COMMONPLACE,
AND
OTHER SHORT STORIES.

BY CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI,
AUTHOR OF ‘GOBLIN MARKET,’ AND ‘THE PRINCE’S PROGRESS.’

‘From sea to sea.’

LONDON:
F. S. ELLIS, 33 KING STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1870.

PREFATORY NOTE.

The earliest of these tales dates back to 1852, the latest was finished in 1870: a lapse of years sufficient to account for modifications of tone and style.

‘Pros and Cons,’ and ‘The Waves of this Troublesome World,’ were written each with a special object; which special object will, I hope, be accepted as my apology if the latter tale is judged too childish.

Not one of the stories is founded on fact. This might not seem worth stating, had I not reason to fear that one or two of my kindest friends have viewed ‘The Lost Titian’ somewhat in the light of an imposture. I therefore take this opportunity of putting on record that I am not conversant with any tradition which points to the existence of a lost picture by that great master with whose name I have made free.

C. G. R.

April 1870.

CONTENTS.

Commonplace

The Lost Titian

Nick

Hero

Vanna's Twins

A Safe Investment

Pros and Cons

The Waves of this Troublesome World

COMMONPLACE.

CHAPTER I.

Brompton-on-Sea—any name not in ‘Bradshaw’ will do—Brompton-on-Sea in April.

The air keen and sunny; the sea blue and rippling, not rolling; everything green, in sight and out of sight, coming on merrily. Birds active over straws and fluff; a hardy butterfly abroad for a change; a second hardy butterfly dancing through mid-air, in and out, and round about the first. A row of houses all alike stands facing the sea—all alike so far as stucco fronts and symmetrical doors and windows could make them so: but one house in the monotonous row was worth looking at, for the sake of more numerous hyacinths and early roses in its slip of front garden, and on several of its window-sills. Judging by appearances, and for once judging rightly, this must be a private residence on an esplanade full of lodging-houses.

A pretty house inside too, snug in winter, fresh in summer; now in mid-spring sunny enough for an open window, and cool enough for a bright fire in the breakfast-room.

Three ladies sat at the breakfast-table, three maiden ladies, obviously sisters by strong family likeness, yet with individual differences strong also. The eldest, Catherine, Miss Charlmont, having entered her thirty-third year, had taken on all occasions to appearing in some sort of cap. She began the custom at thirty, when also she gave up dancing, and adopted lace over her neck and arms in evening dress. Her manner was formal and kindly, savouring of the provinces rather than of the capital; but of the provinces in their towns, not in their old country seats. Yet she was a well-bred gentlewoman in all essentials, tall and fair, a handsome member of a handsome family. She presided over the tea and coffee, and, despite modern usage, retained a tea-tray.

Opposite her sat Lucy, less striking in features and complexion, but with an expression of quicker sensibility. Rather pretty and very sweet-looking, not turned thirty as yet, and on some points treated by Catherine as still a young thing. She had charge of the loaf and ham, and, like her elder sister, never indulged in opening letters till every one at table had been served.

The third, Jane, free of meat-and-drink responsibilities, opened letters or turned over the newspaper as she pleased. She was youngest by many years, and came near to being very beautiful. Her profile was almost Grecian, her eyes were large, and her fair hair grew in wavy abundance. At first sight she threw Catherine and Lucy completely into the shade; afterwards, in spite of their additional years, they sometimes were preferred, for her face only of the three could be thought insipid. Pleasure and displeasure readily showed themselves in it, but the pleasure would be frivolous and the displeasure often unreasonable. A man might fall in love with Jane, but no one could make a friend of her; Catherine and Lucy were sure to have friends, however they might lack lovers.

On the morning when our story commences the elders were busied with their respective charges, whilst Jane already sipped her tea and glanced up and down the Births, Marriages, and Deaths, in the ‘Times’ Supplement. There she sat, with one elbow on the table and her long lashes showing to advantage over downcast eyes. Dress was with her a matter for deep study, and her pink-and-white breakfast suit looked as fresh and blooming as April’s self. Her hair fell long and loose over her shoulders, in becoming freedom; and Catherine gazing at her felt a motherly pride in the pretty creature to whom, for years, she had performed a mother’s duty; and Lucy felt how young and fresh Jane was, and remembered that she herself was turned twenty-nine: but if the thought implied regret it was untinctured by envy.

Jane read aloud: ‘“Halbert to Jane;” I wish I were Jane. And here, positively, are two more Janes, and not me. “Catherine”—that’s a death. Lucy, I don’t see you anywhere. Catherine was eighty-nine, and much respected. “Mrs. Anstruther of a son and heir.” I wonder if those are the Anstruthers I met in Scotland: she was very ugly, and short, “Everilda Stella,”—how can anybody be Everilda?’ Then, with a sudden accession of interest, ‘Why, Lucy, Everilda Stella has actually married your Mr. Hartley!’

Lucy started, but no one noticed her. Catherine said, ‘Don’t say “your” Mr. Hartley, Jane: that is not a proper way of speaking about a married gentleman to an unmarried lady. Say “the Mr. Hartley you know,” or, “the Mr. Hartley you have met in London.” Besides, I am acquainted with him also; and very likely it is a different person. Hartley is not an uncommon name.’

‘Oh, but it is that Mr. Hartley, sister,’ retorted Jane, and she read:

‘“On Monday the 13th, at the parish-church, Fenton, by the Rev. James Durham, uncle of the bride, Alan Hartley, Esq. of the Woodlands, Gloucestershire, to Everilda Stella, only child and presumptive heiress of George Durham, Esq. of Orpingham Place, in the same county.”’

CHAPTER II.

Forty years before the commencement of this story, William Charlmont, an Indian army-surgeon, penniless, except for his pay, had come unexpectedly into some hundreds a-year, left him by a maiden great-aunt, who had seen him but once, and that when he was five years old, on which occasion she boxed his ears for misspelling ‘elephant.’ His stoicism under punishment, for he neither roared nor whined, may have won her heart; at any rate, from whatever motive, she, years afterwards, disappointed three nephews and a female first cousin by leaving every penny she was worth to him. This moderate accession of fortune justified him in consulting both health and inclination by exchanging regimental practice in India for general practice in England: and a combination of apparently trifling circumstances led him, soon after his return home, to settle at the then infant watering-place of Brompton-on-Sea, of which the reputation had just been made by a royal duke’s visit; and the tide of fashion was setting to its shore.

The house in which our story opens then stood alone, and belonged to a clergyman’s widow. As she possessed, besides, an only daughter, and but a small life annuity—nothing more—she sought for a lodger, and was glad to find one in the new medical practitioner. The widow, Mrs. Turner, was, and felt herself to be, no less a gentlewoman when she let lodgings than when with her husband and child she had occupied the same house alone; no less so when after breakfast she donned a holland apron and helped Martha, the maid, to make Mr. Charlmont’s bed, than when in old days she had devoted her mornings to visiting and relieving her poorer neighbours.

