LEADS TO A SMALL SKIRMISH BETWEEN ROSE AND EVAN
Lady Jocelyn belonged properly to that order which the Sultans and the
Roxalanas of earth combine to exclude from their little games, under
the designation of blues, or strong-minded women: a kind, if genuine,
the least dangerous and staunchest of the sex, as poor fellows learn
when the flippant and the frail fair have made mummies of them. She had
the frankness of her daughter, the same direct eyes and firm step: a
face without shadows, though no longer bright with youth. It may be
charged to her as one of the errors of her strong mind, that she
believed friendship practicable between men and women, young or old.
She knew the world pretty well, and was not amazed by extraordinary
accidents; but as she herself continued to be an example of her faith:
we must presume it natural that her delusion should cling to her. She
welcomed Evan as her daughter’s friend, walked half-way across the room
to meet him on his introduction to her, and with the simple words, “I
have heard of you,” let him see that he stood upon his merits in her
house. The young man’s spirit caught something of hers even in their
first interview, and at once mounted to that level. Unconsciously he
felt that she took, and would take him, for what he was, and he rose to
his worth in the society she presided over. A youth like Evan could not
perceive, that in loving this lady’s daughter, and accepting the place
she offered him, he was guilty of a breach of confidence; or reflect,
that her entire absence of suspicion imposed upon him a corresponding
honesty toward her. He fell into a blindness. Without dreaming for a
moment that she designed to encourage his passion for Rose, he yet
beheld himself in the light she had cast on him; and, received as her
daughter’s friend, it seemed to him not so utterly monstrous that he
might be her daughter’s lover. A haughty, a grand, or a too familiar
manner, would have kept his eyes clearer on his true condition. Lady
Jocelyn spoke to his secret nature, and eclipsed in his mind the
outward aspects with which it was warring. To her he was a gallant
young man, a fit companion for Rose, and when she and Sir Franks said,
and showed him, that they were glad to know him, his heart swam in a
flood of happiness they little suspected.
This was another of the many forms of intoxication to which
circumstances subjected the poor lover. In Fallowfield, among
impertinent young men, Evan’s pride proclaimed him a tailor. At Beckley
Court, acted on by one genuine soul, he forgot it, and felt elate in
his manhood. The shades of Tailordom dispersed like fog before the full
South-west breeze. When I say he forgot it, the fact was present enough
to him, but it became an outward fact: he had ceased to feel it within
him. It was not a portion of his being, hard as Mrs. Mel had struck to
fix it. Consequently, though he was in a far worse plight than when he
parted with Rose on board the Jocasta, he felt much less of an impostor
now. This may have been partly because he had endured his struggle with
the Demogorgon the Countess painted to him in such frightful colours,
and found him human after all; but it was mainly owing to the hearty
welcome Lady Jocelyn had extended to him as the friend of Rose.
Loving Rose, he nevertheless allowed his love no tender liberties. The
eyes of a lover are not his own; but his hands and lips are, till such
time as they are claimed. The sun must smile on us with peculiar warmth
to woo us forth utterly—pluck our hearts out. Rose smiled on many. She
smiled on Drummond Forth, Ferdinand Laxley, William Harvey, and her
brother Harry; and she had the same eyes for all ages. Once, previous
to the arrival of the latter three, there was a change in her look, or
Evan fancied it. They were going to ride out together, and Evan, coming
to his horse on the gravel walk, saw her talking with Drummond Forth.
He mounted, awaiting her, and either from a slight twinge of jealousy,
or to mark her dainty tread with her riding-habit drawn above her
heels, he could not help turning his head occasionally. She listened to
Drummond with attention, but presently broke from him, crying: “It’s an
absurdity. Speak to them yourself—I shall not.”
On the ride that day, she began prattling of this and that with the
careless glee that became her well, and then sank into a reverie.
