When I began to show signs of recovery, Eleanor poured some water into a hand-basin, and sponged my heated face. I sat up submissively to have it done, feeling that I had so dreadfully disgraced myself that I could no longer assert my dignity. “I am so sorry,” I said meekly, “but the truth is, I had just got a little attack of homesickness before you came in, thinking of my old friends. I hardly ever cry; but, you know, if once you do let yourself begin, almost anything will start you afresh.”
“Yes, dear, I know, and I came just at the wrong moment. I was reading to-day in the train as I came along an old Welsh tale of a chieftain who buried the last of his sons, all slain in battle, and how a bird began to sing in a tree over the grave as they laid the body in it. It said, ‘that broke the old chiefs heart.’ It was nothing, of course, to all that must have gone before, but it was just the particular touch that pierced him. I am sure I understand that. Do you like reading old poetry, Kitty?” she added, hastily, fearing this pathetic story would tempt another outburst if she gave me time to think about it.
I told her I liked poetry of all sorts, if it really was poetry, and not sentimental platitudes in rhyme. And then we had a discussion about Tennyson, and our first “falling out”—for, having cordially agreed that the music of some of his descriptive passages, and the perfect beauty of some special poems and verses were enough to haunt one’s memory to one’s dying day, she went on to glorify him as an infallible deity in human shape, while I contended that a man who wrote such shocking bad grammar as he sometimes did hadn’t learned his art, notwithstanding the years he had been about it. First, she denied the accusation against his grammar with indignation (touched with an air of kindly toleration for a critic who probably did not know good grammar when she saw it); and then I quoted several passages in proof of it from a volume lying on a table at my hand, in a clear prose voice of triumph. Whereat, having to shift her ground, she planted herself upon the very popular theory that a great poet was “above those trivial considerations,” as being, in her opinion, a perfectly safe basis of operations. Upon which I hotly insisted that a poet had his responsibilities as well as his privileges in his dealings with his mother tongue, and asked her what she would think of a great poet who sat down in a room with her with his hat on.
Finding this argument unproductive, we went on to discuss books in general, and in particular the literature of the colonies; whence I drifted into reminiscences of Narraporwidgee life, and Eleanor told me of her home in Norfolk. And so we talked—puzzling one another a little at times, I with my childish ignorance of some things and my wide and cultured acquaintance with others, and she with the strange, formal lines of thought and judgment in which her clear intellect flowed, until my cousins came home, and found us laughing and gossiping over a cheerful cup of tea, like old friends.
I must introduce the rest of my relations in a few words, and have done with it. Here is the family party, on its way to dinner:—
First in order, next to mother and uncle Groodeve, is dear aunt Kate, with her gentle face like Eleanor’s, her soft grey hair, her soft grey dress—less like father in some ways than aunt Alice, but with more of his genial frankness in her kind eyes. A very pretty woman she must have been when she was young; even now she has a certain bloom and brightness in her fair faded face that is very winning to me, expressing, as it clearly does, a warm, and loving, and sympathetic nature. She is younger than aunt Alice, but she does not wear a low-bodied dress, and flowers in her hair, as Mrs. Goodeve does. Some soft old lace, and a pearl brooch at her throat, and a little lace cap with lappets on her head, are the modest ornaments of her elderly lady costume; and father tells her, as he lays his broad palm on the thin fingers she rests on his coat sleeve, that she is prettier than she was when she was the belle of the family, and all the beaux of the county were after her.
Uncle Armytage, though he comes last, as aunt Alice’s chosen squire, must be introduced with his wife. Tall, large-framed, majestic, with fine lines at the corners of his mouth, and a noble old Roman nose much elevated in the air, he has a dignified and imposing presence which awes me just a little. His voice is measured, his accent particularly pure and refined, his manner the least trifle verging upon pompousness; but, as mother says, and she ought to know, there is no mistaking him for a well-born and well-bred gentleman in whatever company you find him. Every one defers to him as if by instinct; every one listens when he lays down the law, which he does with the least possible imperiousness; and the servants wait on him with a silent assiduity that marks their (always correct) estimate of his social importance. As a clergyman, he is one of a class by no means rare in England, I am told; but looking at him on the outside I am quite sure I never met one the least like him before.
Behind aunt Kate and father, I come sailing downstairs, radiant in white net and the inevitable jewel that I am so proud of; and Reginald Goodeve is my cavalier. A handsome young man in the common sense of the term, with shaven cheeks and close-cropped head, a bold pair of dark eyes, and a delicate, silky, dark moustache, not to speak of a tall and slender figure which evening clothes become, he justifies his sisters’ inordinate admiration of him perhaps, though I do not consider him worthy to be for a moment compared with Tom. Perhaps I am a little prejudiced to-night in my first impressions. I remember Tom’s warning to me not to have “anything to do with” him, because he was not a nice fellow; and I cannot help feeling that there is a shade of familiarity in his way of talking to me that is not so much cousinly as an indication that he considers me a colonial bumpkin, and, as such, not requiring the strict courtesy demanded by ladies of his own world. And then he asked me about Tom just now, before we left the drawing-room, in a particularly offensive manner. “How’s Tom Jones—Jack Robinson—what’s the fellow’s name?—that young bushman of yours who was at Christchurch—whom Bertie Armytage brought here to a ball once?”
I was very angry at his impertinence, and I answered him haughtily, and then, seeing him taken aback and puzzled to understand why I should fire up at such an innocent question, I crimsoned to the colour of a peony; whereupon he smiled mischievously, and began to tease me in what I thought an extremely vulgar manner. However, he is too bright, and chatty, and good-humoured to be repelled altogether; and, as we go down the stairs, arm in arm, all in the bright gaslight, I am in too high spirits to be disagreeable, even if I wished.
Behind us, in her noiseless way, glides pretty Eleanor, in her sober draperies of black gauze, with one white rose in her smooth hair, shining out against the sleeve of her gigantic attendant, Captain Damer. I need not describe her, though I long to do it over again, and Captain Damer is only a huge, ponderous, good-natured fellow, with the biggest red moustache I ever saw, and a voice like muffled thunder. Behind these again hops cousin Bertha on the arm of Lieutenant Wiggles. Bertha is gorgeous in frizzled hair and a bower of artificial flowers, and a gown so tight about her legs that it puzzles me to understand how she will get upstairs again when dinner is over. Lieutenant Wiggles is a little, skipping, dancing-master sort of man, with a high metallic voice that reaches me distinctly, even through the thickness of Captain Damer’s body and his tremendous bass notes.