The Story of Valentine and His Brother

by Mrs. Oliphant

CHAPTER XX.

This was Val’s last summer at Eton; he went away with deep regret, as all well-conditioned boys do, and was petted and made much of at home in the interval between his school and his university life. Lady Eskside, who had once carried little Val with her, with care so anxious, was proud and happy beyond description now when Val accompanied her anywhere with that air of savoir faire and intimate knowledge of the world which distinguishes his kind. He had already a circle much enlarged from hers, and knew people whom even the Dowager Duchess, who was more in the world than Lady Eskside, could not pretend to know. He was a head taller than good-natured Lord Hightowers, and a thousand times handsomer and better bred. “But not the least like his father,” said her Grace, with pointed particularity. “Not so like as he was,” said Lady Eskside, not unprepared for this attack; “but I can still see the resemblance—though the difference of complexion is bewildering to those who don’t know both faces so well as I do,” she added, with a smile. To be sure, no one else could know the two faces as well as she did. Val was extremely well received in the county, and considered, young as he was, an acquisition to general society; and was asked far and wide to garden-parties, which were beginning to come into fashion, and to the few dances which occurred now and then. He had to go, too, to various entertainments given by the new people in Lord Eskside’s feus. During Val’s boyhood, the feus which the old lord and his factor laid out so carefully had been built upon, to the advantage of the shopkeepers in Lasswade, for one thing; and a row of, on the whole, rather handsome houses, in solid white stone, somewhat urban in architecture for the locality, and built to resist wind and storm for centuries, rose on the crown of the green bank which overlooked the road, and were to be seen from the terrace at Rosscraig. There were two ladies in them who gave parties,—one the wife of a retired physician, the other a well-connected widow. Val had to dance at both houses, for the very good reason that the widow was well connected, which made it impossible to refuse her; while the other house had a vote, more important still. “It is your business to make yourself agreeable to everybody, Val,” said Lord Eskside, feeling, as he looked at the boy’s long limbs and broad shoulders, that the time was approaching in which his ambition should at last be gratified, and a Ross be elected for the county, notwithstanding all obstacles. Within the next four or five years a general election was inevitable; and it was one of the old lord’s private prayers that it might not come until Val was eligible. He did all he could to communicate to him that interest in politics which every young man of good family, according to Lord Eskside, should be reared in. Val had been rather inattentive on this point: he held, in an orthodox manner, those conventional and not very intelligent Tory principles which belong to Eton; but he had not thought much about the subject, if truth must be told, and was rather amused than impressed by Lord Eskside’s eloquence. “All right, grandpapa,” he would say, with that calm general assent of youth which is so trying to the eager instructor. He was quite ready to accept both position and opinions, but he did not care enough about them to take the trouble of forming any decision for himself.

But he went to Mrs Rintoul’s party, and made himself very agreeable; and not only the retired doctor himself, but what was perhaps more important, his daughters—from Miss Rintoul of five-and-thirty to the little one of sixteen—were ready as one woman to adopt his cause, and wear his colours when the time came. “What does it matter between them, papa?” said Miss Rintoul, who was very strong-minded. “Tory or Radical—what does it matter? They are all conservative in office, and destructive out of it. If I had a vote—and at my age it’s a disgrace to England that I haven’t—I should stand by friends and neighbours. That’s a better rule than your old-fashioned Tory and Whig. A good man is the one thing needful; over whom, if necessary, one can exert intelligent influence,” said this enlightened woman. I do not think her papa, who was better aware how very impossible it is to influence any human creature, was entirely of her opinion; but he informed Willie Maitland that probably on the whole, if no candidate exactly of his own way of thinking appeared in the field, he would not hesitate to support Mr Ross, if he carried out, as there was every reason to expect, the promise of his youth. Thus Val, in gay unconsciousness, was made to begin his canvassing when he was nineteen, and while still the episode of the university lay between him and public life. Lord Eskside invited a large party for the 1st of September, and the house continued full up to the time of Val’s departure for Oxford; and besides this party of guests at home, there was such a succession of entertainments given at Rosscraig as had not been known before for many years,—not since Val’s father was on his promotion, like Val. Mary Percival was one of the party during this gay time, aiding Lady Eskside to receive her guests and do the honours of her house. She came when it was definitely ascertained that Richard was not coming, as his parents wished. He wrote that he was deeply occupied, and that in the present state of Italian politics it was impossible that he could leave his post—a letter over which Lady Eskside sighed; but as Mary came to make up the deficiency, there was something gained to atone for this loss.

Mary, however, never would commit herself to that enthusiasm for Val which his grandmother felt was her boy’s due. She liked him very well, she said—oh, very well: he was a nice boy; she was very glad he had done so well at school, and she hoped he would take a good place at Oxford; but I leave the reader to judge whether this mild approbation was likely to satisfy the old people, who by this time—husband as well as wife—were, as the servants said, altogether “wrapt up” in Val. Mary offended her friend still more by the perverse interest she took in the Pringle family, and her many visits to the Hewan, where Val was delighted to accompany her as often as she chose to go. Violet was “in residence,” as he said, at the cottage, living a somewhat lonely life there, though the others of the family came and went, spending a day or a night as they could manage it. I do not know if any thought of “falling in love” had ever come into Valentine’s boyish head; but there was a delicate link of affection and interest between Violet and himself which affected him he could not quite tell how. As for poor little Vi, I fear her young imagination had gone further than Valentine’s. It was not love in her case, perhaps, any more than in his; but it was fancy, which at seventeen is almost as strong. I think this was the primary reason of Mary’s frequent visits to the Hewan. She saw what was going on in the girl’s young head and heart; and with that intense recollection of the circumstances which decided her own fate which such gentlewomen, thrown out of the common path of life, often have, she had conceived an almost exaggerated anxiety for the fate of Vi, which seemed to be shaping itself after the model of her own.

“I wish my dear old lady would not spoil that boy so,” she said one September morning, when she had walked alone through the woods to the Hewan. Her pretty particular grey gown (for Mary was not without something of that precise order which it is usual to call old-maidishness, about her dress) was marked here and there with a little spot from the damp ferns and grass, which she rubbed with her handkerchief as she spoke, and which suddenly brought back to Violet’s memory that one day of “playing truant” which had been about the sweetest of her life. Mary had perceived that Violet gave a quick look for the other figure which generally followed, and that there was a droop of disappointment about her, when she perceived that her visitor was alone. “I wish she would not spoil that boy so. He is not a bad boy——”

“Is it possible you can mean Val?” said Violet, with dignity, erecting her small head.

“Yes, indeed, my dear, it is quite possible; I do mean Val. He is a good boy enough, if you would not all spoil him with adulation—as if he were something quite extraordinary, and no one had ever seen his like before.”

“You do not like Val, Miss Percival—you never did; but he likes you, and always walks with you when you will let him.”

“Ah, that is when I am coming here,” said Mary, with a momentary compunction. Then perceiving a pleased glow diffuse itself over Vi’s face, she added, quickly, “I mean, he likes to go with me when it pleases himself; but if I were to ask any little sacrifice of his will from him, you should see how he would look. He is one of the most self-willed boys I know.”

Violet did not make any answer. She patted her foot upon the carpet, and the corners of her little mouth were drawn down. She would have frowned had she known how; as it was, she averted her face in wrath and dismay.