I.
Arthur Penrose to Father Benwell.
REVEREND AND DEAR FATHER—When I last had the honor of seeing you, I received your instructions to report, by letter, the result of my conversations on religion with Mr. Romayne.
As events have turned out, it is needless to occupy your time by dwelling at any length on this subject, in writing. Mr. Romayne has been strongly impressed by the excellent books which I have introduced to his notice. He raises certain objections, which I have done my best to meet; and he promises to consider my arguments with his closest attention, in the time to come. I am happier in the hope of restoring his mental tranquillity—in other and worthier words, of effecting his conversion—than I can tell you in any words of mine. I respect and admire, I may almost say I love, Mr. Romayne.
The details which are wanting in this brief report of progress I shall have the privilege of personally relating to you. Mr. Romayne no longer desires to conceal himself from his friends. He received a letter this morning which has changed all his plans, and has decided him on immediately returning to London. I am not acquainted with the contents of the letter, or with the name of the writer; but I am pleased, for Mr. Romayne’s sake, to see that the reading of it has made him happy.
By to-morrow evening I hope to present my respects to you.
II.
Mr. Bitrake to Father Benwell.
SIR—The inquiries which I have instituted at your request have proved successful in one respect.
I am in a position to tell you that events in Mr. Winterfield’s life have unquestionably connected him with the young lady named Miss Stella Eyrecourt.
The attendant circumstances, however, are not so easy to discover. Judging by the careful report of the person whom I employ, there must have been serious reasons, in this case, for keeping facts secret and witnesses out of the way. I mention this, not to discourage you, but to prepare you for delays that may occur on our way to discovery.
Be pleased to preserve your confidence in me, and to give me time—and I answer for the result.
A FINE spring, after a winter of unusual severity, promised well for the prospects of the London season.
Among the social entertainments of the time, general curiosity was excited, in the little sphere which absurdly describes itself under the big name of Society, by the announcement of a party to be given by Lady Loring, bearing the quaint title of a Sandwich Dance. The invitations were issued at an unusually early hour; and it was understood that nothing so solid and so commonplace as the customary supper was to be offered to the guests. In a word, Lady Loring’s ball was designed as a bold protest against late hours and heavy midnight meals. The younger people were all in favor of the proposed reform. Their elders declined to give an opinion beforehand.
In the small inner circle of Lady Loring’s most intimate friends, it was whispered that an innovation in the matter of refreshments was contemplated, which would put the tolerant principles of the guests to a severe test. Miss Notman, the housekeeper, politely threatening retirement on a small annuity, since the memorable affair of the oyster-omelet, decided on carrying out her design when she heard that there was to be no supper. “My attachment to the family can bear a great deal,” she said. “But when Lady Loring deliberately gives a ball, without a supper, I must hide my head somewhere—and it had better be out of the house!” Taking Miss Notman as representative of a class, the reception of the coming experiment looked, to say the least of it, doubtful.
On the appointed evening, the guests made one agreeable discovery when they entered the reception rooms. They were left perfectly free to amuse themselves as they liked.
The drawing-rooms were given up to dancing; the picture gallery was devoted to chamber music. Chess-players and card-players found remote and quiet rooms especially prepared for them. People who cared for nothing but talking were accommodated to perfection in a sphere of their own. And lovers (in earnest or not in earnest) discovered, in a dimly-lighted conservatory with many recesses, that ideal of discreet retirement which combines solitude and society under one roof.
But the ordering of the refreshments failed, as had been foreseen, to share in the approval conferred on the arrangement of the rooms. The first impression was unfavorable. Lady Loring, however, knew enough of human nature to leave results to two potent allies—experience and time.
