Edith Wharton - Novel 21

by The Buccaneers (v2. 1)

  “Oh, I wish you would. If it’s not too far out of your way?”

  “It’s—it’s on my way,” the Duke declared, lying hurriedly; and they started down the steep declivity. The slow descent was effected in silence, for the Duke’s lie had exhausted his conversational resources, and his companion seemed to have caught the contagion of his shyness. Inwardly he was thinking: “Ought I to offer her a hand? Is it steep enough—or will she think I’m presuming?”

  He had never before met a young lady alone in a ruined castle, and his mind, nurtured on precedents, had no rule to guide it. But nature cried aloud in him that he must somehow see her again. He was still turning over the best means of effecting another meeting—an invitation to the castle, a suggestion that he should call on Miss Testvalley?—when, after a slippery descent from the ruins, and an arduous climb up the opposite cliff, they reached the fork of the path where it joined the lane to Trevennick.

  “Thank you so much; but you needn’t come any further. There’s the inn just below,” the young lady said, smiling.

  “Oh, really? You’d rather—? Mayn’t I—?”

  She shook her head. “No; really,” she mimicked him lightly; and with a quick wave of dismissal she started down the lane.

  The Duke stood motionless, looking irresolutely after her, and wondering what he ought to have said or done.

  “I ought to have contrived a way of going as far as the inn with her,” he said to himself, exasperated by his own lack of initiative. “It comes of being always hunted, I suppose,” he added, as he watched her slight outline lessen down the hill.

  Just where the descent took a turn toward the village, Nan encountered a familiar figure panting upward.

  “Annabel—I’ve been hunting for you everywhere!”

  Annabel laughed and embraced her duenna. “You weren’t expected back so soon.”

  “You promised me faithfully that you’d stay in the garden. And in this drenching fog—”

  “Yes; but the fog blew away after you’d gone, and I thought that let me off my promise. So I scrambled up to the castle—that’s all.”

  “That’s all? Over a mile away, and along those dangerous slippery cliffs?”

  “Oh, it was all right. There was a gentleman there who brought me back.”

  “A gentleman—in the ruins?”

  “Yes. He says he lives somewhere round here.”

  “How often have I told you not to let strangers speak to you?”

  “He didn’t. I spoke to him. But he’s not really a stranger, darling; he thinks he knows you.”

  “Oh, he does, does he?” Miss Testvalley gave a sniff of incredulity.

  “I saw he wanted to ask if he could call,” Nan continued, “but he was too shy. I never saw anybody so scared. I don’t believe he’s been around much.”

  “I daresay he was shocked by your behaviour.”

  “Oh, no. Why should he have been? He just stayed with me while we were getting up the cliff; after that I said he mustn’t come any farther. Why, there he is still—at the top of the lane, where I left him. I suppose he’s been watching to see that I got home safely. Don’t you call that sweet of him?”

  Miss Testvalley released herself from her pupil’s arm. Her eyes were not only keen but far-sighted. They followed Nan’s glance, and rested on the figure of a young man who stood above them on the edge of the cliff. As she looked he turned slowly away.

  “Annabel! Are you sure that was the gentleman?”

  “Yes… He’s funny. He says he has no time to read poetry. What do you suppose he does instead?”

  “But it’s the Duke of Tintagel!” Miss Testvalley suddenly declared.

  “The Duke? That young man?” It was Nan’s turn to give an incredulous laugh. “He said his name was Tintagel, and that he was the brother of those girls at the castle; but I thought of course he was a younger son. He never said he was the Duke.”

  Miss Testvalley gave an impatient shrug. “They don’t go about shouting out their titles. The family name is Folyat. And he has no younger brother, as it happens.”

  “Well, how was I to know all that? Oh, Miss Testvalley,” exclaimed Nan, spinning around on her governess, “but if he’s the Duke he’s the one Miss March wants Jinny to marry!”

  “Miss March is full of brilliant ideas.”

  “I don’t call that one particularly brilliant. At least not if I was Jinny, I shouldn’t. I think,” said Nan, after a moment’s pondering, “that the Duke’s one of the stupidest young men I ever met.”

