"If there's no meaning in it," said the king, "that saves a world of
trouble, as we needn't try to find any. And yet I don't know."
_Alice in Wonderland_.
November was not bright everywhere, however. In Paris everything, out
of doors, that is to say, was looking extremely dull, and Alys Cheviott
many times, during the four weeks her brother had arranged to stay
there, wished herself at home again at Romary. For Paris, though people
who have only visited it in spring or summer (when the sunshine, and the
heat, and the crowds, and the holiday aspect of everything are almost
overwhelming) can hardly perhaps realise the fact, _can_ be exceedingly
dull, and hotel life at all times requires bright weather, and plenty of
outside interests, to make it endurable. Alys did not care particularly
about balls or parties; she was too young to have acquired much taste
for such amusements, though young enough to enjoy heartily the two or
three receptions at which Mr Cheviott had allowed her to "assist." But
it was the day-time she found so long and dreary. She wanted to go out,
to shop and to look about her, and to take long walks in the Bois de
Boulogne in the morning, and drives with her brother in the afternoon,
and every day the weather put all expeditions of the kind out of the
question. It rained incessantly, or, at least, as she complained
piteously, "when it didn't rain it did worse--it looked so black and
gloomy that no one had the heart to do anything." Alys had been in
Paris several times before, she had seen all the orthodox lions, and had
not, therefore, the interest and excitement of the perfect novelty of
her surroundings to support her, and as day after day passed, with no
improvement to speak of, she began sorely to regret having teased her
brother into allowing her to accompany him on this visit, in this case
necessitated by the business arrangements of a friend.
"I'll never come with you again, Laurence, _anywhere_, when it has
anything to do with business," she declared.
"Who is `it'?" inquired Mr Cheviott, calmly.
"Laurence, you are not to tease me. I am too worried to stand it, I am,
really," she replied.
"`It' again! Alys, you are growing incorrigible. I really think my
best plan would be to send you to a good school for a year or two--the
sort of place where `young ladies of neglected education' are taken in
hand."
He spoke so seriously that for a quarter of a second Alys wondered if he
could be in earnest. She turned sharply round from the window against
which she had been pressing her pretty face in a sort of affectation of
babyish discontent, staring out at the leaden sky, and the wet street,
and the dreary-looking gardens in the distance.
"Laurence!" she exclaimed. But Laurence's next remark undeceived her.
"You should not flatten your face against the window-pane. You will
spoil the shape of your nose, and you have made it look so red," he
observed, gravely. "Would you care to live, Alys, do you think, if you
had a red nose?"
Alys gently stroked the ill-treated member as she answered,
thoughtfully:
"I hardly think I should. Laurence, do you know there _have_ been times
when I have been afraid they might run in the family."
"What?" asked Laurence, philosophically.
"Red noses," answered Alys, calmly. "Aunt Winstanley has one, you know.
She says its neuralgia, but _I_ feel sure it is indigestion."
Laurence looked up at her with a smile, which broke into a laugh as he
observed the preternatural gravity of her expression.
"Come and sit down and have some breakfast, you absurd child," he said.
He was already seated at the table.
Alys walked slowly across the room, and took her place opposite him.
She looked blooming enough notwithstanding all the trials she had had to
endure. As the Western girls had pronounced her, such she was, very,
_very_ pretty--as pretty a girl as one could wish to see. Her soft dark
hair grew low, but not too low, on the white, well-shaped forehead; her
features were all good, and gave promise of maturing into even greater
beauty than that of eighteen; her blue eyes could look up tenderly as
well as brightly from under their long black eyelashes, for their colour
was not of the cold steel-like shade that is often the peculiarity of
blue eyes in such juxtaposition. But the tenderness was more a matter
of the future than the present, for hitherto there had been little in
her life to call forth the deeper tones of her character; she was happy,
trustful and winning, full of life and vigour; incapable of a mean
thought or action herself, incapable of suspecting such in others.
Mr Cheviott looked at her critically as she sat opposite him.
"Alys," he said at last, "I am afraid I have not brought you up well."
"What makes you think so all of a sudden, Laurence?"
"I am afraid you are spoiled. You are such a baby."
Alys's eyes flashed a little.
"Are you in earnest, Laurence?"
"A little, not quite."
"I think you have got into the habit of thinking other people babies,
and it's a very bad habit. You like them to do just exactly what you
tell them, and yet you laugh at them for being babies. You think Arthur
is a baby too."
"There are babies and babies," Mr Cheviott replied. "Some do credit to
those who bring them up, and some don't."
