CHAPTER XVI.—MISS LIVINGSTONE SPEAKS A BIT OF HER MIND.
It was a lovely morning in early summer, when the sun, shining into Lewis’s bedroom at Broadhurst, aroused him from a heavy dreamless ===sleep, the result of his previous night’s dissipation at Lady Lombard’s. The sensation of waking for the first time in a strange place is usually a disagreeable one; there is an unfamiliar newness in the aspect of everything around us, an absence of old associations, which to an impressible disposition is singularly disheartening. This was peculiarly the case with Lewis; the costly furniture of the room, arranged with a stiff propriety, the spotless carpet, the chair-covers too clean and slippery to be sat upon, the bright cold mirrors, the polished grate, in which a fire would have been high treason, each and all suggestive of the chilling influence of that rigid disciplinarian Miss Livingstone, served painfully to realise his new position. Splendour without comfort was an anomaly he had never before encountered, and in his then frame of mind it aroused all the bitter feelings which even his strength of will was unable to subdue, and he mentally compared himself to a slave working in gilded chains, and longed for independence, no matter through what hardships, struggles, and dangers it must be attained. But there was a healthy energy about his mind which prevented his yielding to these morbid feelings; hastily dressing himself, he found his way into the pleasure garden, and as it was yet early, strolled onward through the park.
After wandering about for nearly an hour, the calm beauty of the scenery and the exhilarating freshness of the morning air producing their natural effect upon his spirits, it occurred to him that his absence might be commented upon, and possibly give offence; accordingly, he retraced his steps towards the house. Ignorant of the locale, however, he was unable to discover the door by which he had gone out, and after making one or two attempts in a wrong direction, was compelled to effect his entrance through a French window opening into a conservatory. Lewis possessed a great taste for, and some knowledge of botany, and his attention was at once attracted by the rare and beautiful plants around him. So completely was he engrossed by his admiration, that not until he heard his own name pronounced did he become aware that he was not the sole tenant of the conservatory. Turning at the sound, he perceived Annie Grant, in a very becoming costume, busily employed in altering the arrangement of certain flower-pots.
Before we proceed farther, it may be as well to afford the reader an insight into Lewis’s feelings towards this young lady, as they were by no means of such a nature as might be expected from a young man towards a pretty and agreeable girl, with whom he was about to be domesticated. In order to account for his peculiar state of mind on this subject we must take a retrospective glance at an episode in Lewis’s student life, which has been already alluded to in a conversation between Frere and his friend. About a year before the period at which our story opened Lewis had encountered, at a festive meeting of the worthy citizens of Bonn, the very pretty daughter of a wealthy shopkeeper, and struck by her bright eyes and a certain naïve simplicity of manner, had danced with her the greater part of the evening. Flattered by the attentions of the handsome young Englishman, the damsel, who (her simplicity being confined entirely to manner) was as arrant a little flirt as ever caused a heartache, took care that the acquaintance should continue; and while she was merely bent on adding to her train of admirers, Lewis fell in love with her as deeply as a man can do with a girl completely his inferior in mind as well as in station. Imagination, however, which at eighteen is alarmingly active, supplied all deficiencies, and Lewis continued to dream his lady-love was an angel, till one fine morning the fact of her elopement with a young German baron, who looked upon matrimony as a superfluous ordinance, induced him to alter his opinion. With the termination of the adventure the reader is already acquainted, but the effect upon Lewis’s disposition was one which time might weaken but could never efface. The fatal lesson that one who seemed true and pure was not so, once learnt could never be forgotten; the seeds of mistrust were sown, and strive as he might, the perfect faith, the bright, eager confidence of youth, were lost to him for ever.
Ànnie, as the reader is aware, was unusually lovely, and Lewis accordingly regarded her in the light of a dangerous man-trap; besides this, oddly enough, she was by no means unlike an ethereal and spiritualised representation of “Gretchen”; the features and colouring were similar, and the arch simplicity of the Fraulein’s manner was part and parcel of Annie’s very nature. The painful recollections which this resemblance excited added unconsciously to the prejudice (for it amounted to that) which Lewis had conceived against the General’s daughter; but the true source of the feeling lay deeper. However circumstances may cause him to affect, or even to believe the contrary, there is in every man’s heart a latent desire to render himself agreeable to any young and pretty woman into whose society he may be thrown, more especially where the individual is conscious of possessing powers of pleasing if he chooses to exert them; and even Lewis’s slight experience of society had sufficed to enlighten him in regard to this point, on which the dullest are usually clear-sighted. But coupled with this feeling came the humiliating consciousness that although by birth and education Miss Grant’s equal, the position he held in the family rendered him her inferior; and this idea was galling in the extreme to Lewis’s haughty nature. Annie, on the other hand, profoundly ignorant of all these wheels within wheels, entertained the most amiable and benevolent intentions towards her new associate. She knew he was unfortunate, she saw he was a gentleman, and she had heard that he was undertaking a duty he disliked, for the sake of his mother and sister; and for all these reasons her woman’s heart warmed towards him, and she determined to do what she was able to render his position as little painful as might be; moreover, she was sufficiently acquainted with the idiosyncrasies of her father and great-aunt to be aware that any particular kindness the young tutor would be likely to meet with in the family must emanate from herself. Accordingly, when Lewis, having replied to her cordial “Good morning, Mr. Arundel,” by slightly raising his hat, and making a formal bow, was about to pass on, she renewed the attack by adding—
“May I trouble you to move this flower-pot for me? it is so heavy.”
Thus appealed to, Lewis stopped short, and for a moment debated with himself the possibility of refusing; but without being actually ill-bred, such a possibility did not exist; so, resigning himself to his fate with a very ill grace, he deposited his hat on a vacant flower-stand, and tossing back his dark curls with the air of a sulky lion shaking his mane, he took the garden-pot, which indeed seemed too heavy for Annie’s little hands, asking, with a stately coldness by no means in character with the mild nature of the inquiry—
“Where would you wish to have it placed, Miss Grant?”