A Mere Chance: A Novel. Vol. 1

"I can't imagine little Rachel scheming to catch a rich husband," the young lady exclaimed, with a mocking, but pleasant laugh.

"You don't see as much of her as I do, my dear Beatrice," her mother replied, with dignity. "If you did, you would know that she is as fond of money and luxury as any hardened woman of the world could be. She quite fondles the ornaments I have put in her room. She goes into raptures over the silver and china. A new dress sends her into ecstacies. She annoys me sometimes – showing people so plainly that she has never been used to anything nice. However, it will make it easier for me to settle her than I at first thought it would be. It will be all plain sailing with Mr. Kingston, you will see."

"Mother," said Mrs. Reade – she only said "mother" when she was very much in earnest – "let me give you a word of advice. If you want to marry Rachel to Mr. Kingston – and I hope you will, for it would be a capital match – don't let her know anything about it; don't do anything to help it on; don't let her see what is coming – leave them both alone. I think I know her better than you do, and I have a pretty good idea of Mr. Kingston; and any sort of interference with either of them would be most injudicious – most dangerous. I shall see to-night – I'm sure I shall see in a moment – "

There was a ring at the door-bell, and the stir of an arrival in the hall, and the little woman did not finish what she wanted to say. She rose from her chair, and shook out her pink train; and the mother to whom she had laid down the law rose also, looking very majestic.

"Mr. Kingston," said the servant, throwing the drawing-room door open.

The great man entered with a springing step, bowing elaborately. His glossy hair (some people said it was a wig, but it was not) was curled to perfection; his moustaches were waxed to the finest needle-points; he wore flashing diamond studs on an embroidered shirt front; and there was a Marshal Neil rose in his button-hole, not very fresh, and too much blown to be any ornament to a fine gentleman's evening toilet, hanging its yellow head heavily from a weak and flabby stalk.

CHAPTER III.

MR. KINGSTON'S QUESTION

WHILE her aunt and cousin were discussing her downstairs, Miss Fetherstonhaugh was dressing herself for dinner in her little chamber at the top of the house. This was a part of the daily ceremonial of her new life, in which she took a deep and delighted interest. The whole thing, in fact, was charming to her. To come sweeping down the big staircase in dainty raiment, all in the spacious light and warmth – to have the doors held open for her as she passed in and out – to go into the dining-room on her uncle's arm, and sit at dinner with flowers before her – seeing and feeling nothing but softness and colour, and polish and order everywhere – was at this time to realise her highest conception of earthly enjoyment.

Her bedroom was not magnificent, but it had everything in it that she most desired – the whitest linen, the freshest chintz and muslin, a fire to dress by, an easy chair, and above all, a cheval glass, in which she could survey her pretty figure from head to foot. She stood before this cheval glass to-night a thoroughly happy little person. Hitherto, with a mirror twelve inches by nine, that had a crack across it, she had seen that her face was fair and fresh, and that her hair had a wonderful red-gold lustre where the light fell upon it; but she was only now coming to understand what perfection of shape and grace had developed with her recent growth into womanhood, to make the tout ensemble charming.

She looked at herself with deep content – no doubt with a stronger interest than she would have looked at any other lovely woman, but in much the same spirit, enjoying her beauty more for its own sake than for what it would do for her – more because it harmonised herself to her tastes and circumstances, than because it was a great arsenal of ammunition for social warfare and conquest.

She was still in mourning for her father, and had put on a simple black evening dress. Her natural sense of the becoming dictated simple costumes, but education demanded that they should be made in the latest fashion; and she regarded the tightness of her skirt in front, and the fan of her train behind, with something more than complacency.

As yet the lust for jewels had not awakened in her, which was very fortunate, for she had none. The tender, milky throat and the round white arms were bare; and all the ornament that she wore, or wanted, was a bouquet of white chrysanthemum and scarlet salvia on her bosom, and another in her hair.

Pretty Rachel Fetherstonhaugh! If Roden Dalrymple could have seen her that night, only for five minutes, what a deal of trouble she might have been spared!

