HEATHCOTE MOUNTFORD.
The visit of the unknown cousin had thus become a very interesting event
to the whole household, though less, perhaps, to its head than to anyone
else. Mr. Mountford flattered himself that he had nothing of a man’s
natural repugnance towards his heir. Had that heir been five-and-twenty,
full of the triumph and confidence of youth, then indeed it might have
been difficult to treat him with the same easy tolerance; for, whatever
may be the chances in your own favour, it would be difficult to believe
that a young man of twenty-five would not, one way or the other, manage
to outlive yourself at sixty. But Heathcote Mountford had lived, his
kinsman thought, very nearly as long as himself; he had not been a young
man for these dozen years. It was half a lifetime since there had been
that silly story about the Italian lady. Nothing can be more easy than
to add on a few years to the vague estimate of age which we all form in
respect to our neighbours; the fellow must be forty if he was a day; and
between forty and sixty after all there is so little difference,
especially when he of forty is an old bachelor of habits perhaps not too
regular or virtuous. Mr. Mountford was one of the people who habitually
disbelieve in the virtue of their neighbours. He had never been a man
about town, a frequenter of the clubs, in his own person; and there was,
perhaps, a spice of envy in the very bad opinion which he entertained of
such persons. A man of forty used up by late hours and doubtful habits
is not younger--is as a matter of fact older--than a respectable married
man of sixty taking every care of himself, and regular as clockwork in
all his ways. Therefore he looked with good-humoured tolerance on
Heathcote, at whose rights under the entail he was almost inclined to
laugh. ‘I shall see them all out,’ he said to himself--nay he even
permitted himself to say this to his wife, which was going perhaps too
far. Heathcote, to be sure, had a younger brother; but then he was well
known to be a delicate, consumptive boy.
To the ladies of the family he was more interesting, for various
reasons. Rose and her mother regarded him with perfectly simple and
uncomplicated views. If he should happen to prove agreeable, if things
fitted in and came right, why then--the arrangement was one which might
have its advantages. The original estate of Mount which was comprehended
in the entail was not a large one, but still it was not unworthy
consideration, especially when _he_ had a little and _she_ had a little
besides. Anne, it need not be said, took no such serious contingency
into her thoughts. But she too looked for Heathcote’s arrival with
curiosity, almost with anxiety. He was one who had been as she now was,
and who had fallen--fallen from that high estate. He had been loved--as
Anne felt herself to be loved; but he had been betrayed. She thought
with awe of the anguish, the horror of unwilling conviction, the dying
out of all beauty and glory from the world, which it must have been his
to experience. And he had lived long years since then, on this changed
earth, under these changed skies. She began to long to see him with a
fervour of curiosity which was mingled with pity and sympathy, and yet a
certain touch of delicate scorn. How could he have lived after, lived so
long, sunk (no doubt) into a dreamy routine of living, as if mere
existence was worth retaining without hope or love? She was more curious
about him than she had ever been about any visitor before, with perhaps
a far-off consciousness that all this might happen to herself, mingling
with the vehement conviction that it never could happen, that she was as
far above it and secure from it as heaven is from the tempests and
troubles of earth.
The much-expected visitor arrived in the twilight of an October evening
just before dinner, and his first introduction to the family was in the
indistinct light of the fire--one of the first fires of the season,
which lighted up the drawing-room with a fitful ruddy blaze shining upon
the white dresses of the girls, but scarcely revealing the elder people
in their darker garments. A man in evening dress very often looks his
best: but he does not look romantic--he does not look like a hero--the
details of his appearance are too much like those of everybody else.
Anne, looking at him breathlessly, trying to get a satisfactory
impression of him when the light leaped up for a moment, found him too
vigorous, too large, too life-like for her fastidious fancy; but Rose
was made perfectly happy by the appearance of a man with whom it would
not be at all necessary, she thought, to be upon stilts. The sound of
his voice when he spoke dispersed ever so many visions. It was not too
serious, as the younger sister had feared. It had not the lofty
composure which the elder had hoped. He gave his arm to Mrs. Mountford
with the air of a man not the least detached from his fellow-creatures.
