by Ellen Wood
Dressing himself, he was on the point of setting out, when a messenger arrived to fetch him to a sick person; so that it was half-past ten when he reached the house of Mr. Greatorex. And then, but for his mission to the Judge, he would have quitted it again without entering the reception-rooms.
Two or three friends! Lining the wide staircase, dotting the handsome landing, crowding the numerous guest-rooms, there they were; a mob of them. Women in the costly and fantastic toilettes of the present day; men bowing and bending with their evening manners on. Mr. Ollivera resented the crowd as a personal wrong.
“‘Two or three friends,’ you wrote me word, Bede,” he reproachfully said, seeing his cousin in a corner near the entrance-door. “You know I do not like these things and never go to them.”
“On my word, Henry, I did not know it was going to be this cram,” returned Bede Greatorex. “I thought we might be twenty, perhaps, all told.”
“How can you put up with this? Is it seemly, Bede — in this once staid and pattern house?”
“Seemly?” repeated Bede Greatorex.
“Forgive me, Bede. I was thinking of the dear old times under your mother’s rule. The happy evenings, all hospitality and cheerfulness; the chapter read at bed-time, when the small knot of guests had departed. Friends were entertained then; but I don’t know what you call these.”
Perhaps Bede Greatorex had never, amid all his provocations, felt so tempted to avow the truth as now — that he abhorred it with his whole heart and soul. Henry William Ollivera could not hate and despise it more than he. As to the good old days of sunshine and peace thus recalled, a groan well nigh burst from him at their recollection. It was indeed a contrast, then and now: in more things than this. The world bore a new aspect for Bede Greatorex, and not a happier one.
“Is Kene here, Bede?”
“Not yet. What is it that you want with him?” Mr. Ollivera gave a brief outline of the case; Bede left him in the middle of it to welcome fresh arrivals. Something awfully fine loomed up, in pink silk and lace, and blazing emeralds. It was Mrs. Bede Greatorex. Her chignon was a mile high, and her gown was below her shoulder-blades. The modest young clergyman turned away at the sight, his cheeks flushing a dusky red. Not in this kind of society of late years, the curiosities of fashionable attire were new to him.
“Is Bede mad?” he inwardly said, “or has he lost all control over his wife’s actions?”
Somebody else, not used to society, was staring on with all the eyes of wonder he possessed. And that was Roland Yorke. Leaning against the wall in a new suit of dress-clothes, with a huge pair of white gloves on that would have been quite the proper thing at Port Natal, stood Roland. Mr. Ollivera, trying to get away from everybody, ran against him. The two were great friends now, and Roland was in the habit of running up to Mr. Ollivera’s drawing-room at will.”
“I say,” began Roland, “this is rather strong, is it not?”
“Do you mean the crowd?”
“I mean everything. Some of the girls and women look as if they had forgotten to put their gowns on. Why do they dress in this way?”
“Because they fancy it’s the fashion, I suppose,” replied Mr. Ollivera, drawing down the corners of his thin lips.
“They must have taken the fashion from the Zulu Kaffirs,” returned Roland. “When one has been knocked about amidst that savage lot — fought with ‘em, too, men and women — one loses superfluous fastidiousness, Mr. Ollivera; but I don’t think this is right.”
Mr. Ollivera intimated that there could not be a doubt it was all wrong.
“Down in Helstonleigh, where I come from, they dress themselves decently,” observed Roland, forgetting that his reminiscences of the place dated more than seven years back, and that fashion penetrates to all the strongholds of society, whether near or distant.
“The girls there are lovely, too. Just look if they are not.”
Mr. Ollivera, in some slight surprise, followed the direction of the speaker’s eyes, and saw a young lady sitting back in a corner; her white evening dress, her banded hair, the soft, pure flush on her delicate face, all as simple, and genuine, and modest as herself.
“That’s what the girls are in my native place, Mr. Ollivera.”
“Mrs. Bede Greatorex is a native of Helstonleigh, also,” observed the clergyman, dryly. And for a moment Roland was dumb. The pink robe, the tower of monstrous hair, and the shoulder-blades were in full view just then.
