He sat down, rose again in a moment, and rang the bell. Then he sent a polite message to Mrs. Parish, requesting her kind attendance, if not in any way inconvenient.
"She can at least put me right on one or two points. That is, if she doesn't go off at a tangent, down some blind-alley of a side issue!"
The lady appeared after the regulation delay, by which she was in the habit of italicising the dignity of her office.
By her greeting, one would have thought the appointment was of her making. She observed that she would have come before to inquire how the Colonel felt after it all, but understood that he was engaged.
The Colonel explained with a sigh.
"He is gone."
"Ah!" There was unprecedented sympathy in the lady's look and tone.
"You saw him go?" asked the Colonel, looking up in surprise.
"I did," sadly; "I did."
"He said good-bye to you, perhaps?"
"To be sure he did! He was hardly likely to—"
"He didn't ask to see Alice, I suppose?"
"Oh, yes, he did."
"Dear me!" said the Colonel to himself.
"But she could not see him, I grieve to say; it was a thousand pities, seeing that he's going straight back to Australia."
"Oh, he told you that too, did he?"
"Of course, Colonel Bristo, when he said good-bye."
"Dear me! But why wouldn't Alice see him?"
"It was too early."
"A mere excuse," exclaimed the Colonel angrily, looking at his watch. "Too early! It is plain that she has thrown him over. If so, then the best young fellow in England has been——But perhaps you can tell me whether it really is so?"
Mrs. Parish began to feel mystified.
"A young fellow?" she began doubtfully.
"Well, young in years; older than his age, I know. But that's not my point."
"Then I really don't know, Colonel Bristo. Alice seldom honors me with her confidence nowadays. Indeed, for the last year—"
"The point—my dear madam; the point!"
"Well, then," snapped Mrs. Parish, "to judge by their dances together, last night, I should say you are certainly wrong!"
"Ah, you thought that at the time, I know. Do you remember my disagreeing with you when you declared Alice had never been more brilliant, and so on? Why she only danced with the lad once!"
Only once! "The lad!" Colonel Bristo must certainly be joking; and jokes at the expense of the lady who had controlled his household for twenty years were not to be tolerated.
"Colonel Bristo, I fail to understand you. If it were not preposterous, I should imagine you had stooped to ridicule. Allow me, please, to state that your daughter danced three times, if not four, with Mr. Miles—I see nothing to smile at, Colonel Bristo!"
"My good—my dear Mrs. Parish," said he, correcting himself hastily, and rising urbanely from his chair, "we are at cross purposes. I mean young Edmonstone; you mean, I suppose, Mr. Miles. A thousand apologies."
Mrs. Parish was only partially appeased.
"Oh, if you mean that young gentleman, I can assure you he has absolutely no chance. Has he said good-bye, too, then?"
"Yes. He says he is going back to Australia."
"I said he would!" exclaimed Mrs. Parish with gusto.
"But—I say! You surely don't mean that it is Mr. Miles Alice cares for?"
Mrs. Parish smiled superior.
"Has it not been patent?"
"Not to me, madam!" said Colonel Bristo warmly.
"Love on both sides; I might say at first sight. I watched it dawn, and last night I thought it had reached high noon," the old lady declared with emotion. "But this unfortunate summons! Still, I think we shall see him again before he sails, and I think he will come back to England for good before long."
"You mean you hope so, Mrs. Parish," said the Colonel dryly. He seated himself at his desk with unmistakable meaning. "Confound her!" he muttered when the door closed; "the thing is plausible enough. Yet I don't believe it. What's more, much as I like Miles, I don't wish it! No. Now what am I to do about Dick?"
This question occupied his thoughts for the rest of the morning. He could not answer it to his satisfaction. In the afternoon he sent word to Iris Lodge, begging Dick to come over in the evening for an hour. The messenger brought back the news that Mr. Edmonstone was from home—had, in fact, left for abroad that afternoon.
"Abroad!" thought Colonel Bristo. "He has lost no time! But 'abroad' only means the Continent—it is 'out' when you go farther. And yet that is one way out—the quickest! Is he capable of such madness at a moment's notice? Never; impossible. But I had better look into the matter myself."
And this the Colonel did in the course of a few days, by himself calling at Iris Lodge. There was a little coldness, or it may have been merely self-consciousness, in his reception. But when, after a few preliminaries, the visitor began to speak of Dick, this soon wore off; for his regard was too warmly expressed, and his praise too obviously genuine, not to win and melt hearts half as loving as those of Mrs. Edmonstone and her daughter. The Colonel, for his part, was sufficiently rewarded when he learnt that Dick had merely joined an old Australian friend in Italy, and would be back at the beginning of August.
"I was half afraid," he observed tentatively, "that he was tired of England already, and was on his way out again."
The horror with which this notion was instantly demolished caused the old gentleman to smile with unconcealed satisfaction; for it assured him that Dick's intention (if it was an intention, and not merely the wild idea of a heated moment) had at least not yet been breathed to his family. He took up his hat and cane with a light heart. And he stopped to add a rider to his gracious adieu:
"We shall be tramping the moors when your son returns, Mrs. Edmonstone, so I beg you will forward him on to us. And pray, Miss Fanny, use your influence as well, for we have lost our other Australian, and I don't see how we can get on without Dick."
He went out in good spirits.
Thereafter, as far as the Colonel was concerned, young Edmonstone might bake himself to his heart's content—until the Twelfth—abroad. As it happened, Colonel Bristo found a far more immediate cause for anxiety at home. This was the appearance of Alice.
As July drew near its latter days, the change in her looks passed the perceptible stage to the noticeable. Her colouring had been called her best point by some, her only good one by others (possibly according to the sex of the critic); yet now her face was wholly void of colour. The flower-like complexion was, if possible, more delicate than before, but now it resembled the waxen lily instead of the glowing wild rose. Even the full, firm lips were pale and pinched. Her eyes were either dull or restless, and their dark setting seemed more prominent: shadows lay below them where no shadows should have been. For the rest, any real activity of mind or body seemed as impossible to her as any real repose; she appeared to have gained only in thoughtfulness—as indicated by silence. On fine days, though the river could not charm her, she would dress for walking, and come back tired out in twenty minutes. On wet ones she divided her time between the first few pages of a book, and the first few bars of a waltz; between the two she never got any farther in either. Perhaps experience had taught her that all the tune of a waltz is at the beginning; and I suppose she failed to "get into" her novels. Her ear was sensitive, attuned to her temper; common sounds startled her painfully; the unexpected opening or shutting of a door went far to unhinge both nerves and temper. The latter, indeed, was less sweet at this period than ever in her life before, and none knew it so well as she herself, who bore the brunt of it in her own heart.