‘There will be a frost to-night,’ he said; ‘it is very cold outside; but
it is worth while being out in the cold to come into a cosy room like
this.’ Charley Ashley would have said the very same had it been he who
had walked up to dinner from the rectory. Heathcote had not been in the
house for years, not perhaps ever since all _that_ had happened, yet he
spoke about the cosy room like any chance visitor. It would not be too
much to say that there was a certain disgust in the revulsion with which
Anne turned from him, though no doubt it was premature to pass judgment
on him in the first five minutes like this.
In the light of the dining-room all mystery departed, and he was seen as
he was. A tall man, strong, and well developed, with dark and very curly
hair tinged all about his temples with grey; his lips smiling, his eyes
somewhat serious, though kindling now and then with a habit of turning
quickly round upon the person he was addressing. Four pairs of eyes were
turned upon him with great curiosity as he took his seat at Mrs.
Mountford’s side; two of them were satisfied, two not so. This, Mr.
Mountford felt, was not the rusty and irregular man about town, for whom
he had felt a contempt; still he was turning grey, which shows a feeble
constitution. At sixty the master of Mount had not a grey hair in his
head. As for Anne, this grey hair was the only satisfactory thing about
him. She was not foolish enough to conclude that it must have turned so
in a single night. But she felt that this at least was what might be
expected. She was at the opposite side of the table, and could not but
give a great deal of her attention to him. His hair curled in sheer
wantonness of life and vigour, though it was grey; his voice was round,
and strong, and melodious. As he sat opposite to her he smiled and
talked, and looked like a person who enjoyed his life. Anne for her own
part scarcely took any part in the conversation at all. For the first
time she threw back her thoughts upon the Italian princess whom she had
so scorned and condemned. Perhaps, after all, it was not she who had
suffered the least. Anne conjured up a picture of that forlorn lady
sitting somewhere in a dim solitary room in the heart of a great silent
palace, thinking over that episode of her youth. Perhaps it was not she,
after all, that was so much in the wrong.
‘I started from Sandhurst only this morning,’ he was saying, ‘after
committing all kinds of follies with the boys. Imagine a respectable
person of my years playing football! I thought they would have knocked
all the breath out of me: yet you see I have survived. The young fellows
had a match with men far too strong for them--and I used to have some
little reputation that way in old days----’
‘Oh, yes, you were a great athlete; you played for Oxford in University
matches, and got ever so many goals.’
‘This is startling,’ Heathcote said; ‘I did not know my reputation had
travelled before me; it is a pity it is not something better worth
remembering. But what do you know about goals, Miss Mountford, if I may
make so bold?’
‘Rose,’ said that little person, who was wreathed in smiles; ‘that is
Miss Mountford opposite. I am only the youngest. Oh, I heard from
Charley Ashley all about it. We know about goals perfectly well, for we
used to play ourselves long ago in the holidays with Charley and
Willie--till mamma put a stop to it,’ Rose added, with a sigh.
‘I should think I put a stop to it! You played once, I believe,’ said
Mrs. Mountford, with a slight frown, feeling that this was a quite
unnecessary confidence.
‘Oh, much oftener; don’t you recollect, Anne, you played football too,
and you were capital, the boys said?’
Now Anne was, in fact, much troubled by this revelation. She, in her
present superlative condition, walking about in a halo of higher things,
to be presented to a stranger who was not a stranger, and, no doubt,
would soon hear all about her, as a football player, a girl who was
athletic, a tom-boy, neither less nor more! She was about to reply with
annoyance, when the ludicrous aspect of it suddenly struck her, and she
burst into a laugh in spite of herself. ‘There is such a thing as an
inconvenient memory,’ she said. ‘I am not proud of playing football
now.’
‘I am not at all ashamed of it,’ said Rose. ‘I never should have known
what a goal was if I hadn’t played. Do you play tennis, _too_, Mr.
Heathcote? It is not too cold if you are fond of it. Charley said you
were good at anything--good all round, he said.’
‘That is a very flattering reputation, and you must let me thank Mr.
Charley, whoever he is, for sounding my trumpet. But all that was a
hundred years ago,’ Heathcote said; and this made up a little lost
ground for him with Anne, for she thought she heard something like a
sigh.
‘You will like to try the covers,’ said Mr. Mountford. ‘I go out very
little myself now-a-days, and I daresay you begin to feel the damp, too.
