A BIRTHDAY FEAST.
Ida Palliser's holidays were coming to an end, like a tale that is told.
There was only one day more left, but that day was to be especially
glorious; for it was Bessie Wendover's birthday, a day which from time
immemorial--or, at all events, ever since Bessie was ten years old--had
been sacred to certain games or festivities--a modernized worship of the
great god Pan.
Sad was it for Bessie and all the junior Wendovers when the seventh of
September dawned with gray skies, or east winds, rain, or hail. It was
usually a brilliant day. The clerk of the weather appeared favourably
disposed to the warm-hearted Bessie.
On this particular occasion the preparations for the festival were on a
grander scale than usual, in honour of Ida, who was on the eve of
departure. A cruel, cruel car was to carry her off to Winchester at six
o'clock on the morning after the birthday; the railway station was to
swallow her up alive; the train was to rush off with her, like a fiery
dragon carrying off the princess of fairy tale; and the youthful
Wendovers were to be left lamenting.
In six happy weeks their enthusiasm for their young guest had known no
abatement. She had realized their fondest anticipations. She had entered
into their young lives and made herself a part of them. She had given
herself up, heart and soul, to childish things and foolish things, to
please these devoted admirers; and the long summer holiday had been very
sweet to her. The open-air life--the balmy noontides in woods and
meadows, beside wandering trout streams--on the breezy hill-tops--the
afternoon tea-drinking in gardens and orchards--the novels read aloud,
seated in the heart of some fine old tree, with her auditors perched on
the branches round about her, like gigantic birds--the boating excursions
on a river with more weeds than water in it--the jaunts to Winchester,
and dreamy afternoons in the cathedral--all had been delicious. She had
lived in an atmosphere of homely domestic love, among people who valued
her for herself, and did not calculate the cost of her gowns, or despise
her because she had so few. The old church was lovely in her eyes; the
old vicar and his wife had taken a fancy to her. Everything at Kingthorpe
was delightful, except Urania. She certainly was a drawback; but she had
been tolerably civil since the first day at the Abbey.
Ida had spent many an hour at the Abbey since that first inspection. She
knew every room in the house--the sunniest windows--the books in the long
library, with its jutting wings between the windows, and cosy nooks for
study. She knew almost every tree in the park, and the mild faces of the
deer looking gravely reproachful, as if asking what business she had
there. She had lain asleep on the sloping bank above the lake on drowsy
afternoons, tired by wandering far a-field with her young esquires. She
knew the Abbey by heart--better than even Urania knew it; though she had
used that phrase to express utter satiety. Ida Palliser had a deeper love
of natural beauty, a stronger appreciation of all that made the old place
interesting. She had a curious feeling, too, about the absent master of
that grave, gray old house--a fond, romantic dream, which she would not
for the wealth of India have revealed to mortal ear, that in the days to
come Brian's life would be in somewise linked with hers. Perhaps this
foolish thought was engendered of the blankness of her own life, a stage
on which the players had been so few that this figure of an unknown young
man assumed undue proportions.
Then, again, the fact that she could hear very little about Mr. Wendover
from his cousins, stimulated her curiosity about him, and intensified her
interest in him. Brian's merits were a subject which the Wendover
children always shirked, or passed over so lightly that Ida was no wiser
for her questioning; and maidenly reserve forbade her too eager inquiry.
About Brian Walford, the son of Parson Wendover, youngest of the three
brothers, for seven years vicar of a parish near Hereford, and for the
last twelve years at rest in the village churchyard, the young Wendovers
had plenty to say. He was good-looking, they assured Ida. She would
inevitably fall in love with him when they met. He was the cleverest
young man in England, and was certain to finish his career as Lord
Chancellor, despite the humility of his present stage of being.
'He has no fortune, I suppose?' hazarded Ida, in a conversation with
Horatio.
She did not ask the question from any interest in the subject. Brian
Walford was a being whose image never presented itself to her mind. She
only made the remark for the sake of saying something.
'Not a denarius,' said Horry, who liked occasionally to be classical.
'But what of that? If I were as clever as Brian I shouldn't mind how poor
I was. With his talents he is sure to get to the top of the tree.'
'What can he do?' asked Ida.
'Ride a bicycle better than any man I know.'
'What else?'
'Sing a first-rate comic song.'
'What else?'
'Get longer breaks at billiards than any fellow I ever played with.'
'What else?'
'Pick the winner out of a score of race-horses in the preliminary
canter.'
'Those are great gifts, I have no doubt,' said Ida. 'But do eminent
lawyers, in a general way, win their advancement by riding bicycles and
singing comic songs?'
'Don't sneer, Ida. When a fellow is clever in one thing he is clever in
other things. Genius is many-sided, universal. Carlyle says as much. If
Napoleon Bonaparte had not been a great general, he would have been a
great writer like Voltaire--or a great lawyer like Thurlow.'
From this time forward Ida had an image of Brian Walford in her mind. It
was the picture of a vapid youth, fair-haired, with thin moustache
elaborately trained, and thinner whiskers--a fribble that gave half its
little mind to its collar, and the other half to its boots. Such images
are photographed in a flash of lightning on the sensitive brain of youth,
and are naturally more often false guesses than true ones.
