The ball began, and without the assistance of Mr. Fairfax—much to my lady's indignation. She was scarcely consoled by the praises and compliments she received on the subject of her arrangements and decorations; but these laudations were so unanimous and so gratifying, that she did at last forget Mr. Fairfax's defection in the delight of such perfect success.
TheDuke—the one sovereign magnate of that district—a tall grand-looking old man with white hair, even deigned to be pleased and surprised by what she had done.
"But then you have such a splendid platform to work upon," he said; "I don't think we have a place in Yorkshire that can compare with Hale. You had your decorators from London, of course?"
"No, indeed, your grace," replied my lady, sparkling with delighted pride; "and if there is anything I can boast of, it is that. Fred wanted me to send for London people, and have the thing done in their wholesale manner—put myself entirely into their hands, give themcarte blanche, and so on; so that, till the whole business was finished, I shouldn't have known what the place was to be like; but that is just the kind of arrangement I detest. So I sent for one of my Holborough men, told him my ideas, gave him a few preliminary sketches, and after a good many consultations and discussions, we arrived at our present notion. Abolish every glimmer of gas," I said, "and give me plenty of flowers and wax-candles. The rest is mere detail."
Everything was successful; Miss Granger's prophecy of cold weather was happily unfulfilled. The night was unusually still and sultry, a broad harvest moon steeping terraces and gardens in tender mellow light; not a breath to stir the wealth of blossoms, or to flutter the draperies of the many windows, all wide open to the warm night—a night of summer at the beginning of autumn.
Clarissa found herself in great request for the dances, and danced more than she had done since the days of her schoolgirl waltzes and polkas in the play-room at Belforêt. It was about an hour after the dancing had begun, when Lady Laura brought her no less a partner than Mr. Granger, who had walked a solemn quadrille or two with a stately dowager, and whose request was very surprising to Clarissa. She had one set of quadrilles, however, unappropriated on her card, and expressed herself at Mr. Granger's disposal for that particular dance, and then tripped away, to be whirled round the great room by one of her military partners.
Daniel Granger stood amongst the loungers at one end of the room, watching that aerial revolving figure. Yes, Lady Laura was right; she was very lovely. In all his life he had never before paid much heed to female loveliness, any more than to the grandeurs and splendours of nature, or anything beyond the narrow boundary of his own successful commonplace existence. But in this girl's face there was something that attracted his attention, and dwelt in his memory when he was away from her; perhaps, after all, it was the result of her position rather than her beauty. It was natural that he should be interested in her, poor child. He had robbed her of her home, or it would seem so to her, no doubt; and she had let him see that she set an exaggerated value on that lost home, that she clung to it with a morbid sentimentality.
"I should not wonder if she hates me," he said to himself. He had never thought as much about her father, but then certainly he had never been brought into such close contact with her father.
He waited quietly for that appointed quadrille, declining a dance in which Lady Laura would have enlisted him, and keeping a close watch upon Clarissa during the interval. What a gay butterfly creature she seemed to-night! He could scarcely fancy this was the same girl who had spoken so mournfully of her lost home in the library that afternoon. He looked from her to his daughter for a moment, comparing the two; Sophia resplendent in pink areophane and pearls, and showing herself not above the pleasures of a polka; eminently a fine young woman, but O, of what a different day from that other one!
Once Miss Fermor, passing the rich man on the arm of her partner, surprised the watchful gray eyes with a new look in them—a look that was neither cold nor stern.
"So, my gentleman," thought the lively Lizzie, "is it that way your fancies are drifting? It was I whom you suspected of dangerous designs the other day, Miss Granger. Take care your papa doesn't fall into a deeper pitfall. I should like to see him marry again, if it were only to take down that great pink creature's insolence." Whereby it will be seen that Miss Granger was not quite so popular among her contemporaries as, in the serenity of her self-possessed soul, she was wont to imagine herself.
The quadrille began presently, and Clarissa walked through its serious mazes with the man whom she was apt to consider the enemy of her race. She could not help wondering a little to find herself in this position, and her replies to Mr. Granger's commonplace remarks were somewhat mechanical.
Once he contrived to bring the conversation round to Arden Court.
"It would give me so much pleasure to see you there as my daughter's guest," he said, in a warmer tone than was usual to him, "and I really think you would be interested in her parish-work. She has done wonders in a small way."
"I have no doubt. You are very kind," faltered Clarissa; "but I do not the least understand how to manage people as Miss Granger does, and I could not bear to come to the Court. I was so happy there with my brother, and now that he is gone, and that I am forbidden even to mention his name, the associations of the place would be too painful."
Mr. Granger grew suddenly grave and silent.
"Yes, there was that business about the brother," he thought to himself; "a bad business no doubt, or the father would never have turned him out of doors—something very queer perhaps. A strange set these Lovels evidently. The father a spendthrift, the son something worse."
And then he looked down at Clarissa, and thought again how lovely she was, and pitied her for her beauty and her helplessness—the daughter of such a father, the sister of such a brother.
"But she will marry well, of course," he said to himself, just as George Fairfax had done; "all these young fellows seem tremendously struck by her. I suppose she is the prettiest girl in the room. She will make a good match, I daresay, and get out of her father's hands. It must be a dreary life for her in that cottage, with a selfish disappointed man."
The night waned, and there was no George Fairfax. Lady Geraldine bore herself bravely, and danced a good deal more than she would have done, had there not been appearances to be kept up. She had to answer a great many questions about her lover, and she answered all with supreme frankness. He was away in Scotland with some bachelor friends, enjoying himself no doubt. He promised to be with them to-night, and had broken his promise; that was all—she was not afraid of any accident.
"I daresay he found the grouse-shooting too attractive," she said coolly.
After supper, while the most determined of the waltzers were still spinning round to a briskdeux tempsof Charles d'Albert's, Clarissa was fain to tell the last of her partners she could dance no more.
"I am not tired of the ball," she said; "I like looking on, but I really can't dance another step. Do go and get some one else for this waltz; I know you are dying to dance it."
This was to the devoted Captain Westleigh, a person with whom Miss Lovel always felt very much at home.
"Withyou," he answered tenderly. "But if you mean to sit down, I am at your service. I would not desert you for worlds. And you really are looking a little pale. Shall we find some pleasanter place? That inner room looks deliciously cool."
He offered his arm to Clarissa, and they walked slowly away towards a small room at the end of the saloon; a room which Lady Laura had arranged with an artful eye to effect, leaving it almost in shadow. There were only a few wax-candles glimmering here and there among the cool dark foliage of the ferns and pitcher-plants that filled every niche and corner, and the moonlight shone full into the room through a wide window that opened upon a stone balcony a few feet above the terrace.
"If I am left alone with her for five minutes, I am sure I shall propose," Captain Westleigh thought, on beholding the soft secluded aspect of this apartment, which was untenanted when he and Clarissa entered it.
