“Yes, he is rather a dreadful spectacle,” said Lady Leighton. “Now, one
wonders he likes to exhibit himself about the world, where he once was
so well known in another way. There’s nothing so strange as human
vanity, Mr. Rowland. I think he rather likes to show as a sort of prize
example of suffering and misery. It’s a distinction in its way. He had
the distinction of being one of the handsomest men of his day, and of
behaving more badly than almost anybody else, and now he’s the most
deplorable sufferer--always the first, you know, whatever he’s at.”
“You are a little hard upon him, Lady Leighton.”
“Not a bit too hard. I know the man so well. We’ve always been very good
friends----”
“What! Though he behaved more badly than almost anybody else?” Rowland
said, with a laugh. Evelyn, who, knowing what her friend meant, and
still smarting as she was from the previous encounter, felt it almost as
an added injury, looked on with the gravest face, feeling herself unable
to speak.
“Well!--you don’t know society as I do. You’ve spent your life in
primitive countries, where men fly at each other’s throats when they
disapprove of each other. We don’t do that here. We carry on our
relations all the same. Sometimes, however, we speak very plainly, I am
glad to say. Ned Saumarez knows exactly what I think of him, but he
comes to see me as if we were the dearest of friends.”
“I don’t understand society,” said Rowland, “and I don’t think I should
ever know that part of it. How is anybody to know which you prefer, the
good or the bad, if you treat them just the same?”
“Oh, everybody knows what I think of him, including himself,” said
Madeline, lightly; “that’s one of our refinements. And so you are going
to have Rose and Eddy to visit you in the country. You are a couple of
bold people--with a boy and a girl of your own. Of course there will be
fallings in love.”
Rowland laughed again, opening his mouth in simple enjoyment of the
joke, as he took it. “I think I can answer for my two,” he said.
“Oh, you can’t answer for anybody!” said Lady Leighton, somewhat
sharply, “Rose is a girl of the period, and scorns that kind of
thing--so does my Mabel, save the mark! They are both going to do all
sorts of things as soon as they are out--walk the hospitals! I don’t
know what absurd projects they have. But Eddy, I warn you, is a _mauvais
sujet_, Evelyn. He is like his father. He makes love to everybody. I
don’t know what age Miss Rowland is----”
“Eighteen,” said her father.
Lady Leighton threw up her hands. “His natural prey! And she has been
brought up in the country, I suppose, and believes anything that is said
to her----”
“She has been brought up,” said Rowland, a little displeased with the
turn the conversation was taking, “in Glasgow, which is a very different
thing from the country, and perhaps not so much given to the innocence
of faith.”
“Oh!” said Lady Leighton, making a dead pause. She had not the least
idea how a girl could be brought up in Glasgow, any more than if it had
been Timbuctoo. The country she comprehended: town she comprehended--but
Glasgow! A “smart” lady’s information stops long before it comes to such
a point as that.
“Perhaps,” said Evelyn, troubled by all this, “I have been imprudent. It
is awkward, anyhow, to have these young people coming to us so soon,
when we are scarcely settled; but it is hard to say no, when one is
appealed to, for the good of others.”
“I hope,” said Rowland, “it is an appeal you never will refuse. It
shocks me rather to hear you now discussing your future guests. Don’t
they become sacred as soon as you invite them, like the strangers in a
Bedouin’s tent? That’s our old Scotch way.”
“Mr. Rowland, you are a darling,” said Lady Leighton, “quite too great a
darling, Evelyn, for this wicked world. I am so glad you have invited
me! But is it not the Scotch way to tear one into little pieces after
one is gone? The balance must be kept straight somehow.”
“It is not the way in my house,” he said, with a certain severity, not
liking that little scoff at the Scotch way, though he had brought it on
himself. Rowland had no objection to have his fling at his fellow-Scot
when occasion served. He had vituperated the Glasgow tradesman largely
for being slow, for being behind the time. He had thought everything
“provincial”--the hardest word to be applied to such a huge and
important place; but he felt offended when any one else followed his
example. Evelyn had begun to know the look in his face.
