The distance, as Nancy said, was considerable, showing to advantage the size of the handsome old house; and though they did not loiter much, Miss Martin found occasion to remark that everything seemed very nice, and in the most substantial and complete repair.
“Oh dear, yes; Miss,” replied the girl, to an observation of this kind. “Master cares for nothing so much as keeping the house and grounds in good order. He sometimes says it is a wonder that he keeps on caring so much about it, seeing that no living soul hardly ever comes nigh the place, excepting Sir Charles Temple, and he never sees anything of it bat just a room or two down stairs. But they do say, — that is, Mrs. Barnes, who knows him best, — that he never has quite entirely given up the notion that his son would turn or, and come again, and that is the reason why he has kept up the place so careful.”
“But he seems to have given up the notion now, doesn’t he?” demanded Miss Martin rather anxiously.
“Yes, Miss. There’s a letter come, proving, for sure and certain, that the poor gentleman is dead; and that’s why master has invited such a sight of company to the Combe.”
“I understand,” said Sophia; — and she did understand perfectly now what she had only suspected before. All hope of his son’s return being at length abandoned, it was a fact not to be doubted that Mr. Thorpe had collected all his collateral descendants around him in order to select from among them an heir.
The apartment of Mr. Thorpe was reached without interruption; Nancy opened the door, and the deeply-interested Sophia entered. It was a very large room, being over the drawingroom, and of equal dimensions. The bed seemed lost in it; and though there was abundance of wardrobes, and even book-shelves, to occupy the walls, there was nevertheless space sufficient left for more than a dozen of the family portraits of which Nancy had spoken.
Sophia stepped forward into the middle of the room, and looked round about her on all sides with an air of very accurate research, as if reading in the still life with which he was usually surrounded the private history of her uncle’s mind. This general survey over, she turned her attention to the portraits.
“Has my uncle any particular favourites among these pictures?” said she.
“Not that I know of, Miss,” replied Nancy. “But my aunt could answer that better than me, because she is so constant with him. There is one there that, in course, he’s fond enough of, poor old gentleman! and that’s his own son; but I never heard tell of any other that he was particular about.”
“Is that it?” demanded Sophia eagerly, and turning in the direction which the girl’s eyes had taken as she mentioned the young man’s portrait.
“Yes, Miss, that’s the one, over the chimney-piece, and right in front of his eyes, poor old gentleman! as he lies in bed. I have heard aunt Barnes say, that she is pretty sure master often lies abed of a morning, when he is quite well enough to get up, for no reason in the world but just to keep looking at that picture: for if all the other windows are shut, he is sure to have the one that lights up that, opened, and the curtains drawn back.
Miss Martin made no answer, but stood with her eyes stedfastly fixed upon the picture thus pointed out, shading the light from her eyes, so as to see it distinctly.
“He was quite young you see, Miss, when this was taken; and his collar turned back that way looks quite like a boy, don’t it? But, I suppose, that was the fashion then as the young gentlemen wore them, ‘cause his face is not quite that young, either.”
The dress, in fact, was somewhat fanciful, having rather a Spanish air; the throat being entirely exposed, a cloak-loosely depending from the shoulders, and the shirt-collar turned deeply over it.
“It has got pretty hair, Miss, hasn’t it?” resumed the conversable but still unanswered Nancy. “It is plain to see as you be a relation, there is something so very like you in the way it grows.
I am sure you might be his own sister as far as the hair, and the eyes bean’t that much unlike either.”
“Do you think so?” said Sophia, almost in a whisper.
“Yes sure, Miss, I do, and you’ll see it in a minute if you’ll only just stop and let me bring over that little glass what master shaves by. You need not be afraid to speak, Miss, nobody’s likely to come this way.”
“‘ Do not tell anybody that I came here, Nancy,” said Miss Martin, taking the glass from the girl’s hand; “it would seem so curious.” —
“It’s no more than what’s natural, sure, Miss,” replied Nancy. “However, I won’t say a word about it.... Don’t you see the likeness now, Miss?”