There was delightful riot in the house of the Wendovers on the night
before the picnic. The Colonel had developed a cold and cough within the
last week, so he and his wife had jogged off to Bournemouth, in the
T-cart, with one portmanteau and one servant, leaving Bessie mistress of
all things. It was a grief to Mrs. Wendover to be separated from home and
children at any time, and she was especially regretful at being absent on
her eldest daughter's birthday; but the Colonel was paramount. If his
cough could be cured by sea air, to the sea he must go, with his faithful
wife in attendance upon him.
'Don't let the children turn the house quite out of windows, darling,'
said Mrs. Wendover, at the moment of parting.
'No, mother dear, we are all going to be goodness itself.'
'I know, dears, you always are. And I hope you will all enjoy
yourselves.'
'We're sure to do that, mother,' answered Reginald, with a cheerfulness
that seemed almost heartless.
The departing parent would not have liked them to be unhappy, but a few
natural tears would have been a pleasing tribute. Not a tear was shed.
Even the little Eva skipped joyously on the doorstep as the phaeton drove
away. The idea of the picnic was all-absorbing.
The Colonel and his wife were to spend a week at Bournemouth. Ida would
see them no more this year.
'You must come again next summer, Mrs. Wendover said heartily, as she
kissed her daughter's friend.
'Of course she must,' cried Horry. 'She is coming every summer. She is
one of the institutions of Kingthorpe. I only wonder how we ever managed
to get on so long without her.'
All that evening was devoted to the packing of hampers, and to general
skirmishing. The picnic was to be held on the highest hill-top between
Kingthorpe and Winchester, one of those little Lebanons, fair and green,
on which the yew-trees flourished like the cedars of the East, but with a
sturdy British air that was all their own.
The birthday dawned with the soft pearly gray and tender opal tints which
presage a fair noontide. Before six o'clock the children had all besieged
Bessie's door, with noisy tappings and louder congratulations. At seven,
they were all seated at breakfast, the table strewn with birthday gifts,
mostly of that useless and semi-idiotic character peculiar to such
tributes--ormolu inkstands, holding a thimbleful of ink--penholders
warranted to break before they have been used three times--purses with
impossible snaps--photograph frames and pomatum-pots.
Bessie pretended to be enraptured with everything. The purse Horry gave
her was 'too lovely.' Reginald's penholder was the very thing she had
been wanting for an age. Dear little Eva's pomatum-pot was perfection.
The point-lace handkerchief Ida had worked in secret was exquisite.
Blanche's crochet slippers were so lovely that their not being big enough
was hardly a fault. They were much too pretty to be worn. Urania
contributed a more costly gift, in the shape of a perfume cabinet, all
cut-glass, walnut-wood, and ormolu.
'Urania's presents are always meant to crush one,' said Blanche
disrespectfully; 'they are like the shields and bracelets those rude
soldiers flung at poor Tarpeia.'
Urania was to be one of the picnic party. She was to be the only stranger
present. There had been a disappointment about the two cousins. Neither
Brian had accepted the annual summons. One was supposed to be still in
Norway, the other had neglected to answer the letter which had been sent
more than a week ago to his address in Herefordshire.
'I'm afraid you'll find it dreadfully like our every-day picnics,' Bessie
said to Ida, as they were starting.
'I shall be satisfied if it be half as pleasant.'
'Ah, it would have been nice enough if the two Brians had been with us.
Brian Walford is so amusing.'
'He would have sung comic songs, I suppose?' said Ida rather
contemptuously.
'Oh, no; you must not suppose that he is always singing comic songs. He
is one of those versatile people who can do anything.'
'I don't want to be rude about your own flesh and blood Bess, but in a
general way I detest versatile people,' said Ida.
'What a queer girl you are, Ida! I'm afraid you have taken a dislike to
Brian Walford,' complained Bessie.
'No,' said Ida, deep in thought,--the two girls were standing at the
hall-door, waiting for the carriage,--'it is not that.'
'You like the idea of the other Brian better?'
Ida's wild-rose bloom deepened to a rich carnation.
'Oh, Ida,' cried Bessie; 'do you remember what you said about marrying
for money?'
'It was a revolting sentiment; but it was wrung from me by the infinite
vexations of poverty.'
'Wouldn't it be too lovely if Brian the Great were to fall in love with
you, and ask you to be mistress of that dear old Abbey which you admire
so much?
'Don't be ecstatic, Bessie. I shall never be the mistress of the Abbey. I
was not born under a propitious star. There must have been a very ugly
concatenation of planets ruling the heavens at the hour of my birth. You
see, Brian the Great does not even put himself in the way of falling
captive to my charms.'
This was said half in sport, half in bitterness; indeed, there was a
bitter flavour in much of Ida Palliser's mirth. She was thinking of the
stories she had read in which a woman had but to be young and lovely, and
all creation bowed down to her. Yet her beauty had been for the most part
a cause of vexation, and had made people hate her. She had been
infinitely happy during the last six weeks; but embodied hatred had been
close at hand in the presence of Miss Rylance; and if anyone had fallen
in love with her during that time, it was the wrong person.
The young ladies were to go in the landau, leaving the exclusive
enjoyment of Robin's variable humours to Horatio and the juveniles. There
was a general idea that Robin, in conjunction with a hilly country, might
be sooner or later fatal to the young Wendovers; but they went on driving
him, nevertheless, as everybody knew that if he did ultimately prove
disastrous to them it would be with the best intentions and without loss
of temper.
Bessie and Ida took their seats in the roomy carriage, Reginald mounted
to the perch beside the coachman, and they drove triumphantly through the
village to the gate of Dr. Rylance's cottage, where Urania stood waiting
for them.