That afternoon when they had completed all their last _emplettes_,
chosen everything, ordered everything they wanted, and were seated
together over the little tea-table which has once more become, though
under changed circumstances from those of the eighteenth century, one of
the confidential centres of life in England, a visitor appeared who
disturbed their talk, and gave to the astonished Rowland another new
sensation. He was tired with much movement, declaring that London
fatigued him more than the hottest of the plains, and that the shops
made a greater call on his energies than any railway or canal he had
ever had to do with; and the rest and comparative coolness of the room
was pleasant to them both, the beginning of the day having been unlucky,
and a disagreeable turn given, as sometimes happens, to all its
occurrences. There is something in luck after all, and perhaps the
primitive people who turn back from the day’s adventure at sea and
labour on land, because they have met an ill-omened passenger--an evil
eye--have more reason in their superstition than is generally supposed.
That morning’s encounter with the invalid in his chair had been bad for
the Rowlands. They had found nothing they wanted. The persons they
desired to see had been out of the way. The commissions they had given
were not executed to their mind. Everybody knows that sometimes, without
any apparent cause, this will be the case to the trial of one’s temper
and the confusion of all one’s arrangements. Some one else had snapped
up the picture which they had selected at the picture-dealer’s. There
had been nothing successful that they had done that day. Rowland, of
course, was too enlightened and modern to think of anything like an evil
eye. But Evelyn was old-fashioned, and not without a touch of natural
and womanish superstition. She set it down to the score of Saumarez and
that meeting which she had wished so much to avoid; and the thought
oppressed her more than the contrarieties of the day. “It was all our
unlucky meeting with that man,” she even went so far as to say, when she
came in, jaded and disappointed, feeling the unsuccessful day all the
more that everything hitherto had been so very much the reverse. “Do you
think he threw a spell upon us?” Rowland said with a laugh. “He doesn’t
look at all unlike an old magician, to say the truth.” Evelyn’s little
outburst of temper somehow soothed her husband. And though he grumbled a
little at the heat, which was worse than Indian, and declared that the
English were asses never to have introduced the punkah, yet he soon
recovered his elasticity of mind. And when the door opened and Miss
Saumarez was announced, he was lounging in the easiest way upon a sofa,
and discoursing to his wife, as he loved to discourse, upon the
beautiful country to which he was about to take her, and the views from
the colonnade which encircled Rosmore.
“Miss Saumarez.” There walked in a tall girl in the simplest of dresses,
but without a soil or sign of dust, or crease, or crumple of any
description, perfectly self-possessed, yet perfectly unpretending, with
that air of being and knowing that she was the best of her kind, which
is born with some people, and to others is utterly beyond the
possibility of being acquired. Rosamond would not have been fluttered,
she would have known perfectly what to do and how to behave herself, had
she walked into the presence of the Queen instead of into that of James
Rowland, who, very much flustered, and conscious that he had loosed his
necktie a little, and that his collar was not so stiff as it ought to
be, got up in much surprise and discomfiture. Evelyn rose slowly from
her low chair, with a feeling more wretched still. A sort of sick
loathing of the very name, and of the connection she had so foolishly
allowed herself to be drawn into, overwhelmed her; and it was all she
could do to keep this sensation out of her face as Rosamond came forward
and offered a peachy cheek to her kiss. The young lady took in the
aspect of things in a moment.
“I am afraid I have disturbed you,” she said, “just when you are tired
and resting. I asked the man if it was a good time, but he did not know.
They never know anything, those servants in a hotel. But I will go away
directly, as soon as I have asked one little question. Thank you very
much, but I don’t think I had better sit down.”
She had a high-bred voice, soft but perfectly clear, with the finest low
intonation. She spoke very quietly, but Rosamond always had the gift of
being heard.
“Yes, yes, you must sit down,” said Rowland, awakening to a more
agreeable sentiment as he handed her a chair.
“We have just come in,” said Evelyn. “You must forgive me: we have had a
very tiring day.”
“It is so hot and dusty, I do not wonder. One feels as if one were
breathing dust and noise and people, anything but air. But you have it
hotter in India,” she said, turning her face towards Rowland, with a
little gracious acknowledgment of his presence, and of what and who he
was.
