Such good friends were Carrie and her father that the girl sought for no friends of her own age; she went about everywhere with Sebastian when he had leisure to escort her, and when he was busy she amused herself at home, very well content with life and all things. In her father’s company she visited many a strange scene; she would go with him to the hospitals sometimes, and—shade of Mrs. Shepley!—how many a sight she saw in these unsavoury tents of disease! Then Carrie entertained all her father’s friends (those motley friends her poor mother had objected to so much), and in many ways grew up with more of the manners of a boy than of a girl. She was singularly free from the sillinesses and affectations of early girlhood, having heard no talk at all of lovers or admiration, nor having ever entered into rivalry with other women in the matter of looks and charm. Carrie was serenely unconscious that the world held a rival for her; she was the first with all the men of her own little world, and as yet she had not gone beyond it. If she compared her own looks with those of other girls, it was merely from curiosity quite untouched by jealous feeling. The fact was only distantly dawning upon her that she was fair beyond the common; just now she took it as her due from Fortune’s kindly hand.
CHAPTER XVI
Miss Caroline Shepley, up to the age of seventeen years, had perhaps, in her own way, lived as happy a life as it is granted to many young persons to live. She looked like it too; wearing that air of pleased good humour that is a passport to every heart, and blooming like a rose, in spite of the fact that she had never been out of London all her days. Carrie was very tall, with just the same fearless brilliant blue eyes that her father had, but from her mother she had inherited a skin as white as milk, with a clear pink colour in the cheeks, two bewitching dimples, and ringlets of deep red hair. To see her pass along the streets!—— Do they grow now-a-days, these shining beauties that brightened the world of long ago, or is it that they are so common we scarcely regard them? But as time went on, Carrie’s good looks became such as to be quite embarrassing both to herself and to her father, for she could never go out alone, and even in his company attracted a vast deal of attention.
‘Now,’ said Sebastian, ‘I shall send Carrie to the country with her aunt, as she has so often been pressed to go, else her head will be turned altogether.’
Lady Mallow’s establishment certainly promised to be dull enough for safety. Her Ladyship, who was rich enough to indulge in fancies about climate, had taken an idea that London did not suit her health. On her brother-in-law’s suggestion, she had taken a house in the neighbourhood of Wynford, and there was passing the summer months in genteel and plethoric seclusion—for alas! Lady Mallow was becoming stout in middle life. From all he remembered of Wynford twenty years ago, Sebastian smiled to think of the conventual existence poor Carrie might lead there.
‘You must go to the village of Wynford and see where your grandfather sold drugs; but there’s not one of our name left there now,’ he said.
‘Sir! my dear sir! what would my aunt Charlotte say should I propose to visit where any one related to me had traded in anything, at any time?’ said Carrie—and indeed she was right.
So one splendid May morning Lady Mallow’s coach drew up before the door of the Shepleys’ house, and the beautiful Carrie came out upon the steps, drawing on her long gloves, while her baggage was stowed away in the rumble of the coach.
‘Well, Carrie, adieu to you, and Heaven bless you!’ said her father; and Carrie, unconventional as usual, turned suddenly, in the full view of her aunt’s decorous footman, flung her arms round Sebastian, and kissed him tenderly.
‘I do not wish to leave you, sir; I had rather far stay with you,’ she cried; but Sebastian laughed at her, and bade her not keep those spirited animals which her aunt drove ‘waiting upon her sentimentalities.’