LIFE AT WESTHOPE.
"Tea, my lady!"
"Very well. Tell Lady Caroline---- Oh, here you are! I was just
sending to tell you that tea was ready. I saw you come in from your
ride before the curtains were drawn."
"Did you? Then you must have seen a pretty draggletailed spectacle.
I've caked my habit with mud and torn it into shreds, and generally
distinguished myself."
"Did Mr. Biscoe blush?"
"Not a bit of it. Mr. Biscoe's a good specimen of a hard-riding
parson, and seemed to like me the better the muddier and more torn I
became. By the way, his wife is coming to dinner, isn't she? so I must
drop my flirtation with the rector, and be on my best behaviour."
"Caroline, you are too absurd; the idea of flirting with a man like
that!"
"Well, then, why don't you provide some one better for me? I declare,
Margaret, you are ignorant of the simplest duties of hospitality! I
can't flirt with West, because he's my brother, for one reason, and
because you mightn't like it, perhaps, and because I mightn't care
about it myself much. And there's no one else in the house who---- Oh,
by the way, I'll speak about that just now--who else is coming to
dinner?"
"Some people from the barracks--Colonel Tapp, and Mr. Frampton, the
man who hunted through all those papers the other day to find the
paragraph you asked him about, don't you know; a Mr. Boyd, a
good-looking fair-haired boy, with an eyeglass, one of the Ross-shire
Boyds, who is reading somewhere in the neighbourhood with a tutor; the
Biscoes, the Porters--people who live at those iron gates with the
griffins which I showed you; and--I don't know--two or three others."
"Oh, heavens, what a cheerful prospect! I hate the army, and I detest
good-looking boys with eyeglasses; and I've been all day with Mr.
Biscoe, and I don't know the griffin people, nor the two or three
others. Look here, Margaret, why don't you ask Mr. Joyce to dinner?"
"Mr. Joyce? I don't know---- Good heavens, Caroline, you don't mean
Lord Hetherington's secretary?"
"I do indeed, Margaret--why shouldn't I? He is quite nice and
gentlemanly, and has charming eyes."
"Caroline, I wonder at your talking such nonsense. You ought to know
me sufficiently----"
"And you ought to know me sufficiently to understand there's nothing
on earth I detest like being bored. I shall be bored out of my life by
any of the people you have mentioned, while I'm sure I should find
some amusement in Mr. Joyce."
"You might probably find a great deal of amusement in Norton, the
steward, or in William, my footman; but you would scarcely wish me to
ask them to dinner?"
"I think not--not in William, at all events. There is a dull decorum
about Mr. Norton which one might find some fun in bearing----"
"Caroline, be quiet; you are _impayable_. Are you really serious in
what you say about Mr. Joyce?"
"Perfectly--why not? I had some talk with him in the library the other
day, and found him most agreeable."
"Well, then, I will send and say we expect him; will that satisfy you?
"No, certainly not! Seriously, Margaret, for one minute. You know that
I was only in fun, and that it cannot matter one atom to me whether
this young man is asked to join your party or not. Only, if you _do_
ask him, don't send. You know the sort of message which the footman
would deliver, no matter what formula had been intrusted to him; and I
should be very sorry to think that Mr. Joyce, or any other gentleman,
should be caused a mortification through any folly of mine."
"Perhaps you think I ought to go to him and offer him a verbal
invitation?"
"Certainly, if you want him at all--I mean, if you intend asking him
to dinner. You'll be sure to find him in the library. Now, I'm dying
to get rid of this soaked habit and this clinging skirt! So I'm off to
dress."
And Lady Caroline Mansergh gave her sister-in-law a short nod, and
left the room.
Left alone, Lady Hetherington took a few minutes to recover herself.
Her sister-in-law Caroline had always been a spoiled child, and
accustomed to have her own way in the old home, in her own house when
she married Mr. Mansergh--the richest, idlest, kindest old gentleman
that ever slept in St. Stephen's first and in Glasnevin Cemetery
scarcely more soundly afterwards--and generally everywhere since she
had lost him. But she had been always remarkable for particularly
sound sense, and had a manner of treating objectionably pushing people
which succeeded in keeping them at a distance better even than the
frigid hauteur which Lady Hetherington indulged in. The countess knew
this, and, acknowledging it in her inmost heart, felt that she could
make no great mistake in acceding to her sister-in-law's wishes.
