BOOK III: LEAD, KINDLY LIGHT

EPILOGUE: THE MORN

*THE

VISION SPLENDID*

*BOOK I*

*CRAG AND TORRENT*

*CHAPTER I*

*(1)*

The broad faces of the sunflowers surveyed, with their eternal,

undiscriminating smile, the nape of Horatia's white neck, and were no

wiser. Her back was towards them, and they could not see what book was

in her lap. But the hollyhocks further down the border were probably

aware that she was not really reading anything. They swayed a little,

disturbing a blundering bee; and Horatia, turning her head towards the

flower-bed, glanced for a moment at those tall warriors en fete.

A gust of perfume suddenly shook out at her from the border. Certainly

the summer seemed hardly within sight of its end, though on this Monday,

the thirtieth of August, 1830, much of the corn was cut already.

Horatia's own summer was at the full, and it was now only old-fashioned

people who thought the single woman of twenty-four in peril of the

unblest autumn of perpetual maidenhood. For the sake of the red-gold

bunches of curls at her temples, the dazzling skin that goes with such

hair, the straight, wilful little nose, the mouth holding in its curves

some petulance and much sweetness, an admirer might well have been

sitting beside her in this agreeable old garden. Yet Horatia Grenville

was not accounted a beauty. She was neither statuesque nor drooping.

But part of the blame lay undeniably with the book on her lap, the

_Republic_ of Plato in the original. Horatia could and did read Greek

without too much difficulty; could not, or would not, occupy her fingers

for ever with embroidery or knitting, and was believed to despise

amateur performance upon the harp. In short she was "blue," and

therefore--at least in her own county--was not beautiful; she was

learned, and could not, in Berkshire, be lovely.

Yes, she was twenty-four, and unmarried; a country parson's daughter,

but well-born and well-dowered; suspected (unjustly) of knowing Hebrew

as well as Greek, but always admirably dressed. She had never been in

love, and had never, to her knowledge, even desired to taste that

condition. Nor had she discovered in herself any aptitude for flirting.

She wished sometimes that she did not frighten young men by her real or

supposed intellectual attainments, but not for any plaudits of the

drawing-room would she have bartered all that was typified to her by the

Greek text on her knee. And she had no craving for domestic bliss.

Indeed, she could have had that bliss had she desired it. At least two

decorous and (to her) entirely negligible requests had been made for her

hand. They had come from quite suitable personages, whom she had met

during her periodical sojourns with her various relations. Moreover,

here, at home, five years ago, the man who had known her from a child,

and was indeed a distant connection, had asked her to marry him.

That episode had startled and distressed Horatia. Tristram Hungerford,

six years her senior, had always been a quasi-fraternal part of her

life. The boy who came over daily on his pony from Compton Parva, what

time a pony was still to her as an elephant, who was construing Livy

with her father while her own fingers created the tremulous pothook, who

climbed the Rectory apple-trees while her infant legs bore her but

precariously on terra firma--whom she welcomed home from Eton with

unrestrained joy and offerings of toffee, from Oxford as frankly but

less exuberantly--that this young man should suddenly propose to make

her his wife was absurd, and she did not like it at all. At nineteen,

Horatia Grenville had been singularly immature for her times. She had

no wish but that her playmate and friend should retain that role always;

why should he want to change it? She signified as much, and to her

great relief Tristram reverted with extraordinary completeness to his

former part, and had filled it for five more years.

Miss Grenville had, however, taken no vow against matrimony. It was

merely that she could not bear the idea of so sudden a finality. Even

now she refused to picture herself sitting down, as she put it, to count

over forks and spoons. Indeed, having returned but two days ago from a

visit to a newly married friend, whose chief occupations, so it seemed

to her guest, were quoting "what Henry says," and trying to out-do other

young married women of her acquaintance in dress, she was still full of

an almost passionate wonder that people could shut down their lives to

that kind of thing. Yet, deep in her heart, perhaps she

realised--perhaps she did not--that in six or seven years' time, when

the fatuities of the recently-wed had dropped away from Henry and

Emilia, when there were children round them, they would have full lives,

whereas she...

But Horatia greatly desired her life to be full. She wanted to express

herself somehow. Sitting there by the sunflowers and the phloxes, she

thought of the many women of the day who had succeeded in doing this.

She thought of Mrs. Somerville, of Miss Mitford, of Hannah More and of

Mrs. Fry; of Joanna Baillie and Miss Edgeworth; of Miss Jane Porter,

whose _Scottish Chiefs_ had delighted her childhood; and of Lady Morgan.

Most of these celebrated women were unmarried. And she considered also

the women of the past: Joan of Arc, St. Catherine of Siena, Madame de

Rambouillet, Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu.

It was not that Horatia Grenville wished definitely either to lead a

nation to battle or to write plays, to be an astronomical genius, or to

sway the councils of princes. She wanted to do something, but knew not

what that something was. This afternoon she was more conscious than

usual both of her desire and of its vagueness. It occurred to her that

she was rather like the sleepy wasp who, having painfully climbed up the

skirt of her gown and attained the open page of the _Republic_, was now

starting discontentedly to crawl down again.

"Really, I am getting morbid!" thought Miss Grenville; "and here is

Papa!"

The Honourable and Reverend Stephen Grenville, Rector of Compton Regis,

was seen indeed to issue at that moment from the long window of the

drawing-room and to approach her over the grass, comfortable, benignant,

and of aristocratic appearance. He held a half-written letter in one

hand, and a quill pen in the other; his spectacles were pushed down his

nose. His daughter jumped up.

"Do you want me, Papa?"

"My dear, only for this," replied Mr. Grenville, holding up the letter.

"I am writing to your Aunt Julia, and you must really make up your mind

whether you will pay her a visit this autumn. In her last letter she

mentions the matter again."

Horatia looked up at her parent. "Papa," she answered gravely, "I don't

like staying with people who disapprove of me." A sudden little smile

came about the corners of her mouth. "I shouldn't stay with _you_ if

you didn't appreciate me, you know!"

The twinkle which was never far from the Rector's eyes came into them at

this pronouncement. "Of that I have no doubt, my child," he said. "But

it is a mercy that your aunt cannot hear your filial sentiments."

Horatia caught at his arm. "Sit down, dearest Papa," she said half

imperiously, half coaxingly, "and let us discuss the visit to Aunt

Julia."

The Honourable and Reverend Stephen, still holding paper and pen,

submitted to be placed in her chair. Horatia, with the grace that was

peculiarly hers, sat down upon the grass at his feet, her full skirt

spreading fanwise around her.

"First," she began, taking hold of the letter, "we will see what you

have said about me."

The Rector yielded it. "There is nothing at all about you as yet, my

dear," he remarked mildly. "Your Aunt is thinking of putting some money

into this new railroad between Manchester and Liverpool, and asks for my

advice."

Horatia made a face and returned the letter. "Papa, you always have the

best of me! Now put down that pen--especially if there is still ink

upon it, as I suspect--and I will show you many reasons why I should not

pay Aunt Julia a visit. In the first place, she disapproves of me

because I do not make flannel petticoats for the poor; in the second

place, she wishes to see me married; in the third place she calls Plato

a heathen and Shakespeare 'waste of time.' In the fourth place, I am

but just returned from visits elsewhere; ... In the hundredth place--I

prefer to stop with you. One hundred reasons against Aunt Julia." And

she laid her fresh cheek upon the hand that held the letter.

The Rector pinched the cheek. "'La Reine le veult,' as usual, I

suppose. Shall you always prefer to stop with me, Horatia?"

"It is my duty, Papa," said Miss Grenville, without lifting her head.

The solemnity of her voice was too much for her father, and he broke, as

she had intended he should, into a chuckle.

"That word on your lips!" he exclaimed. Then he put his hand gently on

the smooth and radiant head. "I could bear to see you go from me," he

said in a suddenly stirred voice, "if I knew you were going to a happy

home of your own."

The head moved restlessly. "You know how much I dislike--how much I

wish you would not talk of that, Papa!" said the girl almost shortly,

and she raised herself. "Why must every woman get married? One would

think that you wanted to be rid of me." Her cheeks were a little

flushed. "But even if you did, I would not marry!" she added. "I

would--never mind what I would do." She flung her arms round her

father's neck and kissed him. "Do not speak of it again! You do not

deserve to have such a good daughter. Now go and tell Aunt Julia that I

cannot stay with her--say that I am translating Rousseau, that will make

her furious--and tell her that a Christian gentlewoman should not know

anything about investments!"

*(2)*

Having thus dismissed her parent, Miss Horatia Grenville did not return

to her book or her reverie, but crossed the lawn, showing herself as

tall and generously made in her dress of thin mulberry-coloured silk

with the great puffed sleeves, trim waist and full short skirt of the

prevailing fashion. Catching up a flat basket and a pair of scissors,

she then walked up and down by the flower border, snipping off dead

blossoms and singing to herself snatches of _Deh vieni_. So occupied,

she heard the click of the garden gate. "Probably Tristram," she

thought to herself. "It is quite time that he came."

And indeed a masculine figure was stooping to fasten the little gate at

the end of the short privet-walled path, by which it had just entered.

As it raised itself, and turned, it was revealed as that of a young man

of about thirty, in riding costume, darker in hair and eyes than the

majority of Englishmen, but none the less unmistakably English.

Pleasant to look at, and more than common tall, he would not however

have drawn the attention of a casual observer; a closer critic might

have become aware of something in the eyes not quite consonant with his

vigorous and every-day appearance.

Horatia put down her basket and went towards him, holding out both

hands.

"I am so glad that you have come," she said frankly. "How are you,

Tristram?"

"As usual, very glad to see you," responded the young man, smiling. "I

wondered if you would be in. Where is the Rector?"

"Papa is writing to Aunt Julia, about investments and about the

difficulty of getting me to leave home."

"Before Martha has unpacked your trunks from this last visit, I suppose

you mean?"

"Don't tease me, Tristram, when you have not seen me for so long! Come

and sit down on the lawn and talk sensibly. Papa will be out soon, I

expect. You will stay to dinner, of course?"

"I shall be very pleased," responded the guest, and he looked as if he

were pleased too--as indeed he was--with his greeting. He walked beside

her to her chair on the grass, picked up Plato, lying there face

downwards, murmured "What shocking treatment for a philosopher!" fetched

himself another chair from a little distance, and, sitting down by Miss

Grenville, said "How did you enjoy your round of visits?"

"Not at all," replied Horatia petulantly, half laughing. "I have not

said this to Papa, because it might make him conceited; but I will tell

_you_ that I am delighted to be home again." And she added, still more

confidentially, "Tristram, the newly-married bore me extremely! I shall

not visit Emilia Strangeways again for seven years at least."

Tristram Hungerford laughed. "All the better for us! It is dull enough

without you."

"O, what stories!" exclaimed Horatia. "You have not been dull. You

have had Mr. Dormer with you!" There was mockery in her eyes. "I know

all about it. Tell me the truth now! How long did he stay?"

"A week, Horatia, only a week, and since then it has been duller than

ever."

"That I can believe," retorted Miss Grenville; "but it has been dull

because Mr. Dormer has left you, and not because I have been away. You

have no one now to exult with over the increasing circulation of the

_Christian Year_, and no one to melt you with the sufferings of the

Non-Jurors--which _I_ think they brought on themselves. However, I must

not jest about Mr. Dormer, I know; he is sacrosanct. Tell me any news.

Tell me something interesting."

The life, the vitality that responded to hers, dropped suddenly out of

Tristram Hungerford's face.

"I have got some news," he said hesitatingly, "but I am not sure that

you will find it interesting. I have made up my mind at last, quite

definitely, to take Orders--that is, if the Bishop will have me."

And at that Miss Grenville's face changed too, and after a moment's

pause she said, very seriously, "Why?"

