LORD WESTBROOK.
“Vexed,” was no word to use in describing the displeasure and
mortification of my poor dear mother when I boldly went straight off to
her with an honest account of myself; nor, I must say, was it adequate
to express my own feelings when I comprehended--dimly at first, and
then with sudden, blinding clearness--the enormity of my indiscretion.
I went to my own room and sat down by the bedside, with my hands in my
lap, and said to myself, “Oh! if it were only ten years hence, that
it might be as forgotten as if it had never happened. Oh! if Regy had
never been born, and I had only girl cousins!” And when Eleanor came
creeping in to look for me, I laid my burning face on her shoulder,
and had a good, hearty, downright cry, and said to that kind friend
and comforter, “Oh! if I had never set foot in England, Eleanor, how
thankful I should be!”
I had a very bad time of it altogether. Mother and I made it up between
us, for she knew I was innocent of any idea of impropriety, and was
sorry to be obliged to suggest it to me; and daddy was away with uncle
Armytage somewhere, and I don’t think was ever told about it--nor would
_he_ have scolded me if he had been. But when I joined the family as
they were sipping their afternoon tea together, aunt Alice took me
to task, in the midst of them all, and lectured me in a manner that
was simply intolerable. What with her “usages of society,” and “what
people would say”--on which she harped with a stupid reiteration and
persistence that was the more aggravating as she knew I had heard all
that was necessary on those points from my own proper guardian--and
what with Bertha and Bella chiming in with their well-meant but silly
little excuses for my ignorance, they drove me into a rage amongst
them, and I am afraid I was impertinent. Aunt Kate was the only one who
thought of laying the blame on Regy, and of course I disclaimed any
advantage to be got from that on the ground that I had myself asked him
to take me. Upon the whole I paid dearly for my little escapade, and
not only in the immediate punishment that I suffered. I turned over a
new leaf in life, so to speak, and I missed something that had graced
the pages that were shut up and done with--some innocent liberty and
freshness of youth--that I never found any more. It was fortunate for
me, however, that a greater event occurred, to eclipse the importance
of this one, before the day was over--at any rate, I thought it was
fortunate for a little while.
I was sitting on the floor of my bedroom, with my hands clasped round
my knees, having dragged from an open drawer beside me the dress I
meant to put on for dinner, and then fallen into a reverie in the midst
of its tumbled folds, when Bertha and Bella burst in upon me without
any ceremony of knocking at the door.
“Oh, Kitty,” exclaimed my elder cousin, flinging herself down before
me, still dressed as she had come hours ago from her afternoon drive,
in a huge Gainsborough hat set very much on one side, from beneath
which her fringes and feathers of fluffy hair were blown all ways about
her flushed face, “not that grey thing, I beg of you; your white silk,
or the Brussels net, or the black and green; one of your very best,
dear; for somebody is coming to dinner.”
“I know--only Regy’s friends.”
“Somebody _else_,” explained Bella, breaking in. “Tell her quickly,
Bertha; there will be none too much time to get ourselves ready.”
“Well then, Kitty,” announced Bertha, with portentous solemnity, “Lord
Westbrook is coming.”
“And what then?” I inquired perversely, assuming a languid manner. “I
don’t suppose he will have any particular objection to a grey dress
more than anybody else.”
“But, Kitty, you don’t understand, he is an earl, and he has never been
here before; and of course we must all look our best. You know what an
earl is, I suppose?”
“I hope so,” I replied grimly; “but I am obliged to ask who this
particular earl is, to have so much fuss made over him.”
“Why, Lord Westbrook--the patron of uncle Armytage’s living, and the
squire of Westbrook. His seat is within a mile or two of the rectory.
He met uncle Armytage quite unexpectedly at his club this afternoon,
and your father was there too, and it seems he has known your father
before, though I’m sure I’m puzzled to see how. And while they were
talking together papa joined them, and somehow it ended in papa
asking him to come and dine with us to-night. And he said he would.
