The manner of life of which Symington disapproved went on till Christmas
was over, and the new year had begun. It was not a new kind of life, but
only the old, heightened in some of its features; less tragical in its
folly because the young man was now no longer dependent upon his own
exertions, yet more tragical in so far that life had now great
opportunities for him, and means of nobler living, had he chosen. He
received business letters now and then from Mr. Milnathort and from Shaw
at Loch Houran which he read with impatience or not at all. Business
disgusted him. He had no desire to take the trouble of making up his
mind on this or that question. He let his letters collect in a pile and
left them there, while he went and practised his duets, or lighted his
cigar with the pink paper of the telegram which called his attention to
letters unanswered, and went out to play ecarte with Underwood. He did
not care for the ecarte. He did not care for the duets. Poor Julia's
devices to secure him became day by day more transparent to him, and
Underwood's attempts to gain an influence. He saw through them both, yet
went on day by day. The Herberts, mother and daughter, spoke of him
with a secure proprietorship, and Julia, though never without that doubt
which adventurers know, had almost a certainty of the coronet upon her
handkerchief which she worked upon a cigar-case for him by way of making
quite sure what a viscount's coronet was. It is a pretty ornament. She
was rather ashamed of her old-fashioned name, but that above it made
everything right. Underwood for his part shook off the doubt which had
been in his mind as to whether Lord Erradeen was a pigeon to be plucked.
He thought of a campaign in town carried on triumphantly by means of his
noble victim. It was worth waiting for after all.
And thus Christmas passed. Christmas, that season of mirth! There was
the usual number of parties, at all of which Lord Erradeen was a
favoured guest, and allowed himself to be exhibited as Miss Herbert's
thrall. In these assemblies she used to talk to him about Miss
Williamson. "Oh yes, a lady in Scotland, whose wealth is untold; hasn't
Lord Erradeen told you? It is to be a match, I understand," Julia would
say with a radiant countenance. "Sugar--or cotton, I don't remember
which. When one has estates in the West Highlands, that is part of the
programme. One always marries--sugar. That is a much prettier way of
putting it than to say one marries money." This tantalised Sloebury a
little, and painfully mystified Mrs. Methven, who had never heard Miss
Williamson's name; but it did not change the evident fact that Lord
Erradeen must either be engaged, or on the point of being engaged--or
else that he was using Julia Herbert very ill. When the new year began,
and it was suddenly announced that he was going away, there was a
flutter and thrill of excitement over all the town. The rector, who met
Walter on his way to the railway, and who was aware of all the
expectations connected with him, stared aghast at the intimation. "Going
away!" he said, then put forth a tremulous smile. "Ah, I see! going on
some visits, to pot a few pheasants before the season is over."
"I don't think that would tempt me," Walter said. "I am going to town,
and my mother will follow shortly. It is a removal, I fear----"
"You are going from Sloebury! But then--but then----" The old clergyman
gasped for breath.
"My friends think I have wasted a great deal too much time in Sloebury,"
Lord Erradeen said, and he waved his hand to the rector, who went home
with his lower lip dropped, and his cheeks fallen in, in a consternation
beyond words. His excitement was as great, though of a different kind,
as on that day when he ran in from church with his surplice still on,
and the most extraordinary disregard of decorum to carry the news of
Walter's elevation in rank to his wife. "That fellow is going off
without a word," cried Mr. Wynn. "He has been amusing himself, that's
all; but you never will listen to me. The girl has been going too far, a
great deal too far, her mother ought not to have allowed it. And now I
shall hear nothing else wherever I go," the rector said. He was almost
ready to cry, being old and a nervous man by nature. "I thought it was
settled this time, and that we should have no further trouble with her,"
which was a contradiction of himself after the words he had begun with.
Mrs. Wynn soothed him as best she could, though indeed she had been the
one who had all along doubted Lord Erradeen's "intentions," and bade the
rash Julia beware.