Sophia did see the likeness, and a well-pleased smile lighting up her countenance as she did so, made her companion exclaim, “Oh goodness! — when you smile that way, it is the very same face exactly, — it is, indeed.”
Miss Martin answered not, but fell to such perusal of her own face in the little glass, and her cousin’s face upon the wall, as made her companion laugh.
“You are determined to find out, Miss, whether you be like or not, that’s certain,” said the girl; “and I don’t doubt but what you must allow I spoke true don’t you think so, Miss?”
“I don’t see much likeness, Nancy,” replied the young lady, returning the mirror, and moving towards the door; “but nobody ever knows their own face. I won’t hinder you any longer now. My room is done, is it not?”
“All but putting coals on and sweeping up the hearth,” replied Nancy.
“Then, pray, don’t trouble yourself about that,” said the obliging Sophia. “I must go there to fetch my knitting-case, and I can do it just as well as you.”
Having reached her room alone, Sophia entered it, closed the door, and locked it; then looking from the windows to see that no one from without could observe her, she unclasped the dress that was fastened closer round her throat, took from her little stock of chemisettes one that, by a little alteration, she made to turn over her dress greatly in the manner of that in the portrait; and then setting to work with her brush and comb, she arranged the natural curls of her short stiff hair so exactly like that of her departed cousin, that she almost started at the resemblance.
“Extraordinary!” she exclaimed. “If I make nothing of this, I shall deserve to die a beggar!”
Having satisfied her careful and observant eye that she had hit upon the exact tournure of the hair, and as near an approach to identity in her collar as she dared venture upon, she resumed her former appearance, furnished herself with her knitting-case, and quietly returned to the east parlour, hoping that she should find it unoccupied, for she had much to think of and would willingly have been alone.
In this hope she was disappointed; no farther allusion had been made either by the discomfited Florence, or any other of the party, to walking or waterfalls; and Sir Charles Temple, partly from a feeling of honourable adherence to the engagement by which he had bound himself to assist in entertaining his old friend’s strange relations, and partly, perhaps, from some little curiosity to study the characters of the group around, had remained in the place where we left him; and, as by this time all the ladies had furnished themselves with employment for their fingers, he had undertaken to read to them.
The entrance of Miss Martin stopped him in the middle of a scene in Van Artevelde; but being aware that one, at least, of his fair auditory, was hanging with extreme interest on every word he read, he closed not the volume, but held himself suspended till this new corner had settled herself among them. This would have been done quietly enough, had not each of the Misses Wilkyns felt so greatly pleased at the opportunity thus offered of once again hearing her own voice, that they one and all broke forth into a note of welcome on seeing her.
“I am so glad you are come! We are so delighted! Such a divine book! and such a reader!” exclaimed Elfreda.
“You have lost such a treat! But it is impossible to begin again, because we have got on such a quantity. So you are very lucky to come before we have quite finished,” said Eldruda, concealing a yawn by holding up a lar
ge ball of worsted before her mouth.
“Sit down here, by me, cousin Sophia,” lisped the pretty Winifred, yawning without any concealment at all; “I am so glad you are come! You shall help me count my threads.”
“Don’t talk, my dears,” said Mrs. Heathcote, partly from civility, and partly because she really found herself very comfortable.
Florence spoke not. She had not yet sufficiently recovered from the rebuff of her elegant cousin, to venture upon making any observation that might again attract her notice; but it is not very difficult for a reader to discover the impression his lecture makes on his hearers, without the assistance of any words from them. Even where a whole party remains resolutely silent, their silence is modified by sundry little bits of by-play, quite as eloquent as words. One lady will go on with her work as diligently as if there were no reading going on; another will seem to find a sort of subsidiary amusement, in a playfully cautious manner of taking up and putting down her scissors; a third will unreel her cotton, with an earnest biting of her nether lip, as if the slightest concussion of the air would endanger the safety of the universe. A fourth will find it necessary to draw out her pocket-handkerchief at least once in every minute; and if the party comist of many, and the reader be a very lucky reader, one amongst them may sit, like Florence, with her work resting on her knee, while the abstracted eye gives something like an indication that the intellect is taking part in what is going on.