Excepting the conservatory, the astonished guests could go nowhere without discovering tables prettily decorated with flowers, and bearing hundreds of little pure white china plates, loaded with nothing but sandwiches. All varieties of opinion were consulted. People of ordinary tastes, who liked to know what they were eating, could choose conventional beef or ham, encased in thin slices of bread of a delicate flavor quite new to them. Other persons, less easily pleased, were tempted by sandwiches ofpate de fois grasand by exquisite combinations of chicken and truffles, reduced to a creamy pulp which clung to the bread like butter. Foreigners, making experiments, and not averse to garlic, discovered the finest sausages of Germany and Italy transformed into English sandwiches. Anchovies and sardines appealed, in the same unexpected way, to men who desired to create an artificial thirst—after having first ascertained that the champagne was something to be fondly remembered and regretted, at other parties, to the end of the season. The hospitable profusion of the refreshments was all-pervading and inexhaustible. Wherever the guests might be, or however they were amusing themselves, there were the pretty little white plates perpetually tempting them. People eat as they had never eat before, and even the inveterate English prejudice against anything new was conquered at last. Universal opinion declared the Sandwich Dance to be an admirable idea, perfectly carried out.
Many of the guests paid their hostess the compliment of arriving at the early hour mentioned in the invitations. One of them was Major Hynd. Lady Loring took her first opportunity of speaking to him apart.
“I hear you were a little angry,” she said, “when you were told that Miss Eyrecourt had taken your inquiries out of your hands.”
“I thought it rather a bold proceeding, Lady Loring,” the Major replied. “But as the General’s widow turned out to be a lady, in the best sense of the word, Miss Eyrecourt’s romantic adventure has justified itself. I wouldn’t recommend her to run the same risk a second time.”
“I suppose you know what Romayne thinks of it?”
“Not yet. I have been too busy to call on him since I have been in town. Pardon me, Lady Loring, who is that beautiful creature in the pale yellow dress? Surely I have seen her somewhere before?”
“That beautiful creature, Major, is the bold young lady of whose conduct you don’t approve.”
“Miss Eyrecourt?”
“Yes.”
“I retract everything I said!” cried the Major, quite shamelessly. “Such a woman as that may do anything. She is looking this way. Pray introduce me.”
The Major was introduced, and Lady Loring returned to her guests.
“I think we have met before, Major Hynd,” said Stella.
Her voice supplied the missing link in the Major’s memory of events. Remembering how she had looked at Romayne on the deck of the steamboat, he began dimly to understand Miss Eyrecourt’s otherwise incomprehensible anxiety to be of use to the General’s family. “I remember perfectly,” he answered. “It was on the passage from Boulogne to Folkestone—and my friend was with me. You and he have no doubt met since that time?” He put the question as a mere formality. The unexpressed thought in him was, “Another of them in love with Romayne! and nothing, as usual, likely to come of it.”
“I hope you have forgiven me for going to Camp’s Hill in your place,” said Stella.
“I ought to be grateful to you,” the Major rejoined. “No time has been lost in relieving these poor people—and your powers of persuasion have succeeded, where mine might have failed. Has Romayne been to see them himself since his return to London?”
“No. He desires to remain unknown; and he is kindly content, for the present, to be represented by me.”
“For the present.” Major Hynd repeated.
A faint flush passed over her delicate complexion. “I have succeeded,” she resumed, “in inducing Madame Marillac to accept the help offered through me to her son. The poor creature is safe, under kind superintendence, in a private asylum. So far, I can do no more.”
“Will the mother accept nothing?”
“Nothing, either for herself or her daughter, so long as they can work. I cannot tell you how patiently and beautifully she speaks of her hard lot. But her health may give way—and it is possible, before long, that I may leave London.” She paused; the flush deepened on her face. “The failure of the mother’s health may happen in my absence,” she continued; “and Mr. Romayne will ask you to look after the family, from time to time, while I am away.”
“I will do it with pleasure, Miss Eyrecourt. Is Romayne likely to be here to-night?”
She smiled brightly, and looked away. The Major’s curiosity was excited—he looked in the same direction. There was Romayne, entering the room, to answer for himself.
