Chapter Seven.
This Very Little World.
Alonzo.—What is this maid with whom thou wast at play?
Your eldest acquaintance cannot be three hours.
Tempest.
For the beautiful Miss Cheviott, little though she had been seen in Paris, had been seen enough to make a considerable sensation, especially as rumour, in this case with somewhat more foundation than usual, added the epithet heritière to the rest of Alys’s charms. Parisian papas and mammas sighed at the perversity of the British customs, which forbade their entering the lists on behalf of their eligible Adolphes and Gustaves, and the representatives of the English upper ten thousand, then in Paris, would have been very ready to make great friends with the brother and sister. But their advances were hardly reciprocated; Alys’s inexperience failed to appreciate them, and Mr Cheviott’s somewhat “stand-off” manner was not encouraging. Ill-natured people made fun of him for “mounting guard over his sister,” more amiably inclined observers pronounced such brotherly devotion to be really touching, but one and all fell short of attaining to anything like intimacy with the owner of Romary or the reputed heiress.
So some amount of curiosity, added to the interest inspired by the two Cheviotts and the buzz of conversation in Madame de Briancourt’s boudoir, perceptibly subsided for a minute or two on their first appearing. Alys, in her simplicity, hardly observed this, or, if she did so, was not struck by it as anything unusual, but Mr Cheviott noticed and was a little annoyed by it.
“I would not have called here this afternoon, if I had known we should find Madame de Briancourt ‘at home’ in such force,” he said to an English lady of his acquaintance after paying his respects to his hostess.
“Ah, you have not been long enough in Paris to be quite au fait of everything,” said Mrs Brabazon, good-naturedly. “There is always a great crowd here on Thursdays. But why should you object to it? It is all the more amusing.”
“I am not fond of crowds, and, as for my sister, she is quite unaccustomed to anything of the kind. She is hardly ‘out’,” he added, with a smile.
Mrs Brabazon smiled too. “I can quite believe it,” she replied, “and I can, too, prophesy very certainly that, in her present character as your sister, she will not be ‘out’ long.”
She looked up at Mr Cheviott expecting to see that the inferred compliment had pleased him. But, to her surprise, far from testifying any gratification the expression of his face seemed rather to tell of annoyance, and, being a good-natured woman, Mrs Brabazon felt sorry, and began wondering what there could have been in her harmless little speech so evidently to “rub him the wrong way.” Alys, sitting at a little distance talking to a young lady to whom Madame de Briancourt had introduced her, happened at this moment to look round and caught sight of her brother’s face.
“Laurence is vexed at something,” she thought, and, moving her chair a little so as to bring herself within speaking distance of her brother and Mrs Brabazon, she tried to think how she could give a turn to the conversation which so evidently was not to Mr Cheviott’s taste. The “turn” came from another direction. A tall, thin boy of sixteen, or thereabouts, a boy with a somewhat anxious and almost girlishly sweet expression of face, came softly and half timidly across the room in Mrs Brabazon’s direction.
“Aunt,” he said, hesitatingly, “I think it is getting rather late—that is to say, if you are still thinking of a drive.”
“I was just thinking so myself, Anselm. Just you find out, my dear boy, if the carriage has come; it was to follow us here, you know, and I shall be ready in a moment.”
The boy turned away to do as she asked.
“That is my other nephew—Anselm Brooke,” she explained to Mr Cheviott. “Basil you know?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alys’s brother, with evident interest. “How is he, poor fellow? I was just going to ask you. Better, I hope?”
Mrs Brabazon shook her head, and the tears filled her eyes.
“There will be no real ‘better’ for him, I feel sure,” she said, sadly. “Yet my brother will not believe it, or rather persists in saying he does not. I can understand it; I remember how obstinately incredulous I was when Colonel Brabazon’s illness became hopeless. But it is sad, is it not? You remember what a fine young fellow Basil was only last year?”
“Yes,” said Mr Cheviott, kindly. “It is very sad.”
“And poor Anselm, it is really piteous to see his devotion to Basil. He has always looked up to him as to a sort of superior being, and indeed Basil has been treated as such by us all. Anselm has always been so delicate and backward—a frail staff to lean upon, but my mind misgives me that before long his father will have no other.”
“Do the doctors think as you do?”
“They do not say so, but I feel sure they think so.”
“I should like to see Basil again before I leave. May I call, do you think?”
“By all means; it would please him very much. Are you going straight home when you leave Paris—to Meadshire, I mean, for that is ‘home’ now to you, I suppose.”
“Yes,” replied Mr Cheviott, “we go straight to Romary. You must come and see us there some time or other, Mrs Brabazon.”
“Thank you,” she said, with a sigh, “I must make no plans just now. My time belongs entirely to my brother and the boys. But talking of Meadshire reminds me—is it anywhere near Withenden that you live?”
“Very near—within a mile or two.”
“Have you ever heard of a place called Hathercourt near there?” inquired Mrs Brabazon, with interest. “You don’t happen to know anything of the clergyman of Hathercourt, or rather of his family? West, I think, is the name.”
“Western,” interrupted Alys close by. “Oh, yes, they are such pretty girls. I am sure they are nice.”
“How can you possibly judge, Alys?” said her brother, coldly. “You only saw them once in your life, and just for a mere instant.”
But Alys’s eager, flushed face, and warmly-expressed admiration of the Western sisters, had absorbed Mrs Brabazon’s attention; she hardly heard what Mr Cheviott said, or, if she did, she gave no heed to it.
“So you know them, then, Miss Cheviott?” she said, cordially, smiling at Alys as she spoke. “Do tell me all you know about them. ‘Girls,’ you say—are they all girls, then—no sons?”
“Oh, yes,” said Alys, “I think there are sons—indeed, I feel sure there are. But it was the girls I noticed, one was so pretty.”
The eagerness died out of her voice, for the expression of her brother’s face told her that again she had managed to displease him.
“How unlucky I am to-day,” she said to herself, and the change in her manner was so complete that Mr Cheviott was afraid Mrs Brabazon would notice it.
“It is a case of ‘all kinds’ in the Western household,” he said, with a slight laugh. “Alys and I only saw them once in church—there seemed to be girls and boys, of every size, down to little mites—a regular poor parson’s family.”
“But what sort of people are they?” asked Mrs Brabazon. “Being such near neighbours, you must hear something about them.”
“They are not such very near neighbours of ours. Withenden is the nearest railway station to Hathercourt, and we are only three miles from Withenden, but Hathercourt again is four miles the other way. Of course I take some interest in Hathercourt now, on Arthur Beverley’s account. You heard of his romantic legacy?”
“Oh! yes,” said Mrs Brabazon. “He wrote all about it to Basil. But I wish you would tell me anything you do know or have heard about these Westerns.”
“Which is very little. They are not in any sort of society.”
“How could they be, if they are so very poor?”
Mr Cheviott slightly shrugged his shoulders.
“I did not say they could be,” he answered, with a smile. “I was only, at your bidding, telling the very little I know about them. They are not in any society, not only because they are very poor, but because people know nothing about them. The father is not a man who has distinguished himself in any way, and I believe he married beneath him—a poor governess, or something of that kind—so what can you expect?”