“It is hotter, but there are more appliances. I was saying to my wife we
should have had a punkah.”
“Something that the poor natives pull and pull to give you air? I have
heard of that--but who punkahs them?” said Rosamond, with a sweet
severity, as if calling upon him to give an account of tyranny and
selfish misgovernment, presumably, yet perhaps not inexcusably his
fault.
“I am afraid we don’t think much on that subject,” said Rowland; “they
are natives, you know, and like it, not the punkah, but the heat.”
“Ah! there is, of course, always something to be said on both sides of a
question. Dear Mrs. Rowland, I came to you from my father, who gets a
great fidget with his illness. Since he cannot move himself, he likes to
keep some one always in motion. It was to ask when we were to go to you,
Eddy and I. I thought it would be better to wait until you let us know,
but father thinks those who are to be obliged should take all the
trouble, which of course is just, too. So will you please think it was
not wanton intrusion, but to save you the trouble of writing a note.”
“I’ll answer for my wife, that she could not be otherwise than glad to
see you,” said Rowland, astonished to see that Evelyn hesitated.
Miss Rosamond gave him a pretty bow and smile, but it was evident that
she considered his judgment an exceedingly small matter, and did not at
all accept his answering for his wife, as he ignorantly thought himself
quite qualified to do.
“Indeed, you must not think I take your coming as intrusion. And, of
course, you must arrange your visits beforehand.”
“It is scarcely that,” said Rosamond. “We have not many visits to
arrange: people don’t ask a girl who is not out, except it is for
charity, like you. And Eddy is rather a pickle: I have not concealed
that from you. Nor is it to tell us the very day, as if I were putting a
pistol to your head. Indeed, I only came because I was sent. Father is
often exceedingly tiresome, but it is easier to do what he tells one
than to argue with him that it is not what one ought to do.”
“We have scarcely had time yet to consider what we shall be doing. Our
house, you know, is scarcely in order yet. I hardly know what
accommodation there is, or how we shall arrange matters. I know nothing
yet but what I have been told. But as soon as we are quite settled,”
said Evelyn, “you may be sure that I will let you know.”
“To be sure,” said Rosamond; “I knew my instinct was right. Now, that is
just what I wanted. I shall be able to satisfy father.”
“But, my dear,” cried Rowland in horror, “of course you will be
delighted to see this young lady whenever she pleases. There is plenty
of accommodation, and we could be doing nothing in which we should not
be glad to have the pleasure of her company.”
“Let me settle, please, James,” said Evelyn, a little crossly. “These
things want arranging, as Rosamond quite knows.”
Consternation filled the mind of the man who did not know the ways of
society. To allow an intending guest to feel as if by any possibility
she might not be welcome at any time, overwhelmed him with dismay. He
got up and walked to the window to free himself at least from
responsibility--to be no party to such an astounding act of
inhospitableness. Certainly that was not “our Scotch way.” He stood
there a little, with his back to them, listening to the soft voices
running on. He was very susceptible to the music of these mellow,
well-bred voices. And the girl’s had no sound of offence in it, neither
had Evelyn’s any hardness. He stood looking at the street, while they
had it out between them, calculating the times and seasons. Not for
about a month did the Saumarez family leave London. Miss Rosamond had to
go to her grandmother’s, and it was the time of Eddy’s examination; so
that arrangement was necessary on both sides. He stood there feeling
more and more every moment what an ignoramus he was. He would have
bidden the young people to come at once, to accompany him through all
the difficulties of settling down, had he had his way; and to accept
such an invitation would have disturbed all their plans as well as
Evelyn’s. Well, well! in this respect it was evident that the calm
society way was the best. And yet, middle-aged as he was, and acquainted
with the world as he believed himself to be, he felt that he would not
have liked to have a proposed visit from himself discussed and regulated
like this.
“I hope you have settled,” he said, coming back from the window, when
the soft ripple of the voices came to a little pause.
“Oh, yes, the 5th of October; thank you very much,” said Rosamond.