What was the attraction which drew the unsocial student to an evening party? Major Hynd’s eyes were on the watch. When Romayne and Stella shook hands, the attraction stood self-revealed to him, in Miss Eyrecourt. Recalling the momentary confusion which she had betrayed, when she spoke of possibly leaving London, and of Romayne’s plans for supplying her place as his almoner, the Major, with military impatience of delays, jumped to a conclusion. “I was wrong,” he thought; “my impenetrable friend is touched in the right place at last. When the splendid creature in yellow leaves London, the name on her luggage will be Mrs. Romayne.”
“You are looking quite another man, Romayne!” he said mischievously, “since we met last.”
Stella gently moved away, leaving them to talk freely. Romayne took no advantage of the circumstance to admit his old friend to his confidence. Whatever relations might really exist between Miss Eyrecourt and himself were evidently kept secret thus far. “My health has been a little better lately,” was the only reply he made.
The Major dropped his voice to a whisper.
“Have you not had any return—?” he began.
Romayne stopped him there. “I don’t want my infirmities made public,” he whispered back irritably. “Look at the people all round us! When I tell you I have been better lately,youought to know what it means.”
“Any discoverable reason for the improvement?” persisted the Major, still bent on getting evidence in support of his own private conclusions.
“None!” Romayne answered sharply.
But Major Hynd was not to be discouraged by sharp replies. “Miss Eyrecourt and I have been recalling our first meeting on board the steamboat,” he went on. “Do you remember how indifferent you were to that beautiful person when I asked you if you knew her? I’m glad to see that you show better taste to-night. I wish I knew her well enough to shake hands as you did.”
“Hynd! When a young man talks nonsense, his youth is his excuse. At your time of life, you have passed the excusable age—even in the estimation of your friends.”
With those words Romayne turned away. The incorrigible Major instantly met the reproof inflicted on him with a smart answer. “Remember,” he said, “that I was the first of your friends to wish you happiness!” He, too, turned away—in the direction of the champagne and the sandwiches.
Meanwhile, Stella had discovered Penrose, lost in the brilliant assemblage of guests, standing alone in a corner. It was enough for her that Romayne’s secretary was also Romayne’s friend. Passing by titled and celebrated personages, all anxious to speak to her, she joined the shy, nervous, sad-looking little man, and did all she could to set him at his ease.
“I am afraid, Mr. Penrose, this is not a very attractive scene to you.” Having said those kind words, she paused. Penrose was looking at her confusedly, but with an expression of interest which was new to her experience of him. “Has Romayne told him?” she wondered inwardly.
“It is a very beautiful scene, Miss Eyrecourt,” he said, in his low quiet tones.
“Did you come here with Mr. Romayne?” she asked.
“Yes. It was by his advice that I accepted the invitation with which Lady Loring has honored me. I am sadly out of place in such an assembly as this—but I would make far greater sacrifices to please Mr. Romayne.”
She smiled kindly. Attachment so artlessly devoted to the man she loved, pleased and touched her. In her anxiety to discover a subject which might interest him, she overcame her antipathy to the spiritual director of the household. “Is Father Benwell coming to us to-night?” she inquired.
“He will certainly be here, Miss Eyrecourt, if he can get back to London in time.”
“Has he been long away?”
“Nearly a week.”
Not knowing what else to say, she still paid Penrose the compliment of feigning an interest in Father Benwell.
“Has he a long journey to make in returning to London?” she asked.
“Yes—all the way from Devonshire.”
“From South Devonshire?”
“No. North Devonshire—Clovelly.”
The smile suddenly left her face. She put another question—without quite concealing the effort that it cost her, or the anxiety with which she waited for the reply.
“I know something of the neighborhood of Clovelly,” she said. “I wonder whether Father Benwell is visiting any friends of mine there?”
“I am not able to say, Miss Eyrecourt. The reverend Father’s letters are forwarded to the hotel—I know no more than that.”
With a gentle inclination of her head, she turned toward other guests—looked back—and with a last little courteous attention offered to him, said, “If you like music, Mr. Penrose, I advise you to go to the picture gallery. They are going to play a Quartet by Mozart.”
Penrose thanked her, noticing that her voice and manner had become strangely subdued. She made her way back to the room in which the hostess received her guests. Lady Loring was, for the moment, alone, resting on a sofa. Stella stooped over her, and spoke in cautiously lowered tones.
