The evening came to an end at last. The great people went first, as
became them, filling the rural roads with the ponderous rumble of their
great carriages and gleam of their lamps. The whole neighborhood was
astir. A little crowd of village people had collected round the gates to
see the ladies in their fine dresses, and to catch the distant echo of
the festivities. There was quite an excitement among them, as carriage
after carriage rolled away. The night was soft and warm and light, the
moon invisible, but yet shedding from behind the clouds a subdued
lightness into the atmosphere. As the company dwindled, and ceremony
diminished, a group gradually collected in the great porch, and at last
this group dwindled to the family party and the Farrel-Austins, who were
the last to go away. This was by no means the desire of their father,
who had derived little pleasure from the entertainment. None of those
ulterior views which Kate and Sophy had discussed so freely between
themselves had been communicated to their father, and he saw nothing but
the celebration of his own downfall, and the funeral of his hopes, in
this feast, which was all to the honor of Herbert. Consequently, he had
been eager to get away at the earliest moment possible, and would even
have preceded Lord Kingsborough, could he have moved his daughters, who
did not share his feelings. On the contrary, the display which they had
just witnessed had produced a very sensible effect upon Kate and Sophy.
They were very well off, but they did not possess half the riches of
Whiteladies; and the grandeur of the stately old hall, and the
importance of the party, impressed these young women of the world.
Sophy, who was the younger, was naturally the less affected; but Kate,
now five-and-twenty, and beginning to perceive very distinctly that all
is vanity, was more moved than I can say. In the intervals of livelier
intercourse, and especially during that moment in the drawing-room when
the gentlemen were absent--a moment pleasing in its calm to the milder
portion of womankind, but which fast young ladies seldom endure with
patience--Kate made pointed appeals to her sister’s proper feelings.
“If you let all this slip through your fingers, I shall despise you,”
she said with vehemence.
“Go in for it yourself, then,” whispered the bold Sophy; “I shan’t
object.”
But even Sophy was impressed. Her first interest, Lord Alf, had
disappeared long ago, and had been succeeded by others, all very willing
to amuse themselves and her, as much as she pleased, but all
disappearing in their turn to the regions above, or the regions below,
equally out of Sophy’s reach, whom circumstances shut out from the
haunts of blacklegs and sporting men, as well as from the upper world,
to which the Lord Alfs of creation belong by nature. Still it was not in
Sophy’s nature to be so wise as Kate. She was not tired of amusing
herself, and had not begun yet to pursue her gayeties with a definite
end. Sophy told her friends quite frankly that her sister was “on the
look-out.” “She has had her fun, and she wants to settle down,” the
younger said with admirable candor, to the delight and much amusement of
her audiences from the Barracks. For this these gentlemen well knew,
though both reasonable and virtuous in a man, is not so easily managed
in the case of a lady. “By Jove! I shouldn’t wonder if she did,” was
their generous comment. “She has had her fun, by Jove! and who does she
suppose would have _her_?” Yet the best of girls, and the freshest and
sweetest, do have these heroes, after a great deal more “fun” than ever
could have been within the reach of Kate; for there are disabilities of
women which cannot be touched by legislation, and to which the most
strong-minded must submit.
However, Sophy and Kate, as I have said, were both moved to exertion by
this display of all the grandeur of Whiteladies. They kept their father
fuming and fretting outside, while they lingered in the porch with Reine
and Herbert. The whole youthful party was there, including Everard and
Giovanna, who had at last permitted poor little Jean to be put to bed,
but who was still excited by her demonstration, and the splendid
company of which she had formed a part.
“How they are dull, these great ladies!” she cried; “but not more dull
than ces messieurs, who thought I was mad. Mon Dieu! because I was happy
about M. ’Erbert, and that he had come home.”
“It was very grand of you to be glad,” cried Sophy. “Bertie, you have
gone and put everybody out. Why did you get well, sir? Papa pretends to
be pleased, too, but he would like to give you strychnine or something.
Oh, it wouldn’t do us any good, we are only girls; and I think you have
a better right than papa.”
“Thanks for taking my part,” said Herbert, who was a little uncertain
how to take this very frank address. A man seldom thinks his own
problematical death an amusing incident; but still he felt that to laugh
was the right thing to do.
