"Present mirth hath present laughter,
What's to come is still unsure."
--SHAKESPEARE.
"JULIA is coming to-day," says Dulce, looking at them all, with the
tea-pot poised in her hand. It is evident that this sudden announcement
has hitherto been forgotten. "I heard from her this morning," she says,
half apologetically, "but never thought of telling you until now. She
will be here in time for dinner, and she is bringing the children with
her."
"Only the children?" says Roger, the others are all singularly dumb.
"Yes. The _ayah_ has gone home. Of course she will bring a nurse of some
sort, but not Singa."
"For even small mercies we should be thankful," says Roger.
"Who is Julia?" asks Portia, idly.
"'Who is Julia? What is she
That all our swains commend her?
Holy, fair, and wise is she,
The heavens such grace----'"
"Oh, that will do," says Dicky Browne, turning impatiently to Roger, who
has just delivered himself of the above stanza.
"Don't be severe," says Dulce, reprovingly; "extravagant praise is
always false, and as to the swains, that is what she _wants_ them to do,
only they won't."
"Now, who is severe?" says Roger triumphantly.
"As yet, you have hardly described her," says Portia.
"Let me do it," entreats Mr. Browne, airily, "I feel in the very vein
for that sort of thing. She is quite a thing to dream of; and she is
much too preciously utter, and quite too awfully too-too!"
"That's obsolete now," says Dulce, "quite out of the market altogether.
Too-too has been superseded, you should tell Portia she is very-very!"
"Odious," says Roger, in a careful aside as though determined to think
Miss Blount's speech unfinished.
"She is like Barbauld's _Spring_," put in Sir Mark, lazily, coming up to
have his cup refilled. "She is the 'sweet daughter of a rough and stormy
sire.' Do any of you remember old Charley Blount?"
Plainly, nobody does. Everybody looks at everybody else, as though
_they_ should have known him, but nothing comes of it.
"Well, he was just the funniest old thing," says Sir Mark, laughing, at
some absurd recollection. "Well, he is gone now, and
'I know it is a sin
For me to sit and grin
At him here;
But the old three-cornered hat
And the breeches, and all that,
_Were_ so queer.'
"And bless me, what a temper he had," says Sir Mark, laughing again at
his quotation. "His clothes and his temper were old Blount's principal
features. Hideous old monster he was too."
"Is she hideous?" ask Portia.
"N-o. She is well enough; she isn't a bit like him, if we forget the
clothes and temper. She says her mother was very beautiful."
"I never knew a woman whose mother wasn't beautiful, once the mother was
dead," says Roger. "Sort of thing they tell you the moment they get the
chance."
Five o'clock has struck some time ago. Evening is coming on apace. On
the dry, smooth-shaven lawn, outside, the shadows are lengthening,
stretching themselves indolently as though weary from all the
hide-and-seek they have been playing, since early dawn, in the nooks and
corners of the quaint old garden.
June has not yet quite departed; its soft, fresh glory still gilds the
edge of the lake, and lends a deeper splendor to the golden firs that
down below are nodding to the evening breeze; it is the happiest time of
all the year, for
"What is so rare as a day in June?
Then, if ever, come perfect days;
Then heaven tries the earth, if it be in tune,
And over it softly her warm ear lays."
"Well, the mother is dead and gone now, this many a year," says Sir
Mark, "and the old fellow went nearly out of his mind when Julia married
Beaufort."
"Oh! she is married?" says Portia.
"Dear Portia, didn't I _tell_ you she had children?" says Dulce,
reproachfully. "She married an Indian Nabob with an aristocratic name
and a _lac_ of rupees, as she believed, but there was a flaw somewhere,
and--er--how was it Dicky?"
"Simplest thing out," says Dicky. "He had a lack of rupees, indeed, as
she found out when he died. It is only the difference of one letter
after all, and that can't count for much."
"Her father, old Charley, left her everything, so she isn't badly off
now," says Sir Mark, "but the Nabob was a sell."
"I wonder if Portia will like her," says Dulce, meditatively, laying her
elbows on the table and letting her chin sink into her palms.
"Tell me something about her personally," entreats Portia, turning to
her with some show of interest.
"What can I tell you? She is pretty in her own way, and she agrees with
everyone, and she never means a word she says; and, when she appears
most earnest, that is the time not to believe in her; and she is very
agreeable as a rule, and she is Fabian's pet aversion."
("Not now," says Portia to herself).
"I don't think there is anything else I can tell you," continues Dulce,
with a little nod.
"I wonder you have her," says Miss Vibart, disagreeably impressed by
this description.
"Why, she is our cousin! And, of course, she can come whenever she
wishes--she knows that," says Dulce. "It is not with her, as with you,
you know. You are a joy, she is a duty. But the children _are_ so
sweet."
"How many of them?" asks Portia, who knows a few things she prefers to
children.
