Theywere bewildered, yet they lost nothing of the scene. The great rooms radiant with light, misty with hangings, gleaming with mirrors—the magnificent staircase up which they passed, they never could tell how, ashamed of the echo of their own names—the beautiful enchantress of a hostess, who bestowed upon each of them that light perfumy kiss of welcome, at the momentary touch of which the girls blushed and trembled—the strange faces everywhere around them—their own confusion, and the shyness which they thought so awkward. Though all these things together united to form a dazzling jumble for the first moment, the incoherence of the vision lasted no longer. With a touch of kindness Mrs Edgerley led them (for of course they were scrupulously early, and punctual to the hour) to her pretty boudoir, where they had been before, and which was not so bright nor like to be so thronged as the largerrooms. Here already a young matron sat in state, with a little circle of worshippers. Mrs Edgerley broke into the midst of them to introduce to the throned lady her young strangers. “They have no one with them—pray let them be beside you,” whispered the beautiful hostess to her beautiful guest. The lady bowed, and stared, and assented. When Mrs Edgerley left them, Agnes and Marian looked after her wistfully, the only face they had ever seen before, and stood together in their shy irresolute grace, blushing, discouraged, and afraid. They supposed it was not right to speak to any one whom they had not been introduced to; but no one gave them any inconvenience for the moment in the matter of conversation. They stood for a short time shyly, expecting some notice from their newly-elected chaperone, but she had half-a-dozen flirtations in hand, and no leisure for a charge which was a bore. This, it must be confessed, was somewhat different from Mrs Edgerley’s anticipation of being “besieged for introductions” to the author ofHope Hazlewood. The young author looked wistfully into the brightness of the great drawing-room, with some hope of catching the eye of her patroness; but Mrs Edgerley was in the full business of “receiving,” and had no eye except for the brilliant stream of arrivals. Marian began to be indignant, and kept her beautiful eyes full upon Agnes, watchingher sister with eager sympathy. Never before, in all their serene and quiet lives, had they needed to be proud. For a moment the lip of Agnes curved and quivered—a momentary pang of girlish mortification passed over her face—then they both drew back suddenly to a table covered with books and portfolios, which stood behind them. They did not say a word to each other—they bent down over the prints and pictures with a sudden impulse of self-command and restraint: no one took the slightest notice of them; they stood quite alone in these magnificent rooms, which were slowly filling with strange faces. Agnes was afraid to look up, lest any one should see that there were actual tears under her eyelids. How she fancied she despised herself for such a weakness! But, after all, it was a hard enough lesson for neophytes so young and innocent,—so they stood very silent, bending closely over the picture-books, overcoming as they could their sudden mortification and disappointment. No one disturbed them in their solitary enjoyment of their little table, and for once in their life they did not say a word to each other, but bravely fought out the crisis within themselves, and rose again with all the pride of sensitive and imaginative natures to the emergency. With a sudden impulsive movement Agnes drew a chair to the table, and made Marian sit down upon it. “Now,we will suppose we are at the play,” said Agnes, with youthful contempt and defiance, leaning her arm upon the back of the chair, and looking at the people instead of the picture-books. Marian was not so rapid in her change of mood—she sat still, shading her face with her hand, with a flush upon her cheek, and an angry cloud on her beautiful young brow. Yes, Marian was extremely angry. Mortification on her own account did not affect her—but that all these people, who no doubt were only rich people and nobodies—that they should neglect Agnes!—this was more than her sisterly equanimity could bear.
Agnes Atheling was not beautiful. When people looked at her, they never thought of her face, what were its features or its complexion. These were both agreeable enough to make no detraction from the interest of the bright and animated intelligence which was indeed the only beauty belonging to her. She did not know herself with what entire and transparent honesty her eyes and her lips expressed her sentiments; and it never occurred to her that her own looks, as she stood thus, somewhat defiant, and full of an imaginative and heroical pride, looking out upon all those strangers, made the brightest comment possible upon the scene. How her eye brightened with pleasure as it fell on a pleasant face—how her lip laughed when something ridiculous caught her rapid attention—howthe soft lines on her forehead drew together when something displeased her delicate fancy—and how a certain natural delight in the graceful grouping and brilliant action of the scene before her lighted up all her face—was quite an unknown fact to Agnes. It was remarkable enough, however, in an assembly of people whose looks were regulated after the most approved principles, and who were generally adepts in the admirable art of expressing nothing. And then there was Marian, very cloudy, looking up under the shadow of her hand like an offended fairy queen. Though Mrs Edgerley was lost in the stream of her arriving guests, and the beautiful young chaperone she had committed them to took no notice whatever of her charge, tired eyes, which were looking out for something to interest them, gradually fixed upon Agnes and Marian. One or two observers asked who they were, but nobody could answer the question. They were quite by themselves, and evidently knew no one; and a little interest began to rise about them, which the girls, making their own silent observations upon everything, and still sometimes with a little wistfulness looking for Mrs Edgerley, had not yet begun to see.
