A house there is, and that's enough,
From whence one fatal morning issues
A brace of warriors, not in buff,
But rustling in their silks and tissues.
The heroines undertook the task;
Thro' lanes unknown, o'er stiles they ventured,—
Rapped at the door, nor stayed to ask,
But bounce into the parlour entered.
Gray's Long Story.
'No carmine? Nor scarlet lake in powder?'
'Could procure some, my Lord.'
'Thank you, the actinia would not live. I must take what I can find. A lump of gamboge—'
'If you stay much longer, he will not retain his senses,' muttered James Frost, who was leaning backwards against the counter, where the bewildered bookseller of the little coast-town of Bickleypool was bustling, in the vain endeavour to understand and fulfil the demands of that perplexing customer, Lord Fitzjocelyn.
'Some drawing-paper. This is hardly absorbent enough. If you have any block sketch-books?—'
'Could procure some, my Lord.'
James looked at his watch, while the man dived into his innermost recesses. 'The tide!' he said.
'Never mind, we shall only stick in the mud.'
'How could you expect to find anything here? A half-crown paint-box is their wildest dream.'
'Keep quiet, Jem, go and look out some of those library books, like a wise man.'
'A wise man would be at a loss here,' said James, casting his eye along the battered purple backs of the circulating-library books.
'Wisdom won't condescend! Ah! thank you, this will do nicely. Those colours—yes; and the Seaside Book. I'll choose one or two. What is most popular here?'
James began to whistle; but Louis, taking up a volume, became engrossed beyond the power of hints, and hardly stepped aside to make way for some ladies who entered the shop. A peremptory touch of the arm at length roused him, and holding up the book to the shopman, he put it into his pocket, seized his ash-stick, put his arm into his cousin's, and hastened into the street.
'Did you ever see—' began Jem.
'Most striking. I did not know you had met with her. What an idea—the false self conjuring up phantoms—'
'What are you talking of? Did you not see her?'
'Elizabeth Barrett. Was she there?'
'Is that her name? Do you know her?'
'I had heard of her, but never—'
'How?—where? Who is she?'
'I only saw her name in the title-page.'
'What's all this? You did not see her?'
'Who? Did not some ladies come into the shop?'
'Some ladies! Is it possible? Why, I touched you to make you look.'
'I thought it was your frenzy about the tide. What now?—'
James made a gesture of despair. 'The loveliest creature I ever saw. You may see her yet, as she comes out. Come back!'
'Don't be so absurd,' said Fitzjocelyn, laughing, and, with instinctive dislike of staring, resisting his cousin's effort to wheel him round. 'What, you will?' withdrawing his arm. 'I shall put off without you, if you don't take care.'
And, laughing, he watched Jem hurry up the sloping street and turn the corner, then turned to pursue his own way, his steps much less lame and his looks far more healthful than they had been a month before. He reached the quay—narrow, slippery, and fishy, but not without beauty, as the green water lapped against the hewn stones, and rocked the little boats moored in the wide bay, sheltered by a richly-wooded promontory. 'Jem in a fit of romance! Well, whose fault will it be if we miss the tide? I'll sit in the boat, and read that poem again.— Oh! here he comes, out of breath. Well, Jem, did the heroine drop glove or handkerchief? Or, on a second view, was she minus an eye?'
'You were,' said James, hurrying breathlessly to unmoor the boat.
'Let me row,' said Louis; 'your breath and senses are both lost in the fair vision.'
'It is of no use to talk to you—'
'I shall ask no questions till we are out of the harbour, or you will be running foul of one of those colliers—a tribute with which the Fair Unknown may dispense.'
The numerous black colliers and lighters showed that precautions were needful till they had pushed out far enough to make the little fishy town look graceful and romantic; and the tide was ebbing so fast, that Louis deemed it prudent to spend his strength on rowing rather than on talking.
James first broke silence by exclaiming—'Do you know where Beauchastel is?'
'On the other side of the promontory. Don't you remember the spire rising among the trees, as we see it from the water?'
'That church must be worth seeing. I declare I'll go there next Sunday.'
Another silence, and Louis said—'I am curious to know whether you saw her.'
'She was getting into the carriage as I turned the corner; so I went back and asked Bull who they were.'
'I hope she was the greengrocer's third cousin.'
'Pshaw! I tell you it was Mrs. Mansell and her visitors.'
'Oho! No wonder Beauchastel architecture is so grand. What an impudent fellow you are, Jem!'
'The odd thing is,' said James, a little ashamed of Louis having put Mansell and Beauchastel together, as he had not intended, 'that it seems they asked Bull who we were. I thought one old lady was staring hard at you, as if she meant to claim acquaintance, but you shot out of the shop like a sky-rocket.'
'Luckily there's no danger of that. No one will come to molest us here.'
'Depend on it, they are meditating a descent on his lordship.'
'You shall appear in my name, then.'
'Too like a bad novel: besides, you don't look respectable enough for my tutor. And, now I think of it, no doubt she was asking Bull how he came to let such a disreputable old shooting-jacket into his shop.'
