All that evening Isabel pondered upon the simple history of her husband's mother, and wished that she could be very, very good, like her, and die early, with holy words upon her lips. But in the midst of such thoughts as these, she found herself wondering whether the hands of Mr. Gilbert the elder were red and knobby like those of his son, whether he employed the same bootmaker, and entertained an equal predilection for spring-onions and Cheshire cheese. And from the picture of her deathbed Isabel tried in vain to blot away a figure that had no right to be there,—the figure of some one who would be fetched post-haste, at the last moment, to hear her dying words, and to see her die.
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SECOND WARNING.
Mr. Roland Lansdell did not invite Lady Gwendoline or her father to that bachelor picnic which he was to give at Waverly Castle. He had a kind of instinctive knowledge that Lord Ruysdale's daughter would not relish that sylvan entertainment.
"She'd object to poor Smith. I dare say," Roland said to himself, "with his sporting-cut clothes, and his slang phrases, and his perpetual talk about three-volume novels and penny numbers. No, I don't think it would do to invite Gwendoline; she'd be sure to object to Smith."
Mr. Lansdell said this, or thought this, a good many times upon the day before the picnic; but it may be that there was a lurking idea in his mind that Lady Gwendoline might object to the presence of some one other than Mr. Smith in the little assembly that had been planned under Lord Thurston's oak. Perhaps Roland Lansdell,—who hated hypocrisy as men who are by no means sinless are yet apt to hate the base and crawling vices of mankind,—had become a hypocrite all at once, and wanted to deceive himself; or it may be that the weak slope of his handsome chin, and the want of breadth in a certain region of his skull, were the outward and visible signs of such a weak and vacillating nature, that what was true with regard to him one minute was false the next; so that out of this perpetual changefulness of thought and purpose there grew a confusion in the young man's mind, like the murmur of many streamlets rushing into one broad river, along whose tide the feeble swimmer was drifted to the very sea he wanted so much to avoid.
"The picnic will be a pleasant thing for young Smith," Mr. Lansdell thought; "and it'll please the children to make themselves bilious amongst ruins; and that dear good Raymond always enjoys himself with young and happy people. I cannot see that the picnic can be anything but pleasant; and for the matter of that, I've a good mind to send the baskets early by Stephens, who could make himself useful all day, and not go at all myself. I could run up to town under pretence of particular business, and amuse myself somehow for a day or two. Or, for that matter, I might go over to Baden or Hombourg, and finish the autumn there. Heaven knows I don't want to do any harm."
But, in spite of all this uncertainty and vacillation of mind, Mr. Lansdell took a great deal of interest in the preparations for the picnic. He did not trouble himself about the magnificent game-pie which was made for the occasion, the crust of which was as highly glazed as a piece of modern Wedgwood. He did not concern himself about the tender young fowls, nestling in groves of parsley; nor the tongue, floridly decorated with vegetable productions chiselled into the shapes of impossible flowers; nor the York ham, also in a high state of polish, like fine Spanish mahogany, and encircled about the knuckle by pure white fringes of cut paper.
The comestibles to which Mr. Lansdell directed his attention were of a more delicate and fairy-like description, such as women and children are apt to take delight in. There must be jellies and creams, Mr. Lansdell said, whatever difficulty there might be in the conveyance of such compositions. There must be fruit; he attended himself to the cutting of hothouse grapes and peaches, the noblest pine-apple in the long range of forcing-houses, and picturesque pears with leaves still clinging to the stalk. He ordered bouquets to be cut, one a very pyramid of choice flowers, chiefly white and innocent-looking, and he took care to select richly-scented blossoms, and he touched the big nosegay caressingly with his slim white fingers, and looked at it with a tender smile on his dark face, as if the flowers had a language for him,—and so they had; but it was by no means that stereotyped dictionary of substantives and adjectives popularly called the language of flowers.