Probation

Mr. Mallory contrived to make his visit so delightful to Mr. Blisset that that gentleman pressed him, with an eagerness unwonted to him, to remain a little longer; and Sebastian, hoping each moment to see Adrienne appear, continued in his place.

At last she came into the room; but she had brought her work with her, and after a few sentences of courtesy, amiable but meaningless, she took a chair a little apart, and sat in almost entire silence, while the two men discussed, first politics, and then, when each had taken the length of the other’s foot on that topic, science and philosophy.

Sebastian, whether intentionally or not, showed himself in his best mood, and putting aside both cynicism and indifference, discussed the subjects earnestly, and incidentally displayed how much thought and attention he had really given to them.

Mr. Blisset, greatly delighted at finding so cultivated a listener, was also in a happier and more hopeful mood than usual. Adrienne’s eyes were fixed upon that monotonous embroidery. It is to be presumed that she did not see the repeated glances, half of inquiry, half of surprise, with which Sebastian’s eyes continually sought her face. He knew that she could talk on such subjects. Mr. Blisset’s reiterated appeal to her—‘Eh, Adrienne?’ ‘Don’t you think so, my dear?’—showed Sebastian that she was not accustomed to sit in silence at the feet of even so great a philosopher as her uncle; and yet she was silent now, merely answering when spoken to, as briefly as possible.

At length came a pause, and Sebastian hastened to make use of it.

‘How do you like England, Miss Blisset?’

‘I can hardly say, seeing that I only know Thanshope.’

‘Thanshope, then, as compared with the Continent in general?’

‘I like it,’ said Adrienne, ‘because I have found a home in it, and because I am useful to some one—am I not, uncle?’

‘Necessary, my dear, necessary.’

‘There, you see! necessary!’ said Adrienne.

‘But you used to rejoice so intensely in the sunshine, and the poetry, and the beauty of those foreign lands.’

‘Yes, I did.’

‘Wetzlar, for instance. Do you remember how delighted you were? how you sat dreaming by Goethe’s Brunnen, and how you seated yourself in Lotte Buff’s parlour, and looked round, and could scarcely speak?’

‘Ah, yes!’ said Adrienne, her eyes lighting up at the remembrance, and a smile stealing over her face; ‘but that was very enchanted ground, you know.’

‘And you struck a few chords on that piano; that “old, tuneless instrument,” on which Goethe had played to Lotte, and then drew back, quite ashamed of your own audacity—you must remember?’

‘Did I ever say I did not remember?’ said Adrienne, a tremor in her voice as she looked up and found Sebastian leaning forward, his chin in his hand, and his eyes fixed upon her face.

Something in the expression of those eyes seemed to cause Adrienne some emotion. Her colour rose. Mr. Blisset had opened a newspaper which his servant had brought in, and was apparently buried behind it. Sebastian, his eyes still fixed upon the young lady’s troubled face, said softly,

‘Don’t you think Wetzlar was the most sunshiny place you were ever in?’

‘At least the sun began to shine for me there,’ she said quickly, and looking towards him with a sudden, deeper glance than before.

He smiled.

‘I think, for me too.’ Then, seeing that she looked still more downcast, he added, ‘But we shall meet again, I hope, and then we can discuss those old days. I was going to ask, have you many friends here?’

‘Scarcely any. My uncle does not visit. We know Canon Ponsonby, and Mrs. Ponsonby called upon me, and was very kind. Then I have a few friends of my own peculiar kind, you know.’

‘I know. Old apple-women at street-corners; working-people; unhappy youths who want a few lessons in this and that—eh?’

‘Yes,’ said Adrienne, smiling.

‘Then Myles Heywood is not counted amongst your friends?’ said Sebastian, composedly, glancing aside at Mr. Blisset, to assure himself that that gentleman was absorbed in his newspaper.

‘Yes, he is,’ said Adrienne, raising her head. ‘He is a friend both of my uncle’s and mine.’

‘Is it allowable to ask how you made his acquaintance?’

Adrienne suddenly crimsoned, while Sebastian unkindly continued steadfastly to watch her. He had been piecing different facts and inferences together in his mind, and was rather anxiously awaiting her answer.

‘It is not allowable?’ he said. ‘I beg your pardon.’

‘Yes, it is, quite,’ retorted she, somewhat recovering herself. ‘I met Myles Heywood a few weeks ago, not more. I used to have some work that I did at the public reading-room, and he used to read there too. He rendered me a very kind service on one occasion, and has been a friend and a visitor here ever since.’

Sebastian bowed politely.

