The Two Guardians Part 30

"I am afraid they were more dazzled than usual."

No one said anything, and after a pause she went on. "Edmund remarked a sort of indistinctness about the pupil, which he said was not a good sign."

"What was that?" said Mr. Lyddell looking up, and Marian, startled, yet glad to have attracted his notice, repeated what she had said. "Did not Wells look at his eyes last winter?" he said, turning to his wife.

"Yes, he said he could not see anything the matter with them--they must be spared--and he sent a mixture to bathe them. Lionel has been using it continually."

"How would it be to have him up here to see some one?" said Mr. Lyddell.

"Better wait for the holidays," answered his wife. "It would be the worst thing possible to set him thinking, about his eyes in the middle of the half-year. Little as he does now, it would soon be less, and his eyes have kept him back so much already that he really cannot afford to lose any more time."

There it ended, Mrs. Lyddell was not to be alarmed; she had been too long used to prosperity even to contemplate the possibility that harm should come nigh to her or to her dwelling. Mr. Lyddell, who left all family matters to her, forgot all about it, and though Marian talked Caroline into some fears on the subject, Caroline could do no more than she could herself.

CHAPTER XIII.

"_Benedict_. What, my dear Lady Disdain, are you yet living?"

"_Beatrice_. Is it possible Disdain should die while she has such meet food to feed her?"

_Much Ado about Nothing._

The Lyddell family did not continue in London much longer; it had been a short season, and though the session of Parliament was not over, most of the ladies were taking flight into the country, before the end of June,--Mrs. Lyddell among the rest,--and her husband went backwards and forwards to London, as occasion called him.

The girls were glad to get into the country, but Marian soon found that she had not escaped either from gaieties, or from the objects of her aversion; for Mr. Faulkner brought his mother and sisters to High Down House, gave numerous parties there, and made a constant interchange of civilities with the family at Oakworthy. Archery was pretty much the fas.h.i.+on with the young ladies that year; it was a sport which Marian liked particularly, having often practised it with Edmund and Agnes, and her bow and arrows were always the first to be ready.

One day when Marian, Caroline, and Clara were shooting on the lawn at Oakworthy, Mr. and Miss Faulkner rode from High Down, came out on the lawn, and joined them. From that moment, any one could see the change that came over Marian. Instead of laughing and talking, teaching Clara, and paying only half attention to her own shooting, she now went on as if it was her sole object, and as if she had no other purpose in life.

She fixed her arrows and tw.a.n.ged her string with a rigidity as if the target had been a deadly enemy, or her whole fate was concentrated in hitting the bull's eye; and when her arrows went straight to the mark, or at least much straighter than those of any one else, she never turned her head, or vouchsafed more than the briefest answer to the exclamations around.

The others were talking of archery in general and in particular,--just what, if it had not been Mr. Faulkner, would have delighted her; but she would not hear him. He might speak of the English long-bow, and the cloth yard-shaft, and the b.u.t.ts at which Elizabeth shot, and the dexterity required for hitting a deer, and of the long arrow of the Indian, and the Wourali reed of South America,--as long as he spoke it was nothing to her, let Caroline smile and answer, and appeal to her as much she would. Then came a talk about archery meetings and parties, in which at last they all grew so eager, that they stood still round the return target, and Marian could not shoot back again without perilling them; so she unstrung her bow, and stood apart with a stern face, which made her look a great deal more like Diana, than she by any means suspected or desired.

Two days after, there came a note from Miss Faulkner,--Julia, as she had requested to be called,--saying that her brother was so delighted with the archery schemes that had been discussed, that he could not give them up, and intended to give a grand fete at High Down,--archery in the morning, a ball in the evening, and all the ladies who liked, to be in costume. She ended by begging Caroline to come to luncheon that day, or the next, to enter into council on the subject. There was great delight; such an entertainment was quite a novelty in the neighbourhood, and the costume seemed to make it all the more charming in the eyes of Caroline, Clara, and their mother; all were talking at once, and wondering what it could or should be, while Marian went on reading imperturbably without one remark.

"It ought to be in Robin Hood's time, if only for the sake of Maid Marian," said Caroline. "She will be quite sure to win the prize."

"O yes, that she will," said Clara; "she shoots so much better than any one else."

"I shall not shoot in public," said Marian, looking up for a moment, and then going on with her book.

"You will do nothing to make yourself particular," said Mrs. Lyddell: "it will be very silly to set your face against this fete, when every one knows how fond you are of archery."

"We don't know anything yet about what is to be," said Caroline, quickly; and at that moment Elliot, coming in, offered to ride with her to High Down, whereupon she hastened to get ready. Such an obliging offer from her brother was certainly too uncommon a thing to be neglected, in spite of the unwonted graciousness and amiability which Elliot had for the last few weeks a.s.sumed towards her.

When she was gone, Marian and Clara resumed their ordinary occupations, and one of them at least troubled herself no more about the fete, until, shortly before dinner time, Elliot, Caroline, and Mr. Faulkner all rode up to the front door. Mr. Faulkner, it appeared, was come to dinner, and to carry on the consultation, since he was extremely eager about the scheme, and no time was to be lost in sending out the invitations.

