But if I took it so, I was wanting in the regal courtesy to match. What with one delay owing to work which would admit of none, and another caused by a cabman strange to the ways of town, it was fifteen minutes after the hour named when I reached Bolton Gardens. A stately man, so like the Queen’s Counsel, that it was plain upon whom the latter modelled himself, ushered me into the dining-room, where Guest greeted me kindly, and met my excuses by apologies on his part — for preferring, I suppose, the comfort of eleven people to mine. Then he took me down the table, and said, “My daughter,” and Miss Guest shook hands with me and pointed to the chair at her left. I had still, as I unfolded my napkin, to say, “Clear, if you please,” and then I was free to turn and apologise to her — feeling a little shy, and being, as I have said, a somewhat infrequent diner out.
I think that I never saw so remarkable a likeness — to her younger sister — in my life. She might have been little Bab herself, but for her dress and, of course, some differences. Miss Guest could not be more than nineteen, in form almost as fairy-like as the little one, and with the same child-like innocent look in her face. She had the big, grey eyes, too, that were so charming in Bab; but hers were more tender and thoughtful, and a thousand times more charming. Her hair too was brown and wavy; only, instead of hanging loose or in a pig-tail anywhere and anyhow in a fashion I well remembered, it was coiled in a coronal on the shapely little head, that looked Greek, and in its gracious, stately, old-fashioned pose was quite unlike Bab’s. Her dress, of some creamy, gauzy stuff, revealed the prettiest white throat in the world, and arms decked in pearls, and these, of course, no more recalled my little fishing mate than the sedate self-possession and dignity of the girl, as she talked to her other neighbour, suggested Bab making pancakes and chattering with the landlady’s children in her wonderfully acquired Norse. It was not Bab in fact: and yet it might have been: an etherealised, queenly womanly Bab, who presently turned to me —
“Have you quite settled down after your holiday?” she asked, staying the apologies I was for pouring into her ear.
“I had until this evening, but the sight of your father is like a breath of fiord air. I hope your sisters are well.”
“My sisters?” she murmured wonderingly, her fork half-way to her pretty mouth and her attitude one of questioning.
“Yes,” I said, rather puzzled. “You know they were with your father when I had the good fortune to meet him. Miss Clare and Bab.”
She dropped her fork on the plate with a great clatter.
“Perhaps I should say Miss Clare and Miss Bab.”
I really began to feel uncomfortable. Her colour rose, and she looked me in the face in an odd way as if she resented the inquiry. It was a relief to me, when, with some show of confusion, she faltered, “Oh, yes, I beg your pardon, of course they were! How very foolish of me. They are quite well, thank you,” and so was silent again. But I understood now. Mr. Guest had omitted to mention my name, and she had taken me for some one else of whose holiday she knew. I gathered from the aspect of the table and the room that the Guests saw much company, and it was a very natural mistake, though by the grave look she bent upon her plate it was clear that the young hostess was taking herself to task for it: not without, if I might judge from the lurking smile at the corners of her mouth, a humorous sense of the slip, and perhaps of the difference between myself and the gentleman whose part I had been unwittingly supporting. Meanwhile I had a chance of looking at her unchecked; and thought of Dresden china, she was so dainty.
“You were nearly drowned, or something of the kind, were you not?” she asked, after an interval during which we had both talked to others.
“Well, not precisely. Your sister fancied I was in danger, and behaved in the pluckiest manner — so bravely that I can almost feel sorry that the danger was not real to dignify her heroism.”
“That was like her,” she answered in a tone just a little scornful. “You must have thought her a terrible tom-boy.”
While she was speaking there came one of those dreadful lulls in the talk, and Mr. Guest, overhearing, cried, “Who is that you are abusing, my dear? Let us all share in the sport. If it’s Clare, I think I can name one who is a far worse hoyden upon occasion.”
