"Halloa!" suddenly shouted Sir Marmaduke from his vantage-ground on the rug.
Every body looked up.
"Halloo!" shouted the old gentleman again, plunging his hands over the wrists in his trousers-pockets, and bringing to the surface a couple of letters. "By Jove! I forgot to tell Mrs. Mason or any of them that more people were coming down! Here, Stone--somebody--just ring that bell, will you? Here are two men coming down to-day--be here by dinner, they say; and I forgot to order rooms and things for them!"
"Who are they, Sir Marmaduke?" asked Lyster languidly.
"What the deuce is that to you, sir?" roared the old gentleman. "Friends of mine, sir! That's enough, isn't it? Have you finished lunch."
"I haven't had any," said Lyster. "I never eat it. I hate lunch."
"Great mistake that," said Mr. Vincent, wiping his mouth. "Ought always to eat whenever you can. 'Gad, for such an omelette as that I'd get up in the middle of the night."
"Perhaps, Lyster," said Major Stone, coming back from ringing the bell, "you're of the opinion of the man who said that lunch was an insult to your breakfast and an injury to your dinner?"
"He was a confounded fool, whoever he was," broke in Sir Marmaduke. "I hate those fellows who talk epigrams. Halloa, Gumble, is that you? Tell Mrs. Mason two gentlemen are coming down to stop. She must get rooms ready for them, and that sort of thing."
"Yes, Sir Marmaduke," said Gumble. "In the Barracks, Sir Marmaduke?"
"God bless my soul, sir! how should I know?" said his master testily. "What do I keep a housekeeper for, and a pack of lazy servants, who do nothing but eat, if I'm to be worried about things like this? Tell Mrs. Mason, sir! Do as you're told!"
And exit Gumble, whose admirable training and long experience only prevented him from bursting into a guffaw.
"Though you refused Captain Lyster, I don't think you'll mind telling me who these gentlemen are, Sir Marmaduke?" said Barbara, leaving the table, and advancing to the rug.
"No, my dear; I'll tell you any thing. Besides, they'll be here to-night. One is Mr. Beresford, and the other a learned professor. There, I've thrown them among you to worry their reputations before they arrive; and now I'll be off to my study. And don't any of you come and bother me; do you hear? If you want any thing, ask Stone for it. Come, Russell."
And, followed by the lawyer, the old gentleman left the room, after patting Barbara's head with one hand, and shaking his clenched fist, in a serio-comic manner, at the rest of the company.
"What very strange people my cousin does get hold of!" said Miss Lexden, commencing the onslaught directly the door was closed. "Which Mr. Beresford is it, do you suppose?"
The question was general, but Mr. Townshend answered it, by saying pompously,
"Perhaps it's Mr. Beresford, one of the Directors of the Bank of England, who--"
"God forbid!" broke in Lyster, suddenly.
"Amen to that sweet prayer," said Barbara, in a low voice. Then louder: "Oh, dear, let's hope it's not an old gentleman from the City."
"No, no; don't fear," said Major Stone, laughing. "You all know him. It's Charley Beresford, from the Tin-Tax Office."
"What! the Commissioner?" exclaimed little Miss Townshend, clapping her hands. "Oh, Iamso glad! He issuchfun!"
"Oh, every body knows Mr. Beresford," said Vincent; "capital judge of cooking; on the committee of the Beauclerk."
"I'm afraid I'm nobody, then," said old Miss Lexden; "what age is he?"
"Oh, same age as every body else," drawled Lyster. "I find every body's the same age,--seven-and-twenty. Nobody ever goes beyond that."
"You know Mr. Beresford, aunt," said Barbara. "He's a favourite horror of yours. You recollect him at Hawley last year?"
"Oh, the odious man who carried on so shamefully with that rich woman,--the grocer's widow!" said the old lady. "Well, wasn't it a grocer?--merchant, then, if you like,--something to do with the City and the West Indies, I know. Oh, a dreadful person!"
"Charley Beresford's not a bad fellow, though," said Lyster. "Who did Sir Marmaduke say the other man was? Professor something."
"Perhaps Major Stone knows him," chimed in Mrs. Townshend.
"Who's the Professor that's coming down, Stone?" asked Lyster.
"Idon'tknow. I only know two professors: Jackman the conjuror,--Jacquinto he calls himself,--and Holloway the ointment-man; and it's neither of them. This is some scientific or literary great gun that Sir Marmaduke was introduced to lately."
"Oh, dear!" said Barbara, plaintively, "what a dreadful idea! Probably an old gentleman, with gold spectacles and a bald head, covered all over with the dust of the British Museum, and carrying dead beetles and things in his pockets!"
"A professor!" said Miss Townshend; "we had one at Gimp House--a French one! I'm sure he'll take snuff and have silk pocket-handkerchiefs."
"And choke at his meals," added Barbara. "This is too horrible."
"I trust he won't come from any low neighbourhood," said Mrs. Vincent; "the small-pox is very bad in some districts in London."
"The deuce! I hope he won't bring it down here," drawled Lyster.
"There's not the slightest fear of infection, if you've been vaccinated," said Mr. Townshend.
"Oh, but I haven't," replied Lyster. "I wouldn't be--at least without chloroform; it hurts one so."
"What nonsense, Captain Lyster!" laughed Barbara. "Why, I was vaccinated, and it didn't hurt me the least."
"Did it hurt as much as sitting for your photograph?" asked the Captain, rising. "Because I'll never sit for my photograph again, except under chloroform."
"Well, small-pox or not, you'll see the old gentleman at dinner," said Stone; "and you mustn't chaff him, mind, Lyster; for he's a favourite of Sir Marmaduke's."
And so the luncheon-party broke up. Old Miss Lexden and Miss Townshend drove out in a pony-phaeton, with the intention of falling in with the shooting party; Mrs. Vincent retired to her room, to allow the process of digestion to take place during her afternoon nap; Mr. Vincent walked leisurely across the fields to the neighbouring village, and had an interview with a fisherman's wife, who had a new method of dressing mackerel; Mr. Townshend took out a pamphlet on the Bank Charter, and, having placed it before him, went straight off to sleep; Major Stone mounted his sure-footed cob and rode round the farm, looking after broken fences, and dropping hints as to the expediency of all being ready with the Michaelmas rent; and Barbara and Captain Lyster wandered into the Paddock, with the intention of playing croquet.
But they had played only very few strokes, when Lyster, leaning on his mallet, looked across at his companion, and said gravely,
"I assure you, Miss Lexden, I pity you from the bottom of my soul."
As she stood there, her complexion heightened by the exercise, the little round hat admirably suiting the classic shape of her head, and the neatest little foot tapping the mallet, she didn't look much to be pitied; and she tossed her head rather disdainfully, as she asked,
"Pity me, Captain Lyster! and why?"