"Because," returned the young man almost guiltily, "I think that I may

be able to serve the Church better that way, and the time is coming when

we shall have to fight for her."

Horatia did not try to conceal her feelings. "I thought you were

getting views of that sort," she said gloomily; "and I was afraid that

it would end in your taking Orders--in fact, I said so to Papa the other

day. Of course, in my opinion you are made for it; but I wish that you

were not." She sighed, and added inconsequently, "It must make a

difference."

Tristram flushed and leant forward. "But, Horatia, what do you mean? I

shall never be any different--I never could be so to you!" The feeling

in his voice was almost ardour--and it was not the ardour of a friend.

Whether Miss Grenville were fully aware of this or no she pursued her

own thoughts aloud.

"I wonder; I am not so sure. By taking Orders you will be throwing in

your lot for ever with all those Oriel people. That is what it means."

"I cannot think," said the culprit, "why you dislike them so."

"It isn't that I dislike them exactly," said Horatia, considering; "but

that there is something about them that I don't like. Even Mr. Keble,

although he lives in the country and writes poetry, can't be as harmless

as he seems, or they would not all pay him such deference. I have

nothing against Mr. Newman and Mr. Froude; in fact I liked Mr. Froude

when you brought him out here, which is more than I could ever say about

Mr. Dormer. He can make himself very charming, but he's steel

underneath, I'm quite certain.... Yes, they are all different, and yet

they are alike. They are only clergymen, as Papa is, but at his age

they won't be in the least like him. For one thing they won't be half

as nice. There is something about them that makes me shiver. They are

too absolute. I have the feeling that they will change you, that they

are changing you. O, I can't explain it; but I know what I mean--and,

Tristram, I could not bear that you should be different from what you

are?"

She looked at him directly, earnestly, like a child pleading that

something it likes may not be taken away from it, and never noticed her

companion turn suddenly rather white.

"Horatia, if you----" he began, and suddenly the Rector's voice cut

through his own--"What are you two discussing so warmly that you haven't

heard the dinner-bell?" it said, coming before its owner as he emerged

through the drawing-room window. "It's long after half-past five.

Tristram, my dear fellow, I am very glad to see you. You are staying,

of course?"

And after a barely perceptible pause the young man got up and said that

he was.

*CHAPTER II*

*(1)*

"Papa has really no right to be hungry," observed Miss Grenville as they

sat down to table. "Saturday, you know, was our annual village feast,

and he acknowledges that he is obliged to eat a great deal on that

occasion."

"How did it go off, Rector?" asked the guest.

"Oh, quite successfully," replied Mr. Grenville, carving a leg of

mutton. "There was a good deal to eat, I must admit. I left, as I

always do, before the dancing; but not before I heard a swain (I think

it was one of Farmer Wilson's men) assuring his inamorata that he would

kiss her if she wished it."

"The lady seems to have been forward," observed Horatia. "Papa, you are

not forgetting the plate of meat for old Mrs. Jenkins? You know you

promised to send in her dinner while she is ill."

"No, my dear," returned her father, looking round. "I have not forgotten

the meat, but Sarah appears to have forgotten the plates."

The handmaid fled and remedied her error. It was no unusual thing for

the Rectory crockery to go voyaging in the cause of charity.

Horatia seemed in high though rather fitful spirits. She amused her

hearers with an account of her visits. At one house, she affirmed, she

was entertained to death; at the other her host and hostess only seemed

to want to be alone together, though they had pestered her to go there.

"You will find us, as usual, very quiet," said Tristram, looking across

the table at her animated face. "I don't think anything has happened

since you went away.--Stay, though, something has taken place in

Oxfordshire. Rector, I suppose you have heard about the affair at

Otmoor on Saturday night?"

Mr. Grenville had not.

"Well, Otmoor, as you know, was drained under Act of Parliament in 1815,

and this proceeding has been a cause of discontent ever since, because

the embankments were thought to prevent the water draining away from the

land above. You remember the disturbances last June, and how the

farmers cut the banks, and were indicted for felony, but acquitted on

the ground that the embankments did do damage and were a nuisance?"

"Yes, I recall the circumstance," said the Rector.

"Well, the Otmoor people appear to have jumped to the conclusion that

the Act of Parliament was void, the enclosure of Otmoor consequently

illegal, and that they had a right to pull down the embankment. On

Saturday night, therefore, they started to do so, and I believe they

proceeded with the work last night also. They are said to have been

riotous. I wonder you had not heard of it."

"Dear, dear," commented the Rector, "that is excessively serious! I am

afraid that there is indeed a spirit of unrest abroad at present. There

have been one or two rick fires lately that looked to me very

suspicious, very. And then there was that barn near Henley about a

fortnight ago."

"Do you think, then, that we shall have a revolution in England like the

Days of July?" asked Horatia a little mischievously.

"No, of course not, my dear! The Revolution in France the other day was

above all things dynastic--at least, so I read it--and no one wants to

turn out our new King, whom God preserve. But there is social

unrest..."

"Good Heavens!" suddenly exclaimed Tristram Hungerford. "I had quite

forgotten, and your mentioning the Days of July has reminded me. I've

got a Frenchman, a Legitimist, coming to stay with me the day after

to-morrow. You remember how, when I was in Paris a few years ago, I

made the acquaintance of the sons of the Duc de la Roche-Guyon, the

First Gentleman of the Bedchamber? I stayed with the eldest at their

place in the country for a few days, and I asked them to come and see me

if ever they were in England."

"But the Duc de la Roche-Guyon accompanied Charles the Tenth on his

flight over here, and is now with him at Lulworth, is he not?" asked

Horatia. "I remember seeing his name in the papers."

"Yes," said Tristram, "the Duc is at Lulworth with the King, and Armand,

his younger and favourite son, has come over to pay him a visit. But I

fancy that the young gentleman has no intention of remaining buried in

Dorset; Lulworth is too dull for a person of his tastes, and he is

returning to more congenial scenes in Paris--even though it be an

Orleanist Paris. However, he has written from Dorset and suggested

paying me a short visit. I own that I am rather surprised, for I am

afraid that my chances of amusing him are not greater than those of his

exiled sovereign. Moreover, I really hardly know him. It was his elder

brother, the Marquis Emmanuel, of whom I saw more.... May I bring the

youth here to call?"

"Do," said Miss Grenville. "Papa, did you know that Tristram considered

us a centre of gaiety? It is a flattering but a burdensome reputation.

If anyone expects me to sparkle I am tongue-tied on the instant. I had

better ask the Miss Baileys to come in."

"My dear," said the Rector impressively, "I beg you will do nothing of

the sort. I cannot endure those young persons."

"I know it," replied his daughter.--"But, Tristram, it is a good thing

that Mr. Dormer has left you. It is well known, is it not, that you may

not have other guests when he is with you?"

A very slight colour came into Mr. Hungerford's face, and the Rector

said rather quickly, "Is Mr. Dormer going to be in college till term

begins?"

"Yes," answered the young man. "It is quieter for him, and he is very

anxious to finish his book on the Non-Jurors. All the worry last term

with the Provost--though, not being a tutor, he was not actually

implicated--put him back in his work."

"I have no sympathy with Mr. Dormer's sufferings," declared Horatia.

"You have told me before now, Tristram, that he has very high views

about the authority of the Church. Why doesn't he have high views about

the authority of the Provost?"

"But, Horatia," said Tristram earnestly, "don't you see that it was a

matter of conscience? Newman and Wilberforce and Froude could not

without a protest see their chances of influencing their pupils vanish,

and themselves reduced to mere tutoring machines. If Keble had been

elected Provost instead of Hawkins, the situation would never have

arisen. Now they will have no more pupils after next year; and, as an

Oriel man, I can't help thinking that it will be Oriel's loss."

"Don't argue with her, Tristram," said the Rector. "She is only teasing

you."

"Not at all," returned Horatia. "My sympathies are with the Provost;

and so are yours, Papa. Speak up now, and tell the truth. Did your

tutor at Christ Church consider himself responsible for your soul?"

"Well, no, I can't say that he did," admitted Mr. Grenville, remembering

that port-drinking divine.

"There you are!" exclaimed his daughter. "And look at the result; could

it be better? Now these Oriel people want to make their pupils into

horrid prigs, and all the parents in England ought to be grateful to the

Provost for preventing it."

"Horatia," said the Rector, "this levity is not at all becoming. I

don't myself agree entirely with either side. I have a great respect

for the Provost, and at the same time I admire the spirit and high sense

of duty of your friends, Tristram. Mr. Keble is of their opinion, and

although I cannot go as far as he does, I am bound to say that the

_Christian Year_ seems to me to combine sound scholarship with a proper

appreciation of our historic Church. Yes, they are good men, and I am

sorry they have been defeated."

"And I," remarked Horatia impenitently, "am looking forward to seeing

each with his one ewe lamb. How they will cherish their last pupil!"

*(2)*

When Tristram went, according to custom, into the Rector's study for a

talk after dinner, the door was hardly shut behind them before Mr.

Grenville said:

"I had a feeling this afternoon, when it was too late, that I

interrupted you with Horatia at an unfortunate moment."

"No, Sir," replied the young man. "I think, on the contrary, that you

saved me from making a blunder. One shock is enough for one afternoon."

"Ah," said Mr. Grenville, making his way towards his favourite chair.

"You have told her then that you mean to take Orders?"

"I told her that I had practically made up my mind to do so."

"And what did she say?"

"I gathered that she wasn't surprised, and that she wasn't altogether

pleased," returned Tristram with half a smile.

"She is out of sympathy with your views," commented the Rector, tapping

with his foot. "And of course, as you know, I deplore extremes myself.

But in time you would settle down. Still, I know quite well Horatia's

dislike to what seem to be the growing views of the Oriel Common Room,

and she appears to me to be quite unable to discuss the matter on its

merits. She always says, 'Papa, dear, I do dislike Mr. Dormer so much,

and I'm not fond of any of those Oriel people. I cannot understand what

Tristram sees in them.' But I'll tell you what I think, my boy,"

concluded the Rector mysteriously, "and that is, this dislike is a very

hopeful sign."

"Why?" asked Tristram with gloom.

"Well, to begin with, Horatia, unlike most women, can generally discuss

a subject impersonally, but in this matter she makes a personal

application, and she always attacks your friend Dormer, when she might

just as well select Mr. Newman or Mr. Froude. Why? Because I verily

believe she is jealous of him!" And the Honourable and Reverend Stephen

Grenville sat back in his chair to make the full effect of his words.

"You don't really think that she cares--that she could ever...?"

"I don't know, my dear boy; I can't say. Perhaps I oughtn't to raise

your hopes. Horatia is a very extraordinary young woman. Sometimes I

blame myself; I blame myself very severely. I gave her an education out

of the common."

"You did everything that was right," interjected Tristram.

"I hope so, Tristram, I hope so. Did I ever tell you that her aunt once

assured me she would either die an old maid or make a fool of herself?

Well, I did my best. Your mother, Tristram, was very fond of my girl,

and she told me more than once that she believed she had the makings of

a fine woman. If she had been here now, she would have advised us; for

I can't help feeling that we are at a parting of the ways. If we had

had her help these last few years it might have been different. I have

thought that you made a mistake in not trying again when you came back

from abroad. Persistence sometimes works wonders."

"I cannot bear the idea of pestering a girl until she accepts an offer

out of sheer weariness," said Tristram with some heat.

"No, I know, and I respect you, my dear fellow," said the Rector,

looking at him affectionately. Continuing to look at him, he went on:

"Of course, too, I have doubted whether I have been right to allow you

to see so much of her. But sometimes I thought you were getting over

it, and Horatia is so entirely at her ease with you that I feared to

interrupt a friendship which I always hoped might become something else.

