Julia L'Estrange was busily engaged in arranging some flowers in certain
vases in her little drawing-room, and, with a taste all her own, draping
a small hanging lamp with creepers, when Jack Bramleigh appeared at the
open window, and leaning on the sill, cried out, “Good-morning.”
“I came over to scold you, Julia,” said he. “It was very cruel of you
to desert us last evening, and we had a most dreary time of it in
consequence.”
“Come round and hold this chair for me, and don't talk nonsense.”
“And what are all these fine preparations for? You are decking out your
room as if for a village fête,” said he, not moving from his place nor
heeding her request.
“I fancy that young Frenchman who was here last night,” said she,
saucily, “would have responded to my invitation if I had asked him to
hold the chair I was standing on.”
“I've no doubt of it,” said he, gravely. “Frenchmen are vastly more
gallant than we are.”
“Do you know, Jack,” said she again, “he is most amusing?”
“Very probably.”
“And has such a perfect accent; that sort of purring French one only
hears from a Parisian?”
“I am charmed to hear it.”
“It charmed me to hear it, I assure you. One does so long for the
sounds that recall bright scenes and pleasant people: one has such a
zest for the most commonplace things that bring back the memory of very
happy days.”
“What a lucky Frenchman to do all this!”
“What a lucky Irish girl to have met with him!” said she, gayly.
“And how did you come to know him, may I ask?”
“George had been several times over to inquire after him, and out of
gratitude Count Pracontal,--I am not sure that he is count though, but
it is of no moment,--made it a point to come here the first day he was
able to drive out. Mr. Longworth drove him over in his pony carriage,
and George was so pleased with them both that he asked them to tea last
evening, and they dine here to-day.”
“Hence these decorations?”
“Precisely.”
“What a brilliant neighborhood we have! And there are people will tell
you that this is all barbarism here.”
“Come over this evening, Jack, and hear M. Pracontal sing--he has
a delicious tenor voice--and you 'll never believe in that story of
barbarism again. We had quite a little 'salon' last night.”
“I must take your word for his attractive qualities,” said Jack, as his
brow contracted and his face grew darker. “I thought your brother rather
stood aloof from Mr. Longworth. I was scarcely prepared to hear of his
inviting him here.”
“So he did; but he found him so different from what he expected--so
quiet, so well-bred, that George, who always is in a hurry to make an
'amende' when he thinks he has wronged any one, actually rushed into
acquaintance with him at once.”
“And his sister Julia,” asked Jack, with a look of impertinent irony,
“was she, too, as impulsive in her friendship?”
“I think pretty much the same.”
“It must have been a charming party.”
“I flatter myself it was. They stayed till midnight; and M. Pracontal
declared he'd break his other leg to-morrow if it would ensure him
another such evening in his convalescence.”
“Fulsome rascal! I protest it lowers my opinion of women altogether
when I think these are the fellows that always meet their favor.”
“Women would be very ungrateful if they did not like the people who
try to please them. Now, certainly, as a rule, Jack, you will admit
foreigners are somewhat more eager about this than you gentlemen of
England.”
“I have about as much of this as I am likely to bear well from my
distinguished stepmother,” said he, roughly, “so don't push my patience
further.”
“What do you say to our little 'salon' now?” said she. “Have you ever
seen ferns and variegated ivy disposed more tastefully?”
“I wish--I wish”--stammered he out, and then seemed unable to go on.
“And what do you wish?”
“I suppose I must not say it. You might feel offended besides.”
“Not a bit, Jack. I am sure it never could be your intention to offend
me, and a mere blunder could not do so.”
“Well, I 'll go round and tell you what it is I wish,” and with this
he entered the house and passed on into the drawing-room, and taking
his place at one side of the fire, while she stood at the other, said
seriously, “I was wishing, Julia, that you were less of a coquette.”
“You don't mean that?” said she, roguishly, dropping her long
eyelashes, as she looked down immediately after.
“I mean it seriously, Julia. It is your one fault; but it is an immense
one.”
“My dear Jack,” said she, very gravely, “you men are such churls that
you are never grateful for any attempts to please you except they be
limited strictly to yourselves. You would never have dared to call any
little devices, by which I sought to amuse or interest you, coquetry, so
long as they were only employed on your own behalf. My real offence is
that I thought the world consisted of you and some others.”
