CHAPTER XI.
FATHER AND DAUGHTER.
“Come, gentlemen,” said the father, in a lively way. “We are all campaigners. Sit down and take a cup of tea with us. No ceremony. A la guerre, comme à la guerre. I cannot give you Sèvres porcelain. I am afraid even my delf is a little cracked; but we’ll fancy it whole and painted with roses. Now plenty of tea, Ellen dear. Guests are too rare not to be welcomed with our very best. Besides, I expect Brother Sizzum, after his camp duties are over.”
It was inexpressibly dreary, this feeble conviviality. In the old gentleman’s heart it was plain that disappointment and despondency were the permanent tenants. His gayety seemed only a mockery,—a vain essay to delude himself into the thought that he could be happy even for a moment. His voice, even while he jested, was hollow and sorrowful. There was a trepidation in his manner, half hope, half fear, as if he dreaded that some one would presently announce to him a desperate disaster, or fancied that some sudden piece of good luck was about to befall him, and he must be all attention lest it pass to another. Nothing of the anxiety of a guilty man about him,—of one who hears pursuit in the hum of a cricket or the buzz of a bee; only the uneasiness of one flying forever from himself, and hoping that some chance bliss will hold his flight and give him a moment’s forgetfulness.
We of course accepted the kindly invitation. Civilization was the novelty to us. Tea with a gentleman and lady was a privilege quite unheard of. We should both have been ready to devote ourselves to a woman far less charming than our hostess. But here was a pair—the beautiful daughter, the father astray—whom we must know more of. I felt myself taking a very tender interest in their welfare, revolving plans in my mind to learn their history, and, if it might be done, to persuade the father out of his delusion.
“Now, gentlemen,” said our friend, playing his part with mild gracefulness, like an accomplished host; “sit down on the blankets. I can not give you grand arm-chairs, as I might have done once in Old England, and hope to do if you ever come to see me at my house in Deseret. But really we are forgetting something very important. We have not been formally introduced. Bless me! that will never do. Allow me gentlemen to present myself, Mr. Hugh Clitheroe, late of Clitheroe Hall, Clitheroe, Lancashire,—a good old name, you see. And this is my daughter, Miss Ellen Clitheroe. These gentlemen, my dear, will take the liberty to present themselves to you.”
“Mr. Richard Wade, late of California; Mr. John Brent, a roving Yankee. Pray let me aid you Miss Clitheroe.”
Brent took the teakettle from her hand, and filled the teapot. This little domestic office opened the way to other civil services.
It was like a masquerading scene. My handsome friend and the elegant young lady bending together over four cracked cups and as many plates of coarse earthenware, spread upon a shawl, on the dry grass. The circle of wagons, the groups of Saints about their supper fires, the cattle and the fort in the distance, made a strangely unreal background to a woman whose proper place, for open air, was in the ancient avenue of some ancestral park, or standing on the terrace to receive groups of brilliant ladies coming up the lawn. But character is superior to circumstance, and Miss Clitheroe’s self-possession controlled her scenery. Her place, wherever it was, became her right place. The prairie, and the wagons, and the rough accessories, gave force to her refinement.
Mr. Clitheroe regarded the pair with a dreamy pleasure.