But I believe it has been a strain on you, Tristram. I can see it all

now, and it must not go on. It is not fair to you. How long is it since

she refused you?"

"Five years. I asked her in 1825, the summer before my mother died."

"Well, well," said the Rector, sighing gently, "the sooner you try your

luck again the better. The child strikes me as unsettled, and a little

depressed perhaps. Anyhow, for your own sake, I do not think you ought

to wait. I could wish that this young friend of yours were not coming,

for it means that nothing can be done for a week or two. However, there

is the autumn before you, and if Horatia won't have you, you will soon

be taking Orders and wanting to settle down, and perhaps you will see

someone else. You are not the sort of man to have to wait long for a

living, and you will be lonely without a wife. If my girl is so foolish

as to refuse you again, well----"

Tristram shook his head. "There is no 'well,' Mr. Grenville. It is

Horatia or nobody for me."

*CHAPTER III*

*(1)*

One of Tristram Hungerford's earliest recollections was of the smell of

sealskin, of its delicious softness, and of its singular utility, when

rubbed the wrong way, as a medium for tracing the journeys of the

children of Israel during Mr. Venn's long sermons in Clapham parish

church. His Mamma, as he sat snuggled up against her, never reproved

him for this ingenious use of her attire, and the stern, sad, greyhaired

man, on the other side of her, could not see his small son's occupation,

and would not have realised its significance if he had. For if at any

given moment John Hungerford was not attending to Mr. Venn, he was

thinking of the cause to which he had given his whole life and the

greater part of his substance--the abolition of the

slave-trade--thinking too, perhaps, of his English childhood, of his

youth and young manhood spent in Barbados as manager to that very rich

planter, his uncle, of his return to England a convinced champion of the

freedom of the negro, his untiring labours to that end, in Parliament

and out of it, his friendship with the like-minded group that held

Wilberforce and Stephen, the Thorntons, Lord Teignmouth and Hannah More,

and finally the meeting with Selina Heathcote, who now sat by his side,

and the healing of that fierce loneliness which had cut the lines in his

face that made people somewhat afraid of him.

Tristram, however, was not one of these persons, though he had early

realised that Papa was not quite the same on Sundays as on other days,

connecting the fact with his known study of prophecy and with the

puzzling distinction that was drawn between walking across the Common to

church (which was permissible) and walking on the same portion of the

earth's surface after church (which was not).

But, after all, Sunday (with its sealskin alleviations in winter) was

soon over, and thereafter Tristram was free, with his special friends

Robert Wilberforce, little John Venn, and Tom Macaulay, to play by the

Mount Pond and to explore the mysteries of the Common, or, if it was

wet, reinforced by other Wilberforces and Venns, to engage in endless

games of hide and seek up and down the big house, with its spreading

lawns and aged elms, to which, three years before the old century had

run out, John Hungerford had brought his bride. Mrs. Hungerford's chief

characteristic was a charity that knew no bounds, so that it was in her

drawing-room that Mr. Venn propounded his novel scheme of district

visiting, and in her spare bedrooms that the unfortunate African lads,

who were being educated as an experiment at Mr. Graves's school on the

Common, were nursed back to life after having nearly died of pneumonia.

And on a day in May, 1800, Tristram had made his own appearance under

its roof, and now he himself, clad in a blue coat with white collar and

ruffles, attended that academy with his small friends.

Yet those earliest pictures of Evangelical Clapham, of his father pacing

up and down the lawn under the elms in earnest talk with Mr.

Wilberforce, of his mother smiling at her guests assembled round the

great mahogany dining table (to meet, perhaps, Mrs. Hannah More or Mr.

Gisborne of Yoxall, the famous preacher), were soon overlaid with

others. In 1808 John Hungerford's health, shaken by his exertions for

the General Abolition Act of the previous year, began to cause anxiety.

The doctors recommended change of scene, and air more bracing than that

of Clapham village, suggesting a temporary retirement to the

neighbourhood of the Sussex or the Berkshire Downs. Mrs. Hungerford

having a distant relative in the latter county--the young wife of the

Rector of Compton Regis--and a suitable house at Compton Parva, the next

village, falling vacant, this house was bought, the Hungerfords

intending to divide their time between Clapham and Berkshire. But John

Hungerford, worn out with his labours in the cause to which he had

sacrificed everything, died a few months later, and Mrs. Hungerford,

with her son, was left in circumstances considerably reduced. The large

West Indian income reverted, on her husband's death, to other hands, and

so the mansion at Clapham had to be sold, and the newly-acquired house

at Compton became their permanent home. But at Compton, too, death had

been busy, for the Rector was now a widower, almost inseparable from his

baby girl. At Mrs. Hungerford's request he undertook to prepare

Tristram for Eton. Herein he was carrying out her own wishes against

those of her friends of the Common, who were inclined to regard public

schools as nurseries of vice and Cambridge as the only tolerable

University. Already Mr. Wilberforce and Mr. Venn had urged tutors at

home in preference to this scheme, and Mr. Zachary Macaulay had

suggested that Tristram should accompany Tom to his private school in

preparation for Cambridge. But all the Heathcotes from time immemorial

had gone to Eton and Oxford, and Mrs. Hungerford, praying always against

the spirit of worldliness, intended Tristram to follow the tradition.

And so for three years Tristram rode his pony to the Rectory, and learnt

to write Latin verse, while Mrs. Hungerford did her best to counteract

the Rector's educational plans for his little daughter. Disappointed in

his hopes of a son, Mr. Grenville said that there was no reason why

Horatia should not be as good a scholar as any boy, and to this end she

was to begin Latin at five and Greek at six, and meanwhile he gave her

everything she wanted. But before Horatia had mastered _Mensa, a

table_, the white pony had ceased its visits to the Rectory, for its

rider was in his first term at school.

Save for one thing, Eton did not bulk very large in Tristram's

experience. He took with him there a questioning mind and a strong

body. The first he soon learnt to disguise; the second brought him the

thing that counted, his friend. Fond of all games, he gave himself

assiduously to rowing, a sport then rather winked at than formally

recognised by the authorities, and towards the end of his fourth year

had attained the position of a captain. When selecting a crew for the

Boats of the Fourth of June, he happened to cast his eye on a

delicate-looking boy of his own age, above him in class, whose brilliant

but rather uncertain oarsmanship he had once or twice observed, and,

though he rather doubted his staying power, resolved to include him.

Nor, when he asked him to take an oar in the _Defiance_, and Dormer,

flushing with pleasure, had accepted, stoutly denying the imputation

that he was not strong, had Tristram any idea that he himself had just

performed the most pregnant action, perhaps, of his life.

The Fourth of June came, and Tristram's recruit did not belie his

promise, nor did he fail in the severer test of Election Saturday, when,

amid fireworks and bell-ringing, the _Defiance_ chased the _Mars_ round

and round Windsor Eyot and finally bumped her. It was not, indeed,

until they had landed that Tristram's well-earned triumph was somewhat

dashed by the news that Number Four had fainted, and that they could not

bring him to. He ran back to find that not all the Thames water which

was being ladled over his unconscious comrade was having any effect,

and, conscience-stricken, he picked him up and went off with him in

search of more skilled assistance, divided between alarm, admiration for

his pluck, and a certain protective sensation quite new to him. To the

end of his life he was always to entertain for Charles Dormer somewhat

similar feelings.

The result of it all was a verdict that the boy had slightly strained

his heart and must pass a week in bed. The remorseful Tristram visited

him daily, and thus, in talks more intimate than they could probably

have compassed by other means, their friendship had its birth. Later,

Tristram took Dormer home with him for the holidays, and the

compassionate soul of Selina Hungerford was able to spend itself on the

boy, who, she felt secretly sure, had never had a real mother.

The time came at last for Tristram to go up to Oxford. In the selection

of a college Mrs. Hungerford accepted the choice of Mr. Grenville, who

voted unhesitatingly for Oriel. Copleston, the Provost, he had known

and admired since undergraduate days, and he had followed the ascent of

Oriel, under Provost Eveleigh, towards her present pre-eminence. He had

seen her choose her Fellows for their intellectual promise rather than

for their social qualities, and he had seen her force upon a University

content hitherto with a farce, a system of real examination for the B.A.

degree. He had also seen (though without quite realising its import)

the gradual formation of that group of Fellows called the Noetics, who

were products of the French Revolution though they were ignorant of the

philosophy of the Continent, who, asking the why and the wherefore,

pulled everything to pieces, and who had the temerity to apply even to

religion itself the unfettered discussion meted out in Common Room to

all subjects alike. Into this atmosphere of liberal thought the Rector

was responsible for plunging the son of John Hungerford, born in the

sacred village of Clapham, and destined by his parents for the ministry.

The son of John Hungerford, however, was the last to complain of his

immersion, especially as his friend, too, was entered at Oriel. That

questioning spirit, which he had learnt to disguise at Eton, now found a

suitable soil and blossomed accordingly. Tristram had, moreover, the

fortune to fall for instruction to the great Whately himself, the Noetic

of the Noetics, the "White Bear," who treated his pupils rather like the

host of dogs which he took with him on his walks round Christ Church

meadows, throwing stones for them into the Cherwell. With his

boisterous humanity, his disturbing habit of launching Socratic

questions, his almost equally disturbing habit of imparting information

lying full length on a sofa, he kept the minds of his disciples in a

continual ferment, and when, as in Tristram's case, the critical faculty

was already highly developed, the result was so stimulating that an apt

pupil might very well pass even beyond the ideas of his master. Above

all things, Whately hated shams; he repudiated all authority, whether of

the Church or of tradition, and held that there was nothing which should

not be submitted to reason. Yet, in an Erastian age, he upheld the

freedom of the Church from the State, though he denounced the priesthood

as an invasion of Christian equality. He reduced dogma to a residuum,

yet, for his able defence of that residuum, he might rank as a Christian

apologist.

His views at first appealed very strongly to Tristram, who thought that

he was going to be able to reconcile reason, religion, learning, and the

general scheme of things. But after a while he discovered that this

process was not so easy, and Dormer, the High Churchman, was responsible

for making it harder still. And at the end of his time at Oxford he

found his opinions in such a state of flux that he determined to

postpone taking Orders. Mrs. Hungerford, rather to the surprise of the

conscience-stricken Rector, put no pressure on her son, and a noble lord

writing at this juncture in search of a tutor for his heir, Tristram was

glad to accept the post.

Three years later, on his homeward way from the Continental tour which

rounded off his time with his pupil, when choosing, at Brussels, a piece

of lace for Horatia's approaching birthday (on which he had always given

her a present), Tristram realised with a curious dismay that it was the

eighteenth recurrence of this anniversary, that he had, of course,

always intended to marry her, that applications for her hand might

already have been made from other quarters--and accepted--and that he

must get back at once. His charge was perhaps equally dismayed at the

speed with which, next day, they resumed their homeward course.

They need not have hastened. If the disappointed lover had not been

obliged to consider his mother's suddenly threatened health, it would

have gone even harder with him than it did. She who had always tended

now needed tending, and had her illness been voluntary her unrivalled

instinct for consolation could not have hit upon a means more healing.

Tristram took her away to Hastings, and there, after eight months, she

died.