Her daughter, Kate, felt their altered fortunes more painfully; and showed, sometimes by uncomfortable bashfulness, sometimes by anxious self-assertion, how much importance she attached to the verdict of Mrs. Grundy. Her mother’s holland apron was to her a daily humiliation, and single-handed Martha an irritating shortcoming. She chilled old friends by declining invitations, because her wardrobe lacked variety, and shunned new acquaintances lest they should call at some moment when herself or her mother might have to answer the door. A continual aim at false appearances made her constrained and affected; and persons who would never have dwelt upon the fact that Mrs. Turner let lodgings, were certain to have it recalled to mind by Miss Turner’s uneasiness.

But Kate owned a pretty face, adorned by a pink-and-white complexion, most refreshing to eyes that had ached under an Indian sun. At first Mr. Charlmont set her down as merely affected and silly; then he began to dwell on the fact that, however silly and affected, she was indisputably pretty; next he reflected that reverses of fortune deserve pity and demand every gentleman’s most courteous consideration. In himself such consideration at once took the form of books lent from his library; of flowers for the drawing-room, and fruit for dessert. Kate, to do her justice, was no flirt, and saw without seeing his attentions; but her more experienced mother seeing, pondered, and seized, or made, an opportunity for checking her lodger’s intimacy. Mr. Charlmont, however, was not to be rebuffed; opposition made him earnest, whilst the necessity of expressing his feelings gave them definiteness: and not many months later Kate, with the house for her dowry, became Mrs. William Charlmont, the obnoxious lodger developed into an attached and dear husband, and Mrs. Turner retired on the life annuity to finish her days in independence.

A few years passed in hopes and disappointments. When hope had dwindled to despondency a little girl came—Catherine; after another few years a second girl, named Lucy in memory of her grandmother Turner, who had not lived to see her namesake. Then more years passed without a baby; and in due course the sisters were sent to Miss Drum’s school as day-boarders, their mother having become ailing and indolent.

Time went on, and the girls grew wiser and prettier—Catherine very pretty. When she was nearly twelve years old, Mr. Charlmont said one evening to his wife, ‘I have made my will, Kate, and left everything to you in the first instance, and between the children after you.’ And she answered, blushing—she was still comely, and a blush became her:—‘O William, but suppose another baby should come.’ ‘Well, I should make my will over again,’ he replied: but he did not guess why his wife blushed and spoke eagerly; he had quite given up such hopes.

Mr. Charlmont was fond of boating, and one day, when the girls were at home for the Easter holidays, he offered to take them both for a row; but Catherine had a bad cold, and as Lucy was not a good sailor, he did not care to take charge of her without her sister. His wife never had liked boating. Thus it was that he went alone. The morning was dull and chilly; but there was no wind, and the sea was almost smooth. He took dinner and fishing tackle in the boat with him, and gave notice that he should not be at home till the evening.

No wind, no sun; the day grew duller and duller, dimmer and dimmer. A smoke-like fog, beginning on land, spread from the cliffs to the beach, from the beach over the water’s edge; further and further it spread, beyond sight; it might be for miles over the sea. No wind blew to shift the dense fog which hid seamarks and landmarks alike. As day waned towards evening, and darkness deepened, all the fisher-folk gathered on the beach in pain and fear for those at sea. They lit a bonfire, they shouted, they fired off an old gun or two, such as they could get together, and still they watched, and feared, and hoped. Now one boat came in, now another; some guided by the glare, some by the sound of the firing: at last, by midnight, every boat had come in safe, except Mr. Charlmont’s.

As concerned him, that night was only like all nights and all days afterwards; for neither man, nor boat, nor waif, nor stray from either, ever drifted ashore.

Mrs. Charlmont took the news of her husband’s disappearance very quietly indeed. She did not cry or fret, or propose any measures for finding him; but she bade Catherine be sure to have tea ready when he came in. This she repeated every day, and often in the day; and would herself sit by a window looking out towards the sea, smiling and cheerful. If any one spoke to her she would answer at random, but quite cheerfully. She rose or went to bed when her old nurse called her, she ate and drank when food was set before her; but she originated nothing, and seemed indifferent to everything except the one anxiety, that tea should be ready for her husband on his return.

The holidays over, Lucy went back to Miss Drum’s, trudging to and fro daily; but Catherine stayed at home to keep house and sit with her poor dazed mother.

A few months and the end came. One night nurse insisted with unusual determination on the girls going to bed early; but before daybreak Catherine was roused out of her sleep to see a new little sister and her dying mother.

Life was almost gone, and with the approach of death a sort of consciousness had returned. Mrs. Charlmont looked hard at Catherine, who was crying bitterly, and taking her hand said distinctly: ‘Catherine, promise to stay here ready for your father when he comes on shore—promise some of you to stay here: don’t let him come on shore and find me gone and no one—don’t let the body come on shore and find us all gone and no one—promise me, Catherine!’

And Catherine promised.

Mr. Charlmont died a wealthy man. He had enjoyed a large lucrative practice, and had invested his savings profitably: by his will, and on their mother’s death, an ample provision remained for his daughters. Strictly speaking, it remained for Catherine and Lucy: the baby, Jane, was unavoidably left dependent on her sisters; but on sisters who, in after-life, never felt that their own right to their father’s property was more obvious or more valid than hers.

Mr. Charlmont had appointed but one trustee for his daughters—Mr. Drum, only brother of their schoolmistress, a thoroughly honest lawyer, practising and thriving in Brompton-on-Sea; a man somewhat younger than himself, who had speculated adroitly both with him and for him. On Mrs. Charlmont’s death, Mr. Drum proposed sending the two elder girls to a fashionable boarding-school near London, and letting nurse, with a wet-nurse under her, keep house in the old home with baby: but Catherine set her face against this plan, urging her promise to her dying mother as a reason for not going away; and so held to her point that Mr. Drum yielded, and agreed that the girls, who could not bear to be parted, should continue on the same terms as before at his sister’s school. Miss Drum, an intimate friend of their mother’s, engaged to take them into such suitable society as might offer until Catherine should come of age; and as she resided within two minutes’ walk of their house, this presented no difficulty. At twenty one, under their peculiar circumstances, Catherine was to be considered old enough to chaperone her sisters. Nurse, a respectable elderly woman, was to remain as housekeeper and personal attendant on the children; and a wet-nurse, to be succeeded by a nursery-girl, with two other maids, completed the household.

Catherine, though only in her thirteenth year, already looked grave, staid, and tall enough for a girl of sixteen, when these arrangements were entered into. The sense of responsibility waxed strong within her, and with the motherly position came something of the motherly instinct of self-postponement to her children.

CHAPTER III.

The last chapter was parenthetical, this takes up the broken thread of the story.

Breakfast over, and her sisters gone their several ways, Lucy Charlmont seized the ‘Times’ Supplement and read the Hartley-Durham paragraph over to herself:—‘On Monday the 13th, at the parish church, Fenton, by the Rev. James Durham, uncle of the bride, Alan Hartley, Esq., of the Woodlands, Gloucestershire, to Everilda Stella, only child and presumptive heiress of George Durham, Esq., of Orpingham Place, in the same county.’

There remained no lurking-place for doubt. Mr. Hartley,—‘her’ Mr. Hartley, as Jane dubbed him,—had married Everilda Stella, a presumptive heiress. Thus concluded Lucy’s one romance.

