Chapter Six.Historical Types.“Well, father—how goes the world in Cleverley? How are you getting on with the charming but undesirable family at the Hall, of whom Aunt Meg writes to me?”Sylvester Riddell and his father were walking up and down the centre path of the Rectory kitchen-garden, smoking an after-breakfast pipe together, between borders filled with tulips, daffodils, polyanthuses, and other spring flowers, behind which espaliers were coming into blossom, and early cabbages and young peas sprouting up in fresh and orderly rows. The red tower of the church looked over a tall hedge of lilac trees, and beyond was the little street, soon leading into fields and open, prettily-wooded country, rising into low hills in the distance.Sylvester had just arrived for a few days’ visit from Oxbridge, where he had recently obtained a first-class, a fellowship, and an appointment as tutor of his college. His father and grandfather had both been scholars, and such honours seemed to them almost the hereditary right of their family.Sylvester inherited from his father long angular limbs, rugged but well-formed features, and brown skin. But the dreamy look, latent in the father’s fine grey eyes, was habitual in the son’s; while a certain humorous twinkle in their corners had had less time to develop itself, and was much less apparent in the younger man’s face.The old Rector had shaggy grey hair, eyebrows, and whiskers; he had grown stout, and his everyday clothes were somewhat loose and shabby. Sylvester had brown hair, cut short, and was close shaved, and his dress was neat, and did his tailor credit. Still, the father’s youth was closely recalled by this son of his old age, and the two found each other congenial spirits.The fox-terrier that barked in front of them, and the old collie that paced soberly behind, turned eyes of kindness alike on both, the great grey cat rubbed against both pairs of trousers, and the old gardener lay in wait to show Sylvester his side of a dispute with “master” as to the clipping of the lilac hedges.Fifty years or so ago the Rector of Cleverley had been a young undergraduate, remarkable for the fine scholarship and elegant verse-making of his day, but with a touch of genius that made him differ from his fellows; careless, simple, and untidy, yet fond of society and good fellowship, full of the romance and sentiment of his day,—a man who admired pretty women, but had only one lasting love, from whom circumstances had divided him till he married her late in life, and lost her soon after Sylvester’s birth.When, on his marriage, he took the living of Cleverley, he became an excellent parish priest, the personal friend of all his flock, and deeply beloved by them; a little shy of modern organisation, and more hard on his curates for mispronouncing Greek names than on many worse offenders. He was a gentleman, and a man of the world who had other experiences than those of parochial life, and belonged to a race of clergy more common in the last generation than in this one.Sylvester was meant to be much the same sort of person as his father; but he was born in a grave and more self-conscious age. He had all the Rector’s cordial kindliness, and much of his keen insight; but the romantic, dreamy side of the character was both more carefully hidden and stronger in the younger man. The sentiment of the eighth decade of the nineteenth century was less cheerful and light-hearted than that of the third or fourth. The Rector had been among those who still laughed and sighed with Moore, and smiled with Praed (he had not been the sort of man to give himself over to Byron). He had fallen in love with the miller’s and the gardener’s fair daughters in the early days of Tennyson. Sylvester dived into Browning, and dreamed with Rossetti. He was haunted by ideals which he did not hope to realise; and, moreover, felt himself compelled frequently to pretend that he had no ideals at all.And although he had worked hard to attain his university distinctions, he took the duties they involved somewhat lightly, and hardly found in his profession a sufficient interest and aim in life, fulfilling its claims in fact in a somewhat formal fashion.He was, however, a very affectionate son, and was delighted to find himself at home again, and full of curiosity as to the new-comers at Cleverley Hall.“Are they as charming as they appeared at first sight?” he asked.“My dear boy,” said the Rector in a confidential tone, “they are very charming. But I’m sorry for the little girl. There’s something ideal about her. But it’s a bad stock, Syl, a bad stock!”“So I’ve always heard,” said Sylvester, slightly amused at his father’s tone of reluctant admiration. “But what’s amiss with them? We’re to dine there to-night, I believe?”“Yes,” said the Rector, “and we shall have a very pleasant evening. You see, my dear boy, the ladies here are rather pleased with Lady Haredale. They were prejudiced—very much prejudiced against her. Now they say she is much nicer and quieter than they expected, and they believe that the reports about her are exaggerated. But they don’t see that she is so handsome. The fact is, you know, Syl,” and here Mr Riddell paused in his walk and spoke in confidential accents, “that she belongs to another order of women altogether—to the fascinating women of history, and her beauty is a fact quite beyond discussion. But she’s not a good woman, Sylvester, and never will be.”“The fascinating women of history,” said Sylvester—“Cleopatra, and others, were perhaps a little deficient in moral backbone. But I’m sure, father, Lady Haredale must be a charming hostess. I quite look forward to the party to-night. So she outshines her daughter, I suppose.”“My dear boy,” said Mr Riddell, “there’s something about that little girl that goes to one’s heart. What is to become of her?”“But what is it that is so dangerous about Lady Haredale?” said Sylvester. “She doesn’t appear to offend the proprieties.”“She has no principle, Syl—not a stiver,” said the Rector, “and I like the look of none of their friends. So, my dear boy, I wouldn’t advise you to get drawn into the set too much. They’re very sociable and hospitable. Young Leigh seems a good deal attracted.”“Old Lucy? Really? Has he succumbed to the historical type of fascination? The young lady must be charming indeed. But, father, I am immensely interested. I must study these historical ladies—at a distance, of course. But there’s Aunt Meg. I must go and ask her how the parish is getting on.”Miss Riddell, who represented the practical element in the household and family, honestly said that she liked gossip. Sylvester called it studying life. In both, it was really kindly interest in old friends and neighbours.But to-day, she was so much taken up with the new-comers, and evidently admired them so much, that Sylvester prepared for the dinner-party with much curiosity. As he followed his father and aunt into the long low drawing-room, he was struck at once by its more tasteful and cheerful appearance than when he had last seen it, and by the lively murmur of conversation that filled it, and, as he advanced to receive Lady Haredale’s greeting, he did not think that she was splendidly dressed, or startlingly fashionable, but he perceived at once that she was a great beauty. She introduced “my eldest daughter,” and Sylvester saw, standing by her side, a tall girl, in the simplest of white gowns, but with splendid jewels clasping her slender throat, and shining in her hair. She smiled, and looked at him with the most cordial friendliness, and she struck him as quite unlike the general run of young ladies, with her lithe graceful figure, her full soft lips, and her clear spiritual eyes.“I know what it is,” thought Sylvester, “she is Rossetti’s ideal; but he never reached her. She is the maiden that Chiaro saw. But she is also a happy girl. By Jove! no wonder the dad was so impressive!”Presently Mrs Leigh and her son arrived to complete the party, and were greeted by Amethyst as well-established acquaintances.Sylvester knew Lucian Leigh well, had been at school with him, and believed him to be, in all points, a good fellow. But as he watched him making small talk with greater ease than usual to the young lady, it struck Sylvester as a new idea that it was a pity that Lucian’s appearance was so deceptive; he had not at all the sort of character suggested by the first sight of his face. But that the two faces harmonised well as they sat side by side at the table, was indisputable.Presently, he saw Amethyst turn to the Rector, who sat on her left hand, and begin to talk to him with pretty respectful courtesy. Evidently she did not think it well-behaved to be absorbed in her younger companion, and Mr Riddell succeeded in amusing her, for she laughed and looked interested, and he evidently put forward his best powers of pleasing.Sylvester looked with curiosity at the rest of the company. Some, of course, were well-known neighbours; others, strangers staying in the house, who did not greatly take his fancy. The most prominent of these was a middle-aged, military-looking man, who was introduced as Major Fowler, and who struck Sylvester as a specimen of the ‘bad style’ which had been sought for in vain in Lady Haredale and her daughter. Lady Haredale called him Tony, and he seemed on intimate terms in the house, especially with the younger girls, who were found in the drawing-room after dinner—Una with a bright colour in her usually pale cheeks, and a sudden flow of childish chatter. Presently Victoria, with an air of infantine confidence, came up to Sylvester and said—“Please, are there any primroses growing here?”“Primroses! why yes; haven’t you seen them?”“We have never gathered any primroses, we want to go and get some. Will you show us the way?” said Tory, looking up in his face.“Oh, Tory,” said Amethyst, who, passing near, heard this request; “there are plenty of primroses which we can find quite easily.”“But I should be delighted to show you the best places for them,” said Sylvester, with alacrity.“Mr Leigh will come too,” said Tory, turning to Lucian. “We’re Cockneys, we want to be taught to enjoy the country, mother says so.”“We’ll have a grand primrose picnic,” said Lucian. “My sisters will come too. Miss Haredale, do let us show you your first primrose.”“Oh, I have gathered plenty of primroses,” said Amethyst, smiling, but with a blush and a puzzled look, as if she did not quite know what it behoved her to say. “But one cannot have too many,” she added after a moment.The primrose gathering was arranged for the next day, ostensibly between the Miss Haredales, and the girls from Ashfield, escorted by their governess.“But,” said Tory afterwards with a knowing look, “we shan’t have to gather them by ourselves, you’ll see.”“Tory!” exclaimed Amethyst, “you should not have asked Mr Riddell and Mr Leigh to come and gather primroses with us! And how could you say that you did not know where they grew, when we got some yesterday?”“Oh, they’ll like to come,” said Tory, “and I’m quite little enough to ask them.”She made an indescribable face at Amethyst, and walked away as she spoke.“Did you like your first party, my pretty girl?” said Lady Haredale, putting a caressing hand on Amethyst’s shoulder.“Oh yes, mamma, it was delightful.”“I am going to be the old mother now, you know, Tony. It is this child’s turn now.”“You will have a great deal of satisfaction in teaching her,” said Tony, with an intonation which Amethyst did not understand, and a look she did not like.But, as she shut herself into her own room, the images in her mind were full of colour and brightness. She felt that she had begun to live. The manifold relations of family life, the new acquaintances, even the new dresses and jewels, filled her with interest and pleasure so great that it brought a pang of remorse.“Poor auntie!” she thought, “and now she is dull, without me!”And, being too much excited to sleep, she sat down to write some of her first eager impressions to Miss Haredale; till, at what seemed to her a wickedly late hour, she heard a light soft foot in the passage.She opened the door softly, and there was Una, still in her white evening frock, with shining eyes and burning cheeks, starting nervously at sight of her sister.“Una! Do you know how late it is? Where have you been? How your head will ache to-morrow!”“I’ve been in the smoking-room and I’ve smoked a cigarette, and tasted a brandy-and-soda!” said Una, with a touch of Tory’s wicked defiance.“Would mother let you?” said Amethyst slowly.“Oh yes!” said Una, shrugging her shoulders, “butIshan’t letyou!”She flung her arms round Amethyst and kissed her with burning lips, then scuttled away into her own room.
