“Yes,” replied the lady, “and I intended — — “ It was at this word that Miss Max’s inopportune inquiry broke in.
“I did not hear your question,” says Lady Vernon, a little bored by the interruption.
Miss Max repeated it.
“Well, Mr. Tintern, what do you say?” she asked.
“Why, really,” said Mr. Tintern, working hard to get up a neat reply, and smiling diligently, “where there is so much fascination of mind or of beauty, or of both, as we often see, in this part of the world, I can hardly fancy, eh? — the lady’s being allowed time to be the first to fall in love — ha, ha, ha! — really — upon my honour — and that’s my answer.”
And he looked as if he thought it was not a bad one.
“And now, Barbara, what do you say?” persisted Miss Max.
“I? I’ve no opinion upon it,” said Lady Vernon, with a little laugh; but a close observer could have discovered anger in her eye. “I will think it over, and, in a day or two, I shall be able to aid you with my valuable opinion.”
And she turned again to Mr. Tintern, who asked, glancing at Captain Vivian:
“Mr. Dawe, does he make any stay in the country?”
“I don’t know. I shall be very happy to make him stay here as long as I can. Captain Vivian, that young man, is his friend, and, it seems, was his ward, and as he could not leave him — he has been ill, and requires looking after — Mr. Dawe asked me if he might bring him here, and so I make him welcome also.”
“A very gentlemanlike, nice young fellow he is,” said Mr. Tintern.
And so that little talk ended.
Mr. Tintern went his way, and the little party broke up, and the bedroom candles glided along the galleries, and the guests had soon distributed themselves in their quarters.
But that night an odd little incident did occur.
Miss Max had, after her usual little talk with Maud, bid her goodnight, and her busy head was now laid on her pillow. The glimmer of a night-light cheered her solitude, and she had just addressed herself seriously to sleep, when an unexpected knock at her door announced a visitor.
She thought it was her maid, and said:
“Do come in, and take whatever you want, and let me be quiet.”
But it was not her maid, but Lady Vernon, who came in, with her candle in her hand, and closed the door.
“Ho! Barbara? Well, what is it?” she said, wondering what she could want.
“Are you quite awake?” asked Lady Vernon.
“Perfectly; that is, I was going to settle; but it doesn’t matter.”
“Well, I shan’t detain you long,” said Lady Vernon, placing the candle on the table. “I could not sleep without asking you what you meant, for I’m sure you had a meaning, by asking me the question you did tonight.”
She spoke a little hurriedly, and her eyes looked extremely angry, but her tones were cold.
“The only question I asked was about first love,” began Miss Max.
“Yes; and I ask you what did you mean, for you did mean something, by putting so very odd a question to me?” she replied.
“Mean? What did I mean?’’ said Miss Max, sitting up straight in a moment, so that her face was at least as well lighted as her visitor’s. “I assure you I meant nothing on earth, and I don’t know what you mean by putting such a question to me.”
The handsome eyes of Lady Vernon were fixed on her doubtfully.
“You used to be frank, Maximilla. Why do you hesitate to speak what is in your mind?” said Lady Vernon, sharply.
“Used to be — I’m always frank. As I told you before, there was nothing in my mind; but I think there’s something in yours.”
“I only wanted to know if you intended any insinuation, however ridiculous. I fancied there was a significance in your manner, and as I could not comprehend it, I asked you to define, as one doesn’t care to have surmises affecting oneself afloat in the mind of a friend, without at least learning what they are.”
“I had no surmises of the kind; but you have certainly gone the very way to fill my head with them. What could you have fancied I meant?”
“Suppose I thought that you meant that I had made overtures of marriage to my husband before he had declared himself. That would have been untrue and offensive.”
“Such an idea never entered my head — never could have — because I knew all about it as well as you did. That’s mere nonsense, my dear child.”
“Well, then, there’s nothing else you could mean, and so I’m glad I came. I believe it is always best to be a little outspoken, at the risk of a few hot words, than to keep anything in reserve among friends, and you and I are very old friends, Max. Goodnight. I have not disturbed you much?”
