THE EXILE’S RETURN.
Five ladies were assembled in the drawing-room of Thornton House, and
all five appeared to be in a state of expectancy, which in the cases of
one or two amounted to positive excitement.
It was a bright, hot evening in May, and the windows of the room stood
open to the soft air without. This was an advantage as far as Maud
Debenham was concerned, as she could hear the sound of approaching
wheels from her position in the room, without wandering perpetually
into the hall, as she felt disposed to do, only that her aunt had just
forbidden any such ‘exhibition of restlessness.’
Mrs. Belassis sat in an easy-chair, with a gorgeous piece of silk
embroidery upon her lap, at which she worked diligently; and yet, to
those who knew her well, it was evident that she was listening with
some impatience for an arrival which was every moment expected—the
arrival of her nephew, Philip Debenham. She was a handsome woman,
but with no softness or sweetness in her beauty. Her face was cold
in colouring and expression, and the well-formed features were on a
large and commanding scale. Her eyes were dark and penetrating, and
there was no kindliness in their keen glance, and the sentiment they
most often expressed was suspicion, contempt, or dislike. There was a
certain power and cleverness in the face, but no trace of tenderness.
Many people admired Mrs. Belassis, many came to consult her and to
ask her advice; but no one loved her, or would dream of looking for
sympathy from her in any trouble of mind or body. People only had
their own folly to thank for nine-tenths of the ills that befell them,
she affirmed, and therefore sympathy and assistance were misplaced
if lavished upon them. It was a comfortable creed to hold, and one
which her husband was more than willing to accept. It absolved them
so satisfactorily from all claims of charity or benevolence. Mrs.
Belassis was a hard, self-willed woman, and she looked it every inch.
Sisters are frequently the very antithesis of each other, and so it
was with the daughters of the late Mr. Charles Maynard. Olive, the
youngest, the quiet, white-haired widow, who sat at work in a retired
nook, was as gentle and loving by nature as Celia was hard and proud.
She looked years older than Mrs. Belassis, for her hair was like
silver, and the small thin face was seamed with tiny wrinkles. Only the
skin retained some of its old softness and bloom, and the expression
worn by the patient, peaceful face was one of childlike trust and
tenderness. Maud often told her aunt Olive that she was ‘the loveliest
old lady in the world,’ which, if not strictly true, did not convey an
impression altogether wrong, for the little widow was beautiful in many
eyes besides those of her niece.
The two daughters of Mrs. Belassis were engaged, in their favourite
occupation of novel-reading, which did not prevent them from talking as
much as they read.
Matilda was fair, fat, and somewhat puffylooking. She laboured under
the delusion that she was a beauty, which was strange, because she
was possessed of a figure which certainly had no great beauty, whilst
her features were heavy and badly made, though not exactly ugly, and
her whole appearance was, what her sister summed up in the expressive
word, ‘sloppy.’ She also believed her manners to be fascinating and her
conversation enlivening; but there seemed no particular ground for this
article of belief.
Bertha was a brunette, and possessed of much more activity and vivacity
than her sister. She would have been ‘fast,’ had her mother permitted
it, or had she understood how to make herself so. As matters stood,
she contented herself with an assumption of high-spirited audacity
which she took for wit, but which Maud, with cousinly candour, often
pronounced to be simple rudeness. She was possessed of a pair of keen
restless dark eyes, marked, irregular features, and a very sharp,
sarcastic tongue. Her forehead was concealed by a mass of tiny dark
curls, and the sallowness of her skin gave something almost foreign to
her appearance. She did not set up for a beauty like Matilda, but she
did believe very firmly in her own cleverness.
Maud Debenham was in pleasing contrast to her two cousins. She had
a small, oval face, delicately formed features, and a pair of dark
violet-blue eyes with long black lashes. Her hair, which was very
plentiful, was of a soft dusky brown, without any gloss—wavy, wayward
hair, which never looked altogether neat and tidy, but with which it
would nevertheless be hard to find fault, unless, like Mrs. Belassis,
one were very orderly and trim. Without being a beauty, Maud was a
bright, sweet-faced, unaffected English girl, with plenty of spirit
and a decided will of her own, and yet a happy facility of disposition
which had enabled her to bear cheerfully an uncongenial yoke of
dependence, and to retain her gay spirits in adverse circumstances.
Her bright face was flushed with excitement at the present moment,
and her slight, graceful figure flitted from window to window with an
ever-increasing restlessness, though her movements were studiously
quiet. The silence without seemed to cause her much disappointment.
