CHAPTER XXVIIIA THUNDERBOLT
WHILE the rain was beating with monotonous persistence upon the oriel windows of Pen-y-Gros Castle, Araminta was summoned to Aunt Caroline’s boudoir. So little did that artless being suspect calamity that she obeyed the summons joyfully, because she felt convinced that Aunt Caroline was to confer with her as to whether Muffin would like to stay still longer. But it proved to be something else.
Aunt Caroline was looking very bleak and formidable, and Lord Cheriton, who was present also, had never seemed so much like a parent, so benevolently unbending was his manner.
“Girl,” said Aunt Caroline—she very seldom addressed Araminta in any other style than “Girl”—“sit there and try not to behave foolishly. I am going to speak about your future.”
So little was Araminta preoccupied with things in general that she hardly knew that she had such a thing as a future. However, with her usual docility, she sat upon the chair that Aunt Caroline had indicated, and proceeded to give her best attention to her august relation.
“I will be brief,” said Aunt Caroline, with an extremely businesslike air. “My old friend Lord Cheriton has been good enough to take an interest in you, and if you are a good girl he will marry you. You have no objection, I presume?”
It was clear by Aunt Caroline’s tone that she merely asked the last question as a matter of form. But that brisk old worldling went a little too quickly for her niece Araminta, who was really a very slow-witted creature. Some little time had to pass before she could accept the purport of Aunt Caroline’s announcement. And when at last she was able to do so it literally took away her breath.
Aunt Caroline allowed the creature quite thirty seconds in which to reply. No reply being forthcoming in that space of time, she proceeded to address her as though she were a prisoner at the bar.
“Well, girl,” said Aunt Caroline, “what have you to say?”
Araminta had nothing to say apparently. But from the uppermost forehead to the depths of the neck, a slowly deepening wave of scarlet was spreading over the whole surface of her frank and vividly colored countenance.
“Humph!” said Aunt Caroline; “no objection apparently.” She then addressed a third person very succinctly. “Cheriton,” said she, “I congratulate you. You are not everybody’s choice, and I must confess to some surprise that no objection has been urged. That is the Wargrave in her, I dare say. The Wargraves have always known how to acceptthe inevitable. They have often gone to the scaffold rather than make a pother.”
“Family pride again, my dear Caroline,” said Cheriton, in a voice of honey. “Still, in the circumstances, perhaps a slight display of it is pardonable. History is not my strong point, but I seem to remember that between the age of Edward VI. and the age of Victoria the Wargraves went oftener to the scaffold than anywhere else. To a layman that always appears to be one of the baffling points about the pride of old families. If we go back far enough we generally find that a lawyer who was too astute to be honest established their fortunes; or a fellow who managed to cheat the troops in Flanders of their food and clothing.”
“Don’t be a coxcomb, Cheriton,” said Caroline, sharply. “Remember my niece. I shall expect you to be good to her. Fortunately for herself she has no brains, but she eats well and sleeps well, she is quite healthy in every respect, and her disposition is affectionate.”
“Our dear Miss Goose is perfectly charming,” said Cheriton, ogling Miss Perry, who by this time was trembling violently, and who sat in solemn scarlet consternation. “I am the proudest man in England.”
Caroline Crewkerne raised a finger.
“You have said enough, Cheriton,” said she. “I have my own opinion about the transaction, but I am inclined to think the creature might have done worse. You can go now, girl. Don’t mention this matterto your sister until you have my permission to do so.”
Miss Perry rose with her usual docility, but in her countenance was an ever-deepening scarlet. She moved slowly and heavily to the door of the boudoir without speaking a word, either to her aunt or to Lord Cheriton. Her hand was already upon the door when she turned round and faced the former. The blue eyes were full of dismay.
“If you please, Aunt Caroline,” she drawled in her ridiculous manner, “I don’tquitethink I can marry Lord Cheriton.”