I don’t preserve so much as I should like to do; these girls are always
interfering with their false notions; but, all the same, I can promise
you a few days’ sport.’
‘Is it the partridges or the poachers that the young ladies patronise?’
Heathcote said.
‘My dear,’ said Mrs. Mountford, ‘what is the use of calling attention
to Anne’s crotchets? She has her own way of thinking, Mr. Heathcote. I
tell her she must never marry a sportsman. But, indeed, she has a great
deal to say for herself. It does not seem half so silly when you hear
what she has got to say.’
Anne presented a somewhat indignant countenance to the laughing glance
of the new cousin. She would not be drawn into saying anything in her
own defence.
‘You will find a little sport, all the same,’ said Mr. Mountford; ‘but I
go out very seldom myself; and I should think you must be beginning to
feel the damp, too.’
‘Not much,’ said the younger man, with a laugh. He was not only athletic
and muscular, but conscious of his strength, and somewhat proud of it.
The vigour in him seemed an affront to all Anne’s pre-conceived ideas,
as it was to her father’s comfortable conviction of the heir’s
elderliness; his very looks seemed to cast defiance at these two
discomfited critics. That poor lady in the Italian palace! it could not
have been she that was so much in the wrong, after all.
‘I like him very much, mamma,’ cried Rose, when they got into the
drawing-room; ‘I like him immensely: he is one of the very nicest men I
ever saw. Do let us make use of him now he is here. Don’t you know that
dance you always promised us?--let us have the dance while Heathcote is
here. Old! who said he was old? he is delightful; and so nice-looking,
and such pretty curly hair.’
‘Hush, my pet, do not be too rapturous; he is very nice, I don’t deny;
but still, let us see how he bears a longer inspection; one hour at
dinner is not enough to form an opinion. How do you like your cousin
Heathcote, Anne?’
‘He is not at all what I expected,’ Anne said.
‘She expected a Don Quixote; she expected a Lord Byron, with his collar
turned down; somebody that talked nothing but poetry. I am so glad,’
said Rose, ‘he is not like that. I shall not mind Mount going to
Heathcote now. He is just my kind of man, not Anne’s at all.’
‘No, he is not Anne’s kind,’ said the mother.
Anne did not say anything. She agreed in their verdict; evidently
Heathcote was one of those disappointments of which before she met Cosmo
the world had been full. Many people had excited generally her
curiosity, if not in the same yet in a similar way, and these had
disappointed her altogether. She did not blame Heathcote. If he was
unable to perceive his own position in the world, and the attitude that
was befitting to him, possibly it was not his fault. Very likely it was
not his fault; most probably he did not know any better. You cannot
expect a man to act contrary to his nature, Anne said to herself; and
she gave up Heathcote with a little gentle disdain. This disdain is the
very soul of toleration. It is so much more easy to put up with the
differences, the discrepancies, of other people’s belief or practice,
when you find them inferior, not to be judged by your standards. This
was what Anne did. She was not angry with him for not being the
Heathcote she had looked for. She was tolerant: he knew no better; if
you look for gold in a pebble, it is not the pebble’s fault if you do
not find it. This was the mistake she had made. She went to the other
end of the room where candles were burning on a table and chairs set out
around. It was out of reach of all the chatter about Heathcote in which
she did not agree. She took a book, and set it up before her to make a
screen before her gaze, and, thus defended, went off at once into her
private sanctuary and thought of Cosmo. Never was there a transformation
scene more easily managed. The walls of the Mount drawing-room divided,
they gave place to a group of the beeches, with two figures seated
underneath, or to a bit of the commonplace road, but no longer
commonplace--a road that led to the Manor. What right had a girl to
grumble at her companions, or any of their ways, when she could escape
in the twinkling of an eye into some such beautiful place, into some
such heavenly company, which was all her own? But yet there would come
back occasionally, as through a glass, an image of the Italian lady upon
whom she had been so hard a little while before. Poor Italian lady!
evidently, after all, Heathcote’s life had not been blighted. Had she,
perhaps, instead of injuring him only blighted her own?
