THE MEETING.
But Denis Oglethorpe did not appear again for several days. Perhaps
business detained him; perhaps he went oftener to see Priscilla. At any
rate, he did not call again until the end of the week.
Lady Throckmorton was in her private room when he came, and as he made
his entrance with as little ceremony as usual, he ran in upon Theodora.
Now, to tell the truth, he had, until this moment, forgotten all about
that young person's very existence. He saw so many pretty girls in a
day's round, and he was so often too busy to notice half of them--though
he was an admirer of pretty girls--that it was nothing new to see one
and forget her, until chance threw them together again. Of course, he
had noticed Theodora North that first night. How could a man help
noticing her? And the something beautifully over-awed and bashfully
curious in her lovely, uncommon eyes, had half amused him. And yet,
until this moment, he had forgotten her, with the assistance of proofs,
and printers, and Priscilla.
But when, after running lightly up the stair-case, he opened the
drawing-room door, and saw a tall, lovely figure in a closely-fitting
dress of purple cloth, bending over Sabre, and stroking his huge, tawny
head with her supple little tender hand, he remembered.
"Ah, yes!" he exclaimed, in an admiring aside. "To be sure; I had
forgotten Theodora."
But Theodora had not forgotten him. The moment she saw him she stood up
blushing, and with a light in her eyes. It was odd how un-English she
looked, and yet how thoroughly English she was in that delicious,
uncomfortable trick of blushing vividly upon all occasions. She was
quite unconscious of the fact that the purple cloth was so becoming, and
that its sweep of straight, heavy folds made her as stately as some
Rajah's dark-eyed daughter. She did not feel stately at all; she only
felt somewhat confused, and rather glad that Mr. Denis Oglethorpe had
surprised her by coming again. How Mr. Denis Oglethorpe would have
smiled if he had known what an innocent commotion his simple presence
created!
"Lady Throckmorton is up-stairs reading," she explained. "I will go and
tell her you are here." There were no bells in the house at Downport,
and no servants to answer if any one had rang one, and, very naturally,
Theo forgot she was not at Downport.
"Excuse me. No," said Mr. Denis Oglethorpe. "I would not disturb her on
any account; and, besides, I know she will be down directly. She never
reads late in the evening. This is a very handsome dog, Miss North."
"Very handsome, indeed," was Theo's reply. "Come here, Sabre."
Sabre stalked majestically to her side, and laid his head upon her knee.
Theo stroked him softly, raising her eyes quite seriously to Mr.
Oglethorpe's face.
"He reminds me of Sir Dugald himself," she said.
Mr. Denis Oglethorpe smiled faintly. He was not very fond of Sir Dugald,
and the perfect gravity and _naivete_ with which this pretty,
unsophisticated young sultana had made her comment had amounted to a
very excellent joke.
"Does he?" he returned, as quietly as possible, and then his glance
meeting Theo's, she broke into a little burst of horror-stricken
self-reproach.
"Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "I oughtn't to have said that, ought I? I
forgot how rude it would sound; but, indeed, I only meant that Sabre was
so slow and heavy, and--and so indifferent to people, somehow. I don't
think he cares about being liked at all."
She was so abashed at her blunder, that she looked absolutely imploring,
and Mr. Denis Oglethorpe smiled again. He felt inclined to make friends
with Theodora.
"There is a little girl staying at Lady Throckmorton's," he had said to
Priscilla. "A relative of hers. A pretty creature, too, Priscilla, for a
bread-and-butter Miss."
But just at this moment, he thought better of the matter. What tender,
speechful eyes she had! He was aroused to a recognition of their beauty
all at once. What contour there was in the turn of arm and shoulder
under the close-fitting purple cloth! He was artistically thankful that
there was no other trimming of the straight bodice than the line of
buttons that descended from the full white ruff of swansdown at her
throat, to her delicate, trim waist. Her unconscious stateliness of
girlish form, and the conscious shyness of her manner, were the
loveliest inconsistency in the world.
"Oh, I shall not tell Sir Dugald," he said to her, good-humoredly.
"Besides, I think the comparison an excellent one. I don't know anything
in London so like Sir Dugald as Sir Dugald's dog."