She sank down upon a sofa near the window, more thoroughly tired than she had confessed. This long night of dancing and excitement was quite a new thing to her. It was nearly over now, and the reaction was coming, bringing with it that vague sense of hopelessness and disappointment which had so grown upon her of late. She had abandoned herself fully to the enchantment of the ball, almost losing the sense of her own identity in that brilliant scene. But self-consciousness came back to her now, and she remembered that she was Clarissa Lovel, for whom life was at best a dreary business.
"Can I get you anything?" asked the Captain, alarmed by her pallor.
"Thanks, you are very kind. If it would not be too much trouble—I know the refreshment-room is a long way off—but I should be glad of a little water."
"I'll get some directly. But I really am afraid you are ill," said the Captain, looking at her anxiously, scarcely liking to leave her for fear she should faint before he came back.
"No, indeed, I am not ill—only very tired. If you'll let me rest here a little without talking."
She half closed her eyes. There was a dizziness in her head very much like the preliminary stage of fainting.
"My dear Miss Lovel, I should be a wretch to bore you. I'll go for the water this moment."
He hurried away. Clarissa gave a long weary sigh, and that painful dizziness passed off in some degree. All she wanted was air, she thought, if there had been any air to be got that sultry night. She rose from the sofa presently, and went out upon the balcony. Below her was the river; not a ripple upon the water, not a breath stirring the rushes on the banks. Between the balcony and the river there was a broad battlemented walk, and in the embrasures where cannon had once been there were great stone vases of geraniums and dwarf roses, which seemed only masses of dark foliage in the moonlight.
The Captain was some little time gone for that glass of water. Clarissa had forgotten him and his errand as she sat upon a bench in the balcony with her elbow leaning on the broad stone ledge, looking down at the water and thinking of her own life—thinking what it might have been if everything in the world had been different.
A sudden step on the walk below startled her, and a low voice said,
"I would I were a glove upon that hand, that I might kiss that cheek."
She knew the voice directly, but was not less startled at hearing it just then. The step came near her, and in the next moment a dark figure had swung itself lightly upward from the path below, and George Fairfax was seated on the angle of the massive balustrade.
"Juliet!" he said, in the same low voice, "what put it into your head to play Juliet to-night? As if you were not dangerous enough without that."
"Mr. Fairfax, how could you startle me so? Lady Laura has been expecting you all the evening."
"I suppose so. But you don't imagine I've been hiding in the garden all the evening, like the man in Tennyson'sMaud? I strained heaven and earth to be here in time; but there was a break-down between Edinburgh and Carlisle. Nothing very serious: an engine-driver knocked about a little, and a few passengers shaken and bruised more or less, but I escaped unscathed, and had to cool my impatience for half a dozen hours at a dingy little station where there was no refreshment for body or mind but a brown jug of tepid water and a big Bible. There I stayed till I was picked up by the night-mail, and here I am. I think I shall stand absolved by my lady when she reads the account of my perils in to-morrow's papers. People are just going away, I suppose. It would be useless for me to dress and put in an appearance now."
"I think Lady Laura would be glad to see you. She has been very anxious, I know."
"Her sisterly cares shall cease before she goes to sleep to-night. She shall be informed that I am in the house; and I will make my peace to-morrow morning."
He did not go away however, and Clarissa began to feel that there was something embarrassing in her position. He had stepped lightly across the balustrade, and had seated himself very near her, looking down at her face.
"Clarissa, do you know what has happened to me since I have been away from this place?"
She looked up at him with an alarmed expression. It was the first time he had ever uttered her Christian name, but his tone was so serious as to make that a minor question.
"You cannot guess, I suppose," he went on, "I've made a discovery—a most perplexing, most calamitous discovery."
"What is that?"
"I have found out that I love you."
Her hand was lying on the broad stone ledge. He took it in his firm grasp, and held it as he went on:
"Yes, Clarissa; I had my doubts before I went away, but thought I was master of myself in this, as I have been in other things, and fancied myself strong enough to strangle the serpent. But it would not be strangled, Clarissa; it has wound itself about my heart, and here I sit by your side dishonoured in my own sight, come what may—bound to one woman and loving another with all my soul—yes, with all my soul. What am I to do?"
"Your duty," Clarissa answered, in a low steady voice.
Her heart was beating so violently that she wondered at her power to utter those two words. What was it that she felt—anger, indignation? Alas, no; Pride, delight, rapture, stirred that undisciplined heart. She knew now what was wanted to make her life bright and happy; she knew now that she had loved George Fairfax almost from the first. And her own duty—the duty she was bound in honour to perform—what was that? Upon that question she had not a moment's doubt. Her duty was to resign him without a murmur; never to let him know that he had touched her heart. Even after having done this, there would be much left to her—the knowledge that he had loved her.
"My duty! what is that?" he asked in a hoarse hard voice. "To keep faith with Geraldine, whatsoever misery it may bring upon both of us? I am not one of those saints who think of everybody's happiness before their own, Clarissa. I am very human, with all humanity's selfishness. I want to be happy. I want a wife for whom I can feel something more than a cold well-bred liking. I did not think that it was in me to feel more than that. I thought I had outlived my capacity for loving, wasted the strength of my heart's youth on worthless fancies, spent all my patrimony of affection; but the light shines on me again, and I thank God that it is so. Yes, Clarissa, come what may, I thank my God that I am not so old a man in heart and feeling as I thought myself."
Clarissa tried to stem the current of his talk, with her heart still beating stormily, but with semblance of exceeding calmness.
"I must not hear you talk in this wild way, Mr. Fairfax," she said. "I feel as if I had been guilty of a sin against Lady Geraldine in having listened so long. But I cannot for a moment think you are in earnest."
"Do not play the Jesuit, Clarissa. Youknowthat I am in earnest."
"Then the railway accident must have turned your brain, and I can only hope that to-morrow morning will restore your reason."
"Well, I am mad, if you like—madly in love with you. What am I to do? If with some show of decency I can recover my liberty—by an appeal to Lady Geraldine's generosity, for instance—believe me, I shall not break her heart; our mutual regard is the calmest, coolest sentiment possible—if I can get myself free from this engagement, will you be my wife, Clarissa?"
"No; a thousand times no."
"You don't care for me, then? The madness is all on my side?"
"The madness—if you are really in earnest, and not carrying on some absurd jest—is all on your side."
"Well, that seems hard. I was vain enough to think otherwise. I thought so strong a feeling on one side could not co-exist with perfect indifference on the other. I fancied there was something like predestination in this, and that my wandering unwedded soul had met its other half—it's an old Greek notion, you know, that men and women were made in pairs—but I was miserably mistaken, I suppose. How many lovers have you rejected since you left school, Miss Lovel?" he asked with a short bitter laugh. "Geraldine herself could not have given me my quietus more coldly."
He was evidently wounded to the quick, being a creature spoiled by easy conquests, and would have gone on perhaps in the same angry strain, but there was a light step on the floor within, and Lady Laura Armstrong came quickly towards the balcony.
