Of High Descent Part 9

"Yes, poor Luke!" said Mr Vine thoughtfully, as he stooped and picked up a small net and a tin can, containing the treasures he had found in sundry rock pools. "I'm afraid we are a very strange family, Van," he added, as they walked back towards the little town.

"Very, old fellow," said his friend, smiling. "I'll be with you before Leslie gets back, wife and the necessary change of dress permitting."

Volume 1, Chapter IV.

A THUNDERBOLT.

George Vine, gentleman, as he was set down in the parish books and the West-country directory, lived in a handsome old granite-built residence that he had taken years before, when, in obedience to his sister's wish, he had retired from the silk trade a wealthy man. But there he had joined issue with the lady in question, obstinately refusing to make France his home, and selecting the house above named in the old Cornish port for two reasons: one, to be near his old friend G.o.dfrey Van Heldre, a well-to-do merchant who carried on rather a mixed business, dealing largely in pilchards, which he sent in his own ships to the Italian ports, trading in return in such produce of the Levant as oranges, olives, and dried fruit; the other, so that he could devote himself to the branch of natural history, upon which he had grown to be an authority so great that his work upon the Actiniadae of our coast was looked forward to with no little expectation by a good many people, in addition to those who wrote F.Z.S. at the end of their names.

The pleasant social meal known as high tea was spread in the long low oak-panelled dining-room, whose very wide bay window looked right over the town from its shelf upon the huge granite cliffs, and far away westward from whence came the gales which beat upon the old mansion, whose granite sides and gables had turned them off for the past two hundred years.

It was a handsomely furnished room, thoroughly English, and yet with a suggestion of French in the paintings of courtly-looking folk, which decorated the panels above the old oak sideboard and dressers, upon which stood handsome old chased cups, flagons and salvers battered and scratched, but rich and glistening old silver all the same, and looking as if the dents and scratches were only the natural puckers and furrows such venerable pieces of plate should possess.

There was another suggestion of the foreign element, too, in the glazing of the deeply embayed window, for right across and between all the mullions, the leaden lattice panes gave place, about two-thirds of the way up, to a series of artistically painted armorial bearings in stained gla.s.s, shields and helmets with their crests and supporters, and beneath the scutcheon in the middle, a ribbon with triple curve and fold bearing the words _Roy et Foy_.

The furniture had been selected to be thoroughly in keeping with the antiquity of the mansion, and the old oak chairs and so much of the table as could be seen for the long fine white linen cloth was of the oldest and darkest oak.

The table was spread with the abundant fare dear to West-country folk; fruit and flowers gave colour, and the thick yellow cream and white sugar were piled high in silver bowls. The great tea urn was hissing upon its stand, the visitors had arrived, and the host was dividing his time between fidgeting to and fro from the door to Van Heldre, who was leaning up against one of the mullions of the great bay window talking to Leslie upon subjects paramount in Cornwall--fish and the yielding of the mines.

The young people were standing about talking, Louise with her hand resting on the chair where sat a pleasant-looking, rosy little woman with abundant white hair, and her mittened hands crossed over the waist of her purple velvet gown enriched with good French lace.

"Margaret Vine's keeping us waiting a long time this evening," she said.

"Mamma!" said Madelaine reproachfully.

"Well, my clear, it's the simple truth. And so you go back to business to-morrow, Harry?"

"Yes, Mrs Van Heldre. Slave again."

"Nonsense, my boy. Work's good for every one. I'm sure your friend, Mr Pradelle, thinks so," she continued, appealing to that gentleman.

"Well," he said, with an unpleasant laugh, "n.o.body left me a fortune, so I'm obliged to say yes."

"Ah, here she is!" said Mr Vine, with a sigh of relief, as the door opened, and with almost theatrical effect a rather little sharp-looking woman of about sixty entered, gazing quickly round and pausing just within the room to make an extremely formal old-fashioned courtesy-- sinking nearly to the ground as if she were a telescopic figure disappearing into the folds of the stiff rich brocade silk dress, of a wonderful pattern of pink and green, and cut in a fashion probably popular at Versailles a hundred years ago. She did not wear powder, but her white hair turned up and piled upon her head after the fashion of that blooming period, produced the same effect; and as she gave the fan she held a twitch which spread it open with a loud rattling noise, she seemed, with her haughty carriage, handsome aquiline face with long chin, that appeared to have formed the pattern for her stomacher, like one of the paintings on the panelled wall suddenly come to life, and feeling strange at finding herself among that modern company.

"I hope you have not waited for me," she said, smiling and speaking in a high-pitched musical voice. "Louise, my child, you should not. Ah!"

she continued, raising her gold-rimmed eye-gla.s.s to her thin arched nose and dropping it directly, "Mrs Van Heldre, Mr Van Heldre, pray be seated. Mr Victor Pradelle, will you be so good?"

