Whiteladies

Herbert was so much affected by this appeal that it brought the tears to his eyes.

“I think we shall, indeed,” he said, warmly, – “nay, we are. It would be a strange fellow indeed who would not be glad to be brother, or anything else, to a girl like you.”

“Brother, not anything else,” said Sophy, audibly but softly. “Ah, Bertie! you can’t think how glad I am. As soon as we saw you, Kate and I could not help feeling what an advantage Reine had over us. To have you to refer to always – to have you to talk to – instead of the nonsense that we girls are always chattering to each other.”

“Well,” said Herbert, more and more pleased, “I suppose it is an advantage; not that I feel myself particularly wise, I am sure. There is always something occurring which shows one how little one knows.”

“If you feel that, imagine how we must feel,” said Sophy, “who have never had any education. Oh yes, we have had just the same as other girls! but not like men – not like you, Bertie. Oh, you need not be modest. I know you haven’t been at the University to waste your time and get into debt, like so many we know. But you have done a great deal better. You have read and you have thought, and Reine has had all the advantage. I almost hate Reine for being so much better off than we are.”

“But, really,” cried Herbert, laughing half with pleasure, half with a sense of the incongruity of the praise, “you give me a great deal more credit than I deserve. I have never been very much of a student. I don’t know that I have done much for Reine – except what one can do in the way of conversation, you know,” he added, after a pause, feeling that after all it must have been this improving conversation which had made his sister what she was. It had not occurred to him before, but the moment it was suggested – yes, of course, that was what it must be.

“Just what I said,” cried Sophy; “and we never had that advantage. So if you find us frivolous, Bertie – ”

“How could I find you frivolous? You are nothing of the sort. I shall almost think you want me to pay you compliments – to say what I think of you.”

“I hate compliments,” cried Sophy. “Here we are on the lawn, Bertie, and here are the others. What do you think of it? We have had such trouble with the grass – now, I think, it is rather nice. It has been rolled and watered and mown, and rolled and watered and mown again, almost every day.”

“It is the best croquet-ground in the county,” said the Major; “and why shouldn’t we have a game? It is pleasant to be out of doors such a lovely day.”

This was assented to, and the others went in-doors for their hats; but Sophy stayed. “I have got rid of any complexion I ever had,” she said. “I am always out of doors. The sun must have got tired of burning me, I am so brown already,” and she put up two white, pink-fingered hands to her white-and-pink cheeks. She was one of those blondes of satin-skin who are not easily affected by the elements. Herbert laughed, and with the privilege of cousinship took hold of one of the pink tips of the fingers, and looked at the hand.

“Is that what you call brown?” he said. “We have just come from the land of brown beauties, and I ought to know. It is the color of milk with roses in it,” and the young man, who was not used to paying compliments, blushed as he made his essay; which was more than Sophy, experienced in the commodity, felt any occasion to do.

“Milk of roses,” she said, laughing; “that is a thing for the complexion. I don’t use it, Bertie; I don’t use anything of the kind. Men are always so dreadfully knowing about young girls’ dodges – ” The word slipped out against her will, for Sophy felt that slang was not expedient, and she blushed at this slip, though she had not blushed at the compliment. Herbert did not, however, discriminate. He took the pretty suffusion to his own account, and laughed at the inadvertent word. He thought she put it in inverted commas, as a lady should; and when this is done, a word of slang is piquant now and then as a quotation. Besides, he was far from being a purist in language. Kate, however, the unselfish, thoughtful elder sister, sweetly considerate of the young beauty, brought out Sophy’s hat with her own, and they began to play. Herbert and Reine were novices, unacquainted (strange as the confession must sound) with this universally popular game; and Sophy boldly stepped into the breech, and took them both on her side. “I am the best player of the lot,” said Sophy calmly. “You know I am. So Bertie and Reine shall come with me; and beat us if you can!” said the young champion; and if the reader will believe me, Sophy’s boast came true. Kate, indeed, made a brave stand; but the Major was middle-aged, and the young fellow was feeble, and Herbert showed an unsuspected genius for the game. He was quite pleased himself by his success; everything, indeed, seemed to conspire to make Herbert feel how clever he was, how superior he was, what an acquisition was his society; and during the former part of his life it had not been so. Like one of the great philosophers of modern times, Herbert felt that those who appreciated him so deeply must in themselves approach the sublime. Indeed, I fear it is a little mean on my part to take the example of that great philosopher, as if he were a rare instance; for is not the most foolish of us of the same opinion? “Call me wise, and I will allow you to be a judge,” says an old Scotch proverb. Herbert was ready to think all these kind people very good judges who so magnified and glorified himself.

