‘By George! Well, if I were the owner of Lady Tresham the country wouldn’t see me that didn’t hold her!’
‘Is she so handsome then?’
‘She’s better than handsome! She’s one of the sweetest-looking women I ever saw. I met her at General Carroll’s last week with the dowager.’
‘Fair or dark?’
‘Fair as a lily, with glorious golden hair, and great blue eyes as clear as spring water. She’s as graceful as a gazelle, too, and got a voice like a thrush. She said she was awfully out of practice, but she sung better than anyone there.’
‘I shall get my mother to take me over to Tresham Court,’ says a young dandy in the corner; ‘a pretty woman is not to be despised in Glamorganshire.’
‘You won’t get anything by that, my boy,’ says the first speaker. ‘Handley Harcourt, the dowager’s nephew, has found her out already, and is there morning, noon, and night.’
Sir Roland is just about to proclaim that the beautiful woman they speak of is his wife, when the last sentence makes him shrink back in his seat instead. He feels ashamed to acknowledge her now. What if the scandal should be true! But no, it is impossible! Juliet has been his wife for eight long years, and faithful to him in thought, word, and deed. He would answer for her fidelity as for his own. His own! At that thought the hot blood courses through Sir Roland’s veins, and mantles in his handsome face. He has not been faithful to her—he acknowledges it with shame—but he will atone as there is a heaven above him.
‘Gentlemen,’ he says suddenly, ‘the lady you speak of is my wife, and had you all been at Tresham Court during my absence, ‘morning, noon, and night,’ it would not have given me a moment’s uneasiness.’ His confession is naturally followed by apologies, introductions, hand-shaking, and general invitations to the Court. Sir Roland even assures the somewhat shy little dandy in the corner that he has his hearty permission to flirt with Lady Tresham as much as possible. And then they all light up and try each other’s cigars, and become the fastest of friends in a very few minutes. Yet as he leaves them at the station, where the carriage is in waiting to convey him home, he cannot help wondering at the enthusiasm his wife’s looks have provoked amongst them. She used to be very pretty in their first wedded days, before she grew so careless of her personal appearance—when she took pride in arraying her graceful little form, and dressing her beautiful hair, but slatternly clothes and unbecoming coiffure are sufficient to conceal the beauty of any woman. Well! Sir Roland supposes that such things can be altered, but if he finds that Juliet’s bad taste is irreparable, he will be content with her as she is. He has brought enough trouble on her head already—the present shall never be clouded by his reproaches nor complaints. He is so eager to make atonement for the past, that the five miles between the station and Tresham Court appear like ten; but they are accomplished at last, and the carriage rolls through the iron gates and up the wooded drive. Half-way they come upon a group of children escorted by their nurses and a groom. Two beautiful boys in velvet suits, with golden curls falling over their Vandyke collars, are mounted on one pony, whilst another animal carries a pair of panniers, from which familiar little faces and blue eyes gaze up expectantly to meet his own.
‘Can those be my children?’ exclaims Sir Roland to himself; and then he gives the order to stop, and another minute sees him in the midst of them. But what a change! He can scarcely believe they are the same brats who, six weeks ago, used to hang over the garden palings in Camden Town, and put out their tongues at the passers-by—Lily and May in their white frocks and black ribbons, and little Roland in his smart pelisse; and the boys looking such noble fellows in their jackets and knickerbockers, with sunny hair, and clean faces and hands—it seems like a dream to the father as he kisses them all round, and admires the ponies and the panniers to their hearts’ content. He strides on to the house with his bosom swelling with pride at the appearance of his little ones, and is almost too pre-occupied to notice that everything is perfectly arranged within the Court and out.