Part 6, Chapter XLIV.
Jem’s Ideal.
“Faultily faultless—icily regular—splendidly null.”
The weather favoured the choir festival at H— and the production of spring dresses for the occasion. James cast critical eyes on his mother’s bonnet and on Frederica’s hat; and anxiously consulted Arthur as to whether he liked a flower in the button-hole of a morning.
“Oh, yes, when you want to look festive,” said Arthur, without paying much attention till he was roused from the perusal of the “Times” by a crash in the conservatory; and on hastening to the rescue perceived Jem, contemplating the ruins of his mother’s best azalea, which he had knocked over in trying to reach a bit of fern beyond it. Three dainty little bouquets were already lying in a row.
“Well, Jem, you have done it now!”
“Oh, confound the thing, yes—and it’s time to be off. Isn’t the carriage there?”
“Not yet. Are you going to wear three bouquets?”
“No,” said Jem, looking foolish, “I was only choosing the best. I think I’ll go without.”
“You couldn’t improve on that rosebud, and it might come in handy,” said Arthur, gravely.
“Well,” snatching it up. “Just pick up that pot. I hear the carriage.”
“Pick up the pot!” ejaculated Arthur, as Jem rushed away, “when it’s in fifty pieces! I shall retire before I’m supposed to have thrown it down. I say, Hugh,” as he came back to the house, “who’s the attraction at H—? Jem is evidently on tenter-hooks.”
It was this easy laughter and readiness to joke on what would have seemed to him a tender subject that had always puzzled Hugh in Arthur; but now he was glad to see him amused on any terms, as he answered, gravely:
“I daresay there are several; but I haven’t heard him mention anyone in particular.”
“Perhaps he wanted a bouquet apiece and I’ve spoiled sport! What a pity!”
James recovered his equanimity as they drove away, and was very smiling and chatty by the time they picked up Flossy, fresh and spring-like, and prepared to enjoy herself, though she had hoped that the party might have been differently constituted. They had about twenty miles to go by train, and James made himself very agreeable to her, mentally thinking her less overpowering than usual. He asked after Violante and listened with much interest to Flossy’s account of the return of her voice, and her subsequent resolution.
“But her sister says she must stay with us till next year, that she may grow quite strong and finish her education. She is going to London in May.”
“Indeed! Perhaps I shall see her there.”
“Is Arthur going with you?” asked Flossy, who had been meditating on this simple question ever since she joined them.
“No. Poor boy, he couldn’t make up his mind to it. I should have had to leave him alone a good deal, and he doesn’t seem up to gaieties.”
“Oh, no!”
“No—he laughed in an odd sort of way—and said: that I’d better not help him to cast off from his moorings; but I’m sure being at home doesn’t answer. He has a bright way with him; but I see more and more how he is altered. His eyes have a sort of wretched look, instead of their old jolly one—don’t you know what I mean?”
“Yes; as if he wanted something.”
“Exactly. I think he’ll have to make a change. I wish he could go abroad and begin a new life altogether—in India, or somewhere.”
“Would that be best?” said Florence, slowly.
“I think so. But there’s one thing—Hugh seems to understand him now, and he has got excellent judgment when he likes to use it.”
Poor Flossy! That conversation did not raise her spirits, or prepare her to enjoy her day. There was a dreadful probability in James’s suggestion, and she mused over it while he was talking to his mother and urging her to drive at once to the Archdeacon’s.
“My dear, we have our tickets—we shall see them afterwards.”
“But, they have ways and means of getting in, you know; and you would avoid the crowd.”
Mrs Crichton yielded after a little demur, and they drove to Archdeacon Hayward’s, where they were politely received and offered an entrance with the Cathedral ladies, Mrs Hayward being glad to be civil to Mrs Spencer Crichton. The girls were introduced to three or four fair, tall young ladies, much alike in dress and demeanour, with aquiline features and graceful figures, and a very proper amount of conversation. Jem sat profoundly silent, with his hat in his hand and his rosebud in his coat, till one of the Miss Haywards, not Helen, said:
“You are fond of music, I believe, Mr Crichton?”
“Oh, devotedly!” said Jem, smiling.
“And there is nothing like Handel?”