"Perhaps," she said, "they have come to an understanding, my dear. For
it was quite true what he told you: he has wasted too much time in
Sloebury. A young man in his position should not hang about in a place
like this."
"A young man in his position--should not raise expectations that are
never to come to anything," the rector said; which was a truth so
undeniable that even his peace-making wife could find nothing to reply.
The change of sentiment which led Walter away from Sloebury was
accomplished almost in a moment. In a capricious and wayward mind, a
touch is sometimes enough to change the entire direction of a life. He
had been kept indoors by a cold, and for want of something else to do
had read his letters, and even answered one or two of them. There were
several from Shaw relating the course of events at Loch Houran; but
these might not perhaps have moved him, had he not found inclosed in one
of them a note, now somewhat out of date, from Oona. It was very short
and very simple. "I found I was not authorised to do anything with the
poor Frasers except to tell them you would not be hard upon them: and I
took it upon me to assure old Jenny that whatever happened you would
never take the coo, and Granny that she should die in peace in her own
house even--which she would like, I think, for the credit of the
glen--if she should live to be a hundred. I think you will not disown my
agency by doing anything contrary to this. My mother sends her best
regards." There was nothing more: but the words acted upon Walter's
dissatisfied mind like the sudden prick of a lance. It seemed to him
that he saw her again standing, with a somewhat wistful look in her
eyes, watching him as his boat shot along the gleaming water--her mother
with her waving handkerchief, her nodding head, her easy smile, standing
by. Oona had said nothing, made no movement, had only stood and looked
at him. How little she said now! and yet she was the only living
creature (he said to himself in the exaggeration of a distracted mind)
who had ever given him real help. She had ever given him her hand
without hesitation or coquetry or thought of herself, to deliver him
from his enemy--a hand that had purity, strength in its touch, that was
as soft--as snow, he had said: cool, and pure, and strong. The thought
of it gave him a pang which was indescribable. He rose up from where he
sat among a litter of paper and books, the accumulations of an idle man,
and went hurriedly to the drawing-room, where his mother sat alone by
her fire--so much the more alone because he was in the next room, a
world apart from her. He came in with a nervous excitement about him.
"Mother," he said, "I am going to town to-morrow."
She put down her book and looked at him. "Well, Walter?" she said.
"You think that is not of much importance; but it is, as it happens. I
am going away from Sloebury. I shall never do any good here. I can't
think why I have stayed--why _we_ have stayed indeed; for it cannot have
much attraction for you."
She put down the book altogether now. She was afraid to say too much or
too little in this sudden, new resolution, and change of front.
"I can understand your feeling, Walter. You have stayed over Christmas
out of consideration for----" She would have said "me" if she could, but
that was impossible. "For the traditions of the season," she added, with
a faint smile.
"That is a very charitable and kind way of putting it, mother. I have
stayed because I am a fool--because I can't take the trouble to do
anything but what suggests itself at the moment. Perhaps you think I
don't know? Oh, I know very well, if that did any good. I am going to
get the house ready, and you will join me when it is fit for you to live
in."
"I, Walter?" she said, with a startled tone. Her face flushed and then
grew pale. She looked at him with a curious mixture of pleasure and
pain. It seemed like opening up a question which had been long settled.
Death is better than the reviving flutters of life when these are but to
lead to a little more suffering and a dying over again. She added,
somewhat tremulously, "I think perhaps it would be better not to
consider the question of removal as affecting me."
"Mother," he said, almost wildly, his eyes blazing upon her, "your
reproaches are more than I can bear."
"I mean no reproach," she said, quietly. "It is simple enough. Your life
should not be fettered by cares which are unnecessary. I am very well
here."
"We can't go all over it again," he said. "We discussed that before. But
you will say I have been as selfish, as careless as ever I was: and it
is true--worse. Ah, I wonder if this was part of the penalty? Worse, in
the old way. That would be a sort of a devilish punishment, just like
him--if one were so silly as to believe that he had the power."