  “Well,” rejoined her governess severely, “I hope he thinks nothing worse than that of you.”

  

  XVI.

  The Mr. Robinson for whom Nan St George had mistaken the Duke of Tintagel was a young man much more confident of his gifts, and assured as to his future, than that retiring nobleman. There was nothing within the scope of his understanding which Hector Robinson did not know, and mean at some time to make use of. His grandfather had been first a miner and then a mine-owner in the North; his father, old Sir Downman Robinson, had built up one of the biggest cotton industries in Lancashire, and been rewarded with a knighthood, and Sir Downman’s only son meant to turn the knighthood into a baronetcy, and the baronetcy into a peerage. All in good time.

  Meanwhile, as a partner in his father’s big company, and director in various city enterprises, and as Conservative M.P. for one of the last rotten boroughs in England, he had his work cut out for him, and could boast that his thirty-five years had not been idle ones.

  It was only on the social side that he had hung fire. In coming out against his father as a Conservative, and thus obtaining without difficulty his election to Lord Saltmire’s constituency, Mr. Robinson had flattered himself that he would secure a footing in society as readily as in the City. Had he made a miscalculation? Was it true that fashion had turned toward Liberalism, and that a young Liberal M.P. was more likely to find favour in the circles to which Mr. Robinson aspired?

  Perhaps it was true; but Mr. Robinson was a Conservative by instinct, by nature, and in his obstinate self-confidence was determined that he would succeed without sacrificing his political convictions. And at any rate, when it came to a marriage, he felt reasonably sure that his Conservatism would recommend him in the families from which he intended to choose his bride.

  Mr. Robinson, surveying the world as his oyster, had already (if the figure be allowed) divided it into two halves, each in a different way designed to serve his purpose. The one, which he labelled Mayfair, held out possibilities of immediate success. In that set, which had already caught the Heir to the Throne in its glittering meshes, there were ladies of the highest fashion who, in return for pecuniary favours, were ready and even eager to promote the ascent of gentlemen with short pedigrees and long purses. As a member of Parliament he had a status which did away with most of the awkward preliminaries; and he found it easy enough to pick up, among his masculine acquaintances, an introduction to that privileged group beginning to be known as “the Marlborough set”.

  But it was not in this easy-going world that he meant to marry. Socially as well as politically Mr. Robinson was a true Conservative, and it was in the duller half of the London world, the half he called “Belgravia”, that he intended to seek a partner. But into those uniform cream-coloured houses where dowdy dowagers ruled, and flocks of marriageable daughters pined for a suitor approved by the family, Mr. Robinson had not yet forced his way. The only interior known to him in that world was Lord Saltmire’s, and in this he was received on a strictly Parliamentary basis. He had made the immense mistake of not immediately recognizing the fact, and of imagining, for a mad moment, that the Earl of Saltmire, who had been so ready to endow him with a seat in Parliament, would be no less disposed to welcome him as a brother-in-law. But Lady Audrey de Salis, plain, dowdy, and one of five unmarried sisters, had refused him curtly and all too definitely; and the shock had thrown him back into the arms of Mayfair. Obviously he had aspired t
oo high, or been too impatient; but it was in his nature to be aspiring and impatient, and if he was to succeed it must be on the lines of his own character.

  So he had told himself as he looked into his glass on the morning of his first visit to the cottage at Runnymede, whither Teddy de Santos-Dios was to conduct him. Mr. Robinson saw in his mirror the energetic reddish features of a young man with a broad short nose, a dense crop of brown hair, and a heavy brown moustache. He had been among the first to recognize that whiskers were going out, and had sacrificed as handsome a pair as the City could show. When Mr. Robinson made up his mind that a change was coming, his principle was always to meet it half way; and so the whiskers went. And it did make him look younger to wear only the fashionable moustache. With that, and a flower in the buttonhole of his Poole coat, he could take his chance with most men, though he was aware that the careless unself-consciousness of the elect was still beyond him. But in time he would achieve that too.