'I hope we haven't kept you long?' said Bessie.
'Not more than a quarter of an hour,' answered Urania, meekly; 'but that
seems rather long in a broiling sun. You always have such insufferably
hot weather on your birthdays, Bessie.'
'It will be cool enough on the hills by-and-by,' said Bess,
apologetically.
'I daresay there will be a cold wind,' returned Urania, who wore an
unmistakable air of discontent. 'There generally is on these unnatural
September days.'
'One would think you bore a grudge against the month of September because
I was born in it,' retorted Bessie. And then, remembering her
obligations, she hastened to add, 'How can I thank you sufficiently for
that exquisite scent-case? It is far too lovely.'
'I am very glad you like it. One hardly knows what to choose.'
Miss Rylance had taken her seat in the landau by this time, and they were
bowling along the smooth high road at that gentle jog-trot pace affected
by a country gentleman's coachman.
The day was heavenly; the wind due south; a day on which life--mere
sensual existence--is a delight. The landscape still wore its richest
summer beauty--not a leaf had fallen. They were going upward, to the
hilly region between Kingthorpe and Winchester, to a spot where there was
a table-shaped edifice of stones, supposed to be of Druidic origin.
The young Wendovers were profoundly indifferent to the Druids, and to
that hypothetical race who lived ages before the Druids, and have broken
out all over the earth in stony excrescences, as yet vaguely classified.
That three-legged granite table, whose origin was lost in the remoteness
of past time, seemed to the young Wendovers a thing that had been created
expressly for their amusement, to be climbed upon or crawled under as the
fancy moved them. It was a capital rallying-point for a picnic or a gipsy
tea-drinking.
'We are to have no grown-ups to-day,' said Reginald, looking down from
his place beside the coachman. 'The pater and mater are away, and Aunt
Betsy has a headache; so we can have things all our own way.'
'You are mistaken, Reginald,' said Urania; 'my father is going to join us
by-and-by. I hope he won't be considered an interloper. I told him that
it was to be a young party, and that I was sure he would be in the way;
but he wouldn't take my advice. He is going to ride over in the broiling
sun. Very foolish, I think.'
'I thought Dr. Rylance was in London?'
'He was till last night. He came down on purpose to be at your picnic.'
'I am sure I feel honoured,' said Bessie.
'Do you? I don't think _you_ are the attraction,' answered Urania, with a
cantankerous glance at Miss Palliser.
Ida's dark eyes were looking far away across the hills. It seemed as if
she neither heard Miss Rylance's speech nor saw the sneer which
emphasized it.
Dr. Rylance's substantial hunter came plodding over the turfy ridge
behind them five minutes afterwards, and presently he was riding at a
measured trot beside the carriage door, congratulating Bessie on the
beauty of the day, and saying civil things to every one.
'I could not resist the temptation to give myself a day's idleness in the
Hampshire air,' he said.
Reginald felt unutterably savage. What a trouble-feast the man was. They
would have to adapt the proceedings of the day to his middle-aged good
manners. There could be no wild revelry, no freedom. Dr. Rylance was an
embodiment of propriety.
Half-an-hour after dinner they were all scattered upon the hills.
Reginald, who cherished a secret passion for Ida, which was considerably
in advance of his years, and who had calculated upon being her guide,
philosopher, and friend all through the day, found himself ousted by the
West End physician, who took complete possession of Miss Palliser, under
the pretence of explaining the history--altogether speculative--of the
spot. He discoursed eloquently about the Druids, expatiated upon the City
of Winchester, dozing in the sunshine yonder, among its fat water
meadows. He talked of the Saxons and the Normans, of William of Wykeham,
and his successors, until poor Ida felt sick and faint from very
weariness. It was all very delightful talk, no doubt--the polished
utterance of a man who read his _Saturday Review_ and _Athenaeum_
diligently, saw an occasional number of _Fors Clavigera_, and even
skimmed the more aesthetic papers in the _Architect_; but to Ida this
expression of modern culture was all weariness. She would rather have
been racing those wild young Wendovers down the slippery hill-side, on
which they were perilling their necks; she would rather have been lying
beside the lake in Kingthorpe Park, reading her well-thumbed Tennyson, or
her shabby little Keats.
Her thoughts had wandered ever so far away when she was called back to
the work-a-day world by finding that Dr. Rylance's conversation had
suddenly slipped from archaeology into a more personal tone.
'Are you really going away to-morrow?' he asked.
'Yes,' answered Ida, sadly, looking at one of the last of the
butterflies, whose brief summertide of existence was wearing to its
close, like her own.
'You are going back to Mauleverer Manor?'
'Yes. I have another half-year of bondage, I am going back to drudgery
and self-contempt, to be brow-beaten by Miss Pew, and looked down upon by
most of her pupils. The girls in my own class are very fond of me, but
I'm afraid their fondness is half pity. The grown-up girls with happy
homes and rich fathers despise me. I hardly wonder at it. Genteel poverty
certainly is contemptible. There is nothing debasing in a smock-frock or
a fustian jacket. The labourers I see about Kingthorpe have a glorious
air of independence, and I daresay are as proud, in their way, as if they
were dukes. But shabby finery--genteel gowns worn threadbare: there is a
deep degradation in those.'
'Not for you,' answered Dr. Rylance, earnestly, with an admiring look in
his blue-gray eyes. They were somewhat handsome eyes when they did not
put on their cruel expression. 'Not for you. Nothing could degrade,
nothing could exalt you. You are superior to the accident of your
surroundings.'