"Of whom are you speaking, Walter?" asked his mother, startled.
"Punishment--who can punish you? You have done nothing to put yourself
in any one's power."
He gazed at her for a moment as she looked at him with anxious eyes,
investigating his face to discover, if she could, what he meant. Then he
burst into an excited laugh.
"I am getting melodramatic," he said, "by dint of being wretched, I
suppose."
"Walter, what is this? If there is indeed anything hanging over you, for
God's sake tell me."
She got up hurriedly and went to him in sudden trouble and alarm, but
the sensation of the moment did not carry him any further. He put away
her hand almost impatiently. "Oh, there is nothing to tell," he said,
with irritation. "You take everything _au pied de la lettre_. But I am
going to town to-morrow, all the same."
And this he did, after a night in which he slept little and thought
much. It may be thought that Oona Forrester's letter was a small
instrument to effect so much, but it is not thus that influences can be
reckoned. His mother had done a great deal more for him than Oona, but
nothing she could have done or said could have moved him like the
recollection of that small, soft hand by which he had held as if it were
the anchor of salvation. It kept him from a sort of despair as he
remembered it, through this turbulent night, as he lay awake in the
darkness, asking himself could this be what his adversary meant? Not
misfortune or downfall, which was what he had thought of, feeling
himself able to defy such threats: but this self-abandonment to his
natural defects, this more and more unsatisfactoriness of which he was
conscious to the bottom of his heart. It did not occur to him that in
the dread that came over him, and panic-stricken sense of the
irresistible, he was giving the attributes of something far more than
man to his maniac, or monomaniac, of Kinloch Houran. It was not the
moment now to question what that being was, or how he had it in his
power to affect the life and soul of another. The anguish of feeling
that he was being affected, that the better part was being paralysed in
him and the worse made stronger, was what occupied him now. When he got
a little sleep in the midst of his tossings and troublings of mind and
body, it was by the soothing recollection of Oona's refreshing,
strengthening touch, the hand that had been put into his own and had
given him the strength of two souls.
And so it was that next morning, when he ought to have been practising
those duets at Julia Herbert's side, he was hurrying up to London as
fast as steam and an express train could carry him. It was not perhaps
the best place to go to for spiritual reformation, but at least it was a
beginning of something new. And in the force of this impulse he went on
for some time, proceeding at once to Park Lane, to push forward the
preparations of the house, securing for himself a servant in the place
of Symington, and establishing himself, for the interval that must
elapse before the house was ready for him, in chambers. In this way he
found occupation for a week or two. He made an effort to answer his
letters. He suffered himself to go through certain forms of business
with the London lawyers who were the correspondents of Mr. Milnathort;
and so for a short time found himself in the position of having
something to do, and, still more strange, of doing it with a lightness
of mind and enlivenment of life which was extraordinary, and without a
reflection in respect to the duets and the ecarte. They were over, these
_délaissements_, and that was all about it.
It was not such plain sailing however after the beginning. Established
in chambers which were pleasant enough, with plenty of money, with youth
and health, and what was still more, as he thought, with rank and a
title which had the effect of making everybody civil and more than civil
to him, Lord Erradeen suddenly awoke to the fact that he was less than
nobody in the midst of that busy world of London in which there are so
many people who love a lord. Yes; but before you can love a lord, invite
him, caress him, make his time pass agreeably, you must know him. And
Walter knew nobody. The most curious, the most rueful-comic,
insignificant-important of all preliminaries! The doors were open, and
the entertainment ready, and the guest willing; but there was no master
of the ceremonies to bring him within the portals. It had not occurred
to him until he was there, nor had he thought, even had his pride
permitted him to ask for them, of the need of introductions, and some
helping hand to bring him within the reach of society. Society, indeed,
had as yet scarcely come back to town, but yet there was a sprinkling at
the club windows, men were to be seen in Pall Mall and Piccadilly, and
even a few carriages with ladies in them frequented the Park. But what
did that matter to him who knew nobody? He had no club. He was a
stranger from the country. No house was open to him; he went about the
streets without meeting a face he knew. To be sure, this must not be
taken as an absolute fact, for there were people he knew, even
relations, one very respectable clan of them, living at Norwood, in the
highest credit and comfort, who would have received him with open arms.