"Because you are so horribly bored here! I've been such a terrible sufferer fromennuimyself, that I know every expression on those who have it; and you're very far advanced indeed.Iknow what it is that beats you, and I can't help you."
"And what is it, pray?"
"You know what Cleopatra says in theDream of Fair Women: 'I have no men to govern in this wood!' Pardon me; I'm a singular person; not clever, you know, but always saying what I think, and that sort of thing; and you're dying for a flirtation."
"Surelyyouhave no cause to complain. I've never tried to make you my 'Hercules, my Roman Antony,' Captain Lyster."
"No; you've been good enough to spare me. You've known me too long, and think of me, rightly enough perhaps, as the 'dull, cold-blooded Cæsar;' and there's no one here that's at all available except Stone, and his berth with Sir Marmaduke is like a college-fellowship--he'd have to resign all income if he married. It's an awful position for you! Oh, by Jove, I forgot the two men coming! I'm afraid Charley Beresford's no go; but you might make great running with the Professor."
"Que d'honneur!" said Barbara, laughing at his serious face. "That is a compliment, especially after our notions of what he will be like;" and then, after a minute's reflection, she added, with a proud gesture, "It would be a new field, at all events, and not a bad triumph, to win a steady sage from his books and--"
"Vivien over again, by Jove!" said Lyster, in the nearest approach he had ever made to a shout; "Vivien divested of all impropriety; only look out that Merlin does not get you into the charm. They've no end of talk, these clever fellows. I knew a professor at Addiscombe--deuced ugly bird too--who ran off with an earl's daughter, all through his gab--I beg pardon, his tongue."
"Gare aux corbeaux!I flatter myself I can hold my own with the old crows," said Barbara; "however, this is mere nonsense. No more croquet, thank you, Captain Lyster. I must go in and reflect on your words of wisdom."
And dropping him a little curtsey of mock humility, she moved off towards the house.
"I'd lay long odds she follows up the idea," said Lyster to himself, as he sat down on the twisted roots of an old elm and lit a cheroot. "She's a fine creature," he added, looking after her; "something in the Cheetah line,--fine and swervy and supple, and as clever as--as old boots. How awfully old I'm growing! I should have gone mad after such a girl as that once; and now--she doesn't cause me the slightest emotion. There's that little Townshend, now,--ah, that's quite another matter!"
Had Barbara really any notion of following out Lyster's sportive notion, and of playing Vivien to an aged Merlin? of winning from his goddess Study a man whose whole life had been passed at her shrine, and of lighting with as much fire as yet remained to him eyes dimmed with midnight researches? I know not. But I do know that she spent more time that evening over her toilet than she had done during her stay at the Grange, and that she never looked lovelier than in her rich blue dinner-dress, trimmed with black lace, and with a piece of velvet passing through her hair, and coquettishly fastened at one side by a single splendid turquoise. Perhaps some thought of her conversation with Lyster flitted across her brain; for she smiled saucily as she stepped down the wide old staircase, and she had hardly composed her countenance by the time she had passed into the drawing-room, where the party was assembled. The room was lighted only by the flickering blaze of a wood-fire (for the evenings were already chilly), and she could only indistinctly make out that the gentleman whom Sir Marmaduke introduced as "Professor Churchill," and who was to take her in to dinner, was tall, had no spectacles, and was apparently not so old as she had anticipated. But when she looked at him in the full light of the dining-room, she nearly uttered an exclamation of surprise when she saw, as the embodiment of her intended Merlin, a man of six feet in height, about thirty years of age, with short wavy brown hair, hazel eyes, a crisp dark beard, and a genial, good-humoured, sensible expression. All this she took in in covert glances; and so astonished was she, that after a few commonplaces she could not resist saying,
"And are you really a professor, Mr. Churchill?"
He laughed heartily--a clear, ringing, jolly laugh--as he replied, "Well, I am,--at least I stand so honoured on the books of old Leipzig University, and our good host here always will insist on dubbing me with my full title. But I don't generally sport it. I always think of dancing, or calisthenics, or deportment,--Turveydrop, you know,--in connexion with the professorship. I can't help noticing that you look astonished, Miss Lexden; I trust I haven't rudely put to flight any preconceived notions of yours as to my dignity?"
"No--at least--well, I will frankly own my notions were different."
"There, you see, I had the advantage; with the exception of flatly contradicting the late Mr. Campbell in his assertion about distance lending enchantment, &c., my ideas of you are thoroughly realised. But--I had seen you before."
"You had!" said Barbara, feeling a pleasurable glow pass over her cheek at something in his tone.
"Oh, yes; several times. The first time ten years ago, when I saw you in company with your father--"
"My father! Where?" interrupted Barbara.
"Where? oh, at an hotel,--Burdon's Hotel. You won't remember it, of course." (Barbara never knew why Major Stone, who was sitting near them, grinned broadly when Mr. Churchill said this.) "You were a little child then. And recently I have seen you at the Opera, and ridden past you in the Row."
At this juncture Sir Marmaduke called out to Churchill from the other end of the table, and the conversation became general. Barbara watched Mr. Churchill as he took a leading part in it, his earnest face lit up, and all listening attentively to his remarks. What a clever, sensible face it was! And he went to the Opera, and rode in the Park! What about Vivien and Merlin now?
Mr. Charles Beresford, Junior Commissioner of the Tin-Tax Office, who was expected down at Bissett, did not leave London, as he had intended, on the day which witnessed Mr. Churchill's arrival at that hospitable mansion. His portmanteau and gun-case had been taken by his servant to the Club, where he was to call for them on his way to the station; and he had arranged with one of his brother-commissioners to undertake his work of placing his initials in the corner of various documents submitted to him. He had stayed in town longer than his wont; and as he looked out into the dreary quadrangle of Rutland House, in a block of which the Tin-Tax Office was situate, and gazed upon the blazing flags, and the dullcommissionnairessitting on their bench outside the principal entrance and winking in the heat, and upon the open windows opposite,--whereat two clerks were concocting an effervescent drink in a tumbler, and stirring it round with a paper-knife,--he cursed the dulness, and expressed his delight that he was about to rusticate for a lengthened period.
Nobody heard this speech; or if indeed, the words fell upon the ear of the soft-shod messenger who at that moment entered the room, he was far too dexterous and too old an official to let his face betray it. He glided softly to Mr. Beresford's elbow, as that gentleman still remained at the window, vacantly watching the powder-mixing clerks, and murmured,
"Letter, sir."
"Put it down," aid Beresford, without turning round. "Official, eh?"
"No, sir, private. Brought just now by a groom. No answer, sir."