The dinner bell rang, and she blew out her candles hurriedly, and flitted downstairs. On the landing below her she joined her uncle – a small, thin, sharp-faced person, with wiry grey hair, and "man of business" written in every line of his face – as he left his own apartment; and they descended in haste together to the drawing-room, where four people were solemnly awaiting them.

The first thing that Rachel saw when she entered was her Marshal Neil rose. She glanced from that to its wearer's face, eagerly turned to meet her, full of admiring interest; and, as a matter of course, she blushed to a hue that put her scarlet salvias to shame.

Why she blushed she would have been at a loss to say; certainly not for any of the reasons that the assembled spectators supposed. It was merely from the vaguest sense of embarrassment at being in a position which she had not been trained to understand.

An hour or two before, her aunt had made that rose the text of a discourse in which many strange things had been suggested, but nothing explained; and now they all looked at her, evidently with reference to it, yet with painful ambiguity that perplexed her and made her uneasy; and she could only feel, in a general way, that she was young and ignorant and not equal to the situation. Much less than that was amply sufficient to cover her with a veil of blushes.

At dinner she sat between Mr. Reade and her uncle, and, being on the best of terms with both of them, she confined her conversation to her own corner of the table, and scarcely lifted her eyes; but when dinner was over – dinner and coffee, and the drive to the opera-house – then Mr. Kingston, deeply interested in his supposed discovery of a new kind of woman, and piqued by her shy reception of his generally much-appreciated attentions, set himself to improve his acquaintance with her, and found the task easy. They were standing on the pavement, in the glare of the gaslight, with a lounging crowd about them.

Mrs. Hardy had dropped a bracelet, for which she and her son-in-law were hunting in the bottom of the brougham, and Mrs. Reade was chatting to an acquaintance, whose hansom had just deposited him beside her – a bearded young squatter, enjoying his season in town after selling his wool high, who stared very hard at Rachel through a pair of good glasses, as soon as he had a favourable opportunity.

Mr. Kingston stood by the girl's side, staring at her without disguise. The shadow of the street fell soft upon her gauzy raiment and her white arms and the lustre of her auburn hair, but her face was turned towards the gaslight – she was looking wistfully up the long passage which had something very like fairy land at the end of it – and he thought he had never seen any face so fresh and sweet.

"You like this kind of thing, don't you?" he said, gently, as if speaking to a child, when in turning to look for her aunt she caught his eye.

"Oh, yes," she replied, promptly, "I do, indeed! I like the whole thing; not the singing and the acting only, but the place, and the people, and the ladies' dresses, and the noise, and the moving about, and the lights – everything. I should like to come to the opera every night – except the nights when there are balls."

Mr. Kingston laughed, and said he should never have guessed from what he had seen of her that she was such a very gay young lady.

"You don't understand," she responded quickly, looking up at him with earnest, candid eyes; "it is not that I am gay – oh, no, I don't think it is that! though perhaps I do enjoy a spectacle more than many people. But it is all so new and strange. I have never had any sightseeing – any pleasure like what I am having now, that is why I find it so delightful."

"Come, my dear!" cried Mrs. Hardy sharply (she had found her bracelet and overheard a part of this little dialogue), "don't stand about in the wind with nothing over you. What have you done with your shawl?"

"It is here, aunt," replied Rachel meekly, lifting it from her arm.

Her cavalier hastened to take it from her and adjust it carefully over her shoulders. During this operation Mrs. Hardy swept into the lobby, taking the arm of her big son-in-law; and Mrs. Reade, having parted from her friend, glanced round quickly, followed her husband, and put herself also under his protection. Mr. Kingston, smiling to himself like Mephistopheles under his waxed moustache, was left with Rachel in the doorway.

"How does it go?" he said, fumbling with a quantity of woolly fringe. "All right – there's no hurry. It is not eight o'clock yet. Pray let me do it for you."

She stood still, while he dawdled as long as he could over the arrangement of her wrap, but she cast anxious looks after the three receding figures, and she was the colour of an oleander blossom. He was a little disconcerted at her embarrassment; it amused him, but it touched him too.

Poor little timid child! Who would be so mean as to take advantage of her inexperience? Not he, certainly. He gave her his arm and led her into the house, with a deferential attentiveness that did not usually mark his deportment towards young girls. On their way they were accosted by a boy holding a couple of bouquets in each hand.