The young men worked up an absurd romance between them, as merrily they crossed the estuary, and rowed up a narrow creek, with a whitewashed village on one side, and on the other a solitary house, the garden sloping to the water, and very nautical—the vane, a union-jack waved by a brilliant little sailor on the top of a mast, and the arbour, half a boat set on end; whence, as James steered up to the stone steps that were one by one appearing, there emerged an old, grizzly, weather-beaten sailor, who took his pipe from his mouth, and caught hold of the boat.
'Thank you, Captain!' cried Fitzjocelyn. 'I've brought home the boat safe, you see, by my own superhuman exertions—no thanks to Mr. Frost, there!'
'That's his way, Captain,' retorted Jem, leaping out, and helping his cousin: 'you may thank me for getting him home at all! But for me, he would have his back against the counter, and his head in a book, this very moment.'
'Ask him what he was after,' returned Louis.
'Which of us d'ye think most likely to lag, Captain Hannaford?' cried Jem, preventing the question.
'Which would you choose to have on board?'
'Ye'd both of ye make more mischief than work,' said the old seaman, who had been looking from one to the other of the young men, as if they were performing a comedy for his special diversion.
'So you would not enter us on board the Eliza Priscilla?' cried Louis.
'No, no,' said the old man, shrewdly, and with an air of holding something back; whereupon they both pressed him, and obtained for answer, 'No, no, I wouldn't sail with you'—signing towards Fitzjocelyn—'in my crew: ye'd be more trouble than ye're worth. And as to you, sir, if I wouldn't sail with ye, I'd like still less to sail under you.'
He finished with a droll, deprecating glance, and Louis laughed heartily; but James was silent, and as soon as they had entered the little parlour, declared that it would not do to encourage that old skipper—he was waylaying them like the Ancient Mariner, and was actually growing impudent.
'An old man's opinion of two youngsters is not what I call impudence,' began Louis, with an emphasis that made Jem divert his attack.
Those two cousins had never spent a happier month than in these small lodgings, built by the old retired merchant-seaman evidently on the model of that pride of his heart, the Eliza Priscilla, his little coasting trader, now the charge of his only surviving son; for this was a family where drowning was like a natural death, and old Captain Hannaford looked on the probability of sleeping in Ebbscreek churchyard, much as Bayard did at the prospect of dying in his bed. His old deaf wife kept the little cabin-like rooms most exquisitely neat; and the twelve-years-old Priscilla, the orphan of one of the lost sons, waited on the gentlemen with an old-fashioned, womanly deportment and staid countenance that, in the absence of all other grounds of distress, Louis declared was quite a pain to him.
The novelty of the place, the absence of restraint, the easy life, and, above all, the freshness of returning health, rendered his spirits exceedingly high, and he had never been more light-hearted and full of mirth. James, elated at his rapid improvement, was scarcely less full of liveliness and frolic, enjoying to the utmost the holiday, which perhaps both secretly felt might be the farewell to the perfect carelessness of boyish relaxation. Bathing, boating, fishing, dabbling, were the order of the day, and withal just enough quarrelling and teasing to add a little spice to their pleasures. Louis was over head and ears in maritime natural history; but Jem, backed by Mrs. Hannaford, prohibited his 'messes' from making a permanent settlement in the parlour; though festoons of seaweed trellised the porch, ammonites heaped the grass-plat, tubs of sea-water flanked the approach to the front door; and more than one bowl, with inmates of a suspicious nature, was often deposited even on the parlour table.
On the afternoon following the expedition to Bickleypool, Louis was seated, with an earthenware pan before him, coaxing an actinia with raw beef to expand her blossom, to be copied for Miss Faithfull. Another bowl stood near, containing some feathery serpulas; and the weeds were heaped on the locker of the window behind him, and on the back of the chair which supported his lame foot. The third and only remaining chair accommodated James, with a book placed on the table; and a semicircle swept round it, within which nothing marine might extend.
Louis was by turns drawing, enticing his refractory sitter, exhorting her to bloom, and complimenting her delicate beauty, until James, with a groan, exclaimed, 'Is silence impossible to you, Fitzjocelyn? I would go into the garden, but that I should be beset by the intolerable old skipper!'
'I beg your pardon—I thought you never heard nor heeded me.'
'I don't in general, but this requires attention; and it is past all bearing to hear how you go on to that Jelly!'
'Read aloud, then: it will answer two purposes.
'This is Divinity—Hooker,' said James, sighing wearily.
'So much the better. I read some once; I wish I had been obliged to go on.'
'You are the oddest fellow!—After all, I believe you have a craving after my profession.'
'Is that a discovery?' said Louis, washing the colour out of his brush. 'The only person I envy is a country curate—except a town one.'
'Don't talk like affectation!' growled James.
'Do you know, Jem,' said Louis, leaning back, and drawing the brush between his lips, 'I am persuaded that something will turn up to prevent it from being your profession.'
'Your persuasions are wrong, then!'
'That fabulous uncle in the Indies—'
'You know I am determined to accept nothing from my uncle, were he to lay it at my feet—which he never will.'
'Literally or metaphorically?' asked Louis, softly.
'Pshaw!'
