29. ETHELBERTA'S DRESSING-ROOM-MR. DONCASTLE'S HOUSE

The dressing of Ethelberta for the dinner-party was an undertaking into

which Picotee threw her whole skill as tirewoman. Her energies were

brisker that day than they had been at any time since the Julians first

made preparations for departure from town; for a letter had come to her

from Faith, telling of their arrival at the old cathedral city, which

was found to suit their inclinations and habits infinitely better than

London; and that she would like Picotee to visit them there some day.

Picotee felt, and so probably felt the writer of the letter, that such a

visit would not be very practicable just now; but it was a pleasant

idea, and for fastening dreams upon was better than nothing.

Such musings were encouraged also by Ethelberta's remarks as the

dressing went on.

'We will have a change soon,' she said; 'we will go out of town for a

few days. It will do good in many ways. I am getting so alarmed about

the health of the children; their faces are becoming so white and thin

and pinched that an old acquaintance would hardly know them; and they

were so plump when they came. You are looking as pale as a ghost, and I

daresay I am too. A week or two at Knollsea will see us right.'

'O, how charming!' said Picotee gladly.

Knollsea was a village on the coast, not very far from Melchester, the

new home of Christopher; not very far, that is to say, in the eye of a

sweetheart; but seeing that there was, as the crow flies, a stretch of

thirty-five miles between the two places, and that more than one-third

the distance was without a railway, an elderly gentleman might have

considered their situations somewhat remote from each other.

'Why have you chosen Knollsea?' inquired Picotee.

'Because of aunt's letter from Rouen-have you seen it?'

'I did not read it through.'

'She wants us to get a copy of the register of her baptism; and she is

not absolutely certain which of the parishes in and about Knollsea they

were living in when she was born. Mother, being a year younger, cannot

tell of course. First I thought of writing to the clergyman of each

parish, but that would be troublesome, and might reveal the secret of my

birth; but if we go down there for a few days, and take some lodgings,

we shall be able to find out all about it at leisure. Gwendoline and

Joey can attend to mother and the people downstairs, especially as

father will look in every evening until he goes out of town, to see if

they are getting on properly. It will be such a weight off my soul to

slip away from acquaintances here.'

'Will it?'

'Yes. At the same time I ought not to speak so, for they have been very

kind. I wish we could go to Rouen afterwards; aunt repeats her

invitation as usual. However, there is time enough to think of that.'

Ethelberta was dressed at last, and, beholding the lonely look of poor

Picotee when about to leave the room, she could not help having a

sympathetic feeling that it was rather hard for her sister to be denied

so small an enjoyment as a menial peep at a feast when she herself was

to sit down to it as guest.

'If you still want to go and see the procession downstairs you may do

so,' she said reluctantly; 'provided that you take care of your tongue

when you come in contact with Menlove, and adhere to father's

instructions as to how long you may stay. It may be in the highest

degree unwise; but never mind, go.'

Then Ethelberta departed for the scene of action, just at the hour of

the sun's lowest decline, when it was fading away, yellow and mild as

candle-light, and when upper windows facing north-west reflected to

persons in the street dissolving views of tawny cloud with brazen edges,

the original picture of the same being hidden from sight by soiled walls

and slaty slopes.

Before entering the presence of host and hostess, Ethelberta contrived

to exchange a few words with her father.

'In excellent time,' he whispered, full of paternal pride at the superb

audacity of her situation here in relation to his. 'About half of them

are come.'

'Mr. Neigh?'

'Not yet; he's coming.'

'Lord Mountclere?'

'Yes. He came absurdly early; ten minutes before anybody else, so that

Mrs. D. could hardly get on her bracelets and things soon enough to

scramble downstairs and receive him; and he's as nervous as a boy. Keep

up your spirits, dear, and don't mind me.'

'I will, father. And let Picotee see me at dinner if you can. She is

very anxious to look at me. She will be here directly.'

And Ethelberta, having been announced, joined the chamberful of

assembled guests, among whom for the present we lose sight of her.

Meanwhile the evening outside the house was deepening in tone, and the

lamps began to bHANDlink up. Her sister having departed, Picotee hastily

arrayed herself in a little black jacket and chip hat, and tripped

across the park to the same point. Chickerel had directed a maid-servant

known as Jane to receive his humbler daughter and make her comfortable;

and that friendly person, who spoke as if she had known Picotee five-

and-twenty years, took her to the housekeeper's room, where the visitor

deposited her jacket and hat, and rested awhile.

A quick-eyed, light-haired, slight-built woman came in when Jane had

gone. 'Are you Miss Chickerel?' she said to Picotee.

'Yes,' said Picotee, guessing that this was Menlove, and fearing her a

little.

'Jane tells me that you have come to visit your father, and would like

to look at the company going to dinner. Well, they are not much to see,

you know; but such as they are you are welcome to the sight of. Come

along with me.'

'I think I would rather wait for father, if you will excuse me, please.'

'Your father is busy now; it is no use for you to think of saying

anything to him.'

Picotee followed her guide up a back staircase to the height of several

flights, and then, crossing a landing, they descended to the upper part

of the front stairs.

'Now look over the balustrade, and you will see them all in a minute,'

said Mrs. Menlove. 'O, you need not be timid; you can look out as far as

you like. We are all independent here; no slavery for us: it is not as

it is in the country, where servants are considered to be of different

blood and bone from their employers, and to have no eyes for anything

but their work. Here they are coming.'

Picotee then had the pleasure of looking down upon a series of human

crowns-some black, some white, some strangely built upon, some smooth

and shining-descending the staircase in disordered column and great

discomfort, their owners trying to talk, but breaking off in the midst

of syllables to look to their footing. The young girl's eyes had not

drooped over the handrail more than a few moments when she softly

exclaimed, 'There she is, there she is! How lovely she looks, does she

not?'

'Who?' said Mrs. Menlove.

Picotee recollected herself, and hastily drew in her impulses. 'My dear

mistress,' she said blandly. 'That is she on Mr. Doncastle's arm. And

look, who is that funny old man the elderly lady is helping downstairs?'

'He is our honoured guest, Lord Mountclere. Mrs. Doncastle will have him

all through the dinner, and after that he will devote himself to Mrs.

Petherwin, your "dear mistress." He keeps looking towards her now, and

no doubt thinks it a nuisance that she is not with him. Well, it is

useless to stay here. Come a little further-we'll follow them.' Menlove

began to lead the way downstairs, but Picotee held back.

'Won't they see us?' she said.

'No. And if they do, it doesn't matter. Mrs. Doncastle would not object

in the least to the daughter of her respected head man being

accidentally seen in the hall.'

They descended to the bottom and stood in the hall. 'O, there's father!'

whispered Picotee, with childlike gladness, as Chickerel became visible

to her by the door. The butler nodded to his daughter, and became again

engrossed in his duties.

'I wish I could see her-my mistress-again,' said Picotee.

'You seem mightily concerned about your mistress,' said Menlove. 'Do you

want to see if you have dressed her properly?'

'Yes, partly; and I like her, too. She is very kind to me.'

'You will have a chance of seeing her soon. When the door is nicely open

you can look in for a moment. I must leave you now for a few minutes,

but I will come again.'

Menlove departed, and Picotee stood waiting. She wondered how Ethelberta

was getting on, and whether she enjoyed herself as much as it seemed her

duty to do in such a superbly hospitable place. Picotee then turned her

attention to the hall, every article of furniture therein appearing

worthy of scrutiny to her unaccustomed eyes. Here she walked and looked

about for a long time till an excellent opportunity offered itself of

seeing how affairs progressed in the dining-room.

Through the partly-opened door there became visible a sideboard which

first attracted her attention by its richness. It was, indeed, a

noticeable example of modern art-workmanship, in being exceptionally

large, with curious ebony mouldings at different stages; and, while the

heavy cupboard doors at the bottom were enriched with inlays of paler

wood, other panels were decorated with tiles, as if the massive

composition had been erected on the spot as part of the solid building.

However, it was on a space higher up that Picotee's eyes and thoughts

were fixed. In the great mirror above the middle ledge she could see

reflected the upper part of the dining-room, and this suggested to her

that she might see Ethelberta and the other guests reflected in the same

way by standing on a chair, which, quick as thought, she did.

To Picotee's dazed young vision her beautiful sister appeared as the

chief figure of a glorious pleasure-parliament of both sexes, surrounded

by whole regiments of candles grouped here and there about the room. She

and her companions were seated before a large flowerbed, or small

hanging garden, fixed at about the level of the elbow, the attention of

all being concentrated rather upon the uninteresting margin of the bed,

and upon each other, than on the beautiful natural objects growing in

the middle, as it seemed to Picotee. In the ripple of conversation

Ethelberta's clear voice could occasionally be heard, and her young

sister could see that her eyes were bright, and her face beaming, as if

divers social wants and looming penuriousness had never been within her

experience. Mr. Doncastle was quite absorbed in what she was saying. So

was the queer old man whom Menlove had called Lord Mountclere.

'The dashing widow looks very well, does she not?' said a person at

Picotee's elbow.

It was her conductor Menlove, now returned again, whom Picotee had quite

forgotten.

'She will do some damage here to-night you will find,' continued

Menlove. 'How long have you been with her?'

'O, a long time-I mean rather a short time,' stammered Picotee.

'I know her well enough. I was her maid once, or rather her mother-in-

law's, but that was long before you knew her. I did not by any means

find her so lovable as you seem to think her when I had to do with her

at close quarters. An awful flirt-awful. Don't you find her so?'

'I don't know.'

'If you don't yet you will know. But come down from your perch-the

dining-room door will not be open again for some time-and I will show

you about the rooms upstairs. This is a larger house than Mrs.

Petherwin's, as you see. Just come and look at the drawing-rooms.'

Wishing much to get rid of Menlove, yet fearing to offend her, Picotee

followed upstairs. Dinner was almost over by this time, and when they

entered the front drawing-room a young man-servant and maid were there

rekindling the lights.

'Now let's have a game of cat-and-mice,' said the maid-servant cheerily.

'There's plenty of time before they come up.'

'Agreed,' said Menlove promptly. 'You will play, will you not, Miss

Chickerel?'

'No, indeed,' said Picotee, aghast.

'Never mind, then; you look on.'

Away then ran the housemaid and Menlove, and the young footman started

at their heels. Round the room, over the furniture, under the furniture,

through the furniture, out of one window, along the balcony, in at

another window, again round the room-so they glided with the swiftness

of swallows and the noiselessness of ghosts.

Then the housemaid drew a jew's-harp from her pocket, and struck up a

lively waltz sotto voce. The footman seized Menlove, who appeared

nothing loth, and began spinning gently round the room with her, to the

time of the fascinating measure

'Which fashion hails, from countesses to queens, And maids and valets

dance behind the scenes.'

Picotee, who had been accustomed to unceiled country cottages all her

life, wherein the scamper of a mouse is heard distinctly from floor to

floor, exclaimed in a terrified whisper, at viewing all this, 'They'll

hear you underneath, they'll hear you, and we shall all be ruined!'

'Not at all,' came from the cautious dancers. 'These are some of the

best built houses in London-double floors, filled in with material that

will deaden any row you like to make, and we make none. But come and

have a turn yourself, Miss Chickerel.'

The young man relinquished Menlove, and on the spur of the moment seized

Picotee. Picotee flounced away from him in indignation, backing into a

corner with ruffled feathers, like a pullet trying to appear a hen.

'How dare you touch me!' she said, with rounded eyes. 'I'll tell

somebody downstairs of you, who'll soon see about it!'

'What a baby; she'll tell her father.'

'No I shan't; somebody you are all afraid of, that's who I'll tell.'

'Nonsense,' said Menlove; 'he meant no harm.'

Playtime was now getting short, and further antics being dangerous on

that account, the performers retired again downstairs, Picotee of

necessity following. Her nerves were screwed up to the highest pitch of

uneasiness by the grotesque habits of these men and maids, who were

quite unlike the country servants she had known, and resembled nothing

so much as pixies, elves, or gnomes, peeping up upon human beings from

their shady haunts underground, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill-

sometimes doing heavy work, sometimes none; teasing and worrying with

impish laughter half suppressed, and vanishing directly mortal eyes were

bent on them. Separate and distinct from overt existence under the sun,

this life could hardly be without its distinctive pleasures, all of them

being more or less pervaded by thrills and titillations from games of

hazard, and the perpetual risk of sensational surprises.

Long before this time Picotee had begun to be anxious to get home again,

but Menlove seemed particularly to desire her company, and pressed her

to sit awhile, telling her young friend, by way of entertainment, of

various extraordinary love adventures in which she had figured as

heroine when travelling on the Continent. These stories had one and all

a remarkable likeness in a certain point-Menlove was always unwilling to

love the adorer, and the adorer was always unwilling to live afterwards

on account of it.

'Ha-ha-ha!' in men's voices was heard from the distant dining-room as

the two women went on talking.

'And then,' continued Menlove, 'there was that duel I was the cause of

between the courier and the French valet. Dear me, what a trouble that

was; yet I could do nothing to prevent it. This courier was a very

handsome man-they are handsome sometimes.'

'Yes, they are. My aunt married one.'

'Did she? Where do they live?'

'They keep an hotel at Rouen,' murmured Picotee, in doubt whether this

should have been told or not.

'Well, he used to follow me to the English Church every Sunday

regularly, and I was so determined not to give my hand where my heart

could never be, that I slipped out at the other door while he stood

expecting me by the one I entered. Here I met M. Pierre, when, as ill

luck would have it, the other came round the corner, and seeing me

talking to the valet, he challenged him at once.'

'Ha-ha-ha!' was heard again afar.

'Did they fight?' said Picotee.

'Yes, I believe they did. We left Nice the next day; but I heard some

time after of a duel not many miles off, and although I could not get

hold of the names, I make no doubt it was between those two gentlemen. I

never knew which of them fell; poor fellow, whichever it was.'

'Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!' came from the dining-room.

'Whatever are those boozy men laughing at, I wonder?' said Menlove.

'They are always so noisy when the ladies have gone upstairs. Upon my

soul, I'll run up and find out.'

'No, no, don't,' entreated Picotee, putting her hand on her

entertainer's arm. 'It seems wrong; it is no concern of ours.'

'Wrong be hanged-anything on an impulse,' said Mrs. Menlove, skipping

across the room and out of the door, which stood open, as did others in

the house, the evening being sultry and oppressive.

Picotee waited in her seat until it occurred to her that she could

escape the lady's-maid by going off into her father's pantry in her

absence. But before this had been put into effect Menlove appeared

again.

'Such fun as they are having up there,' she said. 'Somebody asked Mr.

Neigh to tell a story which he had told at some previous time, but he

was very reluctant to do so, and pretended he could not recollect it.

Well, then, the other man-I could not distinguish him by his voice-began

telling it, to prompt Mr. Neigh's memory; and, as far as I could

understand, it was about some lady who thought Mr. Neigh was in love

with her, and, to find whether he was worth accepting or not, she went

with her maid at night to see his estate, and wandered about and got

lost, and was frightened, and I don't know what besides. Then Mr. Neigh

laughed too, and said he liked such common sense in a woman. No names

were mentioned, but I fancy, from the awkwardness of Mr. Neigh at being

compelled to tell it, that the lady is one of those in the drawing-room.

I should like to know which it was.'

'I know-have heard something about it,' said Picotee, blushing with

anger. 'It was nothing at all like that. I wonder Mr. Neigh had the

audacity ever to talk of the matter, and to misrepresent it so greatly!'

'Tell all about it, do,' said Menlove.

'O no,' said Picotee. 'I promised not to say a word.'

'It is your mistress, I expect.'

'You may think what you like; but the lady is anything but a mistress of

mine.'

The flighty Menlove pressed her to tell the whole story, but finding

this useless the subject was changed. Presently her father came in, and,

taking no notice of Menlove, told his daughter that she had been called

for. Picotee very readily put on her things, and on going outside found

Joey awaiting her. Mr. Chickerel followed closely, with sharp glances

from the corner of his eye, and it was plain from Joey's nervous manner

of lingering in the shadows of the area doorway instead of entering the

house, that the butler had in some way set himself to prevent all

communion between the fair lady's-maid and his son for that evening at

least.

He watched Picotee and her brother off the premises, and the pair went

on their way towards Exonbury Crescent, very few words passing between

them. Picotee's thoughts had turned to the proposed visit to Knollsea,

and Joey was sulky under disappointment and the blank of thwarted

purposes.

30. ON THE HOUSETOP

'Picotee, are you asleep?' Ethelberta whispered softly at dawn the next

morning, by the half-opened door of her sister's bedroom.

'No, I keep waking, it is so warm.'

'So do I. Suppose we get up and see the sun rise. The east is filling

with flame.'

'Yes, I should like it,' said Picotee.

The restlessness which had brought Ethelberta hither in slippers and

dressing-gown at such an early hour owed its origin to another cause

than the warmth of the weather; but of that she did not speak as yet.

Picotee's room was an attic, with windows in the roof-a chamber dismal

enough at all times, and very shadowy now. While Picotee was wrapping

up, Ethelberta placed a chair under the window, and mounting upon this

they stepped outside, and seated themselves within the parapet.

The air was as clear and fresh as on a mountain side; sparrows

chattered, and birds of a species unsuspected at later hours could be

heard singing in the park hard by, while here and there on ridges and

flats a cat might be seen going calmly home from the devilries of the

night to resume the amiabilities of the day.

'I am so sorry I was asleep when you reached home,' said Picotee. 'I was

so anxious to tell you something I heard of, and to know what you did;

but my eyes would shut, try as I might, and then I tried no longer. Did

you see me at all, Berta?'

'Never once. I had an impression that you were there. I fancied you were

from father's carefully vacuous look whenever I glanced at his face. But

were you careful about what you said, and did you see Menlove? I felt

all the time that I had done wrong in letting you come; the

gratification to you was not worth the risk to me.'

'I saw her, and talked to her. But I am certain she suspected nothing. I

enjoyed myself very much, and there was no risk at all.'

'I am glad it is no worse news. However, you must not go there again:

upon that point I am determined.'

'It was a good thing I did go, all the same. I'll tell you why when you

have told me what happened to you.'

'Nothing of importance happened to me.'

'I expect you got to know the lord you were to meet?'

'O yes-Lord Mountclere.'

'And it's dreadful how fond he is of you-quite ridiculously taken up

with you-I saw that well enough. Such an old man, too; I wouldn't have

him for the world!'

'Don't jump at conclusions so absurdly, Picotee. Why wouldn't you have

him for the world?'

'Because he is old enough to be my grandfather, and yours too.'

'Indeed he is not; he is only middle-aged.'

'O Berta! Sixty-five at least.'

'He may or may not be that; and if he is, it is not old. He is so

entertaining that one forgets all about age in connection with him.'

'He laughs like this-"Hee-hee-hee!"' Picotee introduced as much

antiquity into her face as she could by screwing it up and suiting the

action to the word.

'This very odd thing occurred,' said Ethelberta, to get Picotee off the

track of Lord Mountclere's peculiarities, as it seemed. 'I was saying to

Mr. Neigh that we were going to Knollsea for a time, feeling that he

would not be likely to know anything about such an out-of-the-way place,

when Lord Mountclere, who was near, said, "I shall be at Enckworth Court

in a few days, probably at the time you are at Knollsea. The Imperial

Archaeological Association holds its meetings in that part of Wessex

this season, and Corvsgate Castle, near Knollsea, is one of the places

on our list." Then he hoped I should be able to attend. Did you ever

hear anything so strange? Now, I should like to attend very much, not on

Lord Mountclere's account, but because such gatherings are interesting,

and I have never been to one; yet there is this to be considered, would

it be right for me to go without a friend to such a place? Another point

is, that we shall live in menagerie style at Knollsea for the sake of

the children, and we must do it economically in case we accept Aunt

Charlotte's invitation to Rouen; hence, if he or his friends find us out

there it will be awkward for me. So the alternative is Knollsea or some

other place for us.'

'Let it be Knollsea, now we have once settled it,' said Picotee

anxiously. 'I have mentioned to Faith Julian that we shall be there.'

'Mentioned it already! You must have written instantly.'

'I had a few minutes to spare, and I thought I might as well write.'

'Very well; we will stick to Knollsea,' said Ethelberta, half in doubt.

'Yes-otherwise it will be difficult to see about aunt's baptismal

certificate. We will hope nobody will take the trouble to pry into our

household. . . . And now, Picotee, I want to ask you something-something

very serious. How would you like me to marry Mr. Neigh?'

Ethelberta could not help laughing with a faint shyness as she asked the

question under the searching east ray. 'He has asked me to marry him,'

she continued, 'and I want to know what you would say to such an

arrangement. I don't mean to imply that the event is certain to take

place; but, as a mere supposition, what do you say to it, Picotee?'

Ethelberta was far from putting this matter before Picotee for advice or

opinion; but, like all people who have an innate dislike to hole-and-

corner policy, she felt compelled to speak of it to some one.

'I should not like him for you at all,' said Picotee vehemently. 'I

would rather you had Mr. Ladywell.'

'O, don't name him!'

'I wouldn't have Mr. Neigh at any price, nevertheless. It is about him

that I was going to tell you.' Picotee proceeded to relate Menlove's

account of the story of Ethelberta's escapade, which had been dragged

from Neigh the previous evening by the friend to whom he had related it

before he was so enamoured of Ethelberta as to regard that performance

as a positive virtue in her. 'Nobody was told, or even suspected, who

the lady of the anecdote was,' Picotee concluded; 'but I knew instantly,

of course, and I think it very unfortunate that we ever went to that

dreadful ghostly estate of his, Berta.'

Ethelberta's face heated with mortification. She had no fear that Neigh

had told names or other particulars which might lead to her

identification by any friend of his, and she could make allowance for

bursts of confidence; but there remained the awkward fact that he

himself knew her to be the heroine of the episode. What annoyed her most

was that Neigh could ever have looked upon her indiscretion as a

humorous incident, which he certainly must have done at some time or

other to account for his telling it. Had he been angry with her, or

sneered at her for going, she could have forgiven him; but to see her

manoeuvre in the light of a joke, to use it as illustrating his grim

theory of womankind, and neither to like nor to dislike her the more for

it from first to last, this was to treat her with a cynicism which was

intolerable. That Neigh's use of the incident as a stock anecdote ceased

long before he had decided to ask her to marry him she had no doubt, but

it showed that his love for her was of that sort in which passion makes

war upon judgment, and prevails in spite of will. Moreover, he might

have been speaking ironically when he alluded to the act as a virtue in

a woman, which seemed the more likely when she remembered his cool

bearing towards her in the drawing-room. Possibly it was an antipathetic

reaction, induced by the renewed recollection of her proceeding.

'I will never marry Mr. Neigh!' she said, with decision. 'That shall

settle it. You need not think over any such contingency, Picotee. He is

one of those horrid men who love with their eyes, the remainder part of

him objecting all the time to the feeling; and even if his objections

prove the weaker, and the man marries, his general nature conquers again

by the time the wedding trip is over, so that the woman is miserable at

last, and had better not have had him at all.'

'That applies still more to Lord Mountclere, to my thinking. I never saw

anything like the look of his eyes upon you.'

'O no, no-you understand nothing if you say that. But one thing be sure

of, there is no marriage likely to take place between myself and Mr.

Neigh. I have longed for a sound reason for disliking him, and now I

have got it. Well, we will talk no more of this-let us think of the nice

little pleasure we have in store-our stay at Knollsea. There we will be

as free as the wind. And when we are down there, I can drive across to

Corvsgate Castle if I wish to attend the Imperial Association meeting,

and nobody will know where I came from. Knollsea is not more than five

miles from the Castle, I think.'

Picotee was by this time beginning to yawn, and Ethelberta did not feel

nearly so wakeful as she had felt half-an-hour earlier. Tall and swarthy

columns of smoke were now soaring up from the kitchen chimneys around,

spreading horizontally when at a great height, and forming a roof of

haze which was turning the sun to a copper colour, and by degrees

spoiling the sweetness of the new atmosphere that had rolled in from the

country during the night, giving it the usual city smell. The resolve to

make this rising the beginning of a long and busy day, which should set

them beforehand with the rest of the world, weakened with their growing

weariness, and an impulse to lie down just for a quarter of an hour

before dressing, ended in a sound sleep that did not relinquish its hold

upon them till late in the forenoon.

31. KNOLLSEA-A LOFTY DOWN-A RUINED CASTLE

Knollsea was a seaside village lying snug within two headlands as

between a finger and thumb. Everybody in the parish who was not a

boatman was a quarrier, unless he were the gentleman who owned half the

property and had been a quarryman, or the other gentleman who owned the

other half, and had been to sea.

The knowledge of the inhabitants was of the same special sort as their

pursuits. The quarrymen in white fustian understood practical geology,

the laws and accidents of dips, faults, and cleavage, far better than

the ways of the world and mammon; the seafaring men in Guernsey frocks

had a clearer notion of Alexandria, Constantinople, the Cape, and the

Indies than of any inland town in their own country. This, for them,

consisted of a busy portion, the Channel, where they lived and laboured,

and a dull portion, the vague unexplored miles of interior at the back

of the ports, which they seldom thought of.

Some wives of the village, it is true, had learned to let lodgings, and

others to keep shops. The doors of these latter places were formed of an

upper hatch, usually kept open, and a lower hatch, with a bell attached,

usually kept shut. Whenever a stranger went in, he would hear a

whispering of astonishment from a back room, after which a woman came

forward, looking suspiciously at him as an intruder, and advancing

slowly enough to allow her mouth to get clear of the meal she was

partaking of. Meanwhile the people in the back room would stop their

knives and forks in absorbed curiosity as to the reason of the

stranger's entry, who by this time feels ashamed of his unwarrantable

intrusion into this hermit's cell, and thinks he must take his hat off.

The woman is quite alarmed at seeing that he is not one of the fifteen

native women and children who patronize her, and nervously puts her hand

to the side of her face, which she carries slanting. The visitor finds

himself saying what he wants in an apologetic tone, when the woman tells

him that they did keep that article once, but do not now; that nobody

does, and probably never will again; and as he turns away she looks

relieved that the dilemma of having to provide for a stranger has passed

off with no worse mishap than disappointing him.

A cottage which stood on a high slope above this townlet and its bay

resounded one morning with the notes of a merry company. Ethelberta had

managed to find room for herself and her young relations in the house of

one of the boatmen, whose wife attended upon them all. Captain Flower,

the husband, assisted her in the dinner preparations, when he slipped

about the house as lightly as a girl and spoke of himself as cook's

mate. The house was so small that the sailor's rich voice, developed by

shouting in high winds during a twenty years' experience in the coasting

trade, could be heard coming from the kitchen between the chirpings of

the children in the parlour. The furniture of this apartment consisted

mostly of the painting of a full-rigged ship, done by a man whom the

captain had specially selected for the purpose because he had been

seven-and-twenty years at sea before touching a brush, and thereby

offered a sufficient guarantee that he understood how to paint a vessel

properly.

Before this picture sat Ethelberta in a light linen dress, and with

tightly-knotted hair-now again Berta Chickerel as of old-serving out

breakfast to the rest of the party, and sometimes lifting her eyes to

the outlook from the window, which presented a happy combination of

grange scenery with marine. Upon the irregular slope between the house

and the quay was an orchard of aged trees wherein every apple ripening

on the boughs presented its rubicund side towards the cottage, because

that building chanced to lie upwards in the same direction as the sun.

