Part 46 (2/2)

It was not in the best taste, nor was it perhaps good policy (if I may quote the Tinley set), for the ladies of Brookfield to subscribe openly to the right of certain people present to be exclusive. Arabella would have answered: ”Lady Gosstre and her party cannot a.s.sociate with you to your mutual pleasure and profit; and do you therefore blame her for not attempting what would fail ludicrously?” With herself, as she was not sorry to show, Lady Gosstre could a.s.sociate. Cornelia had given up work to become a part of the Court. Adela made flying excursions over the lawn. Laura Tinley had the field below and Mr. Pericles to herself.

That anxious gentleman consulted his watch from time to time, as if he expected the birth of an event.

Lady Gosstre grew presently aware that there was more acrimony in Freshfield Sumner's replies to Sir Twickenham (whom he had seduced into a political argument) than the professional wit need employ; and as Mr. Powys's talk was getting so attractive that the Court had become crowded, she gave a hint to Georgiana and Lady Charlotte, prompt lieutenants, whose retirement broke the circle.

”I never shall understand how it was done,” Adela said subsequently.

It is hoped that everybody sees the importance of understanding such points.

She happened to be standing alone when a messenger came up to her and placed a letter in her hand, addressed to her sister Cornelia. Adela walked slowly up to the heights. She knew Mr. Barrett's handwriting.

”Good heavens!”--her thought may be translated out of Fine Shades--”does C. really in her heart feel so blind to our situation that she can go on playing still?” When she reached the group it was to hear Mr. Powys speaking of Mr. Barrett. Cornelia was very pale, and stood wretchedly in contrast among the faces. Adela beckoned her to step aside. ”Here is a letter,” she said: ”there's no postmark. What has been the talk of that man?”

”Do you mean of Mr. Barrett?” Cornelia replied:--”that his father was a baronet, and a madman, who has just disinherited him.”

”Just?” cried Adela. She thought of the t.i.tle. Cornelia had pa.s.sed on.

A bizarre story of Mr. Barrett's father was related to Adela by Sir Twickenham. She grappled it with her sense, and so got nothing out of it. ”Disinherited him because he wrote to his father, who was dying, to say that he had gained a livelihood by playing the organ! He had a hatred of music? It's incomprehensible! You know, Sir Twickenham, the interest we take in Mr. Barrett.” The masked anguish of Cornelia's voice hung in her ears. She felt that it was now possible Cornelia might throw over the rich for the penniless baronet, and absolutely for an instant she thought nakedly, ”The former ought not to be lost to the family.”

Thick clouds obscured the vision. Lady Gosstre had once told her that the point of Sir Twickenham's private character was his susceptibility to ridicule. Her ladys.h.i.+p had at the same time complimented his discernment in conjunction with Cornelia. ”Yes,” Adela now thought; ”but if my sister shows that she is not so wise as she looks!” Cornelia's figure disappeared under the foliage bordering Besworth Lawn.

As usual, Arabella had all the practical labour--a fact that was noticed from the observant heights. ”One sees mere de famille written on that young woman,” was the eulogy she won from Lady Gosstre. How much would the great dame have marvelled to behold the ambition beneath the bustling surface! Arabella was feverish, and Freshfield Sumner reported brilliant things uttered by her. He became after a time her attendant, aide, and occasional wit-foil. They had some sharp exchanges: and he could not but reflect on the pleasure her keen zest of appreciation gave him compared with Cornelia's grave smile, which had often kindled in him profane doubts of the positive brightness, or rapidity of her intelligence.

”Besworth at sunset! What a glorious picture to have living before you every day!” said Lady Charlotte to her companion.

Wilfrid flushed. She read his look; and said, when they were out of hearing, ”What a place for old people to sit here near the end of life! The idea of it makes one almost forgive the necessity for getting old--doesn't it? Tracy Runningbrook might make a poem about silver heads and sunset--something, you know! Very easy cantering then--no hunting!

I suppose one wouldn't have even a desire to go fast--a sort of c.o.c.k-horse, just as we began with. The stables, let me tell you, are too near the scullery. One is bound to devise measures for the protection of the morals of the household.”

While she was speaking, Wilfrid's thoughts ran: ”My time has come to strike for liberty.”

This too she perceived, and was prepared for him.

He said: ”Lady Charlotte, I feel that I must tell you...I fear that I have been calculating rather more hopefully...” Here the pitfall of sentiment yawned before him on a sudden. ”I mean” (he struggled to avoid it, but was at the brink in the next sentence) ”--I mean, dear lady, that I had hopes...Besworth pleased you... to offer you this...”

”With yourself?” she relieved him. A different manner in a protesting male would have charmed her better. She excused him, knowing what stood in his way.

”That I scarcely dared to hope,” said Wilfrid, bewildered to see the loose chain he had striven to cast off gather tightly round him.

”You do hope it?”

”I have.”

”You have hoped that I...” (she was not insolent by nature, and corrected the form) ”--to marry me?”

”Yes, Lady Charlotte, I--I had that hope...if I could have offered this place--Besworth. I find that my father will never buy it; I have misunderstood him.”

He fixed his eyes on her, expecting a cool, or an ironical, rejoinder to end the colloquy;--after which, fair freedom! She answered, ”We may do very well without it.”

Wilfrid was not equal to a start and the trick of rapturous astonishment. He heard the words like the shooting of dungeon-bolts, thinking, ”Oh, heaven! if at the first I had only told the woman I do not love her!” But that sentimental lead had ruined him. And, on second thoughts, how could he have spoken thus to the point, when they had never previously dealt in anything save sentimental implications? The folly was in his speaking at all. The game was now in Lady Charlotte's hands.

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