The little group round Minnie's sofa dispersed as Mr. Diamond came
forward. He was barely known by sight to most of them, and merely bowed
gravely and shyly, without speaking.
"Who's that?" asked Colonel Whistler, in a loud whisper, of his eldest
niece. "Eh? oh! ah! second master--yes, yes, yes; to be sure!" And the
gallant gentleman walked off to the card-room, and joined the party at
Mrs. Dockett's table, where there was a vacant place. It must be owned
that the colonel's appearance was by no means rapturously hailed there.
He was a notoriously bad player. Fate, however, allotted him as a
partner to Mr. Warlock. Mrs. Dockett and Mr. Smith exchanged glances of
satisfaction, and the gloom on Mr. Warlock's brow perceptibly deepened
as the colonel, polite, smiling, and eager for the fray, took his seat
opposite to that clerical victim.
"Algy, give Mr. Diamond your chair," said Miss Bodkin. It was in this
imperious manner that she occasionally addressed her young friend. In
her eyes he was still a school-boy. And then she was four years his
senior, and had been a young woman grown when he was still playing
marbles and munching toffy.
Algy by no means considered himself a school-boy, but he had excellent
tact and temper. He rose directly, shook hands with his tutor, and then
standing opposite to Minnie, put his knuckles to his forehead, after the
fashion in vogue amongst rustic children by way of salute, and said
meekly, "Yes'm, please'm."
Minnie laughed. "You don't mind, do you, Algernon?" she said, looking up
at him.
"Not at all, Miss Bodkin. You have merely cast another blight over my
young existence. I am growing to look like the reverend Peter, in
consequence of your ill-usage. Don't you perceive a ghastly hue upon my
brow? No? Ah, well, you would if you had any feeling. Here, let me put
this cushion better for you. Will that do?"
"Capitally, thanks. And, look here, Algy; I can't bear any music
to-night, so will you get mamma to set the McDougalls down to a round
game? And play yourself, there's a good boy!"
"Oh, Minnie, you ought to have been Mrs. Nero. There never was such a
tyrant. Well, Pawkins and I must make ourselves agreeable, I suppose.
For England, home, and beauty--here goes!" And Algernon speedily had the
two Miss McDougalls, and Mr. Pawkins, and Alethea Dockett engaged in a
game of vingt-et-un--played in a very infantine manner by the
first-named ladies, and with a good deal of business-like gravity by
little Alethea, who liked to win.
Mr. Diamond looked at the group with his hand over his mouth, after his
habit.
"Isn't he a nice fellow?" asked Minnie, watching Mr. Diamond's face
curiously.
"Errington?"
"Of course!"
"Very."
"But now, tell me--do sit down here; I want to talk to you. You come so
seldom. I wonder why you came to-night?"
"I chanced to meet Mrs. Bodkin in the street, and she asked me so
pressingly--she is so good!"
Minnie's face wore a pained look. "It is a pity mamma should have teased
you," she said, in a low voice.
Matthew Diamond took no notice of the words. Perhaps he did not hear
them. "I am not fit to go to evening parties," he continued. "The very
wax-lights dazzle me. I feel like a bat or an owl."
"Too wise for your company, that means!"
"How can you say so? No: I assure you I was compared to an owl the other
evening by a lady, and I felt the justice of the comparison."
"By a lady! What lady?"
Mr. Diamond smiled a little amused smile at the authoritative tone of
the question. Minnie did not see it. She was leaning her elbow on a
cushion, and had her face turned towards Mr. Diamond; but her eyes,
which usually looked out, open and unabashed, were half veiled by their
lids.
"The lady was Mrs. Errington," answered the tutor, after a moment's
pause.
"She called you an owl? That eagle? Well, she has this aquiline quality;
I believe she could stare the sun himself out of countenance!"
"You were asking me to tell you----" said Mr. Diamond.
"To tell me----? Oh, yes; about the Methodist preacher. That caricature
is not like him, you say?"
"Not at all. It is a vulgar conception of the man."
"And the man is not vulgar? I am glad of that! Tell me about him."
Matthew Diamond had heard the preacher more than once. The first time
had been by chance on Whit Meadow. The other times were in the crowded,
close Wesleyan chapel, into which he had penetrated at the cost of a
good deal of personal inconvenience, so greatly had Powell's eloquence
impressed him.
"The man is like a flame of fire," he said. "It is wonderful! He must be
like Garrick, according to the descriptions I have heard. And, then,
this fellow is so handsome--wild and oriental-looking. I always long to
clap a turban on his head, and a great flowing robe over his shoulders."
Minnie listened eagerly, with parted lips, to all that Diamond would
tell her of the preacher.
"That is for his manner," she said, at length. "Now, as to the matter?"
Mr. Diamond paused. "The man is an enthusiast, you know," he answered,
gravely.
"But as to his doctrine? Give me some idea of the kind of thing he
says."
