It was a lovely morning in early summer, when the sun, shining into
Lewis’s bedroom at Broadhurst, aroused him from a heavy dreamless
sleep, the result of his previous night’s dissipation at Lady
Lombard’s. The sensation of waking for the first time in a strange place
is usually a disagreeable one; there is an unfamiliar newness in the
aspect of everything around us, an absence of old associations, which
to an impressible disposition is singularly disheartening. This was
peculiarly the case with Lewis; the costly furniture of the room,
arranged with a stiff propriety, the spotless carpet, the chair-covers
too clean and slippery to be sat upon, the bright cold mirrors, the
polished grate, in which a fire would have been high treason, each and
all suggestive of the chilling influence of that rigid disciplinarian
Miss Livingstone, served painfully to realise his new position.
Splendour without comfort was an anomaly he had never before
encountered, and in his then frame of mind it aroused all the bitter
feelings which even his strength of will was unable to subdue, and
he mentally compared himself to a slave working in gilded chains, and
longed for independence, no matter through what hardships, struggles,
and dangers it must be attained. But there was a healthy energy about
his mind which prevented his yielding to these morbid feelings; hastily
dressing himself, he found his way into the pleasure garden, and as it
was yet early, strolled onward through the park.
After wandering about for nearly an hour, the calm beauty of the scenery
and the exhilarating freshness of the morning air producing their
natural effect upon his spirits, it occurred to him that his absence
might be commented upon, and possibly give offence; accordingly, he
retraced his steps towards the house. Ignorant of the _locale_, however,
he was unable to discover the door by which he had gone out, and after
making one or two attempts in a wrong direction, was compelled to effect
his entrance through a French window opening into a conservatory. Lewis
possessed a great taste for, and some knowledge of botany, and his
attention was at once attracted by the rare and beautiful plants around
him. So completely was he engrossed by his admiration, that not until
he heard his own name pronounced did he become aware that he was not
the sole tenant of the conservatory. Turning at the sound, he perceived
Annie Grant, in a very becoming costume, busily employed in altering the
arrangement of certain flower-pots.
Before we proceed farther, it may be as well to afford the reader an
insight into Lewis’s feelings towards this young lady, as they were by
no means of such a nature as might be expected from a young man towards
a pretty and agreeable girl, with whom he was about to be domesticated.
In order to account for his peculiar state of mind on this subject we
must take a retrospective glance at an episode in Lewis’s student life,
which has been already alluded to in a conversation between Frere and
his friend. About a year before the period at which our story opened
Lewis had encountered, at a festive meeting of the worthy citizens of
Bonn, the very pretty daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper, and struck by
her bright eyes and a certain naïve simplicity of manner, had danced
with her the greater part of the evening. Flattered by the attentions
of the handsome young Englishman, the damsel, who (her simplicity being
confined entirely to manner) was as arrant a little flirt as ever caused
a heartache, took care that the acquaintance should continue; and while
she was merely bent on adding to her train of admirers, Lewis fell
in love with her as deeply as a man can do with a girl completely his
inferior in mind as well as in station. Imagination, however, which
at eighteen is alarmingly active, supplied all deficiencies, and Lewis
continued to dream his lady-love was an angel, till one fine morning
the fact of her elopement with a young German baron, who looked upon
matrimony as a superfluous ordinance, induced him to alter his opinion.
With the termination of the adventure the reader is already acquainted,
but the effect upon Lewis’s disposition was one which time might weaken
but could never efface. The fatal lesson that one who seemed true and
pure was not so, once learnt could never be forgotten; the seeds of
mistrust were sown, and strive as he might, the perfect faith, the
bright, eager confidence of youth, were lost to him for ever.