Theodora stroked Sabre, apologetically, but could scarcely find courage
to speak. She had stood somewhat in awe of Mr. Denis Oglethorpe, even at
first, and her discomfort was rapidly increasing. He must think her
dreadfully stupid, though he was good-humored enough to make light of
her silly speech. Certainly Priscilla never made such a silly speech in
her life; but then, how could one teach French and Latin, and be
anything but ponderously discreet?
Mr. Denis Oglethorpe was not thinking of Priscilla's wisdom, however; he
was thinking of Theodora North; he was thinking that he must have been
very blind not to have seen before that his friend's niece was a beauty
of the first water, young as she was. But he had been tired and fagged
out, he remembered, on the first occasion of their meeting--too tired to
think of anything but his appointment at Broome street, and Priscilla's
Greek grammar. And now in recognizing what he had before passed by, he
was quite glad to find the girl so young and inexperienced--so modest,
in a sweet way. It was easy, as well as proper enough, to talk to her
unceremoniously without the trouble of being diffuse and complimentary.
So he made himself agreeable, and Theodora listened until she quite
forgot Sir Dugald, and only remembered Sabre, because his big heavy head
was on her knee, and she was stroking it.
"And you were never in London before?" he said at length.
"No, sir," Theo answered. "This is the first time. I was never even out
of Downport before."
"Then we must take you to see the lions," he said, "if Lady Throckmorton
will let us, Miss Theodora. I wonder if she would let us? If she would,
I have a lady friend who knows them all, from the grisliest, downward,
and I know she would like to help me to exhibit them to you. How should
you like that?"
"Better than anything in the world," glowing with delighted surprise.
"If it wouldn't be too much trouble," she added, quite apologetically.
Mr. Denis Oglethorpe smiled.
"It would be simply delightful," he said. "I should like it better than
anything in the world, too. We will appeal to Lady Throckmorton."
"When Priscilla was in London--" Theodora was beginning a minute later,
when the handsome face changed suddenly as her companion turned upon her
in evident surprise.
"Priscilla?" he repeated, after her.
"How stupid I am!" she ejaculated, distressedly. "I meant to say Pamela.
My eldest sister's name is Pamela, and--and--"
"And you said Priscilla by mistake," interposed Oglethorpe, with a
sudden accession of gravity. "Priscilla is a little like Pamela."
It needed nothing more than this simple slip of Theodora North's tongue
to assure him that Lady Throckmorton had been telling her the story of
his engagement to Miss Gower, and, as might be anticipated, he was not
as devoutly grateful to her ladyship as he might have been. He was
careless to a fault in some things, and punctilious to a fault in
others; and he was very punctilious about Priscilla Gower. He was not an
ardent lover, but he was a conscientiously honorable one, and, apart
from his respect for his betrothed, he was very impatient of
interference with his affairs; and my lady was not chary of interfering
when the fancy seized her. It roused his pride to think how liberally he
must have been discussed, and, consequently, when Lady Throckmorton
joined them, he was not in the most amiable of moods. But he managed to
end his conversation with Theo unconstrainedly enough. He even gained
her ladyship's consent to their plan. It was curiously plain how they
both appeared to agree in thinking her a child, and treating her as one.
Not that Theo cared about that. She had been so used to Pamela, that she
would have felt half afraid of being treated with any greater ceremony;
but still she could clearly understand that Mr. Oglethorpe did not speak
to her as he would have spoken to Miss Gower. But free from any touch of
light gallantry as his manner toward the girl was, Denis Oglethorpe did
not forget her this night. On the contrary, he remembered her very
distinctly, and had in his mind a very exact mental representation of
her purple robe, soft white ruff, and all, as he buttoned up his paletot
over his chest in walking homeward. But he thought of her carelessly and
honestly enough, as a beautiful young creature years behind him in
experience, and utterly beyond him in all possibility of any sentimental
fancy.
The friendship existing between Lady Throckmorton and this young man was
a queer, inconsistent sentiment enough, and yet was a friendship, and a
mature one. The two had encountered each other some years ago, when
Denis had been by no means in his palmiest days. In fact, my lady had
picked him up when he stood in sore need of friends, and Oglethorpe
never forgot a favor. He never forgot to be grateful to Lady
Throckmorton; and so, despite the wide difference between their
respective ages and positions, their mutual liking had ripened into a
familiarity of relationship which made them more like elder sister and
younger brother than anything else. Oglethorpe, junior, was pretty much
what Oglethorpe, senior, had been, and notwithstanding her practical
views, Lady Throckmorton liked him none the worse for it. She petted and
patronized him, questioned and advised him, and if he did not please
her, rated him roundly without the slightest compunction. In fact, she
was a woman of caprices even at sixty-five, and Denis Oglethorpe was one
of her caprices.
