THE dinner-party at Mr. Braefield's was not quite so small as Kenelm
had anticipated. When the merchant heard from his wife that Kenelm
was coming, he thought it would be but civil to the young gentleman to
invite a few other persons to meet him.
"You see, my dear," he said to Elsie, "Mrs. Cameron is a very good,
simple sort of woman, but not particularly amusing; and Lily, though a
pretty girl, is so exceedingly childish. We owe much, my sweet Elsie,
to this Mr. Chillingly,"--here there was a deep tone of feeling in his
voice and look,--"and we must make it as pleasant for him as we can.
I will bring down my friend Sir Thomas, and you ask Mr. Emlyn and his
wife. Sir Thomas is a very sensible man, and Emlyn a very learned
one. So Mr. Chillingly will find people worth talking to. By the by,
when I go to town I will send down a haunch of venison from Groves's."
So when Kenelm arrived, a little before six o'clock, he found in the
drawing-room the Rev. Charles Emlyn, vicar of Moleswich proper, with
his spouse, and a portly middle-aged man, to whom, as Sir Thomas
Pratt, Kenelm was introduced. Sir Thomas was an eminent city banker.
The ceremonies of introduction over, Kenelm stole to Elsie's side.
"I thought I was to meet Mrs. Cameron. I don't see her."
"She will be here presently. It looks as if it might rain, and I have
sent the carriage for her and Lily. Ah, here they are!"
Mrs. Cameron entered, clothed in black silk. She always wore black;
and behind her came Lily, in the spotless colour that became her name;
no ornament, save a slender gold chain to which was appended a single
locket, and a single blush rose in her hair. She looked wonderfully
lovely; and with that loveliness there was a certain nameless air of
distinction, possibly owing to delicacy of form and colouring;
possibly to a certain grace of carriage, which was not without a
something of pride.
Mr. Braefield, who was a very punctual man, made a sign to his
servant, and in another moment or so dinner was announced. Sir
Thomas, of course, took in the hostess; Mr. Braefield, the vicar's
wife (she was a dean's daughter); Kenelm, Mrs. Cameron; and the vicar,
Lily.
On seating themselves at the table Kenelm was on the left hand, next
to the hostess, and separated from Lily by Mrs. Cameron and Mr. Emlyn;
and when the vicar had said grace, Lily glanced behind his back and
her aunt's at Kenelm (who did the same thing), making at him what the
French call a /moue/. The pledge to her had been broken. She was
between two men very much grown up,--the vicar and the host. Kenelm
returned the /moue/ with a mournful smile and an involuntary shrug.
All was silent till, after his soup and his first glass of sherry, Sir
Thomas began,--
"I think, Mr. Chillingly, we have met before, though I had not the
honour then of making your acquaintance." Sir Thomas paused before he
added, "Not long ago; the last State ball at Buckingham Palace."
Kenelm bent his head acquiescingly. He had been at that ball.
"You were talking with a very charming woman,--a friend of mine,--Lady
Glenalvon."
(Sir Thomas was Lady Glenalvon's banker.)
"I remember perfectly," said Kenelm. "We were seated in the picture
gallery. You came to speak to Lady Glenalvon, and I yielded to you my
place on the settee."
"Quite true; and I think you joined a young lady, very handsome,--the
great heiress, Miss Travers."
Kenelm again bowed, and, turning away as politely as he could,
addressed himself to Mrs. Cameron. Sir Thomas, satisfied that he had
impressed on his audience the facts of his friendship with Lady
Glenalvon and his attendance at the court ball, now directed his
conversational powers towards the viear, who, utterly foiled in the
attempt to draw out Lily, met the baronet's advances with the ardour
of a talker too long suppressed. Kenelm continued, unmolested, to
ripen his acquaintance with Mrs. Cameron. She did not, however, seem
to lend a very attentive ear to his preliminary commonplace remarks
about scenery or weather, but at his first pause, said,--
"Sir Thomas spoke about a Miss Travers: is she related to a gentleman
who was once in the Guards, Leopold Travers?"
