Old Tom immediately began to talk to Bulstrode, while Mrs. Shapleigh bestowed her attentions on Lewis, much to his embarrassment. Suddenly, in the midst of the murmur of voices, Mrs. Shapleigh screeched out:
“La!�
“What is it, my dear?� asked old Tom, expecting to hear some such marvel as that the floor was beautifully dry rubbed, or that Skelton had cut down a decaying cedar near the house.
“Did you ever see such a likeness as that between this boy and that picture of Richard Skelton’s father over yonder?�
Every eye except Lewis’s was turned towards the portrait. Skelton had had all of his family portraits touched up by a competent artist, who had practically done them over. The portrait was of a boy dressed in colonial costume, with his hair falling over a wide lace collar. He was about Lewis’s age, and the likeness was indeed extraordinary. It was hung in a bad light though, and if it had been designed to keep it out of sight its situation could not have been better.
Bulstrode glanced quickly at Lewis. The boy’s eyes were bent upon the ground and his whole face was crimson. Old Tom was glaring at Mrs. Shapleigh, who, however, prattled on composedly:
“Of course, I recollect Mr. Skelton very well; but as he was at least thirty before I ever knew him, he had outgrown those clothes, and looked a good deal more than fifteen or sixteen. But it is certainly the most wonderful—�
“My love,� cried old Tom in a thundering voice, “look at those Venetian blinds. If you’d like some to your drawing-room I’ll stand the expense, by Gad!�
This acted on poor, good Mrs. Shapleigh’s mind like a large stone laid before a rushing locomotive. It threw her completely off the track, and there was no more danger of her getting back on it. But Bulstrode observed that Lewis Pryor did not open his mouth to say another word during the rest of the visit. As soon as the Shapleighs left, Lewis took his dog and disappeared until late in the afternoon. When he came in to dinner he avoided Bulstrode’s eyes, and looked so woe-begone that Bulstrode felt sorry for him. However, Skelton knew nothing of all this, and it so happened that he did not meet the Shapleighs, or, indeed, any of the county people, until the day of the dinner at Belfield. Blair meanwhile had called too, but, like the Shapleighs, had found Skelton out on the plantation, and eagerly professed to be unable to wait for his return home; so that the day of the dinner was the first time that the Shapleighs, or, indeed, any of the county people, had seen Skelton.
Mrs. Shapleigh had heard that Skelton dined late, so she named six o’clock for the dinner—a perfectly preposterous hour at that period of the nineteenth century. She also managed to have three men to wait at dinner by pressing into the service James, the coachman and gardener. James was an inky-black object, who, with a pair of large white cotton gloves on, was as helpless as a turtle on his back. However, Mrs. Shapleigh was a first-class housekeeper, and the dinner was sure to be a good one—so Sylvia comforted herself. Skelton quite truthfully said it was the best dinner he had seen since he left Virginia—turtle soup, oysters in half a dozen ways, a royal display of fish, a saddle of venison, wild ducks and woodcock and partridges, a ham cured with hickory ashes and boiled in two quart bottles of old Tom Shapleigh’s best champagne. There were, besides, a great many and-so-forths, but Skelton did not say that he enjoyed the dinner particularly, and so saved his reputation for truth.