GLANCING up from his betting-book, Raleigh caught sight of someone on
the lawn, and went to the window to see who it was.
It was then that Grandfather Iden raised his great grey hat, and brought
it with so lowly a sweep down to the very ground before this demi-god of
his.
"Hullo! Fred, I say! Come, quick!" dragging him off the sofa. "Here's
the Behemoth."
"The Behemoth--the Deluge!" said Fred, incoherently, still half asleep.
"Before that," said Raleigh. "I told you I'd show him to you some day.
That's the Behemoth."
Some grand folk keep a hump-backed cow, or white wild cattle, or strange
creatures of that sort, in their parks as curiosities. The particular
preserve of the Pamments was Grandfather Iden--antediluvian Iden--in
short, the Behemoth.
It is not everybody who has got a Behemoth on show.
"There's a girl with him," said Fred.
"Have her in," said Raleigh. "Wake us up," ringing the bell. And he
ordered the butler to fetch old Iden in.
How thoroughly in character with Human Life it was that a man like
Grandfather Iden--aged, experienced, clever, learned, a man of wise old
books, should lower his ancient head, and do homage to Raleigh Pamment!
"Wherefore come ye not to court?
Skelton swears 'tis glorious sport.
Chattering fools and wise men listening."
Accordingly the butler went out bare-headed--his head was as bare as
Mont Blanc--and, with many a gracious smile, conveyed his master's
wishes. The Behemoth, mopping and mowing, wiping his slobbery old mouth
in the excess of his glorification, takes Amaryllis by the arm, and
proceeds to draw her towards the mansion.
"But, grandpa--grandpa--really I'd rather not go. Please, don't make me
go. No--no--I can't," she cried, in a terror of disgust. She would not
willingly have set foot on the Pamment threshold, no, not for a crown of
gold, as the old song says unctuously.
"Don't be afraid," said Iden. "Nothing to be afraid of"--mistaking her
hesitation for awe.
"Afraid!" repeated Amaryllis, in utter bewilderment. "Afraid! I don't
want to go."
"There's nothing to be afraid of, I'm sure," said the butler in his
most insidious tones. "Mr. Pamment so very particularly wished to see
you."
"Come--come," said old Iden, "don't be silly," as she still hung back.
"It's a splendid place inside--there, lean on me, don't be afraid," and
so the grandfather pulling her one side, and the butler very, very
gently pressing her forward the other, they persuaded, or rather they
moved Amaryllis onward.
She glanced back, her heart beat quick, she had half a mind to break
loose--easy enough to over-turn the two old fogies--but--how soon "but"
comes, "but" came to Amaryllis at sixteen. She remembered her father.
She remembered her mother's worn-out boots. By yielding yet a little
further she could perhaps contrive to keep her grandfather in good
humour and open the way to a reconciliation.
So the revolutionary Amaryllis, the red-hot republican blood seething
like molten metal in her veins, stepped across the hated threshold of
the ancient and mediæval Pamments.
But we have all heard about taking the horse to water and finding that
he would not drink. If you cannot even make a horse, do you think you
are likely to _make_ a woman do anything?
Amaryllis walked beside her grandfather quietly enough now, but she
would not see or hear; he pointed out to her the old armour, the marble,
the old oak; he mumbled on of the staircase where John Pamment, temp.
Hen. VII., was seized for high treason; she kept her glance steadfastly
on the ground.
Iden construed it to be veneration, and was yet more highly pleased.
Raleigh had taste enough to receive them in another room, not the
whiskey-room; he met old Iden literally with open arms, taking both the
old gentleman's hands in his he shook them till Iden tottered, and tears
came into his eyes.
Amaryllis scarcely touched his fingers, and would not raise her glance.
"Raw," thought Freddie, who being tall looked over Raleigh's shoulder.
"Very raw piece."
To some young gentlemen a girl is a "piece."
"My granddaughter," said Iden, getting his voice.
"Ah, yes; like to see the galleries--fond of pictures----"
Amaryllis was silent.
"Answer," said Grandfather Iden graciously, as much as to say, "you
may."
"No," said Amaryllis.
"Hum--let's see--books--library--carvings. Come, Mr. Iden, you know the
place better than I do, you're an antiquarian and a scholar--I've
forgotten my Greek. What would you like to show her?"