“Very fine!” said James.
“Why, Jem, I thought you despised him?” said Freddie, abruptly. “I thought he wasn’t a new light.”
“Is that one of your heresies, Mr Crichton?” said another Miss Hayward, from behind; and Jem turned round, with startling rapidity, and asked who had been setting him down as a heretic?
As the oratorio took place in the Cathedral the conversation was limited, but Mrs Crichton was gratified by observing that Jem sat peacefully with his own party, discovered no odd acquaintances, and afterwards returned with them to the Archdeacon’s, where there was a large party to luncheon.
Miss Helen Hayward was polite to Mrs Crichton, who remarked to Frederica how nice it was to see girls attentive to their guests, and not forgetful, or taken up with their own affairs.
“Yes, auntie; but she always talks in the same tone of voice,” said Freddie, suspecting a didactic motive.
Flossy had a dull neighbour at lunch, and leisure to look about her, and she felt inclined to pity Jem, who sat opposite by the third Miss Hayward, whose mild restrained smiles and obvious, if intelligent, remarks did not strike her as very interesting. Presently, however, she perceived that James had more and more to say on his side; that he made Miss Helen laugh and blush, and look at her plate, and then across the table to see if her sisters were noticing her. This amused Flossy, but she was surprised to observe that Jem looked across at her, and when he met her eyes actually blushed too.
Helen retreated when they moved, and began to entertain some of the young ladies; and very soon the Redhurst party were obliged to start to catch their train for Oxley. The parting was cordial on all sides, and Flossy observed to James:
“I did not know you knew the Miss Haywards so well.”
“Oh,” said James, “I met one of them when she was staying in London, and I came here once to sing at a concert for some schools. They’re very nice girls, Flossy—quite in your line—go to Sunday-school, and everything.”
“I daresay,” said Flossy, who did not think this implied a great stretch of virtue.
“And not at all stiff, when you know them.”
“Yes,” said Mrs Crichton, “I think I should like to ask two of them over to stay for a few days. I am sure Hugh could not say they were chatterboxes, as he does of the Clintons.”
An indescribably comical expression crossed Jem’s face.
“I think it would be a very good plan, mamma,” he said. “You always get on with, nice young ladies.”
“Yes, my dear; I get dull by myself,” said Mrs Crichton, with a sigh. “Not that we have much amusement to offer them.”
“I don’t know that they mind about amusements,” said James.
He was dying for a confidant; for Jem could never keep his affairs to himself, but he did not quite dare to enlighten his mother as to his wishes, for fear she should betray them by over-zeal to the Miss Haywards. It had not quite come to the point of announcing his intentions to Hugh, who would not easily have been convinced of their seriousness. Arthur, who knew the names and charms of most of Jem’s many sweethearts, would have been his natural outlet; but how could he tell his love-story to him? Nevertheless, as they sat smoking together that very evening, out it all came—provoked, certainly, by a little joke about the three bouquets; and Arthur was so much amused at the notion of Jem’s choice that the latter was soon absorbed in convincing him that he had finally made it; which, by his unusual modesty, he at last succeeded in doing.
“Why, you know, you’re irresistible.”
“But she never would be attracted by the same sort of humbug that goes down with most girls.”
“Oh, come now, Jem, you don’t mean to say so. I don’t think I should like her the better for that.”
“She’d look to what one really was.”
“I’d try a little humbug, though, now and then.”
Jem laughed.
“I shan’t be here when they come, you see. It’s supposed they will suit Hugh; and he is just the sort of fellow—”
“She’d admire? But, you know, Jem, Hugh is tolerably safe; and if you came down on the Saturday we might refer to your excellences beforehand.”
“I wouldn’t say too much,” said Jem, seriously; then suddenly, “Arthur, you are a good fellow. It’s too bad of me to tell you all this—”
“Don’t!—don’t!” interposed Arthur.
“Why should I mind, Jem? It doesn’t make any difference.”
