Their eyes met. The next instant Kate cast hers down as she said, "I shall be at home on Friday from two till six. You can come then."
"You may depend on me," said Simnel; "I'll not bore you any longer." He raised his hat with perfect politeness, turned his horse, and rode slowly away.
[CHAPTER XX.]
THE CHURCHILLS AT HOME.
Three months' experience sufficiently indoctrinated Barbara Churchill into her new life. At the end of that time she could scarcely have been recognised as the Barbara Lexden who had held her own for three seasons, and done undisputed havoc among the detrimentals: not that she was changed in appearance; that grand hauteur, that indefinable something of delicacy, breeding, and refinement, was even more noticeable than ever; if any thing, her nostrils were more frequently expanded, her lips more constantly in their curve; nor had her eyes lost their brightness, her figure its trim form, her walk its grace and elegance. Though Parker had long since served under another mistress Barbara's hair had never been more artistically arranged than by her own hands; and though her dress had been modified from the nearest approach to excess in the prevailing fashion which good taste would permit to the merest simplicity, she had never, even in the height of her queendom, been more becomingly attired than in the plain silk dresses and simple linen collars and cuffs which she donned in Great Adullam Street. Where was the change, then? whence the source of the alteration? In truth she herself could scarcely tell; or if the idea ever rose in her mind she thrust it out instantly, arguing within herself, in a thousand unimpressive, undecisive, unsatisfactory ways, that she did not feel as she had imagined, and that she was merely "a little low."
That phrase was Frank Churchill's bane. He would return from the Statesman Office, where, after the regular daily consultation, he had remained and written his leader (Harding always hitherto had managed to free his friend from night-work), and would find his wife with red-rimmed eyelids and the final traces of a past shower. At first he was frightened at these manifestations, would tenderly caress her, and ask her what had happened, Nothing! always nothing! no cross, no domestic anxiety, no special trouble. But then something must have happened. Frank's logical spirit, long trained, refused to accept an effect without a cause; and at length, after repeated questioning, he would learn from Barbara that she was "a little low" that day. A little low! What on earth had she had to be a little low about? And then Frank would imagine that there were more things in women than were dreamt of in his philosophy; and would pet her and coax her during dinner, and restore her somewhat to herself, until he took up his review or his heavy reading, when the "little low" fit would come on again; and after half an hour's contemplation of the coals Barbara would burst into sobs and retire to bed. And then Frank, laying down his book and pondering over his final pipe, would first begin to think that he was badly treated; to review his conduct, and see whether any act of his during the day could have caused the "little lowness;" to imagine that Barbara was making mountains of molehills, and was losing that spirit which had been one great attraction to him; then gradually he would soften, would take into consideration the changes in the circumstances of her life; would begin to accuse himself of neglecting her, and preferring his reading at a time when she had a fair claim on his attention; and would finally rush off to implore her forgiveness, and pet her more than ever.
An infatuated fellow, this Frank Churchill; so happy in the possession of his wife, in the knowledge that she was his own, all his own, that nothing, not even the fact that she was occasionally a "little low," had power to damp his happiness for more than a very few minutes. He would sit at dinner of an evening, when she was engaged with her work, and he had a book in front of him, in company, when he could steal a minute from the general conversation, looking at her in rapt admiration; not one point of her beauty was lost upon him; the shape of her head; its pose on her neck; her delicate hands with that pink shell-like palm; those long tapering fingers and filbert nails; her rounded bust and slim waist,--all her special excellences impressed him more now than they had when he had first seen her; but, above all, he revelled in her "bred" appearance, in that indefinable something which seemed to lift her completely out of the set of people with which he saw her surrounded, and to show her by right the denizen of another sphere. If you could have persuaded Frank Churchill that another man held such opinions as these; that another man had such feelings with regard to his wife; and that through holding them he was induced to regard somewhat intolerantly those among whom he had hitherto moved, and from whom he had received the greatest kindness and friendship,--what words would have been scathing enough to have expressed Frank Churchill's disgust!