“It is no one of whom you have ever heard, father,” she answered, archly. “It is a person in whom Mr. — Mr. Herapath—” I had murmured my name as she stumbled— “and I are interested. Now tell me, did you not think so?” she murmured, leaning the slightest bit towards me, and opening her eyes as they looked into mine in a way that to a man who had spent the day in a dusty room in Great Scotland Yard was sufficiently intoxicating.
“No,” I said, lowering my voice in imitation of hers. “No, Miss Guest, I did not think so at all. I thought your sister a brave little thing, rather careless as children are, but likely to grow into a charming girl.”
I wondered, marking how she bit her lip and refrained from assent, whether there might not be something of the shrew about my beautiful neighbour. Her tone when she spoke of her sister seemed to import no great goodwill.
“You think so?” she said, after a pause. “Do you know,” with a laughing glance, “that some people think I am like her?”
“Yes,” I answered, gravely. “Well, I should be able to judge, who have seen you both and am not an old friend. And I think you are both like and unlike. Your sister has beautiful eyes” — she lowered hers swiftly— “and hair like yours, but her manner and style are different. I can no more fancy Bab in your place than I can picture you, Miss Guest, as I saw her for the first time — and on many after occasions,” I added, laughing as much to cover my own hardihood as at the queer little figure I conjured up.
“Thank you,” she replied — and for some reason she blushed to her ears. “That, I think, must be enough of compliments for to-night — as you are not an old friend.” And she turned away, leaving me to curse my folly in saying so much, when our acquaintance was in the bud, and as susceptible to over-warmth as to a temperature below zero.
A moment later the ladies left us. The flush I had brought to her cheek lingered, as she swept past me with a wondrous show of dignity in one so young. Mr. Guest came down and took her place, and we talked of the “land of berries,” and our adventures there, while the rest — older friends — listened indulgently or struck in from time to time with their own biggest fish and deadliest flies.
I used to wonder why women like to visit dusty chambers; why, they get more joy — I am fain to think they do — out of a scrambling tea up three pairs of stairs in Pump Court, than from the same materials — and comfort withal — in their own house. I imagine it is for the same reason that the bachelor finds a charm in a lady’s drawing-room, and there, if anywhere, sees her with a reverent mind. A charm and a subservience which I felt to the full in the Guests’ drawing-room — a room rich in subdued colours and a cunning blending of luxury and comfort. Yet it depressed me. I felt myself alone. Mr. Guest had passed on to others and I stood aside, the sense that I was not of these people troubling me in a manner as new as it was absurd: for I had been in the habit of rather despising “society.” Miss Guest was at the piano, the centre of a circle of soft light, which showed up a keen-faced, close-shaven man leaning over her with the air of one used to the position. Every one else was so fully engaged that I may have looked, as well as felt, forlorn; at any rate, meeting her eyes I could have fancied she was regarding me with amusement — almost with triumph. It must have been mere fancy, bred of self-consciousness, for the next moment she beckoned me to her, and said to her cavalier —
“There, Jack, Mr. Herapath is going to talk to me about Norway now, so that I don’t want you any longer. Perhaps you won’t mind stepping up to the schoolroom — Fräulein and Clare are there — and telling Clare, that — that — oh, anything.”
There is no piece of ill-breeding so bad to my mind as for a man who is at home in a house to flaunt his favour in the face of other guests. That young man’s mann
er as he left her, and the smile of intelligence which passed between them, were such a breach of good manners as would have ruffled any one. They ruffled me — yes, me, although it was no concern of mine what she called him, or how he conducted himself — so that I could do nothing but stand by the piano and sulk. One bear makes another, you know.
She did not speak; and I, content to watch the slender hands stealing over the keys, would not, until my eyes fell upon her right wrist. She had put off her bracelets and so disclosed a scar upon it, something about which — not its newness — so startled me that I said abruptly, “That is very strange! Pray tell me how you did it?”
She looked up, saw what I meant, and stopping hastily, put on her bracelets; to all appearances so vexed by my thoughtless question, and anxious to hide the mark, that I was quick to add humbly, “I asked because your sister hurt her wrist in nearly the same place on the day when she thought I was in trouble. And the coincidence struck me.”
