Kitabı oku: «The Three Miss Kings», sayfa 10

CHAPTER XIX.
A MORNING AT THE EXHIBITION

Paul Brion was wakened from his sleep next morning by the sound of Mrs. Duff-Scott's carriage wheels and prancing horses, and sauntering to his sitting-room window about ten minutes later, had the satisfaction of seeing his young neighbours step into the distinguished vehicle and drive away. There was Elizabeth reposing by her chaperon's side, as serene as a princess who had never set foot on common earth; and there were Patty and Eleanor, smiling and animated, lovelier than their wont, if that could be, nestling under the shadow of two tall men-servants in irreproachable liveries, with cockades upon their hats. It was a pretty sight, but it spoiled his appetite for his breakfast. He could no longer pretend that he was thankful for the fruition of his desires on their behalf. He could only feel that they were gone, and that he was left behind – that a great gulf had suddenly opened between them and him and the humble and happy circumstances of yesterday, with no bridge across it that he could walk over.

The girls, for their part, practically forgot him, and enjoyed the difference between to-day and yesterday in the most worldly and womanly manner. The sensation of bowling along the streets in a perfectly-appointed carriage was as delicious to them as it is to most of us who are too poor to indulge in it as a habit; for the time being it answered all the purposes of happiness as thoroughly as if they had never had any higher ambition than to cut a dash. They went shopping with the fairy godmother before they went to the Exhibition, and that, too, was absorbingly delightful – both to Elizabeth, who went in with Mrs. Duff-Scott to assist her in her purchases, and to the younger sisters, who reposed majestically in the carriage at the door. Patty's quick eyes caught sight of Mrs. Aarons and a pair of her long-nosed children walking on the pavement, and she cheerfully owned herself a snob and gloried in it. It gave her unspeakable satisfaction, she said, to sit there and look down upon Mrs. Aarons.

As they passed the Melbourne Club on their way to the Exhibition, the coachman was hailed by the elder of two gentlemen who were sauntering down the steps, and they were introduced for the first time to the fairy godmother's husband. Major Duff-Scott, an ex-officer of dragoons and a late prominent public man of his colony (he was prominent still, but for his social, and not his official qualifications), was a well-dressed and well-preserved old gentleman, who, having sown a large and miscellaneous crop of wild oats in the course of a long career, had been rewarded with great wealth and all the privileges of the highest respectability. He had been a prodigal, but he had enjoyed it – never knowing the bitterness of either hunger or husks. He had tasted dry bread at times, as a matter of course, but only just enough of it to give a proper relish to the abundant cakes and ale that were his portion; and the proverb which says you cannot eat your cake and have it was a perfectly dead letter in his case. He had been eating his all his life, and he had got it still. In person he was the most gentle-looking little man imaginable – about half the size of his imposing wife, thin and spare, and with a little stoop in his shoulders; but there was an alertness in his step and a brightness in his eye, twinkling remotely between the shadow of his hat brim and a bulging mass of white moustache that covered all the lower part of his small face, which had suggestions of youth and vigour about them that were lacking in the figure and physiognomy of the young man at his side. When he came up to the carriage door to be introduced to his wife's protégées, whom he greeted with as much cordiality as Mrs. Duff-Scott could have desired, they did not know why it was that they so immediately lost the sense of awe with which they had contemplated the approach of a person destined to have so formidable a relation to themselves. They shook hands with him, they made modest replies to his polite inquiries, they looked beyond his ostensible person to the eyes that looked at them; and then their three grave faces relaxed, and in half a minute were brimming over with smiles. They felt at home with Major Duff-Scott at once.

"Come, come," said the fairy godmother rather impatiently, when something like a fine aroma of badinage was beginning to perfume the conversation, "you must not stop us now. We want to have a long morning. You can join us at the Exhibition presently, if you like, and bring Mr. Westmoreland." She indicated the young man who had been talking to her while her spouse made the acquaintance of her companions, and who happened to be one of the three husbands whom she had selected for those young ladies. He was the richest of them all, and the most stupid, and therefore he seemed to be cut out for Patty, who, being so intellectual and so enterprising, would not only make a good use of his money, but would make the best that was to be made of him. "My dears," she said, turning towards the girls, "let me introduce Mr. Westmoreland to you. Mr. Westmoreland, Miss King – Miss Eleanor King – Miss Patty King."