Under the trees were a few Cape sheep, and over them the stone chimneys

of the village below: outside these lay the tanned sails of a ketch or

smack, and the violet waters of the bay, seamed and creased by breezes

insufficient to raise waves; beyond all a curved wall of cliff,

terminating in a promontory, which was flanked by tall and shining

obelisks of chalk rising sheer from the trembling blue race beneath.

By one sitting in the room that commanded this prospect, a white

butterfly among the apple-trees might be mistaken for the sails of a

yacht far away on the sea; and in the evening when the light was dim,

what seemed like a fly crawling upon the window-pane would turn out to

be a boat in the bay.

When breakfast was over, Ethelberta sat leaning on the window-sill

considering her movements for the day. It was the time fixed for the

meeting of the Imperial Association at Corvsgate Castle, the celebrated

ruin five miles off, and the meeting had some fascinations for her. For

one thing, she had never been present at a gathering of the kind,

although what was left in any shape from the past was her constant

interest, because it recalled her to herself and fortified her mind.

Persons waging a harassing social fight are apt in the interest of the

combat to forget the smallness of the end in view; and the hints that

perishing historical remnants afforded her of the attenuating effects of

time even upon great struggles corrected the apparent scale of her own.

She was reminded that in a strife for such a ludicrously small object as

the entry of drawing-rooms, winning, equally with losing, is below the

zero of the true philosopher's concern.

There could never be a more excellent reason than this for going to view

the meagre stumps remaining from flourishing bygone centuries, and it

had weight with Ethelberta this very day; but it would be difficult to

state the whole composition of her motive. The approaching meeting had

been one of the great themes at Mr. Doncastle's dinner-party, and Lord

Mountclere, on learning that she was to be at Knollsea, had recommended

her attendance at some, if not all of the meetings, as a desirable and

exhilarating change after her laborious season's work in town. It was

pleasant to have won her way so far in high places that her health of

body and mind should be thus considered-pleasant, less as personal

gratification, than that it casually reflected a proof of her good

judgment in a course which everybody among her kindred had condemned by

calling a foolhardy undertaking.

And she might go without the restraint of ceremony. Unconventionality-

almost eccentricity-was de rigueur for one who had been first heard of

as a poetess; from whose red lips magic romance had since trilled for

weeks to crowds of listeners, as from a perennial spring.

So Ethelberta went, after a considerable pondering how to get there

without the needless sacrifice either of dignity or cash. It would be

inconsiderate to the children to spend a pound on a brougham when as

much as she could spare was wanted for their holiday. It was almost too

far too walk. She had, however, decided to walk, when she met a boy with

a donkey, who offered to lend it to her for three shillings. The animal

was rather sad-looking, but Ethelberta found she could sit upon the pad

without discomfort. Considering that she might pull up some distance

short of the castle, and leave the ass at a cottage before joining her

four-wheeled friends, she struck the bargain and rode on her way.

This was, first by a path on the shore where the tide dragged huskily up

and down the shingle without disturbing it, and thence up the steep

crest of land opposite, whereon she lingered awhile to let the ass

breathe. On one of the spires of chalk into which the hill here had been

split was perched a cormorant, silent and motionless, with wings spread

out to dry in the sun after his morning's fishing, their white surface

shining like mail. Retiring without disturbing him and turning to the

left along the lofty ridge which ran inland, the country on each side

lay beneath her like a map, domains behind domains, parishes by the

score, harbours, fir-woods, and little inland seas mixing curiously

together. Thence she ambled along through a huge cemetery of barrows,

containing human dust from prehistoric times.

Standing on the top of a giant's grave in this antique land, Ethelberta

lifted her eyes to behold two sorts of weather pervading Nature at the

same time. Far below on the right hand it was a fine day, and the silver

sunbeams lighted up a many-armed inland sea which stretched round an

island with fir-trees and gorse, and amid brilliant crimson heaths

wherein white paths and roads occasionally met the eye in dashes and

zigzags like flashes of lightning. Outside, where the broad Channel

appeared, a berylline and opalized variegation of ripples, currents,

deeps, and shallows, lay as fair under the sun as a New Jerusalem, the

shores being of gleaming sand. Upon the radiant heather bees and

butterflies were busy, she knew, and the birds on that side were just

beginning their autumn songs.

On the left, quite up to her position, was dark and cloudy weather,

shading a valley of heavy greens and browns, which at its further side

rose to meet the sea in tall cliffs, suggesting even here at their back

how terrible were their aspects seaward in a growling southwest gale.

Here grassed hills rose like knuckles gloved in dark olive, and little

plantations between them formed a still deeper and sadder monochrome. A

zinc sky met a leaden sea on this hand, the low wind groaned and whined,

and not a bird sang.

The ridge along which Ethelberta rode divided these two climates like a

wall; it soon became apparent that they were wrestling for mastery

immediately in her pathway. The issue long remained doubtful, and this

being an imaginative hour with her, she watched as typical of her own

fortunes how the front of battle swayed-now to the west, flooding her

with sun, now to the east, covering her with shade: then the wind moved

round to the north, a blue hole appeared in the overhanging cloud, at

about the place of the north star; and the sunlight spread on both sides

of her.

The towers of the notable ruin to be visited rose out of the furthermost

shoulder of the upland as she advanced, its site being the slope and

crest of a smoothly nibbled mount at the toe of the ridge she had

followed. When observing the previous uncertainty of the weather on this

side Ethelberta had been led to doubt if the meeting would be held here

to-day, and she was now strengthened in her opinion that it would not by

the total absence of human figures amid the ruins, though the time of

appointment was past. This disposed of another question which had

perplexed her: where to find a stable for the ass during the meeting,

for she had scarcely liked the idea of facing the whole body of lords

and gentlemen upon the animal's back. She now decided to retain her

seat, ride round the ruin, and go home again, without troubling further

about the movements of the Association or acquaintance with the members

composing it.

Accordingly Ethelberta crossed the bridge over the moat, and rode under

the first archway into the outer ward. As she had expected, not a soul

was here. The arrow-slits, portcullis-grooves, and staircases met her

eye as familiar friends, for in her childhood she had once paid a visit

to the spot. Ascending the green incline and through another arch into

the second ward, she still pressed on, till at last the ass was unable

to clamber an inch further. Here she dismounted, and tying him to a

stone which projected like a fang from a raw edge of wall, performed the

remainder of the ascent on foot. Once among the towers above, she became

so interested in the windy corridors, mildewed dungeons, and the tribe

of daws peering invidiously upon her from overhead, that she forgot the

flight of time.

Nearly three-quarters of an hour passed before she came out from the

immense walls, and looked from an opening to the front over the wide

expanse of the outer ward, by which she had ascended.

Ethelberta was taken aback to see there a file of shining carriages,

which had arrived during her seclusion in the keep. From these began to

burst a miscellany of many-coloured draperies, blue, buff, pied, and

black; they united into one, and crept up the incline like a cloud,

which then parted into fragments, dived into old doorways, and lost

substance behind projecting piles. Recognizing in this the ladies and

gentlemen of the meeting, her first thought was how to escape, for she

was suddenly overcome with dread to meet them all single-handed as she

stood. She drew back and hurried round to the side, as the laughter and

voices of the assembly began to be audible, and, more than ever vexed

that she could not have fallen in with them in some unobtrusive way,

Ethelberta found that they were immediately beneath her.

Venturing to peep forward again, what was her mortification at finding

them gathered in a ring, round no object of interest belonging to the

ruin, but round her faithful beast, who had loosened himself in some way

from the stone, and stood in the middle of a plat of grass, placidly

regarding them.

Being now in the teeth of the Association, there was nothing to do but

to go on, since, if she did not, the next few steps of their advance

would disclose her. She made the best of it, and began to descend in the

broad view of the assembly, from the midst of which proceeded a laugh-

'Hee-hee-hee!' Ethelberta knew that Lord Mountclere was there.

'The poor thing has strayed from its owner,' said one lady, as they all

stood eyeing the apparition of the ass.

'It may belong to some of the villagers,' said the President in a

historical voice: 'and it may be appropriate to mention that many were

kept here in olden times: they were largely used as beasts of burden in

victualling the castle previous to the last siege, in the year sixteen

hundred and forty-five.'

'It is very weary, and has come a long way, I think,' said a lady;

adding, in an imaginative tone, 'the humble creature looks so aged and

is so quaintly saddled that we may suppose it to be only an animated

relic, of the same date as the other remains.'

By this time Lord Mountclere had noticed Ethelberta's presence, and

straightening himself to ten years younger, he lifted his hat in answer

to her smile, and came up jauntily. It was a good time now to see what

the viscount was really like. He appeared to be about sixty-five, and

the dignified aspect which he wore to a gazer at a distance became

depreciated to jocund slyness upon nearer view, when the small type

could be read between the leading lines. Then it could be seen that his

upper lip dropped to a point in the middle, as if impressing silence

upon his too demonstrative lower one. His right and left profiles were

different, one corner of his mouth being more compressed than the other,

producing a deep line thence downwards to the side of his chin. Each

eyebrow rose obliquely outwards and upwards, and was thus far above the

little eye, shining with the clearness of a pond that has just been able

to weather the heats of summer. Below this was a preternaturally fat

jowl, which, by thrusting against cheeks and chin, caused the arch old

mouth to be almost buried at the corners.

A few words of greeting passed, and Ethelberta told him how she was

fearing to meet them all, united and primed with their morning's

knowledge as they appeared to be.

'Well, we have not done much yet,' said Lord Mountclere. 'As for myself,

I have given no thought at all to our day's work. I had not forgotten

your promise to attend, if you could possibly drive across, and-hee-hee-

hee!-I have frequently looked towards the hill where the road descends.

. . . Will you now permit me to introduce some of my party-as many of

them as you care to know by name? I think they would all like to speak

to you.'

Ethelberta then found herself nominally made known to ten or a dozen

ladies and gentlemen who had wished for special acquaintance with her.

She stood there, as all women stand who have made themselves remarkable

by their originality, or devotion to any singular cause, as a person

freed of her hampering and inconvenient sex, and, by virtue of her

popularity, unfettered from the conventionalities of manner prescribed

by custom for household womankind. The charter to move abroad

unchaperoned, which society for good reasons grants only to women of

three sorts-the famous, the ministering, and the improper-Ethelberta was

in a fair way to make splendid use of: instead of walking in protected

lanes she experienced that luxury of isolation which normally is enjoyed

by men alone, in conjunction with the attention naturally bestowed on a

woman young and fair. Among the presentations were Mr. and Mrs. Tynn,

member and member's mainspring for North Wessex; Sir Cyril and Lady

Blandsbury; Lady Jane Joy; and the Honourable Edgar Mountclere, the

viscount's brother. There also hovered near her the learned Doctor Yore;

Mr. Small, a profound writer, who never printed his works; the Reverend

Mr. Brook, rector; the Very Reverend Dr. Taylor, dean; and the

undoubtedly Reverend Mr. Tinkleton, Nonconformist, who had slipped into

the fold by chance.

These and others looked with interest at Ethelberta: the old county

fathers hard, as at a questionable town phenomenon, the county sons

tenderly, as at a pretty creature, and the county daughters with great

admiration, as at a lady reported by their mammas to be no better than

she should be. It will be seen that Ethelberta was the sort of woman

that well-rooted local people might like to look at on such a free and

friendly occasion as an archaeological meeting, where, to gratify a

pleasant whim, the picturesque form of acquaintance is for the nonce

preferred to the useful, the spirits being so brisk as to swerve from

strict attention to the select and sequent gifts of heaven, blood and

acres, to consider for an idle moment the subversive Mephistophelian

endowment, brains.

'Our progress in the survey of the castle has not been far as yet,' Lord

Mountclere resumed; 'indeed, we have only just arrived, the weather this

morning being so unsettled. When you came up we were engaged in a

preliminary study of the poor animal you see there: how it could have

got up here we cannot understand.'

He pointed as he spoke to the donkey which had brought Ethelberta

thither, whereupon she was silent, and gazed at her untoward beast as if

she had never before beheld him.

The ass looked at Ethelberta as though he would say, 'Why don't you own

me, after safely bringing you over those weary hills?' But the pride and

emulation which had made her what she was would not permit her, as the

most lovely woman there, to take upon her own shoulders the ridicule

that had already been cast upon the ass. Had he been young and gaily

caparisoned, she might have done it; but his age, the clumsy trappings

of rustic make, and his needy woful look of hard servitude, were too

much to endure.

'Many come and picnic here,' she said serenely, 'and the animal may have

been left till they return from some walk.'

'True,' said Lord Mountclere, without the slightest suspicion of the

truth. The humble ass hung his head in his usual manner, and it demanded

little fancy from Ethelberta to imagine that he despised her. And then

her mind flew back to her history and extraction, to her father-perhaps

at that moment inventing a private plate-powder in an underground

pantry-and with a groan at her inconsistency in being ashamed of the

ass, she said in her heart, 'My God, what a thing am I!'

They then all moved on to another part of the castle, the viscount

busying himself round and round her person like the head scraper at a

pig-killing; and as they went indiscriminately mingled, jesting lightly

or talking in earnest, she beheld ahead of her the form of Neigh among

the rest.

Now, there could only be one reason on earth for Neigh's presence-her

remark that she might attend-for Neigh took no more interest in

antiquities than in the back of the moon. Ethelberta was a little

flurried; perhaps he had come to scold her, or to treat her badly in

that indefinable way of his by which he could make a woman feel as

nothing without any direct act at all. She was afraid of him, and,

determining to shun him, was thankful that Lord Mountclere was near, to

take off the edge of Neigh's manner towards her if he approached.

'Do you know in what part of the ruins the lecture is to be given?' she

said to the viscount.

'Wherever you like,' he replied gallantly. 'Do you propose a place, and

I will get Dr. Yore to adopt it. Say, shall it be here, or where they

are standing?'

How could Ethelberta refrain from exercising a little power when it was

put into her hands in this way?