'It's very kind of you to say that; but it's a fallacy, all the same,'
said Ida. 'Do you think Napoleon at St. Helena, squabbling with Sir
Hudson Lowe, is as dignified a figure as Napoleon at the Tuileries, in
the zenith of his power? But I ought not to be grumbling at fate. I have
been happy for six sunshiny weeks. If I were to live to be a century old,
I could never forget how good people at Kingthorpe have been to me. I
will go back to my old slavery, and live upon the memory of that
happiness.'
'Why should you go back to slavery?' asked Dr. Rylance, taking her hand
in his and holding it with so strong a grasp that she could hardly have
withdrawn it without violence. 'There is a home at Kingthorpe ready to
receive you. If you have been happy there in the last few weeks, why not
try if you can be happy there always? There is a house in Cavendish
Square whose master would be proud to make you its mistress. Ida, we have
seen very little of each other, and I may be precipitate in hazarding
this offer; but I am as fond of you as if I had known you half a
lifetime, and I believe that I could make your life happy.'
Ida Palliser's heart thrilled with a chill sense of horror and aversion.
She had talked recklessly enough of her willingness to marry for money,
and, lo! here was a prosperous man laying two handsomely furnished houses
at her feet--a man of gentlemanlike bearing, good-looking, well-informed,
well-spoken, with no signs of age in his well-preserved face and figure;
a man whom any woman, friendless, portionless, a mere waif upon earth's
surface, at the mercy of all the winds that blow, ought proudly and
gladly to accept for her husband.
No, too bold had been her challenge to fate. She had said that she would
marry any honest man who would lift her out of the quagmire of poverty:
but she was not prepared to accept Dr. Rylance's offer, generous as it
sounded. She would rather go back to the old treadmill, and her old
fights with Miss Pew, than reign supreme over the dainty cottage at
Kingthorpe and the house in Cavendish Square. Her time had not come.
Dr. Rylance had not risen to eloquence in making his offer; and Ida's
reply was in plainest words.
'I am very sorry,' she faltered. 'I feel that it is very good of you to
make such a proposal; but I cannot accept it.'
'There is some one else,' said the doctor. 'Your heart is given away
already.'
'No,' she answered sadly; 'my heart is like an empty sepulchre.'
'Then why should I not hope to win you? I have been hasty, no doubt: but
I want if possible to prevent your return to that odious school. If you
would but make me happy by saying yes, you could stay with your kind
friends at The Knoll till the day that makes you mistress of my house. We
might be married in time to spend November in Italy. It is the nicest
month for Rome. You have never seen Italy, perhaps?'
'No. I have seen very little that is worth seeing.'
'Ida, why will you not say yes? Do you doubt that I should try my
uttermost to make you happy?'
'No,' she answered gravely, 'but I doubt my own capacity for that kind of
happiness.'
Dr. Rylance was deeply wounded. He had been petted and admired by women
during the ten years of his widowhood, favoured and a favourite
everywhere. He had made up his mind deliberately to marry this penniless
girl. Looked at from a worldling's point of view, it would seem, at the
first glance, an utterly disadvantageous alliance: but Dr. Rylance had an
eye that could sweep over horizons other than are revealed to the average
gaze, and he told himself that so lovely a woman as Ida Palliser must
inevitably become the fashion in that particular society which Dr.
Rylance most affected: and a wife famed for her beauty and elegance
would assuredly be of more advantage to a fashionable physician than a
common-place wife with a fortune. Dr. Rylance liked money; but he liked
it only for what it could buy. He had no sons, and he was much too fond
of himself to lead laborious days in order to leave a large fortune to
his daughter. He had bought a lease of his London house, which would last
his time; he had bought the freehold of the Kingthorpe cottage; and he
was living up to his income. When he died there would be two houses of
furniture, plate, pictures, horses and carriages, and the Kingthorpe
cottage, to be realized for Urania. He estimated these roughly as worth
between six and seven thousand pounds, and he considered seven thousand
pounds an ample fortune for his only daughter. Urania was in happy
ignorance of the modesty of his views. She imagined herself an heiress on
a much larger scale.
To offer himself to a penniless girl of whose belongings he knew
absolutely nothing, and to be peremptorily refused! Dr. Rylance could
hardly believe such a thing possible. The girl must be trifling with him,
playing her fish, with the fixed intention of landing him presently. It
was in the nature of girls to do that kind of thing. 'Why do you reject
me?' he asked seriously; 'is it because I am old enough to be your
father?'
'No, I would marry a man old enough to be my grandfather if I loved him,'
answered Ida, with cruel candour.
'And I am to understand that your refusal is irrevocable? he urged.
'Quite irrevocable. But I hope you believe that I am grateful for the
honour you have done me.'
'That is the correct thing to say upon such occasions, answered Dr.
Rylance, coldly; 'I wonder the sentence is not written in your copy
books, among those moral aphorisms which are of so little use in after
life.'
'The phrase may seem conventional, but in my case it means much more than
usual,' said Ida; 'a girl who has neither money nor friends has good
reason to be grateful when a gentleman asks her to be his wife.'
'I wish I could be grateful for your gratitude,' said Dr. Rylance, 'but I
can't. I want your love, and nothing else. Is it on Urania's account that
you reject me?' he urged. 'If you think that she would be a hindrance to
your happiness, pray dismiss the thought. If she did not accommodate
herself pleasantly to my choice her life would have to be spent apart
from us. I would brook no rebellion.'
