nonsense. And they all say the same thing. If only they wouldn't say anything at all! Why do they? You might tell me!”

Nunthorp put on his thinking-cap. “You see, you are quite pretty,” said he.

“Thanks.”

“Then you sing like an angel.”

“Please don't! That's what
they
all say.”

“Ah, the singing has a lot to do with it; you oughtn't to sing so well; you should cultivate less expression. And then—I'm afraid you like attention.”

“Of course I do!”

“And I'm sure it must be very hard
not
to be attentive to you,” Lord Nunthorp declared, with a rather brutal impersonality; “for I should fancy you have a way—quite unconscious, mind—of giving your current admirer the idea that he's the only one who ever held the office!”

“Thanks,” said she, with perfect good-humour; “that's a very pretty way of putting it.”

“Putting what, Midge?”

“That I'm a hopeless flirt—which is the root of the whole matter, I suppose!”

She burst out laughing, and he joined her. But there had been a pinch of pathos in her words, and he was weak enough to make a show of contradicting them. She would not listen to him, she laughed at his insincerity. The conversation had broken down, and, as soon as he decently could, he went.

That was at the very end of a season; and Lord Nunthorp did not see his notorious relative again for some months. In the following February, however, he heard her sing at some evening party; he had no chance of talking with her properly; but he was glad to find that he could meet her at a dance the next night.

“Well, Midge!” he was able to say at last, as they sat out together at this dance. “How many proposals since the summer?”

She gravely held up three fingers. Lord Nunthorp laughed consumedly.

“Any more scalps?” he inquired.

This was an ancient pleasantry. It referred to the expensive presents with which some young men had paved their way to disappointment. It was a moot point between Miss Anstruther and her noble kinsman
whether she had any right to retain these things. She considered she had every right, protesting that these presents were her only compensation for so many unpleasantnesses. He pretended to take higher ground in the matter. But it amused him a good deal to ask about her “scalps.”

She told him what the new ones were.

“And I perceive
mine
—upon your wrist!” Nunthorp exclaimed, examining her bracelet; and he was genuinely tickled.

“Well!” said she, turning to him with the frankest eyes, “I'd quite forgotten whose it was—honestly I had!”

He was vastly amused. So his bracelet—she had absolutely forgotten that it was his—did not make her feel at all awkward. There was a healthy cynicism in the existing relations between these two.

She had nothing very new to tell him. Two out of the last three had proposed by letter. She confessed to being sick and tired of answering this kind of letter.

“I'll tell you what,” said her kinsman, looking inspired, “you ought to have one printed! You could compose a very pretty one, with blanks for the name and date. It would save you a deal of time and trouble. You would have it printed in brown ink and rummy old type, don't you know, on rough paper with coarse edges. It would look charming. ‘Dear Mr.
Blank, of course I'm greatly flattered'—no, you'd say ‘very'—‘of course I'm very flattered by your letter, but I must confess it astonished me. I thought we were to be such
friends
?' Really, Midge, it would be well worth your while!”

Miss Anstruther did not dislike the joke, from him; but when he added, “The pity is you didn't start it in the very beginning, with young Ted Miller”—she checked him instantly.

“Now don't you speak about Ted,” she said, in a firm, quiet little way: but he appreciated the look that swept into her soft eyes no better than he had appreciated it six months before; he was merely amused.

“Why not?”

“Because
he meant
it!”

Nunthorp wondered, but not seriously, whether that young fellow, who had gone in first, was to be the one, after all, to carry out his bat. And this way of putting it, in his own head, which was half full of cricket, carried him back to their last chat, and reminded him of a thing he had wanted to say to her for the past twenty-four hours.

“Do you remember my telling you,” said he, “when I last had the privilege of lecturing you, that you sang iniquitously well? Then I feel it a duty to inform you that your singing is now worse than ever—in this respect. No wonder you have had three fresh troubles;
I consider it very little, with your style of singing. Your songs have much to answer for; I said so then, I can swear to it now. Your voice is heavenly, of course; but why pronounce your words so distinctly? I'm sure it isn't at all fashionable. And why strive to make sense of your sounds? I really don't think it's good form to do so. And it's distinctly dangerous. It didn't happen to matter last night, because the rooms were so crowded; but if you sing to one or two as you sing to one or two hundred, I don't wonder at them, I really don't. You sing as if you meant every word of the drivel—I believe you humbug yourself into half meaning it, while you're singing!”