But Mrs. Joscelyn shook her head. She saw the practical difficulties here.
CHAPTER II.
A NEW COUSIN.
LYDIA had indeed as little prospect of going abroad as any girl could have. Her own kindred dreamt of no such indulgences, and she had no friends likely to suggest them. In these days people stayed still where their home was, and did not think of the continued changes and absences which make up our modern life—though the spirit of travel was beginning to be in the air, and younger spirits, even in the Fell-country, began to form dreams on the subject. Perhaps there never was a time when the idea of travelling was not attractive to the young, and when Italy was not a name to conjure withal. Lydia Joscelyn had read everything that fell into her hands all her life, even the Book of Beauty, which her brother-in-law, Philip Selby, presented to her with an inscription on the flyleaf, at Christmas. Half the stories, and half, almost all, the poetry there, bore reference to “the sunny South.” She was resolute to go “abroad” some time or other; to live among the dark-eyed Antonios and lovely Rosalbas of romance. And there, she had made up her mind, she would find Harry, and bring him back to her mother. It was her dream. Whenever she had nothing else to do she thought of it, and represented to herself how she should find him, how he would try to conceal himself from her, and by what wonderful ruses and clever expedients she would discover his secret and prove him to be her brother. It is not to be supposed that there did not mingle in Lydia’s dreams, visions of some other figure still more attractive than that of her brother, who having been five-and-twenty when he disappeared, ten years ago, was according to her calculation “quite old” by this time. It is not quite certain that she did not expect him to be grey-haired, and a little decrepit; but there would be some friend, some protector, some handsome young count, or even prince, who would have afforded the stranger hospitality, and in whom Liddy felt the possible hero of her life to be embodied. He was quite vague, except a pair of beautiful eyes; there was nothing at all about him else that she was certain of; but those eyes looked out of the mists upon her, with every kind of tender and delightful look. He would help her, could any one doubt, to bring Harry home? and afterwards—perhaps—would ask for his reward. Such was the natural sequence of events. To do Lydia justice, however, this visionary prince was a secondary personage, only indulged in as a dream by way of recreation, after she had, in her thoughts, tracked Harry down, and got him at her mercy.
She had not much society or recreation at the White House. There were times, indeed, when, if it had been possible for a girl to have done so, Lydia would have had no objection to try, as Harry had done, what the society of the “Red Lion” could do for her; but to do her justice one trial would have been enough. She did what was quite as good, and more innocent; she ran off sometimes into the kitchen of the White House, and talked with the servants, and heard a hundred stories both of the past and present, and learned the countryside, so that she knew who everybody was, and their mothers, and their wives, and all that had happened to them. It was there, rather than from her mother and her sister, that she heard about Harry. The old cook remembered everything about him, from the time when he had cut his teeth. She had a recollection of that night when he had gone away, and still excused herself for not having gone to the rescue. “T’ master was all about t’ house, travelling up and down in his stocking-feet—was it my part to oop and open the door?” Thus her apologies accused her according to the proverb. The other women were younger, but they too had something to tell. And then Liddy would go back to the quietude of the parlour, where her mother was sitting in the same attitude, reading the same book. The parlour looked cheerful enough, but there was never any change in it, not half so much as in the kitchen, where some one was always moving about, and there was a perpetual flow of talk. Liddy never spent an evening away from home, except two or three times a year to her sister’s, when there was “a party” prepared weeks in advance, and talked of for months after; or at Dr. Selby’s in the village, where now and then there were entertainments of a homelier kind.
Young Selby, who had been Harry’s friend and a frequenter of the “Red Lion,” though he had not yet sown all his wild oats, was a person of some importance in the village society. He was his father’s assistant, and although it was said that he was far more interested in the fees than in the Doctor’s patients, yet the fact that he was almost the only unmarried man in the neighbourhood gave him a certain importance. He was continually meeting Liddy when she went out to ride, and he looked very well on horseback, and gave her a great deal of good advice about the management of her horse. Perhaps but for that young Count in her dream, she would have got to understand what young Selby meant, though she scoffed at the adjective, and declared that he was not young, but as old as his father. He was the most entertaining person in the neighbourhood all the same, and the hero of Joan’s parties when they came round, one in summer, one about Christmas. These entertainments were pretty much alike, whatever was the time of year. Garden parties were not known in those days. In summer the windows were open, in winter the shutters shut over them and the curtains drawn. In other ways they were very much alike. There was a great round game carried on at the round table in the centre of the room. The tea had been served in the dining-room, so it did not interfere with the evening’s arrangements. Mr. Pilgrim’s family from Wyburgh were among the guests, and all the clergymen round, and any other notability who was not too great for the occasion. Few of the guests indeed could be called county people; but there were a good many who visited with the county people, and is not that very nearly the same? Joan, though she was homely enough, held her head somewhat high at her own table. The Selbys were but of moderate pretensions, but she never forgot that she was a Joscelyn. And she kept Liddy by her, not allowing any indiscriminate flirtations, and distinctly discouraging young Selby, who was her cousin by marriage, but had never won her heart. Mrs. Joscelyn never came to her daughter’s parties, though she was pleased to hear all about them; and it was only on condition that Liddy was to keep by her sister’s side that she was permitted to go, “You needn’t fear, mother, that she’ll meet with anyone she oughtn’t to meet with at my house,” Joan said, and she took care of her accordingly. It troubled her mind on the occasion to which we are about to refer, that a young man had come with Mrs. Pilgrim’s party, about whom she knew nothing. He was nice-looking, but she had not even caught his name. She could not help thinking it a little wrong of Mrs. Pilgrim to bring a stranger to such an assembly. If he had been in love with one of her girls, Joan allowed that would have made a difference; but there was not the least appearance that he was in love with one of the Pilgrim girls. They were very assiduous in their attention to him, pointing out everybody and making conversation for the young man, who, without being rude or disagreeable, held himself just a little aloof from the company in general, as if he had come there solely because he was brought, and had no special interest in the proceedings. His head, for he was tall, appearing steadily over Mrs. Pilgrim’s, at last began to irritate Mrs. Selby, who felt herself to be in every way a greater personage. She called her husband to her again and again to point out to him this wholly ineffective member of the party.
“What is he wanting here?” she said.
“My dear, what they all want—to enjoy himself,” Philip Selby replied.
“Enjoy himself—do you call that enjoyment? He looks as if he had swallowed a poker; and is never trusted for a moment out of the charge of two or three Pilgrims. I don’t think I’ll ask these people again.”
“They are very good sort of people, Joan; and considering the position in which they stood to your uncle Henry——”
“I’m very tired of Uncle Henry, Phil; besides, the girls didn’t stand in any position—and I never authorised them to bring a strange young man.”