The cruel look had come into Dr. Rylance's eyes. He was desperately
angry. He was surprised, humiliated, indignant. Never had the possibility
of rejection occurred to him. It had been for him to decide whether he
would or would not take this girl for his wife; and after due
consideration of her merits and all surrounding circumstances, he had
decided that he would take her.
'Is my daughter the stumbling-block?' he urged.
'No,' she answered, 'there is no stumbling-block. I would marry you
to-morrow, if I felt that I could love you as a wife ought to love her
husband. I said once--only a little while ago--that I would marry for
money. I find that I am not so base as I thought myself.'
'Perhaps the temptation is not large enough,' said Dr. Rylance. 'If I had
been Brian Wendover, and the owner of Kingthorpe Abbey, you would hardly
have rejected me so lightly.'
Ida crimsoned to the roots of her hair. The shaft went home. It was as if
Dr. Rylance had been inside her mind and knew all the foolish day-dreams
she had dreamed in the idle summer afternoons, under the spreading cedar
branches, or beside the lake in the Abbey grounds. Before she had time to
express her resentment a cluster of young Wendovers came sweeping down
the greensward at her side, and in the next minute Blanche was hanging
upon her bodily, like a lusty parasite strangling a slim young tree.
'Darling,' cried Blanche gaspingly, 'such news. Brian has come--cousin
Brian--after all, though he thought he couldn't. But he made a great
effort, and he has come all the way as fast as he could tear to be here
on Bessie's birthday. Isn't it too jolly?'
'All the way from Norway?' asked Ida.
'Yes,' said Urania, who had been carried down the hill with the torrent
of Wendovers, 'all the way from Norway. Isn't it nice of him?'
Blanche's frank face was brimming over with smiles. The boys were all
laughing. How happy Brian's coming had made them!
Ida looked at them wonderingly.
'How pleased you all seem!' she said. 'I did not know you were so fond of
your cousin. I thought it was the other you liked.'
'Oh, we like them both,' said Blanche, 'and it is so nice of Brian to
come on purpose for Bessie's birthday. Do come and see him. He is on the
top of the hill talking to Bess; and the kettle boils, and we are just
going to have tea. We are all starving.'
'After such a dinner!' exclaimed Ida.
'Such a dinner, indeed!--two or three legs of fowls and a plate or so of
pie!' ejaculated Reginald, contemptuously. 'I began to be hungry a
quarter of an hour afterwards. Come and see Brian.'
Ida looked round her wonderingly, feeling as if she was in a dream.
Dr. Rylance had disappeared. Urania was smiling at her sweetly, more
sweetly than it was her wont to smile at Ida Palliser.
'One would think she knew that I had refused her father,' mused Ida.
They all climbed the hill, the children talking perpetually, Ida
unusually silent. The smoke of a gipsy fire was going up from a hollow
near the Druid altar, and two figures were standing beside the altar;
one, a young man, with his arm resting on the granite slab, and his head
bent as he talked, with seeming earnestness, to Bessie Wendover. He
turned as the crowd approached, and Bessie introduced him to Miss
Palliser. 'My cousin Brian--my dearest friend Ida,' she said.
'She is desperately fond of the Abbey,' said Blanche; 'so I hope she will
like you. "Love me, love my dog," says the proverb, so I suppose one
might say, "Love my house, love me."'
Ida stood silent amidst her loquacious friends, looking at the stranger
with a touch of wonder. No, this was not the image which she had pictured
to herself. Mr. Wendover was very good-looking--interesting even; he had
the kind of face which women call nice--a pale complexion, dreamy gray
eyes, thin lips, a well-shaped nose, a fairly intellectual forehead. But
the Brian of her fancies was a man of firmer mould, larger features, a
more resolute air, an eye with more fire, a brow marked by stronger
lines. For some unknown reason she had fancied the master of the Abbey
like that Sir Tristram Wendover who had been so loyal a subject and so
brave a soldier, and before whose portrait she had so often lingered in
dreamy contemplation.
'And you have really come all the way from Norway to be at Bessie's
picnic?' she faltered at last, feeling that she was expected to say
something.
'I would have come a longer distance for the sake of such a pleasant
meeting,' he answered, smiling at her.
'Bessie,' cried Blanche, who had been grovelling on her knees before the
gipsy fire, 'the kettle will go off the boil if you don't make tea
instantly. If it were not your birthday I should make it myself.'
'You may,' said Bessie, 'although it is my birthday.'
She had walked a little way apart with Urania, and they two were talking
somewhat earnestly.
'Those girls seem to be plotting something,' said Reginald; 'a charade
for to-night, perhaps. It's sure to be stupid if Urania's in it.'
'You mean that it will be too clever,' said Horatio.
'Yes, that kind of cleverness which is the essence of stupidity.'
While Bessie and Miss Rylance conversed apart, and all the younger
Wendovers devoted their energies to the preparation of a tremendous meal,
Ida and Brian Wendover stood face to face upon the breezy hill-top, the
girl sorely embarrassed, the young man gazing at her as if he had never
seen anything so lovely in his life.
'I have heard so much about you from Bessie,' he said after a silence
which seemed long to both. 'Her letters for the last twelve months have
been a perpetual paean--like one of the Homeric hymns, with you for the
heroine. I had quite a dread of meeting you, feeling that, after having
my expectations strung up to such a pitch, I must be disappointed.
