Miles Tremenhere Volume I Part 24

In an instant her face became extremely pale, even to the lips, which quivered; then indignant pride at his questioning drove back the blood in flus.h.i.+ng bounds. "Pardon me, my lord, I do not see the right you have to question. I was in Yorks.h.i.+re with my mother."

"I too crave pardon," he replied, "for presuming too much on hopes for the future. I see you did meet him; the rest is no stranger to my knowledge--I am satisfied."

There was a calm dignity about him which she had never before seen. She would have given worlds to know what he alluded to--what he had heard.

But she durst not do so, even _her_ pride scarcely restrained her from questioning; her mind was in a complete maze of fears. What could he mean? Individually, his opinion was of not the slightest importance to her, but, as transmitted perhaps by him to the world, it was altogether different; yet what could she say? Already she felt humbled at having been forced to ask so great a favour as silence from him; what was still more remarkable in this interview was, that he made no attempt whatever, beyond the most commonplace gallantry, to hint at his own suit, he seemed absorbed in other thoughts, and these were occasioned by her painful confusion at the mention of Tremenhere's name; and a bitter feeling in consequence arose in his mind against him, for his supposed impertinent presumption. There was a silence of a few minutes, broken at last by her coldly saying, "I believe we may now abridge this meeting, Lord Randolph--I have your promise of silence. You proposed visiting my mother, I think? Allow me to have you announced. I will rejoin you in the drawing-room shortly." So saying, she rang the bell.

"You may rely upon my discretion," he said, partially recovering himself. "And we will leave all to old Time, he unravels wonders and mysteries; you will not deprive me a long time of the pleasure of your society?"

She merely bowed, and smiled constrainedly as the servant followed him to the drawing-room, and announced him to Lady Ripley, who little imagined all the events of that day.

Man is a changeable, versatile animal, ever forgetful of the old for the new, more perfectly comprehending the fable of "sour grapes," than any other.

"I dare say," said Lord Randolph to himself next day, "that this very mysterious Miss Dalzell would not have proved half so pretty on second sight; there must be something strange about her, or why this mystery?

There are days our eyes create beauty every where--yesterday was doubtless one of these; were she really so lovely, and a friend of Lady Dora's, some one must have seen and spoken of her, whereas I never heard the name even in my life until yesterday. That fellow Tremenhere," he continued after a thoughtful pause, "I should like to be revenged on his insolence; it won't do to cut him without an excuse, he has given me none, and he is a favourite in many circles where these artists hold a certain sway. I always thought it bad taste to give them too much liberty, and the event proves my just judgment." It will be seen that Lord Randolph was rather _arriere_ in the more genial liberality of opinion, generally prevalent. He was of the Lady Dora school, which fosters absurd prejudices and deformities of mind, in the shape of circ.u.mscribing and false pride, reminding one of a village, somewhere in the Landes, whose inhabitants are all from birth afflicted with goitres, which hideous swelling of the throat becomes from habit a beauty in their eyes; so much so, that 'tis told of them, that one day a healthy person appearing among them in church, their minister bade them thank G.o.d they were as they were, and not like that afflicted creature before them!

Lord Randolph's pride was in arms against the painter fellow, who had dared raise a thought, as he imagined, towards Lady Dora; it was not from any excessive love for her, but adherence to _caste_. In her confusion, though it puzzled him at first, he finally thought he read only indignation, and he awarded to himself the right, to lower his presumption in some way. What fools we are to undertake perilous journeys in the dark!

The new idea banished the old: he almost forgot Miss Dalzell, and resolved to go whither he had been going yesterday, as he mounted his horse next morning--a fas.h.i.+onable morning--about two o'clock; so he turned his horse's head towards Chiswick, where he knew Tremenhere resided. He had never had occasion to call there before, having always met him either at his club, in society, or his own (Lord Randolph's) house. He was not quite certain of the cottage, but he inquired, and at last a pretty little villa was pointed out to him as the one he sought.

"I think the gentleman is not at home," said his informant, who looked like a tradesman; "for I know him well, and I saw him walking towards town an hour ago."

This suited the other's views exactly; so, leaving his horse in charge of a man who was loitering about, he walked quietly up to the cottage.