"My dearest Clary, Captain Westleigh tells me that you are quite knocked up—" she began; and then recognizing the belated traveller, cried out, "George Fairfax! Is it possible?"
"George Fairfax, my dear Lady Laura, and not quite so base a delinquent as he seems. I must plead guilty to pushing matters to the last limit; but I made my plans to be here at seven o'clock this evening, and should inevitably have arrived at that hour, but for a smash between Edinburgh and Carlisle."
"An accident! Were you hurt?"
"Not so much as shaken; but the break-down lost me half a dozen hours. We were stuck for no end of time at a dingy little station whose name I forget, and when I did reach Carlisle, it was too late for any train to bring me on, except the night-mail, which does not stop at Holborough. I had to post from York, and arrived about ten minutes ago—too late for anything except to prove to you that I did make heroic efforts to keep my word."
"And how, in goodness' name, did you get here, to this room, without my seeing you?"
"From the garden. Finding myself too late to make an appearance in the ball-room, I prowled round the premises, listening to the sounds of revelry within; and then seeing Miss Lovel alone here—playing Juliet without a Romeo—I made so bold as to accost her and charge her with a message for you."
"You are amazingly considerate; but I really cannot forgive you for having deferred your return to the last moment. You have quite spoilt Geraldine's evening, to say nothing of the odd look your absence must have to our friends. I shall tell her you have arrived, and I suppose that is all I can do. You must want some supper, by the bye: you'll find plenty of people in the dining-room."
"No, thanks; I had some cold chicken and coffee at Carlisle. I'll ring for a soda-and-brandy when I get to my room, and that's all I shall do to-night. Good-night, Lady Laura; good-night, Miss Lovel."
He dropped lightly across the balcony and vanished. Lady Laura stood in the window for a few moments in a meditative mood, and then, looking up suddenly, said,
"O, by the bye, Clarissa, I came to fetch you for another dance, the last quadrille, if you feel well enough to dance it. Mr. Granger wants you for a partner."
"I don't think I can dance any more, Lady Laura. I refused CaptainWestleigh the last waltz."
"Yes, but a quadrille is different. However, if you are really tired, I must tell Mr. Granger so. What was George Fairfax saying to you just now? You both looked prodigiously serious."
"I really don't know—I forget—it was nothing very particular," Clarissa answered, conscious that she was blushing, and confused by that consciousness.
Lady Laura looked at her with a sharp scrutinising glance.
"I think it would have been better taste on George's part if he had taken care to relieve my sister's anxiety directly he arrived, instead of acting the balcony scene inRomeo and Juliet. I must go back to Mr. Granger with your refusal, Clarissa. O, here comes Captain Westleigh with some water."
The Captain did appear at this very moment carrying a glass of that beverage, much to Clarissa's relief, for atête-à-têtewith Lady Laura was very embarrassing to her just now.
"My dear Miss Lovel, you must think me an utter barbarian," exclaimed the Captain; "but you really can't conceive the difficulties I've had to overcome. It seemed as if there wasn't a drop of iced water to be had in the Castle. If you'd wanted Strasburg pies or barley-sugar temples, I could have brought you them by cartloads. Moselle and Maraschino are the merest drugs in the market; but not a creature could I persuade to get me this glass of water. Of course the fellows all said, 'Yes, sir;' and then went off and forgot all about me. And even when I had got my prize, I was waylaid by thirsty dowagers who wanted to rob me of it. It was like searching for the North-west Passage."
Lady Laura had departed by this time. Clarissa drank some of the water and took the Captain's arm to return to the ball-room, which was beginning to look a little empty. On the threshold of the saloon they met Mr. Granger.
"I am so sorry to hear you are not well, Miss Lovel," he said.
"Thank you, Mr. Granger, but I am really not ill—only too tired to dance any more."
"So Lady Laura tells me—very much to my regret. I had hoped for the honour of dancing this quadrille with you."
"If you knew how rarely Mr. Granger dances, you'd consider yourself rather distinguished, I think, Miss Lovel," said the Captain, laughing.
"Well, no, I don't often dance," replied Mr. Granger, with a shade of confusion in his manner; "but really, such a ball as this quite inspires a man—and Lady Laura was good enough to wish me to dance."
He remained by Clarissa's side as they walked back through the rooms. They were near the door when Miss Granger met them, looking as cold and prim in her pink crape and pearls as if she had that moment emerged from her dressing-room.
"Do you know how late it is, papa?" she asked, contemplating her parent with severe eyes.
"Well, no, one does not think of time upon such an occasion as this. I suppose it is late; but it would not do for us of the household to desert before the rest of the company."
"I was thinking of saying good-night," answered Miss Granger. "I don't suppose any one would miss me, or you either, papa, if we slipped away quietly; and I am sure you will have one of your headaches to-morrow morning."
There is no weapon so useful in the hands of a dutiful child as some chronic complaint of its parent. A certain nervous headache from which Mr. Granger suffered now and then served the fair Sophia as a kind of rod for his correction on occasions.
"I am not tired, my dear."
"O, papa, I know your constitution better than you do yourself. Poor LadyLaura, how worn out she must be!"
"Lady Laura has been doing wonders all the evening," said Captain Westleigh. "She has been as ubiquitous as Richmond at Bosworth, and she has the talent of never seeming tired."
Clarissa took the first opportunity of saying good-night. If so important a person as the heiress of Arden Court could depart and not leave a void in the assembly, there could be assuredly no fear that she would be missed. Mr. Granger shook hands with her for the first time in his life as he wished her good-night, and then stood in the doorway watching her receding figure till it was beyond his ken.
"I like your friend Miss Lovel, Sophia," he said to his daughter presently.
"Miss Lovel is hardly a friend of mine, papa," replied that young lady somewhat sharply. "I am not in the habit of making sudden friendships, and I have not known Miss Lovel a week. Besides which, she is not the kind of girl I care for."
"Why not?" asked her father bluntly.
"One can scarcely explain that kind of thing. She is too frivolous for me to get on very well with her. She takes no real interest in my poor, in spite of her connection with Arden, or in church music. I think she hardly knows oneTe Deumfrom another."
"She is rather a nice girl, though," said the Captain, who would fain be loyal to Clarissa, yet for whom the good opinion of such an heiress as Miss Granger could not be a matter of indifference—there was always the chance that she might take a fancy to him, as he put it to his brother-officers, and what a lucky hit that would be! "She's a nice girl," he repeated, "and uncommonly pretty."
"I was not discussing her looks, Captain Westleigh," replied Miss Granger with some asperity; "I was talking of her ideas and tastes, which are quite different from mine. I am sorry you let Lady Laura persuade you to dance with a girl like that, papa. You may have offended old friends, who would fancy they had a prior claim on your attention."
Mr. Granger laughed at this reproof.
"I didn't think a quadrille was such a serious matter, Sophy," he said. "And then, you see, when a man of my age does make a fool of himself, he likes to have the prettiest girl in the room for his partner."
