A Charming Fellow Volume Ii Part 7

"Good-bye, dear Louisa. Don't forget your affectionate cousin, who signs herself (perhaps for the last time),

"C. C. KILFINANE."

(From Orlando Pawkins to his sister, Mrs. Machyn-Stubbs.)

"Long Fells, Westmoreland. Monday evening.

"My DEAR JEMIMA,--I am sorry that you and Humphrey should have felt hurt and thought I was making mysteries. But I a.s.sure you I was quite taken by surprise when I got Errington's letter, telling me about his wedding, and inclosing Lord Seely's invitation to me to come here. I knew nothing about it before, I give you my word.

"You ask me to write you full details of the affair, and I am sure I would if I could. But I don't know any more than the rest of the world.

I don't think much of Long Fells. The land is poor, and the house almost tumbling to pieces. Lord Seely is uncommonly polite, but I don't much like my lady. And she has a beast of a lap-dog that snaps at everybody.

Errington is the same as ever, only he looks so much older in these two years. Any one would take him to be five or six and twenty, at least. As to the bride, she don't take much notice of me, so I haven't got very well acquainted with her. I ride about the country nearly all day long.

Lord Seely has provided me with a pretty decent mount. I shall be glad when the wedding is over, and I can get away, for it's precious dull here. Even your friend Jack Price seems moped and out of sorts, and goes about singing, 'The heart that once truly loves never forgets,' or something like that, enough to give a fellow the blue devils.

"I asked about what you wanted to know about the wedding dresses, but I couldn't make out much from the answers I got. Miss Kilfinane is to wear a white silk gown, trimmed with something or other that has a French name. Perhaps you can guess what it is. The bridesmaids are fat, freckled girls, the daughters of the parson. I think I have now given you all the particulars I can.

"I wish you and Humphrey would come down to Pudcombe in September. Tell him I can give him some fairish shooting, and will do all I can to make you both comfortable. Believe me,

"Your affectionate brother, O. P."

CHAPTER VI.

It was the evening before the wedding. In a low long room that was dark with black oak panelling, and gloomy, moreover, by reason of the smallness of the ivy-framed cas.e.m.e.nt at one end, which alone admitted the daylight into it, Lord Seely sat before the hearth.

Although it was August there was a fire. There were few evenings of the year when a fire was not agreeable at Long Fells; and one was certainly agreeable on this especial evening. The day had been rainy. The whole house seemed dark and damp. A few logs that had been laid on the top of the coal fire sputtered and smoked drearily. My lord sat in a large high-backed chair, which nearly hid his diminutive figure from view, except on the side of the fireplace. His head was sunk on his breast; his hands were plunged deep into his pockets; his legs were stretched out towards the hearth; his whole att.i.tude was undignified. It was such, an att.i.tude as few of his friends or acquaintances had ever seen him in, for it was nearly impossible for Lord Seely to be unconscious or careless of the effect he was producing in the presence of an observer.

He was now absorbed in thought, and was allowing his outer man to express the nature of his musings. They were not pleasant musings, as any spectator would at once have p.r.o.nounced who should have seen his posture, and his pursed mouth, and his eyebrows knitted anxiously under the bald yellow forehead. The entrance even of a footman into the room would have produced an instant change in Lord Seely's demeanour. But no footman was there to see his lords.h.i.+p sunk in a brown study.

At length he raised his head and glanced out of the window. It had ceased to rain, but the drops were still trickling down the window-panes from the points of the ivy leaves; and it was already so dark that the firelight began to throw fantastic shadows from the quaint old furniture, and to s.h.i.+ne with a dull red glow on the polished oak panels.

Lord Seely rang the bell.

"Has Mr. Errington returned?" he asked of the servant who appeared in answer to the summons.

"Not yet, my lord."

"Tell them to beg Mr. Errington, with my compliments, to do me the favour to step here before he dresses for dinner."

"Yes, my lord."

"Don't light that lamp! or, stay; yes, you may light it. Put the shade over it, and place it behind me. Draw the curtains across the window.

Take care that my message is given to Mr. Errington directly he comes home."

The servant withdrew. And Lord Seely, when he was left alone, began to walk up and down the room with his hands behind him. Thus Algernon found him when, in about ten minutes, he appeared, rosy and fresh from his ride.

"I must apologise for my muddy condition," he cried gaily. "Pawkins and I rode over to Applethwaite to get something for Castalia that was found wanting at the last moment. And I am splashed to the eyebrows. But I thought it best to come just as I was, as your lords.h.i.+p's message was pressing."

