STARTING THE GAME.
"Halloa!" suddenly shouted Sir Marmaduke from his vantage-ground on
the rug.
Every body looked up.
"Halloo!" shouted the old gentleman again, plunging his hands over the
wrists in his trousers-pockets, and bringing to the surface a couple
of letters. "By Jove! I forgot to tell Mrs. Mason or any of them that
more people were coming down! Here, Stone--somebody--just ring that
bell, will you? Here are two men coming down to-day--be here by
dinner, they say; and I forgot to order rooms and things for them!"
"Who are they, Sir Marmaduke?" asked Lyster languidly.
"What the deuce is that to you, sir?" roared the old gentleman.
"Friends of mine, sir! That's enough, isn't it? Have you finished
lunch."
"I haven't had any," said Lyster. "I never eat it. I hate lunch."
"Great mistake that," said Mr. Vincent, wiping his mouth. "Ought
always to eat whenever you can. 'Gad, for such an omelette as that I'd
get up in the middle of the night."
"Perhaps, Lyster," said Major Stone, coming back from ringing the
bell, "you're of the opinion of the man who said that lunch was an
insult to your breakfast and an injury to your dinner?"
"He was a confounded fool, whoever he was," broke in Sir Marmaduke. "I
hate those fellows who talk epigrams. Halloa, Gumble, is that you?
Tell Mrs. Mason two gentlemen are coming down to stop. She must get
rooms ready for them, and that sort of thing."
"Yes, Sir Marmaduke," said Gumble. "In the Barracks, Sir Marmaduke?"
"God bless my soul, sir! how should I know?" said his master testily.
"What do I keep a housekeeper for, and a pack of lazy servants, who do
nothing but eat, if I'm to be worried about things like this? Tell
Mrs. Mason, sir! Do as you're told!"
And exit Gumble, whose admirable training and long experience only
prevented him from bursting into a guffaw.
"Though you refused Captain Lyster, I don't think you'll mind telling
me who these gentlemen are, Sir Marmaduke?" said Barbara, leaving the
table, and advancing to the rug.
"No, my dear; I'll tell you any thing. Besides, they'll be here
to-night. One is Mr. Beresford, and the other a learned professor.
There, I've thrown them among you to worry their reputations before
they arrive; and now I'll be off to my study. And don't any of you
come and bother me; do you hear? If you want any thing, ask Stone for
it. Come, Russell."
And, followed by the lawyer, the old gentleman left the room, after
patting Barbara's head with one hand, and shaking his clenched fist,
in a serio-comic manner, at the rest of the company.
"What very strange people my cousin does get hold of!" said Miss
Lexden, commencing the onslaught directly the door was closed. "Which
Mr. Beresford is it, do you suppose?"
The question was general, but Mr. Townshend answered it, by saying
pompously,
"Perhaps it's Mr. Beresford, one of the Directors of the Bank of
England, who--"
"God forbid!" broke in Lyster, suddenly.
"Amen to that sweet prayer," said Barbara, in a low voice. Then
louder: "Oh, dear, let's hope it's not an old gentleman from the
City."
"No, no; don't fear," said Major Stone, laughing. "You all know him.
It's Charley Beresford, from the Tin-Tax Office."
"What! the Commissioner?" exclaimed little Miss Townshend, clapping
her hands. "Oh, I _am_ so glad! He is _such_ fun!"
"Oh, every body knows Mr. Beresford," said Vincent; "capital judge of
cooking; on the committee of the Beauclerk."
"I'm afraid I'm nobody, then," said old Miss Lexden; "what age is he?"
"Oh, same age as every body else," drawled Lyster. "I find every
body's the same age,--seven-and-twenty. Nobody ever goes beyond that."
"You know Mr. Beresford, aunt," said Barbara. "He's a favourite horror
of yours. You recollect him at Hawley last year?"
"Oh, the odious man who carried on so shamefully with that rich
woman,--the grocer's widow!" said the old lady. "Well, wasn't it a
grocer?--merchant, then, if you like,--something to do with the City
and the West Indies, I know. Oh, a dreadful person!"
"Charley Beresford's not a bad fellow, though," said Lyster. "Who did
Sir Marmaduke say the other man was? Professor something."
