CHAPTER VII.
HURDELL HALL.
'Welcome to Hurdell Hall! My sister Lucretia—Lady Puddicombe and Sir Paget, Lucretia—Sir Paget, our mutual friend Poole, you know.'
Thus did Sir Harry Hurdell introduce Eveline and Sir Paget, with much empressement and effusiveness, to his home in Hampshire, when the carriage duly deposited them, with Mademoiselle Clairette, Sir Paget's valet, and 'no end' of trunks and boxes in a van, at the porte cochère.
Situated in the northern district of the shire, where the woods are chiefly hazel, birch, alder, and willow, where flocks of deer scour the coppice, Hurdell Hall is a fine example of the old Tudor architecture, and, as Eveline saw it for the first time with the rays of the evening sun casting dashes of golden light upon its ogee gables, mullioned bay-windows, its long gravelled approach, and stately terrace, she thought what a charming picture it would make, with its background of oaks, which in Hampshire seldom rise into lofty stems, but have branches that are usually twisted into picturesque outlines.
Below the terrace lay a kind of pool, in which a couple of swans were floating lazily, each with one leg tucked up under a wing, and where the snow-white water-lilies gleamed in the sunshine.
Nor was the inside of the Hall—which was to be associated with events never to be forgotten by Eveline—any way inferior to the outside. There were stately apartments furnished with every modern luxury in the way of upholstery, and others where the furniture spoke of an old, old past, and of generations of Hurdells who had long since been gathered together in the old family vault; panelled corridors adorned with busts of Roman emperors and gods; stuffed tropical birds and horns of gigantic size; cabinets, swords, daggers, helmets, and armour; and where portraits were hung of knights and dames in brilliant colours; one of Sir Harry, who accompanied the Royal Bluebeard to the field of cloth of gold; another who had been the comrade of Sir Horace of Tilbury in many a field in Flanders; and the Hurdells of later times in powdered wigs, toupees, and long stomachers.
There was also a charming little Gothic private chapel, which had now a luxurious divan around it, as the present Sir Harry, not being much addicted to devotions, had turned it into a billiard-room, and a most commodious and excellent one it was, as the niches were tall enough to hold cues and the basin of the font was admirably calculated to hold the balls.
Sir Harry was rather handsome, but blasé in aspect and bearing; there was an indolent and rather lascivious expression in his eyes, the light colour of which it is difficult to define; he had a transparent nostril and short upper lip, with long tawny moustache, and a face which, though difficult to say why, was not a pleasing one.
His sister Lucretia, his senior by several years, was somewhat his counterpart in appearance, and, nearer her fortieth than her thirtieth year, was still very handsome, but handsome in a faded way; and she received the young wife of old Sir Paget with considerable effusiveness, kissing her on both cheeks à la Francaise; though Eveline, fair, soft, and timid even in friendship, felt oppressed rather than soothed or pleased by the society of this somewhat blasé and disappointed woman of the world, with her cold, steely eyes, ashy-tinted hair, thin lips, and caressing manner; and Eveline soon discovered she was vain, shallow, selfish, and not unaddicted to white lies when they suited her purpose.
Perhaps the creature she cared most for in this world, after herself and her brother, was a little, wheezy 'King Charles,' with a blue ribbon and silver bell adorning its neck.