"It is very kind in her," said Lady Tyrrell.
"I confess," said Professor Tallboys, "that I am not sorry that such an occasion should occur of showing an American lady's domestic powers. I flatter myself they do not discredit her cause."
Just then were heard the wheels of the drag, and in rushed one of the boys, grasping Eleonora's skirts, and proclaiming, "We've got the grub! Oysters and a pie! Oh my!"
"Satisfactory!" said the friend. "But let go, Ducky, you are rumpling Miss Vivian."
"She's coming to see the quarion! You promised, Lena! Here's a jolly crayfish! He'll pinch!"
There was a small conservatory or glazed niche on one side of the room, into which the boy dragged Lenore, and Julius followed, dimly sensible of what the quarion might be, and hoping for a word with the young lady, while he trusted to his wife to occupy her sister.
The place contained two desolate camellias, with leaves in the same proportion as those on trees in the earlier ages of illumination, and one scraggy, leafless geranium, besides a green and stagnant tank, where a goldfish moved about, flapping and gasping, as the boy disturbed it in his search for the crayfish. He absorbed all the conversation, so that Julius could only look back into the room, where an attempt at artistic effect was still dimly visible through accumulated litter. The Venus of Milo stood on a bracket, with a riding-whip in her arms, and a bundle of working society tickets behind her, and her vis-a-vis, the Faun of Praxiteles, was capped by a glove with one finger pointing upwards, and had a ball of worsted tangled about his legs; but further observation was hindered by the man-servant's voice at the outer door, "Master Ducky, where are you? Your ma says you are to go to bed directly."
"No, no, I'll put myself to bed!"
"Come, sir, please do, like a good boy-Master Pinney won't go without you, and I must put him to bed while they are dishing up. Come, sir, I've got a mince-pie for you."
"And some oysters-Bobby said I should have some oysters!"
"Yes, yes; come along, sir."
And Master Ducky submitted to his fate, while Julius looked his wonder, and asked, "Is he nursery-maid?"
"Just now, since the bonne went," said Lenore. "He is a most faithful, attached servant, who will do anything for them. She does attach people deeply when the first shock is over."
"I am coming to believe so," he answered. "There seem to me to be excellent elements."
"I am so glad!" said Lenore; "she is so thorough, so true and frank; and much of this oddness is really an inconsistent struggle to keep out of debt."
"Well! at any rate I am thankful to her for this opportunity of seeing you," said Julius. "We have both been longing to speak our welcome to you."
"Thank you. It is so kind," she fervently whispered; "all the kinder for the state of things that is insisted on-though you know that it can make no real difference," she added, apparently addressing the goldfish.
"Frank knows it," said Julius, in a low voice.
"I trust he does, though I cannot see him to assure him-you will?" she added, looking up at him with a shy brightness in her eye and a flush on her cheek.
"Yes, indeed!" he said, laying his hand on hers for a moment. "I fear you may both have much to pull through, but I think you are of a steadfast nature."
"I hope so-I think I am, for none of my feelings seem to me ever to change, except that I get harder, and, I am afraid, bitterer."
"I can understand your feeling that form of trial."
"Oh, if you could, and would help me!"
"As a brother; if I may."
Again she laid a hand on his, saying, "I have longed to talk openly to you ever since we met in the cow-shed; but I could not make any advance to any of you, because," she whispered in haste, "I thought it my duty to hold back from Frank. And now, till we go away, Camilla watches me and occupies me every minute, will not even let me ride out with papa. I wonder she lets me talk to you now."
"We know each other," said Julius, shortly.
It was so. Once, in the plain-spoken days of childhood, Miles and Julius had detected Camilla Vivian in some flagrant cheating at a game, and had roundly expressed their opinion. In the subsequent period of Raymond's courtship, Miles had succumbed to the fascination, but Julius had given one such foil, that she had never again attempted to cajole him.
"I have seen that you did from the first," said Lenore. "And it would make it much easier to talk to you than to any outsider, who would never understand, even if it were possible for me to explain, how hard it is to see which way my duty lies-especially filial."
"Do you mean in general, or in this special matter?"
"Both. You see, in her hands he is so different from what he was before she came home, that I don't feel as if I was obeying him- only her; and I don't think I am bound to do that. Not in the great matter, I am clear. Nobody can meddle with my real sincere pledge of myself to Frank, nobody!" she spoke as if there was iron in her lips. "But as far as overt acts go, they have a right to forbid me, till I am of age at least, and we must bear it."
"Yes, you are right there."
"But there are thousands of other little cases of right and wrong, and altogether I have come to such a spirit of opposition that I find it easier to resist than to do anything with a good grace."
"You cannot always tell when resistance is principle, and when temper or distaste."
"There's distaste enough always," said poor Lenore.
"To gaieties?" he said, amazed as one habituated to his wife's ravenous appetite for any sort of society or amusement.
"Of course," she answered sadly. "A great deal of trouble just for a little empty babble. Often not one word worth remembering, and a general sense of having been full of bad feelings."
"No enjoyment?" he asked in surprise.
"Only by the merest chance and exception," she answered, surprised at his surprise; "what is there to enjoy?"
The peculiar-looking clergyman might have seemed more likely to ask such a question than the beautiful girl, but he looked at her anxiously and said, "Don't nourish morbid dislike and contempt, my dear Lena, it is not a safeguard. There are such things as perilous reactions. Try to weigh justly, and be grateful for kindness, and to like what is likeable."
At that moment, after what had been an interval of weary famine to all but these two, host and hostess appeared, the lady as usual, picturesque, though in the old black silk, with a Roman sash tied transversely, and holly in her hair; and gaily shaking hands- "That's right, Lady Rosamond; so you are trusted here! Your husband hasn't sent you to represent him?"
"I'm afraid his confidence in me did not go so far," said Rosamond.
"Ah! I see-Lady Tyrrell, how d'ye do-you've brought Lena? Well, Rector, are you prepared?"
"That depends on what you expect of me."
"Have you the convinceable spot in your mind?"
"We must find it. It is very uncommon, and indurates very soon, so we had better make the most of our opportunity," said the American lady, who had entered as resplendent as before, though in so different a style that Rosamond wondered how such a wardrobe could be carried about the world; and the sporting friend muttered, "Stunning! she has been making kickshaws all day, and looks as if she came out of a bandbox! If all women were like that, it might pay."
It was true. Mrs. Tallboys was one of those women of resource whose practical powers may well inspire the sense of superiority, and with the ease and confidence of her country.
The meal was a real success. That some portion had been procured, ready dressed, at Backsworth, was evident, but all that had been done at home had a certain piquant Transatlantic flavour, in which the American Muse could be detected; and both she and her husband were polished, lively, and very agreeable, in spite of the twang in their voices. Miss Moy, the Captain and his friend, talked horses at one end of the table, and Rosamond faltered her woman's horror for the rights of her sex, increased by this supposed instance.