“Well, father—how goes the world in Cleverley? How are you getting on with the charming but undesirable family at the Hall, of whom Aunt Meg writes to me?”
Sylvester Riddell and his father were walking up and down the centre path of the Rectory kitchen-garden, smoking an after-breakfast pipe together, between borders filled with tulips, daffodils, polyanthuses, and other spring flowers, behind which espaliers were coming into blossom, and early cabbages and young peas sprouting up in fresh and orderly rows. The red tower of the church looked over a tall hedge of lilac trees, and beyond was the little street, soon leading into fields and open, prettily-wooded country, rising into low hills in the distance.
Sylvester had just arrived for a few days’ visit from Oxbridge, where he had recently obtained a first-class, a fellowship, and an appointment as tutor of his college. His father and grandfather had both been scholars, and such honours seemed to them almost the hereditary right of their family.
Sylvester inherited from his father long angular limbs, rugged but well-formed features, and brown skin. But the dreamy look, latent in the father’s fine grey eyes, was habitual in the son’s; while a certain humorous twinkle in their corners had had less time to develop itself, and was much less apparent in the younger man’s face.
The old Rector had shaggy grey hair, eyebrows, and whiskers; he had grown stout, and his everyday clothes were somewhat loose and shabby. Sylvester had brown hair, cut short, and was close shaved, and his dress was neat, and did his tailor credit. Still, the father’s youth was closely recalled by this son of his old age, and the two found each other congenial spirits.
The fox-terrier that barked in front of them, and the old collie that paced soberly behind, turned eyes of kindness alike on both, the great grey cat rubbed against both pairs of trousers, and the old gardener lay in wait to show Sylvester his side of a dispute with “master” as to the clipping of the lilac hedges.
Fifty years or so ago the Rector of Cleverley had been a young undergraduate, remarkable for the fine scholarship and elegant verse-making of his day, but with a touch of genius that made him differ from his fellows; careless, simple, and untidy, yet fond of society and good fellowship, full of the romance and sentiment of his day,—a man who admired pretty women, but had only one lasting love, from whom circumstances had divided him till he married her late in life, and lost her soon after Sylvester’s birth.
When, on his marriage, he took the living of Cleverley, he became an excellent parish priest, the personal friend of all his flock, and deeply beloved by them; a little shy of modern organisation, and more hard on his curates for mispronouncing Greek names than on many worse offenders. He was a gentleman, and a man of the world who had other experiences than those of parochial life, and belonged to a race of clergy more common in the last generation than in this one.
Sylvester was meant to be much the same sort of person as his father; but he was born in a grave and more self-conscious age. He had all the Rector’s cordial kindliness, and much of his keen insight; but the romantic, dreamy side of the character was both more carefully hidden and stronger in the younger man. The sentiment of the eighth decade of the nineteenth century was less cheerful and light-hearted than that of the third or fourth. The Rector had been among those who still laughed and sighed with Moore, and smiled with Praed (he had not been the sort of man to give himself over to Byron). He had fallen in love with the miller’s and the gardener’s fair daughters in the early days of Tennyson. Sylvester dived into Browning, and dreamed with Rossetti. He was haunted by ideals which he did not hope to realise; and, moreover, felt himself compelled frequently to pretend that he had no ideals at all.
And although he had worked hard to attain his university distinctions, he took the duties they involved somewhat lightly, and hardly found in his profession a sufficient interest and aim in life, fulfilling its claims in fact in a somewhat formal fashion.
He was, however, a very affectionate son, and was delighted to find himself at home again, and full of curiosity as to the new-comers at Cleverley Hall.
“Are they as charming as they appeared at first sight?” he asked.
“My dear boy,” said the Rector in a confidential tone, “they are very charming. But I’m sorry for the little girl. There’s something ideal about her. But it’s a bad stock, Syl, a bad stock!”
“So I’ve always heard,” said Sylvester, slightly amused at his father’s tone of reluctant admiration. “But what’s amiss with them? We’re to dine there to-night, I believe?”
“Yes,” said the Rector, “and we shall have a very pleasant evening. You see, my dear boy, the ladies here are rather pleased with Lady Haredale. They were prejudiced—very much prejudiced against her. Now they say she is much nicer and quieter than they expected, and they believe that the reports about her are exaggerated. But they don’t see that she is so handsome. The fact is, you know, Syl,” and here Mr Riddell paused in his walk and spoke in confidential accents, “that she belongs to another order of women altogether—to the fascinating women of history, and her beauty is a fact quite beyond discussion. But she’s not a good woman, Sylvester, and never will be.”
“The fascinating women of history,” said Sylvester—“Cleopatra, and others, were perhaps a little deficient in moral backbone. But I’m sure, father, Lady Haredale must be a charming hostess. I quite look forward to the party to-night. So she outshines her daughter, I suppose.”
“My dear boy,” said Mr Riddell, “there’s something about that little girl that goes to one’s heart. What is to become of her?”
“But what is it that is so dangerous about Lady Haredale?” said Sylvester. “She doesn’t appear to offend the proprieties.”
“She has no principle, Syl—not a stiver,” said the Rector, “and I like the look of none of their friends. So, my dear boy, I wouldn’t advise you to get drawn into the set too much. They’re very sociable and hospitable. Young Leigh seems a good deal attracted.”
“Old Lucy? Really? Has he succumbed to the historical type of fascination? The young lady must be charming indeed. But, father, I am immensely interested. I must study these historical ladies—at a distance, of course. But there’s Aunt Meg. I must go and ask her how the parish is getting on.”
Miss Riddell, who represented the practical element in the household and family, honestly said that she liked gossip. Sylvester called it studying life. In both, it was really kindly interest in old friends and neighbours.
But to-day, she was so much taken up with the new-comers, and evidently admired them so much, that Sylvester prepared for the dinner-party with much curiosity. As he followed his father and aunt into the long low drawing-room, he was struck at once by its more tasteful and cheerful appearance than when he had last seen it, and by the lively murmur of conversation that filled it, and, as he advanced to receive Lady Haredale’s greeting, he did not think that she was splendidly dressed, or startlingly fashionable, but he perceived at once that she was a great beauty. She introduced “my eldest daughter,” and Sylvester saw, standing by her side, a tall girl, in the simplest of white gowns, but with splendid jewels clasping her slender throat, and shining in her hair. She smiled, and looked at him with the most cordial friendliness, and she struck him as quite unlike the general run of young ladies, with her lithe graceful figure, her full soft lips, and her clear spiritual eyes.
“I know what it is,” thought Sylvester, “she is Rossetti’s ideal; but he never reached her. She is the maiden that Chiaro saw. But she is also a happy girl. By Jove! no wonder the dad was so impressive!”
Presently Mrs Leigh and her son arrived to complete the party, and were greeted by Amethyst as well-established acquaintances.
Sylvester knew Lucian Leigh well, had been at school with him, and believed him to be, in all points, a good fellow. But as he watched him making small talk with greater ease than usual to the young lady, it struck Sylvester as a new idea that it was a pity that Lucian’s appearance was so deceptive; he had not at all the sort of character suggested by the first sight of his face. But that the two faces harmonised well as they sat side by side at the table, was indisputable.
Presently, he saw Amethyst turn to the Rector, who sat on her left hand, and begin to talk to him with pretty respectful courtesy. Evidently she did not think it well-behaved to be absorbed in her younger companion, and Mr Riddell succeeded in amusing her, for she laughed and looked interested, and he evidently put forward his best powers of pleasing.
Sylvester looked with curiosity at the rest of the company. Some, of course, were well-known neighbours; others, strangers staying in the house, who did not greatly take his fancy. The most prominent of these was a middle-aged, military-looking man, who was introduced as Major Fowler, and who struck Sylvester as a specimen of the ‘bad style’ which had been sought for in vain in Lady Haredale and her daughter. Lady Haredale called him Tony, and he seemed on intimate terms in the house, especially with the younger girls, who were found in the drawing-room after dinner—Una with a bright colour in her usually pale cheeks, and a sudden flow of childish chatter. Presently Victoria, with an air of infantine confidence, came up to Sylvester and said—
“Please, are there any primroses growing here?”
“Primroses! why yes; haven’t you seen them?”
“We have never gathered any primroses, we want to go and get some. Will you show us the way?” said Tory, looking up in his face.
“Oh, Tory,” said Amethyst, who, passing near, heard this request; “there are plenty of primroses which we can find quite easily.”
“But I should be delighted to show you the best places for them,” said Sylvester, with alacrity.
“Mr Leigh will come too,” said Tory, turning to Lucian. “We’re Cockneys, we want to be taught to enjoy the country, mother says so.”
“We’ll have a grand primrose picnic,” said Lucian. “My sisters will come too. Miss Haredale, do let us show you your first primrose.”
“Oh, I have gathered plenty of primroses,” said Amethyst, smiling, but with a blush and a puzzled look, as if she did not quite know what it behoved her to say. “But one cannot have too many,” she added after a moment.
The primrose gathering was arranged for the next day, ostensibly between the Miss Haredales, and the girls from Ashfield, escorted by their governess.
“But,” said Tory afterwards with a knowing look, “we shan’t have to gather them by ourselves, you’ll see.”
“Tory!” exclaimed Amethyst, “you should not have asked Mr Riddell and Mr Leigh to come and gather primroses with us! And how could you say that you did not know where they grew, when we got some yesterday?”
“Oh, they’ll like to come,” said Tory, “and I’m quite little enough to ask them.”
She made an indescribable face at Amethyst, and walked away as she spoke.
“Did you like your first party, my pretty girl?” said Lady Haredale, putting a caressing hand on Amethyst’s shoulder.
“Oh yes, mamma, it was delightful.”
“I am going to be the old mother now, you know, Tony. It is this child’s turn now.”
“You will have a great deal of satisfaction in teaching her,” said Tony, with an intonation which Amethyst did not understand, and a look she did not like.
But, as she shut herself into her own room, the images in her mind were full of colour and brightness. She felt that she had begun to live. The manifold relations of family life, the new acquaintances, even the new dresses and jewels, filled her with interest and pleasure so great that it brought a pang of remorse.
“Poor auntie!” she thought, “and now she is dull, without me!”
And, being too much excited to sleep, she sat down to write some of her first eager impressions to Miss Haredale; till, at what seemed to her a wickedly late hour, she heard a light soft foot in the passage.
She opened the door softly, and there was Una, still in her white evening frock, with shining eyes and burning cheeks, starting nervously at sight of her sister.