Between-whiles her eyes had raised tumults in Evan’s breast by dropping
on him in a sort of questioning way, as if she wished him to speak, or
wished to fathom something she would rather have unspoken. Ere they had
finished their ride, she tossed off what burden may have been on her
mind as lightly as a stray lock from her shoulders. He thought that the
singular look recurred. It charmed him too much for him to speculate on
it.
The Countess’s opportune ally, the gout, which had reduced the Hon.
Melville Jocelyn’s right hand to a state of uselessness, served her
with her brother equally: for, having volunteered his services to the
invalided diplomatist, it excused his stay at Beckley Court to himself,
and was a mask to his intimacy with Rose, besides earning him the
thanks of the family. Harry Jocelyn, released from the wing of the
Countess, came straight to him, and in a rough kind of way begged Evan
to overlook his rudeness.
“You took us all in at Fallowfield, except Drummond,” he said.
“Drummond would have it you were joking. I see it now. And you’re a
confoundedly clever fellow into the bargain, or you wouldn’t be
quill-driving for Uncle Mel. Don’t be uppish about it—will you?”
“You have nothing to fear on that point,” said Evan. With which promise
the peace was signed between them. Drummond and William Harvey were
cordial, and just laughed over the incident. Laxley, however, held
aloof. His retention of ideas once formed befitted his rank and
station. Some trifling qualms attended Evan’s labours with the
diplomatist; but these were merely occasioned by the iteration of a
particular phrase. Mr. Goren, an enthusiastic tailor, had now and then
thrown out to Evan stirring hints of an invention he claimed: the
discovery of a Balance in Breeches: apparently the philosopher’s stone
of the tailor craft, a secret that should ensure harmony of outline to
the person and an indubitable accommodation to the most difficult legs.
Since Adam’s expulsion, it seemed, the tailors of this wilderness had
been in search of it. But like the doctors of this wilderness, their
science knew no specific: like the Babylonian workmen smitten with
confusion of tongues, they had but one word in common, and that word
was “cut.” Mr. Goren contended that to cut was not the key of the
science: but to find a Balance was. An artistic admirer of the frame of
man, Mr. Goren was not wanting in veneration for the individual who had
arisen to do it justice. He spoke of his Balance with supreme
self-appreciation. Nor less so the Honourable Melville, who professed
to have discovered the Balance of Power, at home and abroad. It was a
capital Balance, but inferior to Mr. Goren’s. The latter gentleman
guaranteed a Balance with motion: whereas one step not only upset the
Honourable Melville’s, but shattered the limbs of Europe. Let us admit,
that it is easier to fit a man’s legs than to compress expansive
empires.
Evan enjoyed the doctoring of kingdoms quite as well as the
diplomatist. It suited the latent grandeur of soul inherited by him
from the great Mel. He liked to prop Austria and arrest the Czar, and
keep a watchful eye on France; but the Honourable Melville’s
deep-mouthed phrase conjured up to him a pair of colossal legs
imperiously demanding their Balance likewise. At first the image scared
him. In time he was enabled to smile it into phantom vagueness. The
diplomatist diplomatically informed him, it might happen that the
labours he had undertaken might be neither more nor less than education
for a profession he might have to follow. Out of this, an ardent
imagination, with the Countess de Saldar for an interpreter, might
construe a promise of some sort. Evan soon had high hopes. What though
his name blazed on a shop-front? The sun might yet illumine him to
honour!
Where a young man is getting into delicate relations with a young
woman, the more of his sex the better—they serve as a blind; and the
Countess hailed fresh arrivals warmly. There was Sir John Loring,
Dorothy’s father, who had married the eldest of the daughters of Lord
Elburne. A widower, handsome, and a flirt, he capitulated to the
Countess instantly, and was played off against the provincial Don Juan,
who had reached that point with her when youths of his description make
bashful confidences of their successes, and receive delicious chidings
for their naughtiness—rebukes which give immeasurable rebounds. Then
came Mr. Gordon Graine, with his daughter, Miss Jenny Graine, an early
friend of Rose’s, and numerous others. For the present, Miss Isabella
Current need only be chronicled among the visitors—a sprightly maid
fifty years old, without a wrinkle to show for it—the Aunt Bel of fifty
houses where there were young women and little boys. Aunt Bel had quick
wit and capital anecdotes, and tripped them out aptly on a sparkling
tongue with exquisite instinct for climax and when to strike for a
laugh. No sooner had she entered the hall than she announced the
proximate arrival of the Duke of Belfield at her heels, and it was
known that his Grace was as sure to follow as her little dog, who was
far better paid for his devotion.