Ànnie, as the reader is aware, was unusually lovely, and Lewis
accordingly regarded her in the light of a dangerous man-trap;
besides this, oddly enough, she was by no means unlike an ethereal and
spiritualised representation of “Gretchen”; the features and colouring
were similar, and the arch simplicity of the _Fraulein’s_ manner was
part and parcel of Annie’s very nature. The painful recollections which
this resemblance excited added unconsciously to the prejudice (for
it amounted to that) which Lewis had conceived against the General’s
daughter; but the true source of the feeling lay deeper. However
circumstances may cause him to affect, or even to believe the contrary,
there is in every man’s heart a latent desire to render himself
agreeable to any young and pretty woman into whose society he may be
thrown, more especially where the individual is conscious of possessing
powers of pleasing if he chooses to exert them; and even Lewis’s slight
experience of society had sufficed to enlighten him in regard to this
point, on which the dullest are usually clear-sighted. But coupled with
this feeling came the humiliating consciousness that although by birth
and education Miss Grant’s equal, the position he held in the family
rendered him her inferior; and this idea was galling in the extreme to
Lewis’s haughty nature. Annie, on the other hand, profoundly ignorant
of all these wheels within wheels, entertained the most amiable and
benevolent intentions towards her new associate. She knew he was
unfortunate, she saw he was a gentleman, and she had heard that he was
undertaking a duty he disliked, for the sake of his mother and sister;
and for all these reasons her woman’s heart warmed towards him, and
she determined to do what she was able to render his position as little
painful as might be; moreover, she was sufficiently acquainted with
the idiosyncrasies of her father and great-aunt to be aware that any
particular kindness the young tutor would be likely to meet with in
the family must emanate from herself. Accordingly, when Lewis, having
replied to her cordial “Good morning, Mr. Arundel,” by slightly raising
his hat, and making a formal bow, was about to pass on, she renewed the
attack by adding--
“May I trouble you to move this flower-pot for me? it is so heavy.”
Thus appealed to, Lewis stopped short, and for a moment debated
with himself the possibility of refusing; but without being actually
ill-bred, such a possibility did not exist; so, resigning himself to
his fate with a very ill grace, he deposited his hat on a vacant
flower-stand, and tossing back his dark curls with the air of a sulky
lion shaking his mane, he took the garden-pot, which indeed seemed too
heavy for Annie’s little hands, asking, with a stately coldness by no
means in character with the mild nature of the inquiry--
“Where would you wish to have it placed, Miss Grant?”
“Here, if you will be so kind,” returned the young lady, indicating the
spot by pointing with the end of a pert little parasol.
Lewis, having installed the plant in its appointed place, was again
about to take his departure, but ere he did so, glancing involuntarily
at the effect of his labour, his quick eye at once discerned the object
of the changes Annie was striving to effect, and perceived that, in’
order to carry out her design, several heavy flowers yet required
moving. Nothing, however, was farther from his thoughts than the idea of
volunteering his assistance, when Annie, catching the direction of his
eye, continued--
“Yes, the White Camellia is too low.”
“While the Rhododendron is as much too high,” returned Lewis eagerly,
and forgetting his proud scruples in the impulse of the moment, he set
to work with the greatest energy to complete the arrangement which his
correct taste acknowledged to be an improvement.
The Camellia had been exalted and the Rhododendron abased, and many
other “pets of the parterre” had experienced sudden changes of position,
and still Lewis worked with unabated zeal, and still his fair companion
directed and approved, when just as, poised like a flying Mercury on one
foot half-way up a high flower-stand, he was stretching to his utmost
to install a gaudy Cactus, all red and green like a paroquet, on the
topmost pinnacle, a stately tread was heard approaching, and General
Grant entered the conservatory. Lewis coloured with mingled anger
and annoyance at being detected in such a situation, but Annie
good-naturedly came to his assistance. Tripping up to her father and
taking both his hands, she exclaimed--
“Good morning, papa. Welcome to dear old Broadhurst once again. How
pretty it all looks! But they have placed my flowers so stupidly, I must
have every one of them altered. I’ve been working away for half-an-hour
at least, and as Mr. Arundel happened to be passing, I pressed him into
the service, for some of the pots are so heavy.”
“Much too heavy for you to attempt to move, my dear,” returned the
General in a tone of marked disapproval; “but why did you not summon one
of the gardeners to make the alteration you wished, without troubling
Mr. Arundel, who must have had other duties to perform?”
“As it was your desire, sir, to be present at my introduction to my
future pupil,” replied Lewis, who had by this time reached _terra firma_
and recovered his self-possession, “I have refrained from making any
attempt to see him till I should have learned your further wishes on
the subject. My time was therefore quite at Miss Grant’s disposal, if I
could be in any way useful to her.”
“My daughter is obliged by your politeness, sir, but will not trespass
upon it further,” replied the General coldly. “My dear Annie,” he
continued, “it only wants ten minutes to nine; you will oblige me by
preparing for breakfast. Punctuality is a quality by the neglect of
which all order is subverted, propriety set at nought, much valuable
time wasted which can never be recalled, and the comfort of a family
totally destroyed. Your excellent aunt is aware of my opinion on this
subject, and during the twelve years she has done me the favour to
preside over my household she has never kept me waiting one minute.”
“‘Well, dear papa, I’ll do my best to please you,” returned Annie;
“but,” she added, laying her hand on-his shoulder caressingly,
and looking up in his face with a glance half mischievous and half
imploring, “you won’t expect me to be so terribly perfect as Aunt
Martha? Recollect, she is three times as old as I am, and ought
therefore to be three times as wise.”