Mrs Brabazon gave a curious smile.
“Oh! indeed,” she said, dryly. “So the on dit of Meadshire is that the Rector, or Vicar—which is he?—of Hathercourt married beneath him. Thank you; I am glad to know it. Here comes Anselm, I must go! You said these Western girls were pretty, did you not, Miss Cheviott?” she went on, turning to Alys. “Their beauty must be of the dairy-maid order, I suppose?”
Alys felt that her brother’s eyes were fixed upon her, but she answered sturdily nevertheless.
“On the contrary, they are particularly refined-looking girls. The eldest one especially has the sort of look that—that—” she hesitated.
“That a princess of the blood royal might have,” suggested Mrs Brabazon, laughingly.
Alys smiled, and so, to her relief, did her brother. Then Mrs Brabazon and the boy Anselm took their departure, and not long after, Madame de Briancourt having overwhelmed them with her pretty regrets and desolations at their leaving Paris so abruptly, the brother and sister bade their hostess farewell, and drove off again on their round of calls.
“Laurence Cheviott is evidently prejudiced against these Westerns. I wonder why, for I think him a reasonable sort of man, on the whole,” said Mrs Brabazon to herself. “Can it be possible that he has fallen in love with this very magnificent Miss Western, whom his sister admires so much, and that she has snubbed him? That I can quite believe he would find it hard to forgive. But, oh! no, that is quite impossible. I remember he said he had only seen them once. I think I shall get Basil, poor fellow, to write to Arthur Beverley; he may know something of them. I would like to see them, and it would be a satisfaction to Basil too.”
“What possible reason can Mrs Brabazon have for wanting to know anything about those Westerns? I am afraid she is something of a busybody after all. Surely Arthur cannot have been writing anything about them to Basil Brooke? Oh, no, it can’t be that, for if he had written anything of consequence, it would have been confidentially, and he would hardly be likely to trouble Brooke about anything of that kind now,” thought Mr Cheviott, when he found himself in the carriage again beside his sister, driving rapidly away from Madame de Briancourt’s.
Alys noticed his abstraction.
“What are you thinking of, Laurence?”
“Only what a very little world this is!”
“I know,” exclaimed Alys, not sorry to draw the conversation round to a point where her mind was not at rest. “You are thinking how strange it was that we should twice in one day hear Hathercourt Rectory spoken of—at least, not twice spoken of, but I mean mentioned, in Arthur’s letter, and again by Mrs Brabazon. Laurence, were you vexed with what I said of the Westerns? Did it seem like contradicting you?”
“Oh, no, you could not help saying what you thought—nor could I,” he added, after a little pause.
“I did think those girls so pretty, especially the eldest one, and not only pretty, but something more—good and nice.”
“I don’t see how they can be superior, however, considering their disadvantages,” said Mr Cheviott, musingly. “I don’t agree with you in admiring the elder one more than the other. There was something not commonplace about that younger girl,” and a curious feeling shot across his mind as he recalled the young face with the kindly honest eyes and half shy smile that had met his glance that Sunday morning in the porch of the old church—a feeling almost of disloyalty in the words and tones with which he had replied to Mrs Brabazon’s inquiries—a ridiculous feeling altogether to have in connection with a girl he had only seen once in his life, and that for not more than five minutes. But the vision of Mary Western’s face had imprinted itself on his memory, and refused to be effaced.
Alys fancied that the prejudice she had suspected was passing away; it could not have been very deep after all. She determined to take a bold step, and one that she had been meditating for some time.
“Laurence,” she said, “when we go back to Romary I wish you would let me know those girls. I can’t tell you why I have taken such a fancy to them, but I have. You could soon judge by seeing a little more of them if they are nice girls, and I am sure you would find they are. I have never had many companions, and it is dull sometimes—rather dull, I mean.”
She looked up in his face appealingly. It was very grave.
“Surely,” he was saying to himself, “the Fates are dead against me. What can have put it into the child’s head to want to set up a romantic friendship with these Westerns? Can Arthur have to do with it? Can he possibly have written anything to Alys besides what I saw?”
“You are vexed with me, Laurence,” she said, deprecatingly, as he did not speak. Then he looked at her and felt ashamed of his suspicions, and his tone was gentle when he answered:
“No, I am not vexed with you, but a little disappointed, perhaps, at your asking anything so foolish. Just reflect, dear, what can you know of those girls to make you wish to choose them for friends—”
“They have such nice faces.”
“And what I know of the family is not to their advantage,” pursued Mr Cheviott, without noticing the interruption. “None of the Withenden people speak cordially of them, or indeed seem to know anything about them.”
“And you call that to their disadvantage, Laurence!” exclaimed Alys—“you who have so often said what a set of snobs the Withenden people are. Of course it is very easy to see why the Westerns are disliked; they won’t be patronised by the county people, and they are too refined for the Withenden set, and so they keep to themselves, and the girls’ beauty makes everybody jealous of them.”
She looked up in her brother’s face triumphantly, feeling that she had the best of it, and so, too, in his heart, felt Mr Cheviott. But he could not afford to own himself vanquished, and took refuge in being aggrieved.
“Very well, Alys,” he said, coldly, “I cannot argue with you; you will be of age in three years, and then you can choose your own friends, but while you are under my guardianship, I can but direct you to the best of my judgment, however you may dislike it.”
Alys’s eyes filled with tears.
“Oh, Laurence, don’t speak to me like that; I am so unlucky to-day. I did not—indeed I did not mean to vex you; I should never want to go against your wishes—never, not if I live to be a hundred instead of twenty-one. Laurence, do forgive me!”
And Laurence smiled and “forgave,” though wishing she were convinced as well as submissive, for somewhere down in the secret recesses of his consciousness, there lurked a misgiving which shrank from boldly facing daylight as to whether his arguments had altogether succeeded in convincing himself.
“I am very sorry to hear of Basil Brooke being so ill,” he said by way of changing the conversation.
“Is that one of Mrs Brabazon’s nephews?”
“Yes, the elder; they have come to Paris to try some new doctor, but it is no use. I thought so when he first got ill; and now what his aunt says shows it is true. Poor fellow!”
“Have you known him long? I don’t think I ever heard you speak of him before,” said Alys.
“He was more a friend of Arthur’s than mine; they were in the same regiment. But here we are at Mrs Feston’s.”
On the whole, Alys enjoyed these few last days in Paris much more than the weeks which had preceded them. She was touched by her brother’s evident anxiety that she should do so. Never had she known him more indulgent and considerate, but yet he was less cheerful than usual—at times unmistakably anxious and uneasy. There came no more letters from Captain Beverley, but Alys was not sorry.
“It was something in that letter of Arthur’s that annoyed Laurence so the other day,” she thought to herself; “and fond as I am of Arthur, I couldn’t let him or any one come between Laurence and me.”
And she was not quite sure if she felt pleased or the reverse when her brother told her that, in all probability Captain Beverley would be their guest almost as soon as they reached Romary.