The softly-lighted room, the interchange of soft voices at one end, the
figure at the other intent upon a book, lighting up eyes full of dreams,
seemed a sort of enchanted vision of home to Heathcote Mountford when,
after an interval, he came in alone, hesitating a little as he crossed
the threshold. He was not used to home. A long time ago his own house
had been closed up at the death of his mother--not so much closed up but
that now and then he went to it with a friend or two, establishing their
bachelorhood in the old faded library and drawing-room, which could be
smoked in, and had few associations. But the woman’s part of the place
was all shut up, and he was not used to any woman’s part in his life.
This, however, was all feminine; he went in as to an enchanted castle.
Even Mrs. Mountford, who was commonplace enough, and little Rose, who
was a pretty little girl and no more, seemed wonderful creatures to him
who had dropped out of acquaintance with such creatures; and the elder
daughter was something more. He felt a little shy, middle-aged as he
was, as he went in. And this place had many associations; one time or
other it would be his own; one time or other it might come to pass that
he, like his old kinsman, would pass by the drawing-room, and prefer the
ease of the library, his own chair and his papers. At this idea he
laughed within himself, and went up to Mrs. Mountford on her sofa, who
stopped talking when she saw who it was.
‘Mr. Mountford has gone to his own room. I was to tell you he has
something to do.’
‘Oh, papa has always an excuse!’ cried Rose; ‘he never comes here in the
evening. I am sure this room is far nicer, and we are far nicer, than
sitting there all by himself among those musty books. And he never reads
them even! he puts on his dressing-gown and sits at his ease----’
‘Hush, you silly child! When a gentleman comes to be papa’s age he can’t
be expected to care for the company of girls, even when they are his
own. I will take my work and sit with him by-and-by. You must not give
your cousin reason to think that you are undutiful to papa.’
‘Oh, never mind!’ said Rose; ‘Mr. Heathcote, come, and be on my side
against mamma. It is so seldom we have gentlemen staying here--indeed,
there are very few gentlemen in the county--there are daughters, nothing
but daughters, in most of the houses. And mamma has promised us a dance
whenever we could get enough men. I want her to give it while you are
here.’
‘While I am here; but you don’t suppose I am a dancing man?’
‘You can dance, I am sure,’ said Rose. ‘I can see it in your face; and
then you would make acquaintance with all the neighbours. It would be
dreadful when you come to live here after our time if you do not know a
soul. You must make acquaintance with everybody; and it would be far
more fun to have a ball than a quantity of dreary dinner-parties. Do
come here and be on my side against mamma!’
‘How can I be against my kind kinswoman,’ he said laughing, ‘who has
taken me in and received me so graciously, though I belong to the other
branch? That would be ingratitude of the basest sort.’
‘Then you must be against me,’ said Rose.
‘That would be impossible!’ he said, with another laugh; and drew his
chair close to the table and threw himself into the discussion. Rose’s
bright little countenance lighted up, her blue eyes shone, her cheeks
glowed. She got a piece of paper and a pencil, and began to reckon up
who could be invited. ‘The men first,’ she said, with the deepest
gravity, furtively applying her pencil to her lips to make it mark the
blacker as in old school-room days; ‘the men must go down first, for we
are always sure of plenty of girls--but you cannot have a dance without
men. First of all, I will put down you. You are one to start with--Mr.
Heathcote Mountford; how funny it is to have a gentleman of the same
name, who is not papa!’
‘Ah! that is because you never had a brother!’ said Mrs. Mountford, with
a sigh; ‘it never seemed at all strange to us at home. I beg your
pardon, I am sure, Mr. Heathcote; of course it would have interfered
with you; but for girls not to have a brother is sad for them, poor
things! It always makes a great deal of difference in a girl’s life.’
‘What am I to say?’ asked Heathcote. ‘I am very sorry, but--how can I be
sorry when I have just become conscious of my privileges; it is an
extremely pleasant thing to step into this vacant post.’
‘A second cousin is not like a brother,’ said Rose; ‘but, anyhow, at a
dance you would be the man of the house. And you do dance? if you don’t
you must learn before the ball. We will teach you, Anne and I.’
‘I can dance a little, but I have no doubt lessons would do me good. Now
go on; I want to see my comrades and coadjutors.’