When an old gentleman came to their table, and startled them a little by turning over the picture-books. He was an ancient beau—the daintiest of oldgentlemen—with a blue coat and a white waistcoat, and the most delicate of ruffles. His hair—so much as he had—was perfectly white, and his high bald forehead, and even his face, looked like a piece of ivory curiously carved into wrinkles. He was not by any means a handsome old man, yet it was evident enough that this peculiar look and studied dress belonged to a notability, whose coat and cambric, and the great shining diamond upon whose wrinkled ashen-white hand, belonged to his character, and were part of himself. He was an old connoisseur, critic, and fine gentleman, with a collection of old china, old jewels, rare small pictures, and curious books, enough to craze the whole dilettanti world when it came to the prolonged and fabulous sale, which was its certain end. And he was a connoisseur in other things than silver and china. He was somewhat given to patronising young people; and the common judgment gave him credit for great kindness and benignity. But it was not benignity and kindness which drew Mr Agar to the side of Agnes and Marian. Personal amusement was a much more prevailing inducement than benevolence with the dainty old dilettante. They were deceived, of course, as youth is invariably; for despite the pure selfishness of the intention, the effect, as it happened, was kind.
Mr Agar began a conversation by remarking upon the books, and drew forth a shy reply from both; thenhe managed gradually to change his position, and to survey the assembled company along with them, but with his most benign and patriarchal expression. He was curious to hear in words those comments which Agnes constantly made with her eyes; and he was pleased to observe the beauty of the younger sister—the perfect unconscious grace of all her movements and attitudes. They thought they had found the most gracious of friends, these simple girls; they had not the remotest idea that he was only a connoisseur.
“Then you do not know many of those people?” said Mr Agar, following Agnes’s rapid glances. “Ah, old Lady Knightly! is that a friend of yours?”
“No; I was thinking of the old story of ‘Thank you for your Diamonds,” said Agnes, who could not help drawing back a little, and casting down her eyes for the moment, while the sound of her own voice, low as it was, brought a sudden flush to her cheek. “I did not think diamonds had been so pretty; they look as if they were alive.”
“Ah, the diamonds!” said the old critic, looking at the unconscious object of Agnes’s observation, who was an old lady, wrinkled and gorgeous, with a leaping, twinkling band of light circling her time-shrivelled brow. “Yes, she looks as if she had dressed for a masquerade in the character of Night—eh? Poor old lady, with her lamps of diamonds! Beauty, you perceive,does not need so many tapers to show its whereabouts.”
“But there are a great many beautiful people here,” said Agnes, “and a great many jewels. I think, sir, it is kind of people to wear them, because all the pleasure is to us who look on.”
“You think so? Ah, then beauty itself, I suppose, is pure generosity, andwehave all the pleasure of it,” said the amused old gentleman; “that is comfortable doctrine, is it not?” And he looked at Marian, who glanced up blushingly, yet with a certain pleasure. He smiled, yet he looked benignant and fatherly; and this was an extremely agreeable view of the matter, and made it much less embarrassing to acknowledge oneself pretty. Marian felt herself indebted to this kind old man.
“And you know no one—not even Mrs Edgerley, I presume?” said the old gentleman. They both interrupted him in haste to correct this, but he only smiled the more, and went on. “Well, I shall be benevolent, and tell you who your neighbours are; but I cannot follow those rapid eyes. Yes, I perceive you have made a good pause for a beginning—that is our pretty hostess’s right honourable papa. Poor Winterbourne! he was sadly clumsy about his business. He is one of those unfortunate men who cannot do a wicked thing without doing it coarsely.You perceive, he is stopping to speak to Lady Theodosia—dear Lady Theodosia, who writes those sweet books! Nature intended she should be merry and vulgar, and art has made her very fine, very sentimental, and full of tears. There is an unfortunate youth wandering alone behind everybody’s back. That is a miserable new poet, whom Mrs Edgerley has deluded hither under the supposition that he is to be the lion of the evening. Poor fellow! he is looking demoniacal, and studying an epigram. Interested in the poet—eh?”
“Yes, sir,” said Agnes, with her usual respect; “but we were thinking of ourselves, who were something the same,” she added quickly; for Mr Agar had seen the sudden look which passed between the sisters.
