CHAPTER II.
Sir Frederick came forward with his set artificial smile, and shook hands with Mrs Bowood with much apparent cordiality. He was a slightly built man, rather under than over the ordinary height. As Mrs Bowood had remarked, he did not look nearly so old as his years; but he had taken great care of himself all his life, and he was now reaping his reward. He was as upright as a dart, and there was something of military precision in his carriage and bearing, although he had never been in the army. His once coal-black hair was now streaked with gray, but judiciously so, as though he were making a graceful concession to the remorseless advance of time. How much of its tint was due to nature and how much to art was a secret best known to himself and his valet. His face was close shaven, except for a small imperial, which was jet black. He had clear-cut aquiline features, and when younger, would doubtless have been considered by most people as a very handsome man. But his eyes were small, and their general expression was one of cold suspicion; they lent a touch of meanness to his face, which it would not otherwise have possessed. Sir Frederick was carefully dressed in the height of the prevalent fashion, but with the more prominent ‘points’ artistically toned down to harmonise with the obligations of advancing years.
‘Good-morning, Mrs Bowood,’ he said. ‘Is the Captain at home?’
‘Good-morning, Sir Frederick. You are quite a stranger.’—He had not been to Rosemount for five days.—‘Charles is somewhere about the grounds. I will send a servant to look for him.’
‘No, no, my dear Mrs Bowood; nothing of the kind, I beg. I will go in search of him myself presently. I have driven over to see him about that bay mare which I am told he wants to get rid of.’
Mrs Bowood smiled to herself. The excuse was too transparent. ‘Charles is one of those men who are never happy unless they have something to sell,’ she said.
‘Whereas your sex, if I may venture to say so’——
‘Are never happy unless there is something that we want to buy. How thoroughly you understand us, Sir Frederick!’
‘Consider for how many years I have made you my study.’
‘What a pity you did not make better use of your time!’
‘Where could I have found another study half so charming?’
‘You would graduate with honours, I do not doubt.’
‘If you were one of the examining Dons, that might be possible.’—There was a brief pause, then the Baronet said: ‘I trust that Lady Dimsdale is quite well?’
‘Quite well, I believe. She, too, is somewhere about the grounds. This lovely morning seems to have tempted every one out of doors.—You will stay luncheon of course, Sir Frederick?’
‘You are too good. A rusk and a glass of claret are all that I take in the middle of the day.’
It was one of the Baronet’s little weaknesses to like to be regarded as a semi-invalid, especially by the ladies.
‘Captain Bowood must add his entreaties to mine, and persuade you to stay.—By-the-bye, I had almost forgotten to ask after your nephew. Have you heard from him lately?’
Sir Frederick became animated in a moment. ‘I had a letter from the dear boy by last mail. He wrote in excellent spirits. I expect him over on leave in the course of the autumn, when I shall take the liberty of introducing him to my friends at Rosemount.’
‘I shall not fail to hold you to your promise.’
‘And now to find the Captain.’
‘The sun is rather oppressive. Had I not better send a servant?’
‘Thanks; no. I shall have no difficulty in finding him. Au revoir.’ And with a smile and a bow, the Baronet made his exit. On reaching the veranda, he paused to put up his umbrella, as a protection from the sun, and then went gingerly on his way.
‘It is not Charles, but Laura, whom he has come to see,’ mused Mrs Bowood as her eyes followed the Baronet. ‘There’s something in his manner which makes me feel almost sure that he will propose before the day is over; but now that Mr Boyd has put in an appearance, I am afraid Sir Frederick’s chance is a very poor one.—By-the-bye, why did Laura wear those jewels last night, which, as I have heard her say more than once, she has never worn since before her marriage? Well, well; I suppose that neither sentiment nor romance is quite dead, even when people can look back upon their thirtieth birthday.’