"Perhaps Major Stone knows him," chimed in Mrs. Townshend.
"Who's the Professor that's coming down, Stone?" asked Lyster.
"I _don't_ know. I only know two professors: Jackman the
conjuror,--Jacquinto he calls himself,--and Holloway the ointment-man;
and it's neither of them. This is some scientific or literary great
gun that Sir Marmaduke was introduced to lately."
"Oh, dear!" said Barbara, plaintively, "what a dreadful idea! Probably
an old gentleman, with gold spectacles and a bald head, covered all
over with the dust of the British Museum, and carrying dead beetles
and things in his pockets!"
"A professor!" said Miss Townshend; "we had one at Gimp
House--a French one! I'm sure he'll take snuff and have silk
pocket-handkerchiefs."
"And choke at his meals," added Barbara. "This is too horrible."
"I trust he won't come from any low neighbourhood," said Mrs. Vincent;
"the small-pox is very bad in some districts in London."
"The deuce! I hope he won't bring it down here," drawled Lyster.
"There's not the slightest fear of infection, if you've been
vaccinated," said Mr. Townshend.
"Oh, but I haven't," replied Lyster. "I wouldn't be--at least without
chloroform; it hurts one so."
"What nonsense, Captain Lyster!" laughed Barbara. "Why, I was
vaccinated, and it didn't hurt me the least."
"Did it hurt as much as sitting for your photograph?" asked the
Captain, rising. "Because I'll never sit for my photograph again,
except under chloroform."
"Well, small-pox or not, you'll see the old gentleman at dinner," said
Stone; "and you mustn't chaff him, mind, Lyster; for he's a favourite
of Sir Marmaduke's."
And so the luncheon-party broke up. Old Miss Lexden and Miss Townshend
drove out in a pony-phaeton, with the intention of falling in with the
shooting party; Mrs. Vincent retired to her room, to allow the process
of digestion to take place during her afternoon nap; Mr. Vincent
walked leisurely across the fields to the neighbouring village, and
had an interview with a fisherman's wife, who had a new method of
dressing mackerel; Mr. Townshend took out a pamphlet on the Bank
Charter, and, having placed it before him, went straight off to sleep;
Major Stone mounted his sure-footed cob and rode round the farm,
looking after broken fences, and dropping hints as to the expediency
of all being ready with the Michaelmas rent; and Barbara and Captain
Lyster wandered into the Paddock, with the intention of playing
croquet.
But they had played only very few strokes, when Lyster, leaning on his
mallet, looked across at his companion, and said gravely,
"I assure you, Miss Lexden, I pity you from the bottom of my soul."
As she stood there, her complexion heightened by the exercise, the
little round hat admirably suiting the classic shape of her head, and
the neatest little foot tapping the mallet, she didn't look much to be
pitied; and she tossed her head rather disdainfully, as she asked,
"Pity me, Captain Lyster! and why?"
"Because you are so horribly bored here! I've been such a terrible
sufferer from _ennui_ myself, that I know every expression on those
who have it; and you're very far advanced indeed. _I_ know what it is
that beats you, and I can't help you."
"And what is it, pray?"
"You know what Cleopatra says in the _Dream of Fair Women_: 'I have no
men to govern in this wood!' Pardon me; I'm a singular person; not
clever, you know, but always saying what I think, and that sort of
thing; and you're dying for a flirtation."
"Surely _you_ have no cause to complain. I've never tried to make you
my 'Hercules, my Roman Antony,' Captain Lyster."
"No; you've been good enough to spare me. You've known me too long,
and think of me, rightly enough perhaps, as the 'dull, cold-blooded
Cæsar;' and there's no one here that's at all available except Stone,
and his berth with Sir Marmaduke is like a college-fellowship--he'd
have to resign all income if he married. It's an awful position for
you! Oh, by Jove, I forgot the two men coming! I'm afraid Charley
Beresford's no go; but you might make great running with the
Professor."
"_Que d'honneur!_" said Barbara, laughing at his serious face. "That
is a compliment, especially after our notions of what he will be
like;" and then, after a minute's reflection, she added, with a proud
gesture, "It would be a new field, at all events, and not a bad
triumph, to win a steady sage from his books and--"
"Vivien over again, by Jove!" said Lyster, in the nearest approach
he had ever made to a shout; "Vivien divested of all impropriety;
only look out that Merlin does not get you into the charm.