The dinners at Beckley Court had hitherto been rather languid to those
who were not intriguing or mixing young love with the repast. Miss
Current was an admirable neutral, sent, as the Countess fervently
believed, by Providence. Till now the Countess had drawn upon her own
resources to amuse the company, and she had been obliged to restrain
herself from doing it with that unctuous feeling for rank which warmed
her Portuguese sketches in low society and among her sisters. She
retired before Miss Current and formed audience, glad of a relief to
her inventive labour. While Miss Current and her ephemerals lightly
skimmed the surface of human life, the Countess worked in the depths.
Vanities, passions, prejudices beneath the surface, gave her full
employment. How naturally poor Juliana Bonner was moved to mistake
Evan’s compassion for a stronger sentiment! The Countess eagerly
assisted Providence to shuffle the company into their proper places.
Harry Jocelyn was moodily happy, but good; greatly improved in the eyes
of his grandmama Bonner, who attributed the change to the Countess, and
partly forgave her the sinful consent to the conditions of her
love-match with the foreign Count, which his penitent wife had
privately confessed to that strict Churchwoman.
“Thank Heaven that you have no children,” Mrs. Bonner had said; and the
Countess humbly replied:
“It is indeed my remorseful consolation!”
“Who knows that it is not your punishment?” added Mrs. Bonner; the
Countess weeping.
She went and attended morning prayers in Mrs. Bonner’s apartments,
alone with the old lady. “To make up for lost time in Catholic
Portugal!” she explained it to the household.
On the morning after Miss Current had come to shape the party, most of
the inmates of Beckley Court being at breakfast, Rose gave a lead to
the conversation.
“Aunt Bel! I want to ask you something. We’ve been making bets about
you. Now, answer honestly, we’re all friends. Why did you refuse all
your offers?”
“Quite simple, child,” replied the unabashed ex-beauty. “A matter of
taste. I liked twenty shillings better than a sovereign.”
Rose looked puzzled, but the men laughed, and Rose exclaimed:
“Now I see! How stupid I am! You mean, you may have friends when you
are not married. Well, I think that’s the wisest, after all. You don’t
lose them, do you? Pray, Mr. Evan, are you thinking Aunt Bel might
still alter her mind for somebody, if she knew his value?”
“I was presuming to hope there might be a place vacant among the
twenty,” said Evan, slightly bowing to both. “Am I pardoned?”
“I like you!” returned Aunt Bel, nodding at him. “Where do you come
from? A young man who’ll let himself go for small coin’s a jewel worth
knowing.”
“Where do I come from?” drawled Laxley, who had been tapping an egg
with a dreary expression.
“Aunt Bel spoke to Mr. Harrington,” said Rose, pettishly.
“Asked him where he came from,” Laxley continued his drawl. “He didn’t
answer, so I thought it polite for another of the twenty to strike in.”
“I must thank you expressly,” said Evan, and achieved a cordial bow.
Rose gave Evan one of her bright looks, and then called the attention
of Ferdinand Laxley to the fact that he had lost a particular bet made
among them.
“What bet?” asked Laxley. “About the profession?”
A stream of colour shot over Rose’s face. Her eyes flew nervously from
Laxley to Evan, and then to Drummond. Laxley appeared pleased as a man
who has made a witty sally: Evan was outwardly calm, while Drummond
replied to the mute appeal of Rose, by saying:
“Yes; we’ve all lost. But who could hit it? The lady admits no
sovereign in our sex.”
