Lord St. Erme’s talent and accomplishment were no longer conducive only to amusement or vanity, though they still were exercised; and it was curious to see his masterly drawings hung round the schools and reading-room, and his ready pencil illustrating his instructions, and to hear him reading great authors to the rude audience whom he awakened into interest. There might be more done than sober judgments appreciated, and there were crotchets that it was easy to ridicule, but all was on a sound footing, the work was thoroughly carried out, and the effects were manifest. The beautiful little church rising at Coalworth would find a glad congregation prepared to value it, both by the Earl and by the zealous curate.
Violet wished Theodora could but see, and wondered whether she would ever venture to make a visit at Lassonthwayte; hardly, she supposed, before her marriage.
Lady Lucy one day asked when Miss Martindale was to be married, and on hearing that no period could be fixed, said she was grieved to find it so; it would be better for her brother that it should be over. Violet ventured to express her hopes that he had at last found peace and happiness.
‘Yes,’ said Lucy, ‘he is very busy and happy. I do not think it dwells on his spirits, but it is the disappointment of his life, and he will never get over it.’
‘I hope he will find some one to make him forget it.’
‘I do not think he will. No one can ever be like Miss Martindale, and I believe he had rather cling to the former vision, though not repining. He is quite content, and says it is a good thing to meet with a great disappointment early in life.’
Violet doubted not of his contentment when she had looked into his adult school, and seen how happily he was teaching a class of great boys to write; nor when she heard him discussing prices, rents, and wages with Mr. Hunt.
Lord St. Erme and Lady Lucy had come to an early dinner at Lassonthwayte, thus causing great jealousy on the part of Mrs. Albert Moss, and despair on Matilda’s, lest Olivia should do something extremely amiss without her supervision. Little did she guess that Lucy had been reckoning on the pleasure of meeting her dear Mrs. Moss for once without those daughters.
After dinner, all the party were on the lawn, watching the tints on the mountains, when Lord St. Erme, coming to walk with Mrs. Martindale, asked her, with a smile, if she remembered that she had been the first person who ever hinted that the Westmoreland hills might be more to him than the Alps.
‘I have not forgotten that evening,’ he said. ‘It was then that I first saw Mr. Fotheringham;’ and he proceeded to ask many questions about Percy’s former appointment at Constantinople, his length of service, and reason for giving it up, which she much enjoyed telling. He spoke too of his books, praising them highly, and guessing which were his articles in reviews, coming at last to that in which, as he said, he had had the honour of being dissected.