Poor Lucy! the romance had been no fault of hers, perhaps not even a folly: it had arisen thus. When Miss Charlmont was twenty-one Lucy was eighteen, and had formally come out under her sister’s wing; thenceforward going with her to balls and parties from time to time, and staying with her at friends’ houses in town or country. This paying visits had entailed the necessity of Jane’s having a governess. Miss Drum had by that time ‘relinquished tuition,’ as she herself phrased it, and retired on a comfortable competence earned by her own exertions; therefore, to Miss Drum’s school Jane could not go. Lucy, when the subject was started, declared, with affectionate impulsiveness, that she would not pay visits at all, or else that she and Catherine might pay them separately; but Catherine, who considered herself in the place of mother to both her sisters, and whose standard of justice to both alike was inflexible, answered, ‘My dear’—when Miss Charlmont said ‘my dear’ it ended a discussion—‘My dear, Jane must have a governess. She shall always be with us in the holidays, and shall leave the schoolroom for good when she is eighteen, and old enough to enter society; but at present I must think of you and your prospects.’ So Jane had a fashionable governess, fresh from a titled family, and versed in accomplishments and the art of dress, whilst Catherine commenced her duties as chaperone. Lucy thought that her sister, handsomer than herself and not much older, might have prospects too, and tried hard to discover chances for her; but Catherine nursed no such fancies on her own account. Her promise to her dying mother, that some one of them should always be on the spot at Brompton-on-Sea, literally meant at the moment, she resolved as literally to fulfil, even whilst she felt that only by one not fully in her right mind could such a promise have been exacted. Grave and formal in manner, dignified in person, and in disposition reserved, though amiable, she never seemed to notice, or to return, attentions paid her by any man of her acquaintance; and if one of these ever committed himself so far as to hazard an offer, she kept his secret and her own.

Lucy, meanwhile, indulged on her own account the usual hopes and fears of a young woman. At first all parties and visits were delightful, one not much less so than another then a difference made itself felt between them; some parties turned out dull, and some visits tedious. The last year of Lucy’s going everywhere with Catherine, before, that is, she began dividing engagements with Jane,—for until Lucy should be turned thirty, self-chaperoning was an inadmissible enormity in Miss Charlmont’s eyes, in spite of what she had herself done; as she said, her own had been an exceptional case,—in that last year the two sisters had together spent a month with Dr. Tyke, whose wife had been before marriage another Lucy Charlmont, and a favourite cousin of their father’s: concerning her, tradition even hinted that, in bygone years, she had refused the penniless army surgeon.

Be this as it may, at Mrs. Tyke’s house in London, the sisters spent one certain June, and then and there Lucy ‘met her fate,’ as with a touch of sentiment, bordering on sentimentality, she recorded in her diary one momentous first meeting. Alan Hartley was a nephew of Dr. Tyke’s—handsome, and clever on the surface, if not deep within. He had just succeeded his father at the Woodlands, had plenty of money, no profession, and no hindrance to idling away any amount of time with any pretty woman who was pleasant company. Such a woman was Lucy Charlmont. He harboured no present thoughts of marriage, but she did; he really did pay just as much attention to a dozen girls elsewhere, but she judged by his manner to herself, and drew from it a false conclusion. That delightful June came to an end, and he had not spoken; but two years later occurred a second visit, as pleasant and as full of misunderstanding as the first. Meanwhile, she had refused more than one offer. Poor Lucy Charlmont: her folly, even if it was folly, had not been very blameable.

The disenchantment came no less painfully than unexpectedly: and Lucy, ready to cry, but ashamed of crying for such a cause, thrust the Supplement out of sight, and sitting down, forced herself to face the inevitable future. One thing was certain, she could not meet Alan—in her thoughts he had long been Alan, and now it cost her an effort of recollection to stiffen him back into Mr. Hartley—she must not meet Mr. Hartley till she could reckon on seeing him and his wife with friendly composure. Oh! why—why—why had she all along misunderstood him, and he never understood her? Not to meet him, it would be necessary, to decline the invitation from Mrs. Tyke, which she had looked forward to and longed for during weeks past, and which, in the impartial judgment of Miss Charlmont, it was her turn, not Jane’s, to accept; which, moreover, might arrive by any post. Jane she knew would be ready enough to pay a visit out of turn, but Catherine would want a reason; and what reason could she give? On one point, however, she was determined, that, with or without her reasons being accepted as reasonable, go she would not. Then came the recollection of a cracker she had pulled with him, and kept in her pocketbook ever since; and of a card he had left for her and her sister, or, as she had fondly fancied, mainly for herself, before the last return from Mrs. Tyke’s to Brompton-on-Sea. Treasures no longer to be treasured, despoiled treasures,—she denied herself the luxury of a sigh, as she thrust them between the bars of the grate and watched them burn.

CHAPTER IV.

‘Lucy, Jane,’ said Miss Charlmont, some days afterwards, addressing her sisters, and holding up an open letter,—‘Mrs. Tyke has sent a very kind invitation, asking me, with one of you, to stay a month at her house, and to fix the day. It is your turn, Lucy; so, if you have no objection, I shall write, naming next Thursday for our journey to London. Jane, I shall ask Miss Drum to stay with you during our absence; I think she will be all the better for a change, and there is no person more fit to have the charge of you. So don’t be dull, dear, till we come back.’

But Jane pouted, and said in a cross tone, ‘Really, sister, you need not settle everything now for me, as if I were a baby. I don’t want Miss Drum, who is as old as the hills and as solemn. Can’t you write to Mrs. Tyke and say, that I cannot be left alone here? What difference could it make in her large house?’

For once Catherine answered her favourite sister with severity, ‘Jane, you know why it is impossible for us all to leave home together. This is the last year you will be called upon to remain behind, for after Lucys next birthday it is agreed between us that she will take turns with me in chaperoning you. Do not make what may be our last excursion together unpleasant by your unkindness.’

Still Jane was not silenced. ‘At any rate, it need not be Miss Drum. I will stay here alone, or I will have somebody more amusing than Miss Drum.’

Before Catherine could reply, Lucy with an effort struck into the dispute. ‘Jane, don’t speak like that to our sister; I should be ashamed to speak to her so. Still, Catherine,’ she continued, without noticing a muttered retort from the other, ‘after all, I am going to side with Jane on the main point, and ask you to take her to Notting Hill, and leave me at home to keep house with dear old Miss Drum. This really was my own wish before Jane spoke, so pray let us not say another word on the subject.’

But Catherine saw how pale and languid she looked, and stood firm. ‘No, Lucy, that would be unreasonable; Jane ought not to have made any difficulty. You have lost your colour lately and your appetite, and need a change more than either of us.’ I shall write to Mrs. Tyke, promising her and the doctor your company next Thursday; Jane will make up her mind like a good girl, and I am sure you, my dear, will oblige me by not withholding your assent.’

For the first time ‘my dear’ did not close the debate. ‘Catherine,’ said Lucy, earnestly, whilst, do what she would, tears gathered in her eyes, ‘I am certain you will not press me further, when I assure you that I do not feel equal to paying this visit. I have felt weak lately,’ she went on hurriedly, ‘and I cannot tell you how much I long for the quiet of a month at home rather than in that perpetual bustle. Merely for my own sake, Jane must go.’