"Buy a bouquet for the opera, Sir?" said he, in his sing-song voice.

Mr. Kingston paused and put his glass in his eye. They were bright little nosegays, and one of them, much superior to the other, had a fringe of maiden hair fern and a rich red rose in the middle of it. He took this from the boy's hand, and offered it to Rachel with his elaborate bow.

"Permit me," he said, "to make a poor acknowledgment of my deep indebtedness to you for this."

And he touched the drooping petals of the Marshal Neil bud, and imagined he was paying her a delicate sentimental compliment.

If Rachel had been the most finished fine lady she could not have undeceived him more gracefully.

"Thank you," she said, simply, and she smiled for half a second.

To be sure her red rose was not redder than she was, but she held her head with a gentle air of maidenly dignity that quite counteracted the weakness of that blush.

Mr. Kingston began to suspect, with some surprise, that she was not so easy to get on with as she appeared. However, that did not lessen his interest in her by any means.

"I am afraid you think I have taken a liberty," he suggested presently. What had come to him to care what a bread-and-butter miss might think? But somehow he did care.

"Oh, no," she said, "it is very kind of you. But you must not talk of being indebted to me. Flowers are not – not presents, like other things."

By this time they had reached the top of the stairs, and Mrs. Reade was sweeping out of the cloak-room, where she had been "settling" her hair, and putting a little powder on her face.

"Mamma is gone in," she said, taking the girl's hand kindly; "there are plenty of people here to-night, Rachel. You must look for a lady sitting on the right of the Governor's box, in a high velvet dress. She is one of our Melbourne beauties."

So they went in and took their seats; and Rachel found herself sitting in the front tier, not very much to the left of the viceregal armchairs, and her cousin Beatrice was on one side of her and Mr. Kingston on the other.

She was perfectly contented now. She smiled at her flowers; she furled and unfurled her fan; she looked round and round the house through her glasses, whispering questions and comments to Mrs. Reade, who knew everybody and everybody's history; and it made Mrs. Hardy quite uneasy to see how thoroughly and evidently she enjoyed herself. Mr. Kingston recovered his spirits which she had damped a little while ago.

He watched her face from time to time – generally when she was absorbed in watching the stage; and the more he looked, the more charming he found it. So fresh, so frank, so modest, so sweet, with those delicate womanly blushes always coming and going, and that child-like fun and brightness in her eyes. He had never been so "fetched," as he expressed it, by a pretty face before; that is to say, he did not remember that he ever had been.

It was, indeed, very seldom that he regarded a pretty face with such a serious kind of admiration. He found himself wondering how it would fare, how long it would keep its transparent innocence and candour in the atmosphere of this new world – this second-rate Hardy set, which was full of meretricious, manœuvring, gossip-loving women – with a touch of anxiety that was quite unselfish. He was sure now that she was not a coquette; he was experienced enough to know, also, that, however humble her origin and antecedents, she was a girl of thoroughly "good style;" and it would be a thousand pities, he thought, if the influence of her surroundings should spoil her.

When the curtain fell and the gas was turned up, he noticed that people all round the house were turning their glasses upon her. Certainly she made a charming study from an artistic point of view. What taste she had shown in the grouping of her white chrysanthemums, and the way she had mixed in those few velvety horns of red salvia. They were colours proper to a brunette, but they seemed to accentuate the delicacy of her milky complexion and the fine shade of her red-gold hair.

What a chin and throat she had! and what soft, yet strong, round arms! – white, but warm, like blush rose petals that had unfolded in the dews of dawn at summer time, against the black background of her dress. And her shape and her colour were nothing compared with the expression of utter content and happiness that shone out of her face, irradiating her youth and beauty with a tender light and sweetness that, like sunshine on a sleeping crater, gave no hint of the tragic trouble hidden away for future years. No wonder people looked at her. Of course they looked.

The glasses that she had been using belonged to Mrs. Reade, and now that lady was busy with them, hunting for her numerous acquaintances. Mr. Kingston held out his own, curious to see if she would discover what attention she was receiving, and what the effect of such a discovery would be.