The heavy young man made a heavy bow to each, and then stared straight at Eleanor, and studied her with calm attention until the carriage bore her from his sight. She, with her tender blue eyes and her yellow hair, and her skin like the petals of a blush rose, was what he was pleased to call, in speaking of her a little later to a confidential friend, the "girl for him." Of Patty he took no notice whatever.

Mrs. Duff-Scott, on her way to Carlton, stopped to speak to an acquaintance who was driving in an opposite direction, and by the time she reached the Exhibition, she found that her husband's hansom had arrived before her, and that he and Mr. Westmoreland were waiting at the entrance to offer their services as escort to the party. The major was the best of husbands, but he was not in the habit of paying her these small attentions; and Mr. Westmoreland had never been known, within her memory of him, to put himself to so much trouble for a lady's convenience. Wherefore the fairy godmother smiled upon them both, and felt that the Fates were altogether propitious to her little schemes. They walked up the pathway in a group, fell necessarily into single file in the narrow passage where they received and returned their tickets, and collected in a group again under the great dome, where they stood to look round on the twenty acres of covered space heaped with the treasures of those nations which Victoria welcomed in great letters on the walls. Mrs. Duff-Scott hooked her gold-rimmed glasses over her nose, and pointed out to her husband wherein the building was deficient, and wherein superfluous, in its internal arrangements and decorations. In her opinion – which placed the matter beyond discussion – the symbolical groups over the arches were all out of drawing, the colouring of the whole place vulgar to a degree, and the painted clouds inside the cupola enough to make one sick. The major endorsed her criticisms, perfunctorily, with amused little nods, glancing hither and thither in the directions she desired. "Ah, my dear," said he, "you mustn't expect everybody to have such good taste as yours." Mr. Westmoreland seemed to have exhausted the Exhibition, for his part; he had seen it all the day before, he explained, and he did not see what there was to make a fuss about. With the exception of some mysteries in the basement, into which he darkly hinted a desire to initiate the major presently, it had nothing about it to interest a man who, like him, had just returned from Europe and had seen the Paris affair. But to our girls it was an enchanted palace of delights – far exceeding their most extravagant anticipations. They gave no verbal expression to their sentiments, but they looked at each other with faces full of exalted emotion, and tacitly agreed that they were perfectly satisfied. The fascination of the place, as a storehouse of genuine samples of the treasures of that great world which they had never seen, laid hold of them with a grip that left a lasting impression. Even the rococo magnificence of the architecture and its adornments, which Mrs. Duff-Scott, enlightened by a large experience, despised, affected their untrained imaginations with all the force of the highest artistic sublimity. A longing took possession of them all at the same moment to steal back to-morrow – next day – as soon as they were free again to follow their own devices – and wander about the great and wonderful labyrinth by themselves and revel unobserved in their secret enthusiasms.

However, they enjoyed themselves to-day beyond all expectation. After skimming the cream of the many sensations offered to them, sauntering up and down and round and round through the larger thoroughfares in a straggling group, the little party, fixing upon their place of rendezvous and lunching arrangements, paired themselves for a closer inspection of such works of art as they were severally inclined to. Mrs. Duff-Scott kept Patty by her side, partly because Mr. Westmoreland did not seem to want her, and partly because the girl was such an interesting companion, being wholly absorbed in what she had come to see, and full of intelligent appreciation of everything that was pointed out to her; and this pair went a-hunting in the wildernesses of miscellaneous pottery for such unique and precious "bits" as might be secured, on the early bird principle, for Mrs. Duff-Scott's collection. Very soon that lady's card was hanging round the necks of all sorts of quaint vessels that she had greedily pounced upon (and which further researches proved to be relatively unworthy of notice) in her anxiety to outwit and frustrate the birds that would come round presently; while Patty was having her first lesson in china, and showing herself a delightfully precocious pupil. Mr. Westmoreland confined his attentions exclusively to Eleanor, who by-and-bye found herself interested in being made so much of, and even inclined to be a little frivolous. She did not know whether to take him as a joke or in earnest, but either way he was amusing. He strolled heavily along by her side for awhile in the wake of Mrs. Duff-Scott and Patty, paying no attention to the dazzling wares around him, but a great deal to his companion. He kept turning his head to gaze at her, with solemn, ruminating eyes, until at last, tired of pretending she did not notice it, she looked back at him and laughed. This seemed to put him at his ease with her at once.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, with more animation than she thought him capable of.