They've no end of talk, these clever fellows. I knew a professor at
Addiscombe--deuced ugly bird too--who ran off with an earl's daughter,
all through his gab--I beg pardon, his tongue."
"_Gare aux corbeaux!_ I flatter myself I can hold my own with the old
crows," said Barbara; "however, this is mere nonsense. No more
croquet, thank you, Captain Lyster. I must go in and reflect on your
words of wisdom."
And dropping him a little curtsey of mock humility, she moved off
towards the house.
"I'd lay long odds she follows up the idea," said Lyster to himself,
as he sat down on the twisted roots of an old elm and lit a cheroot.
"She's a fine creature," he added, looking after her; "something in
the Cheetah line,--fine and swervy and supple, and as clever as--as
old boots. How awfully old I'm growing! I should have gone mad after
such a girl as that once; and now--she doesn't cause me the slightest
emotion. There's that little Townshend, now,--ah, that's quite another
matter!"
Had Barbara really any notion of following out Lyster's sportive
notion, and of playing Vivien to an aged Merlin? of winning from his
goddess Study a man whose whole life had been passed at her shrine,
and of lighting with as much fire as yet remained to him eyes dimmed
with midnight researches? I know not. But I do know that she spent
more time that evening over her toilet than she had done during her
stay at the Grange, and that she never looked lovelier than in her
rich blue dinner-dress, trimmed with black lace, and with a piece of
velvet passing through her hair, and coquettishly fastened at one side
by a single splendid turquoise. Perhaps some thought of her
conversation with Lyster flitted across her brain; for she smiled
saucily as she stepped down the wide old staircase, and she had
hardly composed her countenance by the time she had passed into the
drawing-room, where the party was assembled. The room was lighted only
by the flickering blaze of a wood-fire (for the evenings were already
chilly), and she could only indistinctly make out that the gentleman
whom Sir Marmaduke introduced as "Professor Churchill," and who was to
take her in to dinner, was tall, had no spectacles, and was apparently
not so old as she had anticipated. But when she looked at him in the
full light of the dining-room, she nearly uttered an exclamation of
surprise when she saw, as the embodiment of her intended Merlin,
a man of six feet in height, about thirty years of age, with short
wavy brown hair, hazel eyes, a crisp dark beard, and a genial,
good-humoured, sensible expression. All this she took in in covert
glances; and so astonished was she, that after a few commonplaces she
could not resist saying,
"And are you really a professor, Mr. Churchill?"
He laughed heartily--a clear, ringing, jolly laugh--as he replied,
"Well, I am,--at least I stand so honoured on the books of old Leipzig
University, and our good host here always will insist on dubbing me
with my full title. But I don't generally sport it. I always think of
dancing, or calisthenics, or deportment,--Turveydrop, you know,--in
connexion with the professorship. I can't help noticing that you look
astonished, Miss Lexden; I trust I haven't rudely put to flight any
preconceived notions of yours as to my dignity?"
"No--at least--well, I will frankly own my notions were different."
"There, you see, I had the advantage; with the exception of flatly
contradicting the late Mr. Campbell in his assertion about distance
lending enchantment, &c., my ideas of you are thoroughly realised.
But--I had seen you before."
"You had!" said Barbara, feeling a pleasurable glow pass over her
cheek at something in his tone.
"Oh, yes; several times. The first time ten years ago, when I saw you
in company with your father--"
"My father! Where?" interrupted Barbara.
"Where? oh, at an hotel,--Burdon's Hotel. You won't remember it, of
course." (Barbara never knew why Major Stone, who was sitting near
them, grinned broadly when Mr. Churchill said this.) "You were a
little child then. And recently I have seen you at the Opera, and
ridden past you in the Row."
At this juncture Sir Marmaduke called out to Churchill from the other
end of the table, and the conversation became general. Barbara watched
Mr. Churchill as he took a leading part in it, his earnest face lit
up, and all listening attentively to his remarks. What a clever,
sensible face it was! And he went to the Opera, and rode in the Park!
What about Vivien and Merlin now?