“Oh, of course we take your part,” cried Sophy. “We expect no end of fun
from you, now you’ve come back. I am so sick of all those Barrack
parties; but you will always have something going on, won’t you? And
Reine, you must ask us. How delicious a dance would be in the hall!
Bertie, remember you are to go to Ascot with _us_; you are _our_ cousin,
not any one else’s. When one is related to the hero of the moment, one
is not going to let one’s glory drop. Promise, Bertie! you go with us?”
“I am quite willing, if you want me,” said Herbert.
“Oh, if we want you!--of course we want you--we want you always,” cried
Sophy. “Why, you are the lion; we are proud of you. We shall want to let
everybody see that you don’t despise your poor relations, that you
remember we are your cousins, and used to play with you. Don’t you
recollect, Bertie? Kate and Reine used to be the friends always, because
they were the steadiest; and you and me--we were the ones who got into
scrapes,” cried Sophy. This, to tell the truth, was a very rash
statement; for Herbert, always delicate, had not been in the habit of
getting into scrapes. But all the more for this, he was pleased with the
idea.
“Yes,” he said half doubtfully, “I recollect;” but his recollections
were not clear enough to enter into details.
“Come, let us get into a scrape again,” cried Sophy; “it is such a
lovely night. Let us send the carriage on in front, and walk. Come with
us, won’t you? After a party, it is so pleasant to have a walk; and we
have been such swells to-night. Come, Bertie, let’s run on, and bring
ourselves down.”
“Sophy, you madcap! I daresay the night air is not good for him,” said
Kate.
Upon which Sophy broke forth into the merriest laughter. “As if Bertie
cared for the night air! Why, he looks twice as strong as any of us.
Will you come?”
“With all my heart,” said Herbert; “it is the very thing after such a
tremendous business as Aunt Susan’s dinner. This is not the kind of
entertainment I mean to give. We shall leave the swells, as you say, to
take care of themselves.”
“And ask me!” said bold Sophy, running out into the moonlight, which
just then got free of the clouds. She was in high spirits, and pleased
with the decided beginning she had made. In her white dress, with her
white shoes twinkling over the dark cool greenness of the grass, she
looked like a fairy broken forth from the woods. “Who will run a race
with me to the end of the lane?” she cried, pirouetting round and round
the lawn. How pretty she was, how gay, how light-hearted--a madcap, as
her sister said, who stood in the shadow of the porch laughing, and bade
Sophy recollect that she would ruin her shoes.
“And you can’t run in high heels,” said Kate.
“Can’t I?” cried Sophy. “Come, Bertie, come.” They nearly knocked down
Mr. Farrel-Austin, who stood outside smoking his cigar, and swearing
within himself, as they rushed out through the little gate. The carriage
was proceeding abreast, its lamps making two bright lines of light along
the wood, the coachman swearing internally as much as his master. The
others followed more quietly--Kate, Reine, and Everard. Giovanna,
yawning, had withdrawn some time before.
“Sophy, really, is too great a romp,” said Kate; “she is always after
some nonsense; and now we shall never be able to overtake them, to talk
to Bertie about coming to the Hatch. Reine, you must settle it. We do so
want you to come; consider how long it is since we have seen you, and of
course everybody wants to see you; so unless we settle at once, we shall
miss our chance--Everard too. We have been so long separated; and
perhaps,” said Kate, dropping her voice, “papa may have been
disagreeable; but that don’t make any difference to us. Say when you
will come; we are all cousins together, and we ought to be friends. What
a blessing when there are no horrible questions of property between
people!” said Kate, who had so much sense. “_Now_ it don’t matter to any
one, except for friendship, who is next of kin.”
“Bertie has won,” said Sophy, calling out to them. “Fancy! I thought I
was sure, such a short distance; men can stay better than we can,” said
the well-informed young woman; “but for a little bit like this, the girl
ought to win.”
“Since you have come back, let us settle about when they are to come,”
said Kate; and then there ensued a lively discussion. They clustered all
together at the end of the lane, in the clear space where there were no
shadowing trees--the two young men acting as shadows, the girls all
distinct in their pretty light dresses, which the moon whitened and
brightened. The consultation was very animated, and diversified by much
mirth and laughter, Sophy being wild, as she said, with excitement, with
the stimulation of the race, and of the night air and the freedom.