Miss Granger made an involuntary wry face, as if she had been eating something nasty. Mr. Granger gave a great yawn, and, as the rooms by this time were almost empty, made his way to Lady Laura in order to offer his congratulations upon her triumph before retiring to rest.
For once in a way, the vivacious châtelaine of Hale Castle was almost cross.
"Do you really think the ball has gone off well?" she asked incredulously. "It seems to me to have been an elaborate failure." She was thinking of those two whom she had surprised tête-à-tête in the balcony, and wondering what George Fairfax could have been saying to produce Clarissa's confusion. Clarissa was her protégée, and she was responsible to her sister Geraldine for any mischief brought about by her favourite.
* * * * *
The day after the ball was a broken straggling kind of day, after the usual manner of the to-morrow that succeeds a festival. Hale Castle was full to overflowing with guests who, having been invited to spend one night, were pressed to stay longer. The men spent their afternoon for the most part in the billiard-room, after a late lingering luncheon, at which there was a good deal of pleasant gossip. The women sat together in groups in the drawing-room, pretending to work, but all desperately idle. It was a fine afternoon, but no one cared for walking or driving. A few youthful enthusiasts did indeed get up a game at croquet, but even this soul-enthralling sport was pursued with a certain listlessness.
Mr. Fairfax and Lady Geraldine walked in the garden. To all appearance, a perfect harmony prevailed between them. Clarissa, sitting alone in an oriel at the end of the drawing-room, watched them with weary eyes and a dull load at her heart, wondering about them perpetually, with a painful wonder.
If she could only have gone home, she thought to herself, what a refuge the dull quiet of her lonely life would have been! She had not slept five minutes since the festival of last night, but had lain tossing wearily from side to side, thinking of what George Fairfax had said to her—thinking of what might have been and could never be, and then praying that she might do her duty; that she might have strength to keep firmly to the right, if he should try to tempt her again.
He would scarcely do that, she thought. That wild desperate talk of last night was perhaps the merest folly—a caprice of the moment, the shallowest rodomontade, which he would be angry with himself for having spoken. She told herself that this was so; but she knew now, as she had not known before last night, that she had given this man her heart.
It would be a hard thing to remain at Hale to perform her part in the grand ceremonial of the marriage, and yet keep her guilty secret hidden from every eye; above all, from his whom it most concerned. But there seemed no possibility of escape from this ordeal, unless she were to be really ill, and excused on that ground. She sat in the oriel that afternoon, wondering whether a painful headache, the natural result of her sleeplessness and hyper-activity of brain, might not be the beginning of some serious illness—a fever perhaps, which would strike her down for a time and make an end to all her difficulties.
She had been sitting in the window for a long time quite alone, looking out at the sunny garden and those two figures passing and repassing upon an elevated terrace, with such an appearance of being absorbed in each other's talk, and all-sufficient for each other's happiness. It seemed to Clarissa that she had never seen them so united before. Had he been laughing at her last night? she asked herself indignantly; was that balcony scene a practical joke? He had been describing it to Lady Geraldine perhaps this afternoon, and the two had been laughing together at her credulity. She was in so bitter a mood just now that she was almost ready to believe this.
She had been sitting thus a long time, tormented by her own thoughts, and hearing the commonplace chatter of those cheerful groups, now loud, now low, without the faintest feeling of interest, when a heavy step sounded on the floor near her, and looking up suddenly, she saw Mr. Granger approaching her solitary retreat. The cushioned seat in the oriel, the ample curtains falling on either side of her, had made a refuge in which she felt herself alone, and she was not a little vexed to find her retreat discovered.
The master of Arden Court drew a chair towards the oriel, and seated himself deliberately, with an evident intention of remaining. Clarissa was obliged to answer his courteous inquiries about her health, to admit her headache as an excuse for the heaviness of her eyes, and then to go on talking about everything he chose to speak of. He did not talk stupidly by any means, but rather stiffly, and with the air of a man to whom friendly converse with a young lady was quite a new thing. He spoke to her a good deal about the Court and its surroundings—which seemed to her an error in taste—and appeared anxious to interest her in all his improvements.
"You really must come and see the place, Miss Lovel," he said. "I shall be deeply wounded if you refuse."
"I will come if you wish it," Clarissa answered meekly; "but you cannot imagine how painful the sight of the dear old house will be to me."
"A little painful just for the first time, perhaps. But that sort of feeling will soon wear off. You will come, then? That is settled. I want to win your father's friendship if I can, and I look to you to put me in the right way of doing so."
"You are very good, but papa is so reserved—eccentric, I suppose most people would call him—and he lives shut up in himself, as it were. I have never known him make a new friend. Even my uncle Oliver and he seem scarcely more than acquaintances; and yet I know my uncle would do anything to serve us, and I believe papa knows it too."
"We must trust to time to break down that reserve, Miss Lovel," Mr. Granger returned cheerily; "and you will come to see us at the Court—that is understood. I want you to inspect Sophia's schools, and sewing classes, and cooking classes, and goodness knows what. There are plenty of people who remember you, and will be delighted to welcome you amongst them. I have heard them say how kind you were to them before you went abroad."
"I had so little money," said Clarissa, "I could do hardly anything."
"But, after all, money is not everything with that class of people. No doubt they like it better than anything in the present moment; but as soon as it is gone they forget it, and are not apt to be grateful for substantial benefits in the past. But past kindness they do remember. Even in my own experience, I have known men who have been ungrateful for large pecuniary benefits, and yet have cherished the memory of some small kindness; a mere friendly word perhaps, spoken at some peculiar moment in their lives. No, Miss Lovel, you will not find yourself forgotten at Arden."
He was so very earnest in this assurance, that Clarissa could not help feeling that he meant to do her a kindness. She was ashamed of her unworthy prejudice against him, and roused herself with a great effort from her abstraction, in order to talk and listen to Mr. Granger with all due courtesy. Nor had she any farther opportunity of watching those two figures pacing backward and forward upon the terrace; for Mr. Granger contrived to occupy her attention till the dressing-bell rang, and afforded her the usual excuse for hurrying away.
She was one of the last to return to the drawing-room, and to her surprise found Mr. Granger by her side, offering his arm in his stately way when the procession began to file off to the dining-room, oblivious of the claims which my lady's matronly guests might have upon him.
Throughout that evening Mr. Granger was more or less by Clarissa's side. His daughter, perceiving this with a scarcely concealed astonishment, turned a deaf ear to the designing compliments of Captain Westleigh (who told himself that a fellow might just as well go in for a good thing as not when he had a chance), and came across the room to take part in her parent's conversation. She even tried to lure him away on some pretence or other; but this was vain. He seemed rooted to his chair by Clarissa's side—she listlessly turning over a folio volume of steel plates, he pointing out landscapes and scenes which had been familiar to him in his continental rambles, and remarking upon them in a somewhat disjointed fashion—"Marathon, yes—rather flat, isn't it? But the mountains make a fine background. We went there with guides one day, when I was a young man. The Acropolis—hum! ha!—very fine ruins, but a most inconvenient place to get at. Would you like to see Greece, Miss Lovel?"