"Three. Pussy, Jacky, and the Boodie. The Boodie is nothing short of
perfection."
"That is the one solitary point on which Dulce and I agree," says Roger.
"We both adore the Boodie. Wait till you see her; she is all gold hair,
and blue eyes, and creamy skin, and her nose is a fortune in itself. I
can't think where Julia found her."
"Fabian is so fond of her," says Dulce, whose thoughts never wander very
far from the brother for whose ruined life she grieves incessantly, day
after day.
"How old is she?" asks Portia--"this little beauty you speak of--this
harmony in blue and gold?"
"Five, I think. She is not in the least like her mother, who goes in for
aesthetics, with a face like a French doll, and who will love you
forever, if you will only tell a lie, and say you think she resembles
Ellen Terry."
"With a soul given entirely to French bonnets and Louis Quinze shoes,
she would be thought ultra-mundane," says Sir Mark, who is trying to
make Dulce's little toy terrier, Gilly, stand on his hind legs, in
search of cake.
"My goodness! what a long word," says Dicky Browne, who is now eating
bread and butter, because he has finished the cake. "Does it mean
anything edible? Because if so, I don't quite follow you; _no_ one could
masticate Julia!"
"I hope she will be in a good temper when she comes," says Roger. "Last
time she terrified us all into fits."
"If the children have behaved nicely in the train, and if anyone has
taken any notice of her, she will be charming," says Dulce, moodily. "If
not, she will be--the other thing."
"And the other thing isn't nice," puts in Dicky, in his pleasantest
tone.
"Then what shall we do with her just at first?" says Miss Blount, who is
evidently in fear of breakers ahead.
"Look here," says Mr. Browne, who couldn't hold his tongue to save his
life, "I'll tell you the first thing to say to any fellow who arrives at
your house. Don't go worrying him about the health of his sister, and
his cousins, and his aunts, but just ask him if he will have a B. and S.
He _will_, you know--and--and there you are. He won't forget it to you
afterwards."
Sir Mark laughs. Portia unfurls her fan, and smiles faintly behind it.
"Julia isn't a fellow, and I'm sure she wouldn't like brandy," says
Dulce, who is feeling a little hopeless as she contemplates the coming
of this new guest.
"The more fool she," says Dicky. "Try Madeira, then. She has a
tenderness for Madeira; and tell her her hat is lovely. That'll fetch
her."
"Come and sit here, Dicky," says Portia, motioning to the footstool near
her. "Your advice is not to be surpassed."
"It's not so bad," says Mr. Browne, comfortably settling himself on the
cushion at her feet, just as Fabian enters the room; "but I'm sorry she
won't entertain the brandy idea. That never fails. It's friendly,
homely, you know, and that."
"Dicky says if you drink rum and new milk every morning before
breakfast, you will live forever," says Dulce, thoughtfully.
"What a miserable idea," says Fabian, in his usual soft voice, that has
yet something stern about it. "It suggests the Wandering Jew, and other
horrors. Who would live forever?"
"_I_ would," says Dicky, with a sentimental glance at Portia, "if I
might only remain here."
"Get up, Dicky, and don't make an ass of yourself," says Sir Mark, a
little sharply for him, considering his natural laziness, and his
tendency to let all things slide. As a rule he makes indolence his god,
and sacrifices everything to it. Now, some superior influence compels
him to make this speech, and to regard Dicky with a glance that bespeaks
disfavor. Fabian is standing somewhat apart, his eyes as usual fixed
upon the flickering shadows and the touch of green in the ocean beyond,
but with his mind many leagues away. Yet now he turns, and looks with
wonder at Sir Mark, as though astonished at his tone, and Sir Mark looks
at him. There is a certain amount of longing, and hope, and affection,
in Sir Mark's glance.
"At all events she will be in time for our ball," says Roger, "and,
besides that, there will be another element of amusement. Stephen Gower
is coming back to the Fens at last. She can get up a little flirtation
with him, and as he is a right-down good sort. I daresay, if I gave him
the right cue, he would take her off our hands for a little while."
"Is your friend coming?" says Dulce, with some surprise. "You never told
us. And that pretty place is to have a master at last? I am rather glad,
do you know; especially as he is a friend, too, of Fabian's."
"I have no friends," says Fabian, suddenly, with a small frown.
"Oh yes, you have, whether you like it or not," says Gore, quickly. "I
can swear to one at least. My dear fellow, this is one of your bad days;
come with me; a walk through the evening dews will restore you to reason
once more."
He passes his arm through Fabian's, and leads him down the balcony steps
into the dew-steeped gardens. A moan from the sea comes up to greet them
as they go. No other sound disturbs the calm of the evening air.
"I think Fabian has the most perfect face I ever saw," says Roger,
suddenly. But Portia makes no reply. She is watching Fabian's figure as
it disappears in the dusk. Dulce, however, turns quickly, and looks at
Roger, a strange gleam in her great, blue eyes.