“I am not your match in these sort of subtle discussions,” said he,
bluntly, “but I know what I say is fact.”
“That I'm a coquette?” said she, with so much feigned horror that Jack
could scarcely keep down the temptation to laugh.”
“Just so; for the mere pleasure of displaying some grace or some
attraction, you 'd half kill a fellow with jealousy, or drive him
clean mad with uncertainty. You insist on admiration--or what you call
'homage,' which I trust is only a French name for it--and what's the end
of it all? You get plenty of this same homage; but--but--never mind. I
suppose I'm a fool to talk this way. You 're laughing at me besides, all
this while. I see it--I see it in your eyes.”
[Illustration: 124]
“I was n't laughing, Jack, I assure you. I was simply thinking that
this discovery--I mean of my coquetry--was n't yours at all. Come, be
frank and own it. Who told you I was a coquette, Jack?”
“You regard me as too dull-witted to have found it out, do you?”
“No, Jack. Too honest-hearted--too unsuspecting, too generous, to put
an ill construction where a better one would do as well.”
“If you mean that there are others who agree with me, you're quite
right.”
“And who may they be?” asked she, with a quiet smile. “Come, I have a
right to know.”
“I don't see the right.”
“Certainly I have. It would be very ungenerous and very unjust to
let me continue to exercise all those pleasing devices you have just
stigmatized for the delectation of people who condemn them.”
“Oh, you could n't help that. You'd do it just to amuse yourself, as I
'm sure was the case yesterday, when you put forth all your captivations
for that stupid old Viscount.”
“Did I?”
“Did you? You have the face to ask it?”
“I have, Jack. I have courage for even more, for I will ask you, was
it not Marion said this? Was it not Marion who was so severe on all my
little gracefulnesses? Well, you need not answer if you don't like.
I 'll not press my question; but own, it is not fair for Marion, with
every advantage, her beauty and her surroundings--”
“Her what?”
“Well, I would not use a French word; but I meant to say, those
accessories which are represented by dress, and 'toilette'--not mean
things in female estimation. With all these, why not have a little
mercy for the poor curate's sister, reduced to enter the lists with very
uncouth weapons?”
“You won't deny that Ellen loves you?” said he, suddenly.
“I 'd be sorry, very sorry, to doubt it; but she never said I was a
coquette?”
“I 'm sure she knows you are,” said he, doggedly.
“Oh, Jack, I hope this is not the way you try people on court-martial?”
“It's the fairest way ever a fellow was tried; and if one does n't
feel him guilty he 'd never condemn him.”
“I 'd rather people would feel less, and think a little more, if I was
to be 'the accused,'” said she, half pettishly.
“You got that, Master Jack; that round shot was for _you_,” said he, not
without some irritation in his tone.
“Well,” said she, good-humoredly, “I believe we are firing into each
other this morning, and I declare I cannot see for what.”
“I 'll tell you, Julia. You grew very cross with me, because I accused
you of being a coquette, a charge you 'd have thought pretty lightly of
if you had n't known it was deserved.”
“Might there not have been another reason for the crossness, supposing
it to have existed?” said she, quietly.
“I 'cannot imagine one; at least, I can't imagine what reason you point
at.”
“Simply this,” said she, half carelessly, “that it could have been no
part of your duty to have told me so.”
“You mean that it was a great liberty on my part--an unwarrantable
liberty?”
“Something like it.”
“That the terms which existed between us”--and now he spoke with a
tremulous voice, and a look of much agitation--“could not have warranted
my daring to point out a fault, even in your manner; for I am sure,
after all, your nature had nothing to do with it?”
She nodded, and was silent.
“That's pretty plain, anyhow,” said he, moving towards the table, where
he had placed his hat. “It's a sharp lesson to give a fellow though, all
the more when he was unprepared for it.”
“You forget that the first sharp lesson came from _you_.”
“All true; there 's no denying it.” He took up his hat as she spoke,
and moved, half awkwardly, towards the window. “I had a message for you
from the girls, if I could only remember it. Do you happen to guess what
it was about?”
She shrugged her shoulders slightly as a negative, and was silent.