Catherine said no more just then; but later, alone with Lucy, resumed the subject so far as to ask whether she continued in the same mind, and answered her flurried ‘yes’ by no word of remonstrance, but by an affectionate kiss. This was all which passed between them; neither then nor afterwards did the younger sister feel certain whether Catherine had or had not guessed her secret.

Miss Drum was invited to stay with Lucy in her solitude, and gladly accepted the invitation. Lucy was her favourite, and when they were together, they petted each other very tenderly.

Jane, having gained her point, recovered her good humour, and lost no time in exposing the deficiencies of her wardrobe. ‘Sister,’ she said, smiling her prettiest and most coaxing smile, ‘you can’t think how poor I am, and how few clothes I’ve got.’

Catherine, trying to appear serenely unconscious of the drift of this speech, replied, ‘Let us look over your wardrobe, dear, and we will bring it into order. Lucy will help, I know, and we can have Miss Smith to work here too, if necessary.’

‘Oh dear, no!’ cried Jane; ‘there is no looking over what does not exist. If it comes to furbishing up old tags and rags, here I stay. Why, you’re as rich as Jews, you and Lucy, and could give me five pounds a-piece without ever missing it; and not so much of a gift either, for I’m sure poor papa would never have left me such a beggar if he had known about me.’

This argument had been used more than once before. Catherine looked hurt. Lucy said, ‘You should remember that you have exactly the same allowance for dress and pocket-money that we have ourselves, and we both make it do.’

‘Of course,’ retorted Jane, with latent spitefulness; ‘and when I’m as old and wise as you two, I may manage as well; but at present it is different. Besides, if I spend most on dress, you spend most on books and music, and dress is a great deal more amusing. And if I dressed like an old fright, I should like to know who’d look at me. You don’t want me to be another old maid, I suppose.’

Lucy flushed up, and tried to keep her temper in silence: her sore point had been touched. Catherine, accustomed in such cases to protest first and yield afterwards, but half ashamed that Lucy’s eye should mark the process from beginning to end, drew Jane out of the room, and with scarcely a word more wrote her a cheque for ten pounds, and dropped the subject of looking over her wardrobe.

An hour after the sisters had started for London, Miss Drum arrived to take their place.

Miss Drum was tall in figure, rather slim and well preserved, with pale complexion, hair, and eyes, and an unvarying tone of voice. She was mainly describable by negatives. She was neither unladylike, nor clever, nor deficient in education. She was old, but not very infirm; and neither an altogether obsolete nor a youthful dresser, though with some tendency towards the former style. Propriety was the most salient of her attributes, and was just too salient to be perfect. She was not at all amusing; in fact, rather tiresome, with an unflagging intention of being agreeable. From her Catherine acquired a somewhat old-fashioned formality; from her, also, high principles, and the instinct of self-denial. And because unselfishness, itself a negative, was Miss Drum’s characteristic virtue, and because her sympathy, however prosy in expression, was sterling in quality, therefore Lucy, sore with unavowed heart-sorrow, could bear her companionship, and run down to welcome her at the door with affectionate cordiality.

CHAPTER V.

London-Bridge Station, with its whirl of traffic, seems no bad emblem of London itself: vast, confused, busy, orderly, more or less dirty; implying enormous wealth in some quarter or other; providing luxuries for the rich, necessaries for the poor; thronged by rich and poor alike, idle and industrious, young and old, men and women.

London-Bridge Station at its cleanest is soiled by thousands of feet passing to and fro: on a drizzling day each foot deposits mud in its passage, takes and gives mud, leaves its impress in mud; on such a day the Station is not attractive to persons fresh from the unfailing cleanliness of sea coast and inland country; and on such a day, when, by the late afternoon, the drizzle had done, and the platform had suffered each its worst,—on such a day Miss Charlmont and her pretty sister, fresh and fastidious from sea salt and country sweetness, arrived at the Station.

Dr. Tyke’s carriage was there to meet the train. Dr. Tyke’s coachman, footman, and horses were fat, as befitted a fat master, whose circumstances and whose temperament might be defined as fat also; for ease, good-nature, and fat have an obvious affinity.

‘Should the hood be up or down?’ The rain had ceased, and Miss Charlmont, who always described London as stifling, answered, ‘Up.’ Jane, leaning back with an elegant ease, which nature had given and art perfected, felt secretly ashamed of Catherine, who sat bolt upright, according to her wont, and would no more have lolled in an open carriage than on the high-backed, scant-seated chair of her schooldays.

The City looked at once dingy and glaring; dingy with unconsumed smoke, and glaring here and there with early-lighted gas. When Waterloo Bridge had been crossed matters brightened somewhat, and Oxford Street showed not amiss. Along the Edgware Road dirt and dinginess re-asserted their sway; but when the carriage finally turned into Notting Hill, and drove amongst the Crescents, Roads, and Gardens of that cleanly suburb, a winding-up shower, brisk and brief, not drizzly, cleared the way for the sun, and finished off the afternoon with a rainbow.

Dr. Tyke’s abode was named Appletrees House, though the orchard whence the name was derived had disappeared before the memory of the oldest inhabitant. The carriage drew up, the door swung open: down the staircase came flying a little, slim woman, with outstretched hands and words of welcome; auburn-haired, though she had outlived the last of the fifties, and cheerful, though the want of children had not ceased to be felt as a hopeless disappointment: a pale-complexioned, high-voiced, little woman, all that remained of that fair cousin Lucy of bygone years and William Charlmont.

Behind her, and more deliberately, descended her husband, elastic of step, rotund of figure, bright-eyed, rosy, white-headed, not altogether unlike a robin redbreast that had been caught in the snow. Mrs. Tyke had a habit of running on with long-winded, perfectly harmless commonplaces; but notwithstanding her garrulity, she never uttered an ill-natured word or a false one. Dr. Tyke, burdened with an insatiable love of fun, and a ready, if not a witty, wit, was addicted to venting jokes, repartees, and so-called anecdotes; the last not always unimpeachably authentic.

Such were the hosts. The house was large and light, with a laboratory for the Doctor, who dabbled in chemistry, and an aviary for his wife, who doted on pets. The walls of the sitting-rooms were hung with engravings, not with family portraits, real or sham: in fact, no sham was admitted within doors, unless imaginary anecdotes and quotations must be stigmatized as shams; and as to these, when taxed with invention, the Doctor would only reply by his favourite Italian phrase: ‘Se noti è vero è ben trovato.’

‘Jane,’ said Mrs. Tyke, as the three ladies sat over a late breakfast, the Doctor having already retreated to the laboratory and his newspaper:—‘Jane, I think you have made a conquest.’

Jane looked down in silence, with a conscious simper. Catherine spoke rather anxiously: ‘Indeed, Cousin Lucy, I have noticed what you allude to, and I have spoken to Jane about not encouraging Mr. Durham. He is not at all a man she can really like, and she ought to be most careful not to let herself be misunderstood. Jane, you ought indeed.’

But Jane struck merrily in: ‘Mr. Durham is old enough and—ahem!— handsome enough to take care of himself, sister. And, besides’, with a touch of mimicry, which recalled his pompous manner,’ Orpingham Place, my dear madam, Orpingham Place is a very fine place, a very fine place indeed. Our pineapples can really hardly be got rid of, and our prize pigs can’t see out of their eyes; they can’t indeed, my dear young lady, though it’s not pretty talk for a pretty young lady to listen to.—Very well, if the pines and the pigs are smitten, why shouldn’t I marry the pigs and the pines?’

