WILMOTHURST.
His changed mood of mind did not escape the attention of his friend
Jerry Wilmot, who said to him one day,
'My people at Wilmothurst are getting up a spread, or a dinner, or
both, in honour of my august appearance in this world some
five-and-twenty years ago. Get leave with me from the Colonel, and
we'll start by train from Farnborough. Tell your man to throw your
things together; O'Farrel is packing mine, and I am just going to the
orderly-room about it.'
Goring agreed to this. The colonel readily granted a few weeks'
leave to both, as the spring drills were a long way off, or the
alternate mud and dust of the Long Valley were not sufficiently deep
for military manœuvres; and they started for Wilmothurst, which
was situated in one of the prettiest and most wooded parts of
Hampshire, Goring being glad of anything that drew him from his own
thoughts and aided him to kill the harassing time.
Jerry's man secured their seats and saw their luggage duly placed in
the van.
'Now, O'Farrel,' said he, as the latter saluted and retired, 'don't
get drunk at the "Tumble-down-Dick," or you'll never be the Sultan of
Turkey.'
Farnborough Station was soon left far behind; Fleet, with its pond
and moorlands; Winchfield, Basingstoke, with its market and
town-hall. The carriage from Wilmothurst met them at a station some
miles eastward of Salisbury, and the short winter evening saw them
deposited at the _porte-cochère_ of the stately modern mansion, which
occupied the site of an ancient one, and of which Jerry was the lord
and owner.
'A fine place this, Jerry,' exclaimed Goring as they alighted; 'the
grounds are beautiful.'
'Yes, but the devil of it is that the lands are mortgaged, I believe,
to an awful extent; my father was a man of expensive habits and
tastes. The old lady _ma mère_ hopes, nay, never doubts, that I
shall, with my handsome figure and rare accomplishments, pick up an
heiress, as if such prizes were to be found like pips on every hedge;
but I have my own fancy to consult in the matter of marriage.'
And Jerry laughed softly as he looked at his watch and added,
'Now to dress for dinner, and then I shall introduce you to the
ladies in the drawing-room.'
Jerry had, during the last few weeks, especially since his fancy for
Mrs. Trelawney had been cooled by her laughing repulse of his suit,
gone much after Bella Chevenix, a former flame, wherever he had met
her--a young lady of whom we shall have much to tell anon--but, as
yet, he had given no token of his actual feelings towards her, save a
rather marked attention, which she--knowing the views, the
necessities, and, more than all, the general bearing of Lady Julia
Wilmot towards herself--had never in any way encouraged.
Goring followed up the stately, richly-carpeted, and warmly-lighted
staircase the valet, who conducted him to his room, where he found
his clothes already unpacked, his evening costume placed on a
clothes-rail before a blazing fire, and, as he turned to the great
mirror and magnificent toilette table, he thought, with a repining
sigh, if something like these luxurious surroundings of which Jerry
made so light were his, how different might be the fate or fortune of
his engagement with Alison Cheyne.
With soldier-like rapidity he and Jerry made the necessary changes in
their costume; the latter tapped at his door, and together they
descended to the spacious drawing-room, before the blazing fire in
which, at the end of a long vista, apparently of pictures, pilasters,
and window-draperies, two ladies were seated.
Lady Julia Wilmot (she was an Earl's daughter) received them with a
stately grace peculiar to herself, but she was too well-bred to
display the least warmth of manner; and Jerry kissed her cheek, then
her firm, white hand, and, after introducing 'Goring of Ours,'
saluted his pretty cousin.
Lady Julia was a fine-looking woman past her fortieth year, but still
very handsome, her complexion brilliantly pure, her face and forehead
without a line, for thought and care had been alike unknown to her
since she left her cradle. Her delicately pencilled black eyebrows
and general outline of features were decidedly what are deemed
aristocratic, and she gave her hand to Goring, while receiving
somewhat frigidly Jerry's kiss upon her white cheek.
She was not emotional evidently, and deemed that any exhibition of
pleasure on seeing her only son after an absence of a few months
would be 'bad form.'
Emily Wilmot was decidedly a pretty girl, with blond hair, light blue
eyes, a rather _retroussé_ nose, a cherub-like mouth and dazzling
skin.
'My cousin Emily,' said Jerry, 'Goring of Ours. I hope you will be
great friends, but be careful, Emmy. Bevil is our regimental
lady-killer--has passed the Guards' School of Instruction in the
science of flirtation.'
