A Charming Fellow Volume Ii Part 12

Two persons watched over her, and covered the mistakes she made in her nervous trepidation. Matthew Diamond and Minnie Bodkin exerted themselves to shield her from importunate observation, and to give her time to recover her self-possession, if that might be possible. Diamond was in good spirits. He could wait, he could be patient, he could be silent now, with a good heart. Algernon's marriage had opened a bright vista of hope before him; and perhaps he had never felt so disposed to condone and excuse his old pupil's faults and failings as at the present moment. "Minnie is a good creature," he thought, with a momentary, grateful diversion of his attention from Rhoda, "to keep my timid birdie so carefully under her wing! She might do it with a little more softness of manner. But we cannot change people's natures."

Meanwhile Minnie reclined in her chair, watching his tender lingering looks at Rhoda, and his complete indifference to everyone else, with a heartache which might have excused even less "softness of manner" than Diamond thought she displayed towards the girl beside her.

At length a little commotion, and movement among the persons standing near the door, announced a new arrival. Rhoda felt sick, and grasped the back of Minnie's chair so hard that her little glove was split by the force of the pressure. But that horrible sensation pa.s.sed away in a few seconds. And then, looking up with renewed powers of seeing and hearing, she perceived that Mrs. Errington had made her entrance alone, and was holding forth in her mellow voice to Dr. and Mrs. Bodkin, and a knot of other persons in the centre of the room.

Mrs. Errington was radiant. She nodded and smiled to one and another with an almost royal suavity and condescension. She was attired in a rich dove-coloured silk gown (Lord Seely's gift to her at her son's wedding), and wore rose-coloured ribbons in her lace cap, and looked altogether as handsome and happy a matron of her years as you would easily find in a long summer's day.

"I have sent back the carriage for them, dear Mrs. Bodkin," she was saying, when Rhoda gained self-possession enough to take account of her words. "Naughty Castalia was not ready. So I said, 'My dear children, I shall go on without you, and put in an appearance for one member of the family at least!' So here I am. And my boy and girl will be here directly. And how is dear Minnie?--How d'ye do, Colonel?--Good evening, Miss Chubb.--Ah, Alethea! Papa and mamma quite well?--Oh, there she is!

How are you, my dear Minnie? But I need not ask, for I never saw you looking so well?"

By this time Mrs. Errington had arrived at Minnie's chair, and stooped to kiss her. Almost at the same moment she caught sight of Rhoda, who shrank back a little, flushed and trembling. Mrs. Errington thought she very well understood the cause of this, and thought to herself, "Poor child, she is ashamed of her father's behaviour!"

"What, my pretty Rhoda!" she said aloud. And, drawing the girl to her, kissed her warmly. "I'm very glad to see you again, child," continued Mrs. Errington; "I began to fancy we were not to meet any more. You must come and see me, and spend a long day. I suppose that won't be against the laws of the Medes and Persians, eh?"

The familiar voice, the familiar looks, the kind manner of her old friend, helped to put Rhoda at her ease. The fact, too, that Mrs.

Errington had no suspicion of her feelings was calming. Mrs. Errington was not apt to suspect people of any feeling but gratification, when she was talking to them.

In the full glow of her satisfaction Mrs. Errington even condescended to be gracious to Matthew Diamond, who came forward to offer his congratulations. "Why, yes, Mr. Diamond," said the good lady, "it is indeed a marriage after my own heart. And I do not think I am blinded by the partiality of a mother, when I say the bride's family are quite as gratified at the alliance as I am. Do you know that one of Mrs.

Algernon's relatives is the Duke of Mackelpie and Brose? A distant relative, it is true. But these Scotch clans, you know, call cousins to the twentieth degree! His Grace sent Castalia a beautiful wedding present: a cairn-gorm, set in solid silver. So characteristic, you know!

and so distinguished! No vulgar finery. Oh, the Broses and the Kauldkails have been connected from time immemorial."

Then Colonel Whistler came up, and joined the circle round Mrs.

Errington's chair; and Miss Chubb, whose curiosity generally got the better of her dignity when it came to a struggle between the two. To them sauntered up Alethea Dockett on the arm of Mr. Pawkins. The latter, finding it impossible to draw Rhoda into conversation, had philosophically transferred his attentions to the smiling, black-eyed Miss Alethea, much to the disgust and scorn of the McDougalls.

Mrs. Errington soon had a numerous audience around her chair, and she improved the occasion by indulging in such flourishes as fairly staggered her hearers. Her account of the bride's trousseau was almost oriental in the splendour and boldness of its imagery. And Matthew Diamond began to believe that, with very small encouragement, she might be led on to endow her daughter-in-law with the roc's egg, which even Aladdin could not compa.s.s the possession of, when a diversion took place.