'Let it be here,' she said, 'if it makes no difference to the meeting.'

'It shall be,' said Lord Mountclere.

And then the lively old nobleman skipped like a roe to the President and

to Dr. Yore, who was to read the paper on the castle, and they soon

appeared coming back to where the viscount's party and Ethelberta were

beginning to seat themselves. The bulk of the company followed, and Dr.

Yore began.

He must have had a countenance of leather-as, indeed, from his colour he

appeared to have-to stand unmoved in his position, and read, and look up

to give explanations, without a change of muscle, under the dozens of

bright eyes that were there converged upon him, like the sticks of a

fan, from the ladies who sat round him in a semicircle upon the grass.

However, he went on calmly, and the women sheltered themselves from the

heat with their umbrellas and sunshades, their ears lulled by the hum of

insects, and by the drone of the doctor's voice. The reader buzzed on

with the history of the castle, tracing its development from a mound

with a few earthworks to its condition in Norman times; he related

monkish marvels connected with the spot; its resistance under Matilda to

Stephen, its probable shape while a residence of King John, and the sad

story of the Damsel of Brittany, sister of his victim Arthur, who was

confined here in company with the two daughters of Alexander, king of

Scotland. He went on to recount the confinement of Edward II. herein,

previous to his murder at Berkeley, the gay doings in the reign of

Elizabeth, and so downward through time to the final overthrow of the

stern old pile. As he proceeded, the lecturer pointed with his finger at

the various features appertaining to the date of his story, which he

told with splendid vigour when he had warmed to his work, till his

narrative, particularly in the conjectural and romantic parts, where it

became coloured rather by the speaker's imagination than by the pigments

of history, gathered together the wandering thoughts of all. It was easy

for him then to meet those fair concentred eyes, when the sunshades were

thrown back, and complexions forgotten, in the interest of the history.

The doctor's face was then no longer criticized as a rugged boulder, a

dried fig, an oak carving, or a walnut shell, but became blotted out

like a mountain top in a shining haze by the nebulous pictures conjured

by his tale.

Then the lecture ended, and questions were asked, and individuals of the

company wandered at will, the light dresses of the ladies sweeping over

the hot grass and brushing up thistledown which had hitherto lain

quiescent, so that it rose in a flight from the skirts of each like a

comet's tail.

Some of Lord Mountclere's party, including himself and Ethelberta,

wandered now into a cool dungeon, partly open to the air overhead, where

long arms of ivy hung between their eyes and the white sky. While they

were here, Lady Jane Joy and some other friends of the viscount told

Ethelberta that they were probably coming on to Knollsea.

She instantly perceived that getting into close quarters in that way

might be very inconvenient, considering the youngsters she had under her

charge, and straightway decided upon a point that she had debated for

several days-a visit to her aunt in Normandy. In London it had been a

mere thought, but the Channel had looked so tempting from its brink that

the journey was virtually fixed as soon as she reached Knollsea, and

found that a little pleasure steamer crossed to Cherbourg once a week

during the summer, so that she would not have to enter the crowded

routes at all.

'I am afraid I shall not see you in Knollsea,' she said. 'I am about to

go to Cherbourg and then to Rouen.'

'How sorry I am. When do you leave?'

'At the beginning of next week,' said Ethelberta, settling the time

there and then.

'Did I hear you say that you were going to Cherbourg and Rouen?' Lord

Mountclere inquired.

'I think to do so,' said Ethelberta.

'I am going to Normandy myself,' said a voice behind her, and without

turning she knew that Neigh was standing there.

They next went outside, and Lord Mountclere offered Ethelberta his arm

on the ground of assisting her down the burnished grass slope.

Ethelberta, taking pity upon him, took it; but the assistance was all on

her side; she stood like a statue amid his slips and totterings, some of

which taxed her strength heavily, and her ingenuity more, to appear as

the supported and not the supporter. The incident brought Neigh still

further from his retirement, and she learnt that he was one of a

yachting party which had put in at Knollsea that morning; she was

greatly relieved to find that he was just now on his way to London,

whence he would probably proceed on his journey abroad.

Ethelberta adhered as well as she could to her resolve that Neigh should

not speak with her alone, but by dint of perseverance he did manage to

address her without being overheard.

'Will you give me an answer?' said Neigh. 'I have come on purpose.'

'I cannot just now. I have been led to doubt you.'

'Doubt me? What new wrong have I done?'

'Spoken jestingly of my visit to Farnfield.'

'Good �-! I did not speak or think of you. When I told that incident I

had no idea who the lady was-I did not know it was you till two days

later, and I at once held my tongue. I vow to you upon my soul and life

that what I say is true. How shall I prove my truth better than by my

errand here?'

'Don't speak of this now. I am so occupied with other things. I am going

to Rouen, and will think of it on my way.'

'I am going there too. When do you go?'

'I shall be in Rouen next Wednesday, I hope.'

'May I ask where?'

'H�tel Beau S�jour.'

'Will you give me an answer there? I can easily call upon you. It is now

a month and more since you first led me to hope-'

'I did not lead you to hope-at any rate clearly.'

'Indirectly you did. And although I am willing to be as considerate as

any man ought to be in giving you time to think over the question, there

is a limit to my patience. Any necessary delay I will put up with, but I

won't be trifled with. I hate all nonsense, and can't stand it.'

'Indeed. Good morning.'

'But Mrs. Petherwin-just one word.'

'I have nothing to say.'

'I will meet you at Rouen for an answer. I would meet you in Hades for

the matter of that. Remember this: next Wednesday, if I live, I shall

call upon you at Rouen.'

She did not say nay.

'May I?' he added.

'If you will.'

'But say it shall be an appointment?'

'Very well.'

Lord Mountclere was by this time toddling towards them to ask if they

would come on to his house, Enckworth Court, not very far distant, to

lunch with the rest of the party. Neigh, having already arranged to go

on to town that afternoon, was obliged to decline, and Ethelberta

thought fit to do the same, idly asking Lord Mountclere if Enckworth

Court lay in the direction of a gorge that was visible where they stood.

'No; considerably to the left,' he said. 'The opening you are looking at

would reveal the sea if it were not for the trees that block the way.

Ah, those trees have a history; they are half-a-dozen elms which I

planted myself when I was a boy. How time flies!'

'It is unfortunate they stand just so as to cover the blue bit of sea.

That addition would double the value of the view from here.'

'You would prefer the blue sea to the trees?'

'In that particular spot I should; they might have looked just as well,

and yet have hidden nothing worth seeing. The narrow slit would have

been invaluable there.'

'They shall fall before the sun sets, in deference to your opinion,'

said Lord Mountclere.

'That would be rash indeed,' said Ethelberta, laughing, 'when my opinion

on such a point may be worth nothing whatever.'

'Where no other is acted upon, it is practically the universal one,' he

replied gaily.

And then Ethelberta's elderly admirer bade her adieu, and away the whole

party drove in a long train over the hills towards the valley wherein

stood Enckworth Court. Ethelberta's carriage was supposed by her friends

to have been left at the village inn, as were many others, and her

retiring from view on foot attracted no notice.

She watched them out of sight, and she also saw the rest depart-those

who, their interest in archaeology having begun and ended with this

spot, had, like herself, declined the hospitable viscount's invitation,

and started to drive or walk at once home again. Thereupon the castle

was quite deserted except by Ethelberta, the ass, and the jackdaws, now

floundering at ease again in and about the ivy of the keep.

Not wishing to enter Knollsea till the evening shades were falling, she

still walked amid the ruins, examining more leisurely some points which

the stress of keeping herself companionable would not allow her to

attend to while the assemblage was present. At the end of the survey,

being somewhat weary with her clambering, she sat down on the slope

commanding the gorge where the trees grew, to make a pencil sketch of

the landscape as it was revealed between the ragged walls. Thus engaged

she weighed the circumstances of Lord Mountclere's invitation, and could

not be certain if it were prudishness or simple propriety in herself

which had instigated her to refuse. She would have liked the visit for

many reasons, and if Lord Mountclere had been anybody but a remarkably

attentive old widower, she would have gone. As it was, it had occurred

to her that there was something in his tone which should lead her to

hesitate. Were any among the elderly or married ladies who had appeared

upon the ground in a detached form as she had done-and many had appeared

thus-invited to Enckworth; and if not, why were they not? That Lord

Mountclere admired her there was no doubt, and for this reason it

behoved her to be careful. His disappointment at parting from her was,

in one aspect, simply laughable, from its odd resemblance to the

unfeigned sorrow of a boy of fifteen at a first parting from his first

love; in another aspect it caused reflection; and she thought again of

his curiosity about her doings for the remainder of the summer.

While she sketched and thought thus, the shadows grew longer, and the

sun low. And then she perceived a movement in the gorge. One of the

trees forming the curtain across it began to wave strangely: it went

further to one side, and fell. Where the tree had stood was now a rent

in the foliage, and through the narrow rent could be seen the distant

sea.

Ethelberta uttered a soft exclamation. It was not caused by the surprise

she had felt, nor by the intrinsic interest of the sight, nor by want of

comprehension. It was a sudden realization of vague things hitherto

dreamed of from a distance only-a sense of novel power put into her

hands without request or expectation. A landscape was to be altered to

suit her whim. She had in her lifetime moved essentially larger

mountains, but they had seemed of far less splendid material than this;

for it was the nature of the gratification rather than its magnitude

which enchanted the fancy of a woman whose poetry, in spite of her

necessities, was hardly yet extinguished. But there was something more,

with which poetry had little to do. Whether the opinion of any pretty

woman in England was of more weight with Lord Mountclere than memories

of his boyhood, or whether that distinction was reserved for her alone;

this was a point that she would have liked to know.

The enjoyment of power in a new element, an enjoyment somewhat

resembling in kind that which is given by a first ride or swim, held

Ethelberta to the spot, and she waited, but sketched no more. Another

tree-top swayed and vanished as before, and the slit of sea was larger

still. Her mind and eye were so occupied with this matter that, sitting

in her nook, she did not observe a thin young man, his boots white with

the dust of a long journey on foot, who arrived at the castle by the

valley-road from Knollsea. He looked awhile at the ruin, and, skirting

its flank instead of entering by the great gateway, climbed up the scarp

and walked in through a breach. After standing for a moment among the

walls, now silent and apparently empty, with a disappointed look he

descended the slope, and proceeded along on his way.

Ethelberta, who was in quite another part of the castle, saw the black

spot diminishing to the size of a fly as he receded along the dusty

road, and soon after she descended on the other side, where she

remounted the ass, and ambled homeward as she had come, in no bright

mood. What, seeing the precariousness of her state, was the day's

triumph worth after all, unless, before her beauty abated, she could

ensure her position against the attacks of chance?

'To be thus is nothing; But to be safely thus.'

-she said it more than once on her journey that day.

On entering the sitting-room of their cot up the hill she found it

empty, and from a change perceptible in the position of small articles

of furniture, something unusual seemed to have taken place in her

absence. The dwelling being of that sort in which whatever goes on in

one room is audible through all the rest, Picotee, who was upstairs,

heard the arrival and came down. Picotee's face was rosed over with the

brilliance of some excitement. 'What do you think I have to tell you,

Berta?' she said.

'I have no idea,' said her sister. 'Surely,' she added, her face

intensifying to a wan sadness, 'Mr. Julian has not been here?'

'Yes,' said Picotee. 'And we went down to the sands-he, and Myrtle, and

Georgina, and Emmeline, and I-and Cornelia came down when she had put

away the dinner. And then we dug wriggles out of the sand with Myrtle's

spade: we got such a lot, and had such fun; they are in a dish in the

kitchen. Mr. Julian came to see you; but at last he could wait no

longer, and when I told him you were at the meeting in the castle ruins

he said he would try to find you there on his way home, if he could get

there before the meeting broke up.'

'Then it was he I saw far away on the road-yes, it must have been.' She

remained in gloomy reverie a few moments, and then said, 'Very well-let

it be. Picotee, get me some tea: I do not want dinner.'

But the news of Christopher's visit seemed to have taken away her

appetite for tea also, and after sitting a little while she flung

herself down upon the couch, and told Picotee that she had settled to go

and see their aunt Charlotte.

'I am going to write to Sol and Dan to ask them to meet me there,' she

added. 'I want them, if possible, to see Paris. It will improve them

greatly in their trades, I am thinking, if they can see the kinds of

joinery and decoration practised in France. They agreed to go, if I

should wish it, before we left London. You, of course, will go as my

maid.'

Picotee gazed upon the sea with a crestfallen look, as if she would

rather not cross it in any capacity just then.

'It would scarcely be worth going to the expense of taking me, would

it?' she said.

The cause of Picotee's sudden sense of economy was so plain that her

sister smiled; but young love, however foolish, is to a thinking person

far too tragic a power for ridicule; and Ethelberta forbore, going on as

if Picotee had not spoken: 'I must have you with me. I may be seen

there: so many are passing through Rouen at this time of the year.

Cornelia can take excellent care of the children while we are gone. I

want to get out of England, and I will get out of England. There is

nothing but vanity and vexation here.'

'I am sorry you were away when he called,' said Picotee gently.

'O, I don't mean that. I wish there were no different ranks in the

world, and that contrivance were not a necessary faculty to have at all.

Well, we are going to cross by the little steamer that puts in here, and

we are going on Monday.' She added in another minute, 'What had Mr.

Julian to tell us that he came here? How did he find us out?'

'I mentioned that we were coming here in my letter to Faith. Mr. Julian

says that perhaps he and his sister may also come for a few days before

the season is over. I should like to see Miss Julian again. She is such

a nice girl.'

'Yes.' Ethelberta played with her hair, and looked at the ceiling as she

reclined. 'I have decided after all,' she said, 'that it will be better

to take Cornelia as my maid, and leave you here with the children.