And he knew Mr. Wynn, the rector's nephew, a moderately successful
barrister, who called upon and asked him to dinner with extreme
cordiality, as did one or two other people connected with Sloebury. But
in respect to the society to which he felt himself to belong, Walter was
like the Peri at the gate of Paradise. He knew nobody. Had ever any
young peer with means to keep up his rank, been in such a position
before? It gave him a certain pleasure to think upon one other, born to
far higher fortunes than himself, who had entered London like this in
inconceivable solitude. Byron! a magnificent example that went far to
reconcile him to his fate. Walter thought a great deal of the noble poet
in these days, and studied him deeply, and took pleasure in the
comparison, and consolation in the feeling that he could enter
thoroughly into all those high, scornful-wistful, heroic utterances
about mankind. The Byronic mood has gone out of fashion; but if you can
imagine a youth richly endowed by fortune, feeling that his new honours
should open every door to him, and also a little that he was fit to hold
his own place with the best, yet perceiving no door move on its hinges,
and forced to acknowledge with a pang of surprise and disappointment,
and that sense of neglected merit which is one of the most exquisite
pangs of youth, that nobody cared to make his acquaintance, or even to
inquire who was Lord Erradeen! It is all very well to smile at these
sentiments where there has been no temptation to entertain them. But the
young peer, who knew nobody, entered completely into Byron's feelings.
He pondered upon the extraordinary spectacle of that other young peer
strolling haughtily, with his look like a fallen angel, up between the
lordly ranks to take his hereditary seat: all the representatives of the
old world staring coldly at him, and not one to be his sponsor and
introduce him there. The same thing Walter felt would have to happen in
his own case, if he had courage enough to follow the example of Byron;
and he felt how hollow were all his honours, how mean the indifferent
spectators round him, how little appreciated himself, with all the
keenness of youthful passion and would-be cynicism. Unfortunately, he
was not a Byron, and had no way of revenging himself upon that world.
This curious and irritating discovery, after all his good resolutions,
had, it need scarcely be said, the reverse of an elevating influence
upon him. He sought the amusement from which his equals shut him out in
other regions. Strolling about town in an aimless way, he picked up
certain old acquaintances whose renewed friendship was of little
advantage. There will always be black sheep everywhere, and it is no
unprecedented case for a boy from a public school, or youth from the
university, to come across, six or seven years after he has left these
haunts of learning, stray wanderers, who in that little time have fallen
to the very depth of social degradation. When such a thing happens to a
young man, the result may be a noble pity and profound impression of
life's unspeakable dangers, and the misery of vice; or it may be after
the first shock a sense that his own peccadilloes are not worth thinking
of, seeing how infinitely lower down others have fallen. Walter stood
between these two. He was sincerely sorry, and anxious to succour the
fallen; but at the same time he could not but feel that in his position,
who never could come to that, the precautions which poor men had to take
were scarcely necessary. And what could he do? A young man must have
something to amuse himself and occupy his time.
It was while he was sliding into the inconceivable muddle of an indolent
mind and a vacant life that Underwood came to town. The captain's
motives and intentions in respect to him were of a very mixed character,
and require further elucidation: but the effect of his appearance in the
mean time was a rapid acceleration of the downward progress. Underwood
was "up to" many things which Lord Erradeen was not "up to" as yet, and
the young man did not any longer, except by intervals, despise the
society of the elder one, who brought, it could not be denied, a great
many fresh excitements and occupations into his life. Under Captain
Underwood's instructions he became acquainted with the turf, which, as
everybody knows, is enough to give a young man quite enough to do, and a
good many things to think of. And now indeed the time had come when the
captain began to feel his self-banishment to Sloebury, and his patience,
and all his exertions, so far as Walter was concerned, fully repaid.
There was no repetition of that Byronic scene in the House of Lords.
Instead of proudly taking his seat alone, and showing the assembled
world how little he cared for its notice, Walter discovered that he was
indifferent to the world altogether, and asked himself, What is the good
of it? with the philosophy of a cynic. What was the good of it, indeed?
What was it but a solemn farce when you came to look into it? The House
of Commons might be something, but the House of Lords was nothing; and
why should a man trouble himself to become a member of it? Then as to
the clubs. What was the use of struggling to get admission to White's,
or Boodle's, or any other of those exalted institutions which Walter
only knew by name--when at Underwood's club, where he was received with
acclamation, you had the best dinner and the best wine in London, and no
petty exclusiveness? Walter was not by any means the only titled person
in that society. There were quantities indeed of what the captain called
"bosses" on its books. Why then should Lord Erradeen take the trouble to
sue and wait for admittance elsewhere with these doors so open to him?
In the midst of this new influx of life, it is scarcely necessary to
say that the house in Park Lane came to a standstill. It stood through
all the season profitless, of use to nobody; and Walter's life went on,
alas, not to be described by negations, a life without beauty or
pleasure; though pleasure was all its aim.
At Sloebury the commotion made by his departure had been great. At the
Cottage there had been a moment of blank consternation and silence, even
from ill words. Then Mrs. Herbert's energies awoke, and her vivacity of
speech. Fire blazed from this lady's eyes, and bitterness flowed from
her tongue. She fell upon Julia (who, indeed, might have been supposed
the greatest sufferer) with violent reproaches, bidding her (as was
natural) remember that _she_ had always been against it: a reproach in
which there was really some truth. Julia, too, had a moment of
prostration in which she could hold no head at all against the sudden
disappointment and overthrow, and still more overwhelming realisation of
what everybody would say. She retired to her room for a day, and drew
down the blinds and had a headache in all the forms. During that period,
no doubt, the girl went through sundry anguishes, both of shame and
failure, such as the innocent who make no scheming are free from; while
her mother carried fire and flame to the Rectory, and even betrayed to
various friends her burning sense of wrong, and that Julia had been
shamefully used. But when Julia emerged out of the shelter of that
headache she put down all such demonstrations. She showed to Sloebury,
all on the watch to see "how she took it," a front as dauntless and eyes
as bright as ever. In a campaign the true soldier is prepared for
anything that can happen, and knows how to take the evil with the good.
Had she weakly allowed herself to love Walter the result might have been
less satisfactory; but she had been far too wise to run such a risk.
Afterwards, when rumours of the sort of life he was leading reached
Sloebury, she confided to her mother, in the depths of their domestic
privacy, that it was just as well he was going a little wrong.
"Oh, a little wrong!" cried Mrs. Herbert vindictively. "If all we hear
is true it is much more than a little. He is just going to the bad as
fast as his legs can carry him--with _that_ Captain Underwood to help
him on; and he richly deserves it, considering how he has behaved to
you."
"Oh, wait a little, mamma," Julia said. "I know him better than any one.
He will come round again, and then he will be ready to hang himself. And
the prodigal will come home, and then----Or, perhaps Tom Herbert will
ask me up to town for the end of the season, after all the best is over,
as he is sometimes kind enough to do. And I shall carry a little roast
veal, just a sort of specimen of the fatted calf, with me to town." Thus
the young lady kept up her heart and bided her time.
Mrs. Methven bore the remarks of Sloebury and answered all its
questions with a heavier heart. She could not take any consolation in
Walter's wrong-doing, neither could she have the relief of allowing that
he was to blame. She accounted for the rearrangement of everything,
which she had to consent to after taking many measures for removal, by
saying that she had changed her mind. "We found the house could not be
ready before the end of the season," she said heroically, "and what
should I do in London in the height of the summer with nobody there?"
