WITHIN THE PALE.
Three days had elapsed since the interview between Katharine Guyon and
Gordon Frere, which had gone so far towards deciding the destiny of
both, when that haughty young lady learned, with some astonishment and
more disdain, that her father had it in contemplation to invite Mr.
Streightley, the "tradesman" on whom she had called "in the City," to
one of his quiet and limited, but very _recherché_ dinners. She heard
the announcement with such surprise that her father actually took the
trouble of observing the expression of her face, and laughed quite
spontaneously at it.
"That person, papa?" asked Katharine.
"Yes, my dear, 'that person,' as you call him, with the pretty
insolence which is more becoming than reasonable. And more than that,
Kate, you must make yourself agreeable to that person, and we must
have pleasant people to meet him, for he has done me a great service,
and is likely to do me several good turns, and to be a very useful
acquaintance."
"But, papa," pursued Katharine, who was accustomed to hold her ground
in words, as well as to have her way in actions, "he is not in our
set, or in any set, I should think. A City person, a tradesman! I
really cannot see----"
"I daresay not, Kate," said her father, with a perceptible knitting of
the delicately-traced eyebrows over the fine eyes, which indicated
that this exquisite gentleman was not precisely the soul of patience
and good temper. "I daresay not, but _I_ can; and that is the chief
matter just now. I daresay Mr. Streightley is not in any 'set,' as you
say; but when you talk of him as a 'tradesman' you make a very silly
and an ignorant mistake. Yes you do," he continued, in reply to an
indignant look from his daughter, "though you are very clever,
Katie,--almost as clever as you are handsome, my dear. Mr. Streightley
is a very rich and a very influential man, and no more a tradesman
than I am."
"Well then, papa," asked Katharine, "what did he mean by sending in a
bill in that extraordinary way? If he is not a tradesman, what
dealings with him had you, and what services has he done you?"
Mr. Guyon smiled. His daughter's _naïveté_ amused him. "Never mind,
Kate," he said. "Men have money transactions outside their household
bills, my dear, or even their tailors and bootmakers; but women do not
need to understand these things, and I should only bore you if I
explained them. Mr. Streightley's 'bill' was a very different thing to
what you imagine, and his position is, I assure you, a most
respectable one. Take my word for that, Kate, and don't trouble your
pretty little head about the matter. I hope we shall see a good deal
of Mr. Streightley, and I wish this dinner-party to be a success; so
make out your list, and see Watkins about it at once."
"Do you wish any people in particular to be asked to meet this new
friend, papa?" asked Katharine, in a tone which was a little sullen,
and just the least in the world impertinent, "or shall I take them, as
usual, from the visiting-book?"
Mr. Guyon ignored the tone of his daughter's question, but replied to
its matter by saying: "No, no one in particular; either Lady Henmarsh
or Mrs. Stanbourne, of course; but you need not have any girls. I
fancy Streightley knows very few people; they'll all be new to him."
"Bar, Bench, or Bishop, like Mrs. Merdle,--eh, papa?" said Katharine,
as she rose from the breakfast-table, at which this dialogue had taken
place. "Very well, I'll let you see my list when it's done. And now,
the day?"
This point was fixed, after a little discussion; and then Katharine
went to talk with her housekeeper, Mrs. Watkins, to write her notes,
to dawdle over her flowers, until the horses came round; and she
started for the Park with the reasonable expectation of seeing Gordon
Frere--an expectation which was fulfilled before she had been five
minutes in the Row.
During the days which intervened before that named for the
dinner-party, Katharine never gave a passing thought to the subject of
her father's strange and incongruous guest; but when the day came, she
felt rather ill-humoured about the whole thing.
"What on earth can papa want with him?" she thought, impatiently; "and
I am to make myself agreeable to him! Well, that generally comes easy
to me; but not in this case. I can't even talk to him about the City,
which I really should like, because that would be talking shop, though
he's not a tradesman. However, it will soon be over," she thought,
brightening up, and with an exquisite smile of happy anticipation
lighting up her face, moody till then; "and the ball can't fail to be
delightful."