“After a grand party of swells, where one has to behave one’s self,” she
said, “one always goes wild.” And she fell to waltzing about the party.
Everard was the only one of them who had any doubt as to the reality of
Sophy’s madcap mood; the others accepted it with the naive confidence of
innocence. They said to each other, what a merry girl she was! when at
last, moved by Mr. Farrel-Austin’s sulks and the determination of the
coachman, the girls permitted themselves to be placed in the carriage.
“Recollect Friday!” they both cried, kissing Reine, and giving the most
cordial pressure of the hand to Herbert. The three who were left stood
and looked after the carriage as it set off along the moonlit road.
Reine had taken her brother’s arm. She gave Everard no opportunity to
resume that interrupted conversation on board the steamboat. And Kate
and Sophy had not been at all attentive to their cousin, who was quite
as nearly related to them as Bertie, so that if he was slightly
misanthropical and inclined to find fault, it can scarcely be said that
he had no justification. They all strolled along together slowly,
enjoying the soft evening and the suppressed moonlight, which was now
dim again, struggling faintly through a mysterious labyrinth of cloud.
“I had forgotten what nice girls they were,” said Herbert; “Sophy
especially; so kind and so genial and unaffected. How foolish one is
when one is young! I don’t think I liked them, even, when we were last
here.”
“They are sometimes too kind,” said Everard, shrugging his shoulders;
but neither of the others took any notice of what he said.
“One is so much occupied with one’s self when one is young,” said
middle-aged Reine, already over twenty, and feeling all the advantages
which age bestows.
“Do you think it is that?” said Herbert. He was much affected by the
cordiality of his cousins, and moved by many concurring causes to a
certain sentimentality of mind; and he was not indisposed for a little
of that semi-philosophical talk which sounds so elevating and so
improving at his age.
“Yes,” said Reine, with confidence; “one is so little sure of one’s
self, one is always afraid of having done amiss; things you say sound so
silly when you think them over. I blush sometimes now when I am quite
alone to think how silly I must have seemed; and that prevents you doing
justice to others; but I like Kate best.”
“And I like Sophy best. She has no nonsense about her; she is so frank
and so simple. Which is Everard for? On the whole, there is no doubt
about it, English girls have a something, a je ne sais quoi--”
“I can’t give any opinion,” said Everard laughing. “After your visit to
the Hatch you will be able to decide. And have you thought what Aunt
Susan will say, within the first week, almost before you have been seen
at home?”
“By Jove! I forgot Aunt Susan!” cried Herbert with a sudden pause; then
he laughed, trying to feel the exquisite fun of asking Aunt Susan’s
permission, while they were so independent of her; but this scarcely
answered just at first. “Of course,” he added, with an attempt at
self-assertion, “one cannot go on consulting Aunt Susan’s opinion
forever.”
“But the first week!” Everard had all the delight of mischief in making
them feel the subordination in which they still stood in spite of
themselves. He went on laughing. “I would not say anything about it
to-night. She is not half pleased with Madame Jean, as they call her. I
hope Madame Jean has been getting it hot. Everything went off perfectly
well by a miracle, but that woman as nearly spoiled it by her nonsense
and her boy--”
“Whom do you call that woman?” said Herbert coldly. “I think Madame Jean
did just what a warm-hearted person would do. She did not wait for mere
ceremony or congratulations prearranged. For my part,” said Herbert
stiffly, “I never admired any one so much. She is the most beautiful,
glorious creature!”
“There was no one there so pretty,” said innocent Reine.
“Pretty! she is not pretty: she is splendid! she is beautiful! By Jove!
to see her with her arm raised, and that child on her shoulder--it’s
like a picture! If you will laugh,” said Herbert pettishly, “don’t laugh
in that offensive way! What have they done to you, and why are you so
disagreeable to-night?”
“Am I disagreeable?” said Everard laughing again. It was all he could do
to keep from being angry, and he felt this was the safest way. “Perhaps
it is that I am more enlightened than you youngsters. However beautiful
a woman may be (and I don’t deny she’s very handsome), I can see when
she’s playing a part.”