And, in like manner, Theodora North became another of them. Finding her
tractable, she became quite fond of her, in her own way, and was at
least generous to lavishness in her treatment of her.
"You are very handsome, indeed, Theodora," she said to her a few days
after her arrival. "Of course, you know that--ten times handsomer than
ever poor Pamela could have been. Your figure is perfect, and you have
eyes like a Syrian, instead of a commonplace English woman. I am going
to give you a rose-pink satin dress. Rose-pink is just your shade, and
some day, when we go out together, I will lend you some of my diamonds."
After this whimsical manner she lavished presents upon her whenever she
had a new fancy. In truth, her generosity was constitutional, and she
had been generous enough toward Pamela, but she had never been so
extravagant as she was with Theodora. Theodora was an actual beauty, of
an uncommon type, in the face of her ignorance of manners and customs.
Pamela had never, at her best, been more than a delicately pretty girl.
In the meantime, Denis Oglethorpe made friendly calls as usual, and
always meeting Theodora, found her very pleasant to talk to and look at.
He found out her enthusiastic admiration for the poetic effusions of his
youth, and in consideration thereof, good-humoredly presented her with a
copy of the volume, with some very witty verses written on the fly-leaf
in a flourishing hand. It was worth while to amuse Theodora, she was so
pretty and unassuming in her delight at his carelessly-amiable efforts
for her entertainment. She was only a mere child after all at sixteen,
with Downport in the background; so he felt quite honestly at ease in
being attentive to her girlish requirements. Better that he should amuse
her than that she should be left to the mercy of men who would perhaps
have the execrable taste to spoil her pretty childish ways with
flattery.
"Don't let all these fine people and fine speeches turn your head,
Theodora," he would say, in a tone that might either have been jest or
earnest. "They spoiled me in my infancy, and my unfortunate experience
causes me to warn you."
But whether he jested or not, Theo was always inclined to listen to him
with some degree of serious belief. She took his advice when it was
proffered, and regarded his wisdom as the wisdom of an oracle. Who
should know better than he what was right? His indifference to the rule
of opinion could only be the result of conscious perfection, and his
careless satires were to her the most brilliant of witticisms. He paid
her his first compliment the night the rose-colored satin-dress came
home.
They were going to see Faust together with Lady Throckmorton, and she
had finished dressing early, and came down to the drawing-room, and
there Denis found her when he came up-stairs--the thick, lustrous folds
of satin billowing upon the carpet around her feet, something white, and
soft, and heavy wrapped about her.
He was conscious of a faint shock of delight on first beholding her. He
had just left Priscilla, pale and heavy-eyed, in dun-colored merino,
poring over a Greek dictionary, and the sudden entering the bright room,
and finding himself facing Theodora North in rose-colored satin, was a
little like electricity.
"Oh! it's Theodora, is it?" he said, slowly, when he recovered himself.
"Thank you, Theodora."
"What for?" asked Theo, blushing.
"For the rose-colored satin," he returned, complacently. "It is so very
becoming. You look like a sultana, my dear Theodora."
Theo looked up at him for a second, and then looked down. Much as she
admired Mr. Denis Oglethorpe, she never quite comprehended him. He had
such an eccentric fashion of being almost curt sometimes. She had seen
him actually give a faint start when he entered, and she had not
understood that, and now he had paid her a compliment, but with so much
of something puzzling hidden in his quiet-sounding voice, that she did
not understand that either--and he saw she did not.
"I have been making a fine speech to Theodora," he said to Lady
Throckmorton, when she came in. "And she does not comprehend it in the
least."
It was somewhat singular, Theo thought, that he should be so silent
after this, for he was silent. He even seemed absent-minded, for some
reason or other. He did not talk to her as much as usual, and she was
quite sure he paid very little attention to Faust.