“You haven’t written to tell him when we are going home, have you, Alys?”
Alys looked up from her letter to Miss Winstanley in surprise at the inquiry.
“I?” she said; “oh dear, no. I leave all that to you of course. I have not answered Arthur’s letter at all; there seems to have been so much to do this last day or two.”
Her brother seemed pleased and yet not pleased.
“It is just as well. I don’t think I shall tell him either. We’ll take him by surprise—drive over to see him in his bachelor quarters at the farm-house the day after we get home, eh?”
“Oh, yes, do,” exclaimed Alys, eagerly. “We’ll say we have come to luncheon! What fun it will be; for Arthur has about as much notion of housekeeping as the man in the moon, and he will look so foolish if he has to tell us he has nothing in the house but eggs!”
“You don’t suppose he has been living on nothing but eggs all this time, do you?”
“He may have had a chop now and then for a change,” observed Alys; “but from what he said in his letter, I don’t fancy he has had to depend much on himself. He seems to have been a great deal with his friends at the Rectory.”
There was intention in the allusion. Alys stole a look at her brother’s face to see if the effect was what she half anticipated. Yes; the amusement had all died put of his expression, to be replaced by annoyance and anxiety. Alys’s conscience smote her for trying experiments at the cost of her brother’s equanimity.
“Poor Laurence!” she reflected. “I wish he would not worry himself so much about other people’s affairs. Arthur is quite able to take care of himself. But evidently it is about him and the Westerns that Laurence is in such a state of mind. I really do wonder why he should care so much.”
And the next morning the Cheviotts left Paris.
Chapter Eight.
Plans.
“Se’l sol mi splende, non curo la luna.”
Italian Proverb.
“Man proposes, but the weather interposes,” is a travesty of the well-known old saying, which few people would dispute the truth of. Directly the delay in the Cheviotts’ return home was traceable to other agencies, but indirectly the weather was at the bottom of it after all. The journey to London was accomplished without let or hindrance by the way; the let and the hindrance met the brother and sister on their arrival at Miss Winstanley’s house, where they were to spend the night, in the shape of a letter for one thing, and of a bad sore throat of their hostess for another. And all that was wrong was the fault of the weather! Miss Winstanley had caught cold through getting her feet wet the Sunday before, when the morning had promised well and turned out a base deceiver by noon; and the letter was from the housekeeper at Romary, written in abject distress at the prospect of her master and mistress’s return home sooner than she had expected them. More than distress, indeed; the letter closed an absolute entreaty that they would not come for ten days or so. It was “a terrible upset with the pipes,” she wrote, that was the cause of her difficulty—an upset caused by a complete overhauling of these mysterious modern inventions of household torture, the necessity for which had been revealed by some days of unusually heavy rains, by which “the pipes” had been tested and found wanting, and the Withenden plumbers being no exception to their class, long celebrated as the most civil and procrastinating of “work-people,” had already exceeded by several days the date at which the business was to have been concluded.
“Pipes is things as can’t be hurried,” wrote Mrs Golding, pathetically, “and, as everybody knows, it’s easy getting work-people into a house to getting them out again; but what with the pipes and the men, the house is in that state I cannot take upon myself to say what my feelings would be for you and Miss Alys to see it.”
Now Mrs Golding was an excellent servant; she had been Alys’s nurse, and though her grammar was far from irreproachable, and her general appearance not more than respectable and old-fashioned, she was thoroughly well qualified for the somewhat onerous post to which, on her master’s accession to Romary, he had at once promoted her. But she had two faults—she had feelings and she had nerves.
The letter came at breakfast-time. Alys and her brother were by themselves, Miss Winstanley’s sore throat preventing her coming down as early as usual. Mr Cheviott read it, and tossed it across the table to his sister.
“So provoking!” he exclaimed.
“Yes,” said Alys, “it is tiresome just when you were so particularly anxious to go home. But I see no help for it; when nurse takes to her ‘feelings,’ what can we do? No doubt the house is in a terrible mess, and if we persisted in going down at once, I really believe she would have a fit. If we wait a few days, as she suggests, you may trust her to have everything ready for us; and indeed, Laurence, I was thinking just before nurse’s letter came that it seemed hardly kind of me to go away when aunt is ill and all alone. She will be able to come with us to Romary in a week, she says, if we can wait till then.”
Mr Cheviott did not at once answer.
“It is unlucky,” he said at last; “but, as far as I am concerned, I must not put off going home, and Mrs Golding’s feelings must just make the best of it. But you had better stay here a week or so, Alys, I see that, so you can tell my aunt so.”
“Thank you,” said Alys; “but I wish you could stay too.”
But “No, it is really impossible,” was her brother’s reply, and soon after he went out.
Alys did not see him again till about an hour before dinner-time.
“Is my aunt up yet?” he inquired, as he came in, and even in the tone with which he uttered the two or three words she could perceive a cheerfulness which had not been his in the morning.
“No,” she replied, “but she says she will come into the drawing-room after dinner. She is much better.”
“Ah, well, then, if I am not to see her till after dinner, you must tell her from me that I have taken the liberty of inviting a friend to dinner in her name. Fancy, Alys, almost the first person I ran against this morning was Arthur. He only came up to town yesterday for a few days to settle something about this new farm-house that his head’s running upon—so lucky we met!”
“Yes, very. I shall be so glad to see him,” said Alys, heartily. “But what a pity, Laurence, that you have to go just as he has come. It would have been so nice for all of us to go home together.”
Mr Cheviott hesitated.
“I am not, after all, perfectly certain that I shall go down to Romary quite so soon as I said. Part—in fact, the chief part—of my business was with Arthur, and if he stays in town a few days too, we may all go down to Romary together, as you wish.”
“That’s very nice of you, Laurence. I really think my training is beginning to do you good. Aunt, of course, will be delighted to see Arthur, but I will go and tell her about it now.”
She was leaving the room when her brother called her back. “Remember,” he said, “I haven’t promised,” but Alys laughed and shook her head, and ran off.
“I can manage Arthur,” she thought, “if it depends on him. But I am sure there is something Laurence has not told me that has annoyed him lately, though he looks happier to-night—I wonder what it is all about.”
Captain Beverley was a great favourite with Miss Winstanley, whose affection for her nephew—her half-brother’s son—Laurence Cheviott, was considerably tempered with awe. But with Arthur she always felt at ease.
“It is not that I mind being laughed at, now and then,” she would confide to Alys, pathetically, “but with Laurence I really never feel sure if he is laughing at me or not. Of course he is never wanting in real respect, and he is the best of nephews in every way, but I can’t deny that I am frightened of him, and, however you laugh at me, my dear, you can’t laugh me out of it. I always have been afraid of Laurence, ever since he was a baby, I believe. He has had such a dreadfully superior sort of way of looking at one, and saying, ‘What for does you do that?’”
“What a dreadful baby he must have been! I always tell him he was never snubbed as much as would have been for his good,” Alys would reply, upon which her aunt would observe, with a sigh, that it was “far too late in the day to think of anything of the kind now.”
