The Feast of Bacchus

A moment later the punt lurched violently, there was a splash of water under the bank, a nodding of tall rushes; and beauty in pink closed her pretty eyes and tried to forget she was Maude Juxon, wife of a rich stockbroker, and mother of a three year old child whom she had not seen for more than six months.

Some evening clouds were reflected in the smooth river. Swallows darted to and fro, and fish were splashing after ambrosial gnats. The atmosphere was languorous. A single jarring note, necessary to make the surroundings earthly, was supplied by an impatient owl hooting from an elm before its time. Down to the river sloped the garden of widowed Mrs. Neill, burning with the flowers of June. The sleepy occupant of the punt heard far-away the snip of the gardener’s iron scissors. This, the only, sound of human labour made her more contented with the lot which had fallen to her in an easy ground.

The punt lurched still more violently and Mrs. Juxon was again awakened to the troublesome world. Flora Neill, the widow’s only child, and bosom friend of the little lady in pink, settled herself, at the other end of the boat, and balanced a drab volume upon her knees.

“Will you be pleased to refrain from sleep for a few minutes, my lady?” she asked. “Because I have a desire to talk.”

“Don’t call me my lady,” said Mrs. Juxon irritably. “If you do I will go to sleep at once. Have you found out what that thing is?”

“I am just going to,” said Flora, who was a tall fair-haired girl, endowed with more than average good looks, but unmistakably “narrow atween the eyen,” and possessing a chin which her bluff old uncle, the vicar of Kingsmore, had described as a walnut-cracker. “Before I begin you may look into this letter which has just come. And, Maude, I found mother reading an incoherent epistle from uncle. It appears I am expected to make my annual appearance at Kingsmore, the week after next, to criticise pigs and bring the scent of the footlights over the hay for the benefit of my reverend relative who is about as much at home in London as you or I would be in Timbuctoo. Here! catch your letter.” Flora tossed the missive across the punt, and her indolent friend was sufficiently curious to lift her head and glance at the handwriting.

“Only from Herbert,” she sighed disappointedly. “What a ridiculous thing it is to have a husband who writes to you every day! I know exactly what he says,” she droned, pulling the envelope open.

“When are you coming home? I find the evenings very dull without you. Couldn’t you have Peggy at home now? I don’t like the idea of her being farmed out. She isn’t farmed out,” cried Mrs. Juxon indignantly. “What a nasty objectionable phrase to use! Peggy is with a very good nurse, who will bring her up much better than I ever should. What is the good of being a rich woman if you are to be bothered with your baby? And as for going home--well, I’m quite happy here.”

“You would rush into matrimony and motherhood, my child,” said the fair-haired girl, who was not more than four years Maude’s junior. “I warned you, and now--”

“I’m driving my husband to drink, prophetess,” laughed the pink lady.

“Or to some other woman.”

Mrs. Juxon tore the letter into fragments which she snowed daintily over the water with a tiny white hand.

“I couldn’t have worked for my living,” she said. “And nice men are poor. What’s that you are reading?”