CHAPTER XVI.—MISS LIVINGSTONE SPEAKS A BIT OF HER MIND.
It was a lovely morning in early summer, when the sun, shining into Lewis’s bedroom at Broadhurst, aroused him from a heavy dreamless ===sleep, the result of his previous night’s dissipation at Lady Lombard’s. The sensation of waking for the first time in a strange place is usually a disagreeable one; there is an unfamiliar newness in the aspect of everything around us, an absence of old associations, which to an impressible disposition is singularly disheartening. This was peculiarly the case with Lewis; the costly furniture of the room, arranged with a stiff propriety, the spotless carpet, the chair-covers too clean and slippery to be sat upon, the bright cold mirrors, the polished grate, in which a fire would have been high treason, each and all suggestive of the chilling influence of that rigid disciplinarian Miss Livingstone, served painfully to realise his new position. Splendour without comfort was an anomaly he had never before encountered, and in his then frame of mind it aroused all the bitter feelings which even his strength of will was unable to subdue, and he mentally compared himself to a slave working in gilded chains, and longed for independence, no matter through what hardships, struggles, and dangers it must be attained. But there was a healthy energy about his mind which prevented his yielding to these morbid feelings; hastily dressing himself, he found his way into the pleasure garden, and as it was yet early, strolled onward through the park.
After wandering about for nearly an hour, the calm beauty of the scenery and the exhilarating freshness of the morning air producing their natural effect upon his spirits, it occurred to him that his absence might be commented upon, and possibly give offence; accordingly, he retraced his steps towards the house. Ignorant of the locale, however, he was unable to discover the door by which he had gone out, and after making one or two attempts in a wrong direction, was compelled to effect his entrance through a French window opening into a conservatory. Lewis possessed a great taste for, and some knowledge of botany, and his attention was at once attracted by the rare and beautiful plants around him. So completely was he engrossed by his admiration, that not until he heard his own name pronounced did he become aware that he was not the sole tenant of the conservatory. Turning at the sound, he perceived Annie Grant, in a very becoming costume, busily employed in altering the arrangement of certain flower-pots.
Before we proceed farther, it may be as well to afford the reader an insight into Lewis’s feelings towards this young lady, as they were by no means of such a nature as might be expected from a young man towards a pretty and agreeable girl, with whom he was about to be domesticated. In order to account for his peculiar state of mind on this subject we must take a retrospective glance at an episode in Lewis’s student life, which has been already alluded to in a conversation between Frere and his friend. About a year before the period at which our story opened Lewis had encountered, at a festive meeting of the worthy citizens of Bonn, the very pretty daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper, and struck by her bright eyes and a certain naïve simplicity of manner, had danced with her the greater part of the evening. Flattered by the attentions of the handsome young Englishman, the damsel, who (her simplicity being confined entirely to manner) was as arrant a little flirt as ever caused a heartache, took care that the acquaintance should continue; and while she was merely bent on adding to her train of admirers, Lewis fell in love with her as deeply as a man can do with a girl completely his inferior in mind as well as in station. Imagination, however, which at eighteen is alarmingly active, supplied all deficiencies, and Lewis continued to dream his lady-love was an angel, till one fine morning the fact of her elopement with a young German baron, who looked upon matrimony as a superfluous ordinance, induced him to alter his opinion. With the termination of the adventure the reader is already acquainted, but the effect upon Lewis’s disposition was one which time might weaken but could never efface. The fatal lesson that one who seemed true and pure was not so, once learnt could never be forgotten; the seeds of mistrust were sown, and strive as he might, the perfect faith, the bright, eager confidence of youth, were lost to him for ever.