Miss Guyon was going to a ball in the evening, after her dinner-party
at home; and her toilet was made with a view to that festivity. An
ornament or two, and a magical touch added to her head-dress, were all
she would require for the perfect brilliancy of her appearance, in
addition to the white dress, arrayed in which she appeared to the
enchanted gaze of Robert Streightley, when he was ushered into her
drawing-room, like a vision from another world. And it was quite true
that he had never seen so beautiful, so graceful, so elegant a woman
as the girl-hostess, who played her part with perfect self-possession,
while he felt miserably embarrassed in his.
Katharine was seated on an ottoman, placed between the long narrow
windows of the front drawing-room, talking to an elderly lady, whom
Robert Streightley's quick eye recognised, as he advanced from the
door. Mr. Guyon left the group with whom he was talking, on the
announcement of Robert's name; and went forward to meet him with a
decided _empressement_ of manner which had its effect on the other
guests assembled. He led Robert up to Katharine, and presented him to
her. She bent her graceful head, said a gracious word or two, and
resumed her conversation with the lady--whom Robert had recognised,
and who was Lady Henmarsh--with well-bred imperturbability. Did she
remember him? Robert thought. Had she ever thought of him since that
day which had meant to him so much, but to her so little? So little!
nothing! and yet not nothing, if she had only known it, for he had
discovered things about her father since. Robert found himself
thinking these rambling thoughts, and gazing helplessly at Katharine,
unheeding the smooth flow of Mr. Guyon's talk, as that gentleman, in
his very best and airiest manner, addressed himself to the
entertainment of his new and useful guest, and to the task of putting
him at his ease in this strange sphere. With a sudden consciousness of
his absence of mind came self-command to Robert, and before long he
began to examine the other guests with much more of attention and
curiosity than they were at all likely to bestow on him. To the dozen
persons assembled in Mr. Guyon's drawing-room Robert Streightley was
merely a stranger,--well-dressed, well-looking, and though deficient
in the air of fashion, which more or less marked themselves, a
gentleman in whom there was nothing to provoke any adverse or sneering
criticism. To Robert they were all interesting. These were Katharine's
friends,--the people she lived amongst, the people who could influence
her by their tastes and opinions, the people whose manners, and dress,
and conversation she liked. In every man in the room Robert saw a
possible rival, in every woman a possible enemy. He was very foolish,
not only in the ordinary sense in which every man who is in love is
foolish, but in an extraordinary sense,--the result of his peculiar
position, and the isolation of his life. He was possessed by his one
idea; and he allowed it to become a centre round which every thing
revolved. When the announcement of dinner told him that the party was
complete, and relieved him from the apprehension of seeing Gordon
Frere's handsome face amongst the number, he actually sighed audibly
with the sense of relief. He listened eagerly, as Mr. Guyon or
Katharine addressed their guests, and learned with absurd satisfaction
that three of the six gentlemen who composed the male portion of the
company were married to three of the six ladies who composed the
female portion.
Robert Streightley was a very clever man, but there was a dangerously
weak side to his intellect, all the more perilous that he had never
suspected it, and did not suspect it now; and that weak side was
about to be stormed by a strong passion, all the more ungovernable
because it attacked him for the first time. He had never played
with this dangerous enemy; he had not known any of the feints, the
mock-surprises of love, and he was hopelessly at its mercy. Mingled
happiness and misery,--the happiness of this delicious, unexpected
excess to Katharine's presence, the misery of his uncertainty
as to her relations with others, with one terrible other in
particular--the sense of his strangeness in the scene familiar to
her,--ravaged and divided his heart between them. For a time the
misery was predominant; and then Robert, an impressionable man, and
one in whom social tastes were not non-existent, only dormant, yielded
to the charm of the present, and gave himself up to admiration of
Katharine, who never showed to greater advantage than on such
occasions. The _aplomb_ of her manner, the brilliancy of her
conversation, the taste, elegance, and fashion of her dress, the easy
and pleasant grace with which she made the dinner-party "go off" with
a success utterly beyond his experience of any festal occasion
whatever, were full of a marvellous charm for the man who looked at
this girl through the glorified medium of a first and overmastering
passion.