Cornelia is stronger as a companion than you, and she will be delighted

to go. Do you think you are competent to keep Myrtle and Georgina out of

harm's way?'

'O yes-I will be exceedingly careful,' said Picotee, with great

vivacity. 'And if there is time I can go on teaching them a little.'

Then Picotee caught Ethelberta's eye, and colouring red, sank down

beside her sister, whispering, 'I know why it is! But if you would

rather have me with you I will go, and not once wish to stay.'

Ethelberta looked as if she knew all about that, and said, 'Of course

there will be no necessity to tell the Julians about my departure until

they have fixed the time for coming, and cannot alter their minds.'

The sound of the children with Cornelia, and their appearance outside

the window, pushing between the fuchsia bushes which overhung the path,

put an end to this dialogue; they entered armed with buckets and spades,

a very moist and sandy aspect pervading them as far up as the high-water

mark of their clothing, and began to tell Ethelberta of the wonders of

the deep.

32. A ROOM IN ENCKWORTH COURT 'Are you sure the report is true?'

'I am sure that what I say is true, my lord; but it is hardly to be

called a report. It is a secret, known at present to nobody but myself

and Mrs. Doncastle's maid.'

The speaker was Lord Mountclere's trusty valet, and the conversation was

between him and the viscount in a dressing-room at Enckworth Court, on

the evening after the meeting of archaeologists at Corvsgate Castle.

'H'm-h'm; the daughter of a butler. Does Mrs. Doncastle know of this

yet, or Mr. Neigh, or any of their friends?'

'No, my lord.'

'You are quite positive?'

'Quite positive. I was, by accident, the first that Mrs. Menlove named

the matter to, and I told her it might be much to her advantage if she

took particular care it should go no further.'

'Mrs. Menlove! Who's she?'

'The lady's-maid at Mrs. Doncastle's, my lord.'

'O, ah-of course. You may leave me now, Tipman.' Lord Mountclere

remained in thought for a moment. 'A clever little puss, to hoodwink us

all like this-hee-hee!' he murmured. 'Her education-how finished; and

her beauty-so seldom that I meet with such a woman. Cut down my elms to

please a butler's daughter-what a joke-certainly a good joke! To

interest me in her on the right side instead of the wrong was strange.

But it can be made to change sides-hee-hee!-it can be made to change

sides! Tipman!'

Tipman came forward from the doorway.

'Will you take care that that piece of gossip you mentioned to me is not

repeated in this house? I strongly disapprove of talebearing of any

sort, and wish to hear no more of this. Such stories are never true.

Answer me-do you hear? Such stories are never true.'

'I beg pardon, but I think your lordship will find this one true,' said

the valet quietly.

'Then where did she get her manners and education? Do you know?'

'I do not, my lord. I suppose she picked 'em up by her wits.'

'Never mind what you suppose,' said the old man impatiently. 'Whenever I

ask a question of you tell me what you know, and no more.'

'Quite so, my lord. I beg your lordship's pardon for supposing.'

'H'm-h'm. Have the fashion-books and plates arrived yet?'

'Le Follet has, my lord; but not the others.'

'Let me have it at once. Always bring it to me at once. Are there any

handsome ones this time?'

'They are much the same class of female as usual, I think, my lord,'

said Tipman, fetching the paper and laying it before him.

'Yes, they are,' said the viscount, leaning back and scrutinizing the

faces of the women one by one, and talking softly to himself in a way

that had grown upon him as his age increased. 'Yet they are very well:

that one with her shoulder turned is pure and charming-the brown-haired

one will pass. All very harmless and innocent, but without character; no

soul, or inspiration, or eloquence of eye. What an eye was hers! There

is not a girl among them so beautiful. . . . Tipman! Come and take it

away. I don't think I will subscribe to these papers any longer-how long

have I subscribed? Never mind-I take no interest in these things, and I

suppose I must give them up. What white article is that I see on the

floor yonder?'

'I can see nothing, my lord.'

'Yes, yes, you can. At the other end of the room. It is a white

handkerchief. Bring it to me.'

'I beg pardon, my lord, but I cannot see any white handkerchief.

Whereabouts does your lordship mean?'

'There in the corner. If it is not a handkerchief, what is it? Walk

along till you come to it-that is it; now a little further-now your foot

is against it.'

'O that-it is not anything. It is the light reflected against the

skirting, so that it looks like a white patch of something-that is all.'

'H'm-hm. My eyes-how weak they are! I am getting old, that's what it is:

I am an old man.'

'O no, my lord.'

'Yes, an old man.'

'Well, we shall all be old some day, and so will your lordship, I

suppose; but as yet-'

'I tell you I am an old man!'

'Yes, my lord-I did not mean to contradict. An old man in one sense-old

in a young man's sense, but not in a house-of-parliament or historical

sense. A little oldish-I meant that, my lord.'

'I may be an old man in one sense or in another sense in your mind; but

let me tell you there are men older than I-'

'Yes, so there are, my lord.'

'People may call me what they please, and you may be impertinent enough

to repeat to me what they say, but let me tell you I am not a very old

man after all. I am not an old man.'

'Old in knowledge of the world I meant, my lord, not in years.'

'Well, yes. Experience of course I cannot be without. And I like what is

beautiful. Tipman, you must go to Knollsea; don't send, but go yourself,

as I wish nobody else to be concerned in this. Go to Knollsea, and find

out when the steamboat for Cherbourg starts; and when you have done

that, I shall want you to send Taylor to me. I wish Captain Strong to

bring the Fawn round into Knollsea Bay. Next week I may want you to go

to Cherbourg in the yacht with me-if the Channel is pretty calm-and then

perhaps to Rouen and Paris. But I will speak of that to-morrow.'

'Very good, my lord.'

'Meanwhile I recommend that you and Mrs. Menlove repeat nothing you may

have heard concerning the lady you just now spoke of. Here is a slight

present for Mrs. Menlove; and accept this for yourself.' He handed

money.

'Your lordship may be sure we will not,' the valet replied.

33. THE ENGLISH CHANNEL-NORMANDY

On Monday morning the little steamer Speedwell made her appearance round

the promontory by Knollsea Bay, to take in passengers for the transit to

Cherbourg. Breezes the freshest that could blow without verging on

keenness flew over the quivering deeps and shallows; and the sunbeams

pierced every detail of barrow, path and rabbit-run upon the lofty

convexity of down and waste which shut in Knollsea from the world to the

west.

They left the pier at eight o'clock, taking at first a short easterly

course to avoid a sinister ledge of limestones jutting from the water

like crocodile's teeth, which first obtained notoriety in English

history through being the spot whereon a formidable Danish fleet went to

pieces a thousand years ago. At the moment that the Speedwell turned to

enter upon the direct course, a schooner-yacht, whose sheets gleamed

like bridal satin, loosed from a remoter part of the bay; continuing to

bear off, she cut across the steamer's wake, and took a course almost

due southerly, which was precisely that of the Speedwell. The wind was

very favourable for the yacht, blowing a few points from north in a

steady pressure on her quarter, and, having been built with every modern

appliance that shipwrights could offer, the schooner found no difficulty

in getting abreast, and even ahead, of the steamer, as soon as she had

escaped the shelter of the hills.

The more or less parallel courses of the vessels continued for some time

without causing any remark among the people on board the Speedwell. At

length one noticed the fact, and another; and then it became the general

topic of conversation in the group upon the bridge, where Ethelberta,

her hair getting frizzed and her cheeks carnationed by the wind, sat

upon a camp-stool looking towards the prow.

'She is bound for Guernsey,' said one. 'In half-an-hour she will put

about for a more westerly course, you'll see.'

'She is not for Guernsey or anywhere that way,' said an acquaintance,

looking through his glass. 'If she is out for anything more than a

morning cruise, she is bound for our port. I should not wonder if she is

crossing to get stocked, as most of them do, to save the duty on her

wine and provisions.'

'Do you know whose yacht it is?'

'I do not.'

Ethelberta looked at the light leaning figure of the pretty schooner,

which seemed to skate along upon her bilge and make white shavings of

all the sea that touched her. She at first imagined that this might be

the yacht Neigh had arrived in at the end of the previous week, for she

knew that he came as one of a yachting party, and she had noticed no

other boat of that sort in the bay since his arrival. But as all his

party had gone ashore and not yet returned, she was surprised to see the

supposed vessel here. To add to her perplexity, she could not be

positive, now that it came to a real nautical query, whether the craft

of Neigh's friends had one mast or two, for she had caught but a

fragmentary view of the topsail over the apple-trees.

'Is that the yacht which has been lying at Knollsea for the last few

days?' she inquired of the master of the Speedwell, as soon as she had

an opportunity.

The master warmed beneath his copper-coloured rind. 'O no, miss; that

one you saw was a cutter-a smaller boat altogether,' he replied. 'Built

on the sliding-keel principle, you understand, miss-and red below her

water-line, if you noticed. This is Lord Mountclere's yacht-the Fawn.

You might have seen her re'ching in round Old-Harry Rock this morning

afore we started.'

'Lord Mountclere's?'

'Yes-a nobleman of this neighbourhood. But he don't do so much at

yachting as he used to in his younger days. I believe he's aboard this

morning, however.'

Ethelberta now became more absorbed than ever in their ocean comrade,

and watched its motions continually. The schooner was considerably in

advance of them by this time, and seemed to be getting by degrees out of

their course. She wondered if Lord Mountclere could be really going to

Cherbourg: if so, why had he said nothing about the trip to her when she

spoke of her own approaching voyage thither? The yacht changed its

character in her eyes; losing the indefinite interest of the unknown, it

acquired the charm of a riddle on motives, of which the alternatives

were, had Lord Mountclere's journey anything to do with her own, or had

it not? Common probability pointed to the latter supposition; but the

time of starting, the course of the yacht, and recollections of Lord

Mountclere's homage, suggested the more extraordinary possibility.

She went across to Cornelia. 'The man who handed us on board-didn't I

see him speaking to you this morning?' she said.

'O yes,' said Cornelia. 'He asked if my mistress was the popular Mrs.

Petherwin?

'And you told him, I suppose?'

'Yes.'

'What made you do that, Cornelia?'

'I thought I might: I couldn't help it. When I went through the toll-

gate, such a gentlemanly-looking man asked me if he should help me to

carry the things to the end of the pier; and as we went on together he

said he supposed me to be Mrs. Petherwin's maid. I said, "Yes." The two

men met afterwards, so there would ha' been no good in my denying it to

one of 'em.'

'Who was this gentlemanly person?'

'I asked the other man that, and he told me one of Lord Mountclere's

upper servants. I knew then there was no harm in having been civil to

him. He is well-mannered, and talks splendid language.'

'That yacht you see on our right hand is Lord Mountclere's property. If

I do not mistake, we shall have her closer by-and-by, and you may meet

your gentlemanly friend again. Be careful how you talk to him.'

Ethelberta sat down, thought of the meeting at Corvsgate Castle, of the

dinner-party at Mr. Doncastle's, of the strange position she had there

been in, and then of her father. She suddenly reproached herself for

thoughtlessness; for in her pocket lay a letter from him, which she had

taken from the postman that morning at the moment of coming from the

door, and in the hurry of embarking had forgotten ever since. Opening it

quickly, she read:-

'MY DEAR ETHELBERTA,-Your letter reached me yesterday, and I called

round at Exonbury Crescent in the afternoon, as you wished. Everything

is going on right there, and you have no occasion to be anxious about

them. I do not leave town for another week or two, and by the time I am

gone Sol and Dan will have returned from Paris, if your mother and

Gwendoline want any help: so that you need not hurry back on their

account.

'I have something else to tell you, which is not quite so satisfactory,

and it is this that makes me write at once; but do not be alarmed. It

began in this way. A few nights after the dinner-party here I was

determined to find out if there was any truth in what you had been told

about that boy, and having seen Menlove go out as usual after dark, I

followed her. Sure enough, when she had got into the park, up came

master Joe, smoking a cigar. As soon as they had met I went towards

them, and Menlove, seeing somebody draw nigh, began to edge off, when

the blockhead said, "Never mind, my love, it is only the old man."

Being very provoked with both of them, though she was really the most to

blame, I gave him some smart cuts across the shoulders with my cane, and

told him to go home, which he did with a flea in his ear, the rascal. I

believe I have cured his courting tricks for some little time.

'Well, Menlove then walked by me, quite cool, as if she were merely a

lady passing by chance at the time, which provoked me still more,

knowing the whole truth of it, and I could not help turning upon her and

saying, "You, madam, ought to be served the same way." She replied in

very haughty words, and I walked away, saying that I had something

better to do than argue with a woman of her character at that hour of

the evening. This so set her up that she followed me home, marched into

my pantry, and told me that if I had been more careful about my manners

in calling her a bad character, it might have been better both for me

and my stuck-up daughter-a daw in eagle's plumes-and so on. Now it

seems that she must have coaxed something out of Joey about you-for what

lad in the world could be a match for a woman of her experience and

arts! I hope she will do you no serious damage; but I tell you the

whole state of affairs exactly as they are, that you may form your own

opinions. After all, there is no real disgrace, for none of us have

ever done wrong, but have worked honestly for a living. However, I will

let you know if anything serious really happens.'

This was all that her father said on the matter, the letter concluding

with messages to the children and directions from their mother with

regard to their clothes.

Ethelberta felt very distinctly that she was in a strait; the old

impression that, unless her position were secured soon, it never would

be secured, returned with great force. A doubt whether it was worth

securing would have been very strong ere this, had not others besides

herself been concerned in her fortunes. She looked up from her letter,

and beheld the pertinacious yacht; it led her up to a conviction that

therein lay a means and an opportunity.