“I 'll be shot if I can think what it was,” muttered he; “the chances
are, however, it was to ask you to do something or other, and as, in
your present temper, that would be hopeless, it matters little that I
have forgotten it.”
She made no answer to this speech, but quietly occupied herself
arranging a braid of her hair that had just fallen down.
“Miss L'Estrange!” said he, in a haughty and somewhat bold tone.
“Mr. Bramleigh,” replied she, turning and facing him with perfect
gravity, though her tremulous lip and sparkling eye showed what the
effort to seem serious cost her.
“If you will condescend to be real, to be natural, for about a minute
and a half, it may save us, or at least one of us, a world of trouble
and unhappiness.”
“It 's not a very courteous supposition of yours that implies I am
unreal or unnatural,” said she, calmly; “but no matter, go on; say what
you desire to say, and you shall find me pretty attentive.”
“What I want to say is this, then,” said he, approaching where she
stood, and leaning one arm on the chimney close to where her own arm was
resting; “I wanted to tell--no, I wanted to ask you if the old relations
between us are to be considered as bygone,--if I am to go away from
this to-day believing that all I have ever said to you, all that you
heard--for you _did_ hear me, Julia--”
“Julia!” repeated she, in mock amazement. “What liberty is this, sir?”
and she almost laughed out as she spoke.
“I knew well how it would be,” said he, angrily. “There is a heartless
levity in your nature that nothing represses. I asked you to be serious
for one brief instant.”
“And you shall find that I can,” said she, quickly. “If I have not been
more so hitherto, it has been in mercy to yourself.”
“In mercy to me? To me! What do you mean?”
“Simply this. You came here to give me a lesson this morning. But it
was at your sister's suggestion. It was her criticism that prompted you
to the task. I read it all. I saw how ill prepared you were. You have
mistaken some things, forgotten others; and, in fact, you showed me
that you were far more anxious I should exculpate myself than that you
yourself should be the victor. It was for this reason that I was really
annoyed,--seriously annoyed, at what you said to me; and I called in
what you are so polite as to style my 'levity' to help me through my
difficulty. Now, however, you have made me serious enough; and it is in
this mood I say, Don't charge yourself another time with such a mission.
Reprove whatever you like, but let it come from yourself. Don't think
light-heartedness--I 'll not say levity--bad in morals, because it may
be bad in taste. There's a lesson for you, sir.” And she held out her
hand as if in reconciliation.
“But you have n't answered my question, Julia,” said he, tremulously.
“And what was your question?”
“I asked you if the past--if all that had taken place between us--was to
be now forgotten?”
“I declare here is George,” said she, bounding towards the window and
opening it. “What a splendid fish, George! Did you take it yourself?”
“Yes, and he cost me the top joint of my rod; and I'd have lost him
after all if Lafferty had not waded out and landed him. I 'm between two
minds, Julia, whether I 'll send him up to the Bramleighs.”
She put her finger to her lip to impose caution, and said, “The
admiral,”--the nickname by which Jack was known--“is here.”
“All right,” replied L'Estrange. “We'll try and keep him for dinner,
and eat the fish at home.” He entered as he spoke. “Where 's Jack. Did
n't you say he was here?”
“So he was when I spoke. He must have slipped away without my seeing
it. He is really gone.”
“I hear he is gazetted; appointed to some ship on a foreign station. Did
he tell you of it?”
“Not a word. Indeed, he had little time, for we did nothing but squabble
since he came in.”
“It was Harding told me. He said that Jack did not seem overjoyed at
his good luck; and declared that he was not quite sure he would accept
it.”
“Indeed,” said she, thoughtfully.
“That's not the only news. Colonel Bramleigh was summoned to town by
a telegram this morning, but what about I did n't hear. If Harding
knew--and I 'm not sure that he did--he was too discreet to tell. But I
am not at the end of my tidings. It seems they have discovered coal on
Lord Culduff's estate, and a great share company is going to be formed,
and untold wealth to be distributed amongst the subscribers.”
“I wonder why Jack did not tell me he was going away?” said she.
“Perhaps he does not intend to go; perhaps the Colonel has gone up to
try and get something better for him; perhaps--”
“Any perhaps will do, George,” said she, like one willing to change the
theme. “What do you say to my decorations? Have you no compliments to
make me on my exquisite taste?”
