Red as a Rose is She: A Novel, Page 8

  CHAPTER VIII.

  The 2.25 train from Brainton is due at Felton at 5.30. It is drawingnear Hither now, escorted by a vanguard, bodyguard, and rearguard ofdust-clouds; it rushes along, with the sun beating down on the roofsof the carriages, making them like little compartments of Hades. Ifthe devil took a hint from the Coldbath Fields cells for "improvingthe prisons of Hell," he certainly might take a hint from the Braintontrain for improving the travelling conveyances of the same locality.

  In one of the first-class carriages there is a baby: it has got a cold,and seems rather inclined to be sick; so both the nurse, on whose lapit lies gaping and blowing bubbles, and the idolising mother, who sitsover against it, insist on keeping its window tight up. There is arusty old divine, in gilt-rimmed spectacles and a jowl, reading the_Guardian;_ a commercial traveller, with his hat off, his legs up, anda gaudy cap on his head, fast asleep; and, lastly, a little young lady,sitting facing the engine, with the dusty blast driving hot and fullin her face, blinking, coughing, choking, with the utmost patience. Onher lap lies a huge bunch of red and yellow roses and heavy-scenteddouble-stocks, all limp and drooping and soiled. Bob gave them to herwhen he came down to the station to see her off--and very kind of himtoo, and very nice they are; but all the same, as she has already abag, a box, and a parasol to carry, she thinks (though she barely ownsit to herself) that she would almost as soon have been without them.

  The dusty blast blows gentler, moderates to a dusty zephyr; thetrain is slackening speed. "Fel--ton!" "Fel--ton!" cry a row ofgreen-fustianed porters, as the long bulk draws up at the platform.

  "Please 'm, are you Miss Craven?" inquires a tall footman in powder anda cockade, touching his hat to Esther, as she stands all by herself,trying to take several beams out of her own eye.

  "Yes."

  "The carriage is here for you, 'm. Would you please to show me which isyour maid and luggage?"

  "I have no maid, and there's my luggage," responds Esther, pointingwith one grimy kid finger to a small trunk standing on its head, andlooking half inclined to burst asunder in the midst. She is ashamed ofher destitute condition, and ashamed of herself for being ashamed of it.

  "Will it change into a pumpkin?" thinks Miss Craven, as she steps intoa large yellow barouche, with two fidgety, showy greys, that is waitingfor her at the station gate. After the yammering of the baby, the dullrumble-rumble of the train, how delicious! "If it were only my own,"she says to herself, throwing herself back with a consequential feelingon the soft cushions, as some country people pass and pull theirforelocks to the well-known liveries.

  "Well, odder things have happened! _But_ for Bob! The Prince fell inlove with Cinderella at first sight; why should not Prince Gerard withme? I dare say I'm quite as good-looking as Cinderella was!"

  As they pass Lady Gerard's model school, twenty little charity girlscome trooping out in the uniformity of their cotton frock and strawbonnet livery, and drop twenty bob courtesies to Esther, who feels asthe man in the "Arabian Nights" did who woke and found himself Sultan.Labouring men go stumping heavily home, with their tools over theirshoulders and their heads bent earthwards, as is always the case withthe tillers of the soil, who must--oh, hard necessity!--be ever lookingdown.

  Park palings, through which the strong brake fern is thrusting itself,slide past; then a red lodge, picked out with blue bricks, where anobsequious old woman rushes out from the washtub, with hands allsoapsuds, to open the gates; then a grassy, knolly park; then a greatred house, likewise picked out with blue bricks; then stones clatteringunder an echoing portico; then the pumpkin stops, and Cinderelladescends.

  "Miss Craven!" announces the butler, opening a tall door; and MissCraven, plucking up heart, marches into a high, dark library, linedwith high, dark books--marches in, looking very much like a chimneysweep. Dust lies in ridges on her once white bonnet; dust, instead ofbelladonna, in streaks under her eyes; dust on the parting of her hair,on her eyelashes, up her nose (on which there is also, though, happilyfor her, she does not know it, a large smut), and a double portion ofdust on the great, faded, yellow roses, to which she cleaves with asmuch pertinacity as the idiot in "Excelsior" clave to that senselessbanner which he was so determined to run up hill with.

  As she enters, a goddess rises like an exhalation (as Pandemonium did),and comes floating on lilac clouds towards her. This is as thingsseem to her; in reality, a large, fair, young woman comes forward ina long-tailed mauve muslin. Simultaneously a man's two legs are seendisappearing over the window-sill.