Her spirits rose greatly when she heard that Arthur was coming to dinner.
“I really think I feel well enough to dine with you, after all,” she said to Alys. “It would certainly seem more hospitable, as Arthur is coming, and I don’t like to get the character of exaggerating my ailments,” and Alys agreed with her that if she were “well wrapped up,” the exertion of going down two flights of stairs to the dining-room was not likely to do her any harm.
“But you know, aunt, you mustn’t eat too much at dinner,” said Alys, gravely, “for if you feed a cold you’ll have to starve a fever. A little soup and a spoonful of jelly—anything more might be very dangerous.”
“Naughty girl, you are laughing at me now,” remonstrated poor Miss Winstanley, but Alys assured her solely that she was “quite, quite in earnest.”
And the partie carrée was a very cheerful one. Laurence seemed more light of heart than he had been for some time; Arthur, whose state of spirits was, to give him his due, seldom such as to cause his friends much anxiety, was even gayer and merrier than usual, almost feverishly so, it seemed to Alys once or twice, and yet again, when she caught his eyes fixed upon her with a sort of appealing anxiety in their expression that she never remembered to have seen in them before, she could have fancied, were such a fancy possible in connection with so light-hearted and thoughtless a being, that he, in his turn, had something on his mind. Could the mantle of Laurence’s recent anxiety have fallen upon him? she asked herself. It seemed so strange to associate anxiety of any kind with Arthur that she tried to dismiss the idea, and told herself that she must have grown morbid from being so much alone with Laurence, and fancying he was vexed or annoyed whenever he looked dull.
“Then it is all nicely settled about our staying in town, and going down to Romary together. It all depends on you, Arthur.”
Captain Beverley looked surprised.
“On me!” he exclaimed, “how do you mean? I thought it all depended on Miss Winstanley’s sore throat.”
“Oh! no. Laurence’s staying has nothing to do with aunt. He said he had business with you, but that you could settle it in town as well as at Romary, if you could stay—and so you will stay, won’t you? It would be so much nicer to go down all together.”
Captain Beverley looked increasingly mystified.
“I don’t understand—” he was beginning, but Mr Cheviott, whose attention had been caught by the sound of his own name, interrupted him.
“It is Alys herself who does not understand,” he said, good-humouredly, but not without a little constraint. “If you had been still at that delightful farm-house of yours, Arthur, I would have joined you there, and talked over these improvements. But that can wait, I dare say, and if you care to go into the financial part of it, we can do that in town as well. You are not in a hurry to go back to your new quarters, are you? You will wait and go back with us to Romary, as Alys wishes, won’t you?” Captain Beverley looked a little surprised, and a little disconcerted. He was not prepared for his cousin’s sudden interest in his improvements at Hathercourt, and hardly understood it, for hitherto Mr Cheviott had looked somewhat coldly on the schemes Arthur was full of, and he was still less prepared to be cross-questioned as to his length of stay in town, which in his own mind he had decided was to be a very short one.
“Thank you,” he said, with a little hesitation. “I should like to go over the plans for the Edge with you very much. But as to my staying in town another week, I really can’t say. I only ran up for a couple of days, and there are lots of things waiting for me to settle about at Hathercourt.”
“You are becoming quite a man of business, I see,” and Alys fancied that Arthur winced a little.
She felt sorry that she had said anything about their plans till she could have seen Arthur alone, for somehow she had managed to cause an uncomfortable feeling—the cheerfulness of the little party seemed to have flown; Laurence grew silent and abstracted; Alys tried nervously to hit upon a safe subject of conversation. Fortune favoured her.
“By-the-bye, Arthur,” she said, suddenly, “have you heard anything about the Brocklehurst ball? When it is to be, I mean. Some one said something about its being earlier than usual, and I shall be rather glad, for it will be less likely to interfere with other things than when it is so near Christmas time.”
Captain Beverley looked up in surprise.
“It is to be in a fortnight—in less than a fortnight, indeed, on the fourth, and to-day is the twenty-third,” he replied. “Did you not know? I supposed you had made all your arrangements.”
“Oh! I am so sorry!” exclaimed Alys. “I had all sorts of plans in my head, and now it will be too late.”
“What will be too late? What are you talking about?” said Mr Cheviott; and when Alys explained, he looked rather ashamed of himself.
“I should have told you, Alys, but I completely forgot about it. I found a letter here last night when we arrived, asking us to go to Cleavelands on the twenty-second, and go to Brocklehurst with a party from there. You would like that, wouldn’t you?”
But Alys’s face did not brighten up as he expected.
“I thought you liked the Cleaves so much,” he said.
“Yes, I do. I like young Mrs Cleave very much. It isn’t that. It is only that I had set my heart on going from Romary, and asking nice people to go with us.”
“So we might have done, but for this visit to Paris,” said Mr Cheviott. “But it can’t be helped. There will be more balls in the neighbourhood before the winter is over.”
“Arthur,” said Alys, suddenly, but in a low voice, when, later in the evening, she had got Captain Beverley to herself in a corner of the drawing-room—“Arthur, do you know what I had set my heart on for the Brocklehurst ball.”
“What sort of dress, do you mean?” said her cousin. “No, I certainly do not know, and I am perfectly sure I couldn’t possibly guess. So you had better tell me.”
“I don’t mean a dress,” said Alys, contemptuously, “I meant a plan.”
Captain Beverley did not at once answer.
“A plan, I say, Arthur, don’t you hear?” repeated Alys, impatiently.
“I beg your pardon,” exclaimed Arthur, rallying his attention. “A plan to show me, did you say? For my new farm-house? It is very good of you to trouble about it.”
“Oh! Arthur, how provoking you are! What is the matter with you?” exclaimed Alys. “Of course it wasn’t that sort of plan I was talking of. It was a plan of mine—one that I had made in my head, don’t you understand? It was about the Brocklehurst ball. I wanted to coax Laurence into letting me call on the Westerns, Arthur, the Westerns at Hathercourt, you know, and then I would have got him to let me ask them—the girls, of course, I mean—to come to stay at Romary for two or three days, and go to the ball with us. Wouldn’t it have been nice, Arthur? It would have been a treat for them, as the children say. They are such pretty, nice girls, and I am sure they don’t have many ‘treats’.”
She looked up in Arthur’s face with eager, sparkling eyes, and this time she had no need to recall his attention. His eyes were sparkling too, his colour rose, his voice even seemed to her to shake a little with suppressed excitement as he replied to her:
“Alys, you are the best and nicest girl in the world. It was just like you, you dear good child, to think of such a thing, and I thank you—I always shall thank you for it with all my heart. I felt sure,” he went on, more quietly—“I felt sure I should find I might count upon you, and now I know it. I have a great deal to tell you, Alys, and I—”
But at this moment Mr Cheviott’s voice was heard.
“Alys,” he was saying, “are you not going to play a little? What mischief are Arthur and you concocting over there?”