Doubly as the place was now painful to him, Tristram returned to

Compton. His loss, however, had this effect, that it made intercourse

with the Rectory more easy of resumption. Having sufficient means and

no definite object for his energies he was thrown back upon himself. He

had neither the money nor the inclination to stand for Parliament. His

father's passion for the interests of the negro had not descended to

him, but more and more the crying need of the English poor was forcing

itself upon his attention. He would have liked to be able to take

Orders and to immerse himself in activities in some growing town. As it

was he found a shadow of consolation in studying the problem of Poor Law

reform. He even wrote a pamphlet, "A remedy for the present distress,"

and, as a justice of the peace, he was active in the emigration schemes

then so popular as a means of remedying the mischief caused by the

insane administration of the Poor Law. But every day seemed emptier

than the last. He saw Horatia frequently, but, disguise it as he might,

this privilege was not entirely pleasurable. He had lost the mother to

whom he was devoted, and now the Gospel according to Whately was

beginning to fail him. Slowly and bitterly it came to him that the

"manly, reasonable, moderate, not too other-worldly faith and practice"

which had once satisfied him had done so only because he was young, and

because things were going well with him. When he went in to Oxford to

see Dormer, now in Orders and Fellow of Oriel, he came across Whately

more than once, and felt the chill that one feels in meeting a person

the glamour of whose influence has departed.

But more and more he found himself a constant visitor at Oriel, until,

as a privileged person, he came to be almost included in the circle of

Dormer's friends there. These, without, exception, belonged to the new

Oriel school, who were in reaction from speculation to authority, and,

like John Keble, their guide, boldly placed character above intellect.

Dormer never argued with him now, yet, imperceptibly, the leaven

worked.... In the end it was Tristram's own need and his feeling for the

needs of others which made him able to cut himself away from all

"liberal" trammels and to rank himself under the same banner with the

friend who had waited long and patiently for such a change of mind.

During the summer term of 1830 he told Dormer that there was now no

reason why he should not be ordained.

He had told Dormer something else too--the something which he had been

discussing this very evening with Mr. Grenville, the something which was

engrossing his whole thoughts as he rode homewards under the infant

moon--his intention of again asking Horatia to marry him. There had

never been any other woman for him. He knew her very well; he was no

stranger even to her faults--little flecks making more beautiful a

beautiful flower, they seemed to him, for he had a profound belief in

her, a sort of intuitive faith in the real, secret Horatia whom

sometimes she seemed to delight in hiding up--the woman with a capacity

for great things. And the more he knew her the more he desired her.

The thought that, when the time seemed favourable, he was going to stake

his happiness on another throw, shook him. It haunted his sleep that

night in a harassing dream, relic of their conversation at supper,

wherein he was feverishly trying to build up a dyke against a flood of

water that poured and pushed upon it, and Horatia, dressed in the robes

of the Provost of Oriel, was laughing at him and telling him not to be

absurd, for the water had to come. Then, with her garden trowel, she

had herself made a little breach in the bank, and at that a smooth wave

had slipped over and carried her away, still laughing; and he woke, in a

horror for which he could scarcely account, and lay wakeful till dawn.

*CHAPTER IV*

*(1)*

There was a certain day in the year the advent of which always imbued

the Rector of Compton Regis with an irritability quite foreign to his

nature. It was that Sunday, usually occurring somewhere between Lammas

and Michaelmas, on which his conscience obliged him to preach a sermon

on eternal punishment.

The Rector was not sound on Hell, and he knew it. Every year he sought

miserably for some formula which should reconcile what he felt with what

he believed, and he sat this afternoon at his study table surrounded by

old discourses on the subject, running one hand distractedly through his

thick grey hair while the other held the pen of an unready writer.

Every now and then his gaze sought help from his beloved little cases of

Romano-British coins, or from the backs of Camden and Dugdale, and once,

leaving his uncongenial task, he got up and wistfully fingered his

latest acquisition, the brass piece of Allectus, which lay waiting to be

put in its place with its numismatical peers.

The Honourable and Reverend Stephen Grenville was one of those persons,

abounding in these islands, whose theories and practice do not match.

He stood, outwardly, for the union on equal terms of Church and State,

but in his heart he really assigned to the former a different and a

superior plane. His antiquarian leanings, very plainly manifested in

his study, were the cause alike of this inconsistency, and of the

measure of sympathy which, despite himself, he accorded to the "Oriel

young men" whose enthusiasm (a thing he feared and disliked) would, he

considered, wear off in time, and whose attachment to the historical

foundation of the Church commanded his entire approval.

Aristocrat and Tory, the best-born gentleman in the neighbourhood (and

the least likely to lay stress on the fact), he was greatly respected,

and with reason. No dissenting chapel reared its head in the parish,

and there was not a single public-house. It was his custom to celebrate

Holy Communion at Christmas, Easter and Whitsun, and on the Sundays

immediately following those feasts, and to baptise and catechise on

Sunday afternoons. His reading in church was very impressive. He knew

every one of his flock personally; he endeavoured always to do his duty

as he conceived it, else had he not now been struggling, poor gentleman,

with an uncongenial topic....

"Have you any letters for the carrier, dear?" asked Horatia, putting her

bonneted head in at the door. Sounds of impatient boundings and

whimperings behind her hinted at an accompanying presence.

The Rector abandoned Hell for the moment. "There is the letter to your

Aunt Julia, my love. I had to keep it back to make some inquiries about

railroads ... and then this sermon ... Where have I put it?" Rumpling

his hair still more violently he reflected, and having searched among

the litter on his table, found what he sought and gave it to his

daughter.

"Try and have your sermon finished when I come back in an hour's time,

there's a good Papa," suggested Horatia, kissing him. "I am sure what

you said last year would do quite well. I shall go round by Five-Acres

and back by the road."

Outside the inn the Oxford carrier was just preparing to start, wrapped

in an old many-caped coat, which had probably once adorned a greater

luminary, some driver of the numerous London and Oxford coaches.

Horatia gave him the letter, acknowledged the landlord's respectful

greeting, and summoning her spaniel from some ravishing discovery in the

yard, turned along the road.

Presently the carrier passed her, cracking his whip in emulation of the

_Magnet_ or the _Regulator_, and as she watched the lumbering covered

cart dwindle gradually in the distance, Horatia found her mind following

the odyssey of Aunt Julia's letter; saw it being trundled along the

miles of road, past Kingston Bagpuize and Besselsleigh and down the long

hill into Oxford; witnessed its transference next morning to the London

coach at the _Angel_, and finally pictured the postman delivering it at

Cavendish Square, and Aunt Julia receiving it at breakfast in the big,

handsome, gloomy dining-room.

And because, not having any great love of that lady, she had seen little

of Aunt Julia since her childhood, she instinctively imaged her as she

had appeared in those days, with her smooth brown hair, her rich and

smooth brown dress; and she saw, round the breakfast table, her eight

cousins, all of the ages which were respectively theirs about the time

of the battle of Salamanca. (Horatia herself was born in Trafalgar year,

and owed her name to that fact.) Further, she recalled her

never-forgotten and scarcely forgiven stay under Aunt Julia's roof at

that epoch.

She was six or seven, and she had been deposited in Aunt Julia's care on

account of an epidemic at Compton. Her nurse did not accompany her.

Mrs. Baird, a strict Evangelical, brought up her children very literally

in the fear of the Lord, and she believed in "breaking a child's will."

Yet she was kind and perfectly just, while her offspring were such

models of good behaviour that it seemed now to Horatia as if this

process could not have been painful to them. But the atmosphere of

compulsory religion, which attained its apogee on Sunday, caused Horatia

to look upon that day with a novel horror. Church in the morning, with

a long string of little be-pantalooned worshippers setting out in double

file towards Margaret Chapel, the two rearmost reciting to their father,

during that short transit, verses and hymns: after church more verses

and hymns, and then it three o'clock a heavy meal, at which all the

children dined with their parents. The conversation was instructive.

Uncle James never failed to quote with approval Mr. Wilberforce's

application of the text in Proverbs about the dinner of herbs and the

stalled ox, pointing out that his fortunate offspring enjoyed both the

better meal and the blessings of affection. Afterwards there was more

religious instruction, and family prayers, in the evening, of enormously

swollen bulk. The first Sunday of her stay, Horatia bore these

multiplied devotions because she was unaware, at any given moment, how

much was still to follow. On the second Sunday she restrained herself

until the evening. It was Aunt Julia's custom always to hear the

prayers of the younger children; but when Horatia in her turn was bidden

to kneel at that unyielding lap, she refused. She would not say any

more prayers: God, she announced, with confidence, must be tired; He had

been hearing them all day. And in this opinion she remained firm.

Only having suffered the mildest reproofs for wrong-doing, Horatia was

not warned when the eulogy of the rod of correction taken from the Book

of Proverbs was chosen for the nightly reading, but when the other

children had been dismissed she suddenly experienced, at the lap she had

scorned, the practical effect of the wise man's teaching. Yet Aunt

Julia, though she had not spared for her crying, suffered defeat, for

Horatia did not say her prayers, and her visit was shortly afterwards

terminated lest she should contaminate the other children. Aunt Julia

indeed offered to undertake a course of "bringing the child to her

senses" at some future date, but the Rector declined the proposal, nor

did Horatia visit again in Cavendish Square until she was nearly grown

up. It was many a day, too, before she could be coaxed by her father to

resume the practice of prayer.

Aunt Julia's hair was not so brown now, and of the eight daughters five

were prosperously married. Horatia knew that none of them considered

herself to have had a childhood other than happy. Perhaps it was a good

preparation for the state of matrimony, to have your "will broken" early

in life. If so, how far was she herself from possessing that desired

qualification!

Horatia smiled at the thought as she walked along. Since the death of

the mother whom she could not remember, and the extinction of the hope

of a son (for Mr. Grenville had a feeling against second marriages), she

had been to her father almost everything that a son could have

been--with the added advantage that she was never obliged to leave him.

Latin and Greek and ancient history had been laid open to her as to a

boy; she was able to take an interest in the Rector's antiquarian

pursuits, and could have abstracted passages from the Fathers for him if

he had wanted them. All this Mr. Grenville had taught her himself,

turning a deaf ear to family representations on the necessity of a

governess, the use of the globes, and deportment. Music and Italian

masters, however, visited the Rectory from time to time, imparting

knowledge when their pupil was in the mood to receive it, but it was to

the old emigre priest settled at East Hendred, whom she loved, that she

owed her remarkably good knowledge and pronunciation of French, and her

interest in the history of his native land. For after all Horatia was

not a typical classical scholar; her acquaintance with Greek and Latin

authors was by no means extensive, and need not so much have alarmed her

neighbours.

*(2)*

Decidedly it would, after all, soon be autumn in earnest. Only five

days ago, when she was in the garden among the flowers, Horatia had

scouted the thought, but there was less of summer here. Farmer Wilson's

beeches were actually beginning to turn. There was a tiny trail of

leaves along the side of Narrow Lane, as she could see by glancing down

it. The high road, less overshadowed, was clearer of these evidences of

mortality. How blue was the line of the Downs!

A horseman overtook her, riding fast, and raising his hat as he passed,

but without looking at her. It was no one that she knew, yet, a good

rider herself, Horatia instinctively remarked his ease and grace, his

perfect seat. He was taking the same road as she, but long before she

got to the turn he had disappeared round it; and indeed she had

forgotten him even sooner, for Rover the spaniel suddenly went delirious

over a hedgehog which he just then discovered, and which he had to be

coerced into leaving behind. Horatia was still praising and scolding

her dog when she got to the turn--and when the sound of loud screaming

ahead caused her to hasten her steps.

By the side of the road, a little way down, was a group composed of the

gentleman who had passed her, his horse, and a small child in a

pinafore. From this infant, seated upon the border of grass, proceeded

the loud wails which Horatia had heard; the rider, one buckskinned knee

upon the ground, was stooping over it and addressing it in tones that,

as Horatia came nearer, sounded alternately anxious and coaxing.

"It is Tommy Wilson," thought Miss Grenville aghast. "He is always

playing in the road, and now he's been ridden over.... But it can't be

serious, or he would not be able to yell like that." Nevertheless she

hastened still more. The gentleman, absorbed in his blandishments, did

not hear her.