'You Dynevors don't resemble my sea-pink. See how she stretches her elegant fringes for this very unpleasant bit of meat! There! I won't torment you any more; read, and stop my mouth!'
'You are in earnest?'
'You seem to think that if a man cannot be a clergyman, he is not to be a Christian.'
'Then don't break in with your actinias and stuff!'
'Certainly not,' said Louis, gravely.
The first interruption came from James himself. Leaping to his feet with a sudden bound, he exclaimed, 'There they are!' and stood transfixed in a gaze of ecstasy.
'You have made me smudge my lake,' said Louis, in the mild tone of 'Diamond, Diamond!'
'I tell you, there they are!' cried James, rushing into wild activity.
'One would think it the Fair Unknown,' said Louis, not troubling himself to look round, nor desisting from washing out his smudge.
'It is! it is!—it is all of them! Here they come, I tell you, and the place is a very merman's cave!'
'Take care—the serpula—don't!' as James hurriedly opened the door leading to the stairs—disposed of the raw meat on one step and the serpulas on another, and hurled after them the heap of seaweed, all but one trailing festoon of 'Luckie Minnie's lines,' which, while his back was turned, Louis by one dexterous motion wreathed round the crown of his straw hat; otherwise never stirring, but washing quietly on, until he rose as little Priscilla opened the door, and stood aside, mutely overawed at the stream of flounced ladies that flowed past, and seemed to fill up the entire room. It was almost a surprise to find that, after all, there were only three of them!
'I knew I was not mistaken,' said a very engaging, affectionate voice. 'It is quite shocking to have to introduce myself to you—Lady Conway—'
'My aunt!' cried Louis, with eager delight—'and my cousin!' he added, turning with a slight blush towards the maiden, whom he felt, rather than saw, to be the worthy object of yesterday's rapture.
'Not quite,' she answered, not avoiding the grasp of his hand, but returning it with calm, distant politeness.
'Not quite,' repeated Lady Conway. 'Your real cousins are no farther off than Beauchastel—'
'Where you must come and see them,' added the third lady—a portly, cordial, goodnatured dame, whom Lady Conway introduced as Mrs. Mansell, who had known his mother well; and Louis making a kind of presentation of his cousin James, the two elder ladies were located on two of the chairs: the younger one, as if trying to be out of the way, placed herself on the locker. Jem stood leaning on the back of the other chair; and Louis stood over his aunt, in an ecstasy at the meeting—at the kind, warm manner and pleasant face of his aunt—and above all, at the indescribable pleasure imparted by the mere presence of the beautiful girl, though he hardly dared even to look at her; and she was the only person whose voice was silent in the chorus of congratulation, on the wonderful chance that had brought the aunt and nephew together. The one had been a fortnight at Beauchastel, the other a month at Ebbscreek, without guessing at each other's neighbourhood, until Lady Conway's attention had been attracted at the library by Louis's remarkable resemblance to her sister, and making inquiries, she had learnt that he was no other than Lord Fitzjocelyn. She was enchanted with the likeness, declaring that all she wished was to see him look less delicate, and adding her entreaties to those of Mrs. Mansell, that the two young men would come at once to Beauchastel.
Louis looked with wistful doubt at James, who, he knew, could not brook going to fine places in the character of tutor; but, to his surprise and pleasure, James was willing and eager, and made no demur, except that Fitzjocelyn could not walk so far, and the boat was gone out. Mrs. Mansell then proposed the ensuing Monday, when, she said, she and Mr. Mansell should be delighted to have them to meet a party of shooting gentlemen—of course they were sportsmen. Louis answered at once for James; but for himself, he could not walk, nor even ride the offered shooting-pony; and thereupon ensued more minute questions whether his ankle were still painful.
'Not more than so as to be a useful barometer. I have been testing it by the sea-weeds. If I am good for nothing else, I shall be a walking weather-glass, as well as a standing warning against man-traps.'
'You don't mean that you fell into a man-trap!' exclaimed Mrs. Mansell, in horror. 'That will be a warning for Mr. Mansell! I have such a dread of the frightful things!'
'A trap ingeniously set by myself,' said Louis. 'I was only too glad no poor poacher fell into it.'
'Your father told me that it was a fall down a steep bank,' exclaimed Lady Conway.
'Exactly so; but I suppose he thought it for my credit to conceal that my trap consisted of a flight of stone stops, very solid and permanent, with the trifling exception of cement.'
'If the truth were known,' said James, 'I believe that a certain scamp of a boy was at the bottom of those steps.'
'I'm the last person to deny it,' said Louis, quietly, though not without rising colour, 'there was a scamp of a boy at the bottom of the steps, and very unpleasant he found it—though not without the best consequences, and among them the present—' And he turned to Lady Conway with a pretty mixture of gracefulness and affection, enough to win the heart of any aunt.
Mrs. Mansell presently fell into raptures at the sight of the drawing materials, which must, she was sure, delight Isabel, but she was rather discomfited by the sight of the 'subject,'—called it an odious creature, then good-humouredly laughed at herself, but would not sit down again, evidently wishing to escape from close quarters with such monsters. Lady Conway likewise rose, and looked into the basin, exclaiming, in her turn, 'Ah! I see you understand these things! Yes, they are very interesting! Virginia will be delighted; she has been begging me for an aquarium wherever we go. You must tell her how to manage it. Look, Isabel, would not she be in ecstasies?'