In the evening there was a very small dinner-party; again two men to balance Kate and Reine, but not the same men – persons of greater weight and standing, with Farrel-Austin himself at the foot of his own table. Mrs. Farrel-Austin was not well enough to come to dinner, but appeared in the drawing-room afterward; and when the gentlemen came upstairs, appropriated Reine. Sophy, who had a pretty little voice, had gone to the piano, and was singing to Herbert, pausing at the end of every verse to ask him, “Was it very bad? Tell me what you dislike most, my high notes or my low notes, or my execution, or what?” while Herbert, laughing and protesting, gave vehement praise to all. “I don’t dislike anything. I am delighted with every word; but you must not trust to me, for indeed I am no judge of music.”

“No judge of music, and yet fresh from Italy!” cried Sophy, with flattering contempt.

While this was going on Mrs. Farrel-Austin drew Reine close to her sofa. “I am very glad to see you, my dear,” she said, “and so far as I am concerned I hope you will come often. You are so quiet and nice; and all I have seen of your Aunt Susan I like, though I know she does not like us. But I hope, my dear, you won’t get into the racketing set our girls are so fond of. I should be very sorry for that; it would be bad for your brother. I don’t mean to say anything against Kate and Sophy. They are very lively and very strong, and it suits them, though in some things I think it is bad for them too. But your brother could never stand it, my dear; I know what bad health is, and I can see that he is not strong still.”

“Oh, yes,” said Reine eagerly. “He has been going out in the world a great deal lately. I was frightened at first; but I assure you he is quite strong.”

Mrs. Farrel-Austin shook her head. “I know what poor health is,” she said, “and however strong you may get, you never can stand a racket. I don’t suppose for a moment that they mean any harm, but still I should not like anything to happen in this house. People might say – and your Aunt Susan would be sure to think – It is very nice, I suppose, for young people; and of course at your age you are capable of a great deal of racketing; but I must warn you, my dear, it’s ruin for the health.”

“Indeed, I don’t think we have any intention of racketing.”

“Ah, it is not the intention that matters,” said the invalid. “I only want to warn you, my dear. It is a very racketing set. You should not let yourself be drawn into it, and quietly, you know, when you have an opportunity, you might say a word to your brother. I dare say he feels the paramount value of health. Oh, what should I give now if I had only been warned when I was young! You cannot play with your health, my dear, with impunity. Even the girls, though they are so strong, have headaches and things which they oughtn’t to have at their age. But I hope you will come here often, you are so nice and quiet – not like the most of those that come here.”

“What is Mrs. Austin saying to you, Reine?” asked Kate.

“She told me I was nice and quiet,” said Reine, thinking that in honor she was bound not to divulge the rest; and they both laughed at the moderate compliment.

“So you are,” said Kate, giving her a little hug. “It is refreshing to be with any one so tranquil – and I am sure you will do us both good.”

Reine was not impressed by this as Herbert was by Sophy’s pretty speeches. Perhaps the praise that was given to her was not equally well chosen. The passionate little semi-French girl (who had been so ultra-English in Normandy) was scarcely flattered by being called tranquil, and did not feel that to do Sophy and Kate good by being “nice and quiet” was a lofty mission. What did a racketing set mean? she wondered. An involuntary prejudice against the house rose in her mind, and this opened her eyes to something of Sophy’s tactics. It was rather hard to sit and look on and see Herbert thus fooled to the top of his bent. When she went to the piano beside them, Sophy grew more rational; but still she kept referring to Herbert, consulting him. “Is it like this they do it in Italy?” she sang, executing “a shake” with more natural sweetness than science.

