"I beg your pardon," Joyce went on, "but will you kindly tell me all you know of this matter? I know Mr. Creswell, and I knew this boy well. Are you sure of the fact of his death?"
The paleness of Walter's face, the intensity of his tone, held Lady Caroline's attention fixed upon him. How handsome he was! and the man could evidently feel too! How nice it would be to make him feel, to see the face pale, and to hear the voice deepen, like that, for her! It would be quite new.She had any amount of flirtation always at hand, whenever she chose to summon its aid in passing the time; but feeling did not come at call, and she had never had much of that given her. These were the thoughts of only a moment, flashing through her mind before Mr. Gould had time to answer Joyce's appeal.
"I am sorry I mentioned the fact at so inappropriate a time," said Mr. Gould, "but still more sorry that there is no doubt whatever of its truth. Indeed, I think I can show you the letter." Mr. Gould wore a dress-coat, of course, but he could not have dined comfortably if he had not transferred a mass of papers from his morning-coat to its pockets. This mass he extricated with some difficulty, and selecting one, methodically indorsed with the date of its receipt, from the number, he handed it to Walter.
Lady Hetherington was naturally shocked at the infringement of the bien-séances caused by this unfortunate incident, and was glancing from Mr. Gould to Mr. Joyce--from one element of the "mixture" in the assembled society to the other, with no pleasant expression of countenance--when Lady Caroline came to the rescue, with gracefulness, deftness, lightness all her own, and by starting an easy unembarrassed conversation with the gentleman opposite to her, in which she skilfully included her immediate neighbours, she dissipated all the restraints which had temporarily fallen upon the party. Something interesting to the elevated minds of the party, something different from the unpleasantness of a boy being killed whom nobody knew anything about, at a place which did not belong to anybody,--and the character of the dinner-party, momentarily threatened, was triumphantly retrieved.
Walter saw that the letter which Mr. Gould handed him was in Marian's writing. It contained an announcement of the calamity which had occurred, and an intimation that Mr. Creswell could not attend to any matters of business at present. That was all. Walter read the brief letter with sincere concern, commiseration for the childless rich man, and also with the thrill, half of curiosity, half of painless jealousy, with which one regards the familiar and beloved handwriting, when addressed, however formally, to another. He returned the letter to Mr. Gould, with a simple expression of thanks, and sat silent. No one noticed him. Every one had forgotten the dismal occurrence about somebody whom nobody knew, down in some place that did not belong to anybody. He had time to think unquestioned.
"I wonder she has not written to me. The accident occurred four days ago," he thought. "I suppose she has too much to do for them all. God bless her, she will be their best comfort."
Though unversed in the minor arts and smaller tactics of society, Walter was not so dull or awkward as to be ignorant of the skill and kindness with which Lady Caroline had acted on his behalf. When the ladies were to leave the room, as she passed him, their eyes met, and each looked at the other steadily. In her glance there was undisguised interest, in his--gratitude.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
LADY CAROLINE.
The Lady Caroline liked late hours. She was of a restless temperament, and hated solitude, though she was also intolerant of anything like dulness in her associates, and had sufficient taste for the accomplishments which she possessed to render her independent of society. Nevertheless she underwent an immense deal of boredom rather than be alone, and whenever she found herself in a country house, she set to work to form a coterie of late sitters, in order to avoid the early hours which were her abhorrence. She was not an empty-headed woman--far from it. She had a good deal more knowledge than most women of her class, and a great deal of appreciation, some native humour, and much of the kind of tact and knowledge of society which require the possession and the exercise of brains. Nobody would have pronounced her stupid, but every one agreed that she was supercilious and superficial. The truth was that she was empty-hearted, and where that void exists, no qualities of head will fill it; and even those who do not know what it is they miss in the individual are impressed by the effect of the deficiency. The Lady Caroline loved no one in the world except herself, and sometimes she took that solitary object of affection in disgust, which, if transient, was deep. She had arrived at Westhope in one of those passing fits of ennui,mingled with impatience and disgust of herself and irritation with everybody around her. She never at any time liked Westhope particularly, and her brother and his wife had no more interest for her, no more share in her affections, than any other dull lord and lady among the number of dull lords and ladies with whom she was acquainted. Her brother loved her rather more than other people loved her, and Lady Hetherington and she, though they "got on" charmingly, knew perfectly well that the very tepid regard which they entertained for each other had nothing in it resembling sympathy or companionship.