“What in the world is he going to Notcotts for?” Trevor exclaimed as he rejoined the two girls.
“To see some sick person, no doubt,” said Cicely.
Mr. Fawcett gave a species of grunt. “I think he’s a prig,” he announced, at which Cicely smiled, and Geneviève, who had not the slightest idea what he meant, smiled too.
But now they were entering Lingthurst Park, and Miss Casalis’s whole attention was absorbed in looking about her. It was a much larger and grander place than Greystone, but neither as picturesque nor as homelike. It was newer, in every sense of the word, for Sir Thomas, the grandson of the first baronet, was but the second of his family who had owned land in Sothernshire, and his position on first succeeding to Lingthurst was not so assured as not to be strengthened by his marriage with Lady Frederica St. Ives, one of the four remaining unmarried daughters of an Irish earl of long descent and small possessions. Lady Frederica was a cousin on the mother’s side of Colonel Methvyn; she was not very young, and not very wise; she was very poor, and had been very pretty; she was still pleasing-looking, amiable, gentle, and perfectly absorbed in her immediate interests. So, though Sir Thomas, who might have been a usefully clever man, had contented himself with taking prizes for fat oxen and occasional appearances on the board, and though Lady Frederica’s silliness did not diminish with her years, the Fawcett household was looked upon as a happy and prosperous one, and there were not many mothers in Sothernshire who would have been other than delighted to welcome young Trevor as a son-in-law. And of this fact the person chiefly concerned was perfectly well aware. There was, perhaps, but one girl of his acquaintance whose feelings to him he believed to be completely unaffected by his present position or future prospects, and this girl was his cousin Cicely—Cicely, whom he had been trusted to hold in his little arms when he himself was a tiny lad, whose first toddling steps he had proudly guided—sweet Cicely, who was to be his wife “some day.”
But of nearly all that concerned Trevor Fawcett, Geneviève was in ignorance. She only knew that he was rich and handsome and agreeable; very nearly, if not quite, fulfilling the conditions she had prescribed to herself as requisite for the hero of her romance. And the sight of his home went far to confirm her predilections.
Everywhere at Lingthurst signs of wealth were scattered by a profuse but not vulgar hand. Everything was perfect of its kind, and perfectly well kept. There were no weeds in the borders, no grass on the paths, which was more than could be said for all the byways and corners of the queer, rambling, old garden at Greystone; the fruit and vegetables were always the finest and earliest of the season; the Lingthurst “glass” was the boast of the country-side. Indoors it was the same; carpets, curtains, sofas, chairs and tables of the best make and material; huge plate-glass windows, beautiful inlaid fireplaces, ormolu, marqueterie, Sèvres and Dresden everywhere. And all, to do the owners or their advisers justice, in unexceptionably good taste. There was no over-crowding, no heterogeneous mixture of colour, no obtrusive “gold.” But there were no quaint cloister passages like those at the Abbey, no latticed casements or deep window seats; no many-cornered, oak wainscoted room with the ivy leaves, peeping in at the windows, like the old library at Greystone. And when Cicely Methvyn, as she could not but do sometimes, glanced forward at her future life as mistress of this rich domain. When she thought of the days that must come, the days when her free, unfettered, girl life would be a thing of the past; when father and mother, already grey haired and ageing, would be further from their darling than the few miles which separated Greystone from Lingthurst,—when she looked forward to these things, sometimes Cicely’s heart failed her; why, she knew not. But a vague wish would arise that Trevor had been her brother; that he, not she, were her father’s heir. “If I could have looked forward to living on always at Greystone with Trevor, just as we are now!” she would say to herself; “I dread changes. I could have been happy never to have been married. Only, if Trevor had been my brother, he would have married—perhaps he would have married some one like Geneviève.”
This last thought came into her head suddenly, as they were all sitting at luncheon this Sunday in the grand Lingthurst dining-room, and though she smiled at herself for speculating on impossibilities, the picture of Geneviève as Trevor’s wife recurred persistently to her imagination. The pastor’s daughter was looking so bright and so very pretty, she seemed so wonderfully at home among the luxuries and splendours of Lingthurst, that Cicely found it difficult to realise the novelty and strangeness of the girl’s position. They all made so much of her; Sir Thomas was evidently struck by her beauty, and Lady Frederica, who prided herself a good deal on her “foreign travels,” and smattering of French and Italian, kept up a constant, gentle chatter about Hivèritz and Paris, and the charms of continental life, as if Geneviève were a little princess travelling incognita. And Geneviève sat on Sir Thomas’s right hand, with Mr. Fawcett beside her, and smiled and blushed and talked her pretty broken English; all with the most perfect propriety, but with a curious, indefinable taking it all as a matter of course in her manner, which surprised Cicely—surprised and puzzled her, and gave her again the uneasy sensation of not understanding her cousin, of having been mistaken in the estimate she had formed of her character. And gradually the feeling of bewilderment affected Cicely’s manner. She grew graver and more silent than usual, and felt provoked with herself for being so, especially when Sir Thomas’s inquiry if she had a headache, drew everybody’s attention to her.
“Oh! no, thank you, I am perfectly well,” she answered. But somehow the words sounded uneasy and constrained, and she felt glad when Lady Frederica proposed that they should stroll through the gardens before getting ready for afternoon church.
Sir Thomas’s gout was bad in one foot, and his wife was supposed to be suffering from influenza, so there were only Mr. Fawcett and Miss Winter to accompany the two girls in their ramble. And Geneviève being the stranger, it naturally came to pass that Mr. Fawcett appointed himself her guide to the points of interest about the grounds. So Cicely was left behind with Miss Winter, and for some minutes the two walked on in silence.
Miss Winter was fussy, but truly kind. She had known Cicely since she was a little girl, and loved her dearly. And, somehow, the order of things to-day was hardly to her liking. She could not bear to see the girl so silent and abstracted.