He is only in London for a few days; he is on his way to fetch Lady
Westbrook home. She has been in Rome, and he has been--I don’t know
where--travelling about by himself.”
“Rather a singular arrangement between married people,” said I, at
which they both giggled in an ecstasy of amusement, and then informed
me that Lady Westbrook was his mother, and that he had as yet no wife.
“That is what surprises everybody,” said Bella; “for he is not so very
young.”
“What is he like?” I inquired, beginning to feel interested.
They had never seen him, they replied; all they knew was that he was
very grand, and very rich, and very fond of going about the world;
that he had a big house in Grosvenor Square, and great shootings in
Scotland, and a lovely yacht, and racing stables, and a coach, and
a perfect national gallery of pictures. As it happened he possessed
none of these things, barring the house, which was let to strangers
more often than not. He had an encumbered estate, which had been at
nurse since the death of a gambling father a few years before; and he
was no more “grand” than other people, and perhaps not so much. There
was some truth in the pictures, about which my cousins were coolly
and disparagingly critical, having heard that they represented modern
schools that either were out of fashion, or had never come in. I was
quite sure that they did not know one old master from another, any
more than I did; but I did not say so; and it did not in the least
matter to me whether Lord Westbrook’s taste in art was orthodox or not.
“Now, Bella,” said Bertha, jumping up, “we really _must_ go and dress.
I have my hair to curl all over again, and so have you. And, Kitty,
make yourself nice, and put on your emeralds, for the credit of the
family, there’s a dear. And don’t fret yourself any more about that
Star and Garter business. I don’t suppose you met anybody we knew, and,
if you did, they’ll remember you have just come from Australia, and
make allowances.”
With which well-meant effort to console and encourage me, they hurried
away to their rooms; and Eleanor, always more than punctual, presently
came to me, ready dressed, with her gloves and handkerchief in her
hand.
“Let me lace you up, Kitty,” said she, seeing me struggling with my
bodice and tags.
“I wish you would,” I replied. “This may be a pretty dress”--it was a
fluffy white cloud of Brussels net and lace--“but it is a great bother
to get into it.” Whereupon she laced me up, and tied back my skirt, and
settled the little fichu that crossed over my breast, and a nestling
little knot of fern leaves and flowers that daddy had just brought me
home; and, during this performance, she told me some more about Lord
Westbrook.
“The last time I saw him was about four or five years ago,” she said;
“for he is very seldom at Westbrook, and we have never met him in
London until to-day. There was a great party at the hall for shooting,
and he was down for several weeks; but I was too young to go out then.
I mostly saw him at church, and once at a Sunday-school treat, when
he played cricket with the boys. He was somewhere between twenty and
thirty then, and had not long come into his property. He was very
peculiar in many things,” continued Eleanor. “He never used to wear
gloves out of doors, nor tall hats; he used even to come to church in a
tweed suit and a wideawake. I suppose it was because of living abroad
and travelling so much.”
“I hate dandies,” I said, turning my head to see if my fichu set
properly behind.
“His tenants and servants are fond of him, though he does stay away so
much,” she went on. “He always takes care to be well posted up in all
that concerns them, and he studies their interests more than his father
did. Besides, Mr. Barrett, his agent, is a good, excellent man, whom he
can trust; and his mother is a kind woman to the poor. I don’t think
he is a sound Churchman,” she wound up, with a little sigh, “and that
is a great pity. He would have such influence if he were, in his high
position. Indeed, papa thinks he would hardly go to church at all if it
were not to please his mother.”
“If he goes to please his mother, that is very good and dutiful of
him,” I observed. I think Eleanor would have had something to say upon
this comparatively low view of the matter, but my little travelling
clock on the mantelpiece chimed eight, and that sent us both scuffling
downstairs, for it was the dinner hour.