“Indeed, I don’t know, but it is beautiful,” said Herbert. “Ask Reine.”

“Oh, Reine is only a girl like myself. She will say what she thinks will please me. I have far more confidence in a gentleman,” cried Sophy; “and above all in you, Bertie, who have promised to be a brother to me,” she said, in a lower tone.

“Did I promise to be a brother?” said poor, foolish Herbert, his heart beating with vanity and pleasure.

And the evening passed amid these delights.

CHAPTER XLIII

I NEED not follow day by day the course of Herbert’s life. Though the brother and sister went out a good deal together at first, being asked to all the great houses in the neighborhood, as became their position in the county and their recent arrival, yet there gradually arose a separation between Herbert and Reine. It was inevitable, and she had learned to acknowledge this, and did not rebel as at first; but a great many people shook their heads when it became apparent that, notwithstanding Mrs. Farrel-Austin’s warning, Herbert had been drawn into the “racketing set” whose headquarters were at the Hatch. The young man was fond of pleasure, as well as of flattery, and it was Summer, when all the ills that flesh is heir to relax their hold a little, and dissipation is comparatively harmless. He went to Ascot with the party from the Hatch, and he went to a great many other places with them; and though the friends he made under their auspices led Herbert into places much worse both for his health and mind than any the girls could lead him to, he remained faithful, so far, to Kate and Sophy, and continued to attend them wherever they went. As for Reine, she was happy enough in the comparative quiet into which she dropped when the first outbreak of gayety was over. Miss Susan, against her will, still remained at Whiteladies; against her will – yet it may well be supposed it was no pleasure to her to separate herself from the old house in which she had been born, and from which she had never been absent for so much as six months all her life. Miss Augustine, for her part, took little or no notice of the change in the household. She went her way as usual, morning and evening, to the Almshouses. When Miss Susan spoke to her, as she did sometimes, about the cottage which stood all this time furnished and ready for instant occupation, she only shook her head. “I do not mean to leave Whiteladies,” she said, calmly. Neither did Giovanna, so far as could be perceived. “You cannot remain here when we go,” said Miss Susan to her.

“There is much room in the house,” said Giovanna; “and when you go, Madame Suzanne, there will be still more. The little chamber for me and the child, what will that do to any one?”

“But you cannot, you must not; it will be improper – don’t you understand?” cried Miss Susan.

Giovanna shook her head.

“I will speak to M. Herbert,” she said, smiling in Miss Susan’s face.

This then was the position of affairs. Herbert put off continually the settlement between them, begging that he might have a little holiday, that she would retain the management of the estate and of his affairs, and this with a certain generosity mingling with his inclination to avoid trouble; for in reality he loved the woman who had been in her way a mother to him, and hesitated about taking from her the occupation of her life. It was well meant; and Miss Susan felt within herself that moral cowardice which so often affects those who live in expectation of an inevitable change or catastrophe. It must come, she knew; and when the moment of departure came, she could not tell, she dared not anticipate what horrors might come with it; but she was almost glad to defer it, to consent that it should be postponed from day to day. The king in the story, however, could scarcely manage, I suppose, to be happy with that sword hanging over his head. No doubt he got used to it, poor wretch, and could eat and drink, and snatch a fearful joy from the feasting which went on around him; he might even make merry, perhaps, but he could scarcely be very happy under the shadow. So Miss Susan felt. She went on steadily, fulfilled all her duties, dispensed hospitalities, and even now and then permitted herself to be amused; but she was not happy.