Clarissa gave a little sigh—half pain, half rapture. What chance had she of ever treading that illustrious soil, of ever emerging from the bondage of her dull life? She glanced across the room to the distant spot where Lady Geraldine and George Fairfax sat playing chess.Hehad been there. She remembered his pleasant talk of his wanderings, on the night of their railroad journey.
"Who would not like to see Greece?" she said.
"Yes, of course," Mr. Granger answered in his most prosaic way. "It's a country that ought to be remarkably interesting; but unless one is very well up in its history, one is apt to look at everything in a vague uncertain sort of manner. A mountain here, and a temple there—and then the guides and that kind of people contrive to vulgarise everything somehow; and then there is always an alarm about brigands, to say nothing of the badness of the inns. I really think you would be disappointed in Greece, Miss Lovel."
"Let me keep my dream," Clarissa answered rather sadly "I am never likely to see the reality."
"You cannot be sure of that; at your age all the world is before you."
"You have read Grote, of course, Miss Lovel?" said Miss Granger, who had read every book which a young lady ought to have read, and who rather prided herself upon the solid nature of her studies.
"Yes, I have read a good deal of Grote," Clarissa replied meekly.
Miss Granger looked at her as if she rather doubted this assertion, and would like to have come down upon her with some puzzling question about the Archons or the Areopagus, but thought better of it, and asked her father if he had been talking to Mr. Purdew.
Mr. Purdew was a landed gentleman of some standing, whose estate lay near Arden Court, and who had come with his wife and daughters to Lady Laura's ball.
"He in sitting over there, near the piano," added Sophia; "I expected to find you enjoying a chat with him."
"I had my chat with Purdew after luncheon," answered Mr. Granger; and then he went on turning the leaves for Clarissa with a solemn air, and occasionally pointing out to her some noted feature in a landscape or city. His daughter stared at him in supreme astonishment. She had seen him conventionally polite to young ladies before to-night, but this was something more than conventional politeness. He kept his place all the evening, and all that Sophia could do was to remain on guard.
When Clarissa was lighting her candle at a table in the corridor, Mr.Fairfax came up to her for the first time since the previous night.
"I congratulate you on your conquest, Miss Lovel," he said in a low voice.
She looked up at him with a pale startled face, for she had not known that he was near her till his voice sounded close in her ear. "I don't understand you," she stammered.
"O, of course not; young ladies never can understand that sort of thing. But I understand it very well, and it throws a pretty clear light upon our interview last night. I wasn't quite prepared for such wise counsel as you gave me then. I can see now whence came the strength of your wisdom. It is a victory worth achieving, Miss Lovel. It means Arden Court.—Yes, that's a very good portrait, isn't it?" he went on in a louder key, looking up at a somewhat dingy picture, as a little cluster of ladies came towards the table; "a genuine Sir Joshua, I believe."
And then came the usual good-nights, and Clarissa went away to her room with those words in her ears, "It means Arden Court."
Could he be cruel enough to think so despicably of her as this? Could he suppose that she wanted to attract the attention of a man old enough to be her father, only because he was rich and the master of the home she loved? The fact is that Mr. Fairfax—not too good or high-principled a man at the best of times, and yet accounting himself an honourable gentleman—was angry with himself and the whole world, most especially angry with Clarissa, because she had shown herself strong where he had thought to find her weak. Never before had his vanity been so deeply wounded. He had half resolved to sacrifice himself for this girl—and behold, she cared nothing for him!
* * * * *
The preparations for the wedding went on. Clarissa's headache did not develop into a fever, and she had no excuse for flying from Hale Castle. Her father, who had written Lady Laura Armstrong several courteous little notes expressing his gratitude for her goodness to his child, surprised Miss Lovel very much by appearing at the Castle one fine afternoon to make a personal acknowledgment of his thankfulness. He consented to remain to dinner, though protesting that he had not dined away from home—except at his brother-in-law's—for a space of years.
"I am a confirmed recluse, my dear Lady Laura, a worn-out old bookworm, with no better idea of enjoyment than a good fire and a favourite author," he said; "and I really feel myself quite unfitted for civilised society. But you have a knack at commanding, and to hear is to obey; so if you insist upon it, and will pardon my morning-dress, I remain."
Mr. Lovel's morning-dress was a suit of rather clerical-looking black from a fashionable West-end tailor—a costume that would scarcely outrage the proprieties of a patrician dinner-table.
"Clarissa shall show you the gardens between this and dinner-time," exclaimed Lady Laura. "It's an age since you've seen them, and I want to know your opinion of my improvements. Besides, you must have so much to say to her."
Clarissa blushed, remembering how very little her father ever had to say to her of a confidential nature, but declared that she would be very pleased to show him the gardens; so after a little more talk with my lady they set out together.
"Well, Clary," Mr. Lovel began, with his kindest air, "you are making a long stay of it."
"Too long, papa. I should be so glad to come home. Pray don't think me ungrateful to Lady Laura, she is all goodness; but I am so tired of this kind of life, and I do so long for the quiet of home."
"Tired of this kind of life! Did ever any one hear of such a girl! I really think there are some people who would be tired of Paradise. Why, child, it is the making of you to be here! If I were as rich as—as that fellow Granger, for instance; confound Croesus!—I couldn't give you a better chance. You must stay here as long as that good-natured Lady Laura likes to have you; and I hope you'll have booked a rich husband before you come home. I shall be very much disappointed if you haven't."
"I wish you would not talk in that way, papa; nothing would ever induce me to marry for money."
"Formoney; no, I suppose not," replied Mr. Lovel testily; "but you might marry a manwithmoney. There's no reason that a rich man should be inferior to the rest of his species. I don't find anything so remarkably agreeable in poor men."
"I am not likely to marry foolishly, papa, or to offend you in that way," Clarissa answered with a kind of quiet firmness, which her father inwardly execrated as "infernal obstinacy;" "but no money in the world would be the faintest temptation to me."
"Humph! Wait till some Yorkshire squire offers you a thousand a year pin-money; you'll change your tone then, I should hope. Have you seen anything of that fellow Granger, by the way?"
"I have seen a good deal of Mr. and Miss Granger, papa. They have been staying here for a fortnight, and are here now."
"You don't say so! Then I shall be linked into an intimacy with the fellow.Well, it is best to be neighbourly, perhaps. And how do you like Mr.Granger?"
"He is not a particularly unpleasant person, papa; rather stiff and matter-of-fact, but not ungentlemanly; and he has been especially polite to me, as if he pitied me for having lost Arden."
In a general way Mr. Lovel would have been inclined to protest against being pitied, either in his own person or that of his belongings, by such a man as Daniel Granger. But in his present humour it was not displeasing to him to find that the owner of Arden Court had been especially polite to Clarissa.
"Then he is really a nice fellow, this Granger, eh, Clary?" he said airily.