She bore a fine front to the world but in reality the poor lady's heart
had sunk within her. Oddly enough, Julia, the wronged, who at heart was
full of good nature, was almost her only comforter. Julia treated Lord
Erradeen's absence as the most natural thing in the world.
"I know what took him away in such a hurry," she said. "It was Miss
Williamson. Oh, don't you know about Miss Williamson? his next neighbour
at that Lock--something or other, a girl made of money--no, sugar. The
next thing we shall hear is that you have a daughter-in-law with red
hair. What a good thing that red hair is so fashionable! She is so rich,
he was quite ashamed to mention it; that is why he never told you; but
Walter," she cried, with a laugh, "had no secrets from me."
Mrs. Methven, in dire lack of anything to cling to, caught at Miss
Williamson as at a rock of salvation. If he had fallen in love, did not
that account for everything? She could only pray God that it might be
true.
Symington had been bringing in the tea while Miss Herbert discoursed.
When he came back to remove the tea things after she was gone, he "took
it upon him," as he said, "to put in his word." "If you will excuse me,
my lady," he said (a title which in a sort of poetical justice and
amendment of fate Symington considered due to my lord's mother), "my
lord could not do better than give his attention to Miss Williamson, who
is just the greatest fortune in all the country-side. But, even if it's
not that, there is nothing to be out of heart about. If he's taking a
bite out of the apples of Gomorrah, he'll very soon find the cinders
cranshing in his mouth. But whatever he is after, when it comes to be
the time to go _up yonder_ there will be an end to all that."
"My good Symington," said Mrs. Methven, "do you think it is necessary to
excuse my son to me? It would be strange if I did not understand him
better than any one." But notwithstanding this noble stand for Walter,
she got a little consolation both from the thought of Miss Williamson,
and of that mysterious going _up yonder_, which must be a crisis in his
life.
Thus winter ran into summer, and the busy months of the season went over
the head of young Lord Erradeen. It was a very different season from
that which he had anticipated. It contained no Byronic episode at all.
The House of Lords never saw its new member, neither did any of those
gay haunts of the fashionable world of which he had once dreamed. He
went to no balls, or crowded dazzling receptions, or heavy dinners. He
did not even present himself at a _levée_. He had indeed fallen out of
his rank altogether, that rank which had startled him so, with a kind of
awe in the unexpected possession. His only club was that one of
indifferent reputation to which Underwood had introduced him, and his
society, the indifferent company which collected there. He began to be
tolerably acquainted with race-courses, great and small, and improved
his play both at billiards and whist, so that his guide, philosopher,
and friend declared himself ready on all occasions to take odds on
Erradeen. He spent a great deal of his time in these occupations, and
lost a great deal of his money. They were almost the only things that
gave him a semblance of an occupation in life. He was due at the club at
certain hours to pursue this trade, which, like any other trade, was a
support to his mind, and helped to make the time pass. At
five-and-twenty one has so much time on hand, that to spend it is a
pleasure, like spending money, flinging it to the right hand and the
left, getting rid of it: though there is so much to be got out of it
that has grown impossible to the old fogeys, no old fogey is ever so
glad to throw it away.
And thus the days went on. They were full of noise and commotion, and
yet, as a matter of fact, they were dullish as they dropped one after
another. And sometimes as he came back to his rooms in the blue of the
morning, and found as the early sun got up, that sleep was impossible,
or on such a moment as a Sunday morning, when there was little or
nothing "to do," Walter's thoughts were not of an agreeable kind.
Sometimes he would wake from a doze with the beautiful light streaming
in at his windows, and the brown London sparrows beginning to twitter,
and would jump up in such a restlessness and fierce impatience with
himself and everything about him as he could neither repress nor endure.
