ADELAIDE.
The next afternoon Lord Welter and Charles rode up to the door at
Ranford. The servants looked surprised; they were not expected. His
lordship was out shooting; her ladyship was in the poultry-yard; Mr.
Pool was in the billiard-room with Lord Saltire.
"The deuce!" said Lord Welter; "that's lucky, I'll get him to break it
to the governor."
The venerable nobleman was very much amused by the misfortunes of these
ingenuous youths, and undertook the commission with great good nature.
But, when he had heard the cause of the mishap, he altered his tone
considerably, and took on himself to give the young men what was for him
a severe lecture. He was sorry this had come out of a drunken riot; he
wished it ... which, though bad enough, did not carry the disgrace with
it that the other did. Let them take the advice of an old fellow who had
lived in the world, ay, and moved with the world, for above eighty
years, and take care not to be marked, even by their own set, as
drinking men. In his day, he allowed, drinking was entirely _de
rigueur_; and indeed nothing could be more proper and correct than the
whole thing they had just described to him, if it had happened fifty
years ago. But now a drunken row was an anachronism. Nobody drank now.
He had made a point of watching the best young fellows, and none of them
drank. He made a point of taking the time from the rising young fellows,
as every one ought to, who wished to go with the world. In his day, for
instance, it was the custom to talk with considerable freedom on sacred
subjects, and he himself had been somewhat notorious for that sort of
thing; but look at him now: he conformed with the times, and went to
church. Every one went to church now. Let him call their attention to
the fact that a great improvement had taken place in public morals of
late years.
So the good-natured old heathen gave them what, I daresay, he thought
was the best of advice. He is gone now to see what his system of
morality was worth. I am very shy of judging him, or the men of his
time. It gives me great pain to hear the men of the revolutionary era
spoken of flippantly. The time was so exceptional. The men at that time
were a race of giants. One wonders how the world got through that time
at all. Six hundred millions of treasure spent by Britain alone! How
many millions of lives lost none may guess. What wonder if there were
hell-fire clubs and all kinds of monstrosities. Would any of the present
generation have attended the fête of the goddess of reason, if they had
lived at that time, I wonder? Of course they wouldn't.
Charles went alone to the poultry-yard; but no one was there except the
head keeper, who was administering medicine to a cock, whose appearance
was indictable--that is to say, if the laws against cock-fighting were
enforced. Lady Ascot had gone in; so Charles went in too, and went
upstairs to his aunt's room.
One of the old lady's last fancies was sitting in the dark, or in a
gloom so profound as to approach to darkness. So Charles, passing out of
a light corridor, and shutting the door behind him, found himself unable
to see his hand before him. Confident, however, of his knowledge of
localities, he advanced with such success that he immediately fell
crashing headlong over an ottoman; and in his descent, imagining that he
was falling into a pit or gulf of unknown depth, uttered a wild cry of
alarm. Whereupon the voice of Lady Ascot from close by answered, "Come
in," as if she thought she heard somebody knock.
"Come up, would be more appropriate, aunt," said Charles. "Why do you
sit in the dark? I've killed myself, I believe."
"Is that you, Charles?" said she. "What brings you over? My dear, I am
delighted. Open a bit of the window, Charles, and let me see you."
Charles did as he was desired; and, as the strong light from without
fell upon him, the old lady gave a deep sigh.
"Ah, dear, so like poor dear Petre about the eyes. There never was a
handsome Ravenshoe since him, and there never will be another. You were
quite tolerable as a boy, my dear; but you've got very coarse, very
coarse and plain indeed. Poor Petre!"
"You're more unlucky in the light than you were in the darkness,
Charles," said a brisk, clear, well-modulated voice from behind the old
lady. "Grandma seems in one of her knock-me-down moods to-day. She had
just told me that I was an insignificant chit, when you made your
graceful and noiseless entrance, and saved me anything further."
If Adelaide had been looking at Charles when she spoke, instead of at
her work, she would have seen the start which he gave when he heard her
voice. As it was, she saw nothing of it; and Charles, instantly
recovering himself, said in the most nonchalant voice possible:
"Hallo, are you here? How do you contrive to work in the dark?"
"It is not dark to any one with eyes," was the curt reply. "I can see to
read."
Here Lady Ascot said that, if she had called Adelaide a chit, it was
because she had set up her opinion against that of such a man as Dr.
