CHAPTER VIII.—HARRY CONDESCENDS TO PLAY THE AGREEABLE.
“M iss Hazlehurst!—Alice! are you mad? Only sit still, don’t go and scream or anything, and all will come right.”
Thus appealed to, or rather commanded—for the tone of the speaker’s voice was unmistakably imperative—Alice, who when the horses bolted had half risen from her seat, and in an agony of terror glanced round, as though she meditated an attempt to jump out, shrank down again, and covering her eyes with her hands, remained perfectly still and motionless, thus enabling Coverdale to devote his whole attention to the horses. The terrified animals, after galloping nearly a mile, their fears being kept alive by repeated flashes of lightning and peals of thunder, while a perfect deluge of rain converted the dusty road beneath their feet into a morass, at length began to relax their speed. As soon as Harry perceived this to be the case, he turned to his companion, saying, “There, Miss Hazlehurst, I have got them in hand again, they’re quite under command now, and the worst of the storm is over too, so you needn’t be frightened any longer; you have behaved like a”—(regular brick was the simile that rose to his lips, but he refrained, and substituted)—“complete heroine, since you overcame that slightly insane impulse to commit suicide by jumping out.”
Reassured by his manner, Alice ventured to open her eyes, and the first use she made of them was to fix them upon the countenance of her companion, striving to read therein whether the hopes with which he sought to inspire her were true or false. But Harry’s was a face about which there could be no mistake; truth and honesty were written in every feature so legibly, that the veriest tyro in physiognomy could not fail at once to perceive them.
“How fortunate it was that you were driving, and not Mr. Crane!” were the first words Alice uttered; “we should have been overturned to a certainty if the horses had behaved so this morning. I’ll take good care not to let him drive me again. How cleverly you managed the creatures when they were plunging and rearing! I should never have dared to whip them while they were in that furious state, but it answered capitally.”
“You observed that, did you?” inquired Harry in a tone of surprise.
Alice favoured him with a quick glance, as she replied, half archly, half petulantly, “Of course I did; what a stupid silly little thing you seem to consider me!”
Harry paused for a minute ere he rejoined, laughingly, “You know nothing about what I consider you, Miss Hazlehurst, and therefore I advise you not to form any theories whatsoever on the subject, as they are tolerably certain to be wrong ones.”
“I dare say you have never given yourself the trouble to reflect at all on so frivolous a topic,” returned Alice; “I know your heterodox notions in regard to our sex; you consider us all simpletons.”
“I’m sure I never told you so,” was all the denial Harry’s conscience permitted him to make.
“Not vivâ voce, perhaps,” replied Alice; “but I have heard it second-hand from Master Tom: the boy was uncomplimentary enough before you came, but he has been fifty times worse since you’ve been here to encourage him in his impertinence.”
“A young cub!” muttered Harry aside, “I’ll twist his neck if he tells tales out of school in this way;” turning to Alice, he continued, “it is never too late to mend, is it? If I confess my sins, promise never to do so any more, and throw myself on the mercy of the court, is there any chance of my obtaining forgiveness?”
“As far as I am concerned, yes,” was the reply; “in consideration of your services this afternoon, I graciously accord you a free pardon for all past offences, and for the future we will try and be friends.” As she spoke she half playfully, half in earnest, held out her hand. Harry took it in his own, and shook it—even in a glove it was a nice, warm, soft little hand, a kind of hand that it was impossible to relinquish without giving it a squeeze, at least such was Harry’s impression, and he acted upon it, although to do so was by no means in accordance with his principles; but he did not happen to be thinking about his principles just then. By this time the storm, which had pretty well exhausted itself by its violence, resigned in favour of a lovely sunset; and the horses having come to the conclusion that they had thoroughly disgraced themselves, and behaved with an equal disregard of principle and propriety, trotted steadily along under Coverdale’s skilful guidance, like a pair of four-legged penitents, anxious to retrieve their character. And Harry and Alice suddenly found a great deal to talk about, and were quite surprised when they perceived themselves to be in sight of the Grange; and the gentleman felt moved by a sudden impulse to declare that, despite its unpropitious commencement, he did not know when he had had such a delightful drive, to which the lady replied that it certainly had been very agreeable, an admission which she endeavoured to qualify by attributing her pleasurable sensations to the influence of the setting sun and the delicious coolness of the evening air—a transparent attempt at deception that only rendered the truth more obvious.
The next morning a groom brought back Sir Lancelot, together with a note from Mr. Crane, saying that he had contrived to get wet through on his way to the inn, that he feared he had taken cold, and therefore considered it most prudent to return home for a day or two; adding that he should hope to be sufficiently convalescent to rejoin the party at the Grange that day week, when a dinner was to be given by Mr. Hazlehurst to some of the county magnates. His note wound up with an elaborate inquiry as to whether Alice had experienced any ill-effects from the “atmospheric inclemency,” as he was pleased to style the thunder-storm, accompanied by an infallible specific against all sore-throats, colds, hoarsenesses, and rheumatic affections, which that young lady straightway committed to the waste-paper basket. There was also a note for Horace D’Almayne, from which dropped an inclosure that, as the exquisite stooped to pick it up, looked marvellously like a cheque.