“Una! Do you know how late it is? Where have you been? How your head will ache to-morrow!”
“I’ve been in the smoking-room and I’ve smoked a cigarette, and tasted a brandy-and-soda!” said Una, with a touch of Tory’s wicked defiance.
“Would mother let you?” said Amethyst slowly.
“Oh yes!” said Una, shrugging her shoulders, “butIshan’t letyou!”
She flung her arms round Amethyst and kissed her with burning lips, then scuttled away into her own room.
Chapter Seven.No Cunning to be Strange.“When do you suppose Amethyst will find my lady out?” said Kattern and Tory, as they started for the primrose-picking the next day, and Amethyst ran back again to beg her mother to drive round to the wood and join them.“Not yet,” said Tory, “my lady is making up to her, as much as ever she did to any man she ever went in for, and Amethyst would believe black was white just at present.”“I’d like to see her face, if we told her what my lady is really like.”“You are not to tell her,” said Una, suddenly turning round upon them, “I won’t have it. Let her be happy while she can;Ishall tell her, when I think it proper.”Una looked languid and dull to-day. She did not care for gathering primroses, and she was not strong enough to enjoy long out-door expeditions. She watched Amethyst, with a look on her face, and thoughts in her heart, which would much have astonished the elder girl if she had noticed the one, or guessed at the other.Amethyst good-naturedly patronised Kate and Gertie Leigh, girls matching in age with Kattern and Tory; she made friends with their governess, who had recently been the head girl at a rival school to Saint Etheldred’s, and was discussing the honours respectively gained by the two institutions at all the recent examinations, with the heartiest interest, when the party was enlarged by the arrival of Miss Riddell and her nephew, and Mrs Leigh and her son. Lady Haredale, Major Fowler, and some of the other guests at Cleverley also turned up. It was a day of rare spring loveliness, blue sky, young green leaves, and springing flowers.“A day of beginnings,” Sylvester Riddell said, as he noted the budding oak trees, the unfolding blossoms, the opening intercourse that was still in its first spring.“You like the woods?” he said to Amethyst.“Oh yes,” she said, “I like everything here; you can’t think how pleasant beginning to be at home is.”“I suppose you are making several beginnings,” he said.“Yes,” she answered, “I am beginning to know my sisters—and every one here—and next week I am going to my first ball.”“Beginnings are very charming when they do not imply endings,” said Sylvester tritely; but he was thinking so much of the lovely slender girl before him that he spoke half mechanically.“That can never be,” said Amethyst, with sudden gravity. “My school-days are ended, and my living with my aunt. Beginnings must come out of endings—but then theyarebeginnings,” she added; and stooping, she picked a primrose, round which still lingered the large faded leaves of last year, and showed it to him, with a grave smile on her soft young lips.Sylvester never forgot her as she stood there, dressed all in mossy green that harmonised with the woods. He had a dim sense that a beginning was coming to him, as he took the fresh primrose and the faded leaf out of her hand.“One ought to be able to spin a poem out of this,” he said; but just then Lucian Leigh came springing down the bank, a picturesque figure in his brown suit, and looking, as the little girls climbed and scrambled after him, as like a young wood god, as Amethyst was like a wood nymph.“They matched exactly,” Sylvester thought, as they drew by instinct together, and through all the merry afternoon, seemed the motive of the picture, the centre of the piece.“It is quite charming to be so rustic,” said Lady Haredale; while Tory and Kattern forgot about being charming as they scrambled about with their contemporaries, and Amethyst drank in happiness with the sun and the air. To-day was indeed a delightful beginning.It began a great deal. Lady Haredale was a person who liked something to be always going on, and hardly a day passed without some little scheme of pleasure, some opportunity for meetings something that gave colour and brightness to the days. Distant neighbours seemed to come nearer, and Cleverley had never been so gay within the memory of man.Yet it all seemed quite simple. Lady Haredale, the Cleverley ladies said, liked simple pleasures, and freely owned that she must have inexpensive ones. There was the county ball for a climax, and various set entertainments given at the country houses round for salient points; but Lady Haredale did little but keep open house in a sort of free and easy way. Lord Haredale was a good deal absent in London, and Major Fowler, so old a family friend, acted as a sort of deputy master of the house, showed the young men the way to the sideboard, set games of billiards on foot, took a hand at whist in the evenings. Sometimes, when there were young people, they all played round games, and put three penny bits into the pool. It could not be true, that whisper of Lady Haredale playing for high stakes and losing money, or she could not have laughed so merrily over the threepenny “vingt-un with variations.”Then, when the wind was cold after playing tennis, for which the season was still early, she made such pretty fun over producing champagne and claret cup at afternoon tea, that, though such was not the Cleverley custom except at large garden-parties, there seemed nothing to wonder at;—though it was a pity that so young a girl as Una Haredale should be allowed to drink it.Lady Haredale did not dress too youthfully, or try to keep her beautiful daughter in the background; on the contrary, everything was arranged to make a good time for Amethyst; Lady Haredale chose her dresses with the utmost care, and taught her how to arrange them becomingly, with so outspoken a delight in the girl’s beauty as almost rendered her flattery harmless. Those were happy weeks. Now and then came little shocks and startling incidents; but they fell on unheeding ears.A very few words are enough to tell Amethyst’s story. She and Lucian Leigh fell in love with each other; suddenly, rapturously, without delay or misgiving, almost at the first sight of each other’s fair faces, almost with the first sense of an answering stir in each other’s souls, Lucian courted her in a quiet but most unmistakable fashion; and soon, life for Amethyst meant his presence, his words and looks. She was carried off her feet, caught out of herself. Even as she knew “what made the assembly shine” for her, she was well assured that she “made the ball fine” for him. She did not remain unconscious or ignorant of what had befallen her. Love did not come to her with slow, cautious, and imperceptible footsteps, he caught her in a sweet frenzy, which left no space for misgivings; while her quickly answering warmth probably hastened and intensified the passion, which might have seemed alien to Lucian’s slower and shyer nature.A few social meetings and games of tennis together—one or two encounters “by chance,” which yet were so important that it seemed as if the whole course of life must have been arranged to bring them about—a sunny Sunday or two, in the same church, singing the same hymns—a belief in each other’s goodness, so that no misgivings troubled their joy in each other’s charms, scraps of talk—wonderful glances—the county ball, where Amethyst’s success woke Lucian to the sudden fear of rivalry, and where the world began to say that she was a great beauty—a dance the next night at a neighbour’s house—a long, long waltz together, then, dim lights, heavy-scented flowers, a wonderful sense of being alone, after the crowd of dancers; then feelings found words, words hardly needed, his arms were round her, his kiss on her lips, and, after scarcely a doubt or a fear, in three short weeks, in a dozen meetings, Amethyst’s heart was won, her promise given, and all her story, as she believed, told.But, with the actual promise given, with the spoken words, Lucian, at any rate, woke up to a sense of real life, and of what it behoved him to do.“To-morrow I must come to Lord Haredale. I hope he won’t kick me down-stairs.”“Why should he be angry? We are not doing wrong.—That is—ought I to have told mother first?—Was it too quick?” faltered Amethyst, crimson and trembling with sudden misgiving.“Too quick! It has seemed a life-time since last night, before I could speak to you! I am my own master. But you, who might have all London at your feet, they will say I ought to have let you have a season in town first.”“But that wouldn’t have made any difference.”“No? I don’t suppose it would. Nothing could make any difference to me. We’ll go and live at Toppings. You like the country. I meant to see if I could not go to Norway, and get some seal fishing; but I shan’t care for that now, we’ll settle down at once.”But this was going too fast for Amethyst.“Oh don’t,” she said, “don’t; I—I cannot think.—It is too much.—I want to stop—to wait—not to have any more now!”She turned white as she spoke, overwhelmed with the rush of emotion; while Lucian, though only half-comprehending, held himself back, drew her on to a seat, and said, “I’ve done something clumsy, and frightened you. I always do.”“Oh no—no—no! But oh! It is so wonderful—it is—it is like death!” cried Amethyst. She did not in the least know what she meant, and in a moment the strange rapture passed, the colour came back in natural blushes, her eyes fell, and she rose from her seat.“Some one will come. Let us go back. Let us find mother.”Lucian laughed a little curious laugh, and as the music ceased, and footsteps sounded, he offered her his arm formally, and led her back into the lighted ball-room; where, at the entrance to the conservatory, her partner claimed her, and he began to remember that there was a young lady somewhere to whom he had been introduced.A boyish shyness seized on him, he turned his back on Amethyst, and went off hastily to the other end of the room. And she, away from him, suddenly found out that she was utterly, wonderfully happy, and laughed and danced with joyous glee. She did not want to speak to him or to come near him again just yet, she only wanted to feel happy, in the whirl of the music and the dancing, and the sparkle of the lights. While he stood in a corner, and thought how lovely she looked.There were other people in the carriage with Amethyst and her mother as they drove home; but as soon as they arrived there, and the “Good-nights” had passed, she pursued Lady Haredale to the cosy dressing-room, where she sat up late sometimes with a novel, or dawdled over one in the morning, when disinclined to come down-stairs. She had taken off her evening dress, and was sitting by the fire in a pretty blue dressing-gown, which gave her an unusually youthful look, when Amethyst, still in her white ball dress, came in and stood by her side.“Well, little girl, what is it?”“Oh, mamma,” said Amethyst, “mamma; I thought I ought to come.” She stammered a little, then lifted up her stately head, and said simply, “Lucian Leigh has asked me to marry him.”“Already?” exclaimed Lady Haredale. “Why I shall never make a match-making mother. I saw that he wasépris, but I never thought of its happening at once!”“I—I am afraid it seems quick—but, mother—I hope you won’t be angry, nor my father—but I said yes.”“You did? and suppose my lord says no?”“Oh, mamma, he will not?”“Suppose he does?”“I should wait till he consented, I couldn’t change. But indeed, mamma, he hasquiteenough money.”“The little mercenary thing! She has thought of that!”“No—no—but I thought there could be nothing else, he is so good.”“Now look here, Amethyst,” said Lady Haredale, standing up, and laying her hand on the girl’s shoulder, “this is your first fancy?”“Mother!”“Well, yes, I supposed so. Now listen, and no one shall say I don’t tell you all the truth. You are a beauty. That is a very different thing from being a pretty girl. You would have—I could ensure your having—a great success, and you might make a very great marriage. I don’t think many mothers would let you marry in the country at eighteen. But, on the other hand, we’re as poor as rats, as you know; if you marry young Leigh you are provided for, and if you think you love him—I believe sheisin love with him—all my children are susceptible! No, I won’t talk you out of it.”“Talking could not make any difference,” said Amethyst; then suddenly—“Oh, mamma, I don’t want to be wilful, I will try to be good, but please—please don’t say I must not!”There was a passion in her tone, which Lady Haredale felt.“No,” she said. “Youshallhave him! How like you are to poor pretty Blanche; you shan’t be talked out of your lover as she was. I’ll not have it on my conscience. But does the child think she knows her own mind?”Amethyst felt indescribably jarred and hurt by her mothers manner. Her cheeks burnt and her eyes were bright, as she answered with equal straightforwardness, and with unexpected passion—“I should have liked to be a beauty, and have a success; I know I should like it. But that’s all nothing, compared—compared tohim,” as the tears came in floods, and she hid her face.“Ah!” said Lady Haredale.—“Poor little girl, it’s a shame to tease her! You are a good child, my pretty Amethyst, and you shall stay good, if you can. Come, kiss me and forgive me, and you shall have your way.” Amethyst threw herself into her mother’s arms, and, in clinging kisses, soon forgot her vexation. “Mother was right to make sure;” and she only felt that she had the kindest and tenderest mother ever known, and the most sympathetic. For Lady Haredale, with a sudden change of tone, began to question her, and listened to the little idyll with as fresh and eager an interest as if she had been Amethyst’s sister or school friend.“My darling, its lovely. It’s the sweetest thing I ever knew, and I won’t let anything interfere with it.”