“Something the same! then I am to understand that you are a poet?” said the old gentleman, with his unvarying benignity. “No!—what then? A musician? No; an artist? Come, you puzzle me. I shall begin to suppose you have written a novel if you do not explain.”
The animated face of Agnes grew blank in a moment; she drew farther back, and blushed painfully. Marian immediately drew herself up and stood upon the defensive. “Is it anything wrong to write a novel?” said Marian. Mr Agar turned upon her with his benignant smile.
“It is so, then?” said the old gentleman; “and I have not the least doubt it is an extremely clever novel. But hold! who comes here? Ah, an American! Now we must do our best to talk very brilliantly, for friend Jonathan loves the conversation of distinguished circles. Let me find a seat for you, and do not be angry that I am not an enthusiast in literary matters. We have all our hobbies, and that does not happen to be mine.”
Agnes sat down passively on the chair he brought for her. The poor girl felt grievously ashamed of herself. After all, what was that poor little book, that she should ground such mighty claims upon it? Who cared for the author ofHope Hazlewood? Mr Agar, though he was so kind, did not even care to inquire what book it was, nor showed the smallest curiosity about its name. Agnes was so much cast down that she scarcely noticed the upright figure approaching towards them, carrying an abstracted head high in the air, and very like to run over smaller people; but Mr Agar stepped aside, and Marian touched her sister’s arm. “It is Mr Endicott—look, Agnes!” whispered Marian. Both of them were stirred with sudden pleasure at sight of him; it was a known face in this dazzling wilderness, though it was not a very comely one. Mr Endicott was as much startled as themselves when glancing downward fromhis lofty altitude, his eye fell upon the beautiful face which had made sunshine even in the shady place of that Yankee young gentleman’s self-admiring breast. The sudden discovery brightened his lofty languor for a moment. He hastened to shake hands with them, so impressively that the pretty lady and her cloud of admirers paused in their flutter of satire and compliment to look on.
“This is a pleasure I was not prepared for,” said Mr Endicott. “I remember that Mr Atheling had an early acquaintance with Viscount Winterbourne—I presume an old hereditary friendship. I am rejoiced to find that such things are, even in this land of sophistication. This is a brilliant scene!”
“Indeed I do not think papa knows Lord Winterbourne,” said Agnes hastily; but her low voice did not reach the ears which had been so far enlightened by Mr Endicott. “Hereditary friendship—old connections of the family; no doubt daughters of some squire in Banburyshire,” said their beautiful neighbour, in a half-offended tone, to one of her especial retainers, who showed strong symptoms of desertion, and had already half-a-dozen times asked Marian’s name. Unfortunate Mr Endicott! he gained a formidable rival by these ill-advised words.
“I find little to complain of generally in the most distinguished circles of your country,” said Mr Endicott.“Your own men of genius may be neglected, but a foreigner of distinction always finds a welcome. This is true wisdom—for by this means we are enabled to carry a good report to the world.”
“I say, what nice accounts these French fellows give of us!” burst in suddenly a very young man, who stood under the shadow of Mr Endicott. The youth who hazarded this brilliant remark did not address anybody in particular, and was somewhat overpowered by the unexpected honour of an answer from Mr Agar.
“Trench journalists, and newspaper writers of any country, are of course the very best judges of manners and morals,” said the old gentleman, with a smile; “the other three estates are more than usually fallible; the fourth is the nearest approach to perfection which we can find in man.”
“Sir,” said Mr Endicott, “in my country we can do without Queen, Lords, and Commons; but we cannot do without the Press—that is, the exponent of every man’s mind and character, the legitimate vehicle of instructive experiences. The Press, sir, is Progress—the only effective agency ever invented for the perfection of the human race.”
“Oh, I am sure I quite agree with you. I am quite in love with the newspapers; they do make one so delightfully out of humour,” said Mrs Edgerley,suddenly making her appearance; “and really, you know, when they speak of society, it is quite charming—so absurd! Sir Langham Portland—Miss Atheling. I have been so longing to come to you. Oh, and you must know Mr Agar. Mr Agar, I want to introduce you to my charming young friend, the author ofHope Hazlewood; is it not wonderful? I was sure you, who are so fond of people of genius, would be pleased to know her. And there is dear Lady Theodosia, but she is so surrounded. You must come to the Willows—you must indeed; I positively insist upon it. For what can one do in an evening? and so many of my friends want to know you. We go down in a fortnight. I shall certainly calculate upon you. Oh, I never take a refusal; it wassokind of you to come to-night.”