And she kissed her.
“Not a bit, dear. Goodnight, Barbara.”
And Lady Vernon disappeared as swiftly as she came, leaving a new problem for Maximilla’s active mind to work on.
CHAPTER XXX.
A VISIT.
In the morning Lady Vernon was more than usually affectionate when she greeted Miss Max.
When the little party met in the small room that opens into the chapel, where, as we know, Mr. Penrhyn, the secretary, officiated at morning prayers, Lady Vernon actually drew her cousin Maximilla to her and kissed her.
“Making reparation I suppose,” thought Maximilla. “But there was no occasion, I was not the least hurt.”
And by the suggestion involved in this unusual demonstration, good Miss Max’s fancy was started on a wild tour of entertaining conjecture respecting her reserved cousin Barbara, and the possible bearing of that curious question upon the sensibilities of the handsome woman of three-and-forty, who had not yet contracted a single wrinkle or grey hair; and I am sorry to say that the measured intonation of Mr. Penrhyn, the secretary, as he duly read his chapter from the First Book of Chronicles, sounded in her ears faint and far away, as the distant cawing of the rooks.
This morning service was now over, and the little party gathered round the breakfast-table.
Seen in daylight, Captain Vivian looked ill and weak enough. He was not up to the walking, riding, and rough outdoor amusements of a country house. That was plain. He must lounge in easy-chairs, or lie his length on a sofa, and be content, for the present, to traverse the country with his handsome but haggard eyes only.
Those eyes are blue, his hair light brown and silken, his moustache soft and golden. It is a Saxon face, and good-looking.
There is no dragoonery or swaggering about this guest; he is simply a well-bred gentleman, and, in plain clothes, as completely divested of the conventional, soldierly manner, as if he had never stood before a drill-sergeant.
Whether it is a consequence of his illness, I can’t say, but he looks a little sad.
In a house now and then so deserted and always so quiet as Roydon, the sojourn of a guest so unexceptionable, and also so agreeable, would have been at any time very welcome.
A little time ago, indeed, Maud might have thought this interruption of their humdrum life pleasanter. She had a good deal now to think of.
“What an inheritance of pictures you have,” said Captain Vivian. There is a seat outside the window, and on this the invalid was taking his ease, while Miss Max and Maud Vernon, seated listlessly within, talked with him through the open window. “I think portraits are the most glorious and interesting of all possessions; I mean, of course, family portraits.”
“If one could only tell whose portraits they are,” said Maud, with a little laugh. “I know about twenty, I think, and, Max, you know nearly forty, don’t you? And I don’t know who knows the rest. There is a list somewhere; grandpapa made it out, I believe. But they are not all even in that.”
“I look round on them with a vague awe.” He said: “Artists and sitters, so long dead and gone; I wonder whether their ghosts come back to look at their work again, or to see what they once were like. I envy you all those portraits. Aren’t you proud of them, Miss Vernon
?”
“I suppose I ought to be,” replied Miss Vernon. “I dare say I should be if they were treated with a little more respect. But when one meets one’s ancestors peeping from behind doors, shouldering one another for want of room in galleries and in lobbies, hid away in corners or with their backs to the wall halfway up the staircase, they lose something of their dignity, and it becomes a little hard to be proud of them.”
“Such long lines of ancestors running so far back into perspective!” said the invalid, languidly. “Think of those who look back without a single lamp to light the past! I knew a man who was well born, his parents both unquestionably of good family, first his mother, then his father died, when he was but two years old,” Captain Vivian continued, looking down, as he talked, on the veining of the oak seat, along which he was idly running his pencil. “His fate was very odd. He found himself with money bequeathed to him by his father, and with a guardian who had hardly known that father, but who, I dare say half from charity, the father being on his deathbed, undertook the office. Of course if my friend’s father had lived a little longer, the guardian would have learnt from his own lips all particulars respecting his charge. But his death came too swiftly. There was no mystery intended, of course; the money was in foreign stocks, and was collected and brought to England as the will directed, and neither he nor his guardian know as much as they would wish of the family of either parent. So there he is, quite isolated; a goodnatured fellow, I believe. It gives him something to think about; and I assure you it is perfectly true. I was thinking what that poor fellow would give for such a flood of light upon his ancestry as your portraits throw upon yours.”
