The Ordeal of Richard Feverel Part 57

As she loitered along the sh.o.r.e with her amusing companion, Lucy had many things to think of. There was her darling's match. The yachts were started by pistol-shot by Lord Mountfalcon on board the Empress, and her little heart beat after Richard's straining sails.

Then there was the strangeness of walking with a relative of Richard's, one who had lived by his side so long. And the thought that perhaps this night she would have to appear before the dreaded father of her husband.

"O Mr. Harley!" she said, "is it true--are we to go to-night? And me," she faltered, "will he see me?"

"Ah! that is what I wanted to talk to you about," said Adrian. "I made some reply to our dear boy which he has slightly misinterpreted.

Our second person plural is liable to misconstruction by an ardent mind. I said 'see you,' and he supposed--now, Mrs. Richard, I am sure you will understand me. Just at present perhaps it would be advisable--when the father and son have settled their accounts, the daughter-in-law can't be a debtor."...

Lucy threw up her blue eyes. A half-cowardly delight at the chance of a respite from the awful interview made her quickly apprehensive.

"O Mr. Harley! you think he should go alone first?"

"Well, that is my notion. But the fact is, he is such an excellent husband that I fancy it will require more than a man's power of persuasion to get him to go."

"But I will persuade him, Mr. Harley."

"Perhaps, if you would...."

"There is nothing I would not do for his happiness," murmured Lucy.

The wise youth pressed her hand with lymphatic approbation. They walked on till the yachts had rounded the point.

"Is it to-night, Mr. Harley?" she asked with some trouble in her voice now that her darling was out of sight.

"I don't imagine your eloquence even will get him to leave you to-night," Adrian replied gallantly. "Besides, I must speak for myself. To achieve the pa.s.sage to an island is enough for one day.

No necessity exists for any hurry, except in the brain of that impetuous boy. You must correct it, Mrs. Richard. Men are made to be managed, and women are born managers. Now, if you were to let him know that you don't want to go to-night, and let him guess, after a day or two, that you would very much rather ... you might affect a peculiar repugnance. By taking it on yourself, you see, this wild young man will not require such frightful efforts of persuasion.

Both his father and he are exceedingly delicate subjects, and his father unfortunately is not in a position to be managed directly.

It's a strange office to propose to you, but it appears to devolve upon you to manage the father through the son. Prodigal having made his peace, you, who have done all the work from a distance, naturally come into the circle of the paternal smile, knowing it due to you. I see no other way. If Richard suspects that his father objects for the present to welcome his daughter-in-law, hostilities will be continued, the breach will be widened, bad will grow to worse, and I see no end to it."

Adrian looked in her face, as much as to say: Now are you capable of this piece of heroism? And it did seem hard to her that she should have to tell Richard she shrank from any trial. But the proposition chimed in with her fears and her wishes: she thought the wise youth very wise: the poor child was not insensible to his flattery, and the subtler flattery of making herself in some measure a sacrifice to the home she had disturbed. She agreed to simulate as Adrian had suggested.

Victory is the commonest heritage of the hero, and when Richard came on sh.o.r.e proclaiming that the Blandish had beaten the Begum by seven minutes and three-quarters, he was hastily kissed and congratulated by his bride with her fingers among the leaves of Dr. Kitchener, and anxiously questioned about wine.

"Dearest! Mr. Harley wants to stay with us a little, and he thinks we ought not to go immediately--that is, before he has had some letters, and I feel ... I would so much rather...."

"Ah! that's it, you coward!" said Richard. "Well, then, to-morrow.

We had a splendid race. Did you see us?"

"Oh, yes! I saw you and was sure my darling would win." And again she threw on him the cold water of that solicitude about wine. "Mr.

Harley must have the best, you know, and we never drink it, and I'm so silly, I don't know good wine, and if you would send Tom where he can get _good_ wine. I have seen to the dinner."

"So that's why you didn't come to meet me?"

"Pardon me, darling."

"Well, I do, but Mountfalcon doesn't, and Lady Judith thinks you ought to have been there."

"Ah, but my heart was with you!"

Richard put his hand to feel for the little heart: her eyelids softened, and she ran away.

It is to say much of the dinner that Adrian found no fault with it, and was in perfect good humour at the conclusion of the service. He did not abuse the wine they were able to procure for him, which was also much. The coffee, too, had the honour of pa.s.sing without comment. These were sound first steps toward the conquest of an epicure, and as yet Cupid did not grumble.

After coffee they strolled out to see the sun set from Lady Judith's grounds. The wind had dropped. The clouds had rolled from the zenith, and ranged in amphitheatre with distant flushed bodies over sea and land: t.i.tanic crimson head and chest rising from the wave faced Hyperion falling. There hung Briareus with deep-indented trunk and ravined brows, stretching all his hands up to unattainable blue summits. North-west the range had a rich white glow, as if s.h.i.+ning to the moon, and westward, streams of amber, melting into upper rose, shot out from the dipping disk.

"What Sandoe calls the pa.s.sion-flower of heaven," said Richard under his breath to Adrian, who was serenely chanting Greek hexameters, and answered, in the swing of the caesura, "He might as well have said cauliflower."

Lady Judith, with a black lace veil tied over her head, met them in the walk. She was tall and dark; dark-haired, dark-eyed, sweet and persuasive in her accent and manner. "A second edition of the Blandish," thinks Adrian. She welcomed him as one who had claims on her affability. She kissed Lucy protectingly, and remarking on the wonders of the evening, appropriated her husband. Adrian and Lucy found themselves walking behind them.

The sun was under. All the s.p.a.ces of the sky were alight, and Richard's fancy flamed.

"So you're not intoxicated with your immense triumph this morning?"

said Lady Judith.

"Don't laugh at me. When it's over I feel ashamed of the trouble I've taken. Look at that glory!--I'm sure you despise me for it."

"Was I not there to applaud you? I only think such energies should be turned into some definitely useful channel. But you must not go into the Army."

"What else can I do?"

"You are fit for so much that is better."

"I never can be anything like Austin."

"But I think you can do more."

"Well, I thank you for thinking it, Lady Judith. Something I will do. A man must deserve to live, as you say."

"Sauces," Adrian was heard to articulate distinctly in the rear, "Sauces are the top tree of this science. A woman who has mastered sauces sits on the apex of civilization."

Briareus reddened duskily seaward. The West was all a burning rose.

"How can men see such sights as those, and live idle?" Richard resumed. "I feel ashamed of asking my men to work for me.--Or I feel so now."

"Not when you're racing the Begum, I think. There's no necessity for you to turn democrat like Austin. Do you write now?"

"No. What is writing like mine? It doesn't deceive me. I know it's only the excuse I'm making to myself for remaining idle. I haven't written a line since--lately."

"Because you are so happy."

"No, not because of that. Of course I'm very happy...." He did not finish.

Vague, shapeless ambition had replaced love in yonder skies. No Scientific Humanist was by to study the natural development, and guide him. This lady would hardly be deemed a very proper guide to the undirected energies of the youth, yet they had established relations of that nature. She was five years older than he, and a woman, which may explain her serene presumption.

The cloud-giants had broken up: a brawny shoulder smouldered over the sea.

"We'll work together in town, at all events," said Richard. "Why can't we go about together at night and find out people who want help?"

Lady Judith smiled, and only corrected his nonsense by saying, "I think we mustn't be too romantic. You will become a knight-errant, I suppose. You have the characteristics of one."