MISTLETOE.
When Arabella Trefoil started from London for Mistletoe, with no
companion but her own maid, she had given more serious consideration
to her visit than she had probably ever paid to any matter up to
that time. She had often been much in earnest but never so much in
earnest as now. Those other men had perhaps been worthy,--worthy as
far as her ideas went of worth,--but none of them so worthy as this
man. Everything was there if she could only get it;--money, rank,
fashion, and an appetite for pleasure. And he was handsome too,
and good-humoured, though these qualities told less with her than
the others. And now she was to meet him in the house of her great
relations,--in a position in which her rank and her fashion would
seem to be equal to his own. And she would meet him with the
remembrance fresh in his mind as in her own of those passages of love
at Rufford. It would be impossible that he should even seem to forget
them. The most that she could expect would be four or five days of
his company, and she knew that she must be upon her mettle. She must
do more now than she had ever attempted before. She must scruple at
nothing that might bind him. She would be in the house of her uncle
and that uncle a duke, and she thought that those facts might help
to quell him. And she would be there without her mother, who was so
often a heavy incubus on her shoulders. She thought of it all, and
made her plans carefully and even painfully. She would be at any rate
two days in the house before his arrival. During that time she would
curry favour with her uncle by all her arts, and would if possible
reconcile herself to her aunt. She thought once of taking her aunt
into her full confidence and balanced the matter much in her mind.
The Duchess, she knew, was afraid of her,--or rather afraid of the
relationship, and would of course be pleased to have all fears set
at rest by such an alliance. But her aunt was a woman who had never
suffered hardships, whose own marriage had been easily arranged, and
whose two daughters had been pleasantly married before they were
twenty years old. She had had no experience of feminine difficulties,
and would have no mercy for such labours as those to which her less
fortunate niece was driven. It would have been a great thing to have
the cordial co-operation of her aunt;--but she could not venture to
ask for it.
She had stretched her means and her credit to the utmost in regard to
her wardrobe, and was aware that she had never been so well equipped
since those early days of her career in which her father and mother
had thought that her beauty, assisted by a generous expenditure,
would serve to dispose of her without delay. A generous expenditure
may be incurred once even by poor people, but cannot possibly be
maintained over a dozen years. Now she had taken the matter into her
own hands and had done that which would be ruinous if not successful.
She was venturing her all upon the die,--with the prospect of
drowning herself on the way out to Patagonia should the chances of
the game go against her. She forgot nothing. She could hardly hope
for more than one day's hunting and yet that had been provided for
as though she were going to ride with the hounds through all the
remainder of the season.
When she reached Mistletoe there were people going and coming every
day, so that an arrival was no event. She was kissed by her uncle and
welcomed with characteristic coldness by her aunt, then allowed to
settle in among the other guests as though she had been there all
the winter. Everybody knew that she was a Trefoil and her presence
therefore raised no question. The Duchess of Omnium was among the
guests. The Duchess knew all about her and vouchsafed to her the
smallest possible recognition. Lady Chiltern had met her before, and
as Lady Chiltern was always generous, she was gracious to Arabella.
She was sorry to see Lady Drummond, because she connected Lady
Drummond with the Foreign Office and feared that the conversation
might be led to Patagonia and its new minister. She contrived to
squeeze her uncle's hand and to utter a word of warm thanks,--which
his grace did not perfectly understand. The girl was his niece and
the Duke had an idea that he should be kind to the family of which he
was the head. His brother's wife had become objectionable to him, but
as to the girl, if she wanted a home for a week or two, he thought it
to be his duty to give it to her.
Mistletoe is an enormous house with a frontage nearly a quarter of
a mile long, combining as it does all the offices, coach houses,
and stables. There is nothing in England more ugly or perhaps more
comfortable. It stands in a huge park which, as it is quite flat,
never shows its size and is altogether unattractive. The Duke
himself was a hospitable, easy man who was very fond of his dinner
and performed his duties well; but could never be touched by any
sentiment. He always spent six months in the country, in which he
acted as landlord to a great crowd of shooting, hunting, and flirting
visitors, and six in London, in which he gave dinners and dined out
and regularly took his place in the House of Lords without ever
opening his mouth. He was a grey-haired comely man of sixty, with
a large body and a wonderful appetite. By many who understood the
subject he was supposed to be the best amateur judge of wine in
England. His son Lord Mistletoe was member for the county and as the
Duke had no younger sons he was supposed to be happy at all points.
Lord Mistletoe, who had a large family of his own, lived twenty miles
off,--so that the father and son could meet pleasantly without fear
of quarrelling.
During the first evening Arabella did contrive to make herself very
agreeable. She was much quieter than had been her wont when at
Mistletoe before, and though there were present two or three very
well circumstanced young men she took but little notice of them.
She went out to dinner with Sir Jeffrey Bunker, and made herself
agreeable to that old gentleman in a remarkable manner. After dinner,
something having been said of the respectable old game called cat's
cradle, she played it to perfection with Sir Jeffrey,--till her aunt
thought that she must have been unaware that Sir Jeffrey had a wife
and family. She was all smiles and all pleasantness, and seemed to
want no other happiness than what the present moment gave her. Nor
did she once mention Lord Rufford's name.