Sometimes, when she said her prayers – for she did still say her prayers, notwithstanding the burden on her soul – she would breathe a sigh which was scarcely a prayer, that it might soon be over one way or another, that her sufferings might be cut short; but then she would rouse herself up, and recall that despairing sigh. Giovanna would not budge. Miss Susan made a great many appeals to her, when Reine was straying about the garden, or after she had gone to her innocent rest. She offered sums which made that young woman tremble in presence of a temptation which she could scarcely resist; but she set her white teeth firm, and conquered. It was better to have all than only a part, Giovanna thought, and she comforted herself that at the last moment, if her scheme failed, she could fall back upon and accept Miss Susan’s offer. This made her very secure, through all the events that followed. When Herbert abandoned Whiteladies and was constantly at the Hatch, when he seemed to have altogether given himself over to his cousins, and a report got up through the county that “an alliance was contemplated,” as the Kingsborough paper put it, grandly having a habit of royalty, so to speak – between two distinguished county families, Giovanna bore the contretemps quite calmly, feeling that Miss Susan’s magnificent offer was always behind her to fall back upon, if her great personal enterprise should come to nothing. Her serenity gave her a great advantage over Herbert’s feebler spirit. When he came home to Whiteladies, she regained her sway over him, and as she never indulged in a single look of reproach, such as Sophy employed freely when he left the Hatch, or was too long of returning, she gradually established for herself a superior place in the young man’s mind.

As for Herbert himself, the three long months of that Summer were more to him than all the former years of his life put together. His first outburst of freedom on the Riviera, and his subsequent ramble in Italy, had been overcast by adverse circumstances. He had got his own way, but at a cost which was painful to him, and a great many annoyances and difficulties had been mingled with his pleasure. But now there was nothing to interfere with it. Reine was quiescent, presenting a smiling countenance when he saw her, not gloomy or frightened, as she had been at Cannes. She was happy enough; she was at home, with her aunts to fall back upon, and plenty of friends. And everybody and everything smiled upon Herbert. He was acting generously, he felt, to his former guardian, in leaving to her all the trouble of his affairs. He was surrounded by gay friends and unbounded amusements, amusements bounded only by the time that was occupied by them, and those human limitations which make it impossible to do two things at once. Could he have been in two places at once, enjoying two different kinds of pleasure at the same time, his engagements were sufficient to have secured for him a double enjoyment. From the highest magnates of the county, to the young soldiers of Kingsborough, his own contemporaries, everybody was willing to do him honor. The entire month of June he spent in town, where he had everything that town could give him – though their life moved rather more quickly than suited his still unconfirmed strength. Both in London and in the country he was invited into higher circles than those which the Farrel-Austins were permitted to enter; but still he remained faithful to his cousins, who gave him a homage which he could not expect elsewhere, and who had always “something going on,” both in town and country, and no pause in their fast and furious gayety. They were always prepared to go with him or take him somewhere, to give him the carte du pays, to tell him all the antecedents and history of this one and that one, and to make the ignorant youth feel himself an experienced man. Then, when it pleased him to go home, he was the master, welcomed by all, and found another beautiful slave waiting serene to burn incense to him.

No wonder Herbert enjoyed himself. He had come out of his chrysalis condition altogether, and was enjoying the butterfly existence to an extent which he had never conceived of, fluttering about everywhere, sunning his fine new wings, his new energies, his manhood, and his health, and his wealth, and all the glories that were his. To do him justice, he would have brought his household up to town, in order that Reine too might have had her glimpse of the season, could he have persuaded them; but Reine, just then at a critical point of her life, declined the indulgence. Kate and Sophy, however, were fond of saying that they had never enjoyed a season so much. Opera-boxes rained upon them; they never wanted bouquets; and their parties to Richmond, to Greenwich, wherever persons of her class go, were endless. Herbert was ready for anything, and their father did decline the advantages, though he disliked the giver of them; and even when he was disagreeable, matrons were always procurable to chaperone the party, and preside over their pleasures. Everybody believed, as Sophy did, that there could be but one conclusion to so close an intimacy.

“At all events, we have had a very jolly season,” said Kate, who was not so sure.