  "How do you do?" says the goddess, sweetly. "I think the train musthave been rather late; we expected you half an hour ago."

  "Yes."

  A little pause, each taking stock.

  "Won't you have some tea?"

  "Thanks."

  The tea is poured out; it has been standing on the table an hour, andis perfectly cold. The goddess and the little female collier examineeach other stealthily.

  "Rather alarming," thinks the latter: "talks in such a low voice, andhas such a difficulty in pronouncing her _r_'s. So that is the correctthing, is it? Well, I'll always call Robert _Wobert_ for the future."

  "Might be pretty, if she were not so filthy," thinks the other.

  "Same age as I am, indeed! She looks five years older."

  "I think, if you don't mind, we had perhaps better be going to dress.Sir Thomas is so very particular as to punctuality."

  "Is he? was that Sir Thomas that got out of the window just as I camein?"

  "Oh no! that was St. John."

  ("St. John! What a pretty name! How much prettier than Bob!")

  * * * * *

  Sir Thomas Gerard is walking up and down the library, with his watchin his hand, prepared the instant the clock strikes to ring the bellviolently, and inquire what is the meaning of dinner being so late.Sir Thomas is a big man, who affects the country squire, the good,old English gentleman--plain Sir Thomas, without any nonsense abouthim; dresses to the character, and succeeds in looking not unlike theFrenchman's idea of an English _milord_, as depicted in _Punch_ someyears ago, where he is represented in low-crowned hat and breeches,with the face of a truculent butcher, cracking a whip, and exclaiming,with equal coherency and elegance, "Rosbif! I send my wife to Smiffel!God dam!"

  Sir Thomas does not use such strong language when speaking of LadyGerard, but in other respects the portrait is not unfaithful. LadyGerard is lying in an arm-chair. She is fat to make you shudder; shehas a short, turn-up nose, short legs, a red skin, and next to nohair--all very good points in a pig, but hardly so good in a lady. Theclock strikes, and at the same instant the butler opens the door, andannounces "Dinner!"

  "Come along, Conny!" says Sir Thomas, sticking out his elbow to hisward.

  "Are not you going to wait for Miss Craven? And St. John is not down,either," suggests Lady Gerard, who is hoisting herself slowly up out ofher chair.

  "Wait for 'em? Not I," responds Sir Roger de Coverley. "If people don'tchoose to conform to the rules of my house, they may go without theirdinner for all I care, and serve 'em right, too. Come along, Conny!"

  The soup is nearly ended when two people, who have come together by afortuitous concourse of atoms at the door, make a simultaneous entryinto the dining-room.

  "Companions in iniquity!" says St. John, with a sarcastic look at hisfather, bowing to Esther, as he seats himself beside Miss Blessington.

  "How do?" says Sir Thomas, putting out his left hand (his right isstill grasping his spoon). "Never wait for anybody here; would not letthe soup get cold for the Queen nor the Lord Chancellor either."

  "Miss Craven mistook you for Sir Thomas before dinner," says MissBlessington, in her sweet, smooth way to her neighbour.

  "Did she? Unintentional compliments are always the most flattering,"replies Mr. Gerard, quietly.

  Then he looks across through the partition wall of great bigonias insilver pots, and sees a little face peeping at him under and over thebroad crimson leaves
.

  No one would ever call Esther's a Madonna face. No artist would everask her to sit for St. Catherine, or St. Cecilia, or St. Anybody else;hers is essentially _beaute du diable_--one of those little, sparkling,provoking, petulant faces that have a fresh dress of smiles or tears,or dimples or blushes, for every trivial, passing question; one ofthose little faces that have been at the bottom of half the mischiefsthe world has seen.

  "I only saw a pair of legs," replies the face, exculpating itself; "howcould I tell whether they were young or old legs?"

  Miss Blessington looks rather shocked, as if she thought that Esther'smodes of expression were somewhat _libre;_ and indeed at the rate ofpurity at which we are advancing, _legs_ will soon walk off into thelimbo of silence and unmentionableness; _arms_ will probably followthem, and then perhaps noses.

