ANOTHER UNEXPECTED VISITOR APPEARS AT
BARTON HALL.
The drawing-room, library, and dining-room at Barton Hall were upon
the ground-floor, _en suite_. They had their several and separate
entrances from the hall and corridor beyond; and at the same time had
communications with each other from within.
The library was the centre apartment, with the dining and drawing-room
on either hand; so that, two doors being open, you could walk in a
direct line from one end of the suite of rooms to the other; and
a delightful walk it was, lit up by seven or eight magnificent
bay-windows, from each of which there were glorious views of the Berne
Hills.
The little party which entered the house at the close of our last
chapter, having lunched, adjourned into the library, where the window
opening from the ground was thrown up, in order that Mr. Richard
Tallant might sit just within and smoke one more cigar.
Miss Somerton strolled into the next room, and sat down to the piano,
letting her fingers wander dreamily over the keys.
Where he sat Mr. Tallant had, through the open doorway, a side-view
of her beautiful head; and feelings of disappointment, jealousy,
admiration, and annoyance, successively took possession of him as he
smoked, and looked, and listened.
Mr. Phillips was absorbed in the examination of some new illustrated
books which Mr. Christopher Tallant had sent from town for Phœbe, who
must have the artist’s opinion about them.
The artist talked about high art, ideality, and poetic licence. He
thought certain Dante pictures too literal in their interpretation
of the horrors of the “Inferno,” and he called some of the sketches
morbid and sensational. He was in raptures with half-a-dozen pictures
in a work of fairy fiction; but he was thinking all the while a great
deal more of Phœbe’s beauty than of anything else.
Mr. Richard Tallant could not help noticing the remarkable contrast
between the artist and his sister as they stood together looking at the
new books.
The fair _spirituelle_ face of the woman set in that sunny halo of
soft brown hair; and the sharp and highly intellectual features of the
artist intensified by the long black hair which fell upon the somewhat
rounded shoulders.
It brought to his mind for a moment a famous pre-Raphaelite picture;
but his thoughts wandered away instantly to Amy Somerton, who was
softly touching out the melody of “Life let us Cherish,” from amongst a
wealth of unobtrusive variations which Arabella Goddard has since made
so pleasantly familiar.
“And she loves young Hammerton, does she?” he thought, whilst he
smoked and nursed his left leg, and occasionally stroked his full black
moustache. “Love’s the probable successor to an earldom. She aims
high. Well, so be it. The fellow’s good-looking and conceited: he’ll
humour the lady’s fancy, of course. He can’t marry her; that’s out of
the question. She evidently thinks I’m a blackguard--that’s not so
pleasant; but Master Paul shall pay for that.”
The next moment the Hon. Lionel Hammerton was announced, whereupon Miss
Somerton rose from the piano, and the new comer was shown into the
library.
“Who would have thought of seeing you?” said Mr. Tallant, throwing his
cigar at a blackbird (which was hopping about on the lawn), and coming
forward to greet Mr. Hammerton, who was receiving a cordial welcome
from Miss Tallant.
“How do you do?” said the young aristocrat, extending his hand.
“Phillips, my friend, and how are you? I’m delighted to see you.”
“The delight is mutual,” said Arthur, shaking Mr. Hammerton heartily by
the hand.
“I saw one of your last pictures at Earl Stanton’s place in town three
days ago,” said Mr. Hammerton, “with three wonderful connoisseurs going
frantic about it. The Earl had given a hundred and fifty guineas for
it, they said. What do you think it was, Miss Tallant?”
“A landscape?” said Phœbe, with an inquiring smile.
“Well, I suppose it might be called a landscape. It was a bit of the
lake yonder, in the corner of the park, with a clump of trees at the
back, and some ducks amongst the grass and reeds at the side of the
pool--nothing more--a mere sketch, which Mr. Phillips can rub in, as he
calls it, in little more than a week. Your trees and hedges, and cows
and poultry, and bits of lake and brook, and rock and hill, at Barton
here, are a fortune to Mr. Phillips.”
The artist smiled and shook his head.
“Why, you Crœsus, you know it is true,” said Mr. Hammerton. “He will
soon be as rich as my dear brother is reputed to be, Miss Tallant; he
literally coins money does my friend Arthur; but what is better--and
if he were not here, I should be tempted to say more--he paints for
the love of his art, and he is as noble a fellow as ever sat before an
easel. There!”
The young nobleman seemed bent upon exalting the moral and pecuniary
worth of Mr. Phillips. He might have had an object to serve in placing
his friend’s merits and advantages before Mr. Tallant and his sister,
and he laid particular emphasis on “my friend Phillips,” or “my friend
Arthur,” and spoke of him with the familiarity of pure regard and
esteem.
“By-the-by,” said Mr. Hammerton after a pause, “let me explain my
unexpected visit to Mr. Tallant. Don’t go away, I beg, Miss Tallant.”
“I will return again before you leave, thank you,” said the lady in her
sweetest accents.
“I heard you were here, sir,” said Mr. Hammerton, resuming an
aristocratic dignity of manner, which he assumed with those who were
not his intimates (he had not met Mr. Tallant junior frequently), “and
thinking you might deem it necessary to give me a call, I preferred to
anticipate you.”
Mr. Tallant bowed, and twirled his moustache carelessly.
“Allow me to present you with a little token of our last meeting,” Mr.