Moreover, she reflected, after all it was a mere small country-house
dinner that day; there was no one expected about whose opinion she
particularly cared; and as the man was domiciled in the house, was
useful to Lord Hetherington, and was presentable, it was only right to
show him some civility.
So, after leaving the drawing-room on her way to dress for dinner,
Lady Hetherington crossed the hall to the library, and at the far end
of the room saw Mr. Joyce at work, under a shaded lamp. She went
straight up to him, and was somewhat amused at finding that he, either
not hearing her entrance, or imagining that it was merely some servant
with a message, never raised his head, but continued grinding away at
his manuscript.
"Mr. Joyce!" said her ladyship, slightly bending forward.
"Hey?" replied the scribe, in whose ear the tones, always haughty
and imperious, however she might try to soften them, rang like a
trumpet-call. "I beg your pardon, Lady Hetherington," he added, rising
from his seat; "I had no idea you were in the room."
"Don't disturb yourself, Mr. Joyce; I only looked in to say that we
have a few friends coming to dinner tonight, and it will afford Lord
Hetherington and myself much pleasure if you will join us."
"I shall be most happy," said Mr. Joyce.
And then Lady Hetherington returned his bow, and he preceded her down
the room, and opened the door to let her pass.
"As if he'd been a squire of dames from his cradle," said her ladyship
to herself. "The man has good hands, I noticed, and there was no
awkwardness about him."
"What does this mean?" said Walter Joyce, when he reached his own room
and was dressing for dinner. "These people have been more civil than I
could have expected them to be to a man in my position, and Lord
Hetherington especially has been kindness itself; but they have always
treated me as what I am--'his lordship's secretary.' Whence this new
recognition? One comfort is that, thanks to old Jack Byrne's
generosity, I can make a decent appearance at their table. I laughed
when he insisted on providing me with dress-clothes, but he knew
better. 'They can't do you any harm, my boy,' I recollect his saying,
'and they may do you some good;' and now I see how right he was. Fancy
my going into society, and beginning at this phase of it I wonder
whether Marian would be pleased? I wonder----"
And he sat down on the edge of his bed and fell into a dreamy
abstracted state; the effect caused by Marian's last long letter was
upon him yet. He had answered it strongly--far more strongly than he
had ever written to her before--pointing out that, at the outset, they
had never imagined that life's path was to be made smooth and easy to
them; they had always known that they would have to struggle; and that
it was specially unlike her to fold her hands and beg for the
unattainable, simply because she saw it in the possession of other
people. "She dared not tell him how little hope for the future she
had." That was a bad sign indeed. In their last parting walk round the
garden of the old schoolhouse at Helmingham she had hinted something
of this, and he thought he had silenced her on the point; but her want
of hope, her abnegation of interest, was now much more pronounced; and
against such a feeling he inveighed with all the strength and power of
his honest soul. If she gave in, what was to become of him, whose
present discomforts were only made bearable by anticipation of the
time when he would have her to share his lot?
"And after all, Marian," he had said in conclusion, "what does it all
mean? This money for which you wish so much--I find the word studding
every few lines of your letter--this splendour, luxury, comfort--call
it by what name you will--what does it all mean?--who benefits by it?