‘That horrid old coach must have been late. He ought to have been here
ages ago. How I do _hate_ waiting!’ sighed she at last.
‘If you had taken my advice, and settled yourself to some occupation,
you would not find waiting so wearisome,’ said Mrs. Belassis, in
measured tones.
Maud shrugged her shoulders behind her aunt’s back, and only murmured
again:
‘I do wish he would come. I hate waiting.’
‘I dare say he has stopped at the Ladywell Arms to “liquor up,”’ cried
Bertha flippantly, throwing her book on one side. ‘I think that’s a way
travellers have.’
‘Don’t be vulgar, Bertha,’ returned Maud quickly. ‘As though Phil would
do that!’
‘He will be here fast enough,’ said Matilda, yawning. ‘What is the use
of being so impatient?’
Matilda was in reality as anxious as anyone for the arrival of the
traveller, but she assumed an indifference she was far from feeling. A
bachelor cousin, the owner of a fine property and a handsome income,
was a man of importance in many eyes. To Matilda he was as interesting
an individual as the world could hold.
‘Hark!’ cried Maud suddenly; ‘I hear wheels. He is coming. I am sure it
is he! Yes, yes; I know it is the dogcart!’ And she made a quick rush
towards the door.
‘Come back, Maud!’ said Mrs. Belassis coldly. ‘Wait here till your
brother comes.’
‘Oh, Aunt Celia!’ she remonstrated rebelliously, yet knowing
remonstrance was vain.
But she had not long to wait. In two minutes the door was thrown open,
whilst the servant announced:
‘Mr. Debenham.’
It was not the Phil of Maud’s dreams who now entered—the slight, dark,
bright-eyed youth, like the pictures of the former Debenhams which
had hung in her old home, and which were all of the type she herself
closely resembled. This Phil was much taller, much more strongly built,
with tawny hair and sun-browned skin, more like the ideal traveller
from far-off lands than the dimly remembered brother of her childhood’s
home.
But it was Phil himself, her own brother, come back to her at last; and
that was enough for Maud. She sprang towards him, put her arms about
his neck, and covered his face with kisses.
‘Phil—my own dear, darling Phil! How delightful it is to have you back!’
The traveller took her face between his hands and looked into it with
smiling eyes. Then he kissed her on brow and lips.
‘Is it really Maud? little Maud of old days? What a metamorphosis!’
‘Should you have known me? I am like papa—like all the Debenhams. But
you are like nobody—ever so much better-looking. Oh, it is so good to
have you back!’
‘Thanks, little sister; but see, you must introduce me to my aunts and
cousins. Remember, I am quite a stranger to them all.’
Maud led him forward with sisterly pride, and did as he requested.
Tor (with a terrible consciousness of the humorous side of the
question, and with the feeling of one who is acting a hastily prepared
part in a play, where a false word or look will be the ruin of
everything) went through his part with a seeming ease of manner and
with a graceful cordiality that was greatly to his credit.
His keen eyes dwelt successively upon each relative presented to him,
and he summed up their characters pretty accurately at the first glance.
‘That woman may be dangerous,’ he said, looking at Mrs. Belassis. ‘But,
for the rest, I think I have not much to fear.’
They all sat down after the first hubbub of greeting had subsided, and
that inevitable pause of semi-embarrassment ensued, which for a moment
nobody seemed ready to break.
‘Was the coach late?’ asked Maud at length. ‘We have been expecting you
such a while!’
‘We got in in good time, I fancy,’ answered Tor. ‘Only I got old Adam
to drive round by our old home, Maud. I thought I should like one peep
at the garden and the dear old orchard where we used to play; don’t you
remember? It all looks just the same; but what a shame they have pulled
down the old house!’
‘Yes; isn’t it? Weren’t you pleased to find old Adam still extant? He
would drive himself to meet you, though he is so old. Did you know
each other?’
‘Well, we were not long making ourselves known. Yes, I was very pleased
indeed to see him. We had fine talks over old times. It brought a host
of matters to my mind which I believe I had quite forgotten.’
Indeed, that six miles’ drive with the garrulous old servant had been
of inestimable value to Tor, and had been turned already to profitable
account.
‘Do you remember this house, Philip?’ asked Matilda languidly.
‘Not distinctly, at all,’ answered Tor, looking round him. ‘I don’t
think I was much here as a child, was I?’
Bertha laughed sarcastically.
‘Ah, you have not forgotten what a welcome you always received from
Lewis—not to mention other names.’
Mrs. Belassis quenched her daughter’s untimely reminiscences by a stony
stare. Tor quietly changed the subject.