Going; that Adelaide was a good and dutiful girl to her; that she was a
very old woman, and perhaps shouldn't live to see the finish of next
year; and that her opinion still was that Charles was very plain and
coarse, and she was sorry she couldn't alter it.
Adelaide came rapidly up and kissed her, and then went and stood in the
light beside Charles.
She had grown into a superb blonde beauty. From her rich brown crêpé
hair to her exquisite little foot, she was a model of grace. The nose
was delicately aquiline, and the mouth receded slightly, while the chin
was as slightly prominent; the eyes were brilliant, and were
concentrated on their object in a moment; and the eyebrows surmounted
them in a delicately but distinctly marked curve. A beauty she was, such
as one seldom sees; and Charles, looking on her, felt that he loved her
more madly than ever, and that he would die sooner than let her know it.
"Well, Charles," she said, "you don't seem overjoyed to see me."
"A man can't look joyous with broken shins, my dear Adelaide. Aunt, I've
got some bad news for you. I am in trouble."
"Oh dear," said the old lady, "and what is the matter now? Something
about a woman, I suppose. You Ravenshoes are always--"
"No, no, aunt. Nothing of the kind. Adelaide, don't go, pray; you will
lose such a capital laugh. I've got rusticated, Aunt."
"That is very comical, I dare say," said Adelaide, in a low voice; "but
I don't see the joke."
"I thought you would have had a laugh at me, perhaps," said Charles; "it
is rather a favourite amusement of yours."
"What, in the name of goodness, makes you so disagreeable and cross
to-day, Charles? You were never so before, when anything happened. I am
sure I am very sorry for your misfortune, though I really don't know its
extent. Is it a very serious thing?"
"Serious, very. I don't much like going home. Welter is in the same
scrape; who is to tell her?"
"This is the way," said Adelaide; "I'll show you how to manage her."
All this was carried on in a low tone, and very rapidly. The old lady
had just begun in a loud, querulous, scolding voice to Charles, when
Adelaide interrupted her with--
"I say, grandma, Welter is rusticated too."
Adelaide good-naturedly said this to lead the old lady's wrath from
Charles, and throw it partly on to her grandson; but however good her
intentions, the execution of them was unsuccessful. The old lady fell to
scolding Charles; accusing him of being the cause of the whole mishap,
of leading Welter into every mischief, and stating her opinion that he
was an innocent and exemplary youth, with the fault only of being too
easily led away. Charles escaped as soon as he could, and was followed
by Adelaide.
"This is not true, is it?" she said. "It is not your fault?"
"My fault, partly, of course. But Welter would have been sent down
before, if it hadn't been for me. He got me into a scrape this time. He
mustn't go back there. You mustn't let him go back."
"I let him go back, forsooth! What on earth can I have to do with his
lordship's movements?" she said, bitterly, "Do you know who you are
talking to?--a beggarly orphan."
"Hush! don't talk like that, Adelaide. Your power in this house is very
great. The power of the only sound head in the house. You could stop
anything you like from happening."
They had come together at a conservatory door; and she put her back
against it, and held up her hand to bespeak his attention more
particularly.
"I wish it was true, Charles; but it isn't. No one has any power over
Lord Ascot. Is Welter much in debt?"
"I should say, a great deal," was Charles's reply. "I think I ought to
tell you. You may help him to break it to them."
"Ay, he always comes to me for that sort of thing. Always did from a
child. I'll tell you what, Charles, there's trouble coming or come on
this house. Lord Ascot came home from Chester looking like death; they
say he lost fearfully both there and at Newmarket. He came home quite
late, and went up to grandma; and there was a dreadful scene. She hasn't
been herself since. Another blow like it will kill her. I suspect my
lord's bare existence depends on this colt winning the Derby. Come and
see it gallop," she added, suddenly throwing her flashing eyes upon his,
and speaking with an animation and rapidity very different from the
cold stern voice in which she had been telling the family troubles.
"Come, and let us have some oxygen. I have not spoken to a man for a
month. I have been leading a life like a nun's; no, worse than any
nun's; for I have been bothered and humiliated by--ah! such wretched
trivialities. Go and order horses. I will join you directly."
So she dashed away and left him, and he hurried to the yard. Scarcely
were the horses ready when she was back again, with the same stem, cold
expression on her face, now more marked, perhaps, from the effect of the
masculine habit she wore. She was a consummate horsewoman, and rode the
furious black Irish mare, which was brought out for her, with ease and
self-possession, seeming to enjoy the rearing and plunging of the
sour-tempered brute far more than Charles, her companion, did, who would
rather have seen her on a quieter horse.