"Not now."
"Yes; now. This moment."
"Excuse me; I cannot enter into the subject now."
Minnie raises her brown eyes to his steel-grey ones, and then drops her
own quickly.
"Will you ever?" she asks, meekly.
"Perhaps. I don't know."
Miss Bodkin is not accustomed to be answered with such unceremonious
curtness; but, perhaps on account of its novelty, Mr. Diamond's blunt
disregard of her requests (in that house Minnie's requests have the
weight of commands) does not ruffle her. She bears it with the most
perfect sweetness, and proceeds to discourse of other things.
"Don't you think it a pity," she says, "that Algernon Errington should
have refused his cousin's offer?"
"A great pity--for him."
"Ah! you think Mr. Filthorpe of Bristol is not to be condoled with on
the occasion?"
Mr. Diamond's firmly closed lips remain immovable.
Minnie looks at him wistfully, and then says suddenly, "Do you know I
like Algy very much! There is something so bright and winning and gay
about him! I have known him so long--ever since he came here as a small
child in a frock. And papa knew his father, Dr. Errington. He was a very
clever man, a brilliant talker, and greatly sought after in society.
Algy inherits all that. And he has--what they say his father had not--a
temper that is almost perfect, thoroughly sound and sweet. I wish you
liked him."
"Who tells you that I do not like him? You are mistaken in fancying so.
I think Errington one of the most winning fellows I ever knew in my
life."
"Y-yes; but you don't think so well of him as I do."
"Perhaps that is hardly to be expected! And pardon me, Miss Bodkin, but
you don't know----"
"I know nothing about your thoughts on the subject!" interrupts Minnie
quickly, and with a bright, mischievous glance. "Forgive my interrupting
you; but when I am to have a cold shower-bath, I like to pull the string
myself. Now it's over."
"You think me a terrible bear," says Diamond, looking down on her
beautiful, animated face.
"Ah! take care. If I know nothing about your thoughts, how do you
pretend to guess mine? Besides, I am not so zoological in my choice of
epithets as your friend, Mrs. Errington. Papa nearly quarrelled with
that lady on the subject of Algy's going away. But, you know, it is not
all Mrs. Errington's fault. Algy chooses to try his fortune under the
auspices of Lord Seely--I can see that plainly enough. And what Algy
chooses his mother chooses. He has been terribly spoiled."
"It is a great misfortune----"
"To be spoiled?"
"For him to have lost his father when he was a child. Otherwise he might
not have been so pampered: though fathers spoil their children
sometimes!"
"Mine spoils me, I think. But then there is an excuse, after all, for
spoiling me."
"My dear Miss Bodkin, you cannot suppose that I had any such meaning."
"You? Oh, no! You are honest: you never speak in innuendoes. But it is
true, you know. My father and mother have spoiled me. Poor father and
mother! I am but a miserable, frail little craft for them to have
ventured so much love and devotion in!"
It was not in mortal man--not even in mortal man whose heart was filled
with a passion for another woman--to refrain from a tender glance and a
soft tone, in answer to Minnie's pathetic little plaint. Her beauty and
her intellect might be resisted: her helplessness, and acknowledgment of
peculiar affliction, could not be.
"Ah!" said Matthew Diamond; "who would not embark all their freight of
affection in such a venture as the hope that you would love them again?
I think your parents are paid."
It has been said that Mr. Diamond's calm, grave face raised an
indefinite expectation in the beholder. When he said those words to
Minnie Bodkin, you would have thought, if you had been watching him,
that you had found the key of the puzzle, and that an ineffable
tenderness was the secret that lay hid beneath that grave mask. The
stern mouth smiled, the stern eyes beamed, the straight brows were
lifted in a compassionate curve. Minnie had never seen his face with
that look on it, and the change in it gave her a curious pang, half of
pain, half of pleasure. Strong conflicting feelings battled in her. She
was strung to a high pitch of excitement; and her eyes brightened, and
her pulse beat quicker--all for a look, a smile, a beam of the eye from
this staid, quiet schoolmaster! What do we know of the thought in our
neighbour's brain? of the thrill that makes his heart flutter? We do not
care for this air-bubble. How can he? It is yonder beautiful transparent
ball, all radiant with prismatic colours, that we expend our breath
upon. Up it goes--up, up, up--look! No; our stupid neighbour is watching
his own airy sphere, which is not nearly so beautiful; and which, we
know, will burst presently!
The game of vingt-et-un comes to an end. Almost at the same moment the
whist-players break up, and come trooping into the drawing-room;
trooping and talking rather noisily, to say the truth, as though to
indemnify themselves for the silence which Doctor Bodkin insists upon
during the classic game. Mrs. Bodkin bustles up to her daughter; hopes
she is not tired; thinks she looks a little fagged; wonders why she did
not have any music, as she generally likes Rose McDougall's Scotch
ballads; supposes Mr. Diamond preferred not to play, as she sees he has
been sitting out, and trusts he has not been bored.