‘He interested me,’ said he, with a rather ambiguous smile. ‘I wished to know more of him; but he declines every advance I make to him.’

Adrienne was silent. Sebastian, with a laudable thirst for information, went on, in the same calm, matter-of-fact voice,

‘I begin to think that in his case appearances deceive me’ (Adrienne looked rapidly up and down again). ‘There is something wonderfully attractive about his face and manner. He appears so very superior to his class, and yet I begin to fancy there must be some fatal defect of temper—some moral want.’

‘You are mistaken,’ said she, in a voice which, though low, was so clear and decided as to startle Sebastian. The information he wished for appeared to be readily forthcoming—whether it were of a pleasant nature or not, he could hardly yet say.

‘You think so? You think it is not mere churlishness?’ he said, purposely using a strong word.

‘He has not a grain of the churl in him.’

‘Indeed! Then he must have well-developed imitative faculties,’ said Sebastian, with a politely sceptical accent, which he had often found useful as a conversational weapon. It was successful upon this occasion. Adrienne answered quickly,

‘You must not think him churlish. It would be a grievous mistake to make. He has a most generous disposition. You should see him at home with his sister and his cripple brother—they are friends of mine too, and his deaf friend, Harry Ashworth. You would not misjudge him then. Those people know his heart, as it is—and they all adore him. Churlish—no!’

‘Well, does he behave in such an extraordinary way to Mr. Blisset? Does he look at him as if he would say, “Thus far, and no farther. Keep your distance if you please”?’

‘To my uncle—oh no! He is very fond of him, and very respectful to him,’ said Adrienne, demurely, a curious little smile quivering about the corners of her mouth.

‘Then why does he select myself as the object of his hatred—for I am sure he does hate me?’

‘He—because——’

‘Because?’

‘I cannot explain. Only he does not hate you.’

‘I am convinced you could tell me all about it if you would, so, as you will not, I must find it out in my own way. I am determined I will learn the reason of his aversion to me—and will overcome it.’

‘Oh, don’t! Pray let him alone. He is best let alone.’

Sebastian smiled.

‘You seem to be well acquainted with what is best for him—though you have only known him a few weeks. If you have succeeded in making a friend of him, why should not I?’

‘I would not go too far. Remember, he, as well as you, has a right to choose his own friends, and if he does not choose you for one of them, you have no right to——’

‘Importune him? No. You are quite right,’ he said, rising. ‘But there is society of a different stamp from Myles Heywood, even in Thanshope. Would you have any objection to my mother calling upon you?’

‘Mrs. Mallory—objection? Not the least. I should be delighted. But don’t you think, if she had wished for my acquaintance, she would have called before?’

‘She was ignorant that you lived here. She thought Mr. Blisset’s household was quite without ladies. I expect she will call upon you within the next few days.’

‘I shall be happy to see her,’ said Adrienne, politely, but not enthusiastically; and he could read nothing from her eyes, as they answered his inquiring gaze. She roused her uncle from his abstraction, and Sebastian dropped her hand with a smile. After all, he told himself, it was absurd to think seriously of Myles Heywood as a rival—quite absurd. A high cultivation like Adrienne’s—and how different she was from that little dark-eyed Helena, with her vehemence and her disorganised ideas as to women’s rights and man’s selfishness—could surely never feel any real affinity with that untamed, untutored specimen of humanity, Myles Heywood. There might be plenty of force about him, but force without culture is apt to get uncomfortable.

Amidst earnest requests from Mr. Blisset that he would speedily renew his visit, and equally earnest assurances on his part that he would do so, Sebastian departed.

---

In the Oakenrod drawing-room, Mrs. Mallory by the fire, with a novel and the feathery screen; Hugo gloating over a copy of the original edition of Bewick’s ‘Birds,’ the like of which treasure, he considered, he had never seen before: for the rest silence.

‘You have been out all the evening?’ inquired Mrs. Mallory, languidly, as she looked up.

‘Yes, I have been at Mr. Blisset’s.’

Hugo looked up.

‘Mother, do you ever call at Mr. Blisset’s house?’

‘No. Soon after he came, I called; but his man-servant told me that he was a great invalid, and saw no one.’

‘He is certainly a great invalid. But there is a Miss Blisset.’

‘Is he a widower?’ asked Mrs. Mallory, struck by something in her son’s tone, dimly conscious of some impending unpleasantness in store for herself.

‘She is his niece. She came to live with him some two years or eighteen months ago. I was delighted to renew my acquaintance with her.’

‘Then you had met her before?’

‘Yes, at Coblentz, and at Wetzlar, on the Lahn.’

