CHAPTER 11
Then weep not o’er the hour of pain,
As those who lose their all;
Gather the fragments that remain,
They’ll prove nor few nor small.
—M. L. DUNCAN
In the meantime Theodora and her father had been brought into contact with visitors from the external world. One morning James brought in a card and message of inquiry from Lord St. Erme, and Lord Martindale desired that he should be admitted. Theodora had just time to think how ridiculous it was of her to consider how she should appear to another old lover, before he came in, colouring deeply, and bending his head low, not prepared to shake hands; but when hers was held out, taking it with an eager yet bashful promptitude.
After a cordial greeting between him and her father, it was explained that he had not entirely recovered what he called his accident, and had come to London for advice; he had brought a parcel from Wrangerton for Mrs. Martindale, and had promised to carry the Moss family the latest news of the Colonel. While this was passing, and Lord Martindale was talking about Arthur, Theodora had time to observe him. The foreign dress and arrangement of hair were entirely done away with, and he looked like an Englishman, or rather an English boy, for the youthfulness of feature and figure was the same; the only difference was that there was a greater briskness of eye, and firmness of mouth, and that now that the blush on entering had faded, his complexion showed the traces of recent illness, and his cheeks and hands were very thin. When Theodora thought of the heroism he had shown, of her own usage of him, and of his remembrance of her in the midst of his worst danger, she could not see him without more emotion than she desired. He was like a witness against her, and his consciousness WOULD infect her! She longed for some of the cool manner that had come so readily with Percy, and with some difficulty brought out a composed inquiry for Lady Lucy; but he disconcerted her again by the rapid eager way in which he turned round at her voice.
‘Lucy is very well, thank you; I left her staying with my cousins, the Delavals. It is very hard to get her away from home, and she threatens not to stay a day after my return.’ He spoke in a hasty confused way, as if trying to spin everything out of the answer, so as to remain conversing with Theodora as long as possible.
‘How long shall you be in town?’ she asked, trying to find something she could say without awkwardness.
‘I can hardly tell. I have a good deal to do. Pray’—turning to Lord Martindale—‘can you tell me which is the best shop to go to for agricultural implements?’
Speed the plough! Farming is a happy sedative for English noblemen of the nineteenth century, thought Theodora, as she heard them discussing subsoil and rocks, and thought of the poet turned high farmer, and forgetting even love and embarrassment! However, she had the satisfaction of hearing, ‘No, we cannot carry it out thoroughly there without blowing up the rocks, and I cannot have the responsibility of defacing nature.’
‘Then you cannot be a thorough-going farmer.’