Robert took little heed of the other guests, except as one or other of
them engaged Katharine's attention, and so divided his. He had the
good fortune to be seated near Miss Guyon; and but that Lady Henmarsh
directed much of her conversation to the young hostess, and so won
Streightley's enthusiastic gratitude, she would probably have found
her neighbour rather a dull companion. But Lady Henmarsh was never
dull, and never suffered from other people's dulness. In the first
place, she dearly liked and thoroughly understood a good dinner; and
Mr. Guyon's dinners were invariably and remarkably good. She made it a
practice to eat systematically and steadily through all the courses,
and to do justice to all the wines. She was too fashionable and too
impervious to other people's opinions to care what any body thought;
and so she ate and drank precisely as much as she pleased, and gave
her opinion of the comestibles with perfect candour. She was intimate
with every one there, except that good-looking new man, who was
probably clever in something, but whom nobody knew, and who did not
seem to want to talk much or to be talked to; and she therefore joined
in all the general conversation, and did not mind him particularly,
thereby increasing Robert's gratitude. Lady Henmarsh talked remarkably
well. She was naturally quick and intelligent--well-informed too, for
a woman of fashion, with, of course, no time for improving her mind;
and as she knew every one and had been every where, and probably had a
more extensive epistolary correspondence than any other woman in
London who did not play at either literature or politics, she was
never at a loss for news to communicate or subjects to discuss.
With the exception of Mr. Guyon, whose like was not quite unknown
within the circle of Robert's experience, every type there was a novel
one to him. Few were interesting after a little,--after a cursory
examination extending to their personal appearance and the grooves in
which their conversation ran. There was a new member, who talked
"House" a good deal, and his wife--pretty and well-dressed--who talked
"Ladies' Gallery," who hoped her husband would soon "speak" on the
great topic of the day, and who seemed to regard every one not "in the
House" as in the "butterfly of fashion" and general inutility line.
There was a country gentleman, not at all stupid and not in the least
fat; and a country lady, almost as sprightly as Miss Guyon herself,
though by no means so handsome. The country lady and gentleman were
also going to Mrs. Pendarvis's ball; and from their talk about it at
dinner Robert learned that Katharine was going to another
entertainment that evening, and the tortures of his infatuated state
recommenced. She would disappear, then, after dinner, and he should
see no more of her, thought Robert in his innocent ignorance of
fashionable hours; and she would go and glitter among a crowd of happy
people, and that handsome fellow with the light hair would be one of
them. And so Robert once more stretched himself upon the rack, and
gave himself an excruciating twist. He was miserable from the time the
ball was mentioned. Did he wish that he could go there too? Hardly; he
felt he would be too much out of place in such a scene; and where
could he be more hopelessly parted from her? No, he did not wish to be
going to Mrs. Pendarvis's house; he only wished she were not going.
"Have you a card, Mr. Mostyn?" he heard Katharine say in a charming
accent of interest to a gentleman seated near her, whom Robert had
already regarded with some surprise and amusement.
"Yes," returned Mr. Mostyn in a supremely languid tone, at the same
time permitting his eyes to raise themselves towards Katharine, as if
in slow acknowledgment of the complimentary accent. "I think I shall
look in for an hour very late. Will you give me a dance, Miss Guyon?"
He said this as if he felt bound to make a concession to a wish of
hers. Robert Streightley had very quick eyes, and he saw her steal a
glance of sly, mischievous amusement at Lady Henmarsh as she replied,
"I don't see how I can, Mr. Mostyn, if you only look in for an hour
very late, for I mean to do my looking in rather early."
