CHAPTER V.
LORD AND LADY VERNER.
A delightful September morning inaugurated the second day of the return home to Montem Castle. The sun shone upon the grand old towers which stood out in clear outline against the sky; and upon the old ruin with its moss-grown walls and whispering ivy, a grey old token of the past, with a long line of green turf stretching forth to the more modern castle which had been built in presence of the ancient ruin. The modern establishment had been built as closely as possible after the old model, and furnished too in antique style, but with all modern comforts.
As far as the eye could see, stretched the noble park with grand old trees sheltering groups of deer. From the terrace in front of the castle half a mile of turf, interspersed with beds of flowers and shrubs and winding walks and natural glints of rock terminated in a broad expanse of lake, ornamented with sundry islands that looked in the distance like floating gardens. Far away against the sky the Berne Hills melted as it were into the Linktowns, whose topmost point was hung with a misty mantle which the sunbeams fringed with gold.
The Earl and Countess of Verner sat at breakfast two mornings after their return home in presence of this glorious scene. The windows were wide open, letting in the perfume of autumn flowers, the song of birds, the sound of plashing water flowing from an adjacent fountain. What a paradise it was! Would Amy make it a desert? We shall see.
When her husband said they might expect his brother during the day, Amy’s cheeks lost their colour for a moment, and her hand trembled; but the change was not noticed, and a strong effort of will at once restored the wife’s self-control. The announcement was so unexpected; all her speculations had not prepared her for so sudden an appearance. She had expected to meet this man some day, and had thought about her manner of receiving him; but she had never dreamed that the trial would come so soon.
“Shut the window, Morris,” said his lordship, “the air is rather chilly, her ladyship will take cold.”
“Thank you,” said the Countess, gently.
“You have met my brother, I think,” said the Earl.
“Yes, at Barton,” said Amy, promptly, but with a cold chill at her heart.
“Rather a strange fellow. Why he should return home so soon, I cannot understand. You may leave the room, Morris.”
Morris and his second in command bowed and retired.
“There was a time when I could not bear Morris to be away from my elbow for a moment,” said his lordship, “and now I would rather the fellow were a mile off when you are here, my darling; there is no chatting freely to one’s wife with that booby swallowing every word.”
His lordship looked across the table at the Countess in her white morning-robe, and smiled. “I positively envy those Darby-and-Joan people of the middle class, who are not bothered with a regiment of servants.”
The Countess looked up and said there were Darbys and Joans, she hoped, in halls and castles.
“I know of one couple,” said his lordship, cheerily. “George and Amy are their names, and they will be candidates for the Dunmow Flitch. Lionel Hammerton can hardly have heard of our marriage.”
“Not heard of it?” said the Countess. This was a new feature of the case which had not presented itself to her mind.
“Unless the outward mail made a very quick passage indeed, he has not heard of it; I question whether he can be acquainted with any of the changes that have taken place in our fortunes during the past year.”
“What a surprise it will be for him,” said the Countess.
“Indeed, it will,” said his lordship.
“Was not his departure a very sudden affair?” asked the Countess.
“Not particularly so, my love,” said the Earl. “We had not contemplated his entering the army—that was his freak. He indulged in the luxury of speculation rather extensively, and I think I was a little emphatic in condemning his large and useless expenditure. I feared he was making ties of friendship which were not beneficial to him. Perhaps I said so. In an excitable moment he said it would be better for him to join the army, and go abroad for a few years. I dislike discussing these personal questions; it rather bored me at the time, I remember; and I said I thought it would be best. And so he made his own arrangements.”
“Then he knew that he was about to leave the country some time before he went away,” said the Countess.
“Yes, he was Gazetted soon after our serious conversation, as he called it, and sailed a month or two afterwards I think. I knew he would soon be tired of it, but I had no idea that his return would be so sudden. He will hardly know the place. I never saw so great and complete an improvement as there appears in the grounds, and the general re-arrangement of the house. The whole place is changed, and with a mistress at the head of affairs, I seem to be quite in a new world, quite. And what a delightful world it is, Amy!”
His lordship was charmed with his wife, and with everything around him. The servants did not see a greater change in Montem Castle than they saw in the noble master thereof. From a quiet, retiring, luxurious student, who buried himself in his books, and lost himself in continual admiration of his pottery or pictures, he had become a lively, chatty, merry gentleman. Formerly, with a continual fear that he was going to be bored, he had guarded himself as carefully as though he were a confirmed invalid. No noises, no open windows, as few visitors as possible; he had appeared to mope away existence, and Brazencrook looked forward to a speedy successor in Lionel Hammerton; but old Morris and the butler both said cracked jugs often lasted the longest, and that ailing men mostly made old bones. Even they, however, were surprised beyond expression at his lordship. It was marvel enough that he should marry, but that he should have a really grand wedding, and make public speeches, and come home “livelier than a cricket, sir,” as Morris said, was something which they could never cease to wonder at.
He loved his wife with all that fervency which often marks the love of an old bachelor, who is fascinated out of his former course of life by a beautiful woman bent on winning him. There was nothing that he would not have done to add to her comfort and happiness. All his bachelor ways, his fogeyism, his books, his pictures, his china, none of them could weigh in attractiveness against the delight of giving her the smallest pleasure. Her ladyship knew this, and resolved to interfere as little as possible with his habits and general course of life; she would join him in his studies and in his pleasures she vowed, and be his companion indeed.