‘Why not?’ cried Mrs. Tyke with a laugh; but Miss Charlmont, looking disturbed, rejoined: ‘Why not, certainly, if you like Mr. Durham; but do you like Mr. Durham? And, whether or not, you ought not to laugh at him.’

Jane pouted: ‘Really one would think I was a child still! As to Mr. Durham, when he knows his own mind and speaks, you may be quite sure I shall know my own mind and give him his answer.—Orpingham Place, my dear Miss Catherine, the finest place in the county; the finest place in three counties, whatever my friend the Duke may say. A charming neighbourhood. Miss Catherine; her Grace the Duchess, the most affable woman you can imagine, and my lady the Marchioness, a fine woman—a very fine woman. But they can’t raise such pines as my pines; they can’t do it, you know; they haven’t the means, you know.—Come now, sister, don’t look cross; when I’m Mrs. Durham you shall have your slice off the pigs and the pines.’

CHAPTER VI.

Everilda Stella, poor Lucy’s unconscious rival, had married out of the schoolroom. Pretty she was not, but with much piquancy of face and manner, and a talent for private theatricals. These advantages, gilded, perhaps, by her reputation as presumptive heiress, attracted, to her a suitor, to whose twenty years’ seniority she felt no objection. Mr. Hartley wooed and won her in the brief space of an Easter holiday; and bore her, nothing loth,—to London, to enjoy the gaieties of the season. Somewhat to the bridegroom’s annoyance, Mr. Durham accompanied the newly-married couple to town, and shared their pretty house at Kensington.

Alan Hartley, a favourite nephew of Dr. Tyke, had, as we know, been very intimate at his house in old days. Now he was proud to present his little wife of sixteen to his uncle and aunt, though somewhat mortified at having also to introduce his father-in-law, whose pompous manners, and habit of dragging titled personages into his discourse, put him to the blush. Alan had dropped Everilda, and called his wife simply Stella; her father dubbed her Pug; Everilda she was named, in accordance with the taste of her peerage-studious mother. This lady was accustomed to describe herself as of a north-country family—a Leigh of the Leazes; which conveyed an old-manorial notion to persons unacquainted with Newcastle-on-Tyne. But this by the way: Mrs. Durham had died before the opening of our tale.

At their first visit they were shown into the drawing-room by a smiling maid-servant, and requested to wait, as Dr. and Mrs. Tyke were expected home every moment. Stella looked very winning in her smart hat and feather and jaunty jacket, and Alan would have abandoned himself to all the genial glow of a bridegroom, but for Mr. Durham’s behaviour. That gentle-man began by placing his hat on the floor between his feet, and flicking his boots with a crimson silk pocket-handkerchief. This done, he commenced a survey of the apartment, accompanied by an apt running comment,—‘Hem, no pictures—cheap engravings; a four-and-sixpenny Brussels carpet; a smallish mirror, wants regilding. Pug, my pet, that’s a neat antimacassar: see if you can’t carry off the stitch in your eye. A piano—a harp; fiddlestick!’

When Dr. and Mrs. Tyke entered, they found the Hartleys looking uncomfortable, and Mr. Durham red and pompous after his wont; also, in opening the door, they caught the sound of ‘fiddlestick!’ All these symptoms, with the tact of kindness, they ignored. The bride was kissed, the father-in-law taken for granted, and Alan welcomed as if no one in the room had looked guilty.

‘Come to lunch and take a hunch,’ said the Doctor, offering his arm to Stella. ‘Mother Bunch is rhyme, but not reason; you shall munch and I will scrunch—that’s both. “Ah! you may well look surprised,” as the foreign ambassador admitted when the ancient Britons noticed that he had no tail. But you won’t mind when you know us better; I’m no worse than a barrel-organ.’

Yet with all Dr. Tyke’s endeavour to be funny, and this time it cost him an effort, and with all his wife’s facile commonplaces, two of the guests seemed ill at ease. Alan felt, as it were with every nerve, the impression his father-in-law must produce, while Stella, less sensitive for herself, was out of countenance for her husband’s sake. Mr. Durham, indeed, was pompous and unabashed as ever; but whilst he answered commonplace remarks by remarks no less commonplace, he appeared to be, as in fact he was, occupied in scrutinizing, and mentally valuing, the plate and china.

‘Charming weather,’ said Mrs. Tyke, with an air of intelligent originality.

‘Yes, ma’am; fine weather, indeed; billing and cooing weather; ha! Ha!’ with a glance across the table. ‘Now I dare say your young ladies know what to do in this weather.’

‘We have no children,’ and Mrs. Tyke whispered, lest her husband should hear. Then, after a pause, ‘I dare say Orpingham Place was just coming into beauty when you left.’

Mr. Durham thrust his thumbs into his waistcoat-pockets, and leaned back for conversation. ‘Well, I don’t know what to say to that,—I don’t indeed; I don’t know which the season is when Orpingham Place is not in beauty. Its conservatories were quite a local lion last winter—quite a local lion, as my friend the Duke remarked to me; and he said he must bring the Duchess over to see them, and he did bring her Grace over; and I gave them a luncheon in the largest conservatory, such as I don’t suppose they sit down to every day. For the nobility have blood, if you please, and the literary beggars are welcome to all the brains they’ve got’ (the Doctor smiled, Alan winced visibly); ‘but you’ll find it’s us city men who’ve got backbone, and backbone’s the best to wear, as I observed to the Duke that very day when I gave him such a glass of port as he hasn’t got in his cellar. I said it to him, just as I say it to you, ma’am, and he didn’t contradict me; in fact, you know, he couldn’t.’

After this it might have been difficult to start conversation afresh, when, happily, Jane entered, late for luncheon, and with an apology for her sister, who was detained elsewhere. She went through the necessary introductions, and took her seat between Dr. Tyke and Mr. Durham, thus commanding an advantageous view of the bride, whom she mentally set down as nothing particular in any way.

Alan had never met Jane before. He asked her after Miss Charlmont and Lucy, after Lucy especially, who was ‘a very charming old friend’ of his, as he explained to Stella. For some minutes Mr. Durham sat silent, much impressed by Jane’s beauty and grace; this gave people breathing-time for the recovery of ease and good humour; and it was not till Dr. Tyke had uttered three successive jokes, and every one, except Mr. Durham, had laughed at them, that the master of Orpingham Place could think of any remark worthy of his attractive neighbour; and then, with much originality, he too observed,—‘Charming weather, Miss Jane.’

And Jane answered with a smile; for was not this the widower of Orpingham Place?

That Mr. Durham’s conversation on subsequent occasions gained in range of subject, is clear from Jane’s quotations in the last chapter. And that Mr. Durham was alive to Jane’s fascinations appeared pretty evident, as he not only called frequently at Appletrees House, but made up parties, to which Dr. and Mrs. Tyke, and the Miss Charlmonts, were invariably asked.

CHAPTER VII.

Gaiety in London, sadness by the sea.