“Harding certainly thinks well of it,” said he, not heeding her
question.
“Thinks well of what, George?”
“He's a shrewd fellow,” continued he; “and if he deems the investment
good enough to venture his own money in, I suspect, Ju, we might risk
ours.”
“I wish you would tell me what you are talking about; for all this is a
perfect riddle to me.”
“It 's about vesting your two thousand pounds, Julia, which now return
about seventy pounds a year, in the coal speculation. That's what I
am thinking of. Harding says, that taking a very low estimate of the
success, there ought to be a profit on the shares of fifteen per cent.
In fact, he said he wouldn't go into it himself for less.”
“Why, George, why did he say this? Is there anything wrong or immoral
about coal?”
“Try and be serious for one moment, Ju,” said he, with a slight touch
of irritation in his voice. “What Harding evidently meant was, that a
speculative enterprise was not to be deemed good if it yielded less.
These shrewd men, I believe, never lay out their money without large
profit.”
“And, my dear George, why come and consult me about these things?
Can you imagine more hopeless ignorance than mine must be on all such
questions?”
“You can understand that a sum of money yielding three hundred a year
is more profitably employed than when it only returned seventy.”
“Yes; I think my intelligence can rise to that height.”
“And you can estimate, also, what increase of comfort we should have
if our present income were to be more than doubled--which it would be in
this way.”
“I'd deem it positive affluence, George.”
“That's all I want you to comprehend. The next question is to get
Vickars to consent; he is the surviving trustee, and you'll have to
write to him, Ju. It will come better from you than me, and say--what
you can say with a safe conscience--that we are miserably poor, and
that, though we pinch and save in every way we can, there's no reaching
the end of the year without a deficit in the budget.”
“I used that unlucky phrase once before, George, and he replied, 'Why
don't you cut down the estimates?'”
“I know he did. The old curmudgeon meant I should sell Nora, and he
has a son, a gentleman commoner at Cambridge, that spends more in
wine-parties than our whole income.”
“But it 's his own, George. It is not our money he is wasting.”
“Of course it is not; but does that exempt him from all comment? Not
that it matters to us, however,” added he, in a lighter tone. “Sit down,
and try what you can do with the old fellow. You used to be a great pet
of his once on a time.”
“Yes, he went so far as to say that if I had even twenty thousand
pounds, he did n't know a girl he 'd rather have for a daughter-in-law.”
“He did n't tell you that, Ju?” said L'Estrange, growing almost purple
with shame and rage together.
“I pledge you my word he said it.”
“And what did you say? What did you do?”
“I wiped my eyes with my handkerchief, and told him it was for the
first time in my life I felt the misery of being poor.”
“And I wager that you burst out laughing.”
“I did, George. I laughed till my sides ached. I laughed till he rushed
out of the room in a fit of passion, and I declare, I don't think he
ever spoke ten words to me after.”
“This gives me scant hope of your chance of success with him.”
“I don't know, George. All this happened ten months ago, when he came
down here for the snipe-shooting. He may have forgiven, or better still,
forgotten it. In any case, tell me exactly what I 'm to write, and I 'll
see what I can do with him.”
“You're to say that your brother has just heard from a person, in whom
he places the most perfect confidence, say Harding in short--Colonel
Bramleigh's agent--that an enterprise which will shortly be opened here
offers an admirable opportunity of investment, and that as your small
fortune in Consols--”
“In what?”
“No matter. Say that as your two thousand pounds--which now yield an
interest of seventy, could secure you an income fully four times that
sum, you hope he will give his consent to withdraw the money from the
Funds, and employ it in this speculation. I 'd not say speculation, I 'd
call it mine at once--coal-mine.”
“But if I own this money, why must I ask Mr. Vickars' leave to make use
of it as I please?”
“He is your trustee, and the law gives him this power, Ju, till you are
nineteen, which you will not be till May next.”
“He'll scarcely be disagreeable, when his opposition must end in five
months.”
“That's what I think too, but before that five months run over the
share list may be filled, and these debentures be probably double the
present price.”
“I 'm not sure I understand your reasoning, but I 'll go and write my
letter, and you shall see if I have said all that you wished.”