The old woman sat up in her chair in the manner of a Lord Chief Justice who has been confronted with a flagrant contempt of court.
“What do you mean, girl?” said she. “You don’tquitethink you can marry Lord Cheriton. Explain your meaning.”
In the most favorable circumstances it was never very easy for Miss Perry to explain her meaning. In these she seemed to find considerable difficulty in doing so. Aunt Caroline gave her exactly thirty seconds, but Miss Perry required longer than that.
“Speak, girl,” said Aunt Caroline. “Are you dumb?”
Miss Perry was not dumb, but speech had never been so tardy.
“Girl, will you have the goodness to explain,” said the old lady, “why you are notquiteable to marry Lord Cheriton?”
At last Miss Perry was able to furnish the required explanation.
“If you please, Aunt Caroline,” she drawled ridiculously, “I have p-r-r-romised to marry Jim.”
The old lady’s ebony walking-stick fell to the ground so peremptorily that Ponto was disturbed in his slumbers.
“Jim!” said Aunt Caroline. “Who, pray, is Jim?”
“Jim Lascelles,” said Miss Perry.
“I presume you mean the painting man,” said Aunt Caroline.
“Yes,” said Miss Perry.
There was a pause in which Cheriton and his old friend looked at one another long and particularly.
“Hand me my stick, girl,” said Aunt Caroline.
Miss Perry did as she was desired. Her manner of doing it seemed to imply that she expected to receive physical correction.
“Sit down, girl,” said Aunt Caroline.
Miss Perry resumed her chair, doubtless with an emotion of thankfulness upon her narrow escape.
“I could not have believed it to be possible,” said Aunt Caroline, speaking very slowly, “that a Wargrave could have been so imprudent, so ungrateful, so entirely lacking in self-respect.”
This indictment was delivered in the most deliberate and crushing manner; but a good deal of the effect was marred because Cheriton laughed outright in the middle of it. Aunt Caroline, however, presented a haughty indifference to the behavior of thehusband-elect, who, of course, was not himself a Wargrave, and whose behavior in this crisis showed that fact clearly.
“Are you mad, girl?” said the old lady. “Answer me.”
“Jim is awfully nice,” drawled Miss Perry.
The ebony walking-stick and the head-dress performed a concerted piece together which filled Ponto with consternation.
“The creature must be a natural.”
Miss Perry grew bolder, however, as the clear conviction that she was pledged to Jim Lascelles took a firmer hold upon her.
“We shall not marry just yet, don’t you know,” said Miss Perry, with the air of one who imparts valuable information. “But Jim is going to get rich so that he can buy back the Red House at Widdiford, and then we are going to live in it, and it will be too sweet.”
Aunt Caroline having grown incoherent with legitimate anger it devolved upon Cheriton to say something.
“Capital!” said he, in a most benevolent manner.
This expression of opinion helped Caroline Crewkerne through her crisis.
“You inconceivably foolish girl,” said she. “Have you no sense of decency?”
“Muffin has p-r-r-romised to wear her mauve at the wedding,” drawled Miss Perry.
Had not the husband-elect blown his nose very vigorously there is reason to fear that he wouldagain have been guilty of conduct unlike that of a Wargrave.
“Silence, girl!” said Aunt Caroline. “Don’t speak another word until you have permission. This comes of crossing the breed. Now listen to me. The sooner you remove the man Lascelles from that inconceivably foolish and demoralized head of yours the better it will be for you. Where is your self-respect? Where is your sense of decency?”
“Muffin——” said Miss Perry, but she got no farther because an imperious finger stayed her.
“Don’t speak,” said Aunt Caroline. “Simply listen. Dismiss the man Lascelles from your mind, and try to remember who you are, and where you are, and what you are saying. My old friend Lord Cheriton desires to marry you. Understand that clearly. And he has my permission to do so. Understand that clearly also. Now you may say something.”
Miss Perry took advantage of this gracious permission to turn to Lord Cheriton with a charmingly friendly smile upon her scarlet countenance.