Lucy did her very best to entertain Miss Drum with the cheerfulness of former visits; in none of which had she shown herself more considerate of the old lady’s tastes than now. She made breakfast half-an-hour earlier than usual; she culled for her interesting scraps from the newspaper; she gave her an arm up and down the Esplanade on sunny days; she reclaimed the most unpromising strayed stitches in her knitting; she sang her old-fashioned favourite ballads for an hour or so before teatime, and after tea till bed-time played energetically at backgammon: yet Miss Drum was sensible of a change. All Lucy’s efforts could not make her cheeks rosy and plump, and her laugh spontaneous; could not make her step elastic or her eyes bright.

It is easy to ridicule a woman nearly thirty years old for fancying herself beloved without a word said, and suffering deeply under disappointment: yet Lucy Charlmont was no contemptible person. However at one time deluded, she had never let a hint of her false hopes reach Mr. Hartley’s observation; and however now disappointed, she fought bravely against a betrayal of her plight. Alone in her own room she might suffer visibly and keenly, but with any eye upon her she would not give way. Sometimes it felt as if the next moment the strain on her nerves might wax unendurable; but such a next moment never came, and she endured still. Only, who is there strong enough, day after day, to strain strength to the utmost, and yet give no sign?

‘My dear,’ said Miss Drum, contemplating Lucy over her spectacles and across the backgammon-board one evening when the eyes looked more sunken than ever, and the whole face more haggard, ‘I am sure you do not take exercise enough. You really must do more than give me an arm on the Esplanade; all our bloom is gone, and you are much too thin. Promise me that you will take at least one long walk in the day whenever the weather is not unfavourable.’

Lucy stroked her old friend’s hand fondly: ‘I will take walks when my sisters are at home again; but I have not you here always.’

Miss Drum insisted: ‘Do not say so, my dear, or I shall feel bound to go home again; and that I should not like at all, as we both know. Pray oblige me by promising.’

Thus urged, Lucy promised, and in secret rejoiced that for at least an hour or two of the day she should thenceforward be alone, relieved from the scrutiny of those dim, affectionate eyes. And truly she needed some relief. By day she could forbid her thoughts to shape themselves, even mentally, into words, although no effort could banish the vague, dull sorrow which was all that might now remain to her of remembrance. But by night, when sleep paralysed self-restraint, then her dreams were haunted by distorted spectres of the past; never alluring or endearing—for this she was thankful—but sometimes monstrous, and always impossible to escape from. Night after night she would awake from such dreams, struggling and sobbing, with less and less conscious strength to resume daily warfare.

Soon she allowed no weather to keep her indoors at the hour for walking, and Miss Drum, who was a hardy disciple of the old school, encouraged her activity. She always sought the sea, not the smooth, civilised esplanade, but the rough, irreclaimable shingle;—to stray to and fro till the last moment of her freedom; to and fro, to and fro, at once listless and unresting, with wide, absent eyes fixed on the monotonous waves, which they did not see. Gradually a morbid fancy grew upon her that one day she should behold her father’s body washed ashore, and that she should know the face: from a waking fancy, this began to haunt her dreams with images unutterably loathsome. Then she walked no more on the shingle, but took to wandering along green lanes and country roads.

But no one struggling persistently against weakness fails to overcome: also, however prosaic the statement may sound, air and exercise will take effect on persons of sound constitution. Something of Lucy’s lost colour showed itself, by fits and starts at first, next steadily; her appetite came back, however vexed she might feel at its return; at last fatigue brought sounder sleep, and the hollow eyes grew less sunken. This refreshing sleep was the turning-point in her case; it supplied strength for the day, whilst each day in its turn brought with it fewer and fewer demands upon her strength. Seven weeks after Miss Drum exacted the promise, Lucy, though graver of aspect, and at heart sadder than before Alan Hartley’s wedding, had recovered in a measure her look of health and her interest in the details of daily life. She no longer greatly dreaded meeting her sisters when at length their much-prolonged absence should terminate; and in spite of some nervousness in the anticipation, felt confident that even a sight of Mr. and Mrs. Hartley would not upset the outward composure of her decorum.

Miss Drum triumphed in the success of her prescription, and brought forward parallel instances within her own experience. ‘That is right,’ she would say, ‘my dear; take another slice of the mutton where it is not overdone. There is nothing like exercise for giving an appetite, only the mutton should not be overdone. You cannot remember Sarah Smith, who was with me before your dear mother entrusted you to my care; but I assure you three doctors had given her over as a confirmed invalid when I prescribed for her;’ and the old lady laughed gently at her own wit. ‘I made her take a walk every day, let the weather be what it might; and gave her nice, juicy mutton to eat, with a change to beef, or a chicken, now and then for variety; and very soon you would not have known her for the same girl; and Dr. Grey remarked, in his funny way, that I ought to be an M.D. myself.’ Or, again: ‘Lucy, my dear, you recollect my French assistant, Mademoiselle Leclerc, what a fine, strong young woman she was when you knew her. Now when she first came to me she was pale and peaking, afraid of wet feet or an open window; afraid of this, that, and the other, always tired, and with no appetite except for sweets. Mutton and exercise made her what you remember; and before she went home to France to marry an old admirer, she thanked me with tears in her eyes for having made her love mutton. She said “love” when she should have said “like;” but I was too proud and pleased to correct her English then, I only answered, “Ah, dear Mademoiselle, always love your husband and love your mutton.”’

Lucy had a sweet, plaintive voice, to which her own secret sorrow now added a certain simple pathos; and when in the twilight she sang ‘Alice Grey,’ or ‘She wore a wreath of roses,’ or some other old favourite, good Miss Drum would sit and listen till the tears gathered behind her spectacles. Were tears in the singer’s eyes also? She thought now with more tenderness than ever before of the suitors she had rejected in her hopeful, happy youth, especially of a certain Mr. Tresham, who had wished her all happiness as he turned to leave her in his dignified regret. She had always had a great liking for Mr. Tresham, and now she could feel for him.

CHAPTER VIII.

On the 28th of June, four letters came to Lucy by the first delivery:—

I.

My dear Lucy,

Pray do not think me thoughtless if I once more ask whether you will sanction an extension of our holiday. Mrs. Tyke presses us to remain with her through July, and Dr. Tyke is no less urgent. When I hinted that their hospitality had already been trespassed upon, the Doctor quoted Hone (as he said: I doubt if it is there):—

‘In July No good-bye; In August Part we must.’

I then suggested that you may be feeling moped at home, and in want of change; but, of course, the Doctor had still an answer ready:—Tell Lucy from me, that if she takes you away I shall take it very ill, as the homoeopath said when his learned brother substituted cocoa-nibs for champagne.’ And all the time Cousin Lucy was begging us to stay, and Jane was looking at me so earnestly: in short, dear Lucy, if ‘No’ must be said, pray will you say it; for I have been well-nigh talked over.

And, indeed, we must make allowances for Jane, if she seems a little selfish; for, to let you into a secret, I believe she means to accept Mr. Durham if he makes her the offer we all are expecting from him. At first I was much displeased at her giving him any encouragement, for it appeared to me impossible that she could view his attentions with serious approbation: but I have since become convinced that she knows her own mind, and is not trifling with him. How it is possible for her to contemplate union with one so unrefined and ostentatious I cannot conceive, but I have no power to restrain her; and when I endeavoured to exert my influence against him, she told me in the plainest terms that she preferred luxury with Mr. Durham to dependence without him. Oh, Lucy, Lucy! have we ever given her cause to resent her position so bitterly? Were she my own child, I do not think I could love her more or care for her more anxiously: but she has never understood me, never done me justice. I speak of myself only, not of you also, because I shall never marry, and all I have has been held simply in trust for her; with you it is, and ought to be, different.