'Absurd as ever, Jerry,' said his pretty cousin, tapping his hand
with her feather fan, but beginning a conversation at once with
Goring.
Aware that Jerry would arrive that day about dinner time, Cousin
Emily had made her toilette with unusual care. She wore a rich black
silk trimmed with amber satin; ruffles of rich old lace fell around
her tapered arms that were white as a lily, and made the delicate
lace seem quite yellow. Bracelets of topazes clasped her slender
wrists. The colours chosen became the blond character of her
beauty--for she was more than pretty--and yet the whole costume,
though rather extreme, was not too much for a family dinner.
During the progress of the latter, which was protracted by an
infinity of _entrées_ and courses, yet was perfect in all its
details, the quartette, on whom the butler and two tall valets were
in attendance, found plenty to talk of. The expected departure of
the regiment and other troops to the scene of a coming war in Africa;
the last run with the Royal Buckhounds; the county news; the coming
ball; who were invited and who were not, as ineligible; and some of
the conversation on this mooted point reminded Bevil Goring of the
proclivities of Sir Ranald Cheyne, as also did the amount of heraldry
displayed on plate, the china, and everything, from the great silver
epergne to the fruit knives, but it was precisely the same with my
Lord Cadbury, the man of yesterday.
Here, however, it was, 'the genuine article;' on a _fesse_ three
eagles' heads and as many escalop shells, gules, crested with the
eagle's head of Wilmot, given to the first of the name, Wyliamot,
who, according to Dugdale, was settled antecedent to the Conquest in
Nottinghamshire, though, unfortunately for Dugdale's veracity, the
science of heraldry was unknown in England till long after that event.
'Mr. Chevenix wishes to see you on some important business to-morrow,
Jerry,' said Lady Wilmot, when the dessert was over and the servants
had withdrawn.
'All right, mater; I'll ride over to-morrow probably--nay, certainly.
Try the burgundy, Goring; there are Romanée, Conti, and Chablis
before you.'
'The latter--thanks, Jerry.'
'Miss Chevenix is at home just now,' observed Lady Wilmot, with a
furtive glance at her son.
'I know; she returned, or was to return, yesterday.'
'You seem well aware of her movements; but of what interest are they
to you, Jerry?'
'Every pretty girl's movements are of interest to me,' replied Jerry,
laughing.
There was a mischievous pout on Cousin Emily's pouting lips, that
were like two rose-buds; but his mother's curled slightly with
disdain.
'She is handsome, certainly,' said Jerry, emphatically; 'appeal to
Goring that she is.'
'And rather good style, considering her origin,' added Lady Wilmot.
'Well, it is better surely to be all that than plain.'
'_Cela dépend_,' laughed Cousin Emily; 'it makes no difference to me.'
But Jerry knew that it did make a difference; however, he said--
'You, Emily, may well afford to hear any woman praised.'
'But what can Mr. Chevenix want with you, Jerry?' asked Lady Julia.
'Can't say, mater dear--business or some such bother, of course.'
'People of his class should wait till they are sent for.'
'His class?'
'Well; he is only a village attorney.'
'A very fine old man, who has had many business transactions with the
governor before my time.'
'Slang again, Jerry! Does he pick up all that kind of thing in
barracks, Captain Goring?'
'Very probably; it is the style of the day,' replied Goring, laughing.
'It is a very bad style, Jerry dear,' said Emily, gently.
'Yes, I repeat,' said the hostess, haughtily, 'that persons like
Chevenix should not send for their superiors, but wait till they are
sent for.'
'Like Chevenix; how you run on, mother. One would think that the old
days of sitting below the salt had come again!' exclaimed Jerry, with
a somewhat ruffled air. 'As the world goes now, how long do you
think this vast distinction of class and class will last? Why,
nobility itself will one day pass away--nay, respect for it is nearly
a thing of the past already.'
'Nobility pass away!' exclaimed Lady Julia, the descendant of twenty
earls and more, her pale face growing paler at such unheard-of
opinion. 'Where have you picked up such horrid Radical and
Communistic ideas, Jerry? Not in the army surely!'
'I pick them up from the public prints, yet don't endorse them. But
to me it seems that all will go in time, and quietly now, as no one
will care to make a row about it. Don't you see the terrible
tendency of the times? I call them terrible from your point of view,
mother. Even the dignity of the Crown is slighted in almost every
debate in the Lower House now by some fellow or other; and to me all
this seems to foreshadow the coming time when the Crown itself may
fall into the dust without defenders, for there will be no Cavaliers
in England to send their plate to the melting pot and mount their
serving men, and no loyal clans in the North to descend again under a
Montrose or Dundee.'