Sebastian was at the present moment leaning on the top of his mother’s chair, which was a deep, roomy easy-chair of a bygone day. As he spoke he took the feathery screen out of her hand and fanned her with it a little. She wished he would not do so. It might not make it more really difficult to resist him, but it made her look very ungracious; it must look ungracious in a mother to deny favours to a son who asked them in so seductive a manner.

Mrs. Mallory thought there were certain points upon which she would never give in; but even while she thought it, and Sebastian’s hand waved the screen to and fro, and his voice gently continued to speak—even then, she had an indefinable sensation of being managed—that power was slipping from her hands into his. But she could say nothing until he had in some way committed himself; and he had a most provoking habit of not committing himself.

‘She is as clever and accomplished in her way as her uncle is in his,’ Sebastian went on: ‘and she is, in addition, a most charming young lady. She has no friends here—and she is so different from the Thanshope people—much more in your style than that vehement little Miss Spenceley,’ he added, while Hugo looked on from afar and laughed in his sleeve. ‘I am sure you would like her if you knew her, and I want you to be so kind as to call upon her.’

‘Call upon her! Call upon a person I know nothing about! Really, Sebastian, I wonder at you!’

‘My dear mother, she is not in the least what you would describe as a “person.” Even your critical taste will pronounce her a thorough lady when you see her.’

‘How is it nobody else has called upon her?’

‘Some one else has. Mrs. Ponsonby has called upon her. But I want you to call upon her. You really would oblige me exceedingly, mother, if you would.’

‘And therefore I must, I suppose. That appears to be the rule by which the young judge the old in the present day,’ said Mrs. Mallory, a little acidly.

Sebastian had come round to the other side, and was leaning against the mantelpiece, and as Mrs. Mallory concluded her remark she looked at her son, and her son looked at her. If he had only been talking about Helena Spenceley! But it was merely some Miss Blisset. She thought she would refuse. But at that moment the idea struck her that she might even serve her own aims by consenting conditionally.

Scarcely two days before, Sebastian had treated, first with levity and contempt, and then with downright repugnance, the prospect of dining at the Spenceleys’ house, or cultivating their further acquaintance. Mrs. Mallory had at that moment in her pocket a note, in Helena’s handwriting, requesting the pleasure of the company of Mrs. and Mr. Mallory, and that of Mr. von Birkenau, to dinner ten days hence.

‘If I go out of my way to make new acquaintances, about whom I care nothing in the world, it is only fair that you should put yourself a little out of the way too, Sebastian.’

‘Perfectly fair. As how?’

‘We are invited to dine at the Spenceleys on the —th. If you don’t go there, and behave civilly to my friends, I really don’t see how I can encourage yours, about whom I know nothing, to come here, or go to see them myself.’

‘I quite grasp the importance of the situation,’ said Sebastian, with that placid politeness which exasperated Mrs. Mallory beyond bounds, because she did not know into what language to translate it. ‘If you will call upon Miss Blisset within the next day or two—I mean a proper call, you know, with an intimation that you would like her to return it, and so on—I will go to any amount of Spenceley spreads, be they never so gorgeous, and will listen to Miss Spenceley’s diatribes with the utmost resignation. There will be the contrast to think of.’

This was not very encouraging behaviour; but it was the best to be extracted from her very ‘trying’ son, and Mrs. Mallory had to accept it, merely remarking,

‘If your friend, Miss Blisset, has anything like the good qualities of Helena, I shall be surprised.’

‘No, she has not,’ said Sebastian. ‘Miss Spenceley has one hundred thousand golden virtues—not to mention others of a less tangible character—of a kind that Adrienne Blisset knows nothing about.’

Mrs. Mallory made a note of the ‘Adrienne Blisset,’ and began to feel an intense dislike to that young lady.

But the bargain had been struck. On the third day after the treaty had been, so to speak, signed, Mrs. Mallory called out her horses and called out her men, and drove in state to see and overwhelm Miss Blisset.

She saw her; but the overwhelming remained still a dream of the future. Adrienne’s utter freedom from embarrassment in the presence of Mrs. Mallory, of the Oakenrod, might be in bad taste, but it could not very well be commented upon. She parried all her visitor’s hidden thrusts upon the subject of Sebastian with a cool adroitness which called forth her visitor’s reluctant admiration, and behaved altogether with an ease and an address which was the more reprehensible in that it seemed so perfectly natural.

‘But it could not have been natural,’ reflected Mrs. Mallory, as she drove away. ‘The attention, after Sebastian’s calling there and finding her, was so marked. I think she is the most consummate little actress I ever met anywhere.’