Not the old gentleman who has passed his life in slaving for the
acquisition of wealth! As I understand from you, his wife is dead, and
his son almost estranged from him. Is this the end of it? If you could
see his inmost heart, is he not pining for the woman who stood by his
side during the conflict, and does he not feel the triumph empty and
hollow without her to share it with him? Would he not sooner have his
son's love and trust and confidence than the conservatory and the
carriages and the splendour on which you dwell so rapturously? If you
could know all, you would learn that the happiest time of his life was
when he was striving in company with her he loved, and that the end
now attained, however grand it may be, however above his original
anticipations, is but poor and vain now she is not there to share it
with him. Oh, Marian, my heart's darling, think of this, and be
assured of its truth! So long as we love each other, so long as the
sincerity of that love gives us confidence in each other, all will be
well, and it will be impossible to shut out hope. It is only when a
shadow crosses that love--a catastrophe which seems impossible, but
which we should pray God to avert--that hope can in the smallest
degree diminish. Marian, my love, my life, think of this as I place it
before you! We are both young, both gifted with health and strength
and powers of endurance. If we fight the battle side by side, if we
are not led away by envy and induced to fix the standard of our
desires too high, we shall, we _must_ succeed in attaining what we
have so often hopefully discussed--the happiness of being all in all
to each other, and leading our lives together, 'for better for worse,
for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us
part.' I confess I can imagine no greater bliss--can you?"
He had had no answer to this letter, but that had not troubled him
much. He knew that Marian was not fond of correspondence, that in her
last letter she had given a full account of her new life, and that she
could have but little to say; and he was further aware that a certain
feeling of pride would prevent her from too readily indorsing his
comments on her views. That she agreed with those comments, or that
they would commend themselves to her natural sound sense on
reflection, he had no doubt; and he was content to await calmly the
issue of events.
The party assembled were waiting the announcement of dinner in the
library, and when Joyce entered the room Lord Hetherington left the
rug where he had been standing with two other gentlemen, and,
advancing towards his secretary, took his hand and said--
"I am glad her ladyship has persuaded you to come out of seclusion,
Mr. Joyce. Too much--what is it?--books, and work, and that kind of
thing, is--is--the deuce, in point of fact!" And then his lordship
went back to the rug, and Joyce having received a sufficiently distant
bow from Lady Hetherington, retreated into a darkish corner of the
room, into which the flickering firelight did not penetrate, and
glanced around him.
Lady Hetherington looked splendidly handsome, he thought. She was
dressed in maroon-coloured velvet, the hues of which lit up
wonderfully in the firelight, and showed her classically shaped head
and head-dress of velvet and black lace. Joyce had read much of
Juno-looking women, but he had never realised the idea until he gazed
upon that calm, majestic, imperious face, so clearly cold in outline,
those large, solemnly radiant eyes, that splendidly moulded figure.
The man who was bending over her chair as he addressed her--not
deferentially, as Joyce felt that (not from her rank, but rather her
splendid beauty) she should be addressed; on the contrary, rather
flippantly--had a palpable curly wig, shaved cheeks, waxed moustache,
and small white hands, which he rubbed gently together in front of
him. He was Colonel Tapp, a Crimean hero, a very Paladin in war, but
who had been worn by time, not into slovenry, but into coxcombry. Mr.
Biscoe, the rector of the parish--a big, broad-shouldered, bull-headed
man, with clean-cut features, wholesome complexion, and breezy
whiskers: excellent parson as well as good cross-country man, and as
kind of heart as keen at sport--stood by her ladyship's side, and
threw an occasional remark into the conversation. Joyce could not see
Lady Caroline Mansergh, but he heard her voice coming from a recess in
the far side of the fireplace, and mingled with its bright, ringing
Irish accent came the deep growling bass of Captain Frampton, adjutant
of the depot battalion, and a noted amateur singer. The two gentlemen
chatting with Lord Hetherington on the rug were magnates of the
neighbourhood, representatives of county families centuries old. Mr.
Boyd, a very good-looking young gentleman, with crisp wavy hair and
pink-and-white complexion, was staring hard at nothing through his
eyeglass, and wondering whether he could fasten one of his studs,
which had come undone, without any one noticing him; and Mr. Biscoe
was in conversation with a foxy-looking gentleman with sunken eyes,
sharp nose, and keen, gleaming teeth, in whom Joyce recognised Mr.
Gould, Lord Hetherington's London agent, who was in the habit of
frequently running down on business matters, and whose room was always
kept ready for him.