On the present occasion, however, the silence once broken could not be restored. The heiresses’ reiterated assurances of their supreme felicity, of their gratitude to Sir Charles, and their admiration of his author, as effectually broke up the reading party, as if they had all honestly proclaimed themselves tired to death. So Sir Charles, having given a rapid glance at Florence, and then waited a little while in vain, to ascertain whether the twittering of the Misses Wilkyns would cease, closed the volume, drew out his watch, and walked towards the window.
For one short thoughtless minute Florence was in danger of saying, “Do go on! but recollection came in time to save her, and she resumed her work with silent diligence.
“Upon my word it is a pity to lose the whole of this fine morning,” said Sir Charles. “Are you quite decided, ladies, against walking?”
Miss Elfreda looked at her delicate lilac silk dress; Miss Eldruda at her pale olive, and Miss Winifred at her light green; and then they all looked at one another. It was impossible for the stoutest and most manly heart, to be either so hard or so dull as not to comprehend what was passing in their thoughts; nor was there any opposing feeling strong enough in the mind of the young baronet to induce him to attempt substituting any other ideas in the place of those so visibly at work within them. Instead of this, he fortunately recollected the equipage which had been so ingeniously proposed for their use, and resumed with sudden animation —
“What say you, then, to an airing? Mr. Thorpe’s carriage will accommodate any four of the party who prefer driving to walking. Shall we order it, Miss Wilkyns?” And his hand was already on the bell.
“I have not the slightest objection to a drive,” replied the young lady. “At this season it is impossible to get exercise in any other way; for even if we had our horses and groom here, I doubt if we should venture to ride. Has the carriage a dickey? I should not at all object to going outside, Sir Charles, wrapped in my furs.”
Now Sir Charles knew no more what Mr. Thorpe’s carriage was like, than he did of the charpente of Venus’s car; neither had he the slightest inclination to profit by the hint which his vanity suggested was held out by the young lady’s speech, for hopes of a walk to the waterfall were reviving within him, which he had the strange perversity to prefer to sitting beside the heiress in a dickey.
“If there were a hundred dickeys, my dear Miss Wilkyns, I would not counsel you to trust yourself in either of them,” he replied, with great vivacity. “You have no idea how piercingly the cold would be felt, mounted aloft as you would be there. Not all the furs in the world could save the tip of your nose from being frost-bitten — Imaginez!...”
Now it happened that the tip of Miss Elfreda’s nose had, for the last two years, been acquiring something of a violet tinge, which, though she had never named it, even to her confidential sister Eldruda, was, nevertheless, very seldom entirely out of her thoughts. A maiden aunt, a sister of her father’s, who was most unhappily plain, had a very red nose, and the eldest heiress trembled for the future.
“I don’t think I shall go out at all,” she replied, with a shudder. “One ought to be tremendously robust to leave the fire-side in such weather as this.”
Did not Sir Charles repent him of his vivacity and wanton allusion to a red-tipped nose? Assuredly he did. But repentance came too late, and the sunny waterfall faded away from his hopes into a vapour as vague and chilling as its own midnight mist. Had he not named the nose, there would have been an excellent chance of sending the three Misses Wilkyns and their elected favourite, Miss Martin, upon a two hours’ expedition in the pumpkin coach, during which he might have escorted Florence and her irresistibly loveable step-mother to the cataract! Perhaps he deserved to be punished for his flippancy, but at any rate he felt that he was so.