"Give it here," said Beresford, stretching out his hand. "Ah, no answer! That'll do, Stubbs."
And Stubbs went his way to a glass-case, in which, in the company of four other messengers and twenty bells, his official days were passed, and gave himself up to bemoaning his stupidity in having taken his fortnight's leave of absence in the past wet July instead of the present sultry season.
Mr. Beresford looked at the address of the letter, and frowned slightly. It was a small note, pink paper, with a couchant dog and an utterly illegible monogram on the seal, and the superscription was written in a long scrawly hand. There was an odour of patchouli, too, about it which roused Beresford's ire, and he muttered as he opened it, "Confounded stuff! Who on earth is she copying now, with her scents and crests and humbug? I thought she'd more sense than that!" And he ran his eye over the note. It was very short.
"Dear Charley,--What has become of you? Why do you never come near The Den? It is nearly three weeks since you were here. I'm off to Scarborough on Tuesday; a lot of my pupils are there and want me, so I can carry on my little game of money-making, get some fresh air, and perhaps pick up some fresh nags to sell before the hunting season, all 'under vun hat,' as Tom Orme fasechous--facesh (I don't know how to spell it)--says. Come up and dine to-night at seven. There are two or three good fellows coming, and I want to talk to you and to look at your old phiz again, and see how much older you've grown during your absence, and how muchbalder; for, you know, you're growingbald, Charley, and that will be awful hard lines to such aswellas you. Seven sharp, mind.
"Always yours,
"K. M.
"P.S. Charley, if you don't come, I shall think you've grownproud; and it'll be a great shame, and I shall never speak to you again.
"K.M."
Now lest, after a perusal of this letter, any one should think ill of its writer, I take leave to announce at once that Kate Mellon was a virtuous woman; pure in heart, though any thing but simple; without fear, but not without as much reproach as could possibly be heaped upon her by all of her own sex who envied her good looks, her high spirits, and her success. There are, I take it, plenty of novels in which one can read the doings, either openly described or broadly hinted at, of the daughters of Shame under many a pretty alias; and it is because one of these aliases describes the calling of which Kate Mellon was the most successful follower, that I am so desirous of clearing her good name, and immediately vindicating her position with my readers. Kate Mellon was a horsebreaker, abonâ-fidehorsebreaker; one who curbed colts, and "took it out of" kickers and rearers, and taught wild Irish horses and four-year-olds fresh from Yorkshire spinneys to curvet and caper prettily in the Park. She taught riding, too; and half the Amazons in the Row owed their tightness of seat and lightness of hand to her judicious training. She hunted occasionally with the Queen's hounds and with the Pytchley, and no one rode straighter or with morenonchalancethan she. Give her a lead, that was all she wanted; and when she got it, as she invariably did from the boldest horseman in the field, she would settle herself in her saddle, left hand well down, right hand jauntily on her hip, and fly over timber, water, no matter what, like a bird. In social life her great pride was that there "was no nonsense" about her; she was not more civil to the great ladies who sent their horses to her establishment to be broke, and who would occasionally come up and inspect the process, than she was to the stable-helpers' wives and children, who all worshipped her for her openhanded generosity. Tommy Orme who was popularly supposed to be a hundred and fifty years old, but who lived with the youth of the Household Brigade and the Foreign Office and thecoryphées, and who knew every body remarkable in any one way, never was tired of telling how Kate, teaching the Dowager Lady Wylminster to drive a pair of spirited dun ponies, had, in the grand lady's idea, intrenched upon her prerogative, and was told that she was a presuming person, and desired to remember her place.
"Person, indeed!" said Kate; "person yourself, ma'am! My place isn't by you after that, and now get the duns home the best way you can;" with which she sprang from the low phaeton, struck off across the fields, and left the wretched representative of aristocracy "with a couple of plunging brutes that soon spilt the old woman into the hedge, broke the trap all to pieces, and rushed away home with the splinter-bar at their heels--give you my word!" as Tommy used to narrate it.
Her manner with men was perfectly frank and open, equally devoid of reticence or coquetry. She called them all by their Christian names if they were commoners, by their titles if they were lords. She answered at once when addressed as "Kitty," or "Old Lady," or "Stunner;" by all of which appellations she was known. She would lay her whip lightly across the shoulders of any particular friend as a token of recognition at the meet; would smoke a cigarette on her way home after the kill; and always carried sherry and sandwiches in a silver combination of flask and box. Her grammar was shaky, and her aspirate occasionally misplaced; she never read any thing butBell's Lifeand books on farriery, and she laughed a loud, ringing, resonant shout; but her speech was always free from bad words, and no man ever tried adouble entendreor a blasphemy twice in her presence. Living the odd strange life she did, defiant of all society's prejudices, it was yet strange that even London slander had left her unassailed. They did say that she was very much taken by Bob Mayo's sabre-scar when he returned from the Crimea, and that Barker, the steeple-chase rider, half gentleman, half jock, was engaged to her; but nothing came of either of these two reports. Early in her London career, very soon after she came to town, and when men were first beginning to inquire who was the dashing horsewoman who rode such splendid cattle with such pluck and skill, De Blague, the Queen's messenger, assumed to know all about her, and at Limmer's, one night, threw out certain hints by no means uncomplimentary to himself, and eked out with many nods and winks; but two days after that, as De Blague, with two other Foreign-Office men, was leaning over the rails in the Row, Miss Mellon rode up, and denouncing him as a "bragging hound," slashed him with her by no means light riding-whip severely over the head and shoulders. After that day no one cared to say much against Kate Mellon.