Dinner announced and general movement of the company. At the table
Joyce found himself seated by Lady Caroline Mansergh, her neighbour on
the other side being Captain Frampton. After bowing and smiling at Mr.
Joyce, Lady Caroline said--
"Now, Captain Frampton, continue, if you please!"
"Let me see!" said the captain, a good soldier and a good singer, but
not burdened with more brains than are necessary for these
professions--"let me see! Gad--'shamed to say, Lady Car'line, forgot
what we were talkin' of!"
"Mr. Chennery--you remember now?"
"Yas, yas, course, thousand pardons! Well, several people who heard
him
at Carabas House think him wonderful."
"A tenor, you say?"
"Pure tenor, one of the richest, purest tenor voices ever heard! Man's
fortune's made--if he only behaves himself!"
"How do you mean, 'behaves himself,' Captain Frampton?" asked Lady
Caroline, raising her eyebrows.
"Well, I mean sassiety, and all that kind of thing, Lady Caroline! Man
not accustomed to sassiety might, as they say, put his foot in it!"
"I see," said Lady Caroline, with an assumption of gravity. "Exactly!
and that would indeed be dreadful. But is this gentleman not
accustomed to society?"
"Not in the least; and in point of fact not a gentleman, so far as I'm
led to understand. Father's a shepherd; outdoor labouring something
down at Lord Westonhanger's place in Wiltshire; boy was apprenticed to
a stonemason, but people staying at the house heard of his singing,
sent for him, and Lord Westonhanger was so charmed with his voice, had
him sent to Italy and taught. That's the story!"
"Surely one that reflects great credit on all concerned," said Lady
Caroline. "But I yet fail to see why Mr. Chennery should not behave
himself!"
"Well, you see, Lady Caroline, Carabas House, and that sort of
thing--people he'll meet there, you know, different from anything
he's ever seen before."
"But he can but be a gentleman, Captain Frampton. If he were a prince,
he could be no more!"
"No, exactly, course not; but pardon me, that's just it, don't you
see, the difficulty is for the man to be a gentleman."
"Not at all; not the slightest difficulty!" And here Lady Caroline
almost imperceptibly turned a little towards Joyce. "If Mr. Chennery
is thrown into different society from that to which he has been
hitherto accustomed, and is at all nervous about his reception or his
conduct in it, he has merely to be natural and just as he always has
been, to avoid any affectation, and he cannot fail to please. The
art which he possesses, and the education he has received, are
humanising influences, and he certainly contributes more than the
average quota towards the enjoyment of what people call society."
Whether Captain Frampton was unconvinced by the argument, whether he
found a difficulty in pursuing it, or whether he had by this time
realised the fact that the soup was of superior quality, and worth
paying attention to, are moot points; at all events, the one thing
certain was, that he bowed and slightly shrugged his shoulders, and
relapsed into silence, while Lady Caroline, with a half smile of
victory, which somehow seemed to include Walter Joyce in its expanding
ripple, replied across the table to a polite query of Mr. Biscoe's in
reference to their recent ride.
She certainly was very beautiful! Joyce had thought so before, as he
had caught transient glimpses of her flitting about the house; but now
that he had, unnoticed and unseen, the opportunity of quietly studying
her, he-was astonished at her beauty. Her face was very pale, with an
impertinent little nose, and deep-violet eyes, and a small rosebud of
a mouth; but perhaps her greatest charm lay in her hair, which lay in
heavy thick chestnut clumps over her white forehead. Across it she
wore the daintiest bit of precious lace, white lace, the merest
apology for a cap, two long lapels pinned together by a diamond
brooch, while the huge full clump at the back, unmistakably real, was
studded with small diamond stars. She was dressed in a blue-satin
gown, set off with a profusion of white lace, and on her arm she wore
a large heavy gold bracelet. Walter Joyce found himself gazing at her
in an odd indescribable way. He had never seen anything like her,
never realised such a combination of beauty, set off by the advantages
of dress and surroundings. Her voice too, so bright and clear and
ringing, and her manner to him--to him? Was it not to him that she had
really addressed these words of advice, although they were surely said
in apparent reply to Captain Frampton's comments? If that were so, it
was indeed kind of Lady Caroline, true noble-hearted kindness: he must
write and tell Marian of it.