“If Father Benwell comes here to-night,” she said, “try to find out what he has been doing at Clovelly.”
“Clovelly?” Lady Loring repeated. “Is that the village near Winterfield’s house?”
“Yes.”
As Stella answered Lady Loring, she was smartly tapped on the shoulder by an eager guest with a fan.
The guest was a very little woman, with twinkling eyes and a perpetual smile. Nature, corrected by powder and paint, was liberally displayed in her arms, her bosom, and the upper part of her back. Such clothes as she wore, defective perhaps in quantity, were in quality absolutely perfect. More adorable color, shape, and workmanship never appeared, even in a milliner’s picture-book. Her light hair was dressed with a fringe and ringlets, on the pattern which the portraits of the time of Charles the Second have made familiar to us. There was nothing exactly young or exactly old about her except her voice, which betrayed a faint hoarseness, attributable possibly to exhaustion produced by untold years of incessant talking. It might be added that she was as active as a squirrel and as playful as a kitten. But the lady must be treated with a certain forbearance of tone, for this good reason—she was Stella’s mother.
Stella turned quickly at the tap of the fan. “Mamma!” she exclaimed, “how you startle me!”
“My dear child,” said Mrs. Eyrecourt, “you are constitutionally indolent, and you want startling. Go into the next room directly. Mr. Romayne is looking for you.”
Stella drew back a step, and eyed her mother in blank surprise. “Is it possible that you know him?” she asked.
“Mr. Romayne doesn’t go into Society, or we should have met long since,” Mrs. Eyrecourt replied. “He is a striking person—and I noticed him when he shook hands with you. That was quite enough for me. I have just introduced myself to him as your mother. He was a little stately and stiff, but most charming when he knew who I was. I volunteered to find you. He was quite astonished. I think he took me for your elder sister. Not the least like each other—are we, Lady Loring? She takes after her poor dear father.Hewas constitutionally indolent. My sweet child, rouse yourself. You have drawn a prize in the great lottery at last. If ever a man was in love, Mr. Romayne is that man. I am a physiognomist, Lady Loring, and I see the passions in the face. Oh, Stella, what a property! Vange Abbey. I once drove that way when I was visiting in the neighborhood. Superb! And another fortune (twelve thousand a year and a villa at Highgate) since the death of his aunt. And my daughter may be mistress of this if she only plays her cards properly. What a compensation after all that we suffered through that monster, Winterfield!”
“Mamma! Pray don’t—!”
“Stella, I willnotbe interrupted, when I am speaking to you for your own good. I don’t know a more provoking person, Lady Loring, than my daughter—on certain occasions. And yet I love her. I would go through fire and water for my beautiful child. Only last week I was at a wedding, and I thought of Stella. The church was crammed to the doors! A hundred at the wedding breakfast! The bride’s lace—there; no language can describe it. Ten bridesmaids, in blue and silver. Reminded me of the ten virgins. Only the proportion of foolish ones, this time, was certainly more than five. However, they looked well. The Archbishop proposed the health of the bride and bridegroom; so sweetly pathetic. Some of us cried. I thought of my daughter. Oh, if I could live to see Stella the central attraction, so to speak, of such a wedding as that. Only I would have twelve bridesmaids at least, and beat the blue and silver with green and gold. Trying to the complexion, you will say. But there are artificial improvements. At least, I am told so. What a house this would be—a broad hint, isn’t it, dear Lady Loring?—what a house for a wedding, with the drawing-room to assemble in and the picture gallery for the breakfast. I know the Archbishop. My darling, he shall marry you. Whydon’tyou go into the next room? Ah, that constitutional indolence. If you only had my energy, as I used to say to your poor father.Willyou go? Yes, dear Lady Loring, I should like a glass of champagne, and another of those delicious chicken sandwiches. If you don’t go, Stella, I shall forget every consideration of propriety, and, big as you are, I shall push you out.”