Who was she, and where did she come from? that no one positively knew. When The Den at Ealing (she so christened it; it was called Myrtle Farm before) was to let, the neighbours thought the landlord would stand out of his rent for many years. The house was a little, long, one-storied building, cut up into small rooms; old, dilapidated, and damp. The stables were rotting with decay; the barns untiled and tumbling down; the twenty or thirty acres of land attached were swampy and unproductive. The place stood untenanted for half a year. Then, one morning, an old gentleman arrived in a four-wheeled cab, went all over the premises, had an interview with the proprietor, announced himself as Mr. Powker, of the firm of Powker and Beak, of Lincoln's Inn, and within a fortnight the lease was assigned to Miss Kate Mellon, spinster. The house was papered and painted, and put in order; the stables were entirely altered and renovated, and fitted with enamel mangers, and tesselated pavements, and bronze devices for holding the pillar-reins, and all the newest equine upholstery; some of the barns were converted into carriage-houses, and one of the largest into a tan-strewn riding-school; the land was thoroughly drained and laid out in paddocks, where there were tan-rides and all kinds of jumps, and an artificial brook, and every thing for a horse's proper tuition. Miss Mellon did not receive visits from the neighbouring gentry, principally lawyers and merchants, who went regularly to business, and always stared hard at her when their wives were not with them; nor did she attend the parish-church; but she gave largely to all the parochial charities, and in the winter had a private soup-kitchen of her own. I believe that occasionally gin was dispensed in small glasses to the soup-recipients; but all was done under the superintendence of Freeman, the staid stud-groom, who had followed her from Yorkshire, where she said "her people" lived. But she never said any thing more about them; and you would as soon have got a comic song out of an oyster as a word from Freeman. And she prospered wonderfully. She had to make large additions to the stables, and to build rooms for an increased force of grooms; and even then there were always half a score of horses waiting on her list for admission, either for training or cure. She made money rapidly, and kept it: no better woman of business ever breathed; in a big ledger she scrawled her own accounts, and, as she boasted, could always tell to a farthing "how she stood." With all this she was generous and hospitable; paid her grooms good wages, and gave frequent dinner-parties to her friends,--dinner-parties which scandalised her solemnly pompous neighbours, who would look aghast at the flashing lamps of the carriages dashing up the little carriage-drive to fetch away the company at the small hours, or would listen from beneath their virtuous bedclothes to the shouts of mirth and snatches of melody which came booming over the hushed fields.
One of these dinner-parties--that to which she had invited Beresford--is just over. The French windows in the long, low dining-room are open; the table is covered with the remains of dessert, and some of the guests have already lighted cigars. Kate Mellon heads her table still; she never leaves the room to the gentlemen,--"It's slow," he says; "women alone fight or bore;" so she remains. You can catch a good glimpse of her now under that shaded swinging moderator-lamp; a little woman, with a closely-knit figure, long violet eyes, and red-gold hair, taken off over her ears, twisted in a thick lump at the back of her head, and secured with a pink coral comb of horse-shoe shape. She is dressed in white spotted muslin, fastened at the throat and waist with coral brooch and clasps. Her nose is a little too thick for beauty; her lips full; her mouth large, with strong white teeth; her hands are white, but large and sinewy; and the tones of her voice are sharp and clear. She is shouting with laughter at a song which a jolly-looking young man, sitting at the little cottage-piano at the end of the room, has just finished; and her laugh makes the old rafters ring again.
"I always yell at that song, Tom," she says. "I haven't heard it since last winter, the day that 'Punch' Croker dined here, and we gave him an olive to taste for the first time."
"He's tremendous fun, is Punch," said the singer. "Why didn't he dine here to-day? Is he out of town?"
"He's got a moor with Penkridge," said Beresford, who was sitting next the hostess. "By Jove, how bored Penkridge will be before he's done with him!"
"Punch has not got much to say for himself," said a tall man, in a dark beard. "I've had him down to dine with me when I've been on guard at the Bank, and, 'pon my soul, he's never said a word the whole night!"
"He was at Baden with us last year," said Beresford; "and when we used to sit and smoke our weeds after dinner in front of the Kursaal, he used to bore us so with staring at us and saying nothing, that we used to pay him to go away. Subscribe five francs, or thalers--according to our means, you know--and send him to play at the tables to get rid of him."
"He's not a bad fellow, though, Punch Croker," said Kate. "And what I like in him is, he never lets out that he don't know every thing!"
"No, that's just it!" said the tall guardsman. "Just after the Derby, I was confoundedly seedy, and my doctor told me I wanted more ozone."
"What's that, Jack?" asked the man at the piano.
"Well, it's some air or stuff that you don't get by sitting up all night, and lying in bed till three. From the doctor's I went to the Rag, and found Meaburn there; and we'd just agreed to dine together, when Punch Croker came in. I told Meaburn to hold on, and we'd get a rise out of Punch. He asked us if we were going to dine, and we said yes, and that he might dine too, if he liked. And I told him I'd got some ozone, and asked him his opinion, as a sort of fellow who knew those things, how it should be cooked. He thought for one moment, and then said, perfectly quietly, 'Well, if you have it before the cheese, it should be broiled.' Never let on that he didn't know what it was; never changed a muscle of his face,--give you my word!"
They all laughed at this, and then the tall guardsman said, "It's a great bore, though, to get a reputation for stupidity. It's as bad as being supposed to be funny. People are always expecting you to say stupid things, and sometimes it's deuced hard to do."
"Poor old Charleville!" said Beresford; "we all sympathise with you, old fellow, though no one can imagine you ever found any difficulty in being stupid. Comes natural, don't it, old boy?"
Captain Charleville didn't seem to relish this remark, and was about to reply angrily, when Tom Burton, the man who had been singing, struck in hastily with, "Well, it's better to be or to seem stupid, than to be stupid and have the credit of being clever. Now there's Northaw, only said one decent thing in his life; and because that has been told about, fellows say that he's a deuced clever fellow, and that there's more in him than you'd think."
"What was the one good thing he did say?" asked Kate.
"Well, it was one day when he was out with the Queen's last season. Stradwicke was there, and Pattan, and Bellairs, and a lot of men; and Northaw was in a horrid bad temper,--had got up too soon, or something, and was as rusty as Old Boots; so while he was fretting and fuming about, and blackguarding the weather, and his stirrup-leathers, and every thing else, Tom Winch rode up to him. You know Tom Winch, son of great contractor, timber-man, builds bridges, and that sort of thing. 'Morning, my lord!' says Tom Winch. 'Morning,' says Northaw, as sulky as a bear. 'What do you think of my new horse, my lord?' says Tom Winch. 'Ugly brute,' says Northaw, looking up; 'ugly, wooden-legged brute;looks as if he'd been made at home."
Burton rose during the laugh that followed his story, and rang the bell. "I must be off," he said; "I've rung to have the phaeton round, Kitty. Charleville, you'll come with me? I can find room for you, Beresford."
"No; thanks," said Beresford; "I rode down. Oh, tell them to bring my horse round too," he added to the servant.
"Wait five minutes, Charley," said Kate Mellon in an undertone; "let us have a quiet talk after they're gone. I've got something to say to you."
"Well, good night, Kate; good night, old lady. If you pick up any thing good in Yorkshire, let's how, there's a Stunner! I've promised to mount my sister next season, and she sha'n't ride any thing you don't warrant. Good night, Beresford; good night, old lady;" and with hearty hand-shakes to Kate, and nods to Beresford, Captain Charleville and Tom Burton took themselves off.
"Now, Charley," said Kate, leaning forward on the table while Beresford lit a fresh cigar and threw himself back in his chair,--"now, Charley, tell us all about it."
"About what?" asked Beresford, rolling the leaf of his cigar round with his finger. "That is good, by Jove! You say you want to talk to me, and you begin by asking me to tell you all about it!"
