The Beautiful Wretch; The Pupil of Aurelius; and The Four Macnicols Part 20

But Nan had turned to her mother, to say privately--

'They are quite ready, mamma. The shades just came in time; and the candles are all lit now.'

Then she turned to Captain King again. If she was acting non-embarra.s.sment, she was acting very well. The clear, friendly, gray-blue eyes regarded him with frankness; there was no touch of tell-tale colour in the fair, piquant, freckled face; she smiled, as if to one in whom she had perfect confidence.

'It is so kind of you,' she said, 'to have let my brother pay you a visit to Kingscourt; I am afraid he must be dull here sometimes. And he says he enjoyed it immensely, and that every one was so kind to him.

I hope he didn't disgrace himself--I mean in the shooting; you see he has not had a great deal of practice.'

'Oh, he shot very well,' said Captain Frank King, somewhat hurriedly.

'Oh yes, very well. I should call him a very good shot. I am glad he liked his visit.' But Frank King was not looking into Nan's eyes as he spoke.

Then some one at the door said, 'Dinner is served, your Ladyship;' and the company arranged themselves according to order, and went downstairs. It fell to Captain King's lot to go down last, with Lady Beresford; but when they reached the dining-table he found that his neighbour was to be Madge, and he was glad of that.

Nan was opposite to him; he had discovered that at the first glance, and thereafter he rather avoided looking that way. He endeavoured to entertain Lady Beresford, and occasionally spoke a little to Madge; but he was somewhat preoccupied on the whole; and very frequently he might have been caught regarding the clergyman-guest with an earnest scrutiny. Mr. Jacomb, to do him justice, was making himself the friend of everybody. He could talk well and pleasantly; he had a number of little jokes and stories; and he was making himself generally agreeable. The efflorescent Roberts was anxious to know--as anxious, that is, as a very devoted regard for his _menu_ would permit--the precise position held by a certain High Churchman who was being harried and worried by the law courts at this time; but Mr. Jacomb, with great prudence, would have nothing to say on such subjects. He laughed the whole matter off. He preferred to tell anecdotes about his Oxford days; and gave you to understand that these were not far removed from the present time. You might have guessed that he and his companions were the least little bit wild. The names of highly respectable dignitaries in the Church were a.s.sociated with stories of sc.r.a.pes that were quite alarming, and with sayings that just bordered here and there on the irreverent. But then, to a clergyman much is permitted; for it is his business to know where the line should be drawn; other people might not feel quite so safe.

All this time Captain Frank King was intently regarding Mr. Jacomb; and Nan saw it. The smile died away from her face. She grew self-absorbed; she scarcely lifted her eyes.

'Nan, what's the matter with you?' said her brother Tom to her, privately. 'You're not going to cry, are you?'

She looked up with her frank, clear eyes, and said--

'I was trying to remember some lines near the beginning of _Faust_.

They are about a clergyman and a comedian.'

This was beyond Mr. Tom; and so he said nothing. But what Nan had meant had been uttered in a moment of bitterness, and was entirely unjust. Mr. Jacomb was not failing in any proper respect for his sacred calling. But he was among some young people; he hoped they would not think his costume coercive; he wished to let them know that his youth also had only been the other day, as it were, and that he appreciated a joke as well as any one. If his speech at the moment was frivolous--and, indeed, intentionally frivolous--his life had not been frivolous. He had never intrigued or cajoled for preferment, but had done the work that lay nearest him. At Oxford he had toadied no one.

And his 'record,' as the Americans say, in that parish in the southeast of London, was unblemished and even n.o.ble.

But he made a hash of it that evening, somehow. Nan Beresford grew more and more depressed and disheartened--almost ashamed. If Frank King had not been there, perhaps she would have cared less; but she knew--without daring to look--that Frank King was regarding and listening with an earnest and cruel scrutiny.

When the time came for their starting for the theatre, Nan disappeared.

Tom began to make a noise, and then the message came that, Please sir, Miss Anne had a headache, and might she be excused? Tom made a further noise, and declared that the whole thing must be put off. Go to see a pantomime without Nan he would not. Then a further message came from Miss Anne, saying that she would be greatly distressed if they did not go; and so, after no end of growling and grumbling, Mr. Tom put his party into two cabs and took them off. Nan heard the roll of the wheels lessen and cease.