Miss Conway looked, but did not seem to partake in the admiration. 'I am perverse enough never to like what is the fashion,' she said.
'I tried to disgust Fitzjocelyn with his pets on that very ground,' said James; 'but their charms were too strong for him.'
'Fashion is the very testimony to them,' said Louis. 'I think I could convince you.'
He would perhaps have produced his lovely serpula blossoms, but he was forced to pass on to his aunt and Mrs. Mansell, who had found something safer for their admiration, in the shape of a great Cornu ammonis in the garden.
'He can throw himself into any pursuit,' said James, as he paused at the door with Miss Conway; but suddenly becoming aware of the slimy entanglement round his hat, he exclaimed, 'Absurd fellow!' and pulled it off rather petulantly, adding, with a little constraint, 'Recovery does put people into mad spirits! I fancy the honest folks here look on in amaze.'
Miss Conway gave a very pretty smile of sympathy and consolation, that shone like a sunbeam on her beautiful pensive features and dark, soft eyes. Then she began to admire the view, as they stood on the turf, beside Captain Hannaford's two small cannon, overlooking the water towards Bickleypool, with a purple hill rising behind it. A yacht was sailing into the harbour, and James ran indoors to fetch a spy-glass, while Lady Conway seized the occasion of asking her nephew his tutor's name.
Louis, who had fancied she must necessarily understand all his kindred, was glad to guard against shocks to Jem's sensitive pride, and eagerly explained the disproportion between his birth and fortune, and his gallant efforts to relieve his grandmother from her burthens. He was pleased to find that he had touched all his auditors, and to hear kind-hearted Mrs. Mansell repeat her special invitation to Mr. Frost Dynevor with double cordiality.
'If you must play practical jokes,' said James, as they watched the carriage drive off, 'I wish you would choose better moments for them.'
'I thought you would be more in character as a merman brave,' said Louis.
'I wonder what character you thought you appeared in?'
'I never meant you to discover it while they were here, nor would you, if you were not so careful of your complexion. Come, throw it at my head now, as you would have done naturally, and we shall have fair weather again!'
'I am only concerned at the impression you have made.'
'Too late now, is it? You don't mean to be bad company for the rest of the day. It is too bad, after such a presence as has been here. She is a poem in herself. It is like a vision to see her move in that calm, gliding way. Such eyes, so deep, so tranquil, revealing the sphere apart where she dwells! An ideal! How can you be savage after sitting in the same room, and hearing that sweet, low voice?'
Meantime the young lady sat back in the carriage, dreamily hearing, and sometimes answering, the conversation of her two elders, as they returned through pretty forest-drives into the park of Beauchastel, and up to the handsome, well-kept house; where, after a few words from Mrs. Mansell, she ascended the stairs.
'Isabel!' cried a bright voice, and a girl of fourteen came skating along the polished oak corridor. 'Come and have some tea in the school-room, and tell us your adventures!' And so saying, she dragged the dignified Isabel into an old-fashioned sitting-room, where a little pale child, two years younger, sprang up, and, with a cry of joy, clung round the elder sister.
'My white bind-weed,' said Isabel, fondly caressing her, 'have you been out on the pony?'
'Oh I yes, we wanted only you. Sit down there.'
And as Isabel obeyed, the little Louisa placed herself on her lap, with one arm round her neck, and looked with proud glee at the kind, sensible-faced governess who was pouring out the tea.
'The reconnoitring party!' eagerly cried Virginia.
'Did you find the cousin?'
'Yes, we did.'
'Oh! Then what is he like?'
'You will see when he comes on Monday.'
'Coming—oh! And is he so very handsome?'
'I can see how pretty a woman your Aunt Louisa must have been.'
'News!' laughed Virginia; 'when mamma is always preaching to me to be like her!'
'Is he goodnatured?' asked Louisa.
'I had not full means of judging,' said Isabel, more thoughtfully than seemed justified by the childish question. 'His cousin is coming too,' she added; 'Mr. Frost Dynevor.'
'Another cousin!' exclaimed Virginia.
'No; a relation of Lord Ormersfield—a person to be much respected. He is heir to a lost estate, and of a very grand old family. Lord Fitzjocelyn says that he is exerting himself to the very utmost for his grandmother and orphan sister; denying himself everything. He is to be a clergyman. There was a book of divinity open on the table.'
'He must be very good!' said Louisa, in a low, impressed voice, and fondling her sister's hand. 'Will he be as good as Sir Roland?'
'Oh! I am glad he is coming!' cried Virginia. 'We have so wished to see somebody very good!'
A bell rang—a signal that Lady Conway would be in her room, where she liked her two girls to come to her while she was dressing. Louisa reluctantly detached herself from her sister, and Virginia lingered to say, 'Dress quickly, please, please, Isabel. I know there is a new bit of Sir Roland done! Oh! I hope Mr. Dynevor is like him!'