‘Where is my old antagonist, Lewis? Is he at home, or abroad?’
‘At home,’ answered Mrs. Belassis (whilst Maud added in a whisper,
‘Worse luck!’) ‘He will be in almost immediately, and your uncle too.
They were sorry business obliged them to be out at your first arrival.’
‘I hope—my uncle—is well,’ said Tor, with just enough of hesitation in
pronouncing the name to give it a rather significant emphasis.
‘Quite well, thank you,’ answered Mrs. Belassis, raising her piercing
glance for a moment to his face. ‘You will be glad to see him again. It
is some years since you met.’
‘Eighteen, only,’ answered Tor quietly. ‘I imagine I must have been an
uncommonly disagreeable kind of child, as not one of my relatives, save
Maud and Aunt Olive, ever expressed the smallest wish even to set eyes
upon me, since the far-off day when I was banished to Heidelberg. I
wonder if I have at all improved since then?’
Tor spoke lightly, but his shaft struck home, as he had meant it
should. He was in reality fighting his friend’s battle, not his own,
and he was indignant at the treatment Phil had received from his
kindred.
‘Travelling was costly, many years ago, answered Mrs. Belassis calmly.
‘And for the past ten years, since you elected to live with your
friend, you have been your own master, and have never paid us a visit.’
‘Visitors generally wait to be asked, mamma,’ quoth Bertha pertly. ‘And
you never would ask poor Phil. Maud and I have often begged you to.’
The conversation was becoming a little too pointed, and Maud was
too happy to feel spiteful towards anyone, so at this juncture she
interposed:
‘Oh, Phil, what did Tor say to parting with you? I always call him Tor,
because you do, and I’ve quite forgotten his real name. Was he very
much disgusted at your running away? Why didn’t you bring him with you?’
‘Perhaps I should have done so, if I could. It seems quite odd to be
without him; but the fact is, he’s ill—it was a sunstroke, and he has
been ill ever since. He is under the care of a German doctor, and I
hope he will soon be well.’
‘Poor Tor!’ said Maud. ‘I should like to see him. He has been very good
to you, hasn’t he, Phil?’
‘Yes; we have been chums a long while now, and very good times we
have had together. Yes, he saved me from a very uncongenial fate—an
office-desk.’
‘As things have turned out,’ said Mrs. Belassis drily, ‘you can
afford to be grateful to your _friend_. Had you quarrelled, or had
he died or even married, and left you without any means of support,
or any profession by which you could earn a living, you would have
felt differently towards him and towards those whose efforts for your
welfare you thought fit to despise. By a mere chance, an eccentric will
has made a rich man of you; but for that, you would sooner or later
have had to taste the bitterness of poverty and beggary.’
Tor smiled carelessly.
‘I should at least not have begged from mine uncle. I might even have
managed to support myself by my own handiwork, had that dreadful fate
befallen me—the necessity to earn my own bread.’
‘I am glad to hear it, Philip. That being the case, I am only surprised
that you have been content to live so long upon charity.’
Tor laughed carelessly. Such a suggestion merely amused him. It might
have hurt the true Phil.
‘I perceive I have reached the realistic country, where everything is
reckoned by pounds, shillings, and pence. In friendship we calculate
differently. Tor always said—and he spoke truly, I believe—that the
debt of gratitude was mutual.’
‘Your friend must be romantic,’ remarked Mrs. Belassis, taking up her
work.
‘On the contrary,’ returned Tor, with a little significance, ‘I believe
him to be a most practical man.’
‘I am glad to hear it. It must have been an advantage to you to have
such a friend.’
‘Undoubtedly so. Perhaps when my uncle and I proceed to business, he
will find that I too have learned to be practical.’
It certainly was unpremeditated, this interchange of hostilities; for
though masked under a show of friendliness, Mrs. Belassis and Tor quite
understood the antagonism which had already sprung up between them.
Mrs. Belassis was a woman who liked to reign supreme, and to feel that
her will dominated over all others. Anyone who declined to submit to
her sway became at once suspected and disliked. And it hardly needed
any demonstration to prove that Tor had not the smallest intention of
yielding to her. She had found out so much before he had spoken half a
dozen sentences.
Matilda and Bertha were annoyed with their mother, and thought it very
hard that their handsome cousin should be browbeaten like that before
he had been half an hour in the house; but they stood too much in awe
of Mrs. Belassis to remonstrate, and were greatly impressed by the
fact that Tor seemed quite equal to hold his own, even against his
redoubtable aunt.
In fact Mrs. Belassis seemed for the moment to be silenced, and perhaps
she was relieved from a passing feeling of embarrassment by the
entrance of her husband and son.