Rose paused with her pencil in her hand. ‘Mr. Heathcote Mountford, that
is one; that is a great thing to begin with. And then there is--then
there is--who shall I put down next? who is there else, mamma? Of course
Charley Ashley; but he is a clergyman, he scarcely counts. That is why a
garden-party is better than a dance in the country, because the
clergymen all count for that. I think there is somebody staying with the
Woodheads, and there is sure to be half-a-dozen at Meadowlands; shall I
put down six for Meadowlands? They must invite some one if they have not
so many; all our friends must invite some one--we must insist upon it,’
Rose said.
‘My dear, that is always the difficulty; you know that is why we have
had to give it up so often. In the vacation there is Willie Ashley; he
is always somebody.’
‘He must come,’ cried Rose, energetically, ‘for three days--that will be
enough--for three days; Charley must write and tell him. And then there
is--who is there more, mamma? Mr. Heathcote Mountford, that is an
excellent beginning, and he is an excellent dancer, and will go on all
the evening through, and dance with everybody. Still, we cannot give a
ball with only one man.’
‘I will send for my brother and some more of those young fellows from
Sandhurst, Mrs. Mountford, if you can put them up.’
‘If we can put them up!’ Rose all but threw herself into the arms of
this new cousin, her eyes all but filled with tears of gratitude. She
gave a little shriek of eagerness--‘Of course we can put them up; oh!
as many as ever you please, as many as you can get:--shall I put down
twenty for Sandhurst? Now we have a real ball in a moment,’ said Rose,
with enthusiasm. It had been the object of her desires all her life.
‘Does Miss Mountford take no interest in the dance?’ Heathcote asked.
‘Anne? Oh, she will take it up when it comes near the time. She will do
a great deal; she will arrange everything; but she does not take any
pleasure in planning; and then,’ said Rose, dropping her voice to a
whisper--‘Hush! don’t look to make her think we are talking of her; she
does not like to be talked of--Mr. Heathcote! Anne is--engaged.’
‘My dear child!’ cried her mother. ‘Mr. Heathcote, this is all nonsense;
you must not pay the least attention to what this silly child says.
Engaged!--what folly, Rose! you know your sister is nothing of the kind.
It is nothing but imagination; it is only your nonsense, it is----’
‘You wouldn’t dare, mamma, to say that to Anne,’ said Rose, with a very
solemn face.
‘Dare! I hope I should dare to say anything to Anne. Mr. Heathcote will
think we are a strange family when the mother wouldn’t _dare_ to say
anything to the daughter, and her own child taunts her with it. I don’t
know what Mr. Heathcote would think of us,’ said Mrs. Mountford,
vehemently, ‘if he believed what you said.’
‘I do not think anything but what you tell me,’ said Heathcote,
endeavouring to smooth the troubled waters. ‘I know there are family
difficulties everywhere. Pray don’t think of making explanations. I am
sure whatever you do will be kind, and whatever Miss Mountford does will
spring from a generous heart. One needs only to look at her to see
that.’
Neither of the ladies thought he had paid any attention to Anne, and
they were surprised--for it had not occurred to them that Anne,
preoccupied as she was, could have any interest for the new comer. They
were startled by the quite unbounded confidence in Anne which he thus
took it upon him to profess. They exchanged looks of surprise. ‘Yes,
Anne has a generous heart--no one can deny that,’ Mrs. Mountford said.
It was in the tone of a half-unwilling admission, but it was all the
more effective on that account. Anne had listened to their voices,
half-pleased thus to escape interruption, half-disgusted to have more
and more proofs of the frivolity of the new comer: she had heard a
sentence now and then, an exclamation from Rose, and had been much
amused by them. She was more startled by the cessation of the sounds, by
the sudden fall, the whispering, the undertones, than by the
conversation. What could they be talking of now, and why should they
whisper as if there were secrets in hand? Next minute, however, when she
was almost roused to the point of getting up to see what it was, Mrs.
Mountford’s voice became audible again.
‘Do you sing now, Mr. Heathcote? I remember long ago you used to have a
charming voice!’
‘I don’t know that it was ever very charming; but such as it is I have
the remains of it,’ he said.
‘Then come and sing something,’ said Mrs. Mountford. What was it they
had been saying which broke off so suddenly, and occasioned this jump to
a different subject? But Anne composed herself to her dreams again, when
she saw the group moving towards the piano. He sang, too, then! sang and
danced and played football, after what had happened to him? Decidedly,
the Italian princess must have had much to be said on her side.