The young man had gone through the performance several times before, and he was in waiting ready to take the tips of the gloved fingers extended to him, and walking over the thick Turkey carpet with the lady to the other end of the room in a way that seemed to endow him with a court suit and a sword, and suggested the probability of the couple continuing their deportment walk to the polished oak boards beyond the carpet, and then after sundry bows and courtesies going through the steps of the _minuet de la cour_.

As a matter of fact, Pradelle led the old girl, as he called her, to the seat she occupied at the end of the table, when she condescended to leave her room; the rest of the company took their seats, and the meal began.

Harry had tried to ensconce himself beside Madelaine, but that young lady had made a sign to Duncan Leslie, who eagerly took the chair beside her, one which he coveted, for it was between her and Louise, now busy with the tea-tray; and in a sulky manner, Harry obeyed the motion of the elderly lady's fan.

"That's right, Henri, _mon cher_," she said, smiling, "come and sit by me. I shall miss you so, my darling, when you are gone back to that horrible London, and that wretched business."

"Don't, don't, don't, Margaret, my dear," said Mr Vine, good-humouredly. "You will make him unhappy at having to leave home."

"I hope so, George," said the lady with dignity, and p.r.o.nouncing his Christian name with the softness peculiar to the French tongue; "and,"

she added with a smile, "especially as we have company, will you oblige me--Marguerite, if you please?"

"Certainly, certainly, my dear."

"Is that Miss Van Heldre?" said the lady, raising her gla.s.s once more.

"I beg your pardon, my child; I hope you are well."

"Quite well, thank you, Miss Marguerite Vine," said Madelaine quietly, and her bright young face looked perfectly calm, though there was a touch of sarcasm in her tone.

"Louise, dearest, my tea a little sweeter, please."

The meal progressed, and the stiffness produced by the _entree_ of the host's sister--it was her own term for her appearance--soon wore off, the lady being very quiet as she discussed the viands placed before her with a very excellent appet.i.te. Mrs Van Heldre prattled pleasantly on, with plenty of homely common-sense, to her host. Van Heldre threw in a word now and then, joked Louise and his daughter, and made a wrinkle on his broad forehead, which was his way of making a note.

The note he made was that a suspicion which had previously entered his brain was correct.

"He's taken with her," he said to himself, as he glanced at Louise and then at Duncan Leslie, who seemed to be living in a dream. As a rule he was an energetic, quick, and sensible man; on this occasion he was particularly silent, and when he spoke to either Madelaine or Louise, it was in a softened voice.

Van Heldre looked at his daughter. Madelaine looked at her father, and they thoroughly read each other's thoughts, the girl's bright grey eyes saying to him as plainly as could be--"You are quite right."

"Well," said Van Heldre to himself, as he placed a spoonful of black currant jam on his plate, and then over that two piled-up table-spoonfuls of clotted cream--"she's as nice and true-hearted a girl as ever stepped, and Leslie's a man, every inch of him. I'd have said _yes_ in a moment if he had wanted my girl. I'm glad of it; but, poor fellow, what he'll have to suffer from that terrible old woman!"

He had just thought this, and was busy composing a _nocturne_ or a _diurne_--probably the latter from its tints of red and yellow--upon his plate, which flowed with jam and cream, when Aunt Marguerite, who had eaten all she wished, began to stir her tea with courtly grace, and raised her voice in continuation of something she had been saying, but it was twenty-four hours before.

"Yes, Mr Pradelle," she said, so that every one should hear; "my memories of the past are painful, and yet a delight. We old Huguenots are proud of our past."

"You must be, madam."

"And you too," said the lady. "I feel sure that if you will take the trouble you will find that I am right. The Pradelles must have been of our people."

"I'll look into it as soon as I get back to town," said the young man.

Harry gave him a very vulgar wink.

"Do," said Aunt Marguerite. "By the way, I don't think I told you that though my brother persists in calling himself Vine, our name is Des Vignes, and we belong to one of the oldest families in Auvergne."

"Yes, that's right, Mr Pradelle," said the host, nodding pleasantly; "but when a cruel persecution drove us over here, and old England held out her arms to us, and we found a kindly welcome--"

"My dear George!" interposed Aunt Marguerite.

"Let me finish, my dear," said Mr Vine, good-temperedly. "It's Mr Pradelle's last evening here."

"For the present, George, for the present."

"Ah, yes, of course, for the present, and I should like him to hear my version too."

Aunt Marguerite tapped the back of her left hand with her fan impatiently.

"We found here a hearty welcome and a home," continued Mr Vine, "and we said we can never--we will never--return to the land of fire and the sword; and then we, some of us poor, some of us well-to-do, settled down among our English brothers, and thanked G.o.d that in this new Land of Canaan we had found rest."