The invitation was sent and accepted by the right pair of sisters, and before they arrived Jem’s family had a very good notion of what was expected of them, and were all ready to make the visit pleasant to the young ladies. Arthur divined that Helen, at any rate, was well inclined to be pleased. She was apparently a very good girl, cultivated and intelligent, able to talk on all the subjects expected from a young lady, polite to himself and Hugh, but not particularly interested in them. She indulged in a mild but evident enthusiasm for Mrs Crichton, and made friends with Flossy over school-teaching, books, and favourite heroes; and she was very pretty and very well dressed. There was, too, a sort of good-tempered, sunny satisfaction about her, which was not without its charm, especially as the other sister was rather critical of their acquaintances, and Arthur overheard between them the following fragment:
“He goes about smoking on a Sunday afternoon.”
“But he always goes to church again in the evening, Constance.”
“And I don’t think, do you, it’s quite good style to wear that sort of coat?”
“Don’t you?”
“A gentleman should have no peculiarities.”
“I’m sure, Con, there couldn’t be more of a gentleman—”
Here Arthur thought himself bound to retreat, having discovered that the fair Helen, could lose her composure sometimes. Jem arrived on the Saturday evening, very much on his best behaviour, and listening to the Miss Haywards playing the pieces and singing the songs which he had most been wont to criticise. However, he gave Helen the names of some new ones, and sang himself, as he well knew how to do, contenting himself with finding fault with Freddie’s touch. Hugh did not show off the skill acquired under Signor Mattei, which, truth to tell, was not very considerable.
“I never sing,” he said, emphatically; but he sat by and watched, and when some particular old English ballads were asked for, and Jem began to wonder where they were, he checked him quietly, knowing by Arthur’s flush and quiver that they were among the books which he could not bear to see touched. Arthur looked grateful, but Jem found the book on the piano the next morning.
A slight flaw in the harmony was produced on Sunday afternoon by the discussion of a new colour, which Miss Constance Hayward declared to be vulgar, and never worn by any lady “who was very nice.”
Jem defended it as found in the old masters. It was very artistic.
“I’d rather look like a lady than like a picture,” said Miss Hayward, a little dryly.
“I quite agree with you, Miss Hayward,” said Hugh.
“Hugh’s taste is conventional usually,” said Jem, in a wicked undertone.
“I like that funny green,” said Helen, in her soft, changeless voice, as she rose to get ready for church.
“What makes you laugh so, Arthur?” said Hugh, savagely, as they remained for the purpose of taking a walk together, Arthur having a great shrinking from Sunday afternoon at Redhurst.
“I was laughing at Jem. He’s fairly caught at last!”
“Do you mean that this is more than Jem’s way?”
“Oh, yes, and it’s coming rapidly to a crisis. Don’t you see? I wonder which will rule the roast? Will Jem dress her in ‘funny green,’ or will he have to cut his coat according to his lady?”
“It seems to me very unsuitable,” said Hugh, after a slightly-puzzled pause.
“That’s the beauty of it, I suppose. One wouldn’t have been half so much surprised if Jem had fallen in love with Mademoiselle Mattei!”
“Mademoiselle Mattei had a great many admirers,” said Hugh, as he looked out of window. “I suppose, now she has recovered her voice, she will fulfil her engagement to that, scoundrel—I mean that manager—Vasari.”
“She was very forlorn at the loss of him, poor child,” said Arthur, making most unconscious mischief.
“She told you so?”
“Yes—pretty much. I told her to keep up her heart, and she picked some olive-leaves as a reminder. The other day she told me how she had kept my advice. She is a confiding little creature, and very simple-hearted.”
A silence. Then.
“James is perfectly right to stick to the conventional type—that is, to a known and proved one. Where shall we go this afternoon?”
“Oh, anywhere—I don’t care—I think I won’t go out,” said Arthur, irresolutely.
“Well, you will have a quiet afternoon,” answered Hugh, glad of the solitude; but even then he paused and retraced his steps.
“Arthur, if this affair of Jem’s worries you—”
“Oh, no, no. It gives me something fresh to think about,” said Arthur, with evident truth. “I’m only—tired.”
“Well, rest then,” said Hugh, with the kind smile that Arthur liked.
Nothing should ever make him thoughtless of Arthur’s comfort; but, unsatisfactory as the conversation had been, there was growing up in Hugh’s mind the conviction that somehow, somewhere, some when, he would have to ask Violante to tell him the truth.