"I mean about yourself. You're horribly low, and dull, and slow, and wretched. You've scarcely spoken all the evening, and you ate no dinner, and you drank a great deal of wine."
"You're a pretty hostess, Kitty! You've checked off my dinner like the keeper of atable-d'hôte."
"Well, you know you might drink the cellar dry, if you liked. But you're all out of sorts, Charley; tell me all about it, I say!"
"You certainly are a strange specimen, Stunner," said Beresford, still calmly occupied with his cigar-leaf; "but there's a wonderful deal of good in you, and I don't mind telling you what I wouldn't say to any one else. I'm done up, Kitty; run the wrong side of the post; distanced, old lady. I've been hit frightfully hard all this year; my book for the Leger looks awful; I owe pots of money, and I am very nearly done."
"My poor Charley!" said the girl, bending forward, with deep interest in her face. "That certainly is a blue look-out," she continued,--for however earnest was her purpose, she could not but express herself in her slang metaphor. "Is there nothing to fall back upon?"
"Nothing; no resource, save one--and that I'm going to look after at once--marriage!"
"Marriage!"
"Yes; if I could pick up a woman with money, I'd settle down into a regular quiet humdrum life. I'd cut the turf, and ride a bishop's cob, and give good dinners, and go to church, and be regularly respectable, by Jove! I should make a good husband, too; I think I should; only--the worst of it is, that these women with money, by some dispensation of nature, are generally so frightfully hideous."
"Yes," said the girl, who had pushed her hands through her hair, and then clenched them tightly in front of her, and who was looking at him with staring, earnest eyes. "I can't fancy you married, Charley; that's quite a new view of matters; and, as you say, the rich women are not generally pretty. You can't have every thing, Charley?"
"No," said Beresford, gloomily. "I know that; and it would be deuced hard lines to have to take a Gorgon about with you, and to have to glare at a plain-headed woman sitting opposite you for the rest of your life. But need must--what am I to do?"
"Charley," said the girl, suddenly tilting her chair on to its front legs, and drumming with her right hand upon the table; "look here. You can't have every thing, you know, and it's better to make the running over open ground, no matter how heavy, than to dash at a thick hedge where there may be water and Lord knows what on the other side. Don't hurry it so, Charley; you'll get pounded without knowing it, and then there'll be nothing to pull you through. You can't expect every thing in a wife, you know, Charley. If you got money, you couldn't look for rank, you know, eh?"
"Why, how you do talk about it, old lady!" said Beresford, flicking the ash off his cigar. "No; I'm not exacting. I wouldn't care about her pedigree, so long as she was well weighted."
"That's right; of course not, Charley! I should think you'd find some one, Charley; not grand, you know, but good and honest, and all that. Not very beautiful either, perhaps, but not ugly, you know; and one who'd love you, Charley, and be true to you, and take care of you, and make you a good wife."
"Yes, I know, and all that sort of thing; but where is she to come from?"
"You might find such a one, Charley, where you never looked for it, perhaps; one who could bring you a little fortune, all honest money, and who could tell you of her past life, which you never dreamed of, and need not be ashamed of. There might be such a one, Charley!"
She had slid from her chair to the ground, and knelt, with her hands on his knees, looking eagerly into his face. Her eyes gleamed with excitement she had pushed her hair back from her forehead, and her lips were parted in eager anticipation of his words. They came at length, very slowly. At first he turned pale, and caught his breath for an instant; then gently lifted her hands, and muttered between his teeth, "It's impossible, Kate; it can't be!"
"Impossible!"
"It can't be, I tell you. What would--there, you don't understand these things, and I can't explain. It's impossible! I was a fool to start the subject. Now I must go. Good-by, child; write me a line from Scarborough; they'll forward it from the office. Won't you say good-by?"
He gripped her cold, passive hand, and two minutes afterwards she heard the sound of his departing horse's feet on the carriage-drive.
For a while Kate Mellon stood motionless, then stamped her foot violently, and sank into a chair, covering her face with her hands, through which the tears welled slowly. Rousing herself at length, she hurried to a writing-table, pulled out a gaudily-decoratedpapier-mâchéblotting-book, and commenced scrawling a letter. She wrote hurriedly, passionately, until she had covered the sheet, running her gold pen-holder through the tangled mass of hair at the back of her head, and twisting a stick of sealing-wax with her teeth the while. The letter finished, she skimmed through it hastily, put it in an envelope, and directed it to "F. Churchill, Esq.,StatesmanOffice, E.C."
Four days had slipped away since Churchill's first arrival at Bissett Grange, and he had begun to acknowledge to himself that they had passed more pleasantly than any previous time in his recollection. The mere fact of getting out of business was a great relief to him; he revelled in the knowledge that he had nothing to do; and, in odd times and seasons,--as he lay in bed of nights, for instance,--he would chuckle at the thought that the coming morrow had for him no work and no responsibilities in store; and when he went up to dress himself for dinner, he would settle down into an easy-chair, or hang out of the open window, and delight in the prospect of a good dinner and delightful society, of music and conversation, from which no horrid clock-striking would tear him away, and send him forth to dreary rooms and brain-racking until the small hours of the morning. Society, music, and conversation! It is true that he enjoyed them all; and yet, when he came to analyse his happiness, he was fain to admit that they all meant Barbara Lexden. As in a glass darkly, that tall majestic figure moved through every thought, and sinuously wound itself round every impulse of his heart. At first he laughed at his own weakness, and tried to exorcise the spirit, to whose spells he found himself succumbing, by rough usage and hard exercise. There is probably nothing more serviceable in getting rid of a sharp attack of what is commonly known as "spooniness"--when it is accidental, be it remembered, not innate--than the eager pursuit of some healthy sport. Men try wine and cards; both of which are instantaneous but fleeting remedies, and which leave them in a state of reaction, when they are doubly vulnerable; but shooting or hunting, properly pursued, are thoroughly engrossing while they last, and when they are over necessitate an immediate recourse to slumber from the fatigue which they have induced. In the morning, even should opportunity offer, the "spoony" stage is at its lowest ebb; it is rarely possible to work oneself up to the proper pitch of silliness immediately after breakfast, and then some farther sporting expedition is started, which takes one out of harm's way. But in Churchill's case even this remedy failed; he was not much of a sportsman; not that he shot badly, but that he was perpetuallydistrait, and when reminded of his delinquencies by a sharp, "Your bird, sir!" from one of his companions, would fire so quickly, and with so much effect, as to mollify the speaker, and lead him to believe that it was shortsightedness, and not being a "Cockney"--that worst of imputations amongst sportsmen--that led the stranger to miss marking the rise of the covey. And yet Churchill displayed no lack of keen vision in making out the exact whereabouts of a striped petticoat and a pair of high-heeled Balmoral boots which crossed a stile a little in advance of the servants bringing the luncheon; but these once seen, and their wearer once talked to, sport was over with him for the day, and he strolled back with Miss Lexden, at a convenient distance behind Miss Townshend and Captain Lyster, who led the way.