"Nothing," said she.

"Oh, but you were laughing at something. What was it? Was it because I was staring at you?"

"Well, you do stare," she admitted.

"I can't help it. No one could help staring at you."

"Why? Am I such a curiosity?"

"You know why. Don't pretend you don't."

She blushed at this, making herself look prettier than ever; it was not in her to pretend she didn't know – nor yet to pretend that his crude flattery displeased her.

"A cat may look at a king," he remarked, his heavy face quite lit up with his enjoyment of his own delicate raillery.

"O yes, certainly," she retorted. "But you see I am not a king, and you are not a cat."

"'Pon my word, you're awfully sharp," he rejoined, admiringly. And he laughed over this little joke at intervals for several minutes. Then by degrees they dropped away from their party, and went straying up and down the nave tête-à-tête amongst the crowd, looking at the exhibits and not much understanding what they looked at; and they carried on their conversation in much the same style as they began it, with, I grieve to say, considerable mutual enjoyment. By-and-bye Mr. Westmoreland took his young companion to the German tent, where the Hanau jewels were, by way of giving her the greatest treat he could think of. He betted her sixpence that he could tell her which necklace she liked the best, and he showed her the several articles (worth some thousands of pounds) which he should have selected for his wife, had he had a wife – declaring in the same breath that they were very poor things in comparison with such and such other things that he had seen elsewhere. Then they strolled along the gallery, glancing at the pictures as they went, Eleanor making mental notes for future study, but finding herself unable to study anything in Mr. Westmoreland's company. And then suddenly came a tall figure towards them – a gentlemanly man with a brown face and a red moustache – at sight of whom she gave a a little start of delighted recognition.

"Hullo!" cried Mr. Westmoreland, "there's old Yelverton, I do declare. He said he'd come over to have a look at the Exhibition."

Old Yelverton was no other than "Elizabeth's young man."

CHAPTER XX.
CHINA V. THE CAUSE OF HUMANITY

Meanwhile, Major Duff-Scott took charge of Elizabeth, and he was very well satisfied with the arrangement that left her to his care. He always preferred a mature woman to a young girl, as being a more interesting and intelligent companion, and he admired her when on a generous scale, as is the wont of small men. Elizabeth's frank face and simple manners and majestic physical proportions struck him as an admirable combination. "A fine woman," he called her, speaking of her later to his wife: "reminds me of what you were when I married you, my dear." And when he got to know her better he called her "a fine creature" – which meant that he recognised other good qualities in her besides that of a lofty stature.

As soon as Mrs. Duff-Scott stated her intention of going to see "what she could pick up," the major waved his hand and begged that he might be allowed to resign all his responsibilities on her behalf. "Buy what you like, my dear, buy what you like," he said plaintively, "but don't ask me to come and look on while you do it. Take Westmoreland – I'm sure he would enjoy it immensely."

"Don't flatter yourselves that I shall ask either of you," retorted his wife. "You would be rather in the way than otherwise. I've got Patty."

"Oh, she's got Patty!" he repeated, looking with gentle mournfulness at the young lady in question, while his far-off eyes twinkled under his hat brim. "I trust you are fond of china, Miss Patty."

"I am fond of everything," Patty fervently replied.

"Oh, that's right. You and Mrs. Duff-Scott will get on together admirably, I foresee. Come, Miss King" – turning to Elizabeth – "let us go and see what we can discover in the way of desirable bric-à-brac. We'll have a look at the Murano ware for you, my dear, if you like" – again addressing his wife softly – "and come back and tell you if there is anything particularly choice. I know they have a lovely bonnet there, all made of the sweetest Venetian glass and trimmed with blue velvet. But you could take the velvet off, you know, and trim it with a mirror. Those wreaths of leaves and flowers, and beautiful pink braids – "

"Oh, go along!" she interrupted impatiently. "Elizabeth, take care of him, and don't let him buy anything, but see what is there and tell me. I'm not going to put any of that modern stuff with my sixteenth century cup and bottle," she added, looking at nobody in particular, with a sudden brightening of her eyes; "but if there is anything pretty that will do for my new cabinet in the morning room – or for the table – I should like to have the first choice."

