Part 20 (1/2)

He was trying his fine const.i.tution terribly, and he knew it. He would tire himself out riding over his estate, and then sit up over his letters and accounts half the night, till his brain seemed stupefied, and yet he had no wish for sleep.

Erle told him he looked haggard and ill, but Sir Hugh only laughed at him; there was nothing the matter, he said, carelessly; he was tough, like all the Redmonds, and he had never been ill in his life. If he only slept better he should be all right, but want of sleep plays the very deuce with a man, and so on.

”If I were you, I should not touch spirits or narcotics,” observed Erle, quietly; ”your nerves are a little out of order. You should take things more easily, and not sit up so late; one can form the habit of sleep.” But Hugh only scoffed at the notion of nerves, and during his long visit Erle saw little improvement.

He was thankful, and yet puzzled, to see that Fay did not notice the sad change in her husband. Now and then she would say to him rather timidly, as though she feared a rebuff, ”You are not quite well to-day, are you, Hugh? Your hand is so hot and dry; do stay quietly with me this morning, and I will read you to sleep;” but Hugh only laughed at her anxious face.

”Run away, my pet, for I am busy,” he would answer. ”If you want a companion, here is this idle fellow, Erle, who never did a stroke of work in his life, I believe;” and Fay would go away reluctantly.

Erle had already grown very confidential with Fay. In her gentle way she took him to task for his desultory life. Erle owned his faults very frankly; it was quite true, he said, that he had not distinguished himself at the university, and had been chiefly known there as a boating man; but he had been extremely popular in his college. ”It is all very well,” he grumbled, as he sat in Fay's boudoir that morning, talking to her in his usual idle fas.h.i.+on. ”What is a fellow to do with his life; perhaps you can tell me that? Uncle ought to have let me make the grand tour, and then I could have enlarged my mind. Ah, yes! every fellow wants change,” as Fay smiled at this; ”what does a little salmon-fis.h.i.+ng in Norway signify; or a month at the Norfolk Broads?--that is all I had last year. Uncle talks of the Engadine and the Austrian Tyrol next summer, but he travels _en grand seigneur_, and that is such a bore.”

Erle was perfectly willing to describe his life at Belgrave House to Fay. She was a shrewd little person in her way, and her quaint remarks were very refres.h.i.+ng. He even thought that he would confide in her after a fas.h.i.+on, and hint at a certain difficulty and complication that had come into his life; he was rather desirous of knowing her opinion; but he began in such a roundabout fas.h.i.+on that Fay was quite perplexed. She understood at last that he was talking about two girls, who both seemed to influence him, and for whom he had special liking; but for a long time she could not find out which was the chief favorite.

She grew impatient at last in her pretty, imperious way, and put a stop to his unsatisfactory rambling style of talk, by asking him a few downright questions.

”You are terribly vague,” she said, wrinkling her forehead in a wise way, and folding her little white hands on her lap; they looked absurdly dimpled and babyish in spite of the brilliant diamond and emerald rings that loaded them. ”How is a person to understand all that rigmarole? Perhaps I am stupid, but you talk so fast, you silly boy, and now tell me exactly what this Miss Selby is like; I think you said her name was Evelyn.”

”Oh! I am not good at descriptions,” returned Erle, pulling Nero's long glossy ears. ”She is an awfully jolly girl, plenty of go in her, lights up well of an evening, and knows exactly what to say to a fellow--keeps him alive, you know; the sort of girl who will dance like a bird half the night, and get up early the next morning and have an hour's canter in the park before breakfast.”

”Ah,” in a mystified tone, ”she seems a very active young person; but you have not made me see her; is she tall or short, Erle?”

”Well, she is not the tall, scraggy sort, neither is she a diminutive creature, like your ladys.h.i.+p. Miss Selby is medium height, and has a good figure.”

”Yes, and her face?” demanded Fay, with a baby frown; ”you are very bad at description, Erle, very bad indeed.”

”Well, she is not dark,” returned Erle, desperately, ”not a brunette, I mean; and she is not fair, like the other one, she has brown hair--yes, I am sure it is brown--and good features. Well, I suppose people call her exceedingly handsome, and she dresses well, and holds herself well, and is altogether a pleasant sort of young woman.”

Fay's lips curled disdainfully. ”I do not think I admire your description much, sir. Plenty of go in her; well, who cares for that?

and lights up well of an evening, as though she were a ball-room decoration; I think she seems a frivolous sort of creature.”

”Oh, no,” replied Erle, eagerly, for this would not do at all. Fay's little satire fell very short of the truth. ”You have not hit it off exactly; Lady Maltravers is frivolous, if you like--a mild edition of the renowned Mrs. Skewton, thinks of nothing but diamonds, and settlements, and all the vanities for which your worldly woman sells her soul. It is a great wonder that, with such an example before her eyes, Miss Selby is not as bad herself; but she is a wonderfully sensible girl, and never talks that sort of nonsense; why, she goes to early service, and looks after some poor people: not that she ever mentions these facts, for she is not a goody-goody sort at all.”

”Oh, no, she has too much go in her,” returned Fay, calmly. ”I was quite right when I said that she was an active young person; and now about the other one, Erle?”

”Well,” Erle began again, but this time he utterly broke down; for how was he to describe this girl with her beautiful frank mouth, and her soft smiling eyes; he had never found out their color at all; would Fay understand if he told her of the sprightliness and sweetness that, in his opinion, made Fern so peculiarly attractive to him. But, to his astonishment, Fay grasped the whole situation in a moment.

”Oh, you need not tell me, you poor boy,” she said, with a knowing nod of her head; ”so it is not the young lady with the go in her, though she does dance like a bird; it is this other one with the fair hair and the pretty smile.”

”How do you know, you little witch?” returned Erle, staring at her with an honest boyish blush on his face; ”do you know that Miss Trafford is poor; that she makes her own gowns, and teaches the vicar's little girls; and that Miss Selby, of whom you speak so rudely, is niece to a countess?”

”Well, what of that?” responded Fay, scornfully; ”if your lady-love be poor, Erle, you are rich enough for both;” but he interrupted her with an alarmed air.

”That is the worst of chattering to a woman,” he said, in a lofty way.

”If you give them an inch, they take an ell; who said I was in love with either of them? Do you know my uncle has spoken to me about Miss Selby: he says she is a fine girl and after his own heart; and he has given me a strong hint that an engagement with her will be greatly for my interest.” But Fay turned a deaf ear to all this.

”And the fair-haired girl with the pretty smile; if you marry her, Erle?”