He came towards them as he spoke. Captain Beverley had laid his hand on Alys’s in his eagerness, his face was flushed, his whole manner and air might easily have been mistaken for those of an accepted or would-be lover, and the start with which he threw himself back on his own chair as his cousin approached, increased the apparent awkwardness of the situation. But Alys, though her cheeks were rosier, her eyes brighter than their wont, answered quietly and without confusion:
“We are not concocting mischief, Laurence,” she said; “we are too wise and sensible for anything of the kind, as you might know by this time. We’ll have another talk about our plans to-morrow, Arthur. Come and sing something now to please aunt, as she made an effort to do you honour by coming down to dinner.”
And the tête-à-tête between the cousins was not renewed that evening, nor, as Alys had proposed, “to-morrow,” for Arthur did not make his appearance at Miss Winstanley’s the next day at all. Mr Cheviott saw him and went with him to the architect’s, and brought back word that he was over head and ears in model pig-sties and shippons.
“And in farm-houses too,” he said. “I think it very foolish of him to lay out money on doing much to the house itself. It is quite good enough as it is for the sort of bailiff he should get.”
“Oh, then, he does not intend to live at Hathercourt Edge himself,” remarked Miss Winstanley.
Mr Cheviott turned upon her rather sharply.
“Live there himself!” he exclaimed, “of course not. What could have put such an idea in your head, my dear aunt? At the most, all the income he can possibly hope to make out of Hathercourt will be within three hundred a year, and he has quite three thousand a year independent of that; he could have no possible motive for settling at Hathercourt.”
“But is there not some condition attached to Arthur’s fortune?” said Miss Winstanley, vaguely. “I remember something about it, and he said the other day that he would not be of age for two years.”
“No; by his father’s will he is not to be considered of age till he is twenty-seven.”
“Then I should say it would be a very good thing for him to settle down at Hathercourt for two years and learn farming before he has to manage Lydon for himself,” said Alys.
“Nonsense, Alys,” said her brother, severely. “What can you possibly know about anything of the kind?”
But Alys did not appear snubbed.
“I rather suspect Arthur has some plan of the kind in his head, whether Laurence thinks it nonsense or not,” she remarked to her aunt, when they were by themselves in the drawing-room. “By-the-bye, aunt, what did you mean about there being some sort of condition attached to Arthur’s getting his property? I never heard of it.”
“Oh, I don’t know, my dear. I dare say I have got hold of the wrong end of the story—I very often do,” said Miss Winstanley, nervously, for something in Mr Cheviott’s manner had made her suspect she was trenching on forbidden ground. “And besides, if you have never been told anything about it, it shows that, if there is anything to hear, Laurence did not wish you to hear it.”
“Laurence forgets sometimes that I am no longer a child,” retorted Alys, drawing herself up. “However, it doesn’t matter. If Arthur looks upon me as a sister, it is best I should hear all about his affairs from himself. But, Aunt Fanny,” she continued, in a softer tone, “was there not something unhappy about Arthur’s parents? Laurence has alluded to it sometimes before me, and I have often wondered what it was.”
“It was just everything,” replied Miss Winstanley, sadly, “the marriage was a most foolish one. They were utterly unsuited to each other, and it was just misery from beginning to end.”
“Was Arthur’s mother not a lady?” asked Alys.
“Oh, yes; you could not have called her unladylike,” replied Miss Winstanley. “It was not that—she married Mr Beverley without any affection for him, entirely for the sake of his position. She was older than he, and her people were very poor, and scheming, I suppose, and he was infatuated.”
“And then he found out what a mistake he had made?”
“Oh, it was most miserable. And Edward, Arthur’s father, you know, was no one to make the best of such a state of things. He was always so hot-headed and impulsive, and he had offended all his friends by his marriage. Your mother, Alys, poor dear, was the only one who stood by him. And he was grateful to her; yes, he certainly was.”
“But she died,” said Alys. “How sad it all sounds!”
“Yes, she died, but Edward did not long survive her. He was never a strong man, and he was utterly disappointed and broken down. The last time I saw him, Alys, was with you in his arms—a tiny trot you were—and Arthur playing about. Poor Edward was trying to see some likeness to your mother in you, and he was impressing upon Arthur that he must take care of you, and be very good to you always.”
“And so he has been—always,” replied Alys. “Next to Laurence, aunt, I do not think there is any one in the world I care for more than for Arthur. I would do anything for him, anything, just as I would for Laurence.”
“What are you saying about me, eh, Alys?” said Mr Cheviott, catching her last words as he entered the room.
“No harm,” said Alys. “We have not been speaking about you at all till just this minute. I was asking Aunt Fanny about Arthur’s father and mother, and why they did not get on happily together.”
An expression of surprise and some annoyance crossed Mr Cheviott’s face.
“It is not a pleasant subject,” he said, coldly.
“I dare say not,” said Alys, fearlessly, “but one must come across unpleasant subjects sometimes in life. And, I think, Laurence, you forget now and then that I am no longer a child. All the same you needn’t look daggers at poor aunt. She hasn’t told me anything, hardly—and it is natural I should wish to hear; for whatever concerns Arthur must interest me.”
Mr Cheviott’s brow relaxed.
“I did not mean ‘to look daggers,’ as you say, at Aunt Fanny or you either. Of course it is natural, and some day I shall probably tell you more about it,” he said, kindly. “It’s a queer thing,” he added, with apparent irrelevance, almost as if speaking to himself, “that people who make mistakes in life are punished more severely than actually unprincipled people.—I have written to Mrs Cleave, accepting her invitation,” he continued, with a sudden change of tone. “Don’t you want some new dresses, Alys? You had not much opportunity for shopping in Paris, after all, you know.”
“But I made the best use of what I had. I am very well stocked for the present. If I remember anything I want I’ll get Arthur to go shopping with me to-morrow.”
To-morrow came and went, and no Arthur made his appearance. Nor was anything seen of him the next day, or the day after that either. It was not till the Tuesday following that he called again, two days only before that fixed for their journey home.
“We thought you had gone back to Hathercourt without waiting for us,” said Mr Cheviott, eyeing his cousin somewhat curiously as he spoke. But Alys, whom Arthur’s absence had hurt and disappointed more than she would have cared to confess, said nothing; only she, too, looked at him, and so looking, it seemed to her that his colour changed a little, and forthwith her indignation melted away, to be replaced by anxiety and concern. And these feelings were not decreased by his manner of excusing himself.
“I was afraid you would be thinking me very rude,” he said, with a sort of nervous deprecation new to him, “but I have really been very busy.”
“Then I don’t think being very busy can agree with you,” remarked Mr Cheviott, “you look thoroughly done up.”
“Have you been ill, Arthur?” said Alys, kindly.
Arthur started. “Ill; oh dear, no,” he exclaimed; “never was better in my life;” but he smiled at Alys in his old way as he spoke, and seemed grateful for her cordiality.
But Alys was not satisfied about him. She determined to have “a good talk” with him, and did her best to make an opportunity for it; but somehow the opportunity never came. Neither that day nor the next, nor the day on which they all travelled down to Withenden together could she succeed in executing her intention. And at last it suddenly dawned upon her that Arthur was purposely avoiding ever being alone with her, and, hurt and perplexed, she determined to take his hint, and interfere no more in his affairs. Girl-like, she went at once to the extreme, till, in his turn, Captain Beverley was wounded by the marked change in her behaviour.