Mrs Bowood took up her pen again; but at that moment a servant entered the room. ‘Beg pardon, ma’am, but here’s a man come to mend the drawing-room lamp; and the fishmonger is waiting to see you; and there’s a young gent with spectacles and long hair come to tune the pianos.’
‘Dear, dear! I shall have to finish my letter after luncheon, I suppose.—I will come at once, Sparks. But I gave no instructions to any one about tuning the pianos.’
‘Perhaps the Captain may have sent the young man, ma’am.’
‘Perhaps so; but he doesn’t generally interfere in such matters.’
Sparks left the room, and Mrs Bowood put away her unfinished letter in the davenport. ‘What can have become of Mr Boyd?’ she said to herself. ‘I have seen nothing of him since breakfast. Probably, he and Laura are somewhere in the grounds together; if so, poor Sir Frederick will have to find another opportunity.’
As the Baronet, holding his umbrella over his head, paced slowly down one of the winding sunny walks that led from the house, he kept a careful watch on other walks to right and left of him. He was evidently looking out for some one in particular. ‘Why delay longer? Why not do it to-day and at once?’ he was asking himself as he walked along. ‘I have purposely kept away from her for five days, only to find that her image dwells more persistently in my thoughts than ever. It is true that she rejected me once; but that was many years ago, when I was a poor man, and it is no reason why she should reject me a second time. She was a romantic school-girl then; she is a woman of the world now. Yes; the match is a desirable one in every way for both of us. She has money, and I have position. As the wife of Sir Frederick Pinkerton, she would be a very different personage from the widow of a City drysalter; and then her income added to mine would make a very comfortable thing.’ The Baronet would seem to have been unaware of that particular clause in the late Sir Thomas’s will by which his widow would be deprived of nearly the whole of her fortune in case she should marry again. It is possible that his ardour might have cooled down in some measure, had he been made aware of that important fact.
Presently he saw the object of his thoughts turn a corner of the path a little distance away. Her eyes were bent on the ground, and she did not see him. He stood still for a moment or two, watching her with a critical air. He flattered himself that he had a fastidious taste in most things that a gentleman should be fastidious about, and in women most of all. ‘She will do—she will do!’ he muttered to himself with an air of complacency. ‘She is really charming. She shall be Lady Pinkerton before she is three months older.’
Lady Dimsdale happened to look up at this moment. She could not repress a little start at the sight of Sir Frederick.
The Baronet pulled up his collar the eighth of an inch, squared his shoulders, and went slowly forward.
Laura Dimsdale was a tall, graceful-looking woman. She was fair, with a lovely clear complexion, which, especially when she became at all animated, had not yet lost all the tints of girlhood. She had large hazel eyes, instinct with sweetness and candour, delicately arched eyebrows, and a mass of brown silky hair. If the usual expression of her face when alone, or when not engaged in conversation, was not exactly one of melancholy, it was at least that of a woman who has lived and suffered, and to whom the world has taught more than one bitter lesson. And yet in the old days at the vicarage, which now seemed so far away, there had been no merrier-hearted girl than Laura Langton; and even now, after all these years, the boundary that divided her tears from her smiles was a very narrow one. She was gifted with a keen sense of humour, and it did not take much to cause her eyes to fill with laughter and her mobile lips to curve into a merry mocking smile.
Sir Frederick lifted his hat, and twisted his mouth into a smile that was a capital advertisement for his dentist. ‘This is indeed an agreeable surprise, Lady Dimsdale. I came in search of Captain Bowood, and I find—you!’
‘How cleverly you hide your disappointment, Sir Frederick!’ She gave him her fingers for a moment as she spoke. ‘As I have not seen the Captain since breakfast, I cannot tell you where to look for him. But you have been quite a truant during the last few days. We have all missed you.’ There was a mischievous twinkle in her eyes as she said these words.
‘Hum, hum. You flatter me, Lady Dimsdale. Business of importance took me to town for a few days.’ He had turned with her, and was now pacing slowly by her side. ‘Do you know, Lady Dimsdale,’ he went on presently, ‘that I never see a garden nowadays which seems half so charming to me as that dear, delightful wilderness of old-fashioned flowers behind your father’s vicarage?’