"Very well," assented her husband, meekly. "Come along, Miss King. We'll promise not to buy anything." He and Elizabeth then set off on their own account, and Elizabeth found herself led straight to the foot of a staircase, where the little major offered his arm to assist her in the ascent.

"But the Murano Court is not upstairs, is it?" she asked, hesitating.

"O no," he replied; "it is over there," giving a little backward nod.

"And are we not going to look at the glass?"

"Not at present," he said, softly. "That will keep. We'll look at it by-and-bye. First, I am going to show you the pictures. You are fond of pictures, are you not?"

"I am, indeed."

"Yes, I was certain of it. Come along, then, I can show you a few tolerably good ones. Won't you take my arm?"

She took his arm, as he seemed to expect it, though it would have been more reasonable if he had taken hers; and they marched upstairs, slowly, in face of the crowd that was coming down.

"My wife," said the major, sententiously, "is one of the best women that ever breathed."

"I am sure she is," assented Elizabeth, with warmth.

"No," he said, "you can't be sure; that is why I tell you. I have known her a long time, and experience has proved it to me. She is one of the best women that ever lived. But she has her faults. I think I ought to warn you, Miss King, that she has her faults."

"I think you ought not," said Elizabeth, with instinctive propriety.

"Yes," he went on, "it is a point of honour. I owe it to you, as the head of my house – the nominal head, you understand – the responsible head – not to let you labour under any delusion respecting us. It is best that you should know the truth at once. Mrs. Duff-Scott is energetic. She is fearfully, I may say abnormally, energetic."

"I think," replied Elizabeth, with decision, "that that is one of the finest qualities in the world."

"Ah, do you?" he rejoined sadly. "That is because you are young. I used to think so, too, when I was young. But I don't now – experience has taught me better. What I object to in my wife is that experience doesn't teach her anything. She won't learn. She persists in keeping all her youthful illusions, in the most obstinate and unjustifiable manner."

Here they reached the gallery and the pictures, but the major saw two empty chairs, and, sitting down on one of them, bade his companion rest herself on the other until she had recovered from the fatigue of getting upstairs.

"There is no hurry," he said wearily; "we have plenty of time." And then he looked at her with that twinkle in his eye, and said gently, "Miss King, you are very musical, I hear. Is that a fact?"

"We are very, very fond of music," she said, smiling. "It is rather a hobby with us, I think."

"A hobby! Ah, that's delightful. I'm so glad it is a hobby. You don't, by happy chance, play the violin, do you?"

"No. We only know the piano."

"You all play the piano? – old masters, and that sort of thing?"

"Yes. My sister Patty plays best. Her touch and expression are beautiful."

"Ah!" he exclaimed again, softly, as if with much inward satisfaction. He was sitting languidly on his chair, nursing his knee, and gazing through the balustrade of the gallery upon the crowd below. Elizabeth was on the point of suggesting that they might now go and look at the pictures, when he began upon a fresh topic.

"And about china, Miss King? Tell me, do you know anything about china?"

"I'm afraid not," said Elizabeth.

"You don't know the difference between Chelsea and Derby-Chelsea, for instance?"

"No."

"Nor between old Majolica and modern?"

"No."

"Nor between a Limoges enamel of the sixteenth century – everything good belongs to the sixteenth century, you must remember – and what they call Limoges now-a-days?"

"No."

"Ah, well, I think very few people do," said the major, resignedly. "But, at any rate" – speaking in a tone of encouragement – "you do know Sèvres and Dresden when you see them? – you could tell one of them from the other?"

"Really," Elizabeth replied, beginning to blush for her surpassing ignorance, "I am very sorry to have to confess it, but I don't believe I could."

The major softly unclasped his knees and leaned back in his chair, and sighed.

"But I could learn," suggested Elizabeth.

"Ah, so you can," he responded, brightening. "You can learn, of course. Will you learn? You can't think what a favour it would be to me if you would learn. Do promise me that you will."

"No, I will not promise. I should do it to please myself – and, of course, because it is a thing that Mrs. Duff-Scott takes an interest in," said Elizabeth.