“When do you suppose Amethyst will find my lady out?” said Kattern and Tory, as they started for the primrose-picking the next day, and Amethyst ran back again to beg her mother to drive round to the wood and join them.
“Not yet,” said Tory, “my lady is making up to her, as much as ever she did to any man she ever went in for, and Amethyst would believe black was white just at present.”
“I’d like to see her face, if we told her what my lady is really like.”
“You are not to tell her,” said Una, suddenly turning round upon them, “I won’t have it. Let her be happy while she can;Ishall tell her, when I think it proper.”
Una looked languid and dull to-day. She did not care for gathering primroses, and she was not strong enough to enjoy long out-door expeditions. She watched Amethyst, with a look on her face, and thoughts in her heart, which would much have astonished the elder girl if she had noticed the one, or guessed at the other.
Amethyst good-naturedly patronised Kate and Gertie Leigh, girls matching in age with Kattern and Tory; she made friends with their governess, who had recently been the head girl at a rival school to Saint Etheldred’s, and was discussing the honours respectively gained by the two institutions at all the recent examinations, with the heartiest interest, when the party was enlarged by the arrival of Miss Riddell and her nephew, and Mrs Leigh and her son. Lady Haredale, Major Fowler, and some of the other guests at Cleverley also turned up. It was a day of rare spring loveliness, blue sky, young green leaves, and springing flowers.
“A day of beginnings,” Sylvester Riddell said, as he noted the budding oak trees, the unfolding blossoms, the opening intercourse that was still in its first spring.
“You like the woods?” he said to Amethyst.
“Oh yes,” she said, “I like everything here; you can’t think how pleasant beginning to be at home is.”
“I suppose you are making several beginnings,” he said.
“Yes,” she answered, “I am beginning to know my sisters—and every one here—and next week I am going to my first ball.”
“Beginnings are very charming when they do not imply endings,” said Sylvester tritely; but he was thinking so much of the lovely slender girl before him that he spoke half mechanically.
“That can never be,” said Amethyst, with sudden gravity. “My school-days are ended, and my living with my aunt. Beginnings must come out of endings—but then theyarebeginnings,” she added; and stooping, she picked a primrose, round which still lingered the large faded leaves of last year, and showed it to him, with a grave smile on her soft young lips.
Sylvester never forgot her as she stood there, dressed all in mossy green that harmonised with the woods. He had a dim sense that a beginning was coming to him, as he took the fresh primrose and the faded leaf out of her hand.
“One ought to be able to spin a poem out of this,” he said; but just then Lucian Leigh came springing down the bank, a picturesque figure in his brown suit, and looking, as the little girls climbed and scrambled after him, as like a young wood god, as Amethyst was like a wood nymph.
“They matched exactly,” Sylvester thought, as they drew by instinct together, and through all the merry afternoon, seemed the motive of the picture, the centre of the piece.
“It is quite charming to be so rustic,” said Lady Haredale; while Tory and Kattern forgot about being charming as they scrambled about with their contemporaries, and Amethyst drank in happiness with the sun and the air. To-day was indeed a delightful beginning.
It began a great deal. Lady Haredale was a person who liked something to be always going on, and hardly a day passed without some little scheme of pleasure, some opportunity for meetings something that gave colour and brightness to the days. Distant neighbours seemed to come nearer, and Cleverley had never been so gay within the memory of man.
Yet it all seemed quite simple. Lady Haredale, the Cleverley ladies said, liked simple pleasures, and freely owned that she must have inexpensive ones. There was the county ball for a climax, and various set entertainments given at the country houses round for salient points; but Lady Haredale did little but keep open house in a sort of free and easy way. Lord Haredale was a good deal absent in London, and Major Fowler, so old a family friend, acted as a sort of deputy master of the house, showed the young men the way to the sideboard, set games of billiards on foot, took a hand at whist in the evenings. Sometimes, when there were young people, they all played round games, and put three penny bits into the pool. It could not be true, that whisper of Lady Haredale playing for high stakes and losing money, or she could not have laughed so merrily over the threepenny “vingt-un with variations.”
Then, when the wind was cold after playing tennis, for which the season was still early, she made such pretty fun over producing champagne and claret cup at afternoon tea, that, though such was not the Cleverley custom except at large garden-parties, there seemed nothing to wonder at;—though it was a pity that so young a girl as Una Haredale should be allowed to drink it.
Lady Haredale did not dress too youthfully, or try to keep her beautiful daughter in the background; on the contrary, everything was arranged to make a good time for Amethyst; Lady Haredale chose her dresses with the utmost care, and taught her how to arrange them becomingly, with so outspoken a delight in the girl’s beauty as almost rendered her flattery harmless. Those were happy weeks. Now and then came little shocks and startling incidents; but they fell on unheeding ears.
A very few words are enough to tell Amethyst’s story. She and Lucian Leigh fell in love with each other; suddenly, rapturously, without delay or misgiving, almost at the first sight of each other’s fair faces, almost with the first sense of an answering stir in each other’s souls, Lucian courted her in a quiet but most unmistakable fashion; and soon, life for Amethyst meant his presence, his words and looks. She was carried off her feet, caught out of herself. Even as she knew “what made the assembly shine” for her, she was well assured that she “made the ball fine” for him. She did not remain unconscious or ignorant of what had befallen her. Love did not come to her with slow, cautious, and imperceptible footsteps, he caught her in a sweet frenzy, which left no space for misgivings; while her quickly answering warmth probably hastened and intensified the passion, which might have seemed alien to Lucian’s slower and shyer nature.
A few social meetings and games of tennis together—one or two encounters “by chance,” which yet were so important that it seemed as if the whole course of life must have been arranged to bring them about—a sunny Sunday or two, in the same church, singing the same hymns—a belief in each other’s goodness, so that no misgivings troubled their joy in each other’s charms, scraps of talk—wonderful glances—the county ball, where Amethyst’s success woke Lucian to the sudden fear of rivalry, and where the world began to say that she was a great beauty—a dance the next night at a neighbour’s house—a long, long waltz together, then, dim lights, heavy-scented flowers, a wonderful sense of being alone, after the crowd of dancers; then feelings found words, words hardly needed, his arms were round her, his kiss on her lips, and, after scarcely a doubt or a fear, in three short weeks, in a dozen meetings, Amethyst’s heart was won, her promise given, and all her story, as she believed, told.
But, with the actual promise given, with the spoken words, Lucian, at any rate, woke up to a sense of real life, and of what it behoved him to do.
“To-morrow I must come to Lord Haredale. I hope he won’t kick me down-stairs.”
“Why should he be angry? We are not doing wrong.—That is—ought I to have told mother first?—Was it too quick?” faltered Amethyst, crimson and trembling with sudden misgiving.
“Too quick! It has seemed a life-time since last night, before I could speak to you! I am my own master. But you, who might have all London at your feet, they will say I ought to have let you have a season in town first.”
“But that wouldn’t have made any difference.”
“No? I don’t suppose it would. Nothing could make any difference to me. We’ll go and live at Toppings. You like the country. I meant to see if I could not go to Norway, and get some seal fishing; but I shan’t care for that now, we’ll settle down at once.”
But this was going too fast for Amethyst.
“Oh don’t,” she said, “don’t; I—I cannot think.—It is too much.—I want to stop—to wait—not to have any more now!”
She turned white as she spoke, overwhelmed with the rush of emotion; while Lucian, though only half-comprehending, held himself back, drew her on to a seat, and said, “I’ve done something clumsy, and frightened you. I always do.”
“Oh no—no—no! But oh! It is so wonderful—it is—it is like death!” cried Amethyst. She did not in the least know what she meant, and in a moment the strange rapture passed, the colour came back in natural blushes, her eyes fell, and she rose from her seat.
“Some one will come. Let us go back. Let us find mother.”
Lucian laughed a little curious laugh, and as the music ceased, and footsteps sounded, he offered her his arm formally, and led her back into the lighted ball-room; where, at the entrance to the conservatory, her partner claimed her, and he began to remember that there was a young lady somewhere to whom he had been introduced.
A boyish shyness seized on him, he turned his back on Amethyst, and went off hastily to the other end of the room. And she, away from him, suddenly found out that she was utterly, wonderfully happy, and laughed and danced with joyous glee. She did not want to speak to him or to come near him again just yet, she only wanted to feel happy, in the whirl of the music and the dancing, and the sparkle of the lights. While he stood in a corner, and thought how lovely she looked.
There were other people in the carriage with Amethyst and her mother as they drove home; but as soon as they arrived there, and the “Good-nights” had passed, she pursued Lady Haredale to the cosy dressing-room, where she sat up late sometimes with a novel, or dawdled over one in the morning, when disinclined to come down-stairs. She had taken off her evening dress, and was sitting by the fire in a pretty blue dressing-gown, which gave her an unusually youthful look, when Amethyst, still in her white ball dress, came in and stood by her side.
“Well, little girl, what is it?”
“Oh, mamma,” said Amethyst, “mamma; I thought I ought to come.” She stammered a little, then lifted up her stately head, and said simply, “Lucian Leigh has asked me to marry him.”
“Already?” exclaimed Lady Haredale. “Why I shall never make a match-making mother. I saw that he wasépris, but I never thought of its happening at once!”