"Thank you. I am much obliged to you, Ancram. It is not, in truth, that there is any such immediate hurry for what I have to say, that it might not have waited an hour or so; but I thought it likely that we might not have so good an opportunity of speaking alone together."

Lord Seely seated himself once more in the high-backed chair, but in a very different att.i.tude from his former one. He was upright, majestic, with one hand in his breast, and the other reclining on the arm of his chair. But on his face might be read, by one who knew it well, traces of trouble and of being ill at ease. Algernon read my lord's countenance well enough. He stood leaning easily on the mantel-shelf, tapping his splashed boot with his riding-whip, and looking down on Lord Seely with an air of quiet expectation.

"I have been having a serious conversation with Castalia," said my lord, after a preliminary clearing of his throat.

Algernon said, smilingly, "I hope you have not found it necessary to scold her, my lord? The phrase, 'Having a serious conversation' with any one, always suggests to my mind the administering of a reprimand."

"No, Ancram. No; I have not found it necessary to scold Castalia. I am very much attached to her, and very anxious for her happiness. She is the child of my favourite sister."

The old man's voice was not so firm as usual when he said this; and he looked up at Algernon with an appealing look.

Algernon could be pleasant, genial, even affectionate in his manner--but never tender. That was more than he could compa.s.s by any movement of imitative sympathy. He had never even been able so to simulate tenderness as to succeed in singing a pathetic song. Perhaps he had learned that it was useless to make the attempt. At all events, he did not now attempt to exhibit any answering tenderness to Lord Seely's look and tone of unwonted feeling, in speaking of his dead sister's child.

His reply was hard, clear, and cheerful, as the chirp of a canary bird.

"I know you have always been extremely good to Castalia, my lord. We are both of us very sensible of your kindness, and very much obliged by it."

"No, no," said my lord, waving his hand. "No, no, no. Castalia owes me nothing. She has been to me almost as my own daughter. There can be no talk of obligations between her and me."

Then he paused, for what appeared to be a long time. In the silence of the room the damp logs hissed like whispering voices.

"Ancram," Lord Seely said at length, "Castalia is very much attached to you."

"I a.s.sure you, my lord, I am very grateful to her."

"Ahem! Castalia's is not an expansive nature. She was, perhaps, too much repressed and chilled in childhood, by living with uncongenial persons.

But she is responsive to kindness, and it develops her best qualities. I will frankly own, that I am very anxious about her future. You will not owe me a grudge for saying that much, Ancram?"

"I never owe grudges, my lord. But I trust you have no doubt of my behaving with kindness to Castalia?"

"No, Ancram. No; I hope not. I believe not."

"I am glad of that; because--the doubt would come rather too late to be of much use, would it not?"

Algernon spoke with his old bright smile; but two things were observable throughout this interview. Firstly, that Algernon, though still perfectly respectful, no longer addressed his senior with the winning, cordial deference of manner which had so captivated Lord Seely in the beginning of their acquaintance. Secondly, that Lord Seely appeared conscious of some reason in the young man's mind for dissatisfaction, and to be desirous of deprecating that dissatisfaction.

At the same time, there seemed to be in Lord Seely an undercurrent of feeling struggling for expression. He had the air of a man who, knowing himself to have right and reason on his side in the main, yet is aware of a tender point in his case which an unscrupulous adversary will not hesitate to touch, and which he nervously shrinks from having touched.

He winced at Algernon's last words, and answered rather hotly, "It would be too late. Your insinuation is a just one. If I had any misgivings I ought to have expressed them, and acted on them before. But the fact is that this--the final arrangement of this marriage--took me in a great measure by surprise."

"So it did me, my lord!"

Lord Seely had been gazing moodily at the fire. He now suddenly raised his eyes and looked searchingly at Algernon. The young man's face wore an expression of candid amus.e.m.e.nt. His arched eyebrows were lifted, and he was smiling as unconcernedly as if the subject in hand touched himself no jot.

"I give you my word," he continued lightly, "that when Lady Seely first spoke to me about it, I was--oh, 'astonished' is no word to express what I felt!"

A dark red flush came into Lord Seely's withered cheeks, and mounted to his forehead. He dropped his eyes, and moved uneasily on his chair, pa.s.sing one hand through the tuft of grey hair that stood up above his ear. Algernon went on, with an almost boyish frankness of manner: