“And how have you replied to her, my poor Herbert?” said Mrs. Mathews.
“As for that,” replied the young man, with a melancholy smile, “ I think I have managed very cleverly. Sometimes I have said, ‘Mother, she is very beautiful,’ with an accent which was intended to convince her that I considered this as a sufficient excuse for forgetting and forgiving all other deficiencies; and occasionally I have hinted in a very sentimental tone at her devoted attachment to me. And nothing more confidential has passed between us. In truth, I carefully avoid all tête-à-tête conversations with my mother just at present, nor will she, as I hope, ever know how completely I have sold myself for the price Mr. Steyton so liberally offered. The worst misfortune, I hope, that she will have to bear, is the being obliged to confess to her heart that her son is not quite so high-minded as she has been used to think him, and that, like all other very silly young men he has been caught by a beautiful face, and the flattering belief that the fair creature to whom it belongs is devotedly attached to him.”
“But in your own case, dear Herbert, this, at least, is no flattering delusion. Were she a penniless beauty seeking to entrap you, it might be so; but, as it is, I think it impossible to doubt the sincerity of her attachment.”
The young man made no reply, not even by a look, and having thanked his greatly-valued old friend for the patient hearing she had afforded him, and expressed his hope that she agreed with him in thinking that his conduct was at least excusable, he took his leave, but not before ho had received her promise to assist him to the best of her power in persuading his mother to believe that the marriage he was about to make was one of inclination on his part, and not of interest.
Mrs. Mathews would have given a more unreasonable promise than this, if by so doing she could in any way have soothed or comforted him; for all his efforts to conceal from her his own strong repugnance to the match had been in vain.
Mrs. Mathews had known him and loved him from a child, and his countenance was not one that such a friend could misunderstand. Whether he was wrong or right in what he had done she hardly knew, but not to love him more than ever for his devotion to his ill-matched mother was impossible.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
POOR Herbert’s story had taken such strong possession of her mind, that Mrs. Mathews felt irresistibly impelled to communicate it to Janet.
She was too conscientious, however, to yield to this impulse without carefully asking herself if it were possible that she could do any mischief by doing so; but she speedily convinced her conscience that she could not. Moreover, it certainly did occur to her as possible that Janet herself might be of use, if she knew exactly how matters stood; for Lady Otterborne had said, during the long morning visit she had made at the Grange, that she should always be very glad to see her at the Manor-house.
“There are but a few fields, Miss Anderson,” she had said, “between the Grange garden and the steps which lead into our deer-park; if you have courage to climb them, you would find that we are divided by a very short walk. It will be a charity, Mrs. Mathews, if you will kindly spare her to me sometimes.”
There was much in this invitation most particularly agreeable to the feelings of Mrs. Mathews; for, in the first place, it was a flattering offering to the memory of Janet’s father, who had been more intimately known to Lady Otterborne, perhaps, than to any one in the neighbourhood besides herself. And it might have been for this reason that Mrs. Mathews, when introducing Janet, had only named her, without referring to her father at all; for when she found that the name awakened no recollection of this intimacy, she determined to leave the possibility of future recognition to chance, not feeling at all disposed to refer sentimentally to the days that were gone, to one who might perhaps remember a good deal about them herself.
But no sooner was Lady Otterborne left alone than, while thinking of the very pretty creature she had just seen, she recollected that she bore the name of her old acquaintance, and the prompt return of Janet’s visit, was chiefly for the purpose of ascertaining if she were indeed his daughter.
The very cordial kindness of manner that followed her discovering that her conjecture was correct was in every way agreeable, both to the poor girl herself, and her protectress; for the being treated by Lady Otterborne as an old acquaintance was quite sufficient to ensure her a pleasant reception throughout the whole neighbourhood.
And, besides this, it was now evident that the graceful lady of the Manor-house was greatly inclined to cultivate the acquaintance of Janet for her own sake; for Lady Otterborne was not a person likely to remind a young lady that she was within easy walking distance of her, unless she saw good reason to believe that she should like her companionship.
In short, Mrs. Mathews was greatly delighted by the compliment thus offered to her adopted daughter, and certainly felt also that this compliment might be more safely accepted now than it could have been if the young heir of Otterborne were still a disengaged man.
It is true, indeed, that she thought she never had seen two young people more perfectly well-suited to fall in love with each other than Janet Anderson and Herbert Otterborne; but, notwithstanding this pleasant persuasion, she was fully aware of the fact, that it would be difficult to find any two young people whose falling in love with each other would be more inconvenient.