But you must not suffer for Jane’s wilfulness. If you are weary of our absence I really must leave her under Cousin Lucy’s care—for she positively declines to accompany me home at present—and return to every-day duties. I am sick enough of pleasuring, I do assure you, as it is; though, were Mr. Durham a different man, I should only rejoice, as you may suppose.

Well, as to news, there is not much worth transmitting. Jane has been to the Opera three times, and to the English play once. Mr. Durham sends the boxes, and Dr. and Mrs. Tyke never tire of the theatre. The last time they went to the Opera they brought home with them to supper Mr. Tresham, whom you may recollect our meeting here more than once, and who has lately returned to England from the East. Through some misunderstanding he expected to see you instead of me, and looked out of countenance for a moment: then he asked after you, and begged me to remember him to you when I wrote. He appeared much interested in hearing our home news, and concerned when I mentioned that you have seemed less strong lately. Pray send compliments for him when next you write, in case we should see him again.

Mr. Hartley I always liked, and now I like his wife also: she is an engaging little thing, and gets us all to call her Stella. You, I am sure, will be fond of her when you know her. How I wish her father resembled her! She is as simple and as merry as a bird, and witnesses Mr. Durham’s attentions to Jane with perfect equanimity. As to Mr. Hartley, he seems as much amused as if the bulk of his wife’s enormous fortune were not at stake; yet any one must see the other man is in earnest. Stella is reckoned a clever actress, and private theatricals of some sort are impending. I say ‘of some sort,’ because Jane, who is indisputably the beauty of our circle, would prefer tableaux vivants; and I know not which will carry her point.

My love to Miss Drum. Don’t think me selfish for proposing to remain longer away from you; but, indeed, I am being drawn in two opposite directions by two dear sisters, of whom I only wish that one had as much good sense and good taste as the other.

Your affectionate sister, CATHERINE CHARLMONT.

II.

My dear Lucy,

I know Catherine is writing, and will make the worst of everything, just as if I was cut out to be an old maid.

Surely at my age one may know one’s own mind; and, though I’m not going to say before I am asked whether I like Mr. Durham, we are all very well aware, my dear Lucy, that I like money and comforts. It’s one thing for Catherine and you, who have enough and to spare, to split hairs as to likes and dislikes; but it’s quite another for me who have not a penny of my own, thanks to poor dear papa’s blindness. Now do be a dear, and tell sister she is welcome to stay this one month more; for, to confess the truth, if I remain here alone I may find myself at my wit’s end for a pound or two one of these days. Dress is so dear, and I had rather never go out again than be seen a dowdy; and if we are to have tableaux I shall want all sorts of things. I don’t hold at all with charades and such nonsense, in which people are supposed to be witty; give me a piece in which one’s arms are of some use; but of course, Stella, who has no more arm than a pump-handle, votes for theatricals.

The Hartleys are coming to-day, and, of course, Mr. Durham, to take us after luncheon to the Crystal Palace. There is a grand concert coming off, and a flower-show, which would all be yawny enough but for the toilettes. I dare say I shall see something to set me raving; just as last time I was at the Botanic Gardens, I pointed out the loveliest suit of Brussels lace over white silk; but I might as well ask Catherine for wings to fly with.

Good-bye, my dear Lucy. Don’t be cross this once, and when I have a house of my own, I’ll do you a good turn.

Your affectionate sister, JANE.

P.S. I enclose Mr. Durham’s photograph, which he fished and fished to make me ask for, so at last I begged it to gratify the poor man. Don’t you see all Orpingham Place in his speaking countenance?

III.

My dearest Lucy,

You owe me a kindness to balance my disappointment at missing your visit. So please let Catherine know that she and Jane may give us a month more. Dr. Tyke wishes it no less than I do, and Mr. Durham perhaps more than either of us; but a word to the wise.

Your affectionate cousin,

LUCY C. TYKE.

P.S. The Doctor won’t send regards, because he means to write to you himself.

IV.

Dear Lucy,

If you agree with the snail, you find your house just the size for one; and lest bestial example should possess less force than human, I further remind you of what Realmah the Great affirms,—‘I met two blockheads, but the one sage kept himself to himself.’ All which sets forth to you the charms of solitude, which, as you are such a proper young lady, is, of course, the only anybody you can be in love with, and of whose society I am bent on affording you prolonged enjoyment.

This can be effected, if your sisters stay here another month, and indeed you must not say us nay; for on your ‘yes’ hangs a tale which your ‘no’ may for ever forbid to wag. Miss Catherine looks glummish, but Jenny is all sparkle and roses, like this same month of June; and never is she more sparkling or rosier than when the master of Orpingham Place hails her with that ever fresh remark, ‘Fine day, Miss Jane.’ Don’t nip the summer crops of Orpingham Place in the bud, or, rather, don’t retard them by unseasonable frost; for I can’t fancy my friend will be put off with anything less than a distinct ‘no;’ and when it comes to that, I think Miss Jane, in her trepidation, will say ‘yes.’ And if you are a good girl, and let the little one play out her play, when she has come into the sugar and spice and all that’s nice, you shall come to Notting Hill this very next May, and while the sun shines make your hay.

Your venerable cousin’s husband (by which I merely mean),

Your cousin’s venerable husband,

FRANCIS TYKE, M.D.

N.B. I append M.D. to remind you of my professional status, and so quell you by the weight of my advice.

Lucy examined the photograph of Mr. Durham with a double curiosity, for he was Mr. Hartley’s father-in-law as well as Jane’s presumptive suitor. She looked, and saw a face not badly featured, but vulgar in expression; a figure not amiss, but ill at ease in its studied attitude and superfine clothes. Assuredly it was not George Durham, but the master of Orpingham Place who possessed attractions for Jane; and Lucy felt, for a sister who could be thus attracted, the sting of a humiliation such as her own baseless hopes had never cost her.

Each of her correspondents was answered with judicious variation in the turn of the sentences. To Jane she wrote dryly, returning Mr. Durham’s portrait wrapped in a ten-pound note; an arrangement which, in her eyes, showed a symbolic appropriateness, lost for the moment on her sister. Catherine she answered far more affectionately, begging her on no account to curtail a visit which might be of importance to Jane’s prospects; and on the flap of the envelope, she added compliments to Mr. Tresham.

CHAPTER IX.