'Not quite,' said Isabel, smiling as they ran away. 'Poor children, I am afraid they will be disappointed; but long may their craving be to see 'somebody very good!'
'I am very glad they should meet any one answering the description,' said the governess. 'I don't gather that you are much delighted with the object of the expedition.'
'A pretty boy—very pretty. It quite explains all I have ever heard of his mother.'
'As you told the children.'
'More than I told the children. Their aunt never by description seemed to me my ideal, as you know. I would rather have seen a likeness to Lord Ormersfield, who—though I don't like him—has something striking in the curt, dry, melancholy dignity of his manner.'
'And how has Lord Fitzjocelyn displeased you?'
'Perhaps there is no harm in him—he may not have character enough for that; but talk, attitudes, everything betrays that he is used to be worshipped—takes it as a matter of course, and believes nothing so interesting as himself.'
'Don't you think you may have gone with your mind made up?'
'If you mean that I thought myself uncalled for, and heartily detested the expedition, you are right; but I saw what I did not expect.'
'Was it very bad?'
'A very idle practical joke, such as I dislike particularly. A quantity of wet sea-weed wound round Mr. Dynevor's hat.'
Miss King laughed. 'Really, my dear, I don't think you know what young men like from each other.'
'Mr. Dynevor did not like it,' said Isabel, 'though he tried to pass it off lightly as the spirits of recovery. Those spirits—I am afraid he has too much to suffer from them. There is something so ungenerous in practical wit, especially from a prosperous man to one unprosperous!'
'Well, Isabel, I won't contradict, but I should imagine that such things often showed people to be on the best of terms.'
Isabel shook her head, and left the room, to have her dark hair braided, with little heed from herself, as she sat dreamily over a book. Before the last bracelet was clasped, she was claimed by her two little sisters, who gave her no peace till her desk was opened, and a manuscript drawn forth, that they might hear the two new pages of her morning's work. It was a Fouque-like tale, relieving and giving expression to the yearnings for holiness and loftiness that had grown up within Isabel Conway in the cramped round of her existence. The story went back to the troubadour days of Provence, where a knight, the heir of a line of shattered fortunes, was betrothed to the heiress of the oppressors, that thus all wrongs might be redressed. They had learnt to love, when Sir Roland discovered that the lands in dispute had been won by sacrilege. He met Adeline at a chapel in a little valley, to tell the whole. They agreed to sacrifice themselves, that restitution should be made; the knight to go as a crusader to the Holy Land; the lady, after waiting awhile to tend her aged father, to enter a convent, and restore her dower to the church. Twice had Isabel written that parting, pouring out her heart in the high-souled tender devotion of Roland and his Adeline; and both feeling and description were beautiful and poetical, though unequal. Louisa used to cry whenever she heard it, yet only wished to hear it again and again, and when Virginia insisted on reading it to Miss King, tears had actually been surprised in the governess's eyes. Yet she liked still better Adeline's meek and patient temper, where breathed the feeling Isabel herself would fain cherish—the deep, earnest, spiritual life and high consecrated purpose that were with the Provencal maiden through all her enforced round of gay festivals, light minstrelsy, tourneys, and Courts of Love. Thus far had the story gone. Isabel had been writing a wild, mysterious ballad, reverting to that higher love and the true spirit of self-sacrifice, which was to thrill strangely on the ears of the thoughtless at a contention for the Golden Violet, and which she had adapted to a favourite air, to the extreme delight of the two girls. To them the Chapel in the valley, Roland and his Adeline, were very nearly real, and were the hidden joy of their hearts,—all the more because their existence was a precious secret between the three sisters and Miss King, who viewed it as such an influence on the young ones, that, with more meaning than she could have explained, she called it their Telemaque. The following-up of the teaching of Isabel and Miss King might lead to results as little suspected by Lady Conway as Fenelon's philosophy was by Louis XIV.
Lady Conway was several years older than her beautiful sister, and had married much later. Perhaps she had aimed too high, and had met with disappointments unavowed; for she had finally contented herself with becoming the second wife of Sir Walter Conway, and was now his serene, goodnatured, prosperous widow. Disliking his estate and neighbourhood, and thinking the daughters wanted London society and London masters, she shut up the house until her son should be of age, and spent the season in Lowndes-square, the autumn either abroad, in visits, or at watering-places.
Beauchastel was an annual resort of the family. Isabel was more slenderly portioned than her half-sisters; and she was one of the nearest surviving relations of her mother's cousin, Mr. Mansell, whose large comfortable house was always hospitable; and whose wife, a great dealer in goodnatured confidential gossip, used to throw out hints to her great friend Lady Conway, that much depended on Isabel's marriage—that Mr. Mansell had been annoyed at connexions formed by others of his relations—but though he had decided on nothing, the dear girl's choice might make a great difference.
Nothing could be more passive than Miss Conway. She could not remember her mother, but her childhood had been passed under an admirable governess; and though her own Miss Longman had left her, Miss King, the successor, was a person worthy of her chief confidence. At two-and-twenty, the school-room was still the home of her affections, and her ardent love was lavished on her little sisters and her brother Walter.