“What part is she playing?” cried Herbert hotly. Reine was half
frightened by his vehemence, and provoked as he was by Everard’s
disdainful tone; but she pressed her brother’s arm to restrain him,
fearful of a quarrel, as girls are so apt to be.
“I suppose you will say we are all playing our parts; and so we are,”
said Reine. “Bertie, you have been the hero to-night, and we are all
your satellites for the moment. Come in quick, it feels chilly. I don’t
suppose even Everard would say Sophy was playing a part, except her
natural one,” she added with a laugh.
Everard was taken by surprise. He echoed her laugh with all the
imbecility of astonishment. “You believe in them too,” he said to her in
an aside, then added, “No, only her natural part,” with a tone which
Herbert found as offensive as the other. Herbert himself was in a state
of flattered self-consciousness which made him look upon every word said
against his worshippers as an assault upon himself. Perhaps the lad
being younger than his years, was still at the age when a boy is more in
love with himself than any one else, and loves others according to their
appreciation of that self which bulks so largely in his own eyes.
Giovanna’s homage to him, and Sophy’s enthusiasm of cousinship, and the
flattering look in all these fine eyes, had intoxicated Herbert. He
could not but feel that they were above all criticism, these young, fair
women, who did such justice to his own excellences. As for any
suggestion that their regard for him was not genuine, it was as great an
insult to him as to them, and brought him down, in the most humbling
way, from the pedestal on which they had elevated him. Reine’s hand
patting softly on his arm kept him silent, but he felt that he could
knock down Everard with pleasure, and fumes of anger and self-exaltation
mounted into his head.
“Don’t quarrel, Bertie,” Reine whispered in his ear.
“Quarrel! he is not worth quarrelling with. He is jealous, I suppose,
because I am more important than he is,” Herbert said, stalking through
the long passages which were still all bright with lights and flowers.
Everard, hanging back out of hearing, followed the two young figures
with his eyes through the windings of the passage. Herbert held his head
high, indignant. Reine, with both her hands on his arm, soothed and
calmed him. They were both resentful of his sour tone and what he had
said.
“I dare say they think I am jealous,” Everard said to himself with a
laugh that was not merry, and went away to his own room, and beginning
to arrange his things for departure, meaning to leave next day. He had
no need to stay there to swell Herbert’s triumph, he who had so long
acted as nurse to him without fee or reward. Not quite without reward
either, he thought, after all, rebuking himself, and held up his hand
and looked at it intently, with a smile stealing over his face. Why
should he interfere to save Herbert from his own vanity and folly? Why
should he subject himself to the usual fate of Mentors, pointing out
Scylla on the one side and Charybdis on the other? If the frail vessel
was determined to be wrecked, what had he, Everard, to do with it? Let
the boy accomplish his destiny, who cared? and then what could Reine do
but take refuge with her natural champion, he whom she herself had
appointed to stand in her place, and who had his own score against her
still unacquitted? It was evidently to his interest to keep out of the
way, to let things go as they would. “And I’ll back Giovanna against
Sophy,” he said to himself, half jealous, half laughing, as he went to
sleep.
As for Herbert, he lounged into the great hall, where some lights were
still burning, with his sister, and found Miss Susan there, pale with
fatigue and the excitement past but triumphant. “I hope you have not
tired yourself out,” she said. “It was like those girls to lead you out
into the night air, to give you a chance of taking cold. Their father
would like nothing better than to see you laid up again: but I don’t
give them credit for any scheme. They are too feather-brained for
anything but folly.”
“Do you mean our cousins Sophy and Kate?” said Herbert with some
solemnity, and an unconscious attempt to overawe Miss Susan, who was not
used to anything of this kind, and was unable to understand what he
meant.
“I mean the Farrel-Austin girls,” she said. “Riot and noise and nonsense
are their atmosphere. I hope you do not like this kind of goings on,
Reine?”
The brother and sister looked at each other. “You have always disliked
the Farrel-Austins,” said Herbert, bravely putting himself in the
breach. “I don’t know why, Aunt Susan. But we have no quarrel with the
girls. They are very nice and friendly. Indeed, Reine and I have
promised to go to them on Friday, for two or three days.”