“I—I am afraid it seems quick—but, mother—I hope you won’t be angry, nor my father—but I said yes.”
“You did? and suppose my lord says no?”
“Oh, mamma, he will not?”
“Suppose he does?”
“I should wait till he consented, I couldn’t change. But indeed, mamma, he hasquiteenough money.”
“The little mercenary thing! She has thought of that!”
“No—no—but I thought there could be nothing else, he is so good.”
“Now look here, Amethyst,” said Lady Haredale, standing up, and laying her hand on the girl’s shoulder, “this is your first fancy?”
“Mother!”
“Well, yes, I supposed so. Now listen, and no one shall say I don’t tell you all the truth. You are a beauty. That is a very different thing from being a pretty girl. You would have—I could ensure your having—a great success, and you might make a very great marriage. I don’t think many mothers would let you marry in the country at eighteen. But, on the other hand, we’re as poor as rats, as you know; if you marry young Leigh you are provided for, and if you think you love him—I believe sheisin love with him—all my children are susceptible! No, I won’t talk you out of it.”
“Talking could not make any difference,” said Amethyst; then suddenly—“Oh, mamma, I don’t want to be wilful, I will try to be good, but please—please don’t say I must not!”
There was a passion in her tone, which Lady Haredale felt.
“No,” she said. “Youshallhave him! How like you are to poor pretty Blanche; you shan’t be talked out of your lover as she was. I’ll not have it on my conscience. But does the child think she knows her own mind?”
Amethyst felt indescribably jarred and hurt by her mothers manner. Her cheeks burnt and her eyes were bright, as she answered with equal straightforwardness, and with unexpected passion—
“I should have liked to be a beauty, and have a success; I know I should like it. But that’s all nothing, compared—compared tohim,” as the tears came in floods, and she hid her face.
“Ah!” said Lady Haredale.—“Poor little girl, it’s a shame to tease her! You are a good child, my pretty Amethyst, and you shall stay good, if you can. Come, kiss me and forgive me, and you shall have your way.” Amethyst threw herself into her mother’s arms, and, in clinging kisses, soon forgot her vexation. “Mother was right to make sure;” and she only felt that she had the kindest and tenderest mother ever known, and the most sympathetic. For Lady Haredale, with a sudden change of tone, began to question her, and listened to the little idyll with as fresh and eager an interest as if she had been Amethyst’s sister or school friend.
“My darling, its lovely. It’s the sweetest thing I ever knew, and I won’t let anything interfere with it.”
Chapter Eight.The Earthly Paradise.Lucian Leigh’s side of the story did not meet with so favourable a reception. Like Lady Haredale, Mrs Leigh had not taken warning in time, and, while she was thinking of cautioning her son against the penniless beauty, he stood before her with the tale of his successful wooing, quite unprepared for the displeasure with which she received it.He was entirely independent of her, and she had no power to prevent him from marrying whom he would; and when she comprehended that the offer had been made and accepted, her consternation was great.“Lucian! In three weeks! One of those Haredales! Nothing could have grieved me more.”“I don’t think you can mean that, mother,” said Lucian.“You don’t know what you are doing.”Lucian said nothing. The fewness of his words always made it difficult to argue with him. He made no protestations of passionate love, but he did not yield an inch, and only said at last—“But I’m booked now, mother. Ihaveproposed to her.”“Will you not at least give in to a delay? Have you no regard to my wishes?”“Yes,” said Lucian, “I wish you liked it. But I think I ought to settle it for myself. Anyway Ihavesettled it.”“And have you no misgivings?”“No,” said Lucian, with a light in his handsome face never seen there before.Mrs Leigh felt as if she might as well argue with a statue. She went to bed in distress and uncertainty, and, early the next morning sent over a message to the Rectory, begging Mr Riddell to come and see her at once. He was an old friend, and his office made her feel it right to consult him besides; and she was a woman who liked sympathy, and always talked freely of her troubles and anxieties.He came before breakfast was over at Ashfield, and Mrs Leigh, rising, with an eager squeeze of his hand, dismissed her little girls and their governess, and said tearfully—“My dear Rector, you know everything I would say. I shall leave you with this foolish boy to persuade him, if possible—”“I can go, mother, if you want to tell the Rector all your objections,” said Lucian. “Anyway I don’t see why you should go away. Ihaveproposed to Miss Haredale, and she has accepted me. The thing is done.”Lucian turned scarlet as he spoke, and embarrassment gave a certain coldness to his tone. Mr Riddell recognised that he would be hard to move.“My dear boy,” he said, as Mrs Leigh, in spite of her son’s words, left them alone together, “I think I am sorry that you have been so hasty. Three weeks is a very short time.”“It’s quite long enough,” said Lucian.“Yes, she is a beautiful girl, Lucian, and as guileless—as—as Psyche herself; and brought up by a good woman. But she is only eighteen, and no man can say what she will grow up to. There will be a very great deal of her, Lucian. She is a great prize. She is rarely beautiful, and she has brains, and is highly strung. She will expect a great deal of life. She does not know at all, yet, what she will need. She has all her growing and her living to do in the future.”“So have I,” said Lucian. “But one knows very well what one will come to.”“Yes, my dear Lucian, that is the very thing. But no one can know what Amethyst Haredale will come to. It’s a very serious thing to marry a girl who comes of so doubtful a stock. And, my dear boy, I am certain that her mother is not a good woman.”“Of course,” said Lucian, “I know all about her people. I shall take her right away from them. She has never been with Lady Haredale.”“Your mind is quite made up?”“Of course,” said Lucian. “It’s quite easy for me to marry early, and I don’t see why I should not. My mother will get used to it.”Lucian still uttered no expressions of enthusiastic love. He hardly attempted to defend Amethyst. His fair, beautifully formed face was quite still and impassive. He had made up his mind and so had Amethyst, and, with her by his side, he meant to begin at once to lead the life to which he believed himself called; to live on his estate, look after his tenants, keep up his shooting, attend to public business, and set a good example in his own neighbourhood. As he said himself, he knew exactly what he was going to grow to, and he never doubted that his wife would grow in the same direction as himself.He was a thoroughly good fellow; but Mr Riddell wondered whether he was quite the mate for the lovely child, in whose face a thousand possibilities were written, and whose nature was all in bud. The Rector was, however, a man who could recognise the inevitable. He saw that the engagement must be, and could only hope that the quick-springing love between the pair was warm enough to fuse these two natures into one. At least, they were still in a soft and malleable stage of existence. He set himself, therefore, not to talk over the young man, but to endeavour to reconcile Mrs Leigh to her son’s choice; and, what was perhaps equally hard, to the fact of his early marriage, and separation from her family circle.Lucian set off for Cleverley Hall, looking and feeling much as if he had been about to walk up to a cannon’s mouth. He was an odd mixture of self-confidence and unreadiness, and, though he felt perfectly sure that he was a right choice for Amethyst, he had no words in which to convey as much to her father.All the trouble, however, was saved him, for he was shown into the morning-room to Lady Haredale.“Ah, Mr Leigh,” she said, “what am I to say to you? What have you been doing with my little girl? I don’t think I ought to consent till she has seen a little of the world. I meant her to have such a success in London.”“But that wouldn’t be much good after we were engaged,” said Lucian. “And I don’t think she would like it.”“Don’t you?” said Lady Haredale, with a thought in her mind not very unlike her Rector’s, “Ah, you think she is a little nun. Well now, I am going to be quite frank with you. You know we are as poor as rats!”“I—I—I have understood that—that Lord Haredale was—not wealthy,” stammered Lucian, losing his self-possession entirely.“As rats—as church mice! Of coursenowI have no reserves with you. We can’t afford to take her out as we should like. Her grandfather’s will gives her 3,000 pounds on her wedding-day. We can’t give her a farthing more!”“I know that—I don’t care. I can settle—”“Ah yes; you will tell Lord Haredale about that. Because we are going to say yes. We think we ought to have our girl settled. And, my dear Mr Leigh—my dear Lucian, I want her to be happy. Oh, yes, you know about her poor sister.—That came of ambition—and I mean my Amethyst to have her way.”“I shall take care of her. I’ll make her happy—” said Lucian, touched, and with fervour.As he spoke, Lord Haredale came in, shook hands with him, heard his carefully prepared speech as to his money matters, and answered it. “Yes, my lady thinks we had better let her get settled at once. It will please her aunt, who brought her up. She is a good little thing, and I’m glad she should do well for herself.”“Well then,” said Lady Haredale, “we don’t like all these formalities, do we? You will much prefer coming to Amethyst. But your mother? I suppose she doesn’t like it?”“She does think we are rather young,” said Lucian meekly.“I shall talk to her. Now wait here, and I will find the child.”Lady Haredale went off to the school-room, where Amethyst was restlessly trying to look as if nothing was happening, and the younger girls, well aware of a crisis, were secretly watching her.“Well!” said Lady Haredale. “Now you can go and enjoy yourself. I quite mean to enjoy it all myself. Little girls, Amethyst has set you an excellent example. She has fallen in love, quite in an eligible direction, without any delay, in the most irreproachable manner. Mind you all go and do likewise!”“Oh,Iknew all about it,” said Tory. “But he’s much too well off and too eligible to be so handsome. It isn’t fair!”“It’s an awful joke!” said Kattern.Una stood silent for a moment, then flung herself on Amethyst’s neck.“Oh, how lucky you are!” she whispered, kissing her sister with hot quivering lips.“So I am,” whispered Amethyst in reply.She was blushing and confused; but there was a dreamy blissful air about her, as if she hardly heard these characteristic comments on her choice. She freed herself gently from Una, and went up to her mother, who, laughing, but with something of real tenderness, kissed her, and took her away. Tory gave a skip.“What a jolly lark,” she said.“It’s no such thing,” cried Una with passionate vehemence, as she rushed out of the room. “It’s losing the only thing that made life tolerable, and I’d like to go and hang myself at once.”“I’ll tell you what it is, Kat,” said Tory. “Una’s too great a fool for anything, and some day I shall tell Amethyst all about Tony.”“Una will half kill you if you do,” said Tory. “Never mind about that now. Let’s go into the garden, then we can peep in at the windows and see Amethyst and her young man!”There ensued a time which seemed to Amethyst afterwards like a piece out of an age of gold, each day more full than the one before it of absorbing, intoxicating bliss. There was the day when Lucian brought the ring, set with her namesake jewel, and put it on the pink girlish finger that had never worn a ring before, then spread out her soft delicate hand on his brown palm, and looked at it proudly, saying, “That shall stay there always. That means you belong to me.” And the two hands closed tight upon each other, as if they never would unclasp again.The first Sunday, too, when they went to church together, and gave thanks from the bottom of their young honest hearts for their great happiness, and when the hymn of the Heavenly City rang in Amethyst’s ears with vague and mystic rapture. Heaven was near and earth was good, and she did not quite know the one from the other. All was joy.As they came out, Lucian, with his shy, boyish smile, showed her a line in his hymn-book with a deep under-score.“Thine ageless walls are bondedWithamethysts unpriced...”“Oh, Lucian,” she said, half shocked, “but you shouldn’t think about me in church!”“Yes, I should,” said Lucian. “I shall think about you everywhere. Besides, we shall go to church together all our lives, you know, at Toppings. Then we’ll remember to-day.”“As if we could ever forget it!” said Amethyst dreamily, while her heart beat, and her eyes shone.“I never shall, as long as I live,” said Lucian. “Look there, look at those long-tailed tits swinging in the hedge. Do you know they grow those long tails quite smooth and straight in a little round nest? How do they manage it?”Lucian made his profession of life-long remembrance, and called her attention to the tits, much in the same tone of voice. He was not an emotional person, and his talk was mostly of what passed before his observant eyes.But fate did not intend that either of them should forget that summer Sunday when “all in the blue unclouded weather” they looked forward to the life that they were beginning together, in a world that seemed to them both very good, with the Heavenly City in a rainbow-tinted mist, far—far ahead of them.