Nothing human could justify Bessie's enthusiasm.'
'Please don't talk about it. Bessie's one weak point is her affection for
me. I am very grateful. I love her dearly, but she does her best to make
me ridiculous.'
'I am beginning to think Bessie a very sensible girl,' said Brian,
longing to say much more, so deeply was he impressed by this goddess in a
holland gown, with glorious eyes shining upon him under the shadow of a
coarse straw hat.
'Have you come back to Hampshire for good?' asked Ida, as they strolled
towards Bessie and Urania.
'For good! No, I never stay long.'
'What a pity that lovely old Abbey should be deserted!'
'Yes, it is rather a shame, is it not? But then no one could expect a
young man to live there except in the hunting season--or for the sake of
the shooting.'
'Could anyone ever grow tired of such a place?' asked Ida.
She was wondering at the young man's indifferent air, as if that solemn
abbey, those romantic gardens, were of no account to him. She supposed
that this was in the nature of things. A man born lord of such an elysium
would set little value upon his paradise. Was it not Eve's weariness of
Eden which inclined her ear to the serpent?
And now the banquet was spread upon the short smooth turf, and everybody
was ordered to sit down. They made a merry circle, with the tea-kettle in
the centre, piles of cake, and bread and butter, and jam-pots surrounding
it. Blanche and Horatio were the chief officiators, and were tremendously
busy ministering to the wants of others, while they satisfied their own
hunger and thirst hurriedly between whiles. The damsel sat on the grass
with a big crockery teapot in her lap, while her brother watched and
managed the kettle, and ran to and fro with cups and saucers. Bessie, as
the guest of honour, was commanded to sit still and look on.
'Dreadfully babyish, isn't it?' said Urania, smiling with her superior
air at Brian, who had helped himself to a crust of home-made bread, and a
liberal supply of gooseberry jam.
'Uncommonly jolly,' he answered gaily. 'I confess to a weakness for bread
and jam. I wish people always gave it at afternoon teas.'
'Has it not a slight flavour of the nursery?'
'Of course it has. But a nursery picnic is ever so much better than a
swell garden-party, and bread and jam is a great deal more wholesome than
salmon-mayonaise and Strasbourg pie. You may despise me as much as you
like, Miss Rylance. I came here determined to enjoy myself.'
'That is the right spirit for a picnic,' said Ida, 'People with grand
ideas are not wanted.'
'And I suppose in the evening you will join in the dumb charades, and
play hide-and-seek in the garden, all among spiders and cockchafers.'
'I will do anything I am told to do,' answered Brian, cheerily. 'But I
think the season of the cockchafer is over.'
'What has become of Dr. Rylance?' asked Bessie, looking about her as if
she had only that moment missed him.
'I think he went back to the farm for his horse,' said Urania. 'I suppose
he found our juvenile sports rather depressing.'
'Well, he paid us a compliment in coming at all,' answered Bessie, 'so we
must forgive him for getting tired of us.'
The drive home was very merry, albeit Bessie and her friend were to part
next morning--Ida to go back to slavery. They were both young enough to
be able to enjoy the present hour, even on the edge of darkness.
Bessie clasped her friend's hand as they sat side by side in the landau.
'You must come to us at Christmas,' she whispered: 'I shall ask mother to
invite you.'
Brian was full of talk and gaiety as they drove home through the dusk. He
was very different from that ideal Brian of Ida's girlish fancy--the
Brian who embodied all her favourite attributes, and had all the finest
qualities of the hero of romance. But he was an agreeable, well-bred
young man, bringing with him that knowledge of life and the active world
which made his talk seem new and enlightening after the strictly local
and domestic intellects of the good people with whom she had been living.
With the family at The Knoll conversation had been bounded by Winchester
on one side, and Romsey on the other. There was an agreeable freshness in
the society of a young man who could talk of all that was newest in
European art and literature, and who knew how the world was being
governed.
But this fund of information was hinted at rather than expressed.
To-night Mr. Wendover seemed most inclined to mere nonsense talk--the
lively nothings that please children. Of himself and his Norwegian
adventures he said hardly anything.
'I suppose when a man has travelled so much he gets to look upon strange
countries as a matter of course,' speculated Ida. 'If I had just come
from Norway, I should talk of nothing else.'
The dumb-charades and hide-and-seek were played, but only by the lower
orders, as Bessie called her younger brothers and sisters.
Ida strolled in the moonlit garden with Mr. Wendover, Bessie, Urania, and
Mr. Ratcliffe, a very juvenile curate, who was Bessie's admirer and
slave. Urania had no particular admirer. She felt that every one at
Kingthorpe must needs behold her with mute worship; but there was no one
so audacious as to give expression to the feeling; no one of sufficient
importance to be favoured with her smiles. She looked forward to her
first season in London next year, and then she would be called upon to
make her selection.
'She is worldly to the tips of her fingers,' said Ida, as she and Bessie
talked apart from the others for a few minutes: 'I wonder she does not
try to captivate your cousin.'
'What--Brian? Oh, he is not at all in her line. He would not suit her a
bit.'
'But don't you think it would suit her to be mistress of the Abbey?'
Bessie gave a little start, as if the idea were new.
'I don't think she has ever thought of him in that light,' she said.
'Don't you? If she hasn't she is not the girl I think her.'
'Oh, I know she is very worldly; but I don't think she's so bad as that.'