“Perhaps he has made it all out by this time,” suggested Miss Max.
“I don’t think he has,” said Captain Vivian.
“And what is his name?” inquired the old lady.
“Well, I’m afraid I ought not to mention his name,” he said, looking up. “It does not trouble him much now, I think, and I dare say it has caused him more pain than it is worth. Here comes a carriage,” he said, raising his head. “Your avenue is longer than it appears, it is so wide. What magnificent trees!”
“Who are they, I wonder; the bishop or the dean?” said curious Miss Max.
“It may be the Manwarings. We called there a few days ago,” said Maud.
“The liveries look like brown and gold, as well as I can see,” said Captain Vivian, who had stood up and was looking down the avenue.
“Oh, it is the Tinterns, then,” said Maud.
“Chocolate and gold, yes,” assented Miss Max. “I hope so much that charming creature, Miss Tintern, is in the carriage. You’d be charmed with her, Captain Vivian.”
“I dare say I should. But I am an awfully dull person at present, and I rather shrink from being presented. Mr. Tintern, from what I saw of him last night, appears to be a goodnatured, agreeable man?”
This was thrown out rather in the tone of an inquiry; but Captain Vivian did not wait for an answer; but, instead, slowly moved towards the hall-door, and before the Tinterns’ carriage had reached the low balustrade of those ponds on which the swans and water-lilies float, he was in the drawingroom.
“I’m ashamed to say, I’m a little bit tired,” said he to Miss Max; and pale and languid he did, indeed, look. “And I think till this little visit is over I’ll get into the next room, and look over some of those books of prints. You must not think me very lazy; but if you knew what I was a week ago, you’d think me a Hercules now.”
So, slowly, Captain Vivian withdrew to the quieter drawingroom beyond this room, and sat him down before a book in the window, and turned over the pages quietly.
In the mean time, agreeable Mr. Tintern has arrived, and his extremely pretty daughter has come with him.
She and Maud kiss, as young lady friends will, with more or less sincerity, after a long absence.
They make a very pretty contrast, the blonde and the dark beauty, Miss Tintern having golden hair and blue eyes, and Maud Vernon large dark grey eyes and brown hair.
So these young persons begin to talk together, while Lady Vernon and Mr. Tintern converse more gravely, a little way off, on themes that interest them more than flower-shows, fashions, and the coming ball at Wymering. Good Miss Max, who, in spite of her grave years, likes a little bit of frivolity, joins the young people, and has her laugh and gossip with them very cosily.
Having disposed of the Wymering ball, and talked over the statue of Mr. Howard in the church a little, and passed on to some county marriages likely to be, and said a word or two on guipure work, and the fashions, Miss Max said:
“I did not see your flowers at the Grange; I’m told they are perfectly lovely. The shower came on, you know; I was to have seen them.”
“Oh, yes, it was so unlucky,” says Miss Tintern. “Yes, I think they are very good. Don’t you, Maud?”
“Yes, wonderful,” answers Maud; “they throw us, I know, quite into shade.”
“I think you are great florists in this part of the world,” says Miss Max. “I thought I was very well myself; but I find I’m a mere nobody among you. You have got, of course, that new Dutch hyacinth. It is so beautiful, and so immense — white, I mean, and so waxen. What is its name, Maud?”
Maud gave the name of this beautiful monster.
“No; I’m sure we haven’t got it,” answers Ethel Tintern. “I should have liked so to see it.”
“We have one,” says Maud, “the last, I think, still in its best looks; they are very late. I saw it in the next room; come and see.”
