"I do know it," she said; "and we will be the best, the very best of friends. Now let us talk of something else."
He was with her the whole of that day in a state of dreamful happiness, drinking in the music of her voice, watching her graceful motions, delighted with a certain bold recklessness, a contempt for the conventional rules of society, a horror of obedience to prescribed ordinances, which now and then her conversation betrayed. They saw nothing more of Miss Gillespie, save at dinner, when Mitford noticed that Mrs. Hammond made no alteration in her manner towards him, unless indeed it was a little more prononcé than when they had been alone. Miss Gillespie did not appear to remark it, but sat and purred from time to time in a very amiable and pleasant manner. She retired after dinner, and then Sir Charles's phaeton was brought round, and it was time to say adieu.
He said it in the little library, where the brother of the Irish peer kept his boots and his driving-whips, as he was lighting a cigar for which Mrs. Hammond held a cedar-match. As he bent over her, he felt her breath upon his face, and felt his whiskers touch her scented hair. He had not been inattentive to some Burgundy, which the invalid upstairs had specially commended to him in a message, and his blood coursed like fire through his veins. At that moment Miss Gillespie appeared at the open door with a glove which she had found in the hall, and with her dark-green eyes gleaming with rage. So Sir Charles only took Mrs. Hammond's hand, whispering "Friends?" receiving a long pressure and "Always!" for answer; and passing with a bow Miss Gillespie, whose eyes still gleamed ferociously sprang into his phaeton and drove off.
That last pressure of Mrs. Hammond's hand was on his hand, that last word of hers rung in his ear all the way home. All the way home his fevered fancy brought her image alluringly before him--more frequently, more alluringly than it had been in his morning's drive. But there was another figure which he had not thought of in the morning, and which now rose up;--the figure of a woman, green-eyed, pale-faced, cat-like in her motions. And when Sir Charles Mitford thought of her, he stamped his foot savagely and swore.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
IN THE TOILS.
Sir Charles Mitford had not been guilty of any exaggeration when he announced his intention of filling his house at Redmoor with a very pleasant set of people. If a man have a kindly genial temper, a sense of humour, a desire to be pleasant to his fellow-creatures, such qualities, however they may have hitherto been concealed, will make themselves felt during a sojourn at a friend's well-filled country-house. There the heavy man, who has sat by one at a dozen dinner-parties during the season and never opened his mouth except to fill it, is discovered to be full of antiquarian erudition about the old castles and abbeys in the neighbourhood; and imparts his information, pleasantly studded with quaint anecdote and pungent remark. There Lady Katherine gives up her perpetual simper, and rests her aching lips, and occasionally covers her gleaming teeth. There Mrs. Phillimore mixes for a while with people in her own rank of life, and temporarily denies herself the pleasure of hunting orphans into asylums, and dealing out tea and Bibles to superannuated crones. Grinsby would have gone through life despised as a cockney littérateur,--indeed, they intended to have immense fun out of him at the Duke's,--if he had not knocked over that brace of woodcock, right and left barrel; if, in fact, he had not made better shooting than any other man of the party; and Tom Copus would never have given that delicious imitation of little Mr. Loudswell, the blatant barrister, had it not been coaxed out of him during the private theatricals at Eversholt Park. What glorious flirtations, what happy marriages, what fun, enjoyable at the time, and lasting source of retrospective enjoyment for long after, have arisen from the gatherings in country-houses! In these days of imitation it is also gratifying to know that country-house society is essentially English. Monseigneur le Duc de Hausse et Baisse has a gathering at his terre, or the Graf von Hasenbraten fills his ancestral castle at Suchverloren with intending assistants at a treibejagd: but the French people are very unhappy; they long to be back in Paris, and they seek consolation in dressing and behaving exactly as if they had never quitted that city; while the manner of life among the Germans alters never;--to shoot a very little, to eat and drink a great deal, and the "sooner it's over the sooner to sleep,"--such are the simple conditions of Teutonic happiness.