Nothing further of importance occurred in crossing. Ethelberta's head

ached after a while, and Cornelia's healthy cheeks of red were found to

have diminished their colour to the size of a wafer and the quality of a

stain. The Speedwell entered the breakwater at Cherbourg to find the

schooner already in the roadstead; and by the time the steamer was

brought up Ethelberta could see the men on board the yacht clewing up

and making things snug in a way from which she inferred that they were

not going to leave the harbour again that day. With the aspect of a fair

galleon that could easily out-manoeuvre her persevering buccaneer,

Ethelberta passed alongside. Could it be possible that Lord Mountclere

had on her account fixed this day for his visit across the Channel?

'Well, I would rather be haunted by him than by Mr. Neigh,' she said;

and began laying her plans so as to guard against inconvenient

surprises.

The next morning Ethelberta was at the railway station, taking tickets

for herself and Cornelia, when she saw an old yet sly and somewhat

merry-faced Englishman a little way off. He was attended by a younger

man, who appeared to be his valet.

'I will exchange one of these tickets,' she said to the clerk, and

having done so she went to Cornelia to inform her that it would after

all be advisable for them to travel separate, adding, 'Lord Mountclere

is in the station, and I think he is going on by our train. Remember,

you are my maid again now. Is not that the gentlemanly man who assisted

you yesterday?' She signified the valet as she spoke.

'It is,' said Cornelia.

When the passengers were taking their seats, and Ethelberta was thinking

whether she might not after all enter a second-class with Cornelia

instead of sitting solitary in a first because of an old man's

proximity, she heard a shuffling at her elbow, and the next moment found

that he was overtly observing her as if he had not done so in secret at

all. She at once gave him an unsurprised gesture of recognition. 'I saw

you some time ago; what a singular coincidence,' she said.

'A charming one,' said Lord Mountclere, smiling a half-minute smile, and

making as if he would take his hat off and would not quite. 'Perhaps we

must not call it coincidence entirely,' he continued; 'my journey, which

I have contemplated for some time, was not fixed this week altogether

without a thought of your presence on the road-hee-hee! Do you go far

to-day?'

'As far as Caen,' said Ethelberta.

'Ah! That's the end of my day's journey, too,' said Lord Mountclere.

They parted and took their respective places, Lord Mountclere choosing a

compartment next to the one Ethelberta was entering, and not, as she had

expected, attempting to join her.

Now she had instantly fancied when the viscount was speaking that there

were signs of some departure from his former respectful manner towards

her; and an enigma lay in that. At their earlier meetings he had never

ventured upon a distinct coupling of himself and herself as he had done

in his broad compliment to-day-if compliment it could be called. She was

not sure that he did not exceed his license in telling her deliberately

that he had meant to hover near her in a private journey which she was

taking without reference to him. She did not object to the act, but to

the avowal of the act; and, being as sensitive as a barometer on signs

affecting her social condition, it darted upon Ethelberta for one little

moment that he might possibly have heard a word or two about her being

nothing more nor less than one of a tribe of thralls; hence his freedom

of manner. Certainly a plain remark of that sort was exactly what a

susceptible peer might be supposed to say to a pretty woman of far

inferior degree. A rapid redness filled her face at the thought that he

might have smiled upon her as upon a domestic whom he was disposed to

chuck under the chin. 'But no,' she said. 'He would never have taken the

trouble to follow and meet with me had he learnt to think me other than

a lady. It is extremity of devotion-that's all.'

It was not Ethelberta's inexperience, but that her conception of self

precluded such an association of ideas, which led her to dismiss the

surmise that his attendance could be inspired by a motive beyond that of

paying her legitimate attentions as a co-ordinate with him and his in

the social field. Even if he only meant flirtation, she read it as of

that sort from which courtship with an eye to matrimony differs only in

degree. Hence, she thought, his interest in her was not likely, under

the ordinary influences of caste feeling, to continue longer than while

he was kept in ignorance of her consanguinity with a stock proscribed.

She sighed at the anticipated close of her full-feathered towering when

her ties and bonds should be uncovered. She might have seen matters in a

different light, and sighed more. But in the stir of the moment it

escaped her thought that ignorance of her position, and a consequent

regard for her as a woman of good standing, would have prevented his

indulgence in any course which was open to the construction of being

disrespectful.

Valognes, Carentan, Isigny, Bayeux, were passed, and the train drew up

at Caen. Ethelberta's intention had been to stay here for one night, but

having learnt from Lord Mountclere, as previously described, that this

was his destination, she decided to go on. On turning towards the

carriage after a few minutes of promenading at the Caen station, she was

surprised to perceive that Lord Mountclere, who had alighted as if to

leave, was still there.

They spoke again to each other. 'I find I have to go further,' he

suddenly said, when she had chatted with him a little time. And

beckoning to the man who was attending to his baggage, he directed the

things to be again placed in the train.

Time passed, and they changed at the next junction. When Ethelberta

entered a carriage on the branch line to take her seat for the remainder

of the journey, there sat the viscount in the same division. He

explained that he was going to Rouen.

Ethelberta came to a quick resolution. Her audacity, like that of a

child getting nearer and nearer a parent's side, became wonderfully

vigorous as she approached her destination; and though there were three

good hours of travel to Rouen as yet, the heavier part of the journey

was past. At her aunt's would be a safe refuge, play what pranks she

might, and there she would to-morrow meet those bravest of defenders Sol

and Dan, to whom she had sent as much money as she could conveniently

spare towards their expenses, with directions that they were to come by

the most economical route, and meet her at the house of her aunt, Madame

Moulin, previous to their educational trip to Paris, their own

contribution being the value of the week's work they would have to lose.

Thus backed up by Sol and Dan, her aunt, and Cornelia, Ethelberta felt

quite the reverse of a lonely female persecuted by a wicked lord in a

foreign country. 'He shall pay for his weaknesses, whatever they mean,'

she thought; 'and what they mean I will find out at once.'

'I am going to Paris,' she said.

'You cannot to-night, I think.'

'To-morrow, I mean.'

'I should like to go on to-morrow. Perhaps I may. So that there is a

chance of our meeting again.'

'Yes; but I do not leave Rouen till the afternoon. I first shall go to

the cathedral, and drive round the city.'

Lord Mountclere smiled pleasantly. There seemed a sort of encouragement

in her words. Ethelberta's thoughts, however, had flown at that moment

to the approaching situation at her aunt's hotel: it would be extremely

embarrassing if he should go there.

'Where do you stay, Lord Mountclere?' she said.

Thus directly asked, he could not but commit himself to the name of the

hotel he had been accustomed to patronize, which was one in the upper

part of the city.

'Mine is not that one,' said Ethelberta frigidly.

No further remark was made under this head, and they conversed for the

remainder of the daylight on scenery and other topics, Lord Mountclere's

air of festivity lending him all the qualities of an agreeable

companion. But notwithstanding her resolve, Ethelberta failed, for that

day at least, to make her mind clear upon Lord Mountclere's intentions.

To that end she would have liked first to know what were the exact

limits set by society to conduct under present conditions, if society

had ever set any at all, which was open to question: since experience

had long ago taught her that much more freedom actually prevails in the

communion of the sexes than is put on paper as etiquette, or admitted in

so many words as correct behaviour. In short, everything turned upon

whether he had learnt of her position when off the platform at Mayfair

Hall.

Wearied with these surmises, and the day's travel, she closed her eyes.

And then her enamoured companion more widely opened his, and traced the

beautiful features opposite him. The arch of the brows-like a slur in

music-the droop of the lashes, the meeting of the lips, and the sweet

rotundity of the chin-one by one, and all together, they were adored,

till his heart was like a retort full of spirits of wine.

It was a warm evening, and when they arrived at their journey's end

distant thunder rolled behind heavy and opaque clouds. Ethelberta bade

adieu to her attentive satellite, called to Cornelia, and entered a cab;

but before they reached the inn the thunder had increased. Then a cloud

cracked into flame behind the iron spire of the cathedral, showing in

relief its black ribs and stanchions, as if they were the bars of a

blazing cresset held on high.

'Ah, we will clamber up there to-morrow,' said Ethelberta.

A wondrous stillness pervaded the streets of the city after this, though

it was not late; and their arrival at M. Moulin's door was quite an

event for the quay. No rain came, as they had expected, and by the time

they halted the western sky had cleared, so that the newly-lit lamps on

the quay, and the evening glow shining over the river, inwove their

harmonious rays as the warp and woof of one lustrous tissue. Before they

had alighted there appeared from the archway Madame Moulin in person,

followed by the servants of the hotel in a manner signifying that they

did not receive a visitor once a fortnight, though at that moment the

clatter of sixty knives, forks, and tongues was audible through an open

window from the adjoining dining-room, to the great interest of a group

of idlers outside. Ethelberta had not seen her aunt since she last

passed through the town with Lady Petherwin, who then told her that this

landlady was the only respectable relative she seemed to have in the

world.

Aunt Charlotte's face was an English outline filled in with French

shades under the eyes, on the brows, and round the mouth, by the natural

effect of years; she resembled the British hostess as little as well

could be, no point in her causing the slightest suggestion of drops

taken for the stomach's sake. Telling the two young women she would

gladly have met them at the station had she known the hour of their

arrival, she kissed them both without much apparent notice of a

difference in their conditions; indeed, seeming rather to incline to

Cornelia, whose country face and homely style of clothing may have been

more to her mind than Ethelberta's finished travelling-dress, a class of

article to which she appeared to be well accustomed. Her husband was at

this time at the head of the table-d'hote, and mentioning the fact as an

excuse for his non-appearance, she accompanied them upstairs.

After the strain of keeping up smiles with Lord Mountclere, the rattle

and shaking, and the general excitements of the chase across the water

and along the rail, a face in which she saw a dim reflex of her mother's

was soothing in the extreme, and Ethelberta went up to the staircase

with a feeling of expansive thankfulness. Cornelia paused to admire the

clean court and the small caged birds sleeping on their perches, the

boxes of veronica in bloom, of oleander, and of tamarisk, which

freshened the air of the court and lent a romance to the lamplight, the

cooks in their paper caps and white blouses appearing at odd moments

from an Avernus behind; while the prompt 'v'la!' of teetotums in mob

caps, spinning down the staircase in answer to the periodic clang of

bells, filled her with wonder, and pricked her conscience with thoughts

of how seldom such transcendent nimbleness was attempted by herself in a

part so nearly similar.

34. THE H�TEL BEAU S�JOUR AND SPOTS NEAR IT

The next day, much to Ethelberta's surprise, there was a letter for her

in her mother's up-hill hand. She neglected all the rest of its contents

for the following engrossing sentences:-

'Menlove has wormed everything out of poor Joey, we find, and your

father is much upset about it. She had another quarrel with him, and

then declared she would expose you and us to Mrs. Doncastle and all your

friends. I think that Menlove is the kind of woman who will stick to

her word, and the question for you to consider is, how can you best face

out any report of the truth which she will spread, and contradict the

lies that she will add to it? It appears to me to be a dreadful thing,

and so it will probably appear to you. The worst part will be that your

sisters and brothers are your servants, and that your father is actually

engaged in the house where you dine. I am dreadful afraid that this

will be considered a fine joke for gossips, and will cause no end of

laughs in society at your expense. At any rate, should Menlove spread

the report, it would absolutely prevent people from attending your

lectures next season, for they would feel like dupes, and be angry with

theirselves, and you, and all of us.

'The only way out of the muddle that I can see for you is to put some

scheme of marrying into effect as soon as possible, and before these

things are known. Surely by this time, with all your opportunities, you

have been able to strike up an acquaintance with some gentleman or

other, so as to make a suitable match. You see, my dear Berta, marriage

is a thing which, once carried out, fixes you more firm in a position

than any personal brains can do; for as you stand at present, every

loose tooth, and every combed-out hair, and every new wrinkle, and every

sleepless night, is so much took away from your chance for the future,

depending as it do upon your skill in charming. I know that you have

had some good offers, so do listen to me, and warm up the best man of

them again a bit, and get him to repeat his words before your roundness

shrinks away, and 'tis too late.

'Mr. Ladywell has called here to see you; it was just after I had heard

that this Menlove might do harm, so I thought I could do no better than

send down word to him that you would much like to see him, and were

wondering sadly why he had not called lately. I gave him your address

at Rouen, that he might find you, if he chose, at once, and be got to

propose, since he is better than nobody. I believe he said, directly

Joey gave him the address, that he was going abroad, and my opinion is

that he will come to you, because of the encouragement I gave him. If

so, you must thank me for my foresight and care for you.

'I heave a sigh of relief sometimes at the thought that I, at any rate,

found a husband before the present man-famine began. Don't refuse him

this time, there's a dear, or, mark my words, you'll have cause to rue

it-unless you have beforehand got engaged to somebody better than he.

You will not if you have not already, for the exposure is sure to come

soon.'

'O, this false position!-it is ruining your nature, my too thoughtful

mother! But I will not accept any of them-I'll brazen it out!' said

Ethelberta, throwing the letter wherever it chose to fly, and picking it

up to read again. She stood and thought it all over. 'I must decide to

do something!' was her sigh again; and, feeling an irresistible need of

motion, she put on her things and went out to see what resolve the

morning would bring.

No rain had fallen during the night, and the air was now quiet in a warm

heavy fog, through which old cider-smells, reminding her of Wessex,

occasionally came from narrow streets in the background. Ethelberta

passed up the Rue Grand-Pont into the little dusky Rue Saint-Romain,

behind the cathedral, being driven mechanically along by the fever and

fret of her thoughts. She was about to enter the building by the

transept door, when she saw Lord Mountclere coming towards her.

Ethelberta felt equal to him, or a dozen such, this morning. The looming

spectres raised by her mother's information, the wearing sense of being

over-weighted in the race, were driving her to a Hamlet-like

fantasticism and defiance of augury; moreover, she was abroad.

'I am about to ascend to the parapets of the cathedral,' said she, in

answer to a half inquiry.

