The grown-up party looked each other over rather as they had done on meeting fifteen years before at their mother's funeral—the years that had made their baby the fair little bride who was nestling as close as she could to her eldest brother that she might feel his hand on her shoulder. Those years had brought the 'little ones' of those days to be 'the tall ones' of the present, Bernard exceeding all the rest in stature, even Fulbert and Clement, with regular features, brilliant complexion, and glossy light-brown hair and moustache, but without as yet any particular expression except good-humoured complacency in his own appearance and deportment, being persuaded that Charlie would have to-morrow a true best man, unrivalled in looks and equipments; and without a regret, save that Felix was courteously deaf to all Sir Adrian's strictures on the scandalous state of his covers. Whatever those years had done for Bernard's outer man, his mind, or perhaps more properly his will, had not grown much older.
This could not be said of Angela, who sat so still and meek that Alda was meditating on transferring the governess proposal to her, but with a latent energy in the corner of the down-cast eye and firmly closed mouth, and the most anxious watchfulness of Felix's slightest movement. The change was comparatively small in sober Robina, whose steady equable nature had been early moulded, and who sat at the window curtain, with Will hovering over her, both trying not to contrast other people's love affairs with their own. The three brothers whose bickerings had then been so troublesome were now the most inseparable. If their paths had severed them, they liked each other better now, as they stood all in a row, with their backs against the mantel-piece, the big, bearded, sunburnt Australian, the close-shaven, alert clergyman, and the little bright-eyed, thin-faced, moustached tradesman, all eagerly talking in under tones of old Bexley pranks and comrades, laughing as they never did but in such a trio, and yet each bearing tokens of toil with the full might of vigorous manhood, unlike as was their work.
Geraldine's little bending figure had chiefly altered for the better. The mixture of arch lively grace and pathetic depth which gave her peculiar charm had increased rather than lessened, and though she had gained in dignity and confidence, anxieties and perplexities made her cheeks glow and her eyes wander restlessly as she tried to make talk for Sir Adrian.
The twin sisters were together on the sofa, both in black velvet. Wilmet had a bad cold, and indeed had never looked her best since the shock at Whitsuntide, so that Alda had regained the palm of beauty; but it was matronly content that had plumped the chiselled contour of feature, and if the colouring showed less clear and flower-like, it was by contrast with Alda's defined, over-transparent white and carnation, and the wasted look that threw out the perfection of the delicate moulding. One gave the notion of comfortable, peaceful motherliness, the other of constant anxious wear and tear; and the blue eye, so much larger and more hollow than the soft, calm one, rather weighed down by the cold, no doubt were rendered additionally restless by the presence of the man she had not seen since she had cast him off like a worn-out glove.
It was she who had married, but upon which had the impression lasted most painfully? There was a nervous quiver of her nostril, and a sullen scowl in her husband's eye, when, after the casual greeting, Ferdinand sat down among the children, took Gerald on his knee, and made friends with the little girls. He was indisputably the wealthiest man present, and the handsomest, except perhaps Bernard, whose good looks were merely the fair, scarcely developed graces of early youth, while his was the matured nobleness of countenance stamped on naturally fine outlines by a life of brave, unselfish activity and dutifulness. It was a calm, serious, dignified face, less melancholy than in his younger days, for the liquid wistfulness of the dark eyes had given place to vigilance and authority, and though there was still a want of susceptibility and animation, the dark colouring and statuesque outline did not need them.
'And he the chieftain of them all,' as Cherry liked to call her Squire—he was leaning back in the easy-chair by the fire, with a weary, placid smile on his face, and his fingers clasped lightly into one another, as his elbows rested on the arms of his chair. There was a strange monumental fixity of repose about him as if he were only half attending to the talk that passed by him, and cared more to gaze than to speak. However, on the announcement of dinner, he roused himself, gave his arm to Lady Vanderkist, and talked cheerily to her through the soup and fish, but while carving the turkey, he paused, a flush and then a whiteness came over his face, and saying to Alda, 'I'm afraid I must go, this is too much for me,' he rose, while Clement pushed back his chair and hastily followed.
Startled looks went round, and—'A tiring day'—'He has not done so much for a long time'—'That stuck-up old bore might do for anybody'—but in a few moments Clement came back, and said, while taking the seat at the bottom of the table, 'He is better now,' then tried to divert Alda's anxious inquiries whether using the arm had renewed the strain. Geraldine put on a defiant brightness, appealing to John whether Sir Robert were not enough to account for any fatigue, and with questionable taste in her excitement, giving Sir Adrian a sarcastic account of his compliments. Luckily, Stella was out of hearing, but John detected the ring of anxiety in every ironical word.
Knowing that a crowd coming after him was always oppressive to Felix, no one followed Wilmet when on leaving the drawing-room she went at once to the study door. She found Felix on the Squire's chair in its most couch-like form, looking even in the firelight exceedingly pale, but greeting her with a smile of welcome.
'Yes, I am better,' he said, in answer to her enquiry. 'I'll come into the drawing-room presently.'
'You had better not, you are overtired.'