"I did not say nice, papa."
"No, but civil and good-natured, and that kind of thing. Do you know, I hear nothing but praises of him about Arden; and he is really doing wonders for the place. Looking at his work with an unjaundiced mind, it is impossible to deny that. And then his wealth!—something enormous, they tell me. How do you like the daughter, by the way?"
This question Mr. Lovel asked with something of a wry face, as if the existence of Daniel Granger's daughter was not a pleasing circumstance in his mind.
"Not particularly, papa. She is very good, I daresay, and seems anxious to do good among the poor; and she is clever and accomplished, but she is not a winning person. I don't think I could ever get on with her very well."
"That's a pity, since you are such near neighbours."
"But you have always avoided any acquaintance with the Grangers, papa,"Clarissa said wonderingly.
"Yes, yes, naturally. I have shrunk from knowing people who have turned me out of house and home, as it were. But that sort of thing must come to an end sooner or later. I don't want to appear prejudiced or churlish; and in short, though I may never care to cross that threshold, there is no reason Miss Granger and you should not be friendly. You have no one at Arden of your own age to associate with, and a companion of that kind might be useful. Has the girl much influence with her father, do you think?"
"She is not a girl, papa, she is a young woman. I don't suppose she is more than two or three-and-twenty, but no one would ever think of calling Miss Granger a girl."
"You haven't answered my question."
"I scarcely know how to answer it. Mr. Granger seems kind to his daughter, and she talks as if she had a great deal of influence over him; but one does not see much of people's real feelings in a great house like this. It is 'company' all day long. I daresay Mr. and Miss Granger are very fond of one another, but—but—they are not so much to each other as I should like you and me to be, papa," Clarissa added with a sudden boldness.
Mr. Lovel coughed, as if something had stuck in his throat.
"My dear child, I have every wish to treat you fairly—affectionately, that is to say," he replied, after that little nervous cough; "but I am not a man given to sentiment, you see, and there are circumstances in my life which go far to excuse a certain coldness. So long as you do not ask too much of me—in the way of sentiment, I mean—we shall get on very well, as we have done since your return from school. I have had every reason to be satisfied."
This was not much, but Clarissa was grateful even for so little.
"Thank you, papa," she said in a low voice; "I have been very anxious to please you."
"Yes, my dear, and I hope—nay, am sure—that your future conduct will give me the same cause for satisfaction; that you will act wisely, and settle the more difficult questions of life like a woman of sense and resolution. There are difficult questions to be solved in life, you know, Clary; and woe betide the woman who lets her heart get the better of her head!"
Clarissa did not quite understand the drift of this remark, but her father dismissed the subject in his lightest manner before she could express her bewilderment.
"That's quite enough serious talk, my dear," he said; "and now give me thecarte du pays. Who is here besides these Grangers? and what little social comedies are being enacted? Your letters, though very nice and dutiful, are not quite up to the Horace-Walpole standard, and have not enlightened me much about the state of things."
Clarissa ran over the names of the Castle guests. There was one which she felt would be difficult to pronounce, but it must needs come at last. She wound up her list with it: "And—and there are Lady Geraldine Challoner, and the gentleman she is going to marry—Mr. Fairfax."
To her extreme surprise, the name seemed to awaken some unwonted emotion in her father's breast.
"Fairfax!" he exclaimed; "what Fairfax is that? You didn't tell me whom Lady Geraldine was to marry when you told me you were to officiate as bridesmaid. Who is this Mr. Fairfax?"
"He has been in the army, papa, and has sold out. He is the heir to some great estate called Lyvedon, which he is to inherit from an uncle."
"His son!" muttered Mr. Lovel.
"Do you know Mr. Fairfax, papa?"
"No, I do not know this young man. But I have known others—members of the same family—and have a good reason for hating his name. He comes of a false, unprincipled race. I am sorry for Lady Geraldine."
"He may not have inherited the faults of his family, papa."
"May not!" echoed Mr. Lovel contemptuously; "or may. I fancy these vices run in the blood, child, and pass from father to son more surely than a landed estate. To lie and betray came natural to the man I knew. Great Heaven! I can see his false smile at this moment."
This was said in a low voice; not to Clarissa, but to himself; a half-involuntary exclamation. He turned impatiently presently, and walked hurriedly back towards the Castle.
"Let us go in," he said. "That name of Fairfax has set my teeth on edge."
"But you will not be uncivil to Mr. Fairfax, papa?" Clarissa asked anxiously.
"Uncivil to him! No, of course not. The man is Lady Laura's guest, and a stranger to me; why should I be uncivil to him?"
Nor would it have been possible to imagine by-and-by, when Mr. Lovel and George Fairfax were introduced to each other, that the name of the younger man was in any manner unpleasant to the elder. Clarissa's father had evidently made up his mind to be agreeable, and was eminently successful in the attempt. At the dinner-table he was really brilliant, and it was a wonder to every one that a man who led a life of seclusion could shine forth all at once with more than the success of a professed diner-out. But it was to Mr. Granger that Marmaduke Lovel was most particularly gracious. He seemed eager to atone, on this one occasion, for all former coldness towards the purchaser of his estate. Nor was Daniel Granger slow to take advantage of his urbane humour. For some reason or other, that gentleman was keenly desirous of acquiring Mr. Lovel's friendship. It might be the commoner's slavish worship of ancient race, it might be some deeper motive, that influenced him, but about the fact itself there could be no doubt. The master of Arden was eager to place his coverts, his park, his library, his hot-houses, his picture-gallery—everything that he possessed—at the feet of his ruined neighbour. Yet even in his eagerness to confer these benefits there was some show of delicacy, and he was careful not to outrage the fallen man's dignity.
Mr. Lovel listened, and bowed, and smiled; pledged himself to nothing; waved off every offer with an airy grace that was all his own. A prime minister, courted by some wealthy place-hunter, could not have had a loftier air; and yet he contrived to make Mr. Granger feel that this was the inauguration of a friendship between them; that he consented to the throwing down of those barriers which had kept them apart hitherto.
"For myself, I am a hermit by profession," he said; "but I am anxious that my daughter should have friends, and I do not think she could have a more accomplished or agreeable companion than Miss Granger."
He glanced towards that young lady with a smile—almost a triumphant smile—as he said this. She had been seated next him at dinner, and he had paid her considerable attention—attention which had not been received by her with quite that air of gratification which Mr. Lovel's graceful compliments were apt to cause. He was not angry with her, however. He contemplated her with a gentle indulgence, as an interesting study in human nature.
"Well, Mr. Lovel," said Lady Laura in a confidential tone, when he was wishing her good-night, "what do you think of Mr. Granger now?"
"I think he is a very excellent fellow, my dear Lady Laura; and that I am to blame for having been so prejudiced against him."
"I am so glad to hear you say that!" cried my lady eagerly. She had drawn him a little way apart from the rest of her visitors, out of earshot of the animated groups of talkers clustered here and there. "And now I want to know if you have made any great discovery?" she added, looking at him triumphantly.