He was three and twenty, he was acknowledged master of the house; but
Herbert felt a certain tremor steal over him, and stood up before her
with a strong sense of valor and daring as he said these words.
“Going to them on Friday--to the Farrel-Austins’ for three or four days!
then you do not mean even to go to your own parish church on your first
Sunday? Herbert,” said Miss Susan, indignantly, “you will break
Augustine’s heart.”
“No, no, we did not say three or four days. I thought of that,” said
Reine. “We shall return on Saturday. Don’t be angry, Aunt Susan. They
were very kind, and we thought it was no harm.”
Herbert gave her an indignant glance. It was on his lips to say, “It
does not matter whether Aunt Susan is angry or not,” but looking at her,
he thought better of it. “Yes,” he said after a pause, “we shall return
on Saturday. They were very kind, as Reine says, and how visiting our
cousins could possibly involve any harm--”
“That is your own affair,” said Miss Susan; “I know what you mean,
Herbert, and of course you are right, you are not children any longer,
and must choose your own friends; well! Before you go, however, I should
like to settle everything. To-night is my last night. Yes, it is too
late to discuss that now. I don’t mean to say more at present. It went
off very well, very pleasantly, but for that ridiculous interruption of
Giovanna’s--”
“I did not think it was ridiculous,” said Herbert. “It was very pretty.
Does Giovanna displease you too?”
Once more Reine pressed his arm. He was not always going to be coerced
like this. If Miss Susan wants to be unjust and ungenerous, he was man
enough, he felt, to meet her to the face.
“It was very ridiculous, I thought,” she said with a sigh, “and I told
her so. I don’t suppose she meant any harm. She is very ignorant, and
knows nothing about the customs of society. Thank heaven, she can’t stay
very long now.”
“Why can’t she stay?” cried Herbert, alarmed. “Aunt Susan, I don’t know
what has come over you. You used to be so kind to everybody, but now it
is the people I particularly like you are so furious against. Why? those
girls, who are as pretty and as pleasant as possible, and just the kind
of companions Reine wants, and Madame Jean, who is the most charming
person I ever saw in this house. Ignorant! I think she is very
accomplished. How she sang last night, and what an eye she has for the
picturesque! I never admired Whiteladies so much as this morning, when
she took us over it. Aunt Susan, don’t be so cross. Are you disappointed
in Reine, or in me, that you are so hard upon the people we like most?”
“The people you like most?” cried Miss Susan aghast.
“Yes, Aunt Susan, I like them too,” said Reine, bravely putting herself
by her brother’s side. I believe they both thought it was a most
chivalrous and high-spirited thing they were doing, rejecting experience
and taking rashly what seemed to them the weaker side. The side of the
accused against the judge, the side of the young against the old. It
seemed so natural to do that. The two stood together in their
foolishness in the old hall, all decorated in their honor, and
confronted the dethroned queen of it with a smile. She stood baffled and
thunderstruck, gazing at them, and scarcely knew what to say.
“Well, children, well,” she managed to get out at last. “You are no
longer under me, you must choose your own friends; but God help you,
what is to become of you if these are the kind of people you like best!”
They both laughed softly; though Reine had compunctions, they were not
afraid. “You must confess at least that we have good taste,” said
Herbert; “two very pretty people, and one beautiful. I should have been
much happier with Sophy at one hand and Madame Jean on the other,
instead of those two swells, as Sophy calls them.”
“Sophy, as you call her, would give her head for their notice,” cried
Miss Susan indignant, “two of the best women in the county, and the most
important families.”
Herbert shrugged his shoulders. “They did not amuse me,” he said, “but
perhaps I am stupid. I prefer the foolish Sophy and the undaunted Madame
Jean.”
Miss Susan left them with a cold good-night to see all the lights put
out, which was important in the old house. She was so angry that it
almost eased her of her personal burden; but Reine, I confess, felt a
thrill of panic as she went up the oak stairs. Scylla and Charybdis! She
did not identify Herbert’s danger, but in her heart there worked a vague
premonition of danger, and without knowing why, she was afraid.