He put the note in his pocket without opening it; he gave the groom half-a-crown; he bade good-bye to the keeper; he touched his hat to the loiterers; and then he rode on his way towards Casterton, down the village street. He passed the church among the leafless walnut trees, beneath the towering elms, now noisy with building rooks; and then, in the broad road under the lofty chalk downs, with the elms on his left, and glimpses of the flashing river between their stems, there he pulled up his horse, and read his love-letter.
"Dear Charles,—Ain't you very cross at my having been away when you came? I don't believe you are, for you are never cross. I couldn't help it, Charles, dear. Aunt wanted me to go.
"Aunt is very cross and tiresome. She don't like me as well as she used. You mustn't believe all she says, you know. It ain't one word of it true. It is only her fancy.
"Do come over and see me. Lord Hainault" (this I must tell you, reader, is the son, not the husband, of Lady Ascot's most cherished old enemy,) "is going to be married, and there will be a great wedding. She is that long Burton girl, whom you may remember. I have always had a great dislike for her; but she has asked me to be bridesmaid, and of course one can't refuse. Lady Emily Montfort is 'with me,' as the lawyers say, and of course she will have her mother's pearls in her ugly red hair."—
Charles couldn't agree as to Lady Emily's hair being red. He had thought it the most beautiful hair he had ever seen in his life.—
"Pour moi, I shall wear a camelia, if the gardener will give me one. How I wish I had jewels to beat hers! She can't wear the Cleveland diamonds as a bridesmaid; that is a comfort. Come over and see me. I am in agony about what aunt may have said to you.
"Adelaide."
The reader may see more in this letter than Charles did. The reader may see a certain amount of selfishness and vanity in it: Charles did not. He took up his reins and rode on; and, as he rode, said, "By Jove, Cuthbert shall lend me the emeralds!"
He hardly liked asking for them; but he could not bear the idea of Lady Emily shining superior to Adelaide in consequence of her pearls. Had he been a wise man (which I suppose you have, by this time, found out that he is decidedly not. Allow me to recommend this last sentence in a grammatical point of view), he would have seen that, with two such glorious creatures as Adelaide and Lady Emily, no one would have seen whether they were clothed in purple and fine linen, or in sackcloth and ashes. But Charles was a fool. He was in love, and he was riding out to see his love.
The Scotchman tells us about Spey leaping out a glorious giant from among the everlasting hills; the Irishman tells you of Shannon rambling on past castle and mountain, gathering new beauty as he goes; the Canadian tells you of the great river which streams over the cliff between Erie and Ontario; and the Australian tells you of Snowy pouring eternally from his great curtain of dolomite, seen forty miles away by the lonely traveller on the dull grey plains; but the Englishman tells you of the Thames, whose valley is the cradle of Freedom, and the possessors of which are the arbiters of the world.
And along the Thames valley rode Charles. At first the road ran along beneath some pleasant sunny heights; but, as it gradually rose, the ground grew more abrupt, and, on the right, a considerable down, with patches of gorse and juniper, hung over the road; while, on the left, the broad valley stretched away to where a distant cloud of grey smoke showed where lay the good old town of Casterton. Now the road entered a dark beech wood beneath lofty banks, where the squirrels, merry fellows, ran across the road and rattled up the trees, and the air was faint with the scent of last year's leaves. Then came a break in the wood to the right, and a vista up a long-drawn valley, which ended in a chalk cliff. Then a break in the wood to the left, and a glance at the flat meadows, the gleaming river, and the dim grey distance. Then the wood again, denser and darker than ever. Then a sound, at first faint and indistinct, but growing gradually upon the ear until it could be plainly heard above the horse's footfall. Then suddenly the end of the wood, and broad open sunlight. Below, the weirs of Casterton, spouting by a hundred channels, through the bucks and under the mills. Hard by, Casterton town, lying, a tumbled mass of red brick and grey flint, beneath a faint soft haze of smoke, against the vast roll in the land called Marldown. On the right, Casterton Park, a great wooded promontory, so steep that one can barely walk along it, clothed with beech and oak from base to summit, save in one place, where a bold lawn of short grass, five hundred feet high, stoops suddenly down towards the meadows, fringed at the edges with broom and fern, and topped with three tall pines—the landmark for ten miles along the river.
A lodge, the white gate of which is swung open by a pretty maiden; a dark oak wood again, with a long vista, ended by the noble precipitous hill on which the house stands; a more open park, with groups of deer lying about and feeding; another dark wood, the road now rising rapidly; rabbits, and a pot-valiant cock-pheasant standing in the middle of the way, and "carrucking," under the impression that Charles is in possession of all his domestic arrangements, and has come to disturb them; then the smooth gravel road, getting steeper and steeper; then the summit; one glimpse of a glorious panorama; then the front door and footmen.
Charles sent his card in, and would be glad to know if Lady Hainault could see him. While he waited for an answer, his horse rubbed its nose against its knee, and yawned, while the footmen on the steps looked at the rooks. They knew all about it too. (The footmen, I mean, not the rooks; though I wouldn't swear against a rook's knowing anything, mind you.)
Lady Hainault would see Mr. Ravenshoe—which was lucky, because, if she wouldn't have done so, Charles would have been obliged to ask for Adelaide. So Charles's horse was led to the stable, and Charles was led by the butler through the hall, and shown into a cool and empty library, to purge himself of earthly passions, before he was admitted to The Presence.
Charles sat himself down in the easiest chair he could find, and got hold of "Ruskin's Modern Painters." That is a very nice book: it is printed on thick paper, with large print; the reading is very good, full of the most beautiful sentiments ever you heard; and there are also capital plates in it. Charles looked through the pictures: he didn't look at the letterpress, I know—for, if he had, he would have been so deeply enchained with it that he wouldn't have done what he did—get up, and look out of the window. The window looked into the flower-garden. There he saw a young Scotch gardener, looking after his rose-trees. His child, a toddling bit of a thing, four years old (it must have been his first, for he was a very young man), was holding the slips of matting for him; and glancing up between whiles at the great façade of the house, as though wondering what great people were inside, and whether they were looking at him. This was a pretty sight to a good whole-hearted fellow like Charles; but he got tired of looking at that even, after a time; for he was anxious and not well at ease. And so, after his watch had told him that he had waited half an hour he rang the bell.