MRS. HAUGHTON AT HOME TO GUY DARRELL.
Thanks to Lionel’s activity, the hall was disencumbered--the plants
hastily stowed away-the parlour closed on the festive preparations--and
the footman in his livery waiting at the door--when Mr. Darrell arrived.
Lionel himself came out and welcomed his benefactor’s footstep across
the threshold of the home which the generous man had provided for the
widow.
If Lionel had some secret misgivings as to the result of this interview,
they were soon and most happily dispelled. For, at the sight of Guy
Darrell leaning so affectionately on her son’s arm, Mrs. Haughton
mechanically gave herself up to the impulse of her own warm, grateful,
true woman’s heart. And her bound forward, her seizure of Darrell’s
hand--her first fervent blessing--her after words, simple but eloquent
with feeling--made that heart so transparent, that Darrell looked it
through with respectful eyes.
Mrs. Haughton was still a pretty woman, and with much of that delicacy
of form and outline which constitutes the gentility of person. She had a
sweet voice too, except when angry. Her defects of education, of temper,
or of conventional polish, were not discernible in the overflow of
natural emotion. Darrell had come resolved to be released if possible.
Pleased he was, much more than he had expected. He even inly accepted
for the deceased Captain excuses which he had never before admitted to
himself. The linen-draper’s daughter was no coarse presuming dowdy, and
in her candid rush of gratitude there was not that underbred servility
which Darrell had thought perceptible in her epistolary compositions.
There was elegance too, void both of gaudy ostentation and penurious
thrift, in the furniture and arrangements of the room. The income he
gave to her was not spent with slatternly waste or on tawdry gewgaws.
To ladies in general, Darrell’s manner was extremely attractive--not the
less winning because of a certain shyness which, implying respect for
those he addressed, and a modest undervaluing of his own merit, conveyed
compliment and soothed self-love. And to that lady in especial such
gentle shyness was the happiest good-breeding.
In short, all went off without a hitch, till, as Darrell was taking
leave, Mrs. Haughton was reminded by some evil genius of her evening
party, and her very gratitude, longing for some opportunity to requite
obligation, prompted her to invite the kind man to whom the facility
of giving parties was justly due. She had never realised to herself,
despite all that Lionel could say, the idea of Darrell’s station in the
world--a lawyer who had spent his youth at the back of Holborn, whom the
stylish Captain had deemed it a condescension not to cut, might indeed
become very rich; but he could never be the fashion. “Poor man,” she
thought, “he must be very lonely. He is not, like Lionel, a young
dancing man. A quiet little party, with people of his own early rank and
habits, would be more in his way than those grand places to which Lionel
goes. I can but ask him--I ought to ask him. What would he say if I did
not ask him? Black ingratitude indeed, if he were not asked!” All these
ideas rushed through her mind in a breath, and as she clasped Darrell’s
extended hand in both her own, she said: “I have a little party
to-night!”--and paused. Darrell remaining mute, and Lionel not
suspecting what was to ensue, she continued: “There may be some good
music--young friends of mine--sing charmingly--Italians!”
Darrell bowed. Lionel began to shudder.
“And if I might presume to think it would amuse you, Mr. Darrell, oh, I
should be so happy to see you!--so happy!”
“Would you?” said Darrell, briefly. “Then I should be a churl if I did
not come. Lionel will escort me. Of course you expect him too?”
“Yes, indeed. Though he has so many fine places to go to-and it can’t be
exactly what he is used to-yet he is such a dear good boy that he gives
up all to gratify his mother.”
Lionel, in agonies, turned an unfilial back, and looked steadily out of
the window; but Darrell, far too august to take offence where none was
meant, only smiled at the implied reference to Lionel’s superior demand
in the fashionable world, and replied, without even a touch of his
accustomed irony: “And to gratify his mother is a pleasure I thank you
for inviting me to share with him.”
More and more at her ease, and charmed with having obeyed her hospitable
impulse, Mrs. Haughton, following Darrell to the landing-place, added:
“And if you like to play a quiet rubber--”
“I never touch cards--I abhor the very name of them, ma’am,” interrupted
Darrell, somewhat less gracious in his tones.
He mounted his horse; and Lionel, breaking from Mrs. Haughton, who was
assuring him that Mr. Darrell was not at all what she expected, but
really quite the gentleman--nay, a much grander gentleman than even
Colonel Morley--regained his kinsman’s side, looking abashed and
discomfited. Darrell, with the kindness which his fine quick intellect
enabled him so felicitously to apply, hastened to relieve the young
guardsman’s mind.
“I like your mother much--very much,” said he, in his most melodious
accents. “Good boy! I see now why you gave up Lady Dulcett. Go and take
a canter by yourself, or with younger friends, and be sure you call on
me so that we may be both at Mrs. Haughton’s by ten o’clock. I can go
later to the concert if I feel inclined.”
He waved his hand, wheeled his horse, and trotted off towards the fair
suburban lanes that still proffer to the denizens of London glimpses of
rural fields, and shadows from quiet hedgerows. He wished to be
alone; the sight of Mrs. Haughton had revived recollections of bygone
days--memory linking memory in painful chain-gay talk with his younger
schoolfellow--that wild Charlie, now in his grave--his own laborious
youth, resolute aspirings, secret sorrows--and the strong man felt
the want of the solitary self-commune, without which self-conquest is
unattainable.