I have now to explain how it was that Mr. Aubrey Leigh was so
interesting and so melancholy, and thus awoke the friendship and
compassion, and secured the ministrations of the Kingsward family. He
was in deep mourning, for though he was only eight-and-twenty he was
already a widower, and bereaved beside of his only child. Poor young
man! He had married with every appearance of happiness and prosperity,
but his wife had died at the end of the first year, leaving him with a
baby on his inexperienced hands. He was a young man full of feeling,
and, contrary to the advice of all his friends, he had shut himself up
in his house in the country and dedicated himself to his child.
Dedicated himself to a baby two months old!
There was nobody who did not condemn this unnecessary self-sacrifice. He
should have gone away; he should have left the child in the hands of its
excellent nurse, under the supervision of that charming person who had
been such a devoted nurse to dear Mrs. Leigh, and whom the desolate
young widower had not the courage to send away from his house. Her
presence there was a double reason, people said, why he should have gone
away. For though his sorrow and trouble was so great that nobody for a
moment supposed that he had any idea of such a thing, yet the presence
of a lady, and of a lady still called by courtesy a young lady, though
older than himself, and who could not be treated like a servant in his
house, was embarrassing and not very seemly, everybody said. Suggestions
were made to her that she should go away, but then she answered that she
had nowhere to go to, and that she had promised to dear Amy never to
forsake her child. The country ladies about who took an interest in the
young man thought it was “just like” dear Amy, who had always been a
rather silly young woman, to exact such a promise, but that Miss Lance
would be quite justified in not keeping it, seeing the child had plenty
of people to look after her--her grandmother within reach and her father
dedicating himself to her.
Miss Lance, however, did not see her duty in the same way; indeed, after
the poor little child died--and there was no doubt she had been
invaluable during its illness, and devoted herself to it as she had done
to its mother--she stayed on still at Leigh Court, though now at last
poor Aubrey was persuaded to go away. The mind of the county was
relieved beyond description when at last he departed on his travels.
These good people did not at all want to get up any scandal in their
midst. They did not very much blame Miss Lance for declining to give up
a comfortable home. They only felt it was dreadfully awkward and that
something should be done about it, though nobody knew what to do. He had
left home nearly six months before he appeared at the Baths with that
letter to Mrs. Kingsward in his pocket, and the change and the travel
had done him good.
A young man of twenty-eight cannot go mourning all the days of his life
for a baby of eight months old, and he had already begun to “get over”
the death of his wife before the second event occurred. This troublous
beginning of his life had left him very sad, with something of the
feeling of a victim, far more badly treated than most in the beginning
of his career. But this is not like real grief, which holds a man’s
heart with a grip of steel. And he was in the stage when a man is ready
to be consoled when Bee’s blue eyes first flashed upon him. The
Kingswards had received him in these circumstances with more _abandon_
than they would have done in any other. He was so melancholy; his
confidences, when he began to make them, were so touching; his waking up
to interest and happiness so delightful to see. And thus, before anyone
had thoroughly realized it, the deed was done. They knew nothing about
Miss Lance--as how should they?--and what could she have had to do with
it if they had known?
So there really was nothing but that doubt of Colonel Kingsward’s
approval to alloy the pleasure of the party, and it was only Mrs.
Kingsward who thought of it. Charlie pooh-poohed the idea altogether. “I
think I should know my father better than anyone,” the young man said,
with much scorn of his mother’s hesitation. He was very fond and very
proud of his mother, but felt that as a man himself, he probably
understood papa better than the ladies could. “Of course he will
approve; why shouldn’t he approve? Leigh is a very decent fellow, though
I don’t think all the world of him, as you girls do. Papa, of course,
knew exactly what sort of a fellow he was; a little too quiet--not Bee’s
sort at all. No, you may clamour as you like, but he’s not in the least
Bee’s sort----”
“I’m supposed to prefer a noisy trooper, I believe,” said Bee.