  Certainly he could not have gone to a better school than the bungalow at Runnymede. The young guardsmen, the budding M.P.’s and civil servants who frequented it, were all of the favoured caste whose ease of manner Mr. Robinson envied; and nowhere were they so easy as in the company of the young women already familiar to fashionable London as “the Americans”. Mr. Robinson returned from that first visit enchanted and slightly bewildered, but with the fixed resolve to go back as often as he was invited. Before the day was over he had lent fifty pounds to Teddy de Santos-Dios, and lost another fifty at poker to the latter’s sister, Lady Richard Marable, thus securing a prompt invitation for the following week; and after that he was confident of keeping the foot-hold he had gained.

  But if the young ladies enchanted him he saw in the young men his immediate opportunity. Lady Richard’s brother-in-law, Lord Seadown, was, for instance, one of the golden youths to whom Mr. Robinson had vainly sought an introduction. Lord Richard Marable, Seadown’s younger brother, he did know; but Lord Richard’s acquaintance was easy to make, and led nowhere, least of all in the direction of his own family. At Runnymede Lord Richard was seldom visible; but Lord Seadown, who was always there, treated with brotherly cordiality all who shared the freedom of the cottage. There were others too, younger sons of great houses, officers quartered at Windsor or Aldershot, young Parliamentarians and minor Government officials reluctantly detained in town at the season’s end, and hailing with joy the novel distractions of Runnymede; there was even—on one memorable day—the young Duke of Tintagel, a shrinking neutral-tinted figure in that highly coloured throng.

  “Now if I were a Duke—!” Robinson thought, viewing with pity the unhappy nobleman’s dull clothes and embarrassed manner; but he contrived an introduction to his Grace, and even a few moments of interesting political talk, in which the Duke took eager refuge from the call to play blindman’s-buff with the young ladies. All this was greatly to the good, and Mr. Robinson missed no chance to return to Runnymede.

  On a breathless August afternoon he had come down from London, as he did on most Saturdays, and joined the party about the tea-table under the big cedar. The group was smaller than usual. Miss March was away visiting friends in the Lake country, Nan St George was still in Cornwall with her governess, Mrs. St George and Mrs. Elmsworth, exhausted by the heat, had retired to the seclusion of their bedrooms, and only Virginia St George and the two Elmsworth girls, under the doubtful chaperonage of Lady Richard Marable, sat around the table with their usual guests—Lord Seadown, Santos-Dios, Hector Robinson, a couple of young soldiers from Windsor, and a caustic young civil servant, the Honourable Miles Dawnly, who could always be trusted to bring down the latest news from London—or, at that season, from Scotland, Homburg or Marienbad, as the case might be.

  Mr. Robinson by this time felt quite at home among them. He agreed with the others that it was far too hot to play tennis or even croquet, or to go on the river before sunset, and he lay contentedly on the turf under the cedar, thinking his own thoughts, and making his own observations, while he joined in the languid chatter about the tea-table.

  Of observations there were always plenty to be made at Runnymede. Robinson, by this time, had in his hands most of the threads running from one to another of these careless smiling young people. It was obvious, for instance, that Miles Dawnly, who had probably never lost his balance before, was head-over-ears in love with Conchita Marable, and that she was “playing” him indolently and amusedly, for want of a bigger fish. But the neuralgic point in the group was the growing rivalry between Lizzy Elmsworth and Virginia St George. Those two inseparable friends were gradually becoming estranged; and the reason was not far to seek. It was between them now, in the person of Lord Seadown, who lay at their feet, plucking up tufts of clover, and gazing silently skyward through the dark boughs of the cedar. It had for some time been clear to Robinson that the susceptible young man was torn between Virginia St George’s exquisite profile and Lizzy Elmsworth’s active wit. He needed the combined stimulus of both to rouse his slow imagination, and Robinson saw that while Virginia had the advantage as yet, it might at any moment slip into Lizzy’s quick fingers. And Lizzy saw this too.

  Suddenly Mabel Elmsworth, at whose feet no one was lying, jumped up and declared that if she sat still a minute longer she would take root. “Walk down to the river with me, will you, Mr. Robinson? There may be a little more air there than under the trees.”