Algernon Errington appeared close behind Miss Chubb, and said, almost in her ear, and in his old jaunty way, "Well, is this the way you cut an old friend? Oh, Miss Chubb, I couldn't have believed it of you!"

The little spinster turned round quite fluttered, with both her fat little hands extended. "Algy!" she cried. "But I beg pardon; I ought not to call you by that familiar name now, I suppose!"

"By what name, then? I hope you don't mean to cut me in earnest!"

Then there was a general hand-shaking and exchange of greetings among the group. Rhoda was still in her old place behind Minnie's chair, and was invisible at first to one coming to the circle from the other end of the room, as Algernon had done. But in a minute he saw her, and for once his self-possession temporarily forsook him.

If he had walked into the sitting-room at old Max's, and seen Rhoda there, in her accustomed place by his mother's knee, with the accustomed needlework in her hand, and dressed in the accustomed grey stuff frock, he might have accosted her with tolerable coolness and _aplomb_. The old a.s.sociations, which might have unnerved some soft-hearted persons, would have strengthened Algernon by vividly recalling his own habitual ascendancy and superiority over his former love. But instead of the Rhoda he had been used to see, here was a lovely young lady, elegantly, even richly, dressed, received among the chief personages of her little world evidently on equal terms, and looking as gracefully in her right place there as the best of them.

Algernon stood for a second, staring point-blank at her, unable to move or to speak. His embarra.s.sment gave her courage. Not less to her own surprise than to that of the two who were watching her so keenly, she rose from her chair, and held out her hand with the little torn glove on it, saying in a soft voice, that was scarcely at all unsteady, "How do you do, Mr. Errington?"

Algernon shook her proffered hand, and murmured something about having scarcely recognised her. Then someone else began to speak to him, and he turned away, as Rhoda resumed her seat, trembling from head to foot.

So the dreaded meeting was over! Let her see him again as often as she might, no second interview could be looked forward to with the same anxious apprehension as the first. She had seen Algernon once more! She had spoken to him, and touched his hand!

It seemed very strange that no outward thing should have changed, when such a moving drama had been going on within her heart! But not one of the faces around her showed any consciousness that they had witnessed a scene from the old, old story; that the clasp of those two young hands had meant at once, "Hail!" and "Farewell!"--farewell to the sweet, foolish dream, to the innocent tenderness of youth and maiden, to the soft thrilling sense of love's presence, that was wont to fill so many hours of life with a diffused sweetness, like the perfume of hidden flowers!

No; the world seemed to go on much as usual. The McDougalls came flouncing up close beside her, to tell Minnie that they had just been introduced to "the Honourable Mrs. Errington;" and a very young gentleman (one of Dr. Bodkin's senior scholars) asked Rhoda if she had had any tea yet, and begged to recommend the pound-cake, from his own personal experience.

"Go with Mr. Ingleby," said Minnie, authoritatively. "I put Miss Maxfield under your charge, Ingleby, and shall hold you responsible for her being properly attended to in the tea-room."

The lad, colouring with pleasure, led off the unresisting Rhoda. All her force of will, all her courage, seemed to have been expended in the effort of greeting Algernon. She simply obeyed Miss Bodkin with listless docility. But, on reaching the tea-room, she was conscious that her friend had done wisely and kindly in sending her away, for there were but two persons there. One was Mr. Dockett, who was as inveterate a tea-drinker as Doctor Johnson; and the other was the Reverend Peter Warlock, hovering hungrily near the cake-basket. Neither of these gentlemen took any special notice of her, and she was able to sit quiet and un.o.bserved. Her cavalier conscientiously endeavoured to fulfil Miss Minnie's injunctions, but was greatly disappointed by the indifference which Rhoda manifested to the pound-cake. However, he endeavoured to make up for her shortcomings by devouring such a quant.i.ty of that confection himself as startled even Dr. Bodkin's old footman, accustomed to the appet.i.tes of many a generation of school-boys.

But all this time where was the bride? The party was given especially in her honour, and to omit her from any description of it would be an unpardonable solecism.

The Honourable Mrs. Algernon Ancram Errington sat on a sofa in the princ.i.p.al drawing-room, with a discontented expression of countenance, superciliously surveying the company through her eye-gla.s.s, and asking where Algernon was, if he were absent from her side for five minutes.

Castalia was looking in better health than when we first had the honour of making her acquaintance. She had grown a trifle stouter--or less lean. Her sojourn in Westmoreland had been more favourable to her looks than the fatigues of a London season, which, under other circ.u.mstances, she would have been undergoing. Happiness is said to be a great beautifier. And it was to be supposed that Castalia, having married the man of her heart, was happy. But yet the fretful creases had not vanished from her face; and there was even a more suspicious watchfulness in her bright, deeply-set eyes than formerly.

