THE VISITORS.
Sir Tom paid his wife a visit when she was in the midst of her toilette
for dinner. He came in, and looked at her dress with an air of
dissatisfaction. It was a white dress, of a kind which suited Lucy very
well, and which she was in the habit of wearing for small home parties,
at which full dress was unnecessary. He looked at her from head to
foot, and gave a little pull to her skirt with a doubtful air. "It
doesn't sit, does it?" he said; "can't you pin it, or something, to make
it come better?"
This, it need not be said, was a foolish piece of ignorance on Sir Tom's
part, and as Miss Fletcher, Lucy's maid, thought, "just like a man."
Fletcher was for the moment not well-disposed towards Sir Tom. She
said--"Oh no, Sir Thomas, my lady don't hold with pins. Some ladies may
that are all for effect; but my lady, that is not her way."
Sir Tom felt that these words inclosed a dart as sharp as any pin, and
directed at himself; but he took no notice. He walked round his wife,
eyeing her on every side; and then he gave a little pull to her hair as
he had done to her dress. "After all," he said, "it is some time since
you left school, Lucy. Why this simplicity? I want you to look your best
to-night."
"But, dear Tom," said Lucy, "you always say that I am not to be
over-dressed."
"I don't want you to be under-dressed; there is plenty of time. Don't
you think you might do a little more in the way of toilette? Put on some
lace or something; Fletcher will know. Look here, Fletcher, I want Lady
Randolph to look very well to-night. Don't you think this get-up would
stand improvement? I dare say you could do it with ribbons, or
something. We must not have her look like my grandchild, you know."
Upon which Fletcher, somewhat mollified and murmuring that Sir Thomas
was a gentleman that would always have his joke, answered boldly that
_that_ was not how she would have dressed her lady had she had the doing
of it. "But I know my place," Fletcher said, "though to see my lady
like this always goes against me, Sir Thomas, and especially with
foreigners in the house that are always dressed up to the nines and
don't think of nothing else. But if Lady Randolph would wear her blue it
could all be done in five minutes, and look far nicer and more like the
lady of the house."
This transfer was finally made, for Lucy had no small obstinacies and
was glad to please her husband. The "blue" was of the lightest tint of
shimmering silk, and gave a little background of colour, upon which
Lucy's fairness and whiteness stood out. Sir Thomas always took an
interest in his wife's dress; but it was seldom he occupied himself so
much about it. It was he who went to the conservatory to get a flower
for her hair. He took her downstairs upon his arm "as if they were out
visiting," Lucy said, instead of at home in their own house. She was
amused at all this form and ceremony, and came down to the drawing-room
with a little flush of pleasure and merriment about her, quite different
from the demure little Lady Randolph, half frightened and very serious,
with the weight on her mind of a strange language to be spoken, who but
for Sir Tom's intervention would have been standing by the fire awaiting
her visitor. The Dowager was downstairs before her, looking grave
enough, and Jock, slim and dark, supporting a corner of the mantelpiece,
like a young Caryatides in black. Lucy's brightness, her pretty shimmer
of blue, the flower in her hair, relieved these depressing influences.
She stood in the firelight with the ruddy irregular glare playing on
her, a pretty youthful figure; and her husband's assiduities, and the
entire cessation of any apparent consciousness on his part that any
question had ever arisen between them, made Lucy's heart light in her
breast. She forgot even the possibility of having to talk French in the
ease of her mind; and before she had time to remember her former alarm
there came gliding through the subdued light of the greater drawing-room
two figures. Sir Tom stepped forward to meet the stranger, who gave him
her hand as if she saw him for the first time, and Lucy advanced with a
little tremor. Here was the Contessa--the Forno-Populo--the foreign
great lady and great beauty at last.