"Very sorry, I'm sure," said Mr. Mostyn in a slow, measured, would-be
modulated tone, which sounded to Robert's ears like the very voice of
fatuity. "But one has so much to do of an evening just now. It's Lady
Ismaeli's night, and I promised to look in and----"
"Of course, of course," said Miss Guyon, and her eyes danced with
mischievous glee; "who would for the world interfere with Mr. Mostyn's
gaieties? We all know they are but gravities in disguise. He is the
slave of the season only to be its satirist, the pet of society to
requite its indulgence by his teachings as a philosopher and his
dulcet lays as a poet. Who would lay a tax on time spent in the
service of society like Mr. Mostyn's, studying character in a
cotillion, piercing the thin disguises of intrigue at a picnic, and
reading the female soul in the evening lounge on a balcony? Ah, Mr.
Mostyn, what triflers are we all beside you, the _poètephilosophe_,
not only _sous les toits_, but of our dinner- and toilet-tables!"
Lady Henmarsh was listening, pleasure in her face. There was something
under this lively talk, this seeming compliment; and Robert would have
liked well to know what it was. It was something that amused
Katharine, therefore interesting to him.
"Come, Mr. Mostyn," she went on, "you might tell _me_--I am a friend,
you know. When is the new novel coming out? And what and who is it to
be about? Only intimate friends this time, or have outsiders any
chance?"
She paused for a reply, and an expression of candid curiosity was all
her face betrayed. Mr. Mostyn did not look perfectly comfortable; a
dawning doubt showed itself in his smooth features. It was only
momentary, though. It cleared away, and he replied,
"Really, Miss Guyon, you embarrass me. I was not prepared to find you
so much interested in my humble performances. I shall not publish
again, for some little time. I regard the writing of a poem or a novel
as a serious undertaking, and I undertake it in a serious spirit. I
wait for the inspiration, Miss Guyon; I wait until a favourable moment
when my mind is attuned----"
"And when you have got some very good models, Mr. Mostyn; isn't that
so? Your acquaintance is so large, it must be quite delightful and not
at all difficult. Don't be shocked, please, by my talking of such a
little thing as difficulty in the case of such a grand thing as
inspiration; but it must be so easy and pleasant just to sit down and
put your friends in a book. People hardly expect it, do they? They let
you see them as they are, and then that is charming; for you find out
all about them, and they never suspect it; and all their circle
recognise the portrait, and every one talks about it. I have quite a
woman's curiosity about writers, you must know, Mr. Mostyn,--I quite
admire and envy them,--and I should like to know all about them; and I
have heard that even a totally worthless book will be read if it is
very personal indeed. What a comfort that must be, Mr. Mostyn I--of
course I mean to the persons who write worthless books; shouldn't you
think so?"
Katharine threw a perfect tone of interrogation into her voice, and
deliberately awaited an answer. Once more a shadow of doubt came over
Mr. Mostyn's face, and once more a beam from the never-setting sun of
his vanity dispelled it.
"I cannot imagine there being any consolation in or for writing a
worthless book, Miss Guyon," replied Mr. Mostyn with even increased
sententiousness. "For my part, I could only be satisfied with doing
the very best----"
"_The_ very best, or _your_ very best?" said Katharine with
undisguised sauciness. Then recollecting herself, she dropped her
voice to the serious tone again, and went on: "Of course no one is
easily satisfied with his own work; but you really must not be too
modest, Mr. Mostyn,--you mustn't indeed. Every one says your portraits
are wonderful; and what can be more interesting than to depict
accurately persons who are very widely known, and place them in the
most trying situations? The popular authoress, for instance, who makes
love to your last hero--dear, what an exquisite creature he is!--how
odd she must feel it to be 'put in a book' and recognised by every
body! Ah! you are a dangerous man, Mr. Mostyn; perhaps you'll put me
in a book some day, if I am good enough, or bad enough, or ask you
here sufficiently often to do all my sittings properly--but--Lady
Henmarsh looks as if I ought to have moved before this;" and so saying
Katharine rose, and, like "fair Inez," took all the sunshine and light
of every description with her, so far as Robert Streightley was
concerned. Whether Mr. Mostyn was quite so sorry for her departure was
another question. Robert looked at this gentleman with some curiosity
and a little dawning compassion, for it struck him that Katharine had
not spoken altogether _de bonne foi_, and he was curious to ascertain
whether he too was aware of the fact.