A sweeping gallop under the noble old trees, through a deep valley, and
past a herd of deer, which scudded away through the thick-strewn leaves,
brought them to the great stables, a large building at the edge of the
park, close to the downs. Twenty or thirty long-legged, elegant,
nonchalant-looking animals, covered to the tips of their ears with
cloths, and ridden each by a queer-looking brown-faced lad, were in the
act of returning from their afternoon exercise. These Adelaide's mare,
"Molly Asthore," charged and dispersed like a flock of sheep; and then,
Adelaide pointing with her whip to the downs, hurried past the stables
towards a group they saw a little distance off.
There were only four people--Lord Ascot, the stud-groom, and two lads.
Adelaide was correctly informed; they were going to gallop the Voltigeur
colt (since called Haphazard), and the cloths were now coming off him.
Lord Ascot and the stud-groom mounted their horses, and joined our pair,
who were riding slowly along the measured mile the way the horse was to
come.
Lord Ascot looked very pale and worn; he gave Charles a kindly greeting,
and made a joke with Adelaide; but his hands fidgeted with his reins,
and he kept turning back towards the horse they had left, wondering
impatiently what was keeping the boy. At last they saw the beautiful
beast shake his head, give two or three playful plunges, and then come
striding rapidly towards them, over the short, springy turf.
Then they turned, and rode full speed: soon they heard the mighty
hollow-sounding hoofs behind, that came rapidly towards them, devouring
space. Then the colt rushed by them in his pride, with his chin on his
chest, hard held, and his hind feet coming forward under his girth every
stride, and casting the turf behind him in showers. Then Adelaide's
horse, after a few mad plunges, bolted, overtook the colt, and actually
raced him for a few hundred yards; then the colt was pulled up on a
breezy hill, and they all stood a little together talking and
congratulating one another on the beauty of the horse.
Charles and Adelaide rode away together over the downs, intending to
make a little détour, and so lengthen their ride. They had had no chance
of conversation since they parted at the conservatory door, and they
took it up nearly where they had left it. Adelaide began, and, I may
say, went on, too, as she had most of the talking.
"I should like to be a duchess; then I should be mistress of the only
thing I am afraid of."
"What is that?"
"Poverty," said she; "that is my only terror, and that is my inevitable
fate."
"I should have thought, Adelaide, that you were too high spirited to
care for that, or anything."
"Ah, you don't know; all my relations are poor. _I_ know what it is; _I_
know what it would be for a beauty like me."
"You will never be poor or friendless while Lady Ascot lives."
"How long will that be? My home now depends very much on that horse; oh,
if I were only a man, I should welcome poverty; it would force me to
action."
Charles blushed. Not many days before, Marston and he had had a battle
royal, in which the former had said, that the only hope for Charles was
that he should go two or three times without his dinner, and be made to
earn it, and that as long as he had a "mag" to bless himself with, he
would always be a lazy, useless humbug; and now here was a young lady
uttering the same atrocious sentiments. He called attention to the
prospect.
Three hundred feet below them, Father Thames was winding along under the
downs and yellow woodlands, past chalk quarry and grey farm-house,
blood-red beneath the setting sun; a soft, rich, autumnal haze was over
everything; the smoke from the distant village hung like a curtain of
pearl across the valley; and the long, straight, dark wood that crowned
the high grey wold, was bathed in a dim purple mist, on its darkest
side; and to perfect the air of dreamy stillness, some distant bells
sent their golden sound floating on the peaceful air. It was a quiet day
in the old age of the year; and its peace seemed to make itself felt on
these two wild young birds; for they were silent more than half the way
home; and then Charles said, in a low voice--
"Dear Adelaide, I hope you have chosen aright. The time will come when
you will have to make a more important decision than any you have made
yet. At one time in a man's or woman's life, they say, there is a choice
between good and evil. In God's name think before you make it."
"Charles," she said, in a low and disturbed voice, "if a conjurer were
to offer to show you your face in a glass, as it would be ten years
hence, should you have courage to look?"
"I suppose so; would not you!"
"Oh, no, no, no! How do you know what horrid thing would look at you,
and scare you to death? Ten years hence; where shall we be then?"