The General tried to look displeased, but he could not resist Annie for
he was human after all; so, stroking her glossy curls, he told her
that Mrs. Botherfille (a serious schoolmistress, who, for the trifling
consideration of £300 per annum, condescended to allow the youthful
female aristocracy of the land to sit at her feet and learn from
her lips how to regenerate society through the medium of frivolous
accomplishments) had failed in curing her of talking nonsense, at which
Annie laughed merrily and then tripped off, turning as she passed Lewis
to take a last glance at the newly-arranged flowers, and saying, “Now,
don’t they look pretty, Mr. Arundel?”
As the directions in regard to Lewis and his pupil’s separate
establishment (for such the isolated suite of rooms they were to occupy
might be considered) had not as yet been communicated to the servants,
General Grant requested the favour of Lewis’s company at breakfast with
as much ceremony as he could have used if he had been inviting a royal
duke to a banquet; and as a request from such a quarter was equivalent
to a command, Lewis could only comply. Half a minute before the clock
struck nine, Miss Livingstone, that human hedge-hog, rustled into the
breakfast-room, more stiff and starched in mind and body than any other
living creature. As for her cap, a railway train might have passed over
it without injuring that rigid mystery, while her gown was at the least
sabre, not to say bullet-proof. If ever there were a wife fitted for
our Iron Duke, that adamantine spinster was the woman--only that to have
married her would have required more courage than twenty Waterloos!
As the clock struck nine the household servants made their appearance,
and all the family knelt down (with the exception of Miss Livingstone,
who, being evidently fashioned as the ancients believed elephants to be,
without knee-joints, merely reared up against the breakfast-table, as
the next best thing she could do), while the General read them a short,
sharp, but polite prayer, after which he blessed them very much as if he
were doing the reverse, and suffered them to depart. The breakfast was
excellent as far as the commissariat department was concerned, and the
tea was not so cold as might have been expected considering that Miss
Livingstone poured it out.
Even Lewis’s short acquaintance with that austere virgin’s usual
expression of countenance led him to believe that a darker shade
than ordinary lowered upon her brow; nor was he mistaken, for after
despatching a piece of dry toast with the air of an acidulated martyr,
the spirit (we fear it was not an amiable one) moved her, and she spoke.
“I must say, General, your benevolence has rather overpowered your
judgment, to my poor thinking, in this singular addition to the
establishment at Broadhurst. I really consider that I ought to have been
a little more clearly informed as to the facts of the case before these
new arrangements were actually decided on.”
“If you refer to Sir Walter Desborough, madam,” returned the General
sternly, “I must recall to your memory the fact of my having mentioned
to you, this day week, my intention that my ward should reside at
Broadhurst.”
“I am not in the habit of forgetting any communication you do me
the honour of making to me, General Grant, nor have I forgotten the
conversation to which you refer; but if you mentioned that your ward was
a dangerous idiot, and that you expected me to preside over a private
lunatic asylum, that circumstance certainly has escaped me.” The
wrinkles on the General’s forehead deepened as he replied with a
glance towards Lewis, “You forget, Miss Livingstone, that we are not in
private.”
“Really,” rejoined the lady, “if, as I believe, that _young_” (and she
laid an ill-natured emphasis on the word) “gentleman has undertaken the
duties of keeper----”
“Tutor,” interposed the General sharply.
“Well, tutor, then, if you like to call it so,” continued Miss
Livingstone, “the name does not much signify. But if Mr. Arundel is to
have the care of this dreadful boy, the sooner he knows what his duties
will be, and sets about them, the better; for I tell you plainly,
General Grant, that unless there’s a man about the creature who can
manage him, I won’t sleep another night in the house with him. There’s
no trusting those idiots; we may all be murdered in our beds.”
As the good lady, who had by this time got the steam up to a very high
degree of pressure, hazarded the above uncomfortable suggestion, Annie,
who had been listening with an expression of painful annoyance to
her aunt’s harangue, suddenly turned pale and glanced with a look of
appealing inquiry towards her father, who replied to her rather than to
Miss Livingstone in the following terms:--
“Really, my dear Annie, I am compelled to say that the fears with which
your excellent relative” (and he looked bayonets at Minerva, who shook
her head till her terrific cap rustled like an angry hailstorm) “would
seek to inspire you are utterly without foundation.” He paused, took a
pinch of snuff viciously, as though it were gunpowder and he was priming
himself for a fresh discharge; and thus prepared he turned to Lewis,
saying--but we will reserve the volley for another chapter.