The party at Redmoor was large and well constituted. Captain and Mrs. Charteris, whom everybody knew, were there. Tom Charteris had been in the Enniskillens; had run through all his money, and was in daily expectation of being sold up, when his uncle, the senior partner in a large distillery, died, leaving Tom such a share in the business as would bring him in an excellent income, on the sole condition that he should leave the army, and personally attend to the management of the distillery. It is probable that Tom would have been sufficiently idiotic to refuse compliance with these conditions; but, fortunately, he had taken to himself a wife, a young lady who was the daughter of the church-organist in a little town where the Enniskillens had been quartered, and who gave lessons in music and singing to the resident gentry. She was a pretty piquante little person; and Tom, lounging out of the barrack-window while he smoked his after-breakfast pipe, had seen her tripping to and fro, always neat, active, and sprightly, and always displaying a remarkably pretty foot and ankle. Admiration of pretty feet and ankles was among Tom's weaknesses, and he watched the little music-mistress with great interest, and began to look forward to her daily appearance with delight. Then he got an introduction to her,--without any definite end or aim, for good or for bad, but simply to amuse himself; then he became fascinated by her, and finally he married her. It was Mrs. Tom who insisted upon big jolly old Tom giving up the army and taking to the distillery and the money. She was a funny little woman, and would make her intimates shout with laughter at her imitation of Tom striding about the counting-house among the clerks (he never could get rid of his dragoon-swagger), and talking a haw-haw to the publicans who came to borrow money or beg for time. They had a pretty little house in Clarges Street, whence Tom would bowl away every morning at 9.30 to the distillery in Barbican, remaining there till half-past four, when Mrs. Tom would call for him in the brougham, and air him in the park till dinner-time. Everybody knew them, and hats were bobbing off over the iron-railings all down the Drive as they passed. Whenever a stoppage occurred Tom had to stand a running fire of chaff, being asked what it was a quartern, whether he'd like a drop of something short, with other jokes, in which the phrases "white tape" and "blue ruin" played conspicuous parts. The little house in Clarges Street was a great resort for a select few after the Opera, and many well-known men would drop in to have the claw of a lobster and a glass of champagne, or to smoke a final cigar whilst listening to Mrs. Tom's brilliant playing--till two A.M., when Tom turned his guests out, declaring he was a poor tradesman, and had to be up early to business. The house was a pleasant one, where there was a certain amount of laissez-aller freedom, but where Tom took care that his wife was thoroughly respected.
Then Mrs. Masters, always spoken of as "pretty Mrs. Masters," or "the pretty widow," was of the party,--a tall handsome woman with large eyes and masses of floating light brown hair, relict of old Dr. Masters, who had left her a capital income, which she seemed determined to keep to herself. Not more than eight-and-twenty, and eminently attractive, she was a source of wonder to her friends, who could not understand why she did not marry again. She had numbers of visitors, male and female; she went into society constantly, and did her due share of dancing and flirtation; but the latter was so mild in kind, and so general in its nature, that no man's name had ever been coupled with hers. Her most intimate enemies raised a report that she was at one time madly in love with Colonel Alsager; but if there was any truth in the rumour, she managed her madness so admirably as never to show a trace of it. She was invaluable in a country-house, for she was thoroughly good-tempered, entered heart and soul into everything that was proposed, and was a great bait for vain bachelors, whose vanity was specially piqued at her long resistance to the charms of their sex. With Mrs. Masters came her cousins, two young ladies named Tyrrell, whose father was a judge in India, who were of the ordinary stamp of pretty, pert, self-satisfied twenty-year-olds.
The other ladies in the house do not call for description. Chief amongst the men was Captain Bligh, who, as he walked about and inspected the alterations which had been made under his directions, wondered whether his old father would ever relent, and whether he should have a chance of putting the old hall down in Norfolk in order for himself; or whether he should go on betting and billiard-playing and steeplechase-riding until he "went a tremendous mucker," and either blew his brains out or levanted. And there was Major Winton, who, dressed in a pair of enormous thigh-boots, a dreadnaught, and a sou'-wester, and accompanied by a keeper, went away every morning at dawn to lie out in the marshes for snipe and wild-fowl, and who did not return till dinner-time; immediately after which meal he was accustomed to retire to his bed-room, where a case-bottle of brandy, a jar of Cavendish tobacco, a huge meerschaum-pipe, and the adventures of the Chevalier Faublas, were awaiting him; and with these he would occupy himself until he went to bed. Laurence Alsager was at Redmoor also, though his visit to his father was yet unpaid; and so was Lord Dollamore. The officers of the garrison had called, and the officers of the frigate cruising off Torquay, and the neighbouring gentry; and the whole party seemed to enjoy themselves except Sir Charles Mitford,--whose happiness was not to be long delayed, for the Hammonds were expected on a certain day, which now dawned upon the impatient master of Redmoor.