“That will suit us quite, extremely well. Father will still be at Aix,
and Eddy’s exam. will be over, and I shall have finished with
grandmamma. Thank you so very much, dear Mrs. Rowland. Now I see father
was right in making me come--though I did disturb you at the first.”
“Only because I was a little cross, my dear, and tried--”
“I don’t believe she is ever cross--is she?” said Rosamond, appealing to
Rowland. “We shall see how you put up with Eddy. Eddy is enough to make
any one cross. Of course he will break down in his exam.: he always has
done it, and he always will. There are some boys who seem to go on like
that on purpose that everybody may see they will not take the trouble.
There seems some pride among boys as to not taking trouble. They are
ashamed to say they have worked for anything. And father seems to
understand it, but I do not.”
“Neither do I, Miss Rosamond,” said Rowland; “you and I will agree. I
think a young fellow should be flogged that goes on like that.”
“I should not like Eddy to be flogged,” said Rosamond, in her cool,
even, sweet voice. “Of course he was flogged at Eton--swished, as they
call it--and he did not mind one bit. They rather like it. They are
proud of what is a shame, and ashamed of things they ought to be proud
of. That’s one of the things Eddy says ‘that no girl can understand.’”
Rowland approached the table where the tea still stood, and where the
young lady was eating bread and butter in her composed and reasonable
way. “Do you go to a great many balls?” he said, in the tone which he
might have applied to a child.
Rosamond regarded him from top to toe with her calm luminous eyes. She
paused a moment as if wondering at such extreme fatuity. Then she said,
“I am not out yet,” with great seriousness. A few minutes later she
unbent. “I do not wonder you are surprised. I am eighteen, but father’s
condition stops him from doing many things--that he does not care to do.
Grandmother is too old to go to Court, and nobody has cared very much to
take me. I shall perhaps be presented next year.”
“By-the-bye,” said Rowland, looking with eagerness at his wife.
“What is it, James?”
“Oh, nothing,” he said, going off again to the window. Both of the
ladies divined at once what he wanted to say; Evelyn with a faint
regretful sense of the excitement which he betrayed; Rosamond with a
much more prosaic feeling that here was something which they wanted to
consult each other about. She would have liked to stay to hear what it
was, but a better instinct persuaded her that it was time to go away.
“You have some one with you?” said Evelyn, as she rose to go.
“I have Champion: he always takes care of me. I do not often bring him
out at this hour; but he is quite sufficient for a protector. Ah, might
I bring Champion? He does nothing wrong, never misbehaves, nor attempts
to lie on sofas. He is a gentleman. _Might_ I bring him? It would be
such a favour, for the house will be shut up, and grandmamma cannot bear
dogs.”
“Is it a dog?--to be sure!” said Rowland, “I suppose that’s in my
department, Evelyn. My son Archie and you will get on very well, if you
are fond of dogs.”
“Oh!” said Rosamond. There was something in that monosyllable which
implied a good deal more. “Oh,” it seemed to say, “you have a son
Archie, and he is fond of dogs? I don’t make much account of your son
Archie--still--” There was all this in the varying of her tone; but she
did not ask any questions. She presented her peachlike cheek once more
to Evelyn to be kissed, and she offered her hand with a little
inclination of a curtsey to Rowland. He went downstairs with her, though
she remonstrated, and watched her untie her dog from the railings with a
sense of wondering, wistful admiration. “Oh,” he breathed in his heart,
“if Marion was but like that!” He burst into words when he got upstairs.
“Oh, if I could but see Marion like that!” This exclamation was quite
unintentional and involuntary: he was startled into it, and almost
regretted he had said it the moment the words were out.
“Why!” said Evelyn, wondering. Then she added, “I hope Marion will end
by being something much better than that.”
“Better!” he paused a little. “I wish I saw her at all like that. The
voice, and the manner, and the dress. That girl talks almost like you:
how composed she is--taking everything just as it ought to be taken:
understanding--You have something about you, people in your class--you
are more philosophical--you seem to know what things mean, even a child
like that: while Marion--poor little Marion--she is ready to cry or fly
into a passion about anything--nothing--and to say little impertinent
senseless things--Even the very dress--”
“Dear James, I say what I mean. Probably dear little Marion is far
better in her naturalness than this. I mean nothing against Rosamond.