  Robinson had no particular desire to walk to the river, or anywhere else, with Mab Elmsworth. She was jolly and conversable enough, but minor luminaries never interested him when stars of the first magnitude were in view. However, he was still tingling with the resentment aroused by the Lady Audrey de Salis’s rejection, and in the mood to compare unfavourably that silent and large-limbed young woman with the swift nymphs of Runnymede. At Runnymede they all seemed to live, metaphorically, from hand to mouth. Everything that happened seemed to be improvised, and this suited his own impetuous pace much better than the sluggish tempo of the Saltmire circle. He rose, therefore, at Mabel’s summons, wondering what the object of the invitation could be. Was she going to ask him to marry her? A little shiver ran down his spine; for all he knew, that might be the way they did it in the States. But her first words dispelled his fear.

  “Mr. Robinson, Lord Seadown’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  Robinson hesitated. He was far too intelligent to affect to be more intimate with any one than he really was, and after a moment he answered: “I haven’t known him long; but everybody who comes here appears to be on friendly terms with everybody else.”

  His companion frowned slightly. “I wish they really were! But what I wanted to ask you was—have you ever noticed anything particular between Lord Seadown and my sister?”

  Robinson stopped short. The question took him by surprise. He had already noticed, in these free-mannered young women, a singular reticence about their family concerns, a sort of moral modesty that seemed to constrain them to throw a veil over matters freely enough discussed in aristocratic English circles. He repeated: “Your sister?”

  “You probably think it’s a peculiar question. Don’t imagine I’m trying to pump you. But everybody must have seen that he’s tremendously taken with Lizzy, and that Jinny St George is doing her best to come between them.”

  Robinson’s embarrassment deepened. He did not know where she was trying to lead him. “I should be sorry to think that of Miss St George, who appears to be so devoted to your sister.”

  Mabel Elmsworth laughed impatiently. “I suppose that’s the proper thing to say. But I’m not asking you to take sides—I’m not even blaming Virginia. Only it’s been going on now all summer, and what I say is it’s time he chose between them, if he’s ever going to. It’s very hard on Lizzy, and it’s not fair that he should make two friends quarrel. After all, we’re all alone in a strange country, and I daresay our ways are not like yours, and may lead you to make mistakes about us. All I wanted to ask is, if you couldn’t drop a hint to Lord Sead
own.”

  Hector Robinson looked curiously at this girl, who might have been pretty in less goddess-like company, and who spoke with such precocious wisdom on subjects delicate to touch. “By Jove, she’d make a good wife for an ambitious man,” he thought. He did not mean himself, but he reflected that the man who married her beautiful sister might be glad enough, at times, to have such a counsellor at his elbow.

  “I think you’re right about one thing, Miss Elmsworth. Your ways are so friendly, so kind, that a fellow, if he wasn’t careful, might find himself drawn two ways at once—”

  Mabel laughed. “Oh, you mean: we flirt. Well, it’s in our blood, I suppose. And no one thinks the worse of a girl for it at home. But over here it may seem undignified; and perhaps Lord Seadown thought he had the right to amuse himself without making up his mind. But in America, when a girl has shown that she really cares, it puts a gentleman on his honour, and he understands that the game has gone on long enough.”

  “I see.”

  “Only, we’ve nobody here to say this to Lord Seadown” (Mabel seemed tacitly to assume that neither mother could be counted on for the purpose—not at least in such hot weather), “and so I thought—”

  Mr. Robinson murmured: “Yes—yes—” and after a pause went on: “But Lord Seadown is Lady Richard’s brother-in-law. Couldn’t she—?”

  Mabel shrugged. “Oh, Conchita’s too lazy to be bothered. And if she took sides, it would be with Jinny St George, because they’re great friends, and she’d want all the money she can get for Seadown. Colonel St George is a very rich man nowadays.”

  “I see,” Mr. Robinson again murmured. It was out of the question that he should speak on such a matter to Lord Seadown, and he did not know how to say this to any one as inexperienced as Mabel Elmsworth. “I’ll think it over—I’ll see what can be done,” he pursued, directing his steps toward the group under the cedar in his desire to cut the conversation short.