“Yes,” cried John Trevanion, “I mean what I say. He has managed to make himself agreeable to Rosalind. She takes his part already. She is troubled when he puts himself in a false position.”
“But, John, what makes you think he is an adventurer? I am quite sure he is one of the Essex Everards, who are as good a family and as well thought of—”
“Did he tell you he was one of the Essex Everards?”
Mrs. Lennox put on a very serious air of trying to remember. She bit her lips, she contracted her forehead, she put up her hand to her head. “I am sure,” she said, “I cannot recollect whether he ever said it, but I have always understood. Why, what other Everards could he belong to?” she added, in the most candid tone.
“That is just the question,” said John Trevanion; “the same sort of Everards perhaps as my friend’s Riverses, or most likely not half so good. Indeed, I’m not at all sure that your friend has any right even to the name he claims. I both saw and heard of him before we left Highcourt. By Jove!” He was not a man to swear, even in this easy way, but he jumped up from the seat upon which he had thrown himself and grew so red that Aunt Sophy immediately thought of the suppressed gout in the family, and felt that it must suddenly have gone to his head.
“Oh, John, my dear! what is it?” she cried.
He paced about the room back and forward in high excitement, repeating to himself that exclamation. “Oh, nothing, nothing! I can’t quite tell what it is,” he said.
“A twinge in your foot,” cried Mrs. Lennox. “Oh, John, though it is late, very late, in the season, and you could not perhaps follow out the cure altogether, you might at least take some of the baths as they are ordered for Johnny. It might prevent an illness hereafter. It might, if you took it in time—”
“What is a ‘cure’?” said John. Mrs. Lennox pronounced the word, as indeed it is intended that the reader should pronounce it in this history, in the French way; but this in her honest mouth, used to good, downright English pronunciation, sounded like koor, and the brother did not know what it was. He laughed so long and so loudly at the idea of preventing an illness by the cure, as he called it with English brutality, and at the notion of Johnny’s baths, that Mrs. Lennox was quite disconcerted and could not find a word to say.
Rosalind had withdrawn with her mind full of disquietude. She was vexed and annoyed by Everard’s ignorance of the usages of society and the absence of perception in him. He should not have come up when he heard that Uncle John had arrived; he should not have stayed. But Rosalind reflected with a certain resentment and impatience that it was impossible to make him aware of this deficiency, or to convey to him in any occult way the perceptions that were wanting. This is not how a girl thinks of her lover, and yet she was more disturbed by his failure to perceive than any proceeding on the part of a person in whom she was not interested could have made her. She had other cares in her mind, however, which soon asserted a superior claim. Little Amy’s pale face, her eyes so wistful and pathetic, which seemed to say a thousand things and to appeal to Rosalind’s knowledge with a trust and faith which were a bitter reproach to Rosalind, had given her a sensation which she could not overcome. Was she too wanting in perception, unable to divine what her little sister meant? It was well for her to blame young Everard and to blush for his want of perception, she, who could not understand little Amy! Her conversation with the children had thrown another light altogether on Johnny’s vision. What if it were no trick of the digestion, no excitement of the spirit, but something real, whether in the body or out of the body, something with meaning in it? She resolved that she would not allow this any longer to go on without investigation, and, with a little thrill of excitement in her, arranged her plans for the evening. It was not without a tremor that Rosalind took this resolution. She had already many times taken nurse’s place without any particular feeling on the subject, with the peaceful result that Johnny slept soundly and nobody was disturbed; but this easy watch did not satisfy her now. Notwithstanding the charm of Uncle John’s presence, Rosalind hastened up-stairs after dinner when the party streamed forth to take coffee in the garden, denying herself the pleasant stroll with him which she had looked forward to, and which he in his heart was wounded to see her withdraw from without a word. She flew along the half-lighted passages with her heart beating high.