He responded to the look with a most innocent stare.
"A discovery, my dearest Lady Laura—you mystify me. What discovery is there for me to make, except that Hale Castle is the most delightful place to visit?—and that fact I knew beforehand, knowing its mistress."
"But is it possible that you have seen nothing—guessed nothing? And I should have supposed you such a keen observer—such a profound judge of human nature."
"One does not enlarge one's knowledge of human nature by being buried amongst books as I have been. But seriously, Lady Laura, what is the answer to the enigma—what ought I to have guessed, or seen?"
"Why, that Daniel Granger is desperately in love with your daughter."
"With Clarissa! Impossible! Why, the man is old enough to be her father."
"Now, my dear Mr. Lovel, you know that isnoreason against it. I tell you the thing is certain—palpable to any one who has had some experience in such matters, as I have. I wanted to bring this about; I had set my heart upon it before Clarissa came here, but I did not think it would be accomplished so easily. There is no doubt about his feelings, my dear Mr. Lovel; I know the man thoroughly, and I never saw him pay any woman attention before. Perhaps the poor fellow is scarcely conscious of his own infatuation yet, but the fact is no less certain. He has betrayed himself to me ever so many times by little speeches he has let fall about our dear Clary. I think even the daughter begins to see it."
"And what then, my kind friend?" asked Mr. Lovel with an air of supreme indifference. "Suppose this fancy of yours to be correct, do you think Clarissa would marry the man?"
"I do not think she would be so foolish as to refuse him," Lady Laura answered quickly; "unless there were some previous infatuation on her side."
"You need have no apprehension of that," returned Mr. Lovel sharply."Clarissa has never had the opportunity for so much as a flirtation."
Lady Laura remembered that scene on the balcony with a doubtful feeling.
"I hope she would have some regard for her own interest," she said thoughtfully. "And if such an opportunity as this were to present itself—as I feel very sure it will—I hope your influence would be exerted on the right side."
"My dear Lady Laura, my influence should be exercised in any manner you desired," replied Mr. Lovel eagerly. "You have been so good to that poor friendless girl, that you have a kind of right to dispose of her fate. Heaven forbid that I should interfere with any plans you may have formed on her behalf, except to promote them."
"It is so good of you to say that. I really am so fond of my dear Clary, and it would so please me to see her make a great marriage, such as this would be. If Mr. Granger were not a good man, if it were a mere question of money, I would not urge it for a moment; but he really is in every way unexceptionable, and if you will give me your permission to use my influence with Clary——"
"My dear Lady Laura, as a woman, as a mother, you are the fittest judge of what is best for the girl. I leave her in your hands with entire confidence; and if you bring this marriage about, I shall say Providence has been good to us. Yes, I confess I should like to see my daughter mistress of Arden Court."
Almost as he spoke, there arose before him a vision of what his own position would be if this thing should come to pass. Was it really worth wishing for at best? Never again could he be master of the home of his forefathers. An honoured visitor perhaps, or a tolerated inmate—that was all. Still, it would be something to have his daughter married to a rich man. He had a growing, almost desperate need of some wealthy friend who should stretch out a saving hand between him and his fast-accumulating difficulties; and who so fitted for this office as a son-in-law? Yes, upon the whole, the thing was worth wishing for.
He bade Lady Laura good-night, declaring that this brief glimpse of the civilised world had been strangely agreeable to him. He even promised to stay at the Castle again before long, and so departed, after kissing his daughter almost affectionately, in a better humour with himself and mankind than had been common to him lately.
"So that is young Fairfax," he said to himself as he jogged slowly homeward in the Arden fly, the single vehicle of that kind at the disposal of the village gentility; "so that is the son of Temple Fairfax. There is a look of his father in his eyes, but not that look of wicked power in his face that there was in the Colonel's—not that thorough stamp of a bold bad man. It will come, I suppose, in good time."
* * * * *
The preparations for the wedding went on gaily, and whatever inclination to revolt may have lurked in George Fairfax's breast, he made no sign. Since his insolent address that night in the corridor he had scarcely spoken to Clarissa; but he kept a furtive watch upon her notwithstanding, and she knew it, and sickened under it as under an evil influence. He was very angry with her—she was fully conscious of that—unjustifiably, unreasonably angry. More than once, when Mr. Granger was especially attentive, she had encountered a withering glance from those dark gray eyes, and she had been weak enough, wicked enough perhaps, to try and make him perceive that Mr. Granger's attentions were in no way pleasant to her. She could bear anything better than that he should think her capable of courting this man's admiration. She told herself sometimes that it would be an unspeakable relief to her when the marriage was over, and George Fairfax had gone away from Hale Castle, and out of her life for evermore; and then, while she was trying to believe this, the thought would come to her of what her life would be utterly without him, with no hope of ever seeing him again, with the bitter necessity of remembering him only as Lady Geraldine's husband. She loved him, and knew that she loved him. To hear his voice, to be in the same room with him, caused her a bitter kind of joy, a something that was sweeter than common pleasure, keener than common pain. His presence, were he ever so silent or angry, gave colour to her life, and to realise the dull blankness of a life without him seemed impossible.
While this silent struggle was going on, and the date of the marriage growing nearer and nearer, Mr. Granger's attentions became daily more marked. It was impossible even for Clarissa, preoccupied as she was by those other thoughts, to doubt that he admired her with something more than common admiration. Miss Granger's evident uneasiness and anger were in themselves sufficient to give emphasis to this fact. That young lady, mistress of herself as she was upon most occasions, found the present state of things too much for her endurance. For the last ten years of her life, ever since she was a precocious damsel of twelve, brought to a premature state of cultivation by an expensive forcing apparatus of governesses and masters, she had been in the habit of assuring herself and her confidantes that her father would never marry again. She had a very keen sense of the importance of wealth, and from that tender age, of twelve or so upwards, she had been fully aware of the diminution her own position would undergo in the event of a second marriage, and the advent of a son to the house of Granger. Governesses and maidservants had perhaps impressed this upon her at some still earlier stage of her existence; but from this time upwards she had needed nothing to remind her of the fact, and she had watched her father with an unwearying vigilance.
More than once, strong-minded and practical as he was, she had seen him in danger. Attractive widows and dashing spinsters had marked him for their prey, and he had seemed not quite adamant; but the hour of peril had passed, and the widow or the spinster had gone her way, with all her munitions of war expended, and Daniel Granger still unscathed. This time it was very different. Mr. Granger showed an interest in Clarissa which he had never before exhibited in any member of her sex since he wooed and won the first Mrs. Granger; and as his marriage had been by no means a romantic affair, but rather a prudential arrangement made and entered upon by Daniel Granger the elder, cloth manufacturer of Leeds and Bradford, on the one part, and Thomas Talloway, cotton-spinner of Manchester, on the other part, it is doubtful whether Miss Sophy Talloway had ever in her ante-nuptial days engrossed so much of his attention.