“So you’ve been betting about me?” said Aunt Bel. “I’ll settle the
dispute. Let him who guessed ‘Latin’ pocket the stakes, and, if I guess
him, let him hand them over to me.”
“Excellent!” cried Rose. “One did guess ‘Latin,’ Aunt Bel! Now, tell us
which one it was.”
“Not you, my dear. You guessed ‘temper.’”
“No! you dreadful Aunt Bel!”
“Let me see,” said Aunt Bel, seriously. “A young man would not marry a
woman with Latin, but would not guess it the impediment. Gentlemen
moderately aged are mad enough to slip their heads under any yoke, but
see the obstruction. It was a man of forty guessed ‘Latin.’ I request
the Hon. Hamilton Everard Jocelyn to confirm it.”
Amid laughter and exclamations Hamilton confessed himself the man who
had guessed Latin to be the cause of Miss Current’s remaining an old
maid; Rose, crying:
“You really are too clever, Aunt Bel!”
A divergence to other themes ensued, and then Miss Jenny Graine said:
“Isn’t Juley learning Latin? I should like to join her while I’m here.”
“And so should I,” responded Rose. “My friend Evan is teaching her
during the intervals of his arduous diplomatic labours. Will you take
us into your class, Evan?”
“Don’t be silly, girls,” interposed Aunt Bel. “Do you want to graduate
for my state with your eyes open?”
Evan objected his poor qualifications as a tutor, and Aunt Bel
remarked, that if Juley learnt Latin at all, she should have regular
instruction.
“I am quite satisfied,” said Juley, quietly.
“Of course you are,” Rose snubbed her cousin. “So would anybody be. But
Mama really was talking of a tutor for Juley, if she could find one.
There’s a school at Bodley; but that’s too far for one of the men to
come over.”
A school at Bodley! thought Evan, and his probationary years at the
Cudford Establishment rose before him; and therewith, for the first
time since his residence at Beckley, the figure of John Raikes.
“There’s a friend of mine,” he said, aloud, “I think if Lady Jocelyn
does wish Miss Bonner to learn Latin thoroughly, he would do very well
for the groundwork and would be glad of the employment. He is very
poor.”
“If he’s poor, and a friend of yours, Evan, we’ll have him,” said Rose:
“we’ll ride and fetch him.”
“Yes,” added Miss Carrington, “that must be quite sufficient
qualification.”
Juliana was not gazing gratefully at Evan for his proposal.
Rose asked the name of Evan’s friend. “His name is Raikes,” answered
Evan. “I don’t know where he is now. He may be at Fallowfield. If Lady
Jocelyn pleases, I will ride over to-day and see.”
“My dear Evan!” cried Rose, “you don’t mean that absurd figure we saw
on the cricket-field?” She burst out laughing. “Oh! what fun it will
be! Let us have him here by all means.”
“I shall not bring him to be laughed at,” said Evan.
“I will remember he is your friend,” Rose returned demurely; and again
laughed, as she related to Jenny Graine the comic appearance Mr. Raikes
had presented.
Laxley waited for a pause, and then said: “I have met this Mr. Raikes.
As a friend of the family, I should protest against his admission here
in any office whatever into the upper part of the house, at least. He
is not a gentleman.”
We don’t want teachers to be gentlemen,” observed Rose.
“This fellow is the reverse,” Laxley pronounced, and desired Harry to
confirm it; but Harry took a gulp of coffee.
“Oblige me by recollecting that I have called him a friend of mine,”
said Evan.
Rose murmured to him: “Pray forgive me! I forgot.” Laxley hummed
something about “taste.” Aunt Bel led from the theme by a lively
anecdote.
After breakfast the party broke into knots, and canvassed Laxley’s
behaviour to Evan, which was generally condemned. Rose met the young
men strolling on the lawn; and, with her usual bluntness, accused
Laxley of wishing to insult her friend.