'And all this is to come to pass because I don't approve of old Mr.
Chevenix,' said Lady Julia, rather scornfully, as she fanned herself;
and, then bowing to Goring, she nodded to Miss Wilmot, and both
rising sailed away to the drawing-room.
Goring read a peculiar expression in the fine face of the elder lady
as she withdrew, and it gave him a clue to some of Jerry's movements
lately; but he made no reference to it, nor would it have been
courteous to do so, familiar as he and Jerry were.
Jerry twirled his moustaches with a momentary air of annoyance. It
was evident that there existed some secret bone of contention between
mother and son--a skeleton in the cupboard at Wilmothurst; but who
could have supposed that this ghastly personage was in reality the
brilliant and blooming Bella Chevenix!
And when, after having a few glasses of wine together, and a cigar in
the smoking-room, they rejoined the ladies in the drawing-room, the
obnoxious subject was again resumed by Jerry and his mother, somewhat
apart from Bevil Goring, who drew a seat near the piano, over the
keys of which Miss Wilmot was gracefully idling, or affecting an
_andante_ of Beethoven.
'The invitations for the ball in your honour, my dear boy, are all
issued,' said Lady Julia; 'and every one has accepted--only think of
that! Every one, and here is the list.'
He scanned it, and saw many familiar names that stood high in the
county, and said, with a twirl of his moustache,
'I don't see the name of Chevenix here.'
'Chevenix again!' said his mother, with a cloudy eye and curling lip;
'the lawyer man?'
'Who else, mother dear? Now, don't be absurd. There is no other
Chevenix in all Hampshire. They must be asked--he and his daughter.'
'The girl is said to look well in a drawing-room.'
'She looks lovely!' exclaimed Jerry, incautiously.
'She was a mere hobbledehoy when you and she used to play at
battledore and croquet together.'
'She is, I repeat, a very lovely woman now, mother,' continued Jerry,
with enthusiasm.
'You have seen her lately?' asked the elderly lady, in a casual tone.
'Yes; often at a hop in Willis's Rooms, at the camp balls, with the
buckhounds, and at Mrs. Trelawney's.'
'Who is Mrs. Trelawney?' asked Lady Julia, languidly, while elevating
her delicately pencilled eyebrows.
'A widow who lives near Aldershot, at a place called Chilcote Grange.'
'Ah!'
Jerry laughed softly, as he thought how familiar his lady-mother
might have been with the fair widow's name had she not rejected his
attention, and laughed him off cavalierly as he thought at the time.
'There is every reason in the world why we must have Miss Chevenix,
mother,' persisted Jerry, colouring with vexation as he returned to
the charge; 'she is highly accomplished, and sings well.'
'Taught well, no doubt--people of that kind send their children to
the best schools now.
'I should like you to hear her voice.'
'Thanks--not here, at all events,' said Lady Julia, shrugging her
shoulders, 'the girl must be forward enough--rides with the
buckhounds, you say?'
'Every one does.'
'The reason, perhaps, she goes there.'
'I can assure you, mother, that Bel--Miss Chevenix--is a very proud
girl.'
'Likely enough--many vulgarians are; but, if she is so proud as you
say, we must teach her what her real position is--the daughter of a
village attorney--of our local agent--the granddaughter of a farmer.'
'One of the oldest families on the estate.'
'Enough--she will make the hundred and fourth person invited.'
'If she accepts,' said Jerry.
'_If_ she accepts!' repeated his mother, with elevated brows, as she
added the girl's name to her list, and tossed the golden pen from her
white jewelled fingers.
'At the last meet at Salthill, she came with Miss Cheyne of
Essilmont,' said Jerry.
'I have heard of that girl--the daughter of a broken-down Scottish
baronet. But all kinds of horrid people go, with the highest in
rank, to these rough gatherings.'
'Glad Goring did not hear you,' said Jerry, glancing nervously
towards the pair at the piano.
'Why?'
'He is rather spooney in that quarter.'
'Don't use camp slang, Jerry--which quarter--the Chevenix girl?'
'No, Miss Cheyne,' replied her son, in a low voice.
'Emily,' said Lady Julia, 'I have added that girl's name to our
list--you will see that an invitation is sent to her and her father
to-morrow.'