  Although Miss Blessington looks shocked, St. John only laughs. He lookspleasant when he laughs; he did not look pleasant just now, when he wasturning up his nose at his cold soup. When he is in an ill-humour hehas a decided look of his father, though it puts him into an awful rageto tell him so. He is not handsome, certainly; not a straight-nosed,pink-cheeked, flaxen-curled, fairy prince at all; neither is he veryyoung--not a boy, that is to say--five-and-thirty, or thereabouts;his face has a weather-beaten look, as of one that has felt many anicy wind and many a tropic sun beat against it. No lily-handed, curledwoman's darling.

  "What do you mean?" cries Sir Thomas, raising his voice, and turninground in a fury (with his stiff grey hair standing upright, and theveins in his forehead swelling) upon an unlucky footman, who has hadthe _maladresse_ to drop three spoons that he was carrying upon a tray."You stupid hound, mind what you are about, or else keep out of theroom, one or the other!"

  Esther's mouth opens; she feels a sensation of shamefaced aghastness;but the rest of the company sit with the composure induced by longfamiliarity with the good old English gentleman's courtesies. Only onelittle flash of indignant contempt shoots from St. John's grey eyes."How I hate my father!" would be his reading of the great statesman'sdying ejaculation, "How I love my country!"

  Nobody ever speaks much at dinner at Felton. St. John because he knows,if he trusted himself to speak at all, it would be to contradict hisfather flat _whatever_ he said, for the mere pleasure of contradictinghim; Lady Gerard because she has heard that it is impossible to do twothings well at the same time, and as she is quite resolved upon doingthe eating part well, she thinks she will leave the talking alone; MissBlessington because, having contributed her hard, cold beauty to theentertainment, she thinks she has done enough.

  The company being rather silent, Esther turns her eyes round the room,and scans the pictures. Two or three Gerards, by Sir Thomas Lawrence,in very full dress; a large copper-coloured woman by Rubens, in nodress at all; "Susanna and the Elders;" "Jupiter and Leda" (twicelife-size); a "Venus Sleeping, surprised by Satyrs" (a great gem);and many other like subjects, such as one mostly meets with in thedining-rooms of English nobles and gentles--subjects pleasant andprofitable, to employ the eyes and minds of their daughters whileengaged in eating their dinners. Esther is staring hard at Susanna'sfat, coy face, when her attention is recalled by Mr. Gerard's voiceaddressing her. She starts and blushes furiously, like a child whosefingers have been found straying among the jam-pots. He looks amused ather confusion.

  "I have just been thinking, Miss Craven, how pleasant your firstimpressions of us must be. What a well-mannered, courteous family youmust think us!--I tumbling out of the window at the risk of breakingmy neck to avoid you, and my father and mother going to dinner withoutyou."

  "If you had been a little quicker in your movements, I should haveknown nothing about you," responds she, the carmine called forth by herdetection dying slowly out of her cheeks, and noticing only the half ofhis sentence that refers to himself.

  "Ah! I am not so young as I was" (with a sigh); "but, to tell thetruth, we had just been dragging the pool, like Boodles in 'HappyThoughts,' and I was such a mass of mud that I had not moral courage toface you."

  "We should have met on equal terms. I was as black as a coal, was notI?"

  "Railroads do make one wonderfully dusty," replies Miss Blessington,with a polite, evasive platitude.

  "I had a worse infliction than any dust to bear," says Esther,stretching her long throat around the bigonia to get a fuller view ofher _vis-a-vis_.

  "A baby, of course?" replies he, stretching his neck too for a likepurpose.

  "An aggravated case of baby--a baby that had something odd the matterwith it."

  "Not so bad as a man drinking sherry," says he, his grey eyes and a bitof his nose laughing through the leaves; "a woman eating gingerbreadis bad enough. I travelled once with a woman who ate gingerbread fromLondon to Holyhead without stopping."

  "And did not offer you any?"

  "Good heavens, no! What a prodigious suggestion!--that would have beenadding insult to injury."

  "If I had been travelling with you I should undoubtedly have offeredyou some. I should have judged you by myself, and I am very fond ofgingerbread."

  "Indeed!"

  "And" (with a mischievous look) "fonder still of peppermint lozenges,particularly in church on hot Sunday afternoons."

  They were getting quite voluble, chatting and chirping like a nest ofmagpies--like children playing and laughing in a garden, unmindful thatin a cave in a corner is a great old bear who may pounce out on them atany moment. The Felton bear pounces.

  "What the devil do you mean leaving that door open? Morris! John!George! Here, some of you! there's a door open somewhere between hereand the kitchen. Don't contradict me, sir! I say there is; if I catchyou propping those swing doors open," &c. &c.