"That is just what I mean. It is because Mrs. Duff-Scott takes such an interest in china that I want you to cultivate a taste for it. You see it is this way," he proceeded argumentatively, again, still clasping his knees, and looking up at her with a quaint smile from under his hat brim. "I will be frank with you, Miss King – it is this way. I want to induce you to enter into an alliance with me, offensive and defensive, against that terrible energy which, as I said, is my wife's alarming characteristic. For her own good, you understand – for my comfort incidentally, but for her own good in the first place, I want you to help me to keep her energy within bounds. As long as she is happy with music and china we shall be all right, but if she goes beyond things of that sort – well, I tremble for the consequences. They would be fatal – fatal!"

"Where are you afraid she should go to?" asked Elizabeth.

"I am afraid she should go into philanthropy," the major solemnly rejoined. "That is the bug-bear – the spectre – the haunting terror of my life. I never see a seedy man in a black frock coat, nor an elderly female in spectacles, about the house or speaking to my wife in the street, that I don't shake in my shoes – literally shake in my shoes, I do assure you. I can't think how it is that she has never taken up the Cause of Humanity," he proceeded reflectively. "If we had not settled down in Australia, she must have done it – she could not have helped herself. But even here she is beset with temptations. I can see them in every direction. I can't think how it is that she doesn't see them too."

"No doubt she sees them," said Elizabeth.

"O no, she does not. The moment she sees them – the moment she casts a serious eye upon them – that moment she will be a lost woman, and I shall be a desperate man."

The major shuddered visibly, and Elizabeth laughed at his distress. "Whenever it happens that Mrs. Duff-Scott goes into philanthropy," she said, a little in joke and a great deal in earnest, "I shall certainly be proud to accompany her, if she will have me." And, as she spoke, there flashed into her mind some idea of the meaning of certain little sentences that were breathed into her ear yesterday. The major talked on as before, and she tried to attend to what he said, but she found herself thinking less of him now than of her unknown friend – less occupied with the substantial figures upon the stage of action around her than with the delusive scene-painting in the background of her own imagination. Beyond the crowd that flowed up and down the gallery, she saw a dim panorama of other crowds – phantom crowds – that gradually absorbed her attention. They were in the streets of Cologne, looking up at those mighty walls and towers that had been six centuries a-building, shouting and shaking hands with each other; and in the midst of them he was standing, grave and critical, observing their excitement and finding it "pathetic" – nothing more. They were in London streets in the early daylight – daylight at half-past three in the morning! that was a strange thing to think of – a "gentle and good-humoured" mob, yet full of tragic interest for the philosopher watching its movements, listening to its talk, speculating upon its potential value in the sum of humankind. It was the typical crowd that he was in the habit of studying – not like the people who thronged the Treasury steps this time yesterday. Surely it was the Cause of Humanity that had laid hold of him. That was the explanation of the interest he took in some crowds, and of the delight that he found in the uninterestingness of others. That was what he meant when he told her she ought to read Thackeray's paper to help her to understand him.

Pondering over this thought, fitfully, amid the distractions of the conversation, she raised her head and saw Eleanor coming towards her.

"There's Westmoreland and your sister," said the major. "And one of those strangers who are swarming all about the place just now, and crowding us out of our club. It's Yelverton. Kingscote Yelverton he calls himself. He is rather a swell when he's at home, they tell me; but Westmoreland has no business to foist his acquaintance on your sister. He'll have my wife about him if he is not more careful than that."

Elizabeth saw them approaching, and forgot all about the crowd under Cologne Cathedral and the crowd that went to see the man hanged. She remembered only the crowd of yesterday, and how that stately gentleman – could it be possible? – had stood with her amid the crush and clamour, holding her in his arms. For the first time she was able to look at him fairly and see what he was like; and it seemed to her that she had never seen a man of such a noble presence. His eyes were fixed upon her as she raised hers to his face, regarding her steadily, but with inscrutable gravity and absolute respect. The major rose to salute him in response to Mr. Westmoreland's rather imperious demand. "My old friend, whom I met in Paris," said Mr. Westmoreland; "come over to have a look at us. Want you to know him, major. We must do our best to make him enjoy himself, you know."

"Didn't I tell you?" whispered Eleanor, creeping round the back of her sister's chair. "Didn't I tell you he would be here?"

And at the same moment Elizabeth heard some one murmur over her head, "Miss King, allow me to introduce Mr. Yelverton – my friend, whom I knew in Paris – "

And so he and she not only met again, but received Mrs. Grundy's gracious permission to make each other's acquaintance.