He was thinking of this, and had in his mind a picture, confused
indeed, but full of small details which had a strange interest for
him, and a vivid sadness too, of the contrast between the scene of
which he formed at this moment a part, and those familiar to himself
and to Marian. He was thinking of the homely simple life of the
village, of the dear dead friend, so much a better man, so much a
truer gentleman than any of these people, who were of so much
importance in a world where he had been of so little; of the old
house, the familiar routine of life, not wearisome with all its
sameness, the sweetness of his first love. He was thinking of the
splendour, the enervating bewildering luxury of his present
surroundings, among which he sat so strange, so solitary, save for the
subtle reassuring influence, the strange, unaccountable support and
something like companionship in the tones of that fair and gracious
lady's voice, in the light of her swift flitting smile, in which he
thought he read an admission that the company was little more to her
taste than to his, had as little in common with her intellectual
calibre as with his. He could not have told how she conveyed this
impression to him, if he had tried to explain his feelings to any
third person; he could not explain it to himself, when he thought over
the events of the evening, alone in his room, which was a dingy
apartment when compared with the rest of the house, but far better
than any which had ever called him master; but there it was, strong
and strangely attractive, mingling with the sights and sounds around
him, and with the dull dead pain at his heart which had been caused by
Marian's letter, and which he had never quite succeeded in conquering.
There were unshed but not unseen tears in his eyes, and a slight
tremulous motion in his lips, which one pair of eyes at the table,
quick with all their languor, keen with all their disdainful slowness,
did not fail to see. The owner of those beautiful eyes did not quite
understand, could not "fathom" the meaning of the sudden glitter in
his--"idle tears," indeed, on such an occasion, and in such
company!--but, with the fine unfailing instinct of a coquette, she
discerned, more clearly than Walter Joyce himself had felt it, that
she counted for something in the origin and meaning of those unshed
tears and of that nervous twitching.
Lady Caroline had just removed her eyes with well-feigned carelessness
from Walter's face, after a covert glance, apparently casual, but in
reality searching, in order to effect which she had leaned forward and
plucked some geranium-leaves from a bouquet near her on the table; and
Walter was removing himself still farther from the scene around, into
the land of reverie, when a name spoken by Mr. Gould, and making an
odd accidental harmony with his thoughts, fixed his wandering
attention.
"What sort of weather had you in Hampshire?" asked Lord Hetherington,
in one of those irksome pauses usually selected by some individual who
is at once commonplace and good-natured enough to distinguish himself
by uttering an inane sentiment, or asking an awkward question.
"Awful, I should fancy," said Lady Hetherington, in the most languid
of her languid tones. "Awful, if it has been like the weather here.
Were you really obliged to travel, Mr. Gould? I can't fancy any one
going anywhere in such weather."
"As it happened," said Mr. Gould, with a rather impatient glance
towards her ladyship--for he could not always smile complacently when
she manifested her normal unconsciousness that anybody could have
anything to do not entirely dependent on his or her own pleasure and
convenience--"as it happened, I had not to go. A few days after I told
his lordship the particulars of the sale of land, I had a letter
informing me that the matter was all off for the present."
"Indeed!" said Lord Hetherington; "a domed bore for Langley, isn't it?
He has been wanting to pick up something in that neighbourhood for a
long time. But the sale will ultimately come off, I suppose, unless
some one buys the land over Langley's head by private contract."
"There's no fear of that, I think," said Mr. Gould; "but I took
precautions. I should not like Sir John to lose the slice off
Woolgreaves he wants. The place is in a famous hunting country, and
the plans are settled upon--like Sir John, isn't it?--for his
hunting-box."
"I don't know that part of Hampshire at all," said Lord Hetherington,
delighted at finding a subject on which he could induce one of his
guests to talk without his being particularly bound to listen. "Very
rich and rural, isn't it? Why didn't the--ah, the person sell the land
Langley wanted there?"