“Yes, I remember,” she answered, looking at me I thought with a certain suspicion, as though she were not sure that I was giving the right motive. “I did this in the same way. By falling, I mean. Isn’t it a hateful disfigurement?”
It was no disfigurement. Even to her, with a woman’s love of conquest it must have seemed anything but a disfigurement — had she known what the quiet, awkward man at her side was thinking, who stood looking shyly at it and found no words to contradict her, though she asked him twice, and thought him stupid enough. A great longing for that soft, scarred wrist was on me — and Miss Guest had added another to the number of her slaves. I don’t know now why the blemish should have so touched me any more than I could then guess why, being a commonplace person, I should fall in love at first sight and feel no surprise at my condition, but only a half-consciousness that in some former state of being I had met my love, and read her thoughts, and learned her moods; and come to know the womanly spirit that looked from her eyes as well as if she were an old friend. But so vivid was this sensation, that once or twice, then and afterwards, when I would meet her glance, another name than hers trembled on my tongue and passed away before I could shape it into sound.
After an interval, “Are you going to the Goldmace’s dance?” she asked.
“No,” I answered her, humbly. “I go out so little.”
“Indeed?” with an odd smile not too kindly. “I wish — no I don’t — that we could say the same. We are engaged, I think” — she paused, her attention divided between myself and Boccherini’s minuet, the low strains of which she was sending through the room— “for every afternoon — this week — except Saturday. By the way, Mr. Herapath — do you remember what was the name — Bab told me you called her?”
“Bonnie Bab,” I answered absently. My thoughts had gone forward to Saturday. We are always dropping to-day’s substance for the shadow of tomorrow; like the dog — a dog was it not? — in the fable.
“Oh, yes, Bonnie Bab,” she murmured softly. “Poor Bab!” and suddenly she cut short Boccherini’s music and our chat by striking a terrific discord and laughing at my start of discomfiture. Every one took it as a signal to leave. They all seemed to be going to meet her next day, or the day after that. They engaged her for dances, and made up a party for the play, and tossed to and fro a score of laughing catch-words, that were beyond my comprehension. They all did this, except myself.
And yet I went away with something before me — the call upon Saturday afternoon. Quite unreasonably I fancied that I should see her alone. And so when the day came and I stood outside the opening door of the drawing-room, and heard voices and laughter behind it, I was hurt and aggrieved beyond measure. There was a party, and a merry one, assembled; who were playing at some game as it seemed to me, for I caught sight of Clare whipping off an impromptu bandage from her eyes, and striving by her stiffest air to give the lie to a pair of flushed cheeks. The close-shaven man was there, and two men of his kind, and a German governess, and a very old lady in a wheel-chair, who was called “grandmamma,” and Miss Guest herself looking, in the prettiest dress of silvery plush, as bright and fair and graceful as I had been picturing her each hour since we parted.
She dropped me a stately courtesy. “Will you be blindfold, or will you play the part of Miss Carolina Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs, Mr. Herapath, while I say ‘Fudge!’ or will you burn nuts and play games with this gentleman — he is neighbour Flamborough? You will join us, won’t you? Clare does not so misbehave every day, only it is a wet afternoon and so cold and wretched, and we did not think there would be any more callers — and tea will be up in five minutes.”
She did not think there would be any more callers! Something in her smile belied the words and taught me that she had thought — she had known — that there would be one more caller — one who would burn nuts and play games with her, though Rome itself were afire, and Tooley Street and the Mile End Road to boot.