It was about half-past eleven that night that someone noisily entered Nan's room, and lit the gas. Nan opening her eyes--for she was in bed and asleep--beheld a figure there, all white with snow.

'Oh, Nan,' said this new-comer, in great excitement, 'I must tell you all about it. There has been such fun. Never such a gale known on the south coast----'

'Child!' said the now thoroughly awakened sister, 'go at once and take off your things. You will be wet through!'

'Oh, this is nothing,' said Madge, whose pink cheeks showed what she had faced. 'I left a whole avalanche in the hall. The streets are a foot deep already. Not a cab to be got. We had to fight our way from the theatre arm in arm; the wind and snow were like to lift us off our feet altogether. Frank said it reminded him of Canada. All the gentlemen are below; Tom would have them come in to get them some mulled claret.'

Madge's ejaculatory sentences came to an end simply for want of breath.

She was all panting.

'Such a laughing there was! Frank and I ran full tilt against a gentleman who was coming full sail before the wind. "Hard-a-port!"

Frank cried. There was an awful smash. My hat blew off; and we hid in a doorway till Frank got it back again.'

At Nan's earnest entreaties, her younger sister at last consented to take off her outer garments and robe herself in some of Nan's--meantime shaking a good deal of snow on to the carpet. Then she came and sat down.

'I must tell you all about it, dear Nan,' she said, 'for I am so happy; and it has been such a delightful evening. You can't imagine what a splendid companion Frank is--taking everything free and easy, and always in such a good humour. Well, we went to the theatre; and of course Edith wanted to show herself off, so I had the corner of the box with the curtains, and Frank sat next me, of course--it was "Cinderella"--beautiful!--I never saw such brilliant costumes; and even Edith was delighted with the way they sang the music. Mind, we didn't know that by this time the storm had begun. It was all like fairyland.

But am I tiring you, Nan?' said Madge with a sudden compunction.

'Would you rather go to sleep again?'

'Oh no, dear.'

'Is your headache any better?'

'A great deal.'

'Shall I get you some eau-de-cologne?'

'Oh no.'

'Does it sound strange to you that I should call him Frank? It did to me at first. But of course it had to be done; so I had to get over it.'

'You don't seem to have had much difficulty,' said Nan, with an odd kind of smile.

'Well,' Madge confessed, 'he isn't like other men. There's no pretence about him. He makes friends with you at once. And you can't be very formal with any one who is lugging you through the snow.'

'No, of course not,' said Nan gravely. 'I was not saying there could be anything wrong in calling him Frank.'

'Well, the pantomime; did I tell you how good it was? Mr. Roberts says he never saw such beautifully-designed dresses in London; and the music was lovely--oh! if you had heard Cinderella, how she sang, you would have fallen in love with her, Nan. We all did. Then we had ices.

There's a song which Cinderella sings Frank promised to get for me; but I can't sing. All I'm good for is to show off Edith.'

'You ought to practise more, dear.'

'But it's no good once you are married. You always drop it. If I have any time I'll take to painting. You see you have no idea, in a house like this, the amount of trouble there is in keeping up a place like Kingscourt.'

'But you know, Madge, Mrs. Holford King is there.'

'She can't be there always; she's very well up in years,' said the practical Madge. 'And you know the whole estate is now definitely settled on Frank--though there are some heavy mortgages. We shan't be able to entertain much for the first few years, I daresay--but we shall always be glad to have you, Nan.'

Nan did not say anything; she turned her face away a little bit.

'Nan,' said her sister, presently, 'didn't Mary and Edith have a notion that Captain King was at one time rather fond of you?'

Nan's face flushed hastily.

'They--they--imagined something of that kind, I believe.'

'But was it true?'

Nan raised herself up, and took her sister's hand in her two hands.

'You see, dear,' she said, gently, and with her eyes cast down, 'young men--I mean very young men--have often pa.s.sing fancies that don't mean very much. Later on they make their serious choice.'

'But,' said Madge, persistently, 'but I suppose he never really asked you to be his wife?'

'His wife!' said Nan, with well-simulated surprise. 'Recollect, Madge, I was just over seventeen. You don't promise to be anybody's wife at an age like that; you are only a child then.'