Perhaps it may be well to record a few of the various verdicts pa.s.sed on the bride's manners and appearance by our Whitford friends after that first evening. Possibly an impartial judgment may be formed from them; but it will be seen that opinions were strongly conflicting.

Said Dr. Bodkin to his wife, "What can the boy have been thinking of to marry that woman? A sickly, faded, fretful-looking person, nearly ten years his senior! I can forgive a generous mistake, but not a mean one.

If he had run away with Ally Dockett from her boarding-school, it would, no doubt, have been a misfortune, but--I don't know that one would have loved him much the less!"

"Oh, doctor!"

"I am not counselling young gentlemen to run away with young ladies from boarding-schools, my dear. But--I'm afraid this has been a marriage wholly of interest and ambition on his side. Ah! I hoped better things of Errington." And the doctor went on shaking his head for full a minute.

Said Mrs. Smith to Mrs. Dockett, "What do you think of the bride?" Said Mrs. Dockett to Mrs. Smith, "A stuck-up, unpleasant little thing! And I do wish somebody would tell her to keep her gown on her shoulders. I a.s.sure you, if I were to see my Ally half undressed in that fashion, I should box her ears. And Ally has a very pretty pair of shoulders, though I say it. She is not a bag of bones, like Mrs. Algernon, at all events."

Said Miss Chubb to her old woman servant, "Well, the Honourable Mrs.

Algernon Errington is very _distangy_ looking, Martha. That's a French word that means--means out of the common, aristocratic, you know. Very _distangy_, certainly! But she lacks sentiment, in my opinion. And her outline is very sharp, Martha. I prefer a rounder contour, both of face and figure. Some of the ladies found fault with her because of her low dress. But that--as I happen to know--is quite the custom with our upper cla.s.ses in town. Mrs. Figgins's--wife of the Bishop of Plumbunn, you know, Martha--Mrs. Figgins's sister, who married Sir William Wick, of the Honourable Company of Tallow Chandlers, I believe--that's a kind of City society for dining sumptuously, Martha; you mustn't suppose it has anything to do with selling tallow candles! Well, Lady Wick sat down to dinner in low, every day of her life!"

Mr. Diamond and young Pawkins walked a little way together from the doctor's house to the "Blue Bell" inn. The master of Pudcombe Hall, on attempting to resume his acquaintance with the bride, had been received with scant courtesy. But this was not so much because Castalia intended to be specially uncivil to him, as because at that moment it happened, unfortunately, that she saw her husband in a distant part of the room talking to Minnie Bodkin with an air of animation.

"By Jove!" cried the ingenuous Pawkins, "I don't envy Errington. His wife looks so uncommon ill-tempered, and turns up her honourable nose at everybody."

"She does not turn up her nose at him," returned Diamond. "And Errington will not be over sensitive on behalf of his friends."

"Oh, well! But she's so crabbed, somehow. One expects a bride to have some kind of softness in her manners, and--hang it all, there's not a particle of romance about her."

"My dear fellow, if there is in the United Kingdom a young man of three-and-twenty who can comfortably dispense with romance in his wife, our friend Errington is that young man."

"Oh, well! I know Errington's a very clever fellow, and all that, and perhaps I'm a fool. But I--I shouldn't like my wife to be quite so cool and cutting in her manners, that's all!"

"Neither should I. And perhaps I'm a fool!"

"Shouldn't you, now?" Orlando was encouraged by this admission on Diamond's part, further, to express his opinion that it was all very fine to stick "Honourable" before your name; but that, for his part, he considered little Miss Maxfield to look fifty times more like a lady than Mrs. Algernon. And as for good looks, there was, of course, no comparison. And though Miss Maxfield was too shy and quiet, yet if you offered her any little civility, she thanked you in such a sweet way that a fellow felt as if he could do anything for her; whereas, some women stare at a fellow enough to turn a fellow into stone.

But the Misses McDougall were enthusiastic in their praises of Algernon's wife. They performed a sort of Carmen Amoeboeum after this fashion:

_Rose._ "That sweet creature, the Honourable Mrs. Algernon! I can't get her out of my head."

_Violet._ "Dear thing! What high-bred manners! And did she tell you that we are positively related? The Mackelpies, you know, call cousins with us. There was the branch that went off from the elder line of Brose"--&c. &c. &c.

_Rose._ "Oh yes; one feels at home directly with people of one's own cla.s.s. How lucky Algernon has been to get such a wife, instead of some chit of a girl who would have had no weight in society!"

_Violet._ "Yes; but she's quite young enough, Rose?"

_Rose._ "Oh, dear me, of course! But I meant that Algernon has shown his sense in not selecting a bread-and-b.u.t.ter Miss. I own I detest school-girls."

_Violet._ "She asked us to go and see her. Do you know I think we were the only girls in the room she seemed to take to at all! Even Minnie Bodkin, now--she was very cool, I thought, to Minnie."