Before she had ceased speaking, Mrs Edgerley was at the other end of the room, conversing with some one else, by her pretty gestures. Sir Langham Portland drew himself up like a guardsman, as he was, on the other side of Marian, and made original remarks about the picture-books, somewhat to the amusement, but more to the dismay of the young beauty, unaccustomed to such distinguished attentions. Mr Agar occupied himself with Agnes; he told her all about the Willows, Mrs Edgerley’s pretty house at Richmond, which was always amusing, said the old gentleman.He was very pleasantly amused himself with Agnes’s bright respondent face, which, however, this wicked old critic was fully better pleased with while its mortification and disappointment lasted. Mr Endicott remained standing in front of the group, watching the splendid guardsman with a misanthropic eye. This, however, was not very amusing; and the enlightened American gracefully took from his pocket the daintiest of pocket-books, fragrant with Russia leather and clasped with gold. From this delicate enclosure Mr Endicott selected with care a letter and a card, and, armed with these formidable implements, turned round upon the unconscious old gentleman. When Mr Agar caught a glimpse of this impending assault, his momentary look of dismay would have delighted himself, could he have seen it. “I have the honour of bearing a letter of introduction,” said Mr Endicott, closing upon the unfortunate connoisseur, and thrusting before his eyes the weapons of offence—the moral bowie-knife and revolver, which were the weapons of this young gentleman’s warfare. Mr Agar looked his assailant in the face, but did not put forth his hand.
“At my own house,” said the ancient beau, with a gracious smile: “who could be stoic enough to do justice to the most distinguished of strangers, under such irresistible distractions as I find here?”
Poor Mr Endicott! He did not venture to be offended, but he was extinguished notwithstanding, and could not make head against his double disappointment; for there stood the guardsman speaking through his mustache of Books of Beauty, and holding his place like the most faithful of sentinels by Marian Atheling’s side.
“I shallhave to relinquish my charge of you,” said the young chaperone, for the first time addressing Agnes. Agnes started immediately, and rose.
“It is time for us to go,” she said with eager shyness, “but I did not like. May we follow you? If it would not trouble you, it would be a great kindness, for we know no one here.”
“Why did you come, then?” said the lady. Agnes’s ideas of politeness were sorely tried to-night.
“Indeed,” said the young author, with a sudden blush and courage, “I cannot tell why, unless because Mrs Edgerley asked us; but I am sure it was very foolish, and we will know better another time.”
“Yes, it is always tiresome, unless one knows everybody,” said the pretty young matron, slowly rising, and accepting with a careless grace the arm which somebody offered her. The girls rose hastily to follow. Mr Agar had left them some time before, and even themagnificent guardsman had been drawn away from his sentryship. With a little tremor, looking at nobody, and following very close in the steps of their leader, they glided along through the brilliant groups of the great drawing-room. But, alas! they were not fated to reach the door in unobserved safety. Mr Endicott, though he was improving his opportunities, though he had already fired another letter of introduction at somebody else’s head, and listened to his heart’s content to various snatches of that most brilliant and wise conversation going on everywhere around him, had still kept up a distant and lofty observation of the lady of his love. He hastened forward to them now, as with beating hearts they pursued their way, keeping steadily behind their careless young guide. “You are going?” said Mr Endicott, making a solemn statement of the fact. “It is early; let me see you to your carriage.”
But they were glad to keep close to him a minute afterwards, while they waited for that same carriage, the Islingtonian fly, with Charlie in it, which was slow to recognise its own name when called. Charlie rolled himself out as the vehicle drew up, and came to the door like a man to receive his sisters. A gentleman stood by watching the whole scene with a little amusement—the shy girls, the big brother, the officious American. This was a man of singularly pale complexion,very black hair, and a face over which the skin seemed to be strained so tight that his features were almost ghastly. He was old, but he did not look like his age; and it was impossible to suppose that he ever could have looked young. His smile was not at all a pleasant smile. Though it came upon his face by his own will, he seemed to have no power of putting it off again; and it grew into a faint spasmodic sneer, offensive and repellent. Charlie looked him in the face with a sudden impulse of pugnacity—he looked at Charlie with this bloodless and immovable smile. The lad positively lingered, though his fly “stopped the way,” to bestow another glance upon this remarkable personage, and their eyes met in a full and mutual stare. Whether either person, the old man or the youth, were moved by a thrill of presentiment, we are not able to say; but there was little fear hereafter of any want of mutual recognition. Despite the world of social distinction, age, and power which lay between them, Charlie Atheling looked at Lord Winterbourne, and Lord Winterbourne looked at Charlie. It was their first point of contact; neither of them could read the fierce mutual conflict, the ruin, despair, and disgrace which lay in the future, in that first look of impulsive hostility; but as the great man entered his carriage, and the boy plunged into the fly, their thoughts for the moment were full of each other—sofull that neither could understand the sudden distinct recognition of this first touch of fate.