Stella yielded to necessity. “Keep her quiet, if you can,” she whispered to Lady Loring, in the moment of silence that followed. Even Mrs. Eyrecourt was not able to talk while she was drinking champagne.
In the next room Stella found Romayne. He looked careworn and irritable, but brightened directly when she approached him.
“My mother has been speaking to you,” she said. “I am afraid—”
He stopped her there. “Sheisyour mother,” he interposed, kindly. “Don’t think that I am ungrateful enough to forget that.”
She took his arm, and looked at him with all her heart in her eyes. “Come into a quieter room,” she whispered.
Romayne led her away. Neither of them noticed Penrose as they left the room.
He had not moved since Stella had spoken to him. There he remained in his corner, absorbed in thought—and not in happy thought, as his face would have plainly betrayed to any one who had cared to look at him. His eyes sadly followed the retiring figures of Stella and Romayne. The color rose on his haggard cheeks. Like most men who are accustomed to live alone, he had the habit, when he was strongly excited, of speaking to himself. “No,” he said, as the unacknowledged lovers disappeared through the door, “it is an insult to ask me to do it!” He turned the other way, escaped Lady Loring’s notice in the reception-room, and left the house.
Romayne and Stella passed through the card-room and the chess-room, turned into a corridor, and entered the conservatory.
For the first time the place was a solitude. The air of a newly-invented dance, faintly audible through the open windows of the ballroom above, had proved an irresistible temptation. Those who knew the dance were eager to exhibit themselves. Those who had only heard of it were equally anxious to look on and learn. Even toward the latter end of the nineteenth century the youths and maidens of Society can still be in earnest—when the object in view is a new dance.
What would Major Hynd have said if he had seen Romayne turn into one of the recesses of the conservatory, in which there was a seat which just held two? But the Major had forgotten his years and his family, and he too was one of the spectators in the ballroom.
“I wonder,” said Stella, “whether you know how I feel those kind words of yours when you spoke of my mother. Shall I tell you?”
She put her arm round his neck and kissed him. He was a man new to love, in the nobler sense of the word. The exquisite softness in the touch of her lips, the delicious fragrance of her breath, intoxicated him. Again and again he returned the kiss. She drew back; she recovered her self-possession with a suddenness and a certainty incomprehensible to a man. From the depths of tenderness she passed to the shallows of frivolity. In her own defense she was almost as superficial as her mother, in less than a moment.
“What would Mr. Penrose say if he saw you?” she whispered.
“Why do you speak of Penrose? Have you seen him to-night?”
“Yes—looking sadly out of his element, poor man. I did my best to set him at his ease—because I knowyoulike him.”
“Dear Stella!”
“No, not again! I am speaking seriously now. Mr. Penrose looked at me with a strange kind of interest—I can’t describe it. Have you taken him into our confidence?”
“He is so devoted—he has such a true interest in me,” said Romayne—“I really felt ashamed to treat him like a stranger. On our journey to London I did own that it was your charming letter which had decided me on returning. I did say, ‘I must tell her myself how well she has understood me, and how deeply I feel her kindness.’ Penrose took my hand, in his gentle, considerate way. ‘I understand you, too,’ he said—and that was all that passed between us.”
“Nothing more, since that time?”
“Nothing.”
“Not a word of what we said to each other when we were alone last week in the picture gallery?”
“Not a word. I am self-tormentor enough to distrust myself, even now. God knows I have concealed nothing from you; and yet—Am I not selfishly thinking of my own happiness, Stella, when I ought to be thinking only of you? You know, my angel, with what a life you must associate yourself if you marry me. Are you really sure that you have love enough and courage enough to be my wife?”
She rested her head caressingly on his shoulder, and looked up at him with her charming smile.
“How many times must I say it,” she asked, “before you will believe me? Once more—I have love enough and courage enough to be your wife; and I knew it, Lewis, the first time I saw you! Willthatconfession satisfy your scruples? And will you promise never again to doubt yourself or me?”
Romayne promised, and sealed the promise—unresisted this time—with a kiss. “When are we to be married?” he whispered.