Lucian Leigh’s side of the story did not meet with so favourable a reception. Like Lady Haredale, Mrs Leigh had not taken warning in time, and, while she was thinking of cautioning her son against the penniless beauty, he stood before her with the tale of his successful wooing, quite unprepared for the displeasure with which she received it.
He was entirely independent of her, and she had no power to prevent him from marrying whom he would; and when she comprehended that the offer had been made and accepted, her consternation was great.
“Lucian! In three weeks! One of those Haredales! Nothing could have grieved me more.”
“I don’t think you can mean that, mother,” said Lucian.
“You don’t know what you are doing.”
Lucian said nothing. The fewness of his words always made it difficult to argue with him. He made no protestations of passionate love, but he did not yield an inch, and only said at last—
“But I’m booked now, mother. Ihaveproposed to her.”
“Will you not at least give in to a delay? Have you no regard to my wishes?”
“Yes,” said Lucian, “I wish you liked it. But I think I ought to settle it for myself. Anyway Ihavesettled it.”
“And have you no misgivings?”
“No,” said Lucian, with a light in his handsome face never seen there before.
Mrs Leigh felt as if she might as well argue with a statue. She went to bed in distress and uncertainty, and, early the next morning sent over a message to the Rectory, begging Mr Riddell to come and see her at once. He was an old friend, and his office made her feel it right to consult him besides; and she was a woman who liked sympathy, and always talked freely of her troubles and anxieties.
He came before breakfast was over at Ashfield, and Mrs Leigh, rising, with an eager squeeze of his hand, dismissed her little girls and their governess, and said tearfully—
“My dear Rector, you know everything I would say. I shall leave you with this foolish boy to persuade him, if possible—”
“I can go, mother, if you want to tell the Rector all your objections,” said Lucian. “Anyway I don’t see why you should go away. Ihaveproposed to Miss Haredale, and she has accepted me. The thing is done.”
Lucian turned scarlet as he spoke, and embarrassment gave a certain coldness to his tone. Mr Riddell recognised that he would be hard to move.
“My dear boy,” he said, as Mrs Leigh, in spite of her son’s words, left them alone together, “I think I am sorry that you have been so hasty. Three weeks is a very short time.”
“It’s quite long enough,” said Lucian.
“Yes, she is a beautiful girl, Lucian, and as guileless—as—as Psyche herself; and brought up by a good woman. But she is only eighteen, and no man can say what she will grow up to. There will be a very great deal of her, Lucian. She is a great prize. She is rarely beautiful, and she has brains, and is highly strung. She will expect a great deal of life. She does not know at all, yet, what she will need. She has all her growing and her living to do in the future.”
“So have I,” said Lucian. “But one knows very well what one will come to.”
“Yes, my dear Lucian, that is the very thing. But no one can know what Amethyst Haredale will come to. It’s a very serious thing to marry a girl who comes of so doubtful a stock. And, my dear boy, I am certain that her mother is not a good woman.”
“Of course,” said Lucian, “I know all about her people. I shall take her right away from them. She has never been with Lady Haredale.”
“Your mind is quite made up?”
“Of course,” said Lucian. “It’s quite easy for me to marry early, and I don’t see why I should not. My mother will get used to it.”
Lucian still uttered no expressions of enthusiastic love. He hardly attempted to defend Amethyst. His fair, beautifully formed face was quite still and impassive. He had made up his mind and so had Amethyst, and, with her by his side, he meant to begin at once to lead the life to which he believed himself called; to live on his estate, look after his tenants, keep up his shooting, attend to public business, and set a good example in his own neighbourhood. As he said himself, he knew exactly what he was going to grow to, and he never doubted that his wife would grow in the same direction as himself.
He was a thoroughly good fellow; but Mr Riddell wondered whether he was quite the mate for the lovely child, in whose face a thousand possibilities were written, and whose nature was all in bud. The Rector was, however, a man who could recognise the inevitable. He saw that the engagement must be, and could only hope that the quick-springing love between the pair was warm enough to fuse these two natures into one. At least, they were still in a soft and malleable stage of existence. He set himself, therefore, not to talk over the young man, but to endeavour to reconcile Mrs Leigh to her son’s choice; and, what was perhaps equally hard, to the fact of his early marriage, and separation from her family circle.
Lucian set off for Cleverley Hall, looking and feeling much as if he had been about to walk up to a cannon’s mouth. He was an odd mixture of self-confidence and unreadiness, and, though he felt perfectly sure that he was a right choice for Amethyst, he had no words in which to convey as much to her father.
All the trouble, however, was saved him, for he was shown into the morning-room to Lady Haredale.
“Ah, Mr Leigh,” she said, “what am I to say to you? What have you been doing with my little girl? I don’t think I ought to consent till she has seen a little of the world. I meant her to have such a success in London.”
“But that wouldn’t be much good after we were engaged,” said Lucian. “And I don’t think she would like it.”
“Don’t you?” said Lady Haredale, with a thought in her mind not very unlike her Rector’s, “Ah, you think she is a little nun. Well now, I am going to be quite frank with you. You know we are as poor as rats!”
“I—I—I have understood that—that Lord Haredale was—not wealthy,” stammered Lucian, losing his self-possession entirely.
“As rats—as church mice! Of coursenowI have no reserves with you. We can’t afford to take her out as we should like. Her grandfather’s will gives her 3,000 pounds on her wedding-day. We can’t give her a farthing more!”
“I know that—I don’t care. I can settle—”
“Ah yes; you will tell Lord Haredale about that. Because we are going to say yes. We think we ought to have our girl settled. And, my dear Mr Leigh—my dear Lucian, I want her to be happy. Oh, yes, you know about her poor sister.—That came of ambition—and I mean my Amethyst to have her way.”
“I shall take care of her. I’ll make her happy—” said Lucian, touched, and with fervour.
As he spoke, Lord Haredale came in, shook hands with him, heard his carefully prepared speech as to his money matters, and answered it. “Yes, my lady thinks we had better let her get settled at once. It will please her aunt, who brought her up. She is a good little thing, and I’m glad she should do well for herself.”
“Well then,” said Lady Haredale, “we don’t like all these formalities, do we? You will much prefer coming to Amethyst. But your mother? I suppose she doesn’t like it?”
“She does think we are rather young,” said Lucian meekly.
“I shall talk to her. Now wait here, and I will find the child.”
Lady Haredale went off to the school-room, where Amethyst was restlessly trying to look as if nothing was happening, and the younger girls, well aware of a crisis, were secretly watching her.
“Well!” said Lady Haredale. “Now you can go and enjoy yourself. I quite mean to enjoy it all myself. Little girls, Amethyst has set you an excellent example. She has fallen in love, quite in an eligible direction, without any delay, in the most irreproachable manner. Mind you all go and do likewise!”
“Oh,Iknew all about it,” said Tory. “But he’s much too well off and too eligible to be so handsome. It isn’t fair!”
“It’s an awful joke!” said Kattern.
Una stood silent for a moment, then flung herself on Amethyst’s neck.
“Oh, how lucky you are!” she whispered, kissing her sister with hot quivering lips.
“So I am,” whispered Amethyst in reply.
She was blushing and confused; but there was a dreamy blissful air about her, as if she hardly heard these characteristic comments on her choice. She freed herself gently from Una, and went up to her mother, who, laughing, but with something of real tenderness, kissed her, and took her away. Tory gave a skip.
“What a jolly lark,” she said.
“It’s no such thing,” cried Una with passionate vehemence, as she rushed out of the room. “It’s losing the only thing that made life tolerable, and I’d like to go and hang myself at once.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Kat,” said Tory. “Una’s too great a fool for anything, and some day I shall tell Amethyst all about Tony.”
“Una will half kill you if you do,” said Tory. “Never mind about that now. Let’s go into the garden, then we can peep in at the windows and see Amethyst and her young man!”
There ensued a time which seemed to Amethyst afterwards like a piece out of an age of gold, each day more full than the one before it of absorbing, intoxicating bliss. There was the day when Lucian brought the ring, set with her namesake jewel, and put it on the pink girlish finger that had never worn a ring before, then spread out her soft delicate hand on his brown palm, and looked at it proudly, saying, “That shall stay there always. That means you belong to me.” And the two hands closed tight upon each other, as if they never would unclasp again.
The first Sunday, too, when they went to church together, and gave thanks from the bottom of their young honest hearts for their great happiness, and when the hymn of the Heavenly City rang in Amethyst’s ears with vague and mystic rapture. Heaven was near and earth was good, and she did not quite know the one from the other. All was joy.
As they came out, Lucian, with his shy, boyish smile, showed her a line in his hymn-book with a deep under-score.
“Thine ageless walls are bondedWithamethysts unpriced...”
“Thine ageless walls are bondedWithamethysts unpriced...”
“Oh, Lucian,” she said, half shocked, “but you shouldn’t think about me in church!”
“Yes, I should,” said Lucian. “I shall think about you everywhere. Besides, we shall go to church together all our lives, you know, at Toppings. Then we’ll remember to-day.”
“As if we could ever forget it!” said Amethyst dreamily, while her heart beat, and her eyes shone.
“I never shall, as long as I live,” said Lucian. “Look there, look at those long-tailed tits swinging in the hedge. Do you know they grow those long tails quite smooth and straight in a little round nest? How do they manage it?”