“No; mamma was quite right,” said Agnes; “we cannot be great friends nor very happy with people so different from ourselves.”
And the girls sighed. They were pleased, yet they were disappointed. It was impossible to deny that the reality was as far different from the imagination as anything could be; and really nobody had been in the smallest degree concerned about the author ofHope Hazlewood. Even Marian was compelled to acknowledge that.
“But then,” cried this eager young apologist, “they were not literary people; they were not good judges; they were common people, like what you might see anywhere, though they might be great ladies and fine gentlemen; it was easy to seewewere not very great, and they did not understandyou.”
“Hush,” said Agnes quickly; “they were rather kind, I think—especially Mr Agar; but they did not care at all for us: and why should they, after all?”
“So it was a failure,” said Charlie. “I say, who was that man—that fellow at the door?”
“Oh, Charlie, you dreadful boy! that was Lord Winterbourne,” cried Marian. “Mr Agar told us who he was.”
“Who’s Mr Agar?” asked Charlie. “And so that’shim—that’s the man that will take the Old Wood Lodge! I wish he would. I knew I owed him something. I’d like to see him try!”
“And Mrs Edgerley is his daughter,” said Agnes. “Is it not strange? And I suppose we shall all be neighbours in the country. But Mr Endicott said quite loud, so that everybody could hear, that papa was a friend of Lord Winterbourne’s. I do not like people to slight us; but I don’t like to deceive them either. There wasthatgentleman—that Sir Langham. I suppose he thoughtwewere great people, Marian, like the rest of the people there.”
In the darkness Marian pouted, frowned, and laughed within herself. “I don’t think it matters much what Sir Langham thought,” said Marian; for already the young beauty began to feel her “greatness,” and smiled at her own power.
Whenthe fly jumbled into Bellevue, the lighted window, which always illuminated the little street, shone brighter than ever in the profound darkness of this late night, when all the respectable inhabitants for more than an hour had been asleep. Papa and Mamma, somewhat drowsily, yet with a capacity for immediate waking-up only to be felt under these circumstances, had unanimously determined to sit up for the girls; and the window remained bright, and the inmates wakeful, for a full hour after the rumbling “fly,” raising all the dormant echoes of the neighbourhood, had rolled off to its nightly shelter. The father and the mother listened with the most perfect patience to the detail of everything, excited in spite of themselves by their children’s companionship with “the great,” yet considerably resenting, and much disappointed by the failure of those grand visions, in which all night the parental imagination had pictured to itself an admiring assembly hangingupon the looks of those innocent and simple girls. Mr and Mrs Atheling on this occasion were somewhat disposed, we confess, to make out a case of jealousy and malice against the fashionable guests of Mrs Edgerley. It was always the way, Papa said. They always tried to keep everybody down, and treated aspirants superciliously; and in the climax of his indignation, under his breath, he added something about those “spurns which patient merit of the unworthy takes.” Mrs Atheling did not quote Shakespeare, but she was quite as much convinced that it was their “rank in life” which had prevented Agnes and Marian from taking a sovereign place in the gay assembly they had just left. The girls themselves gave no distinct judgment on the subject; but now that the first edge of her mortification had worn off, Agnes began to have great doubts upon this matter. “We had no claim upon them—not the least,” said Agnes; “they never saw us before; we were perfect strangers; why should they trouble themselves about us, simply because I had written a book?”
“Do not speak nonsense, my dear—do not tell me,” said Mrs Atheling, with agitation: “they had only to use their own eyes and see—as if they often had such an opportunity! My dear, I know better; you need not speak to me!”
“And everybody has read your book, Agnes—andno doubt there are scores of people who would give anything to know you,” said Papa with dignity. “The author ofHope Hazlewoodis a different person from Agnes Atheling. No, no—it is not that they don’t know your proper place; but they keep everybody down as long as they can. Now, mind, one day you will turn the tables upon them; I am very sure of that.”
Agnes said no more, but went up to her little white room completely unconvinced upon the subject. Miss Willsie saw the tell-tale light in this little high window in the middle of the night—when it was nearly daylight, the old lady said—throwing a friendly gleam upon the two young controversialists as they debated this difficult question. Agnes, of course, with all the heat of youth and innovation, took the extreme side of the question. “It is easy enough to write—any one can write,” said the young author, triumphant in her argument, yet in truth somewhat mortified by her triumph. “But even if it was not, there are greater things in this world than books, and almost all other books are greater than novels; and I do think it was the most foolish thing in the world to suppose that clever people like these—for they were all clever people—would take any notice of me.”
