‘Eve,’ said Martin, ‘I have been disappointed, and have spoken sharply of the sex. But I am not the man to harbour mistrust. Deceived I have been, and perhaps am now laying myself open to fresh disappointment. I cannot say. I cannot go against my nature, which is frank and trustful. There—take your ring. Come back to me this evening with it and the key, and prove to me that all women are not false, that all confidence placed in them is not misplaced.’
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
TUCKERS.
Barbara sat in the little oak parlour, a pretty room that opened out of the hall; indeed it had originally been a portion of the hall, which was constructed like a letter L. The hall extended to the roof, but the branch at right angles was not half the height. It was ceiled about ten feet from the floor, and instead of being, like the hall, paved with slate, had oak boards. The window looked into the garden. Mr. Jordan’s father had knocked away the granite mullions, and put in a sash-window, out of keeping with the room and house, but agreeable to the taste of the period, and admitting more light. A panelled division cut the room off from the hall. Barbara and Eve could not agree about the adornment of this apartment. On the walls were a couple of oil paintings, and Barbara supplemented them with framed and glazed mezzotints. She could not be made by her sister to see the incongruity of engravings and oil paintings hanging side by side on dark oak panels. On the chimney-piece was a French ormolu clock, which was Eve’s detestation. It was badly designed and unsuitable for the room. So was the banner-screen of a poodle resting on a red cushion; so were the bugle mats on the table; so were the antimacassars on all the arm-chairs and over the back of the sofa; so were some drawing-room chairs purchased by Barbara, with curved legs, and rails that were falling out periodically. Barbara thought these chairs handsome, Eve detestable. The chimney-piece ornaments, the vases of pale green glass illuminated with flowers, were also objects of aversion to one sister and admiration to the other. Eve at one time refused to make posies for the vases in the parlour, and was always protesting against some new introduction by her sister, which violated the principles of taste.
‘I don’t like to live in a dingy old hall like this,’ Eve would say; ‘but I like a place to be fitted up in keeping with its character.’
Barbara was now seated in this debatable ground. Eve was out somewhere, and she was alone and engaged with her needle. Her father, in the next room, was dozing. Then to the open window came Jasper, leaned his arms on the sill—the sash was up—and looked in at Barbara.
‘Hard at work as usual?’ he said.
She smiled and nodded, and looked at him, holding her needle up, with a long white thread in it.
‘On what engaged I dare not ask,’ said Jasper.