But during the final act she found that he was not looking at the stage
at all; but was sitting in the shadow of the box-curtain watching
herself. She had been deeply interested in Marguerite a minute before,
and, in her heart-touched pleasure, had leant upon the edge of the box,
her whole face thrilled with excitement. But the steady gaze magnetized
her, and drew her eyes round to the shadowy corner where Denis sat; and
she positively turned with just such a start as he himself had given
when Theodora North, in rose-colored satin, burst upon him, in such
vivid, glowing contrast to Priscilla Gower, in dun merino.
"Oh!" she said, and though the little exclamation was scarcely more than
an indrawn breath, Denis heard it, and came out of his corner to take a
seat at her side, and lean over the box-edge also.
"What is it, Theodora?" he asked, in a low, clear voice. "Is it
Marguerite?"
She looked at him in a little fright at herself. She did not know why
she had exclaimed--she scarcely knew how; but when she met his
unembarrassed eyes, she began to think that possibly it might be
Marguerite. Indeed, a second later, she was quite sure it had been
Marguerite.
"Yes--I think so," she faltered. "Poor Marguerite! If she could only
have saved him?"
"How?" he asked.
"I don't--at least I scarcely know; but I think the author ought to have
made her save him, someway. If--if she could have suffered something, or
sacrificed something--"
"Would she have done it if she could?" commented Denis, languidly. He
had quite recovered himself by this time.
"I would have done it if I had been Marguerite," Theo half whispered.
In his surprise he forgot his self-possession. He turned upon her
suddenly, and meeting her sweet, world-ignorant eyes, felt the faint,
pained shock once more, and strangely enough his first thought was a
disconnected one of Priscilla Gower.
"You?" he said, the next moment. "Yes, I believe you would, Theodora."
He was sure she would, after that swift glance of his, and--Well, what a
happy man he would be for whom this tender young Marguerite would suffer
or be sacrificed. The idea had really never occurred to him before that
Theodora North was nearly a woman; but it occurred to him now with all
the greater force, because he had been so oblivious to the fact before.
He sat by her side until the curtain fell; but his silent mood seemed to
have come upon him again. He was very much interested in Marguerite
after this, Theo thought; but it is very much to be doubted whether he
could have given a clear account of what was passing before his eyes
upon the stage. He did not even go into the house with them when they
returned; but as he stood upon the door-step, touching his hat in a
final adieu, he was keenly alive to a consciousness of Theodora North at
the head of the stair-case, with billows of glistening rose-pink satin
lying on the rich carpet about her feet, as she half turned toward him
to bid him good-night.
Bright as the future was, it left a sense of discomfort, he could not
explain why. He dismissed the carriage, and walked down the street,
feeling fairly depressed in spirits.
He had, perhaps, never given the girl a thought before, unless when
chance had thrown them together, and even then his thoughts had been
common admiring ones. She had pleased him, and he had tried to amuse her
in a careless, well-meant fashion, though he had never made fine
speeches to her, as nine men out of ten would have done. He had been so
used to Priscilla, that it never occurred to him that a girl so young as
this one could be a woman. And, after all, his blindness had not been
the result of any frivolous lack of thought. A sharp experience had made
him as thoroughly a man of the world as a man may be; but it had not
made him callous or indifferent to the beauties of life. No one would
ever have called him emotional, or prone to enthusiasms of a weak kind,
and yet he was by no means hard of heart. He had quiet fancies of his
own about people and things, and many of these reticent,
rarely-expressed ideas were reverent, chivalrous ones of women. The
opposing force of a whole world could never have shaken his faith in
Priscilla Gower, or touched his respect for her; but though, perhaps, he
had never understood it so, he had never felt very enthusiastically
concerning her. Truly, Priscilla Gower and enthusiasm were not in
accordance with each other. Chance had thrown them together when both
were very young, and propinquity did the rest. Propinquity is the
strongest of agents in a love affair, and in Denis Oglethorpe's love
affair, propinquity had accomplished what nothing else would have been
likely to have done. The desperate young scribbler of twenty years had
been the lodger of the elder Miss Gower, and Priscilla, aged seventeen,
had brought in his frugal dinners to him, and receipted his modest bills
on their weekly payment.