"You are soon tired of your sport, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara; "I should have thought that you would have followed ardently any pursuit on which you entered."
"You do me a great deal too much honour, Miss Lexden," replied Churchill, laughing; "my pursuits are of a very desultory nature, and in all of them I observe Talleyrand's caution,--Point de zèle."
"And you carry that out in every thing?"
"In most things. Mine is a very easy-going, uneventful, unexcitable life; I live thoroughly quietly;da capo--all over again; and it is seldom that any thing breaks in upon the routine of my humdrum existence."
"Then," said Barbara, looking saucily up at him from under her hat--"then you do not follow the advice which your favourite Talleyrand gave to the ambassadors whom he was despatching,tenez bonne table, et soignez les femmes."
Churchill looked up, and for an instant caught her glance; then he laughed lightly, and said,
"Well, not exactly; though the dinners at the club, even the modest joint and the table-beer, are not by any means to be despised; and as for the rest of it, not being a diplomatist, Miss Lexden, I have no occasion to play the agreeable to any one save in my own house, and, being a bachelor, the only woman I have to see to as properlysoignéeis my old mother, and Idolike her to have the best of every thing."
"Your mother lives with you?"
"Yes, and will, so far as I can see, until the end of the chapter."
"She--you must be very fond of her!" said Barbara, as by a sudden impulse, looking up at his kindling eyes and earnest face.
"I am very proud of her," he replied; "she is more like my sister than my mother; enters into all my hopes and fears, shares all my aspirations, and consoles me in all my doubts."
"More like your wife, then," said Barbara, with a slight sneer. "You have in her a rare combination of virtues."
"No," said Churchill; "not rare, I am disposed to think. I don't suppose that, in your class,--where maternity means nothing in particular to sons, and merely chaperonage, or the part of buffer, to ward off paternal anger for bills incurred, to daughters,--such characters flourish; but in mine they are common enough."--("A little touch of old Harding's Radicalism in that speech, by Jove!" thought he to himself.)
"I don't exactly fallow your reference to my class as distinct from your own. I suppose we mix amongst pretty much the same people, though as individuals we have not met before. But," added Barbara, with a smile, "now that that great occurrence has taken place, I don't think we need enter into lengthy disquisitions as to the charms and duties of maternity; indeed, we will not, for I shall ask you to observe the only conditions which I require from my friends."
"And they are--?" asked Churchill.
"Qu'on exécute mes orders, as Louis Napoleon said when asked what should be done on the Second of December. So long as my commands are obeyed, I am amiability itself."
"And suppose they were disobeyed?" asked Churchill again.
"Then--but I won't tell you what would happen! I don't think you'll ever have the chance of knowing; do you think you shall? Not that I like amiable people generally--do you? Your blue-eyed girls, with colourless hair like blotting-paper, and--but I forgot I was talking to an author. I suppose you're making fun of all I say?"
"On the contrary," said Churchill, struggling to keep his gravity, and producing a small memorandum-book, "I purpose making a note of that description for use on a future occasion. There is a spiteful simplicity in that phrase about 'blotting-paper hair' which is really worth embalming in a leader."
"Now I know you're laughing, and I hate to be laughed at--"
"By no means; I subscribe the roll. I am now one of theâmes damnées, sworn to obey the spell of the sorceress; and the spell is--?"
"Nothing. Never mind. You will know easily enough when it is once uttered. Now they're coming back to us, and I've lost my glove. Have you seen it? How very absurd!"
As she spoke, they came up with Lyster and Miss Townshend, who were waiting for them at a gate leading into the Grange lands.
"How slowly you walk, Miss Lexden!" said Lyster; "Miss Townshend thought you never would come up with us."
Miss Townshend, with much curl-tossing and laughter, declared she had never said any thing of the kind.
"Quite otherwise," replied Barbara; "from the earnest manner in which you were carrying on the conversation, there could be no doubt that it was you who were going ahead."
"I?--I give you my word I was merely talking of scenery, and telling Miss Townshend how much I should like to show her Rome."
"And promising, when there, to enter into the spirit of the proverb, and do as the Romans--eh, Captain Lyster?"
"Oh, ah,--yes! I see what you mean. That's not so bad, eh, Mr. Churchill? You might use that in some of your thingummies, eh? Though I don't know that there's much difference between Rome and any other place, after all. It's rather like London, I think."
"Is it?" said Churchill. "I confess my short sojourn there gave me a very different idea."
"Well, I don't know; it's mouldier and more tumbledown, certainly, but there are some parts of it that are uncommonly like the unfinished streets in the new part of Belgravia. And people walk about, and eat and drink, and flirt, you know, just as they do in town. There's a Colosseum at Rome, too, as well as in London, only the one in Rome isn't in such good repair."
This was said in perfect good faith; and the others shouted with laughter at it, in the midst of which they came to a stile, joining upon the Paddock, and here they parted into couples again, only this time Churchill and Barbara took the lead.
"I think she's made anothercoup," said Lyster, looking at them, as they immediately fell into earnest conversation. "She certainly is wonderful,--never misses fire!"
"If I were Barbara, I should be careful about any flirtation with Mr. Churchill. They're dreadful people, these poets, you know,--at least so I've always heard; and if you give them any encouragement, and then won't marry them, they cry out, and abuse you terribly in books and newspapers."
"That would be awful!" said Lyster; "as bad as having your letters read out in a breach-of-promise case, by Jove! Never could understand how fellows wrote such spoony letters to women,--never could fancy how they thought of all the things they said."
And yet I think, if Captain Lyster had been rigorously cross-examined, he must needs have confessed that he himself had never, throughout the whole course of his previous life, gone through so much actual thinking as since he knew Miss Townshend. There was, perhaps, no species of flirtation in which he was not an adept, for he had sufficient brains to do what he called the "talkee-talkee;" while his natural idleness enabled him to carry on a silentsolitude à deux, and to make great play with an occasional elevation of the eyebrow or touch of the hand. He had run through a thorough course of garrison hacks, and had seen all the best produce of the export Indian market; he had met the beauties of the season at London balls and in country houses, and his listlessness and languor had hitherto carried him through scot-free. But now he was certainly "fetched," as his friends would call it, and began to feel an interest in Miss Townshend which he had never felt for any other person. There had been a two days' flirtation between him and Barbara Lexden; but they were so utterly unsuited, that, at the end of that time, they, as it were, showed their hands to each other, and then, with a laugh, threw up their cards. The flirtation was never renewed; but a curious, strange friendship,--exhibited in the conversation about the coming professor,--and always half raillery on both sides, existed between them. But "this little Townshend girl," as he thought of her in his dreamy reveries, was quite another matter; she was so jolly and good-tempered, and so approachable, and never gave herself any airs, and never wanted talking to or that sort of thing, but could amuse herself always, as chirpy as a bird, by Jove! And these attributes had an immense amount of weight with taciturn Fred Lyster, who, moreover, had recently discovered a bald spot about the size of a sixpence at the top of his back-parting, and who immediately perceived imminent age, determined on marriage, and even thought of making his will. And little Miss Townshend walks by his side, and prattles away, and laughs, saucily tossing her curls in the air, and is as merry as possible; save when, stealing an occasional glance from under her hat, she detects her companion's eyes very earnestly fixed upon her, and then a serious expression will settle on her face for an instant, and something like a sigh escape her.