"For rather a melancholy reason," replied Mr. Gould, while Lady
Hetherington and the others looked bored by anticipation. Rather
inconsiderate and bad taste of Mr. Gould to talk about "melancholy
reasons" in a society which only his presence and that of the
secretary rendered at all "mixed." But Mr. Gould, who was rather full
of the subject, and who had the characteristic--so excellent in a man
of business in business hours, but a little tiresome in social
moments--of believing that nothing could equal in interest his
clients' affairs, or in importance his clients themselves, went on,
quite regardless of the strong apathy in the face of the countess.
"The letter which prevented my going down to Woolgreaves on the
appointed day was written by a lady residing in the house, to inform
me that the owner of the property, a Mr. Creswell, very well known in
those parts, had lost his only son, and was totally unfit to attend to
any business. The boy was killed, I understand, by a fall from his
pony."
"Tom Creswell killed!" exclaimed Walter Joyce, in a tone which
directed the attention of every one at the table to the "secretary."
"I beg your pardon," Joyce went on, "but will you kindly tell me all
you know of this matter? I know Mr. Creswell, and I knew this boy
well. Are you sure of the fact of his death?"
The paleness of Walter's face, the intensity of his tone, held Lady
Caroline's attention fixed upon him. How handsome he was! and the man
could evidently feel too! How nice it would be to make him feel, to
see the face pale, and to hear the voice deepen, like that, for her!
It would be quite _new_. She had any amount of flirtation always at
hand, whenever she chose to summon its aid in passing the time; but
feeling did not come at call, and she had never had much of _that_
given her. These were the thoughts of only a moment, flashing through
her mind before Mr. Gould had time to answer Joyce's appeal.
"I am sorry I mentioned the fact at so inappropriate a time," said Mr.
Gould, "but still more sorry that there is no doubt whatever of its
truth. Indeed, I think I can show you the letter." Mr. Gould wore a
dress-coat, of course, but he could not have dined comfortably if he
had not transferred a mass of papers from his morning-coat to its
pockets. This mass he extricated with some difficulty, and selecting
one, methodically indorsed with the date of its receipt, from the
number, he handed it to Walter.
Lady Hetherington was naturally shocked at the infringement of the
_bien-séances_ caused by this unfortunate incident, and was glancing
from Mr. Gould to Mr. Joyce--from one element of the "mixture" in the
assembled society to the other, with no pleasant expression of
countenance--when Lady Caroline came to the rescue, with gracefulness,
deftness, lightness all her own, and by starting an easy unembarrassed
conversation with the gentleman opposite to her, in which she
skilfully included her immediate neighbours, she dissipated all the
restraints which had temporarily fallen upon the party. Something
interesting to the elevated minds of the party, something different
from the unpleasantness of a boy being killed whom nobody knew
anything about, at a place which did not belong to anybody,--and the
character of the dinner-party, momentarily threatened, was
triumphantly retrieved.
Walter saw that the letter which Mr. Gould handed him was in Marian's
writing. It contained an announcement of the calamity which had
occurred, and an intimation that Mr. Creswell could not attend to any
matters of business at present. That was all. Walter read the brief
letter with sincere concern, commiseration for the childless rich man,
and also with the thrill, half of curiosity, half of painless
jealousy, with which one regards the familiar and beloved handwriting,
when addressed, however formally, to another. He returned the letter
to Mr. Gould, with a simple expression of thanks, and sat silent. No
one noticed him. Every one had forgotten the dismal occurrence about
somebody whom nobody knew, down in some place that did not belong to
anybody. He had time to think unquestioned.
"I wonder she has not written to me. The accident occurred four days
ago," he thought. "I suppose she has too much to do for them all. God
bless her, she will be their best comfort."
Though unversed in the minor arts and smaller tactics of society,
Walter was not so dull or awkward as to be ignorant of the skill and
kindness with which Lady Caroline had acted on his behalf. When the
ladies were to leave the room, as she passed him, their eyes met, and
each looked at the other steadily. In her glance there was
undisguised interest, in his--gratitude.