“What have I done to offend you, Alys?” he asked, one or two mornings after their arrival at Romary, when Miss Cheviott and he happened to be by themselves in the breakfast-room before the others had made their appearance.
“Nothing,” said Alys; “you have done nothing, only you seem to have changed to me, Arthur. I used to think you looked upon me quite as a sister, and now when I see you have something on your mind, something you should be glad to consult a sister about—and you did tell me a little, you know, Arthur, that evening in town—you repel my sympathy, and tell me, your sister, Arthur, nothing.”
She looked at him reproachfully, but his answer was scarcely what she had expected.
“How I wish you were my sister, Alys,” was all he said.
All, perhaps, that he had time to say, for just then Mr Cheviott’s step was heard in the hall.
“That would not make it any better,” said Alys, with a sigh, in a low voice; “if I were your sister I could not care for you more, and you don’t care for me now.”
“It isn’t that,” said Arthur, hastily. “I do care for you just the same as ever, Alys, but—”
He stopped abruptly as his cousin came in.
Chapter Nine.
“What Made the Ball so Fine?”
“But come; our dance, I pray:
She dances featly.”
A Winter’s Tale.
The ball at Brocklehurst was this year anticipated with more than ordinary interest. It was to be an unusually good one, said the local authorities; all the “best” houses in the neighbourhood were to be filled for it; the regiment at the nearest garrison town was a deservedly popular one, and at least three recognised beauties were expected to be present.
All these facts were discussed with eagerness by the young people round about Brocklehurst, to whom a ball of any kind was an event, to whom this special ball was the event of the year. And in few family circles was it more talked about than in the isolated Rectory at Hathercourt, by few girls was it looked forward to with more anticipation of enjoyment than by the Western sisters. Yet it was not the first, nor the second, nor, in the case of Lilias, the third Brocklehurst ball even, at which they had “assisted,” and only a few weeks previous Miss Western had been seriously talking of declining for the future to take part in the great annual festivity. And here she was now, the week before, as interested in the question of the pretty fresh dresses, which, by an extra turn or two of the screw of economy, the mother had managed to provide for her girls, as if she were again a débutante of seventeen; and, more wonderful still, the excitement had proved infectious, for Mary, sober-minded Mary, was full of it too. She could think of little else than what Lilias was to wear, how Lilias was to look—but for Lilias, the consideration of what Mary was to wear, how Mary was to look, would have been very summarily dismissed.
It is not easy, even with the most unselfish and “managing” of mothers, with the most—theoretically, at least—indulgent of fathers; with two pair of fairly clever hands, and two or three numbers of the latest fashion books, it is not easy, out of what a girl like Alys Cheviott would have thought a not extravagant price for a garden-hat, or a new parasol, to devise for one’s self a ball-dress, in which to appear with credit to one’s self and one’s belongings, on such an occasion as a Brocklehurst ball. And at first the difficulties had appeared so insuperable that Mary had proposed that the whole of the funds should be appropriated to the purchase of a dress for Lilias only.
“You could get one really handsome dress—handsome of its kind, that is to say—for what will only provide two barely wearable ones,” she said, appealingly, “and, Lilias, you should be nicely dressed for once.”
“And you?” said Lilias, aghast.
Mary blushed, and stumbled over a proposal that she should wear some mythical attire which “really might be made to look decent,” out of the remains of the tarletans which had already done good duty on two, if not three previous occasions, “or,” she added, still more timidly, “if you don’t think I could go in that, Lilias, I don’t see why I should go at all this time. You know my pleasure, even selfishly speaking, would be far greater if you alone were to go, comfortably, than if we both went, feeling half ashamed of our clothes! It would spoil the enjoyment—there is no use denying it, however weak-minded it sounds to say so.”
“Of course it would,” said Lilias, promptly. “I am not at all ashamed of saying so. But I don’t despair yet, Mary—only listen to me. I will not go without you—do you hear, child?—I won’t go without you, and we shall be dressed exactly alike. Your dress must be precisely and exactly the same as mine, or I won’t go. There, now you know my decision, and you know that you’ll have to give in.”
She sat down as she spoke on the side of the bed in her room, on which was displayed such modest finery as was in their possession, and in presence of which the weighty discussion was taking place—she sat down on the side of the little bed, and looked Mary resolutely in the face.
“Mary,” she repeated, “you know you will have to give in.”
And Mary gave in on the spot.
That had been three weeks ago. Now it was within two or three days of the ball. How they had managed it, I cannot tell; what good fairy had helped them, I cannot say—none, I suspect, but their own light hearts and youthful energy, and love for each other—but Lilias’s prophesy had proved correct. The two dresses were ready, simple, but not shabby, perfectly suited to their wearers. “A dress,” thought Lilias, “which must make every one see how really pretty Mary is.”
“A dress,” thought Mary, “which Captain Beverley need not be afraid of his grand friends criticising, if, as they must, they notice him dancing with Lilias.”
They were in the midst of their admiration of the successful achievement, when there came an interruption—a noisy knock at the door, and Josey’s noisy voice.
“Lilias! Mary! let me in!” she exclaimed. “Mamma says you are to come down at once. Captain Beverley’s here; he has come back from London, and has walked over all the way from Romary. Come quick!”
Mary turned to Lilias. Lilias had grown scarlet.
“I don’t know that I shall go down,” she said. “I must put away all these things, and I wanted you to help me to fold these dresses, Mary. But mother will be vexed if one of us does not go. Josey, send Alexa up to help me—tell mother Mary is just coming, but that I am very busy.”
“I’ll tell Captain Beverley so,” said Josephine, maliciously.
Mary said nothing, but set to work at folding the dresses, and Lilias assisting her, they were all carefully disposed of before Alexa made her appearance.
“Now, Lilias, be sensible, and come down with me,” said the younger sister. “He has walked all the way from Romary, you hear, and I think its very nice of him. He hardly expected to be able to see us again before the ball, and it looks like affectation not to give him a cordial reception.”
But still Lilias hesitated.
“It isn’t affectation,” she said at last, “but—Mary,” she went on, suddenly breaking off her sentence, “I think it is horrid to talk of such things before there is actually anything to talk of, but to you I don’t mind. I cannot understand Captain Beverley quite; that is why I said I was not sure that I should go down. I don’t understand why—why he has never yet said anything definite. He has been on the verge of it a dozen times at least, and then he has seemed to hesitate.”
Mary looked at her sister anxiously.
“Perhaps he is not sure of you,” she said. “You know, Lilias, what a way you have of turning things into jest very often.”
Lilias shook her head. “No,” she said, “it isn’t that. He knows,” she hesitated, and again her fair face grew rosy, “he knows I like him. No, it is as if there were, some difficulty on his side—his friends perhaps.”