‘It was certainly a wilderness, and very old-fashioned into the bargain; but the flowers that grew there were very sweet.’
‘I spent many happy hours among its winding walks.’
‘And a few uncomfortable ones, I’m afraid. Have you forgotten that afternoon when, as you sat eating strawberries and cream in the summer-house, a caterpillar crawled down your neck? You made such extraordinary faces, that for a minute or two I felt quite frightened.’
‘Hum. I had certainly forgotten the caterpillar,’ answered the Baronet, not without a shade of annoyance.
‘And then I used to fancy that you were never quite easy in your mind as we sat together in the garden. There were certainly a great many frogs, and I think you never liked frogs.’
‘Not unless they were fricasséed. Trifling annoyances there might be, Lady Dimsdale; but when the presiding divinity was so fair’——
‘The presiding divinity, Sir Frederick? A painted divinity! We gave her a fresh coat of paint every spring. Poor old Aphrodite with her shell—she used to stand in the middle of the fishpond. But you forget, Sir Frederick, that she had lost her nose, and even a divinity hardly looks so charming without a nose as with one.’
Sir Frederick gave a sniff, and replied in his loftiest manner: ‘When I made use of the term “presiding divinity,” I need hardly say that I was referring to yourself, Lady Dimsdale.’
‘I really beg your pardon, Sir Frederick, but no one ever called me a divinity before. Do you know I rather like it.’ She led the way, as if unconsciously, to a wide-spreading yew, round the bole of which a low seat had been fixed. Here, in the grateful amplitude of shade, she sat down, and the Baronet seated himself a little distance away. It may be that she had some suspicion with regard to Sir Frederick’s errand this morning, and had made up her mind to get it over and have done with it at once and for ever.
‘Now for the plunge!’ said the Baronet to himself as he sat down. The plumage of his self-conceit had been somewhat ruffled both by her words and manner; but whatever temporary annoyance he might feel, it would never do to betray it at such an all-important crisis.
‘You are still the same Laura Langton that you were during those sunny days at the vicarage,’ he began in what he considered his most insinuating manner. ‘The same charm, the same power of fascination exist still. A happy time—at least for one of those two. But the ending was not a happy one—no, anything rather than that.’
‘For which of the two people concerned was the ending not a happy one, Sir Frederick?’
Her coldly contemptuous tone touched him to the quick. A deep flush mounted to his face; for a moment or two he could not trust himself to answer her. ‘I thank you, Lady Dimsdale,’ he said at last. ‘The reproof implied by your words is a just one. To her, no doubt, the end was seen from the beginning—a dramatic effect to be worked up to from the opening of the comedy. To him it came as a thunder-clap, as a stab from a hand that a moment before had been pressed to his lips. Day after day he had been led on by eyes that seemed ever to brighten at his coming; by smiles that seemed ever to be those of welcome; by low-voiced replies; by a hundred pleasant lures, till at length the moment came when his silence found itself a tongue. A few burning words, and everything was told. The answer?—A mocking laugh, a scornful dismissal. His paradise had been the paradise of a fool. He had helped a pretty girl to pass away a few weeks in a dull country-house—and that was all!’ Sir Frederick spoke in low, almost impassioned accents. Any third person who might have chanced to overhear him would have been justified in assuming that he had been cruelly jilted.
But not a muscle of Lady Dimsdale’s face moved, and her answer came in tones as clear and incisive as those of a bell. ‘Were he here now of whom you speak, I would say to him: “You have an excellent memory for many things; is it possible that you can have forgotten Marietta Gray?”’
Sir Frederick started as if he had been stung. His face blanched suddenly. ‘Marietta Gray!’ he stammered out. ‘What do you, Lady Dimsdale, know of her?’