Priscilla at seventeen, silent, practical, grave and handsome, had,
perhaps, softened unconsciously at the sight of his often pale face--he
worked so hard and so far into the night; when at length they became
friends, Priscilla gravely, and without any hesitation, volunteered to
help him. She could copy well and clearly, and he could come into her
aunt's room--it would save fires. So she helped him calmly and
decorously, bending her almost austerely-handsome young head over his
papers for hours on the long winter nights. It is easy to guess how the
matter terminated. If ever he won success he determined to give it to
Priscilla--and so he told her. He had never wavered in his faith for a
second since, though he had encountered many beautiful and womanly
women. He had worked steadily for her sake, and shielded her from every
care that it lay within his power to lighten. He was not old Miss
Elizabeth Gower's lodger now--he was her niece's husband in perspective.
He was to marry Priscilla Gower in eight months. This was why Theodora
North, in glistening rose-pink satin, sent him home confronting a
suddenly-raised spirit of pain. Twice, in one night, he had found
himself feeling toward Theodora North as he had never felt toward
Priscilla Gower in his life. Twice, in one night, he had turned his eyes
upon this girl of sixteen, and suffered a sudden shock of enthusiasm, or
something like it. He was startled and discomfited. She had no right to
win such admiration from him--he had no right to give it.
But as his walk in the night-air cooled him, it cooled his ardor of
self-examination somewhat. His discontent was modified by the time he
reached his own door, and took his latch-key out of his pocket. The face
that had looked down upon him beneath the light at the head of the
stair-case, had faded into less striking color--it was only a girl's
face again. He was on better terms with himself, and his weakness seemed
less formidable.
"I will keep my promise to-morrow," he said, "and Priscilla shall go
with us. Poor Priscilla!--poor girl! Rose-pink satin would scarcely be
in good taste in Broome street."
The promise he had made was nothing more than a ratification of the old
one. They were to see the lions together, and Priscilla was to guide
them.
And when the morrow came, he found it, after all, safe enough, and an
easy enough matter, to tuck Theodora's small, gloved hand under his arm,
when they set out on their tour of investigation and discovery. The girl
was pretty enough, too, in her soft, black merino--her "best" dress in
Downport--but she was not dazzling. The little round, black-plumed hat
was becoming also; but in his now more prosaic mood, he could stand
that, too, pretty as it was in an innocent, unconsciously-coquettish
way. Theo was never coquettish herself in the slightest degree. She was
not world-wise enough for that yet. But she was quite exhilarating
to-day; so glad to be out even in the London fog of November; so glad to
be taken lion-hunting; so delighted with the shops and their gay
windows; so ready to let her young tongue run on in a gay stream of
chatter, altogether so bright, and pretty, and joyous, that her escort
was fain to be delighted too.
"Guess where we are going to first?" said he. (He had not before openly
spoken of Priscilla to her.)
She glanced up into his face, brightly. She remembered what he had told
her about his lady friend.
"I don't exactly know the name of the place," she said; "but I think I
know the name of the person we are going to see."
"Do you?" was his reply. "Then say it to me--let me hear it."
"Miss Gower," she answered, softly, in a pretty reverence for him. "Miss
Priscilla Gower."
He nodded, slightly, with a curious mixture of expressions in his face.
"Yes," he said. "Miss Gower, or rather Miss Priscilla Gower, as you say.
Number twenty-three, Broome street; and Broome street is not a
fashionable locality, my dear Theodora."
"Isn't it?" queried Theo. "Why not?"
He shrugged his shoulders.
"Ask Lady Throckmorton," he said. "But do you know who Miss Priscilla
Gower is, Theodora?"
Her bright eyes crept up to his, half-timidly; but she said nothing, so
he continued.
"Miss Priscilla Gower is the young lady to whom I am to be married next
July. Did you know that?"
"Yes," answered Theo, looking actually pleased, and blushing beautifully
as he looked down at her. "But I am very much obliged to you for telling
me, Mr. Oglethorpe."
"Why?" he asked. It was very preposterous, that even though his mood was
so prosaic and paternal a one, he was absurdly, vacantly sensible of
feeling some uneasiness at the brightness of her upturned face. For
pity's sake, why was it that he was impelled to such a puerile
weakness--such a vanity, as he sternly called it.
"Because," returned Theo, "it makes me feel as if--I mean it makes me
happy to think you trust me enough to tell me about what has made you
happy. I hope--oh! I do hope Miss Priscilla Gower will like me."