She was tall--almost as tall as Sir Tom--and had the majestic grace
which only height can give. She was clothed in dark velvet, which fell
in long folds to her feet, and her hair, which seemed very abundant, was
much dressed with puffs and curlings and frizzings, which filled Lucy
with wonder, but furnished a delicate frame-work for her beautiful,
clear, high features, and the wonderful tint of her complexion--a sort
of warm ivory, which made all brighter colours look excessive. Her eyes
were large and blue, with long but not very dark eyelashes; her throat
was like a slender column out of a close circle of feathery lace. Lucy,
who had a great deal of natural taste, felt on the moment a thrill of
shame on account of her blue gown, and an almost disgust of Lady
Randolph's old-fashioned openness about the shoulders. The stranger was
one of those women whose dress always impresses other women with such a
sense of fitness that fashion itself looks vulgar or insipid beside her.
She gave Sir Tom her left hand in passing, and then she turned with both
extended to Lucy. "So this is the little wife," she said. She did not
pause for the modest little word of welcome which Lucy had prepared. She
drew her into the light, and gazed at her with benignant but dauntless
inspection, taking in, Lucy felt sure, every particular of her
appearance--the something too much of the blue gown, the deficiency of
dignity, the insignificance of the smooth fair locks, and open if
somewhat anxious countenance. "_Bel enfant_," said the Contessa, "your
husband and I are such old friends that I cannot meet you as a stranger.
You must let me kiss you, and accept me as one of yours too." The
salutation that followed made Lucy's heart jump with mingled pleasure
and distaste. She was swallowed up altogether in that embrace. When it
was over, the lady turned from her to Sir Tom without another word. "I
congratulate you, _mon ami_. Candour itself, and sweetness, and every
English quality"--upon which she proceeded to seat herself in the chair
which Lucy had set for her in the afternoon with the screen and the
footstool. "How thoughtful some one has been for my comfort," she said,
sinking into it, and distributing a gracious smile all round. There was
something in the way in which she seized the central place in the scene,
and made all the others look like surroundings which bewildered Lucy,
who did nothing but gaze, forgetting everything she meant to say, and
even that it was she who was the mistress of the house.
"You do not see my aunt, Contessa," said Sir Tom, "and yet I think you
ought to know each other."
"Your aunt," said the Contessa, looking round, "that dear Lady
Randolph--who is now Dowager. Chere dame!" she added, half rising,
holding out again both hands.
Lady Randolph the elder knew the world better than Lucy. She remained in
the background into which the Contessa was looking with eyes which she
called shortsighted. "How do you do, Madame di Forno-Populo!" she said.
"It is a long time since we met. We have both grown older since that
period. I hope you have recovered from your fatigue."
The Contessa sank back again into her chair. "Ah, _both_, yes!" she
said, with an eloquent movement of her hands. At this Sir Tom gave vent
to a faint chuckle, as if he could not contain himself any longer.
"The passage of time is a myth," he said; "it is a fable; it goes the
other way. To look at you----"
"Both!" said the Contessa, with a soft, little laugh, spreading out her
beautiful hands.
Lucy hoped that Lady Randolph, who had kept behind, did not hear this
last monosyllable, but she was angry with her husband for laughing, for
abandoning his aunt's side, upon which she herself, astonished, ranged
herself without delay. But what was still more surprising to Lucy, with
her old-fashioned politeness, was to see the second stranger who had
followed the Contessa into the room, but who had not been introduced or
noticed. She had the air of being very young--a dependent probably, and
looking for no attention--and with a little curtsey to the company,
withdrew to the other side of the table on which the lamp was standing.
Lucy had only time to see that there was a second figure, very slim and
slight, and that the light of the lamp seemed to reflect itself in the
soft oval of a youthful face as she passed behind it; but save for this
noiseless movement the young lady gave not the smallest sign of
existence, nor did any one notice her. And it was only when the summons
came to dinner, and when Lucy called forth the bashful Jock to offer his
awkward arm to Lady Randolph, that the unannounced and unconsidered
guest came fully into sight.
"There are no more gentlemen, and I think we must go in together," Lucy
said.