On the next morning after breakfast her aunt sent for her to come
up-stairs. Such a thing had never happened to her before. She could
not recollect that, on any of those annual visits which she had made
to Mistletoe for more years than she now liked to think of, she had
ever had five minutes' conversation alone with her aunt. It had
always seemed that she was to be allowed to come and go by reason
of her relationship, but that she was to receive no special mark of
confidence or affection. The message was whispered into her ear by
her aunt's own woman as she was listening with great attention to
Lady Drummond's troubles in regard to her nursery arrangements. She
nodded her head, heard a few more words from Lady Drummond, and then,
with a pretty apology and a statement made so that all should hear
her, that her aunt wanted her, followed the maid up-stairs. "My
dear," said her aunt, when the door was closed, "I want to ask you
whether you would like me to ask Mr. Morton to come here while you
are with us?" A thunderbolt at her feet could hardly have surprised
or annoyed her more. If there was one thing that she wanted less than
another it was the presence of the Paragon at Mistletoe. It would
utterly subvert everything and rob her of every chance. With a great
effort she restrained all emotion and simply shook her head. She
did it very well, and betrayed nothing. "I ask," said the Duchess,
"because I have been very glad to hear that you are engaged to marry
him. Lord Drummond tells me that he is a most respectable young man."
"Mr. Morton will be so much obliged to Lord Drummond."
"And I thought that if it were so, you would be glad that he should
meet you here. I could manage it very well, as the Drummonds are
here, and Lord Drummond would be glad to meet him."
They had not been above a minute or two together, and Arabella had
been called upon to expend her energy in suppressing any expression
of her horror; but still, by the time that she was called on to
speak, she had fabricated her story. "Thanks, aunt; it is so good of
you;--and if everything was going straight, there would be nothing of
course that I should like so much."
"You are engaged to him?"
"Well; I was going to tell you. I dare say it is not his fault; but
papa and mamma and the lawyers think that he is not behaving well
about money;--settlements and all that. I suppose it will all come
right; but in the meantime perhaps I had better not meet him."
"But you were engaged to him?"
This had to be answered without a moment's pause. "Yes," said
Arabella; "I was engaged to him."
"And he is going out as minister to Patagonia almost immediately?"
"He is going, I know."
"I suppose you will go with him?"
This was very hard. She could not say that she certainly was not
going with him. And yet she had to remember that her coming campaign
with Lord Rufford must be carried on in part beneath her aunt's eyes.
When she had come to Mistletoe she had fondly hoped that none of
the family there would know anything about Mr. Morton. And now she
was called upon to answer these horrid questions without a moment's
notice! "I don't think I shall go with him, aunt; though I am unable
to say anything certain just at present. If he behaves badly of
course the engagement must be off."
"I hope not. You should think of it very seriously. As for money, you
know, you have none of your own, and I am told that he has a very
nice property in Rufford. There is a neighbour of his coming here
to-morrow, and perhaps he knows him."
"Who is the neighbour, aunt?" asked Arabella, innocently.
"Lord Rufford. He is coming to shoot. I will ask him about the
property."
"Pray don't mention my name, aunt. It would be so unpleasant if
nothing were to come of it. I know Lord Rufford very well."
"Know Lord Rufford very well!"
"As one does know men that one meets about."
"I thought it might settle everything if we had Mr. Morton here."
"I couldn't meet him, aunt; I couldn't indeed. Mamma doesn't think
that he is behaving well." To the Duchess condemnation from Lady
Augustus almost amounted to praise. She felt sure that Mr. Morton
was a worthy man who would not probably behave badly, and though she
could not unravel the mystery, and certainly had no suspicion in
regard to Lord Rufford, she was sure that there was something wrong.
But there was nothing more to be said at present. After what Arabella
had told her Mr. Morton could not be asked there to meet her niece.
But all the slight feeling of kindness to the girl which had been
created by the tidings of so respectable an engagement were at once
obliterated from the Duchess's bosom. Arabella, with many expressions
of thanks and a good-humoured countenance, left the room, cursing the
untowardness of her fate which would let nothing run smooth.
Lord Rufford was to come. That at any rate was now almost certain.
Up to the present she had doubted, knowing the way in which such men
will change their engagements at the least caprice. But the Duchess
expected him on the morrow. She had prepared the way for meeting him
as an old friend without causing surprise, and had gained that step.
But should she succeed, as she hoped, in exacting continued homage
from the man,--homage for the four or five days of his sojourn at
Mistletoe,--this must be carried on with the knowledge on the part
of many in the house that she was engaged to that horrid Patagonian
Minister! Was ever a girl called upon to risk her entire fate under
so many disadvantages?
When she went up to dress for dinner on the day of his expected
arrival Lord Rufford had not come. Since the interview in her aunt's
room she had not heard his name mentioned. When she came into the
drawing-room, a little late, he was not there. "We won't wait,
Duchess," said the Duke to his wife at three minutes past eight. The
Duke's punctuality at dinner-time was well known, and everybody else
was then assembled. Within two minutes after the Duke's word dinner
was announced, and a party numbering about thirty walked away into
the dinner-room. Arabella, when they were all settled, found that
there was a vacant seat next herself. If the man were to come,
fortune would have favoured her in that.
The fish and soup had already disappeared and the Duke was wakening
himself to eloquence on the first entrée when Lord Rufford entered
the room. "There never were trains so late as yours, Duchess," he
said, "nor any part of the world in which hired horses travel so
slowly. I beg the Duke's pardon, but I suffer the less because I know
his Grace never waits for anybody."
"Certainly not," said the Duke, "having some regard for my friends'
dinners."
"And I find myself next to you," said Lord Rufford as he took his
seat. "Well; that is more than I deserve."