The drawing-room, library, and dining-room at Barton Hall were upon the ground-floor, en suite. They had their several and separate entrances from the hall and corridor beyond; and at the same time had communications with each other from within.
The library was the centre apartment, with the dining and drawing-room on either hand; so that, two doors being open, you could walk in a direct line from one end of the suite of rooms to the other; and a delightful walk it was, lit up by seven or eight magnificent bay-windows, from each of which there were glorious views of the Berne Hills.
The little party which entered the house at the close of our last chapter, having lunched, adjourned into the library, where the window opening from the ground was thrown up, in order that Mr. Richard Tallant might sit just within and smoke one more cigar.
Miss Somerton strolled into the next room, and sat down to the piano, letting her fingers wander dreamily over the keys.
Where he sat Mr. Tallant had, through the open doorway, a side-view of her beautiful head; and feelings of disappointment, jealousy, admiration, and annoyance, successively took possession of him as he smoked, and looked, and listened.
Mr. Phillips was absorbed in the examination of some new illustrated books which Mr. Christopher Tallant had sent from town for Phœbe, who must have the artist’s opinion about them.
The artist talked about high art, ideality, and poetic licence. He thought certain Dante pictures too literal in their interpretation of the horrors of the “Inferno,” and he called some of the sketches morbid and sensational. He was in raptures with half-a-dozen pictures in a work of fairy fiction; but he was thinking all the while a great deal more of Phœbe’s beauty than of anything else.
Mr. Richard Tallant could not help noticing the remarkable contrast between the artist and his sister as they stood together looking at the new books.
The fair spirituelle face of the woman set in that sunny halo of soft brown hair; and the sharp and highly intellectual features of the artist intensified by the long black hair which fell upon the somewhat rounded shoulders.
It brought to his mind for a moment a famous pre-Raphaelite picture; but his thoughts wandered away instantly to Amy Somerton, who was softly touching out the melody of “Life let us Cherish,” from amongst a wealth of unobtrusive variations which Arabella Goddard has since made so pleasantly familiar.
“And she loves young Hammerton, does she?” he thought, whilst he smoked and nursed his left leg, and occasionally stroked his full black moustache. “Love’s the probable successor to an earldom. She aims high. Well, so be it. The fellow’s good-looking and conceited: he’ll humour the lady’s fancy, of course. He can’t marry her; that’s out of the question. She evidently thinks I’m a blackguard—that’s not so pleasant; but Master Paul shall pay for that.”
The next moment the Hon. Lionel Hammerton was announced, whereupon Miss Somerton rose from the piano, and the new comer was shown into the library.
“Who would have thought of seeing you?” said Mr. Tallant, throwing his cigar at a blackbird (which was hopping about on the lawn), and coming forward to greet Mr. Hammerton, who was receiving a cordial welcome from Miss Tallant.
“How do you do?” said the young aristocrat, extending his hand. “Phillips, my friend, and how are you? I’m delighted to see you.”
“The delight is mutual,” said Arthur, shaking Mr. Hammerton heartily by the hand.
“I saw one of your last pictures at Earl Stanton’s place in town three days ago,” said Mr. Hammerton, “with three wonderful connoisseurs going frantic about it. The Earl had given a hundred and fifty guineas for it, they said. What do you think it was, Miss Tallant?”
“A landscape?” said Phœbe, with an inquiring smile.
“Well, I suppose it might be called a landscape. It was a bit of the lake yonder, in the corner of the park, with a clump of trees at the back, and some ducks amongst the grass and reeds at the side of the pool—nothing more—a mere sketch, which Mr. Phillips can rub in, as he calls it, in little more than a week. Your trees and hedges, and cows and poultry, and bits of lake and brook, and rock and hill, at Barton here, are a fortune to Mr. Phillips.”
The artist smiled and shook his head.
“Why, you Crœsus, you know it is true,” said Mr. Hammerton. “He will soon be as rich as my dear brother is reputed to be, Miss Tallant; he literally coins money does my friend Arthur; but what is better—and if he were not here, I should be tempted to say more—he paints for the love of his art, and he is as noble a fellow as ever sat before an easel. There!”
The young nobleman seemed bent upon exalting the moral and pecuniary worth of Mr. Phillips. He might have had an object to serve in placing his friend’s merits and advantages before Mr. Tallant and his sister, and he laid particular emphasis on “my friend Phillips,” or “my friend Arthur,” and spoke of him with the familiarity of pure regard and esteem.
“By-the-by,” said Mr. Hammerton after a pause, “let me explain my unexpected visit to Mr. Tallant. Don’t go away, I beg, Miss Tallant.”
“I will return again before you leave, thank you,” said the lady in her sweetest accents.
“I heard you were here, sir,” said Mr. Hammerton, resuming an aristocratic dignity of manner, which he assumed with those who were not his intimates (he had not met Mr. Tallant junior frequently), “and thinking you might deem it necessary to give me a call, I preferred to anticipate you.”