To which arguments, all and several, Marian returned only a direct, unhesitating, and broad negative.It wasnoteasy to write, and there werenotgreater things than books, and it was not at all foolish to expect a hundred times more than ever their hopes had expected. “It is very wrong of you to say so, Agnes,” said Marian. “Papa is quite right; it will all be as different as possible by-and-by; and if you have nothing more sensible to say than that, I shall go to sleep.”
Saying which, Marian turned round upon her pillow, virtuously resisted all further temptations, and closed her beautiful eyes upon the faint grey dawn which began to steal in between the white curtains. They thought their minds were far too full to go to sleep. Innocent imaginations! five minutes after, they were in the very sweetest enchanted country of the true fairyland of dreams.
While Charlie, in his sleep in the next room, laboriously struggled all night with a bloodless apparition, which smiled at him from an open doorway—fiercely fought and struggled against it—mastered it—got it down, but only to begin once more the tantalising combat. When he rose in the morning, early as usual, the youth set his teeth at the recollection, and with an attempt to give a reason for this instinctive enmity, fiercely hoped that Lord Winterbourne would try to take from his father his little inheritance. Charlie, who was by no means of a metaphysical turn, did not trouble himself at all to inquire into the grounds ofhis own unusual pugnacity. He “knew he owed him something,” and though my Lord Winterbourne was a viscount and an ex-minister, and Charlie only a poor man’s son and a copying-clerk, he fronted the great man’s image with indomitable confidence, and had no more doubt of his own prowess than of his entire goodwill in the matter. He did not think very much more of his opponent in this case than he did of the big folios in the office, and had as entire confidence in his own ability to bring the enemy down.
But it was something of a restless night to Papa and Mamma. They too talked in their darkened chamber, too proper and too economical to waste candlelight upon subjects so unprofitable, of old events and people half forgotten;—how the first patroness of Agnes should be the daughter of the man between whom and themselves there existed some unexplained connection of old friendship or old enmity, or both;—how circumstances beyond their guidance conspired to throw them once more in the way of persons and plans which they had heard nothing of for more than twenty years. These things were very strange and troublous events to Mr Atheling and his wife. The past, which nearer grief and closer pleasure—all their family life, full as that was of joy and sorrow—had thrown so far away and out of remembrance, came suddenly back before them in all the clearness ofyouthful recollection. Old feelings returned strong and fresh into their minds. They went back, and took up the thread of this history, whatever it might be, where they had dropped it twenty years ago; and with a thrill of deeper interest, wondered and inquired how this influence would affect their children. To themselves now little could happen; their old friend or their old enemy could do neither harm nor benefit to their accomplished lives—but the children!—the children, every one so young, so hopeful, and so well endowed; all so strangely brought into sudden contact, at a double point, with this one sole individual, who had power to disturb the rest of the father and the mother. They relapsed into silence suddenly, and were quieted by the thought.
“It is not our doing—it is not our seeking,” said Mr Atheling at length. “If the play wants a last act, Mary, it will not be your planning nor mine; and as for the children, they are in the hands of God.”
So in the grey imperfect dawn which lightened on the faces of the sleeping girls, whose sweet youthful rest was far too deep to be broken even by the growing light, these elder people closed their eyes, not to sleep, but to pray. If evil were about to come—if danger were lurking in the air around them—they had this only defence against it. It was not the simple faith of youth which dictated these prayers; itwas a deeper and a closer urgency, which cried aloud and would not cease, but yet was solemn with the remembrance of times when God’s pleasure was not to grant them their petitions. The young ones slept in peace, but with fights and triumphs manifold in their young dreams. The father and the mother held a vigil for them, holding up holy hands for their defence and safety; and so the morning came at last, brightly, to hearts which feared no evil, or when they feared, put their apprehensions at once into the hand of God.
Themorning, like a good fairy, came kindly to these good people, increasing in the remembrance of the girls the impression of pleasure, and lessening that of disappointment. They came, after all, to be very well satisfied with their reception at Mrs Edgerley’s. And now her second and most important invitation remained to be discussed—the Willows—the pretty house at Richmond, with the river running sweetly under the shadow of its trees; the company, which was sure to include, as Mr Agar said,somepeople worth knowing, and which that ancient connoisseur himself did not refuse to join. Agnes and Marian looked with eager eyes on the troubled brow of Mamma; a beautiful vision of the lawn and the river, flowers and sunshine, the sweet silence of “the country,” and the unfamiliar music of running water and rustling trees, possessed the young imaginations for the time to the total disregard of all sublunary considerations.Theydid not think for a moment of Lord Winterbourne’s daughter, and the strange chance which could make them inmates of her house; for Lord Winterbourne himself was not a person of any importance in the estimation of the girls. But more than that, they did not even think of their wardrobe, important as that consideration was; they did not recollect how entirely unprovided they were for such a visit, nor how the family finances, strait and unelastic, could not possibly stretch to so new and great an expenditure. But all these things, which brought no cloud upon Agnes and Marian, conspired to embarrass the brow of the family mother. She thought at the same moment of Lord Winterbourne and of the brown merinos; of this strange acquaintanceship, mysterious and full of fate as it seemed; and of the little black silk cloaks which were out of fashion, and the bonnets with the faded ribbons. It was hard to deny the girls so great a pleasure; but how could it be done?