She lifted her head from his shoulder with a sigh. “If I am to answer you honestly,” she replied, “I must speak of my mother, before I speak of myself.”
Romayne submitted to the duties of his new position, as well as he understood them. “Do you mean that you have told your mother of our engagement?” he said. “In that case, is it my duty or yours—I am very ignorant in these matters—to consult her wishes? My own idea is, that I ought to ask her if she approves of me as her son-in-law, and that you might then speak to her of the marriage.”
Stella thought of Romayne’s tastes, all in favor of modest retirement, and of her mother’s tastes, all in favor of ostentation and display. She frankly owned the result produced in her own mind. “I am afraid to consult my mother about our marriage,” she said.
Romayne looked astonished. “Do you think Mrs. Eyrecourt will disapprove of it?” he asked.
Stella was equally astonished on her side. “Disapprove of it?” she repeated. “I know for certain that my mother will be delighted.”
“Then where is the difficulty?”
There was but one way of definitely answering that question. Stella boldly described her mother’s idea of a wedding—including the Archbishop, the twelve bridesmaids in green and gold, and the hundred guests at breakfast in Lord Loring’s picture gallery. Romayne’s consternation literally deprived him, for the moment, of the power of speech. To say that he looked at Stella, as a prisoner in “the condemned cell” might have looked at the sheriff, announcing the morning of his execution, would be to do injustice to the prisoner. He receiveshisshock without flinching; and, in proof of his composure, celebrates his wedding with the gallows by a breakfast which he will not live to digest.
“If you think as your mother does,” Romayne began, as soon as he had recovered his self-possession, “no opinion of mine shall stand in the way—” He could get no further. His vivid imagination saw the Archbishop and the bridesmaids, heard the hundred guests and their dreadful speeches: his voice faltered, in spite of himself.
Stella eagerly relieved him. “My darling, I don’t think as my mother does,” she interposed, tenderly. “I am sorry to say we have very few sympathies in common. Marriages, as I think, ought to be celebrated as privately as possible—the near and dear relations present, and no one else. If there must be rejoicings and banquets, and hundreds of invitations, let them come when the wedded pair are at home after the honeymoon, beginning life in earnest. These are odd ideas for a woman to have—but theyaremy ideas, for all that.”
Romayne’s face brightened. “How few women possess your fine sense and your delicacy of feeling!” he exclaimed “Surely your mother must give way, when she hears we are both of one mind about our marriage.”
Stella knew her mother too well to share the opinion thus expressed. Mrs. Eyrecourt’s capacity for holding to her own little ideas, and for persisting (where her social interests were concerned) in trying to insinuate those ideas into the minds of other persons, was a capacity which no resistance, short of absolute brutality, could overcome. She was perfectly capable of worrying Romayne (as well as her daughter) to the utmost limits of human endurance, in the firm conviction that she was bound to convert all heretics, of their way of thinking, to the orthodox faith in the matter of weddings. Putting this view of the case with all possible delicacy, in speaking of her mother, Stella expressed herself plainly enough, nevertheless, to enlighten Romayne.
He made another suggestion. “Can we marry privately,” he said, “and tell Mrs. Eyrecourt of it afterward?”
This essentially masculine solution of the difficulty was at once rejected. Stella was too good a daughter to suffer her mother to be treated with even the appearance of disrespect. “Oh,” she said, “think how mortified and distressed my mother would be! Shemustbe present at my marriage.”
An idea of a compromise occurred to Romayne. “What do you say,” he proposed, “to arranging for the marriage privately—and then telling Mrs. Eyrecourt only a day or two beforehand, when it would be too late to send out invitations? If your mother would be disappointed—”
“She would be angry,” Stella interposed.
“Very well—lay all the blame on me. Besides, there might be two other persons present, whom I am sure Mrs. Eyrecourt is always glad to meet. You don’t object to Lord and Lady Loring?”
“Object? They are my dearest friends, as well as yours!”
“Any one else, Stella?”
“Any one, Lewis, whomyoulike.