Lucian made his profession of life-long remembrance, and called her attention to the tits, much in the same tone of voice. He was not an emotional person, and his talk was mostly of what passed before his observant eyes.
But fate did not intend that either of them should forget that summer Sunday when “all in the blue unclouded weather” they looked forward to the life that they were beginning together, in a world that seemed to them both very good, with the Heavenly City in a rainbow-tinted mist, far—far ahead of them.
Chapter Nine.Tony.The wedding was fixed for the middle of July, and, in the middle of June, Lucian went to Toppings to arrange for having it prepared for the reception of his bride. His long minority had left him with plenty of ready money; but neither he nor Amethyst had grown-up sufficiently to have much desire for house-decoration of an aesthetic kind. They were much more full of the long foreign tour, which was to follow their marriage, than of the details of their future house-keeping. He was also obliged to pay a visit to some elderly relations in his own county, so that he was absent from Cleverley for nearly a fortnight.Amethyst meanwhile was free to give her mind to her wedding garments, which delighted Lady Haredale even more than the bride herself. Money or credit had been found for the trousseau, and Amethyst was too inexperienced to know that it was both very costly, and rather inadequate.A visit, in the course of the wedding tour, was to be paid to Miss Haredale at Lausanne, where she was spending the summer, and Amethyst had few anticipations more delightful than that of showing her Lucian to “auntie,” whose congratulations had been full of incredulous pleasure.In the meantime, Lady Haredale had been as sympathetic as a girl, promoting the love-idyll in every possible way, and devising the loveliest and most original costumes for her daughter. Amethyst set her own girlish fancy on an “amethyst” velvet, which she considered suitable to a young married lady, and felt would be becoming to herself; but she cared most to have her riding habit exactly what Lucian thought correct, and to choose hats of the shapes and colours which he admired.She went to London with Lady Haredale for a few days during his absence, to complete these arrangements, and there, in the brief intervals when her mind was not taken up with her lover’s letters, or with the engrossing business of the trousseau, she fancied that Lady Haredale was less cheery and light-hearted than usual. Her father, who was very little at Cleverley, met them in London, and disappointed her by his want of interest in her prospects, and by the captious, irritable annoyance with which he turned off any mention of the wedding. She returned to Cleverley with her mother, while Lucian was still absent, and found there Major Fowler, who had, he said, “been backwards and forwards” during Lady Haredale’s absence. Amethyst’s first view of the great “Tony” had been that he was a middle-aged gentleman, an uninteresting but worthy family friend.Therefore it appeared to her quite natural that the girls should be “very fond of him,” as Tory, with a wicked twinkle in her eye, declared herself to be. Amethyst herself behaved to him graciously, as a person that she expected to know and like, but rather respectfully, as belonging to her elders.She thought so little about him, that it was not until Lucian expressed a dislike to him, that she realised that there was something about him that she did not like herself. She was not shy; but he had a way sometimes of staring at her that made her uncomfortable, and, almost unconsciously, she held him at a distance and did not fall into the free intercourse with him practised by her sisters. Her mother called him “poor Tony,” and had explained him in the following manner some time before.“You see, my dear, the poor fellow has been very unlucky. Of course I don’t enter into the questions between him and Mrs Fowler; she wasn’t a pleasant woman, and she is dead now. I’m sure he had his excuses. Besides, that is all over and done with, and I hate picking holes in people, one should take them as one finds them. This is his refuge; he is very domestic. Men are quite lost without a woman to turn to.”“I suppose he is a very old friend,” said Amethyst, quite simply.“Oh yes, darling; six or seven years I’ve known him. He was at Nice once with us, and he used to run down to Twickenham. But you know, as my lord is so much away, I always make a point of having the children about. That is why they have been so much in the drawing-room, and lost their schooling, poor dears!”Amethyst blushed with a confused sense of misgiving, as her mother fixed her sweet, shallow eyes upon her. The apologetic tone seemed out of place.Her time had been, however, too much taken up by Lucian for Major Fowler to come much in her way, though she was glad when now, on their return from London, after an hour’s chat with Lady Haredale, he went off by the train, without any definite promise of an immediate return.Lady Haredale drew a long sigh as she watched him go.“Things come to an end!” she said sentimentally. “Who would have thought it of poor Tony?”“Thought what, mother?” said Amethyst.“Ah, that’s a secret! Well, it’s all for the best. Nothing can go on for ever. But I don’t know.—Well! I never look forward. There’s a way out of everything. I never knew a bother, that I didn’t see round the corner of it soon!”Lady Haredale laughed, and Amethyst looked at her, admiring her cheery sweetness; but presently the mother’s brows drew together, and she bit her lip sharply, then smiled suddenly, and, with the confidential air, which yet bestowed no confidence, said,—“Men never believe that one has any tact at all!” and walked away.Amethyst was puzzled; sometimes she felt as if, in addition to all other blessings, her marriage would be a refuge from a home that might have many perplexities. Her mother was occasionally mysterious. Tory threw out hints, which Amethyst did not choose to follow up. Una was ill and miserable, giving way to unexplained fits of crying, and angry when Amethyst tried to laugh her out of them.The time of Lucian’s absence seemed endless, and, on the afternoon of his return, Amethyst’s spirits rose to rapturous pitch.It was a lovely summer day, tea was laid out on the terrace. Over the grave, old-fashioned garden was a blaze of joyous sunlight, giving it a cheerfulness that it sometimes lacked. For the high, broad cypress hedges in front of the house were continued behind it, and enclosed the garden in a square of sombre green. These living walls were as firm and regular as if they had been built of brick.Here and there recesses were cut in them, in which benches were placed, and at intervals, and at the corners, the cypresses grew to a great height, and were cut into all sorts of fantastic shapes—pyramids, peacocks, and lyres, the pride of the old gardener, who regarded himself as their owner in a much more real sense than either tenants or landlord.They were certainly very striking and uncommon, and formed an effective setting to the elaborate pattern of bright flower-beds into which the turf between them was cut up. Here and there, against the dark hedges, and along the terrace, were placed really graceful statues, and in the centre was a fountain of marble Tritons and dolphins, very suitable to the formal stateliness of the whole scene. Amethyst, in her prettiest dress and hat, her beauty heightened by joyous expectation, was flitting about among the flowers, picking one here and there, and chattering to Tory and Kattern. She was longing for Lucian, but in the security of her young unbroken peace it was longing, unmixed with doubt or fear. She was happy because he was coming, not fearful that he might not come.Una was sitting on the terrace steps. Like her little sisters she wore a bright red frock striped with white, and a fantastically-shaped hat with a red bow in it. The costume, which was becoming to the children, had an odd bizarre effect on the tall thin girl, with her masses of hair, and her melancholy eyes. Lady Haredale sat just above her, the tea-table by her side, and a French novel on her lap. She looked the picture of lazy comfort, and a very pretty picture too, with her uncovered head, as fearless as her girls of air and light, openly reading a book which most mothers, if they studied it at all, would have blushed to let their daughters see in their hands.Presently a telegram was brought to her, and Amethyst came running up.“Not from Lucian, mamma?”“Oh no, my dear child. I should like to weep a little over this bit of news. Dear old Tony has been soconvenient, and I like to have a man about the house; but, as he says, it wouldn’t be right to let such a chance slip. So he’s going to marry this heiress. Ah, well, it’s a great sacrifice in some ways.—What’s that?”A sudden piercing shriek interrupted the sweet melancholy flow of Lady Haredale’s tones. Una sprang up from the steps, threw up her arms, made a movement as if to rush away, but either fell, or flung herself down headlong, across a bed of scarlet geraniums. Tory, who had come running up to hear the news, with a watering-pot in her hand, deliberately turned, and emptied its contents on Una’s head, with the result of causing her to start up, choking with sobs, half of rage, half of misery.“Don’t be such a fool, Una,” said Tory, sharply. “You’ve known it was coming, you’ve always known it was no use.”Una rushed away into the house, her sobs and half-choked screams echoing as she went.“What does it mean?” said Amethyst, appalled. “It means,” said Tory, “that Tony was always fond of kissing us and spooning us, when he was hanging about my lady. But Una has been over head and ears in love with him ever since I can remember, and he liked it and called her his little wife, and she’d sit all day in the window watching for him, or hide in the passage waiting for a kiss.”“Oh, my dear child,” said Lady Haredale, “of course Tony was only in play.”“Yes, but Una wasn’t. And lately he has been trying to get her out of it. That’s why she has been so miserable; only she didn’t want Amethyst to know.”“It’s quite absurd,” said Lady Haredale, “those things should never go too far. It’s quite Una’s fault. I shall have to bring her out, when you are married, Amethyst, to put it out of her head. As if Tony cared for a chit like her!”Victoria made an indescribable grimace, while Amethyst was speechless. Tory’s cynical plain-speaking, and her mothers light response, turned her quite cold with horror.“Mother, you will never let that man come here again?” she exclaimed, at length. “If he could behave so—”“Oh, my dear child,” said Lady Haredale, “it was only play.—Poor little Una will soon forget it again. It’s just a little sentiment, that’s all.”Amethyst turned with a start, as Lucian, for once taking her by surprise, came out of the house all eager and joyous.“Oh, dear Lucian,” said Lady Haredale, “we are quite upset! Such a sudden piece of news.”“There is something the matter!” said Lucian, with an anxious look at Amethyst, whose face was still scared and startled, even in the midst of his greeting.“Oh no!” said Lady Haredale. “But our dear old friend Major Fowler is going to be married. The girls are all in tears, he issucha loss, we can’t imagine ourselves without him. I think we’ve all had a share in him, we don’t like to give him up to an heiress. I don’t know what we shall do.”Amethyst made no contradiction, but she looked at her mother with tragical eyes, hardly controlling tears of she knew not what strange distress.“What does it mean?” said Lucian, as Lady Haredale turned away. “I don’t understand.”“Don’t ask,” said Amethyst. “Oh, Lucian, it’s like heaven to see you, and know that I belong to you,—but—but—”“You don’t belong to any one else; keep yourself quite separate. You’re mine, mine only,” said Lucian in the short, masterful tone peculiar to him.“I hate that fellow,” he continued, as he drew her away into the cypress walk; “he’s a bad sort.”“But now he is going to be married, we shall not see anything more of him,” said Amethyst.“Have nothing to do with him. You haven’t seen very much of him, have you?”“Why, I haveseena good deal of him. He has been here so much; but—Lucian, I don’t think I notice any one now-a-days. I’m always thinking of you.”Lucian looked down at her with eyes which, light in colour and steadfast in expression, had a peculiar unfaltering clearness, pure as crystal, but a little hard. He was rarely tender in word or look, he showed his love for Amethyst by taking possession of her.“No one else has any right to you,” he said firmly; and, as he took her in his arms, she forgot everything that troubled her, in his kiss.