And for a day or two following the household remained in great uncertainty upon this point, and held every evening, on the engrossing subject of ways and means, a committee of the whole house. This, however, we are grieved to say, was somewhat of an unprofitable proceeding; for the best advice which Papa could give on so important a subject was, that the girls must of course have everything proper if theywent. “If they went!—that is exactly the question,” said the provoked and impatient ruler of all. “But are they to go? and how are we to get everything proper for them?” To these difficult questions Mr Atheling attempted no answer. He was a wise man, and knew his own department, and prudently declined any interference in the legitimate domain of the other head of the house.
Mrs Atheling was by no means addicted to disclosing the private matters of her own family life, yet she carried this important question through the faded wallflowers to crave the counsel of Miss Willsie. Miss Willsie was not at all pleased to have such a matter submitted to her.Hersupreme satisfaction would have lain in criticising, finding fault, and helping on. Now reduced to the painful alternative of giving an opinion, the old lady pronounced a vague one in general terms, to the effect that if there was one thing she hated, it was to see poor folk striving for the company of them that were in a different rank in life; but whenever this speech was made, and her conscience cleared, Miss Willsie began to inquire zealously what “the silly things had,” and what they wanted, and set about a mental turning over of her own wardrobe, where were a great many things which she had worn in her own young days, and which were “none theworse,” as she said—but they were not altogether adapted for the locality of the Willows. Miss Willsie turned them over not only in her own mind, but in her own parlour, where her next visitor found her as busy with her needle and her shears as any cottar matron ever was, and anxiously bent on the same endeavour to “make auld things look amaist as weel’s the new.” It cost Miss Willsie an immense deal of trouble, but it was not half so successful a business as the repairs of that immortal Saturday Night.
But the natural course of events, which had cleared their path for them many times before, came in once more to make matters easy. Mr Burlington, of whom nothing had been heard since the day of that eventful visit to his place—Mr Burlington, who since then had brought out a second edition ofHope Hazlewood, announced himself ready to “make a proposal” for the book. Now, there had been many and great speculations in the house on this subject of “Agnes’s fortune.” They were as good at the magnificent arithmetic of fancy as Major Pendennis was, and we will not say that, like him, they had not leaped to their thousands a-year. They had all, however, been rather prudent in committing themselves to a sum—nobody would guess positively what it was to be—but some indefiniteand fabulous amount, a real fortune, floated in the minds of all: to the father and mother a substantial provision for Agnes, to the girls an inexhaustible fund of pleasure, comfort, and charity. The proposal came—it was not a fabulous and magnificent fortune, for the author ofHope Hazlewoodwas only Agnes Atheling, and not Arthur Pendennis. For the first moment, we are compelled to confess, they looked at each other with blank faces, entirely cast down and disappointed: it was not an inexhaustible fairy treasure—it was only a hundred and fifty pounds.
Yes, most tender-hearted reader! these were not the golden days of Sir Walter, nor was this young author a literary Joan of Arc. She got her fortune in a homely fashion like other people—at first was grievously disappointed about it—formed pugnacious resolutions, and listened to all the evil stories of the publishing ghouls with satisfaction and indignant faith. But by-and-by this angry mood softened down; by-and-by the real glory of such an unrealisable heap of money began to break upon the girls. A hundred and fifty pounds, and nothing to do with it—no arrears to pay—nothing to make up—can any one suppose a position of more perfect felicity? They came to see it bit by bit dawning upon them in gradual splendour—content blossomed into satisfaction, satisfaction unfolded intodelight. And then to think of laying by such a small sum would be foolish, as the girls reasoned; so its very insignificance increased the pleasure. It was not a dull treasure, laid up in a bank, or “invested,” as Papa had solemnly proposed to invest “Agnes’s fortune;” it was a delightful little living stream of abundance, already in imagination overflowing and brightening everything. It would buy Mamma the most magnificent of brocades, and Bell and Beau such frocks as never were seen before out of fairyland. It would take them all to the Old Wood Lodge, or even to the seaside; it would light up with books and pictures, and pretty things, the respectable family face of Number Ten, Bellevue. There was no possibility of exhausting the capacities of this marvellous sum of money, which, had it been three or four times as much, as the girls discovered, could not have been half as good for present purposes. The delight of spending money was altogether new to them: they threw themselves into it with the most gleeful abandonment (in imagination), and threw away their fortune royally, and with genuine enjoyment in the process; and very few millionaires have ever found as much pleasure in the calculation of their treasures as Agnes and Marian Atheling, deciding over and over again how they were to spend it, found in this hundred and fifty pounds.
