This thought haunted her awhile; until at last it was banished by the influence of one of those pleasant social evenings, such as were often spent at the Parsonage. The whole party, including Christal and Lyle, were assembled in the twilight, the two latter keeping up a sort of Benedick and Beatrice warfare. Harold and his mother seemed both very quiet—they sat close together, her hand sometimes resting caressingly on his shoulder or his knee. It was a new thing, this outward show of affection; but of late since his health had declined (and, in truth, he had often looked and been very ill), there had come a touching softness between the mother and son.
Olive Rothesay sat a little apart, a single lamp lighting her at her work; for she was not idle. Following her old master's example, she was continually making studies from life for the picture on which she was engaged. She took a pleasure in filling it with idealised heads, of which the originals had place in her own warm affections. Christal was there, with her gracefully-turned throat, and the singular charm of her black eyes and fair hair. Lyle, too, with his delicate, womanish, but yet handsome face. Nor was Mrs. Gwynne forgotten—Olive made great use of her well-outlined form, and her majestic sweep of drapery. There was one only of the group who had not been limned by Miss Rothesay.
“If I were my brother-in-law I should take it quite as an ill compliment that you had never asked him to sit,” observed Lyle. “But,” he added in a whisper, “I don't suppose any artist would care to paint such a hard, rugged-looking fellow as Gwynne.”
Olive looked on the pretty red and white of the boyish dabbler in Art—for Lyle had lately taken a fancy that way too—and then at the countenance he maligned. She did not say a word; but Lyle hovering round, found his interference somewhat sharply put aside during the whole evening.
When assembled round the supper-table they talked of Christal's journey. It was undertaken by invitation of Mrs. Fludyer, to whom the young damsel had made herself quite indispensable. Her liveliness charmed away the idle lady's ennui, while her pride and love of aristocratic exclusiveness equally gratified the same feelings for her patroness. And from the mist that enwrapped her origin, the ingenious and perhaps self-deceived young creature had contrived to evolve such a grand fable of “ancient descent” and “noble but reduced family,” that everybody regarded her in the same light as she regarded herself. And surely, as the quick-sighted Mrs. Gwynne often said, no daughter of a long illustrious line was ever prouder than Christal Manners.
She indulged the party with a brilliant account of Mrs. Fludyer's anticipations of pleasure at Brighton, whither the whole family at the Hall were bound.
“Really, we shall be quite desolate without a single soul left at Farnwood, shall we not, Olive?” observed Mrs. Gwynne.
Olive answered, “Yes,—very,” without much considering of the matter. Her thoughts were with Harold, who was leaning back in his chair, absorbed in one of those fits of musing, which with him were not unfrequent, and which no one ever regarded, save herself. How deeply solemn it was to her at such times to feel that she alone held the key of his soul—that it lay open, with all its secrets, to her, and to her alone. What marvel was it if this knowledge sometimes moved her with strange sensations; most of all, while, beholding the reserved exterior which he bore in society, she remembered the times when she had seen him goaded into terrible emotion, or softened to the weakness of a child.
At Olive's mechanical affirmative, Lyle Derwent brightened up amazingly. “Miss Rothesay, I—I don't intend going away, believe me!”
Christal turned quickly round. “What are you saying, Mr. Derwent?”