"Leetle boy," she heard him say--"leetle boy, you are not hurt, not the

least in the world. You are frightened, soit, but you are not hurt.

See, here is a crown"--the yells ceased for a moment--"now rise and go

to your home. Quoi! you cannot stand upon your feet?" For he had

lifted the infant to a standing posture, which it instantly abandoned,

falling this time prone upon the ground, and emitting now perfect

shrieks of rage or terror.

"Dieu! a-t-il des poumons!" exclaimed the young man despairingly to

himself. He made a gesture and rose; at the same instant heard

Horatia's step and, turning round, snatched off his hat. His mien

implored the succour which she would have rendered in any case.

"Is the child really hurt, Sir?" she asked. As well pretend that she

took him for an Englishman, since he spoke the tongue so readily!

"Mademoiselle," said the young man dramatically, "I swear to you that my

horse never passed within a foot of him. But he runs across the road in

front of me, and falls down; I dismount and pick him up--what else could

I do?--and since that time he ceases not to yell comme un demon!"

His brilliant, speaking dark-blue eyes rested on her with a mixture of

humour, appeal, and (it was impossible not to recognise it) of

admiration. His black silk cravat was so high that his chin creased it;

his chamois-coloured cashmere waistcoat was fastened with buttons of

chased gold, and the cut of his greenish-bronze coat testified to an

ultra-fashionable tailor. Horatia looked at Tommy Wilson, now rolling

on the grass in a perfect luxury of woe. Bending over him she seized

him firmly by the arm.

"Tommy," she commanded, "get up!" More successful than the Frenchman,

she restored him to some measure of equilibrium. "Now you are coming

with me to the doctor to show him where you are hurt. Come along!"

Her voice, which he knew, had the effect of reducing the youth's

lamentations, but at her suggestion a fresh tide of alarm swept over his

round, smeared face. He resisted, ejaculating hoarsely: "No, Miss! No,

Miss 'Ratia! No, I 'ont!"

"Very well then, I shall bring the doctor to you here," said Miss

Grenville firmly. "Now mind, Tommy, that you stay where you are without

moving till I come back with him. Do you hear?" She loosed her hold

and stood back, holding up a warning finger.

A success almost startling rewarded her manoeuvre. For five seconds,

perhaps, Thomas Wilson stood blinking at her through his tears, his

mouth working woefully at the corners; then, with an expression of

forlorn determination, he turned, ran past the horse, and set off to

trot home at a pace which dispelled the least suspicion of injury.

*CHAPTER V*

*(1)*

Both Horatia and the stranger whom she had befriended looked after the

small vanishing figure with an amused relief; then the young man turned,

and, clasping his hat to his breast (for he was still bareheaded), made

her a graceful, formal bow.

"Mademoiselle, I am your debtor to my dying day! Conceive how I am

alarmed by that so evil boy! Ma foi, I began to see myself in an

English prison for attempted murder."

"Mr. Hungerford would soon have effected your release, Monsieur," said

Horatia, laughing. "May I ask, indeed, why he has left you to these

adventures?" For she would no longer pretend ignorance of his identity.

The young man showed a marked surprise. "Is it possible that I have the

good fortune to be known to you?" he exclaimed. "But yes; I am the

guest of Mr. Hungerford, and, to make a clean breast of my sins,

Mademoiselle, I have lost him. He was taking me to pay a call upon M.

le Recteur of Compton Regis, and his daughter--cousins of Mr.

Hungerford, I believe--we parted half an hour ago, and I was to meet him

at some place whose name I have forgotten; then I have the contretemps

with the infant and have lost the way also. I am in despair, because I

have it in my mind that the cousine of Mr. Hungerford is une tres belle

personne, and her father very instructed; and who knows now whether I

shall ever see them?"

His air of regret and helplessness was rather attractive; but the

suspicion that he really had more than half an inkling who she was

restored to Miss Grenville's voice and manner something of the decorum

proper to the chance meeting of a young lady with a strange gentleman on

the road--a decorum already a good deal impaired by the feeling of

complicity in the business of Tommy Wilson.

"I have no doubt," she said, "that you will find Mr. Hungerford already

at the Rectory, and I will direct you the shortest way thither. I am

myself Miss Grenville."

M. le Comte de la Roche-Guyon smote himself lightly on the breast. "I

might have guessed it!" he said in an aside to Tristram's horse.

"Mademoiselle, I am more than ever your devoted servant ... Permit me!"

He kissed her gloved hand with a singular mixture of reverence and

fervour. "But ... if we are going the same way ... might I not have the

great honour of accompanying you, or would it not be considered

convenable, in England?"

His tone, his innocent, pleading glance suggested that in his own less

conventional native land such a proceeding would be perfectly proper;

whereas Horatia knew the exact contrary to be the case. However, she

always thought that she despised convention; there was the chance that

he might get lost again, and meanwhile poor Tristram would be waiting

about Heaven knew where. So she said, with sufficient dignity, that she

should be very pleased, and they started homewards, conversing with

great propriety on such banal subjects as the weather, and with

Tristram's horse pacing beside them for chaperon. Yet the shade of

Tommy Wilson, hovering cherub-like above them, linked them in a

half-guilty alliance.

And thus they came round by Five-Acres into Compton Regis, and at the

cross-roads by the farm found Tristram Hungerford, on his old horse,

looking for his missing guest.

"My dear La Roche-Guyon, where have you been?" he demanded, as he

dismounted and saluted Horatia.

"In Paradise," responded the young man audaciously. "Eh quoi, you were

anxious about me, mon ami? I found a guardian angel in the person of

Miss Grenville herself."

"So I see," answered his host a trifle drily. "I rode back to Risley to

look for you."

The Comte protested that he was desolated, at the same time managing to

convey to the girl beside him, without either speech or look, that, for

obvious reasons, he was nothing of the sort. But Miss Grenville, with a

heightened colour, walked on in silence between them. She had no taste

for exaggerated compliments; that foolish utterance about Paradise would

not have been at all in good taste for an Englishman. But, of course,

M. de la Roche-Guyon was a foreigner.

She had yet to learn that M. de la Roche-Guyon, born and partially

educated as he had been in England, had a much less incomplete knowledge

of English usage than he found convenient, at times, to publish abroad.

*(2)*

Armand-Maurice de la Roche-Guyon achieved, in the Rectory drawing-room,

the impression which he never failed to make in any society. Man or

woman, you wanted instinctively to be friends with him; he had so

engaging an air of expecting it. And Horatia noticed afresh how

intensely he was alive, and how little he tried to conceal the fact.

She thought of the wooden, controlled visages of some of her male

acquaintances, and contrasted them with his changing, vivid face, in

which every feature, from the clear eyebrows to the rather mocking

mouth, could express any shade of feeling from derision to adoration.

Such foreign accent as he retained lent a charm to his fluent English,

which, though apt to desert him at moments of crisis, carried him

gallantly in ordinary conversation, and only required occasional help

from a gesture or a French word. But, as he explained, he had been born

in England, and therefore the English "th," the shibboleth of his

countrymen, troubled him but little.

"M. l'Abbe Dubayet, who taught my daughter, never learnt our language

properly, though he had been in England for a quarter of a century,"

remarked the Rector, commenting on his visitor's proficiency.

"So much the better for Mademoiselle, who speaks, I will wager, like a

Tourangelle," responded the young Frenchman, with a little bow in

Horatia's direction.

"Yes, she does speak well," said the Rector.

"Her friends complain, I believe, that they cannot follow her on that

account," murmured Tristram.

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Horatia. "Do not think to flatter me into

talking French with M. de la Roche-Guyon. I shall ask him the

inevitable question in English: How do you like England, Monsieur?"

"Mais, mon Dieu!" exclaimed the guest, "how am I to reply to that? If

you mean the country, Mademoiselle, it is not new to me; if you mean

John Bull, it would not be polite of me to tell you how much he

sometimes amuses me; if you mean the English ladies, you would think

what I should say too polite, and you would not believe me."

"We had better let you off, La Roche-Guyon," said Tristram. "Far be it

from us to ask why John Bull amuses you."

"You have seen Oxford, I suppose, Monsieur?" inquired the Rector.

"Already twice," responded M. de la Roche-Guyon. "I find it

beautiful--but of a beauty! We have nothing like it; it must be the

wonder of the world, your University. Fortunate young men, to live in

those magnificent colleges, and disport themselves on those lawns! I

saw there--what did I not see? all the colleges, I think, certainly that

of Oriel, the nurse of Mr. Hungerford--and the theatre, with those heads

of Roman Emperors (but, indeed, I hope they were not really like that),

and the great library, superb, and a museum--I have forgotten its name,

where there was a jewel of Alfred, and the sword sent by the Pope to

your Henry VIII--he would not send one, I think, to William IV?--and a

horn which grew upon the head of a woman (but that I do not believe,

naturally) and a picture of the Christ carrying the cross made in the

feathers of the humming-bird. Yes, and I also saw in the library, I

think, a model of our Maison Carree at Nimes. But it is the whole city,

with its towers and gardens, which has most ravished me."

"Ah, do you take an interest in Roman remains?" queried the Rector,

brightening. "We can't show you another Maison Carree of course, but

there is a very fair Roman villa between here and Oxford, with a Roman

cemetery near it. Then there is Cherbury Camp, not far from us--though

that is probably pre-Roman, if not pre-British; it is egg-shaped, and

has three valla, with fosses outside each--very interesting. I should

have great pleasure in showing it to you, Monsieur, if you cared to see

it."

"I am sure that M. le Comte will not care for that, Papa," interposed

Horatia. "I assure you, Monsieur, it is nothing but a few grassy banks,

all ploughed away except in one place. Imagination supplies the rest."

"And what, Miss, supplies the Roman coins in my study, from Augustus to

Honorius, all found in this county?" demanded her father. "And the

cameo of Hermes with a cornucopia, and the very Anglo-Saxon fibula you

are wearing at this moment, ungrateful girl!"

"You have found these things!" exclaimed the young Frenchman eagerly,

and his quick glance went to Horatia's neck. "De grace, Monsieur,

permit me to avail myself of your so kind offer! I have always desired

to behold the traces of our conquerors and yours. What a people, the

Romans!"

The Rector, delighted at this responsive enthusiasm, said that he would

certainly conduct the visitor to Cherbury Camp next morning, and was

warmly thanked for his offer. Tristram, though a little surprised at

his guest's unexpected antiquarian zeal, was not ill-pleased at the

arrangement, for he had an article to finish. Miss Grenville, however,

continued to oppose her father's selection.

"I have a much better idea than that," she announced. "Take M. de la

Roche-Guyon to see the White Horse, Papa."

"The White Horse, what is that?" inquired the young man. "An old inn?"

"It is a horse cut in the hillside by the Anglo-Saxons," Horatia

informed him. "It is said to have been made by command of Alfred to

commemorate his victory over the Danes. Papa does not believe that

theory, as everyone else does. But he will no doubt explain his

heretical ideas to you if you go with him to-morrow. At any rate, you

will get a magnificent view, and see something you have not the like of,

I suppose, in France."

"But pardon," retorted the Frenchman, "in France we have the white horse

of M. de Lafayette, and that is already an animal--how do you say,

legendaire; and some day perhaps he will be laid out as a bed in the

gardens of the Tuileries. Oh, la belle idee!"

Horatia laughed. But the mention of Lafayette reminded her of recent

events.

"You were in the revolution, perhaps, Monsieur?"

The young man's face darkened. "How do you mean, 'in it,' Mademoiselle?

You do not think that I am one of those scoundrelly revolutionaries?"

"No, indeed! But you saw it--you fought in it, perhaps?"

The Comte de la Roche-Guyon shrugged his shoulders. "Yes, I fought a

little. But I had bad luck."