"It is a great honour for me," said the girl. She had a very slight
foreign accent, but she was not in the least shy. She came forward at
once with the utmost composure. Though she was a stranger and a
dependent without a name, she was a great deal more at her ease than
Lucy was, who was the mistress of everything. Lucy for her part was
considerably embarrassed. She looked at the girl, who smiled at her, not
without a little air of encouragement and almost patronage in return.
"I have not heard your name," Lucy at last prevailed upon herself to
say, as they went through the long drawing-room together. "It is very
stupid of me; but I was occupied with Madame di Forno-Populo----"
"You could not hear it, for it was never mentioned," said the girl. "The
Contessa does not think it worth while. I am at present in the cocoon.
If I am pretty enough when I am quite grown up, then she will tell my
name----"
"Pretty enough? But what does that matter? one does not talk of such
things," said the decorous little matron, startled and alarmed.
"Oh, it means everything to me," said the anonymous. "It is doubtful
what I shall be. If I am only a little pretty I shall be sent home; but
if it should happen to me--ah! no such luck!--to be beautiful, then the
Contessa will introduce me, and everybody says I may go far--farther,
indeed, than even she has ever done. Where am I to sit? Beside you?"
"Here, please," said Lucy, trembling a little, and confounded by the
ease of this new actor on the scene, who spoke so frankly. She was
dressed in a little black frock up to her throat; her hair in great
shining bands coiled about her head, but not an ornament of any kind
about her. A little charity girl could not have been dressed more
plainly. But she showed no consciousness of this, nor, indeed, of
anything that was embarrassing. She looked round the table with a free
and fearless look. There was not about her any appearance of timidity,
even in respect to the Contessa. She included that lady in her
inspection as well as the others, and even made a momentary pause before
she sat down, to complete her survey. Lucy, who had on ordinary
occasions a great deal of gentle composure, and had sat with a Cabinet
Minister by her side without feeling afraid, was more disconcerted than
it would be easy to say by this young creature, of whom she did not know
the name. It was so small a party that a separate little conversation
with her neighbour was scarcely practicable, but the Contessa was
talking to Sir Tom with the confidential air of one who has a great deal
to say, and Lady Randolph on his other side was keeping a stern silence,
so that Lucy was glad to make a little attempt at her end of the table.
"You must have had a very fatiguing journey?" she said. "Travelling by
night, when you are not used to it----"
"But we are quite used to it," said the girl. "It is our usual way. By
land it is so much easier: and even at sea one goes to bed, and one is
at the other side before one knows."
"Then you are a good sailor, I suppose----"
"_Pas mal_," said the young lady. She began to look at Jock, and to
turn round from time to time to the elder Lady Randolph, who sat on the
other side of her. "They are not dumb, are they?" she asked. "Not once
have I heard them speak. That is very English, so like what one reads in
books."
"You speak English very well, Mademoiselle," said the Dowager suddenly.
The girl turned round and examined her with a candid surprise. "I am so
glad you do," she said calmly: a little _mot_ which brought the colour
to Lady Randolph's cheeks.
"A pupil of the Contessa naturally knows a good many languages," she
said, "and would be little at a loss wherever she went. You have come
last from Florence, Rome, or perhaps some other capital. The Contessa
has friends everywhere--still."
This last little syllable caught the Contessa's fine ear, though it was
not directed to her. She gave the Dowager a very gracious smile across
the table. "Still," she repeated, "everywhere! People are so kind. My
invitations are so many it was with difficulty I managed to accept that
of our excellent Tom. But I had made up my mind not to disappoint him
nor his dear young wife. I was not prepared for the pleasure of finding
your ladyship here."
"How fortunate that you were able to manage it! I have been
complimenting Mademoiselle on her English. She does credit to her
instructors. Tell me, is this your first visit," Lady Randolph said,
turning to the young lady "to England?" Even in this innocent question
there was more than met the eye. The girl, however, had begun to make a
remark to Lucy, and thus evaded it in the most easy way.