Mr. Tresham had loved Lucy Charlmont sincerely, and until she refused him had entertained a good hope of success. Even at the moment of refusal she avowed the liking for him which all through their acquaintance had been obvious; and then, and not till then, it dawned upon him that her indifference towards himself had its root in preference for another. But he was far too honourable a man either to betray or to aim at verifying his suspicion; and though he continued to visit at Dr. Tyke’s, where Alan Hartley was so often to be seen idling away time under the comfortable conviction that he was doing no harm to himself or to any one else, it was neither at once, nor of set purpose, that Arthur Tresham penetrated Lucy’s secret. Alan and himself had been College friends; he understood him thoroughly; his ready good-nature, which seemed to make every one a principal person in his regard; his open hand that liked spending; his want of deep or definite purpose; his unconcern as to possible consequences. Then Lucy,—in whom Mr. Tresham had been on one point woefully mistaken,—she was so composed and so cordial to all her friends; there was about her such womanly sweetness, such unpretentious, dignified reserve towards all: her face would light up so brightly when he, or any other, spoke what interested her, not seldom, certainly, when he spoke:—even after a sort of clue had come into his hands, it was some time before he felt sure of any difference between her manner to Alan and to others. When the conviction forced itself upon him, he grieved more for her than for himself; he knew his friend too intimately to mistake his pleasure in being amused for any anxiety to make himself beloved; he knew about Alan much that Lucy did not and could not guess, and from the beginning inferred the end.

In the middle of that London season Catherine and Lucy returned to Brompton-on Sea; and before August had started the main stream of tourists from England to the continent, Mr. Tresham packed up his knapsack, and, staff in hand, set off on a solitary expedition, of undetermined length, to the East. He was neither a rich nor a poor man; had been called to the bar, but without pursuing his profession, and was not tied to any given spot; he went away to recruit his spirits, and, having recovered them, stayed on out of sheer enjoyment. Yet, when one morning his eye lighted on the Hartley-Durham marriage in the ‘Times’ Supplement, home feeling stirred within him; and he who, twenty-four hours earlier, knew not whether he might not end his days beside the blue Bosphorus, on the evening of that same day had started westward.

He felt curious, he would not own to himself that he felt specially interested, to know how Lucy fared; and he felt curious, in a minor degree, to inspect her successful rival. With himself Lucy had not yet had a rival; not yet, perhaps she might one day, he repeated to himself, only it had not happened yet. And then the sweet, dignified face rose before him kind and cheerful; cheerful still in his memory, though he guessed that now it must look saddened. He had never yet seen it with a settled expression of sadness, and he knew not how to picture it so.

Mr. Drum—or Mr. Gawkins Drum, as he scrupulously called himself, on account of a certain Mr. Drum, who lived somewhere and went nowhere, and was held by all outsiders to be in his dotage—Miss Drum’s brother, Mr. Gawkins Drum, had for several years stood as a gay young bachelor of sixty. Not that, strictly speaking, any man (or, alas! any woman) can settle down at sixty and there remain; but at the last of a long series of avowed birthday parties, Mr. Drum had drunk his own health as being sixty that very day; this was now some years ago, and still, in neighbourly parlance, Mr. Drum was no more than sixty. At sixty-something-indefinite Gawkins brought home a bride, who confessed to sixty; and all Brompton-on-Sea indulged in a laugh at their expense, till it oozed out that the kindly old couple had gone through all the hopes and disappointments of a many years’ engagement, begun at a reasonable age for such matters, and now terminated only because the bedridden brother, to whom the bride had devoted herself during an ordinary lifetime, had at last ended his days in peace. Mr. and Mrs. Gawkins Drum forestalled their neighbours’ laugh by their own, and soon the laugh against them died out, and every one accepted their house as amongst the pleasantest resorts in Brompton-on-Sea.

Miss Drum, however, felt less leniently towards her brother and sister-in-law, and deliberately regarded them from a shocked point of view. The wedding took place at Richmond, where the bride resided; and the honeymoon came to an end whilst Lucy entertained her old friend, during that long visit at Notting Hill, which promised to colour all Jane’s future.

‘My dear,’ said Miss Drum to her deferential listener; ‘My dear, Sarah,’—and Lucy felt that that offending Sarah could only be the bride,—‘Sarah’ shall not suffer for Gawkins’ folly and her own. I will not fail to visit her in her new home, and to notice her on all proper occasions, but I cannot save her from being ridiculous. I did not wait till I was sixty to make up my mind against wedlock, though perhaps’—and the old lady bridled—‘I also may have endured the preference of some infatuated man. Lucy, my dear, take an old woman’s advice: marry, if you mean to marry, before you are sixty, or else remain like myself; otherwise, you make yourself simply ridiculous.’

And Lucy, smiling, assured her that she would either marry before sixty or not at all; and added, with some earnestness, that she did not think she should ever marry. To which Miss Drum answered with stateliness: ‘Very well; do one thing or do the other, only do not become ridiculous.’

Yet the old lady softened that evening, when she found herself, as it were, within the radius of the contemned bride. Despite her sixty years, and in truth she looked less than her age, Mrs. Gawkins Drum was a personable little woman, with plump red cheeks, gentle eyes, and hair of which the soft brown was threaded, but not overpowered, by grey. There was no affectation of youthfulness in her gown, which was of slate-coloured silk; nor in her cap, which came well on her head; nor in her manner to her guests, which was cordial; nor in her manner to her husband, which was affectionate, with the undemonstrative affectionateness that might now have been appropriate had they married forty years earlier.

Her kiss of welcome was returned frostily by Miss Drum, warmly by Lucy. Mr. Drum at first looked a little sheepish under his sister’s severe salutation. Soon all were seated at tea.

‘Do you take cream and sugar?’ asked the bride, looking at her new sister.

‘No sugar, I thank you,’ was the formal reply. ‘And it will be better, Sarah, that you should call me Elizabeth. Though I am an old woman your years do not render it unsuitable, and I wish to be sisterly.’

‘Thank you, dear Elizabeth,’ answered Mrs. Gawkins, cheerily; ‘I hope, indeed, we shall be sisterly. It would be sad times with me if I found I had brought coldness into my new home.’

But Miss Drum would not thaw yet. ‘Yes, I have always maintained, and I maintain still, that there must be faults on both sides if a marriage, if any marriage whatever, introduces dissension into a family circle. And I will do my part, Sarah.’

‘Yes, indeed;’ but Sarah knew not what more to say.

Mr. Drum struck in,—‘Lucy, my dear’—she had been a little girl perched on his knee when her father asked him years before to be trustee,—‘Lucy, my dear, you’re not in full bloom. Look at my old lady, and guess: what’s a recipe for roses?’

‘For shame, Gawkins!’ cried both old ladies; one with a smile, the other with a frown.

Still, as the evening wore on. Miss Drum slowly thawed. Having, as it were once for all, placed her hosts in the position of culprits at the moral bar, having sat in judgment on them, and convicted them in the ears of all men (represented by Lucy), she admitted them to mercy, and dismissed them with a qualified pardon. What most softened her towards the offending couple was their unequivocal profession of rheumatism. When she unbendingly declined to remain seated at the supper-table one minute beyond half-past ten, she alleged rheumatism as her impelling motive; and Gawkins and Sarah immediately proclaimed their own rheumatic experience and sympathies. As Miss Drum observed to Lucy on their way home, ‘Old people don’t confess to rheumatism if they wish to appear young.’

Thus the feud subsided, though Miss Drum to the end of her life occasionally spoke of her sister-in-law as ‘that poor silly thing,’ and of her brother as of one who should have known better.

Whilst, on her side, Mrs. Gawkins Drum remarked to her husband, ‘What a very old-looking woman that Miss Charlmont is, if she’s not thirty, as you say. I never saw such an old, faded-looking woman of her age.’