“It can’t be that,” said Mary, decidedly. “He has no parents, no very near friends. He must be free to act for himself, Lilias. I think too highly of him to doubt it, for it has been all so entirely his own doing—from the very first—and if he were in any way not free, it would have been shameful;” her face darkened, and a look came into her eyes which told that Mary Western would not be one to stand by silently and see another wronged, whatever powers of endurance she might have on her own account. But it cleared off again quickly, and she smiled at her sister re-assuringly.
“I am fanciful where you are concerned, Lilias,” she said. “There is no reason for misgiving, I feel sure. I think Captain Beverley is good and true, and it will all be right. Come down-stairs now—mother will not like our leaving her so long alone.”
Lilias made no further objection, and they went down together to the drawing-room, where it would be difficult to say which of the two, Mrs Western or Captain Beverley, was the more eagerly expecting them.
It was only three or four days since the young man had been at the Rectory, for the period of his mysterious absence from Miss Winstanley’s house had really, little as the Cheviotts suspected it, been spent at Hathercourt.
But during those three or four days he had been to town and back again, and now he had left the Edge and taken up his quarters at Romary. A great deal seemed to have happened in these few days, and, in her secret heart, Lilias Western had looked forward to them as to a sort of crisis.
“He will, probably, have been talking over things with his cousin, Mr Cheviott,” she said to herself, “and, naturally, he wishes to have some points settled before speaking to papa or me.”
And it was, therefore, with a sort of expectancy, half hope, half timidity, that added an indefinable charm to her whole bearing and expression, that Lilias met her all but declared lover this afternoon. He felt that she was more attractive than ever, “she grows lovelier every time I see her,” he said to himself, with a sigh, and then tried to forget that he had anything to sigh about, and gave himself up to the pleasure of being again beside her—to the consciousness that his presence was not distasteful to her, and smothered all misgivings with a vague, boyish confidence that, somehow or other, things would all come right in the end.
There could be no doubt about it—he was more devoted than ever—what nineteenth century preux chevalier could give greater proof of his devotion than a ten miles’ walk on a dull December day, for the sake of an hour’s enjoyment of his lady-love’s company, and a cup of tea from her fair hands? Yet when their guest rose to go—he had arranged, he told them, for a dog-cart from Romary to meet him at the Edge Farm—Lilias was conscious of a chill of disappointment. True, he had not been alone with her, but had he sought any opportunity of being so? And Mr Western was at home, sitting reading, as usual, in his study; nothing could have been more easily managed than an interview with him, had Captain Beverley wished it. But a word or two that passed, as he was saying good-bye, again put her but half-acknowledged misgivings to flight.
“Then when shall I see you again?” he said, as he held her hand in his for an instant, unobserved in the little bustle of taking leave.
Lilias glanced round hastily; her mother and Mary were hardly within hearing.
“I really cannot say,” she replied, somewhat coldly, drawing her hand away as she spoke. “I suppose Mary and I will go to the ball on Thursday, with Mrs Greville, but—”
“Suppose,” repeated Captain Beverley, hastily interrupting her. “Are not you sure of going? I should not have promised to go had I not thought you were certain to be there.”
“Are you going to the ball from Romary?” asked Mary, coming up to where they were standing, before Lilias had time to reply.
“I don’t know exactly,” replied Captain Beverley. “I am not sure what I shall do.”
Mary looked up in surprise, and Lilias saw the look.
“Mary and I will have a very long drive,” she said. “You know we are going with Mrs Greville from Uxley.”
Captain Beverley’s face cleared.
“I shall get there somehow,” he said, brightly, “and you must not forget the dances you have promised me, Miss Western.” And then he said good-bye again, and really took his departure. Lilias’s good spirits did not desert her through the evening, and Mary was glad to see it, and tried to banish the misgivings that had been left in her own mind by her conversation with her sister. But she did not succeed in doing so quite effectually.
“I wonder,” she said to herself—“I wonder why Captain Beverley did not order the dog-cart to come here to meet him. And I wonder, too, why he says so little about the Cheviotts. Under the circumstances, it would be only natural that we should know something of them—he has so often said Miss Cheviott was just like a sister to him.”
“Miss Cheviott is to be at the ball, I suppose,” she said to Lilias the next day. “Does she count as one of the three beauties we heard about, do you think?”
“I suppose so,” said Lilias, rather shortly.
“Did Captain Beverley not say anything about her going?” persisted Mary.
Lilias turned round sharply.
“You heard all he said,” she exclaimed. “He was speaking to you quite as much as to me. I don’t think he mentioned the Cheviotts at all, and I don’t care to hear about them. It is not as if they were Captain Beverley’s brother and sister.”
“I didn’t mean to vex you, Lilias,” said Mary, and then the subject dropped.
Mrs Greville was a very good sort of person to be a chaperon. She was her husband’s second wife, a good many years his junior, and she had no daughters of her own. She was pretty well off, but owing to Mr Greville’s delicate health, her allowance of amusement was, even for a clergyman’s wife, moderate in the extreme, and she had very little occupation of any kind; there were no poor people in the very well-to-do parish of Uxley, and her two boys were at school. She liked chaperoning the Western girls, Lilias especially, as her beauty was sure of receiving attention, and both she and Mary were quickly grateful for a little kindness, unexacting, and ready to be pleased. So, all things considered, she looked forward to the Brocklehurst ball with scarcely less eagerness then the sisters themselves.
“I am so pleased that you have got such pretty dresses this year,” said Mrs Greville, when she and her charges found themselves fairly launched on the eventful evening. She had chartered the roomiest of the Withenden flys, as much less damaging to their attire during a seven miles’ drive than her own little pill-box, in which, carefully wrapped in innumerable mufflers and overcoats, Mr Greville followed meekly behind. “Yes, I am particularly pleased you have got such pretty dresses, for I quite think it is going to be a very brilliant ball. You have heard that there are to be three beauties—noted beauties, have you not? There’s young Mrs Heron-Wyvern, the bride, you know; she is of Spanish origin; her father was a General Monte something or other, and they say she is lovely; and Sir Thomas Fforde’s niece, Miss—oh, I always forget names, but she is very pretty—handsome, rather—she is not so very young; and then there is Miss Cheviott of Romary. I have not seen her since she was quite a little girl, but she was pretty then, even.”
“Are the Cheviotts at Romary now?” asked Mary, when she got a chance of speaking.
“Oh, yes, I believe so, and very much liked, I hear,” replied Mrs Greville. “There was an impression that Mr Cheviott was stiff and ‘stuck up,’ but I believe it’s not at all the case when you know him. I hear Romary is likely to be one of the pleasantest houses in the county. I dare say Miss Cheviott will be making some grand match before long, though I have heard—”
But just at this moment the sudden rattle of the wheels upon the unmistakable cobble stones of Brocklehurst High Street distracted Mrs Greville’s attention.
“Here we are, I declare!” she exclaimed, “How quickly we seem to have come! I do hope the brougham is close behind, for Mr Greville has all the tickets;” and, in the bustle that ensued, what she had heard as to Miss Cheviott’s prospects or intentions was never revealed.