The equipage, however, was ordered; and Mrs. Heathcote, the two younger heiresses, and Miss Martin, set off upon that most self-denying of all indulgences, a winter airing. Miss Wilkyns accompanied her sisters when they went to prepare for it, and did not return to the parlour, so that when the party drove away from the door, Florence and Sir Charles suddenly found themselves tète à tête.
Florence was seventeen, and young ladies of that age who have been brought up in the world of conventional etiquette would exclaim, “Nonsense! impossible!” were the perfectly childish state of her mind upon that most important of all subjects, — flirtation, described to them. Nevertheless, truth compels the historian of “The Ward” to state not only that she never had yet had any love affair whatever, but that her thoughts had positively never turned themselves in that direction, excepting when, during her early and late studies of her almost only very familiar literary treasure, Shakspeare, she had paused over some of his sweet love-tales: and then she had sighed very deeply, and said, particularly in the case of Juliet, “Oh dear! oh dear! I hope I never shall be so much in love as that!”
Such being the blank condition of her mind, she mast not be too severely condemned if she did not, at the first moment of their departure, either tremble or turn red: on the contrary, she looked up at her companion without the slightest terror, or even alarm, and was on the very verge of saying, “Now, then.... may we not go to the waterfall?” — but something in the countenance of Sir Charles stopped her. He did not look ready to laugh, as she did, but, on the contrary, had the air of being rather puzzled and embarrassed.
Florence, however, though very nearly a child, was not a stupid child, and it instantly struck her that her pleasant new acquaintance, though he was so very good-natured, and seemed so very clever, did not know what to do with her. She fancied that most likely he wonted to go and amuse himself in some masculine way or another, but that he thought it would be rude to leave her all alone; and she therefore said, with a pretty simplicity a thousand times more gracious and more graceful than the most well-behaved propriety of any conscious young lady could have been: —
“I think I must go and look for Algernon. He will fancy he has lost me.”
“I should imagine that your brother must be in the billiard-room with the gentlemen, Miss Heathcote. Shall I go there and look for him?.... and, if I find him, send him to you here?” replied the baronet.
“Thank you, Sir,” returned Florence.... adding the minute ‘after, “Charles,” with a little haste, a little blush, and half a smile, as she remembered his lecture of the morning; and he smiled too, and thought that in his life he had never heard his own name pronounced so sweetly. But Sir Charles Temple was a whimsical young man; and instead of making him linger, this only made him
leave the room more quickly, and Florence was left alone in the east parlour.
The sun no longer shone into the window, but it still made one side of the lawn sparkle, as if a shower of diamonds had fallen upon it. Florence longed to be out of doors, but dared not run up stairs for her bonnet and her wraps, lest her brother should come, and miss her. She stood, therefore, waiting for a minute or two, intending to be very patient, and then she thought there could be no harm in opening the window; and then she presently decided that Algernon would be sure to see her if she walked only in sight of the windows; and then, that her dress was very warm, and that just for five minutes or so she could not possibly want either cloak or bonnet. This reasoning took not long, and in the next moment she was in the garden.
Now it chanced that one window of the billiard-room was immediately above that of the east parlour, and Mr. Thorpe, who had been for some time watching a very good game between Mr, Spencer and Major Heathcote, bad walked at the conclusion of it to this window.
“God bless me! Major,” he exclaimed, “there is your madcap young lady skipping about in the garden, with the frost dripping upon her, I should think, from every bough, and she without either bonnet or shawl, or anything else to protect her!.... Are you not afraid of the cold for her, sir? Your family are rather delicate, my dear friend, and I really do not think it is safe.”
This brought the whole party to the window.
“Oh no!.... dear child!.... there is no danger of her taking cold,” said the Major, who, cue in hand, just gave a peep at his young daughter over the shoulder of Mr. Thorpe, and then returned again to the attractive table. “She is as hardy as a shepherd boy, and we think that is one reason why she is in such perfect health. She never had any sickliness about her, and my wife says, that the best thing in the world for children is, to let them be hardy, if they can bear it.”
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 287