The front gate stood open; he walked through a prettily arranged garden, filled with autumnal flowers, to the hall door, and rapped gently. He came, like a good general, to surprise, not storm the capital. A neat-looking girl answered the door. "Is Mr. Tremenhere at home?" inquired the visiter.

"No, sir," was the reply. "He will not return till this evening."

"Very provoking!" exclaimed he; "I am leaving town, and wished particularly to leave a message, or see him."

The girl made no reply; she was not evidently accustomed to see many visiters there.

"Could I see any one to leave it with, or write a note?" he asked.

"If you would please to step in, sir; I dare say you can write to master," she said, drawing back. Lord Randolph wanted no further invitation. In an instant he was following the girl down the pa.s.sage.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The girl threw open a door, and he entered; his heart was not quite free from pulsation. He was not a man of adventure by nature--two or three motives urged him to this one. The room was quietly, but _gracefully_ furnished; the curtains were not of rich damask, neither were there rich bronzes, _ormolu_, or tables to break one's neck over, or s.h.i.+ver to atoms in the fall thereof half a dozen hideous idols, or Chinese cups and saucers--no! it was not a company receiving-room, but the apartment of a refined and domestic mind. The two generally unite, for they emanate from our best mistress--Nature. The curtains and furniture were of pale green chintz. There were a few choice flowers in a vase on the table; one single dahlia, rich in colour, alone, like a queen in state and beauty, in a rich Bohemian gla.s.s, on a centre table; and, like attendant courtiers, in various smaller ones, were varied specimens scattered about amidst books, pencils, half-finished bouquets, shewing why they were there--for art to perpetuate nature. There were ottomans, easy-chairs, and ladies' work; in short, home spoke to you in every thing. There was an open piano, and music scattered about; and the tables, piano, even to the frames of the mirrors, were of maple-wood.

Another door opened into a small conservatory with stained gla.s.s windows--it was, in truth, a little paradise. A cheering fire enlivened the whole--for though a fine day, it was chilly; yet the sun shone without, and in the bright conservatory, where summer seemed still to reign. "You can write a note here, sir, if you please," said the woman, placing materials before him; "and when you have finished it, if you will be good enough to ring the bell, I will return." Thus saying, and not having a fear of those adventurous knights called London thieves before her eyes, she withdrew quietly. Every thing there breathed peace, even the placid servant.

"What shall I write?" thought Lord Randolph. "What a fool I was, not to ask to see the mistress of the house! it is not too late; by George, I'll do so now!" He rose to touch the bell, a voice arrested his hand; it was breathless, as if the owner had hurried; it came through the conservatory, and a step, like a bounding roe, accompanied it. "Miles, dear!" it cried, "have you forgotten any thing? I heard your rap. I was at the end of the garden gathering violets,"--the step stopped suddenly, "Oh, dear!" exclaimed the voice changing its tone, "I declare I've lost them all out of my basket, hurrying to meet you! Come, and help me pick them up!" There was an instant's silence, the visiter stood irresolute, his eyes fixed on the conservatory door. "Miles!" called the voice again; there was no reply, and in another instant Minnie, with eyes full of hope and surprise, entered the room. A scream burst from her lips, and her basket fell from her hands. Lord Randolph stood a moment speechless. "Miss Dalzell!" he exclaimed at last; advancing like one treading on fairy-land, so amazed he felt. Minnie was like a rose when she entered, and her eyes looked almost black in their violet darkness from exercise and excitement. Now she became pale and trembling, why, she scarcely knew, 'twas perhaps presentiment. "Lord Randolph Gray!" she e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "_you_ here!"--the very words implied deep fear of consequences.

"I certainly did not antic.i.p.ate the happiness of meeting one so soon again, whose memory has lived with me unfading since yesterday," he answered with the ready gallantry of a man who deemed it could not but be well received where he addressed it. There was admiration, not respect in the phrase. Even unsophisticated Minnie felt this; but so bewildered was she, that for the time she totally overlooked her actual position as it must be in his eyes, thus, with Tremenhere, as Miss Dalzell. "Do not let me alarm you," he continued courteously, seeing how pale she had turned; "believe me, I am too much a gentleman in any way to insult you. My meeting you again, though indeed I bless the good fate which has produced it, has been purely accidental. I came to see Mr.