Going out with Lady Conway was mere matter of duty and submission. She had not such high animal spirits as to find enjoyment in her gaieties, and her grave, pensive character only attained to walking through her part; she had seen little but the more frivolous samples of society, scorned and disliked all that was worldly and manoeuvring, and hung back from levity and coquetry with utter distaste. Removed from her natural home, where she would have found duties and seen various aspects of life, she had little to interest or occupy her in her unsettled wanderings; and to her the sap of life was in books, in dreams, in the love of her brother and sisters, and in discussions with Miss King; her favourite vision for the future, the going to live with Walter at Thornton Conway when he should be of age. But Walter was younger than Louisa, and it was a very distant prospect.
Her characteristic was a calm, serene indifference, in which her stepmother acquiesced, as lovers of peace do in what they cannot help; and the more willingly, that her tranquil dignity and pensive grace exactly suited the style of her tall queenly figure, delicate features, dark soft languid eyes, and clear olive complexion, just tinged with rosebud pink.
What Louis said of her to his tutor on the Monday night of their arrival was beyond the bounds of all reason; and it was even more memorable that Jem was neither satirical nor disputatious, assented to all, and if he sighed, it was after his door was shut.
A felicitous day ensued, spent by James in shooting, by Fitzjocelyn, in the drawing-room; whither Mrs. Mansell had requested Isabel's presence, as a favour to herself. The young lady sat at work, seldom raising her eyes, but this was enough for him; his intense admiration and pleasure in her presence so exhilarated him, that he rattled away to the utmost. Louisa was at first the excuse. In no further doubt of his good-nature, she spent an hour in the morning in giving him anagrams to guess; and after she had repaired to the schoolroom, he went on inventing fresh ones, and transposing the ivory letters, rambling on in his usual style of pensive drollery. Happiness never set him off to advantage, and either there was more froth than ordinary, or it appeared unusually ridiculous to an audience who did not detect the under-current of reflection. His father would have been in despair, Mrs. Ponsonby or Mary would have interposed; but the ladies of Beauchastel laughed and encouraged him,—all but Isabel, who sat in the window, and thought of Adeline, 'spighted and angered both,' by a Navarrese coxcomb, with sleeves down to his heels, and shoes turned up to his knees. She gave herself great credit for having already created him a Viscount.
In the afternoon, Louis drove out lionizing with his aunt; but though the ponies stopped of themselves at all the notable views; sea, hill, and river were lost on him. Lady Conway could have drawn out a far less accessible person, and her outpouring of his own sentiments made him regard her as perfect.
She consulted him about her winter's resort. Louisa required peculiar care, and she had thought of trying mineral baths—what was thought of Northwold? what kind of houses were there? The Northwold faculty themselves might have taken a lesson from Fitzjocelyn's eloquent analysis of the chemical properties of the waters, and all old Mr. Frost's spirit would seem to have descended on him when he dilated on the House Beautiful. Lodgers for Miss Faithfull! what jubilee they would cause! And such lodgers! No wonder he was in ecstasy. All the evening the sound of his low, deliberate voice was unceasing, and his calm announcements to his two little cousins were each one more startling than the last; while James, to whom it was likewise all sunshine, was full of vivacity, and a shrewd piquancy of manner that gave zest to all he said, and wonderfully enlivened the often rather dull circle at Beauchastel.
Morning came; and when the ladies descended to breakfast, it was found that Lord Fitzjocelyn had gone out with the sportsmen. The children lamented, and their elders pronounced a young gentleman's passion for shooting to be quite incalculable. When, late in the day, the party returned, it was reported that he did not appear to care much for the sport; but had walked beside Mr. Mansell's shooting-pony, and had finally gone with him to see his model farm. This was a sure road to the old squire's heart, and no one was more delighted with the guest. For Aunt Catharine's sake, Louis was always attracted by old age, and his attentive manners had won Mr. Mansell's heart, even before his inquiries about his hobby had completed the charm. To expound and to listen to histories of agricultural experiments that really answered, was highly satisfactory to both, and all the evening they were eager over the great account-book which was the pride of the squire's heart; while Virginia and Louisa grumbled or looked imploring, and Isabel marvelled at there being any interest for any one in old Mr. Mansell's conversation.
'What is the meaning of this?' asked James, as they went up stairs.
Louis shrugged like a Frenchman, looked debonnaire, and said 'Good-night.'
Again he came down; prepared for shooting, though both pale and lame; but he quietly put aside all expostulations, walking on until, about fifty yards from the house, a pebble, turning under the injured foot, caused such severe pain that he could but just stagger to a tree and sit down.
There was much battling before Mr. Mansell would consent to leave him, or he to allow James to help him back to the house, before going on to overtake the party.
Very irate was Jem, at folly that seemed to have undone the benefits of the last month, and at changeableness that was a desertion of the queen to whom all homage was due. He was astonished that Louis turned into the study, a room little inhabited in general, and said, 'Make haste—you will catch the others; don't fall in with the ladies.'
'I mean to send your aunt to you.'
'Pray don't. Can't you suppose that peace is grateful after having counted every mortal hour last night?'
'Was that the reason you were going to walk ten miles without a leg to stand upon? Fitzjocelyn! is this systematic?'