Having no one else at Hale to whom she could venture to unbosom herself, Miss Granger was fain to make a confidante of her maid, although she did not, as a general rule, affect familiarity with servants. This maid, who was a mature damsel of five-and-thirty or upwards, and a most estimable Church-of-England person, had been with Miss Granger for a great many years; had curled her hair for her when she wore it in a crop, and even remembered her in her last edition of pinafores. Some degree of familiarity therefore might be excused, and the formal Sophia would now and then expand a little in her intercourse with Warman.
One night, a very little while before Lady Geraldine's wedding-day, the cautious Warman, while brushing Miss Granger's hair, ventured to suggest that her mistress looked out of spirits. Had she said that Sophia looked excessively cross, she would scarcely have been beside the mark.
"Well, Warman," Miss Granger replied, in rather a shrewish tone, "Iamout of spirits. I have been very much annoyed this evening by papa's attentions to—by the designing conduct of a young lady here."
"I think I can guess who the young lady is, miss," Warman answered shrewdly.
"O, I suppose so," cried Sophia, giving her head an angry jerk which almost sent the brush out of her abigail's hand; "servants know everything."
"Well, you see, miss, servants have eyes and ears, and they can't very well help using them. People think we're inquisitive and prying if we venture to see things going on under our very noses; and so hypocrisy gets to be almost part of a servant's education, and what people call a good servant is a smooth-faced creature that pretends to see nothing and to understand nothing. But my principles won't allow of my stooping to that sort of thing, Miss Granger, and what I think I say. I know my duty as a servant, and I know the value of my own immortal soul as a human being."
"How you do preach, Warman! Who wants you to be a hypocrite?" exclaimed Sophia impatiently. "It's always provoking to hear that one's affairs have been talked over by a herd of servants, but I suppose it's inevitable. And pray, what have they been saying about papa?"
"Well, miss, I've heard a good deal of talk of one kind and another. You see, your papa is looked upon as a great gentleman in the county, and people will talk about him. There's Norris, Lady Laura's own footman, who's a good deal in the drawing-room—really a very intelligent-well-brought-up young man, and, I am happy to say,nota dissenter. Norris takes a good deal of notice of what's going on, and he has made a good many remarks upon your par's attention to Miss Lovel. Looking at the position of the parties, you see, miss, it would be such a curious thing if it was to be brought round for that young lady to be mistress of Arden Court."
"Good gracious me, Warman!" cried Sophia aghast, "you don't suppose that papa would marry again?"
"Well, I can't really say, miss. But when a gentleman of your par's age pays so much attention to a lady young enough to be his daughter, it generally do end that way."
There was evidently no consolation to be obtained from Warman, nor was that astute handmaiden to be betrayed into any expression of opinion against Miss Lovel. It seemed to her more than probable that Clarissa Lovel might come before long to reign over the household at Arden, and this all-powerful Sophia sink to a minor position. Strong language of any kind was therefore likely to be dangerous. Hannah Warman valued her place, which was a good one, and would perhaps be still better under a more impulsive and generous mistress. The safest thing therefore was to close the conversation with one of those pious platitudes which Warman had always at her command.
"Whatever may happen, miss, we are in the hands of Providence," she said solemnly; "and let us trust that things will be so regulated as to work for the good of our immortal souls. No one can go through life without trials, miss, and perhaps yours may be coming upon you now; but we know that such chastisements are intended for our benefit."
Sophia Granger had encouraged this kind of talk from the lips of Warman, and other humble disciples, too often too be able to object to it just now; but her temper was by no means improved by this conversation, and she dismissed her maid presently with a very cool good-night.
On the third day before the wedding, George Fairfax's mother arrived at the Castle, in order to assist in this important event in her son's life. Clarissa contemplated this lady with a peculiar interest, and was not a little wounded by the strange coldness with which Mrs. Fairfax greeted her upon her being introduced by Lady Laura to the new arrival. This coldness was all the more striking on account of the perfect urbanity of Mrs. Fairfax's manners in a general way, and a certain winning gentleness which distinguished her on most occasions. It seemed to Clarissa as if she recoiled with something like aversion at the sound of her name.
"Miss Lovel of Arden Court, I believe?" she said, looking at Lady Laura.
"Yes; my dear Clarissa is the only daughter of the gentleman who till lately was owner of Arden Court. It has passed into other hands now."
"I beg your pardon. I did not know there had been any change."
And then Mrs. Fairfax continued her previous conversation with Lady Laura, as if anxious to have done with the subject of Miss Lovel.
Nor in the three days before the wedding did she take any farther notice of Clarissa; a neglect the girl felt keenly; all the more so because she was interested in spite of herself in this pale faded lady of fifty, who still bore the traces of great beauty and who carried herself with the grace of a queen. She had that airdu faubourgwhich we hear of in the great ladies of a departed era in Parisian society,—a serene and tranquil elegance which never tries to be elegant, a perfect self-possession which never degenerates into insolence.
In a party so large as that now assembled at Hale, this tacit avoidance of one person could scarcely be called a rudeness. It might so easily be accidental. Clarissa felt it nevertheless, and felt somehow that it was not accidental. Though she could never be anything to George Fairfax, though all possibility even of friendship was at an end between them, she would have liked to gain his mother's regard. It was an idle wish perhaps, but scarcely an unnatural one.
She watched Mrs. Fairfax and Lady Geraldine together. The affection between those two was very evident. Never did the younger lady appear to greater advantage than in her intercourse with her future mother-in-law. All pride and coldness vanished in that society, and Geraldine Challoner became genial and womanly.
"She has played her cards well," Barbara Fermor said maliciously. "It is the mother who has brought about this marriage."
If Mrs. Fairfax showed herself coldly disposed towards Clarissa, there was plenty of warmth on the parts of Ladies Emily and Louisa Challoner, who arrived at the Castle about the same time, and at once took a fancy to their sister'sprotégée.
"Laura has told us so much about you, Miss Lovel," said Lady Louisa, "and we mean to be very fond of you, if you will allow us; and, O, please may we call you Clarissa? It is such asweetname!"
Both these ladies had passed that fearful turning-point in woman's life, her thirtieth birthday, and had become only more gushing and enthusiastic with increasing years. They were very much like Lady Laura, had all her easy good-nature and liveliness, and were more or less afraid of the stately Geraldine.
"Do you know, we are quite glad she is going to be married at last," Lady Emily said in a confidential tone to Clarissa; "for she has kept up a kind of frigid atmosphere at home that I really believe has helped to frighten away all our admirers. Men of the present day don't like that sort of thing. It went out of fashion in England with King Charles I., I think, and in France with Louis XIV. You know how badly the royal household behaved coming home from his funeral, laughing and talking and all that: I believe it arose from their relief at thinking that the king of forms and ceremonies was dead. We always have our nicest little parties—kettle-drums, and suppers after the opera, and that sort of thing—when Geraldine is away; for we can do anything with papa."