They were very early. Mrs Greville liked to be early, “to see all the people come in.” Hitherto, on such occasions, this weakness of her friend had been a sore trial to Lilias, but this year, for reasons of her own, she had made no objections to it, and had not, as formerly, exhausted her energies in search of some cleverly-laid scheme for making Mrs Greville late in spite of herself. And if Lilias was content, it never occurred to Mary to be anything else; so they all sat down together “in a nice corner out of the draught,” and listened to the discordant preliminaries of the band, and watched the gradually filling of the bare, chilly rooms, two hearts among the four caring for little but the confidently looked-for approach of a tall, manly figure, with a bright fair face, to claim his partner for the first two dances.
But time wore on; the first quadrille was a thing of the past, and still Lilias and Mary sat decorously beside their chaperon, each thinking to herself that “surely the Romary party was very late.” But when the second dance, a Waltt, had also come to an end, Lilias’s air changed; a proud flush of colour overspread her cheeks, and when Frank Bury, a Withenden curate of rather unclerical tastes, but decided in his admiration for Miss Western, begged for “the honour of the third dance,” she accepted at once—so much more amiably, and with so much sweeter smiles than usual, that the poor young man grew crimson with astonishment and delight. Mary longed, yet dared not, to interfere; there was “a look” in Lilias’s face as she walked away on Frank Bury’s arm that made Mary’s heart burn with anxiety for the possible issues of this evening.
“Oh,” said she, to herself, “if he were to come just now and think she would not wait for him!”
And she sat still in fear and trembling, longing for, yet dreading Captain Beverley’s appearance.
The dance was not half over when there came a little bustle at the principal door-way. Those nearest it stood back, and even through the music one discerned a slight hush of expectancy. Some new-comers were at hand; new-comers, too, of evident importance. Mrs Greville’s ears and eyes were equally wide awake.
“The Cleavelands party,” she whispered to Mary, “and I hear all the three beauties come with them! The Heron-Wyverns are staying there, and so are the Ffordes, and the Cheviotts. It looks as if it had been arranged on purpose to make a sensation.”
Mary would have cared little but for one thought. “Then there has been no party at Romary?” she asked.
“I suppose not—evidently not, for see, there is Mr Cheviott coming into the room with Sir Thomas’s niece on his arm—what a handsome couple! but he has a forbidding expression. Then that must be the bride, I suppose—oh, yes, look, Mary, she is going to dance with her husband, young Heron-Wyvern—he has reddish hair—and how, I wonder what has become of the third beauty, Miss Cheviott.”
But at this moment an acquaintance of Mrs Greville happening to take the vacant seat on her other side, her attention was distracted, and Mary’s eyes were left free to roam in search of one familiar figure. Her heart was beating fast with excitement and anxiety, her sight surely was growing confused, for could that be he? Over on the other side, through a bewilderment of faces, she espied the one she was in search of, gazing about in quest of Lilias, or disconsolately observing her defalcation. Ah no, Captain Beverley’s face was bent to meet the upturned glance of a beautiful woman on his arm she was smiling up at him; he, down upon her, “just,” thought Mary, with a thrill of something very nearly approaching agony, “just as I have seen him look at Lilias hundreds of times.” Never had he appeared to greater advantage, never had his fair, handsome face looked brighter or more attractive—and the lady—yes, in another instant, Mary was sure of it, recognised fully the slight, graceful figure, the peculiar “set” of the haughty little head, and the glance of the pretty violet eyes. Yes, they were nearer her now, the young lady was his cousin, the beautiful Miss Cheviott! In another instant his arm was round her waist, they were dancing together. And Mary, for the first time in her life, felt as if it might be possible to hate good-natured Mrs Greville, when a succession of lady-like nudges having compelled her attention, her chaperon whispered, triumphantly, “Look, Mary, quick, child, or you won’t see them—there is Miss Cheviott, isn’t she lovely? And she is dancing with her cousin, Captain Beverley. And Mr Knox tells me—he has just heard it on the best authority—they are engaged to each other.”
“You forget that I know Captain Beverley,” Mary could not help rejoining, coldly; “he has called at the Rectory several times when he has been staying at the Edge Farm.”
“Ah, yes, to be sure. I wish he would come and ask you to dance,” said Mrs Greville, carelessly.
But Mary felt as if “the dance had all gone out of her.” Her mental tremors now took a new form—dread of her sister’s return, and, more in cowardice than because she had the slightest wish to move, she accepted Mr Greville’s offer of a convoy across the room “for a change; Mr Knox will look after my wife till your sister comes back,” he said, good-naturedly.
“Across the room,” Mary met with an unexpected invitation to “join the dance.” The major of the 210th was an old friend of Mr Greville’s, and being a quiet, retiring man, the number of his acquaintances at Brocklehurst was not large. He did not care much about dancing, but after chatting to Mr Greville for a minute or two, he discovered that the girl on his friend’s arm had a nice face and an undoubtedly beautiful pair of eyes, and, before Mary knew what she was about, she was dancing with Major Throckmorton, and engaged to him for the quadrille to follow. Between the dances her partner proposed that they should walk up and down the long corridor into which the ball-room opened, and Mary, caring little—so completely were her thoughts absorbed with Lilias—where she went, absently agreed. Major Throckmorton was so shy himself that he naturally attributed to the same cause the peculiarity of the young lady’s manner, and liked her none the less on account of it. But before the quadrille had reached the end of its first figure, his theory had received a shock. For suddenly his partner’s whole manner changed. She smiled, and talked, and laughed, and seemed interested; where before he had only succeeded in extracting the most indistinct of monosyllables, she now answered with intelligence and perfect self-possession, hazarding observations of her own in a way which proved her to be by no means the timid, ill-assured country maiden he had imagined her.
“What a curiously changeable girl!” he said to himself. “Five minutes ago I did not feel sure that she took in the sense of a word I said to her, and now she is as composed and rational as possible, and evidently a well-educated girl. What queer creatures women are!”
His glance ran down the lines of faces opposite them. Among them one arrested his attention. “What a beautiful girl,” he exclaimed; “the most beautiful in the room, in my opinion. Do you happen to know who she is, Miss Western?”
Mary’s eyes followed willingly in the direction he pointed out—whither, indeed, they had already been frequently wandering—and her whole face lighted up with a happy smile.
“Do you think her the most beautiful girl in the room?” she said. “I am so glad, for she is my sister. Do you know the gentleman she is dancing with?”
Major Throckmorton glanced at Lilias’s partner. “No,” he said, “I don’t think I do. I know so few people here. He is a good-looking fellow, and,” he hesitated, and glanced again in Miss Western’s direction, then added with a kindly smile, “it is evident he would agree with my opinion as to who is the most beautiful girl in the room.”
Mary smiled too, and blushed a little, and decided that her partner was one of the pleasantest men she had ever met. And poor Major Throckmorton thought how pretty she looked when she blushed, and said to himself that before long, very probably, some other fellow would be appropriating her, as her beautiful sister evidently was already appropriated, and he sighed to think that, not withstanding his eighteen years’ service, such good luck had never yet come in his way! For it was a case of “uncommonly little besides his pay,” and beautiful girls were not for such as he.