“No, you’re right. Mr. Frederick, that’s what I mean, and a deal nicer a gentleman,” said the father. “You see, Mr. Frederick, ’Manda has been, so to speak, brought up with nothing but Eastwoods. All the young ’uns, from Sir Geoffrey downwards, rode into Sterborne on their ponies to have their lessons with our old curate, and ’Manda being his prime favourite, and partly brought up with him——”
“You don’t suppose, papa, that any one but ourselves cares for all these details. Pray forgive me for laughing at you,” said Miss Amanda, turning to Frederick, “you were so comfortable and so much at your ease reading your Times. What can gentlemen find in the Times always, morning, noon, and night? Papa is never done with his paper; first there is one thing, then another. I suppose you had been reading it all the morning, Mr. Frederick Eastwood, and the first thing you do is to take it up here.”
“I did not know there was any one observing me,” said Frederick, standing confused and humble before her. He who was very lofty and dignified to his mother and sister, was ready to be abject to Amanda. He listened to her with absolute reverence, though all that she had to say was commonplace enough. When he was placed beside her at dinner, and found himself at liberty to look at her and listen to her undisturbed, it seemed to Frederick that he had never been so blessed. He took in all her chatter without losing a word. Miss Batty was in full dress. Those were the days when English ladies were supposed always to appear with bare shoulders in the evening, and her beautiful shoulders and arms were bare. Her dress was blue, with a long train, which was considerably in her way. If there was anything wanting in her it was this—she moved about in a manner that did not suit the dignity of her beauty; her movements were quick, jerky, and without grace; she bustled like a notable housewife rather than a fine lady. Perhaps if her dress had not been much too fine for the occasion this would have been less remarkable, but as it was, Frederick’s dream was disturbed a little when she jumped up to help herself. “Oh, I can’t sit and wait if I want a bit of bread till the servant comes,” she cried. Frederick did not like the words, nor the tone of them, but she was lovelier than ever when she said them. Thus he did not lose his senses instantly, or suppose that everything that fell from her lips was divine. But his admiration, or adoration, mastered all his criticism and swept away his good sense. What she said might be foolish or flippant, but how she said it was heavenly. He could not take his eyes from her. He made what effort he could to keep up the ordinary decorum, and look as if he were capable of eating, and drinking, and talking, as he had been the day before, but the effort was very little successful. Miss Amanda saw her victory, and almost disdained it, it was so easy; and her father saw it, and was satisfied.
“Now take me to the play,” she said, when dinner was over. “It isn’t often I am in town, and I mean to enjoy myself. Oh, we may be late, but it does not matter. If it is only for the after-piece I am determined to go.”
“Was there ever so imperious a girl?” cried her father. “You ought to remember, ’Manda, here is Mr. Eastwood. You can’t send away a gentleman that has but just eaten his dinner.”
“He can come too,” said Amanda. “I like to have two gentlemen. There is always plenty for two gentlemen to do. Won’t you come, Mr. Frederick Eastwood? But anyhow I must go,” she continued, turning to her father, who was almost as abject in his devotion as Frederick was. Had she been anything short of perfection Frederick would have hesitated much before he consented to show himself in public with Mr. Batty and his daughter; indeed, the possibility of such a thing would have driven him frantic. But now he had no such thoughts. If he hesitated it was but to calculate what was going on in the theatrical world; what there was worthy to be seen by her. He was not much of a theatre-goer, but he knew what was being played, and where. He suggested one or two of what were supposed to be the best plays; but she put him down quite calmly. She had already decided that she was going to see one of the sensational pieces of the day, a drama (I do not know it, I may be doing it injustice) the chief point in which was the terrific situation of the hero or heroine, who was bound down on the line of a railway when the train was coming. It was this lofty representation which she had set her heart on seeing. Frederick handed her into the cab which was immediately sent for. He sat by her in it; he breathed in the atmosphere of “Ess. bouquet” which surrounded her. Now and then he thought, with a glimmer of horror, of meeting somebody whom he knew; but his mind was only at intervals sufficiently free to harbour this thought. It was, however, with a certain fright that he found himself in the stage-box, which it appeared had been provided beforehand for Miss Amanda’s pleasure. “I prefer a box,” she said to Frederick, “here one can be comfortable, and papa if he likes can fall asleep in a comfortable chair; but I can’t understand a lady making herself happy down there.” She pointed to the stalls, where Frederick was too happy not to be. There was, of course, somebody he knew in the second row, who found him out he feared in the dignity of his box, where Miss Amanda had no idea of hiding herself. “She objected to her gentlemen,” she said, “taking refuge behind a curtain,” and she did no such injustice to her own beauty as to conceal it. She dropped her cloak from her shoulders, and gave the house all the benefit; and she kept calling Frederick’s attention to one thing and another, insisting that he should crane his neck round the corner to look at this or that. Her beauty and her dress and evident willingness to be admired drew many eyes, and Frederick felt that he had a share in the succès which he could very well have dispensed with. He had experienced a good many adventures, but very few like this. He had always been very respectable under the eyes of the world; to be sure, he was quite respectable now; there was no fault to be found with the party—his beautiful companion, indeed, was something quite new, and not very much used to her present position; but there was nothing wrong in that. Nevertheless Frederick felt that there was something to pay for the strange confusion of blessedness in which he seemed to have lost himself. He felt this by intervals, and he kept as much as he could behind the curtains, behind her. She was perfectly willing to occupy the centre of the box, to rain down influence, to be seen and admired. “Mr. Eastwood, I wish you would not keep behind me. Do let people see that I have some one to take care of me. Papa has gone to sleep, of course,” said the beauty, and she turned round upon Frederick with such a look that he remembered nothing any more but her loveliness, and the delight of being near her. She chattered through all the play, and he listened. She said a great deal that was silly, and some things that were slightly vulgar, and he noted them, yet was not less subjugated by a spell which was beyond resistance. I cannot be supposed to understand this, nor to explain it. In such matters I can only record facts. He was not under the delusion that she was a lofty, or noble, or refined being, though she was Batty’s daughter. He presumed that she was Batty’s daughter heart and soul; made of the same pâte, full of the same thoughts. She was “not a lady,” beautiful, splendid, and well-dressed as she was; the humble, little snub-nosed girl in the stalls below who looked up at this vision of loveliness with a girl’s admiration had something which all the wealth of the Indies could not have given to Miss Amanda. And Frederick Eastwood saw this quite plainly, yet fell in love, or in madness, exactly as if he had not seen it. The feeling, such as it was, was too genuine to make him capable of many words; but he did his best to amuse her, and he listened to all she said, which was a very good way of pleasing this young woman.
“I hope you mean to stay in town for some time,” he said, in one of the pauses of her abundant talk.
“Not very long,” said Miss ’Manda. “Papa likes to live well, and to do things in the best sort of way; so he spends a deal of money, and that can’t last long. Our hotel isn’t like Mivart’s, and that sort of thing: but it is dreadfully dear. We spend as much as—oh, I couldn’t venture to tell you how much we spend a day. Papa likes to have everything of the best, and so do I.”
“And so you ought,” said Frederick, adoring. “Pardon me if I am saying too much.”
“Oh, you are not saying very much, Mr. Eastwood. It is I that am talking,” said Amanda, “and as for our staying long here, that does not much matter, for papa wants you to come to Sterborne. He has been talking of it ever since he came back from Paris. What did you do to him to make him take such a fancy to you? We don’t think the other Eastwoods behaved vary nicely to us, and ever since he met with you papa has been telling me of all your good qualities. You have put a spell upon him, I think.”