But of all the people present, Mrs. Bodkin alone guesses that Minnie has
enjoyed her evening, and why. And, with her mother's and woman's
instinct, she knows that Minnie's pleasure would have been spoiled by
guessing that it had been guessed. For the rest, this small
anxious-faced woman cares but little. She would tear your feelings to
mince-meat to feed the fancies of her daughter, as ruthlessly as any
maternal vixen would slay a chicken for her cubs; although, for herself,
no hare is milder or more timid.
The Misses McDougall are in good spirits. They have won, and they have
had the two young men all to themselves, for Ally Dockett in short
frocks doesn't count. Also Minnie Bodkin has kept aloof. That bright
lamp of hers is not favourable to such twinkling little rushlights as
Rose and Violet are able to display. But this evening they have not been
quenched by a superior luminary, and are quite radiant and cheerful. Dr.
Bodkin, too, is contented in his lofty manner; for there has been no
music, and he has enjoyed his rubber in peace. Colonel Whistler has
lost, but the stakes are always modest at Dr. Bodkin's table, and he
doesn't mind it. Over the feelings of the Rev. Peter Warlock it will,
perhaps, be best to draw a veil. The reverend gentleman stalks in, and
sits down in a corner, whence he can stare at Minnie unobserved. It is
the only comfort he enjoys throughout the evening. And for this he
thinks it worth while to submit to the _peine forte et dure_ of playing
whist, with Colonel Whistler for his partner.
Mrs. Errington sails towards Minnie's sofa, and suddenly stops short,
and opens her eyes very wide.
Mr. Diamond, who is the object of her gaze, rises and bows. "Good
evening, madam," he says, unable to repress a smile at her manifest
astonishment on beholding him there.
"Why, how do you do, Mr. Diamond? Dear me! I little expected to see you
this evening. Dear Minnie, how are you now? Well, this is a surprise!"
Then, as Mr. Diamond moves away, Mrs. Errington takes his chair beside
Minnie, and says to her confidentially--"Now, I hope, Minnie, you won't
owe me a grudge for it; but I must confess that if it hadn't been for
me, you wouldn't have had that gentleman to entertain this evening."
"What on earth do you mean?" cries Minnie, with scant ceremony, and
flashes an impatient glance at the lady's soft, smiling, self-satisfied
visage.
"My dear, I advised him to come here a little oftener. I think he felt
diffident, you know, and all that. Poor man, he is rather dull, although
Algy is always crying up his talents. But it really is kind to bring him
forward a little. I asked him to tea the other night. You see he must
feel it a good deal when people are affable, and so on, for"--here her
voice sank to a whisper--"he told me himself that he had been a sizar."
With all which benevolent remarks Miss Bodkin is, of course, highly
delighted. She does not forget them either; for after the negus has been
drunk, and the sandwiches eaten, and the company has departed, she says
to her father, "Papa, was Mr. Diamond a sizar?"
"I don't know, child. Very likely. None the worse for that, if he were."
"The worse! No!" returns Minnie, with a superb smile.
"Who says he was?"
"Mrs. Errington."
"Pooh! Ten to one it isn't true then. She has her good points, poor
woman, but the Ancrams are all liars; every one of them! Greatest liars
in all the Midland Counties. It runs in the family, like gout."
"It does not seem likely, certainly, that Mr. Diamond should have
confided the circumstance to Mrs. Errington," observed Minnie,
thoughtfully.
"Confided! No; I never knew a man less likely to confide anything to
anybody."
"However, after all, it is a thing which all the world might know, isn't
it, papa?"
Dr. Bodkin was not interested in the question. He gave a great loud
yawn, and declared it was time for Minnie to go to bed.
"It doesn't follow that I'm sleepy because you yawn, papa!" she said
saucily.
"You are tired though, puss! I see it in your face. Go to bed. Mrs.
Bodkin, get Minnie off to rest."
He bent to kiss his daughter, and bid her good night.
"Say 'God bless' me, papa," she whispered, drawing his head down and
kissing his forehead.
"Don't I always say it? God bless you, my darling!"
There were tears in Minnie's eyes as she turned her head away among her
cushions. But nobody saw them. She talked to the maid who undressed her
about Mr. Powell, the Methodist preacher, and asked her if she had heard
him, and what the folks said about him in the town.
"No, Miss Minnie. I've never heard him, and I know master wouldn't think
it right for any of us to be going to a dissenting chapel. But I do
think as there's some good to be got there, miss. For my brother
Richard, him that lives groom at Pudcombe Hall--he went and got--got
'conversion,' I think they call it, at Mr. Powell's. And since then he's
never touched a drop of liquor, nor a bad word never comes out of his
mouth. And he says he's quite happy and comfortable in his mind, miss."
"Is he? How I envy him!"