'I should be delighted to accompany you,' he rejoined, in a manner as

capable of explanation by his knowledge of her secret as was

Ethelberta's manner by her sense of nearing the end of her maying. But

whether this frequent glide into her company was meant as ephemeral

flirtation, to fill the half-hours of his journey, or whether it meant a

serious love-suit-which were the only alternatives that had occurred to

her on the subject-did not trouble her now. 'I am bound to be civil to

so great a lord,' she lightly thought, and expressing no objection to

his presence, she passed with him through the outbuildings, containing

Gothic lumber from the shadowy pile above, and ascended the stone

staircase. Emerging from its windings, they duly came to the long wooden

ladder suspended in mid-air that led to the parapet of the tower. This

being wide enough for two abreast, she could hardly do otherwise than

wait a moment for the viscount, who up to this point had never faltered,

and who amused her as they went by scraps of his experience in various

countries, which, to do him justice, he told with vivacity and humour.

Thus they reached the end of the flight, and entered behind a

balustrade.

'The prospect will be very lovely from this point when the fog has blown

off,' said Lord Mountclere faintly, for climbing and chattering at the

same time had fairly taken away his breath. He leant against the masonry

to rest himself. 'The air is clearing already; I fancy I saw a sunbeam

or two.'

'It will be lovelier above,' said Ethelberta. 'Let us go to the platform

at the base of the fl�che, and wait for a view there.'

'With all my heart,' said her attentive companion.

They passed in at a door and up some more stone steps, which landed them

finally in the upper chamber of the tower. Lord Mountclere sank on a

beam, and asked smilingly if her ambition was not satisfied with this

goal. 'I recollect going to the top some years ago,' he added, 'and it

did not occur to me as being a thing worth doing a second time. And

there was no fog then, either.'

'O,' said Ethelberta, 'it is one of the most splendid things a person

can do! The fog is going fast, and everybody with the least artistic

feeling in the direction of bird's-eye views makes the ascent every time

of coming here.'

'Of course, of course,' said Lord Mountclere. 'And I am only too happy

to go to any height with you.'

'Since you so kindly offer, we will go to the very top of the spire-up

through the fog and into the sunshine,' said Ethelberta.

Lord Mountclere covered a grim misgiving by a gay smile, and away they

went up a ladder admitting to the base of the huge iron framework above;

then they entered upon the regular ascent of the cage, towards the

hoped-for celestial blue, and among breezes which never descended so low

as the town. The journey was enlivened with more breathless witticisms

from Lord Mountclere, till she stepped ahead of him again; when he asked

how many more steps there were.

She inquired of the man in the blue blouse who accompanied them. 'Fifty-

five,' she returned to Lord Mountclere a moment later.

They went round, and round, and yet around.

'How many are there now?' Lord Mountclere demanded this time of the man.

'A hundred and ninety, Monsieur,' he said.

'But there were only fifty-five ever so long ago!'

'Two hundred and five, then,' said the man. 'Perhaps the mist prevented

Mademoiselle hearing me distinctly?'

'Never mind: I would follow were there five thousand more, did

Mademoiselle bid me!' said the exhausted nobleman gallantly, in English.

'Hush!' said Ethelberta, with displeasure.

'He doesn't understand a word,' said Lord Mountclere.

They paced the remainder of their spiral pathway in silence, and having

at last reached the summit, Lord Mountclere sank down on one of the

steps, panting out, 'Dear me, dear me!'

Ethelberta leaned and looked around, and said, 'How extraordinary this

is. It is sky above, below, everywhere.'

He dragged himself together and stepped to her side. They formed as it

were a little world to themselves, being completely ensphered by the

fog, which here was dense as a sea of milk. Below was neither town,

country, nor cathedral-simply whiteness, into which the iron legs of

their gigantic perch faded to nothing.

'We have lost our labour; there is no prospect for you, after all, Lord

Mountclere,' said Ethelberta, turning her eyes upon him. He looked at

her face as if there were, and she continued, 'Listen; I hear sounds

from the town: people's voices, and carts, and dogs, and the noise of a

railway-train. Shall we now descend, and own ourselves disappointed?'

'Whenever you choose.'

Before they had put their intention in practice there appeared to be

reasons for waiting awhile. Out of the plain of fog beneath, a stone

tooth seemed to be upheaving itself: then another showed forth. These

were the summits of the St. Romain and the Butter Towers-at the western

end of the building. As the fog stratum collapsed other summits

manifested their presence further off-among them the two spires and

lantern of St. Ouen's; when to the left the dome of St. Madeline's

caught a first ray from the peering sun, under which its scaly surface

glittered like a fish. Then the mist rolled off in earnest, and revealed

far beneath them a whole city, its red, blue, and grey roofs forming a

variegated pattern, small and subdued as that of a pavement in mosaic.

Eastward in the spacious outlook lay the hill of St. Catherine, breaking

intrusively into the large level valley of the Seine; south was the

river which had been the parent of the mist, and the Ile Lacroix,

gorgeous in scarlet, purple, and green. On the western horizon could be

dimly discerned melancholy forests, and further to the right stood the

hill and rich groves of Boisguillaume.

Ethelberta having now done looking around, the descent was begun and

continued without intermission till they came to the passage behind the

parapet.

Ethelberta was about to step airily forward, when there reached her ear

the voices of persons below. She recognized as one of them the slow

unaccented tones of Neigh.

'Please wait a minute!' she said in a peremptory manner of confusion

sufficient to attract Lord Mountclere's attention.

A recollection had sprung to her mind in a moment. She had half made an

appointment with Neigh at her aunt's hotel for this very week, and here

was he in Rouen to keep it. To meet him while indulging in this vagary

with Lord Mountclere-which, now that the mood it had been engendered by

was passing off, she somewhat regretted-would be the height of

imprudence.

'I should like to go round to the other side of the parapet for a few

moments,' she said, with decisive quickness. 'Come with me, Lord

Mountclere.'

They went round to the other side. Here she kept the viscount and their

suisse until she deemed it probable that Neigh had passed by, when she

returned with her companions and descended to the bottom. They emerged

into the Rue Saint-Romain, whereupon a woman called from the opposite

side of the way to their guide, stating that she had told the other

English gentleman that the English lady had gone into the fl�che.

Ethelberta turned and looked up. She could just discern Neigh's form

upon the steps of the fl�che above, ascending toilsomely in search of

her.

'What English gentleman could that have been?' said Lord Mountclere,

after paying the man. He spoke in a way which showed he had not

overlooked her confusion. 'It seems that he must have been searching for

us, or rather for you?'

'Only Mr. Neigh,' said Ethelberta. 'He told me he was coming here. I

believe he is waiting for an interview with me.'

'H'm,' said Lord Mountclere.

'Business-only business,' said she.

'Shall I leave you? Perhaps the business is important-most important.'

'Unfortunately it is.'

'You must forgive me this once: I cannot help-will you give me

permission to make a difficult remark?' said Lord Mountclere, in an

impatient voice.

'With pleasure.'

'Well, then, the business I meant was-an engagement to be married.'

Had it been possible for a woman to be perpetually on the alert she

might now have supposed that Lord Mountclere knew all about her; a

mechanical deference must have restrained such an illusion had he seen

her in any other light than that of a distracting slave. But she

answered quietly, 'So did I.'

'But how does he know-dear me, dear me! I beg pardon,' said the

viscount.

She looked at him curiously, as if to imply that he was seriously out of

his reckoning in respect of her if he supposed that he would be allowed

to continue this little play at love-making as long as he chose, when

she was offered the position of wife by a man so good as Neigh.

They stood in silence side by side till, much to her ease, Cornelia

appeared at the corner waiting. At the last moment he said, in somewhat

agitated tones, and with what appeared to be a renewal of the respect

which had been imperceptibly dropped since they crossed the Channel, 'I

was not aware of your engagement to Mr. Neigh. I fear I have been acting

mistakenly on that account.'

'There is no engagement as yet,' said she.

Lord Mountclere brightened like a child. 'Then may I have a few words in

private-'

'Not now-not to-day,' said Ethelberta, with a certain irritation at she

knew not what. 'Believe me, Lord Mountclere, you are mistaken in many

things. I mean, you think more of me than you ought. A time will come

when you will despise me for this day's work, and it is madness in you

to go further.'

Lord Mountclere, knowing what he did know, may have imagined what she

referred to; but Ethelberta was without the least proof that he had the

key to her humour. 'Well, well, I'll be responsible for the madness,' he

said. 'I know you to be-a famous woman, at all events; and that's

enough. I would say more, but I cannot here. May I call upon you?'

'Not now.'

'When shall I?'

'If you must, let it be a month hence at my house in town,' she said

indifferently, the Hamlet mood being still upon her. 'Yes, call upon us

then, and I will tell you everything that may remain to be told, if you

should be inclined to listen. A rumour is afloat which will undeceive

you in much, and depress me to death. And now I will walk back: pray

excuse me.' She entered the street, and joined Cornelia.

Lord Mountclere paced irregularly along, turned the corner, and went

towards his inn, nearing which his tread grew lighter, till he scarcely

seemed to touch the ground. He became gleeful, and said to himself,

nervously palming his hip with his left hand, as if previous to plunging

it into hot water for some prize: 'Upon my life I've a good mind! Upon

my life I have!. . . . I must make a straightforward thing of it, and at

once; or he will have her. But he shall not, and I will-hee-hee!'

The fascinated man, screaming inwardly with the excitement, glee, and

agony of his position, entered the hotel, wrote a hasty note to

Ethelberta and despatched it by hand, looked to his dress and

appearance, ordered a carriage, and in a quarter of an hour was being

driven towards the H�tel Beau S�jour, whither his note had preceded him.

35. THE HOTEL (continued), AND THE QUAY IN FRONT

Ethelberta, having arrived there some time earlier, had gone straight to

her aunt, whom she found sitting behind a large ledger in the office,

making up the accounts with her husband, a well-framed reflective man

with a grey beard. M. Moulin bustled, waited for her remarks and

replies, and made much of her in a general way, when Ethelberta said,

what she had wanted to say instantly, 'Has a gentleman called Mr. Neigh

been here?'

'O yes-I think it is Neigh-there's a card upstairs,' replied her aunt.

'I told him you were alone at the cathedral, and I believe he walked

that way. Besides that one, another has come for you-a Mr. Ladywell, and

he is waiting.'

'Not for me?'

'Yes, indeed. I thought he seemed so anxious, under a sort of assumed

calmness, that I recommended him to remain till you came in.'

'Goodness, aunt; why did you?' Ethelberta said, and thought how much her

mother's sister resembled her mother in doings of that sort.

'I thought he had some good reason for seeing you. Are these men

intruders, then?'

'O no-a woman who attempts a public career must expect to be treated as

public property: what would be an intrusion on a domiciled gentlewoman

is a tribute to me. You cannot have celebrity and sex-privilege both.'

Thus Ethelberta laughed off the awkward conjuncture, inwardly deploring

the unconscionable maternal meddling which had led to this, though not

resentfully, for she had too much staunchness of heart to decry a

parent's misdirected zeal. Had the clanship feeling been universally as

strong as in the Chickerel family, the fable of the well-bonded fagot

might have remained unwritten.

Ladywell had sent her a letter about getting his picture of herself

engraved for an illustrated paper, and she had not replied, considering

that she had nothing to do with the matter, her form and feature having

been given in the painting as no portrait at all, but as those of an

ideal. To see him now would be vexatious; and yet it was chilly and

formal to an ungenerous degree to keep aloof from him, sitting lonely in

the same house. 'A few weeks hence,' she thought, 'when Menlove's

disclosures make me ridiculous, he may slight me as a lackey's girl, an

upstart, an adventuress, and hardly return my bow in the street. Then I

may wish I had given him no personal cause for additional bitterness.'

So, putting off the fine lady, Ethelberta thought she would see Ladywell

at once.

Ladywell was unaffectedly glad to meet her; so glad, that Ethelberta

wished heartily, for his sake, there could be warm friendship between

herself and him, as well as all her lovers, without that insistent

courtship-and-marriage question, which sent them all scattering like

leaves in a pestilent blast, at enmity with one another. She was less

pleased when she found that Ladywell, after saying all there was to say

about his painting, gently signified that he had been misinformed, as he

believed, concerning her future intentions, which had led to his

absenting himself entirely from her; the remark being of course, a

natural product of her mother's injudicious message to him.

She cut him short with terse candour. 'Yes,' she said, 'a false report

is in circulation. I am not yet engaged to be married to any one, if

that is your meaning.'

Ladywell looked cheerful at this frank answer, and said tentatively, 'Am

I forgotten?'

'No; you are exactly as you always were in my mind.'

'Then I have been cruelly deceived. I was guided too much by

appearances, and they were very delusive. I am beyond measure glad I

came here to-day. I called at your house and learnt that you were here;

and as I was going out of town, in any indefinite direction, I settled

then to come this way. What a happy idea it was! To think of you now-and

I may be permitted to-'

'Assuredly you may not. How many times I have told you that!'

'But I do not wish for any formal engagement,' said Ladywell quickly,

fearing she might commit herself to some expression of positive denial,

which he could never surmount. 'I'll wait-I'll wait any length of time.

Remember, you have never absolutely forbidden my-friendship. Will you

delay your answer till some time hence, when you have thoroughly

considered; since I fear it may be a hasty one now?'

'Yes, indeed; it may be hasty.'

'You will delay it?'

'Yes.'

'When shall it be?'

'Say a month hence. I suggest that, because by that time you will have

found an answer in your own mind: strange things may happen before then.

"She shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and

she shall seek them, but shall not find them; then shall she say, I will

go and return to my first"-however, that's no matter.'

'What-did you-?' Ladywell began, altogether bewildered by this.

'It is a passage in Hosea which came to my mind, as possibly applicable

to myself some day,' she answered. 'It was mere impulse.'

'Ha-ha!-a jest-one of your romances broken loose. There is no law for

impulse: that is why I am here.'