Mr. Tallant bowed, and twirled his moustache carelessly.
“Allow me to present you with a little token of our last meeting,” Mr. Hammerton continued, handing Mr. Tallant a sealed envelope.
“Thanks; you are very good,” said the Iron Prince, dropping the note into the side pocket of his loose morning coat.
“Will you not look at it, and see that it is quite right?”
“No, thank you; I have no fear about that. Shall I offer you a cigar? The ladies will allow us to smoke on the lawn just outside the window.”
Mr. Tallant handed Mr. Hammerton his cigar-case.
“May I offer one to my friend?” said Mr. Hammerton, looking round for Mr. Phillips, who had strolled into the drawing-room.
“By all means. Mr. Phillips, will you do me the pleasure of joining us in a cigar?” said Mr. Tallant, raising his voice; at which the artist returned to the library.
Just then Phœbe and Amy entered, and Mr. Hammerton expressed great pleasure at seeing Miss Somerton.
Mr. Richard Tallant thought he saw in Amy’s face, as she returned Mr. Hammerton’s graceful salutation, an expression of love and admiration; but this might have originated out of what he had heard in the summer-house, and he felt annoyed in spite of himself, and without really knowing why.
“Shall we have our smoke?” he said, a little impatiently. “The ladies will excuse us, and we can walk outside on the grass.”
“Presently, Mr. Tallant,” said the young nobleman, entering into a conversation with Miss Tallant and Amy about a score of trifling things.
“Don’t let us detain you, pray,” said Miss Tallant; and by-and-by Mr. Tallant and Mr. Hammerton, with Mr. Phillips between them, sauntered leisurely up and down the lawn, whilst Phœbe returned to the new books.
Amy sat down near her, with “In Memoriam” in her hand. The Laureate’s sublime thoughts had long since been in her heart, but she was accustomed to dwell upon this greatest of all his great works when her feelings were more than usually agitated; and this morning sadness and gladness were so commingled that she was almost beside herself with a sense of doubt and fear and sorrow, and of trembling joy and presentiments of dread and danger.
Tears fell upon the page. Her inferior rank, her humble origin, made her love seem a vain and selfish thing indeed. She sometimes despised herself for permitting even the thought of it to have a place in her heart. And yet Cophetua made the beggar-maid his queen. But how beautiful she was!
Amy did not understand her own peculiar beauty, refined and toned as it was by the kindness of her nature, the vigour of her intellect, and the graces of her mind; or she might not have despaired of the love of the next heir to the Earldom of Verner.
O, if he were but poor. If he had even been six or seven removes from an earldom; but to set her mind upon one so high! It was madness, and yet poor Amy could not choose but love; and Mr. Hammerton had been so marked in his courtesy towards her whenever he had seen her at the farm, or met her on his occasional visits to Barton Hall, that faint whispers of hope would sometimes cheer her heart.
Before Mr. Hammerton left he expressed a desire to see the garden. There were some famous flowers which he had heard Earl Verner’s gardener speak of as rarities that he had seen at Barton Hall.
Miss Tallant volunteered to show Mr. Hammerton the garden, and insisted that Amy should accompany them.
“We will all go,” said Mr. Tallant. “Come along, Mr. Phillips! you are interested in these things; for my part, I know little about them.”
They saw the flowers and discussed their merits, and then, somehow or other, Mr. Hammerton found himself engaged in a deep conversation with Miss Tallant and Amy; and by-and-by he was alone with Miss Somerton, and he was all graciousness and gentle words then.
Once she felt his breath warm upon her cheek, and once he pressed her hand. She blushed, and the tears came into her eyes, why or wherefore she could not tell. And then Lionel pressed her hand again, and said what a delightful creature Miss Tallant was to leave him alone with her dear friend.
He gathered a rose and playfully hung it in her hair, and then he asked her if she remembered the poetic legend of the origin of the red rose. “Roses were all white originally when first they bloomed in Eden. Eve, when first she saw the beautiful flower, could not suppress her admiration, and in her joy at its beauty she stooped down and imprinted a kiss on its snowy bosom. The rose stole the scarlet tinge from her velvet lip, and wears it yet. So goes the story; I cannot give you the authority, but the tradition is poetic; is it not?”
Amy looked up and smiled, and Lionel knew that she loved him. The most secret page of her story was before him, and he read it with pride and satisfaction.
Lionel went on talking all kinds of loving trifles which in anyone else’s mouth would have seemed ridiculous to Amy; but she could only weep at them and feel a strange fluttering at her heart as she listened to him and walked with him in the shadiest and most remote paths of the Barton Hall gardens.
In the evening Mr. Christopher Tallant returned from town, and was greatly surprised to find his son at Barton Hall; and equally astonished the next morning to find that he had risen for the morning mail, and gone back to London.