"She is his daughter. Did you ever know Leopold Travers?"
"I have heard him mentioned by friends of mine long ago,--long ago,"
replied Mrs. Cameron with a sort of weary languor, not unwonted, in
her voice and manner; and then, as if dismissing the bygone
reminiscence from her thoughts, changed the subject.
"Lily tells me, Mr. Chillingly, that you said you were staying at Mr.
Jones's, Cromwell Lodge. I hope you are made comfortable there."
"Very. The situation is singularly pleasant."
"Yes, it is considered the prettiest spot on the brook-side, and used
to be a favourite resort for anglers; but the trout, I believe, are
growing scarce; at least, now that the fishing in the Thames is
improved, poor Mr. Jones complains that his old lodgers desert him.
Of course you took the rooms for the sake of the fishing. I hope the
sport may be better than it is said to be."
"It is of little consequence to me: I do not care much about fishing;
and since Miss Mordaunt calls the book which first enticed me to take
to it 'a cruel one,' I feel as if the trout had become as sacred as
crocodiles were to the ancient Egyptians."
"Lily is a foolish child on such matters. She cannot bear the thought
of giving pain to any dumb creature; and just before our garden there
are a few trout which she has tamed. They feed out of her hand; she
is always afraid they will wander away and get caught."
"But Mr. Melville is an angler?"
"Several years ago he would sometimes pretend to fish, but I believe
it was rather an excuse for lying on the grass and reading 'the cruel
book,' or perhaps, rather, for sketching. But now he is seldom here
till autumn, when it grows too cold for such amusement."
Here Sir Thomas's voice was so loudly raised that it stopped the
conversation between Kenelm and Mrs. Cameron. He had got into some
question of politics on which he and the vicar did not agree, and the
discussion threatened to become warm, when Mrs. Braefield, with a
woman's true tact, broached a new topic, in which Sir Thomas was
immediately interested, relating to the construction of a conservatory
for orchids that he meditated adding to his country-house, and in
which frequent appeal was made to Mrs. Cameron, who was considered an
accomplished florist, and who seemed at some time or other in her life
to have acquired a very intimate acquaintance with the costly family
of orchids.
When the ladies retired Kenelm found himself seated next to Mr. Emlyn,
who astounded him by a complimentary quotation from one of his own
Latin prize poems at the university, hoped he would make some stay at
Moleswich, told him of the principal places in the neighbourhood worth
visiting, and offered him the run of his library, which he flattered
himself was rather rich, both in the best editions of Greek and Latin
classics and in early English literature. Kenelm was much pleased
with the scholarly vicar, especially when Mr. Emlyn began to speak
about Mrs. Cameron and Lily. Of the first he said, "She is one of
those women in whom quiet is so predominant that it is long before one
can know what undercurrents of good feeling flow beneath the unruffled
surface. I wish, however, she was a little more active in the
management and education of her niece,--a girl in whom I feel a very
anxious interest, and whom I doubt if Mrs. Cameron understands.
Perhaps, however, only a poet, and a very peculiar sort of poet, can
understand her: Lily Mordaunt is herself a poem."
"I like your definition of her," said Kenelm. "There is certainly
something about her which differs much from the prose of common life."
"You probably know Wordsworth's lines:
"' . . . and she shall lean her ear
In many a secret place
Where rivulets dance their wayward round,
And beauty, born of murmuring sound,
Shall pass into her face.'
"They are lines that many critics have found unintelligible; but Lily
seems like the living key to them."
Kenelm's dark face lighted up, but he made no answer.
"Only," continued Mr. Emlyn, "how a girl of that sort, left wholly to
herself, untrained, undisciplined, is to grow up into the practical
uses of womanhood, is a question that perplexes and saddens me."
"Any more wine?" asked the host, closing a conversation on commercial
matters with Sir Thomas. "No?--shall we join the ladies?"