"Well, _he_ does, whether I do or not," said Alys, "he is as kind, and
good, and nice, and sensible as he can be. And do you know what I
think, Laurence? If there are different kinds of babies, there are
different ways of being spoiled, and I sometimes think _you_ are
spoiled! I do," she continued, shaking her head solemnly. "Arthur
spoils you, and aunt of course does. I believe I am the only person
that does not."
"And how do you manage to steer clear of so fatal an error?"
"You are not nice, indeed you are extremely disagreeable when you speak
like that," said Alys, "but still I think I will tell you. I don't
spoil you because I don't think you _quite_ perfect as everybody else
does," and she glanced up at him defiantly.
Mr Cheviott laughed. He was just going to answer, when there came an
interruption in the shape of his man-servant.
"Letters!" exclaimed Alys, "I do hope there are some for me; they will
give me something to do. Are there any for me, Laurence?"
"Yes, two, and only one for me."
"From aunt and from Arthur," said Alys. "I will read aunt's first,
there is never anything in hers. She just tells me over again what I
told her, and makes little comments upon it. Yes, `so sorry, dearest
Alys, that the weather in Paris has so spoiled the pleasure of your
visit, and that during the last week you have scarcely been able to get
out, except in a close carriage, for a miserable attempt at shopping.
And so you enjoyed Madame de Briancourt's ball on the whole, very much,
and your pink and white grenadine looked lovely, and Clotilde did your
hair the new way.' Did you ever hear anything so absurd, Laurence? It
is like reading all I have written over again in a looking-glass, only
then the letters would be all the wrong way, wouldn't they?"
But Mr Cheviott did not answer, and Alys, looking up, saw that he had
not heard her; he was busily reading his own letter, and its contents
did not seem to be satisfactory, for a frown had gathered on his brow,
and, as he turned the first page, a half-smothered exclamation of
annoyance escaped him.
"What is the matter, Laurence?" said Alys. "You don't seem any better
pleased with your letter than I am with mine?"
"How do you mean? What does he say to you?" inquired her brother,
quickly.
"Who? Oh, Arthur, you mean. I haven't opened his yet. I was saying
how stupid aunt's letters are. So yours is from Arthur, too, is it?"
said Alys, pricking up her ears, "what's the matter? Is he going to be
married? I do wish he were."
"Alys!" exclaimed Mr Cheviott, with real annoyance in his tone, "do be
careful what you say. You are too old to talk so foolishly. It is
unbecoming and unladylike."
"Why? What _do_ you mean?" said Alys, opening wide her blue eyes in
astonishment. "Why shouldn't I talk of Arthur's being married? I have
noticed before that you seem quite indignant at the thought of such a
thing, and I don't think you have any right to dictate to him. It's
just what I was saying, he has spoiled you by giving in so, and the more
inches he gives you the more ells you want to take."
"I have spoiled _you_, Alys, by allowing you to speak to me as you do.
It is most unjustifiable; and the way you express yourself is worse than
unladylike, it is vulgar and coarse."
He got up and left the room. Never in all her life had Alys been so
reproved before, and by him of all people, her dear, dear, Laurence--her
father and mother and brother in one, as she often called him. She
could not bear it; she threw aside the unlucky letters which in some way
or other she felt to have been the cause of her distress, and burst into
tears. She cried away quietly for some time, till it occurred to her to
wonder more definitely in what way she had really displeased her
brother, and the more she thought it over the more convinced she became
that Arthur's letter had been the primary cause of his annoyance, and
her own remarks nothing worse than ill-timed and unwise.
"For I _very_ often say much more impertinent things, and he only
laughs," she reflected.
There was some comfort in this. She dried her eyes and resolved to try
to make peace on the first opportunity. "Laurence is very seldom angry
or unreasonable," she thought; "but, of course, as I was saying just
now, he is not _perfect_. But I am sure he does not really think me
`coarse and unladylike.' What horrible words!" And the tears came back
again.
Just then her glance fell on Captain Beverley's unopened letter. "I
wonder if I shall find out, from what he says to me, how he has managed
to vex Laurence so," she thought to herself, tearing open the letter,
and quickly running through its contents. It was a pleasant, cousinly
letter, amusing and hearty, but with nothing that would, to Alys, have
distinguished it from others she had, from time to time, received from
Arthur, had not her eyes been sharpened by her brother's strange
annoyance. Instinctively she hit upon the cause of offence; two or
three times in the course of the letter allusion was made to the Western
family, to their "kindness and hospitality," their general
"likeableness," and a far less quick-witted person than Miss Cheviott
would have been at no loss to discern Captain Beverley's growing
intimacy with the Rectory household, and to suspect the existence of
some special attraction, though possibly as yet unsuspected by the young
man himself.