Robert had little experience of _persiflage_, and was not behind the
scenes on this occasion; but two or three of the other guests were,
and they enjoyed the quiet little performance which had just been
enacted greatly. As for Mr. Mostyn, his momentary discomfiture passed
off with the characteristic reflection, that jealousy made all women
spiteful, and Miss Guyon had really not had so much of his attention
lately as she deserved,--he must be more considerate of her feelings
for the future. The ladies gone, the gentlemen drew up into the usual
cluster, and commenced the ordinary after-dinner conversation; and
Robert would probably have found the affair very wearisome on its own
account, not to mention that he was longing to be in Katharine's
presence again, had not Mr. Guyon exerted himself to the utmost to
draw 'him out, and to give the conversation a general turn, so as to
include him, and to make it evident to the whole party that the "new
man" was one whom he delighted to honour.
When the ladies were passing through the hall, Lady Henmarsh had said
laughingly to Katharine, "For shame, Kate; you were too hard on the
young author."
"Nonsense!" replied Katharine. "You enjoyed it immensely, and he
deserved it richly."
When the gentlemen came into the drawing-room at Mr. Guyon's that
night, Katharine was seated at the piano. Had any portion of Robert
Streightley's heart remained unvanquished, she would have conquered it
by her music: but he was already as much in love as he could be. Soon
the business of leave-taking commenced. Robert was reluctantly
advancing to make his adieux, when Mr. Guyon took him familiarly by
the arm and said,
"Don't go just yet, Streightley. We'll see the ladies to the carriage,
and then have a chat and a cigar in my room."
Miss Guyon left the room with Lady Henmarsh, but returned in a few
minutes, wrapped in a soft white mantle. Every alteration in her
appearance made her more beautiful in Robert's eyes. He had the
felicity of taking her downstairs; and as she bowed and smiled from
the corner of the carriage in which she had ensconced herself, and was
then borne rapidly away, Robert needed Mr. Guyon's "Come along,
Streightley; don't stand there in the cold," to rouse him from a sort
of trance of admiration.
The ball at Mrs. Pendarvis's was crowded and brilliant, and
Katharine's hopes were realised. Gordon Frere had waited her arrival
on the staircase, and claimed her for the first dance. The hours
passed like a dream to them both; and when Mr. Alured Mostyn "looked
in," and at length succeeded in finding Miss Guyon, he saw her so
radiant with beauty, so sparkling with animation, that he was quite
touched at the idea of the effect produced by her pleasure in seeing
him.
Another person noticed the unusual beauty and the increased animation
of Katharine Guyon that night, and formed a truer estimate of its
origin. This was Lady Henmarsh. She made certain observations, drew
certain conclusions, and determined on a line of conduct which will
develop itself in the course of events.
And Robert? Well, Robert had his chat and his cigar with Mr. Guyon,
and then he went home--home to the house which he had never before
thought vulgar or insignificant, which he had never thought about at
all indeed, and which was in truth much more solidly comfortable than
the gaudier abode which had suddenly been converted into a shrine to
his fancy. He shrunk from it now as he thought, "I wonder what she
would say to this, and our mode of life here?" and he returned the old
nurse's greeting with grudging ill-humour, being inclined to resent
her sitting up for him, though it was not an abnormally late hour, and
her opening the door for him, which, though not her business, was, as
he well knew, her pleasure.
"Any news, nurse? any letters?" he asked, in a tone wholly devoid of
interest in the reply.
"No, Master Robert," said the old woman; "there's no letters, and
there's nobody been but Miss Hester Gould, a-wantin' to know when Miss
Ellen's comin' home."