'Not so bad as to be capable of marrying for money--no, I suppose not,'
said Ida, thoughtfully.
'I'm sure you would not, darling, said Bessie. 'You talked about it once,
when you were feeling bitter; but I know that in your heart of hearts you
never meant it. You are much too high-minded.'
'I am not a bit high-minded. All my high-mindedness, if I ever had any,
has been squeezed out of me by poverty. My only idea is to escape from
subjection and humiliation--a degrading bondage to vulgar-minded people.'
'But would the escape be worth having at the cost of your own
degradation?' urged Bessie, who felt particularly heroic this evening,
exalted by the moonlight, the loveliness of the garden, the thought of
parting with her dearest friend. 'Marry for love, dearest. Sacrifice
everything in this world rather than be false to yourself.'
'You dear little enthusiast, I may never be asked to make any such
sacrifice. I have not much chance of suitors at Mauleverer, as you
know--and as for falling in love--'
'Oh, you never know when the fatal moment may come. How do you like
Brian?'
'He is very gentlemanlike; he seems very well informed.'
'He is immensely clever,' answered Bessie, almost offended at this
languid praise; 'he is a man who might succeed in any line he chose for
himself. Do you think him handsome?'
'He is certainly nice looking.'
'How cool you are! I had set my heart upon your liking him.'
'What could come of my liking?' asked Ida with a touch of bitterness. 'Is
there a portionless girl in all England who would not like the master of
Wendover Abbey?'
'But for his own sake,' urged Bessie, with a vexed air; 'surely he is
worthy of being liked for his own sake, without a thought of the Abbey.'
'I cannot dissociate him from that lovely old house and gardens. Indeed,
to my mind he rather belongs to the Abbey than the Abbey belongs to him.
You see I knew the Abbey first.'
Here they were interrupted by Brian and Urania, and presently Ida found
herself walking in the moonlight in a broad avenue of standard roses, at
the end of the garden, with Mr. Wendover by her side, and the voices of
the other three sounding ever so far away. On the other side of a low
quickset hedge stretched a wide expanse of level meadow land, while in
the farther distance rose the Wiltshire hills, and nearer the heathy
highlands of the New Forest. The lamp-lit windows of Miss Wendover's
cottage glimmered a little way off, across gardens and meadows.
'And so you are really going to leave us to-morrow morning?' said Brian,
regretfully.
'By the eight o'clock train from Winchester. To-morrow evening I shall be
sitting on a form in a big bare class-room, listening to the babble of a
lot of girls pretending to learn their lessons.'
'Are you fond of teaching?'
'Just imagine to yourself the one occupation which is most odious to you,
and then you may know how fond I am of teaching; and of school-girls; and
of school-life altogether.'
'It is very hard that you should have to pursue such an uncongenial
career.'
'It seems so to me; but, perhaps, that is my selfishness. I suppose half
the people in this world have to live by work they hate.'
'Allowing for the number of people to whom all kind of work is hateful, I
dare say you are right. But I think, in a general way, congenial work
means successful work. No man hates the profession that brings him fame
and money; but the doctor without patients, the briefless barrister, can
hardly love law or medicine.'
He beguiled Ida into talking of her own life, with all its bitterness.
There was something in his voice and manner which tempted her to confide
in him. He seemed thoroughly sympathetic.
'I keep forgetting what strangers we are,' she said, apologizing for her
unreserve.
'We are not strangers. I have heard of you from Bessie so much that I
seem to have known you for years. I hope you will never think of me as a
stranger.'
'I don't think I ever can, after this conversation. I am afraid you will
think me horribly egotistical.'
She had been talking of her father and stepmother, the little brother she
loved so fondly, dwelling with delight upon his perfections.
'I think you all that is good and noble. How I wish this were not your
last evening at the Knoll!'
'Do you think I do not wish it? Hark, there's Bessie calling us.'
They went back to the house, and to the drawing-room, which wore quite a
festive appearance, in honour of Bessie's birthday; ever so many extra
candles dotted about, and a table laid with fruit and sandwiches, cake
and claret-cup, the children evidently considering a superfluity of meals
indispensable to a happy birthday. Blanche and her juniors were sitting
about the room, in the last stage of exhaustion after hide-and-seek.
'This has been a capital birthday,' said Horatio, wiping the perspiration
from his brow, and then filling for himself a bumper of claret-cup; 'and
now we are going to dance. Blanche, give us the Faust Waltz, and go on
playing till we tell you to leave off.'
Blanche, considerably blown, and with her hair like a mop, sat down and
began to touch the piano with resolute fingers and forcible rhythm. ONE,
two, three, ONE, two, three. The boys pushed the furniture into the
corners. Brian offered himself to Ida; Bessie insisted upon surrendering
the curate to Urania, and took one of her brothers for a partner; and the
three couples went gliding round the pretty old room, the cool night
breezes blowing in upon them from wide-open windows.
They danced and played, and sang and talked, till midnight chimed from
the old eight-day clock in the hall,--a sound which struck almost as much
consternation to Bessie's soul as if she had been Cinderella at the royal
ball.
'TWELVE O'CLOCK! and the little ones all up!' she exclaimed, looking
round the circle of towzled heads with remorseful eyes. 'What would
mother say? And she told me she relied on my discretion! Go to bed, every
one of you, this instant!'