"I am sure it is about the Westerns that Laurence is annoyed," said Alys
to herself. "I have noticed that he does not like them, and he is
afraid of Arthur falling in love with one of them. But why shouldn't
he? I can't understand Laurence sometimes. I am sure if ever _he_
marries it will be to please himself, and nobody else. What is the good
of a man's being rich if he can't do that? And Arthur is rich enough!
Yes, the more I think of it the more sure I am that it was something
about the Westerns that made Laurence angry."
She was not long left in doubt. The door opened and Mr Cheviott made
his appearance again. He looked grave and preoccupied, but as calm as
usual. When, however, his glance fell on Alys's flushed cheeks and
tearful eyes, his expression grew troubled. He came behind her chair
and putting his hand on her head, turned her face gently towards him.
"Do you think me very harsh, Alys?" he said, kindly. "I did not mean to
be so, but I was annoyed, and, besides that, I cannot bear that habit of
joking about marrying, and so on, especially the sort of way girls do so
nowadays. It is very offensive."
"But I wasn't joking, Laurence. I had no thought of it," replied Alys.
"I will never speak about anything of the kind at all, if you dislike
it; but truly you misunderstood me. I don't think what I said would
have annoyed you if you had not been vexed about something else."
"Perhaps not," said Mr Cheviott, kindly. "Well, dear, I am sorry for
making you cry, but you will forgive me, won't you?"
Alys smiled up through the remains of her tears.
"Of course," she replied. "You know you could make me think it all my
own fault, if you liked, Laurence. And I understand what you mean about
disliking joking about marrying, and so on, but indeed I was quite in
earnest. I should very much like Arthur to marry, and I cannot imagine
why you should so dislike the idea of it."
She glanced at her brother questioningly as she spoke--her curiosity
strengthening as her courage revived--but his expression baffled her.
"Why do you so much wish Arthur to marry?" he inquired. "You have never
seemed to dislike him, Alys."
"Dislike him!" she repeated, innocently. "Dislike Arthur! _Of course_
not. I like him more than I can tell; indeed, I think I love him next
best to you of everybody in the world. How could I dislike him? And if
I did, how could that possibly have anything to do with my wishing him
to marry? Why, I want _you_ to marry, but I have given it up in
despair."
Mr Cheviott looked slightly self-conscious at his sister's
cross-questioning, but turned it off as lightly as he could.
"You might want to get rid of him," he said, carelessly. "Of course, if
he were married, we should not see so much of him. Why do you want him
to marry?"
"Just because it would be nice, that is to say, if his _wife_ were nice,
and I don't think Arthur would marry any one that wasn't," said Alys.
"She would be in a sort of way like a sister to me, you know, Laurence."
"Those dreams are seldom realised," observed Mr Cheviott, cynically.
"As nature did not give you a sister, I would advise you to be content
with what she did give you, even though it is only a very cross old
brother. But what has put all this of Arthur's marrying into your head
just now, Alys? Has he been taking you into his confidence about any
nonsense--falling in love, or that kind of thing, I mean?" And he eyed
Arthur's letter suspiciously.
"Oh! dear no. Read his letter for yourself, and you will see there is
nothing of the kind," replied Alys. But she watched her brother's face
rather curiously, as she added, "He seems to like the family at
Hathercourt Rectory very much--those pretty girls, you know, that we saw
that Sunday. He says they have been very civil to him."
"Very probably," said Mr Cheviott, dryly, as he took up the letter.
"Pretty girls, do you call them, Alys? One was handsome, but the other
wasn't."
"I liked them both," persisted Alys. "One was beautiful, and the other
had a sort of noble, good look in her face, better than beauty."
"What a physiognomist you are becoming, child!" said her brother, from
the depths of Arthur's letter. He read it quickly, and threw it aside;
then he went to the window, and stood looking out for a minute or two
without speaking. "Alys," he said at last, so suddenly that Alys
started, "you said just now that it was very dull here; so it is, I dare
say, for no doubt the weather is horrible. You would not mind, I
suppose, if I arranged to go home rather sooner than I intended?"
"Oh, no, I wouldn't mind at all," replied Alys, looking surprised; "but,
Laurence, I thought you couldn't possibly get your business finished
sooner than you said."
"I think I might manage it," he said. "Indeed, I fancy I am needed on
the other side of the water quite as much as here. I may have to come
back again before long, but that's easily done. I'm going out now,
Alys, but I shall be in by one, and if it's at all fine this afternoon,
we might pay the calls we owe, especially if we are leaving sooner. I
can tell you certainly what I fix by luncheon-time."
"Very well," replied Alys. "I shall not be sorry to go home, and for
one thing, Laurence, I should like to be at home in time for the
Brocklehurst ball."
"_What_ a reason!" exclaimed Laurence, as he left the room. "Now that
you have reminded me of it, it is almost enough to tempt me to stay away
to escape it."