"I saw you come home soon after our arrival," she said. "I was at my
window. You came with--Monsieur----" She cast a glance at Jock as she
spoke, with a smile in her eyes that was not without its effect. There
was a little provocation in it, which an older man would have known how
to answer. But Jock, in the awkwardness of his youth, blushed fiery red,
and turned away his gaze, which, indeed, had been dwelling upon her with
an absorbed but shy attention. The boy had never seen anything at all
like her before.
"My brother," said Lucy, and the young lady gave him a beaming smile and
bow which made Jock's head turn round. He did not know how to reply to
it, whether he ought not to get up to answer her salutation; and being
so uncertain and abashed and excited, he did nothing at all, but gazed
again with an absorption which was not uncomplimentary. She gave him
from time to time a little encouraging glance.
"That was what I thought. You drive out always at that early hour in
England, and always with--Monsieur?" The girl laughed now, looking at
him, so that Jock longed to say something witty and clever. Oh, why was
not MTutor here? He would have known the sort of thing to say.
"Oh not, not always with Jock," Lucy answered, with honest
matter-of-fact. "He is still at school, and we have him only for the
holidays. Perhaps you don't know what that means?"
"The holidays? yes, I know. Monsieur, no doubt, is at one of the great
schools that are nowhere but in England, where they stay till they are
men."
"We stay," said Jock, making an almost convulsive effort, "till we are
nineteen. We like to stay as long as we can."
"How innocent," said the girl with a pretty elderly look of superiority
and patronage; and then she burst into a laugh, which neither Lucy nor
Jock knew how to take, and turned back again in the twinkling of an eye
to Lady Randolph, who had relapsed into silence. "And you drive in the
afternoon," she said. "I have already made my observations. And the baby
in the middle, between. And Sir Tom always. He goes out and he goes in,
and one sees him continually. I already know all the habits of the
house."
"You were not so very tired, then, after all. Why did you not come down
stairs and join us in what we were doing?"
The young lady did not make any articulate reply, but her answer was
clear enough. She cast a glance across the table to the Contessa, and
laid her hand upon her own cheek. Lucy was a little mystified by this
pantomime, but to Lady Randolph there was no difficulty about it. "That
is easily understood," she said, "when one is _sur le retour_. But the
same precautions are not necessary with all."
A smile came upon the girl's lip. "I am sympathetic," she said. "Oh,
troppo! I feel just like those that I am with. It is sometimes a
trouble, and sometimes it is an advantage." This was to Lucy like the
utterance of an oracle, and she understood it not.
"Another time," she said kindly, "you must not only observe us from the
window, but come down and share what we are doing. Jock will show you
the park and the grounds, and I will take you to the village. It is
quite a pretty village, and the cottages are very nice now."
The young stranger's eyes blazed with intelligence. She seemed to
perceive everything at a glance.
"I know the village," she said, "it is at the park gates, and Milady
takes a great deal of trouble that all is nice in the cottages. And
there is an old woman that knows all about the family, and tells legends
of it; and a school and a church, and many other _objets-de-piete_. I
know it like that," she cried, holding out the pretty pink palm of her
hand.
"This information is preternatural," said Lady Randolph. "You are
astonished, Lucy. Mademoiselle is a sorceress. I am sure that Jock
thinks so. Nothing save an alliance with something diabolical could have
made her so well instructed, she who has never been in England before."
"Do you ask how I know all that?" the girl said laughing. "Then I
answer, novels. It is all Herr Tauchnitz and his pretty books."
"And so you really never were in England before--not even as a baby?"
Lady Randolph said.
The girl's gaiety had attracted even the pair at the other end of the
table, who had so much to say to each other. The Contessa and Sir Tom
exchanged a look, which Lucy remarked with a little surprise, and
remarked in spite of herself: and the great lady interfered to help her
young dependent out.
"How glad I am to give her that advantage, dear lady! It is the crown of
the petite's education. In England she finds the most fine manners, as
well as villages full of _objets-de-piete_. It is what is needful to
form her," the Contessa said.