“A—really I find I must go to town—a—business of importance—can I execute any little commissions for you, Miss Hazlehurst? I’ve excellent taste in ribands, I assure you.”
“There, do you hear that!” observed Tom sotto voce to Coverdale. “I always thought he’d been a counter-jumper!”
“Kate, must I accompany him?” inquired Arthur of his cousin, sotto voce; “remember, if you send me from you now, we meet again as strangers!” There was a moment’s struggle, and her colour went and came—then in a cold, hard voice she answered, “Yes, go!”
Arthur looked at her; her features might have been sculptured in marble, so fixed and immovable was their expression. That look decided him; and with set teeth and lowering brow he rose and quitted the room.
In less than half-an-hour he returned, prepared for a journey; and beckoning Coverdale aside, began, “Harry, I have a favour to ask of you. I am obliged to go to town suddenly, in consequence of an affair which has caused me some annoyance; but I shall come back for the dinner-party on the ——th. Crane will also return then; and from what I can make out, Alice’s affair will be definitely settled one way or other. The more I see of Crane, the more I perceive how thoroughly he and Alice are unsuited; but my father appears obstinately bent on the match: and if Alice is to refuse him, she will require all the support that can be given her. My poor mother’s health is, as you are aware, so delicate, that although she is as much averse to the match as any of us, we cannot expect her to exert herself; indeed, our chief anxiety is to prevent her attempting to do so. The whole thing will, therefore, fall upon me: and your support and assistance will be invaluable. My father has taken a great fancy to you; and your opinion weighs with him more than you will believe. I am sorry to perceive that you are bored to death here; but I trust to your friendship to remain till after my return. Am I taxing your kind feeling too far?”
“My dear boy, don’t make pretty speeches; for I can stand anything but that,” was the reply. “As to staying here, I had no thought of going away till you had done with me. In regard to being bored, I’m getting over that beautifully. Your family are charming people. I’m becoming used to women’s society, and, in fact, find it’s not by any means as bad as imagination painted it; and when D’Almayne is fairly out of the house, I really shall not care how long I remain in it; so will that satisfy you?”
“My dear fellow,” rejoined Hazlehurst, warmly, “there’s nobody like you in the world! I’ve always said so, from the day that I first set eyes on you at Eton, when you thrashed the bully of the form for striking me, and then boxed my ears because I took a blow from a boy less than myself, without returning it. I shall never quite turn misanthrope while I’ve you for a friend.”
“Misanthrope! no, why should you?” was the surprised rejoinder. “What ails you, man?—you look ill and unhappy. It’s nothing in the money way, is it? I’ve got a few odd thousands lying idle at my bankers, that I should really be obliged to you to make use of.”
Hazlehurst shook his friend’s hand heartily. “God bless you, old fellow! I know you would.” he said; “but money can’t help me: I must fight it out alone. I shall be myself again by the time I return—till then, good-by,” and wringing Coverdale’s hand once more, he turned and was gone.
“Alice, here’s a treat! everybody’s going away except that horrid Harry Coverdale!” exclaimed Emily, in a tone of despair; “we shall have him on our hands, talking stable, and wishing we were dogs and horses, for a whole week! What are we to do with the creature?”
Alice turned her head to hide her heightened colour, as she replied, in a tone of voice that was almost cross, “Really, Emily, you should be careful not to carry that absurd habit of yours of laughing at everybody too far. People will begin to call you flippant. Mr. Coverdale is so good-natured that he is the easiest person in the world to entertain. Surely, Arthur has a right to ask his friend to remain here without consulting you or me on the subject.”
“Phew!” whistled Emily, and a droll little parody of a whistle it was; “the wind has changed, has it? I suppose that was the thunder-storm yesterday; not to mention a certain tête-à-tête drive. Take care, Ally: recollect that sweet bird the Crane! what does the song say?” and popping herself down at the pianoforte, she ran her fingers lightly over the keys, as she sang with mischievous archness:
“’Tis good to be merry and wise,
’Tis good to be honest and true,
’Tis good to be off with the old love
Before you are on with the new.”
The party which sat down to dinner at Hazlehurst Grange on that day was a very select one. Mr. Hazlehurst had driven over to the neighbouring town on justice business, and having sentenced certain deer-stealers to undergo divers unpleasantnesses in the way of oakum-picking, solitary confinement, and other such amenities of prison discipline, had stayed to reward virtue by dining with his brother-magistrates upon orthodoxly-slaughtered venison. Accordingly, Mrs. Hazlehurst and the three young ladies, Harry Coverdale and Master Tom, sat down to what Mrs. Malaprop would have termed “quite a tête-à-tête dinner” together;—a tame and docile curate, invited on the spur of the moment to counterbalance Harry, having missed fire, owing to the untimely repentance of a perverse old female parishioner, who being taken poorly and penitent simultaneously, had sent her imperative compliments to the Rev. B. A. A. Lambkin, and she would feel obliged by his coming to convert her at his very earliest possible convenience; to which serious call he felt obliged to respond.