“Well, I should have said that was more like it--but mind you, the
governor would never have sent us out a man here who was not good enough
for anything. Oh, I understand the old boy!”
“Charlie, how dare you?” cried his mother; but the horror was modified
by a laugh, for anything more unlike an old boy than Colonel Kingsward
it would not have been very easy to conceive.
“Well, mamma, you wouldn’t have me call him my honoured father, would
you?” the young man said. He was at Oxford, and he thought himself on
the whole not only by far the most solid and serious member of the
present party, but on the whole rather more experienced in the world
than the gentleman whom in the bosom of the family he still condescended
to call “papa.”
As for little Betty, who up to this time had been Bee’s shadow, and who
had not yet begun to feel herself _de trop_, she, no more than her
sister, was moved by any of these cares. She was wholly occupied in
studying the new thing which had suddenly started into being before her
eyes. Betty was of opinion that it was entirely got up for her amusement
and instruction. When she and Bee were alone, she never ceased in her
interrogatory. “Oh, Bee, when did you first begin to think about him
like that? Oh, Bee, how did you first find out that he was thinking
about you? Oh, Bee, don’t you mind that he was once in love before?”
Such were the questions that poured in an incessant stream into Bee’s
ears. That young lady was equal to them all, and she was not unwilling
to let her sister share more or less in the new enlightenment that had
come to herself.
“When did I first begin to think of him?” she said. “Oh, Betty, the
first minute I saw him coming through the garden with Charlie to speak
to mamma! There were all those horrid men about, you remember, in those
gaudy uniforms, and their swords and spurs, and so forth--such dreadful
bad taste in foreigners always to be in uniform----”
“But, Bee,” cried Betty, “why, I’ve heard you say----”
“Oh, never mind what you’ve heard me say! I’ve been silly, I suppose, in
my day, like almost everybody. Aubrey says he cannot think how they can
live, always done up in those hot, stiff clothes--none of the ease of
Englishmen about them.”
“Papa says they are such soldier-like men,” says little Betty, who had
not been converted from the _regime_ of the officers, like Bee.
“Oh, well, papa--he is an officer himself, but he never wears his
uniform when he can help it, you know.”
“Well,” said Betty, “you may say what you like--for my part, I do love a
nice uniform. I don’t want ever again to dance with a man in a black
coat. But Bee, you’re too bad--you won’t say a word, and I want so to
know how it all came about. What put it into your head? And what did you
say to one another? And was it he that began first--or was it you?”
“You little dreadful thing,” said Bee; “how could a girl ever begin? It
shows how little you know! Of course he began; but we didn’t begin at
all,” she said, after a pause, “it just came--all in a moment when I
wasn’t thinking, and neither was he.”
“Do you mean to say that he didn’t intend to propose to you?” said
Betty, growing pale.
“Oh!” said Bee, impatient, “as if proposing was all! Do you think he
just came out with it point blank--‘Miss Kingsward, will you marry me?’”
“Well,” said Betty: “what did he say then if he didn’t say that?”
“Oh, you little goose!” said Bee.
“I am sure if he had said ‘Oh, you little goose’ to me,” said Betty, “I
should never have spoken a word to him again.”
“It is no use talking to little girls,” said Bee, with a sigh. “You
don’t understand; and, to be sure, how could you understand--at your age
and all?”
“Age!” said Betty, indignant, “there is but fifteen months between us,
and I’ve always done everything with you. We’ve always had on new things
together, and gone to the same places and everything. It is you that are
very unkind now you have got engaged; and I do believe you like this big
horrid man better than me.”
“Oh, you little goose!” said Bee, again.
“No, it isn’t a big but a little, horrid man. I made a mistake,” said
Betty, “not like Captain Kreutzner that you used to like so much. It’s
small people you care for now; not your own nice people like me and
mamma, but a man that you had never heard the name of when you
first came here, and now you quote and praise him, and make
the most ridiculous fuss about him, even to Charlie, who is far
nicer-looking!--and won’t even tell your sister what he says!”