But Janet now knew everything concerning the engagement and the motive for it; and her adopted mother did her but justice, in believing that she would rather have set off alone on a voyage back to Lidia than have made herself attractive in any way to the hero of the tale she had listened to with such deep interest.
Meanwhile the process which was to transmute Janet from a very shabbily-dressed little girl into an elegant and fashionable looking young lady, was going on so rapidly and successfully, that Mrs. Mathews announced her intention of sending out dinner invitations to the neighbours in their immediate vicinity. This news was exceedingly welcome both to Mr. Mathews and his grandson; nor was Janet at all inclined to be an uninterested spectator on the occasion; for the beautiful Emily Steyton was to be of the party, and she felt strangely anxious to see what sort of a person it could be, who, being declared on all sides to be equally lovely and attached, was still to be accepted as a painful appendage to her own magnificent fortune.
Janet felt as if there was something harsh and unjust in the judgment thus pronounced against her. She suspected that pride of birth was the besetting sin both of the noble-looking Herbert Otterborne and his mother; and heartily pitied the young and beautiful girl, who, though she had a right to say, —
“I give thee all, I can no more,”
without any qualifying confession as to the poverty of the offering, seemed, nevertheless, to be accepted as a hard and heart-breaking necessity.
The dinner-parlour at Weldon Grange was a very handsome room, and its table could accommodate sixteen guests, which was precisely the number collected round it on this particularly magnificent occasion. The Manor-house sent three, the Parsonage four, the Lodge three, and the Proctor Castle one; which, together with the family party at the Grange, amounted if my arithmetic does not deceive me, exactly to that number.
The party ought to have been a very pleasant one; for, with the exception of good Mr. King himself, there was not one who did not feel a much greater degree of interest in it than is usually excited by a country dinner-party where the guests are all near neighbours, and for the most part well known to each other.
One great source of this interest, and the one most generally felt, was the appearance in society of Mr. Otterborne and Miss Steyton as affianced lovers, for the first time.
There was also a considerable degree of curiosity excited by the known fact that there was a superbly handsome young man and a very pretty girl, added to the family party at the Grange since the neighbours had last met there.
Sir Charles felt as light-hearted as a prisoner just released from durance vile, and as vain as a peacock of displaying himself once more as the
first man in the society, without even a shadow of fear that he might be arrested before he left the house, or that he might find an execution in full action when he returned to his own.
Mr. Mathews seemed to feel that he had grown taller since the land he stood upon might be considered as his own, while his bearing and carriage were even more graceful than heretofore, as he presented Stephen to all comers as his grandson.
Neither was the learned Mrs. Mathews without her share of pomps and vanities on this occasion, and it is but fair to confess that she was quite as proud of John Anderson’s descendant as her husband was of his own.
By far the most striking figure of the whole party, however, was the bride elect. The pretty delicate-looking Louisa Price seemed to fade before her into the likeness of a flaxen-haired doll; and even the exquisitely-chiselled features, the dark thoughtful eye, and light graceful form of Janet, were as completely overpowered as a star before the brightness of the midday sun.
Emily Steyton was tall and her form was already magnificently developed; the bust was very full, and her fine throat and arms were as smooth and almost as white as marble.
It would be no easy matter to describe her face justly, for the features taken separately were not perfect; yet the extraordinary brightness of her eyes, the dazzling brilliancy of her complexion, the deep carnation of her lips, and the ivory whiteness of her faultless teeth, produced altogether an effect so radiantly beautiful that no voice would have been listened to with patience which should have attempted to point out a fault in it. And to complete the whole, her rich dark auburn hair might have furnished an invaluable study to any artist engaged in painting Mary Magdalen. In short the face and figure of Emily Steyton were such as must have elicited a murmur of applause from any assemblage of people upon earth, provided only that they were not blind.
The judgment likely to be passed upon the style of her dress would have been less uniform. Many, a large majority, perhaps, would have been ready to declare that it was exactly everything that it ought to be, and it is not improbable that some might have been found whose opinion would have been precisely the reverse.
If the exhibiting her extraordinary beauty to the greatest advantage was her object, it would, however, have been nearly impossible for any one to deny that she had attained it. Her neck and arms were displayed certainly with very lavish freedom; yet there was always ready a delicate drapery of the very finest Brussels lace, bearing in form the mimicry of a little mantle, with a floating ribbon, and a pendant tassel here and there, of that soft apricot tint which contrasts, yet blends, so favourably with a cream-tinctured skin; and this mantle was wrapped closely round, or else permitted to fall forgotten away from her, in the most fascinating style imaginable.