We found the drawing-room full of guests; all arrived except the one
most anxiously looked for. I went through a few hurried introductions
on the arm of my uncle, and was delivered over to Captain Damer’s
charge; and then poor Mr. Goodeve, who was the soul of punctuality,
and a little of a _gourmand_ to boot (in spite of that traditional
mutton chop and pint of half-and-half), took out his watch and sighed
audibly. I felt disappointed in our unconventional nobleman, who showed
himself wanting in good taste, according to my view of things, though
my cousins apparently considered it quite correct that so great a man
should keep little people waiting for him; but it was scarcely five
minutes over the hour when we heard him running lightly up the stairs,
and before the servant could announce his name there he was in the
midst of us, apologising to his hostess with the gravest sincerity.
He had had a telegram from his mother, he said, which obliged him to
leave London earlier than he had intended, and had necessitated the
making of some new arrangements which had delayed him. Aunt Alice
deprecated any excuses, and beamed upon him like a noonday sun. The
rest of the family closed up round him, so that all I saw was the back
of an ordinary well-dressed man, slight, middle-sized, and sinewy, and
the top of a close-cropped dark head bowing up and down. But in the
course of his introductions he presented his face to me, and, to my
unspeakable delight and astonishment, I recognised my acquaintance of
the mail steamer, looking at me with just the same twinkle of amusement
in his keen eyes as had covered me with confusion when I first saw
him. He was so ready with that pleasant smile that it was quite evident
he had expected to meet me; but I had no more expected to see him than
to see my dear Tom himself. I gave a joyful start, and held out my hand
eagerly, and he grasped it with a warm and friendly pressure that I did
not hesitate to respond to.
“Kitty,” whispered Bertha, sidling up to me when he had passed on, “I
ought to have told you that people don’t shake hands when they are
introduced. _Pray_ don’t forget that another time, dear.”
“Nonsense,” I responded flippantly, with a beaming face of
satisfaction, as I watched my hero’s voyage round the room. But I
did not tell her that I had met him before, and thereby left her to
suffer agonies of mortification at the betrayal of my ignorance of the
“customs of society” to a lord. When we had taken our places at table,
he was sitting--not opposite to me, where he would have been hidden
by a huge piece of aldermanic plate, which cropped out of the bank of
flowers like a bush on a Queen Anne garden hedge, but midway between
this and a well-filled china flower-pot, exactly in the position which,
to all intents and purposes, _was_ opposite; and several times I caught
myself looking at him, and listening to him, instead of attending to
my dinner and my attentive cavalier. His quiet, clear voice was easy
to hear at a distance, and would have been very pleasant to listen to
without any associations. Though he by no means interfered with any
one else’s flow of eloquence, or staggered anybody with an unusually
profound display of wisdom, he seemed to talk all over the table, and
to keep the stream of conversation always fresh and sparkling. There
were none of those “brilliant flashes of silence” to-night, which so
often make the heart of a hostess sink within her, and aunt Alice’s
beaming face expressed the utmost satisfaction.
I was quite content to listen to him, sending him a frank smile
occasionally when he said something particularly amusing to his
immediate neighbours, and I did not want him to talk to me. I don’t
think he would have attempted it either, only that by-and-bye uncle
Goodeve took it into his head (when recommending some specially
choice old wine) to discourse at large upon the empty stomach of
his childhood, and how hard he had found it to outgrow an early
predilection for ginger-pop, which for many years had been to him
the most rare and costly of attainable beverages. This turn in the
conversation made poor aunt Alice so evidently unhappy that Lord
Westbrook quickly interposed with a fresh and (as he thought) harmless
topic. Catching my eye at the moment, he leaned forward, and addressed
me in a gentle tone that was perfectly audible to a dozen people
besides myself.
“I think I saw you in Richmond this morning, Miss Chamberlayne, did I
not? You were coming out of the Star and Garter as I was going in.”
