When Mrs. Maxwell learned, in the morning, that Mr. Maitland was
indisposed and could not leave his room, that the Commodore had gone off
in the night, and Mark and Mrs. Trafford had started by daybreak, her
amazement became so insupportable that she hastened from one of her
guests to the other, vainly asking them to explain these mysteries.
“What a fidgety old woman she is!” said Beck Graham, who had gone over
to Bella Lyle, then a prisoner in her room from a slight cold. “She has
been rushing over the whole house, inquiring if it be possible that my
father has run away with Alice, that your brother is in pursuit of them,
and Mr. Maitland taken poison in a moment of despair. At all events, she
has set every one guessing and gossiping at such a rate that all thought
of archery is forgotten, and even our private theatricals have lost
their interest in presence of this real drama.”
“How absurd!” said Bella, languidly.
“Yes, it's very absurd to fill one's house with company, and give them
no better amusement than the chit-chat of a boarding-house. I declare I
have no patience with her.”
“Where did your father go?”
“He went over to Port-Graham. He suddenly bethought him of a lease--I
think it was a lease--he ought to have sent off by post, and he was so
eager about it that he started without saying good-bye. And Mark,--what
of him and Alice?”
“There's all the information I can give you;” and she handed her a card
with one line in pencil: “Good-bye till evening, Bella. You, were asleep
when I came in.--Alice.”
“How charmingly mysterious! And you have no idea where they 've gone?”
“Not the faintest; except, perhaps, back to the Abbey for some costumes
that they wanted for that 'great tableau.'”
“I don't think so,” said she, bluntly. “I suspect--shall I tell you what
I suspect? But it's just as likely you 'll be angry, for you Lyles will
never hear anything said of one of you. Yes, you may smile, my dear, but
it's well known, and I 'm not the first who has said it.”
“If that be true, Beck, it were best not to speak of people who are so
excessively thin-skinned.”
“I don't know that. I don't see why you are to be indulged any more than
your neighbors. I suppose every one must take his share of that sort of
thing.”
Bella merely smiled, and Rebecca continued: “What I was going to say
was this,--and, of course, you are at liberty to dissent from it if you
like,--that, however clever a tactician your sister is, Sally and I
saw her plan of campaign at once. Yes, dear, if you had been at dinner
yesterday you 'd have heard a very silly project thrown out about my
being sent over to fetch Tony Butler, under the escort of Mr. Norman
Maitland. Not that it would have shocked me, or frightened me in the
least,--I don't pretend that; but as Mr. Maitland had paid me certain
attention at Lyle Abbey,--you look quite incredulous, my dear, but it
is simply the fact; and so having, as I said, made these advances to me,
there would have been considerable awkwardness in our going off together
a drive of several hours without knowing--without any understanding--”
She hesitated for the right word, and Bella added, “_A quoi s'en tenir_,
in fact.”
“I don't know exactly what that means, Bella; but, in plain English, I
wished to be sure of what he intended. My dear child, though that smile
becomes you vastly, it also seems to imply that you are laughing at my
extreme simplicity, or my extreme vanity, or both.”
Bella's smile faded slowly away; but a slight motion of the angle of the
mouth showed that it was not without an effort she was grave.
“I am quite aware,” resumed Beck, “that it requires some credulity to
believe that one like myself could have attracted any notice when seen
in the same company with Alice Lyle--Trafford, I mean--and her sister;
but the caprice of men, my dear, will explain anything. At all events,
the fact is there, whether one can explain it or not; and, to prove it,
papa spoke to Mr. Maitland on the morning we came away from the Abbey;
but so hurriedly--for the car was at the door, and we were seated on
it--that all he could manage to say was, that if Mr. Maitland would come
over to Port-Graham and satisfy him on certain points,--the usual ones,
I suppose,--that--that, in short, the matter was one which did not offer
insurmountable obstacles. All this sounds very strange to your ears, my
dear, but it is strictly true, every word of it.”
“I cannot doubt whatever you tell me,” said Bella; and now she spoke
with a very marked gravity.
“Away we went,” said Rebecca, who had now got into the sing-song tone of
a regular narrator,--“away we went, our first care on getting back home
being to prepare for Mr. Maitland's visit. We got the little green-room
ready, and cleared everything out of the small store-closet at the back,
and broke open a door between the two so as to make a dressing-room for
him, and we had it neatly papered, and made it really very nice. We put
up that water-colored sketch of Sally and myself making hay, and papa
leaning over the gate; and the little drawing of papa receiving the
French commander's sword on the quarter-deck of the 'Malabar:' in fact,
it was as neat as could be,--but he never came. No, my dear,--never.”
“How was that?”
“You shall hear; that is, you shall hear what followed, for explanation
I have none to give you. Mr. Maitland was to have come over, on the
Wednesday following, to dinner. Papa said five, and he promised to be
punctual; but he never came, nor did he send one line of apology.
