“It is that yesterday I did not know him, and to-day I do.”
Her brother, a common tradesman, a man guilty of forgery and the utmost baseness—all but kicked out of the house! The Duke was too delicate to press her further. Moreover, Caroline had emphasized the “yesterday” and “to-day,” showing that the interval which had darkened Evan to everybody else, had illumined him to her. He employed some courtly eloquence, better unrecorded; but if her firm resolution perplexed him, it threw a strange halo round the youth from whom it sprang.
The hour was now eleven, and the Countess thought it full time to retire to her entrenchment in Mrs. Bonner’s chamber. She had great things still to do: vast designs were in her hand awaiting the sanction of Providence. Alas! that little idle promenade was soon to be repented. She had joined her sister, thinking it safer to have her upstairs till they were quit of Evan. The Duke and the diplomatist loitering in the rear, these two fair women sailed across the lawn, conscious, doubtless, over all their sorrows and schemes, of the freight of beauty they carried.
What meant that gathering on the steps? It was fortuitous, like everything destined to confound us. There stood Lady Jocelyn with Andrew, fretting his pate. Harry leant against a pillar, Miss Carrington, Mrs. Shorne, and Mrs. Melville, supported by Mr. George Uplift, held watchfully by. Juliana, with Master Alec and Miss Dorothy, were in the background.
Why did our General see herself cut off from her stronghold, as by a hostile band? She saw it by that sombre light in Juliana’s eyes, which had shown its ominous gleam whenever disasters were on the point of unfolding.
Turning to Caroline, she said: “Is there a back way?”
Too late! Andrew called.
“Come along, Louisa, Just time, and no more. Carry, are you packed?”
This in reality was the first note of the retreat from Beckley; and having blown it, the hideous little trumpeter burst into scarlet perspirations, mumbling to Lady Jocelyn: “Now, my lady, mind you stand by me.”
The Countess walked straight up to him.