'What is?' said Louis, wearily.
'Your treatment of—your aunt.'
'On what system should aunts be treated?'
'Of all moments to choose for caprice! Exactly when I thought even you were fixed!'
'Pur troppo,' sighed Louis.
'Ha!' cried Jem, 'you have not gone and precipitated matters! I thought you could never amaze me again; but even you might have felt she was a being to merit rather more time and respect!'
'Even I am not devoid of the organ of veneration.'
His meek tone was a further provocation; and with uplifted chin, hair ruffled like the crest of a Shetland pony, flashing eyes, and distinct enunciation, James exclaimed, 'You will excuse me for not understanding you. You come here; you devote yourself to your aunt and cousins—you seem strongly attracted; then, all on a sudden, you rush out shooting—an exercise for which you don't care, and when you can't walk: you show the most pointed neglect. And after being done-up yesterday, you repeat the experiment to-day, as if for the mere object of laming yourself for life. I could understand pique or temper, but you have not the—'
'The sense,' said Louis; 'no, nor anything to be piqued at.'
'If there be a motive,' said James, 'I have a right to demand not to be trifled with any longer.'
'I wish you could be content to shoot your birds, and leave me in peace: you will only have your fun spoilt, like mine, and go into a fury. The fact is, that my father writes in a state of perturbation. He says, I might have understood, from the tenor of his conduct, that he did not wish me to be intimate with my aunt's family! He cannot know anything about them, for it is all one warning against fashion and frivolity. He does not blame us—especially not you.'
'I wish he did.'
'But he desires that our intercourse should be no more than propriety demands, and plunges into a discourse against first impressions, beauty, and the like.'
'So that's the counterblast!'
'You ought to help me, Jem,' said Louis, dejectedly.
'I'll help you with all my heart to combat your father's prejudices.'
'An hour's unrestrained intercourse with these people would best destroy them,' said Louis; 'but, in the mean time—I wonder what he means.'
'He means that he is in terror for his darling scheme.'
'Mrs. Ponsonby was very right,' sighed Louis.
'Ay! A pretty condition you would be in, if she had not had too much principle to let you be a victim to submission. That's what you'll come to, though! You will never know the meaning of passion; you will escape something by it, though you will be twisted round his lordship's finger, and marry his choice. I hope she will have red hair!'
'Negative and positive obedience stand on different grounds,' said Louis, with such calmness as often fretted James, but saved their friendship. 'Besides, till I had this letter, I had no notion of any such thing.'
James's indignation resulted in fierce stammering; while Louis deliberately continued a viva voce self-examination, with his own quaint naivete, betraying emotion only by the burning colour of cheek and brow.
'No; I had no such notion. I only felt that her presence had the gladdening, inspiriting, calming effect of moonlight or starlight. I reverenced her as a dream of poetry walking the earth. Ha! now one hears the sound of it—that is like it! I did not think it was such a confirmed case. I should have gone on in peace but for this letter, and never thought about it at all.'
'So much the better for you!'
'My father is too just and candid not to own his error, and be thankful.'
'And you expect her to bear with your alternations in the mean time?'
'Towards her I have not alternated. When I have made giggle with Clara under the influence of the starry sky, did you suppose me giggling with Lyra or the Pleiades! I should dread to see the statue descend; it seemed irreverence even to gaze. The lofty serenity keeps me aloof. I like to believe in a creature too bright and good for human nature's daily food. Our profane squinting through telescopes at the Lady Moon reveals nothing but worn-out volcanoes and dry oceans, black gulfs and scorched desolation; but verily that may not be Lady Moon's fault—only that of our base inventions. So I would be content to mark her—Isabel, I mean—queenly, moonlike name!—walk in beauty and tranquillity unruffled, without distorting my vision by personal aims at bringing her down to my level. There—don't laugh at me, Jem.'
'No, I am too sorry for you.'
'Why!' he exclaimed, impatient of compassion; 'do you think it desperate?'
'I see your affection given to a most worthy object, and I know what your notions of submission will end in.'
'Once for all, Jem,' said Fitzjocelyn, 'do you know how you are using my father? No; Isabel Conway may be the happiness or the disappointment of my life—I cannot tell. I am sure my father is mistaken, and I believe he may be convinced; but I am bound not to fly in the face of his direct commands, and, till we can come to an understanding, I must do the best I can, and trust to—'
The last word was lost, as he turned to nurse his ankle, and presently to entreat James to join the sportsmen; but Jem was in a mood to do nothing pleasing to himself nor to any one else. A sacrifice is usually irritating to the spectators, who remonstrate rather than listen to self-reproach; and Louis had been guilty of three great offences—being in the right, making himself ridiculous, and submitting tamely—besides the high-treason to Isabel's beauty. It was well that the Earl was safe out of the way of the son of the Pendragons!