“Then I say—no one else. My own love, when may it be? My lawyers can get the settlements ready in a fortnight, or less. Will you say in a fortnight?”
His arm was round her waist; his lips were touching her lovely neck. She was not a woman to take refuge in the commonplace coquetries of the sex. “Yes,” she said, softly, “if you wish it.” She rose and withdrew herself from him. “For my sake, we must not be here together any longer, Lewis.” As she spoke, the music in the ballroom ceased. Stella ran out of the conservatory.
The first person she encountered, on returning to the reception-room, was Father Benwell.
THE priest’s long journey did not appear to have fatigued him. He was as cheerful and as polite as ever—and so paternally attentive to Stella that it was quite impossible for her to pass him with a formal bow.
“I have come all the way from Devonshire,” he said. “The train has been behind time as usual, and I am one of the late arrivals in consequence. I miss some familiar faces at this delightful party. Mr. Romayne, for instance. Perhaps he is not one of the guests?”
“Oh, yes.”
“Has he gone away?”
“Not that I know of.”
The tone of her replies warned Father Benwell to let Romayne be. He tried another name.
“And Arthur Penrose?” he inquired next.
“I think Mr. Penrose has left us.”
As she answered she looked toward Lady Loring. The hostess was the center of a circle of ladies and gentlemen. Before she was at liberty, Father Benwell might take his departure. Stella resolved to make the attempt for herself which she had asked Lady Loring to make for her. It was better to try, and to be defeated, than not to try at all.
“I asked Mr. Penrose what part of Devonshire you were visiting,” she resumed, assuming her more gracious manner. “I know something myself of the north coast, especially the neighborhood of Clovelly.”
Not the faintest change passed over the priest’s face; his fatherly smile had never been in a better state of preservation.
“Isn’t it a charming place?” he said with enthusiasm. “Clovelly is the most remarkable and most beautiful village in England. I have so enjoyed my little holiday—excursions by sea and excursions by land—you know I feel quite young again?”
He lifted his eyebrows playfully, and rubbed his plump hands one over the other with such an intolerably innocent air of enjoyment that Stella positively hated him. She felt her capacity for self-restraint failing her. Under the influence of strong emotion her thoughts lost their customary discipline. In attempting to fathom Father Benwell, she was conscious of having undertaken a task which required more pliable moral qualities than she possessed. To her own unutterable annoyance, she was at a loss what to say next.
At that critical moment her mother appeared—eager for news of the conquest of Romayne.
“My dear child, how pale you look!” said Mrs. Eyrecourt. “Come with me directly—you must have a glass of wine.”
This dexterous device for entrapping Stella into a private conversation failed. “Not now, mamma, thank you,” she said.
Father Benwell, on the point of discreetly withdrawing, stopped, and looked at Mrs. Eyrecourt with an appearance of respectful interest. As things were, it might not have been worth his while to take the trouble of discovering her. But when she actually placed herself in his way, the chance of turning Mrs. Eyrecourt to useful account was not a chance to be neglected. “Your mother?” he said to Stella. “I should feel honored if you will introduce me.”
Having (not very willingly) performed the ceremony of presentation, Stella drew back a little. She had no desire to take any part in the conversation that might follow—but she had her own reasons for waiting near enough to hear it.
In the meanwhile, Mrs. Eyrecourt turned on her inexhaustible flow of small-talk with her customary facility. No distinction of persons troubled her; no convictions of any sort stood in her way. She was equally ready (provided she met him in good society) to make herself agreeable to a Puritan or a Papist.
“Delighted to make your acquaintance, Father Benwell. Surely I met you at that delightful evening at the Duke’s? I mean when we welcomed the Cardinal back from Rome. Dear old man—if one may speak so familiarly of a Prince of the Church. How charmingly he bears his new honors. Such patriarchal simplicity, as every one remarked. Have you seen him lately?”