Thus fancifully they conversed till the interview concluded. Getting her

to promise that she would see him again, Ladywell retired to a sitting-

room on the same landing, in which he had been writing letters before

she came up. Immediately upon this her aunt, who began to suspect that

something peculiar was in the wind, came to tell her that Mr. Neigh had

been inquiring for her again.

'Send him in,' said Ethelberta.

Neigh's footsteps approached, and the well-known figure entered.

Ethelberta received him smilingly, for she was getting so used to

awkward juxtapositions that she treated them quite as a natural

situation. She merely hoped that Ladywell would not hear them talking

through the partition.

Neigh scarcely said anything as a beginning: she knew his errand

perfectly; and unaccountable as it was to her, the strange and

unceremonious relationship between them, that had originated in the

peculiar conditions of their first close meeting, was continued now as

usual.

'Have you been able to bestow a thought on the question between us? I

hope so,' said Neigh.

'It is no use,' said Ethelberta. 'Wait a month, and you will not require

an answer. You will not mind speaking low, because of a person in the

next room?'

'Not at all.-Why will that be?'

'I might say; but let us speak of something else.'

'I don't see how we can,' said Neigh brusquely. 'I had no other reason

on earth for calling here. I wished to get the matter settled, and I

could not be satisfied without seeing you. I hate writing on matters of

this sort. In fact I can't do it, and that's why I am here.'

He was still speaking when an attendant entered with a note.

'Will you excuse me one moment?' said Ethelberta, stepping to the window

and opening the missive. It contained these words only, in a scrawl so

full of deformities that she could hardly piece its meaning together:-

'I must see you again to-day unless you absolutely deny yourself to me,

which I shall take as a refusal to meet me any more. I will arrive,

punctually, five minutes after you receive this note. Do pray be alone

if you can, and eternally gratify,-Yours,

'MOUNTCLERE.'

'If anything has happened I shall be pleased to wait,' said Neigh,

seeing her concern when she had closed the note.

'O no, it is nothing,' said Ethelberta precipitately. 'Yet I think I

will ask you to wait,' she added, not liking to dismiss Neigh in a

hurry; for she was not insensible to his perseverance in seeking her

over all these miles of sea and land; and secondly, she feared that if

he were to leave on the instant he might run into the arms of Lord

Mountclere and Ladywell.

'I shall be only too happy to stay till you are at leisure,' said Neigh,

in the unimpassioned delivery he used whether his meaning were a trite

compliment or the expression of his most earnest feeling.

'I may be rather a long time,' said Ethelberta dubiously.

'My time is yours.'

Ethelberta left the room and hurried to her aunt, exclaiming, 'O, Aunt

Charlotte, I hope you have rooms enough to spare for my visitors, for

they are like the fox, the goose, and the corn, in the riddle; I cannot

leave them together, and I can only be with one at a time. I want the

nicest drawing-room you have for an interview of a bare two minutes with

an old gentleman. I am so sorry this has happened, but it is not

altogether my fault! I only arranged to see one of them; but the other

was sent to me by mother, in a mistake, and the third met with me on my

journey: that's the explanation. There's the oldest of them just come.'

She looked through the glass partition, and under the arch of the court-

gate, as the wheels of the viscount's carriage were heard outside.

Ethelberta ascended to a room on the first floor, Lord Mountclere was

shown up, and the door closed upon them.

At this time Neigh was very comfortably lounging in an arm-chair in

Ethelberta's room on the second floor. This was a pleasant enough way of

passing the minutes with such a tender interview in prospect; and as he

leant he looked with languid and luxurious interest through the open

casement at the spars and rigging of some luggers on the Seine, the

pillars of the suspension bridge, and the scenery of the Faubourg St.

Sever on the other side of the river. How languid his interest might

ultimately have become there is no knowing; but there soon arose upon

his ear the accents of Ethelberta in low distinctness from somewhere

outside the room.

'Yes; the scene is pleasant to-day,' she said. 'I like a view over a

river.'

'I should think the steamboats are objectionable when they stop here,'

said another person.

Neigh's face closed in to an aspect of perplexity. 'Surely that cannot

be Lord Mountclere?' he muttered.

Had he been certain that Ethelberta was only talking to a stranger,

Neigh would probably have felt their conversation to be no business of

his, much as he might have been surprised to find her giving audience to

another man at such a place. But his impression that the voice was that

of his acquaintance, Lord Mountclere, coupled with doubts as to its

possibility, was enough to lead him to rise from the chair and put his

head out of the window.

Upon a balcony beneath him were the speakers, as he had suspected-

Ethelberta and the viscount.

Looking right and left, he saw projecting from the next window the head

of his friend Ladywell, gazing right and left likewise, apparently just

drawn out by the same voice which had attracted himself.

'What-you, Neigh!-how strange,' came from Ladywell's lips before he had

time to recollect that great coolness existed between himself and Neigh

on Ethelberta's account, which had led to the reduction of their

intimacy to the most attenuated of nods and good-mornings ever since the

Harlequin-rose incident at Cripplegate.

'Yes; it is rather strange,' said Neigh, with saturnine evenness. 'Still

a fellow must be somewhere.'

Each then looked over his window-sill downwards, upon the speakers who

had attracted them thither.

Lord Mountclere uttered something in a low tone which did not reach the

young men; to which Ethelberta replied, 'As I have said, Lord

Mountclere, I cannot give you an answer now. I must consider what to do

with Mr. Neigh and Mr. Ladywell. It is too sudden for me to decide at

once. I could not do so until I have got home to England, when I will

write you a letter, stating frankly my affairs and those of my

relatives. I shall not consider that you have addressed me on the

subject of marriage until, having received my letter, you-'

'Repeat my proposal,' said Lord Mountclere.

'Yes.'

'My dear Mrs. Petherwin, it is as good as repeated! But I have no right

to assume anything you don't wish me to assume, and I will wait. How

long is it that I am to suffer in this uncertainty?'

'A month. By that time I shall have grown weary of my other two

suitors.'

'A month! Really inflexible?'

Ethelberta had returned inside the window, and her answer was inaudible.

Ladywell and Neigh looked up, and their eyes met. Both had been

reluctant to remain where they stood, but they were too fascinated to

instantly retire. Neigh moved now, and Ladywell did the same. Each saw

that the face of his companion was flushed.

'Come in and see me,' said Ladywell quickly, before quite withdrawing

his head. 'I am staying in this room.'

'I will,' said Neigh; and taking his hat he left Ethelberta's apartment

forthwith.

On entering the quarters of his friend he found him seated at a table

whereon writing materials were strewn. They shook hands in silence, but

the meaning in their looks was enough.

'Just let me write a note, Ladywell, and I'm your man,' said Neigh then,

with the freedom of an old acquaintance.

'I was going to do the same thing,' said Ladywell.

Neigh then sat down, and for a minute or two nothing was to be heard but

the scratching of a pair of pens, ending on the one side with a more

boisterous scratch, as the writer shaped 'Eustace Ladywell,' and on the

other with slow firmness in the characters 'Alfred Neigh.'

'There's for you, my fair one,' said Neigh, closing and directing his

letter.

'Yours is for Mrs. Petherwin? So is mine,' said Ladywell, grasping the

bell-pull. 'Shall I direct it to be put on her table with this one?'

'Thanks.' And the two letters went off to Ethelberta's sitting-room,

which she had vacated to receive Lord Mountclere in an empty one

beneath. Neigh's letter was simply a pleading of a sudden call away

which prevented his waiting till she should return; Ladywell's, though

stating the same reason for leaving, was more of an upbraiding nature,

and might almost have told its reader, were she to take the trouble to

guess, that he knew of the business of Lord Mountclere with her to-day.

'Now, let us get out of this place,' said Neigh. He proceeded at once

down the stairs, followed by Ladywell, who-settling his account at the

bureau without calling for a bill, and directing his portmanteau to be

sent to the Right-bank railway station-went with Neigh into the street.

They had not walked fifty yards up the quay when two British workmen, in

holiday costume, who had just turned the corner of the Rue Jeanne d'Arc,

approached them. Seeing him to be an Englishman, one of the two

addressed Neigh, saying, 'Can you tell us the way, sir, to the Hotel

Bold Soldier?'

Neigh pointed out the place he had just come from to the tall young men,

and continued his walk with Ladywell.

Ladywell was the first to break silence. 'I have been considerably

misled, Neigh,' he said; 'and I imagine from what has just happened that

you have been misled too.'

'Just a little,' said Neigh, bringing abstracted lines of meditation

into his face. 'But it was my own fault: for I ought to have known that

these stage and platform women have what they are pleased to call

Bohemianism so thoroughly engrained with their natures that they are no

more constant to usage in their sentiments than they are in their way of

living. Good Lord, to think she has caught old Mountclere! She is sure

to have him if she does not dally with him so long that he gets cool

again.'

'A beautiful creature like her to think of marrying such an infatuated

idiot as he!'

'He can give her a title as well as younger men. It will not be the

first time that such matches have been made.'

'I can't believe it,' said Ladywell vehemently. 'She has too much poetry

in her-too much good sense; her nature is the essence of all that's

romantic. I can't help saying it, though she has treated me cruelly.'

'She has good looks, certainly. I'll own to that. As for her romance and

good-feeling, that I leave to you. I think she has treated you no more

cruelly, as you call it, than she has me, come to that.'

'She told me she would give me an answer in a month,' said Ladywell

emotionally.

'So she told me,' said Neigh.

'And so she told him,' said Ladywell.

'And I have no doubt she will keep her word to him in her usual precise

manner.'

'But see what she implied to me! I distinctly understood from her that

the answer would be favourable.'

'So did I.'

'So does he.'

'And he is sure to be the one who gets it, since only one of us can.

Well, I wouldn't marry her for love, money, nor-'

'Offspring.'

'Exactly: I would not. "I'll give you an answer in a month"-to all three

of us! For God's sake let's sit down here and have something to drink.'

They drew up a couple of chairs to one of the tables of a wine-shop

close by, and shouted to the waiter with the vigour of persons going to

the dogs. Here, behind the horizontal-headed trees that dotted this part

of the quay, they sat over their bottles denouncing womankind till the

sun got low down upon the river, and the houses on the further side

began to be toned by a blue mist. At last they rose from their seats and

departed, Neigh to dine and consider his route, and Ladywell to take the

train for Dieppe.

While these incidents had been in progress the two workmen had found

their way into the hotel where Ethelberta was staying. Passing through

the entrance, they stood at gaze in the court, much perplexed as to the

door to be made for; the difficulty was solved by the appearance of

Cornelia, who in expectation of them had been for the last half-hour

leaning over the sill of her bed-room window, which looked into the

interior, amusing herself by watching the movements to and fro in the

court beneath.

After conversing awhile in undertones as if they had no real right there

at all, Cornelia told them she would call their sister, if an old

gentleman who had been to see her were gone again. Cornelia then ran

away, and Sol and Dan stood aloof, till they had seen the old gentleman

alluded to go to the door and drive off, shortly after which Ethelberta

ran down to meet them.

'Whatever have you got as your luggage?' she said, after hearing a few

words about their journey, and looking at a curious object like a huge

extended accordion with bellows of gorgeous-patterned carpeting.

'Well, I thought to myself,' said Sol, ''tis a terrible bother about

carrying our things. So what did I do but turn to and make a carpet-bag

that would hold all mine and Dan's too. This, you see, Berta, is a deal

top and bottom out of three-quarter stuff, stained and varnished. Well,

then you see I've got carpet sides tacked on with these brass nails,

which make it look very handsome; and so when my bag is empty 'twill

shut up and be only a couple of boards under yer arm, and when 'tis open

it will hold a'most anything you like to put in it. That portmantle

didn't cost more than three half-crowns altogether, and ten pound

wouldn't ha' got anything so strong from a portmantle maker, would it,

Dan?'

'Well, no.'

'And then you see, Berta,' Sol continued in the same earnest tone, and

further exhibiting the article, 'I've made this trap-door in the top

with hinges and padlock complete, so that-'

'I am afraid it is tiring you after your journey to explain all this to

me,' said Ethelberta gently, noticing that a few Gallic smilers were

gathering round. 'Aunt has found a nice room for you at the top of the

staircase in that corner-"Escalier D" you'll see painted at the bottom-

and when you have been up come across to me at number thirty-four on

this side, and we'll talk about everything.'

'Look here, Sol,' said Dan, who had left his brother and gone on to the

stairs. 'What a rum staircase-the treads all in little blocks, and

painted chocolate, as I am alive!'

'I am afraid I shall not be able to go on to Paris with you, after all,'

Ethelberta continued to Sol. 'Something has just happened which makes it

desirable for me to return at once to England. But I will write a list

of all you are to see, and where you are to go, so that it will make

little difference, I hope.'

Ten minutes before this time Ethelberta had been frankly and earnestly

asked by Lord Mountclere to become his bride; not only so, but he

pressed her to consent to have the ceremony performed before they

returned to England. Ethelberta had unquestionably been much surprised;

and, barring the fact that the viscount was somewhat ancient in

comparison with herself, the temptation to close with his offer was

strong, and would have been felt as such by any woman in the position of

Ethelberta, now a little reckless by stress of circumstances, and tinged

with a bitterness of spirit against herself and the world generally. But

she was experienced enough to know what heaviness might result from a

hasty marriage, entered into with a mind full of concealments and

suppressions which, if told, were likely to stop the marriage

altogether; and after trying to bring herself to speak of her family and

situation to Lord Mountclere as he stood, a certain caution triumphed,

and she concluded that it would be better to postpone her reply till she

could consider which of two courses it would be advisable to adopt; to

write and explain to him, or to explain nothing and refuse him. The

third course, to explain nothing and hasten the wedding, she rejected

without hesitation. With a pervading sense of her own obligations in

forming this compact it did not occur to her to ask if Lord Mountclere

might not have duties of explanation equally with herself, though

bearing rather on the moral than the social aspects of the case.