'Yes, aunt,' replied Emily, with a slight shade of annoyance on her
naturally sweet face. 'Was it not she who behaved so shockingly to
Colonel Graves, of the Artillery?'
'It was Graves--the utter cad--who behaved shockingly to her, poor
girl,' exclaimed Jerry, with warmth.
'Really, Jerry, you must keep your temper. See how you have made
Emily blush.'
'Mother!'
'You are quite pugnacious in defence of this young woman; but please
now let us drop the subject.'
'My dear mother,' said Jerry, good-humouredly, and kissing her cheek,
as he had now gained his point, 'the male public generally, and
particularly that portion of it who wear the red rag, are rather
subject to the blandishments of the fair sex, and are not all able to
resist them, like St. Anthony the Abbot in his wood at Coma.'
'You make a jest of everything, Jerry,' said Lady Julia; 'but,' she
added, under cover of Emily's musical performance, 'it has been said
that no one knows how people pick up "a knowledge of others'
antecedents from their own careless talk;" thus, my dear boy, I am
glad you did not become entangled by that dreadful Trelawney woman.'
Jerry, the rogue, thought so now himself, but he coloured deeply at
this abrupt remark, as it showed him that his mother knew much more
of his movements than he in the least suspected.
His pretty cousin Emily, the orphan daughter of his father's younger
brother, evidently had a _penchant_ for him; her jealousy of any
rival was easily excited; and thus she shared to the full all his
mother's overstrained prejudices against Bella Chevenix, and, finding
that he was still somewhat indifferent to her charms, she might
doubtless have had no objection to get up a little affair with Bevil
Goring. But the latter was too preoccupied to relish her vivacity or
respond to it, and, though companionable enough, she found him full
of his own thoughts, and at times indifferent to a provoking degree.
When the ladies retired for the night, and Jerry joined Goring in the
smoking-room to have a last whiff, with some seltzer and brandy, he
found the latter deep in studying the geography of the Mediterranean,
a map of which he had pulled out from a stand of maps on rollers.
'What is up, old fellow?' said Jerry; 'going in for cramming again?
Thought you were surely done with that beastly work.'
'Thank heaven, yes; but look here!'
Goring had first seen the papers that had come by the evening post,
and been cut and laid out by the butler. He had, as usual, turned to
the shipping and fashionable intelligence, and to all the paragraphed
news, in search of tidings of the lost one, and had alighted at last
on an announcement in the _Times_ that Lord Cadbury's yacht, the
_Firefly_, 'with Sir Ranald Cheyne and a small but select party on
board,' had sailed for the Mediterranean.
Now this was not the case, as the notice had been inserted by Slagg,
in obedience to the peer, as a blind to Goring in particular, while
the 'small and select party' consisted only of poor Alison herself.
'The Mediterranean,' said Jerry, as he lit a Havanna; 'that is a wide
word--you can't make much of that in the hope of overhauling the
yacht.'
Bevil acquiesced in the fact, and that it would be almost impossible
as yet to trace its route or whereabouts. He had but one comfort,
though somewhat a negative one, that her father was with her; yet he
knew not the real character of Lord Cadbury, nor the plans he was
capable of contriving, encouraged by his own great wealth on the one
hand, and the poverty and age of Sir Ranald on the other, with the
girl's utter helplessness if she were, by any means, deprived of the
latter's protection, now that the stings of jealousy and revenge
against himself, Goring, were added to Alison's rejection of his
hand, with all the brilliant settlements attached to it.
Then there would come into Bevil's heart fears that without his love
to support her, and his occasional presence to sway her gentle
spirit, it might be gradually bent, if not broken, under the united
influence of Cadbury with his wealth, and her father with his pride
and poverty; and he drew many a harrowing picture of promises being
perhaps wrung from her, by which she might eventually be lost to him
for ever.
As it seemed now, she had been spirited away, taken out of his life
suddenly--had passed, as it were, out of the scheme of his existence.
They had been parted roughly, without their hearts resting on the joy
of that future which lovers alone look forward to.
Day and night he thought of her, his lost Alison.
Gathering--hoarding, as it were, in his inner heart, 'as a miser
hoards his gold--memories of passion-laden eyes seeking his, and then
often long looks of fondness turned aside' lest others saw their
glories, and of stolen kisses, stolen from lips that quivered and
trembled for their own temerity and ardour.
He could but think again, alas for the time that has been!
'But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.'