This may be some new-fangled politeness,--the latest thing in that
fashionable world he lives in,--but still I cannot believe it is
practised by well-bred people. Be that as it may, my dear, we never
saw him again till yesterday, when he passed us in your sister's
fine carriage-and-four, he lolling back this way, and making a little
gesture, so, with his hand as he swept past, leaving us in a cloud of
dust that totally precluded him from seeing whether we had returned his
courtesy--if he cared for it. That's not all,” she said, laying her hand
on Bella's arm. “The first thing he does on his arrival here is to
take papa's rooms. Well,--you know what I mean,--the rooms papa always
occupies here; and when Raikes remarks, 'These are always kept for
Commodore Graham, sir; they go by the name of the Commodore's quarters,'
his reply is, 'They 'll be better known hereafter as Mr. Norman
Maitland's, Mr. Raikes.' Word for word what he said; Raikes told me
himself. As for papa, he was furious; he ordered the car to the door,
and dashed into our room, and told Sally to put all the things up
again,--that we were going off. I assure you, it was no easy matter
to calm him down. You have no idea how violent he is in one of these
tempers; but we managed at last to persuade him that it was a mere
accident, and Sally began telling him the wonderful things she had heard
about Maitland from Mrs. Chetwyn,--his fortune and his family, and what
not. At last he consented to take the Chetwyns' rooms, and down we went
to meet Mr. Maitland,--I own, not exactly certain on what terms it
was to be. Cordial is no name for it, Bella; he was--I won't call it
affectionate, but I almost might: he held my hand so long that I was
forced to draw it away; and then he gave a little final squeeze in the
parting, and a look that said very plainly, 'We, at least, understand
each other.' It was at that instant, my dear, Alice opened the
campaign.”
“Alice! What had Alice to do with it?”
“Nothing,--nothing whatever, by right, but everything if you admit
interference and--Well, I'll not say a stronger word to her own sister.
I 'll keep just to fact, and leave the commentary on this to
yourself. She crosses the drawing-room,--the whole width of the large
drawing-room,--and, sweeping grandly past us in that fine Queen-of-Sheba
style she does so well, she throws her head back,--it was that
stupid portrait-painter, Hillyer, told her 'it gave action to the
features,'--and says, 'Take me into dinner, will you?' But she was
foiled; old Mrs. Maxwell had already bespoke him. I hope you 're
satisfied now, Bella, that this is no dream of mine.”
“But I cannot see any great mischief in it, either.”
“Possibly not. I have not said that there was. Sally 's no fool,
however, and her remark was,--'There 's nothing so treacherous as a
widow.'”
Bella could not contain herself any longer, but laughed heartily at this
profound sentiment.
“Of course we do not expect you to see this with our eyes, Bella, but
we're not blind, for all that. Later on came the project for fetching
over Tony Butler, when Alice suggested that Mr. Maitland was to drive me
over to the Burns ide--”
“Was that so very ungenerous, then?”
“In the way it was done, my dear,--in the way it was done. In that ha,
ha, ha! manner, as though to say, 'Had n't you both better go off on a
lark to-morrow that will set us all talking of you?'”
“No, no! I'll not listen to this,” cried Bella, angrily; “these are not
motives to attribute to my sister.”
“Ask herself; let her deny it, that's all; but, as Sally says, 'There 's
no playing against a widow, because she knows every card in your hand.'”
“I really had no idea they were so dangerous,” said Bella, recovering
all her good-humor again.
“You may, perhaps, find it out one day. Mind, I 'm not saying Alice is
not very handsome, and has not the biggest blue eyes in the world, which
she certainly does not make smaller in the way she uses them; or that
any one has a finer figure, though some do contrive to move through a
room without catching in the harp or upsetting the china. Men, I take
it, are the best judges, and they call her perfection.”
“They cannot think her more beautiful than she is.”
“Perhaps not, dear; and as you are so like as to be constantly
mistaken--”
“Oh, Beck! surely this is not fair,” said she, and so imploringly that
the other's voice softened down as she said,--“I never meant to be rude;
but my head is gone wild to-day; for, after all, when matters had gone
so far, Alice had no right to come in in this fashion; and, as Sally
says, 'Why did she never encourage him till she saw his attentions
addressed to another?'”
“I never perceived that she gave Mr. Maitland any encouragement. Yes,
you may hold up your hands, Beck, and open your eyes very wide; but I
repeat what I have said.”
“That's a matter of taste, I suppose,” said Beck, with some irritation.
“There are various sorts of encouragements: as Sally says, 'A look will
go further with one than a lock of your hair with another.'”
“But, really, Sally would seem to have a wisdom like Solomon's on these
subjects,” said Bella.
“Yes; and what's more, she has acquired it without any risk or peril.
She had neither to drive half over a county with a gentleman alone,
or pass a good share of a night walking with him in the alleys of a
garden.”
“What do you mean by this?” asked Bella, angrily.
“Ask Alice; she 'll be here, I suppose, this evening; and I 'm sure she
'll be delighted to satisfy all your sisterly anxiety.”
“But one word, Beck,--just one word before you go.”
“Not a syllable. I have said now what I rigidly promised Sally not
to mention when I came in here. You got it out of me in a moment of
irritation, and I know well what's in store for me when I confess
it,--so good-bye.”
“But, Beck--”
“Don't make yourself cough, dear; lie down and keep your shawl round
you. If I 'd thought you were so feverish, I 'd not have come over
to torment you,--good-bye;” and, resisting all Bella's entreaties and
prayers, Beck arose and left the room.