“No, she is not,” cried he, triumphantly. “The Joliffe girls were born in barracks; they only came among us when the old colonel settled down.”
“Who is the young lady?”
“Miss Channing. Her brother and I are old chums. He is the grandest fellow living; the most noble gentleman the world can show. He — why, if I don’t believe you know him!” broke off Roland, as a recollection of something he had been told flashed across his mind.
“I!” returned Mr. Ollivera.
“Was Arthur Channing not at a — a certain night funeral?” asked Roland, dropping his voice out of delicacy. “You know. When that precious cousin of mine, Bill Yorke, lent you his surplice.”
“Yes, yes,” said Mr. Ollivera, hastily; “I had forgotten the name. And so that is Arthur Channing’s Sister!”
“She is governess to that provoking little wretch, Jane Greatorex,” said polite Roland, forgetting in his turn that he was speaking of his listeners cousin, “and she ought to be a queen. She ought, Mr. Ollivera, and you would say so if you knew her. She looks one, does she not? She’s as like Arthur as two pins, and he’s fit for the noblest king in the world.”
The clergyman slightly smiled. He had become accustomed to his new friend’s impulsive mode of speech.
“Yes, we are both of us down just now, dependents of the Greatorex house — she teacher in it, I office-clerk,” went on Roland. “Never mind: luck may turn some day. I told Annabel so just now, but she sent me away. I was talking to her too much, she said, and made people stare. Perhaps it was so: I know her cheeks turned red every other minute.”
“And to make them paler, you take up your position here and gaze at her,” observed Mr. Ollivera with another smile — and smiles were rare from him.
“Oh, law!” cried Roland. “I’m always doing something wrong. The fact is, there’s nobody else worth looking at. See there! a yellow gown and no petticoats under it. If this is fashion, I hope my mother and sisters are not going in for it! I shall go back to her,” he added, after a moment’s pause. “It’s a shame she should sit there alone, with nothing to look at but those Models, passing and repassing right before her eyes. If Arthur were here, I believe he’d take her away. I do.”
Roland, vegetating in that unfashionable region, Port Natal, had not yet become accustomed to the exigencies of modern days; and he spoke freely. Just then the throng was great in front of him, and he remained where he was. Taller than almost any one in the room, he could look at Annabel at will; Mr. Ollivera, about up to Roland’s shoulder, could get but occasional glimpses of her. Many a one glanced at Roland with interest, wondering who the fine, strong young man was, leaning against the wall there, with the big white gloves on, and the good-natured face, unsophisticated as a boy’s.
Elbowing his way presently across the room, something after the manner he might have elbowed through a crowd on the quay at Durban, Roland once more took up his position by Miss Channing. The old playfellows had become new friends, and Roland contrived that they should often meet. When Miss Channing was walking in the Square with her pupil, he was safe to run up, and stay talking; quite oblivious to the exigencies of the office waiting for his services. Jane Greatorex had learned to look for him, and would walk where she was likely to see him, in defiance of Miss Channing. In spite of Roland’s early fever to quit his native place, in spite of his prolonged rovings, he was essentially a home-bird, and could have been content to talk of the old days and the old people with Annabel for ever.
“Where’s Jane to-night?
” he began, as he joined her.
“In bed. She was very naughty this evening, and for once Mr. Bede Greatorex interfered and sent her.”
“Poor child! She is awfully troublesome, though, and one gets tired of that in the long run. If you — Halloa!”
Roland stopped. He was gazing in surprise at some one standing near: a man nearly his own age, tall and strong, and bearing altogether a general resemblance to himself. But the other’s face had a cynical cast, expressive of ill-nature, and the lips were disagreeably full. Roland recognized him for his brother, although they had not met for more than seven years.
“That’s Gerald, if ever I saw him in my life.”
“Yes, it is Gerald,” said Miss Channing, quietly. “He generally comes to Mrs. Bede’s soirées.”
“Isn’t he got up!”
Roland’s expression was an apt one. Gerald Yorke was in the very pink of male fashion. His manners were easy; entirely those of a man at home in society.