We are a strange race! Here are two couples engaged in the same pursuit, and yet how different is the process! While Lyster is strolling idly by Miss Townshend's side, and listening to her little nonsense, Churchill and Barbara are stepping ahead, thoroughly engrossed in their conversation. He is talking now, telling her of a German adventure of his; how, with some other students, he made the descent of the Rhine on one of the timber-rafts; how they came to grief just below the Lôrely, and were all nearly drowned. He tells this with great animation and with many gestures, acting out his story, as is his wont; and throughout all he has a sensation of pleasure as he catches glimpses of her upturned earnest face, lighting up at the special bits of the narrative, always eager and attentive. His earnestness seems infectious. She has dropped all her society drawl, all her society tricks and byplay, and shows more of the real woman than she has for many a day. They talk of Germany and its literature, of Goethe and Schiller and Heine; and he tells her some of those stories of Hoffmann which are such special favourites withBürschen. Thus they pass on to our home poets; and here Barbara is the talker, Churchill listening and occasionally commenting. Barbara has read much, and talks well. It is an utter mistake to suppose that women nowadays have what we have been accustomed, as a term of reproach, to call "miss-ish" taste in books or art. Five minutes' survey of that room which Barbara called her own in her aunt's house in Gloucester Place would have served to dispel any such idea. On the walls were proofs of Leonardo's "Last Supper" and Landseers "Shoeing the Horse;" a print of Delaroche's "Execution of Lady Jane Grey;" a large framed photograph of Gerome's "Death of Cæsar;" an old-fashioned pencil-sketch of Barbara's father, taken in the old days by D'Orsay long before he ever thought of turning that pencil to actual use; and a coloured photograph--a recent acquisition--of a girl sitting over a wood-fire in a dreamy attitude, burning her love-letters, called "L' Auto da Fé." On the bookshelves you would have found Milton, Thomas à-Kempis,David Copperfield,The Christmas Carol, a much-used Tennyson, Keats, George Herbert's Poems, Quarles'Emblems,The Christian Year, Carlyle'sFrench Revolution, Dante, Schiller,Faust, Tupper (of course! "and it is merely envy that makes you laugh at him," she always said),The Newcomes, and a quarto Shakespeare. No French novels, I am glad to say; but a fat little Béranger, and a yellow-covered Alfred de Musset are on the mantelpiece, while a brass-cross-bearing red-edged Prayer-Book lies on the table by the bed. Barbara's books were not show-books; they all bore more or less the signs of use; but she had read them in a desultory manner, and had never thoroughly appreciated the pleasure to be derived from them. She had never lived in a reading set; for when old Miss Lexden had mastered the police intelligence and the fashionable news from thePost, her intellectual exercises were at an end for the day; and her friends were very much of the same calibre. So now for the first time Barbara heard literature talked of by one who had hitherto made it his worship, and who spoke of it with mingled love and reverence--spoke without lecturing, leading his companion into her fair share of the talk, mingling apt quotation with caustic comment or enthusiastic eulogy, until they found themselves, to Barbara's surprise, at the hall-door.
I am glad that it is my province as historian to discourse to my readers of the thoughts, impulses, and motives influencing the characters in this story, else it would be difficult for me to convey so much of their inner life as I wish to be known, and which yet would not crop out in the course of the action. In writing a full-flavoured romance of the sensational order, it is not, perhaps, very difficult to imbue your readers with a proper notion of your characters' character. The gentleman who hires two masked assassins to waylay his brother at the foot of the bridge has evidently no undue veneration for the Sixth Commandment; while the marchioness who, after having only once seen the young artist in black velvet, gives him the gold key leading to her secret apartments, and makes an assignation with him at midnight, is palpably not the style of person whom you would prefer as governess for your daughters. But in a commonplace story of every-day life, touching upon such ordinary topics as walks and dinners and butchers' meat, marrying and giving in marriage, running into debt, and riding horses in Rotten Row,--where (at least; so far as my experience serves) you find no such marked outlines of character, you must bring to your aid all that quality of work which in the sister art is known by the title pre-Raphaelitic, and show virtue in the cut of a coat and vice in the adjustment of a cravat. Moreover, we pen-and-ink workers have, in such cases, an advantage over our brethren of the pencil, inasmuch as we can take our readers by the button-hole, and lead them out of the main current of the story, showing them our heroes and heroines indéshabille, and, through the medium of that window which Vulcan wished had been fixed in the human breast--and which really is there, for the novelist's inspection--making them acquainted with the inmost thoughts and feelings of the puppets moving before them.
When Barbara went to her room that night and surrendered herself to Parker and the hair-brushes, that pattern of ladies'-maids thought that she had never seen her mistress so preoccupied since Karl von Knitzler, anattachéof the Austrian Embassy,--who ran for a whole season in the ruck of the Lexden's admirers, and at last thought he had strength for the first flight,--had received hiscoup de grâce. In her wonderment Parker gave two or three hardish tugs at the hair which she was manipulating, but received no reproof; for the inside of that little head was so busy as to render it almost insensible to the outside friction. Barbara was thinking of Mr. Churchill--as yet she had not even thought of him by his Christian name, scarcely perhaps knew it--and of the strange interest which he seemed to have aroused in her. The tones of his voice yet seemed ringing in her ears; she remembered his warm, earnest manner when speaking from himself, and the light way in which he fell into her tone of jesting badinage. Then, with something like a jar, she recollected his suppressed sneer at the difference in their "class," and her foot tapped angrily on the floor as the recollection rose in her mind. Mingled strangely with these were reminiscences of his comely head, white shapely hands, strong figure, and well-made boots; of the way in which he sat and walked; of--and then, with a start which nearly hurled one of the brushes out of Parker's hand, she gathered herself together as she felt the whole truth rush upon her, and knew that she was thinking too much of the man and determined that she would so think no more. Who was he, living away in some obscure region in London among a set of people whom no one knew, leading a life which would not be tolerated by any of her friends, to engrossherthoughts? Between them rolled a gulf, wide and impassable, on the brink of which they might indeed stand for a few minutes interchanging casual nothings in the course of life's journey, but which rendered closer contact impossible. And yet--but Barbara determined there should be no "and yet;" and with this determination full upon her, she dismissed Parker and fell asleep.