"She _is_ fond of pictures," said Iden, greatly flattered that he should
be thought to know the house better than the heir. "She is fond of
pictures; she's shy."
Amaryllis' face became a dark red. The rushing blood seemed to stifle
her. She could have cried out aloud; her pride only checked her
utterance.
Raleigh, not noticing the deep colour in her face, led on upstairs, down
the corridors, and into the first saloon. There he paused and old Iden
took the lead, going straight to a fine specimen of an old Master.
Holding his great grey hat (which he would not give up to the butler) at
arm's-length and pointing, the old man began to show Amaryllis the
beauties of the picture.
"A grand thing--look," said he.
"I can't see," said Amaryllis, forced to reply.
"Not see!" said Iden, in a doubtful tone.
"Not a good light, perhaps," said Raleigh. "Come this side."
She did not move.
"Go that side," said Iden.
No movement.
"Go that side," he repeated, sharply.
At last she moved over by Raleigh and stood there, gazing down still.
"Look up," said Iden. She looked up hastily--above the canvas, and then
again at the floor.
Iden's dim old eyes rested a moment on the pair as they stood together;
Amaryllis gazing downwards, Raleigh gazing at her. Thoughts of a
possible alliance, perhaps, passed through Iden's mind; only consider,
intermarriage between the Pamments and the Idens! Much more improbable
things have happened; even without the marriage license the connection
would be an immense honour.
Grandfather Iden, aged ninety years, would most certainly have
sacrificed the girl of sixteen, his own flesh and blood, joyously and
intentionally to his worship of the aristocrat.
If she could not have been the wife he would have forced her to be the
mistress.
There is no one so cruel--so utterly inhuman--as an old man, to whom
feeling, heart, hope have long been dead words.
"Now you can see," he said, softly and kindly. "Is it not noble?"
"It looks smoky," said Amaryllis, lifting her large, dark eyes at last
and looking her grandfather in the face.
"Smoky!" he ejaculated, dropping his great white hat, his sunken cheeks
flushing. It was not so much the remark as the tone of contemptuous
rebellion.
"Smoky," he repeated.
"Smoky and--dingy," said Amaryllis. She had felt without actually seeing
that Raleigh's gaze had been fixed upon her the whole time since they
had entered, that emphatic look which so pleases or so offends a woman.
Now there was nothing in Raleigh's manner to give offence--on the
contrary he had been singularly pleasant, respectfully pleasant--but she
remembered the fellow staring at her from the window at the "Lamb" and
it biased her against him. She wished to treat him, and his pictures,
and his place altogether with marked contempt.
"I do not care for these pictures," she said. "I will leave now, if you
please," and she moved towards the door.
"Stop!" cried Iden, stretching out his hands and tottering after her.
"Stop! I order you to stop! you rude girl!"
He could not catch her, she had left the gallery--he slipped in his
haste on the polished floor. Fred caught him by the arm or he would have
fallen, and at the same time presented him with his great white hat.
"Ungrateful!" he shrieked, and then choked and slobbered and mumbled,
and I verily believe had it not been for his veneration of the place he
would have spat upon the floor.
Raleigh had rushed after Amaryllis, and overtook her at the staircase.
"Pardon me, Miss Iden," he said, as she hastily descended. "Really I
should have liked you to have seen the house--will you sit down a
moment? Forgive me if I said or did----. No, do stay--please--"
as she made straight for the hall. "I am so sorry--really
sorry--unintentional"--in fact he had done nothing, and yet he was
penitent. But she would not listen, she hurried on along the path, she
began to run, or nearly, as he kept up with her, still begging her to
pause; Amaryllis ran at last outright. "At least let me see you through
the fair--rough people. Let me open the door----"
The iron-studded door in the wall shut with a spring lock, and for a
moment she could not unfasten it; she tore at it and grazed her hand,
the blood started.
"Good Heavens!" cried Raleigh, now thoroughly upset. "Let me bind it
up," taking out his handkerchief. "I would not have had this happen for
money"--short for any amount of money. "Let me----"
"Do please leave me," cried Amaryllis, panting, not with the run, which
was nothing to her, but pent-up indignation, and still trying to open
the lock.
Raleigh pressed the lock and the door swung open--he could easily have
detained her there, but he did not. "One moment, pray--Miss Iden." She
was gone down the passage between the Abbey church and the wall; he
followed, she darted out into the crowd of the fair.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]