  * * * * *

  The birds have gone to bed, and the slugs come out to walk on the dampgarden paths. Now and then a little wind gets up, whispers a word ortwo to the polished laurel leaves, and lies down again. There is acarpet of thin, smoke-grey clouds over heaven's blue floor. The twogirls are strolling up and down the terrace walk. Esther has got a redcloak thrown about her shoulders; she is not in the least afraid oftaking cold, and declined the offer of it in the first instance; but onsecond thoughts, reflecting that the dining-room windows look on theterrace, and that the fairy prince may see and like the combination ofblack eyes and red cloth (fairy princes being always partial to gaycolours), accepted it.

  I have called Esther "little," and Miss Blessington "large" but thetruth is they are much of a height. The difference between them is,that one is a young, slight sapling that has been so busy shooting upskywards, that it has had no leisure to grow broad, and that the otheris a full-grown, spreading, stately forest tree. And yet they are thesame age; but some women develop, mind and body, much quicker thanothers.

  From the unshuttered dining-room windows comes a great square of yellowlamplight, and lies smooth upon the gravel. Looking in you see rifledfruit dishes, half-filled wine-glasses, moths flying round and roundthe lamp globes, trying their best to find an entrance to fiery death.

  Sir Thomas, in his red velvet easy chair, with his white duck legsstretched out before him--duck trousers and a blue coat and brassbuttons are, I need hardly say, the fine old English gentleman's dinnercostume--with his head thrown back, till you can see either up into hisbrains or down his throat, whichever you choose. St. John, with hiselbow resting on the shining oak table, which reflects it as a mirrorwould, and his head on his hand, in a brown study.

  "Do you always walk up and down here, Miss Blessington?" inquiresEsther, who is getting rather tired of pacing along, along, alongmonotonously, with her gown sweeping a little avalanche of pebblesbehind her.

  "Generally" (with a pretty smile).

  Miss Blessington has a very pretty smile--an "angelic smile"--peoplesay who see her only once; but it is only one, and is aired every hourof the day--comes out for Sir Thomas, for Lady Gerard, for servants,for dogs, for callers, for old almswomen, for St. John--so that nonecan take i
t personally, can they?

  "By yourself?"

  "Not generally."

  The pretty smile is dashed with a faint complacency.

  ("H'm! That means with St. John--

  "'Walking in a shady grove With my Juliana.'

  "Pleasant look-out for me! A bad third! What a pity that Bob is nothere! we should be a _partie carree_, and might change partners everynow and then; Miss Blessington should have Bob, and I would have St.John!")

  Below the terrace spreads a large square of grass, uninvaded byflower-bed or shrub, mowed and rolled, rolled and mowed, into thesimilitude of a pancake for flatness. There croquet-hoops glancewhitely in the soft half-light; mallets lie strewn like dead soldiersafter a battle; balls red, blue, and yellow, like great ripe fruittumbled among the grass.

  "Is this your croquet-ground?"

  "Yes."

  "Nice and level?"

  "Yes."

  "Like a billiard table, only a prettier green?"

  "Yes; would you like a game?"

  "Better than doing nothing, isn't it?" answers Esther, cheerily; shebeing a young woman to whom the words _rest_ and _enjoyment_ are notsynonymous, as they mostly grow to be to people in later years.

  From the dining-room comes the faint melody of the trombone, playedwith the skill of much practice by Sir Thomas's nose. Some one comesto the window, looks out, puts a hand on the sill, and jumps down. St.John apparently has an aversion from going out and coming in by theauthorised modes of exit and entrance. Now that one can see him withoutany bigonia interposing, one notices that he has kind, eager eyes--eyesthat seem to be looking, looking for something that they have not foundyet--and rather a long nose, that the sun has got hold of and browned,as a cook browns mashed potatoes.

  "Won't you join us, St. John?" asks Miss Blessington, stooping toreinstate a fallen hoop, and looking calm invitation at him out of hergreat, fine, passionless, cow eyes.

  St. John hesitates, and looks towards Esther to see whether she is notgoing to second the invitation; but she is balancing herself with hertwo feet on a croquet-mallet, and does not appear to see him.

  "Gooseberry I may be," she thinks, "but, at all events, I won't beinstrumental in making myself so."

  "Do I ever play?" asks he, with petulance, walking off in a huff.