What this misfortune was he did not specify. He did not seem to wish to

talk about the Days of July, and Horatia liked him for it, feeling sure

that the long white seam which she suddenly espied on the back of his

right hand was an honourable memento of the occasion, and not realising

that the age of so well-healed a wound must be nearer two years than two

months.

"Ah, a sad business," said Mr. Grenville sympathetically. "And you have

just come from Lulworth, I understand. How did you find the King?"

"His Majesty is lodged tant bien que mal," responded their visitor.

"The Castle is out of repair and there is little state. The day before

I left I saw Madame la Dauphine and her lady driving out in the rain in

a shabby little open carriage drawn by a rough pony. They both had old

straw bonnets and Madame la Duchesse d'Angouleme a light brown shawl. I

believe that they were one day taken for servants, for housekeepers, at

a neighbouring chateau which they went to visit."

"What unparalleled misfortunes have been hers!" said the Rector. "And

the Duchesse de Berry?"

"Ah, she finds it too dull there; she goes visiting. Madame la Duchesse

de Berry will not stop at anything; she has the spirit of an Amazon. My

father tells me that on the way from Paris to Cherbourg she went armed

with pistols, and fired them off once, too, in the King's presence. His

Majesty was much annoyed."

"It is her little son, is it not, who is the heir to the crown?" asked

Horatia. "How old is he?"

"Henry V is this month ten years old," responded the Comte.

"Britwell-Prior in Oxfordshire belongs to the Welds of Lulworth," said

the Rector musingly. "Oh, are you going, Tristram? Well, mind that you

spare me M. de la Roche-Guyon to-morrow morning. I will be ... let me

see--yes, I will be at the cross-roads at half-past ten, if he will join

me there, and we will go to the White Horse, if Robin, who is really

getting very fat, will carry me up the hill. And when shall I see you

again?"

"At the Squire's on Saturday, I expect," said Tristram, adding that he

hoped himself to get up a little dinner-party next week, if he could

persuade M. de la Roche-Guyon to stay. He was beginning to take his

leave when Horatia interrupted him.

"Before you go, Tristram, I want to show you this book which I picked up

in Oxford before I went away. Excuse me, M. le Comte."

It is to be presumed that M. le Comte excused her, no other course being

open to him, but he bent interested eyes upon her as she and Tristram

stooped over the book together, eyes which had already opened wider than

their wont when he first heard the mutual use of the Christian name.

"Pardon," he observed in a low voice to the Rector, "but Mademoiselle

your daughter and Mr. Hungerford are par--relations, I should say?"

"A sort of cousins," replied Mr. Grenville. "Moreover Tristram

Hungerford is almost a son to me--an old pupil whom I have known since

he was a child." And wishing further to disarm possible foreign

criticism, he added, "Our English girls have much more liberty than

yours in France, you know."

"For that reason I have always wished to be an Englishman," was M. de la

Roche-Guyon's reply to this.

"Your Miss Grenville is very pretty, to my mind," he observed to his

host as they rode homewards some twenty minutes later. "Has she many

admirers?"

Mr. Hungerford thought this question decidedly impertinent--especially

as he could not answer it in the affirmative--but remembering, like

Horatia, that the speaker was a foreigner, abstained from an attempt to

snub him. He answered a little stiffly:

"Miss Grenville is not concerned to see every man at her feet."

"So I supposed," returned the young Frenchman.

"She is docte, instruite. Nevertheless----" he broke off and shot a

long, keen and rather malicious glance at Tristram's

profile--"nevertheless, some day she will find it quite an amusing game.

They all do, in the end."

Tristram pulled out his watch. "Shall we trot a little?" he suggested

pleasantly. "It is later than I thought."

*CHAPTER VI*

*(1)*

"But ... mille pardons ... it is not very resembling--it is not much

like a horse," said M. le Comte de la Roche-Guyon a little doubtfully.

The wind of the Berkshire Downs blew through his dark hair as he stood,

hat on hip, one hand at his chin, and looked down on the strange beast

stretched at his feet on the chalky hillside turf.

"It is not," confessed the Rector, holding on to his hat. "For one

thing the tail seems longer than the legs, does it not? (The whole

thing, I must tell you, is three hundred and seventy-four feet long, and

covers an acre of ground.) And yet the form of the horse's figure as

represented on ancient British coins is known to be a debased copy of

the elegant animals on the pieces struck by Philip of Macedon. And that

is one reason why I take the Horse to be of far older origin than the

victory of Ashdown in 871 which it is supposed to commemorate. I take

it to be of British, not of Saxon, times."

"Really!" murmured his audience.

"Yes," said Mr. Grenville with growing impressiveness, "it is to me

certain that the ceremonies connected with the quinquennial scouring of

the Horse, of which I will tell you presently, are religious in origin."

And he expanded this theory.

If M. de la Roche-Guyon (as is highly probable) was supremely

indifferent to date and origin, and unmoved by the thought of the

ancient race to whom the Rector attributed the execution of the chalk

steed, he concealed it well. Considering that he was quite ignorant of

the pre-Conquest history of England his questions were remarkably

intelligent, and Mr. Grenville thoroughly enjoyed his own exposition.

"Well, we must be going," he said regretfully at last, and they went to

the place where they had left their horses tethered a little lower down.

The descent was steep and stony, and before they had gone very far the

Frenchman pulled up with apologies; he feared that his horse, or rather

Mr. Hungerford's, had a stone in its shoe. Mr. Grenville whiled away the

delay by speaking of the very fine neolithic celt which he had found at

his favourite Cherbury, nor did it occur to him that the young man

tinkering at his horse's foot had not the remotest idea of what a celt

might be. On the contrary, the Comte smiled very pleasantly as he

remounted, and congratulated Mr. Grenville on possessing this object.

The Rector agreed that he was lucky.

"It is fifteen years ago since I found it," he mused, "but I remember my

excitement as if it were yesterday. I must show it to you when we get

back--for, of course, Hungerford understands that you are returning to

luncheon with me?--Hold up, Robin! I should like also to show you my

coins."

M. de la Roche-Guyon, it appeared, asked nothing better, and they

proceeded in the September sunshine. They were within a mile of Compton

when the Rector suddenly checked his fat cob.

"I believe, M. le Comte, that your horse is losing a shoe. Hungerford's

man must be very careless, for I happen to know that the beast was shod

only last week. Or perhaps it was that stone? Fortunately we are only a

little way from home."

Once again the young man dismounted. "It is true," he said. "It must

have been the stone. What a nuisance!" The Rector could not see him

biting his lips to hide a smile, nor hear him mutter "Peste! It was not

necessary, after all!"

"It does not in the least resemble the horse of M. de Lafayette," he

assured Horatia at luncheon, a meal which passed off with much gaiety,

but at the conclusion of which the Rector spoke again of his coins and

the famous celt. Horatia, though she could not bring herself to believe

the vivacious young Frenchman really interested in the contents of

Berkshire tumuli, had not the heart to try to prevent her father from

bringing out his treasures, and she watched M. de la Roche-Guyon being

borne off to the study with mingled amusement and compassion. It was

his own fault after all; and she was sure that Papa could not keep him

long--because he still had not finished that sermon.

Half an hour later, sitting with some embroidery on the lawn, she knew

that the Rector must have returned to his task, for she beheld the Comte

to issue alone from the house.

"M. le Recteur permits that I make my adieux," he said as he came

towards her. "Will Mademoiselle permit it also?"

Horatia laid down her work. "Pray do not hurry away, Monsieur. Papa

has his sermon to finish, and I, as you see, have no serious occupation.

Will you not sit down for a little?"

The young Frenchman complied readily enough. His glance went round the

garden, over the phloxes and sunflowers, rested a moment on a book lying

on the grass, and came back to Horatia. He gave a little, half-checked

sigh.

"You cannot think, Mademoiselle," he said after a moment's silence, "how

delightful it is for an exile like myself to be admitted again into the

intimacy of home life. Not only is it beautiful and touching, but it is

unexpected; for in France we are told that you have no life of the

family to be compared with ours; and I have been used ... in the past

... to so much."

His voice dropped, and he looked down.

"We think, in England, that we have much of it too," said Horatia rather

softly. "But--an exile--why do you call yourself that, Monsieur le

Comte? Surely you are returning to France?"

The young man raised his eyes, blue and laughing no longer. "Ah, yes,

Mademoiselle," he said with meaning, "my body returns indeed, but my

heart remains behind ... at Lulworth, with my King, with my father who

is privileged to be, for his sake, an exile in body as well. I go back

to my home in Paris, where my father's place will be for ever vacant; I

go back to take up my life of yesterday, to meet my friends, to laugh,

to talk, and ... if Heaven grant it, to plot for Henry V. That is all I

can do.... Yes, I go back, but I am no less an exile, though in my

native land. Surely you, Mademoiselle, can understand that?"

Horatia bent her head over her embroidery. "Yes, I think I understand,"

she said. But she was puzzled; the people she knew did not talk like

this.

"Eh bien!" went on Armand de la Roche-Guyon more lightly, "it is Fate.

Our house has served the Lilies for a thousand years, and I suppose the

time has come to die with them. You can understand that too, you whose

ancestors fought for the Stuarts."

None of Miss Grenville's ancestors--persons distinctly Hanoverian in

sympathy--had ever supported that romantic cause, but for the moment,

moved by the voice, she almost believed that they had.

"But Louis-Philippe is a Bourbon," she suggested. "You would not----"

"Serve the son of Egalite!" exclaimed the Comte. "Serve the man who has

usurped the throne of France! Sooner would I die!---- But I do not

wish to talk of my affairs. Tell me of yourself, Mademoiselle, of your

life here. It is vain that you try to disguise from me that you surpass

other women in intellect and character as you surpass them--pardon me

that I say it--in beauty. Chez nous, that superiority is recognised;

but with you, is it not, you must hide it from people that you do not

frighten them by your attainments. But we Frenchmen understand."

His tone and manner were perfect; grave, respectful, sympathetic, quite

without commonplace gallantry. Horatia was amazed at his penetration.

"You are quite right," she said, laying down her work. "It is very

ridiculous that my small accomplishments should have the effect of

walling me off, as it were, from the rest of the world, but so it is. I

am no cleverer than other girls, but, thanks to my kind father, I am

better educated. You cannot imagine, M. le Comte, how that fact hampers

me in ordinary life. When I stay with my cousins in Northamptonshire

they think it a joke to introduce me as a 'bluestocking,' as one who

knows Greek. Every man--every young man at least--that I meet is

frightened of me, or pretends to be so, which is sillier still; every

woman in her heart dislikes me. I suppose they think that I am

'superior.'"

"Ah, the women, I can believe that," said Armand de la Roche-Guyon

quickly. "But the men, no, that I can never understand; no Frenchman

could understand it."

In a flash Horatia was aware how intimately she had been talking to him.

But he went on:

"You should have been born a Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle. In Paris you

would occupy your proper place, reigning at once by beauty and by wit,

as only our women do."

Horatia coloured. "Do you then notice so much difference in England?"

she asked, for the sake of saying something.

The young man cast up his eyes to heaven. "Mademoiselle, by the very

disposition of the chairs in an English drawing-room after dinner one

can see it! In a row on one side of the room are the ladies; in a row

on the other the gentlemen, perhaps looking at them indeed, but more

likely talking among themselves of hunting or of politics. Now with us

how different! It is to the ladies that the hour of the drawing-room is

consecrated; we pay them court, we cannot help it, it is in the blood

with us. Besides, have they not great influence on the situation of a

man of the world? But with you, suppose now that M. le mari is at his

club, eating a dinner that lasts for hours, and that then he goes to the

ballet at the Opera, and afterwards perhaps to supper, all this time his

unfortunate spouse must shut her doors to visitors, and, for all

amusement, may take a cup of tea tete-a-tete with his armchair--vous

savez, c'est du barbarisme!"