In the mean time, however, Papa carried it off to the office, and locked it up there for security—for they all felt that it would not be right to trust to the commonplace defences of Bellevue with such a prodigious sum of money in the house.
Itwas a July day, brilliant and dazzling; the deep-blue summer sky arched over these quiet houses, a very heaven of sunshine and calm; the very leaves were golden in the flood of light, and grateful shadows fell from the close walls, and a pleasant summer fragrance came from within the little enclosures of Bellevue. Nothing was stirring in the silent little suburban street—the very sounds came slow and soft through the luxurious noonday air, into which now and then blew the little capricious breath of a cool breeze, like some invisible fairy fan making a current in the golden atmosphere. Safe under the shelter of green blinds and opened windows, the feminine population reposed in summer indolence, mistresses too languid to scold, and maids to be improved by the same. In the day, the other half of mankind, all mercantile and devoted to business, deserted Bellevueand perhaps were not less drowsy in their several offices, where dust had to answer all the purpose of those trim venetian defences, than their wives and daughters were at home.
But before the door of Number Ten stood a vehicle—let no one scorn its unquestioned respectability,—it was The Fly. The fly was drawn by an old white horse, of that bony and angular development peculiar to this rank of professional eminence. This illustrious animal gave character and distinction at once to the equipage. The smartest and newest brougham in existence, with such a steed attached to it, must at once have taken rank, in the estimation of all beholders, as a true and unmistakable Fly. The coachman was in character; he had a long white livery-coat, and a hat very shiny, and bearing traces of various indentations. As he sat upon his box in the sunshine, he nodded in harmony with the languid branches of the lilac-bushes. Though he was not averse to a job, he marvelled much how anybody who could stay at home went abroad under this burning sun, or troubled themselves with occupations. So too thought the old white horse, switching his old white tail in vain pursuit of the summer flies which troubled him; and so even thought Hannah, Miss Willsie’s pretty maid, as she looked out from the gate of Killiecrankie Lodge, shading her eyes with her hand,marvelling, half in envy, half in pity, how any one could think even of “pleasuring” on such a day.
With far different sentiments from these languid and indolent observers, the Athelings prepared for their unusual expedition. Firmly compressed into Mrs Atheling’s purse were five ten-pound notes, crisp and new, and the girls, with a slight tremor of terror enhancing their delight, had secretly vowed that Mamma should not be permitted to bring anything in the shape of money home. They were going to spend fifty pounds. That was their special mission—and when you consider that very rarely before had they helped at the spending of more than fifty shillings, you may fancy the excitement and delight of this family enterprise. They had calculated beforehand what everything was to cost—they had left a margin for possibilities—they had all their different items written down on a very long piece of paper, and now the young ladies were dancing Bell and Beau through the garden, and waiting for Mamma.
For the twin babies were to form part of this most happy party. Bell and Beau were to have an ecstatic drive in that most delightful of carriages which the two big children and the two little ones at present stood regarding with the sincerest admiration. If Agnes had any doubt at all about the fly, it was a momentary fear lest somebody should suppose it to be their owncarriage—a contingency not at all probable. In every other view of the question, the fly was scarcely second even to Mrs Edgerley’s sublime and stately equipage; and it is quite impossible to describe the rapture with which this magnificent vehicle was contemplated by Bell and Beau.
At last Mamma came down stairs in somewhat of a flutter, and by no means satisfied that she was doing right in thus giving in to the girls. Mrs Atheling still, in spite of all their persuasions, could not help thinking it something very near a sin to spend wilfully, and at one doing, so extraordinary a sum as fifty pounds—“a quarter’s income!” she said solemnly. But Papa was very nearly as foolish on the subject as Agnes and Marian, and the good mother could not make head against them all. She was alarmed at this first outbreak of “awful” extravagance, but she could not quite refuse to be pleased either with the pleasant piece of business, with the delight of the girls, and the rapture of the babies, nor to feel the glory in her own person of “shopping” on so grand a scale—