Tor rose and advanced to meet them.
‘I suppose, sir, that I shall have to introduce myself anew to you. In
all probability I have changed more than you, I see, have done.’
Mr. Belassis seized his nephew’s hand and shook it with great show of
cordiality.
He was a man of heavy build and unprepossessing physiognomy. His
features were somewhat coarse, but they lacked the open frankness which
most of the type possess. There was a craftiness in his smile, and a
stealthy cat-like expression was stamped upon his broad red face. His
small brown eyes were placed too near together for symmetry, and were
full of cunning and a certain lynx-like watchfulness which was not at
all pleasant. To Tor, who was well used to reading men’s faces, he was
simply repulsive.
‘Very good, Uncle Belassis,’ he said to himself. ‘I think I see
what kind of a customer you will prove. You are quite as nasty as I
expected; but not so clever—not half so clever as your wife. So much
the better for me.’
Tor paid small heed to the oily words of welcome which were being
poured upon him. He was mentally taking the measure of the man before
him, and if Mr. Belassis had understood the cause of the smile which
passed across the bronzed face, he might have felt less at ease than
before.
‘Well, Phil,’ said the younger man, holding out his hand, ‘I suppose we
neither of us retain a vivid recollection of the other. However, we can
soon make up for lost time. Glad to see you, old fellow!’
‘Thanks,’ answered Tor. ‘Yes, I believe our old friendship chiefly
consisted in punching each other’s heads; that, at least, is the
prevailing impression on my mind.’
‘I believe that was about the state of the case!’ said Lewis, with
a laugh. ‘Strikes me if we tried that game on now, you would have
distinctly the best of it. How you have grown!’
Tor laughed in his turn.
‘I might say the same. Boys do generally grow after ten.’
‘Why, yes; but you’re a Hercules. Can’t think where you get your inches
from. Great height isn’t in the family.’
‘I suppose knocking about the world has done it. Roughing it in
all climates is supposed to make a man tall, I believe. Well, it’s
pleasant to be back in the old place again. Can’t say I have a vivid
recollection of it; but it will all come back in time, I don’t doubt.’
‘I’ll take you everywhere to-morrow, and show you everything,’ cried
Maud eagerly. ‘Oh, it is so delightful to have you at last!’
‘I shall be nobody now, I suppose, Maud,’ said Lewis gloomily. ‘You
will have nothing to say to me now, of course.’
Maud laughed, and shrugged her shoulders.
‘I don’t know that I ever did have very much to say; and if so, I’ve no
doubt it was all said long ago. Why should I have anything particular
to say to you?’
Lewis made no reply; but Mrs. Belassis said, in her incisive way:
‘You are a very foolish, pert girl, Maude You never will take advice
nor act with propriety.’
Maud tossed her head, and looked at Tor for the smile of encouragement
which came readily enough. He understood better than she did the full
meaning of the words that had been spoken.
Lewis stood pulling at his moustache, and watching Maud. He was a
good-looking fellow enough, this young Belassis, for he had inherited
his mother’s handsome features and dark eyes, without any of her
hardness and severity. There was nothing of that in Lewis’s face;
on the contrary, it was somewhat weak and indecisive in expression.
He was an only son, and had been greatly indulged, but though his
life had been a pleasant one, it had not brought out the strong side
of his character—supposing that he had one—and he was easy-going,
self-indulgent, and indeterminate. He was very much in love with his
pretty cousin, who was, he believed, destined to be his wife; but
although Maud liked him very well, and allowed him to follow her
about like a dog, she had no special regard for him, and in her heart
despised his small masculine vanities and foibles more than a little.
Mrs. Belassis rose majestically from her seat.
‘We are dining late to-night, that all our party might have time to
assemble. It is time to dress. Maud, show your brother his room.’
When she was alone with her husband, he asked at once:
‘What do you think of him?’
‘He is dangerous,’ answered the wife emphatically.
‘How so?’
‘He suspects and hates us, I am all but certain; and he has all his
wits about him.’
Mr. Belassis’ face put on an unpleasing look of mingled fear and
craftiness.
‘Who could have thought it? The Debenhams have always been unsuspecting
fools.’
‘Philip is neither one nor the other. You must be very cautious,
Alfred.’
Mr. Belassis broke out with an exclamation which would sound decidedly
strong if written down.
‘What could have induced the old fool to make such a will? and how
dares that boy take such a stand as that? He’s no true Debenham if he
has a will of his own. Who could have guessed things would have turned
out so unluckily?’