Ànnie, as the reader is aware, was unusually lovely, and Lewis accordingly regarded her in the light of a dangerous man-trap; besides this, oddly enough, she was by no means unlike an ethereal and spiritualised representation of “Gretchen”; the features and colouring were similar, and the arch simplicity of the Fraulein’s manner was part and parcel of Annie’s very nature. The painful recollections which this resemblance excited added unconsciously to the prejudice (for it amounted to that) which Lewis had conceived against the General’s daughter; but the true source of the feeling lay deeper. However circumstances may cause him to affect, or even to believe the contrary, there is in every man’s heart a latent desire to render himself agreeable to any young and pretty woman into whose society he may be thrown, more especially where the individual is conscious of possessing powers of pleasing if he chooses to exert them; and even Lewis’s slight experience of society had sufficed to enlighten him in regard to this point, on which the dullest are usually clear-sighted. But coupled with this feeling came the humiliating consciousness that although by birth and education Miss Grant’s equal, the position he held in the family rendered him her inferior; and this idea was galling in the extreme to Lewis’s haughty nature. Annie, on the other hand, profoundly ignorant of all these wheels within wheels, entertained the most amiable and benevolent intentions towards her new associate. She knew he was unfortunate, she saw he was a gentleman, and she had heard that he was undertaking a duty he disliked, for the sake of his mother and sister; and for all these reasons her woman’s heart warmed towards him, and she determined to do what she was able to render his position as little painful as might be; moreover, she was sufficiently acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of her father and great-aunt to be aware that any particular kindness the young tutor would be likely to meet with in the family must emanate from herself. Accordingly, when Lewis, having replied to her cordial “Good morning, Mr. Arundel,” by slightly raising his hat, and making a formal bow, was about to pass on, she renewed the attack by adding—
“May I trouble you to move this flower-pot for me? it is so heavy.”
Thus appealed to, Lewis stopped short, and for a moment debated with himself the possibility of refusing; but without being actually ill-bred, such a possibility did not exist; so, resigning himself to his fate with a very ill grace, he deposited his hat on a vacant flower-stand, and tossing back his dark curls with the air of a sulky lion shaking his mane, he took the garden-pot, which indeed seemed too heavy for Annie’s little hands, asking, with a stately coldness by no means in character with the mild nature of the inquiry—
“Where would you wish to have it placed, Miss Grant?”
“Here, if you will be so kind,” returned the young lady, indicating the spot by pointing with the end of a pert little parasol.
Lewis, having installed the plant in its appointed place, was again about to take his departure, but ere he did so, glancing involuntarily at the effect of his labour, his quick eye at once discerned the object of the changes Annie was striving to effect, and perceived that, in’ order to carry out her design, several heavy flowers yet required moving. Nothing, however, was farther from his thoughts than the idea of volunteering his assistance, when Annie, catching the direction of his eye, continued—
“Yes, the White Camellia is too low.”
“While the Rhododendron is as much too high,” returned Lewis eagerly, and forgetting his proud scruples in the impulse of the moment, he set to work with the greatest energy to complete the arrangement which his correct taste acknowledged to be an improvement.
The Camellia had been exalted and the Rhododendron abased, and many other “pets of the parterre” had experienced sudden changes of position, and still Lewis worked with unabated zeal, and still his fair companion directed and approved, when just as, poised like a flying Mercury on one foot half-way up a high flower-stand, he was stretching to his utmost to install a gaudy Cactus, all red and green like a paroquet, on the topmost pinnacle, a stately tread was heard approaching, and General Grant entered the conservatory. Lewis coloured with mingled anger and annoyance at being detected in such a situation, but Annie good-naturedly came to his assistance. Tripping up to her father and taking both his hands, she exclaimed—
“Good morning, papa. Welcome to dear old Broadhurst once again. How pretty it all looks! But they have placed my flowers so stupidly, I must have every one of them altered. I’ve been working away for half-an-hour at least, and as Mr. Arundel happened to be passing, I pressed him into the service, for some of the pots are so heavy.”
“Much too heavy for you to attempt to move, my dear,” returned the General in a tone of marked disapproval; “but why did you not summon one of the gardeners to make the alteration you wished, without troubling Mr. Arundel, who must have had other duties to perform?”
“As it was your desire, sir, to be present at my introduction to my future pupil,” replied Lewis, who had by this time reached terra firma and recovered his self-possession, “I have refrained from making any attempt to see him till I should have learned your further wishes on the subject. My time was therefore quite at Miss Grant’s disposal, if I could be in any way useful to her.”
“My daughter is obliged by your politeness, sir, but will not trespass upon it further,” replied the General coldly. “My dear Annie,” he continued, “it only wants ten minutes to nine; you will oblige me by preparing for breakfast. Punctuality is a quality by the neglect of which all order is subverted, propriety set at nought, much valuable time wasted which can never be recalled, and the comfort of a family totally destroyed. Your excellent aunt is aware of my opinion on this subject, and during the twelve years she has done me the favour to preside over my household she has never kept me waiting one minute.”
“‘Well, dear papa, I’ll do my best to please you,” returned Annie; “but,” she added, laying her hand on-his shoulder caressingly, and looking up in his face with a glance half mischievous and half imploring, “you won’t expect me to be so terribly perfect as Aunt Martha? Recollect, she is three times as old as I am, and ought therefore to be three times as wise.”