'Oh, come, now,' remonstrated Blanche, 'there's no use in hustling us off
like that, after letting us sit up hours after our proper time. I'm going
to have another sandwich; and there's not a bit of good in leaving all
those raspberry tarts. The servants won't thank us. _They_ have as many
jam tarts as they like.'
'You greedy little wretches; you have been doing nothing but eat all
day,' said Ida. 'When I am back at Mauleverer I shall remember you only
as machines for the consumption of pudding and jam. Obey your grown-up
sister, and go to bed directly.'
'Grown up, indeed! How long has she been grown up, I should like to
know!' exclaimed Blanche vindictively. 'She's only an inch and a quarter
taller than me, and she's a mere dumpling compared with Horry.'
The lower orders were got rid of somehow--driven to their quarters, as it
were, at the point of the bayonet; and then the grown-ups bade each other
good-night; the curate escorting Miss Rylance to her home, and Brian
going up to the top floor to a bachelor's room.
'Who is going to drive Miss Palliser to the station?' he asked, as they
stood, candlestick in hand, at the foot of the stairs.
'I am, of course,' answered Reginald. 'Robin will spin us over the hills
in no time. I've ordered the car for seven sharp.'
There was very little sleep for either Bessie or her guest that night.
Both girls were excited by memories of the day that was past, and by
thoughts of the day that was coming. Ida was brooding a little upon her
disappointment in Brian Wendover. He had very pleasant manners, he seemed
soft-hearted and sympathetic, he was very good-looking--but he was not
the Brian of her dreams. That ideal personage had never existed outside
her imagination. It was a shock to her girlish fancy. There was a sense
of loss in her mind.
'I must be very silly,' she told herself, 'to make a fancy picture of a
person, and to be vexed with him because he does not resemble my
portrait.'
She was disappointed, and yet she was interested in this new
acquaintance. He was the first really interesting young man she had ever
met, and he was evidently interested in her. And then she pictured him at
the Abbey, in the splendid solitude of those fine old rooms, leading the
calm, studious life which Bessie had talked of--an altogether enviable
life, Ida thought.
Mr. Wendover was in the dining-room at half-past six when the two girls
went down to breakfast. All the others came trooping down a few minutes
afterwards, Reginald got up to the last degree of four-in-handishness
which the resources of his wardrobe allowed, and with a flower in his
buttonhole. There was a loud cry for eggs and bacon, kippered herrings,
marmalade, Yorkshire cakes; but neither Ida nor Bessie could eat.
'Do have a good breakfast,' pleaded Blanche affectionately; 'you will be
having bread and scrape to-morrow. We have got a nice hamper for you,
with a cake and a lot of jam puffs and things; but those will only last a
short time.'
'You dear child, I wouldn't mind the bread and scrape, if there were only
a little love to flavour it,' answered Ida softly.
The jaunting-car came to the door as the clock struck seven. Ida's
luggage was securely bestowed, then, after a perfect convulsion of
kissing, she was handed to her place, Reginald jumped into his seat and
took the reins, and Brian seated himself beside Ida.
'You are not going with them?' exclaimed Bessie.
'Yes I am, to see that Miss Palliser is not spilt on the hills.'
'What rot!' cried Reginald. 'I should be rather sorry for myself if I
were not able to manage Robin.'
'This is a new development in you, who are generally the laziest of
living creatures,' said Bessie to Brian, and before he could reply, Robin
was bounding cheerily through the village, making very little account of
the jaunting-car and its occupants. Urania was at her garden gate, fresh
and elegant-looking in pale blue cambric. She smiled at Ida, and waved
her a most gracious farewell.
'I don't think I ever saw Miss Rylance look so amiable,' said Ida. 'She
does not often favour me with her smiles.'
'Are you enemies?' asked Brian.
'Not open foes; we have always maintained an armed neutrality. I don't
like her, and she doesn't like me, and we both know it. But perhaps I
ought not to be so candid. She may be a favourite of yours.'
'She might be, but she is not. She is very elegant, very
lady-like--according to her own lights--very viperish.'
It was a lovely drive in the crisp clear air, across the breezy hills.
Ida could not help enjoying the freshness of morning, the beauty of
earth, albeit she was going from comfort to discomfort, from love to cold
indifference or open enmity.
'How I delight in this landscape!' she exclaimed. 'Is it not ever so much
better than Norway?' appealing to Brian.
'It is a milder, smaller kind of beauty,' he answered. 'Would you not
like to see Norway?'
'I would like to see all that is lovely on earth; yet I think I could be
content to spend a life-time here. This must seem strange to you, who
grow weary of that beautiful Abbey.'
'It is not of his house, but of himself, that a man grows weary,'
answered Brian.
Robin was in a vivacious humour, and rattled the car across the hills at
a good pace. They had a quarter of an hour to wait at the busy little
station. Brian and Ida walked up and down the platform talking, while
Reginald looked after the pony and the luggage. They found so much to say
to each other, that the train seemed to come too soon.
They bade each other good-bye with a tender look on Brian's part, a blush
on Ida's. Reginald had to push his cousin away from the carriage window,
in order to get a word with the departing guest.
'We shall all miss you awfully,' he said; 'but mind, you must come back
at Christmas.'
'I shall be only too glad, if Mrs. Wendover will have me. Good-bye.'
The train moved slowly forward, and she was gone.
'Isn't she a stunner?' asked Reginald of his cousin, as they stood on the
platform looking at each other blankly.
'She is the handsomest girl I ever saw, and out and away the nicest,'
answered Brian.