And Herbert fully echoed the words when he heard them. Yes, it had been a very jolly season. He had “spent his money free,” which in the highest class, as well as in the lowest, is the most appropriate way in which a young man can make himself agreeable. He had enjoyed himself, and he had given to others a great many opportunities of enjoying themselves. Now and then he carried down a great party to Whiteladies, and introduced the beau monde to his beautiful old house, and made one of those fêtes champêtres for his friends which break so agreeably upon the toils of London pleasuring, and which supply to the highest class, always like the lowest in their peculiar rites, an elegant substitute for Cremorne and Rosherville. Miss Susan bestirred herself, and made a magnificent response to his appeals when he asked her to receive such parties, and consoled herself for the gay mob that disturbed the dignity of the old house, by the noble names of some of them, which she was too English not to be impressed by. And thus in a series of delights the Summer passed from May to August. Herbert did not go to Scotland, though he had many invitations and solicitations to do so when the season was over. He came home instead, and settled there when fashion melted away out of town; and Sophy, considering the subject, as she thought, impartially, and without any personal prejudice (she said), concluded that it must be for her sake he stayed.

“I know the Duke of Ptarmigan asked him, and Tom Heath, and Billy Trotter,” she said to her sister. “Billy, they say, has the finest moors going. Why shouldn’t he have gone, unless he had some motive? He can’t have any shooting here till September. If it isn’t that, what do you suppose it can be!”

“Well, at all events we have had a very jolly season,” said Kate, not disposed to commit herself; “and what we have to do is to keep things going, and show him the country, and not be dull even now.” Which admirable suggestion they carried out with all their hearts.

Herbert’s thoughts, however, were not, I fear, so far advanced as Sophy supposed. It was not that he did not think of that necessity of marrying which Miss Augustine enforced upon him in precisely the same words, every time she saw him. “You are wasting time – you are wasting my time, Herbert,” she said to him when he came back to Whiteladies, in July. Frankly she thought this the most important point of view. So far as he was concerned, he was young, and there was time enough; but if she, a woman of seven-and-fifty, was to bring up his heir and initiate him into her ideas, surely there was not a moment to be lost in taking the preliminary steps.

Herbert was very much amused with this view of the subject. It tickled his imagination so, that he had not been able to refrain from communicating it to several of his friends. But various of these gentlemen, after they had laughed, pronounced it to be their opinion that, by Jove, the old girl was not so far out.

“I wouldn’t stand having that little brat of a child set up as the heir under my very nose; and, by Jove, Austin, I’d settle that old curmudgeon Farrel’s hopes fast enough, if I were in your place,” said his advisers.

Herbert was not displeased with the notion. He played with it, with a certain enjoyment. He felt that he was a prize worth anybody’s pursuit, and liked to hear that such and such ladies were “after him.” The Duke of Ptarmigan had a daughter or two, and Sir Billy Trotter’s sister might do worse, her friends thought. Herbert smoothed an incipient moustache, late in growing, and consequently very precious, and felt a delightful complaisance steal over him. And he knew that Sophy, his cousin, did not despise him; I am not sure even that the young coxcomb was not aware that he might have the pick of either of the girls, if he chose; which also, though Kate had never thought on the subject, was true enough. She had faithfully given him over to her younger sister, and never interfered; but if Herbert had thrown his handkerchief to her, she would have thought it sinful to refuse. When he thought on the subject, which was often enough, he had a kind of lazy sense that this was what would befall him at last. He would throw his handkerchief some time when he was at the Hatch, and wheresoever the chance wind might flutter it, there would be his fate. He did not really care much whether it might happen to be Sophy or Kate.

When he came home, however, these thoughts would float away out of his mind. He did not think of marrying, though Miss Augustine spoke to him on the subject every day. He thought of something else, which yet was not so far different; he thought that nowhere, in society or out of it, had he seen any one like Giovanna.

“Did you ever see such a picture?” he would say to Reine. “Look at her! Now she’s sculpture, with that child on her shoulder. If the boy was only like herself, what a group they’d make! I’d like to have Marochetti, or some of those swells, down, to make them in marble. And she’d paint just as well. By Jove, she’s all the arts put together. How she does sing! Patti and the rest are nothing to her. But I don’t understand how she could be the mother of that boy.”

Giovanna came back across the lawn, having swung the child from her shoulder on to the fragrant grass, in time to hear this, and smiled and said, “He does not resemble me, does he? Madame Suzanne, M. Herbert remarks that the boy is not dark as me. He is another type – yes, another type, n’est ce pas!”

“Not a bit like you,” said Herbert. “I don’t say anything against Jean, who is a dear little fellow; but he is not like you.”