"No change since my time. Those old commonplaces about faith and hope and love are not worn out yet; but it amuses me to hear them again now and then—not too often. I could repeat them glibly enough myself once, and perhaps I believed in them a little. I am wiser now, and so will you be, beau cousin, before you have done. I had my romance, of course. You know how that was cut short one cold morning on Tower-hill; but you don't know where yours will end."
Some ideas like these shot across Wyverne's mind, but he had no time to give them form or distinctness, even if he had wished to indulge in such absurdity, for one of the doors of the gallery opened just then, and though the drawing aside of the heavy portière gave them a moment's grace, the cousins had scarcely time to resume an erect and decorous posture before their tête-à-tête was ended.
CHAPTER VII.
MATED, NOT MATCHED.
The new-comer was an elderly man, in a clerical dress. His figure, originally massive and powerful, had thickened and filled out of late years till little of fair proportion or activity remained. In his walk and general bearing there was the same lassitude and want of energy which spoilt his face. The features could never have been regularly handsome; they were too weakly moulded for any style of beauty; but their natural expression was evidently meant to be kindly and genial. This, too, had changed. There was a nervous, worried look about him, as of a man exposed to many vexations and annoyances. It was not grave enough to suggest any great sorrow. Geoffry Knowles's story is very soon told. He was three or four years the Squire's senior; but they had been great friends at college. Few of their old set were left when Geoffry went up to keep his "master's term;" so, unluckily, he was a good deal thrown on his own resources. His evil genius lured him one day to a certain water-party, where he met Laura Harding, the handsome, flashy daughter of an Oxford attorney in large and very sharp practice, who speedily entangled him irretrievably. If Hubert Vavasour had been in the way, it might have been prevented. His thoroughbred instincts would have revolted from the intense vulgarity of the whole family, and the great influence he possessed over his friend's facile mind would all have been exerted to free the latter from a connexion which could only prove disastrous and unhappy. Geoffry Knowles himself, the most indolent and unobservant of men, saw from the first that the fair Laura's entourage was most objectionable; and certain incongruities (to use a mild term) in the lady's own demeanour and dialect struck him now and then painfully, as they would have done any other man well-bred and well-born. But, though conscious of going down hill, he was too idle to try to struggle back again; and when the moment for the final plunge came, he took it resignedly, if not contentedly, expecting no countenance from any of his friends, as he had not sought their counsel. Perhaps, after all, retractation would have been worse than vain. The wily lawyer might have said with the Sultan,
Dwells in my court-yard a falcon unhooded,
And what he once clutches he never lets go.
Though Knowles was of an impoverished family and rather an extravagant turn, Mr. Harding knew he had powerful friends, first and foremost of whom was the Squire of Dene; so far he judged rightly. Hubert Vavasour not only disliked "hitting a man when he was down," but never would let him lie there without trying to help him up. So, in spite of the connexion which he thoroughly disapproved, as soon as the rectory of Dene fell vacant, he did not hesitate to offer it to his ancient comrade: it was one of those great family livings that are almost as valuable as a fat priory or abbey might have been; and thenceforth its rector wanted no comforts that affluence could supply. When this event occurred the Squire had been married about three years: he took the step without consulting his wife, or in all probability Lady Mildred would have interfered to some purpose. It was part of her creed never to waste either lamentations or reproaches on what was irrevocable; so she accepted the fact quite composedly, determining to judge for herself as to the feasibility of associating with the new-comer, and to act accordingly.
Neither the Squire's nor the rector's wife ever forgot the first evening they met. Truth to say, "my lady" had prepared herself for a certain amount of vulgarity; but the reality so far transcended her expectations, that the shock was actually too much for her. She could not repress a slight shiver and shrinking sometimes, as Mrs. Knowles's shrill, highly-pitched voice rattled in her ears, and her trained features did not always conceal wonder and aversion at certain words and gestures that grated horribly on her delicate sensibilities. The other's sharp eyes detected every one of these unflattering signs, and she never forgot them: though long years had passed and a reckoning-day had never come, the debt still remained, written out as legibly in her memory as Foscaro's in Loredano's tablets. That evening, when the visitors had taken their departure, the fair hostess leaned back wearily on her sofa and beckoned her husband to her side. When he came she laid her hand on his arm and looked up into his eyes rather plaintively, but not in the least reproachfully.
"Dear Hubert!" she said, "I fancy Mr. Knowles very much, and I hope he will come here whenever he likes. He may bring his wife four times a year (when you have some of those constituency dinners, you know); but, at any other time or place, I absolutely decline to entertain that fearful woman again!"