“It is so dear of you, Lord Cheriton,” she said, “and if I were not going to marry Jim I would marryyou. Perhaps Muffin——”
Aunt Caroline affronted the nerves of Ponto by rapping sharply with her stick upon the floor.
“You have said sufficient,” said she. “Dismiss the man Lascelles from your mind once and for all. You are going to marry Lord Cheriton. Is that quite clear?”
Apparently this was not quite so clear to Miss Perry as it was to Aunt Caroline. For that Featherbrain opened her eyes so widely that they seemed to acquire the color of violets, and a look of sheer perplexity settled upon her frank countenance.
“But if you don’t mind, dearest Aunt Caroline,” said she, “I p-r-r-romised to marry Jim.”
Aunt Caroline began to storm.
“Is the girl a dolt!” she cried. “Has she no brains at all! Girl, have the goodness to listen once more. Your father, your brothers, and your sisters are all poor as mice, are they not?”
“Yes, dearest Aunt Caroline,” said Miss Perry, quite simply.
“Very good. Now heed this carefully. By the terms of your marriage settlement, which I may say I have been able to arrange not without difficulty, you will become a countess with six thousand a year in your own right, with a house to live in, and your father or one of your brothers will have the reversion of a living worth eleven hundred a year which is in Lord Cheriton’s gift. Now have you the intelligence to comprehend all that I have said to you?”
Apparently Miss Perry had. Doubtless her understanding was a slow-moving and cumbrous mechanism which generally found infinite difficulty in assimilating the most obvious facts; but it was very difficult for the most obtuse person to misunderstand Caroline Crewkerne. Slowly but surely her hard lucidity percolated to the recesses of Miss Perry’s mind; and just as slowly and as surely as it did, largesolemn tears welled into the eyes that had deepened to the color of violets. They rolled in ridiculous procession down the crimson cheeks.
Neither Caroline Crewkerne nor Cheriton was affected easily, but there was something in the solemn slow-drawn emotion of Miss Perry that imposed silence upon them. The silence that ensued was uncomfortable and by tacit consent it was left to Miss Perry herself to terminate it.
“It is so dear of you both,” she said, “to be so good to me. I shall write to dearest papa about you, but I p-r-r-romised Jim.”
Aunt Caroline snorted.
“And what do you suppose your father will say to you, you simpleton,” said she, “when he learns what you have done? Now take my advice. Send the man Lascelles to me. I will deal with him. And then you must prepare to marry Lord Cheriton some time in October.”
But Miss Perry sat the picture of woe. It is true that in the opinion of Cheriton she sat a perfectly enchanting picture of it; yet at the same time it gave him no particular pleasure to observe that the absurd creature was shedding real tears, tears which somehow seemed almost majestic in their simple sincerity.
Miss Perry was dismissed with strict instructions not to mention the subject to anyone.
“What a creature!” said Caroline Crewkerne, when the door had closed upon her niece.
She contented herself with that expression. As for Cheriton, he gave an amused shrug and saidnothing. For all his nonchalance perhaps he could not help feeling that he had been tempting Providence. Yet so ingrained was his habit of cynicism that it may not have occurred to him that he had anything to fear from Jim Lascelles. The young fellow had not a shilling in the world; he had a good head on his shoulders; and he had been brought up properly. That in such circumstances he should have taken the unpardonable liberty of offering to marry Caroline Crewkerne’s niece was totally at variance with his knowledge of the world, and of human nature as he understood it.
Caroline Crewkerne was the first to speak.
“Cheriton,” said she, “we are both of us old enough to know better. In the first place, you ought not to have brought that man to Hill Street; and in the second, I ought not to have allowed him to enter the house. However, the mischief is done. We must now take steps to repair it.”
“I shall be interested, my dear Caroline,” said Cheriton, in his most agreeable manner, “to learn what the steps are you propose to take.”