“I speak to him—do I not?” said Laxley. “What would you have more? I
admit the obligation of speaking to him when I meet him in your house.
Out of it—that’s another matter.”
“But what is the cause for your conduct to him, Ferdinand?”
“By Jove!” cried Harry, “I wonder he puts up with it: I wouldn’t. I’d
have a shot with you, my boy.”
“Extremely honoured,” said Laxley. “But neither you nor I care to fight
tailors.”
“Tailors!” exclaimed Rose. There was a sharp twitch in her body, as if
she had been stung or struck.
“Look here, Rose,” said Laxley; “I meet him, he insults me, and to get
out of the consequences tells me he’s the son of a tailor, and a tailor
himself; knowing that it ties my hands. Very well, he puts himself hors
de combat to save his bones. Let him unsay it, and choose whether he’ll
apologize or not, and I’ll treat him accordingly. At present I’m not
bound to do more than respect the house I find he has somehow got
admission to.”
“It’s clear it was that other fellow,” said Harry, casting a
side-glance up at the Countess’s window.
Rose looked straight at Laxley, and abruptly turned on her heel.
In the afternoon, Lady Jocelyn sent a message to Evan that she wished
to see him. Rose was with her mother. Lady Jocelyn had only to say,
that if he thought his friend a suitable tutor for Miss Bonner, they
would be happy to give him the office at Beckley Court. Glad to
befriend poor Jack, Evan gave the needful assurances, and was requested
to go and fetch him forthwith. When he left the room, Rose marched out
silently beside him.
“Will you ride over with me, Rose?” he said, though scarcely anxious
that she should see Mr. Raikes immediately.
The singular sharpness of her refusal astonished him none the less.
“Thank you, no; I would rather not.”
A lover is ever ready to suspect that water has been thrown on the fire
that burns for him in the bosom of his darling. Sudden as the change
was, it was very decided. His sensitive ears were pained by the absence
of his Christian name, which her lips had lavishly made sweet to him.
He stopped in his walk.
“You spoke of riding to Fallowfield. Is it possible you don’t want me
to bring my friend here? There’s time to prevent it.”
Judged by the Countess de Saldar, the behaviour of this well-born
English maid was anything but well-bred. She absolutely shrugged her
shoulders and marched a-head of him into the conservatory, where she
began smelling at flowers and plucking off sere leaves.
In such cases a young man always follows; as her womanly instinct must
have told her, for she expressed no surprise when she heard his voice
two minutes after.
“Rose! what have I done?”
“Nothing at all,” she said, sweeping her eyes over his a moment, and
resting them on the plants.
“I must have uttered something that has displeased you.”
“No.”
Brief negatives are not re-assuring to a lover’s uneasy mind.
“I beg you—Be frank with me, Rose!”
A flame of the vanished fire shone in her face, but subsided, and she
shook her head darkly.
“Have you any objection to my friend?”
Her fingers grew petulant with an orange leaf. Eyeing a spot on it, she
said, hesitatingly:
“Any friend of yours I am sure I should like to help. But—but I wish
you wouldn’t associate with that—that kind of friend. It gives people
all sorts of suspicions.”
Evan drew a sharp breath.
The voices of Master Alec and Miss Dorothy were heard shouting on the
lawn. Alec gave Dorothy the slip and approached the conservatory on
tip-toe, holding his hand out behind him to enjoin silence and secrecy.
The pair could witness the scene through the glass before Evan spoke.
“What suspicions?” he asked.
Rose looked up, as if the harshness of his tone pleased her.
“Do you like red roses best, or white?” was her answer, moving to a
couple of trees in pots.
“Can’t make up your mind?” she continued, and plucked both a white and
red rose, saying: “There! choose your colour by-and-by,” and ask Juley
to sew the one you choose in your button-hole.”
She laid the roses in his hand, and walked away. She must have known
that there was a burden of speech on his tongue. She saw him move to
follow her, but this time she did not linger, and it may be inferred
that she wished to hear no more.