She is made up of so many things. She is natural too, but it is a nature
which is full of art. You would not like Marion to understand as she
does, poor child. As for the dress--”
He had received this with much shaking of his head. Marion’s
naturalness! If only Evelyn might find it so. He thought Rosamond much
more natural for his part, and he was very grateful to his wife for the
“dear little Marion,” which indeed was more the fruit of opposition in
Evelyn than of an affection which she could scarcely have been expected
to feel for a girl whom she had never seen. He caught at the last words
as something to which he could reply--“The dress?”
“I have been thinking about that. It is a great pity you did not bring
them both up with you to town, James, for that purpose. It was almost
certain there would be deficiencies in dress.”
He smote upon his thigh in disgust with himself. “If I had only thought
of that! Indeed I did think of it; but I thought--in short I got out of
heart a little with the whole concern. I thought--I would keep you from
disappointment as long as I could; keep you from seeing what they are;
what little, common, foolish--Evelyn, I have had a terrible
disappointment, a hideous sort of undeception. It is all my own
fault--that I should have been such a heartless fool as to leave them
there all these years!”
Evelyn got up to support him in this sudden break-down. She put her arm
round the big shoulders, which it would not half encircle. “James, dear
James! what nonsense you are talking. Your children and your Mary’s--no,
no, my good man! you are excited; you are over-anxious; you have judged
the poor dear children too hardly. Shall we stay another week and have
them down here, and set the clothes to rights? Fancy you, of all people
in the world, being so much influenced by a question of clothes!”
“If it were only that!” he said, holding her close to him, almost
weeping on her shoulder. It was safer not to investigate what it was
that made the strong man’s eyes so wet and sore. Evelyn did not attempt
any such prying, but let him hide himself--he so much stronger than she
was--in her soft hold, and swallow the sob that was in his capacious
heart. No one ever guessed but in that moment, what it was to James
Rowland to have lost his ideal children, the little things with all
their sweetness whom he remembered, and to have found the common-place
young man and woman whom he now knew. Evelyn’s tender sympathy,
compassion, and presently the tremulous laugh with which she began to
jest and tease him about his devotion to externals, his fancy for fine
clothes, brought him at last to himself. He was a little ashamed to feel
his eyes red, to know that he must look almost like a woman who had been
crying when he raised his head to the light. But all that Evelyn did to
betray her knowledge was a little kiss upon his eyes, which she gave him
heartily, as if in spite of herself. And then they sat down to consider
the question, which was decided at last in favour of “going home,” as
Evelyn called it, there to take such steps for a complete renewal of
Marion’s wardrobe as her taste and knowledge would suggest. It was easy
to talk of the clothes, to which she had playfully directed the
conversation--too serious and too emotional to be otherwise discussed:
but both of them were very well aware that a great deal more was meant.
It was some time after that, when the gravity of the situation had been
dissipated, and lighter thoughts and talk came in, that he asked her
with a little shamefacedness, whether she had gone through that
ceremonial to which Rosamond Saumarez had referred. “I suppose you have
been--presented, as they call it,” he said with a laugh.
“Oh, yes--at the proper time, when I was a girl. I was only at one
drawing-room after that. We were too poor to afford the dress.”
“You are not too poor now to afford--whatever you please in that
way--Evelyn:” he laughed, abashed and shy, but eager, “should you think
it right to--go again.”
“Oh, yes,” she said by no means so earnestly. “I hope you would not
dislike it, James.”
“Dislike it!--to show one’s reverence and homage to the Queen? Good
heavens, no! if a man felt good enough--It seems as if it should be a
kind of duty, Evelyn.”
“Yes,” she said, not so fervent even now; “but not this year. I can take
Marion next spring.”
He laughed so that he almost cried. “And I suppose I shall have to get
myself up in some ridiculous costume or other to go with you--me and
little Mey--a pair of guys--before the Queen!”