Fitzjocelyn was in pain and discomfort enough to make James unwilling to leave him; though his good-will did not prevent him from keeping up such a stream of earplugs and sinister auguries, that it was almost the climax of good-temper that enabled Louis to lie still, trying to read a great quarto Park's Travels, and abstaining from any reply that could aggravate matters. As the one would not go to luncheon, the other would not; and after watching the sound of the ladies' setting out for their drive, Louis said that he would go and lie on the turf; but at that moment the door was thrown open, and in ran Virginia. Explanations were quickly exchanged—how she had come to find Vertot's Malta for Isabel, and how he had been sent in by hurting his foot.
'Were you going to stay in all day?' said Virginia. 'Oh, come with us! We have the pony-carriage; and we are going to a dear old ruin, walking and driving by turns. Do, pray, come; there's plenty of room.'
There could be no objection to the school-room party, and it was no small relief to escape from James and hope he was amused; so Fitzjocelyn allowed himself to be dragged off in triumph, and James was acceding to his entreaty that he would go in search of the shooting-party, when, as they reached the hall-door, they beheld Miss Conway waiting on the steps.
There was no receding for her any more than for Louis, so she could only make a private resolution against the pony-carriage, and dedicate herself to the unexceptionable company of little sister, governess and tutor; for James had resigned the shooting, and attached himself to the expedition. It was an excellent opportunity of smoothing his cousin's way, and showing that all was not caprice that might so appear: so he began to tell of his most advantageous traits of character, and to explain away his whimsical conduct, with great ardour and ingenuity. He thought he should be perfectly satisfied if he could win but one smile of approbation from that gravely beautiful mouth; and it came at last, when he told of Fitzjocelyn's devoted affection to Mrs. Frost and his unceasing kindness to the old ladies of Dynevor Terrace. Thus gratified, he let himself be led into abstract questions of principle,—a style of discussion frequent between Miss King and Isabel, but on which the latter had never seen the light of a man's mind thrown except through books. The gentlemen whom she had met were seldom either deep or earnest, except those too much beyond her reach; and she had avoided anything like confidence or intimacy: but Mr. Dynevor could enlighten and vivify her perplexed reflections, answer her inquiries, confirm her opinion of books, and enter into all that she ventured with diffidence to express. He was enchanted to find that no closer approach could dim the lustre of Louis's moon, and honoured her doubly for what she had made herself in frivolous society. He felt sure that his testimony would gain credit where Fitzjocelyn's would be regarded as love-blinded, and already beheld himself forcing full proof of her merits on the reluctant Earl, beholding Louis happy, and Isabel emancipated from constraint.
A five miles' walk gave full time for such blissful discoveries; for Miss Conway was resolute against entering the pony-carriage, and walked on, protesting against ever being fatigued; while Louis was obliged to occupy his seat in the carriage, with a constant change of companions.
'I think, my dear,' said Miss King, when the younger girls had gone to their mother's toilette, 'that you will have to forgive me.'
'Meaning,' said Isabel, 'that you are bitten too! Ah! Miss King, you could not withstand the smile with which he handed you in!'
'Could you withstand such an affectionate account of your cruel, tyrannical practical joker?'
'Facts are stubborn things. Do you know what Mr. Dynevor is doing at this moment? I met him in the gallery, hurrying off to Ebbscreek for some lotion for Lord Fitzjocelyn's ankle. I begged him to let Mrs. Mansell send; but no-no one but himself could find it, and his cousin could not bear strangers to disarrange his room. If anything were wanting, it would be enough to see how simply and earnestly such a man has been brought to pamper—nay, to justify, almost to adore, the whims and follies of this youth.'
'If anything were wanting to what? To your dislike.'
'It would not be so active as dislike, unless—' Isabel spoke with drooping head, and Miss King did not ask her to finish, but said, 'He has not given you much cause for alarm.'
'So; he is at least a thorough gentleman. It may be conceit, or wrong self-consciousness, but from the moment the poor boy was spied in the shop, I had a perception that mamma and Mrs. Mansell marked him down. Personally he would be innocent, but, through all his chatter, I cannot shake off the fancy that I am watched, or that decided indifference is not needed to keep him at a distance.'
'I wish you could have seen him without knowing him!'
'In vain, dear Miss King! I can't bear handsome men. I see his frivolity and shallowness; and for amiability, what do you think of keeping his cousin all the morning from shooting for such a mere nothing, and then sending him off for a ten miles' walk?
'For my part, I confess that I was struck with the good sense and kindness he showed in our tete-a-tete—I thought it justified Mr. Dynevor's description.'
'Yes, I have no doubt that there is some good in him. He might have done very well, if he had not always been an idol.'
Isabel was the more provoked with Lord Fitzjocelyn, when, by-and-by, he appeared in the drawing-room, and related the result of his cousin's mission. Jem, who would know better than himself where to find his property, had not chosen to believe his description of the spot where he had left the lotion, and, in the twilight, Louis had found his foot coiled about by the feelers and claws of a formidable monster—no other than a bottled scorpion, a recent present from Captain Hannaford. He did not say how emblematic the scorpion lotion was of that which Jem had been administering to his wounded spirit all the morning, but he put the story in so ludicrous a light that Isabel decided that Mr. Dynevor was ungenerously and ungratefully treated as a butt; and she turned away in displeasure from the group whom the recital was amusing, to offer her sympathy to the tutor, and renew the morning's conversation.
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