“He does it grand, does he not?” cried Roland, who had made one advance towards making friends with his brother since coming to London, and was not responded to in kind.
Miss Channing laughed. Gerald Yorke had entered on some kind of public career and was very prosperous, she believed, moving amidst the great ones of the land. Roland, quite forgetting where he was, or perhaps not caring, set up a whistle by way of attracting the attention of Gerald, who turned amidst others at the strange sound.
“How d’ye do, Gerald, old boy? Come and shake hands.”
The voice was loud, glad, hearty; the great hand, with its great white glove drawn up over it, minus a button, was stretched above intervening heads. Gerald Yorke’s face grew dark with the light of annoyance, and he hesitated before making the best of the situation, and getting near enough to shake the offered hand.
He would far rather have become conveniently deaf, and walked off in an opposite direction. Alike though the two brothers were in general personal resemblance, no contrast could be greater than they presented in other respects. Gerald, fine and fashionable, with his aristocratic air and his slow, affected drawl, was the very type of all that is false, of that insincerity and heartlessness obtaining in what is called society. Roland, hot, thoughtless, never weighing a word before he spoke it, impulsive, genuine, utterly unsophisticated as to the usages and manners that go to make up the meetings of fashionable life, was just as single-hearted and true.
Gerald, as Roland put it, “went in” for grandeur, and he was already prejudiced against his brother. In a communication from Lord Carrick, apologizing for not being able to answer satisfactorily Gerald’s appeal for a loan, that nobleman had confidentially avowed that he could not at present assist even Roland effectually, and had got him a place as clerk temporarily, to save him from embarking in the hot-pie line. It may therefore be readily understood that Gerald did not consider an intimacy with Roland likely to conduce to his own advancement (to say nothing of respectability) and his annoyance and surprise at seeing him now where he did were about equally great.
The hands were shaken, and a few words of greeting passed; warm and open on Roland’s part, cool and cautious on Gerald’s. A friend of Gerald’s, the Honourable Mr. Somebody, who was by his side and begged for an introduction, was more cordial than he.
“I have not seen him since we parted seven years ago, when I went off to Port Natal,” explained Roland with his accustomed candour. “Haven’t I had ups and downs since then, Gerald!” he continued, turning his beaming face upon his brother. “You have heard of them I dare say, through Carrick.”
“You did not make a fortune,” drawled Gerald, wishing he could get away.
“A fortune! Law bless you, Ger! I was glad to work on the port with the Kaffirs, unloading boats; and to serve in stores, and to drive cattle and pigs; anything for bread. You can’t think how strange all this seems to me” — pointing to the waving crowd in the room, several of whom had gathered round, attracted by this fraternal meeting.
“Aw! Surprised to see you amidst them,” minced Gerald, who could not resist the little ill-natured hint, in his growing rage.
“Mrs. Greatorex invited me,” said Roland, his honest simplicity detecting not the undercurrent of sarcasm. “I am in Greatorex’s office; I don’t suppose you knew it, Gerald. They give me twenty shillings a week; and Carrick goes bail for my rigging out. I got this coat from his tailor’s to-night.”
The crowd laughed, the Honourable roared, and Gerald Yorke was half mad.
“I’d not acknowledge it, at any rate, if I were you,” he said, imprudently, his affectation lost in a gust of temper. “After all, you were born a Yorke.”
“Acknowledge what, Ger?” returned Roland.
“The — the — the shame of taking a common clerkship at twenty shillings a week; and all the rest of the degradation,” burst forth Gerald, setting conventionality at defiance. “My uncle, Lord Carrick, warned me of this; my mother, Lady Augusta, spoke of it in a recent letter to me,” he added for the benefit of the ears around.
“Why, Ger, where’s the use of being put out?” retorted Roland, but with no symptom of ill-humour in his good-natured tone. “I was down, and had nobody to help me. Carrick couldn’t; old Dick Yorke wouldn’t; Lady Augusta said she had all of you pulling at her: and so Carrick talked to Greatorex and Greatorex, and they put me into the place. The pound a week keeps me; in clover too; you should hear what I sometimes was reduced to live on at Port Natal. There was an opening for a hot-pie man down at Poplar, and the place was offered me; if I had gone into that line you might have grumbled.”