The General tried to look displeased, but he could not resist Annie for he was human after all; so, stroking her glossy curls, he told her that Mrs. Botherfille (a serious schoolmistress, who, for the trifling consideration of £300 per annum, condescended to allow the youthful female aristocracy of the land to sit at her feet and learn from her lips how to regenerate society through the medium of frivolous accomplishments) had failed in curing her of talking nonsense, at which Annie laughed merrily and then tripped off, turning as she passed Lewis to take a last glance at the newly-arranged flowers, and saying, “Now, don’t they look pretty, Mr. Arundel?”
As the directions in regard to Lewis and his pupil’s separate establishment (for such the isolated suite of rooms they were to occupy might be considered) had not as yet been communicated to the servants, General Grant requested the favour of Lewis’s company at breakfast with as much ceremony as he could have used if he had been inviting a royal duke to a banquet; and as a request from such a quarter was equivalent to a command, Lewis could only comply. Half a minute before the clock struck nine, Miss Livingstone, that human hedge-hog, rustled into the breakfast-room, more stiff and starched in mind and body than any other living creature. As for her cap, a railway train might have passed over it without injuring that rigid mystery, while her gown was at the least sabre, not to say bullet-proof. If ever there were a wife fitted for our Iron Duke, that adamantine spinster was the woman—only that to have married her would have required more courage than twenty Waterloos!
As the clock struck nine the household servants made their appearance, and all the family knelt down (with the exception of Miss Livingstone, who, being evidently fashioned as the ancients believed elephants to be, without knee-joints, merely reared up against the breakfast-table, as the next best thing she could do), while the General read them a short, sharp, but polite prayer, after which he blessed them very much as if he were doing the reverse, and suffered them to depart. The breakfast was excellent as far as the commissariat department was concerned, and the tea was not so cold as might have been expected considering that Miss Livingstone poured it out.
Even Lewis’s short acquaintance with that austere virgin’s usual expression of countenance led him to believe that a darker shade than ordinary lowered upon her brow; nor was he mistaken, for after despatching a piece of dry toast with the air of an acidulated martyr, the spirit (we fear it was not an amiable one) moved her, and she spoke.
“I must say, General, your benevolence has rather overpowered your judgment, to my poor thinking, in this singular addition to the establishment at Broadhurst. I really consider that I ought to have been a little more clearly informed as to the facts of the case before these new arrangements were actually decided on.”
“If you refer to Sir Walter Desborough, madam,” returned the General sternly, “I must recall to your memory the fact of my having mentioned to you, this day week, my intention that my ward should reside at Broadhurst.”
“I am not in the habit of forgetting any communication you do me the honour of making to me, General Grant, nor have I forgotten the conversation to which you refer; but if you mentioned that your ward was a dangerous idiot, and that you expected me to preside over a private lunatic asylum, that circumstance certainly has escaped me.” The wrinkles on the General’s forehead deepened as he replied with a glance towards Lewis, “You forget, Miss Livingstone, that we are not in private.”
“Really,” rejoined the lady, “if, as I believe, that young” (and she laid an ill-natured emphasis on the word) “gentleman has undertaken the duties of keeper——”
“Tutor,” interposed the General sharply.
“Well, tutor, then, if you like to call it so,” continued Miss Livingstone, “the name does not much signify. But if Mr. Arundel is to have the care of this dreadful boy, the sooner he knows what his duties will be, and sets about them, the better; for I tell you plainly, General Grant, that unless there’s a man about the creature who can manage him, I won’t sleep another night in the house with him. There’s no trusting those idiots; we may all be murdered in our beds.”
As the good lady, who had by this time got the steam up to a very high degree of pressure, hazarded the above uncomfortable suggestion, Annie, who had been listening with an expression of painful annoyance to her aunt’s harangue, suddenly turned pale and glanced with a look of appealing inquiry towards her father, who replied to her rather than to Miss Livingstone in the following terms:—
“Really, my dear Annie, I am compelled to say that the fears with which your excellent relative” (and he looked bayonets at Minerva, who shook her head till her terrific cap rustled like an angry hailstorm) “would seek to inspire you are utterly without foundation.” He paused, took a pinch of snuff viciously, as though it were gunpowder and he was priming himself for a fresh discharge; and thus prepared he turned to Lewis, saying—but we will reserve the volley for another chapter.