  "He did not accept your invitation with the exultant gratitude onewould have expected, did he?" says Miss Craven, maliciously.

  "He hates the game," replies Miss Blessington, rather sharplier than isher wont--"particularly playing with odd numbers."

  "Oh!"

  The match begins; it is about as fair as a foot race between Deerfootand a lame baby. Esther has played about six times in the course of herlife; Miss Blessington about six thousand. Miss Blessington makes theround of the hoops in triumphant solitude, while poor Essie strugglesfeebly, ignorantly, unscientifically, to ring a bell that refuses toemit the faintest tinkle.

  "Hare and tortoise!" cries she, laughing at her own discomfiture;"you'll go to sleep presently, and I shall crawl in and win."

  "Since you wish me, I don't mind taking a mallet," says St. John,appearing suddenly round a big Wellingtonia, and looking confusedlyconscious of being seen descending very awkwardly from his high horse.

  "How do you know we wish you to take one?--we never said so," saysEssie, flashing at him with her wicked, laughing, half-lowered eyes.("Since I am another's and he is another's, I don't see why we shouldnot try to amuse each other," she says to herself.)

  "It is your turn to play, Miss Craven," interposes Constance, coldly.

  "Come to my rescue, won't you?" says Esther, making her seventy-secondcareless, abortive attempt at the bell, and throwing twice as much_empressement_ into her voice from the amiable motive that she thinkssuch _empressement_ is displeasing to Miss Blessington.

  "You snubbed me so just now that I don't think I will. I'll leave youto perish miserably," answers he, looking at her as he speaks with anintentness only excusable by the dim light, and the indistinctness ofall objects in it.

  "Constance, if you don't mind I'll take one of Miss Craven's balls."

  "If you remember, I asked you to join us half an hour ago," repliesConstance, in her measured way.

  "I make one stipulation before we start," cries Esther, gaily, "andthat is, that you make no remarks upon my play except such as are of alaudatory nature."

  "I'll make no stipulation of the kind," answers he, gaily too; "if Isee anything reprehensible I shall testify."

  Fate does not smile upon the union of St. John and Esther. Disgrace anddisaster attend their arms; in ignorance, unskilfulness, and generalincapacity, St. John is no whit inferior to his partner.

  "Why, you play worse than I do," cries she, delighted at the discovery.

  "I know I do," he answers, not too amiably; "I should be ashamed ofmyself if I did not; it is the vilest, stupidest game ever any idiotinvented; no play in it whatever. All luck! all chance! Look there!"pointing with a sort of ill-tempered resignation to Constance, who,with dress delicately lifted with one hand, and foot gracefullypoised, is inflicting heavy chastisement, with a calm, satisfiedvindictiveness, on his ball.

  "Take that, you fool you!" (this is addressed to the ball, not to MissBlessington) hurling his mallet at it as it scuds swiftly over thesward and lodges in the pink and purple breast of an aster bed. Thehead and handle of the mallet fly asunder from the violence of theirpassage through the air, and Mr. Gerard is reduced to the ignominy ofpicking up the _disjecta membra_ and hammering them together again.

  "You must make a sensation when you go to a croquet party," remarksEsther, sarcastically.

  "Do you think so badly of me as to suppose I ever do? is thy servanta curate that he should do this thing?" he answers, coming over andstanding close to her.

  "Please attend to the game, St. John! It is you to play!" exclaimsConstance, with suppressed, lady-like irritation, from the other end ofthe ground, where she stands in majestic solitude.

  It is the penalty of greatness to be lonely. A few more egregiousblunders on the part of the firm of Gerard and Craven, a few moremasterstrokes by Miss Blessington, and the game draws to a conclusion.

  "It is ridiculous playing against such luck as yours, Constance," criesSt. John, flinging down his weapon in an unjust, unreasonable fury."It is always the same; it does not matter what--whist, billiards,anything--always the same story. Take my advice" (turning to Essie,and speaking eagerly), "never play at anything, or do anything, orbe anything with me, or you'll be sure to be a loser. I am the mostunlucky devil under the sun." Then he feels that he is making a fool ofhimself, and walks off in a rage.

  "Why, he is _really_ cross," says Esther, opening her great eyes andlooking a little blankly after him.

  "He is rather odd-tempered," answers Miss Blessington, composedly; "andthe most singular thing is, that it is always the people he is fondestof with whom he is most easily irritated."

  "How fond he must be of you!" says Esther, internally.