Young as she was she was already pretty well accustomed to be stared at; and it was for this reason, perhaps, that she now met the magnificent eyes of Stephen Cornington, notwithstanding the fixed audacity of the glance, with no embarrassment, and only a little toss of the head, that had more of playfulness than of anger in it.
Even Mrs. Mathews herself, far enough as she was from being very partial to her beautiful neighbour, could not withdraw her eyes from her without an effort; but before long she had inwardly taken herself to task, by the mental declaration that she was an ass to keep staring at that odious girl, when she might look at her own delicate and dainty Janet instead. But not all her heart-deep partiality to the said Janet could prevent her feeling, when she did look at her, that, in point of brilliant effect, there was no more comparison between them, than between the soft pale light of the moon, and the blazing splendour of the sun.
The only comfort she could find under this affliction was the perceiving that both Janet’s feet would be lost in one of Miss Emily’s shoes, and that the little finger of Miss Emily’s glove would have been a world too wide for Janet’s index.
The well known wealth of the Steyton family caused them pretty generally to be considered as people of importance, although Mr. Steyton’s ancestors had not ranked among the aristocracy of the land. Mr. Mathews, in particular, did not scruple to confess that as long as people had money, and understood how to spend it like gentlemen, — that is to say for the gratification of their own vanity and their neighbours’ palates, he did not see how it could signify anything to anybody where they got it, always presuming that it was not stolen.
Such being the nature of his feelings towards the magnates of the Lodge on ordinary occasions, it may well be supposed that at the present very interesting moment, when all the dignities attached to the Manor-house were about to be blended with all the bullion of the Lodge, the importance of the whole Steyton family, and its beautiful heiress in particular, made itself felt more strongly than ever.
The first and most natural effect of this was, of course, that Mr. Mathews should present his grandson in the most distinguished manner possible, to every member of the Steyton family, a ceremony under which the Barbadoes young gentleman acquitted himself admirably To the father he bowed very solemnly, and very low; to the mother, with a bright and beautiful smile which might have propitiated any middle-aged gentlewoman a little less hard to please than Mrs. Mathews; but to the daughter he could be scarcely said to bow at all; he looked at her, however, with his impudently-eloquent eyes, in a manner which left no doubt as to the intensity of his admiration. Nay it was not admiration only that his look and manner expressed; every nerve, every sense, seemed under the influence of fascination; and with such a face as his, it was so easy to express all that he wished, but all that he dared not have spoken!
Miss Emily Steyton was not perhaps what might generally be considered as a highly intellectual girl, but she was far from being unintelligent. Her own eyes seemed to kindle as obviously from the fire emitted by his, as a phosphoric match does from friction.
Miss Emily, however, was much too violently in love with Herbert Otterborne for this sort of inflammatory effect from the eyes of another to be lasting. But when she quietly returned to her own room that night, she was too honest not to confess to herself that just for a moment that strange boy’s magnificent eyes did make her feel very queer.
And she might, and did, very naturally suppose that the strange boy also felt very queer himself. But this was no fault of hers, she could not help it. She should certainly be sorry if anything bad came of it. He was a great deal too handsome to be miserable. But really and truly, she could not help it, — everybody knew she was engaged, etc., etc., etc.
But all this is an episode.
The arrival of Mr. Cuthbridge, the Roman Catholic librarian of Proctor Castle, was the signal for ringing the bell, and announcing that the party were all assembled, and ready for dinner. But even in the best-regulated families there must be a short interval before this important signal can produce its ultimate effect by causing the assembled party to march two-and-two from drawing to dining-room; and during this interval, the eyes of the devoted grandfather were riveted with delight upon his fortunate heir, and upon all the little incidents by which the effect he produced upon the company were made manifest.
It certainly, however, was not entirely the conceit of the vain old man which led him to believe that his newly-found Stephen Cornington was not admired by himself alone, nor were the expressive eyes of the beautiful Emily the only ones which bore evident testimony of admiration. Sir Charles Otterborne set his arms a-kimbo, and, assuming the attitude of the Colossus of Rhodes, looked at him from head to foot with the air of a connoisseur contemplating a very fine specimen, and the flattering result was a cordial hand-shaking, and the words, “Don’t forget your way to the Manor-house, Mr. Stephen, over the park-palings, you know. We must have another game at billiards together.”
The reverend Mr. Price looked at him with a gentle, but rather a doubting eye. Perhaps he thought that he was too handsome for any feelings, decidedly ecclesiastical, to have much hold upon him as yet.
Collected Works of Frances Trollope Page 400