Tremenhere."

"Then, my----" she checked the word uppermost, "cousin," scarcely knowing why, "Lady Dora Vaughan," she subst.i.tuted, "did not tell you where I resided? I thought so for a moment, and wondered much, she was so fearful yesterday, lest your lords.h.i.+p should follow us."

"What can the connection between these women mean?" he thought, every moment more perplexed.

"Lady Dora is, I know, a girl of independent mind: has she known this girl before her fall, and is she trying to reclaim her? If so, why walk in public with her? Or, has she been sitting to this Tremenhere for a portrait, and been brought in contact with this girl, and, charmed by her manner, overlooked her position? But--oh no, no!--Lady Dora would never act thus." It never struck him for an instant, the truth--Minnie's marriage; the "Miss Dalzell," and confusion of Lady Dora, completely refuted this idea.

"Lady Dora," he answered, smiling more composedly, now resolved to leave thought to absence, and enjoy the present pleasure of this unforeseen good-luck, "is totally ignorant of my purposed visit here, which was designed for Mr. Tremenhere on business."

Minnie, too, was gradually becoming more composed, now his visit had so natural a motive; she glided to an ottoman, and, pointing to a chair, apologised for her previous rudeness in omitting to offer one, and blaming her astonishment as cause of the remissness. Minnie was guiltless of wrong any way; so, as a friend of both her cousin and Miles, she conversed freely with her guest, whose admiration every moment became more decided, and, in proportion, a species of mixed jealousy and dislike towards Tremenhere, both for possessing such a treasure, and the base means by which he had gained it--seduction. For, with all his love of the fair s.e.x, this was a crime in his eyes he would have scorned. Poor Minnie forgot, in her own innocence, all about her equivocal position, and he of course did not allude to it. He spoke of Tremenhere, and she replied unreservedly as of her husband; but without naming him as such. Lord Randolph did her justice in one respect; he saw she was too simple in mind, and, strange contradiction! too pure in thought, to be easily made to comprehend any thing like ordinary flirtation. He, as a man of the world, though not a genius, at once perceived that it would only be by gaining her affections she might be won. He deemed it almost an act of justice to wrong the wronger; he would have gloried in it! Lord Randolph was one of the many: he possessed the genuine code of worldly morality--not a very safe bark to sail to the end of life in. Much he said to her which she could not comprehend; but he was Miles's friend, so she accepted his words as meant in mere friends.h.i.+p. He could make himself agreeable when he pleased; and she rejoiced in the meeting, hoping he would often call and see Miles, who must like him; she knew they were friends. Something of this she permitted him to understand.

"I fear," he said, abstaining from giving her any name, "Tremenhere, though a friend of mine, may not approve of my visits here; he has so sedulously concealed his happiness from all."

"Oh!" she answered, "that was on account of unfortunate family affairs, which oblige us to live secluded; but I hope soon all will be cleared away of annoyance--all forgiven--and then we may summon our friends to rejoice with us."

There was something so artless in her manner, that he involuntarily seized her hand, and said in all sincerity, "From my soul I hope so, for your sake!"

At that moment he would have made any effort to restore an evidently innocent girl at heart, to a different position; his only wonder was, the longer he conversed with her, _how_ she could ever have fallen; and every instant his impatience and disgust towards Tremenhere grew stronger. And he looked with indignant feelings on the presumption of the man who could, as he deemed he did, trample on this lovely girl as a being beneath him, too much so to share his name. How falsely we may judge others! and a wrong judgment is parent of many errors. At last he rose to leave; he durst not then prolong his visit. As he did so, Minnie inquired, "What message she should give Tremenhere?"

"I think," he replied, "it were better not to name my visit, if I may presume to dictate to you."

"But," she said, smiling in all confidence, "you came to see him."

"True; but I did not antic.i.p.ate the extreme pleasure of meeting you. He might be displeased."

