“I think you are mistaken,” said Mrs. Rowland, “I don’t know of anything that is going on—except luncheon. May I offer you some of these, as your friend is too busy to see that you have what you want.”
“Ah, he is a fellow that knows what he wants,” said the don admiringly, “and doesn’t trouble himself what other people thinks. Thank you very much, I’ll take some grateful—” he added “ly,” after he had drawn a breath, making a little choke over the word—“gratefully, that’s what I mean. A man gets out of his manners never seeing a lady for—a whole term sometimes,” he said.
Was he a college don? More and more puzzled was poor Evelyn, who could believe in anything rather than that she had been told what was not true. But whatever it was, she felt that it was better not to leave this person to his false ideas in respect to the young people. “Perhaps I ought to tell you,” she said, “that you are making a mistake. There is no case, if that means an—engagement, or anything of that sort. My son and daughter are very young, and so are their friends. They are boys and girls together—no one, on either side, would hear of anything of the kind.”
“Oh!” said the man, who was certainly not a gentleman, whatever else he might be. He put down his plate and gave a keen look across Mrs. Rowland to Eddy, who was far too much engaged to notice anything. “Oh!” he said again; then after a pause: “I’m an old hand,” he added, “it may be you that are mistaken, ma’am, and not me.”
Mrs. Rowland did not think proper to say more. One way or other it must, she thought, be a matter of entire indifference to this disreputable looking stranger what were the circumstances of Eddy Saumarez. She rose from her throne of heather, taking no further notice of the visitor, and disturbing the party altogether, to the resentment of everybody. “I have only just begun to have my lunch,” said Marion—and “Is it really time to be going?” Rosamond asked with a fine tone of surprise. The young men said little; but their faces showed their feelings. “That is the worst of it,” said Eddy, in an audible whisper, “a chaperon is sure to spoil sport. She doesn’t mean any harm, but she does it by instinct.” And of the two pairs no one budged. Evelyn was alone among these young conspirators, and the vulgar commentator who had sought to make himself agreeable by putting her terrors into words. She wandered a little further upon the hillside, and gathered a handful of the white Grass of Parnassus, and the little blue orchid which is to be found on these hills, to give herself a countenance, not knowing how to act or what to do; whether to speak to her husband or to endeavour in her own person to divide the bonds which had grown up so fast. But how could she do this? What did they care for what she said, these independent young people? What hold had she over them, one way or another? And yet it would be said that she had been the chief actor in everything, that it was she who had thrown them together; she who had plotted to throw James Rowland’s wealth into the hands and house of the Saumarez. The thought was intolerable; her whole mind cried out against it, protesting that it was not to be borne; but how was she to free herself from this knot in which she was enveloped? What was she to do?
CHAPTER XXVI.
It need scarcely be said that the young Saumarez had been early made acquainted with Rankin’s cottage in the wood, and with the wonderful qualities of the “sma’” family which he kept about him. The humours of Roy and Dhu were by this time among the most cheerful features of the house at Rosmore. That little pair went tumbling over each other with ferocious curiosity into every corner, sniffing and investigating: they gave each other the word when, in the far distance, a carriage began to grind, or a footstep to disturb the gravel approaching the door—and flew like two balls of fur, with two little pairs of gleaming eyes and no legs to speak of, helter-skelter, head-over-heels to defend the house with ferocious, if infantile, barking. They walked out with Mrs. Rowland when she went out upon the lawn, making futile efforts to get upon the edge of her dress, and so be carried along as in a triumphal car on the silken train that touched the ground. They superintended every setting out and returning home, all but opening the door of the carriage when their mistress appeared. Archie had given them up to her with a sort of revulsion of feeling, kicking them from him when he found that the doggies hung on to his stepmother’s skirts in spite of all other blandishments. He addressed them only in kindly intercourse when she was out of the way, but when she appeared, gave a kick to one and tossed the other down out of his hands. They had this quality that they never were hurt, always came up again in a jovial entanglement of legs and hair, and were not too proud to talk to any one who would talk to them. Even the solemn butler, of whom Archie always continued to stand in awe, had been seen in a corner on his knees with a supply of biscuits, endeavouring to teach them to beg; which was an unsuccessful effort, since the little soft unformed backbones were as yet unfit for the effort. The young visitors, it is needless to say, were at once initiated into the worship of Roy and Dhu, and to become the happy possessors of other members of the family had early become the ambition of both Rosamond and Eddy—genuine on her part, perhaps only a pretext on his. For the worship of the dog is a very widespreading and varied rite, followed by some out of a real understanding of those faithful, little-discriminating, and often puzzled retainers of humanity, but by many out of pure vacancy and for love of the inferior company of grooms and kennel-keepers, who are the retainers, in their turn, of the nobler breed. It was natural that Eddy should gravitate towards a place where the dull hours were to be got through by such means. And Rosamond liked the little humorous creatures, and was amused by the old gamekeeper, and had pleasure in the quaint unknown aspect of the cottage life. Besides all these, when they escaped one morning together from the house, at a moment when Marion was out of the way, and Archie occupied, there was a little pleasure in the mere act of escaping and in the opportunity for consultations of their own. More than half their month in Rosmore was now over, and they had occasion for a little mutual understanding. It was a crisp morning of late October, very still, hoar frost white in all the hollows, and not yet melted into dew on the trees. Heaps of yellow leaves had come down in the night, and lay like gold at the foot of the now thin and trembling birches. The red trunks of the fir trees came out warmly in the sharpness of the atmosphere, and the big branches of the rowan berries drooped in consciousness of the approaching fall.
“What luck,” said Eddy, “to get off for once without those other two, as old Rowland calls them, at our heels.”
Rosamond assented briefly, but added, by way of qualification, “It is you generally who are at Marion’s heels.”
“Look here, Rose,” said the brother, “you know the governor better than I do. What was his object in sending you and me here?”