Yet such was undoubtedly the case. Churchill's most intimate friend was George Harding,--a man whom he reverenced and looked up to, but whom he, since his marriage, had often found himself pitying from the bottom of his soul. Not on his own account: loyal to his craft and steadfast in his friendship, Churchill thought there were few more desirable positions than the editorship of the Statesman, when as free from influence or partisanship as when Harding held the berth. It was because his friend was Mrs. Harding's husband that Churchill pitied him; though, indeed, Mrs. Harding was a very fair average kind of woman. A dowdy little person, Mrs. Harding! the daughter of a snuffy Welsh rector, who had written a treatise on "Aorists," and with whom Harding had read one long vacation,--a round-faced old-maidish little woman, classically brought up, who could construe Cicero fluently, and looked upon Horace (Q. Flaccus, I mean) as rather a loose personage. In the solitude of Plas-y-dwdllem, George Harding was thrown into the society of this young female. He did not fall in love with her--they were neither of them capable of any thing violent of that nature; but--I am reduced to the phraseology of the servants' hall to express my meaning--they "kept company together;" and when George took his degree and started in life as leader-writer for the Morning Cracker (long since defunct), he thought the best thing he could do for his comfort was to go for a run to Wales and bring back Sophia Evans as his wife. This he did; and they had lived thoroughly happily ever since. Mrs. Harding believed intensely in the Statesman; read it every day, from the title to the printer's name; knew the name of every contributor, and could tell who had done what at a glance. Her great pride in going out was to take one of the cards sent to the office, and observe the effect it made upon the receiving attendant at operas, flower-shows, or conversazioni. She always took care that the tickets for these last were sent to her; and her head-dress of black-velvet bows with pearl-beads hanging down behind was well to the fore whenever a mummy was unrolled, the fossil jawbone of an antediluvian animal was descanted on, or some sallow missionary presented himself at Burlington House, to be congratulated by hundreds of dreary people on having escaped uneaten from some place to which he never ought to have gone. She herself was fond of having occasionally what she called "a social evening." This recreation was held on a Saturday, when there was no work at the Statesman office, when the principal members of the staff would be bidden, and when the condiments provided would be brown-bread and butter rolled into cornets, tea and coffee and lemonade, while the recreation consisted in conversation (amongst men who had met for every night during the past twelve months), and in examining photographs of the city of Prague. The ribald young men at the office spoke of Mrs. Harding as "Plutarch," a name given to her one night when Mr. Slater, the dramatic critic, asked her what novel she was then reading, and she replied, "Novel, sir! Plutarch's Lives!" But they all liked her, notwithstanding; and for her sake and their dear old chief's did penitential duty at the occasional "social evenings" in Decorum Street.
Of course this little body had nothing in common with Mrs. Frank Churchill, and neither understood the other. George Harding had been so anxious that his wife should pay all honour to his friend's bride, that Mrs. Harding's was the first visit Barbara received. They did not study the laws of etiquette in Mesopotamia, or Mrs. Harding thought she would break the ice of ceremony with a friendly call; so the arrived one morning at 11 A.M. dressed for the occasion, and having sent up her card, awaited Barbara's advent in the drawing-room. No sooner had the servant shut the door and Mrs. Harding found herself alone than she minutely examined the furniture, saw where new things had replaced others with which she had been acquainted, mentally appraised the new carpet, and took stock generally. The result was not satisfactory; an anti-macassar which Barbara had been braiding lay on the table, with the needle still in it. Mrs. Harding took it up between her finger and thumb, gazed at it contemptuously, and pronounced it "fal-lal;" she peeped into the leaves of a book lying open on the sofa, and shut them up with a sigh of "Novels! ah!" she turned over the music lying on the little cottage-piano which Frank had hired for his wife, and again shrugged her shoulders with an exclamation of distaste. Then she sat herself down on a low chair with her back to the light (an old campaigner, Mrs. Harding, and seldom to be taken at a disadvantage), pulled out and smoothed her dress all round her, settled her ribbons, made a further incursion into the territories of a refractory thumb in her cowskin puce-coloured glove, which had hitherto refused submission to the invader, and awaited the coming of her hostess.
She had not long to wait. Frank had gone out on business; but he had so often spoken of Harding as his dear friend, that Barbara, though by no means gushing by nature,--indeed, if truth must be told, somewhat proud and reserved,--had made up her mind to be specially friendly to Mrs. Harding; so she came sailing into the room with outstretched hand and a smile on her face. Mrs. Harding gave one glance at the full flowing figure, the rustling skirts, and the outstretched hand; she acknowledged the superior presence, and then suddenly maxims learned in her youth in the still seclusion of Plas-y-dwdllem rose in her mind,--maxims which inculcated a severe and uncompromising deportment as the very acme of good breeding. So, instead of coming forward to meet Barbara and responding to her apparent warmth, the little woman stood up for a quarter of a minute, crossed her hands before her, bowed, and sank into her seat again. For an instant Barbara stopped, and flushed to the roots her hair; then, quickly perceiving it was merely ignorance which had caused this strange proceeding on Mrs. Harding's part, she advanced and seated herself near her visitor.