At such moments his life seemed to him intolerable, an insult to reason,
a shame to the nature that was made for better things. What was the good
of going on with it day after day? The laughter and the noise, who was
it that called them the crackling of thorns--a hasty momentary blaze
that neither warmed nor lighted? And sometimes, even in the midst of his
gaiety, there would suddenly come into his mind a question--Was this
what was to happen to him if he resisted the will of the dweller on Loch
Houran? Psha! he would say to himself, what was happening to him?
Nothing but his own will and pleasure, the life that most young fellows
of his age who were well enough off to indulge in it possessed--the life
he would have liked before he became Lord Erradeen: which was true; and
yet it did not always suffice him for an answer. At such times curious
gleams of instinct, sudden perceptions as by some light fitfully
entering, which made an instantaneous revelation too rapid almost for
any profit, and then disappeared again--would glance across Walter's
soul.
On a fine evening in June he was walking with Underwood to the club to
dine. The streets were cool with the approach of night, the sky all
flushed with rose red and every possible modification of heavenly blue,
the trees in the squares fluttering out their leaves in the coolness of
the evening, and shaking off the dust of day, a sense of possible dew
going to fall even in London streets, a softening of sounds in the air.
He was going to nothing better than cards, or perhaps, for a caprice, to
the theatre, where he had seen the same insane burlesque a dozen times
before, no very lively prospect: and was cogitating in his mind whether
he should not run off to the Continent, as several men were talking of
doing, and so escape from Underwood and the club, and all the rest of
the hackneyed round: which he would have done a dozen times over but for
the trouble of it, and his sense of the bore it would be to find
something to amuse him under such novel circumstances. As they went
along, Underwood talking of those experiences which were very fine to
the boys in Sloebury, but quite flat to Walter now--there suddenly
appeared to him, standing on the steps of a private hotel, in a light
overcoat like a man going to dinner, a middle-aged, rustic-looking
individual, with a ruddy, good-humoured countenance, and that air of
prosperity and well-being which belongs to the man of money. "I think I
have seen that man somewhere before," said Walter. Underwood looked up,
and the eyes of all three met for a moment in mutual recognition.
"Hallo, Captain Underwood!" the stranger said. Underwood was startled by
the salutation; but he stopped, willingly or unwillingly, stopping
Walter also, whose arm was in his. "Mr. Williamson! You are an
unexpected sight in London," he said.
"No, no, not at all," said the good-humoured man, "I am very often in
London. I am just going in to my dinner. I wonder if I might make bold,
being a countryman and straight from Loch Houran, to say, though we have
never met before, that I am sure this is Lord Erradeen?"
Walter replied with a curious sense of amusement and almost pleasure.
Mr. Williamson, the father of the fabulous heiress who had been invented
between Julia Herbert and himself!
"I am very glad to make your acquaintance, Lord Erradeen; you know our
lands march, as they say in Scotland. Are you engaged out to your
dinner, gentlemen, may I ask, or are ye free to take pot luck? My
daughter Katie is with me, and we were thinking--or at least she was
thinking--for I am little learned in such matters--of looking in at the
theatre to see a small piece of Mr. Tennyson's that they call the
_Falcon_, and which they tell me, or rather she tells me, is just most
beautiful. Come now, be sociable; it was no fault of mine, my lord, that
I did not pay my respects to ye when ye were up at Loch Houran. And
Katie is very wishful to make your acquaintance. Captain Underwood
knows of old that I am fond of a good dinner. You will come? Now that's
very friendly. Katie, I've brought you an old acquaintance and a new
one," he said, ushering them into a large room cloudy with the fading
light.
The sudden change of destination, the novelty, the amusing associations
with this name, suddenly restored Walter to a freshness of interest of
which the _blasé_ youth on his way to the noisy monotony of the club
half an hour before could not have thought himself capable. A young lady
rose up from a sofa at the end of the room and came forward, bending her
soft brows a little to see who it was.
"Is it any one I know? for I cannot see them," in simplest tones, with
the accent of Loch Houran, Miss Williamson said.