He was quite excited, and it did not occur to Horatia, amused and rather

pleased, to wonder whether his indignation were on behalf of the

excluded visitor or the secluded lady.

"You seem to know a great deal about it," she observed, smiling.

But M. de la Roche-Guyon here got up rather suddenly and said that he

must be going. Horatia, could she have read his thoughts, might have

reassured him, and told him that the sound he had heard was not the

Rector opening the drawing-room window, with a view to sallying forth,

but the garden gate, which was loose on the latch.

He had raised her hand in the graceful foreign fashion to his lips

before she said, "But shall I not see you to-morrow?"

"To-morrow!" said he with enthusiasm. "Do you tell me that you,

Mademoiselle, will be at the dinner-party of the Squire to which I am

told I am bidden?"

"Yes," said Miss Grenville. "And I shall be interested to observe

whether, after dinner, you follow the English fashion or the French."

"After what you have told me, is there need to ask?"

Horatia went into the house singing. Something shining and vital seemed

to have brushed against her in passing to-day.

*(2)*

The impression which Miss Grenville gained of M. de la Roche-Guyon at

the Squire's dinner-party next day was that, though separated from her

by the length of the table, many epergnes and piles of fruit, and though

something monopolised by the ladies on either side of him, he was always

looking in her direction if she happened to glance in his. It gave her

a curious and entirely novel sensation.

In the drawing-room afterwards all the ladies were loud in his praises.

"So charming, and with such courtly manners--so distinguished, and O, so

handsome! How interesting, too, that he should be a friend of Mr.

Hungerford's--characters so totally unlike, and tastes too, one would

imagine. But evidently the Count knows how to be all things to all

men!"

Horatia, to whom this last remark was made, stiffened a little on

Tristram's behalf. "I think it was very good of Mr. Hungerford to ask

him to stay with him," she said, "for he is only an acquaintance. It is

really M. de la Roche-Guyon's brother whom Mr. Hungerford knows."

When the gentlemen came in from the dining-room, rather earlier than

they were expected, there was a knot of ladies in the centre of the

room, of which, however, Horatia was not a part. Into this circle M. de

la Roche-Guyon was immediately absorbed, and a buzz of laughter and

conversation at once arose.

Tristram came over to Horatia smiling. "It's hopeless to get La

Roche-Guyon out, but no doubt he is enjoying himself. I do not think

his brother would be quite so much at home."

"Why?" asked Horatia with interest. "What is his brother like? Is he

very different?"

"Quite," responded Tristram laconically, sitting down beside her.

"He is older, is he not?"

"Yes, by nearly twenty years, I should think."

"I can't imagine this M. de la Roche-Guyon twenty years older."

"You need not try. They are not in the least replicas of each other.

Emmanuel de la Roche-Guyon was never like his brother, of that I am

sure."

"It is sad for him to be practically an exile," observed Horatia.

Tristram merely looked at her, then at the laughing group in the middle

of the room, and raised his eyebrows. Horatia smiled in spite of

herself.

"I see what you mean. Well, I will bestow my sympathy better. It is

sad for the Duke to be in exile at Lulworth, with Charles X."

Tristram lowered his voice. "My dear Horatia, there are compensations

even in banishment. Imagine living under the same roof with all the

relatives you ever had--with, say, your great-grandmother, your

grandmother, all your great-aunts, your brothers, your nephews.... That

is what the French generally mean by family life--a kind of hotel, with

the additional drawback of knowing intimately all the other occupants.

They have not our idea of the home that grows up round two people."

Once again Horatia was conscious of that new quality in Tristram's

voice, once again she could disregard it, for before she had time to

make a reply of any sort she perceived that the Comte de la Roche-Guyon

was free, and was coming towards them.

"Ah, here you are!" said Tristram, getting up. "Take my place, and talk

to Miss Grenville for a little." Going off, he crossed the room to

speak to a neglected spinster in a corner.

M. de la Roche-Guyon sat down in his vacated place without more ado. He

gave one glance round the room, and said, "Si nous causions un peu en

francais?"

His eyes, as dancing and daring as they had been sad yesterday,

challenged her to more than conversation in a foreign tongue. And

something in Horatia's soul responded.

"Volontiers, Monsieur. What shall we talk about?"

The young man drew his chair a thought nearer. Conversation was rippling

all around them; they were isolated in a sea of chatter.

"I will tell you a secret," he said. "I can tell you in French, but you

must promise me to forget it in English."

"Very well, I promise."

"You remember, Mademoiselle, that we were late yesterday, M. votre pere

and I, because M. Hungerford's horse cast a shoe as we came back."

Horatia nodded.

"And how you blamed the groom of M. Hungerford or the blacksmith? Eh

bien, I alone was to blame!"

Miss Grenville opened astonished eyes. "I do not understand you,

Monsieur. You did not shoe the horse; and you did not make the shoe

come off on purpose."

"Mais si, si, si!" reiterated the young Frenchman, his eyes sparkling.

"_Peccavi nimis, cogitatione, verbo, et opere_. I loosened the nails

before I left the hillside!"

"But why?"

"I am not sure that I dare tell you, after all! But you have promised

me absolution. Eh bien, I wanted to make sure of ... in other words, I

thought I would force M. le Recteur to ask me to luncheon.... You are

not annoyed?"

Certainly the emotion which shot through Miss Grenville, and which flew

its flag in her cheeks was not annoyance. She did not know what it was.

"I should like to give M. Hungerford a golden horseshoe," proceeded the

Comte, watching her. "It is true that I need not have----"

"Hush!" said Horatia, "Miss Bailey is going to sing."

In the centre of the room a very blonde lady in white was already

displaying her arms to the harp, and her sister, similarly clad, shortly

gave commands, in a rather shrill soprano, to light up the festal bower

when the stars were gleaming deep, asserting that she had met the shock

of the Paynim spears as the mountain meets the sun, but asseverating

that naught to her were blood and tears, for her lovely bride was won.

Under cover of the applause which greeted this statement, Tristram made

his way back to the couple.

"La Roche-Guyon, be prepared to emulate the songstress. Your fate will

be upon you in a moment."

"Misericorde!" exclaimed the young man, and at that moment, indeed, his

hostess was seen to be bearing down upon him.

"M. le Comte, you will sing to us, will you not? Oh, I am sure you can

sing without your music--you foreigners are so gifted! Do, pray, favour

us!" And, other ladies joining in the request, M. le Comte, with none

of the self-consciousness of an Englishman similarly placed, seated

himself at the piano. "I shall sing to you, ladies," he announced after

a moment's thought, "a little old song that was a favourite with Marie

Antoinette."

The fair listeners prepared to be affected, expecting regrets for

Trianon or sighs from the Temple. But M. de la Roche-Guyon broke into

the gallant impertinence of Joli Tambour, and very well he sang it.

So the assembly heard that there was once a drummer boy returning from

the wars, from whom, as he passed under the palace window, the princess

asked his rose, but that, when he demanded her hand in marriage, the

king, her father, refused it, saying he was not rich enough. However,

when Joli Tambour replied that he was "fils d'Angleterre," with three

ships upon the sea, one full of gold, one of precious stones, and the

third to take his love a-sailing, the king said that he might have his

daughter. But Joli Tambour refused her, for there were fairer in his

own land:

"Dans mon pays, y'en a de plus jolies,

Dans mon pays, y'en a de plus jolies,

Et ran, tan, plan!"

"Rather a slap in the face!" laughed a jolly dowager to Horatia. "The

young man evidently wishes to intimate that he is not for marrying any

of our daughters."

"Oh, surely he had no such motive!" returned Miss Grenville.

"Besides----" she began, and stopped, for it had suddenly occurred to

her that she did not really know whether he were married or not.

She had no further speech that evening with the singer, but he appeared,

mysteriously and unnecessarily to hand her into the carriage when it

came round to the steps, though the master of the house was there for

that purpose, and she had her father's assistance as well. But somehow,

when it came to the point, it was the Frenchman who put her in.

"Thank you, thank you," said the Rector, as he shut the door. "I hope

we shall see you again soon."

Armand de la Roche-Guyon bowed, and, stepping back into the circle of

flickering light thrown downwards by the cressets at the foot of the

steps, became for the second time that evening a disturbing picture.

*CHAPTER VII*

*(1)*

"And so, my dear friends," said the Rector, "terrible as is the idea of

the punishment reserved for the ungodly...."

"Poor Papa!" thought Horatia, looking up out of the high Rectory pew at

his handsome, kindly face, now clouded with the delivery of the sermon

that cost him so much ingenuity.

But she was not listening very attentively. Her gaze wandered on and up

to the huge Royal arms that rested on the beam over the chancel arch,

over the "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness." What

stories she had told herself about the unicorn once!

Beyond the top of the great three-decker pulpit there was not indeed

much that she could see, except the little square carpeted room without

a roof in which she sat, for since she had put away childish things she

no longer stood upon the seat which ran round three of its four sides.

But she knew exactly how the knees of the young men stuck through the

railings of the gallery at the end of the church, how red and shiny were

their faces, how plastered their Sunday hair. Moreover, she was sure

that in the space behind them, occupied by the singers and players,

William Bates was fidgetting with his flute, unscrewing it and putting

it together again, and the bassoonist was going to sleep. "I can't 'elp

it, your Reverence, I really can't; seems as if there was something in

this 'ere instrument," he was wont to plead. Horatia wondered whether

he would awake before the end of the discourse.

And then, almost without knowing it, she found herself speculating upon

what Tristram and his guest were doing. She had hoped (she put it to

herself as "thought") that Tristram might have brought the latter over

here. But, of course, the Comte de la Roche-Guyon was a Roman Catholic.

Her mind went back to last night. What an extraordinary knack he had of

appearing in a different light every time she met him--he seemed to be

almost a different person. She counted up the times.... It puzzled her,

but she was by now beginning to realise that it interested her too. And

what would he be like when he came to say good-bye? The week for which

she had understood him to be staying would be up next Wednesday, and

Tristram would be sure to bring him over before that.

She wondered if he would ever come to England again....

The Rector was beginning to descend from his eminence, the clerk below

was clearing his throat before giving out "Thy dreadful anger, Lord,

restrain, and spare a wretch forlorn"--the metrical version of the sixth

Psalm--and of the end of the sermon Horatia had not heard a word.

*(2)*

In the course of a week it had become abundantly clear to Tristram

Hungerford that the Comte de la Roche-Guyon, young as he was, had made a

close study of the fair sex, if, indeed, he did not consider himself an

authority upon it. It was therefore without surprise, if without

appreciation, that Tristram listened perforce, this Wednesday morning,

to a dissertation on the subject. The two were on their way to Compton

Rectory; their horses had dropped to a walk, and under the bright, windy

September sky the young Frenchman imparted to his host the fruit of ripe

reflection on the dames of Britain.

"Every time that I am in England," he said, gesticulating with his

riding-whip, "I am struck afresh with the curious--how do you call

it--limitations of the English ladies. They have so much in their

favour, and yet--pardon me that I say it--if you desire the fresh

toilette, the graceful walk and gesture, ease in conversation, knowledge

of coquetry, you must seek for them in France, for a real Englishwoman

knows nothing of them."

"But I thought that our English ladies were supposed to model themselves

nowadays on those of the Continent," objected Tristram, keeping the ball

rolling out of politeness.

Armand de la Roche-Guyon nearly dropped his reins. "Mais, mon Dieu, that

makes it worse!" he exclaimed. "In a party of English ladies you can

indeed observe that each has taken a hint from the Continent for her

dress or her manner, and the result, ma foi, is often to make die of

laughter. I have seen ... but that would not interest you ... Tenez,

the way an Englishwoman sits down upon a chair, have you ever thought to

remark that? It is as if chance alone had caused her to fall there!