Hammerton continued, handing Mr. Tallant a sealed envelope.
“Thanks; you are very good,” said the Iron Prince, dropping the note
into the side pocket of his loose morning coat.
“Will you not look at it, and see that it is quite right?”
“No, thank you; I have no fear about that. Shall I offer you a cigar?
The ladies will allow us to smoke on the lawn just outside the window.”
Mr. Tallant handed Mr. Hammerton his cigar-case.
“May I offer one to my friend?” said Mr. Hammerton, looking round for
Mr. Phillips, who had strolled into the drawing-room.
“By all means. Mr. Phillips, will you do me the pleasure of joining us
in a cigar?” said Mr. Tallant, raising his voice; at which the artist
returned to the library.
Just then Phœbe and Amy entered, and Mr. Hammerton expressed great
pleasure at seeing Miss Somerton.
Mr. Richard Tallant thought he saw in Amy’s face, as she returned Mr.
Hammerton’s graceful salutation, an expression of love and admiration;
but this might have originated out of what he had heard in the
summer-house, and he felt annoyed in spite of himself, and without
really knowing why.
“Shall we have our smoke?” he said, a little impatiently. “The ladies
will excuse us, and we can walk outside on the grass.”
“Presently, Mr. Tallant,” said the young nobleman, entering into a
conversation with Miss Tallant and Amy about a score of trifling
things.
“Don’t let us detain you, pray,” said Miss Tallant; and by-and-by Mr.
Tallant and Mr. Hammerton, with Mr. Phillips between them, sauntered
leisurely up and down the lawn, whilst Phœbe returned to the new books.
Amy sat down near her, with “In Memoriam” in her hand. The Laureate’s
sublime thoughts had long since been in her heart, but she was
accustomed to dwell upon this greatest of all his great works when her
feelings were more than usually agitated; and this morning sadness
and gladness were so commingled that she was almost beside herself
with a sense of doubt and fear and sorrow, and of trembling joy and
presentiments of dread and danger.
“He past; a soul of nobler tone:
My spirit loved and loves him yet,
Like some poor girl whose heart is set
On one whose rank exceeds her own.
“He mixing with his proper sphere,
She finds the baseness of her lot,
Half jealous of she knows not what,
And envying all that meet him there.
“The little village looks forlorn;
She sighs amid her narrow days,
Moving about the household ways,
In that dark house where she was born.
“The foolish neighbours come and go,
And tease her till the day draws by;
At night she weeps ‘How vain am I!
How should he love a thing so low?’”
Tears fell upon the page. Her inferior rank, her humble origin, made
her love seem a vain and selfish thing indeed. She sometimes despised
herself for permitting even the thought of it to have a place in
her heart. And yet Cophetua made the beggar-maid his queen. But how
beautiful she was!
Amy did not understand her own peculiar beauty, refined and toned as it
was by the kindness of her nature, the vigour of her intellect, and the
graces of her mind; or she might not have despaired of the love of the
next heir to the Earldom of Verner.
O, if he were but poor. If he had even been six or seven removes from
an earldom; but to set her mind upon one so high! It was madness, and
yet poor Amy could not choose but love; and Mr. Hammerton had been so
marked in his courtesy towards her whenever he had seen her at the
farm, or met her on his occasional visits to Barton Hall, that faint
whispers of hope would sometimes cheer her heart.
Before Mr. Hammerton left he expressed a desire to see the garden.
There were some famous flowers which he had heard Earl Verner’s
gardener speak of as rarities that he had seen at Barton Hall.
Miss Tallant volunteered to show Mr. Hammerton the garden, and insisted
that Amy should accompany them.
“We will all go,” said Mr. Tallant. “Come along, Mr. Phillips! you are
interested in these things; for my part, I know little about them.”
They saw the flowers and discussed their merits, and then, somehow or
other, Mr. Hammerton found himself engaged in a deep conversation with
Miss Tallant and Amy; and by-and-by he was alone with Miss Somerton,
and he was all graciousness and gentle words then.
Once she felt his breath warm upon her cheek, and once he pressed her
hand. She blushed, and the tears came into her eyes, why or wherefore
she could not tell. And then Lionel pressed her hand again, and said
what a delightful creature Miss Tallant was to leave him alone with her
dear friend.
He gathered a rose and playfully hung it in her hair, and then he asked
her if she remembered the poetic legend of the origin of the red rose.
“Roses were all white originally when first they bloomed in Eden.
Eve, when first she saw the beautiful flower, could not suppress her
admiration, and in her joy at its beauty she stooped down and imprinted
a kiss on its snowy bosom. The rose stole the scarlet tinge from her
velvet lip, and wears it yet. So goes the story; I cannot give you the
authority, but the tradition is poetic; is it not?”
Amy looked up and smiled, and Lionel knew that she loved him. The most
secret page of her story was before him, and he read it with pride and
satisfaction.
Lionel went on talking all kinds of loving trifles which in anyone
else’s mouth would have seemed ridiculous to Amy; but she could only
weep at them and feel a strange fluttering at her heart as she listened
to him and walked with him in the shadiest and most remote paths of the
Barton Hall gardens.
* * * * *
In the evening Mr. Christopher Tallant returned from town, and
was greatly surprised to find his son at Barton Hall; and equally
astonished the next morning to find that he had risen for the morning
mail, and gone back to London.