This argument came to so high a tone that mamma called out from her room
to know what was amiss. “It does not become you girls to carry on your
old scuffles and quarrels,” she said, “now that one of you, at least, is
so grown up and about to take upon herself the responsibilities of
life.”
“Is Aubrey a responsibility?” Betty whispered in her sister’s ears.
“Oh, you little silly thing!” Bee replied; and presently Mrs.
Kingsward’s maid came in to say that Mr. Leigh was in the sitting-room,
and would Miss Bee go to him as her mistress was not ready; for this was
the little fiction that was kept up in those days before Colonel
Kingsward’s letter had been received. It will be seen, however, that it
was but a fiction, and that as a matter of fact there was very little
restraint put on the young people’s intercourse. “You must not consider
that anything is settled; you must not think there’s any engagement,”
Mrs. Kingsward had said. “Indeed, indeed, I cannot take upon me to
sanction anything till I hear from her papa.” But virtually they met as
much as they liked, and even indulged in little talks apart, and
meetings by themselves, before Mrs. Kingsward was ready; so that as a
matter of fact this restriction did very little harm.
And in due time Colonel Kingsward’s letter was received, and it was not
unfavourable. The Colonel said that, on the whole, he should have
preferred it had Mr. Leigh waited till they had all returned home. It
would have been a seemly forbearance, and saved Mrs. Kingsward a great
deal of anxiety; but as matters stood and as his dear wife approved, and
he heard nothing but good of Mr. Leigh, he would not withdraw the
provisional consent which she seemed to have given. “It will be
expedient in the circumstances that you should all return home as soon
as possible, that I may go into matters with the young man,” the Colonel
added in that part of his letter which was not intended to be read to
Aubrey Leigh. And he added, as Bee had prophesied, “You might have been
sure that I should not introduce a young man to my family, and to
yourself, my dear, without ascertaining previously,” etc., etc., just as
Bee had said. He added, “Of course I never contemplated anything of this
sort: but one can never tell what may happen when young people are
thrown together. The property is a good one, and the young man
unexceptionable, from all I can hear.” Then Mrs. Kingsward’s mind was
set at ease. It seemed to Bee that her father might have said something
on the subject of her happiness, and acknowledged Aubrey to be something
more than an unexceptionable young man. It was inconceivable, she
thought to herself, how cool people are when they come to that age. The
property good, and the young man unexceptionable--was that all? Did papa
take no more interest than that? But at all events the engagement was
now quite permitted and acknowledged, and they might walk out together
all day, and dance together all night, without a word said; for which
Bee forgave and instantly forgot--it was really of so little
importance--the coolness of papa.
Mrs. Kingsward’s “cure” was over, and by this time most people were
leaving the Bath. Our party made their preparations for leaving too, in
the pleasantest way. It was not to be at all a rapid journey, which
would not have been good for Mrs. Kingsward. They were to make their way
at leisure from one beautiful old city to another across the breadth of
Germany, staying a day here and a day there, travelling for the most
part in a large, old-fashioned carriage, such as was the custom then,
with a wide-hooded seat in front, like the _banquette_ of a French
diligence, in which two people could be extremely happy, seeing the
scenery much better than those inside could do, or perhaps not seeing
the scenery at all, but occupying each other quite as agreeably with the
endless talk of lovers, which is not interesting to anybody but
themselves. Before they set out upon this journey, however, which was to
hold so great a place in Bee’s life, a little incident occurred to her
which did not appear to be of very much consequence, but which made some
impression on her mind at the time, and vaguely appeared afterwards to
throw light on various other events. The German Bath at which the
little story of her love took place is surrounded with woods--woods of a
kind that are never seen anywhere else, though they are the special
feature of German Baths. They are chiefly composed of fir trees, and
they are arranged upon the most strictly mathematical principles, with
that precision which is dear to the German mind, row upon row standing
close together, as if they had been stuck in so at their present height,
with so many cubit feet of air to each, as in the London lodging-houses.