In the histories of a thousand men, I suppose it has not happened six times, possibly in that of ten thousand, not half so often, that a young man should be surprised, in a deep sleep, over a book, by two young ladies so beautiful, and in whose eyes he wished, perhaps, to appear agreeable.
When the young ladies had pushed open the door, they stood for a moment beside it talking, and then, coming in, Maud Vernon pointed out the flower they had come to examine.
And, as they looked, admired, and talked, accidentally her eye lighted on the invalid, as he sat in the window, one hand on his book, his book slanting from his knee, and he with closed eyes and head sunk on his other hand, in a deep sleep. She exchanged a glance with her companion, and a faint smile and a nod.
The young ladies returned to the drawingroom; and when they had left the room a very few seconds, the slumbering invalid, without disturbing his attitude, looked after them curiously from the corner of his now halfopened eye, and listened. Then he turned his chair, so as better to avert his face, and, without stirring, continued to listen.
But they did not return. And as Mr. Tintern proposed lunching at Hartstonge Hall, he and his pretty daughter very soon took their leave, and Captain Vivian watched them quietly from the window, as they got into the open carriage and drove away.
“What a nice girl Ethel Tintern is. I like her so very much,” said Miss Max.
“Yes,” said Lady Vernon, “but I did not think her looking well, did you?”
“Very pretty, but perhaps a little pale,” acquiesced Miss Max.
“Very pale, indeed,” says Lady Vernon; “when she was going I was quite struck with it. Did you ever see her before, Mr. Dawe?”
“No,” answered that gentleman promptly from the recess of the window, where he was reading a note in his often consulted diary.
“I saw you look at her a good deal, Mr. Dawe,” said Maximilla, “and I know you thought her very pretty.”
“H’m!” said Mr. Dawe, oracularly.
“And I think she observed your admiration, also, for I saw her eyes follow you about the room whenever she fancied no one was looking, and I think there is more in it than you intend us to understand, and that you are a very profound person.”
“It is time I should be,” said Mr. Dawe, and the gong began to sound for luncheon as he spoke.
CHAPTER XXXI.
A LETTER.
The invalid came slowly in now,
and the little party, roared for by the gong, as I said, went away together to luncheon very merrily.
When this sociable meal was ended, Maximilla said to Maud, as they were going through the door, side by side:
“Some letters have come here from the Hermitage, and one among them that concerns you. Come up to my room with me, and we can read it.”
“Who is it from?” asks Maud, with excusable impatience.
“You shall see when we get upstairs — come.”
“But what is it about?”
“You.”
And the agile old lady ran up the stairs before her, laughing.
“Come in and shut the door,” says Miss Max, as Maud reached the threshold; “bolt the door; it is no harm. Come here, to this window, and nobody can hear.”
She recollected the dressing-room door, and turning the key in it, rejoined Maud, whose curiosity was a good deal piqued by these precautions.
“Well, who is it from?” said Miss Max, with a provoking smile, as she raised it by the corner.
“If you don’t tell me this moment, I’ll push you into your chair, and take it by force.”
“Well, what do you say to Mr. Marston? I don’t know a more exemplary lover; the letter is from him. You shall hear,” answered Miss Max, as she opened it, and adjusted her glasses, smiling all the time a little mysteriously.
Maud looked grave, and a brilliant colour dyed her cheeks.
“Listen,” said Maximilla, very unnecessarily, and began.
“Dear Miss Medwyn, — You have been so extremely kind to me that I venture to write a very short note, which I can no longer forbear, although I scarcely know myself what it is going to be. Miss Maud Guendoline, as I still call her, although she told me that I still have to learn her surname, imposed a command upon me, when taking my leave on that happy and melancholy Sunday evening, which I can never forget, a command which I need hardly assure you I have implicitly obeyed. I am, therefore, as entirely in the dark as ever respecting all I most ardently long to hear. Every day that passes makes me long more intensely for the hour when I may again see that one human face which has enthralled me, which alone of all others has ever interested me — — “
Complete Works of Sheridan Le Fanu (Illustrated) Page 583