The wedding was fixed for the middle of July, and, in the middle of June, Lucian went to Toppings to arrange for having it prepared for the reception of his bride. His long minority had left him with plenty of ready money; but neither he nor Amethyst had grown-up sufficiently to have much desire for house-decoration of an aesthetic kind. They were much more full of the long foreign tour, which was to follow their marriage, than of the details of their future house-keeping. He was also obliged to pay a visit to some elderly relations in his own county, so that he was absent from Cleverley for nearly a fortnight.
Amethyst meanwhile was free to give her mind to her wedding garments, which delighted Lady Haredale even more than the bride herself. Money or credit had been found for the trousseau, and Amethyst was too inexperienced to know that it was both very costly, and rather inadequate.
A visit, in the course of the wedding tour, was to be paid to Miss Haredale at Lausanne, where she was spending the summer, and Amethyst had few anticipations more delightful than that of showing her Lucian to “auntie,” whose congratulations had been full of incredulous pleasure.
In the meantime, Lady Haredale had been as sympathetic as a girl, promoting the love-idyll in every possible way, and devising the loveliest and most original costumes for her daughter. Amethyst set her own girlish fancy on an “amethyst” velvet, which she considered suitable to a young married lady, and felt would be becoming to herself; but she cared most to have her riding habit exactly what Lucian thought correct, and to choose hats of the shapes and colours which he admired.
She went to London with Lady Haredale for a few days during his absence, to complete these arrangements, and there, in the brief intervals when her mind was not taken up with her lover’s letters, or with the engrossing business of the trousseau, she fancied that Lady Haredale was less cheery and light-hearted than usual. Her father, who was very little at Cleverley, met them in London, and disappointed her by his want of interest in her prospects, and by the captious, irritable annoyance with which he turned off any mention of the wedding. She returned to Cleverley with her mother, while Lucian was still absent, and found there Major Fowler, who had, he said, “been backwards and forwards” during Lady Haredale’s absence. Amethyst’s first view of the great “Tony” had been that he was a middle-aged gentleman, an uninteresting but worthy family friend.
Therefore it appeared to her quite natural that the girls should be “very fond of him,” as Tory, with a wicked twinkle in her eye, declared herself to be. Amethyst herself behaved to him graciously, as a person that she expected to know and like, but rather respectfully, as belonging to her elders.
She thought so little about him, that it was not until Lucian expressed a dislike to him, that she realised that there was something about him that she did not like herself. She was not shy; but he had a way sometimes of staring at her that made her uncomfortable, and, almost unconsciously, she held him at a distance and did not fall into the free intercourse with him practised by her sisters. Her mother called him “poor Tony,” and had explained him in the following manner some time before.
“You see, my dear, the poor fellow has been very unlucky. Of course I don’t enter into the questions between him and Mrs Fowler; she wasn’t a pleasant woman, and she is dead now. I’m sure he had his excuses. Besides, that is all over and done with, and I hate picking holes in people, one should take them as one finds them. This is his refuge; he is very domestic. Men are quite lost without a woman to turn to.”
“I suppose he is a very old friend,” said Amethyst, quite simply.
“Oh yes, darling; six or seven years I’ve known him. He was at Nice once with us, and he used to run down to Twickenham. But you know, as my lord is so much away, I always make a point of having the children about. That is why they have been so much in the drawing-room, and lost their schooling, poor dears!”
Amethyst blushed with a confused sense of misgiving, as her mother fixed her sweet, shallow eyes upon her. The apologetic tone seemed out of place.
Her time had been, however, too much taken up by Lucian for Major Fowler to come much in her way, though she was glad when now, on their return from London, after an hour’s chat with Lady Haredale, he went off by the train, without any definite promise of an immediate return.
Lady Haredale drew a long sigh as she watched him go.
“Things come to an end!” she said sentimentally. “Who would have thought it of poor Tony?”
“Thought what, mother?” said Amethyst.
“Ah, that’s a secret! Well, it’s all for the best. Nothing can go on for ever. But I don’t know.—Well! I never look forward. There’s a way out of everything. I never knew a bother, that I didn’t see round the corner of it soon!”
Lady Haredale laughed, and Amethyst looked at her, admiring her cheery sweetness; but presently the mother’s brows drew together, and she bit her lip sharply, then smiled suddenly, and, with the confidential air, which yet bestowed no confidence, said,—
“Men never believe that one has any tact at all!” and walked away.
Amethyst was puzzled; sometimes she felt as if, in addition to all other blessings, her marriage would be a refuge from a home that might have many perplexities. Her mother was occasionally mysterious. Tory threw out hints, which Amethyst did not choose to follow up. Una was ill and miserable, giving way to unexplained fits of crying, and angry when Amethyst tried to laugh her out of them.
The time of Lucian’s absence seemed endless, and, on the afternoon of his return, Amethyst’s spirits rose to rapturous pitch.
It was a lovely summer day, tea was laid out on the terrace. Over the grave, old-fashioned garden was a blaze of joyous sunlight, giving it a cheerfulness that it sometimes lacked. For the high, broad cypress hedges in front of the house were continued behind it, and enclosed the garden in a square of sombre green. These living walls were as firm and regular as if they had been built of brick.
Here and there recesses were cut in them, in which benches were placed, and at intervals, and at the corners, the cypresses grew to a great height, and were cut into all sorts of fantastic shapes—pyramids, peacocks, and lyres, the pride of the old gardener, who regarded himself as their owner in a much more real sense than either tenants or landlord.
They were certainly very striking and uncommon, and formed an effective setting to the elaborate pattern of bright flower-beds into which the turf between them was cut up. Here and there, against the dark hedges, and along the terrace, were placed really graceful statues, and in the centre was a fountain of marble Tritons and dolphins, very suitable to the formal stateliness of the whole scene. Amethyst, in her prettiest dress and hat, her beauty heightened by joyous expectation, was flitting about among the flowers, picking one here and there, and chattering to Tory and Kattern. She was longing for Lucian, but in the security of her young unbroken peace it was longing, unmixed with doubt or fear. She was happy because he was coming, not fearful that he might not come.
Una was sitting on the terrace steps. Like her little sisters she wore a bright red frock striped with white, and a fantastically-shaped hat with a red bow in it. The costume, which was becoming to the children, had an odd bizarre effect on the tall thin girl, with her masses of hair, and her melancholy eyes. Lady Haredale sat just above her, the tea-table by her side, and a French novel on her lap. She looked the picture of lazy comfort, and a very pretty picture too, with her uncovered head, as fearless as her girls of air and light, openly reading a book which most mothers, if they studied it at all, would have blushed to let their daughters see in their hands.
Presently a telegram was brought to her, and Amethyst came running up.
“Not from Lucian, mamma?”
“Oh no, my dear child. I should like to weep a little over this bit of news. Dear old Tony has been soconvenient, and I like to have a man about the house; but, as he says, it wouldn’t be right to let such a chance slip. So he’s going to marry this heiress. Ah, well, it’s a great sacrifice in some ways.—What’s that?”
A sudden piercing shriek interrupted the sweet melancholy flow of Lady Haredale’s tones. Una sprang up from the steps, threw up her arms, made a movement as if to rush away, but either fell, or flung herself down headlong, across a bed of scarlet geraniums. Tory, who had come running up to hear the news, with a watering-pot in her hand, deliberately turned, and emptied its contents on Una’s head, with the result of causing her to start up, choking with sobs, half of rage, half of misery.
“Don’t be such a fool, Una,” said Tory, sharply. “You’ve known it was coming, you’ve always known it was no use.”
Una rushed away into the house, her sobs and half-choked screams echoing as she went.
“What does it mean?” said Amethyst, appalled. “It means,” said Tory, “that Tony was always fond of kissing us and spooning us, when he was hanging about my lady. But Una has been over head and ears in love with him ever since I can remember, and he liked it and called her his little wife, and she’d sit all day in the window watching for him, or hide in the passage waiting for a kiss.”
“Oh, my dear child,” said Lady Haredale, “of course Tony was only in play.”
“Yes, but Una wasn’t. And lately he has been trying to get her out of it. That’s why she has been so miserable; only she didn’t want Amethyst to know.”
“It’s quite absurd,” said Lady Haredale, “those things should never go too far. It’s quite Una’s fault. I shall have to bring her out, when you are married, Amethyst, to put it out of her head. As if Tony cared for a chit like her!”
Victoria made an indescribable grimace, while Amethyst was speechless. Tory’s cynical plain-speaking, and her mothers light response, turned her quite cold with horror.
“Mother, you will never let that man come here again?” she exclaimed, at length. “If he could behave so—”
“Oh, my dear child,” said Lady Haredale, “it was only play.—Poor little Una will soon forget it again. It’s just a little sentiment, that’s all.”
Amethyst turned with a start, as Lucian, for once taking her by surprise, came out of the house all eager and joyous.
“Oh, dear Lucian,” said Lady Haredale, “we are quite upset! Such a sudden piece of news.”
“There is something the matter!” said Lucian, with an anxious look at Amethyst, whose face was still scared and startled, even in the midst of his greeting.
“Oh no!” said Lady Haredale. “But our dear old friend Major Fowler is going to be married. The girls are all in tears, he issucha loss, we can’t imagine ourselves without him. I think we’ve all had a share in him, we don’t like to give him up to an heiress. I don’t know what we shall do.”
Amethyst made no contradiction, but she looked at her mother with tragical eyes, hardly controlling tears of she knew not what strange distress.
“What does it mean?” said Lucian, as Lady Haredale turned away. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t ask,” said Amethyst. “Oh, Lucian, it’s like heaven to see you, and know that I belong to you,—but—but—”
“You don’t belong to any one else; keep yourself quite separate. You’re mine, mine only,” said Lucian in the short, masterful tone peculiar to him.
“I hate that fellow,” he continued, as he drew her away into the cypress walk; “he’s a bad sort.”
“But now he is going to be married, we shall not see anything more of him,” said Amethyst.
“Have nothing to do with him. You haven’t seen very much of him, have you?”
“Why, I haveseena good deal of him. He has been here so much; but—Lucian, I don’t think I notice any one now-a-days. I’m always thinking of you.”
Lucian looked down at her with eyes which, light in colour and steadfast in expression, had a peculiar unfaltering clearness, pure as crystal, but a little hard. He was rarely tender in word or look, he showed his love for Amethyst by taking possession of her.
“No one else has any right to you,” he said firmly; and, as he took her in his arms, she forgot everything that troubled her, in his kiss.