Coverdale had found himself in an unusual and peculiar frame of mind all day; for perhaps the first time in his life he had felt disinclined to active exertion; and had positively gone the length of abstracting from the library a volume of Byron, and spent the afternoon lying under a tree, reading the Bride of Abydos. Now his peculiarity took a new turn; and, freed from his incubus, D’Almayne, a sense of the domestic and sociable suddenly sprang up within him, and throwing off all reserve, he appeared for the first time during his visit in his true colours—that is, unaffected, courteous, kind-hearted, amusing, and well-informed. In consequence possibly of this change, the dinner went off most agreeably; and the absence of the Reverend Lambkin was mentally decreed to be a subject of thanksgiving, by more than one member of the party.
In the evening there were certain wasps’-nests to be destroyed, about which Harry had expressed much interest; but now he discovered that he had blistered his heel on the previous day, by running in a tight boot; and Tom, mightily discontented at his defection, was forced to invade the enemy’s country without the assistance of his ally. When Coverdale rejoined the ladies, Emily was reading Tennyson’s Princess aloud, and the moment he appeared, she declared she was tired, and handed the book to him, begging him to proceed; her mischievous intention being thereby to overwhelm him with confusion, and derive amusement from his consequent mistakes. But she met her match for once, as Harry, coolly replying that he should have much pleasure, took the book and began reading in a deep rich voice, with so much taste and feeling, that her surprise soon changed to admiration. After tea, music was proposed, and the moment Alice began to sing Coverdale, for the first time since he had been in the house, approached the piano, and actually turned over the leaves for her!
“That lovely Là ci darem! Ah, Alice! if we had but a gentleman’s voice to take the second! Why don’t you sing, Mr. Coverdale?” exclaimed Emily, turning over the pages of the duet.
“I’ll try what I can do if you wish it,” was Coverdale’s quiet answer.
Alice, to whom he spoke, glanced at him in speechless surprise; but Emily, at once making up her mind that he was attempting a hoax, and eager to turn the tables upon him, resumed—
“Bravo! give me your seat, Alice, I’ll play the accompaniment for you both.”
Now the truth was, that Harry had been gifted by nature with a rich powerful voice and excellent ear, qualities which the admiration of his “set” at Cambridge had induced him to cultivate. When he first started on his grand tour, he encountered at Florence the mother and sisters of an old college friend, and those being the days before he had foresworn young ladies’ society, he was let in for a mild flirtation with one of the daughters. The “emphatic she” happened to be fanatica per la musica. Accordingly for three months Harry took lessons of the best master in the place, and sang duets morning, noon, and night; at the end of which period the “loved one” bolted with a black-bearded native, who called himself a count, and was a courier. Since which episode, Harry, disgusted with the whole affair, and all connected with it, had chiefly confined his singing to lyrical declarations that he would “not go home till morning.” It will therefore be less a matter of surprise to the reader, than it was to his audience at the Grange, that Coverdale performed his part in the duet with equal taste and skill, and very much better than Alice did hers—that young lady pronouncing her Italian with rather a midland-county accent than otherwise, although her sweet, fresh, young voice, in great measure atoned for this little peculiarity.
“Why, Mr. Coverdale, what a charming voice you have, and how beautifully you sing!” exclaimed Emily, looking at him as if she could not even yet believe that it was possible he should have so distinguished himself. “I thought you were hoaxing us, and I sat down to play the duet for the amiable purpose of exposing your ignorance.”
“How did you acquire such a pure Italian accent?” asked Mrs. Hazlehurst; “it will be of the greatest advantage to my girls to sing with you.”
“I learned of an Italian fellow when I was at Florence, and I suppose he taught me to do the business all right,” was the careless reply.
“And you have been here more than a week,” continued Mrs. Hazlehurst, “and allowed Mr. D’Almayne to monopolise both the reading and singing department, though he cannot fill either one quarter as efficiently as you are able to do. You really are too diffident.”
“I don’t imagine diffidence to have had very much to do with it,” observed Kate Marsden, quietly raising her eyes from her work (a crochet purse with steel beads), and fixing them on Coverdale.
Harry laughed slightly as with heightened colour he replied, “You are too clever, Miss Marsden. I by no means approve of being subjected to such subtle clairvoyance; however, I may as well honestly confess that you are right, and that a feeling more akin to pride than to humility has prevented my seeking to rival Mr. D’Almayne.”
“We have found you out at last though,” returned Emily, “and I for one will do my best to punish you for your idleness, by making you sing every song I can think of. I don’t believe it was either pride or humility which kept you silent—it was nothing but sheer idleness.”
“Judging of her principles from her practice, I can readily believe Miss Emily Hazlehurst must consider silence to result from some reprehensible cause,” replied Coverdale, with a meaning smile.
Of course Emily made a pert rejoinder, and of course Coverdale was forced to sing half-a-dozen more songs, which, as he had by this time got up the steam considerably, he did in a style which won him fresh laurels but it was a remarkable fact, that from the moment in which Harry began to read aloud, Alice, although her attention had never flagged, had scarcely uttered a single word—perhaps it was because she thought the more.