At luncheon-time he returned, telling her that he had fixed to leave in
two days.
"And just out of contradiction," said Alys, "I believe it is going to be
bright and fine;" for a gleam of positive sunshine, as she spoke, made
its way into the room.
"All the better for our calls," said Laurence.
The gleam strengthened into steady brightness, and when Alys found
herself, wrapped in the most becoming of attires, velvet and furs,
seated beside her brother in a very luxurious carriage, behind two very
respectable horses, the young lady began to feel that it might have been
very possible to enjoy herself, if only the fine weather had been
quicker of coming. It was a little--just the very least little bit in
the world--provoking that now, just as it _had_ come, Laurence should
make up his mind that they must go.
She looked at him doubtfully as the thought crossed her mind. The
sunshine did not seem to have any exhilarating effect upon him; he
looked dull and more careworn than since they had been in Paris.
"Laurence," she said, hesitatingly, "I suppose you have _quite_ made up
your mind to leave on Friday?"
"Quite," he said, gently. "Are you beginning to regret it?"
"A little; it is nice when it is fine, isn't it? Paris forgets the rain
so quickly."
"Paris forgets all disagreeable experiences far too quickly."
Alys gave a little shiver.
"Oh, please don't put revolutions, and barricades, and guillotines in my
head, Laurence," she said, beseechingly. "Even the names of the streets
are associated with them, if one begins thinking of such things. One
must do at Rome as the Romans do, so let me be thoughtless in Paris."
"Still, on the whole, you prefer England. You would not like to marry a
Frenchman, would you, Alys?"
"_Of course_ not," replied Alys, "and of all things I would not like to
be married in the French way, hardly knowing anything about the man I
was to marry. Ermengarde de Tarannes, Laurence, that pretty girl whom
we saw at the Embassy, is to be married to a Marquis something or other,
Mrs Brabazon told me, whom she has _really_ only seen three times, for
he is now in Italy, and will only return the week before the marriage.
Fancy how horrible!"
Mr Cheviott smiled.
"You are a regular little John Bull, child," he said; "still I
understand your feeling. There is something to be said, however, in
favour of the French way of arranging such things, where the parents or
guardians of a girl are sensible people, that is to say. Perhaps a
union of both ways would be perfection."
"How do you mean?" asked Alys.
"Supposing a case where a girl had known a man nearly all her life, and
had got to care for him unconsciously almost, and that at the same time
he was the very man of all others whom, for every reason, her parents,
or whoever stood in their place, wished her to marry, would not such a
case be pretty near perfection?"
"Rather too perfect," said Alys. "The chances are that the hero would
spoil it all by not wanting to marry _her_."
Mr Cheviott looked annoyed.
"Don't be flippant, Alys," he said; "of course that part of it I was
taking for granted."
"I didn't mean to be flippant," said Alys, penitently; "I never want to
vex you, Laurence. I'd do anything to please you. I'm not sure that I
would not even marry to please you, if you want to try an experiment of
the French way."
She looked up in her brother's face with a smile, and he could not help
returning it.
"If you promise never to marry to _dis_please me, I shall be satisfied,"
he answered. "But, after all, it's a difficult question. I have known
some English marriages turn out quite--ah, surely _more_ miserable than
ever a French one could."
"But what has put marrying so much into your head to-day? This morning
you were distressing yourself about Arthur's prospects, and now you are
worrying yourself about mine?"
"Not _worrying_ myself. It is only natural I should think about your
future sometimes. And if your memory is not very capricious, Alys, I
think it will tell you that it was yourself, not I, who first began
talking about marriage this morning, when Arthur's letters came. Do you
remember?"
"Yes; but still--"
"Here we are at Madame de Briancourt's," interrupted Mr Cheviott.
"Madame" was at home, and the brother and sister made their way across
the spacious entrance, along a corridor, then through a suite of rooms,
hardly so beautiful by daylight as when Alys had last seen them on the
evening of a grand reception, to a small boudoir at the very end of all.
As she passed along, Alys's thoughts continued in the same direction.
"But still," she repeated to herself, "I don't understand Laurence. I
am sure he has got something in his head--about Arthur--or about me;
still _perhaps_ it is not that: he may have been annoyed about something
quite different, and Arthur's letter may not have anything to do with
our going away in such a hurry. Anyway, I can leave it to Laurence; I
am not going to bother my head about it, for there may be nothing in it,
after all."
And, two minutes afterwards, her head was full of other things, for
there was what, to Alys's eyes, looked quite a crowd of gayly dressed
ladies and gentlemen when the door at the end of the long suite was
thrown open, and the brother and sister found themselves, for the
moment, the observed of all observers.