She would also govern his household, and perform her wifely duties to the letter. Were she twenty times a countess she would take her place as the responsible head of the domestic government. She would give her commands for the day, and do all things in order, as a wife should.
“You shall do whatever you please, my dear,” said his lordship, upon the mention of this item in her wifely programme. “You are mistress here, but do not rob me too much of your society; and one thing I must insist upon.”
The Countess, who had risen and was standing with her hand in his, smiled archly at the idea of his insisting upon anything.
“Yes, I must insist; you are to remember that my name is George here, just as it was when we were in Kent, and that I am to have a kiss always when we part, you as you say on your morning duties, I to wait your pleasure in the library.”
The Countess promised faithful compliance with this command, and went on her way to the housekeeper’s room to signify her pleasure with regard to the arrangements of the day. Amy (for we are privileged to call her Amy still, and shall insist upon an occasional exercise of that privilege) entered upon her domestic reign so mildly, and with such unaffected modesty, that the old housekeeper gladly obeyed her behests, though this extraordinary interference, on the part of a lady and a countess, with household affairs was the subject of some slight mutinous discussion that day in the housekeeper’s room and in the butler’s pantry too.
Having discharged these morning duties to her own satisfaction by an inauguration of her system, the Countess ascended the grand old staircase and sought her boudoir, where she sat down to discuss with herself and consider the situation which Lionel Hammerton’s letter had created. She had refrained from asking many questions which her heart had prompted her to ask at breakfast, fearing that she was not altogether fulfilling her part of the solemn contract she had entered into, by learning from her husband the motives which had actuated her lover without confessing how much she knew of his brother. All she had sought to learn was in the way of justification of her own conduct, and she had been strengthened in this by his lordship’s replies. How should she meet Mr. Hammerton? How much did he know of recent events to prepare him for the change at Montem Castle? How far might surprise betray him or her?
Whilst she was thinking of these things the sound of wheels attracted her attention, and the next moment she saw one of the Earl’s close carriages, with luggage on the roof, approaching the main entrance. The conveyance had been to Brazencrook Station to meet Mr. Hammerton. She had no doubt he had arrived. She watched the brougham roll along the great drive, through the autumn-tinted trees—watched it, as she had on another memorable autumn day watched Earl Verner’s carriage whirl along, through the dying leaves, to Barton Hall. It was a coincidence which struck her forcibly these two autumn days, and seemed to bode evil to her. Did she love this man who had won her heart in those past days, and whose neglect had urged her into a scheme of revenge? She asked herself the question fearlessly, and her heart said No; but still there was fear in the answer—a momentary fear that it were better Lionel Hammerton were in India than here. Contrasting his conduct with that of the Earl, remembering how niggardly he had been, in those early days, of tender words, and how he had rather seemed to revel in her own silent admiration than delight in her love; and how devoted the Earl was; how noble, how generous; how he had raised her up not thinking he had done so, but thanking her for his own happiness—thanking her that she had consented to be the mistress of these grand old halls, and the successor of a long line of countesses who lived in the history of titles and beauty. Contrasting the two thus, Lionel Hammerton took but an abject place, and Amy’s heart overflowed with gratitude to the man whom she had sworn to love, honour, and obey.
Ringing for her maid, the Countess took a fancy to have her hair dressed afresh, and then she put on a plainer dress, and in a little time there came a message from his lordship that Mr. Hammerton had arrived, and would lunch with them.
The Countess expected this, and was preparing for it. When she had dismissed her maid, she surveyed herself fixedly in a mirror, as if she were practising some peculiar expression. She was nervous, and wished the day at an end. Why had he come here? If he knew of his brother’s marriage, it would have been far nobler to have remained away from the place? Did he know of it?
Let us answer that question to the reader. Lionel Hammerton heard of his brother’s marriage for the first time from the servants at the Brazencrook Station. He heard it, and with no pleasure; for although he loved his brother with a generous affection, he had come to expect that some day, in the ordinary course of nature, he would be called upon to succeed him. Not only did the disparity of years lead to this supposition (they were the offspring of two different mothers, the former Earl having married twice), but the general opinion was that the younger brother was so much stronger than the eldest, that he must live out the other. This marriage, therefore, seemed to set up an obstacle to his hopes. But the news did not affect him half so much as might have been expected. The strongest feeling about it, we are bound to say, was one of surprise, which was not a little increased when he learnt that Christopher Tallant’s daughter was his brother’s wife.
All the way to the Castle he pondered over this extraordinary fact, and wondered how it was with his poor friend, Arthur Phillips. There was one thing which gave him comfort: if his brother could descend to marrying a commoner’s daughter, surely he, a mere officer in the army, might marry Amy, the daughter of the commoner’s bailiff.
This thought in some measure revived his spirits, which had been dashed on the first blush of the matrimonial news. He could hardly believe but what there was some mistake, but when he saw the trim flower beds, the new gravel walks, the trim sunblinds, the cheerful brightness of the windows, he felt that the bachelor days of Montem were certainly at an end. “How odd,” he thought, “to take sweet counsel with my brother’s wife about Amy Somerton; I will confide all to her ladyship before I say anything to George—fancy Miss Tallant, Countess of Verner, my sister-in-law. No wonder I was prompted to come back to England!”