The Sherwood Forest plan had been talked over, and abandoned as too common-place. It was to be a Kenilworth fete; eight young ladies of Lady Julia's especial party were to appear in the morning in a pretty uniform dress, a little subdued from the days of the ruff and farthingale; and in the evening there was to be a regular Kenilworth quadrille, in which each lady or gentleman was to a.s.sume the dress of some character of Queen Elizabeth's court. In fact, as Mr. Faulkner said;--

"Gorgeous dames and statesmen bold In bearded majesty appear."

Amy Robsart, Katherine Seymour, Anne Clifford, Frances Walsingham, Mildred Cecil, and other ladies of the time were mentioned, and then came the counting up of their eight living representatives,--the two Misses Faulkner, Caroline, yes, and Clara herself, who started and danced with ecstasy, then glanced entreatingly at her mother, who looked doubtful; Marian, two cousins of the Faulkners, who were always ready for anything, and a Miss Mordaunt, were reckoned up, and their dresses quickly discussed; but all the time Marian said not a word. She was thinking of the waste of time and consideration, the folly, levity and vanity, the throwing away of money, all this would occasion, and enjoying in her own mind the pleasure of resisting it _in toto_. She supposed she must go to the archery meeting, though why people could not be contented to shoot on their own lawns, instead of spoiling their pleasure by all this fuss, she could not guess; but make a show of herself and her shooting, be stared at by all the world,--that she would never do. Nor would she make a figure of herself at the ball, and spend the money which she wanted very much for her poor people and her books, now that her court dress and London finery had eaten up such an unconscionable share of her allowance. Increased as it was, she had never felt so poor as at present; she wanted Mrs. Jameson's "Sacred and Legendary Art" for herself, and there were all the presents to be sent to the old people at Fern Torr; and should these be given up for the sake of appearing as the fair Anne Clifford, or some such person, for one evening, during which she would be feeling most especially unnatural and uncomfortable? No indeed! and she trusted that she had a very good and sufficient defence against all such foolery, in the slight mourning which she was wearing for one of the Marchmont connection. True, she had thought of leaving it off next Sunday, but no matter; it would be such armour as was not to be lightly parted with; and if she went to the ball at all, it should never, never be as the heiress of the Cliffords, but as the faithful mourning relation of old Mr. Thomas Marchmont, her second cousin once removed, whom she had never beheld in her life, and who would have been dead at least nine weeks by the time it took place.

She said nothing about it in the drawing-room; but when they went up stairs, she told Caroline not to reckon upon her, for she should be in mourning, and could not wear a fancy dress. Caroline looked much vexed.

"It was a great pity," she said, "and Julia Faulkner wished it to be all their own set. Besides, would not Marian shoot,--she who did it so well?"

"O, no, no, I could do no such thing with all those people staring."

"Not even for a silver arrow? You would be sure to win it."

"I should be ashamed of the very sight of it ever after. O no! I should like--at least I should not mind seeing it all as a spectator, but as to making a part of the show, never, never, Caroline!"

"Well, I know it is of no use to try to persuade you!" said Caroline, with a little annoyance in her tone. "Good night."

Lady Julia, with her son and daughter, came to call the next day. Marian thought herself fortunate in not being in the drawing-room. She put on her bonnet, slipped out at the garden door, and walked away with a book in her hand, to the remotest regions of the park, where she sat down under a thorn-tree, and read Schiller's Thirty Years' War with a sort of exemplary diligence and philosophy, till it was so late that she thought herself perfectly secure of the Faulkners' being gone. Yet she only just missed them, for their carriage was driving off at one door, as she reached the other.

"Where have you been, Marian?" was the first greeting.

"I have been walking to the old thorn."

"O, have you? We hunted for you everywhere in the house: we would hardly believe f.a.n.n.y when she said you were gone out, for I knew you meant to walk with us."

"I thought you would be engaged so long that it was not worth while to wait for you."

"Well, but did you know you had missed the Faulkners?" said Clara.

"I knew they were here."

Every one understood this except Clara, and very little did it please Mrs. Lyddell or Caroline.

"Marian," said Mrs. Lyddell, "you really must not be so absurd about this matter. Your mourning is nothing. You need not be wearing it even now; and it will annoy Lady Julia, and put her to serious inconvenience, if you continue to refuse."

"I am sure I do not wish to inconvenience her," said Marian; "but there must be many young ladies who would be only too happy to take the part."

"Of course," said Mrs. Lyddell, "any one else would rejoice to be asked; but the point is, that it is so unpleasant to admit any thing of a stranger into the intimacy these things occasion."

"I am almost a stranger to them."

"Yes, but not to us, Marian," said Clara. "You have known them as long, or longer than we have; and you would look so very well. Lady Julia said herself that such a distinguished face and figure as yours would set the whole thing off to advantage."

Caroline well knew this was but the way to make Marian still more determined against it. She held her tongue through all the persuasions of her mother and Clara; and trusting a little, but not much, to the superior influence which she knew herself to possess, she followed Marian to her room, and began,--"Marian, are you still resolute against this unfortunate archery? because, if you do not really think it a matter of right and wrong, I should be very much obliged to you if you would only yield."

It was not so easy to withstand Caroline speaking in this way, as Mrs.

Lyddell almost scolding and Clara talking nonsense; but Marian had made up her mind, and would not let herself be shaken. "I don't think I can,"

was her answer.

"Will you say whether you really think it wrong?"