‘She was only a fisherman’s daughter, it is true,’ continued Lady Dimsdale in her clear cold accents. ‘A pretty toy for a fine gentleman to amuse himself with, and then to cast aside. I knew something of her, and I heard her story. When, a little later, one of the strange chances of life brought within my influence the man who had first won the affections of that poor girl and then basely deserted her, I resolved as far as lay in my power to avenge the cruel wrong. You have just told me, Sir Frederick, how well I succeeded in my object. I am happy to think, that the lesson has lingered so long in your memory.’
Sir Frederick rose and took one or two turns under the shade of the branching yew. Not for years had the still waters of his life been so deeply stirred. He took out his delicately perfumed handkerchief and wiped his forehead with it. His hands trembled a little—a thing that had rarely happened to him before. But through all his agitation and surprise, he felt that he had learned to care more for Laura Dimsdale during the last few minutes than he had ever cared for her before. If it were possible for him ever to really love a woman, here was that one woman. Even after all that had passed between them, he would ask her to become his wife. She was a generous, large-hearted creature, he felt sure; and now that she had stabbed him so cruelly, she would be the first to stoop and bind up his wounds. ‘It’s the way of her sex,’ he said to himself. Another reflection did not fail to impress itself upon him: Not to every one is given the chance of marrying a Baronet with six thousand a year. Women can forgive much under such circumstances.
Lady Dimsdale rose. ‘I must leave you now, Sir Frederick,’ she said.
‘One moment, if you please—just one moment,’ he urged.
She hesitated a little, and then sat down again. He spoke, standing in front of her. ‘The words you said to me just now, Lady Dimsdale, were very severe, but not more severe, perhaps, than the case warranted. I can only cry mea culpa, and throw myself on your mercy. I have not a word to urge in self-defence. But the past is the past; however much we may regret it, we cannot alter or amend it. The passion I felt for Laura Langton was sincere. There is proof of it in the fact that it exists undiminished to the present day. The flame is still alight—the ashes still glow with the fire that was first kindled fifteen years ago. Lady Dimsdale, here and to-day, I repeat the offer I made you once before—here and to-day I ask you once more to become my wife.’ His manner was dignified, his words impressive.
The answer came without a moment’s hesitation: ‘Lady Dimsdale is infinitely obliged to Sir Frederick Pinkerton. She will not answer him to-day after the fashion she answered him years ago. She will simply say to him as editors say of rejected contributions, “Declined with thanks.”’
Sir Frederick changed colour. He had not expected so decided a rebuff. He bowed gravely. ‘May I be permitted to hope that your decision is not irrevocable—that it is open to reconsideration?’
‘Being a woman, I change my mind about many things; but I shall never change it about this.’
At this moment a childish voice was heard calling: ‘Aunty Laura—Aunty Laura, where are you? How tiresome of you to run away!’
Lady Dimsdale rose. ‘One of my tyrants is calling me, and I must obey. You will excuse me, Sir Frederick, I am sure.’
Again came the voice: ‘Aunty Laura, where are you?’
Lady Dimsdale drew a child’s trumpet from her pocket and blew a few notes on it. A moment later, Sir Frederick found himself alone.
‘Hum, hum. Rejected—and for the second time,’ he muttered to himself. He was excessively chagrined. After the fashion of other men, having failed to obtain the object of his desires, he appraised it at a higher value than he had ever done before. ‘There must be another man in the case. She would never have refused Sir Frederick Pinkerton and six thousand a year, unless there were another man in the case. Who can he be?’
He strolled slowly in the direction of the house. He would have a word with Captain Bowood, and then he would take his leave. He entered through the open French-windows, but the room was empty. A moment later the door was opened noisily, and Miss Elsie Brandon burst into the room.
She was a tall slim girl, with very bright eyes, and features that were instinct with vivacity. She gave the promise of considerable beauty in time to come. Her hair, cut nearly as short as a boy’s, was a mass of tiny yellow curls. She wore a pinafore, and a frock that scarcely reached to her ankles—her aunt, Miss Hoskyns, had worn a pinafore and a short frock at her age; consequently, they were the proper things for young ladies to wear nowadays.
‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Sir Frederick, but I thought that perhaps Charley might be here.’
‘Good-morning, Miss Brandon,’ said Sir Frederick as he held out his hand.—‘And pray, who is Charley?’
‘Charley Summers, of course—Captain Bowood’s nephew.’
‘But I was under the impression that Captain Bowood had discarded his nephew?’
‘So he has. Cut off his allowance, and forbade him the house eight months ago.’
‘And yet you expect to see him here to-day?’ The Baronet was always interested in the affairs of his neighbours, especially when those neighbours happened to be people of property.
‘I don’t mind telling you, but I had a note from Charley this morning—on the sly, you know.’
‘Pardon me, but young ladies in society don’t generally say “on the sly.”’
‘Charley says it, and he was educated at Harrow. Anyhow, I had a note from him, in which he said that he should certainly contrive to see me to-day. It’s a great risk for him to run, of course; but that won’t deter him in the least.’
‘You appear to be greatly interested in the young gentleman.’
‘Don’t call him a young gentleman, please—it sounds so awfully formal. Didn’t I tell you that we are in love? No; I don’t think I did. Well, we are. It’s a secret at present, and there are all sorts of dreadful obstacles in the way. But we have made up our minds to get married by-and-by, or else we shall commit suicide and die together.’ As Miss Brandon spoke thus, she flung into the air the Latin grammar she had been carrying and caught it deftly as it fell.
‘That would indeed be a terrible fate,’ said the Baronet with a smile.
‘By Jove, though, Sir Frederick, but we are serious!’
‘Young ladies in society don’t generally say “by Jove.”’
‘Charley does, and he was educated at Harrow.’ From a pocket in her dress she drew a box of bon-bons, opened it and popped one between her teeth. Then she proffered the box to Sir Frederick. ‘Have one?’ she said with all the nonchalance imaginable.—The Baronet smiled, and shook his head.—‘You need not notice my fingers, please,’ continued Miss Brandon. ‘I’ve inked them. Somehow, I always do ink them when I’ve an extra hard lesson to learn.—But I say, Sir Frederick, isn’t it a jolly shame that a great girl like me should still be learning lessons? I’m seventeen years two months and four days old.’
‘Young ladies’——
‘I know what you are going to say. I learned the word from Charley, so it must be right. Well, it is a shame. I’ve a great mind to run away. I’ve five pounds saved up.’
‘Perhaps Charley, as you call him, might not like you to do that.’
‘No; I suppose not; and I must study him, poor boy. It’s an awful responsibility—sometimes my brain reels under it.’ Again the Latin grammar was flung high into the air and caught as it fell.
‘Is that the way you always learn your lessons, Miss Brandon?’
‘Not always. But, I say—I do hate Latin. I shall never learn it; and if I were to learn it, it would never be of any use to me.’
‘Young ladies in society don’t generally bite the corners of their pinafores.’
‘Charley does, and—— No; that’s nonsense. Young ladies in society don’t wear pinafores, so of course they have none to bite.’
At this moment, Captain Bowood entered the room, followed by a foreign-looking young man, who was dressed in a shabby frock-coat buttoned close up to the throat, and a pair of shoes very much down at heel. In one hand he carried a hat that was considerably the worse for wear. His long hair, parted down the middle, fell over his coat collar, and he wore blue spectacles.
‘There you are, young man,’ said the Captain as he pointed to the piano. ‘And the sooner you are done and off the premises, the better.’
‘Very good, sare. Much oblige,’ answered the stranger.
At the sound of his voice, Miss Brandon started and gazed earnestly at the young man in the blue spectacles.
‘Good gracious! Why, it must be—it is Charley!’ she muttered under her breath. ‘My poor dear boy! But what a fright he has made of himself!’