And Churchill--what of him? Alas, regardless of his doom, that little victim played! When old Marmaduke gave the signal for retiring, Churchill would not, on this night, follow the other men into the smoking-room. The politics, the ribaldry, the scandal, the horsey-doggy talk, would be all more intolerable than ever; he wanted to be alone, to go through that process, so familiar to him on all difficult occasions, of "thinking it out;" so he told Gumble to take a bottle of claret to his room, and, arrived there, he lit his old meerschaum, and leant out of the window gazing over the distant moonlit park. But this time the "thinking it out" failed dismally; amid the white smoke-wreaths curling before him rose a tall, slight grateful figure; in his ear yet lingered the sound of a clear low voice; his hand yet retained the thrill which ran through him as she touched it in wishing him "good night." He thought ofheras he had never thought of woman before, and he gloried in the thought: he was no love-sick boy, to waste in fond despair, and sicken in his longing; he was a strong, healthy man, with a faultless digestion, an earnest will, a clear conscience, and a heart thinking no guile. There was the difference in the rank, certainly--and in connexion with this reflection a grim smile crossed his face as he remembered Harding, and his caution about "swells"--but what of that? Did not good education, and a life that would bear scrutiny, lift a man to any rank? and would not she--and then he drew from his pocket a dainty, pearl-gray glove (Jouvin's two-buttoned, letter B), and pressed it to his lips. Itwassilly, ladies and gentlemen, I admit; but then, you know, it never happened to any ofus; and though "the court, the camp, the grove" suffer, we have the pleasure of thinking that the senate, the bar, the commerce of England, and the public press, always escape scot-free.
Breakfast at Bissett Grange lasted from nine--at the striking of which hour old Sir Marmaduke entered the room, and immediately rang the bell for a huge smoking bowl of oatmeal porridge, his invariable matutinal meal--until twelve; by which time the laziest of the guests had generally progressed from Yorkshire-pie, through bacon, eggs, and Finnan haddies, down to toast and marmalade, and were sufficiently refected. Barbara was always one of the last; she was specially late on the morning after the talk just described; and on her arrival in the breakfast-room found only Mr. and Mrs. Vincent, who always lingered fondly over their meals, and who, so long as the cloth remained on the table, sat pecking and nibbling, like a couple of old sparrows, at the dishes within reach of them; Captain Lyster, who between his sips of coffee was dipping intoBell's Life; and Sir Marmaduke himself, who had returned from a brisk walk round the grounds and the stables and the farm, and was deep in the columns of theTimes. But, to her astonishment, the place at table next hers had evidently not yet been occupied. The solid white breakfast-set was unused, the knives and forks were unsoiled; and yet Mr. Churchill, who had hitherto occupied that place, had usually finished his meal and departed before Barbara arrived. This morning, however, was clearly an exception; he had not yet breakfasted, for by his plate lay three unopened letters addressed to him. Barbara noticed this--noticed moreover that the top letter, in a long shiny pink envelope, was addressed in a scrawly, unmistakably female hand, and had been redirected in a larger, bolder writing. As she seated herself, with her eyes, it must be confessed, on this dainty missive, the door opened, and Churchill entered. After a general salutation, he was beginning a half-laughing apology for his lateness as he sat down, when his eye lit on the pink envelope. He changed colour slightly; then, before commencing his breakfast, took up his letters and placed them in the breast-pocket of his shooting-coat.
"This is horrible, Miss Lexden," he said, "bringing these dreadful hours into the country; here--where you should enjoy the breezy call of incense-breathing morn, the cock's shrill clarion, and all the rest of it--to come down to your breakfast just when the bucolic mind is pondering on the immediate advent of its dinner."
"Be good enough to include yourself in this sweeping censure, Mr. Churchill," said Barbara. "I was down before you; but I accepted my position, nor, however late I might have been, should I have attempted--"
"I congratulate you, sir," interrupted Mr. Vincent, dallying with a lump of marmalade on a wedge of toast,--"I congratulate you, Mr. Churchill, on a prudence which but few men of your age possess."
"You are very good, but I scarcely follow you."
"I saw you--I saw you put away your letters until after breakfast. A great stroke that! Men generally are so eager to get at their letters, that they plunge into them at once, before meals little thinking that the contents may have horrible influence on their digestion."
"I am sorry to say that I was influenced by no such sanitary precautions. My correspondence will keep; and I have yet to learn that to read letters in the presence of ladies is--"
"Pray, make no apologies, as far as I am concerned," said Barbara, with a curl of her lip and an expansion of nostril; "if you have any wish to read your doubtless important correspondence--"
"I have no such wish, Miss Lexden.Litera scripta manet; which, being interpreted, means, my letters will keep. And now, Mr. Vincent, I'll trouble you for a skilful help of that game-pie."
Churchill remained firm; he was still at breakfast, and his letters remained unopened in his pocket, when Barbara left the room to prepare for a drive with Miss Townshend. As they reëntered the avenue after a two hours' turn round the Downs, they met Captain Lyster in a dog-cart.
"I have been over to Brighton," he explained; "drove Churchill to the station. He got some news this morning, and is obliged to run up to town for a day or two. But he's coming back, Miss Lexden."
"Is he, indeed!" said Barbara. "What splendid intelligence! I should think, Captain Lyster, that, since the announcement of the fall of Sebastopol, England has scarcely heard such glorious news as that Mr. Churchill is coming back to Bissett." And, with a clear, ringing laugh, she pulled the ponies short up at the hall-door, jumped from the carriage, and passed to her room.
"She don't like his going, all the same,--give you my word," said Lyster, simply, to Miss Townshend.
And she did not. She coupled his sudden departure with the receipt of that pink envelope and the address in the feminine scrawl. Who was the writer of that letter? What could the business be to take him away so hastily? With her head leaning on her hand, she sits before her dressing-table pondering these things. It certainlywasa woman's writing. Is this quiet, sedate, self-possessed man a flirt? Does he carry on a correspondence with-- And if he does, what is it to her? She is nothing to him--and yet--whocanit be? It was a woman's hand! She wonders where he is at that moment; she would like to see him just for an instant.
If she could have had her wish, she would have seen him by himself in a railway-carriage, an unheededTimeslying across his knee, and in his hand a little pearl-gray kid-glove.