He had been looking straight before him while she spoke, but this
brought his eyes to hers again, and to her face--bright, appealing,
upturned--and he found himself absolutely obliged to steady himself with
a jesting speech.
"My dearest Theodora," he said. "Miss Priscilla Gower could not possibly
help it."
Comforting as this assurance was to her, it must be confessed she found
herself somewhat over-awed on reaching Broome street, and being taken
into the tiny, dwarfed-looking parlor of number twenty-three; Miss
Elizabeth Gower herself was there, in her company-cap, and
long-cherished company-dress of snuff-colored satin. There were not many
shades of difference in either her snuff-colored gown, or her
snuff-colored skin, or her neat, snuff-colored false-front, Theo
fancied, but she was not at all afraid of her. She was a trifle afraid
of Miss Priscilla. Miss Priscilla was sitting at the table reading when
they entered, and as she rose to greet them, holding her book in one
hand, the thought entered Theo's mind that she could comprehend dimly
why Lady Throckmorton disliked her, and thought her unsuited to Denis
Oglethorpe. There was an absence of anything girl-like in her fine,
ivory-pale face, somehow, though it was a young face and a handsome
face, at whose fine lines and clear contour even a connoisseur could not
have caviled. Its long almond-shaped, agate-gray eyes, black-fringed and
lustrous as they were, still were silent eyes--they did not speak even
to Denis Oglethorpe.
"I am glad you have come," she said, simply, extending her hand in
acknowledgment of Denis's introduction. The quietness of this greeting
speech was a fair sample of all her manner. It would have been sheerly
impossible to expect anything like effusiveness from Priscilla Gower.
The most sanguine and empty-headed of mortals would never have looked
for it in her. She was constitutionally unenthusiastic, if such a thing
may be.
But she was gravely curious in this case concerning Theodora North. The
fact that Denis had spoken of her admiringly was sufficient to arouse in
her mind an interest in this young creature, who was at once, and so
inconsistently, beautiful, timid, and regal, without consciousness.
"Three years more will make her something wonderful, as far as beauty is
concerned," he had said; and, accordingly, she had felt some slight
pleasure in the anticipation of seeing her.
Yet Theo had some faint misgivings during the day as to whether Miss
Priscilla Gower would like her or not. She was at first even inclined to
fear that she would not, being so very handsome, and grave, and womanly.
But toward the end of their journeying together, she felt more hopeful.
Reticent as she was, Priscilla Gower was a very charming young person.
She talked well, and with much clear, calm sense; she laughed musically
when she laughed at all, and could make very telling, caustic speeches
when occasion required; but still it was singular what a wide difference
the difference of six years made in the two girls. As Lady Throckmorton
had said, it was not a matter of age. At twenty-two Theodora North would
overflow with youth as joyously as she did now at seventeen; at
seventeen Priscilla Gower had assisted her maiden aunt's lodger to copy
his manuscript with as mature a gravity as she would have displayed
to-day.
"I hope," said Theodora, when, after their sight-seeing was over, she
stood on the pavement before the door in Broome street, her nice little
hand on Denis Oglethorpe's arm, "I hope you will let me come to see you
again, Miss Gower."
Priscilla, standing upon the door-step, smiled down on her blooming
girl's face, a smile that was a little like moonlight. All Priscilla's
smiles were like moonlight. Theo's had a delicious glow of the sun.
"Yes," she said, in her practical manner. "It will please me very much
to see you, Miss Theodora. Come as often as you can spare the time."
She watched the two as they walked down the street together, Theo's
black feather glossy in the gaslight, as it drooped its long end against
Oglethorpe's coat, and as she watched them, she noticed even this trifle
of the feather, and the trifling fact that though Theo was almost regal
in girlish height, she was not much taller than her companion's
shoulder. It was strange, she thought afterward, that she should have
done so; but even while thinking it strange in the afterward that came
to her, she remembered it all as distinctly as ever, and knew that to
the last day of her life she would never quite forget the quiet of the
narrow, dreary street, the yellow light of the gas-lamps, and the two
figures walking away into the shadow, with their backs toward her, the
girl holding Denis Oglethorpe's arm, and the glossy feather in her black
hat drooping its tip upon his shoulder.