They are traversed by broad roads, with benches at intervals, and at
each corner there is a wooden board on which is painted indications how
to find the nearest _restauration_ where beer is to be had, and the veal
of the country--for the German, in his hours of ease and amusement, has
continual occasion to be “restored.”
Bee had gone out early in the morning to make a little sketch of an
opening in the trees through which a village spire was visible. There
were not many points for the artist in landscape, especially one of such
moderate powers as Bee, and she was very anxious to finish this to
present it, I need scarcely say, to Aubrey, as a memento of the place.
Probably there was some other sentimental reason--such as that they had
first spoken words of special meaning there, or had first exchanged
looks that were of importance in their idyll, or some other incident of
equal weight. She was seated on one of the benches, with her little
colour box and bottle of water, giving the finishing touches to her
sketch. Sooth to say, Bee was no great performer, and the ranks of the
dark trees standing arithmetically apart to permit of that little
glimpse of distance, were too much for her. They looked in her sketch
like two dark green precipices rather than like trees, and had come to a
very difficult point, when a lady coming along by one of the side walks,
round the corner past the _restauration_, suddenly sat down by Bee’s
side and startled her a little. She was not a girl who was easily
frightened, but the suddenness of the apparition out of the silent
morning when she had thought nobody was in sight was a little startling
and made her hand shake.
“I hope I am not intruding upon you,” the lady said.
“Oh, no!” said Bee, looking up with her bright face. She was as fresh as
the morning in her broad Leghorn hat with the blue ribbon, and her eyes
that danced and sparkled. The stranger by her side was much older than
Bee. She was a handsome woman; dark, with fine eyes, too, a sidelong
look in them, and a curious half smile which was like La Gioconda, that
famous picture Bee had seen in the Louvre, as we all have. She thought
of La Gioconda at once, when she looked up into the lady’s face. She was
entirely dressed in black, and there could not have been found anywhere
a more perfect contrast to Bee.
They got into conversation quite easily, for Bee was a girl who loved to
talk. The lady gave her several hints about her little picture which Bee
knew enough to know were dictated by superior knowledge, and then they
got talking quite naturally about the place and the people who were
there. After they had discussed the society and the number of English
people at the Bath, and Bee had disclosed the hotel at which she was
staying, and many details of her innocent life, which she was not at all
conscious of disclosing--the stranger began to inquire about various
people. It was not by any means at once that she introduced the name of
Leigh; not indeed till she had been over the Reynoldses, and the
Gainsboroughs, and the Collinses, under Bee’s exultant guidance and fine
power of narrative; then she said tentatively, that there was she
believed, at one of the hotels, a family of Leighs.
“Oh!” cried Bee, her countenance flushing over with a sudden brilliant
delightful blush, which seemed to envelop her from top to toe. She had
been looking up into her companion’s face so that the stranger got the
full benefit of this sudden resplendent change of colour. She then
turned very demurely to her sketch, and said meekly, “I don’t know any
family, but there is a Mr. Leigh at our hotel.”
“Oh,” said the lady, but in a very different tone from Bee’s startled
“oh!” She said it coldly, as if recording a fact. “I thought,” she said,
“it was the Leighs of Hurstleigh, friends of mine. I may have been
deceived by seeing the name in the lists.”
“But I think, indeed I am sure, that Mr. Aubrey Leigh is connected with
the Leighs of Hurstleigh,” Bee said.
“Oh, a young man, a widower, an inconsolable; I think I remember hearing
of him. Is that the man?”
“I don’t know if he is an inconsolable,” cried Bee, with a quick
movement of anger and then she thought how foolish that was, for of
course a stranger like this could have no unkind meaning. She added with
great gravity, “It is quite true that he has been married before.”
Poor little Bee, she was not at all aware how she was betraying herself.
She was more vexed and indignant than words can say, when the woman (who
after all could not be a lady) burst into a laugh. “Oh! I think I can
see how matters stand with Aubrey Leigh,” this impertinent intruder
cried.