She sits down without paying the least attention to her dress. But the

care with which a Frenchwoman places herself in an armchair, taking hold

of her robe on either side, raising her arms gently as a bird spreads

its wings! Even if she should be exhausted by laughing or half-fainting

from emotion, still her dress will remain untumbled. It is worth

remarking, I assure you!"

Certainly these observations would never have occurred to Mr.

Hungerford, and to judge by his expression, he had small wish even to

make them vicariously. His companion was instantly aware of this.

"Forgive me, mon ami! I see that you think it is not convenable that I

should thus criticise your fair compatriots, whom, du reste, I admire

from the bottom of my heart. And let me assure you that I have no

criticisms for Miss Grenville; she is perfection itself."

"You are very good," replied Tristram, without trying to suppress the

irony of his tone.

The corners of the Comte's mouth twitched, and to Tristram's relief he

touched up his horse for a sign that the subject was done with. As

their hoofs rang sharply on the road the Englishman glanced once or

twice at the clear profile beside him, stamped so visibly with the mark

of race--and with what else? That was the question. Armand seemed to

him such a boy--but not an English boy. Well, he was very attractive,

but----

As they were fastening up their horses outside the Rectory, the subject

of these speculations suddenly said, with an air of great earnestness,

"Mon ami, I wish you would explain to me one trait in the English

character which I have never been able to understand. An Englishman is

so haughty, he has such high notions of what befits a gentleman, and yet

he will receive money from the man who has seduced his wife. If I had

run away with the wife of an Englishman, _I_ should expect to give him

the chance of putting a bullet into me, but _he_ would expect me to pay

him in bank notes the value of the lady--how one estimates that I know

not. Can you solve me this problem of the English character?"

Though the Rectory drawing-room was empty, Tristram did not attempt to

elucidate this point, and his questioner, whose query was probably only

rhetorical, sat and gazed with deep and silent attention at a picture of

Daniel in the lions' den, worked in silks, which hung over the sofa.

Then the door opened, and admitted the Rector, looking rather worried.

"Ah, M. de la Roche-Guyon, I am very glad to see you! Tristram, this

Otmoor business is disgraceful! I hear there was a riot in Oxford on

Monday night, and that the mob succeeded in releasing the prisoners."

"It is true," returned Tristram. "We were in Oxford on Monday evening,

La Roche-Guyon and I, and saw it----"

"Saw it! Well, was it as bad as I have heard?"

"There was rather a scrimmage," admitted the young man. "The soldiers

had no chance against the mob. St. Giles's Fair was on, of course, and

it was in St. Giles that they rescued the Otmoor prisoners--about sixty

of them--from the waggons."

"And what were the escort about, pray?" demanded Mr. Grenville

indignantly. "What were they, by the way?"

"Oxfordshire Yeomanry. They held their own as well as they could, and

had rather the advantage, as far as we could see, till they turned down

Beaumont Street. Then the crowd got the better of them."

The Rector shrugged his shoulders. "I cannot conceive what you must

think of us, M. le Comte," he said, turning to the Frenchman. "You will

imagine that the reign of law and order is coming to an end in England."

"As in France," finished Armand good-humouredly. "Ma foi, M. le Recteur,

it has reminded me a little of the Days of July; I own that I have not

expected to see street fighting in England, and in a city so calm, so

academic as Oxford! But one never knows. There was one soldier--a

sergeant I think--who ceased not to fight till he was disabled. The

populace were fierce against him ... It is strange, how John Bull loves

not the military. I have remarked it before. (These observations are

harmless, mon ami, is it not?) John Bull thinks much more of the taxes

which he pays to keep up the army than he does of military glory. That

he calls _stuff_. Is not that so?"

"What you say is profoundly true," answered Mr. Grenville, impressed;

but at that moment the door opened and Horatia came in.

An "Oh!" of surprise escaped her, for she imagined the young Frenchman

to have gone, and without taking leave.

"You are a ghost!" she said to him, recovering herself. "I thought you

were leaving us to-day."

Tristram broke in. "I have persuaded M. de la Roche-Guyon to stay till

the beginning of next week, because I had the idea that he might care to

go to the Charity Ball which Lady Carte is getting up on Monday, and

also I thought of arranging my little dinner-party for this Saturday, if

the date suits you and the Rector? I know that it is all right for

Dormer."

Miss Grenville looked at her father. "That will be charming. It will

do excellently for us. May we ask if there is to be anyone else besides

Mr. Dormer?"

"Yes, I am going on now to ask the Edward Puseys; they are still at

Pusey with Lady Lucy, I believe."

"I think they must be," corroborated Horatia, "for I met him driving his

wife over to call on the Mainwarings two or three days ago. He did not

look much as if he were thinking of what he was doing."

"I am glad that you are going to ask them, Tristram," commented the

Rector, who had known the Pusey brothers since they were boys. "That

young man's learning is stupendous. Too much was made, in my opinion,

of his supposed sympathy with the new German theology, and I am glad

that he did get the Chair of Hebrew."

"And I am glad too," added his daughter, "because they have such

comfortable lodgings at Christ Church. I hope I shall stay there again

some day. I like Mrs. Pusey, and it is so romantic to think that they

waited ten years for each other, but I am rather frightened of him."

"Permit me to say that I don't believe you are really frightened of

anybody in the world," observed Tristram smiling.

"Tristram, how can you say so! I am dust and ashes before Papa when he

is really cross--and terrified of you, when you are in your conscience

mood.--Is there anyone else?"

"We are short of ladies, and I thought it would interest M. de la

Roche-Guyon to meet the Trenchards, who are staying just now with their

aunt, so I shall ask her to come and bring them."

"Very nice," murmured the Rector. "Beautiful girls, if they are like

their elder sisters--though, of course, none of them could ever compare

with their step-sister, the French one."

Horatia turned to Armand, who had been sitting unusually silent.

"Doesn't it flatter you, Monsieur, that Papa's ideal woman should be

French?"

"Mademoiselle," returned the Comte instantly, with an inclination, "our

ideal women are always of another nationality than our own!"

Tristram got up. "Well, we must be getting on, if that is settled, and

you can both come on Saturday." M. de la Roche-Guyon also rose, very

slowly.

"No, Tristram," interjected the Rector, laying hold of his arm, "you

positively must stay ten minutes, because I've had this letter from

Liverpool about James Stack and his wife emigrating to Canada. I had

thought I should be able to get them off almost at once, but the

shipping company say--there, you'd better see it." He fumbled in his

pockets. "Horatia, suppose you take M. de la Roche-Guyon into the

garden for five minutes."

Horatia was preceding the guest down the path when he said softly behind

her: "There are advantages, after all, in Canada's having passed into

English hands. As a Frenchman, I never expected to admit them."

"Why, what"--began Miss Grenville, stopping, and then suddenly finding

his meaning quite clear. She coloured, was angry with herself, and

tried to retrieve her slip by saying, "Papa has helped two or three of

the parish to emigrate out there."

Armand was now walking beside her, along the line of flowers where

autumn had begun to lay a hand in the week that had passed since he had

sat there. But he showed no disposition to follow up his sally. On the

contrary he looked rather moody, almost cross. It was a new phase. And

after a moment or two he said, kicking a stone along the path:

"I am not looking forward to this dinner-party, Mademoiselle. Mr.

Hungerford is too kind. What have you and I to do with these grave

persons? _I_ don't know Hebrew!"

It was new to Horatia to be classed among the more frivolous portion of

an assembly, and classed there by, and in conjunction with, a young man.

"Ah, but you forget the Trenchard girls," she said lightly. "They do

not know Hebrew either, and they are very pretty. Their mother is

French; have you not heard about them?"

"Mr. Hungerford told me something, but I am afraid I did not listen; I

was not interested."

"But you ought to be interested. It is rather romantic. Their mother,

when she was quite young, was a lady-in-waiting to Madame Elisabeth.

She fled to England, and her lover--who was a Frenchman, of

course--fought through the Vendean war and came to England and married

her. But next year he went back with the expedition to Quiberon, and

was killed there. I can't remember his name. Then she married Mr.

Trenchard, a Suffolk squire, and had several children, I think about

eight--anyhow Trenchards have been staying here with Mrs. Willoughby,

who is Mr. Trenchard's sister, ever since I can remember. And once I

saw Mrs. Trenchard herself; somehow she did not look as if she had been

through all those things as a girl."

Her hearer lent her sufficient interest, at any rate he was looking at

her, a tiny frown between his dark eyebrows. "But you spoke of another

daughter?"

"The child of the Vendean--born after his death, I believe. I never saw

her. But Papa remembers her; more beautiful and gracious than one can

possibly imagine, he says. She went into a convent in Rome."

M. de la Roche-Guyon said nothing, and having come to the end of the

path Horatia stooped to a late rose in the border. She was finding his

evident ill-humour oddly disturbing.

"Let us speak of the ball on Monday--my last day," he said watching her.

"How many dances will you vouchsafe me--in the cause of charity?"

And Miss Grenville, plucking the wet rose, found herself replying, to

her no small amazement:

"That depends on Mr. Hungerford."

"Comment!" exclaimed the young Frenchman, stepping backwards. "Mais,

juste ciel, il n'est pas votre fiance!" His eyes blazed at her, and he

had quite perceptibly paled; it was obvious that he was unaware of his

lapse into his own tongue.

"Certainly not," replied Horatia with dignity. (She had been right

about his eyes; they could look fury.) "But he is a very old friend and

kinsman, and we always arrange to dance so many together."

Armand de la Roche-Guyon made a gesture, and smiled, quite sweetly. "I

understand--mais parfaitement! Comme vous etes femme ... adorablement

femme!" He touched her hand a second, and Tristram and the Rector came

down the path.

*CHAPTER VIII*

*(1)*

Mr. Hungerford's little dinner-party had gone the way of all

dinner-parties. The Rector had pronounced it, from his point of view, a

decided success. "A most enjoyable evening, my dear," he said to

Horatia, as they were driving home. "Whatever else that man Dormer of

Oriel is or is not, he is a brilliant talker when he pleases. And I had

a good talk with Edward Pusey afterwards in the drawing-room. The

Arabic catalogue at the Bodleian is a colossal piece of work, but from

what he told me I think his plans are too ambitious--not beyond his

scholarship, mark you, but beyond his physical strength. He confessed

to me that he sometimes almost envied the bricklayers whom he saw at

work in the streets, the drudgery was so great."

"But Mr. Pusey is a young man, and he needn't make Arabic catalogues

unless he wants to," Horatia had responded rather unsympathetically.

For she had not found the party so delightful. She had been taken in by

Mr. Pusey, and though Armand de la Roche-Guyon sat on her other hand,

his partner, Miss Arabella Trenchard, had talked to him a great deal,

and he had seemed to like it. It was quite natural, of course; he

probably liked everybody, and Miss Trenchard was very pretty, much

prettier than she herself; so that it was no wonder if M. de la

Roche-Guyon had been by no means as bored as he had predicted. But, at

all events, he had found his way straight to her in the drawing-room

afterwards, and chatted to her ... till Mr. Dormer, showing a most

unusual taste for her society, had come and made a third ... and, to be

quite just, had talked so delightfully that she almost forgave him the

intrusion, at the time. Afterwards, it rankled increasingly.

But now it was Monday morning, the morning of the dance, and Horatia, in

the drawing-room putting some asters into a bowl, was aware of being in

a state of causeless and febrile excitement. She could not but ask

herself what there was in a dance so to excite her; she was not a young

girl any more; she had been to many such. Yet she was conscious that

this ball was clothed in her imagination with the glamour of an untasted

pleasure, and that the thought of it was like some splendid palace built

on the edge of a precipice, beyond which there was nothing.