The ladies and gentlemen shrieked with merriment: they began to think the fine young fellow, who looked every whit as independent a man as his fastidious brother’, was chaffing them all. Gerald ground his teeth, and tried to get away.
“You’ll come and see me, old fellow?” said Roland. “I’ve a stunning room, bed-room and sitting-room in one, the bedstead’s let out at night. It is at Mother Jones’s; poor soft Jenkins’s widow, you know, that we used to wot of in the days gone by.”
Gerald made good his escape: and when they were quiet again, Roland had leisure to look at Miss Channing. Her bent face shone like a peony, the effect of vexation and suppressed laughter.
“Why, what’s the matter?” he asked.
“You should not say such things, Roland. It was quite out of place in a room like this.”
“What things?”
“About yourself. It is so different, you know, from anything young men experience here.”
“But it is all true,” returned Roland, unable to see the argument.
“Still it need not be proclaimed to an indiscriminate crowd. You might show more tact. Gerald was fit to die of mortification. And you who used to have so much pride!”
Roland Yorke, honestly willing to please everybody and vex none, stood looking ruefully. “As to pride, Annabel, if a fellow wants that knocked out of him, he had better go over to Port Natal, and get buffeted as I did,” he concluded. “I left it all behind me there, I’m afraid. And, of tact, I don’t think I ever possessed any.”
Which was perfectly true.
Meanwhile Mr. Ollivera, waiting in vain to see Sir Thomas Kene enter, grew sick of the ever-changing, ever-moving panorama that jostled him, and went down stairs to his uncle’s small and comfortable room, leaving word with the servants where he might be found if the Judge came in. Mr. Greatorex very rarely joined these large parties. He was sitting in quiet now, a bit of bright fire in the grate, for the evenings were still chilly, and a reading-lamp, newspapers, and books on the table. Slender, active, upright still, he scarcely looked his age, sixty-two: his face was fresh yet, and not a thread of grey mingled with the smooth brown hair.
“Henry, is it you!” he exclaimed; for he was surprised to see his nephew enter at that late hour. And Mr. Ollivera, as he took a chair, apologized for interrupting him, but said he had grown so weary of the turmoil above.
“You
don’t mean to say you have been making one of them!”
“I have for once, uncle. It will serve me for ten years to come. People say to me sometimes, ‘Why don’t you go into society?’ Good heavens! to think that rational beings, God’s people who have souls to be saved, can waste their precious hours in such, evening after evening! The women for the most part are unseemly to behold; their bodies half dressed, their faces powdered and painted, their heads monstrosities, their attire sinfully lavish. The men affect to be heartless, drawling coxcombs. It is a bad phase of life, this that we have drifted into, rotten at its core; men and women alike artificial. Do you like this in your house, Uncle Greatorex?”
“When Bede married, I resigned to him the mastership of the house, so far as these things were concerned,” replied Mr. Greatorex.
“I know. Does Bede like it?”
“He countenances it. For myself, I trouble them but little now. Even my dinner I often cause to be served here. Bede’s wife was civil enough to come down this evening and press me to join them.”
“Bede looks more worried than usual — and that need not be,” observed William Ollivera. “What is it, I wonder? To me he has the air of a man silently fretting himself into his grave.”
“You know what it is, William,” said Mr. Greatorex, in a low tone, and calling his nephew, as he often did, by his second Christian name. “Bede’s wife is his great worry. But there’s another.”
“What is it?”
“Illness,” breathed Mr. Greatorex. “Symptoms that we don’t like have shown themselves in him lately. However — they may pass away. The doctors think they will.”
“I came here to meet Kene, whom I very particularly wish to see,” resumed the clergyman, after a pause. “Bede said he expected him.”
“Ay; some magnet must have drawn you, apart from that” pointing his thumb at the rooms above. And Mr. Ollivera explained why he was seeking the Judge.