Katharine had left town some little time before this announcement had supplied a fresh topic for discussion to the few scores of people who knew or felt any curiosity about the respective parties. Her premature abandonment of the delights of London arose from the condition of her husband's health. Robert had been constantly looking, and occasionally complaining of feeling, ill, for several weeks; and at length had acknowledged to his sister that he exceedingly desired the rest and tranquillity of the country.
"I don't think he is so much ill as worried," Ellen had said to her sister-in-law. And the simple girl was right. Robert was worried--worried about money-matters, worried about Mr. Guyon's affairs, and his insatiable, irrepressible scheming. But, worse than all, he was worried by self-reproach.
It was no sacrifice to Katharine to leave town; but if it had been one, she would not have hesitated to make it. It was therefore at Middlemeads, in the tranquil enjoyment of her beautiful home, invested with all the first golden glory of the autumn, that Katharine learned the news, the great news, which lent eloquence to Ellen Streightley's pen, and caused her to "gush" on paper as she was wont to do in speech. It was not, however, to her ingenuous sister-in-law that Katharine owed her knowledge of the brilliancy of the marriage, the number and importance of the guests, the details of the bride's dress, the high spirits of the bridegroom, the itinéraire of the bridal tour, and the winter plans of Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Frere. When the event had taken place, and Lady Henmarsh's occupation as a chaperone was for the second time gone; when she had inspected and sufficiently admired the costly set of rubies which she had received as a parting gift from the heiress, and had declared that she detested weddings, and was tired to death, she could think of no more agreeable way of passing an idle evening than in writing to Mrs. Streightley. Her letter was very smart, clever, and skilful, as all her letters were; and if it did not wound Katharine's feelings so much as the writer intended, its failure was to be imputed to a change in her mind and feelings, of which Lady Henmarsh was entirely ignorant.
The engagement had not been a long one; neither party had had any motive for delay; but it was by quite an accidental coincidence that Gordon Frere and Hester Gould were married on the anniversary of Katharine Guyon's wedding-day.
[CHAPTER IX.]
MARRIED TO MONEY.
The time, so often deferred, at which Mr. Guyon was to pay his first visit to his daughter in her country-house had at length arrived; and the old gentleman made his appearance at Middlemeads with all the advantages of a very juvenile toilet and a new stock of those adjuncts to his personal beauty which he was in the habit of carrying about with him. It was not without reluctance that Mr. Guyon bade adieu to London, which he was accustomed to speak of as "the little village," and its delights; but he felt it absolutely necessary to make himself personally acquainted with that country-house which he had so often depicted to his boon companions in the most glowing terms, and with those country families whom, to the same confidants, he had represented as revelling in the elegant and unostentatious hospitality of the British merchant. He had been a little chaffed by these friends about the calm manner in which his daughter had borne his long-continued separation from her. Some of them compared him to King Lear, some to Captain Costigan; and Mr. Guyon, who knew very little about either of the historical personages between whom and himself a comparison was instituted, thought it was "dam' low," and that the sooner all chance of a repetition of such joking was put a stop to the better.
So the old gentleman came down to Middlemeads, and took up his quarters in one of the best spare-rooms, and strove to make himself agreeable to other people and to enjoy himself simultaneously. This was not very difficult, for he had a grand capacity for living; and his small-talk and geniality, and stories of grand people, made quite an impression amongst the neighbouring families, who thought Mrs. Streightley rather conceited, and Mr. Streightley very dull. Mr. Guyon in a very short time had made himself thoroughly at home, and had taken upon himself--not without Katharine's tacit consent; indeed the whole affair rather amused her than otherwise--the direction of affairs at Middlemeads, and the regulation of the manner in which the day should be spent. He it was who organised the tableaux to which the whole county was invited, which were such a grand success, and which were commemorated in the Morning Post. He it was who arranged for the first meet of the season of the stag-hounds on the Middlemeads lawn, and for the hunt-breakfast at his son-in-law's expense. Robert Streightley was unfortunately compelled to be away in London on business on that interesting occasion; but in his absence Mr. Guyon took the chair, in which he comported himself with the greatest dignity and hospitality; and when the deer was uncarted, waved his hat to the ladies, and rode away after it on one of his son-in-law's horses, to his own intense satisfaction.
Robert Streightley was very frequently compelled to be away in London on business just at that time; and when he was at home, he seemed to have left his mind behind him among the ledgers and the invoices and the share-lists, and to have left his spirits--God knows where! He was thoroughly preoccupied and gloomy, never speaking except when spoken to, and then replying with an obvious effort at the collection of his wandering thoughts. Mr. Guyon noticed this immediately after his arrival, and tried to rally his son-in-law, commencing with much pleasant badinage about the accumulation of wealth by the sale of oneself to the Evil One; an oft-used joke, which he had never known to miss fire hitherto, but which on this occasion was received with perfect silence. Over the quiet dinner, which, as it once or twice happened, Mr. Guyon ate with Katharine and her husband, or in the midst of a large party, it was all the same,--Robert never entered into any thing that was going on, but always remained in the same gloomy, silent, preoccupied state.
Mr. Guyon could never, even in his most amiable moods, have been called a patient man, long-suffering was not one of his virtues; and under his son-in-law's long face and absent manner he suffered acutely. His little mots passed unsmiled at, his anecdotes of the aristocracy evidently had not been listened to; he felt that he was throwing the pearls of his West-end refinement before City swine; and he was highly indignant. But not with Streightley--or at least he dared not openly declare his indignation to his son-in-law--it was on Katharine that he turned the heavy-guns of his wrath, and rebuked his daughter with an acrimony which might have had serious effect on a less self-possessed young lady.