The idea of the Order to which he belonged feeling any special interest in a Cardinal (except when they made him of some use to them) privately amused Father Benwell. “How wise the Church was,” he thought, “in inventing a spiritual aristocracy. Even this fool of a woman is impressed by it.” His spoken reply was true to his assumed character as one of the inferior clergy. “Poor priests like me, madam, see but little of Princes of the Church in the houses of Dukes.” Saying this with the most becoming humility, he turned the talk in a more productive direction, before Mrs. Eyrecourt could proceed with her recollections of “the evening at the Duke’s.”
“Your charming daughter and I have been talking about Clovelly,” he continued. “I have just been spending a little holiday in that delightful place. It was a surprise to me, Mrs. Eyrecourt, to see so many really beautiful country seats in the neighborhood. I was particularly struck—you know it, of course?—by Beaupark House.”
Mrs. Eyrecourt’s little twinging eyes suddenly became still and steady. It was only for a moment. But that trifling change boded ill for the purpose which the priest had in view. Even the wits of a fool can be quickened by contact with the world. For many years Mrs. Eyrecourt had held her place in society, acting under an intensely selfish sense of her own interests, fortified by those cunning instincts which grow best in a barren intellect. Perfectly unworthy of being trusted with secrets which only concerned other people, this frivolous creature could be the unassailable guardian of secrets which concerned herself. The instant the priest referred indirectly to Winterfield, by speaking of Beaupark House, her instincts warned her, as if in words:—Be careful for Stella’s sake!
“Oh, yes,” said Mrs. Eyrecourt. “I know Beaupark House; but—may I make a confession?” she added, with her sweetest smile.
Father Benwell caught her tone, with his customary tact. “A confession at a ball is a novelty, even in my experience,” he answered withhissweetest smile.
“How good of you to encourage me!” proceeded Mrs. Eyrecourt. “No, thank you, I don’t want to sit down. My confession won’t take long—and I really must give that poor pale daughter of mine a glass of wine. A student of human nature like you—they say all priests are students of human nature; accustomed of course to be consulted in difficulties, and to hearrealconfessions—must know that we poor women are sadly subject to whims and caprices. We can’t resist them as men do; and the dear good men generally make allowances for us. Well, do you know that place of Mr. Winterfield’s is one of my caprices? Oh, dear, I speak carelessly; I ought to have said the place represents one of my caprices. In short. Father Benwell, Beaupark House is perfectly odious to me, and I think Clovelly the most overrated place in the world. I haven’t the least reason to give, but so it is. Excessively foolish of me. It’s like hysterics, I can’t help it; I’m sure you will forgive me. There isn’t a place on the habitable globe that I am not ready to feel interested in, except detestable Devonshire. I am so sorry you went there. The next time you have a holiday, take my advice. Try the Continent.”
“I should like it of all things,” said Father Benwell. “Only I don’t speak French. Allow me to get Miss Eyrecourt a glass of wine.”
He spoke with the most perfect temper and tranquillity. Having paid his little attention to Stella, and having relieved her of the empty glass, he took his leave, with a parting request thoroughly characteristic of the man.
“Are you staying in town, Mrs. Eyrecourt?” he asked.
“Oh, of course, at the height of the season!”
“May I have the honor of calling on you—and talking a little more about the Continent?”
If he had said it in so many words he could hardly have informed Mrs. Eyrecourt more plainly that he thoroughly understood her, and that he meant to try again. Strong in the worldly training of half a lifetime, she at once informed him of her address, with the complimentary phrases proper to the occasion. “Five o’clock tea on Wednesdays, Father Benwell. Don’t forget!”
The moment he was gone, she drew her daughter into a quiet corner. “Don’t be frightened, Stella. That sly old person has some interest in trying to find out about Winterfield. Do you know why?”
“Indeed I don’t, mamma. I hate him!”
“Oh, hush! hush! Hate him as much as you like; but always be civil to him. Tell me—have you been in the conservatory with Romayne?”
“Yes.”
“All going on well?”
“Yes.”
“My sweet child! Dear, dear me, the wine has done you no good; you’re as pale as ever. Is it that priest? Oh, pooh, pooh, leave Father Benwell to me.”