I could not help it, though it almost maddened me, but at this sudden
and public mention of my misdeeds the blood rose to the very roots
of my hair, and flowed a brilliant scarlet all over me, even through
the gauzy haze on my neck and shoulders. Aunt Alice forgot about the
ginger-pop (to which she was accustomed), smiled grimly, and pursed
up her mouth; Bertha gave a start, and hung her head; Regy scowled
and fidgeted, and looked uneasily at me. Certainly they did all that
in them lay to help me to blacken my character in the eyes of this
distinguished visitor. As for him, he glanced quickly from one to the
other, gravely puzzled and astonished, as well he might be. He looked
hard at Regy for a moment; then his eyes swept coldly over my face,
and he turned to ask a servant who was passing for sauce, as if he
had not spoken to me. If he had been my oldest and dearest friend I
could not have felt more deeply hurt and shamed. The colour sank out
of my cheeks--it seemed to be draining out of my heart, I felt so
suddenly cold and sick with my dismay at what had happened. The other
listeners considered probably that I was merely showing my savage
bringing up by being overwhelmed with the notice of a lord. If _he_
had only thought that, disgusting though it would have been, I could
have borne it. But I knew as well as possible that he suspected me of
“gallivanting” clandestinely, and of being now found out--I, I, who
might be a tomboy and a scaramouch at times, perhaps, but would no more
have done anything “fast” than I would have committed a theft or a
murder, knowingly. Though my bitter mortification almost drove me into
tears, I made a struggle for appearances, and answered him as calmly as
I could--my voice sounding very tremulous and cowardly in my own ears.
“Yes, Lord Westbrook, I was there. It was the first time I had seen
Richmond.”
“And did you not admire the scenery very much?” he then inquired, with
an anxious look of kindness that seemed to say he was sorry for having
distressed me, though his voice was a little cold.
“Very much,” I replied lifting my head and getting defiant. “My cousin
says that the Thames is not be compared with the American rivers and
the Rhine; but it is grander than anything I have ever seen.”
“In its way I consider the Thames is above comparison,” he said.
“If your cousin had been a painter or an angler he would not have
disparaged it.”
Here he went off into a disquisition upon river scenery in general, and
upon fishing grounds in particular. Two or three people soon struck
into the dialogue. Somebody began to talk of the “Strange Adventures
of a Phaeton,” which I had just read, and had deeply fallen in love
with. Captain Damer, who neither knew nor cared to inquire whether I
had been to Richmond with one cousin or with three, thundered away upon
all sorts of trifling topics, and did his best to entertain me. And so
dinner went on as before.
But for me all the flavour was gone out of the French dishes that
wafted subtle perfumes over my left shoulder every five minutes or so.
“No, thank you; no, thank you; no, thank you,” I repeated mechanically,
until Captain Damer began to think it was monotonous, and became
concerned at my loss of appetite. It was not often that I alarmed my
friends on that score, I must say.
“Don’t you care about these things?” he inquired, in a smothered
bellow, taking up a gilded and crested _carte_ that lay between us.
Probably he thought that a diet of damper and mutton had disqualified
my palate for that kind of food. “To tell the truth, no more do I,” he
added. “Fellows boast about their _chef_, you know, and give you no end
of a dinner if they invite you to their club; but nine-tenths of us
choose a slice from a plain joint in the coffee-room when we have only
ourselves to please.”
“But I don’t like slices from plain joints, and I am very fond of made
dishes,” I replied, “though these ridiculous names,” pointing to the
_carte_, “never give you any idea what they are made of. Only--the
room is hot--I lunched rather late--I am not hungry to-night.”
I scooped a spoonful of cream out of a meringue as I spoke, and felt
that a crumb of its fragile substance would choke me.
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTED AT THE CAXTON PRESS, BECCLES. _S. & H._
* * * * *
Transcriber’s note
Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized. Spelling has
been retained as published.
The following printer error has been changed:
Page 186: “daughter, whereever” “daughter, wherever”