Part 34 (1/2)

'Is he a ma.s.s of affectation, too, Bess?' inquired Aunt Betsy with intention, for Mr. Jardine, the curate, was supposed to have impressed the damsel's fancy more deeply than she would care to own. 'He is an Oxford man.'

'There is Oxford and Oxford,' said Bess. 'If all the Oxford men were like young Havenant, the only course open to the rest of the world would be to burn Oxford, just as Oxford burned the martyrs.'

'Well, we may count Mr. Jardine as an eligible, I suppose?'

'But that only makes two. Who is your third?' asked Bessie.

'Dr. Rylance.'

'Dr. Rylance an eligible?' cried Bessie, with girlhood's frank laughter at the absurd idea of middle age coming into the market to bid for youth.

'Why, auntie, the man must be fifty.'

'Five-and-forty at most, and very young-looking for his age; very polished, very well off. There are many girls who would be proud to win such a husband,' said Miss Wendover, glancing at Ida in the firelight.

She wanted to test the girl's temper--to find out, were it possible, whether this girl, whom she so inclined to love, tried in the fierce furnace of poverty, had acquired mercenary instincts. She had heard from Urania of that reckless speech about marrying for money, and she wanted to know how much or how little that speech had implied.

Ida was silent. She had never told anyone of Dr. Rylance's offer. She would have deemed it dishonourable to let anyone into the secret of his humiliation--to let his little world know that he, so superior a person, could offer himself and be rejected.

'What do you think now, Bess,' pursued Miss Wendover; 'would it not be rather a nice thing if Dr. Rylance were to marry Ida? We all know how much he admires her.'

'It would be a very horrid thing!' cried the impetuous Bess. 'I would ever so much rather Ida married poor Brian, although they had to pig in furnished lodgings for the first ten years of their life. Crabbed age and youth cannot dwell together.'

'But Dr. Rylance is not crabbed, and he is not old.'

'Let him marry a lady of the same doubtful age, which seems old to me, but young to you, and then no one will find fault with him,' said Bess, savagely. 'I feel an inward and spiritual conviction that Ida is doomed to marry Brian Walford. The poor fellow was so hopelessly in love with her when he left this place, that, if she had not a stone inside her instead of a heart, she would have accepted him; but _magno est amor et praevalebit!_' concluded Bess, with a mighty effort; 'I'm sure I hope that's right.'

'I think it must be time for you to go home and dress, if you really wish to look nice to-night,' said Ida, severely. 'You know you generally find yourself without frilling, or something wrong, at the last moment.'

'Heavens!' exclaimed Bessie, starting up and upsetting the petted Persian, which had been reposing in her lap, and which now skulked off resentfully, with a swollen tail, to hide its indignation under a chair, 'you are as bad as an oracle. I have yards and yards of frilling to sew on before I dress--my sleeves--my neck--my sweeper.'

'Shall I run over and sew the frills on for you?' asked Ida.

'You! when you are going to wear that lovely pink gown. You will want hours to dress. No: Blanche must make herself useful for once in her ridiculous life. _Au revoir_, auntie darling. Go, lovely rose'--to Ida--'and make yourself still lovelier in order to captivate Dr.

Rylance.'

The dinner was over. It had pa.s.sed without a hitch, and the gentlemen were now enjoying their claret and conversation in a comfortable semicircle in front of Miss Wendover's roomy hearth.

The conversation was for the most part strictly local, Colonel Wendover and Mr. Hildrop Havenant leading, and the Vicar a good second; but now and then there was a brief diversion from the parish to European politics, when Dr. Rylance--who secretly abhorred parochial talk--dashed to the fore and talked with an authority which it was hard for the others to keep under. He spoke of the impending declaration of war--there is generally some such thing--as if he had been at the War Office that morning in confidential converse with the chief officials; but this was more than Squire Havenant could endure, and he flatly contradicted the physician on the strength of his morning's correspondence. Mr. Havenant always talked of his letters as if they contained all the law and the prophets. His correspondents were high in office, unimpeachable authorities, men who had the ear of the House, or who pulled the strings of the Government.

'I am told on the best authority that there will be no war,' he said, swelling, or seeming to swell, as he spoke.

He was a large man, with a florid complexion and gray mutton-chop whiskers.

Dr. Rylance shrugged his shoulders and smiled blandly. It was the calm, incredulous smile with which he encountered any rival medico who was bold enough to question his treatment.

'That is not the opinion of the War Office,' he said quietly.

'But it is the opinion of men who dictate to the War Office,' replied Mr.

Havenant.