He that will not when he may; vol. III

by Mrs. Oliphant

Thus summer came again, communicating brightness; and Sir Gus began to live again, and to believe that it might be possible to put up with England after all.

CHAPTER XIII.

That summer was as bright as the winter had been cold. The hot weather came on in May, and the country about Markham brightened into a perfect paradise of foliage and blossom. Sir Gus came to life; he began to show himself in the country, to move about, to accept the invitations which were given to him. And it cannot be denied that his thoughts and plans were much modified after he had made acquaintance with the county and began to feel that people were inclined to pay him a great deal of attention. He had wanted nothing better at first than to be received as a member of Lady Markham’s family, to adopt, as it were, his brothers and sisters, and to make them as little conscious as possible of the change he had brought into their life. He had promised that he would never marry, nor do anything to spoil Paul’s prospects further. But before the summer was over his views in this respect had sensibly modified. He began to think that perhaps the length and dreariness of the winter had been partly owing to the fact that Lady Markham and her children were less satisfactory than a wife and children of his own. Why should he (after all) sacrifice himself to serve Paul? He was not old, whatever those arrogant young people might think; and probably it was in this way that happiness might come to him. Paul would no doubt get on very well in society; he would marry well, and his younger son’s portion was not contemptible; there really seemed no reason why his elder brother should sacrifice himself on Paul’s account. And gradually there dawned upon him an idea that before winter came on again he might have some one belonging to him who should be his very own.

Gus dined out very solemnly by himself, making acquaintance with his neighbours during the Easter recess, and when the great people of the neighbourhood came back to the country after the season; and did not scorn the tables of the less great who remained in the country all the year round. He was not exclusive. The less great houses were still great enough for Gus. He liked to go to the Rectory, where Mr. Stainforth, who was a politic old man, often invited him; and indeed, Sir Augustus, who everybody said was so exceedingly simple and unpretentious, became quite popular in the district where at first everybody had been against him as an intruder. Though it was no less hard upon Paul than before, the new heir was pardoned in the county because of his adoption of the family and his kindness and genuine humility. There could not be any harm in him, people said, when he was so good to the children, when he sought so persistently the friendship of his stepmother, and endeavoured to make everything pleasant for her.

Then it became very evident that Sir Gus, though not so young as he once was, was still marriageable and likely to marry, which naturally still further increased his popularity; and as, instead of attempting any stratagems of self-defence, he was but too eager to put himself into the society of young ladies, and showed unequivocal signs of regarding them with the eye of a purchaser, it was natural that the elder ladies should accept this challenge, and on their parts do what they could to make him acquainted with the stores the county possessed. Women do not give themselves to this business of settling marriages in England with the candour and honesty that prevail in other countries. The work is stealthy and unacknowledged, but it is too natural and too just not to be done with more or less vigour; and the county was not less active than other counties. “Poor Paul!” some people said, who had at first received the new baronet as a merely temporary holder of the title and estates—one who, according to a legend dear to the popular mind, had bound himself not to do anything towards the achievement of an heir; but by and by they said, “Poor Sir Gus!” and could see no reason in the world why he should sacrifice himself. This was a little after the time when he had himself come to the same conclusion.

When all the families began to return at the end of July, he was asked everywhere. Mourning is not for a man a very rigid bond, and it was now nearly a year since Sir William died, so that there was nothing to restrain him; indeed there were some who said that Lady Markham was too punctilious in keeping Alice at home, never letting her be seen anywhere—a girl who really ought to marry, now that the family were in so changed a position. Sir Gus went a great deal to Westland Towers, where there had never been so many parties before—garden parties, archery meetings, competitions at lawn-tennis, to which the entire county was convoked; and at all these parties there was no more favoured guest than Gus. This was a great change, and pleased him much. At “home” he was not much more than put up with. They had come to like him, and they had always been very kind to him; but he had been an intruder, and he had banished the son of the house, and it was not to be supposed that mortal forbearance should go so far as to admire and honour him as the chief person in the household, even though he was its nominal head. When he went elsewhere Gus was made more of than at Markham, and at the Towers he felt the full force of his own position. His sayings were listened for, his jokes were laughed at, and he himself was followed by judicious flattery. All his little eccentricities were allowed and approved, his light clothes extolled as the most convenient garments in the world, and his distaste for sport and the winter amusements of country life sanctioned and approved.

“How men of refined habits can do it has always been a mystery to me,” said Lady Westland.

“You forget, mamma, that a taste for bloodshed is one of the most refined tastes in the world,” said Ada, who was herself fond of hunting when she had a chance, and never was better pleased than when she could lunch with a shooting party at the cover-side. Ada made a grimace behind Gus’s back, and said “Little monster!” to the other young ladies.

“Ah, poor Paul! We used to see so much of him,” she said, “when he was the man, poor fellow, and no one had ever heard of this little Creole. But parents are nothing if not prudent,” Miss Westland added; “and now the tropics are in the ascendant, and poor Paul is nowhere. What can one do?” she said with a shrug of her shoulders up to her ears.

Dolly Stainforth, who was of the party, but not old enough or important enough to say anything, grew pale with righteous indignation. She was very well aware that Paul had never “seen much” of the family at Westland Towers: but that they should now pretend to hold him at arm’s length stung her to the heart. This took place at a garden party, and the explanation about Paul had been made in the midst of a great many people of the neighbourhood, who had all been very sorry for Paul in their day, yet were all beginning now to turn towards the new-risen sun. Dolly had turned her back upon them, and gone off by herself in bitterly-suppressed indignation, sore and wounded, though not for her own sake, when she encountered Sir Gus, who had spied her in a turning of the shrubbery. George Westland had spied her too, but had been stopped by his mother on his way to her, and might be seen in the distance standing gloomily on the outskirts of a group of notables, with whom he was supposed to be ingratiating himself, gazing towards the bosquet in which the object of his affections had disappeared.