"Oh, no!" she answered in her former tone, "it cannot annoy him. I feared so at first, as he wishes me not to see, or be seen, at present; but when I tell him how your lords.h.i.+p came, he will see it could not have been avoided. Besides, I told him of Lady Dora's introduction, and our all walking together yesterday."

"And what did he say?" asked the other, waking from surprise to surprise.

"Miles was very much annoyed with Lady Dora; he said, as a person experienced in the world's opinions, she ought not to have presented me to you, because----" She stopped, and coloured deeply, feeling it too delicate a subject to enter upon with a stranger. She had been so accustomed to speak of, hear of Lord Randolph as Dora's future husband, that he had seemed as already a cousin to her, though, in point of fact, almost a stranger. Poor Minnie had much worldly reserve to learn; besides, she was speaking as she knew herself, not as he suspected her; and there was nothing to awaken her rudely in his manner. She was as a somnambulist, speaking in her sleep, to the wakeful.

"Let me beg of you not to tell Tremenhere," he earnestly asked.

"I never conceal a thought from him," was her reply; "how pa.s.s an hour with him, and keep a secret in my heart? I should suffocate with the weight of it alone."

"I think I know Tremenhere better than even you can. Women rarely know men, as their friends read them; for your own sake, let me earnestly entreat secresy this once."

His earnestness made her tremble, and become serious. "I do not comprehend your lords.h.i.+p," she said with dignity; "have I done wrong in conversing freely with you?"

"Good heavens! no; I trust we may often thus converse again."

"Then I shall tell Miles as soon as he returns; he cannot but approve my receiving his friends with what courtesy I am mistress of. If I have been wanting in due reserve, my lord may excuse it--I am but a country bred girl."

"But the most charming one I _ever_ met!" he warmly exclaimed, endeavouring to seize her hand; but Minnie's delicacy had taken the alarm, she drew back, and, laying her hand on the bell, said quietly--

"Your lords.h.i.+p has no message to leave?"

"None," he answered, slightly disconcerted by her sudden reserve--"I cannot think of troubling you; I will write."

The bell sounded beneath her fingers; with perfect composure she curtsied. He durst not again attempt to take her hand, and he followed the serious maid to the outer gate; there he turned, but no eye was watching him, for Minnie had sunk on a seat, and was lost in memory, not of the most agreeable sort, of many strange things her visitor had said, which created an unpleasant sensation, and yet she could not tell where, or why. Lord Randolph rode on in perplexed imaginings, too; she had left an impression on his mind of pleasure and pain. The former, that irresistible feeling we experience when gazing upon either a lovely face, or lovely picture. The latter, was sorrow that so fair a shrine should be desecrated; for, though a man of the world, he was no libertine. He would rather at any time save a woman than lose her. If he found her lost, irretrievably so, he followed the current of worldly recklessness, and left moralizing to a more fitting occasion. Nothing could have persuaded him that this girl had voluntarily chosen a life of degradation--some arts, some entrapment, must have been used; and with these thoughts in his mind he turned into Loundes Square, intending to call upon Lady Dora. As he turned the corner of a street leading into it, her ladys.h.i.+p's brougham pa.s.sed him rapidly; the blinds were half drawn down, as if she wished to avoid recognition, and she herself was leaning back, reading a letter attentively. Evidently he had not been noticed; for a moment he hesitated, and then, turning round, cantered after her. Her groom drove on, however, at a rapid pace, and Lord Randolph followed. "When she stops," he said to himself, "I'll join her; she may be induced, perhaps, to tell me more about this unhappy girl."

But Lady Dora did not stop; and what at first had been done unpremeditatedly, now became a sort of link in the mystery of the last two days. Where could she be going alone at that rapid pace? Overtake her he could not, without calling to her groom; so he followed about twenty yards behind. At the corner of Charles Street, Soho, there was a stoppage of carriages; hers pa.s.sed, but his horse, being rather spirited, made some demur before a coal-waggon; and, when he reached the square, it was just in time to see Lady Dora enter the bazaar hastily, with her veil down. To dismount, and leave his horse in a man's care, occupied a few minutes more; then he too entered, with no idea but one--of finding her ladys.h.i.+p occupied in shopping; and he deemed himself very fortunate in having so excellent an opportunity of conversing with her.