It was a simple game, and not likely, one would say, to afford much risk of that burning of the fingers, which gave a zest to the Vicar of Wakefield’s nuts. One sat in the middle blindfolded, while the rest disguised their own or assumed each other’s voices, and spoke one by one some gibe or quip at his expense. When he succeeded in naming the speaker, the detected satirist put on the poke, and in his turn heard things good — if he had a conceit of himself — for his soul’s health. The rôle presently fell to me, and proved a heavy one, because I was not so familiar with the others’ voices as were the rest; and Miss Guest — whose faintest tones I thought I should know — had a wondrous knack of cheating me, now taking off Clare’s voice, and now — after the door had been opened to admit the tea — her father’s. So I failed again and again to earn my relief. But when a voice behind me cried with well-feigned eagerness —
“How nice! Do tell me all about a fire!” — then, though no fresh creaking of the door had reached me, nor warning been given of an addition to the players, I had no doubt who spoke, but exclaimed at once, “That is Bab! Now I cry you mercy. I am right this time. That was Bab!”
I looked for a burst of applause such as had before attended a good thrust home, but none came. On the contrary, with my words so odd a silence fell upon the room that it was clear that something was wrong. And I pulled off my handkerchief in haste, repeating, “That was Bab, I am sure.”
But if it was, I could not see her. And what had come over them all? Jack’s face wore a provoking smile, and his friends were bent upon sniggering. Clare looked startled, and grandmamma gently titillated, while Miss Guest, who had risen and turned away towards the windows, seemed to be annoyed with some one. What was the matter?
“I beg every one’s pardon by anticipation,” I said, looking round in a bewildered way; “but have I said anything wrong?”
“Oh, dear no,” cried the fellow they called Jack, with a familiarity that was in the worst taste — as if I had meant to apologise to him! “Most natural thing in the world!”
“Jack, how dare you?” Miss Guest exclaimed, stamping her foot.
“Well, it seemed all right. It sounded natural, I am sure. Well done, I thought.”
“Oh, you are unbearable! Why don’t you say something, Clare? Mr. Herapath, I am sure that you did not know that my name was Barbara.”
“Certainly not,” I cried. “What a strange thing!”
“But it is, and that is why grandmamma is looking shocked, and Mr. Buchanan is wearing threadbare the friend’s privilege of being rude. I forgive you if you will make allowance for him. And you shall come off the stool of repentance and have your tea first, since you are the greatest stranger. It is a stupid game after all!”
She would hear no apologies from me. And when I would have asked why her sister bore the same name, and so excused myself, she was intent upon tea-making, and the few moments I could with decency add to my call gave me no opportunity. I blush to think how I eked them out; by what subservience to Clare, by what a slavish anxiety to help Jack to muffins — each piece I hoped might choke
him! How slow I was to find hat and gloves, calling to mind with terrible vividness, as I turned my back upon the circle, that again and again in my experience an acquaintance begun by a dinner had ended with the consequent call. And so I should have gone — it might have been so here — but the door-handle was stiff, and Miss Guest came to my aid, as I fumbled with it. “We are always at home on Saturdays, if you like to call, Mr. Herapath,” she murmured carelessly — and I found myself in the street.
So carelessly she had said it that, with a sudden change of feeling, I vowed I would not call. Why should I? Why should I worry myself with the sight of other fellows parading their favour? With the babble of that society chit-chat, which I had often scorned, and — still scorned, and had no part or concern in. They were not people to suit me, or do me good. I would not go, I said, and I repeated it firmly on Monday and Tuesday; on Wednesday I so far modified it that I thought at some distant time I would leave a card — to avoid discourtesy. On Friday I preferred an earlier date as wiser and more polite, and on Saturday I walked shame-faced down the street and knocked and rang, and went upstairs — to taste a pleasant misery. Yes, and on the next Saturday too, and the next, and the next; and that one when we all went to the theatre, and that other one when Mr. Guest kept me to dinner. Ay, and on other days that were not Saturdays, among which two stand high out of the waters of forgetfulness — high days indeed — days like twin pillars of Hercules, through which I thought to reach, as did the seamen of old, I knew not what treasures of unknown lands stretching away under the setting sun. First that Wednesday on which I found Barbara Guest alone and blurted out that I had the audacity to wish to make her my wife; and then heard, before I had well — or badly — told my tale, the wheels of grandmamma’s chair outside.
Complete Works of Stanley J Weyman Page 826